Stop for a minute and think. What is health insurance? Really. Ideally, it's protection against the cost of being sick. That's what we're paying for. We spend millions of dollars insuring that if we get sick someone else will foot the bill.

Why don't we take care of ourselves? If you eat properly, drink enough water, get up off the couch, go outside, breathe fresh air, stop smoking, stop taking over the counter drugs, cook our own food, hug your family, and get a good night's sleep. Would you still need health insurance? Probably. But let's break this down a little more.

Eat properly, drink water and cook your own food. Sounds easy, right? Our bodies are complex machines that run on a specific but basic diet. Whole, balanced foods with fresh, natural ingredients. No processed food, no modified food starch, artificial ingredients, chemicals you can't spell or pronounce. What would happen if you put oil in your gasoline tank and gasoline in the oil tank? Your car would blow up! That's what we're doing to ourselves. If you continue to put the wrong fuel in your body - you get cancer, high cholesterol, diabetes, high blood pressure - all manner of fuel related diseases. Next time you go to the grocery store only buy foods on the perimeter. If it has an ingredient label - you don't need it. If you read the label (and it makes sense to you) has 5 ingredients that you can readily identify, okay. Other than that - warning! Red flag! Our bodies consist of more water than anything else - why would you replenish it with soda? Oh, you only drink diet soda? Oh, did I miss where chemical sugar is pure? Be informed. You'll lose weight, your skin will clear up, you'll be a regular bathroom visitor and you'll have more energy to cook your own food. Save money - eat at home.

Get up off that couch, go outside and do something! Do you remember in school when you first saw that picture in a text book of the human bodies muscular system? All those tendons, criss-crossing across your skeleton with those bug eyes. Scared me! Now conjure up that image again. Add 80 lbs, a beer gut, sagging, atrophied, muscles - all loose. That should scare you now. Raise your arms out to the side move them back and forth. What's that jiggle? That's what I thought - get outside! Bike, walk, garden, wash your car, hang the laundry out. Bet you sleep better too!

Smoking. Stop. Now. My husband is now a cancer survivor. Had he stopped smoking - he never would've gotten cancer. Sure health insurance saved us. But if he didn't smoke - it would be a moot point. Weeks of radiation, chemotherapy. Weeks in the hospital, pneumonia, coma, rehab. Stop smoking. You'll save money too. You might think, "it won't happen to me." Yeah, I thought that too. Three years later and we're still dealing with it. Take care of yourself.

We spend money on everything but our health. Taking care of your machine, your engine, your body should be paramount! Your body is a temple - you've heard that before, but what does your temple look like? Candy wrappers, cigarette butts, a video game system, a recliner, a TV-remote, dirty laundry and a box of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese?




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