Getting enough sleep, walking 10,000 steps a day and consuming a healthy rainbow of foods earns us lifestyle credits. However, in a world where fast foods are only one swipe away, we sit to work and sit to relax, and added sugars have infiltrated almost every aisle at your local supermarket, it’s easy to see how one accumulates lifestyle debits.
We all recognise the fundamental human desire to improve ourselves. It’s most evident in each New Year’s resolution to get fitter and shift those stubborn excess kilos. However, our modern lives are crammed with competing demands and limits on self‐time. These demands lead to bad time management, lack of motivation and poor food choices. It’s our bodies that ultimately foot the bill for this lifestyle debit.
Each time we choose to eat the rainbow of foods from the fruit & veg aisle or choose lean meat we earn lifestyle credits. Conversely, when we choose to indulge ourselves with foods high in salts, added sugar or excess carbohydrates then we get fined with a lifestyle debit. Everything is good in moderation, however if your lifestyle debits starts outweighing your lifestyle credits then your balance sheet will be in the red which has a direct impact on both quality and length of life.
Unfortunately, lifestyle debts are much easier to earn than lifestyle credits. Food with added sugars, salts and excess carbohydrates are readily available, and the marketing industry has been telling us for years that you ‘deserve that treat’.
Each life is filled with many unique choices. Spend or Save. Fight or Flight. Another good choice to think about is this: Will your next choice increase your lifestyle debit or your lifestyle credit?
