I say yes. Or maybe obsession might be another word to describe my own personal truth. I have become obsessed with learning more about what I can do to keep me healthier. A large part of this is dealing with me being someone who contributes to society in a positive way. After all one’s emotional health is important. I recently have narrowed this part of my life to how can I be a better husband, a better father and a better leader in my dental office. Easier said than done, but something that I am being very vigilant about improving. Some days I actually fall off of the wagon a bit, thankfully I have some really great friends and coaches to help me get back on. And I have been falling less lately which really helps.
The other aspect of staying healthier is much easier to measure. I can look in the mirror and see I have lost weight. I got the blood test results from my physical late last week. It is nice to get the carrot for my work in changing how I eat. Smoking great numbers like my cholesterol/HDL ratio of 3.4, triglycerides at 51 and my C-reactive protein at 0.02 (this is a risk indicator of disease in your body and one of the best indicators for a potential heart attack).
Recently I was an office and started reading the Men’s Health magazine and found it to be just full of little snippets about health, diet, exercise and grooming to name a few. So I subscribed to it for my dental office. I also got Woman’s Health as well. What a great place to get some info to put into my blogs, ezines etc. But after reading through both of them today I realized there is so much more, I highly recommend you get them, read them and if you only make one change a month from reading it you can make 12 significant changes a year to improve your health. YOUR BODY WILL THANK YOU FOR IT. For me I am going to incorporate Craig Alexander’s (Triathlon World Champion) push up routine to increase health and strength of my whole body.
These magazines have some interesting articles as well. For Women and Men please read in the November issue of Women’s Health “If You’ve Ever Had Oral Sex..You Need to Read This” It is an excellent read about the relationship of the HPV virus and oral cancer, particularly in young women who do not fit the previously thought of profile of someone at risk for oral cancer. 10 years ago oral cancer was nearly always in males, over the age of 50 and heavy smokers and drinkers. Today, roughly 25% of oral cancers are related to the HPV virus, 25% of victims are females with cases reported as young as 19 years old. Good news if there is any is that HPV oral Cancers react to treatment well with a higher survival rate than non HPV oral cancers. If you are not getting checked for oral cancer at your dentists office ask why?
The Men’s Health November issue has an article titles “Do You Hate Fat People?”. I found this fascinating as I have always felt the most discriminated group of people in the world are the fat people. This article discusses that along with issues from both sides of the arguments regarding obese individuals. These sides are the ones that look at health issues and costs verses the group that say “Fat is Flabulous” and say there should just be acceptance of fat people. A very good read with some insights as to why both sides have valid points for how they feel.
Let me close with this…I am obsessed or addicted to learning about health. If I can get just one person to just think about doing something for their health then I have helped to save a world. (According to Maimonides, the responsibility to preemptively protect someone from death … of a single human life is equivalent to saving the entire world. …)