Good Plans

Jeremiah 29:11  "For I know the plans that I have for you," says the Lord. "They are plans for your good and not for disaster"

Parkinson's disease diagnosed in January 2012.  Up to now this is considered an incurable and progressive disease.  Then this past March I had a heart attack, and quadruple bypass surgery. Sometimes it can feel like life is just piling on and you may feel the same way at times. We can't afford to entertain those thoughts for very long.  Feeling sorry for myself is a long and dark road that is very difficult to recover from.  These are thoughts that I have to choose against all the time.

Jeremiah is sending me a different message.  He is saying that God has good plans for my life, so I am searching for them.  I may not be able to do some of the things I once did but there are things that I can still do well.  I spent years training sales people to sell insurance and I spent years leading start up churches.  The essence of what I have done was built on communication so I just need to find different avenues to use that gift.

I am finding great joy in communicating still.  I do it through the two blogs that I write on a daily basis. My life is finding purpose again as I share encouraging words with those struggling in a similar battle to the one I am fighting.

I am on a crusade to start an epidemic of hope.  This is God's good plan for me.  He has a good plan for you as well.

The Journey Continues

The journey continues.  Starting Monday August 19th I will be publishing this blog at a new website. You can find me now at battlingpd.com.  That's battling Parkinsons Disease.  This is where my health battle began on January 23rd of 2012.  At that time I was Pastoring a local church, involved in the insurance business, and living on a working 160 acre horse farm in Oglethorpe County just outside of Athens, Ga.  This is where the battle to reclaim my health began and this is what I have been writing about for these last several months.  Our new web site is designed to connect with others who are facing a serious health challenge, or know someone who is. I have a son, Andrew, who wants me to chronicle this battle from it's very inception.

I will continue to share and my wife will also share how this battle impacts her and the rest of my family.  We will also produce a video post on a weekly basis.  We are looking for new ways to help those who are feeling overwhelmed and isolated by their challenge whether it is Parkinsons, Cancer, Heart Disease or some other critical medical condition.

Our goal is simply to start an epidemic of hope and I pray that you will continue to follow along.

Join us at   www.battlingpd.com.

Enjoy the journey,  

Dan Brasher

A Bucket List

A bucket list.  Do you have one? Everyone who wants a heart filled with hope needs a bucket list.  Its a list of things you would like to do, things you would like to see, and places you would like to go in this life.  A couple of years ago my wife and I took a weeks vacation in Hawaii and we went horseback riding through an inactive volcano.  It was an incredible experience that we thoroughly enjoyed.  It had been on our personal bucket list for years.

Being told that you have a disease that is incurable can really take the wind out of your sales.  It can make you want to close the windows, pull the curtains and crawl under the sheets.  It will make you stop thinking about the future if you let it, so don't let it.

Don't let yourself get so focused on the pain of the now that you no longer see the joy of the future. Jeremiah 29:11 tells me clearly that God knows the plans he has for my life so if we are still here then God still has a plan and that involves a future.

So start thinking about a bucket list.  This will make you focus on your future and that is the beginning of hope, and hope can be a powerful force that will help us battle a powerful disease.

Making Plans

If you are like me and are facing a major health crisis then it is time for you to start making plans. Everything in you will want to stop looking forward in any way, but don't do that.  When I was diagnosed with P.D. 20 months ago a voice started in my head trying to convince me that my life was over, but you can't listen to that voice and have any hope.

Jeremish 29:11 nlt "For I know the plans that I have for you", says the Lord. "They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope."

If you are facing Parkinsons, Cancer, Heart Disease or another serious illness you will need hope just to face the battle and no one can have hope without plans for the future so please, start making plans.

Isolation

We had a dog that has been with us out on our farm for many years.  His name was Barkley and our entire family loved him very much.  My wife used to joke about him that he looked like he was put together with spare parts.  He was a loyal and important part of our lives and we hated it when he got sick.

We knew that he was sick because he crawled up under the edge of our shed and wouldn't come out.  Ever since I was diagnosed with P.D. I have had to fight this same tendency because there are times when I just want to stay holed up at home. I have to continually remind myself that isolation is my enemy.

When you want to build a fire you have to stack a lot of wood in a pile because the fire will go out if the wood is scattered.  You can't keep the fire of hope burning if you spend too much time alone so get up and get out today.  Keep interacting with people and you will feel better.

A powerful message of hope...follow this link

A powerful message of hope.  Please consume at your earliest convenience.  Healing cancer from the inside out by Dr. Colin Campbell.

/www.loftcinema.com/film/healing-cancer-from-inside-out/

Contagious

As we have been battling Parkinsons and heart disease for over 20 months I have become convinced of one important truth and that is that "hope" is contagious.  When I hang out with positive, hopeful people I feel better about myself and my future...really I actually feel better after I have been around positive people.  There is a real, measurable difference in our responses to different kinds of people.

If you  hang out with angry people you'll want to fight about something, and if you hang out with disappointed people you'll want to complain.  This is true because attitudes are contagious.  Knowing this has led me to be on the lookout for positive, hopeful, forward looking people.

If you are determined to be a "grumpy Gus" please drive on by my house.

Terrorism and our health

Parkinsons and heart disease are a lot like the terrorists who attacked our nation on 911.  When they flew those planes into the world trade center buildings was not when the war started, it's just when we realized that we were at war.  This was when we woke up, developed a battle plan and started to fight back.

The day I was diagnosed by my Neurologist with Parkinsons was not when the war started.  The disease had been working against me for at least a year or more already.  This past March I had a heart attack and went through quadruple bypass surgery but the day of the initial heart attack was not when it all started.

Many of us spend years ignoring the telltale signs that we are at war already.  We want to pretend that we are safe and everything is alright until it's not and the building is coming down around us.  If you have grown up eating the standard American diet then you are already involved in a war whether you realize it or not.

Perhaps it's time for all of us to wake up, develop a plan, and start to fight back.

Encourage Others

When you are battling with disease and hopelessness you can't afford to keep you on your mind.  I was diagnosed with P.D. twenty months ago and then had a heart attack and surgery in March, but we will not allow our lives to be defined by this alone.  Our lives should be marked, instead, by purpose.  When you lose the ability to see your purpose, then you begin to just drift through life.

We live in a world that is very self consumed, but we can be different.  Every day that I wake up I can choose to focus on myself or on others.  This morning we went to visit some friends who live 90 minutes from our home.  The wife of this couple just got home from the hospital last night and we wanted to spend some time loving and encouraging them.  My wife is at lunch visiting with another friend who is struggling with some real financial troubles in their home.

No matter what we are going through right now there are people who are going through worse situations.  Hebrews 10:25 nlt tells us to "encourage one another."  Encouraging others changes my focus and connects me with purpose.  This is just one way to battle disease and hopelessness.

We Need a Plan

When this battle started I didn't have a plan for getting healthy.  I was already in my 50's and ready to just coast.  Now I have a plan for winning this battle and it doesn't include coasting, ever.  Don't try to just ignore the battle, because the enemy will not go away.

  Our bodies are overfed and undernourished.  We are overstressed and under-exercised. Our national addiction to sugar, carbs, and processed foods should be putting us on high alert, but instead many of us are just going to sleep..

You need a plan for getting healthy and it should include better eating habits, radical stress reduction, and regular exercise.  Having a plan is critical but it won't help if you don't work the plan.  One thing that I know for sure after surviving a heart attack and bypass surgery is that you can't ignore your way into a healthier life.

Incurable

Incurable is a word I have heard a lot in the past 2 years.  Lot's of men and women with Phds on their walls have told me that my medical condition is incurable but we have to realize that incurable is just a word.  It's just another way to say "not yet."  But it is not the same as never.

The Bible tells a story in Mark 5 of a woman with a blood disease for years , had spent all of her money on doctors, and yet still wasn't getting better.  I'm sure she had heard the word "incurable" many times, but when she touched the hem of Jesus garment she was made whole.

 I believe that this isn't just a story, but something that really happened. Incurable was not the last word of her life.  She won her battle and apparently went on to live a fruitful life.

If you have been told that you are facing something that is incurable, don't give up.  Incurable doesn't have to be the last word in your book.  Some people think that I am just an incurable optimist, but I can live with that.

We Need People

We need more people.  There was a time in this nation when nearly everyone had a people group.  It might be your neighborhood, or your sports team, or your job, your family or your church.  Today we have more means to connect (technology) but we actually do less real connecting.

I am currently in a battle with Parkinson's and heart disease and I know that doing more real connecting is going to be vital to winning this battle.  It seems that when we face this kind of health battle that it tends to isolate us.  I was Pastoring a small church of 60-80 people when I was diagnosed with Parkinson's but today we rarely hear from any of them.  My family has been stellar in their support but it seems as though this disease scares people.  They don't know what to say or do.  I have a message for you if you know anyone in a battle like this.  Just be there because we need people in our lives more than ever now.

People help us feel normal.  You don't need special training to be a friend.  Prov. 17:17 says that "a brother (friend) is born for times of adversity."  I want to find a way to connect with others who are in adversity because of a health challenge.  I don't have all the answers, in fact I'm still just discovering what all the questions are and that's hard for me.  I have always been a part of management and people expected me to have all the answers.  I really believe that God has all of the answers we need, but apparently He intends to use people to bring them to us.  If you feel like you need a friend please feel free to write me or comment.

Let's start a conversation about the impact of disease that can help many.

The Power of Hope

Guard your heart above all else...Prov. 4

These are words that I learned to live by in the early years of my marriage because I wanted to be faithful to my wife and we live in a world filled with moral compromise.  Instructions to safeguard my thought life are even more important to me today since I was diagnosed with what is called an "incurable and progressive" disease. My doctor told me that I had Parkinson's Disease about 20 months ago.  Since then I've also had a heart attack and quadruple bypass surgery.  Every time I go to the doctor's office they ask me how I'm doing with depression and I tell them I'm not depressed, although I could live there if I wanted to.

Apparently most people who are facing a battle like mine give in to depression a great deal of the time, but I have been fortunate to have spent most of my life teaching positive motivational principles in church, and in the business world.

If you are facing Parkinson's, Cancer, or Heart Disease you really need the power of a positive attitude to work for you.  It is my earnest prayer that as we walk through our own individual battles, whatever they may be, we can help one another to do just that.

The day the doctor told me I had P.D., hopelessness tried to swallow me up, but I didn't just fall off the turnip truck yesterday.  I have started several churches from scratch and managed my own sales organizations all of my adult life so I have made a JOB of overcoming negatives.

I've learned to guard my heart.  I won't sit around and think about the negative "what if's." It's vital that we focus on the positives if we are going to declare war on depression.  If we don't see any positives in our future then we must focus on positives from our past.  We all have a little screen room in our mind's eye that plays coming attractions.  We must find positive stuff to feed our heart and mind.  It's out here if we only look for it.  Every day that I go to the gym I'm grateful that I can still go.  I'm not where I want to be yet but I am getting better a little bit every week.

We can meet here, in this blogspot, everyday and find positive attitude food.  Enjoy the journey, I'm sure as hell going to!

It's a Long Road...

The battle to reclaim my health is a long race.  It took most of the first half of my life to lose my health and apparently it will take a long time to reclaim it again.  Sometimes the despair is overwhelming and I struggle with it, but I have a wife, 5 children, and 3 grandkids that all encourage me in the fight.  I spent most of my life learning about motivation and goal setting because I worked in sales so I have some personal experience that helps me but I wonder about others who are involved in a health battle.  Has your battle gotten long?  Where do you go for support and new doses of courage?  Please let me hear from you.....

Lowering the Cost of Health Care?

We are at a crisis point with our health care costs right now!  This is not something that is coming soon, it is happening now.  I saw an interview this morning  with the head of the Cleveland Clinic this and he shared some of what they are doing as a large employer to lead the way in how trying to reduce their cost of health care. Number one is they no longer hire people who smoke.  This may seem radical but apparently there are over 6,000 other employers nationwide who follow this same policy to save money on the cost of health care.  Apparently it doesn't cost as much to insure a nonsmoker. Number two is that they encourage healthier eating by changing what the kind of food they offer at the hospital.  Lower fat and sugar content and more fruits and vegetables.  Number three is they offer their employee's free memberships to Curves and fitness clubs.  The result is that thousands of pounds have been lost by huge numbers of people and the cost of healthcare for the hospital has gone down.  Better health equals lower cost.  If our nation is being strangled by the rising cost of healthcare, and it is, then why not do the same thing nationwide. Let's all get healthy and lower the cost of health care today.

Personal Responsibility

Do we need the governments help to listen to common sense.  I talked with a young man a few weeks ago who told me that corporate America should not be allowed to advertise restaurants and food that is unhealthy, but it won't work.  Years ago they forced cigarette manufacturers to put a warning label on every pack that they sold.  Today millions in our nation are still smoking, and suffering, and dying.  We should realize after the repeal of prohibition that laws can't force people into healthy behavior.  There is no law we can pass or rule we can make that will replace the need for personal responsibility.  What we eat, and how often we exercise are choices we are all free to make.  No one is forcing us to spend more than we make and live stress filled lives.  Ultimately I am responsible for me, and so are you.

4 Warning Signs

My mother was only 46 and in apparent good health but she went to bed one night with what she thought was heartburn so she drank something to combat heartburn and went to bed.  That night she had a heart attack and a stroke and never woke up again.  We didn't know the signs of a heart attack.  A little more than 2 1/2 years ago my younger brother started to complain about heartburn for several days before his death.  He handled it with Tums and never realized that it was the beginning of a heart attack.  Doctor's tell me there are four signs of a heart attack starting.  If you are over 40, overweight, or have a family history of heart disease you should know these signs.  Knowing these signs saved my life this past March.

1.  Chest pain:  This is the most common symptom.  It doesn't have to be severe.  It may come and go and even be mild at first so that you do not realize anything serious at all is happening.

2.  Shortness of breath:  While most people find chest pain alarming, they are not aware that shortness of breath, even in the absence of chest pain, can signal an impending heart attack.  This can occur suddenly, right before or even during a heart attack.  This can be an important clue that demands checking out.

3.  Indigestion or heartburn:  One of the challenging things about chest pain is that it often doesn't feel like chest pain.  Sometimes it feels like indigestion, or even heartburn.

4.  Nausea and vomiting:  These are often classified as "atypical" symptoms of hear attack, but they are common.

Obviously, having any one of these symptoms does not necessarily mean you are having a heart attack.
But if you believe you are having a heart attack, call 911 and ask to be taken to the nearest hospital.  If you know these signs it can save your life.  This past March I woke up at 1 AM with pain in my chest. My wife got me an aspirin, and I got my shoes and we went to the hospital.  Knowing these signs saved my life.

More to Life?

There is more to life!  This is just one of the things that I am learning since I decided to reclaim my health.  I am finding that I enjoy riding bikes with my wife and grandson.  I enjoy hiking through parks and I'm looking forward to getting back on my horse.  I am enjoying my family more, especially the grandkids.  I find that I am enjoying the world we live in more.  I just got back from a trip to Cancun and I loved sitting out on the deck overlooking the beach with coffee in the early hours of the day.  I used to take so much for granted before I had all of the health challenges of this past 18 months, but not now.  There is more to life than making money, eating huge meals and gaining weight.  We have never been as obsessed with food as we are today in America.  Mexican, Italian, Chinese, Seafood, and Steak.  So many choices, so little time.  There is so much more to life.

Adam & Eve

Adam and Eve were God's first creation and they had the perfect diet.  Everything they ate grew out of the ground and nothing they ate walked on the ground.  Today most of what we eat walks on the ground, or is processed in a factory so that it can last on a shelf for a year.  Today we are dying earlier not because of a lack of food, but because of the type of foods we eat.  You don't have to be a rocket scientist to make the connection between what we eat and how long we live.  I began to eat a more plant based diet in January and have watched the pounds that I could not lose in 20 years begin to melt away.  One of the crazy benefits is that when you eat like this you can eat all that you want and still lose weight.  If it was healthy for God's first creation in the garden then why not for us too?

Go slow

I went to the doctor last week because of a spike in my blood pressure.  I've recently had some high readings because of my weightlifting program.  I didn't know that maxing out could cause my blood pressure to spike but it can.  While there I asked my doctor about my ideal weight because I've already lost over 35 pounds since January and I am searching for the stopping point.  My weight loss has tapered off but not stopped completely.  She gave me some good advice that day that I am really trying to live by.  She told me to "go slow."  This is good advice and what I want to say to all of us today.  Go slow.  Weight that you loose quickly is easily regained.  Weight we lose slowly is much more likely to be permanent so don't get discouraged if you haven't lost a lot of weight yet.  If you are no longer gaining weight then you are going the right direction.  Just keep focused on becoming healthy and start moving.  You will get there.

The Diet Yo-Yo

Get off the dieting yo-yo.  You can lose a quick 5 pounds and then gain it back plus 5 more.  Have you ever tried to live on 800 calories a day.  If you are a guy you probably gave it up.  Have you ever noticed that the celebrity spokesperson for the latest diet program eventually gains their weight back.  No one on TV has lost and gained as many pounds as Oprah.  It's a sad story, but quick weight loss eventually leads to weight gain.  If you will focus on getting healthy instead of just getting thin, you can lose weight permanently.  You can lose weight with almost any diet program if you follow it strictly but the pounds won't stay gone, and after all isn't that what you really want.

Breakfast

Men who skip breakfast are 27% more likely to suffer a heart attack, or to develop heart disease than those who start their day with something in their stomachs.  This Harvard study found that men who skipped breakfast are more likely to gain weight, develop Type 2 Diabetes and suffer from Hypertension.

I began to skip breakfast in my early twenty when I was newly married, starting a new career, and a new family.  It's hard to get going early when you really love the woman you just married, so I just skipped breakfast to stay in bed for a few more minutes to snuggle.  This leaves you starting your day without enough fuel in your tank so you either grab an early snack or a fast food breakfast on the way to work.  Dunkin Doughnuts and McDonalds have made a highly profitable business out of meeting this need.  The problem is that empty calories don't provide fuel that will last so you are tired earlier every day.  You end up eating more than you need at your next meal and this just becomes a vicious cycle.  As my waist size grew my movement slowed and my health was on a steady decline.

Today I'm up early every morning an I never start my day without breakfast.  Eating this important meal has been a vital part of reclaiming my health over the last 9 months.  Oat meal is the number one method of lowering your cholesterol and this is a great way to promote heart health.  So tomorrow morning grab a bowl and a spoon and eat something healthy for breakfast.  

Two Are Better

Ecclesiastes 4:9 nlt  "Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed."

Over this last 18 months I have survived a devastating diagnosis...Parkinson's disease and the challenges associated with fighting this at the young age of 58, the sale of our farm (161 acres with horses), giving up my long term dream of Pastoral ministry, a heart attack followed by open heart quadruple bypass surgery. In the midst of all of this turmoil I have managed to drop 35 lbs, lower my blood pressure, and my cholesterol.  While I  continue to battle the effects of Parkinson's I am healthier in some ways than I have been in 10-15 years.  One of the major keys to my survival of and overcoming of these many health challenges is my loving wife Cindi.  She has encouraged me to keep working, to keep believing and to never lose hope that I will eventually, by the grace of God, overcome this all.  If you have a good wife who believes in you then there is almost nothing that you can't accomplish.  She has been my greatest fan, my greatest supporter, and my greatest friend through all of this.  Solomon was right when he wrote those words so many years ago...Two are better than one.  I am so grateful for the wonderful woman who has walked by my side for over 36 years now.

You Need a Team

I visited my doctor yesterday and found out that my blood pressure is in the healthy range again.  I tested out at 130/78 and was very relieved.  High blood pressure is a very dangerous condition that the doctors call the silent killer.  It is silent in that there are no symptoms that generally tell you it is high.  Two weeks ago I felt like my body was warning me that I had a problem and so I tested my blood pressure and found out that I was 50 points higher than normal.  I am much more alert to what my body is saying today because the last time I ignored warnings I ended up with a heart attack and quadruple bypass surgery.  Apparently if you hold your breath when lifting weights your blood pressure can spike up to stroke levels.  So I have made some adjustments to my workout routine and temporarily increased a medication to get my blood pressure back under control.  I am feeling much better about everything since seeing the doctor yesterday.  Getting healthy really is a team effort and you need a good doctor on your team.  If you don't have one, get one.

Reducing stress?

The third key to healthy living is reducing stress.  We are just beginning to understand the negative consequences stress is having on our health today.  We are taking pills to get started, to keep going and then more pills to go to sleep at night.  Most of us burn the candle at both ends and are rapidly running out of candle.  Most of us are living beyond our means, paying way too much in interest and saving way too little of what we make on a monthly basis.  Instead of getting really good at one thing we are all experiencing the confusion created by multitasking.  We don't need more income or more time.  We just need more margin.  That's what you have left over when you get to the end.  When I was growing up years ago back when dinosaurs roamed the earth we always had leftovers in the refrigerator.  If we were hungry and we were between meals you could pull out the leftovers, heat them up and have something to eat.  That's what we need today.  Leftovers, or margin.  We need this with our money, our time, and our relationships.  More margin and less stress.

Getting started

The hardest part about a daily exercise program is getting started.  Once you have determined that you need a program you need to start immediately.  If you haven't read "Younger next year", by
Chris Crowly I would highly recommend it.  This will give you a foundation in the "why" we need to exercise and once you really understand the why, then the how will become easy.  I am including a link to his web site in this post.     http://www.youngernextyear.com/      Once you have gone several weeks in a row you won't believe what a difference it makes.  You will never experience permanent weight loss if you don't begin to move your body.  Once you get beyond 50 your metabolism really begins to slow down without us really noticing the change.  Exercise will really kick start your metabolism and your body will burn calories even when you are resting.  Having a set routine every day makes it easier for me to continue because I don't have to think up what to do every day, and I even have planned variety every week.  I ride a bicycle with my wife for 6 miles at least once a week so I can combine fun with my exercise.  I know that I am becoming a workout nazi because I even exercised this past week while I was on vacation.  Once you really get into it your exercise will develop momentum that you don't ever want to loose but the hardest part is getting started so start small.  Find a time where you can fit in a 15 minute walk on a daily basis and then just do it for 2-3 weeks.  After that you can gradually increase your workouts.  It doesn't matter if you can't yet run a marathon, just get started today.

A way to eat that works

If you are looking for a way of eating that will help you loose weight and reverse the impact of heart disease try a plant based diet. This past January my wife and I gave up eating meat, dairy products, oils, and processed foods.  Suprisingly I don't miss the meat.  I thought it would kill me to give up meat but it turns out that meat was killing me.  I no longer eat food through a window, and I have lost over 30 pounds.  The weight has stayed off as well and many of my health indicators have improved remarkably.  My blood sugar readings are down on a daily basis, as is my cholesterol. Keeping my weight in check is not a struggle because this is not a diet it's a lifestyle change.  I didn't set out to loose weight it just went down until I reached 175 and it just hovers between 175-178 on a daily basis so I think I must be near my ideal weight.  My goalis to get healthy and to reverse the impact that heart disease has had on my life.  I would actually like to go off of most of the medications I've been on for way to long.  I don't have all the answers for your health, in fact I'm not sure I even know all of the questions.  This one thing I know. I have found a way of eating that is working.

3 keys to a healthy life

The keys to a healthy life...you need them all.  There are a lot of people trying to eat like a fly but they still can't loose the spare tire around their waste.  There are others who exercise every day, but never get control of their appetite.  They think that if you exercise then it's alright to continue a bad diet, and it's not.  Reducing stress is the third key to a healthy life that many of us here in America are missing.  If we really understood how many years we were shaving off our lives we would be shocked.  Healthy eating, increased  daily exercise, and reducing your stress levels. The three keys...we need them all.

Priorities

I must be nuts, because I find myself feeling guilty for taking a vacation this week.  It's funny that I never felt guilty during the past 35 years of unending, nose to the grindstone work for not taking off.  My manager convinced me many times not to take off because my people really needed my leadership in the field.  Looking back I believe it would have been better leadership if I had demonstrated what it meant to live a balanced life. God first, family second, work third.  These are the priorities I believe in.  Living this out in real life is a challenge worth pursuing if you want to live a healthy life.

What price will we pay?

Why don't more of us pay the price for a healthy life?  We don't want to have to get up earlier, or to make time for exercise.  We don't want to give up fast foods, French fries, or our favorite dessert. We don't want to give up the pursuit of a higher lifestyle that is filling our days with stress.  We have focused on the price we don't want to pay, and ignoring the price we are already paying.  Our nationwide food addiction is costing us our future, our health, and our lives.

Stress?

This is a week dedicated to fun and relaxation.  I worked in sales for 35 years and made a lot of money but endured increasing levels of stress.  I should have taken more vacations. Once every 5 years is not enough.  We don't understand the impact stress has on us physically, and emotionally.  Too many of us are successful and miserable.  What good is it to have the one if you are living with the other. Stress sneaks up on us gradually like a snake you didn't see until it bit you. This is the reason they call high blood pressure the silent killer.  You don't know there is a problem until you have a massive heart attack and drop over dead.  This happened a few years ago to Tim Russert from NBC News. He never knew he had a heart problem until he was dead. 

I am learning to slow down and enjoy the life I have instead of just chasing the one I don't have.  If we learn to enjoy what we have we can lower the stress in our lives, and live much better lives.

Blood pressure spike?

Sometimes timing is everything.  Last week I found out that my blood pressure was way up so I'm on the hunt to discover why.  I tested out good the last time I was at the doctor's office with a 127/73 reading, but  now I am up nearly 50 points.  This is not good for anyone but especially not for a guy who had open heart surgery 4 months ago.  It turns out that doctors say that weight lifting can cause  a spike in your blood pressure and I should have done enough investigating to know that already.  Nobody is as responsible for my blood pressure as I am.  I am going to need 2 weeks of consistent daily recordkeeping to get a real feel for what is happening.  I stopped lifting after last Friday and my pressure began to drop already overnight.  The question is how far will it drop and will it stay down without adding a new medication.  The problem with new medications is that they bring new side effects.  Fortunately, we were going on vacation this week to Cancun so I am planning on a simple week of walking, resting, playing and enjoying myself with my lovely wife Cindi and two of my grown children.  I'll know within two weeks if reducing my weightlifting will do the job.  No matter what, I can't afford to walk around with elevated blood pressure, so stay tuned.

Blood pressure?

I just found out last night that my blood pressure is up and it shouldn't be.  I am down to 175 lbs and my blood sugar was down to 97 this week so I was shocked to find out that my blood pressure was high.  I went to the drugstore to double check the reading because it isn't unusual for my home tester to have a high reading, and there is a testing chair there that is more accurate.  I talked to the pharmacist who said that weightlifting can raise your blood pressure and I have been doing some intensive lifting in recent weeks.  I have done this to get healthier but apparently it might be a mistake.  No more max lifts for now.  I will make a change immediately and see if my blood pressure goes back down.  I will share in a future blog what I learn, so stay tuned.  I am going to be vacationing next week so this will be a great time to relax and get my pressure down.

What's going on?

"What's going on?"  This is an important question that we must learn to ask about our health.  The most important piece of exercise equipment in our home is the scale, and I step on it every day.  My blood sugar level this morning was 101 and that's something I check every day as well.  When was the last time you had your blood pressure checked or had any other tests run by your doctor.  If you are 50 or older these are things you need to do at least once or twice a year.  The best way to prevent heart disease is to see it coming and do something about it before it happens.  Heart disease is called the "silent killer" for a reason.  If you aren't staying up with your vital signs then you'll never see it coming.  How long have you been overweight?  I was overweight for over 30 years of my adult life.  The result was a heart attack and quadruple bypass surgery in March.  Make an appointment for a checkup and ask your doctor if you are at risk.  Don't be afraid to ask "what's going on."

A wonderful discovery

I have made a wonderful discovery.  Ever since we began to change to a healthier plant based diet I have found that eating is not boring.  Most diets are boring because you only eat the same things over and over again, but we don't do that.  My wife and I are on the lookout every week for new recipes for healthier foods.  I have discovered that nearly any breakfast tastes better with blueberries. and that there are dozens of ways to make a healthy version of nearly anything.  I love chili and Cindi has discovered a three bean chili that really excites my tastebuds.  We have always enjoyed veal marsala, and she has uncovered a recipe for mushroom marsala that we have fallen in love with.  We have begun to enjoy a tofu stir-fry that I could eat anytime, and I have rediscovered vegetable pizza that is great.  We also eat some great and unique salad's.  Last night we ate a pasta salad that was made with whole wheat pasta, grapes, and chick pea's.  It had a sauce that was made with terryaki and yogurt, and I couldn't get enough of it.

Healthy eating does not have to be boring, and it is not super-expensive either.  I am losing weight without going hungry.  Check out the engine 2 diet by Rip Esselstyn.  It is a 28 day diet that can save your life and help you loose pounds.  It has changed the way we eat forever and so far I've lost a little over 30 pounds.  

Life or death?

It's became a matter of life or death.  Four months ago I had a heart attack and quadruple bypass surgery, and as I lay in the hospital for eight days I finally realized that I was fighting in a battle that was between life and death.  This was no longer just a matter of how I looked in the latest shirt I bought.  It wasn't about how much larger my jeans were now.  This was serious, and could be fatal.  I needed to lose weight and pursue the process of reclaiming my health.  The candy, the cakes, the sugar and fats we are taking into our bodies are putting our lives in danger and we can't see it.  McDonald's and Burger King are not rooting for you, they are rooting against you.  Fast food in America is poison as surely as if they were serving strychnine.  If I sound like an alarmist it is only because I am alarmed.  Our situation is desperate because we are committing voluntary suicide at mealtime all across our nation, and here is the worst part.  People who are living in poverty are eating the most unhealthy foods in this nation.  It's very difficult to buy fresh foods of any kind in lower income neighborhoods.  The poor eat more processed foods than anyone.  We must begin to see our diet for what it really is...a matter of life or death.

It's hard, but possible.

Losing weight is hard.  Many people are telling us that it can be quick, easy, rapid, and done in just a few weeks but take it from someone who spent most of my adult life as much as 80 pounds overweight it's not easy or quick.  When I was in my mid-thirties I was all the way up to 265 and now at 58 I am down to 177.  I believe that I have an important message to share with many hopeless and discouraged people in America today.  Losing weight is never quick or easy but it can be done.

Doctors tell us that losing weight once you are in your 50's is particularly difficult because your metabolism slows down so much, but I have done the lion share of my weight loss over these past 6 to 8 months, and I won't consider it permanent until I have maintained the weight loss for at least a full year.  Yo yo weight loss is very bad for your health long term but very common in our culture today.

So whether you are young or not so young please take courage from my story.  You can lose weight if you really want to bad enough.  If you really want it you'll get radical, and when you get radical the pounds will come off.  They will never leave quickly enough, but they will leave and you will get healthy.

Vultures

There are vultures out there.  A vulture (my definition) is anyone who is trying to make a profit on someone else's pain or misfortune.  I am writing this blog because I have gone through a tremendous health crisis over these past 18 months.  A parkinson's diagnosis forced me to reconsider my life's work ,sell our farm, and move to town.  My doctor told me that stress was contributing to the progression of the symptoms of this disease and so if I wanted to get better I had to make some pretty radical changes.  Then 4 months ago I had a heart attack and quadruple bypass heart surgery.  So you won't be surprised to hear that I am trying to learn everything that I can about reclaiming my health, but I have discovered that there are many vultures out there.  Many ads on TV and the web say that they want to help those with health problems, but the truth is that they just want to take advantage of our difficult circumstances and to make a large profit at our expense.  We are spending millions every year buying someone else's new easy and quick weight loss or exercise program.  Our homes are littered with exercise equipment that didn't produce the promised life change.  We buy all this stuff from people we thought wanted to help us but really just take advantage of our pain.  They are vultures and I hope that you will begin to recognize them and avoid them.    

Community

We were all created by God to live in community.  We need a family to love and be loved by.  We needs friends to hang with and challenge us.  We need teams that we can be a part of and communities we can be involved in. We were not intended to live in isolation and it is not healthy to be alone.  Often we have problems that we are struggling to solve simply because we don't have a group of friends that we can talk to about them.  So if we are going to regain our health then we need to get some friends.  This is a great way to lower the stress level in your life and stress is having a tremendous impact on the health of our nation.  We spend millions of dollars every year buying drugs so that we can cope, and paying way too much for someone to listen to us talk about our problems.

Here is a solution. Why don't we get on the phone and begin to repair our families.  Let's learn to forgive, and say I'm sorry.  When you have family and friends you have a good reason to get healthy.  Nothing has motivated me to get healthy this year more than the love of family and friends.  We all need a reason to live that's bigger than we are.

Holliday's?

Most of us lose the battle with food on the holidays, but that's allright.  It's not so bad to fall down as long as you don't stay down.  I ate some food that I didn't need yesterday as I was celebrating the fourth of July.  Cheese brats, corn salad (not too bad) and home made strawberry ice cream as well as a cupcake. This was not a healthy meal by any measure but I was with my family and they aren't all on a the same new healthy life diet I am living.  No one wants to be the stick in the mud at a party, me included.

Here is the key.  I got up this morning and ate a healthy breakfast, and just finished 2 hours at the gym. I'm feeling fairly good again and I will continue to eat healthy as the week goes on.  We have discovered on this journey to regain my health that it's what you do day in, day out that really makes the difference.  If you eat healthy 98% of the time you won't put on pounds for the 2% of poor eating.  This holds true especially if you maintain a consistent exercise routine.  It's what you do on a daily basis that really matters.  Even the most disciplined life needs to splurge occasionally.  The reason this often does us in is when we feel so guilty when we fall that we just stay down thinking we will never win.  You can win this battle.  Remember one thing every time you fall down, and that is to simply get up.  Don't beat yourself up, just get up and get moving again.  You'll never become perfect, but you can get healthy.

Follow the money

Follow the money.  I've heard the detective say that phrase on the detective shows when they are trying to figure out who committed the crime, and our lack of health in this nation is criminal.  So who profits from our despair.  Most of us who have spent any time being overweight have been convinced that we can't really ever lose weight on a permanent basis and so we give up.  Who profits from this despair?

How about all of the people who manufacture all of those sweet breakfast cereals, and the doughnut makers.  How about all of the beer producers, and fast food companies.  Then there's the medical industry, many of which sincerely are seeking to help us get well, but does anyone really think that the pharmaceutical industry that depends on our lack of health for their huge profit margins.  Don't they benefit from our obesity and high blood pressure.  I can still remember the days when they didn't advertise prescription medications on television to convince us to ask for them from our doctors.  When I was a kid they didn't have pain clinics and we didn't have a problem with teenagers stealing Oxycontin to get high.  There was a time when doctors couldn't increase their profit margin by prescribing more medication to their patients.

So who profits from our lack of health in America?  It's certainly not the average consumer.  It's long past time for us to allow these people to profit from our ignorance.  So get informed, and get healthy.  

Celebrating independence?

I have a new view on the fourth of July this year.  I have been celebrating this holiday all my life and I've celebrated our independence here in America, but it is taking on a new perspective to me this year because for the first time since college years ago I am becoming free of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high blood sugar and free from carrying 35 pounds that were slowly destroying my life.  I didn't just prefer some foods, I was in bondage to them.  There were years that I was addicted to gummy bears (sounds crazy, huh) and fast food.  There was a day when I wouldn't get started without an everything bagel and cream cheese.  I spent 25 years travelling on the road 4 nights a week and my appetites went totally out of control.  The only question I asked every night was what kind of food was I in the mood to eat.  My freedom to choose became the source of my obsession.

This year I am down to 177 and becoming more free every day.  My health is improving and I am finding the ability to choose healthy foods every day.  I am celebrating this newfound freedom and doing it with much more energy.

But here's the secret I've come to know.  We can all be free.  We don't have to continue to make bad choices about what we eat, how much we exercise, and if we are going to take any leisure time in our lives.  Don't believe the lie that you are stuck, because you can lose weight and get healthy.  By this time next year you could be celebrating a newfound freedom.

Your cheese?

I am concerned for the people I am surrounded by.  I met a woman this morning who had a family tree filled with heart disease and she is trying to lose weight and get healthy.  She is wanting to avoid what I just went through when I had a heart attack and surgery just 4 months ago.  Since I have lost 30 pounds and 6 inches over these past 5 months I have become an excited advocate for healthy eating (a plant based diet) and consistent exercise as a great way to do both.  So I'm telling her how exciting my change in eating has become with the incredible results I am having and her question is "what about my cheese?"  I feel bad for her because the truth is that if she is going to get healthy she will probably have to end up cutting off her love affair with cheese, but it's a small price to pay for adding 20 or 30 years to your life.  My question for you today is this...what is your cheese?

Real change

Change that matters comes slowly over time.  I'm telling you this because it is true and there are a lot of people on the radio, television, and the internet who are lying to you.  There is no easy way to lose weight and get healthy.  There are ways to lose weight quickly but none of them are permanent.  I've watched Oprah Winfrey on TV for decades and I've seen that woman lose hundreds of pounds over and over again.  In the end all of those pounds seem to have come back and I feel sorry for her because she has lived through it all very publicly but at least she has been well compensated.

There is always a new quick weight loss diet.  Maybe I'll publish a book later this year called "Dan's guaranteed slow weight loss, return to good health plan."  It's very simple really.  Just start moving your body with exercise of some type for 30 minutes 5 days a week.  Then begin to eat a healthy diet by giving up meat for at least 6 months.  No dairy or processed foods, and eliminate all sugar forever.  Then look for ways to simplify your life, and instead of spending all of your waking hours chasing money, invest your time in real relationships with real people and not facebook friends.

So here's a great idea.  You can just send me ten dollars now and I won't have to write the book.  My plan is slower, but this plan works and the changes will last.

Pills not always the answer

A new report from the Mayo Clinic came out yesterday that said that 70% of Americans are now on at least one prescription drug and that nearly half of us are taking at least 2.  These are shocking numbers because all of these pills are not making us better and I know this from personal experience and not because I read it on the internet.  4 years ago my doctor gave me a prescription for a drug called Propranelol to help calm what he thought was an essential tremor.  This is not  life threatening and the drug seemed to help, until it didn't.  For several years I was suffering from a progressive degeneration of my cognitive abilities.  In other words it was becoming harder to think clearly and remain focused.  I was also getting stiffer and having difficulty with my balance.  My doctor told my wife that I was just getting older and there was nothing to worry about.  She also asked if it was possible that I was suffering from side effects from all the medications he had me taking.  A little more than a year ago we went to see a Neurologist who told me I had Parkinsons disease and that the Propanelol if taken long term would begin to attack my cognitive functions. (That's your ability to think)  The Neurologist told me to stop the Propanelol immediately and I did.  When I stopped taking this drug it was like walking out of a thick fog.  My mind became clearer almost instantly and people all around me were noticing a marked difference in my demeanor.  This improvement was very exciting but it didn't happen because of my primary care physician.  He put me on this drug that hurt me, and totally missed the Parkinsons disease.

The medical industry is trying to sell us on the notion that another pill will fix whatever is wrong with you but it's just not true.  If I had just continued to trust my doctor I could be in much worse shape right now, and possibly dead but we got a second and then a third opinion.  We kept searching until we began to get some answers that made sense.  Keep asking questions and don't just trust drugs.  While there are many lifesaving drugs being used today, there is also a profit motive that is killing us.  Doctors are actually making more money for prescribing certain drugs for the manufacturers.  Often they are not paying attention to the side effects you may be experiencing.  It will pay off well for you to ask questions until you get answers.

Large chain admits to misleading consumers

Not all protein is created equal.  Years ago  the Atkins diet was the rage here in America because it allowed you to eat as much meat as you wanted.  You could load up your breakfast plate with bacon, sausage, and eggs as long as you didn't eat toast, potatoes, or grits.  I loved this diet.  I love crispy bacon and will go ape on a good steak off the grill.  I even lost some weight but finally gave it up when my doctor became alarmed at my rising cholesterol.  Apparently consuming large quantities isn't good for your health, as my recent heart attack can attest to. (3 months ago)

I stopped consuming meat almost completely 5 months ago and have lost 30 pounds and 6 inches off my waist.  So I was really shocked to hear the news yesterday about Taco Bell.  It seems that the general public is starting to balk at buying their meat heavy food so they came up with a new marketing idea.  Instead of using the words beef, or chicken they are going to start selling it under a new "power protein" portion of their menu.  They aren't making it any healthier, just using different words.  It will still be the same artery clogging, fat building, heart stopping, unhealthy food it has always been.  They must think that the average american is just stupid.  I'm hoping that they are wrong, and you can count on me and thousands of others to continue to bring you the truth about what we are eating.

Mood eating

We are taught at a very early age to think about what we want, and that must change.  If we all keep eating just what we want it will all be filled with fat, sugar, carbs, and cholesterol.  Years ago Burger King told us that you could have it your way and we believed them.  We all started to approach meal time by asking ourself what kind of food we were in the mood for.  So many choices, so little time.  Do you want a burger and fries, Italian, or Mexican.  We have been having it our way for years now and it is killing us.

I only put gasoline in my car.  I don't mix it with dirt, sand or sugar because that would destroy my engine.  So why do we consume the very things that are destroying the one engine we have.  We only get one engine (body) per person, per lifetime.  Are you taking care of yours, or are you a mood eater.  Why do people eat more ice cream when they get depressed?  Is comfort food really comforting or destroying those who needed comfort?  Wouldn't it be better if you just got a hug or talked to a friend.

It's high time we recognize the lies that fill the commercials we watch over and over.  They don't really "do it all for you", they do it for your money and for themselves.

I'm torn

I'm torn.  I really believe in the opportunity that comes to us in this nation.  I believe that we have great freedom and many have died to protect our liberty but I'm torn when I see fast food killing people all around me.  Our nation has become addicted to all the things that make us unhealthy and cause extreme obesity.  I spent many years watching my waist get larger, my sugar levels getting higher, my cholesterol increasing, and my blood pressure going up.  Then 3 months ago I came close to death with a heart attack that put me into quadruple bypass heart surgery.  So now when I see fast food commercials on TV I can't help wondering if Corporate America knows what they are doing to our nation.  If we shut down the fast food industry today it would save our nation billions of dollars we are spending on health care right now, but at the same time I don't want the government trying to tell us what we can or can't eat.  This is why they put warning labels on cigarettes and we no longer see commercials that tell us that smoking is cool.  Maybe if we put a warning label on a Big Mac or Whopper we can save some lives.  It's something to think about.

Get back up

It's Monday morning and I'm stuck with the realization that I probably ate some stuff that wasn't good for me at a birthday party I went to yesterday.  It used to be that when that would happen I wouldn't test my blood sugar level the next morning because I didn't want to see what I knew what would be a high reading.  Often a one meal failure would turn into 2 or 3 or a week or more.  But this morning I checked my sugar level and it was up, and my weight was up a pound, but it will all go back down because now when I fall I just get back up and get on track again.  I'll be at the club later today for 1.5 to 2 hours and I am finding that regular exercise helps moderate the large swings I used to experience in my sugar levels.  It seems that the longer I go on this healthy lifestyle the better my body is getting at processing the sugars that I do still occasionally consume.  So if you fell off the wagon recently just get back up and get back on.  You can do it.

Have some fun

Yesterday my wife Cindi and I went on a 6 mile bicycle ride over the noon hour.  Now that might not sound like much of a feat but I am 58 years old and went through quadruple bypass heart surgery just a few months ago.  So it felt good to finish the ride and it is good exercise.  I generally go to the club every day to work out but I find that it is really good to break up the routine from time to time.  It's fun to ride a bike, particularly with my wife.  She's like a little kid all over again riding for the first time and that makes it fun for me as well.  Exercise is a vital part of regaining my health but it can get boring if you just do the same thing every day.  We are going on vacation next month so I'm sure that there will be lot's of long walks on the beach and maybe some hikes in the mountains.  We are always on the lookout for a fun physical activity.  Getting healthy can go a long way toward strengthening your marriage if you will share the experience.

Slow Down

"Take your time,"  my dad used to tell me.  As a kid I was often impatient and in a hurry.  He knew with all the rushing around I tended to be sloppy and often made more mistakes.  I heard a carpenter say once that the key to building quality products was to "measure twice, and cut once."  I want to say, "take your time", to my grown children sometimes when I'm riding in a car and they are driving.  They can drive as though they're carrying transplant organs in a cooler to a dying loved one.  My wife, Cindi, has shown me how important this is with food preparation because when you grill hamburgers too quickly they end up like charcoal briquettes on the outside but need a tourniquet to stem the flow of blood inside!  If you take your time you will do a better job at food preparation.

Being in a hurry often causes us to buy less healthy foods as well.  It takes longer to prepare something from scratch than it does to just heat up a can of mash, or to microwave a dinner.  If we are going to improve our health as a nation we are going to have to cook more like our grandmothers did. When we make our meals more of an event then we will take the time to make healthier choices at the grocery store.  We need to get much more intentional about what we eat.  We need to lose our focus on convenience, and gain a focus on consuming fresher, healthier food.  Then we will enjoy it more and live much longer.

James Gandolfini died this week of a heart attack.  He was Tony Soprano to many of us, and he was a great actor, but he was only 51 and much to young to die.  This kind of senseless early death is just one of the reasons I am challenging you to eat healthier.  Our food choices are killing us and I am on a crusade to change that.  Join me in this crusade.

Change that works

I really enjoy variety and adventure, don't you.  I think that's why most people never succeed in losing wweight on a diet.  At their core they are boring.  No one wants to eat the same thing day after day, no matter how healthy it is.  This past January Cindi and I watched a doccumentary called "Forks over Knives" that was about how we treat heart disease in America.  I would recommend watching this yourself if this subject moves you in any way.  I have had three members of my immediate family struck by heart disease already so I wanted to watch it.  It's about a well known doctor from the Cleveland Clinic who is treating patients with heart disease by changing their diet and eating a primarily plant based diet.  The idea of giving up meat, dairey, and processed foods seemed like a draconian undertaking, but it was well worth trying if it could help me lose weight, lower my blood sugar, cholesteral, and blood pressure.  I am glad to report that I have lost nearly 30 pounds, and 4 inches off my waist since starting, and of course I spend time at the club 5 days a week exercising as well.

The good news about changing our eating habits is that it isn't boring.  Cindi is always coming up with new recipes to try and generally they turn out very well.  My tastebuds feel very well compensated at mealtime.  And here is the real kicker.  I don't miss meat, and that is something I never would have believed.  The other night she made a new dish that combined wheat noodles and chick peas that was just incredible.  This started out as a diet we were trying but it has become a new lifestyle that we are living.  All of my vitals are improving as well.  My weight, cholesteral, blood sugar, and blood pressure levels are all dropping.  Our health is improving and so is life.  So there it is.  We are living proof that a plant based diet will give you a much healthier life than a Big Mac.

Black bean burger's

If you are looking for a good recipe for an old fashioned hamburger that is still healthy, try this one.

http://www.forksoverknives.com/wp-content/uploads/Black-Bean-Burgers1.pdf

From time to time I will post healthy recipes on this blog...Dan

Not a disease

I saw on the news this morning that the American Medical Association has just now classified obesity as a disease.  There is truth and a lie built together in one statement.  I think it's obvious to anyone with eyes in their head that Americans, as a group are incredibly overweight.  Never before in our history have so many pounds hung over so many belts.  We don't need to test our percentage of body fat to know that we consume way more than we need.  I spent many years carrying 265 lbs on my 5 foot 10 inch frame and no one had to tell me that I was overweight.

Today I weigh 177 lbs and work out at the club 5 days a week.  I'm 58 years old and am spending the second half of my life focused on getting strong and healthy.  I didn't have a disease, I just had flawed thinking.  I told myself that it was not that bad to eat the way I did.  I told myself that I had gotten enough exercise when I was younger, and that I should enjoy my recliner and remote control.  When I got out of college I quit moving and kept eating.  There is no pill a doctor can prescribe to cure stinking thinking.  Habits do matter, and we, here in America, are letting our bad habits kill us.

Happy meals will only create unhappiness if eaten often enough, so change your thinking and live a healthy life.

Food from a window

I once weighed 265 lbs, but today I tipped the scale at 177.  My waist grew to 42 inches and now it's 34.  Over these past 2 years I was diagnosed with Parkinsons disease, and had quadruple by-pass heart surgery.  I was a slow learner, but I think I am finally learning some important things about how to eat healthy.  Here is an important lesson to learn.  You'll probably never get healthy if you don't cook.  The only way to know the actual ingredients that are in anything is to make it yourself.  Too often we are wondering if there is any sugar in something, or how much butter but if you cooked it yourself you would know already.

I know that this is radical.  The idea of actually preparing our own food is not very popular here in America today.  Our highways are filled with restaurants, and fast (very unhealthy) food.  Our grocery stores have much more prepackaged, preprocessed, and frozen food than actual fresh food.  We learned years ago the importance of spending most of your time in the outer isles at the grocery store.  Instead of buying something made by someone else, why not take the time to use fresh ingredients and a little time to put together a meal yourself?  Make a promise to yourself to no longer eat food that gets handed to you through a window.  Now go live a healthy life.

Excuses

The longer I work out the healthier I get.  My weight has finally dropped significantly after being stuck on the north side of 205 lbs for years.  I once weighed 265.  It seemed like I would never get below 200 until I finally put a healthy diet together with consistent exercise.  For years I would excuse a lack in the one because of improvement in the other.  When I was getting in good workouts I could allow myself more liberal eating habits, and when I ate healthy I could workout less.

It wasn't until I really put those two things together that my weight began to really drop.  Today I weigh 177 most mornings, and I check every morning at 6:30 am.  I had to come to the point where I finally quit making excuses for myself.

I went to a funeral last week.  It was a person I have known for nearly 15 years who had been unhealthy for a long, long time.  They found it very difficult to get serious about losing weight and getting healthy.  I have met people who very overweight but still eat at McDonalds while complaining about their inability to lose the extra pounds.  It's like someone with diabetes who still drinks coke and eats desserts, but just takes a bigger dose of insulin.  That is a good recipe for early decline in your physical condition.  Eventually it can become too late to change anything.

So if you are reading this blog today it's probably not too late.  So change your diet, and begin to exercise.  Lose weight, get healthy and enjoy your life.

Maybe you need a dog?

I read recently that older people live a healthier life if they own a dog.  It seems that our bodies operate better and longer when we aren't alone.  Apparently God had it right when He said that "it is not good that man is alone."  If you don't have a spouse then apparently you can get a good dog.  The point is don't live your life alone and isolated.  Isolation makes us weird and we don't even know it.  I used to sell insurance in rural Nebraska and I've met my share of old bachelor farmers, and have experienced first hand just how cranky they can be.   There is a good reason that someone coined the phrase "grumpy old men."   I've walked into farm houses that had newspapers and magazines stacked a foot high on every flat surface in sight, along with a weeks worth of pots and pans in the sink.  None of these guys had a wife anywhere around, and had no idea that they were strange.  We all need someone to share our life with if we want to live a healthy well adjusted life.  It's actually not good for me to get my way all the time.  It's actually good for me not to always control the TV remote all.  So begin to look for ways to share your life, reduce your stress, have some fun, and live a long life.

Fight for your health

You will have to fight for your health.  I was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease about 17 months ago but not without a fight.  I don't mean fighting the disease (we are doing that), but we had to fight to find out what was wrong with me.  Several years ago my wife started to notice some things in my health that distressed her.  As a result she started going to my doctor's visits with me so that she could ask the doctor questions.  He calmly assured her that there was nothing really wrong with me and that I was just getting a little older.  I am only 58 now, and am convinced that old doesn't start for at least another 20 years.  After all I was working hard with my business, at the church, and on the farm.  We owned 160 acres of land, borded horses, and still were riding every week.

Her persistance finally paid off when my doctor told her that if she was really concerned she should make me an appointment with a neurologist and get a second opinion.  That was just his way of poo- pooing my wife, because he was asleep at the switch.  The day of that first office visit with the neurologist was the day I found out that I had Parkinson's.  Thank God she kept pressing because finding out what was really going on in my body has saved my life.

There have been many other battles since then but we keep fighting.  I am fighting Parkinson's and the impact of heart surgery.  Every day that I get up and go to the gym I am fighting back.  So no matter what shape you are in right now I just want you to know that you'll have to fight for your health, and by the way, we got another doctor who is paying attention!

The Truth About Me

I was fat and unhealthy. There I said it.  It is easier to hear if you are saying it to yourself, and sometimes we need a crisis before we start telling ourselves the truth.  For me that crisis came several months ago when I learned that my older brother had had a heart attack and they put a stint in his heart to save his life.  I went up to New Jersey to be with him for part 2 which was another surgical procedure to insert stint #2 into his heart.  The surgery went smoothly and he is doing well today, but that day I began to tell myself the truth about my own condition. I was in danger and I knew it.  Two other people in my immediate family had died of a heart attack and now my brother was facing this same situation.

We tell ourselves so many lies.  I'm just big boned.  I have slow metabolism.  I'm not that fat.  I'm just a little overweight.  I'm just getting a little older.  These are all things that we tell ourselves so that we can justify sitting on the couch for a few more years.  I'll quit smoking someday,  or I'll start working out later.  I'm going to have just one more slice of that dessert, after all I don't get the chance to taste that very often.

I was tipping the scale at about 210 lbs when I took that trip and today I weighed in at 177 lbs. I went through bypass surgery 10 weeks ago and spent 8 days in the hospital, which temporarily stalled my quest to get down to a healthy weight, but today I am down 33 lbs since I told myself the truth that I was fat and in danger.  Why not tell yourself the truth today, and then do something about it.  Don't wait for a crisis.

Why commercial advertising lies to us

There are so many commercials today that promise you an easy way to lose all of those extra pounds.  They promise that you can have six pack abs in just 4 weeks.  Buy these meals, and you'll lose weight fast. The quick weight loss diet. Guaranteed weight loss. You've heard them all before.  They are all lies that we want to believe because we know in our hearts that we are carrying too much weight and that it is making us very unhealthy. I heard this morning that obesity is quickly overtaking heart disease as the number one health crisis in America. I have been moderately overweight for almost all of my adult life and as a result I had quadruple bypass heart surgery 10 weeks ago.

After all the new diet books I have purchased over the years I am sure of only a few key facts. The reason advertisers lie is because they want you to send them your money.  They don't care about you at all, only about your wallet.  The second thing I know is that there is no easy way to lose weight but gaining weight is sure easy.  The third thing I'm sure of is it takes a combination of healthy eating and exercise to loose weight.  This is the truth and I won't make any money if you believe it. Now go live a healthy life.

You Get What You Pay For

"You get what you pay for" is a statement that I've heard all of my life but I am beginning to see this truth more clearly since my open heart surgery 10 weeks ago.  Joining a club and exercising for 2 hours 5 days a week is not an easy path to walk.  Giving up meat, dairy, and processed foods sometimes makes me think I've fallen off the deep end.  I even read the labels on food at the grocery store now.  Eating healthy food is not an inexpensive process.  I've never spent this much money buying books about healthy living, but I know that I have a lot to learn, and I'm on a quest to reclaim my health while there is still time. Here is what I learned while I was laying in the hospital recovering from open heart by-pass surgery.  Poor health is a lot more expensive than good health.  I would rather spend the money to buy new running shoes than paying doctor's bills.

So break out your wallet and buy a new bicycle, or a membership to the health club.  Spend some money on workout gear, and tofu.  After all you will eventually get what you pay for.  Join me on the journey and I welcome your feedback.

Passionate about your health?

If you don't get passionate about your health you will eventually lose it.  I know because it happened too me.

Fat and sugar is what they put in food that makes it taste so good.
That stuff tastes like cardboard.
Real men don't eat quiche or tofu.
I just love a good steak.
Yes, i would like fries and an apple pie with my order.

These are all things that we have either said or heard that reveal something very alarming, and that is that many of us just aren't very passionate about our health.  10 weeks ago I had a heart attack and quadruple bypass surgery.  I am very passionate about reclaiming my health now.  There's nothing like a brush with death to get you to appreciated life. One thing has become abundantly clear recently is that if you don't get passionate about your health you'll lose it.  You'll gain a few pounds every year, and watch a little more television every month.  Your cholesterol will inch up gradually, and your doctor will warn you about your blood pressure.

Or you can get passionate about your health and keep it for a lot longer.  I hope that you will join me in this conversation about healthy living.

Embrace Change

Sometimes I look in the mirror and ask the question, what's happening to me? Life is changing so rapidly since the heart attack just 10 weeks ago.  It was the week of March 16th when I had a heart attack and Dr. Luu opened up my chest so that they could perform quadruple bypass surgery. So much has changed in my life since then that sometimes I feel like my head is going to just spin around in circles. I had already changed my diet, in fact, I haven't eaten meat now in over 4 months. I am now putting almond milk on my cereal and today I ate a noodle bowl with vegetables and tofu. I have discovered that real men can actually eat tofu, and I think I like the stuff. I am in the gym 5 days a week for 1.5-2 hours, lifting more weight and running farther than I have in years.  I just got in from riding a bicycle for a little more than 2 miles this afternoon with my wife, and having her by my side has made it so much easier to endure all of this change.  I didn't know that I ever resisted change.  I thought that I was open to new information and idea's, but I was wrong because I was just trying to keep life the same.  Now I realize what I gained by holding on to the status quo.  I went from 180 lbs in college up to 260 lbs at my peak.  I went from a 30 inch waist to a 44 inch waist gradually over about a 30 year period.  Holding on to the status quo took me to the door of death from a heart attack.  So when I think about all the change going on I think about the most important change of all.  I am getting healthy. I hope you will decide to embrace change and join me on this healthier path of life.

A healthier life?

                                                                   Dan & Cindi Brasher





I have taken a new path during recent months.  I have decided to walk the less traveled road to a healthier life.  I haven't always been dedicated to this way. I am 58 years old and I've spent most of my life living like a Normal American.  I've chased dollars, fun, achievement, position and, oh yes, significance. I was always going somewhere; a bigger house, a better car, a higher position with the company, and a larger income.  There's a series of commercials on the air right now for AT&T.  They have one message at their core, and that is that bigger is better.  Thus, since they claim to have the largest cell phone network, they must be better.  But is bigger always better?  I don't think so.

You can spend your life pursuing success in business, while ignoring your wife and kids and you may end up with plenty of money but lots of regret. One of the reasons that I so enjoy this current generation of young people is that they don't want to spend their lives enslaved by the tedium of a job they hate and a life of insignificance.  The good news is that with the advent of modern technology and the ability to communicate brought to us by the internet, almost anyone can gain significance.  Nothing is more powerful than a good idea at the right time.  If you have doubts just think about Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs.  All they had was a good idea at the right time.  Their ideas have changed the world we live in and at the same time they have opened the door for the birth and growth of other new ideas.

Throughout the past 40 or so years I never thought about a healthier life.  I slowly gained a few pounds every year and grew from 180 to over 260 pounds.  I grew from a 30 inch waist up to 42 inches at my apex.  I was busy learning to multitask and losing the ability to focus or relax.  I ate anything that I wanted, because I could afford it, never realizing that my health could not afford the food choices I was making.  You can choose fun food, or sweet food, or comfort food, but you can't continue to make those choices all or even most of the time if you want a healthier life.

9 weeks ago I ran into a brick wall that we know as a heart attack, and I had quadruple bypass heart surgery.  I have come to the startling revelation that you can't enjoy life without your health.  Today I spent nearly 2 hours at the gym on the treadmill, the recumbant bicycle, and lifting weights.  I haven't eaten meat for nearly four months, and I've given up foods that are sweet, pre-made or processed.  I actually eat food that is healthy.

I have started doing all of this for one reason, alone.  I want to live a healthier life.  If that is what you want then I hope that you will join me on this  journey, and I welcome your comments.

Start moving to get healthy!

My 3 grandchildren have an incredible amount of energy.  They can go and go until I get tired just watching them.  Have you noticed that the longer we live the slower we get?  One of the reasons we have so many health problems in America today is because most of us get too slow way too soon.  It happens before we even realize that anything is changing.

I was probably at my best, health wise in 1976 when I graduated from college.  I went to a military college with lots of marching, and running.  I swam for 30 minutes every day at lunch for one semester, and I was on the crew team (rowing) for most of my four years on campus.  That involved lots of weightlifting and running and rowing for lots of miles.  No pain, no gain was more than just a cute phrase, it was a lifestyle.  My life was defined in those days by movement and action, but that all changed with graduation.

My first job after graduation was in outside sales.  That didn't require much from me physically.  Just driving around in several states, getting in and out of a company car and talking with potential clients every day.  I was still moving, but a little slower.

Have you noticed that the higher up the ladder we move in the business world the less demands there are on us physically.  Managers manage, workers work and everyone wants to move up.  Now, as we move up the ladder our stress increases while our physical activity decreases.  While we are slowing down our weight increases and our cholesterol goes up.  How many hours does the average american spend on a recliner with a remote control in our hand?

Then we started having children and instead of moving around I had to watch other little people while they moved around.  Instead of playing football, or basketball, I began to just watch the NFL or the NBA on television.  Instead of doing things to get my adrenaline going, I began to watch things to get that same shot of adrenaline.  As we slow down it becomes harder to keep moving.  As we grow older we start to have more aches and pains.  How many people do you know who have back pain on a regular basis?  Doctors have told me that most back pain is caused by us carrying an extra 20 pounds that hangs over our belt buckle.  This creates a continual pull on the small of our back that eventually turns into pain.  If we would lose the extra 20 we would also lose the back pain.

A few years back we owned a very old horse that had lived a hard life, and hadn't always been treated well.  His name was Doc and we loved him.  Older horses often suffer from arthritis and have a lot of pain in their joints.  Movement becomes painful and so they slow down gradually and eventually quit moving almost entirely.  We talked to our veterinarian and discovered that the best thing to do for this sweet old horse was to ride him every day.  Keep him moving on a regular basis and he will have less pain, and better health.

This medical advice is good for people as well.  If we keep moving on a regular basis we will have less pain, and better health. You don't have to start out trying to run a marathon, but you do have to start.  The main reason most of us don't exercise regularly is because we never start.  As I write this right now I am at the gym for 1.5-2 hours a day 5 days a week, but I didn't start there.

I started out several years ago with a 12 minute walk at least 3 days a week.  In a few weeks that grew to a 20 and then 30 minute walk 4 days a week.  For many years of my life I would occasionally decide I needed to get in shape so I would make a resolution to start a daily running program.  It would usually last one or two days and then I would quit.  Too much pain.  Does this pattern sound way too familiar?

We forget the important lesson we all learn when we are 12-14 months old, and that is that we have to learn to walk before we can run.  I am still exercising regularly because walking didn't cause me so much pain that I wanted to quit.  After we start moving the next lesson we learn is to keep moving.  It's not what we do occasionally that shapes our lives. It's what we do every day.  Small changes over a long period of time eventually produce big results. Walking for 12 minutes 3 days a week has produced a massive improvement of my health.

So put down the remote control, and get out of your recliner.  Instead of watching other people use their bodies, let's use our own.  A little more than a week ago Cindi and I got on our bicycles and rode for about 2 miles.  It was fun, refreshing and it felt good. Nowadays I always feel better after I exercise.  A workout doesn't scare me, it excites me because I am getting stronger, healthier, lighter, and thinner every week.

I still have a long way to go while I fight off Parkinson's disease, and the effects of recent bypass surgery, but I am doing better than I have in a long time.  I want to live a lot more years and have the opportunity to be deeply involved in the lives of my grandchildren.  I want to make my part of this world a better place and have a positive impact on a lot of people so I have to be healthy.

One of the keys to a long life is to keep moving on a regular basis.  You don't have to climb a mountain, or ride a bicycle in the Tour de France, but you have to keep moving.  Don't let your life continue to get slower and slower until you finally stop.  My grandfather was still taking a daily walk of  over a mile with my grandmother well into his 90's.

You have to start somewhere so get started today.  Do something that you can do without pain in the beginning so that you don't quit.  Then do it regularly and eventually build up to 5-6 days a week. It doesn't have to be the same thing every day.  Variety is good, and keeps you from boredom.

So start moving, and then keep moving.  You'll have more energy, more fun, and you will live a happier, healthier, longer life.

Small decisions, big difference!

There is a line I read in the book of Proverbs recently that says that it is "the little foxes that spoil the vine."  What was Solomon trying to tell us?  The Jewish people in that day really valued their vineyards.  Good grapes were a vital commodity in their economy and so they built large fences around their vineyards to keep out the large animals who might want to eat those grapes that had taken so long to cultivate.  There would be no cows or horses eating these grapes.  No bears or lions would keep them from enjoying that years harvest time.  The one thing that they didn't consider was the little foxes.

Little foxes were too small to worry about because even if they got under the fences they weren't tall enough to reach the grapes with their mouth's.  What they could do however was to gnaw at the roots of the grape vine until it would eventually fall over so that they could then eat all the grapes that their stomachs could hold.

Five weeks ago I spent 8 days in the hospital because I had a heart attack and quadruple bypass surgery.  Laying in a hospital bed 24/7 gives you a lot of hours to think about what brought you there and like anyone in my situation I did a lot of thinking about the life I have lived.  When we think about our lives we tend to think mostly about our highlight reels.  The discovery we made, the business we built, the house we own, or the position we attained in life but in the end it's not the highlights that make the greatest impact long term on your life.  It's the small, seemingly unimportant decisions we make over and over again, like where and what we are going to eat for dinner.

Most of us consider health to be a little thing, until it begins to fail us in some way.  How many times have we said "eat desert first, you only live once."  When you are laying in the hospital waiting for the surgeon to fit you in it's too late to go back and unsuper-size the deadly meal you made time for at your favorite fast food place.  I will take a lot of time considering a new investment opportunity if I am going to risk my money but we don't think but a moment to determine where or what we are going to eat tonight.  While I was laying there thinking about all of those things I realized that this simple small decision is a decision that we are risking our lives on.

As you look around at all of the overweight people in our nation today surely you can understand that we are what we eat.  We are consuming way too much fat, and sugar, processed foods (now there is a contradiction in terms), bread and desserts.  This crazy obsession we have developed for fast food is killing us.  There is absolutely a direct correlation between the increase in the number of fast food places in America and the rise of heart disease.  As one grows, so does the other. Heart disease is rapidly becoming the number one cause of death in our nation while childhood obesity and diabetes have become the biggest health issues among our children.  Our poor eating decisions are affecting not just us but our children as well.

If food is the fuel that our bodies burn then why don't we begin to ask ourselves how much of what we put in our mouths is actually food.  I would never knowingly put sand in the gas tank of my automobile but I have eaten fast food, candy, and buttered popcorn most of my life.  When I said yes to butter on my popcorn at the theatre it seemed like such a small thing.  It's just a little fox after all, but there I was laying in that hospital room waiting on the surgeon to fit me in.  My grape vine was laying in the dirt with most of the grapes already gone.

What we eat, where we eat, and how much we eat are not little things, they just seem unimportant at the moment.  In fact they are small decisions that ultimately will make a big difference in how we live.  If we don't have our health then not much else matters in the long run.

Last Thursday night my wife Cindi and I took one of our grandson's to his first rodeo and he had an incredible time that night.  He loves horses and is now aspiring to become a cowboy.  We built a memory that night and I am planning on building hundreds more good memories in the years ahead.  In order for that to happen I must deal with all of those little foxes.   It is not too late to learn wat real food tastes like and it doesn't taste fast or processed.  I am not going to destroy my own health with what I put in my mouth.  This is just one of the first steps to reclaiming my health and I hope that you will join me on this journey.

Make A Run For It!

What's the worst thing you've ever smelled?  A few years ago I was in a meat packing plant in Philadelphia, Pa. If you saw the first Rocky movie you've seen it too.  He built his strength by punching hanging beef carcasses like a heavy bag. The further into the building I walked the worse the stench became.  They told me it was the smell of drying blood.  I learned that day just how they slaughter cattle.  They start out by keeping them in large corrals where they can move about easily while being fed. Then after a while they began to funnel them down to a chute.

I sorrowfully watched as these round eyed animals lined up, one behind the other, ambling toward their demise.   They weren't aware that at the end of the chute there was a gate that blocked each cow, while a large electrified pole shot through their heads and they slumped to the floor.  You see the cattle never knew it, but they were being fed simply so that they could eventually be slaughtered and become meat in our grocery stores.  Step after step they walked, moving forward, never realizing that they were in line to die. If someone had told them the truth don't you think some of them would have tried to make a run for it?

This is just what is happening in our country today. With all of the documentaries that have come out in the last several years like Food Inc., Supersize Me, or Forks Over Knives it is amazing that people just continue on the same path.  We are killing ourselves one mouthful at a time.  I was in the Cardiac ICU last weekend recovering from heart surgery when my kids told me about a family in the waiting room right outside.  They came in carrying large bags of fast food; hamburgers, french fries and lots of sugary drinks.

The American diet is filled with fast food, take out pizza, sugars, fats, and simple carbs. There they were eating the very foods that are sending so many of us to our deaths with cardio-vascular episodes.  It makes me wonder how we can visit loved ones suffering from the effects of heart disease, while we consume the the kind of calorie dense stuff that we now KNOW is responsible for these illnesses. For thousands of years humanity suffered from a lack of food.  Today we are dying both because of what we are eating as well as how much we consume.

I know I sound preachy and maybe just a little judgmental and I'm sorry for that.  I am sitting at home recovering from quad-bypass surgery and I realize how profoundly the decisions I made about food and exercise years ago have impacted my health today.  I would go back, if I could, and make better choices.  I'm so grateful to have another opportunity to live life fully and enjoy time with my family and friends.  I have decided to consume less, move more and eat closer to the ground.  I want to be around for a long time.

The next time you are standing in a fast food line ask yourself this,  "Am I behaving like that cow in the rendering plant?  Where does is this line actually taking me?"  Then take a big breath and make a run for it!

Quit Hating!!!

Do you hate exercise as much as I do? Of course I tell stories of how much I ran in college, but for 20 years the main kind of running I've done was to the refrigerator, out for pizza, or to the Krispy Kreme (is there really anything that tastes better than a box of hot glazed doughnuts?). I have been hogging the remote for a long time, and the only game of football I've engaged in comes on the television. I was seeking a new definition for "couch potato". But that all had to change.

I was determined to get healthy again so I made exercise my number 1 priority.  I was already going to the gym 3-4 days a week, and walking on the treadmill 20-30 minutes each time but it wasn't nearly enough. Today I am going to the Omni East Club 5-6 days a week, and I'm there between 1.5-2 hours every time I walk through the doors.  I'm on the treadmill 45 minutes (30 at a moderate run), the elliptical for 10 minutes, and the recumbent bike for another 20. I didn't start at this pace originally.  I started out walking 12 minutes a day, just raising my heart rate to 120 bpm.  Many people start out trying to do too much and are discouraged so they quickly return to the couch again.  Making the decision to start out running 3 miles a day is a sure plan for failure for most of us. It usually doesn't work, so start out slowly.

About 6 months ago I started to seriously add weight training to my routine, something I tried desperately NOT to do for decades!  It isn't that I want to bulk up.  It's just that as I have grown older gravity has caused everything that used to be strong and tight to become loose and weak. Lifting smaller weights with more repetitions is reversing the effects of years of inactivity. I have also added core training and stretching to what I do on a regular basis. Because I am partially retired I am able to dedicate the time I need for exercise but nearly anyone can find at least 45 minutes to an hour every day if we make it a priority.  Sometimes it's as simple as stepping away from the remote.

The real problem, after all, is our priorities, right? We are leading busier lives than at any other time in the history of man. We all aspire to become great at multitasking, but a wise man once said that if you chase two cats at the same time they'll both get away. Our careers, our homes, our families, and our friendships are all important, but they don't mean anything without our health. I am convinced by everything I have experienced this past year that if I make exercise a priority I can eventually reclaim my health. Join me and just get started !  Raise your heartbeat a little for just 12 minutes. A journey begins with the first step.