The Most Important Retirement Investment

When most people think about retirement investment, they think about money. Should they max out their 401ks or IRAs, or put most of it in non-retirement vehicles? Are mutual funds or annuities a better choice? Or should they go for the Big One and get into Real Estate?


In the process, they often miss out on the most important investment of all: the person staring back at them in the bathroom mirror.

Yes, you are your most important retirement investment. Think about it: if you just sail on with life and make no effort to better yourself, where will you be once you hit retirement age?

As someone once said, if you aim to get nowhere you'll make it every time.

There are five specific ways in which you can invest in yourself and therefore be prepared to more fully enjoy your retirement. These ways are:

Physical health
Mental and emotional health
Spiritual health
Relationships
Personal interests

In this article we'll discuss physical health.

*How to retire in great physical shape*

Humans were not designed to develop horrible diseases during middle and old age and die tired, in pain and infirm. Rather, we were designed to be healthy up until our last breath. How can we get this legacy back?

While some factors debilitating to our health are out of our control, such as air pollution and all the synthetic, toxic chemicals that surround us, most factors are well within our control. They include:

*Nutrition*

Ideally, 100% of the food you eat should come from whole, not processed, foods. Fresh, not canned, produce. Brown, not white, rice. Meat that you slow-cook yourself, not pre-packaged frozen or canned stuff that may contain carcinogenic elements because of the way it was processed.

And as much as you can afford should come from naturally grown or raised sources. Organic produce are much higher in nutrients and don't contain the toxic chemicals that non-organic produce does. Grass-fed beef is not only lower in fat and higher in nutrients, but also carries no toxic load that factory-farm beef does because of the chemicals to which they are constantly exposed.

*Exercise*

Thirty minutes four days per week should be your minimum. Stroll, power-walk, run, lift weights, swim, bike, dance around the living room with a broom, I don't care. Do something fun and do it regularly. Regular exercise is a great retirement investment because it gives you more energy and reduces your risk of developing various kinds of degenerative disease.

*Quit the bad habits*

Smoking, drinking alcohol every day, drug addiction, shopping addiction, sugar addiction - all come with their own unique grocery list of health risks. If you continue with any of them, you are more likely to have a miserable retirement. Plus, all these habits keep you from your full wealth-building potential. A great retirement investment would be to do whatever it takes to get delivered from any kind of addiction.

*Use "green" cleaning and personal hygiene products*

Conventional household cleaners and personal hygiene products such as shampoo, make-up and moisturizer contain chemicals that can lead to brain damage, cancer, allergies and/or reproductive problems. Learn to make your own homemade cleaners (they are much cheaper and safer and usually just as effective as anything you'd buy in a store) and begin to look for shampoos, toothpastes, etc. that are relatively toxin-free.

Your most important retirement investment is yourself. Start taking strides to get healthier, and you will be one of the wisest investors of all!