Advantages and Disadvantages of a Healthy Lifestyle

Know the cost to get the reward.

Advantages and disadvantages of a healthy lifestyle

Advantages of a healthy lifestyle include disease prevention, prolonged life, increased energy, feeling good, improved looks and an escape from stress. The disadvantages are that it’s not convenient, is more expensive, takes time, you’ll be alone, it goes against your basic instincts and you won’t enjoy it at times. Read more.

Advantages of a healthy lifestyle

1. A healthy lifestyle will prevent disease and prolong your life
2. You'll have higher energy levels
3. You will feel good about yourself
4. Health will make you better looking
5. It provides a great escape from the stresses of life

1. A healthy lifestyle will prevent disease and prolong your life

Longevity and disease prevention are the most widely known benefits of living a healthy lifestyle.

You can prevent diseases like cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, dementia, Alzheimer's, leaky gut syndrome, metabolic syndrome, depression, heart attack, stroke and many more diseases when you create healthy habits instead of unhealthy ones.

A healthy lifestyle that includes exercise and nutritious food will also help you to manage these diseases effectively if you already have one of them. There are many reports (both anecdotal and scientific) that prove that in some cases you can reverse your disease through a healthy lifestyle. Can a healthy lifestyle do the same for you?

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2. Higher energy levels

Healthy food and good exercise will help your body to rely on its own fat stores for energy. Fat is a more stable form of energy because it does not rely on sugar from whatever you eat every two hours. The constant energy from fat allows your body to adjust its energy levels according what it needs, when it needs it.

Exercise tells your body to create more energy. This is why people who exercise regularly have so much more energy throughout the day than people who don't exercise at all. Better blood circulation and toxin removal also improve energy levels.

People who exercise regularly have a higher IQ and are more productive at work for these reasons.

You gain more than the time you lose.

3. You will feel good about yourself

You feel good about yourself when you live a healthy lifestyle. Exercise and a good eating plan will give you a sense of accomplishment along with a sense of control.

Plant food feeds good gut bacteria. Gut bacteria make the most of the happy hormones called serotonin. The more serotonin you produce, the happier you will be.

Exercise triggers the release of endorphins. They reduce pain and improve your mood. This is why people who exercise regularly are less prone to addictive behavior, among other numerous benefits.

The feel-good effects of exercise are so strong that they are part of the two quickest and most powerful, non-medication ways to fight depression - along with taking care of an animal.

Health feels amazing!

4. Health will make you better looking

Everybody wants glowing skin, less belly fat, more muscle and an appearance that radiates with vitality. You get this automatically when you live a healthy lifestyle.

Everything that you do to your body will reflect on your appearance. This includes your hair, nails, skin, fat mass, muscle tone and even your posture.

Every unhealthy meal that you eat will make you less attractive. Every healthy meal that you eat will make you more attractive. The way that you look is basically one big collection. It is an accumulation of all the things that you have done to your body so far.

Every action counts.

5. A healthy lifestyle provides a great escape from the stresses of life

Most people see healthy activities as another chore that they need to add to their long list of existing chores. They already feel drained from work and family responsibilities. Why do something that will drain you of the little energy you have left?

We choose unhealthy habits because we perceive them to give us more energy. They actually drain us of the little energy that we have left. This creates a greater need for rest and recovery. That is why unhealthy habits are so addictive.

We perceive healthy habits to decrease our energy. It takes will power to eat healthy. Low energy directly affects the amount of will power that you have. The ironic truth is that healthy habits give you more energy - right from the start.

A half an hour of running will energize you more than half an hour on the couch. A low-sugar meal will prevent that sugar crash in two hours' time.

The unhealthy things that we use as an escape become the reason why we need to escape from life more often. Healthy escapes give us what that we are actually lacking.

Once you get over the idea that a healthy lifestyle is draining, it will become your place of escape. You will return stronger than ever after each escape - instead of weaker.

People who exercise regularly do it because it gives them time for themselves. It becomes one of the few activities that lift them up. After a few weeks of exercise, you find that you look forward to it because of how good it makes you feel.

Good food gives you a reason to feel good about yourself and helps you to cope with the stresses of life.

Choose what energizes you.

Disadvantages of a healthy lifestyle

1. An unhealthy lifestyle is more convenient
2. A healthy lifestyle is expensive
3. Health takes time
4. You will be the only one doing it
5. It takes will power to be healthy
6. You might not like it

Why should we look at the disadvantages of a healthy lifestyle? Won't that demotivate us from pursuing health?

You will be successful on your quest for better health when you understand what you have to give in order to gain the benefits. We need to consider the costs in order to reap the rewards.

Many people try to live a healthier lifestyle and quit as soon as they encounter a disadvantage. If we plan for these disadvantages beforehand, they won't stop us from staying on track.

1. An unhealthy lifestyle is more convenient

It is easier to follow an unhealthy lifestyle than it is to follow a healthy one. When you eat unhealthy food, you get to eat whatever you feel like. You don't have that option when you follow a healthy diet.

When you don't exercise, you get to do whatever you want in your spare time. A good exercise plan will have you going out to exercise when you would much rather stay at home.

It is also more convenient to eat unhealthy food. Processed food (that is full of health-damaging ingredients) is more accessible than natural, healthy food. More than 80% of the food in a convenient store is not healthy.

Unhealthy food is packaged in bright packaging that lasts for months before it expires. Healthy food spoils more easily (You can generally tell how healthy a certain food is by how long it takes to spoil).

You have to be careful not to bruise a banana when you carry it to work. You don't have to be so careful with a bag of chips or with lunch money. Almost everything on the menu at food stores, restaurants and food stands are unhealthy.

You can buy a month's supply of unhealthy food at a time, but it is hard to do the same with fresh produce because it spoils sooner.

It is too easy to eat unhealthy.

2. A healthy lifestyle is expensive

Processed food with harmful chemicals is cheap because they can be stored for a longer period of time before going bad. 

Sugar, artificial sweeteners (which cause weight gain), simple carbohydrates, chemically treated food and other artificial food can be produced in mass quantities to reduce the cost per item. A lot of these products are made with the unwanted by-products from farms (which is cheaper than the real deal).

You can't mechanically make a carrot. Organic and free-range food (which is a lot healthier) is more expensive because it doesn't have the hormones or fertilizers that prevent loss. 

Fertilizers and hormones increase the amount of food that you can grow on the same piece of land in a shorter time, but they cause health issues when people eat them.

Pesticides and antibiotics greatly reduce the amount of food that is wasted (making it cheaper to make), but hurt our own health down the line.

Extreme heat and cold (like pasteurization) that kills off germs to prolong the shelf life of food also kills off important vitamins and minerals that we desperately need.

It is cheaper to eat unhealthy food. Healthy food is a lot more expensive.

Exercise is also more expensive than not exercising at all. You might need to pay for a gym membership, running shoes, a yoga mat, exercise clothes or gym equipment. 

Many people also pay for personal trainers, workout guides and health advice.

Invest in yourself. You're worth it.

3. Health takes time

Time is the most precious resource that we have. We need to consider what we do with this time.

Some things are with it, while others aren't. Whenever you do something, there are a million other things that you could have done with that same amount of time - but you will never get it back.

It takes time to learn what a healthy diet looks like. Looking for the right ingredients or planning your meals ahead of time will also take time. You could be doing something else with his time.

Exercise takes up even more time. If you exercise for an hour a day, you will spend more than 15 days of the year doing it. That's a lot of time!

Both of these things are good time investments. A good investment will give you more than what you put in. An hour of exercise takes up less than 5% of your day, but will increase your productivity by over 30%.

It is easier to spend time planning your meals than it is to spend time coping with disease, depression or disappointment.

You lose what you don't invest.

4. You will most probably be the only one doing it

One of the hardest parts about living a healthy lifestyle is that you will be the only one doing it most of the time.

Eat 5 fruit and vegetables every day at the office and people might look at you weird. Most people don't carry large water jugs around them.

You will most probably be the only one on the road whenever you go for a run. None of your friends or family members will cheer you on every time you go to the gym.

Most people feel judged for taking their health too far when they make an effort to improve their life in front of others. You might be labeled a health 'fanatic' or a health 'nut'. 'Fanatic' refers to the fact that a behavior is not normal. 'Nut' commonly refers to craziness or insanity.

People have looked at me weird for refusing to eat when I'm on an intermittent fast at social occasions. Everybody likes to gives me advice about health that they themselves don't follow. I often get up and leave an interesting family conversation when it is time to exercise.

It is easy to do the things that everybody around you is doing. You subconsciously feel a sort of resistance when you are the only one doing something.

Don't be a sheep. Wolves walk alone.

5. It takes will power to be healthy

Basic instinct tells us to save our energy for emergencies. Our taste buds tell us to eat whatever tastes the best. Processed food is designed to be as tasty as possible. Natural food was designed for its own survival - not for what it tastes like when it is in your plate.

Laziness helps us to survive. We are designed to seek comfort. If we didn't, we'd run out of energy and drop dead without knowing why. It is during rest that our bodies get to heal and recover from strenuous activity.

We don't have an internal system to crave physical activity because nature would provide that for us. An animal can't eat unless it hunts for food and you can't sit around for too long before you need to escape from danger.

Sugar is addictive because our taste buds are designed to tell us what is edible and what should be avoided. Now that processed food has more sugar than natural food, we intrinsically think that we should eat it.

A healthy lifestyle takes will power at first because you need to fight against your basic instinct to conserve as much energy as possible and eat whatever becomes available to you. It is against your natural instinct to avoid food that is in arm's reach. That is why a food advert can make your mouth water.

It doesn't make sense for your body to exercise when there is no reason to do so. It will rather save that energy for an emergency that will never actually happen.

A healthy lifestyle takes will power because you have to fight against your own basic instincts to get into healthy habits. The good news is that our bodies (and minds) are extremely good at adapting to change. If you do it for long enough, it will feel weird when you don't do it.

The effort that it takes to get there can be a great disadvantage to most people. If this wasn't the case, everybody would live a healthy lifestyle.

The challenge makes it great.

6. You might not like it

One of the other major disadvantages of a healthy lifestyle is the fact that you can't choose. You can't choose what to eat. Exercise is no longer a choice.

You don't focus on what you want anymore. Instead, you focus on what you need. You will miss out on late mornings in bed and happy meals with friends. It becomes normal to say no to things that everybody else around you is enjoying because you have different priorities.

No matter how long you exercise for, there will still be days when you don't feel like doing it. You will still have 'do I really have to eat this!?' moments when you look at your food from time to time.

This disadvantage might depress you, so let's end it off on a positive note.

You may not feel like every workout at the beginning, but the feeling that you have afterwards will beat any day that you stay at home. It gives me a great sense of satisfaction to know that I am pushing myself to another level when other people are still asleep. It makes me feel like I can conquer the world.

You will never regret a workout that you didn't feel like doing at the beginning, but you definitely will regret every workout that you didn't do.

We think that people enjoy relaxing instead of exercising; but the pain that they deal with (disease, disappointment, lethargy, depression and failure) is insanely more than what you feel for the first five minutes of your exercise session.

Choices last forever.

Now that you know the advantages and disadvantages of a healthy lifestyle, you are empowered to change your life in the best way that you see fit. You can now prepare for all of the challenges that might come your way head on. Knowledge is the best weapon against the unknown.

If you want to start living healthy, check out the 7 healthy habits that everybody should do.

You can use this diet to lose weight or this one if you like Indian food. This one is great for young adults and this diet is great to build muscle fast. All of these diets are free and easy for people on a budget. Minimal cooking is required.

For those of you who want to start exercising, this plan is the easiest (it starts with one squat on day one to help you get into the idea of exercise). This program will overhaul your fitness in one month. These exercises are best to get rid of belly fat. None of these exercises require equipment so that you can get started right at home.

This program is great for people who want to build muscle at the gym.

Remember to consult your medical practitioner before starting a new diet or exercise plan. Stay Strong!

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