I just got home from the office. I stayed late to replace a washroom faucet that had been leaking for months. I simply couldn’t stand it anymore so I went and got the necessary parts and pieces and started work after everybody else had left for the day.

Our office building is not exactly state-of-the-art so of course, nothing fit the way it was supposed to. They say that every plumbing job requires at least 2 trips to the hardware store and that was certainly the case here.

Once I got everything apart, I noticed that the pipes had built up quite a bit of corrosion at the fittings. In fact, I had drained out all the water before taking off the shutoff valve. The water slowed to a trickle so I thought it was done. All of a sudden, a chunk of corrosion broke loose and it started pouring out. I got soaked as I rushed to find something big enough to catch it all.

The pipes had gotten clogged — not enough to stop the flow of water mind you — but still clogged. When I started moving things around, part of the clog broke free and allowed a spurt of water to flow out.

What does this have to do with health and fitness? Well, my wife is a nurse who used to work on the Heart Team of a local hospital. I told how proud of her I was one day because she was on a team that helped save people’s lives by repairing damaged circulatory systems and/or helping to perform heart transplants. She said, “it’s no big deal.” I asked her what she meant and she said that working on the Heart Team was pretty easy. “After all,” she said, “pipes is pipes.”

That kept going through my head as I was flat on my back on the floor trying to reach the faucet fittings behind the sink. Our circulatory system is just a system of pipes through which the blood flows to and from every part of the body. And just like the pipes in my office, sometimes our “pipes” — our veins, arteries and blood vessels — sometimes get clogged up. It’s even a bigger problem when parts of the clog break loose and cause damage wherever they lodge.

So how do you keep your “pipes” clean? Well, by doing all of the things that we all know we should be doing — but seldom actually get around to. These including eating right, reducing the amount of fats we eat, reducing the amount of processed salt and sugar, and of course, regular exercise.

Getting and staying healthy is pretty simple — it’s not easy, mind you — but it is simple. The path is pretty clear. What’s not so easy is making the commitment, expending the energy, and building the discipline to stick with it. Still, the benefits are worth it.

So why not start today, right now, in whatever condition you happen to be? Take the first step towards better health and fitness. Make a commitment to improve your health and then find a way to get started — today — right now!

Hiram

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