If you are not sick, you are healthy, right? That’s often we assume. But in reality, these two states—non-sick and healthy—are vastly different.

Health is a state that requires active maintenance. It is not something you achieve and get to keep forever without additional work, even if you are at a healthy weight and not currently faced with any health challenges. When you treat health as a destination, you are in danger of yo-yoing. You put in the effort to reach your goal, but then you drift back into an unhealthy state because you are not continuing your healthy lifestyle indefinitely.

Non-sickness is caused by eating an excess quantity of nutritionally barren food, which overworks the pancreas and facilitates your body’s storage of fat. Non-sickness is a state in which your muscles become weak and flabby, a state of not enough sleep and way too much stress. It’s a state that leads you to progressively depend on medications to relieve your symptoms—symptoms that are merely your body’s way of telling you that you are not healthy.

Your goal should not be to achieve non-sickness but to achieve vibrant, thriving, optimal health. There is a difference.