Taking a Random Walk on Mother's Day..... One Thing Leads to Another

Happy Mother's Day!

Was taking a walk along a large drainage ditch that borders the subdivision I live in this morning and was thinking about Mother's Day....

And my Mother.

She passed away in December 2005.

Won't go into the details but suffice it to say, I think she went before her time.

A combination of a sedentary lifestyle, obesity, lack of exercise, poor diet, poor medical industry practices and poor decision making led to a death by congestive heart failure.

Kind of a downer thing to bring up on a day that should be spent celebrating the love and work that Mothers put into raising their families.

But I don't have my Mother.... and that's the reasons why.... and one of the main drivers I have for the Lifestyle I choose and work for so hard and write about in this blog.

I'm sure my Mother would want me to lead a long, productive, healthy and happy life.

I've spent some time over the last few posts talking about what I think are the 4 dimensions of a Healthy Lifestyle:

1. Diet and Nutrition
2. Exercise
3. Sleep and Recovery
4. Managing Life and Priorities to support 1 - 3

Part of #4, which has many sub-topics, parts and pieces, is to have a realistic understanding, perspective and management of the Medical Industry.

For the purpose of this discussion, I'll break the Medical Industry into 4 parts:

• Drug, Pharmaceutical, Biotech, etc. Companies
• Medical Insurance Companies
• Doctors, Surgeons, Physicians, Nurse Practitioners, Psychologists, Psychiatrists, Counselors, etc.
• The Patients - You and Your Loved Ones.

Before I begin this little dissertation, let me make the following statements, conditions, qualifications:

• I mean no disrepect to any of the 4 entities above.
• I am not a Medical Industry expert.
• This is my opinion only, but I will say this opinion has been formed by 35 years of real life experiences - both personal and observed in the case of others.

So here goes.....

From the perspective of nurturing and encouraging a healthy, self-managed lifestyle, our society and the 4 entities above have developed the following characteristics and work process.

For the most part, and again, related to cases of treatment regarding ailments, illnesses, diseases resulting from an unhealthy lifestyle, Doctors have become the unwilling pawns of the Drug Companies and Medical Insurance Companies, and in so doing, have become legalized Drug Pushers.

Before you get all postal on me, let me explain..... with a personal example.

3 years ago, I was 35 lbs heavier, had intense left knee and back pain and had high blood pressure... like 155 / 110.

I went to a local doctor - He examined me and the first thing he said was "Let me prescribe you some high blood pressure medication". 

Huh?   No discussion about losing weight, modifying my diet, getting some exercise, managing stress...... Nothing?

Just straight to the drugs?

You gotta be fucking kidding me!   Well.... that's not what I said.... What I said was....

"No thanks..... I'll lose some weight."

And 3 years later, I'm 178 lbs and have good blood pressure and manage joint pain through daily exercise.

Let me just condense this whole point down to one submission / contention / proposal:

90% of the prescriptions, doctor / counselor / psychologist / psychiatrist office visits, medical / surgical / psychiatric procedures and Medical Industry Revenue would be eliminated if people would:

• Follow some sort of reasonable diet - pick one - any one that you can stick with or rotate between - Paleo, Atkins, South Beach, Weight Watcher's, Jennie Craig, portion control or just old fashioned calorie counting.
• Get 1 hour of exercise 6 days a week; exercise that maintains a heart rate somewhere around halfway between resting heart rate and max heart rate.
• Get 7 - 9 hours of sleep per night.
• Eliminate tobacco use.
• Eliminate alcohol consumption or at least limit it to no more than 3 servings per week.
• Practice some sort of Daily Prioritization and Time and Stress Management techniques.

The Key Reason or Main Element that keeps America from turning into a healthy nation is.....

MONEY!!!

There's too much money to be made on a fat, junk food eating, no exercising, tobacco smoking / dipping / chewing, happy hour drinking, TV watching, Twitter crazy society.

If America did the 6 things listed above or some derivation / modification of the theme they represent, we would put the Drug Industry out of business!

Then the Medical Insurance premiums would be much more reasonable.

Then the Doctors could go back to Doctor-ing..... like they used to 50 years ago.

And the Patients wouldn't be Patients anymore.....

They'd be Happy, Healthy, Long Living individuals sharing Rich and Productive Lives with their Families.

And I'd still have my Mother.