While we try to emphasize a healthy diet rich in whole food fruits and vegetables, and also recommend Juice Plus+ for those who fall short of the minimum of those foods that should be consumed each day, there are other factors that play a part in your health and longevity. For example, daily exercise is important; so is avoiding the things that can cause illness and disease. But aside from that, there just are no guarantees that doing everything "right" in life will lead to a long life. The following is an example of that (reprint from ocregister.com) --
I’ve known Mary Ann for more than half a century. She has never been overweight. In fact, she is the most organized, focused, determined friend I have. Both of us did the life expectancy calculator (see livingto100.com) designed by Dr. Thomas Perls, who has spent his professional lifetime studying longevity. I was lucky to reach 90 on the calculator. Mary Ann topped 100. And I wasn’t surprised. I expect her to dance at my funeral. She never loses control. She never over-indulges in food or drink. She never loses her place on the life-page.
So what happened?
She tripped, she told me last week when she could still talk. She fell in her driveway and hit her head against the stucco at the edge of her house. She lay there, hoping the mailman or someone would come along. But no one did. So Mary Ann, the widow, got herself up and walked into her home, up a short flight of stairs to the first floor, used the chair lift installed for her late husband to reach the second floor of the house, and went to bed. Around midnight, she says, the pain was so intense she called paramedics. She even has her house organized so pushing a few buttons by her bed lets her open the garage and door. They rushed her to the hospital and found out she had broken three vertebrae in her neck.
When she woke up, she was in a halo medical fixation device that prevents her head and neck from moving while the vertebrae heal. And she’s healing well, the doctors told her brother. She spent Thanksgiving flat on her back in an assisted living home. She told me she would be there until February. That was about a week ago. Then she stopped breathing. Literally. They slapped an oxygen mask on her face and called the paramedics. Mary Ann has developed clots in her lungs. Big ones. She’s back in the hospital and for a few days, her prognosis was not very good.
Meanwhile, I’m reading that two-thirds of U.S. adults are either overweight or obese. Overweight begins at a BMI (body mass index – a measure of height and weight) measurement of 25 and obese at 30 and morbidly obese at 40. (read on...)
Comments: The bottom line is that we never know what life has in store for us no matter how hard we try or the effort we put in. But we do know that the odds go up in our favor when we make healthy choices - eating a healthy diet, living a healthy lifestyle; and that they go down when we don't. But the message here is to appreciate and be thankful for today, for the family and friends you have, for the opportunity that has been given, because you don't know when circumstances can suddenly change.
Keep that in mind for the Holiday Season. Tell someone how much you appreciation them.
The Health & Wellness Institute, PC
Official Juice Plus+ Independent Distributor
Comments