Your Other 8 Hours: How Healthy Are You?

By Robert Pagliarini,
Tribune Media Services

I wrote recently about how you can start closing the gap between the life you are living and your best life … but I received some reader complaints. Desire to live their Miracle Question life? Check. Ideas and solutions to start closing the gap? Check. Energy to get their plan into action? Not so much. And this is a valuable lesson. Inspiration and desire are only part of what is needed to close the gap, which is why desire plus diet is the formula for success. Without physical and mental energy, it’s impossible to put the plan into action. This is why feeling good, having energy and being healthy are so critical to living your best life.

So, how healthy are you? Jumping on the scale can give you some indication. Analyzing your body fat percentage is another option. Maybe calculating your body mass index (BMI). Also getting your blood work done, and looking at your cholesterol levels. You can also check your blood pressure. These are all decent methods to try to answer the question, “How healthy am I?” And this is a question I’ve been asking myself for some time — often while chugging down a thick green nutrition shake. Is this stuff really working? If there was an inverse relationship between taste and nutritional value, I should be pretty damn healthy, but who knows? I sure didn’t.

But all of that changed two days ago. …

Let me take you back a few years first. In 2008 I read the very funny and informative book, “Skinny Bitch,” and it changed my life. After finishing the last page of the book, I became a vegetarian. No hamburgers. No turkey. No chicken. No pork. And most traumatically, no more Double-Doubles from In-N-Out Burger. Then, after reading “The China Study” and Kathy Freston’s “Veganist,” I made the leap to a vegan diet. No pizza. No ice cream. No yogurt. No whey.

So what do I eat? I drink several green protein shakes a day, wheat grass, Resveratrol, Acai berry juice; I eat baby carrots like they are a bag of Lay’s potato chips, raw protein bars, salads, quinoa and did I mention thick green shakes?

Here’s what I’ve discovered … I’ve NEVER felt better in my life. I have tons of physical and mental energy. I’ve lost a significant percentage of body fat, and now I never have digestion problems (goodbye Tums). In short, I feel fantastic, and while that doesn’t exactly answer the question, “How healthy am I?” — now I know that I am!

While visiting a local Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif., vegan shop, I had my carotenoid and antioxidant levels measured with a nifty skin scanner that claims to “prove the effectiveness of your supplements in improving your overall antioxidant health.” I have no idea what this means, but Dr. Oz featured the scanner on his show, so it must be good. It basically measures the amount of cancer-fighting antioxidants in your body.

The painless scan takes 90 seconds, so during this time, the store employee told me that there are five levels: red (worst), orange, yellow, green and blue (best). She said most people score in the orange range, and that less than 1 percent of the American population is in the blue category. I spent about 80 of those 90 seconds professing — no, demanding — that I would score in the blue category. If I didn’t, my whole nutritional world would have come crashing down. Well, 90 seconds later, I got my blue score. Needless to say, the employee was surprised. In fact, she had tested so many people, and so few had scored blue, she gave me a blue shirt and took my picture for their wall of fame.

So, I left with a shirt, but, more importantly, I left with self-respect and redemption. This stuff really does work.

If you want more physical and mental energy so you can get the most out of life, first focus on what you put into your body. Trust me … being blue never felt so good!

Robert Pagliarini is a CBS MoneyWatch columnist and the author of “The Other 8 Hours: Maximize Your Free Time to Create New Wealth & Purpose” and the national best-seller “The Six Day Financial Makeover.” Visit YourOther8Hours.com.

This was printed in the December 16, 2012 – December 29, 2012 Edition