Yesterday I had cataract surgery and the anesthesiologist was quite surprised that I was not taking any medications.  I asked him why he was so surprised and he answered that nearly everyone he saw was on at least one medication - for high blood pressure or high cholesterol or something else - and many of them were on a number of medications. 

He then asked me if I worked on my health or if I was just lucky.  Since he was putting me to sleep at the time, I don’t think he was really expecting a long answer, so I just said, “Lucky, I guess.”

However, that brief conversation got me to thinking.  Of course, I work on my health.  That’s not to say there is not some luck thrown in to the mix, but I think we can all work on our health and get to the point of not having to rely on the pharmaceutical companies to do that work for us.  It is probably easier to take a pill each morning than to think about “working on our health,” but many of those pills come with side effects and they don’t always translate into “good health.”

According to the web site, Healthy Is A Habit, there are measurable ways to check on our health – and most importantly – there are actually lifestyle changes we can make to get those excellent results in our own lives.

The site lists four markers for excellent health consisting of your BMI, your blood pressure, your total cholesterol, and your triglyceride level.  Since most of us aspire to excellent health, these measurements should be important to us.  In fact, we can actually – with a little bit of “work” reach them.  That “work” mainly involves choices about what we eat and choices we make about exercise.

Check out the site to find out how close you are to “excellent health.”  If you are not there, why not start with a daily walk and a copy of Coco’s Healthy Eating?  Go ahead and get started by beginning to "work" on your health rather than relying totally on “luck.”