Prevention of Dreaded Diseases

I have long ago noticed a strange reality in people—most of them would say that health is among the highest priorities in their lists of the "Important Things In Life". Quite often health is way high in the list together with things like family, career, and money, to name a few. Yet you will find that these people spend very little time and efforts, if any at all, to maintain or improve their health. They would spend a lot of time and efforts on securing and building up their families; careers, and amass wealth, of course, but hardly ever on health, even though they insist that health is very important to them.

Like almost everything else in life, good health is not free; time and efforts will have to be invested to get it; and once it is obtained, more time and efforts will have to be invested to maintain it. It is an ongoing obligation which must be done, just like those required for the other important things in life. Most people know this for a fact, yet what usually happens is that most of them would neglect doing something for health until it's too late. It is so easy to take health for granted, you see.

Some people have tried to convince me to spend an astronomical amount of money for a water filtration system that produces alkaline water, which is supposed to be good for my health. The benefits of alkaline water, according to them, range from the prevention to curing many, many illnesses; some would even go as far as curing cancer. I have not bought the machine up to now, but that doesn't mean that health is not important to me. On the contrary, I try very hard to be healthy as much as I can. It's just that I'm adopting a different approach to be healthy.

I've known people who are very careful about their health. They watch what they eat and drink; some foods and drinks are treated like poisons, never to be consumed. They drink alkaline water—and only alkaline water, because they are convinced that the water has some sort of magical properties and can do wonders for their health. Yet they almost never spend even a few minutes a day to exercise, because according to them, they don't have the time to exercise.

I think there are a combination of many, many factors why one can fall sick, or why and how one can develop some diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure or clogged arteries etc. I'm saying there is almost never going to be enough prevention measures that one can take to really prevent all these illnesses and diseases. So some people would adopt the "alkaline water" approach but totally zero exercise; I'd adopt the exercise approach, never mind the magical alkaline water. After all, there is no evidence that the alkaline water is more effective in preventing, say, heart disease, when compared to a minimum of 8 hours of exercise weekly.

Some people refrain from consuming sugar (or consuming very little of it). Others avoid fatty foods. But I indulge in simple sugar every now and then, and during my workouts in the form of energy gels, or sugary snacks and sports drinks. But I always try to balance up with burning whatever I'm consuming.

Generally speaking, I try to keep things in a balance; everything in moderation, because I can't see myself not consuming sugar for the rest of my life. Of course I can pretend that I have it in me to do it, like many of The Biggest Loser participants, but I know I will fail eventually, and I would regain whatever weight that I've lost. So I'd rather be honest with myself. I allow myself to indulge in some of these "unhealthy" food, and then try to payback by other means like doing exercise. I admit that I'm not perfect, but at least I'm honest to myself.

So yes, I consume ABC and fatty foods every now and then in moderation; I do have big high-caloric foods occasionally; and yes, I do drink Milo regularly even though some people say that Milo is an unhealthy drink. I just try my best to balance between how much I consume and how much I burn. So far, after many years of being a Milo drinker, I'm still alive and able to keep within a reasonable range of body weight for my height. Way too often people deprive themselves from enjoying the things that they like so much, until one day they just lose it all; they explode and everything goes downhill from there. By allowing myself a bit of leeway every now and then to enjoy some of these "unhealthy" food, I'm hoping that I'm preventing myself from becoming a time bomb which can explode any minute. Keeping my fingers crossed...