Yes, There Are Things We All Lie To Our Doctors About, But Here’s Why We Shouldn’t

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How much you drink

Pop culture and our favorite shows normalize drinking excessively. How many funny postcards and memes and aprons exist, glorifying wine-guzzling women? So much of our social lives revolve around alcohol. And while overdoing it a couple times a week doesn’t seem so bad, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention says prolonged excessive drinking can lead to chronic issues like liver disease, colon cancer, and memory issues, to name a few. The recommended alcohol intake for women reported by the CDC might shock you: it’s just one drink or less per day. So if you take down two glasses of wine with dinner each night, you’re already consuming twice the recommended amount of alcohol. And if that becomes four drinks a night Fridays and Saturdays, then your intake just skyrocketed past a healthy point.

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Your diet

When your doctor asks if you eat fruits and veggies, you might think of that sad bowl of a couple of apples that have been sitting on your counter for a month and say, “Yup!” Or maybe you think the lettuce on your sandwiches count. How about the pickles on your burgers or the jalapenos on your nachos? Those are veggies! Sure, but vegetables shouldn’t be toppings: they should make up the bulk of your food. In fact, USDA MyPlate says half of your plate should be fruits or veggies. Consuming enough vegetables can reduce the chances of heart disease, diabetes, colon cancer, and obesity.

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How much you sleep

Everybody wants to do more, accomplish more, see more people, and go more places. Everybody wishes there were more hours in the day. The truth is, we’d never be satisfied. We’d just fill those extra hours, too. For now, you may try to cheat the system by simply sleeping less. You never want to say no to any opportunity. So maybe you go to bed at 1am and get up at 6am. But your body needs to get adequate sleep so that all of its systems and organs can fully recover. The Sleep Foundation says most adults need between seven and nine hours a night of sleep. So you can tell your doctor you get that, but your body knows the truth. The National Center for Biotechnology Information reports that long-term sleep deprivation increases one’s chances of stroke, heart attack, and diabetes, to name a few.