Stop being reactive to your health. That was a blunt statement. This is a subject that I have to be blunt on. I am going to start with a really good story for you about why you should stop being reactive to your health. Someone close to me was diagnosed with osteopenia. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it is the thinning of bone mass. This is basically the start of osteoporosis. She was told by her doctor to start doing weight bearing exercises. She never worked out a day in her life. Never has picked up a weight. Lucky for her, she could come to me and we put her on a strength training program. Two years later, she went back to get her bone density checked and it improved by what the doctor called a significant amount.
Osteopenia isn’t overly severe but it obviously can become severe. The reason why I told you this story is because this should never have become an issue in the first place. Now I am not blaming anyone but the general public is grossly uneducated about the health benefits that exercise can provide someone. Honestly, I don’t know who to blame for the lack of education on this. Maybe the school system, the government, mass media, maybe all of it who knows. If this person knew that lifting weights would have prevented the start of osteoporosis would it have gotten her to lift weights sooner. Who knows but my guess is probably not. We have learned to wait till there is an issue and then fix it versus preventing an issue from even occurring.
This is a big issue. We have a rather cheap solution for something like preventing osteopenia and osteoporosis and we aren’t doing anything about it. It only costs $10 a month to go to some gyms. That is only 34 cents a day to prevent a disease. The number one killer in the United States is heart disease. According to the Heart Foundation walking 30 minutes a day can reduce your risk of heart disease by 35%. Walking is free and you don’t even need to do all 30 minutes at once. 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes in the afternoon and you reduce your risk of heart disease. How many people wait until after they have a heart attack before making life changes? Why are you risking your life when you could be doing something as easy as walking?
That’s exactly what it is though. People don’t think of it as risking their life. Risking your life is skydiving, driving 120 mph, not wearing a helmet on your bike, or whatever it might be in your life. You avert risks by not doing them. Have you ever thought “that won’t happen to me?” By saying those words you are taking a risk that it won’t happen. But how do you know? You don’t. It’s the same reason you put on your car’s seat belt. Your odds of dying in a car crash are 1 in 101. Your odds of dying from heart disease are 1 in 6. Stop waiting for something to happen and be proactive. Go for a walk, lift weights, do the things you need to prevent unnecessary health risks. Stop being reactive to your health and be proactive. Don’t rely on someone to save you from a heart attack. Rely on yourself to prevent it.
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