Earlier this week I had a conversation with an LHRL friend it struck me that if more of us (especially me) treated self improvement like we do home improvements, our bodies might be vastly different.  Home improvements take planning, budgeting of finances, hiring the right people, and sometimes big structural changes are made.  Too often people make self improvement changes after seeing yet another social media post for a quick fix.  Like choosing duct tape to fix something rather than actually fixing it.  Don’t get me wrong, I love duct tape.  It has it’s place.

Consider your nutrition.  If your food plan is bad and you fail to make some lasting self improvements to change that, it can ruin your entire body over time.  It’s a slow ruination just like a slow leak in a roof.  It doesn’t seem bad when we’re young but then as we age and the poor diet expands from maybe pizza and beer on weekends to takeout fast food 3-5 times a week, the results of the damage grow.  Just like a leaky roof, sometimes we can see the damage but often we cannot until the damage is severe and costly.

The picture at the top is the first picture I took of my house just a few days after I moved in back in November of 2017.  It’s a 110 year old house and the roof leaked.  It rained in the living room when I moved in.  My boyfriend calmed me down as I lamented scenes of the Tom Hanks movie “Money Pit” and the phrase “what was I thinking” too many times.  But he helped me determine the problem and we fixed it.  But it’s a patch, not a solid lifetime repair.  I’ll have a new roof put on in about 4-5 years because that’s the plan I’ve determined works for my budget.

How often do we do a patch job with our nutrition or our fitness?  Keto for 6 months to lose 25 lbs?  Crossfit 5 days a week, run 4 days a week, and you look amazing for the beach this summer or a high school reunion.  But are you building solid improvements for a lifetime?  Often times, no.  You’ve bought into a quick fix and assume you can keep it going forever.  That is until you’re faced with summer BBQ’s, cold beverages on the lake, and mom’s chocolate sheet cake.  Find a balance.  Find a way to have that cake, get that exercise, enjoy your life, and build the best “house” for yourself you can.

Right now I’m building my new foundation for a stronger and better lifetime of overall health, fitness, and nutrition.  I want the quick fix but I’ve learned the quick fix is like the roof patch.  It works for a while but then it just start raining in the living room again.  You have to plan for long term and sometimes you have to take it right down to the rafters and studs and build it back better than ever to get a lifetime of joy and comfort.