Knowing & Doing: Do You Do What You Know?
I saw the above pic over at Nourished Fitness & had to share! Thought it fit with today.
Dr. J offers his irreverent, slightly irrelevant, but possibly useful opinions on health and fitness. A Florida surgeon and fitness freak with a black belt in karate, he runs 50 miles a week and flies a Cherokee Arrow 200. Well, I am lucky enough to tag team with Dr. J again!!!! How exciting. Dr. J has a very thought provoking and important post today so I hope you will all take time to read it. If you are short of time, please come back later. A must read!
I know there are things I "KNOW" but don't do.... I really do. But I do know that I don't smoke, I eat healthy most of the time, I don't text/talk & drive, I never drink & drive (well, I am not a drinker so I may only have 4-5 drinks a year anyway), I exercise and/or move each day.... I do many things I know I should do. Dr. J has this good post to read about so please continue below:
Knowing & Doing:
I happened to be at my fitness center yesterday. I had just finished 30
minutes of high intensity cardio on the Stairmaster and had gone into
the locker room. I was opening my locker when the man, probably about
40 years old, next to me remarked about seeing me using that machine..
He went on to say that because he smoked he couldn’t run half a mile
without being out of breath.
“That’s the worst thing you can do for your health,” was my simple
reply. “It’s very hard, but you need to stop.” Locker rooms, like
movies, do allow for some suspension of disbelief and social rules.
Something about being mostly naked I suppose.
“I know,” was his answer, followed by his telling me about his wife now
dying from metastatic cancer.. “She didn’t even smoke.”
I expressed my sincere sympathy, not feeling the need, locker room
rules or not, to tell him about the high cancer rates in people living
with smokers and exposed to their secondhand smoke.
http://www.cancer.gov/newscenter/tip-sheet-secondhand-smoke I saved
that sadness to tell all of you.
This was not the first time that I had heard the expression, “I know.”
in this context.
My grandfather often used that phrase. He seemed to feel that not
knowing something was a form of weakness, so he had this habit of
saying, “I know” whenever someone tried to tell him something. Because
of this, he didn’t know nearly as much as he could have.
One of my best friends used these two words whenever I had attempted to
offer my help with his weight. He is quite intelligent, so he adds a
flourish to the phrase. “I know my own behaviors have led to this, and
now it’s affecting my quality of life. I know I have to do something
about my weight.” Of course he hasn’t, and his physical problems
continue to worsen.
I have another friend, a former All American swimmer, now in his
thirties. We have talked about how he can recapture his former fit
self. He still is a wonderful swimmer, but he is a terrible eater. He
knows but also continues to go down the progressively unfit road.
What do we really know?
We know that being overweight or obese leads to a multitude of well
documented serious medical problems.
http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/topics/obesity/calltoaction/1_2.htm
What do we really do?
Nearly two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese, and that is
increasing. More than 50 percent of us do not get the recommended
amount of physical activity to maintain our weight let alone prevent
gaining weight.
No more than 20 percent of the population exercises to the necessary
level to maintain our cardiovascular health.
The proportion of adults aged 20 years and older at a healthy weight
has decreased from 42 percent to at least 33 percent and is probably
falling, while the proportion of adults who were obese increased from
23 percent to at least 30 percent, and is probably increasing.
There has been no progress in our eating more total vegetables or fruit
to the recommended 5 servings a day and actually it has decreased,
declining from 3.4 to 3.2 servings, with no change in the daily
consumption of dark green or orange vegetables (0.3 servings)..That’s a
third of a serving per day! What, ketchup isn’t a vegetable? Maybe they
should dye it green and improve the data.
Whole grain consumption has decreased from 1.0 to 0.8 servings per day.
Little or no progress has been achieved in decreasing our consumption
of saturated fat or total fat.
When it comes to decreasing total sodium usage, the average intake
remains well above the recommendation to consume less than 2,000
milligrams daily.
Do you do what you know?
People all seem to know so much. People know how to lose weight. People
know how to be healthy. People know how to exercise. People know how to
reduce stress. You would think that with all this knowing out there
that there would be a lot of doing the behaviors that people all know
so well.
Doctors are a lot like people, as the old joke goes:
Physicians know a lot.....but....they
don't do anything.
Surgeons do a lot...but....we don't know anything.
There is one area of medicine, however, Pathologists. They know a lot
and they do a lot...but they do it 24 hours too late.
When it comes to health, I'll take being like a surgeon any day,
because it isn’t what we know, it is what we do with what we know that
is important, and determines our lives and the lives of the people
around us.
From Jody:
Do you know but not do? Do you know & follow thru? Does Dr. J’s post help you start doing what you know but don’t do? Pass on your thoughts! Some key facts about secondhand smoke exposure: “Secondhand smoke exposure causes disease and premature death in children and adults who do not smoke. ” “Secondhand smoke contains hundreds of chemicals known to be toxic or carcinogenic, including formaldehyde, benzene, vinyl chloride, arsenic ammonia and hydrogen cyanide.” “Secondhand smoke causes approximately 3,400 deaths from lung cancer and 22,700 to 69,600 deaths from heart disease each year.” The facts above are from the American Lung Association website.
I have a brother-in-law that still smokes even though his mom died from smoking related lung cancer. Many of you, unfortunately, have lost loved ones due to weight induced illness or maybe smoking as well. Are you going to learn or have you learned from that? Check out this update on my post about the 2 year old smoker and check out these stats for those that smoke but first this from the update article:
"Even if parents smoke outside, children still absorb some of the nicotine, said a research study about smoking and exposure. From a summary of the study, “Even if cigarettes are not smoked near a baby, cigarette fumes may contaminate dust that settles in carpets, on toy and furniture surfaces and on the floor. These objects can remain contaminated for several months!”
Categories: Fitness, Health, Cancer, Health Issues, Guest Posts, Challenges, Motivation/Support
Tags: fitness acceptance Health Issues cancer health Dr. J addictions
The white-board picture, the words "over time" are what stands out to me. We want what is written in the red marker, to be more. But so often we want it NOW, not tomorrow. So we get crazy and look for ridiculously impossible short cuts and boom, we fail. Over time, applying quality & consistent action (as it says)... this will get you there.
Allot of ugly stats in Dr. J's words there. Ugly is good, it can wake you up and realize you don't want to be that. Who wants to be a statistic?
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Thx for commenting Patrick! Dr. J's final statements sure sum it all up, don't they.. and that pathologist statement!!!!
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Jody - What a thoughtful and inspiring post. From top to bottom. Really, it is awesome. It reminds me of a quote that I heard on NPR's segment, "This I believe". Sister Helen Prejean said (I am paraphrasing) when she wants to know what she believes, she just watches what she does. I love, love, love this post. Thank you so much for giving me something think about and "chew on". I really liked the image at the top.
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Karma... that is an awesome quote from NPR!!!!! Dr. J sure knows how to lay it out there, doesn't he!!!!
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Great post Jody and Dr. J. Isn't it ironic that there is more information available now than ever before to help us avoid health issues, yet we are a fatter nation than ever. The internet gives us access to all the information we could possibly need, there are reports in the papers and on the news on a regular basis, yet many continue to do nothing.
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Karen, such a valid point!!! When I was growing up, we did not have access to all this info & it really was not out there anywhere that "normal & average" people would look for it.
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Great thoughtful post!You do wonder why people do things to themselves when they know they are so bad for you?! I think it is so hard to quit food/ smoking. I hope this inspires some to have the courage and do the right thing for themselves and their loved ones.
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Sian, I know Dr. J hopes that this will help some.. it is his goal& life's work to help people!
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I love it when you and Dr. J tag team! It always leaves food for thought! and here is my vegetable course for your food for thought.....In years past, we use to define ourselves by what we did...today we search for definition by proclaiming what we know...let's slow down and get back to the basics of who we are, what we do, and walking our talk
That's my goal anyway!
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Jules, great points!!!!! Although, I would never want to be defined by most of the work I did in the corporate world! :-O That is your point though... walk our talk!
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I do what I know for sure, but my boyfriend (who is a wonderful man) smokes and I don't know how to get him to stop. He knows he needs to, but believes that he can't. I know that as long as he believes that he can't, he won't. I try to explain the facts described to him every time he lights up in the car with me. It makes me very sad. Very sad indeed.
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Lauren, as long as he believes he can't, he can't. He has to change his mindset & only he can do it.. but you can arm him with facts & statistics. I do worry about your closeness to the second hand smoke & maybe showing him that he could be killing you too... get him thinking. I wonder what my mom smoking around me might do long term.... and others out there too.. as we did not have non smoking sections and now no smoking in restaurants, airplanes etc. years ago.....
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Excellent points, your own, Dr J's, and the comments above. You really need the whole three - courage, discipline and patience. Two out of three ain't bad, but you need the third one too to make progress. And that is SO HARD!
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What an insightful post by you and Dr. J. I still wonder why I did to myself what I did when I KNEW I shouldn't be eating all that food.
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I usually do what I know. But I could probably crank it up a notch in the strength training doing...
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FANTASTIC POST you two.
and Jody knows I rarely RARELY read anything on thursdays
let alone comment.
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