The Domino effect for health.

The domino effect.

Day 12. How do I feel?

Truth . . .

I have been enduring some sore limbs and aching muscles, even now I ache a little, and I have to admit I have been a little 'moody' on occasion. I am sure this is nature’s way of saying, ha, ha, it’s payback time . . . I have suffered, so now you must suffer. The thing is I am accepting of that; I feel that this temporary hardship is nothing less than I deserve. On the whole though I do feel impressive; I think, stronger, more confident, certainly more agile and I have to admit, I do look better . . . yes I realise that I am only twelve days in, but even in that short time eating, on-the-whole healthy foods and exercising seven times out of the twelve days, it has made a difference. Yesterday was the first time since I started altering my mind set in December of last year, that I had what can be described as a minor wiggle? There was a moment when I thought to myself,

'Oh, not today, I will go to the gym tomorrow,'

Then after smacking myself metaphorically about my head enough times to eradicate this thought from my mind, I realised that I am no longer losing weight, eating correctly and exercising regularly for myself, no, instead I am doing it as there may be other over-weight people reading this, who just might get inspired enough to start too on a journey of discovery by obtaining a new improved them too!

This led me to thinking about my actions to change my life recently and I think as well as my son spurning me on by letting Daddy know that he was overweight (thank you Samuel, truly) I have a friend called Lenya Psota-Paris; a recent sister-in-law who married my wife's brother. Bless her, last year she was getting married and wanted (as do all brides) to look good in her wedding dress, as much for herself and no doubt for Pavol, her husband to be. The point is that she took charge of her life and literally made a mental decision to radically change her lifestyle. . . It worked and not only did she look fantastic in the dress, dropping God-knows how many dress sizes, she continues to look great . . . though now with a belly bulge in the form of a baby due next month. I think subconsciously I envied Lenya and wanted her will-power. I am glad to say that I have now got it in spades, but I believe a part of me owes my change to her fight to achieve her goal.

What I am saying is that every over weight person will know of someone or have friends who knows of someone who has undergone a transformation to lose weight, change their life and eat and exercise clean and it is by hearing or seeing these conversions in the flesh, so to speak, that inspiration can secretly take hold and manifest itself into you metamorphosing into a newer, leaner, healthier person. Therefore, even though I believe that Lenya's transformation changed me subconsciously, I feel that she deserves praise and a special thank you from me.

We as mere mortals see so much unwillingness to change on a daily basis; you see it everywhere you look; in the streets, on our televisions and in your work place. I guarantee you know at least three people who in your opinion do nothing to change themselves and are slowly sending themselves into an early bout of health issues. What these people do not realise is that a domino effect ensues. People see people who are overweight and they think it is okay. Whilst walking along a typical high street, passers-by see through transparent windows the gorging couples or parties of people in McSomething or KFWhatsit diving head first into mountains of saturated pretty looking fatty food with way-too-many wholly bad additives and think that it is alright and get sucked in.  The truth is, this is not okay and to throw a statistic at you, by 2050, 60% of men, 50% of women and most alarmingly 25% of all children in the UK will be considered obese.  If we keep to this way of life we will die earlier, lead less productive lives, be more dependent on our already burgeoning health system and cause our own downfall. We need people like Lenya and now me and the hundreds of thousands of other now health conscious people around the world to continue and nurture our healthy domino effect. We have started a chain of events that inspires other people who inspire other people to do better; to lose weight, to get fit, to eat healthier and to lead better, longer lives. You see by starting a chain we as a country can alter the governments hypothesis, which is ultimately what they want to happen [makes them look good], so we as a nation can lift our heads up high and say,

‘Statistic, what statistic, England is better than that!’

I hope that by reading this you think about yourself and others. If there are people in your life who are over-weight do not be afraid to guide them to a better, healthier lifestyle, ask them to join the domino effect; they may not like you for it initially, as I did not when my son, Samuel told me that I was fat, but now I cannot thank him enough.  If you are the over-weight person, take a hard look at yourself and decide once-and-for-all to join the domino fall; who knows you may just inspire one of your friends or relatives to join behind you.

People want to change, but sometimes we just need a little shove to get us rolling down the symbolistic hill of health . . . remember, the last piece cannot fall unless the first is set off, but once the first has fallen it takes the rest to follow to finish.