The Pessimist’s View of a Healthy Life

By Mike

I always think of myself as a pessimist. However, I often find myself telling my friends or coworkers the brighter side of the situation. For example, at work, my coworkers complain about our boss’ management style (as do I sometimes). But then I counter with some positive ways of looking at the situation. While our boss likes to take all the fun and exciting work for herself, it frees up our time to work on new initiatives on our contract.

While I was in one of my pessimistic moods recently, I realized something that questions why our world was set up the way it is. Before I begin, though, please be sure to read through the entire piece as you’ll miss my point if you only read the next section…

The World is Out to Get You!

If you step back and look at the big picture around you, you’ll begin to realize that there doesn’t seem to be anything you can do right. To clarify, it seems that regardless of what you do to live a long, healthy life, there’s a downside to your action that could actually harm you. Take the following examples:

• Eating eggs is good because of the protein they provide. But eating eggs is bad because of the cholesterol.
• Running is an excellent, low cost method of weight loss and fitness. But running deteriorates your joints and could compress your spine from so much pounding.
• Drinking milk provides essential calcium and other nutrients to help our bodies grow healthy and strong. But many claim that drinking milk from cows isn’t natural (well, it isn’t I guess) and the hormones are wreaking havoc with our bodies.
• Relaxing by watching TV or reading a book is great for refreshing your mind and body. But too much relaxing leads to muscle atrophy and bed sores (ok, that was a stretch).
• Taking vitamins is essential to replace the nutrients you aren’t getting in your regular diet. But taking the wrong vitamins could lead to a toxic reaction (e.g. too much iron).
• Basically when you try to avoid one thing, you find out the alternative is just as bad for you, or worse.

So it seems that we have to be super-cautious about working out, eating, and just keeping/getting healthy or else risk harming our bodies more than we’re helping. Why is life so difficult?!?

Should we all just give up?

Ok, so that’s a pretty depressing statement, but many people that try to get healthy end up thinking the same thing. They give up trying. But even as a self-proclaimed pessimist, I won’t accept the excuse that the world is out to get us and nothing we can do will improve our lives.

Having a wife who is a registered dietitian doesn’t mean that I have some special insight into how to be healthy. I’m still an overweight, out-of-shape husband who eats buffets and Ramen noodles and watches TV instead of going to the gym. That’s because:

• every person’s body is different, thus are the types of food that work best for it (or against it). Just being close to a dietitian or personal trainer doesn’t automatically suck the fat away (believe me, I’ve wished for it).
• it’s up to the individual to have the motivation to work out, eat better or eat appropriate portions. No one can force me to change; I have to do it myself.

If I don’t get up off my butt and exercise, and eat the right mix of foods (and right amounts) for my body, then I probably have a very slim chance at staying, much less getting, healthy. And how do I find out what and how much I should be eating? By seeing a registered dietition! How do I get into better physical shape? By going to the gym, walking, running, climbing stairs, etc.!

But we still can’t escape the problem that whatever we do has both positive and negative results. However, I can still try. I’ll avoid fad diets and “miracle cures”, knowing that nothing will be a fast-fix to my health problems. I’ll be careful not to over-exert myself when working out, and minimize the impact on my joints. That means using the elliptical trainer and walking until I lose enough weight where running is less detrimental than it is beneficial. It means eating proper portions (aka “portion control”) and not overindulging at buffets or over-snacking.

Not all is lost, even if you are a pessimist. At the beginning of this article I said there always seems to be a negative to the positive. Well, conversely there’s a positive to every negative. Yes, eggs might raise your cholesterol, but you can just eat egg whites. Yes, exercising can deteriorate our bones, but you can do low-impact workouts. There’s always a good with any bad.

So stop moping around, feeling sorry for yourself that you’ll never get healthy. And stop fussing over all the new diet fads or health alerts. Otherwise, you’ll get overwhelmed and just give up. Take it one step at a time. Introduce exercise into your daily regimen. Then cut down on the amount of food you eat (assuming you overeat) or see a registered dietitian to create a nutrition plan that works for you.

Take enough small steps and you’ll be surprised at how far you’ve gone!

_{Photo by Abdullah AL-Naser}

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