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HIGH PERFORMANCE HEALTH WORKBOOK

Thomas Nelson

Contents

Introduction..................................................................................xiii1 Protect What You Love.......................................................................12 Achieve Your Best Health Now................................................................93 Master the Basics...........................................................................314 Build Your High Performance Health Team and Environment.....................................535 Transform Your Life Through High Performance Thinking.......................................736 Revitalize Your Health Through Emotional Well-Being.........................................917 Stop to Rest and Heal.......................................................................1178 Overcome the Seven Main Barriers to High Performance Health.................................1379 Use High Performance Health As a Springboard to High Performance Living.....................15510 Find Your Purpose and Embrace Your Destiny.................................................171

Chapter One

You and I have probably never met, but I'm quite sure I already know one very important thing about you: You love yourself and your family enough to protect your health. How do I know this? Because if you didn't, you wouldn't be using this workbook to personally apply the information and principles detailed in my book, High Performance Health. People protect what they love!

So let me start out with a healthy, "Congratulations! You're about to take the next step toward achieving the best life possible by protecting and renewing your health, a precious asset too many of us have taken for granted or simply misunderstood."

And now, let's get down to work!

A TOOL FOR ACCOMPLISHING YOUR DREAMS

What is "high performance health"? It's not merely passive freedom from disease. It doesn't say, "If I feel okay today, that's good enough; I don't have to worry about tomorrow." Instead, it functions as a springboard for achieving a joyous, dynamic, and meaningful life. Your robust health becomes a tool that enables you to accomplish things you've only dreamed about.

High performance health means achieving your best health now. It enables you to define your values and set appropriate goals so that you can live every aspect of your life to its highest potential. And it insists that your daily habits have a profound impact on your health and quality of life.

This approach values good health as a precious trust that yields enormous rewards. It sees good health as a network of interrelated values that affect not only your physical health but also your quality of life and spiritual well-being. Six specific values work together to achieve high performance health:

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Each of these values-health, fitness, performance, appearance, joy, and meaning-plays a vital role in achieving high performance health as a springboard to high performance living. Each also links health to daily actions.

As you begin to apply to your own life the key concepts from High Performance Health, it will be helpful to take stock of where you believe you currently are in each of these six crucial areas. But be honest here! Recognize that Americans tend to grossly overrate their own health. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, for example, reports that although more than 90 percent of polled adults consistently rate their health as either "good" or "excellent," the fact is that:

more than two thirds of Americans are overweight or obese about a quarter of men and 20 percent of women still smoke less than 25 percent of all adults regularly consume the recommended number of servings of fruits and vegetables and only 3 percent of adults observe simple practices that could eliminate 80 percent of heart disease.

How do we explain this discrepancy? It comes down to this-either: (A) someone doesn't understand the question; (B) is not being honest; or (C) pollsters consistently pick out only the American superstars of health.

Unfortunately, the answer is not (C).

So again, as you rate yourself in each of the following six areas, try to be as accurate as possible-and as honest as you'd want your doctor to be with you! Circle the number that you believe best represents your current status in that area, from 1 (poor) to 10 (excellent).

SELF-EVALUATION

1. HEALTH

For the purposes of this exercise, "health" means the ability to achieve your optimal physical, mental, and spiritual well-being.

A. My physical health:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Poor Excellent

B. My mental health: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Poor Excellent

C. My spiritual health:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Poor Excellent

D. My overall health:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Poor Excellent

2. FITNESS

"Fitness" here means the capacity to meet or exceed the challenges you face in daily life, whether physical, emotional, social, or spiritual. It includes the adoption of sound health strategies, such as regular medical care, physical activity, nutritional balance, personal connectedness and spiritual well-being.

A. My practice of regular medical care:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Poor Excellent

B. My habits of physical activity:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Poor Excellent

C. My practice of eating regular and nutritionally balanced meals:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Poor Excellent

D. The state of my personal connections to others:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Poor Excellent

E. My spiritual well-being:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Poor Excellent

F. My overall level of fitness:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Poor Excellent

3. PERFORMANCE

Performance is the daily excellence you put into practice to achieve your goals and meet the challenges that life puts in front of you. Performance ultimately rests on daily actions and habits. Performance is what allows you to live in the way you desire.

A. My performance of daily, healthful activities:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Poor Excellent

B. My performance of other healthful habits:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Poor Excellent

C. My overall performance in regard to health issues:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Poor Excellent

4. APPEARANCE

"Appearance" here does not mean physical beauty, but the irresistible attractiveness found in engaging people who always seem full of life. Some of its components include great energy, vitality, and presence.

A. My typical energy level:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Poor Excellent

B. I see myself as alive and vital:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Poor Excellent

C. Wherever I am, my presence is "all there."

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Poor Excellent

D. My overall appearance:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Poor Excellent

5. JOY

A powerful relationship exists between your mind and emotions and your body. Good health can stimulate joy, and joy and happiness can nurture good health. To achieve high performance health, it is crucial to create a positive mental environment and find joy.

A. I have created a positive mental environment.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Poor Excellent

B. My day-to-day experience of joy.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Poor Excellent

6. MEANING

Living with meaning and purpose is vital to achieving high performance health. Good health can be a source of meaning and purpose, and finding meaning in life contributes in significant ways to overall good health.

A. My life is filled with meaning.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Poor Excellent

B. I know my true purpose in life.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Poor Excellent

Now that you've finished this opening self-evaluation, how do you feel about the results? Any surprises along the way? Do you feel essentially positive about the current state of your health, or do you sense the need for significant improvement?

Whatever your results, you now have in your possession a great basis for beginning (or continuing on) your journey to high performance health. Remember, you have enormous power to be the primary change-agent of your own health. While modern medicine can certainly do wonderful things for you, achieving high performance health depends first and foremost on taking responsibility for yourself.

Take charge in this quest to take back your health! In the exercises and questions that follow, I will not ask you to turn your life upside down, but I will ask you to consider very carefully what you can do to improve your health every day.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from HIGH PERFORMANCE HEALTH WORKBOOKby JAMES M. RIPPE Copyright © 2008 by James M. Rippe. Excerpted by permission.
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