So we all know about compounding interest, right? That if you start saving in an account that compounds your interest when you are young then by the time you retire you could have a nice little nest egg saved up, but if you WAIT, even just 6 years, that your nest egg will either be much smaller or you will need to invest much longer in order for that to grow to the same amount. Ok, so what does this have to do with health and fitness?

I really cant say it better than Jeff Olson, so I will quote this section – it makes SO much sense!

Jeff Olson, The Slight Edge:

You know what you are supposed to eat. We all do. Fresh fruits and vegetables, complex carbs, salads, whole foods, lean meats, more fish and poultry than beef. You know it, I know it, we all know it. So why do so many of us still go out and chow down cheeseburgers and fries everyday?

I will tell you why: because it wont kill us. Not today.

If you ate a cheeseburger and immediately suffered a near fatal heart attack, would you ever go near a cheeseburger again? I doubt it. It may take twenty or thirty years, but when you add up the compounded interest on all that high-fat, artery-clogging dietary mayhem, eventually your poor overworked heart just quits, stops dead. We dig our graves with our teeth.

It is easy to eat well. And it is easy not to.

Is is not the one junk meal; it is the thousands, over time. Eating the burger is just a simple error judgement. Not eating it, a simple positive action. Eating it wont kill you – today. But compounded over time, it can. Not eating it wont save you- today. But compounded over time, it can and will.

If you dont exercise today, will that kill you? No, of course not. You know what you need to do to stay healthy and feel fit and live a long life. Get your heart rate up, a little over normal, for twenty minutes, three times a week. You know it, I know it everyone knows it. And it is easy to do.

But its also easy not to do. And if you dont do it today, or tomorrow, or the next day, you wont suddenly drop dead, and you wont suddenly put on twenty pounds, and you wont suddenly loose all your muscle tone and flop around like a marionette with his strings cut off. But that simple error in judgement, compounded over time, will take you down and out.

The truth is, what you do matters. What you do today matters. What you do everyday matters. (end quote)

I hope that this was as powerful for you to read as it was for me to read. I imagine there will be other passages I want to share with you as I finish the book.