The Price Of Being Feeble

I have a cautionary tale to share. One of my good buddies recently lost his job. (You will soon see how the guys I grew up with turned me towards personal training.)

The reason for his firing? Too many sick days. You didn't know you could get fired for suck a thing did you? He's been at this job for years. Finally the total accumulation of his sick hours was too much, and the company was actually losing money keeping him on. So they decided to cut their losses.

He would be sick literally about twice a month. Not really sick. Just the sniffles. And sometimes he would get a real sickness, like the flu, and would be out for a week or so. Now imagine this consistently for years, after so many warnings they have to take action.

Before you feel sorry for the guy, you need to know his lifestyle. His main source of pleasure was an online game called World of Warcraft. He would play from the moment he got home from work, 'til 4AM and beyond. He needed to eat things that were convenient and that gave him energy. So he would drink Mountain Dew or some other soda, and gobble bowl after bowl of some sugary cereal.

The next day he would be so exhausted he would call in sick. And of course after a while his immune system would just fail. I don't know if he was actually sick with a cold, or his symptoms were just that of poor health and exhaustion, poor diet, lack of nutrition, and activity.

He was in a word feeble. And I guess in this new generation of adults in the work force, you actually can be too feeble to hold a job. In the last year he's also gained 100lbs.

Now going to a doctor, they would just tell him to watch what he's eating but overall he's okay. OKAY? Well there definition of health is basically this, if there is no sign of imminent death and you have no diseases, you are fine.

Their definition of health is based on mortality not on quality of life. Well my friend is proof that, that kind of criterion is sorely lacking. In a real health continuum, the levels would be: dying, sickly, well, fit. He would be sickly AKA feeble. The price of feebleness? High.

Will he change? Probably not. He's been this way ever since I've known him. But you can learn from his mistakes.