What’s your health worth? This is an interesting question that typically gets the response, “everything!” It’s when you begin to drill down on it that you soon discover that “everything” is actually a negotiable concept for most people.

I was speaking to a person recently that was on a fast train to some major health issues due to their lifestyle choices. I suggested that they may consider making some changes to what they were doing so they don't run into the brick wall of a medical crisis that many people experience.

I asked them the question, “What’s your health worth to you?” They replied, “everything” and then proceeded to negotiate what they should and should not eat to help them get healthier. I then asked them why they felt that their health was a negotiation, and this pulled them up short.

Too many people view their health as a negotiation. For many years I did exactly that. I justified how much exercise I didn’t do and shoved food into my mouth no matter what the nutritional value. It was a crazy way to live and was damaging my body as it tried to cope with the abuse.

I’ve never believed in diets as I always had the view that as soon as you go off them you put the weight back on again. This meant that I had to make the difficult decision to make a lifestyle change. It was gradual at first but slowly but surely, I did more exercise, ate better and got into balance the different aspects of my life.

A number of things happened to me when I turned around fifty years old. For a start, I found myself less tolerant of putting up with friends that had the habit of making bad decisions and then asking to be bailed out. Why should I perpetuate their illogical decision-making processes?

The second thing that happened was I became very aware of my own mortality. Sitting in front of a computer twelve plus hours per day and living on a diet of Coke-cola, chips and basically anything bad for you had finally caught up with me and I felt terrible.

Once my personal pity party was over my wonderful wife gave me a swift kick up the backside, dragged me away from my PC and introduced me to the outdoors. I would like to say that I had an epiphany of how good it was to be outside but in reality, I went kicking and screaming.

I almost began to dread the weekends because I knew Roselyn would suggest going for a walk, a bike ride or God forbid a hike. When I look back on it now, I have no idea why she put up with the myriad of excuses that I came up with so that I would remain locked inside.

It was when she suggested we watch a documentary on Netflix titled “Forks vs Knives” one evening that the message was finally brought home. For those of you that haven’t seen it, the film discusses changing what we place on our forks versus going under the surgeon’s knife. It presents some pretty compelling evidence that clearly showed me that I was in the process of killing myself or at the very least shortening my lifespan.

I’ve never been a believer in going on diets to lose weight…..in fact, I think there a load of rubbish. You only have to ask the simple question, “What happens when you go off the diet?” to realise the yoyo mentality of on/off what we put in our mouths is pretty stupid. What I am a BIG believer of is “Lifestyle Change”.

A positive lifestyle change is making a decision to permanently alter the way you behave for the betterment of who you are. For instance, a number of years ago my wife and I decided to cut a lot of meat out of our diets and had plant-based meals for about eighty-percent of the time. A few things happened….

The first thing we discovered is some absolutely yummy vegetarian dishes…..and also some shocking ones! Vege-dudes, please don’t try and mimic meat…..you fail! Just be happy with eating really good plant meals and leave the carnivores to themselves. Just of the record, I still like the taste of meat, so I haven’t become a veggie fanatic.

If you’re going to do a lifestyle change in the area of food, then you have to like what you’re eating or you’re going to become miserable and the change won't stick. We tried a heap of different recipes and found a bunch that were awesome. We eat these and forget the terrible ones.

The second thing that happened was my regular blood tests (at fifty I started getting these) caused my doctor to ask me what I’m doing differently. All the various indicators were incredibly positive and I was feeling great!