A few months ago I had a virtual visit with a new primary care physician. My prior primary care physician had left the practice and I had to find a new one. I’ll admit that I was sheepish. You see, although I am a physician I will be the first to admit that there is a lot I am not doing to take care of my own health.
One major area for improvement is lifestyle — specifically my diet and exercise. As we spoke she summarized: “you know what to do; how do you we get you there?”
And so, the physician became the patient.
I speak to many patients about what they should be doing. Speaking/teaching/educating is the easy part. The challenge is that each patient needs to own their plan and execute it. One of the main strategies we employ is providing the education so that the patient is able to come up with their own plan. It’s human nature — we prefer to do the things we decide to do rather than the things we are told to do.
Unfortunately, it isn’t infrequent that I hear patients tell me that they didn’t do what they intended to do. They tell me that they know better and they just need to do it. I fully understand. From a diet perspective, carbohydrates are my weak spot. I am not saying that one shouldn’t eat carbs, but there definitely is an upper limit of what is healthy. I also know what it feels like to come home from work and wanting nothing more than to lounge on the couch and unwind. So I do understand the struggle.
There is a part of me that hopes blogging about my pursuit of better health will help me to stay focused. I’m hoping that because I am writing publicly about it I will be more motivated to keep it up. I have even considered letting my patients know that they can check out my blog to see how I am doing whether I am doing well or not as well as I hoped. Maybe this transparency will help someone else.
I guess I’ll have to just wait and see.
