You may find it odd that a column whose contents for the past 25 years has implored you to embrace lifestyle changes to improve your health and fitness is now questioning the degree to which you should do so, but it's not.

As Cicero once said, it's by doubt not through faith that you arrive at or reestablish the truth. That's why it's important from time to time to sincerely scrutinize your strongest and most sacred beliefs.That you should do everything in your power to enhance your health and fitness has been one of mine for about 35 years, yet that doesn't mean I don't spend a fair amount of time questioning that attitude.And during this time of doubt, I've developed what I call the Flashlight vs. Floodlight theory to help make sense of the matter. It's my hope that sharing it with you will help you arrive at a personally appropriate answer to the question posed in the headline.Shine a metaphorical flashlight on the headline, and the answer is obvious. Your health should receive the utmost importance.What else in life could be more important than your health? Paul Walker, an actor best known for starring in "The Fast and Furious" films, for instance, says the health of you and the people you love is "all that really matters." He calls the other good things in your life "just sprinkles on the sundae."The cliché that Walker's alluding to that "when you have your health, you have everything" may seem trite, but it happens to be true. If you don't believe so, you've never driven tractor trailer with a toothache, given a speech with a sore throat, or engaged in hard labor with a head cold.But if you've done any of these, you know that all you can think about is getting better. While these relatively minor medical issues tend to make you miserable, major illnesses do so even more so.So how could anyone not place the highest value upon health? For that answer, we put away the flashlight and turn on the floodlight.A flashlight only illuminates a relatively small piece of a darkened landscape, and since the light is so focused when such a light gets flashed, you can often see nothing else.But when you ask the question "How much importance should I place on health and fitness?", the "nothing else," is the rest of your life. The width and breadth of a floodlight illuminates that and reveals a something that's monstrous, messy, and needs to be prioritized.And with that prioritization, sometimes you decide that other things are more important than your health.Call in sick today, for instance, and you may not be able to take that day off next week to accompany your son on his class field trip. Get an extra hour of sleep tonight that you so desperately need to battle a head cold, and the kids may not have clean clothes for school tomorrow.But the problem with compromise is that it quickly becomes the new world order. It can lead you to assume that you and your health must always take a back seat to the other facets of your life.No discussion is needed to determine that that it's wrong. What's up for discussion are the circumstances where your health should become secondary to other facets of your life.Ultimately, that's for you to decide.But before you do, here's something to consider: doing whatever is necessary to insure your optimal health whether it be making sure there's time in your day for a workout, not sacrificing sleep for the tidiness of your house, or turning down the chance to work overtime is not really being selfish.Because when you do make your health a priority, the quality of everything else you do improves.What employer wouldn't want you feeling 100 percent and performing at that capacity even if you turn down the occasional opportunity to work overtime? What son or daughter wouldn't be willing to spend less total time with you if during that reduced time your mind was so clear and your body so energized that you could devote yourself solely to that child?So if you've been shortchanging your health and fitness for the sake of your family or career, you may want to reevaluate. For of one thing, I am certain: being in top physical and mental shape is synergistic.Using energy actually creates more of it.By devoting a bit more time to reaching top physical and mental health, you not only perform better but you also create more energy for all other things in life that really matter.