Our Biggest Enemy

This month in my Flourishing 50s membership program, our Theme of the Month is Friendship in Midlife.

I showed the ladies that “I Love Lucy” clip of Lucy and Ethel singing the “Friendship” song. You know which one I’m talking about!

I must have watched all the “I Love Lucy” episodes at least two or three times.

I remember how Ethel would always get made fun of for her weight – she would either love food too much or she can’t fit into the same size dress as her friends. Ethel was the overweight one.

When I recently watched Lucy and Ethel performing the “Friendship” song again, I realized that for today’s standards, Ethel wouldn’t really be considered overweight at all.

In fact, as I watch more of these shows and movies from the 1950’s and 1960’s, I notice that not very many people are overweight. In fact, most of them are fairly slim. Do you notice that too?

Today, in 2016, it’s normal to see overweight people everywhere you look. They are our friends, family, co-workers, neighbors, and sometimes ourselves.

What the heck happened? This is what I believe happened.

I believe our biggest enemy and the major cause of obesity in our country is convenience.

I’m just finishing up a book right now on the future – what technology will look like, what our lifestyles will be like in the decades to come. It’ll blow your mind.

(If you’re interested, the book is called “The Inevitable: Understanding the Twelve Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future by Kevin Kelly”)

If you don’t want to read the book (or for those who do, I promise not to give away too much), the opportunity for our lives to get more and more convenient is well on its way. If we choose to, we’ll have access to all kinds of services that can meet any and all of our needs with the simple touch of button.

Even today, if you didn’t want to leave your couch, you can binge-watch a whole series of a show on Netflix, order food delivered to your front door when you get hungry, have someone walk your dog for you, and hire someone to clean the house and cut the lawn for you.

You really don’t have to lift a finger if you don’t want to. Any service can be catered to your front door if you choose to have it. (Well, not all services. No one can exercise for you. You have to do that yourself.)

Don’t get me wrong. Convenience is nice. It’s luxurious. You can feel like you’re on vacation everyday if you want to.

But, the problem with convenience is that it leads to the continual desire to want things easy, to want things catered to us. It becomes normal, a way of life – we have remotes for everything!

What’s more, we can hop in our cars to go down the street. It’s much faster than walking, plus it’s climate-controlled.

The problem with convenience is that we end up putting the pounds on.

But, when EVERYONE around us is also living a convenient lifestyle and putting the pounds on too, it just feels normal.

We make ourselves feel better by telling ourselves that our best friend Sue and our co-worker Lisa are much heavier than we are.

So then, we continue, business as usual…. until one day we look back at that slim picture of ourselves many years ago and realize how much weight we’ve gained.

That’s the tricky thing about convenience. It’s nice in the moment, but really it’s detrimental to our health and well-being.

My challenge to you today is to choose inconvenience.

Choosing inconvenience is hard work.

You have to search out for it.

You have to fight for it.

You have to really understand that it’s the key to having a healthy body and life.

So today, I ask you, will you choose inconvenience? Will you take the stairs?

If so, understand how crucial your environment is to your success. You must surround yourself with others who are also “taking the stairs”.

Let’s take the stairs together. Join me and other women in their fifties who are taking the stairs in my Flourishing 50s membership program. Become a member here.

It’s your turn to take care of you,