Health and Weight - a Rude Awakening

On this cloudy Sunday evening, I'm hobbling from bed to chair and back again with the help of a walker and Oxycodone, on the road to recovery from bilateral knee replacement surgery.  And I have to say that my two weeks in two different hospitals (both world class) has left me with some sobering thoughts about the importance of getting into and staying in the best shape that I can.

The National Rehabilitation Hospital is where you go if you are a professional athlete and get crunched on a football field or basketball court.  It's also where you go to be treated for a spinal chord injury or after a stroke or some other condition that requires intense physical therapy.   And during the hours I spent in the gym strengthening my knee muscles, there was something that struck me.

About three quarters of the patients were seriously obese, and their obesity was either a contributing factor in their condition or a factor that was getting in the way of recovery. 

Many of the patients were scheduling their physical therapy around dialysis, and others had an oxygen tank as a constant companion.  Life as most of us know it was a distant memory for a lot of these folks, many of whom were still realtively young and might have had many good years ahead of them. 

In April, Stacey-Ann Burgh raised our collective health awareness with the Get Healthy in the Rain Contest.  And it was during that challenge that I realized that my knees were going to have to be healthy if I was going to stay healthy.  I was watching my weight soar as I found it more and more difficult to do the basic physical activities that burn calories. 

We work in an industry that doesn't make it easy to stick to healthy habits.  We eat on the run, and often work outs get preempted by clients who need to see a house or contracts that need to get presented quickly.  And we have other responsibilities to families and friends.  A lot of us eat too much and maybe drink too much Vouvrey (or whatever your favorite quaff might be). 

But I gotta say, a week in a serious physical rehabilitation hospital can scare you straight!  It sure worked for me.