My Ounce of Prevention

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

-Benjamin Franklin

It is much more cost effective for insurers to try to stop disease before it occurs than it is for insurers to treat disease after it occurs.

Not only is it cheaper to prevent than to cure, doing so improves the quality of life people live. If you’re healthy you tend to stay out of hospitals, have more energy, and don’t get diseases like heart disease and diabetes. Unfortunately, we live in a society that excels at disease care more than actual health care—protecting and caring for your health. It’s easier to treat symptoms than it is to actually deal with underlying issues. However, with this method you just move from one fire to the next, and never extinguish the actual source of the problem.

Employer Physical

In order to encourage healthy habits, reduce healthcare costs, and improve individuals quality of life, my employer has a program that offers its employees $50 for getting a mini physical and another $50 for being healthy according the metrics they measure. If you are deemed unhealthy in a category, there are financial incentives to improve.

I went in on August 30, 2012, for my physical. I was sure that I was going to get the $100 prize because I felt healthy.  My results were as follows:

 *Posting this info is probably a HIPPA violation on myself. Oops. :)

They weren’t worried about body fat. 13% is their target goal for that. What they were worried about was my HDL Cholesterol level. HDL cholesterol is good cholesterol which helps prevent heart disease by cleaning your arteries. It keeps plaque from building up and sticking to the artery walls. The goal there is 40 mg/dL.

Because of my levels of HDL cholesterol, I was not going to get the full $100 because I was putting myself at risk for heart disease. I may not have received the full incentive, but I did receive the motivation to make some changes.

Changes

In order to improve HDL cholesterol, it’s important to exercise regularly, and to eat fruits and vegetables.  It takes months to see results with HDL cholesterol because your blood composition has to change.

Fixing my exercise schedule won’t be too hard. My goal is 30 minutes of moderate exercise 4 days of the week. I was really good at this up until March, when I hurt my left leg and right foot. They’re mostly better now though. I have home equipment, and I bought a pass to the gym. Exercise can be fun if you find the right activities. If you find the wrong ones, it’s torture. Luckily I love to swim, run, and lift moderate weights.

Fixing my diet is going to be the major challenge. I love to drink milk, Capri Suns, juice, and other sugary drinks. I love to eat high sugar foods like ice cream and fruit snacks. I love to eat higher fat foods like sandwiches smothered in mayo and cheese. In fact, I've always joked that my cheese addiction is what would kill me. It was funny because I never believed it. Now it’s not so funny.

For the past week, I’ve made an effort to improve my consumption of fruits and vegetables by focusing on each meal.

For breakfast, I made a lot of whole grain waffles and froze them to make them more convenient. I eat those waffles loaded with fruit, like blackberries, blueberries, and strawberries—no syrup. With that I will have a small glass of orange juice, and a small glass of milk. Other days of the week, I’ll have one bowl of Cheerios, one piece of toast with low-fat peanut butter, a banana, and a small glass of orange juice.

For lunch, I still have sandwiches. However, instead of loading up on cheese and mayo, I load up on vegetables; Green peppers, yellow peppers, tomatoes, avocados, and red peppers piled up high on whole wheat bread. As sides, instead of fruit snacks and a Capri Sun, I have carrots, craisins, nuts, and water. I have to say that I like the new lunch more than I thought I would.

For dinner, I make two weeks worth of meals every other Friday afternoon and then freeze them. The meals have a small portion of low fat meat, like chicken or fish, a lot of vegitables, and some whole grain rice or pasta.

With fruits and vegetables, the saying is 'five to stay alive, but nine is divine'...

Resources

Some of my favorite health resources that have been inspiring me as I start this journey are:

Harvard School of Public Health -http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/index.html- This site has a lot of health related science boiled down into easy to understand information and graphics.

Well Steps -https://www.wellsteps.com/ - Well Steps is a company that does health consulting for companies. Its president is Steve Aldana, who was a BYU professor until 2007. The company has a book I love to read called The Culprit and the Cure that explains current health research in an easy to understand and apply way.

I’m really making an effort, so hopefully all of these changes will result in high HDL cholesterol levels. I really get scared when I think about a heart attack, a stroke, or diabetes. I’m excited to have another physical in 6 months. Bring on the results because I’ll be ready!