This week’s blog is about why should you prioritise your health.

You might be young, you might be in your 30s, 40s, maybe in your 50s and it’s easy to think I’ve got 40/50 years left of life to live. Why should I be worried about my health? Why can’t I have some fun? Eat some good food, skip a run if I don’t feel like it.

These are questions that I’ve thought about, and it’s really only in the last seven years, and perhaps even less than that, that I’ve really honed in on health. And one of the major contributing factors to doing that is longevity. I’ve just turned 44, but I’m starting to think about what life is going to look like when I’m in my 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s. And it’s an aspiration of mine to be fit and healthy at age 100.

I’m having to think about what that looks like then and what I’m going to need to look like now for me to do that. What I want to try and get you to do, is buy into the idea of not living for the moment all the time but really thinking about 30, 40 years’ time. Do you want to be in the position of looking back thinking I wish I’d done more, I wish I’d slept more, wish I’d moved more, wish I’d had better social connections, wish I’d done all these kinds of things.

You’ve probably got passions, aspirations, dreams, and it won’t be just about health and fitness, it could be about anything. Writing a book, growing up to see your great-grandchildren, but whatever it is, to get that sort of connection to health now, you need to think about those hopes, dreams and aspirations.

You are the engine of your life. You’re the one who’s going to get those dreams achieved. But you aren’t going to be able to do that if you’re unhealthy, if you’re in and out of hospitals, if you’re in a chair, if you’ve got a stick, if you are on insulin because you’re diabetic – that’s not going to get you to the place you want to be.

Whatever your dreams and aspirations are, you still need to be the engine of those things. Take that as inspiration if you can to make some changes. Make those changes really small at the outset, the minimal effective dose. What is the smallest thing you can do now that gets you a little bit closer to a healthier you? And then put that into place. When it’s cemented in and it’s just something you do automatically on autopilot, bring in another couple of other things. But appreciating that your health is at the very centre, the epicentre of your life and your dreams, your aspirations and everything else, that may help you to grasp the importance of looking at these things right now and not deferring it.

If you want to know what your health IQ is and score yourself, click here to take our test and it’ll take you through to a short questionnaire of about 24 questions, and at the end of that, you get a free 39 page report which will give you tips on sleep, mental health, energy, body composition, digestion, and fitness.

Author(s)

  • Leanne is an award-winning entrepreneur and the founder of Bodyshot Performance Limited. She delivered a TEDx talk on 'Why fitness is more important than weight', is the author of bestselling books 'Remove the Guesswork' and 'Rise and Shine', and hosts a podcast called ’Remove the Guesswork‘. Leanne is the founder of Bodyshot Performance, an award-winning health and wellbeing company. Bodyshot Performance work with businesses of up to 500 people who want to create a culture of energy, vitality and performance through the business and position wellbeing as a competitive advantage. Bodyshot intersect the latest science and technology to provide unique solutions to the challenge of wellbeing in the workplace that have a direct impact on the bottom line. Our clients have won awards for wellbeing and recognise it directly improves employee engagement and retention and attracts talent into the business.  We also work with chronically stressed or burned out professionals to get you back in control of your health and able to do the things you want to do in life. My expertise is around health, fitness and wellbeing, specifically focusing on sleep, mental health, energy, body composition, digestion and fitness. I host a popular podcast on iTunes called ’Remove the Guesswork ‘, and in November 2016 I delivered a TEDx talk on 'Why fitness is more important than weight'. I’m the author of the bestselling books 'Remove the Guesswork' and 'Rise and Shine' and I regularly speak to corporates on health and wellbeing. My personal values are to live truthfully, considerately and to "suck all the marrow out of life" as Thoreau said. I support the charity Diversity Role Models which works to combat homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying. I recently completed the world’s toughest ski race to raise £10,125 for Alzheimer's Research as my father-in-law was profoundly ill with Alzheimers, and I am on a constant mission to find ways to live in a way that is sustainable and environmentally friendly. I love sport, fitness, reading, gardening, business, podcasting, and being with my cat and our scampish little rescue dog, Kami from Romania.