Fact: We’re all living on borrowed time.
Fact: The less healthy you are, the less time you have.
If you’re like me, you’re a numbers person. You’re logical. For you to do something, it has to be worth it. There needs to be a positive ROI. Allow me to explain to you why choosing to be healthy and fit will always give you a positive return on investment.
From a time perspective. Being healthier is hard to justify. It’s easier to “save the time” and skip the gym. It’s easier to order fast food instead of meal prepping. From a money perspective, it’s cheaper to avoid a gym membership or a trainer. Here’s a new frame:
The Unhealthy Life Scenario
Imagine you live to be 85 years old. That’s pretty good. You have a family that you love very much, and a long life of experience.
Now, imagine this life is unhealthy. You lived to 85, but after 40, it was all downhill.
You never exercised, so your body deteriorated. You’re unable to help your family because you can’t muster the strength. Your grandchildren want to play, but you just can’t make it happen. You’re too tired. Disappointed, but understandingly, they continue on without you. Getting out of bed is hard. Going up stairs is hard. Carrying groceries is hard. You can’t live alone anymore because you need someone to help you with these things. You spend a large amount of time and the money you spent your whole life earning at the hospital, or whatever multitude of specialists you need to see in order to mitigate your chronic illnesses.
The Healthy Life Scenario
Take the same life, and imagine it differently now. You lived to 85. The later years of your life look vastly different because you started exercising and eating healthy in your 30s.
You can support your family in whole new ways. Take your grandchildren to the park and play with them, enjoy family vacations without being the family vegetable. Your body is older, but it still works well. You move well, you function well. You can live alone because of this. You don’t need people to help with the small things. You spend much less time at the doctor because you go in for your check-ups and everything looks pretty good.
The trajectory of your life was changed because you did two things: Stayed active, and ate to be healthy. That’s all it took.
Let’s take a look at the numbers.
Let’s say a trainer cost $1,000/month. You go for 12 months. A good coach, like myself, educates their people. You have all of the resources you’ll ever need to stay healthy and fit forever after 12 months. That’s $12,000 to establish new habits, find a way to be consistent with them, and learn how to maintain them for the rest of your life.
A gym membership, on average, is $30/month. You go to the gym 3 hours a week, and exercise for an hour on your off days. A healthy grocery haul for one can be done easily for $150/week. That’s $600/month. It costs $240/month to hit the Starbucks for a coffee on your way to work, and $360/month to eat out 3x/week if you spend $30 each time you eat out. So you can offset the cost of buying groceries easily by eating out less and having your coffee at home.
It costs $12,360 for one year, which gives a lifetime of knowledge to change the trajectory of your life. It costs 10 hours a week to put the work in for that year, and will continue to only ever cost 10 hours a week to maintain the effort.
According to PubMed, the average annual medical cost for those with diabetes is $19,736. That’s annually, and mean direct medical care costs for patients with established cardiovascular disease (CVD) was $18,953 per patient.
Both Type II diabetes and cardiovascular disease are chronic conditions that can be improved, or even prevented by, regular exercise and healthy nutrition. I won’t dive into the cost of other chronic diseases that are common in unfit, poorly nurtured, older individuals because the point is made.
One year spent starting healthy habits early on will save you years of time and money later on when it counts. The trajectory of impact those healthy habits have on a person only improves if you start sooner rather than later.
In short, being healthy may cost a bit more upfront. But the ROI is massive in the long run, and it’s still cheaper than having to suffer later on in life just because you couldn’t justify it earlier on. Start today, not tomorrow.
