More Than Grateful
I grew up healthy. Really healthy. I was hardly ever sick, and I never even had a cavity. My trips to the doctor were mostly for accidents, and I had some good ones. I nearly cut my left heel off entirely. I survived car accidents and boating accidents, none of them my fault. (I feel the need to point that out.)
Everything was fine until I hit my 40s.
I put on a little weight. I hurt both shoulders lifting weights. Then my blood pressure and cholesterol started creeping up. Nothing dramatic. Just that slow drift a lot of us know too well.
"Your athletic life is over."
I'll never forget the orthopedic doctor who told me, more or less, that my athletic life was over. He was overweight and out of shape, which made the moment even stranger.
I was stunned. I wasn't planning on a comeback with the Braves. I just wanted to be strong and active. Is that too much to ask?
Here's the problem. I believed him. And for about a decade, I just accepted it.
During that decade I got a lot of nutrition advice from doctors. Most of it was bad. Some of it was horrible. I followed it anyway, because that's what you do, right?
Then cancer showed up.
I want you to understand where I started. At my heaviest point, I was maybe 15 pounds over my high school weight. I was never fat.
Cancer took almost 70 pounds off me, and I'm not a big man. I was skin and bones. I couldn't talk. I couldn't eat. I couldn't swallow.
The radiation and chemo nearly killed me. And the hospital nutritionist's advice, before and during treatment, only made me sicker.
Picture this. You're fighting for your life, and someone talks you into a "special" protein drink as your only source of nutrition. You turn the can around, and the first ingredient is made from industrial seed oils.
Or this one. You tell a cancer patient to eat all the sugar and fattening food he wants, because he's going to lose weight anyway.
At the time, I didn't know how bad industrial seed oils were. But she should have. She was the "professional."
And here's the thing. I'm quite sure she's still giving the same bad advice today.
How did we ever get here?
Julie was hurting, too.
My wife, Julie, was struggling at the same time. Her struggles actually started first.
She had three herniated discs and was in tremendous pain. Some days she couldn't walk. She would crawl to the bathroom and back to the bed or the couch.
So there we were. Both of us down at the same time.
And yet, through all of it, I had a real sense of God's love and protection. When I look back now, I'm amazed at how truly blessed we were. I didn't see all of it then. I see it now.
The weakest I've ever been
When I finished treatment, I was weak. Very weak.
That January, I went back to work for the first time in eight months. Julie and I had signed up for a job where we traveled and worked together, with very long hours. It happened to put us near our son, so we took him back to school on the way.
I didn't think I could do it. I prayed silently the whole time, asking God for strength. He gave me enough to stand. Not much more than that, but enough.
I went from being strong for my size to a weakling who had come very close to dying. I used to say a 12-year-old girl could beat me up. I wasn't really joking.
We leaned on each other. We leaned on God. We got through it.
Forrest Gump had nothing on me.
I couldn't do much, but I could walk. So I walked. A lot.
I walked anywhere and everywhere I could. I averaged about eight miles a day for 11 years.
Let's follow the math on that. Eight miles a day for 11 years is more than 32,000 miles. The earth is about 25,000 miles around. I walked around the planet and then some. Crazy, right?
I finally quit tracking it this past June. I traded my Garmin (the most accurate step counter, of course) for a nice watch so I could calm down about my walking. I still walk. I just don't count every step anymore.
Why I do what I do
Once I learned what was really in the drink I'd been told to live on, something changed in me.
Once I learned what I learned about statins, I started asking more questions.
Once I saw how much our problems, mine and Julie's, were tied to diet and lifestyle, I knew I had to help other people.
Nobody told us. Why doesn't anybody tell us about this?
So now I'm telling you.
Where we are today
We're both in our 60s now, and we're both very fit.
Between the two of us, we take zero prescriptions.
Julie has no back pain. None. She used to have a skin outbreak at least every three months. In the last six years, she's had one. She has built real muscle, the kind you can see, in her 60s. She is stronger now than she was 30 years ago.
I've built my muscle back, too. I'm not 30 anymore, and I don't pretend to be. I feel a whole lot better today than I did at 45.
I think a big part of that is mental. At 45, I was afraid of getting old. I kept thinking, "If I'm falling apart this fast now, how bad is it going to be when I'm actually old?"
Well, I'm "old" now. And I feel great. I feel strong. And I'm grateful.
Here's what I want you to hear.
If you've been told your best days are behind you, I've been there. I believed it for ten years.
It wasn't true for me. It wasn't true for Julie. And it may not be true for you.
Muscle is currency in old age, and it's never too late to start saving. You don't need a gym. You need real food, a little strength work, a lot of walking, and the humility to ask God for strength when you don't have any.
Start with a walk. You don't have to go 32,000 miles. Just go around the block.
