Being healthy is like Climate Change, sort of...

As I embark turning 31 at the end of this week I have started to change my habits, particularly my eating and exercise habits. I have started eating oatmeal for breakfast, sushi for lunch, grilled cheese sandwiches’ with multigrain bread instead of a quarter pounder with cheese.

I am doing yoga weekly and have started a regiment at the gym to go daily and do cardio exercises. I intend to start biking to work once I get my bike tuned up.

I have reduced my consumption of coca-cola to just every now and again as a treat.

Why am I finally doing all this ?

I am over 30 and officially an adult. That means in terms of my body and health it’s all downhill from here. They way I treat my body now is going to have an impact over the next 20-40 years of well being when I will still be relatively young (50-70).

I don’t know what’s in store for me but I have to act now to be able to be healthy in the future. It’s a very hard thing to do because it’s seems like a long time away. I don’t know if it will really make a difference. But I do know that right now I am overweight (I don’t really look it) and that my body is not in the best possible shape it could be.

That got me to thinking about Climate Change!

There is conclusive scientific evidence that “the massive release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere since the beginning of the industrial revolution, through the burning of fossil fuels that have been buried under the Earth's surface for hundreds of millions of years, is the main cause of a rise in the global temperature of 0.75° Celsius in recent decades.”

What are the real impacts of Global Warming if not checked - Ice melting and lose of water sources. Increase in water levels can put cities underwater. Melting of glaciers such as the Himalayan glacier would mean 2 billion people would lose their source of water.

This would in turn mean animal and plant species dying out and increase in sever weather conditions like forest fires, heat waves, droughts and acid rain and oceans.

But the problem is that Climate Change is slowly happening and people cannot see it. What you cannot see is hard to believe. This is why there are climate change sceptics or deniers.

This leads me back to why I started making change for my body. I have no idea if the changes I make now will affect me in a positive way. I’m doing it because I want the best outcome in my health and well being. But I won’t know for another 30 – 50 years if it has truly helped. And for it to really work I have to keep doing it year in and year out regardless how easier it would be eat fast food or stay on the couch watching the TV.

Because as everyone knows the easier route is a lot more fun. But the toll it takes can be even worse. In relation to human health it can mean obesity, diabetes, heart problems, liver problems and cancer. For climate change it could mean a world where weather is unpredictable, droughts and changes to environment – erratic and catastrophic conditions.

I have decided to aim to be 10% lighter, leaner and fitter by 2020. And hope the rest of the world can reduce their greenhouse emissions by 2020.