How to Resist the Pressure to Be Unhealthy

“You can never replace it. The good news is you do learn to live without it. You miss it. You want it. You hang out with a bunch of other crazy people who feel the same way and you live with it. And eventually, you start to sound like a cloying self-help book, like me.”

― Augusten Burroughs, Dry

At 27, I decided to be healthier. I had seen my parents' physical decay and how they looked increasingly sad after a life of drinking lots of alcohol, smoking like chimneys, and laying on the couch while watching TV.

So I did it: I gave up on alcohol, I quit smoking tobacco, and I started exercising.

I did not do it because I had any health issues, but because I knew it would be a matter of time.

It took time, I am not going to lie on that, and exercising was the last thing I started doing.

And after all this time there’s something that still comes to my attention as if it was my first day.

It’s the Pride in an Unhealthy Life style

Society tries to make everyone who leads a healthy lifestyle look weird, as if they were strange, or were missing happiness in life.

Rocco Pendola wrote time ago in Medium an article about this issue.

People often ask me how can I be happy without drinking alcohol, or eating lots of cheap bakeries every day.

The answer is easy.

I do not make those things the center of my life.

Do not get me wrong, I still enjoy having a doughnut some days, it’s just that instead of eating a ton of the cheap ones I go buy a quality one. I eat it with a coffee, and bye-bye bakery till the next month.

I treat treats as what they are: treats.

But still, a lot of people around do not seem to grasp that easy concept.

People do three things:

Eat like animals

Drink seas of beer

Wonder why they gain unhealthy weight

And here is where I unveil the true reasons why they are mean to the healthy ones:

They do not have the willpower to change.

They hate to see themselves as a failure, but they do not want to make the slightest effort to improve their lives.

Thus, the easiest option is to mock healthy people, to see if they can drag them down to their ground. It’s the only way to protect their egos.

It’s like the fable of the Fox Without a Tail.

In short, that fable tells us the story of a fox that after losing its tail wants to convince others to cut theirs too, that way, they’ll be as miserable as him.

Actually, once, one of my acquaintances advised me to get drunk on a date to not look weird. As in the fable, she tried to make a bad idea look like a piece of advice to get me to drink alcohol. I didn’t listen, and I had a wonderful date.

Most people do not like that others can live without alcohol, tobacco, and junk food, while actually doing regular exercise.

Their apparent pride in being unhealthy is just the shame of not believing themselves capable of doing otherwise.

It’s not their fault either. As part of this society, we are taught to try to fit in the group, and alcohol and food take central spots in almost every human society.

So what makes difficult the change for most people is the fear of loneliness, to lose their loved ones.

If people could be honest at their cores, probably very few would say that their ideal lives are laying on the couch while watching TV or being totally drunk at a bar. It’s just that they can’t, yet.

What To Do

In friendship

Acknowledge that you do not have as many friends as you think while drinking, but do not care about it.

Love the ones that stay with you, probably some of them are already like you.

In the case you do not have any healthy friends do not worry: you will convince some to change for the better. I began my healthy lifestyle thanks to who now is my best friend.

In Dating

Dating becomes interesting.

My own experience has been becoming pickier. I don’t conform anymore with any girl, I’m not interested in a person if that person is not going to add actual value to my life. Or is at least trying to improve as a person.

This has made me more interesting to others. It’s not me who says this. It’s Scientific American.

There is a good reason why you draw attention when you’re healthy: you are different.

There are you, a light shining between the drunks.

You are a challenge, a puzzle.

People love puzzles.

How can you dare to be sitting at a crowded bar and having a cup of tea? Are you really telling me that you don’t watch junk TV, that you do not eat junk food?

It’s like the old advice: “The least you care, the more interesting you are to others”.

And the best part is that you’ll encourage some of them to live better lives with your example.

In General

Screw what others think. You are doing it for yourself, you are feeling great and that is what counts, but be there to help those who actually want to achieve the same you have achieved.

Be confident in finding more people like you, and you will find them because most of the time they will have been there since forever. It’s just that it takes time to realize it.

Stay happy, stay healthy.

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JM is a Spanish writer who endlessly talks about cars, philosophy, and revolution when he's not playing guitar or practicing Yoga. You can follow him on Twitter to see more content: @jm_miana