Is Activity a Priority for You This Year?

My doctor actually wrote on a prescription script aerobic exercise 5 days a week for 30 minutes as if it were "medication" as she wrote out my medications for high blood pressure, high cholesterol & I also unfortunately, have depression & take medication for that.  My blood sugar is now wavering into the diabetes range (I now have "metabolic syndrome") & both my parents were diabetic.

I am now taking a diabetes education class to try to avoid going on medication for that & have lost 6 lbs.  I need to lose 50. 

My doctor stresses exercise so much as she says it not only positively affects all my physical ailments, but that it improves my depression & anxiety symptoms as well.  I've had to change my attitude from putting exercise in the "when I have time" category to a "must do" category.  I also have had to adjust my attitude about not "liking" exercise to how "lucky" I am to be able to exercise & reverse some of my health issues with lifestyle changes.  If I don't make time for exercise, I'd better make time to be sick! I heard that somewhere & what a true statement that is.  So I'm really trying to not think of "poor me" as I cut out high fat foods & get on the treadmill & do my strength training, but "lucky me" as I can take control of my health--both physical & mental.

Sometimes a diagnosis is the trigger that we need to take time for ourselves. You have made your experience into a positive - congratulations. I have taken my diabetes diagnosis as a positive. Instead of apologising for having to take time to go to exercise (for myself) rather than spending time looking after the family (doing stuff for them that they could do themselves, sometimes), I'm using the diabetes as a reason and my future health issues as the evidence that it has to be NOW not later when I exercise.