Recently I attended an insurance conference in Auckland and heard Dr Tom speak. He is a great proponent of individuals taking responsibility and looking after their health. His message was about changing the health, attitude, motivation and performance of the planet.
I found it really interesting hearing what he was saying about how we damage our bodies every day with our habits, habits we often form over a period of time that can be hard to break….smoking, not eating enough of the 'right' foods and overindulging in the 'wrong' foods, lack of exercise, lack of sleep…the list goes on. None of this is new but personally I found it good to hear and it gave me a bit of a 'gee up' to review my own health.
Since hearing Dr Tom I've started to think a lot more about what I eat and have been trying to make more healthy decisions.
Dr Tom used a term 'rust' which is essentially what we are doing when we are not looking after ourselves…..we are letting our bodies including our hearts be affected by 'rust'.
My main 'takeaway' from hearing Dr Tom was that 'Rust' comes in many forms but one of the biggest causes of 'Rust' is sugar.
Consider for a moment the amount of sugar you consume in a day… How much do you think that is? Do you have sugar in your cup of tea or coffee? Do you drink a lot of fruit juice or fizzy drink? Do you have a sweet tooth? Sugar can have a hugely detrimental effect on the body, all the organs have to work a lot harder to process it and get rid of it. And if you have a tendency to be overweight a lot of the extra strain goes on the heart.
Keeping your heart happy and healthy is overall pretty simple - reduce sugar intake, increase exercise and apply moderation to food and alcohol. It seems like common sense but sometimes we all need a little reminder to look after ourselves. We've only got one heart.