For those of you who know me know that I have a dog. Love my Belle – Yuki – Bubbles (and dozen of other names we call her) and I seem to treat her health better than my own. In the 3 years we had her we have taken her to Vet for her yearly checkup. I don’t really remember doing yearly checkups 3 years in a row for myself. And one question the Vet asked was what am I feeding my dog, funny I don’t remember when my doctor ever asked me that question.

I started thinking, I take my dog to the Vet regularly have conversations on what I feed her, but why don’t I do that to myself. Why doesn’t every one put their health first. Now I do spend money on my health, I have a basement gym that I have been building for years that I do spent time in. I eat healthy when i want to lose weight, and eat sorta healthy the rest of the time. But I don’t focus on my health as much as people who know me think I do. I cheat a bit, love my buffalo wings etc. (Chegg etc.). and I do meal prep for the week so 80% of my meals are good. When I want to lose weight, or feel unhealthy I do crank it up and eat healthier.

I have spoken about my grandmother and her eating dessert first. My Grandfather was different, he had diabetes. But I never saw him prick his finger for a test, never saw him take an insulin shot. The reason, he never did it. He controlled his diabetes with his diet. He was the most strict person I saw on controlling what he ate. Being so anal about it, he did not need to take anything. When i was younger my parents told me, but i really did not process it until later. And thinking about it now, why don’t we think of diet to prevent disease vs. having to deal with it after it is crazy. I didn’t coin the term but I will repeat it here, we don’t have health care, we have sick care. People see doctors only when they are sick.

Every time i think about it I realize the answer is, well its hard. My grandfather needed extreme dedication and determination to do what he did. I know when I diet I have to focus, I have to plan, I have to really work at it if I want to lose weight. People I know tell me I make it look easy when I diet. I often talk to them in a way that makes it sound that way. But it isn’t, it takes work, focus, strength, and desire.

I can understand when there is a fad, sale for a quick weight loss, or some new magic 10 min workout people jump on it. We also only go to doctors when we are sick (a majority of us, yes there are some people who do) – So our health care system, and our values of health are based on when there is something wrong. I wonder how many people would have less health issue if we focused on being healthy instead of being selfish.

One thing I learned was that when we are born our taste buds are geared towards calories, hence we like sweets. Our brains and our bodies need calories so we want to get as much as we can. The problem is we don’t lose that sweet tooth too easily. I could blame fast food, stores etc. But the problem is with us, we have to make the right choices. More importantly, I have to make the right choices. I can argue that eating healthy is expensive, hard to do, etc. All which is true…

But that does not change the fact that I don’t see my doctor regularly, don’t tell him what I eat, don’t focus on my diet myself and set an example for not just my kids but others. And treat our health system like a health care not sick care. All of this based on seeing my grandfather fight a tough disease all by working on his diet. So I guess I need to pick a day and go to the Dr, get my blood work understand my current health situation and start working on my health using health care. And hopefully only see my Dr to check on my status vs. when I get sick.

This opinion is mine, and mine only, my current or former employers have nothing to do with it. I do not write for any financial gain, I do not take advertising and any product company listed was not done for payment. But if you do like what I write you can donate to the charity I support (with my wife)  http://give.nyp.org/site/TR/DIYTeamRaiser/General?px=1031549&pg=personal&fr_id=1080 or donate to your favorite charity. I pay to host my site, to keep it add free and use wordpress, and try to spend any time on the usability on the site (I apologize for that)