Through good times and bad, relaxed or busy occasions, financially comfortable or stressed situations, there’s still one thing that everyone must do during the day to function properly. Everyone’s gotta eat, right?

The only problem is, everyone lives such a dynamic life that they really don’t understand the essence of giving the body what it needs to perform optimally. And then people wonder why stress, illness, or fat storage sneaks up on them so easy.

Well, I believe we all have the ability to perform physically and mentally optimal every day. It’s all in the matter of how we approach our daily nutrition. There are two schools of thought when approaching eating habits, and one of them allows us to conquer those environmental stresses by bringing us health and longevity.

Living to Eat

Someone who lives to eat primarily eats for taste and pleasure. While some healthy foods can be made quite appealing and tasty, the majority of calories consumed by a person who lives to eat are out of temptation. There is no structure to this daily eating approach, and the body becomes vulnerable to environmental stresses due to the absence of real, nutrient/antioxidant-dense food. More specifically, someone who lives to eat thinks of cravings – refined and artificial foods that satisfy an individual only temporarily – before health and longevity. As a result, when this person gets off track with their nutrition, it becomes quite difficult to shift their focus back to performing mentally and physically optimal.

Eating to Live

A person who eats to live understands that the human body endures various environmental stresses that it must adapt to in order to survive. In other words, food is viewed as a requirement to meet the physical demands that are placed on the body. Eating food for health benefits rather than out of temptation is made a priority, and frequent structured feedings of nutrient or antioxidant-dense food becomes an every day habit. More specifically, someone who eats to live seeks protein (lean, animal sources) and veggies – foods that satisfy an individual longer, yielding health and longevity – before short-term cravings. As a result, when this person gets off track with their nutrition, they are more disciplined to shift their body back into the momentum required for daily activities.

Eating to live is obviously the preferred style of eating if you want to get the most out of every day. For a similar, more elaborated template on how to eat to live consistently, I strongly recommend you check out “The Hero Diet” section in The Hero Handbook by Nate Green. Not only will this help you manifest better eating habits, but this free, “no gimmicks—just specifics” handbook will put life into a more fun and productive perspective. All he asks is that you pay it forward by spreading the word, as I just have. By the way, did I mention The Hero Handbook is free?

Now go eat to live consistently, and “become your own hero” in the process, as my friend and mentor Nate Green so eloquently puts it.

I’d love to hear about your progress in the comments below, too.

This entry was posted on February 22, 2011 at 4:09 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Posted in Articles by Eric 3 Comments