I’ve said it many time before and I will continue to say that without great health, nothing else matters and to fuel success with good nutrition is one critical component of it.
Being a healthy entrepreneur is at the very heart of living what I call, The One Wave Lifestyle. It impacts everything.
Your ability to work, to take care of or play with kids or grandkids, and to be active and do the things you love. It impacts your ability to think, to focus, and to be productive. It also impacts your body’s ability to function properly and for you to simply be alive.
Healthy eating and drinking has been a challenge in our society for a long, long time. It doesn’t have to be. For business owners there are two key barriers to fuel success in a way that leads to the results you want at work and away from it too.
Attempts To Fuel Success Fail Because Of This
Lack of Time
Because you feel short of time you are more likely to choose quick and convenient when it comes to food or drink during the work day. This usually means fast food, semi fast food restaurants, or convenience stores where healthy choices are few and far between. Does this resonate with you?
The, at the end of the day, you’re probably tired and once again tempted by the quick and convenient.
You are not alone here. These are concerns most business owners face but aren’t sure what to do about them.
External Influencers
When you are tired and short of time there are many external influences that will lead you directly into unhealthy choices over and over again. Marketing and labeling has, unfortunately, become very good at convincing you that their products are quick and convenient AND healthy.
While they may be quick and convenient they are anything but healthy in most instances. This is very evident with food producers and the many processed food products you see in your grocery store.
Then there is the diet industry. There have been hundreds of diets over the years. They come and they go, then they return with a new name and shiny new promises.
None work long term. Some might work in the short term but they all tend to fail at some point.
WHY?
Two reasons, well at least two. One is because they are actually marketing programs designed to extract money from your wallet by delivering a bit of success, waiting until you fail, then repackaging into the next new thing and selling that to you. Like I said, they’ve been doing it forever.
They are not healthy nutrition programs designed to help you live a healthier lifestyle.
Second is that they are destination focused. Weight lost and a scale number attained are destination focuses that set you up to repeatedly fail. That’s gotta change.
Understand these powerful influencers working against you and you are one step closer to breaking free forever and being able to approach how you fuel success from a much healthier perspective.
Why does nutrition and the ability to fuel success matter to a business owner?
Two of our 7 waves of real success are heavily impacted by healthy eating.
Vitality is all about adding life to your years. When you fuel success you can live in thriving health. That will help you…
- Increase energy
- Look good, feel good, and feel good about yourself
- Increase productivity
- Heighten your ability to focus on things that matter most
Longevity is all about adding years to your life. When you fuel success, it can help you prevent things like…
- Heart disease
- Diabetes
- Cancer
Nobody cares about your health and well being more than you. I get that there might be a lot of things going on for you at work, at home, and beyond. I also understand that there is a ton of information and mis-information about healthy eating that can confuse you or lead you down an unhealthy path.
So I want to give you a very simple foundation to restart your path to fuel success as a business owner. This foundation might be all that you’ll ever need to achieve and maintain a lifelong way of healthy eating and drinking.
Maybe you’ll need more and that’s okay. Let that be a next step, once you have this foundation firmly entrenched. Healthy eating and drinking is a way of being, not a temporary attempt at change you can stop once you think you have achieved your goal. It is a not destination.
Weight loss as a primary goal and the scale as the tool to measure it is a huge trap that I believe we all need to free ourselves from in order to be the health entrepreneur and achieve lasting health. Check out this post for more thoughts on this and this one too!
Now if you have specific conditions, illnesses, diseases, food allergies or sensitivities, or other issues then please do talk to your health care professional before making significant changes in your nutrition habits.
The Foundational 3M’s of Healthy Nutrition
Maximize
First… maximize these things.
Vegetables, fruit, water, lean meat, healthy fats, and 100% whole grains.
Essentially whole foods. The things that you tend to find around the outside of the grocery store. Nothing new here. Nothing earth shatteringly surprising but you’d be surprised how little of these most people tend to eat.
These have the essential vitamins, minerals, and other key nutrients we need. They drive our health and well being.
Choose these first and add them to your plate, have them as the main course or side option at restaurants, snack on them! Beware the added fats and sugars, whether at restaurants or preparing food at home.
In longevity studies of the blue zones, where people tend to hit the century mark and are more vital much more often than in other parts of the world, plant based nutrition is one big key to their success.
Now I am not suggesting or endorsing becoming vegetarian if you don’t want to, but do maximize it along with these other healthful things.
Minimize
Second, minimize these things.
Added sugars, artificial sweeteners, refined grains, processed foods, unhealthy fats, and alcohol.
I said minimize, not eliminate. That’s one of the traps of the diet industry.
Essentially this is everything highly processed. The things that you tend to find in the middle aisles of the grocery store. Again, nothing should be new here. But you’d be surprised how much of these things most people tend to eat all the time.
These foods have little to no nutritional value, but unfortunately they do have the taste we’ve all become so used to. High sugar and high fat sucker us in every time. The food manufacturing and diet industry know this and use it against us.
Many studies have shown that these foods can also be part of the cause of significant health issues such as heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.
Only add these to your plate once you have maximized. Choose to minimize.
Moderate
Now, you might feel like I am asking you to give up the things you love and to eat more of the things you hate? Alright, I get it. But remember I said maximize and minimize, not eliminate. And because of this there is principle #3!
Everything in moderation, including moderation.
So INDULGE now and then. Be happy. Food and drink are at the heart of our social lives. So DO enjoy. But consider it a treat that you have occasionally.
In this way no food is a bad food. Just ones that are an occasional treat as we maximize the ones that will serve us well.
By embracing the 3 Ms to fuel success it is likely that you will…
- Eat healthier – and be happier while doing so
- Eat less
- Have more energy
- Be more focused and productive
- Release body fat
- Realize the results you are looking for
- Be healthier
Now, could it be that easy? Perhaps not. I did say likely. Those influencers are powerful and I didn’t even get to the most powerful influencer of all… YOU and your inner voice.
If the path ahead towards the change you want feels daunting and too difficult to do alone, please understand that this is a common feeling for most people. Here are some options of support to consider.
To take these 3M’s to the next level with useful tips on how to maximize, minimize, and moderate that you can apply in your world right now, consider joining our free community of like minded business owners.
To learn more about One Wave Life and how I help business owners just like you, click here. If you’d like to explore our coaching and mentoring support then contact me here.
I’ll say it one more time… without great health, nothing else matters!
