Mayo Clinic and Healthy Lifestyles

I stumbled on this promotional video for the Mayo Clinic on YouTube.  On many videos, YouTube airs such an ad beforehand but gives us the option of skipping it after five seconds.  Their thinking is that if we choose to watch it, which I did in this case, it's no longer an ad but content.  It truly is content for me, as it resonates with The Core Algorithm and in particular two that I'm working on:

Donald Hensrud, MD, a Medical Director at Mayo Clinic, lists three crucial ingredients for healthy living:

1. Nutrition
2. Fitness
3. Resiliency

The third is our ability to manage and respond to life's challenges.  In their research and practice, Hensrud & Co. have found that these three pillars can have an impact on health, that is, with conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, heart disease and cancer.  It's a no-brainer to see that keeping proper habits on these three things lead to healthier and longer lives.

But the rub is the challenge Hensrud acknowledges:  Getting people to make proper changes and adopt healthy practices.  He offers a key solution to such a challenge: that is, keep goals well within reach (rf. my motto think big, act small).

I know it's only a short video, but what Hensrud neglects to cover is something central to The Core Algorithm: the end in mind.  What is it that you want to accomplish or gain in your life, and how does it bear on health?     

Let's take my case, as an example.  I am generally fit, health and resilient, thank God.  But while I keep active in my day-to-day life, such as yard work (we have a big yard) and snow shoveling (we had a brutal winter), I realized what I was doing simply wasn't enough.  I hated having difficulty reaching down to put on socks and tying my shoelaces, for example.  So I've come up with a simple algorithm of taking the volume of food I eat a notch, so I can lose weight.  I make sure I eat fruit at least once a day, after days of sometimes not eating any fruit or vegetables, and I track this with discipline.  It's about losing weight, of course, but more specifically my end in mind is not to have such difficulty, not be so breathless, with my clothing. 

Moreover, in the last two months, I've made a habit of walking for an hour a day, four times a week.  It's a brisk walk, so it's aerobic.  Not only is it healthy for me physically, but also it's a wonderful opportunity to meditate, reflect, and think things through.  So it does wonders for my mental and emotional well-being.  My motivation, honestly, is to make sure I live as long as possible for my wife and daughter. 

Begin with the end in mind is of course Step 1 of The Core Algorithm.  Steps 2 is walk backwards to map the pathways, which is essentially to determine what will work best for me vis-a-vis my end.  Step 3 is walk the pathways, as now that I have my roadmap, I just have to do it.  In all, then, I have much more to improve on, as far as nutrition is concerned, but I am confident I can and in fact I am well under way.