Your Body is a Machine and the Food You Eat is the Fuel

There once was a young promising college student who got his first car on his 21st birthday. His mom handed over the keys along with a few words of advice:

"Don't drink and drive. Fill it up with premium gas and remember to change the oil every 3,000 miles."

Nothing out of the ordinary; just basic car safety and maintenance. Beaming, the young man replied,

"Oh sure, ma. No sweat."

For the most part, it was easy. The car ran like a dream and he went everywhere in it all the time. The brakes and suspension were super tight. It also didn't cost a whole lot of money to keep the car running smoothly, especially since regular gas was much cheaper than premium and there wasn't any noticeable drop off in performance.

He did take note when the odometer zeroed out at 66,000 miles and then again at the 70,000 mark a few short months later, but his thoughts centered mainly around how cool all the zeros looked. All in all, life was pretty darn swell for the young man and his car.

Until it wasn't.

The first symptoms were hardly noticed: An occasional delay starting the engine; a sudden backfire here and there morphed into a stead creaking squeak in the chassis which eventually joined forces with a shuddering wobble whenever he braked hard. But after warming up on the road, the car ran pretty much like it always had.

Until it didn't.

The end came quickly one bitter cold morning. The young man jumped in his car and turned the key. Nothing happened. He turned the key again. He pumped the gas pedal twisting the key back and forth in a frantic panic.

No spark. No life. Nothing.

Looking back, he had no one to blame but himself. His mother had given him good advice. His car had let him know early on that things were going wrong. Granted he was inexperienced, but there was no excuse for ignoring the obvious.

Why the young man did nothing when he was given every opportunity to address the problems long before they became unfixable is at the heart of the matter. As for the young man, he moved to New York City and joined the ranks of the walking masses.

However, you can't just walk away from a health problem, at least not for every long. Your body has ways of forcing you to pay if you've ignore it long enough.

Things don't usually start out that way. Back when pizza, burgers snack cakes and bagels with cream cheese and butter were your friends you had no concerns about your health. You could drink beer after beer, down multiple tequila shots, puff on cigarettes, take multiple bong hits and get very little sleep with little or no consequence.

Then gradually, imperceptibly, those same foods cause a negative backlash. Now, that same slice of pizza and beer settle like bronze paperweights in your stomach. Your knees and elbows pop and creak when sitting, or standing, while your favorite red meat goes down easy then comes back again and again in a nasty backwash of acidic broth.

Toxemia (symptomatic illness) takes a decade or so to affect your everyday life. Yet, the funny thing is most people are ready and willing to accept this slow demise of their health, citing the "natural aging process" or a "bad gene pool" as the reason why they can no longer sleep or take a meaningful poop.

Misery always loves a house full of company and commiserating about the "good ol' days" of having some decent pep in your step is something we're fond of doing. There's a certain amount of comfort in knowing that everyone else feels just as terrible as you do.

Sadly, the laughter fades when someone gets cancer, Type II Diabetes, Candida Albicans, Lyme or Gall Bladder disease. Once our disparate symptoms coalesce into a frightening diagnosis, a disease with a familiar name, the pity party comes to a screeching halt.

This is when taking action to improve the state of our health becomes the most logical, natural thing to do next. But why must we wait for the situation to become dire before taking action?

Being too busy, too tired or too afraid to address the situation just gives Toxemia free reign over your body to accelerate into a life-threatening condition or disease.

It doesn't take a whole lot of time or cost lots of money to do regular maintenance on your health. There are no doctors or health insurance forms to fill out either. There are dozens of proven, legitimate, inexpensive health maintenance resources available to help you right now.

If you're human, you are worthy of having good health. Period. You don't need anyone's permission (other than your own) to have it either.

To feeling much better,

Jay