“Long Term Care Insurance”
© 2005 Sandra Ahten

I am reclaiming the word diet. Dieting is not about someone else telling us what we should eat. It is not about being a super model or being hungry. It is not even necessarily about losing weight. Diet can be defined simply as: The usual food and drink of a person, or daily sustenance.

To be certain - to be human is to be on a diet. Part of being on a diet, of being human, is the planning and preparation of our food. We all, whether full size or petite, have to plan what food we are going to eat and how we are going to acquire the food and prepare it.

For most of us, this means which restaurant to choose or what to pack for lunch. It means how to cook with less oil and how to resist the sugar. For some, it means having a job that pays enough to feed the family. For Oprah it means how to hire a chef who will cooperate with her personal trainer.

The question is not whether you are on a diet, but whether your diet is moving you closer to your life goals. One of my life goals is to be active and independent up until the day I die. I think of a healthy diet as Long Term Care Insurance; not insurance that will be paying for my nursing home stay, but rather, that which will keep me out of the nursing home as long as possible.

What could help keep you defer a nursing home stay? Losing weight or improving your diet? How about, increasing exercise, quitting smoking, or reducing alcohol consumption? Some of you might need more sleep. Perhaps you need to decrease stress. Given the studies that show the strong correlations in between both prayer and humor, and healing, you might need to find a way to improve your spiritual connection or to laugh more.

Summer is a perfect time to make change in your life. Pick your goal. Dream your dream. Don’t be confined by the limitations of your past. What would you like to welcome into your life or let go of?

Later you can determine a detailed strategy. But first, just allow yourself the possibility of change. Then allow yourself just one small step in that direction. Buy a new pair of tennis shoes. Get your bike serviced. Plan to take a healthy lunch to work three days next week. Most of us have set goals and then let ourselves down before. This is especially true of dieting.

But “you” are not the same “you” that failed before. You have changed. You are a different person each time you've met someone new, read a new book, given of yourself, or uttered a prayer. The old “you” might have stumbled, but if the “you” of today is ready for a healthier life - then be open to the possibility. Offer as much support as you can to that “you” who has chosen to believe that change is possible.

It is not too early or too late to start shopping for your Long Term Care Insurance. It is not a one-time buy, but rather an installment purchase. What installment can you make today? Don’t worry about how you will find the motivation in a week or a month or a year. You will again be a new person, with new information, new strategies, and new successes by then. Just find the motivation to pay your installment today.

“Each indecision brings its own delays and days are lost lamenting over lost days... What you can do or think you can do, begin it. For boldness has magic, power, and genius in it.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe