1.14 – Play the Guitar
In this HeartStrong.com video/article, we are going to teach you how to play the guitar. OK…not really. We are going to use the concept of how learning to play an instrument such as the guitar is no different than changing your lifestyle to get your health in the right direction.
In this example, we are going to assume 2 things. First, lets say you have no clue at all how to play a guitar. In fact, you have actually never played any musical instrument of any kind or even read music before.
Second, lets assume that you are not very healthy right now. Perhaps obese with some heart disease risk factors such as diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol. Perhaps you just suffered a heart attack or had a coronary artery blockage fixed with a stent.
In this situation, if I told you that you MUST learn how to play the guitar and learn to play it well or else you will have a high risk of suffering major health issues, suffer a poor quality of life, take tons of medications and have a high risk dying from heart disease or stroke, what would you do? Well…if playing the guitar will improve your health, quality of life, likely even save your life and help reduce or eliminate your medications, you are probably going to go out and buy a guitar right away!
Great! Now you have a guitar in your hands and you pluck the strings. You make some crazy sounds that do not sound good at all. Now what do you do? You sign up for lessons. You read about how to play the guitar. You study it and practice it EVERY DAY. You get support from the ones around you. You join a community band. After you have worked at playing the guitar regularly you will find that in 1, 2, or 3 YEARS, you will be able to pick up that guitar and play a really good song. You will have mastered how to be a good guitar player.
Changing your lifestyle to improve your health is really no different than learning to play the guitar. Now what I am telling you that playing the guitar is not really what will make you healthy of course, but learning the skill of a healthy lifestyle will help indeed make you much healthier and if done right, not only get you off many medications, but dramatically improve your quality and quantity of life!
To change your lifestyle and be successful with it, just like learning how to play the guitar, you need to work at it every day. You need to take lessons about lifestyle change (HeartStrong.com has you covered there), think about being healthy every day and practice it every day. Read books, watch the health related documentaries we recommend for you. Get support from the ones around you. You will find that after 1, 2, or 3 YEARS you will have mastered the skill of being healthy and maintaining a very healthy lifestyle. You will have lost weight and will be in a much better place.
Just like learning the skill of playing the guitar, learning how to master a healthy lifestyle is a skill that will stick with you forever.
One major warning here. Many, many people want to find the easy way to get healthy. I am here to tell you that there is no easy way to get heart healthy. You have to learn the SKILL of a healthy lifestyle. You are not going to watch 1 video or read one article and instantly be able to play the guitar. Same goes for mastering a healthy lifestyle.
What you must avoid at all cost is letting someone else play the guitar for you. This is like taking a weight loss pill, going on one of the many “fad diets” or buying food from a company that says “eat only our food and lose weight”. These things do NOT teach you the skill of a healthy lifestyle.
Lets say you buy food from PlantPureNation.com for example to lose weight (great whole food, plant based stuff by-the-way) and eat nothing but this food for breakfast lunch and dinner. While it is great food and healthy for you, this is relying on someone else to do the work for you. You will indeed lose weight and get much healthier, but are you going to eat food from PlantPureNation.com for the rest of your life for breakfast, lunch and dinner? Likely not.
So then you decide you’re done ordering food online. This whole time PlantPureNation.com has been playing the guitar for you getting you healthy, and now they hand you the guitar. Once again, you are holding the guitar in your hands and have absolutely no clue how to play it! You never learned the skill of healthy eating or a healthy lifestyle. You will end up going back to old habits, eating unhealthy, gaining all your weight back plus more!
You need to learn the skill of a healthy lifestyle, do not try to rely on someone else to do it for you. Ordering food from a place like PlantPureNation.com is certainly fine for when you are busy or if you want to take a healthy lunch to work, but you must not rely on it or any other place that supplies food to you, pushes some sort of fad diet or weight loss drug or supplement.
So, now you know that changing to a healthy lifestyle is like learning a completely new skill. It will take some work and effort. Be completely ready for some failures and some setbacks. That is normal! An injury that slows down your physical activity, a slip up where you ate some unhealthy food. It will happen! Do NOT lose focus of your health goals. Just because you messed up at one guitar recital in front of a large crowd does not mean that you give up learning to play the guitar forever, does it? It should drive you and motivate you to work harder and master the skill even more!
Learn the skill of a healthy lifestyle.
“If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything” Marty McFly
* HeartStrong.com is not affiliated with PlantpureNation.com and does not receive any commission for the sales of it’s products.