Nobody wakes up unhealthy overnight.
Usually it sneaks up on us.
A little less movement. A little more processed food. Sleep that keeps getting pushed aside. Stress that becomes normal because we’ve been carrying it so long we barely notice anymore.
Small decisions stack up.
Then one day a doctor hands you a diagnosis and suddenly it feels like something happened to you.
Sometimes it did. Disease is complicated, and not everything that happens to us can be traced back to how we lived.
But a whole lot of our health is influenced by what we do every day.
And I find that incredibly hopeful.
Because if daily choices helped get me somewhere I didn’t want to be, daily choices could also help me start moving in another direction.
At 55, I was pretty deep in the hole.
Type 2 diabetes. Nearly 100 pounds heavier than I am today. A body that hurt in enough places that surgery was being discussed for several of them.
I didn’t change all of that with one heroic decision.
I changed what I ate.
I walked.
I started working differently with my body.
I slept.
I paid attention.
Then I got up the next day and did it again.
Some of those decisions had enormous consequences. Others probably didn’t amount to much by themselves.
But they accumulated.
That’s the part I think we miss when we’re trying to change our health.
We think we need The Plan.
Thirty days. Ninety days. Seven steps. Twelve rules. A new kitchen, a new wardrobe and apparently seventeen supplements.
You probably don’t.
You need the next decision.
What are you going to eat?
Are you going to take the walk?
Are you going to move that stiff body for ten minutes or tell yourself you’ll start Monday?
Are you going to stay up another hour or go to bed?
That’s how I changed my life.
And seventeen years later, that’s still pretty much how I live it.
One decision at a time.
You don’t have to fix everything today.
Just look at the next decision sitting in front of you.
Make a good one.