Medical Benefits: Do They Really Benefit You?

In the last 15 years, I have sought ways to increase energy.  I myself am in very good health, but my busy work schedule and irregular exercise schedule combined to tire me just a little.  I sought some answers.  My understanding of the medical industry at that time was that it was modern and that it could treat almost any ailment from broken legs to cancer to kidney surgery.  I'd heard of people getting by-pass operations, quadruple by-pass operations, heart replacement surgeries.  I mean the industry was doing remarkable things in its ability to prolong people's lives.  Fantastic.  I'd had health insurance, too, from my work, but I rarely, if ever, used it.  It was an amenity that I just never used.  I used it for annual check-ups, thinking that that was what I had to do.  But it proved of little to no benefit, in part, because all the doctors did was prescribe me medication.  Medication worries me.  I've never had good experience from medication.  The one time that I actually took any medications was when a doctor prescribed anti-biotics for me.  I took them, and they did nothing.  In fact, I felt that they almost depleted my immunity.  So for me, the medical industry has a poor track record, and that is based exclusively on my personal exchanges with doctors and their practices.  I would use running, swimming, or basketball as the magic bullet to energize me.  Though I had not read anything directly about it, the medical industry has sold itself to possess state-of-the-art of technology that could treat any condition.  Rhetorically, it works.  People believe that the medical benefits are so prized that they are worth continuing at a horrible job for.  People learn how horrible those benefits are when you go to use them.  You've worked hard.  You've put in your time.  When it comes time for you to tap into those benefits and that medical knowledge that is traded on a division of labor, you're hoping that the doctor is smarter than you on almost anything related to health care.  You are in for a big surprise.  That may be true, but their treatments are often bad, even life-threatening.  A young friend of mine, aged 20, had died from testicular cancer after receiving an avant-garde chemotherapy that Lance Armstrong used to defeat his cancer.  Now that Armstrong has recently come out about doping, I am wondering if the stories told about his victory over testicular cancer weren't lies.  Who knows?  Maybe the companies and cancer treatment centers gain greatly with a high-profile endorsement of their product.  What do you think?  The prescribing doctors were oncologists over at UCLA Medical Center.  The best of the best as they say.  Within a year of his diagnosis, this friend of mine was dead.  He had age on his side. 

Get Fat

It's not enough that you eat the right kinds of foods or that you find the foods that optimize your performance style, but it is important to know how to eat when you're sick.  You've heard the adage "Feed a cold, starve a fever."  I think that that is just the best that some advertiser could do with alliterative d's and v's.  No, what you need to do is to feed both a fever and a cold, in fact, feed an illness but not with the hair of the dog.  No, you feed it with good, regular nutrition.  Foods with fat will shock you with their nutritional function.  But again, don't always rely on diets that tell you what to eat.  Know which foods are high in fat, saturated fats and unsaturated fats and essential fats.  Of these which ones do you like best?  Start from there but be sure to get fat in your diet.  I like bacon.  I like sausage.  Given my history of eating pancakes, muffins, breads, pastries, donuts, candy, cereals, cases of sodas growing up it is no wonder that I have survived at all.  I didn't eat enough fats.  Now I do. 

Applebee's: Don't Get Stung

You are literally taking your life into your own hands when you eat out in most chain restaurants across America.  But that statement has little meaning since too many of us out of convenience eat out.  If you must, then go with caution.  Honor your good health.  You cannot afford repeated overdrafts on your account of good health.

Last night I met up with some friends, and they wanted to grab some dinner at Applebee's.  Not my favorite place, because the food and the atmosphere are so commercial, but not the worst either . . . or so I thought.  I ordered a sirloin steak with shrimp.  And a Newcastle beer.  I took only a few sips of the beer and left it.  I knew, too, that the shrimp would be farm raised; all of the shrimp in restaurants is farm raised.  One of the friends ordered a spinach cheese dip with tortillas.  All of the corn in the US is genetically modified, so I do not even touch the chips.  I looked at them.  But my guest, friend wanted me to try the spinach cheese dip.  I thought cheese and spinach, what could go wrong?  But God knows what else is in that dish or what was used in its preparation.  I tasted one, and it tasted like a lab . . . not a Labrador, but a laboratory.  It was empty of flavor and spice.  No pungent bite back from sharply aged cheese or anti-oxidant, invigorating kickback from the spinach the way that you might detect the smell and the tastes of the earth in a bottle of wine.  None of that.  The food was dead.  So in addition to sabotaging my gastro-intestinal health, I derived no enjoyment from the taste of the food.  But my guests went after it, mixed it, sampled it, and ate it.

Then the dinners arrived.  My steak was plated with a few sliced rose potatoes and a frozen broccoli and carrot mix that was microwaved.  It was prepackaged food.  Again, dead food.  No flavor.  Flavor is an indication of nutrient dense, anti-oxidant rich foods.  No taste means no nutrition.  Will you get full?  Oh, sure.  Quicker than you might expect because it is Frankenfood.  I finished my steak and the tiny shrimp that surrounded it.  Even before I got home I was beginning to feel the neurotoxic effects of the food.  I became a little light-headed.  My patience short-circuited.  By the time I got home I went for the fish oils that I have in my freezer, ate an apple alternating it with peanut butter then cream cheese and drank some instant coffee.  These revived me somewhat.  I went to work on a small project.  Then called a friend.  It wasn't until 12am that I finally got to bed.  My dreams were harried.  Running from people shooting after me.  I woke at 4am, grabbed some coffee, an apple, and some coconut oil and tried going back to sleep at 5:30am.  A guy was ferreting through the trash bin in the Shakey's parking lot.  He found a few and began flattening them with a pop! at 5:30.  The popping shattered the quiet and the promise of more sleep.  I got up, got dressed, and went out for a walk.

Here are a few pics of that morning.

Exercise: The Elixir of Health

Exercise is elixir of health.  No food, no anti-oxidant, no vitamin, no leafy green vegetable or healthy fat will invigorate or boost you almost immediately the way exercise can and will. A walk around your neighborhood will raise your mood.  So, walk.  If you must, walk.  So, walk you must.

If you want more bang for your buck, then climb.  Go for a short hike.  One immediate benefit of exercise is that it will elevate your mood so that you can be more productive.  Pick a local foothill with a gentle grade and walk it.  Another benefit of a hike is that you get out of the hubbub of the city.  You step away from the confines of your computer.  You breathe.  You climb.  You smell the flowers.  The wild ones are incredible.