We all realize that it’s that time of year again – the beginning of the Holiday Season! We’re planning for Thanksgiving the day after tomorrow. Then, it’s a mad dash of shopping, cooking, eating, drinking, parties, family get togethers, religious events, perhaps traveling, and lots of joy (and possibly sadness depending on our circumstances) until after New Year’s Day. In other words we’ll be incredibly busy and have little time for ourselves, and, even worse, our daily routines will be disrupted for months! Despite this, the Holidays are a good thing. We just have to plan. This is not a time for thoughts such as “I’m not going to gain weight!”, or, “It’s impossible so I won’t even try!”, or, “I’ll wait until after the New Year!”, or “I’ll skip all those parties!”, or, whatever. The truth is we’ll all party and eat and drink – some of us will maintain our weight but most of us will gain at least a few pounds despite our best intentions. By planning, however, we can minimize the damage and enter the New Year healthier by doing a few simple things. We must be honest with ourselves because we know what’s going to happen otherwise. The first thing we must do is try to get at least and extra 30 cumulative minutes of physical activity each and every day. This can be simply walking while shopping or visiting. Next, since we are planning to snack and drink more, we should cut back on our regular meals and try to keep the accumulation of goodies in our homes and work spaces to a minimum by taking inventory and throwing them out daily if necessary. We all know what to do – we just have to do it. Thirdly, we should keep some type of record or diary of what we consume and where we’re going to go so we know what we’ve done and what we’ll probably soon do. This sounds too easy and it is, but, we’ll only do it if we begin now.
Archive for the ‘Insuring Our Health’ Category
The Holiday Season Need Not Cause Weight Problems: We Must Begin Planning for the New Year Now!
Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011My Reflections on “Health” and “Health Care” as I Visit the Mayo Clinic
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009As I sit in my hotel room across the street from the Mayo Clinic unable to drive home because of a raging blizzard, I’m grateful that my wife and I both got passing reports on our examinations performed at Mayo this week. We’re “healthy” with decent weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, x-rays, etc., and we were advised as to how often and when we should be vaccinated, and screened with procedures such as colonoscopy. What a relief! My hope is that the movement for health care reform that our country is now in the middle of will provide everyone with an opportunity to experience such medical care. Admittedly, the Mayo Clinic is special. But, as special and friendly and medically expert and up to date and efficient and famous as the Mayo Clinic is – what did it do to make me “healthy,” and, by extension, what did my “health insurance” that’ll help pay for my Mayo Clinic visit do to make me “healthy?” The answer, is, truthfully, not as much as one would think. Medical care, even the “best” medical care, doesn’t make us healthier. What it does is provide treatments for things we have no control over such as the need for surgery, treatment for diseases such as cancer, treatment after accidents, cataracts, Diabetes, heart attacks, strokes, to name only a few. Don’t get me wrong such treatments are very, very, important and everyone of us deserve to have access to them. However, health insurance (really “illness insurance”) even when it helps pay for a terrific organization like the Mayo Clinic cannot get us to do daily physical activity and eat less calories to keep our weight down which would truly make us “healthier” and prevent or delay those heart attacks, strokes, cancer, Diabetes, arthritis, sleep apnea, and the myriad of other lifestyle diseases. If we all took better care of ourselves, we wouldn’t need as much “illness insurance” and that insurance would then provide medical and surgical treatments for problems we cannot prevent or treat ourselves. Again, “Your Weight Management = Your Health Management.” I’ll sign off now, it’s stopped snowing. We have to leave Rochester early tomorrow morning so we can be back in the office tomorrow afternoon. As always, I look forward to your comments. Also, what do you think of my recent post on “Diabetes?”
