The healthcare industry is profit-driven. If you’re diabetic, you have to
pay to see a dietician as well as a doctor. If you want to try medically
supervised weight loss, you have to also pay to meet with a psychologist,
and if you’re at the cardiologist and tell her you think you’re coming down
with strep, she’ll tell you to make an appointment with a primary care
doctor, because, although a cardiologist can absolutely diagnose strep,
they just don’t. So you get to pay a $50 co-pay for a specialist and then
drop another $25 for a primary care visit. Every time your doctor sends you
to someone else. There’s a point when the sucking down of money being
slurped out of your bank account haunts your dreams.

Americans abuse their bodies without knowing. Obesity in the United States
is at an all-time high and considered an epidemic and diabetes is on the
rise. High blood pressure is common. The culprit of all the increases is
weight. People weight more now than they used to.

Weight is more than physical. It’s mental. Life moves fast and most people
are multitasking every minute of the day. Get off work, take the kids to
soccer practice, come home, make dinner, help with homework, quick shower,
and into bed. We may feel tired, but we attribute it to lifestyle and go on
with life. When feeling bad happens by small degrees, our brains get used
to the feeling and the “not as good as I once was” feeling becomes the new
normal. So normal, in fact, we don’t even know how bad we feel until a
doctor helps us feel better again.

Fitness is glamorized in the media with models and personal trainers, both
of which the average person isn’t gifted with. No matter how bad you want
to have Pink’s body, remember, she has the money to pay for maintenance on
her body. She pays a trainer to keep her motivated and to hold her
accountable. She makes a rockin’ bod look easy. Regular Joes and Janes
don’t have those types of resources. For regular Joes and Janes, the
motivation has to come from a hard look at the face staring back at them in
the mirror. That moment will come at a different time for everyone.
Usually, that time emerges while looking at pictures. There’s nothing like
a full body shot to show you exactly how other people see you. Change comes
with a shock. Shock ignites drive. The drive helps you stay the course when
you decide to be healthy and change your body for the better.