Health & Fitness

The Cost of Eating Junk

The Cost of Eating Junk

Five years ago I was in a right state. I was overweight, tired all the time, and got no exercise. My diet consisted of McDonald's *at least* 3x a week, 2 bottles of soda per day, going out to eat with friends on Fridays, and constantly snacking on junk at work or as I was tired heading home from work. I also worked long hours, so it made having time to cook a bit of an impossibility because when I did get home, I literally would crash.

I used that all too lazy and convenient phrase as an excuse to why I couldn't do better for myself: "I just love food." The thing is, junk isn't really food. If you've read the ingredients on your snack pack, 98% of it is chemical and additives and not real meat, vegetable, or anything found that we can pronounce in nature, and yet, a lot of people, including myself at the time, believe or believed that this was food and I just couldn't stop eating the junk I was.

The Cost of Eating Junk

If you find yourself wondering why it is so hard to pass up the junk, let me assure you, you aren't going crazy. Really think long and hard about the last time you saw a nice roasted chicken, or a plate of vegetables, or a bowl of fruit being marketed to you. When you are "starving," you flip on the radio or the tv, and there are glorious ads filled with all manner of junk food. You've been exposed to this (I won't quite call it brainwashing, but close to it) ad marketing campaign since you were younger. Ads have helped condition you to want the bad stuff. Grocery stores purposefully place high calorie or sugary junk foods at eye level for both you and your kids, on every other corner you pass, most vending machines only offer one or 2 halfways decent healthy options which tend to cost more, and there is at least one convenient store or fast food place filled with food that isn't even half-ways natural.

In other countries where the push for junk food isn't as in your face, and there are smaller portions and food being offered as well as less additives and sugars which are better regulated by governments, you clearly see the differences in waist sizes of the general population. Also in cities where there is easier access to outdoor gyms, running and walking trails, biking, and pools, there too, are waist sizes smaller.

I said 5 years ago, and 5 years later, I am in a good state of health because I took a look at the numbers. People say, money talks, and it really does. I sat down and calculated how much money I was spending per month and per year on junk food alone or restaurant food and it was scary. I was basically paying these companies to build my own grave and I didn't want that so I made a plan. Instead of another year of feeling like crap, I set 2 financial goals with the money I would be saving by not eating out or spending money on junk. I wanted to go on an awesome vacation, and I wanted new furniture.

The Cost of Eating Junk

By replacing my get fat and die goals with positive ones, it gave me something to shoot for. When I felt weak and wanted to revert back to junk, I thought how much longer it would take me to get to my vacation destination or to be able to relax on a nice set of leather couches. I also started to do some real research on what this fake food does to your body and effects your health which I would encourage you to do if you find yourself in my former position because it's one thing to live on the island of ignorance is bliss, but when you know the truth, you can find ways to start to help yourself to do better.

And you know, I'm not going to tell you, its so easy. You are breaking years worth of bad habits and that takes time...for me, it took 5 long years, of ups and downs to really start appreciating my body and what it can do for me, if I condition it and feed it real food that is good for me. When I say, I love food, I still do, but the word food means just that...food. Not something concocted in a lab but made by me or made with as few junk ingredients or none if possible. I look back now on pictures of what I used to look like, and I looked 20 years older than I was and so tired all the time. I was putting that face out into the world and told myself I was enjoying being fat and miserable, but now in good health, I mean when I say I am happy with my body and happy to be healthy and to be able to do more, go more, see more.

The Cost of Eating Junk
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