Lifestyle Diseases
I began writing this as I was returning home from my niece Jennifer’s
wedding. The wedding was in Kenosha, Wisconsin, where I lived with
my parents and five siblings from the age of 11 until I married and moved
away in my early twenties.
I’m the oldest of six children, and I love my younger siblings. In the last ten
years whenever we would gather together, I’ve always purchased healthy
foods, books and nutritional supplements to share with them, along with information
I’ve learned about health and healing.
While together a couple of days before the wedding, our extended group
went to lunch together. We have a tradition of going to this incredible drive-in
hamburger stand named Big Star. The Big Star Drive-In hamburger joint has
been open for more than fifty years and is a Kenosha institution. It is the type
of place you see featured on The Food Network program “Diners, Drive-ins
and Dives.” The Big Star serves a double cheeseburger with melted Velveeta
cheese on a steamed bun that melts in your mouth. Of course, everyone ordered
it and a large order of fries or onion rings on the side, with a root beer
or Coke to wash it down. I opted for a salad in lieu of the gastronomical delight.
Immediately after lunch, nearly everyone in our group of eleven people
returned to my sister’s house or their motel room to take a nap. The meal, although
delicious, was enervating and sapped everybody’s energy and vitality.
There was very little, if any, life force in what they had eaten. In fact, they had
expended more energy to digest that meal than was contained in the food. They
experienced an energy deficit from eating lifeless food, while I sailed through
the rest of the day with plenty of energy and vitality. A year earlier while we
were there, I had selected the same things from the menu and felt that heavy,
burdensome, lethargic feeling, also.
My cousin, who also lives there, had called me the day before and asked if
I would come by his house to share some healthful information with his friend
who is battling cancer. When I arrived, I spent the next three hours sharing
most of what you are reading in this book with my cousin, his wife, her brother
and two of their friends. With one exception, all of them are battling very serious
illnesses. The friend with cancer has had both a stroke and a heart attack.
He was smoking a cigar for most of the time we were together. After I shared
the information I believed would help him live longer and have a better quality
of life, I suggested he quit smoking. He looked at me like I was crazy. Ev-
idently, he wasn’t ready or willing to use the information that could allow him
to prolong his life. Information without application never will help anyone.
Very few people are willing to alter their lifestyle to restore their health. They
haven’t experienced what I’ve experienced and they haven’t felt the need for
change the way I do, yet. It’s through much grief and pain that I’ve come to embrace
this lifestyle. I lost a wife in death to cancer, a horrific disease. I don’t
want to see anyone else suffer, and that’s why I’m so passionate about helping
others.
Lifestyle choices are a question of the will. Some choices produce health
while others produce disease. Not all disease is lifestyle-related, but much of
it is. And lifestyle diseases can be reversed.
There is almost universal agreement that lifestyle diseases can be prevented
through nutrition, exercise and positive lifestyle changes. And if they can be
prevented through diet and exercise, it only stands to reason they also can be
reversed. The good news for those who already are ill is that almost every disease
known to man has been reversed by someone, somewhere with a healthy
lifestyle change. I sincerely believe there is a pathway to healing for everyone.
You may be that one person who is willing to do anything to maintain or
even regain your health and youthful vitality. You, like me, may have to travel
the road alone to good health. And even a journey of a thousand miles starts
with one small step. I encourage you to take that step and to keep moving towards
health, youth and vitality.
I’ve walked through shopping centers, malls and grocery stores, and have
seen people in their thirties and forties riding in electric wheel chairs because
of poor lifestyle choices related to the standard American diet. I’ve seen these
same people park in handicapped spaces. They can’t walk because they are
obese. I’m not talking about folks who are crippled or lame. Most of those
folks are disabled as a result of injury, disease or a condition existing from
birth. I’m strictly referring to those who have lost control of their appetites
and, consequently, no longer are mobile.
It’s easy to judge someone who is morbidly obese. Many look at those people
in our society with disgust. If you have ever been a person whose appetite
is out of control, you will have some understanding and compassion for those
who can’t seem to overcome this demon of appetite. I certainly understand
how this can happen because there have been times in my life when my appetite
controlled me. No amount of willpower could stop me from eating. I
was out of control and would eat until I was sick. I went to doctors, diet centers
and even to a hypnotist to try to overcome my compulsive eating. But none
of those things helped me. I hated the way I looked and felt, but I couldn’t stop
eating. I would go to a buffet restaurant with the intention of eating a healthy
meal. I would begin filling my plate at the food bar and before I knew it I’d
eaten a large meal with several servings of dessert. I would be so despondent
after leaving the restaurant that I’d go somewhere and attempt to purge the
food from my body. I was disabling my body with my lifestyle choices and
sending myself to an early grave with a knife and a fork. I had become so big
I was unable to do things that were once easy for me. I wasn’t able to do something
as simple as touching my toes (I couldn’t even see them because of my
stomach), jogging was out of the question and even climbing into a pickup
truck was difficult. Whenever you are unable to do things you once were able
to do, you are disabled to some degree. I was disabling my own body with my
out- of-control appetite.
Our bodies were created to be lean, muscular and healthy throughout life.
The middle-age spread most people exemplify by age forty isn’t the way God
designed our body to be used. Most of us have overfilled our bodies with toxic
waste while consuming our western diet of processed and fast (so-called)
foods. That’s why we are becoming a nation of the sick and dying. There are
numerous countries throughout the world where living to be a hundred years
old is a common thing.
Some of the longevity areas that scientists and demographers have classified
where people commonly live active lives past the age of 100 years are:
• The Land of Hunza: The Brusho people live in the Hunza valleys of northern
Pakistan. They are a vigorous people who live 20,000 feet in the mountains
with many elderly people past the age of 100.
There also are several other cultures of long-lived people, with all of these
societies living in mountainous regions. They are the Tibetans, the Armenian,
the Georgians, the Azerbaijans, the Vilcabamba Indians in Ecuador and the
Titicacas in Peru. Each of these people groups reportedly get their drinking
water from melting mountain glaciers, which are loaded with alkalizing minerals.
Vilcabamba is located in a scenic, mountainous valley in Ecuador. It is often
referred to as the Valley of Longevity. It is not uncommon to see a person reach
100 years of age there, and it is claimed that many have reached 120 years of
age. This is nearly impossible to verify because of the lack of birth certificates
dating back more than 100 years ago. Medical researchers have confirmed,
though, that the retinas of 100-year-old residents often are comparable with
those of 45-year-old city dwellers.
Well, what do the longest-lived cultures have in common? The reasons for
the longevity are not very clear. Some attribute the longevity to the fact most
of these people groups live in a homogenous family unit, eat primarily a plantbased
diet (with minimal meat and fish consumption and very little processed
foods), do not smoke and remain physically active throughout life. Others suggest
it is the unpolluted climate of these regions. Or possibly it’s the drinking
water. The one common characteristic seems to be they all have drinking water
that is replete with alkalizing minerals. It has been reported the coral reefs surrounding
Okinawa (the one non mountainous group of long-living people),
raise the pH of the water to about 8.6. Drinking high-alkaline water does promote
health. These people aren’t fat or disabled. Most Japanese people do not
even take medications, while nearly everyone in America is on a perpetual,
pay-as-you go, monthly pill-popping program, promoted by the drug manufacturers
and physicians of America. These things ought not to be. If we just
would change the way we eat and drink, we, too, can live a rich, healthy life
without disabilities and medications.
I would much rather be enabled than disabled. I certainly would rather be
youthful and healthy than sick and feeble. I believe good health is our birthright
and can be ours throughout our entire lifetime if we just follow the guidelines
set forth by our creator on what we put into our mouths. There is a way to overcome
compulsive eating, to reverse sickness and disease, to lose weight, and
regain your youthful figure, vitality, energy and endurance. You do not have to
be a prisoner to your appetite or to sickness and disease. Jesus said, “You shall
know the truth and the truth will make you free” (St. John 8:32). Obviously,
the Lord wasn’t talking about weight or health issues when he spoke these
words to his disciples, but the principle is the same. When you find out what’s
causing the sickness, disease or compulsive eating, you can reverse the problem.
I recognize the sovereignty of God in my longevity. My newly found healthy
lifestyle doesn’t guarantee me I’ll live one day longer than anyone else. None
of us are promised tomorrow. However, right now, today, I am experiencing
wonderful health, youthful vitality and lots of energy. I look and feel much
younger than my years. In fact, I feel better now and am able to do so much
more than I was able to do thirty years ago. And this makes the journey worthwhile.