Sunday, September 24, 2006 Paquiao: Commitment to change By Calixto Paquiao Fitness and You
It’s so alarming nowadays to hear and know that the cases of heart attack deaths are in epidemic proportions already. I’m saddened to know that a lot of heart victims die an untimely death. And some of them are my friends.
Very often, I encounter a lot of people who don’t believe all the publicity and warning about the risk factor on heart disease. I won’t mention names but I know one such person who has never taken my advice seriously. He was overweight,fond of eating animal meat everyday, and was a heavy drinker and smoker. He just brushed me aside when I talked to him about taking care of his health. But he was too busy attending to his businesses, according to him, that he had no time in his busy schedule to at least include exercise twice or thrice a week. He criticized even the health experts saying that exercise was nonsense and should not be given priority in the lifestyle of a person.
Then one morning while he was hurrying up several flights of stairs to catch a board meeting, he felt a burning ache in the middle of his chest. For weeks, the pain would come on exertion and subside with rest. Although concerned, he refused to acknowledge that something might be wrong. Finally, with the urging of his family he was convinced to go to a doctor for a medical checkup to see what was really wrong with his on and off chest pain. It was found that the pain in his chest was angina. His denial days were over. This was a clear warning that his heart’s coronary arteries had narrowed and were unable to supply the heart muscle with enough blood and oxygen, at least not during increased demands on it as in exercise.
Nobody was to blame for his angina except himself. If he had only followed my advice, it’s quite possible that he would not have developed symptoms of coronary heart disease. But he had not taken cardiovascular health seriously until he had the diagnosis. For the first time he was scared because he faced the too-real possibility of having a heart attack, of perhaps even dying.
As I interviewed him about his lifestyle, I found he smoked three packs of cigarettes day, his diet was rich in saturated fats and of course he led a sedentary lifestyle. He had not considered a slightly elevated blood pressure to be a significant cardiovascular risk. He also had a false perception that improving cardiovascular health required time consuming, expensive, and strenuous measures (like aerobic exercise or strict vegetarian diets) which undercut his motivation to make more moderate changes in his lifestyle.
Knowing all the consequences of his negligence in taking care of his health, he finally said to me: “Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”
For many years as a fitness trainer I’ve seen so many people who absolutely couldn’t lose weight or stop smoking until they had their first heart attack. Then suddenly, when they already have heart disease, it was easy for them to change their lifestyle, I believe that even if a person has heart ailment or is a candidate for a heart attack, there’s still hope of recovery if you just turn 180 degrees to change your lifestyle. Don’t wait until it’s too late. There’s now a lot of easy to follow programs that will help you change and improve your physical condition and fight coronary heart disease. Such programs are now available and indeed they may help some highly motivated individuals who have the time, willingness and interest to change and improve their physical condition.
Going back to my friend who suffered angina, I worked with him to make gradual changes in his lifestyle with permanently stopping smoking first on the list, along with better control of high blood pressure, a gradually introduced exercise program and gradual dietary changes. Today, with his total commitment, he is free of symptoms, his electrocardiogram is normal. It’s never too late to change your lifestyle. You can do it!
