Too Late To Change?
You just got done at the doctor’s office and heard the bad news of high cholesterol, blood pressure, etc. You decide today is the day you are going to get strict and improve your health. You jump in the car, go to the grocery store and load up on all the health fixin’s and go home to make a healthy dinner. You continue on this mode for the next 4-6 weeks and then start craving that food you have been without, that alcohol you haven’t drank and the cigarettes you haven’t smoked. You fall back into the habits that have left you as a (what the doctor calls) “walking time-bomb.”
Convincing yourself things are better because now they have given you some pills to make everything better at your 6-month check-up.
Why is it that people treat the ONE-AND-ONLY body they have like a sewer? The same person may treat their brand new vehicle that they have taken a loan out for or leased like a priceless item that can not be replaced. I have never seen anyone say they can’t find time to make it to a gas station and take a leak in their fuel tank. Instead, they take the 10-15 minutes to park, fuel up and go in to pay the cashier. I don’t recall anyone saying they didn’t have time to get the oil changed or added to their engine, so they grab a container of pancake syrup out of the refrigerator and pour that into the engine, just because it was the most convenient at the time.
I feel the body should be thought of the same way and even more precious yet. If you don’t eat healthy and exercise, it will eventually catch up to you like running your car with very little oil in the motor or not changing it at all. It may not cost you a fortune now, but it will lead to extensive health care costs down the road. You may begin to pay $500 or more per month in insurance rates, then another $20-100 per month in co-pays, then another $50-200 per month in medication expenses.
At this point, you can think back to when you were 30, 35 or even 40 and were saying “living healthy is too expensive” and reminisce. Because now you are the 45, 50 or 55 year old that is crying “health care is too expensive!”
Wouldn’t it have been better to spend $200-$400 per month for your healthy lifestyle when you were younger instead of the $800 per month you are spending now? Then as you reminisce even more on your hospital bed, aren’t you now wishing you could see your kids and/or grandkids grow a little older?