Wednesday 25 April 2012

Overweight doesn't always mean unhealthy

That's my lesson for the day. 




I left for college (10 hours from home) at age 18 and never returned back. So the only access to a doctor during that time was the college Doctor's office. After college I moved to southern Ontario where it is practically impossible to find a family Doctor... and I didn't find one for another 4 years. This past October was my first physical in about 6 years (not good, I know). Because I hadn't seen a doctor in so long (besides at walk-in-clinics) I was so nervous to get a physical!! When they called me back for my results, every possible outcome popped into my head... I went to my appointment, waited for the doctor and 5 minutes later I was on my way. 


He looked over my results and said "everything looks good". 


That's it! That's what I worked myself up about? He didn't even mention my weight! 
I walked away relieved and never really thought about it again. 


Fast forward to present day. My current Employer is pretty awsome and right now they're on a "Health and Wellness" kick. Some of the great things that they have initiated so far are: Running programs lunch walks, 15 min yoga sessions every monday, etc. Each activity we participate in earns us points and when we accumulate 20 points we receive an extra "Flex day" (basically a day off whenever we like). 


It's a great incentive to get active! In order to earn this Flex Day, we also have to participate in a "Heart Healthy Clinic".  This meant that a nurse would come into our office and meet with us individually and take our weight, measurements, BMI, blood pressure, cholesterol, etc. 


Once again, I worked myself up about this so much! I barely ate this morning (worrying that the scale would be up!). Obviously I know I'm overweight and my BMI is high, but I was still scared that she was going to tell me something that I didn't want to hear...


Guess what?? The nurse made me feel GREAT! She told me that I look a lot smaller than I weigh (an upside of being taller), then she told me that I had a small waist while taking my measurements. Those comments alone, were lovely. She then sat me down and reviewed my numbers and told me everything was great and just because I'm overweight doesn't mean that I'm not healthy. 


Isn't that the truth! I guess it was kind of like an "aha!" moment for me. I now feel much better about myself in general.  


So the day I've been dreading for the past couple weeks actually turned into a pretty good day! :) 




2 comments:

  1. Glad to hear it! Boy, I would LOVE to earn points toward flex days. What an awesome concept! I think I'm going to suggest it at MY work. (They won't act upon it, because they are stodgy and backwards, but I'll feel better for having mentioned it, lol!)

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    Replies
    1. It is pretty awsome of them and it definitely gets people active :)

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