How long do you want to live?  It is a simple question that involves so many complex situations.  When my wife and I first started dating it was long distance.  Every time we were together, we drank too much, ate too poorly, and didn't sleep enough(if you know what I mean...).  After my wife moved to my area and we got married certain fights started to creep up.  They all centered around my health.  When we first got married I was a 20-something dude and was put out by her "nagging" about my blood pressure(what the hell is that), and all other manor of things.  My wife was an RN at the time and knew all kinds of things I did not.

After much fighting, I finally went to the doctor for a check up.  The results were alarming(even as I write that sentence I can hear my wife saying "I told you so").  My doctor was also my father's doctor so he knew my family history and informed me that I had high blood pressure and high cholesterol.  My doctor used big words that really did not make any sense to me, but my wife explained it to me simply...

TheHusBlog Definition Pause : The Numbers You NEED to Know

• Blood Pressure : This is two numbers, one over the other.  These numbers indicates how hard your heart is working to pump blood throughout your body.  If you cut through all of the difficult terms basically it is how hard your heart is working.  If you heart is working too hard day to day, it is probably not going to last as long as you want, I mean you wouldn't expect your car's engine to work for a long time if you were rev-ing it all the time would you?
• Cholesterol : There is good cholesterol and bad cholesterol.  If you bad is too high or your good is too low then your arteries are going to clog.  Long story short, arteries clogging means you are going to have a heart attack, which if what I have heard is true, that is no fun.  High cholesterol is like a major traffic jam in your arteries and if you blood cannot get where it needs to go then you are in deep trouble.
• Blood Sugar : If this number gets to be too high then you are going to get diabetes.  Diabetes means you are going to have to spend the rest of your life watching what you eat closely, or you are going to loose a limb.  Seriously, no joke.  Diabetics who do not carefully watch their blood sugar often lose, toes, feet, or legs.

I am writing this blog post for the same reason my wife "nagged" me about my health.  Because she wanted me to live longer, to both share in our life together, and be there when when she needed me.  As a husband you need to think about being there for your wife beyond "I Do".

It sucks moving from the invincible 20's to the rational 30's but you have to grow up sometime.  Growing up means thinking about your health and how it will affect your wife.  You may look good, and feel good, but if you do not know the numbers above then you don't know if you are healthy.

-TheHusBlog