What it Means to Thrive
Posted on September 08, 2013 by Kevin Davis, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.
Thrive, don't just Survive. But what does that mean?
-Improve health/vitality, Look and feel leaner and stronger, regulate hormones, reduce stress
If you’ve been on my blog or done any coaching with me, you have heard me mention the idea of Thriving all the time. You know that the driving force behind most of what I write is to teach you (and me) how to Thrive, rather than just Survive. But what does that mean?
• Increase energy
• Improve health & vitality
• Look and feel leaner and stronger
• Proper gene expression
• Regulate hormones
• Healthy metabolism
• Reduce inflammation (and related disease)
That’s the quick version (and the same one you’ll see if you look up at the header of this site.) Today I would like to talk a little bit about what this looks like, why it is different and why it is better than surviving alone.
I love how Mark Sisson explains the difference in a post on his website MarksDailyApple:
“Surviving is not thriving. There’s a massive difference, and though the two states of being ideally concur, we too often conflate the two as a rule, to our ultimate detriment. In my opinion, life’s true barometer is experience gained, rather than raw time accrued. What’s the point of living to a ripe old age if you never taste the fruit? Longevity coupled with happiness and experience, good. Sheer longevity for longevity’s sake, miserable, diseased, and decrepit? Bad.”
Really it is a matter of QUALITY vs QUANTITY…what’s the point (or the joy) in having a long life without any fun, pleasure, or health? That is the true basis of everything I do here. I believe that our Trek should be filled with all three.
If you are new to my coaching, you may be thinking that I am crazy for saying that you can have fun and enjoy life while on a diet…and you’re right. But that’s why what I recommend (the primal fundamentals of nutrition and movement) is to be used as a lifestyle not some quick-fix diet that becomes another twist on your roller coaster ride.
Eating real food and being active is fun AND healthy. Trust me, I am a former fat guy, and will always be a fat-kid at heart…I LOVE to eat. And I love to eat real foods. My wife and I try out new recipes pretty regularly, and I share them with you guys. We are working on an entire recipe section that includes stuff I’ve made and stuff my readers love. Last weekend we had pizza for dinner one night, on a zucchini crust, perfectly primal. This is not a nutrition plan that will have you eating bland pieces of white-meat chicken and canned tuna with a stalk or two of celery 5 times a day. We eat delicious foods that are also nutritious and leave us feeling energetic and satisfied.
So now that we have all of this energy and vitality, and we are going to maintain it for a long time, we can’t just sit on the couch watching tv! Another part of thriving is enjoying the activities and people in your life. Play with your kids, your friends, or your spouse. Walk your dog. Go hike through a forest preserve or walk along the beach and enjoy the benefits of being in nature for a while.
How about a little more excitement? We also need an occasional dose of risk or adventure. Trying new things is a great way to unleash the primal explorer in all of us. We are all born with some level of the primal urge to learn about the world around us; without this urge Edison never would have invented the light bulb, Da Vinci never would have painted the Mona Lisa, and Europeans would never have set foot in America.
For some of us this sense of adventure means bungee jumping or skydiving. For others it means grabbing our camera and heading out to a new park, town, or neighborhood and capturing the beauty of life that we see in it. Whatever sort of urging you have I would encourage you to nourish it because doing so will bring a good bit of quality to your years!
Contrary to what some people may want you to think, these two ideas (being healthy, and adventurous) do not have to be separate. In fact, if you ask me (not that you have a choice) they actually work best when they are working together. Having a long life does not mean that we have to go back to the days of horse and buggy, no drinking, and no color in our lives. But conversely, living it up doesn’t need to mean taking unnecessary risks, chowing on fast food every day, or drinking like a fish.
The healthier you are, the more easily you will be able to participate in new activities that bring excitement and adventure; and the more active you are the more likely you are to have a healthy body that can live for a long time. Still, you may want to weigh out the risks of certain adventures and stick to the ones that will benefit you and expand your learning rather than the ones that are likely to bring you harm.
We have lots of medicines that keep us alive (surviving) and hold off the symptoms of disease, and this has allowed us to live longer than we have throughout most of history. But even with this prolonged life, people suffer from diseases like heart disease, diabetes and chronic pain for decades of their life. Instead of this prolonged suffering it is possible to enjoy plenty of activity throughout your entire life. How? It’s your choice: Live a life that supports proper gene expression…Eat whole unprocessed foods, skip the grains, eat lots of veggies, move a lot, sleep enough, play, and reduce stress!
OR
Keep sitting around all day, eating grains and refined sugars, and spending endless hours on a treadmill or elliptical doing chronic cardio trying to “earn your calories.”
Live a long life full of enjoyment…quality AND quantity.
