Making Changes

My job takes me to a number of different stores in my area. I get to know the people that work in those places fairly well.

There's a woman in one store. I would guess her age in the mid 30's. She's overweight. She's not morbidly obese but she is obese. She told me once that she's had rheumatoid arthritis for 12 years.

A few weeks ago she told me that she had just been diagnosed with gout. I asked if she was going to give up red meat then because surely the doctor told her that red meat was absolutely the worst thing for sufferers of gout. Yes the doctor told her that but, "I was raised with red meat. There's no way I'm going to give up red meat."

Huh? I don't get it. She would rather suffer the pain than give up something that causes that pain to be much worse. She refuses to make a change in her diet that would help her. She won't help herself but complains about having the ailment and the pain it causes her. Hmmm.

There's a woman in our circle of contacts that has fibromyalgia. I just recently found that out. I've known her for a long time but didn't know that. My wife did though. I knew nothing about fibromyalgia but, once again, my wife did. One of the things my wife learned about it was that diet pop can make the symptoms much worse. This woman chugs diet Mountain Dew and knows that it increases the pain of her fibromyalgia. She won't give it up. I just don't understand.

One change for each of the above women in what they consume could bring a lot of relief in the symptoms of their respective ailments yet they won't make that change. I knew another man with gout who has since passed away. He got so bad at times that he couldn't even walk. He had to use crutches but while standing with said crutches, he would discuss with coworkers whether they wanted Whoppers or Big Macs for lunch that day. What?? Makes no sense to me.

The time changes, the seasons change. We change jobs or residences. We lose a loved one and our life changes. Changes are all around us and we have to make changes whether we want to or not. When a simple dietary change can help a person tremendously and that person refuses to make that change, well it's hard to feel sorry for them.

There have been many changes in my life over the years. Some I embraced. Some I was dragged into kicking and screaming. They were going to happen whether I liked them or not. I found it's best just to accept them and move on for the most part.

Just in the last few days, I've had to make a change in my workouts and it's one I don't like. I've had to temporarily give up my favorite exercise--burpees. I don't know what I did to my knee but in the interest of not making it worse, I made the executive decision to temporarily stop doing burpees as well as hindu squats and a few other things that require rapid and explosive knee movements. I've had to go for kinder, gentler exercises. I'm doing a lot more ab and upper body type work and will get back into the burpees when my knee gets back to normal.

In all my middle age man wisdom, I thought it better to make the change than keep it up and possible make my knee worse. My brother just recently had to have surgery on one of his knees. I don't want to have to go through that. 

So I changed. Hopefully soon I can get back to normal. Until then, I'll accept and embrace the change and move on, unlike the two ladies I mentioned at the beginning. They refuse to change and suffer more than need be because of it.