There is More to Living a Long Life Than Just a Healthy Diet

Since I have reached what many call "Middle Age", I am more conscious about my health as well as my diet then ever before. I believe in eating healthy, after all our bodies are not designed to process any old junk. My problem is defining what healthy eating really is?

After putting "Healthy Diet" in my Google search engine and getting over 25 million results, all claiming to have the answer I decided to do my own research. I chose to look at the oldest people I know to see if there were any common traits among them. The oldest being just a few months shy of her 100th birthday and the others in their eighties and nineties. Now even though I am by no means a health expert or would I say my research was even close to being accurate or scientific, I did find out what I believe are the two most important factors to living a long life. Before we move on to them though first let me tell you that not one of the old people I looked at ate what I would say was a healthy diet. As a matter of fact, they still cooked with fat back, ate fried foods with almost every meal and talk about desserts! My Lord, just looking at them made my teeth hurt.

Besides having what the health industry would say is a horrible diet in common, all of these silver haired people seemed to eat many small meals during the day. It didn't seem to matter what they ate, they just didn't eat a lot of it. They ate when they were hungry and ate just enough to stop the craving. They didn't count calories, carbohydrates, or fat grams, they just ate what they had access to eat. If they ate something and it made them feel bad, they either didn't eat it anymore or they ate less of it. They didn't take a pill to enable them to keep on eating something that gave them heartburn or acid reflux, they were smarter than that. They just didn't eat stuff that didn't agree with them, period. Sounds like a no brainer to me!

The other, and to me the most significant trait they all had in common was that they were all very active, always on the go. Some visited the sick in the hospitals, and some volunteered at homeless shelters and soup kitchens. If they weren't on the go, they were in the garden or in the kitchen baking something for someone. None of them just sat in a chair in front of the TV eating junk food and complaining about how bad things are getting. As a matter of fact, none of them even had cable or satellite, they felt it was a waste of time.

Some of you will say, "Yeah, they are active because they can be active. " But I believe in most cases that they are so active because they are so active. Our bodies and minds were created to be used. Just as an automobile was created to be driven and not just stored in a garage, God created you to be used as well. If you store an automobile for any length of time the engine will rust and seize up. Even collectors know that they must take those antiques out for a drive on a regular basis to keep things moving properly. If we are to stay healthy in bodies and minds, we must use them as well. Put them to work remembering that God has a reason for you to be living no matter how old you are.

Now I am not saying that a good healthy diet is not important because we all know it is. I am however saying that what you do with the life God gave you has a great impact on determining how long that life is.

If you are not giving God a reason to keep you alive and kicking why not start today! Do something with your life that will leave an impression on eternity and since you are reading this, that means that no matter how old you are it is not too late. Start today!