I recently finished watching the movie Vitality on Netflix. In the movie they make the connection between Diet, Exercise, Mindset and Sleep.
What I found extremely interesting about this movie is it touches on a subject matter that is close to my heart.
Interestingly enough, I instantly made a connection between this movie and my martial arts training. For the past 20 years I’ve been study Kung Fu. To be more exact I have been studying Shaolin principles via Wing Chun, Tai Chi, Chin’na and Qigong.
In these martial arts, the practitioner strives to balance their mind, body and spirit. Which is also what a person of faith does.
It’s even more fascinating that as you read about great martial artist throughout history they where all obsessed with their spirituality and their health.
So what we have here is knowledge that has been around for literally thousands of years, yet it seems like this is new information that is finally being shared to the world.
Why is this?
Before we can address this issue, we need to go backwards into our past. If we were to use for example Bible stories, there are people who lived hundreds of years old. Yet today if we are lucky we might live to be 100.
Was it really suppose to be like this? Or did somehow the knowledge of a long healthy life been lost to antiquity?
These are questions we need to ask. Because our very lives may depend on understanding these simple truths.
At the very least don’t you love yourself enough to know that what you may be doing to yourself is literally killing you by the year, month, week, day, hour?
First Let’s touch on the subject of diets.
It wasn’t till I turned 35 that I really started looking at what I was eating. I grew up with T.V. Dinners and fast food. I never heard my parents talk about GMO‘s or processed foods or foods with steroids and pesticides in them.
If I go further back I never heard any of my grandparents talk about them either. Certainly there is something to be said for genetics on this matter because my grandmother who smoked till she was 80 is still kicking at 90.
I am pretty sure she ate whatever she wanted to.
But there are countless thousands of people who suffer because of the foods they eat. Like me for example. I have I.B.S. (Irritable Bowl Syndrome) a pretty hefty list of food allergies and sensitivities.
Just in the past 2 years I went on the J.J. Virgin Diet and learned a lot about what my body can and can not eat.
One of the biggest things I learned is I can’t eat soy products. Which was a real blow to me because I grew up on Soy Sauce. However on the bright side most soy products are GMO’s and I believe that those products are bad for you. But the GMO thingy is for another blog post.
Just the few simple changes I have made in my diet and I am a much happier person. Sure every now and a gain I just have to eat something for the pure pleasure of eating it. Which believe me I pay for later. But I feel so much better than I did in my teens to my early 30’s.
With that said, many of the sensitivities and food allergies people have can be linked directly to the way they eat. Did you know that some foods can create inflammation in the body?
It’s not until you do some form of detoxing and cleansing does your body re – regulate itself. (This can also be a blog post all to itself). For the purpose of this blog post I am just touching on these subjects.
Let’s Talk About Exercise Now
The moment someone mentions the word exercise they almost immediately envision sweating and grunting at the gym. They start to imagine their body feeling sore.
Unfortunately due to people trying to live up to stereo type images they end up barely exercising at all. If it was 100 years ago, you would most likely be exercising even if you didn’t particularly want to.
Obesity is becoming a real problem in today’s world. The reason is simply because people don’t understand that exercising doesn’t have to be painful it doesn’t have to take 2 hours a day.
People like to make excuses for why they can’t or don’t do something. It’s almost 99% of the time in their own heads why they can’t or don’t exercise.
So what is exercise? And how long does it really take?
It can be as simple as doing something physical for 7 minutes a day. Stretching, walking, a set of push ups. Maybe taking the dog for a walk, doing some Tai Chi. The list of “easy” to do exercises can go on and on.
Everyone and I mean EVERYONE has time in their life to exercise. If you aren’t exercising it’s a chose you yourself are deciding to make. Not because you can’t rather because you won’t.
But hey, it’s your life cut it short if you like, that’s none of my business how long or well you want to live.
Did you know exercising makes you a better lover? But hey, if doing it for your spouse isn’t enough, or being around for your kids isn’t enough or for the peace of mind knowing that you can walk up that fight of steps isn’t enough.
Go ahead and buy another bag of processed crap, eat some fried double fried, nay quadruple fried chicken with a side of chips or fries and knock yourself out.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy me some fried chicken, chicken steaks and fries from time to time. Just not everyday and when I do eat them I certainly can feel the negative effects it has on my body.
Mindset or Spirituality is the next topic up for discussion
I myself am a Christian in the sense that I believe Jesus Christ walked among us and died so that our sins could be forgiven.
However with that said, I do not judge anyone for what they believe in. It is my belief that we will be judged with the same scale that we have judged.
Therefore I make it my personal policy to live and let live. But I will say believing in something is better than believing in nothing. I won’t discuss this much but the reason why I mentioned this is because it has a lot to do with mindset.
In fact some of the greatest personal development speakers of all time drew from their spiritual beliefs. Your brain is a muscle and like all muscles unless you work it regularly it will fail you.
Finally let’s talk about getting some quality sleeping in
Meet Kaana and our foster puppy Cassidy. Animals know how to get quality sleep. With the stress of life, electricity and prescription drugs it’s no wonder why their is a world full of dull lifeless zombies roaming the planet.
What happened? When did everything start to fall apart for mankind? Even more important is what can you do today to start making a positive difference in your world?
The Big Wrap Up…
Certainly when we look at things everything can seem so overwhelming. The truth is there isn’t a simple push button fix. You can’t just reboot your computer. You really have to take it one day at a time and make one change at a time.
In my Kung Fu training a side effect is being able to defend myself in a violent situation. The reason for my training though is to help me balance my life.
Balance is key to a long healthy happy life. After watching the movie Vitality I realized that so many people have no idea how much damage they are doing to themselves, their children and their great great grand children that haven’t ever met.
What you do here and now will have an affect on all future generations of your bloodline. What legacy do you want to leave for your future generations?
Even more importantly what do you want future generations and civilizations to think about us?
Why can’t we live to be 400 years old? Did we ever live that long somewhere in our past?
Some studies suggest yes. But that’s for another blog post as well 🙂
I want to leave you with these parting words…..
How much is it going to take for you to realize that change literally can happen in minutes a day for the rest of your life?
Will you decide after being rushed to the emergency room and hearing a doctor tell you if you don’t X,Y and Z your going to die.
Or..
Are you going to hear from the doctor you have 5 months to live or less..
The best time to take action is right NOW!!!!! So what are you going to do???????
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This is such a cool post Larry! I grew up watching kung fu flicks with my dad and fell in love with Shoalin and the WuTang movie. I’ve always had a great respect for the all around discipline that it takes to really be great in martial arts. Everything about is is like muscle memory as you say and if we don’t work it, then it will wither away.
Love your foster dogs man, my wife and I have fostered so many dogs and we have a pit bull and dachshund of our own. Gotta love the puppies. Thanks for sharing this post my man!
Hey Adrian! thanks for stopping by. I remember watching Kung Fu Theatre with my dad on saturday mornings 🙂
It can be a pain in the butt fostering, but understand that it’s something that has to be done. Take care bro..
And Obesity, YES! very very big problem!
Hey Larry,
Wow, I didn’t know you did Shaolin kung fu which is something I always wanted to learn. I had started taking Tae Kwon Do when I was in high school, but had stopped after a few months.
But yes within the past five years I learned the importance of balance and started to go in deeper on spirituality. Once I did this I realized movies like The Matrix and Star Wars was filled with spirituality concepts.
The past two years I started doing yoga and learned about different styles of yoga and the purpose of each. Right now I do Vinyasa but I like to get into Krya yoga. With Vinyasa I learned the importance of balance and how to balance yourself which can be quite a challenge. I learned to quiet the mind and think of naturally balancing myself whenever I do the different stances.
But what is also important is to eat healthy. As time passes, I find myself becoming more vegan and desiring meat (proccessed meat that is) much less than I use to. I actually feel more energic and much happier than before!
This was definitely a timely post! I will be coming back to this blog more often! Thanks for the share! I hope you’re having a great week!