Fit for Life: Your Health Is Like a House Fire!
Saturday, December 31, 2022
On Friday, December 9th, we were home doing laundry and preparing for our vacation on the 11th. I was in the kitchen and my girlfriend asked what the beeping noise was. She turned off the TV and I could hear a beep coming from the basement. I ran down to a room full of smoke and flames coming from the bottom of my dryer.
I immediately unplugged the washer and dryer, grabbed a trash can, ran upstairs, and filled it with water. I then ran back down and tried to douse the dryer and put out the flames. That didn’t work, so I ran to the sink in the basement and tried two more times to fill the bucket and extinguish the flames. No go, so we called the fire dept.
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Things worked out, and we incurred only a few thousand dollars worth of damage, however, while standing on the sidewalk watching flames and smoke bellowing out of my house you couldn’t help but think, “how bad things could’ve been.” The smoke detectors saved our lives, and prevented my entire house from burning to the ground.
Why am I telling you this when I am supposed to be a health and fitness expert, writing about health and fitness?
Here’s why:
The night of the fire, we went through the house and made a plan in the event anything like this happens again. We went over several scenarios and created a plan to evacuate, and what windows we should get to on the second floor.
The day we returned home, we went out and bought 2 fire extinguishers for us, and one for all our family members.
As we were pulling into the Lowes parking lot, I thought, wow, it took something devastating to happen before we prepared for an emergency situation. I said that this is a perfect example of being reactive as opposed to proactive.
Yes, I had smoke detectors, but if I had a fire extinguisher in working order, and had our plan in place prior to this event, the damages would have been less severe, and I wouldn’t have needed the fire department.
Then I realized that most people treat their health the same way I treated a house fire. They don’t do anything preventative until something goes wrong, then they go into complete reactive mode and do the right thing AFTER the fact.
In my case, it’s easy to rebound from this situation, however, when it comes to your health, you may not get a second chance as I did. You may not get so lucky and come out with minimal damages.
I have had a few friends and family members die suddenly due to their poor health conditions. I know I am a bit older, but people in their 40s and 50s shouldn’t be dying like this when it could’ve possibly been prevented.
If you are overweight, pre-diabetic, get out of breath walking upstairs or just performing daily tasks, it’s time to sound the alarm, get proactive and make some changes before it’s too late. Even if you don’t care about your current state, I will bet there are others that care about you, and wouldn’t want to get that phone call if something happens to you.
So what can you do immediately to help prevent something bad from happening to you? Here are some ideas.
First and foremost, you should visit your doctor and get a checkup, EKG, and bloodwork done. This will shine a light on your internals and make sure your vitals are all good.
Next, the obvious is to get on a fitness program and start taking better care of yourself. When I say to get on a program, that doesn’t mean to just join a gym and aimlessly walk around lifting weights.
I am talking about a fat loss program like the one we run at Providence Fit Body Boot Camp. A program where we measure your results and hold you accountable to your health and fitness routine.
Start paying better attention to what you eat. Nutrition is the cornerstone to any fitness program, and without a regimented nutrition plan, your results will be slow if any at all. Don’t get me wrong, exercise is equally important, however, that is only 1/2 the equation. You can’t out-exercise poor nutrition.
It’s that simple. No, it won’t be easy, but nothing that nets us a good result ever is.
It will take you time and effort to make these changes, so the first step is to START.
Pick one thing you can do today that will improve your health and keep you alive longer. Then add another until you create a routine, and it becomes second nature to do the things that will promote better health.
I know New Year's is coming, and a lot of people wait until this time of year to get started, so listen to my advice and get started ASAP.
You never know when something could go wrong, and it’s tough to predict what could happen, but I beg you not to let your health be similar to a house fire.
Don’t make the same mistake I did. Be proactive NOW, so you don’t need to become reactive later.
Happy New Year
Committed to your success,
Matt
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