the greatest benefit of living a healthy lifestyle is that while all of your friends are sick and hooked on medications, your body is still in tip-top shape... you're more efficient, you have greater mental clarity, and you wake up every morning feeling refreshed and happy...instead of diseased and in pain.
i'm still
kind of young too (22), but i don't want to deal with having cancer or a brain tumor later in life... i hear way too many gruesome stories, and i would rather not have to live through that.
plus, i just feel a thousand times better when i'm respecting my body and the world around me.
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I sometimes think people on this board appear to talk as if the only way to eat healthily is to be a vegetarian or vegan
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hahha... he's probably right...
i do tend to think that the way that you treat yourself is also a reflection of your values and beliefs.
i eat the way that i eat because it doesn't harm any animals, and it demonstrates compassion and respect for the environment.
i think they're all intertwined-- your lifestyle reflects your level of compassion, your knowledge of ecological impact & environmental stewardship, your concern with your quality of life, your level of self-responsibility, whether or not you think in terms of "the big picture"...etc., etc.
becoming vegetarian wasn't about "trading in my present happiness" -- it was about
amplifying it.
buuut, i'm not trying to convert you...(i promise
) and you don't have to be an "extremist" to live a healthy life.
there is some middle ground out there... you don't have to live on yogi tea and spinach leaves to be healthy.
you can still eat plenty of good food.
my friends used to think that i had such a "restrictive" diet... but they're always surprised to find that the food i eat is actually really satisfying...and they don't feel like a dirty garbage disposal afterwards.