health is a choice series
part 1: You can control your health
There was a time when human beings died prematurely from elements beyond their control. In modern, developed cultures, this is no longer so. Now, we die prematurely from elements that are very much within our control – the choices we make about the way we live.
Today, we kill ourselves from years of poor nutrition, constant busyness and stress, and other unhealthy lifestyle choices, dying decades before we have to, while subjecting ourselves, unnecessarily, to years of ill-health and disease during our shortened lifetimes.
Your Habits Determine Your Health
The degenerative diseases we now die from are almost entirely attributable to the choices we make each day, that is, our daily lifestyle habits:
- Heart disease
- Cancer
- Type 2 diabetes
- Alzheimer’s dementia
- Osteoporosis
- Stroke
Therefore, we actually have a very high degree of control over if and when degenerative disease occurs.
We have the same high degree of control over whether we are afflicted by the myriad health problems that precede and promote degenerative disease. I am referring here to:
- Weight gain
- High cholesterol
- High blood pressure
- High blood sugar levels
- Increased inflammation
- Adrenal compromise
- Slower recovery from colds and flu
- Slower wound healing
- Adult-onset allergies
- Sleep disruption
- Digestive issues
- Loss of libido
- Fatigue
- Headaches and migraines
- Increased anxiety
- Depression
- Diminished mental clarity
For the vast majority of people, these health issues are caused, perpetuated, and/or worsened by our daily habits. Since we choose our habits, whether we suffer from these problems is a choice and squarely within our control.
The Key to Taking Control of Your Health
- Understand the relationship between your habits and your health
- Know which habits support your health and which habits undermine it
- Learn how to change harmful habits
To understand the relationship between your habits and your health you have to understand how your body really works. Not what you’ve heard or been told by friends, colleagues, family members, and even most well-meaning healthcare professionals. Not what you’ve read from the promoters of the latest fad diet or fitness program. Certainly not from some celebrity touting the latest breakthrough discovery, trick, hack, or gimmick. And, definitely not from the pharmaceutical industry that relies on keeping sick people (otherwise known as “customers”) alive, dependent, and consuming their products for as long as possible.
If you wish, I will teach you how your body really works. Not the myths and mysteries, but the truth, rooted in science, in biochemistry, the “laws” that govern human physiology. It may sound daunting and technical (and maybe boring?), but it doesn’t have to be. Actually, it’s all very logical and understandable if you know what to focus on, which, I’m pretty good at if I can believe the thousands of letters and emails I have received over the years from the more than half-million people who have read my Schwarzbein Principle books.
I will also show you which of your habits are causing or, over time, will cause avoidable health problems. We can do that right away here on this website. And, at no cost to you.
Finally, I’ll show you how to sustainably change your habits and align them with your health goals.
During the last 30 years, I have helped thousands of patients with the same health goals that you have, people who face the same challenges you face. I have enabled them to see how their habits were undermining their health and supported them in changing their habits and restoring and sustaining their health. If you will allow me, I will do the same for you.
In short, I will help you regain and sustain your health, overcome health problems you are already grappling with, and prevent the problems your current habits may be inviting.
If you are healthy and want to make sure you stay that way, if you already have health problems, want to reverse them and get healthy again, or if you are not sure where you stand and what to do, you have come to the right place.
So let’s get started. The first thing I want to tell you, and I want you to remember it always, when it comes to health, to how the body works, it’s not the truth unless it can be proven scientifically. Like the laws of physics, the laws of biochemistry, of human physiology, are immutable and non-negotiable. They don’t apply sometimes and not others. When an apple falls from a tree, absent interference, it always hits the ground. Gravity isn’t something we believe in. It is fact — provable, verifiable, observable fact.
The same is true of biochemistry – the laws that regulate how our body works. Frankly, it disturbs me to hear someone say, “My doctor believes (or doesn’t believe) in such and such.” Belief is a substitute for knowledge and certainty, which, in medicine, should be relied on only as a last resort and never when science has already provided contrary certainty.
The foundational premise of my life’s work, my books, my teachings, and, most important, the way I have treated and cared for thousands of patients is, that habits determine health and, therefore, health is a choice. But, I don’t want you to simply accept this premise at face value. I want you to know why it is true, how it has been scientifically proven. That’s what the next article is about. Please read it.
