What does it mean to be wellthy?

Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. — Benjamin Franklin

That quote inspired Tim Ferriss to write three books: The 4-Hour Body (healthy), The 4-Hour Workweek (wealthy), and The 4-Hour Chef (wise). Somehow the 4-Hour Chef was supposed to be about learning. All I learned from that book is that cooking is too complicated.

The word wealthy means having wealth, which is defined as an abundance of valuable material possessions or resources. Most people boil this down to having lots of money.

The word healthy is defined as being free from disease and enjoying good health. By the way, if someone has good health but he or she doesn’t enjoy it, is that person considered healthy?

I have reached middle age having lived an admittedly unhealthy life by most standards. I was a picky eater as a kid, and I avoided most “healthy” foods even if they were right in front of me. I have a distinct memory of the taste of my very first chicken McNugget, which began a relationship with fast food that has been with me ever since.

Starting in grade school, I have been in various stages of being overweight, obese, or morbidly obese. I have never broken a bone, and indeed have no athletic bone (or muscle) in my body. I dreaded PE class, especially the days when we played team sports and it was “shirts vs skins.” I did everything in my power to be on the shirts team, lest everyone (including all the girls in my class) see my rotund upper body in all its shame.

When we had physical fitness tests, I failed them all. I couldn’t pull myself up the rope. I couldn’t do even one pull-up. When they used the calipers to measure my body fat percentage, the number for just my arm was higher than the recommended total for my arm and leg. Actually, I did pass one test with flying colors. Flexibility. How flexible am I?

An unhealthy lifestyle consisting of a poor diet and minimal physical activity eventually catches up with you. It caught up with me when I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in September of 2018. Spoiler alert: In March of 2020, I declared that I have reversed Type 2 diabetes. If you’d like to hear more of that story, I chronicled my journey with three articles on Medium: