Improving Health with Lifestyle Changes

By Rachel Stockton

One question that gets overlooked during the debate over health care reform is simply this, “How can I maintain a healthy lifestyle?”  By myopically focusing on number crunching, we’ve “forgotten” that much of the current health care crisis could be lessened considerably through prevention. 

This is truly an important consideration.  Recently MSNBC reported that 70% of all doctor visits are lifestyle related.  What this means is that 70% of all trips to the family physician could have been prevented at some point in the patient’s life.

Up until this point, Western medicine has been sorely lacking when it comes to preventive health care.  That’s not the physicians’ fault, necessarily; insurance companies dropped the ball years ago when they chose not to cover certain wellness checks and prevention visits.  The entire system has become reactionary.  We get sick then “react” by loading up on pharmaceuticals and hoping for the best.

The good news is that we can radically improve not only our health, but our overall quality of life by making just a few, pivotal lifestyle changes. 

Taking Control of our Diet

The role of nutrition is tremendous when it comes to maintaining a healthy lifestyle.  Becoming more consciously aware of what we are feeding our bodies can cover a multitude of past sins, in fairly short shrift. 

Amazingly, even those suffering from diabetes can either reduce or completely eliminate their need for medications by refocusing their attention to maintaining a low-carb diet. 

Laura K. has a family history of diabetes, so she wasn’t particularly surprised when she was diagnosed with the disease at the age of 45.  Immediately, she began taking medication to try and get her numbers down.

She also radically changed her eating habits.  She began to eat lean protein, vegetables and whole grains.  Despite these changing to her lifestyle, she didn’t feel well, which surprised her.  When she asked her physician why, he told her that he gave her the medication because “most people won’t implement the lifestyle changes necessary to avoid medication, so I have to assume that every person who comes in here will likely be on insulin for life.  You are the exception.” 

In other words, Laura didn’t feel well because she continued taking her insulin even though she eliminated her need for it soon after being diagnosed.  “Once I stopped taking my meds, I felt great.”

Focusing on Exercise

There’s no avoiding this one.  In fact, even if our diets are flawless, we will not reap the full rewards of eating a balanced diet if we don’t exercise. 

In fact, the US Department of Health and Human Services Research agency, the National Institutes of Health,  lists “keeping active” as the first of 7 suggestions for preventing diabetes:  “Science has proven that we can prevent diabetes if we lose as little as 10 pounds by walking 30 minutes 5 days a week and making healthy food choices.”

Maintaining a Schedule

What does time management have to do with maintaining a health lifestyle?  Quite a bit; being proactive and diligent is imperative for long term success.  Keeping up a fairly strict routine can not only structure our days, but will remind us to put our health on the front burner.  Sandra Tester, a family therapist, has an alarm programmed in her Blackberry to remind her to take her vitamins.  Accountant Jan Riedenhauer keeps a tally on her desk of how many glasses of water she has every day. 

In addition to reminders about taking our supplements and drinking water, having a consistent bedtime and a visual reminder of our workout times also helps.

It’s never too late to improve our overall health; our bodies are amazingly forgiving once we’ve made the decision to make them a top priority.