How an Alternative Health Doctor Stays Healthy

“It’s easy for you, you’re so thin…” a middle-aged, obese woman with many health problems said to me mournfully. She’s discouraged because she can’t seem to make her program work. “How do you stay healthy? You must have a lot of willpower!” Since I’ve studied health extensively, teach how to become healthy and stay that way for life, I often get asked what I do to be healthy. You might think I started that way, keep a strict schedule, and a perfect diet, but that is far from the truth. I try. And I’m going to share with you my strengths and weaknesses, my triumphs, and tragedies.

Schedule

On most days, I start at about 4am. I take time to connect with God through prayer, study His Word, and write in my journal. After an hour or two, I start the day’s work by checking my email, paying bills, and looking at the schedule for the day. Besides patient visits in the office, I don’t have a strict schedule. I try to keep a checklist of things to accomplish in a day, but that doesn’t always work well. The rest I just do when I can. My bed time is 10 p.m., which I try to be strict about, however, having lots of children makes it difficult. When my daughter is out on a date, I want to be up when she comes home, but… I get tired!

Food

Since I often get asked if I have followed a diet that I recommend, I always try it first. Before recommending a new cleanse or detox program, I subject myself to it, following it to the letter to be sure I get the full effect. In one case, I found a shake was much too sweet, and it messed up my digestion, so I changed to a different program. The new program I tried was not tasty and I didn’t like the fiber supplement. But it worked well, so I still use it. (As a side note, I don’t find that quality products always taste good. Use what works, not just what is to your tasting).

I also make rules and live by them for a defined period. I find if I have an end date it’s much easier to stay on track. I still mess up, but much less if I know there is an end.

For example, in 2016 I went a whole year without processed sugar. This is a hard thing to do because I could only get salad without dressing and steamed vegetables when I went out to eat. Also, I love sugar, which is the reason I chose to abstain from it for a year.

When I was around 5 years old, I remember scraping up candy that was melted into the sidewalk and eating it. My mom didn’t allow sweets in the house, and I had such a sweet tooth! (But, I never had cavities until I was 19, after a couple years of college, and lots of sweets!)

The “sugar fast” was great, and I mostly stayed with it. There was one time when I was very hungry and was offered a homemade oatmeal-raisin cookie – my FAVORITE! I ate one… OK, actually, I ate three. But I didn’t flog myself too much over it, I just enjoyed them, very much! Then, I went back to my plan, going several more months without sugar.

The next year, I tried a gluten-free diet. My 17-year-old daughter wanted to do it with me, so we agreed to keep each other honest. She called me once, crying that she had eaten something with gluten, and broke our “pact.” I told her it was OK, that I had messed-up as well. Our initial plan was to go the whole year of 2017, but after about 6 months, we found it tedious. It didn’t seem to be making us healthier, so we agreed to quit early. I still primarily cook gluten-free because I have a couple of family members who are very sensitive to gluten.

My primary rule is: Avoid processed food.

But even I break it sometimes.

Fasting

An absolute true fast is NPO (Nil Per Os) or nothing by mouth. No food. No drink. No water. Nothing. I only fast like this one day per month, on the first Sunday, for religious reasons. On other days, or weeks, I will do a cleanse, which is a modified fast. You can read about different types of fasting in Home Cures That Work’s article HERE.

The cleanse will be either vegetable juice I make at home, beef or chicken bone broth, or water. I “cleanse” about 5 days or more every month. I tell people that it’s best to do 5 days in a row, but I found that fasting on Fridays fits my lifestyle better.

Remember, regarding fasting: some is good, and more is better.

I have fasted for as long as 2 weeks, but mostly only now for a couple of days. I don’t want to lose too much weight.

Speaking of weight, when I turned 40 I was getting to be around 170 Lbs., and my wife noticed “love handles” around my waist. I thought, “A waist is a terrible thing to mind,” and I knew exactly what to do for “waist management.” I cut out sugar, stopped the shakes in the morning, drank only water, and fasted more frequently. I ate mostly PALEO, avoiding grains and fruit. This got me down to my ideal weight of 145 Lbs. in less than six months.

Supplements 

I take large doses of supplements once or twice a week. We were always taught to take our “daily vitamins,” but few people know that is just a marketing plan, not a health plan.  The truth is when we take a vitamin every day, we get resistant to it, we absorb less, and we don’t use it efficiently.  In order to be efficient and effective, we need periods of having a lot, and then of having none. As a result, supplements should be taken on an intermittent basis.

I have a smoothie with a scoop of EMPower Plus, a vitamin supplement for brain health.

When I’m feeling like I’m getting sick, I take about 12 grams (yes, twelve (12) 1000mg tablets) of vitamin C.

Generally, I have an issue with absorbing zinc, so I take extra weekly.

I also take vitamin D3 50,000 IU weekly. If I miss a week, I just take 2 when I remember.

Stress

Since I have a private practice and manage all the patients, as well as the business, along with being medical director of a nursing home, a father to 13 children with most of my family living in a different state, working in my church, and all the other responsibilities of life – there’s a lot of stress!

I have found that stress can’t be avoided. I can only change one type of stress for another, so I take on a lot. I read a life-changing book called, The Mayo Clinic Guide to Stress-Free Living by Amit Sood, MD. In the book, Dr. Sood discusses having goals, focus, forgiving myself and others, meditation and prayer, and finding my higher purpose.

This is why I take time in the morning before anyone wakes up to connect with God, assess my life, and plan my day. Even through a divorce, remarriage, lawsuits, problems with the state medical board, blending a family, a failing business, and other major stressors, I have maintained my sanity through this morning ritual.

Exercise

I was going to avoid this one, because it’s something I keep putting off. I love to exercise, as long as it has some purpose. Ten years ago, I built a house – it was the best exercise EVER! I was lifting beams and walls, climbing on top of walls and the roof, carrying sheets of plywood and boards, and swinging a hammer (24 oz.). Through it all, I was accomplishing something. If I only spent a half-hour building a couple of walls, I could look at it when I was done, and feel like I accomplished something. You just can’t do that on a treadmill! Since then I have been to Cross-Fit, which was great, and then tried a home program called “Toned in Ten” I found on the internet, which was also good.

Now, I walk as much as possible. I go to the canyon with my wife where we can be alone and walk. I take the stairs instead of the elevators when I’m going places, and just generally look for ways to use my muscles while I’m doing my regular life. I think I should do more – at least the ten minutes a day on exercise videos, but…

Analysis

Things I’ve learned in the past 17 years of trying different diets and studying health.

1. You don’t have to be perfect, just keep trying.
2. You must be honest.
3. Try different things to see what works for you.
4. Supplements are to be taken intermittently, not daily.
5. Fasting is the best thing for health, it will cure almost any illness.
6. Sleep from 10pm to 2am is the most important.
7. Stress will undo any good health program.
8. Exercise is essential to keeping strong.

I counsel a lot of people on health and have seen some truly amazing recoveries. My goal is to live to be healthy into my 100s. I’m only half-way there, so I need to keep improving. The next step is to improve my exercise, and then, we’ll see…

 

Time to arm yourself with some more good advice: this 5-minute trick will calm your mind and gut in any situation.