100 Words of Health
Create an environment in which it's easy to eat well, move often, sleep lots, think deeply, & create real connections. Be intentional; don't just hope it happens. Chase what sets your heart on fire. Seek out challenges, feedback, and opportunities to serve something bigger than yourself. Respect your breath. Control your attention. Spend time outside. Recognize that health is the result of choices & luck. Focus on what you can control. Avoid defining it by a single number. Avoid fads & gurus. Avoid complaining & people who do. Optimize everything for consistency & sustainability. Treat yourself like someone who matters.

-By Ben Bergeron

​I first heard about the 100 Words of Health on the Primal Potential podcast, hosted by Elizabeth Benton.  This is one of my favorite podcasts and the episode (913) was so good I listened twice. Ben Bereron's definition of health resonated deeply. The last sentence, most especially: "Treat yourself like someone who matters." 

When I was younger, I took health for granted and my never-ending quest to lose weight was always about looking better in my clothes than anything else. Now in my 40's, I see how health is everything. Being able to move well through life, to have energy, to be able to engage- being healthy means doing all the things I want to do with confidence. That last line, again, makes me think that treating myself like someone who matters does not include sneaking spoonfuls of coolwhip and sprinkles when no one is looking. 

So....work to be done. But 100 Words of Health is goals. 

The line that says "Recognize that health is the result of choices and luck"_....yes. There was a lovely man who worked at my school who ate extremely healthy and even made fun school assemblies for the kids on the joys of eating vegetables and fruits. We were all stunned when he was diagnosed with stomach cancer and he passed away in a year's time. His choices were all the right ones- but luck was not on his side. 

Tomorrow, my sister will go into surgery for a double masectomy with reconstruction after being diagnosed with breast cancer in July. We have no family history of breast cancer but we live on Long Island where breast cancer is quite common, sadly. When she told me she felt some kind of lump in her breast, I was sure it was just a cyst or nothing to worry about. But it was something. And tomorrow starts her journey to getting rid of the cancer for good. (If you are the praying kind, please keep my sister Christine in your prayers as she undergoes her surgery tomorrow.)

Ben Bergeron says to "focus on what you can control." So that's what I'm doing.....every day, trying to be a better, healthier version of myself. Grateful for a day of being alive and feeling well. Knowing that at any moment, that can change. Praying for everyone facing a health battle or having a loved one in that situation. 

If you can, today, get outside. If you can, today, focus your attention. If you can, today, treat yourself like someone who matters.