Pissing on your health? Not with my consent!

“You seem mad about it?” This was the question posed to me recently when I had yet another vehement rant with the same client about taking care of their body. This particular client has a tendency to think money will buy their health. They pay me lots of money to train them; have bought stacks of books, dvd’s and gadgets; have bought supplements, shakes and pills; and of course has subscriptions to several popular fitness magazines.

“You are damn right I am upset. You are spitting on your health. Do you hate yourself?” “No, of course not,” they say, and give me this strange offended look that I even asked them that question. “OK, well you are all talk, no walk. We have come to a point where I need progress from you, YOU need to do your part in this relationship or it is over. I can beat you up in here (my gym) and I can hammer you with knowledge, lend you every book I have, and send you endless emails and text messages and you still won’t listen!” “Angela, PLEASE don’t fire me, I’ll do my part. I promise.” “Do you understand how emotionally invested I get in your success? Do you understand how it pains me when you GAIN weight after all of MY efforts and you walk out my gym door and kick me in the teeth?” “I know, I know.” They put their head down, then they walk out the door. Nothing has changed with this client; I have to fire this client. It saddens me and makes me feel like a huge failure as a coach every time I break up with a client.

This above back and forth is why my clients love and hate me. I hold them accountable, I invest in them, I spend time educating them, I check on them, and I will end the relationship and they know this. I refuse to take people’s money for the hell of it, I have what you call a severe conscience. I WANT them to succeed. I only take on a few clients and I invest A LOT in them. But I am intelligent enough to know when someone just isn’t going to change no matter how much I beg, plead, rationalize, educate or scream.

It infuriates me to watch anyone self destruct their health on purpose. Infuriates me! This picture is of my husband in ICU right after his open heart surgery. He was 32 years young. He was born with a bicuspid aortic heart valve. Your aortic heart valve is supposed to be tricuspid. Because his was bi (two) vice tri (three) it didn’t close correctly when his heart beat and blood that had been pumped up would trickle back down. When he was a young lad it wasn’t such a big deal. His heart was young and could do the double work, as he aged his heart started to get tired of doing all that extra work. Eventually it would have quit – but that is where replacing the valve came into play. The cardiologist monitored his heart for about 10 years every six months we went to get it measured and do a stress test. They would measure his heart because the heart is a muscle and like any muscle that is worked it enlarges. This is great for your biceps, not so cool for your heart. For the stress test they would hook him up to all kinds of gadgets and have him walk, then walk on an incline then speed it up to almost a run and see how long he could go. Even though he aced the stress test (they would stop him) the heart measurements said at the very tender age of 32 his aortic heart valve had to be replaced. There was no diet, no exercise no “cure” for this.

We did massive research to determine the best valve replacement. I hunted for the best surgeon and on 1 May 2008 he was wheeled in, sawed in half and had the valve replaced. From the time they wheeled him out of the prep room to ICU was about six hours. His sister and brother were there with me and it was the longest six hours of my life. Our future was hanging on that surgeon in that operating room cutting my husband open with a Craftsman electric hand saw. We were either going to have a lifetime of him being tired, grumpy and sick or this was going to be one of the many small hitches that we tackled together and adapted to.

Needless to say (note date of picture above) it was just a small hitch we adapted to. But we are still plagued with the annual cardiology appointment. We are reminded when they draw his blood that the medicine he takes to prevent clots from developing and causing a heart attack or a stroke, could be damaging his liver and kidneys. We stare at each other in silence and wonder how having to take poison at such a young age will affect him at 60 or 70 or 80 (if we are lucky enough to live til then). We wait with stress, sweat and anxiety as the technician waves that magical wand over his chest to make sure the valve is holding up and doing its part. We talk about consequences, we reassure each other, we hug each other and then when the cardiologist blesses him with a clean bill of health we push it to the back of our minds until next year.

Although it is pushed to the back of our minds the steps we take daily are not. No smoking, moderate alcohol, regular exercise and eating real food are daily habits so that when that annual doctor visit rolls around we are slightly assured; a number of things we can’t prepare for could happen. The valve could “come loose”, or the plavix could be ruining his liver; we are doing are part and we keep our fingers crossed that science doesn’t fawk us up.

Now…..

Imagine this is the condition your loved ones get to see you in but not because you have a congenital problem that you cannot control, but because you just blatantly don’t take care of your body. You smoke cigarettes, chew tobacco, drink too much alcohol, eat too much junk food and sugar, you don’t exercise and your body has had enough and quits. YOU have to have open heart surgery, or have pieces or organs cut off from cancer or diabetes, or an organ replaced. YOU are lying there with a breathing tube down your throat, a catheter in your neck the size of a garden hose, machines are blinking and beeping and monitors are flashing. The smell of antiseptic and sick pollutes their throats and nose. The taste of despair and what will come of their life with you as a sick person. You can’t work and help support the household; your medical expenses are expensive; you cannot help with the kids or the dog or simple tasks such as laundry.

YOU have changed their entire life because you couldn’t take care of yourself. How would that guilt feel? Or switch shoes, how you would feel about tagging along with a partner who has blatantly no disdain for their health. They treat their health as if it is owed to them, they smoke, don’t get proper sleep, they drink too much alcohol or soda, they don’t wear their seat belt, they don’t exercise, they vegetate in front of the TV, they eat pizza and chips as if they were the only two food groups. They ache, they are tired, they complain, they don’t want to go do anything that life has to offer because TV, work and a sloth lifestyle has consumed them. You are a prisoner of your own home because your partner won’t take care of them self. How does that sound? Does that sound resemble love?

Doesn’t sound like it to me. It sounds like a jealous, lazy, bum.
Now you know why I get so upset when someone blatantly pisses on their health remember there are people out there like Ray with a congenital health problem they can’t control and it weighs on their mind and those that love them and you take it for granted as if it is owed to you to have good health. Just remember NOTHING is owed to you in this life; you have to work and work really hard for everything. Be good to yourself, love yourself, no one else can do it for you – so if these words are hitting home then quit being a fud king health bum!