Critical Condition: A Bold Look at America’s Healthcare Crisis

In this first edition of "Rebel Blitz," I'm taking the mic solo to answer some questions from the Rebel Health Collective community and dive into the state of health in America. I wanted to start by sharing the meaning behind the Rebel Health Collective's bison logo and why it resonates so deeply with me. The bison symbolizes resilience, strength, and the unique way it faces adversity—qualities that have inspired me in life and in creating this community.

The bison also holds personal significance for me. It’s a tribute to my late brother-in-law, Matt, who passed away from cancer almost two years ago. In this episode, I’ll share how his memory and the bison spirit drive me to keep pushing forward, especially when it comes to my own health journey. If you’ve listened to the first episode, you know a bit about my three-year battle with health issues, but today I’m giving an update on where things stand.

From there, I’ll take a broader look at what’s going on in America. The statistics about our collective health are alarming—rising rates of obesity, chronic illness, and prescription drug use. I’ll talk about how our sedentary lifestyles, poor diets, and dependence on medication are leading us down a dangerous path. But don’t worry, I’m not here just to share the bad news. I’ll give you practical steps to take ownership of your health, improve your fitness, and make better food choices, even on a budget.

I also want to emphasize the importance of getting regular checkups and bloodwork. It’s something I believe in strongly because it’s how I discovered my type 1 diabetes diagnosis, and it’s an easy, essential step that many of us overlook.

If you’re ready to take control of your health and face life head-on like the bison, I hope this episode motivates you to start making those changes. We’re in this together, and I’m here to help.

What I Cover:

• The bison as a symbol of resilience for Rebel Health Collective
• My personal connection to the bison and honoring Matt’s memory
• An update on my health journey
• America’s growing health crisis: Obesity, chronic illness, and mental health
• How ultra-processed foods, sugar, and inactivity are making us sicker
• Why regular checkups and owning your health are crucial
• Practical tips for improving diet and fitness on a budget

Let’s Connect:

• Got questions? Reach out to me on Instagram, Facebook, or text through the podcast.
• Want to share your story? I'd love to have you as a guest on Rebel Health Collective! Schedule some time HERE 

Let’s own our health and face life’s storms together. Happy to have you as part of our herd! 

**Disclaimer: Please remember that the topics and information discussed in this podcast are for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered medical advice. Always consult with your healthcare provider or medical professional before making any changes to your health regimen or implementing any new treatments. Your health journey is unique, and it’s important to work with your trusted healthcare team to determine what’s best for you.**

Transcript

Josh Bostick (00:40.056)
Thanks for tuning into another episode of Rebel Health Collective. This episode's gonna be a little different than the previous episodes that we've been publishing in the sense that it's gonna be just me talking. This is gonna be a solo episode and something that I'd like to move forward to calling Rebel Rants. And essentially these are gonna be hopefully 20 to 30 minute long segments and they could include some questions that have come in and trying to dive deeper into those.

I've had some questions about my health journey and where that stands. So I hope to have an avenue to express that and give some updates as to how that's going. And then additionally, I'd like to be able to use it as an outlet for

any new publications, new articles, new late in breaking discoveries that have come out and been published, whether it's in the normal news outlets that we listen to or things that are siloed more specifically to one-off illnesses or diseases or just big broad public health important information that we should all know. So.

Josh Bostick (01:48.27)
So if you give this a listen and enjoy it, keep an eye out for more rebel rants coming forward. And to kick it off, one of the questions I've gotten is what is up with the bison logo and where did that come from? And essentially the bison is a really unique animal in the sense that it's different than most other animals when it comes to facing adversity or a storm.

So usually a storm comes in and if you have a dog or cat or really any other animal, you know that they can get a little wiry and they're just off. They're not their normal selves. A lot of the times they'll go and hide in a closet, go seek shelter, just, you know, kind of ride it out and get in a safe spot. Well, the bison is opposite of that. They actually take the storm on head first. Well, the bison, they're different.

They go straight head first into the storm and the reasoning behind it is basically, let's get it over with. It's coming, I can't outrun it, I'm gonna have to go through it one way the other. So if the storm's coming this way, let's go that way and make this suffering basically as short as possible. So that was the main driver and what I found really unique about the bison and why I thought it would be a really good, you know.

Josh Bostick (03:16.29)
So that's what first drew me to the bison and what made me think that it would be a really good logo and icon for Rebel Health Collective. And then digging deeper into it, there's a lot of other things that are really cool about the buffalo. There's a really strong sense of community and support. So bison, they're herd animals and they move as a collective and they protect and support one another. And really that's what I'm trying to accomplish here. I'm trying to build a community where like-minded people

can come together, share ideas, find support, and really lift each other.

Josh Bostick (04:11.744)
Another aspect about the bison that I really enjoy is just the overall strength and resilience that comes with the animal. They've been almost extinct now and they are on the up and up. you know, they face adversity. They are known for their really strong physical resilience and ability to adapt. They are in some pretty extreme climates. Some of the pictures that I posted, you know, have these bison that are just covered in snow, their furs frozen over.

but they're still moving on. And I think that's a mindset that I really want to have this community have where it's going to get hard. It's going to be tough, but we're going to push through. We're going to keep moving forward and we're essentially going to tackle whatever adversity is coming our way and come out on top. So for those of you that have been wondering, that's where the bison comes from. And on a more personal note, it does have

more sentimental side to it as well. So my brother-in-law actually passed away from cancer exactly a year ago.

Josh Bostick (05:24.654)
So my brother-in-law actually passed away from cancer almost exactly two years ago. And one of the things that we really shared whenever we did get together was sharing a toast of bus...

Josh Bostick (05:46.83)
So my brother-in-law actually passed away nearly two years ago. And one of the things that he, myself, and my father-in-law always did when we got together was share some Buffalo Trace. And so for those of you that don't know, that's a bourbon. It's relatively hard to find. Sometimes you luck out and whenever we did luck out at the stores, we would buy one or two just to make sure that we had some whenever we all got together. So it's honestly a...

the remembrance of Matt and just what a great human he was and how hard that he fought when he was going through some of his health struggles and just a way that I feel that I can honor him and keep his memory going in my own way. So here's to you, Matt.

Josh Bostick (06:36.718)
Well, those are some of the main questions that I had come in.

Josh Bostick (06:45.358)
Well, that tackles one of the main questions I've had come in a few times is what is up with the bison? And the other one that I've had come in a couple times is where I'm at with my health journey.  my very first episode, if you have listened to that, you know a little bit of the background. And if you haven't, it's essentially talking about...

So if you've listened to the first episode, you get a decent rundown of my history, kind of what made me want to start this collective and what I've been going through the last three years with my health journey. And if you haven't...

Josh Bostick (07:32.088)
For those of you that have listened to the first episode that I put out, it gives a decent rundown of my...

Josh Bostick (07:56.12)
For those of you that have listened to the first episode, you have an understanding of my health journey and really what's gone on the last three years. But for those of you that might be new and haven't gone that far back yet, my health journey really started three years ago. My eyes got open to healthcare and just everything that goes in it to a much deeper level than I was ever aware of. I was one that did my annual checkup and maybe went to a care clinic whenever.

some sinus infections or something like that. really that first

So that first episode really lays the groundwork of my last three year experience and what's driven me to try and build this community and start this podcast. And I haven't really given any updates on that. hoping to hear some news this week and maybe next week I'll be able to post another one of these giving some updates and hopefully some path forwards. So be on the lookout for that. And really those are the two main questions that I've been getting so far that have come up.

multiple times. If you have any others, please shoot me a message on Instagram or Facebook. There's an option down below to send us a text through the podcast that comes through directly to me. doesn't get published as like a review or anything. if there's anything you're wondering about or want any more information about, please let me know. I'd be happy to talk through it. I'm pretty much an open book at this point. I've put everything out there. So happy to talk.

happy to dig deeper anything, if there's anything that interests you and you'd like me to do some sort of a podcast on that, or if you'd like to be a guest, love to have you. So closing out kind of the questions and updates portion, there is a driving factor that I really wanted to focus this rebel rant around. And that's essentially kind of where we're at in America and what our statistics are looking like.

Josh Bostick (09:59.022)
There's been a lot of podcast interviews with Casey and Callie Means. They've been on Joe Rogan, the Tucker Carlson show. They've been on a couple other really big podcasts as well, like Modern Wisdom. They've been on some other really big podcasts as well, like Modern Wisdom. And they're really just spreading a lot of information that I think is really waking a lot of people up. And I wanted to try and share some of that same information with you all.

gonna run through and read off some statistics. So bear with me. We'll talk through them and really talk about what this means and what we can do. And so starting off, one big thing that is plaguing America is our sedentary lifestyle. Around 25 % of all Americans are considerably.

One thing that is really impacting us is our sedentary lifestyle. Around 25 % of Americans are considered physically inactive, with many adults not meeting recommended physical activity guidelines. Only 23 % of American adults meet the recommended guidelines for both aerobic and muscle strengthening activities each week. These guidelines suggest that adults should be getting at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity aerobic activity, and they're considering that brisk walking.

Another 75 minutes of vigorous activity like running. And in addition to that, muscle strengthening activities on two or more days per week. So the way I take that is we all have desk jobs. We all have busy schedules. We wake up, we get the kids ready. We get ourselves ready. We're out the door to work. We work our jobs. We come home. Maybe you have an hour long commute.

And then you make dinner, you have some family time, hopefully, and you go to bed. And whatever steps you get from walking to the parking lot, go into the bathroom, you know, maybe walk into a conference room. And when you get home, playing with your kids, that kind of sums up what a lot of the American adults are getting as exercise. And then on the weekends, you know, there's, there's yard work and things like that, but it sounds like

Josh Bostick (12:20.764)
We are not.

Josh Bostick (12:34.542)
The next statistic is honestly mind blowing to me and it's based around chronic disease prevalence. Approximately 60 % of US adults have at least one chronic disease and 40 % have two or more chronic conditions such as heart diseases, cancers, diabetes, autoimmune issues, things like that. And that to me is just mind blowing that more than

half of the adults in the US have some kind of chronic disease going on and 40%, nearly half of that half have two or more chronic conditions going on. And that kind of stems from what I'm trying to really broadcast in this community is that the way our healthcare system is going right now, one condition comes up and you take a pill for it. And then maybe two years, maybe five years, maybe 10 years.

another condition comes up, you get another pill for it. And it fixes those symptoms, but it's not fixing the root cause. And it's not fixing what's going on internally with your body. It's fixing the symptoms of that one red flag that's come up. And more and more red flags are going to continue to come up until you just have 10 plus medications that you're taking. And that's something that a lot of Americans are actually facing right now is their prescription cabinet is just overflowing.

because more and more issues are coming up.

Josh Bostick (14:07.07)
And one of the factors that's leading into that is obesity. Approximately 74 % of American adults are classified as either overweight or obese. This includes about 42 % who fall into the category of obese and the remaining 32 as overweight. These figures are based on the BMI guidance used by health organizations and this growing prevalence of overweight and obesity highlights just

the ongoing public concerns that are going on.

Josh Bostick (14:47.458)
These figures are based on BMI index. So it's not like a once and for all or a

These figures are based on BMI index. So, you know, it's a

Josh Bostick (15:14.478)
As of the most recent data, approximately 74 % of American adults were classified as either overweight or obese. This breaks down to about 42 % who fall into the obese category and the remaining are 32.

This breaks down to about 42 % being in the obese category and 32 being in overweight but on the trajectory to be a part of the 42 and making that 42 % only grow.

And a lot of that leads into our diet quality. The average American consumes more than 70 % of their calories from ultra processed foods. So this is the foods that you're opening a box to get. You're ripping open a chip bag. You're undoing some sort of a wrapper. These are the foods that aren't natural. They're not coming out of the ground. They're not meats. They're not veggies. They're not from the sea. They are manmade ingredients added.

and just pumped out through a machine.

And this diet quality is linked to higher risk of chronic diseases, which we talked about earlier, that 60 % of the American population of adults have some sort of chronic disease going on in their body. And a lot of those are diabetes and heart disease, which are just caused from the last one we talked about being overweight. And some of these...

Josh Bostick (16:53.324)
And a lot of what we've talked about already rolls into this next one, is sleep deprivation. Nearly 35 % of American adults report getting less than the recommended seven hours of sleep per night, which only increases the health problems such as depression, hypertension, and diabetes. I think we've really underplayed how important sleep is. And that's something that in the last three years, I've really understood through my blood sugars and my continuous glucose monitor.

how much sleep really impacts my blood sugar. So I know it impacts so many other things where if I get a really bad night's sleep, if our son is up and it's a two or three hour night of sleep, my blood sugar is the next day or just all over the place. All of my ratios are off. Nothing makes any sense. And it really doesn't restore until I get a good night's sleep.

Another one which we've talked about a little bit already is prescription drug.

Josh Bostick (18:00.802)
Another one that we've kind of touched on already is prescription drug use. Nearly 66 % of Americans take at least one prescription drug and 25 % take four or more. And this is really just indicating that there's a really heavy reliance on medication rather than lifestyle changes and those lifestyle changes are what we're trying to address here. Things that you can do without having to go to the pharmacy to get some sort of prescription and pick it up.

And those lifestyle changes are what we're trying to address here and inform everybody on. They're things that you can do right now. You can start this instant by eating healthier, moving more, cleaning up your diet, getting better sleep. All of these things are things that you can own and that you can do for yourself right now, rather than going to the pharmacy and picking up another prescription.

Josh Bostick (19:00.524)
And going back to the diet, one...

Josh Bostick (19:14.636)
And in addition to just the highly processed diet that we've been eating, our...

Josh Bostick (19:23.392)
And in addition to just that highly processed diet we've been eating, our sugar consumption is insane. The average American consumes about 152 pounds of sugar per year, which is three times the recommended limit. And I would like to challenge that recommended limit as it is, unless you're getting them from strawberries and fruits and things like that where...

They're probably including some added sugars on processed food. So I would bet that it should really be even less than the recommended limit that's out there.

And this just overuse of sugar and over consumption is one of the main factors that's really contributing to the obesity and the diabetes and just the chronic illness that's going on because our body's not made to process the food that we're eating and just the sugar content that we've been taking down.

Josh Bostick (20:36.46)
And one other really important crisis is the best thing that I can call it that's going on right now is a mental health crisis. And that's something that I don't think that we really talk about enough and something that I've tried to incorporate into a lot of the episodes that we've published so far, but around one in five US adults experiences a mental illness each year.

And of those one in five adults, 60 % of them do not receive any sort of treatment. They don't go to any therapist, they don't talk to anybody, they don't find or seek any kind of help. They just push it down and move on. And suicide is actually the second largest leading cause of death for people between the ages of 10 and 34. So whether we wanna admit it or not, mental health is impacting people. And a lot of...

the illnesses and contributors that we just talked about are a part of what is driving a lot of this mental health issues.

Ahem.

Josh Bostick (22:13.038)
Another condition that is really plaguing us is high blood pressure. Around 47 % of American adults have high blood pressure. Again, almost half of American adults have high blood pressure. And this increases the risk for heart disease and stroke. And within the statistic, only about 24 % of those with the condition have it under control. So even those that are

taking some of the medications to try and bring down their blood pressure, it's not totally helping. And a lot of that can be summed up because they're taking the medication and living on with their normal life. think that taking this medication is going to the... They think that taking this medication is going to be the end-all be-all cure. And that's all that they need to do. Wake up in the morning, take their medication and carry on as they were. When really it's not going to do that much.

It may bring down the blood pressure a little bit, but eating cleaner, getting better nutrients, and exercising and moving more is going to have a way bigger impact. just incorporating those lifestyle changes is all you need to do to start bringing your blood pressure down.

Josh Bostick (23:32.59)
So imagine if we took the medication and incorporated these lifestyle changes with the goal of not taking the medication down the road. I don't want it to sound like I'm harping on medication or big pharma because I do think it's important and I know there are people that rely on these medications. But what I want to try to get across is that there's more that we can be doing than just waking up and taking a pill and keeping our fingers crossed that it's going to fix everything.

We need to be taking the pill, doing all these lifestyle changes, and incorporating healthier habits. And the goal needs to be to not take the pill anymore. Let's not take it for the rest of our lives. Let's make some changes. Let's own our health. And let's get off the 10 medications.

Josh Bostick (24:56.482)
Now I know none of those statistics were really bright or cheery, but I think it's important for everyone to understand just what we're facing. How many of us really are sick and how many of us really are going down these paths of just destruction towards our body? I mean, I think that's how I got here.

I paid no attention to my health. I drank a ton of caffeine throughout the day. I ate whatever I wanted to eat. I never included fruits or vegetables. I didn't think about the nutritional density of what I was eating. I just ate what sounded good. I went to the gym, but I wasn't focused on improving my health. I was focused on improving my muscles or the look of my body. It wasn't functional strength.

It wasn't trying to better myself. It was more of a...

Josh Bostick (26:04.974)
So those statistics were pretty grim and that's really not the attitude that I want to be taking with this podcast. I want it to be positive. I want it to be upbeat and I want it to be motivational. But I thought that it was important to really paint a picture of what we're facing and where we're heading. And all of those statistics that I gave year over year, they're getting worse and worse. We're taking more medications. We're getting fatter. We're getting less active.

and the diseases and chronic illnesses are just going up. What we're doing now is not doing anything. We're not making steps in the right direction. We're only getting sicker and less healthy. And that's because we're not doing the things that we need to be doing and incorporating the big lifestyle changes that honestly can be pretty scary. Throwing out your entire cupboard of comfort food, terrifying.

telling people know that I can't come and do something because you need to go to the gym or be active and get your steps in. That sucks. It's hard. You want to be social. You want to be with your friends, but you've got to do what's right for you. And, you know, for a lot of us going to the doctor and...

Josh Bostick (27:22.51)
So I'm not trying to make it sound like it's just a real quick 180 turnaround and it's super easy to implement. It's not. The foods that we eat and that we're used to eating, we crave them. We really want them and they're designed to be like that. So throwing all those away and filling your refrigerator with fruits and vegetables and fresh meat.

those first couple weeks, it's not gonna be fun. I'm not gonna sugar coat it and say that you're gonna just throw everything away and your first bowl of yogurt with some fruit is gonna be the best thing you've ever had in your entire life. That's not the case. But we need to know where we're heading and look at the bigger picture. And really that helps.

Josh Bostick (28:09.88)
And that helps us really, and that helps us incorporate these changes that we need to make. And again, I'm not saying cold turkey, throw all of your medication out. Medication's important, and I think it can really be used to help drastically improve where we're at. But we can't just be taking the medication and hoping that everything's gonna get better.

We can't keep eating McDonald's double cheeseburgers and fries and large coke and then taking our statin or whatever to try to bring our cholesterol down. When you get active, we need to incorporate the healthier foods and we need to start owning our ownership. We need to start owning our health.

Josh Bostick (29:08.152)
And like I said, I know this isn't easy and it's a lot easier said than done where it's easier to preach that we need to start making these changes and taking these steps in the right direction. And I get that. I totally do. I was in the weirdest place three years ago when I was diagnosed with type one diabetes. I didn't look like I fit the part. Everything else had been healthy, but you know, that's the result that came in and that's the cards that I was dealt.

And it was either suck it up and make some changes and try to own my health or take the pity party route and hope that, you know, the medicine and stuff that they gave me was enough and that I didn't have any complications. And I wanted to own my future. I wanted to know the outcome. And when it's all said and done say that I did everything that I could to live as long and as well as I could. And so right now I know a lot of us are struggling financially.

And that's probably one of the biggest factors that's keeping people from taking these steps. And so I wanted to talk a little bit on what the average American right now is spending and just some of the data that I pulled and some of the things that I've been trying to do. for families, dining out has become a significant part of their budgets and routines. We budget that in to say, we're going to spend this much to go out.

In 2024, families are spending between $452 and $520 per month on eating out. And depending on their age of the children, that can be even more. So you're not just getting kids meals, but you're getting a bigger plate chicken fried steak with fries and all of that. So the price goes up there.

Josh Bostick (31:09.902)
And a lot of what is playing into eating out so much is that families are prioritizing convenience. A poll said that 60 % of families dining out was to save time and 42 % are looking for a good value. So that's thinking that it's cheaper to go to McDonald's and get a couple value meals versus making something at home. Because A, it's convenient and B, it's pretty cheap. But really there's a lot that we can be doing at home.

that is actually a lot more budget savvy and can be saving us money. And so I went in and actually created a meal plan for a family of four, which is one more than what our family currently is. And I incorporated some of my food restrictions, the dietary exclusions that I've been focusing on. And I did a family of four with those dietary exclusions, three meals a day.

breakfast, lunch and dinner. This didn't incorporate snacks, so if you want to add some more on there, probably fair. Didn't include that. back, I probably should have. But three meals a day, seven days a week, and a little extra because I was adding in gluten-free and all that kind of stuff. But I came out to $200. And that is incorporating some leftovers, but $200 for a week of food, seven days a week.

Yeah.

Josh Bostick (32:42.478)
$200 for 21 meals, leftovers, and I think that's honestly pretty good. It's not a super lavish meal plan. It's not having different meals for every dinner, but it's budget friendly. It meets my dietary things and my wife and I, went out for barbecue three nights ago.

It was nearly $70 for one meal. So it...

Josh Bostick (33:26.382)
Ahem.

Josh Bostick (33:37.006)
And now if you're like me, you hear that, okay, $200 a week, four weeks on average in a month, that's $800. It's a pretty significant chunk of change. But when you take a step back and think about how much it costs to eat out, my wife and I got barbecue the other night, two meat plate, two sides, two drinks, and it was about $70 without tip. So walking out of there, we were about $85 just for one meal.

So that's an eighth of the monthly budget that we could have had. And that was just one meal for one week of the whole month. while yeah, $200 a week, $800 a month is a pretty big chunk of change, that's for one person more than we really need to be making food for. And hopefully you don't have the dietary exclusion stuff that I have going on. So.

You can eat just the regular foods, not excluding gluten and dairy and all that. And maybe it's more like 150 if you're only eating for two or three with a two year old or something like that.

Josh Bostick (34:48.767)
Another budget.

Ahem.

Another financial impact that a lot of people talk about is not being able to join a gym because of the cost. And while it may not be great, there are a lot of lower cost options out there like Planet Fitness. They are everywhere and they are only $10 a month. And I've been a member of Planet Fitness before. They have all that you need to start your health journey. They have plenty of free weights. Unless you're some massive bodybuilder that does bodybuilding in

competitions, I guarantee they have enough free weights for you. They have benches, they machines, have treadmills, they have ellipticals, they have what you need for $10 a month. There's also a lot of parks and other recreational government owned facilities that you can go to. Some of them are free, some of them also in that $10 a month range. And there's a lot of things that you can do at home. I did a podcast, I think it was episode number five with Jamie, and he talks just about

taking the stairs, using things around the house to lift and just functional things that you can be doing without even leaving your house or your backyard. You can find things on YouTube. There's tons of training programs that are out there that are meant to be done at home. And sure, maybe it's an investment of a hundred dollars to get some dumbbells and some starter weights and training items, but then you have them and you can do them at home. Again, that's kind of the cost of barbecue for my wife and I when we go out.

Josh Bostick (36:23.904)
So when you think of it that way, you can fit it into your budget and you can make it work so that you can get started. And I understand that realistically money is tight and a lot of the time we don't have the willpower to make these big changes, but we've got to find a way or those statistics are just going to be going up and up. And if we're not spending it on our health now, we're going to be spending it on our health later.

trying to fix things. We're going to be paying for medications, we're going be paying for specialist visits, we're going to be paying for around the clock care, things like that. So why not invest now? I think you owe it to yourself to...

Josh Bostick (37:11.032)
I think we owe it to ourselves to put our health first. I think we owe it to ourselves to not put it off until later and probably impact our budgets more than we would be right now by trying to take the steps to correct the path that we're going down.

Josh Bostick (37:27.914)
And it doesn't have to be a gym or with gym equipment. You know, it can be walks, there can be playgrounds, can be yard work, gardening, other hobbies or activities like mountain biking. You know, it can be really simple things like taking the stairs versus the elevator. When I go into work, I see so many people just waiting at the bottom of the staircase to take the elevator. But it's only one flight of stairs. I mean, let's do it. Let's take the stairs. Why are we taking the easy way out? It's less time.

and you get more steps in and you're improving your health. It's little things like that that we don't even think about. We just get so caught up in taking the elevator every day. We don't even notice the stairs sitting there. And if you sit there, maybe I'll do a counter and see how many people take the elevator versus steps. But it's a lot more people taking the elevator.

So it's things like that that maybe it's just the convenience factor or it's just what we're used to, but there are a lot of different ways that we can start being more active and less lazy.

Josh Bostick (38:52.647)
One thing that I saw the other day that really hit home to me and kind of throws all these stats out the window. you for me, these stats are alarming. They make me go, what is going on? How are going to fix this? And how did we let ourselves get to this position? But for some of you, maybe that's not the case. Maybe, you know, the stats are what they are. That one in five.

that have a mental crisis, that's not going to be me. Or the 66 % of Americans that take at least one prescription probably won't be me. So we can dismiss that or we can accept that we probably are headed down that path where we are going to be impacted by some of those statistics. But what I saw on the internet the other day that was kind of a light bulb for me is you take your dog into the vet and they're overweight. Do they prescribe ozempic? Do they preside?

prescribe a statin? No. They ask you what you've been eating the dog. They say have you been giving it table scraps? Have you been giving it six cups of food a day? Have you been giving it things that it's not supposed to be eating? So that's the first question they ask is what are you feeding your dog, your cat, whatever the animal is? What's their diet? And after you go through that, second question is usually how active are they?

Are they getting walks? Are they getting exercise? Are you playing with them? Are they just sitting on a couch all day looking out the window? And when you sum it down to a vet visit, it's really all we need to do to start owning our health, our diet, and our exercise. You don't take a dog and put it on ozempic and statins and cholesterol drugs and heart medication. No, you change the diet. You exercise more. You walk it around the block a couple times. You play fetch in the backyard.

Those are the easy things that we do all the time that make so much sense for our pets. Why not do it for ourselves?

Josh Bostick (42:21.326)
And while we're on the topic of taking our pets in for their annual exams, I'd like to talk about us taking care of ourselves and going in for regular checkups. Now, I will say that...

Josh Bostick (42:45.96)
And this one really hits home for me because I found out my type 1 diagnosis because of a yearly checkup. So I will harp and harp and harp and stand at the top of the mountain and yell, go get your annual blood work done. And I've been trying to think of things that we do that we do semi-annually once a quarter, know, multiple times a year, but are kind of hassles and things that we don't really want to do.

and I wanted to compare those to getting blood work. So if you or someone who has not gotten blood work in the last year, have you done any of these things? Gotten your car's oil changed? Gotten your car's tires rotated? Taken your animal to the vet? Whether it be for their annual checkup, their rabies shots, know, that normal round of care, or for another reason.

Josh Bostick (44:03.15)
you had someone come out and do some sort of a routine service around your house, whether that's, you know, pests or HVAC tuneups, things like that, just house maintenance.

Josh Bostick (44:18.242)
Have you taken a loved one for their healthcare, blood work ups and doctor's appointments and things like that? While totally important in things we need to be doing, a lot of the time we're not prioritizing ourselves and looking out after ourselves and putting ourselves first to make sure that we're okay. So if you've done any of those things, all of those things take at least as long, if not longer than going and getting your blood work done.

and following up with your doctor to make sure that everything's in check. A lot of those things we do two or three times a year. I for sure get my eye-wool changed at least three times a year.

Josh Bostick (45:03.724)
I for sure sit and get my tires rotated at least twice a year. And that's a 30 to 45 minute ordeal if I have an appointment and they get me in right away. We take our dogs in for their regular blood work. We take our dogs in for their... We take our dogs in for their annual checkups, their rabies shots and all their vaccines regularly. So why not do it for ourselves? We can make time. We're just making excuses. So...

If you have not had a blood workup done this year, or please tell me it's not been more than this year, please go in and just get the basic metabolic labs done so you can know where you're at. There's a lot more detailed testing that we can get into, and I'm hoping to get a doctor on one of the podcasts here shortly to go into some other testing that we can add in to give us a better insight and be more preventative rather than reactive. But at the minimum,

Let's go in and get our blood tests done and some sort of a wellness check down with the PCP.

Josh Bostick (46:17.294)
Ahem.

Josh Bostick (46:24.846)
So to close this one out, I just want to say I know it hasn't been the most positive and uplifting episode, but I hope that it opened your eyes and at least gives you a glimpse of where the majority of America is headed. I certainly hope that you are not any of the statistics that I just talked about already and that you're not going to be in the near future. But a lot of those, a lot of us are already in those statistic thresholds.

So that's my goal is to wait.

So that's my goal is to raise awareness and just let everybody know what's out there if you aren't already aware and really encourage you to take the steps, implement the healthy protocol and really try to improve your overall health alongside with taking some of those medications and make it your end goal to get off those medications completely. We don't want to be taking statins and blood pressure medicine for the rest of our lives. Let's use them to knock down

whatever we're focusing on, but let's get off of them.

Josh Bostick (47:57.452)
Again, I hope this wasn't too much of a Debbie Downer harp fest, but I thought it was important to get some of the statistics out there that have been talked about. And I hope that they raised awareness as much as they did for me, for you.