Here’s to the #HealthyDad and those doing something about it #AD

Thanks to Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia who sponsored the campaign and including dads in this important discussion about family health care. My views are based solely on my experience as a parent and patient-not as a medical professional. I am a mesomorph, therefore I am.  Nutrition and diet may not be an interesting read to a 15 year old, but put the emerging star Arnold Schwarzenegger as the author and I was hooked.

The 7 time Mr. Olympian was about to come out with Terminator and I wanted to read all about him.  As you can tell, we stepped in the way back machine for that introduction.  The book that I read is now out of print, but I think it was re-packaged to become his 1993 book, Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder.

That book taught me that anyone can be fit; it just depends on what type of body you have as to how much effort it will take.  Anyone can be fit.  I won the genetic lottery and am a mesomorph.  We develop muscle quickly.  Luckily for everyone, muscle has a long memory and can be rebuilt much quicker once it’s been established.

Since that time my fitness habits have ebbed and flowed.  I tried hot yoga, which was awesome, but too difficult and didn’t mesh with my schedule.  I tried karate, which was great, but caused too much stress on my back. In the end I always come back to basic weight training, cycling and/or tennis, and have recently added swimming to the mix.

In those ebbs where I stopped working out because of work or a busy schedule things happened.  There was the hernia, then the sciatica and another hernia and then some melanoma.  For the record, hernias are horrible, but relatively normal.  Ditto, sciatica, that tingling, shooting pain down your leg to your calf sounds bad-but is even worse in person.  Melanoma is a startling wake up call to have those moles looked at and to skip the sun bathing at the beach.

Most of that occurred when I was a dad, which brought to mind the fact that I want to be here for as long as possible.  If I’m a milk carton I want my expiration date to state, “When he stops having fun”.   But that expiration date, for all of us is unknown.  Make the most of the time we have is another lesson those things taught me.

Are you a #HealthyDad? Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia have some cool programs to help folks get medical advice. 24/7.  With LiveHealth Online you can chat with a real U.S. based board-certified doctor within minutes via a 2-way video chat.  It’s as simple as downloading something on your phone or tablet.

You can also win a cool $100 by creating a short video explaining why you think today’s fathers need to keep it healthy.  Simply tag it with #HealthyDad, dig the rules here and start crafting.

Bottom line.  I’m busy, you’re busy.  When you exercise you have more energy.  Look at it like dollar cost averaging.  It takes time to exercise, but the overall gain, improved attitude, energy and better work attitude more than makes up for any money lost by not working.  That is not even factoring in the longer life span, which is priceless, especially when you’re a dad.