The Lowdown from a Layman

A personal blog describing how I made an “all out effort” to improve my chances for longevity coupled with quality of life.

 

Born in 1950, I had the initial advantage of eating (for the most part) wholesome food to include grass-fed beef, pasture-raised pork, free-range chicken, fresh fish, (mostly) whole grain products, fresh vegetables, and dairy products until about the 1960s when processed food began to become the staple of many families in America, including mine. To add much insult to injury, every one of my family members became a cigarette smoker. That would prove to be detrimental to my parent’s health and two of my older brothers, both of whom died at age 62 as a result of smoking and other poor lifestyle choices that included inferior diets, weight issues, and lack of exercise.

I was about nine years old or so when I began smoking cigarettes. It began innocently enough with a few puffs every now and then until I was a little older and began to hang with a “bad crowd” of older kids who convinced me smoking was cool. As a result of becoming a known smoker in a small town in northern Wisconsin, I wasn’t allowed to compete in sports in grade school or high school. I did eventually quit smoking at a later age… more on that subject a bit later in this blog.

By the time I reached high school age, my diet took a turn for the worse as I was able to make some money with part-time jobs to support a burgeoning junk food habit to go along with smoking cigarettes on a daily basis. I was well on my way to a life destined for ill health, but at the time, you couldn’t convince me to change my habits because I didn’t show any indications of poor health.

In 1967, our family moved from that small town in northern Wisconsin to a larger city (Sheboygan, Wisconsin). Upon graduating from high school, I worked for one year as a compounder in a plastics factory. My job involved mixing resins, chemicals, coloring agents, fiberglass, and even asbestos fibers in large blenders. There was no provided protection from handling these materials as management wasn’t aware of the potential health hazards, especially asbestos. In fact, one of the processes of preparing the asbestos fibers was to bake the asbestos in a large oven prior to adding those super-dry fibers to the mix by scooping and hand-sprinkling the fibers from a box. After mixing the ingredients, I emptied the blenders into barrels creating miniature clouds of airborne particulates that I breathed into my lungs on a regular basis.

At this point in my life I was regularly eating processed food and sugary junk food, smoking a pack of cigarettes (mostly unfiltered Lucky Strikes and Camels) every day and exposing my lungs to harmful airborne particulates at my full-time job. By the time I quit that job I was 19 years old (chronologically), but probably quite a bit older physiologically.

Following one year at a local technical college, I entered the U.S. Army to “get out of Dodge” and see the world. I would come back to Sheboygan and finish my degree following three years in the military. Within months after beginning a full-time job at a local bowling center, a downward spiral of my health began, evidenced by the development of a chronic cough and the fact that I began to put on weight. I had not yet quit smoking and was still eating a relatively poor diet and exercise was not on my radar. For several years my health continued to deteriorate, but at a seemingly slow pace. Slow enough to keep me from taking an active role in making an effort to improve it.

In early 1977, the bowling center was destroyed by fire and I was without a job for several months until I landed a position at a different bowling center as an assistant manager. Because I was allowed to smoke at will in this environment, I did and therefore my routine continued as did my slowly deteriorating health. In 1982, I changed my career path and became employed at a local utility as a residential energy auditor. I continued to eat poorly and consumed alcohol, but I reduced my smoking habit somewhat and recognized a slight improvement in my health. Encouraged, I quit smoking, cold turkey, only to pick up the habit again within two weeks. After several months of smoking, I decided to quit again, but this time I added exercise in the form of running. The improvement in my health was phenomenal.  After six months of not smoking, I celebrated… with a cigar. Big oops! Within a week or so, I was back to smoking cigarettes again at the same pace as I was before. I made several more failed attempts over the next couple of years. On one attempt, I quit for two years and celebrated, again with a cigar, and shortly thereafter, I began to smoke cigarettes once again.

In 1989 I left my position with the utility and purchased a small bowling center in Sheboygan. Now I was back in that environment where I could smoke as much as I wanted and eat whatever and whenever I wanted… and I did! Over the course of the next two years, I was smoking 2 – 3 packs daily as well as inhaling the secondhand smoke from many patrons as smoking in bars was still allowed. My weight shot up to 190+ pounds (not a good look for someone 5’7”) and I was coughing all the time. I couldn’t laugh without coughing. I couldn’t sleep through the night without waking up with a coughing spasm after sleeping for only an hour or so. To prevent me from constantly waking up my family by my coughing, I would leave our on-premise apartment and go out into the bowling area to cough. In addition, I was consuming copious amounts of alcohol on a daily basis, eating lots of grilled meat, tasty Sheboygan hard rolls, deep-fried foods, cheese, and lots of sugary treats. Finally, one night it occurred to me that I wouldn’t want to be a patron in my bar being served drinks and food by someone who is coughing all the time. Something had to give! That night was about two weeks prior to my 42^nd birthday when I made the commitment to put an end to my smoking once and for all.

On the day of my birthday, I did not have a cigarette but instead went for a long walk. Three days later, on my mother’s birthday, I went for a short run to celebrate my new smoke-free lifestyle that I was committed to. I then took up running in a more serious manner slowly increasing my mileage to eventually averaging 35 – 40 miles per week. I continued to run at this pace for several years before I tapered off the mileage to 10 – 15 miles per week. Eventually, I quit running altogether and took up walking instead. As I write this on March 24, 2022, it has been 10,822 days since my last cigarette. Quitting smoking has turned out to be one of the very best lifestyle choices I’ve made in my life for several important reasons besides the obvious health benefit.

Please understand that while I stopped smoking, the bar environment still had patrons who smoked and I had to tolerate breathing that secondhand smoke until the day I finally sold the bar/bowling business (late 1995). Also, please understand I did not change my eating or alcohol consumption habits at that point in time. As a result, my weight settled at about 170 – 180 lbs (considered overweight per BMI) until early 2014.

I tell you all of this so that you will realize that I spent the following 20 years on the “wrong side of the tracks” with regard to my personal health. I didn’t know what being in a state of good health really was. I was under the impression that if I wasn’t smoking, then automatically, I was a healthy person.

When I retired in March 2014 something “magical” happened to me and I am very excited to share that with you. Please read on.

Up until that point in time, I had been drinking city tap water using a Brita® filter. Upon my retirement, my daughter introduced me to ionized drinking water which dramatically changed my perspective about taking a serious proactive approach to my health. This ionized water, also known as Kangen® water, is electrically-charged which changes the molecular structure of the water molecules making it more hydrating, alkalized, and loaded with antioxidants to neutralize disease-causing free radicals. This water is delicious, has a smooth texture, and enhances flavors when used to make soups, stews, and coffee. The electronic device (water ionizer) that creates this drinking water can also produce a variety of different pH waters that have the ability to clean and disinfect surfaces, enhance indoor and outdoor plant growth, soften hair and tone skin, remove stains, speed healing of cuts and burns, and many other practical uses.

After drinking this superior quality water on a regular basis and discovering all the additional attributes of Kangen® water, I made the investment of purchasing my own water ionizer rather than making multiple trips to my daughter’s house to get water from her device. That’s when the real magic for me happened.

I began to notice my energy level had improved, the quality of my sleep improved, my morning “fogginess” diminished, my desire to exercise increased, and most importantly, my desire to further improve my health began in earnest. I felt like I was “off to the races” and I became determined to continue to improve my health.

I began by setting some realistic goals I wanted to achieve. At the top of my list was to finally lose the ugly belly fat I had already tried desperately to eliminate/reduce by doing 1,001 crunches daily for nine full years beginning in early 2006. That attempt of over three million crunches finally ended with minimal success and much disappointment. While my belly fat and waist size did not diminish, my neck size grew about two inches.

In June 2015 I came across a TEDx Talk that featured Bert Herring, M.D. who was explaining the benefits of intermittent fasting (IF) also known as time-restricted eating. I had never heard of IF until that day. The concept intrigued me and I decided to give it a try. While there are quite a few different IF routines available for people to utilize, I settled on beginning with a daily 19-hour continuous fast with a 5-hour “eating window” routine. Dr. Herring, who presented this particular routine (known as Fast-5) indicated that it would probably produce a one pound per week weight loss of excess fat. It sounded reasonable and safe to do. I jumped in with both feet! By the end of the year, I lost almost 30 lbs and my waist shrunk from 35” to 30”. That represented about the same weight and waist size as when I joined the military at age 20. I am still at that weight and waist size as I have adopted IF as an easy, permanent lifestyle choice. Over the past 6+ years that I’ve been intermittent fasting, I’ve come to learn many more facets about this amazing concept of time-restricted eating and feel quite capable of coaching others on how to do it successfully while serving as an elderly poster boy.

In September 2015 I stopped consuming alcohol with the occasional exception of a bit of champagne at several weddings and a taste of wine this past Christmas. Also on two celebratory occasions, I’ve had singular cocktails. To be candid, I don’t know what inspired me to stop consuming alcohol, but I’m glad I did. As a former tavern owner, I have consumed more than my “fair share” of alcohol.

Also in September 2015, I began working on a project at my home that I had promised myself I would tackle upon retiring. I live in a 120+-year-old house with a detached garage that is built into a sloping hill. This garage is unusual in that it has a wood plank floor at ground level and a basement underneath. My plan was to “rescue” this unique building from certain demise due to years of water intrusion and rodent infestation. After spending several full days cleaning the building of junk and other debris, I began stripping all the interior wall coverings to expose the stud wall cavities and fully insulated them along with the rafter cavities of the flat roof. The fact that I was retired and with improved health and stamina, I was able to spend as much time as needed to create an energy-efficient building shell, capitalizing on the knowledge I had acquired in a previous career of understanding what is referred to as building science. The project included the tedious process of refinishing the wood plank floor. This necessitated countless hours on my hands and knees removing the dirt-filled cracks between the floor planks with an ice pick, packing those spaces with bits of fiberglass, applying caulk over the fiberglass, sanding the entire floor with a hand-held orbital sander, and applying several coats of polyurethane with a small brush. In addition, I also spent quite a bit of time painting.

various surfaces on the interior and exterior of the building. It’s doubtful that I would have attempted that amount of effort in my previous state of mediocre health.

Later in the fall of 2015, my daughter and I began to explore the possibility of opening a retail store to promote a retail business model to make Kangen® water readily available to the public. We found a suitable storefront in early 2016. After prepping the store, we opened in April of that year.

Early on, our only product was Kangen® water. Within a year we added air purification products. That was followed by the addition of CBD products in March 2018. In 2019, we introduced a unique daily nutritional supplement that is specifically formulated based on individual DNA. This supplement is known as ÜFORIA. Also, in 2019 we introduced HEALY, an Individualized Microcurrent Frequency (IMF) device. This wearable device uses IMF programs to promote your health, vitality, and overall wellbeing by recognizing each tissue type in your body has its own unique electrical frequency. In 2020 we began to offer another unique product known as APL GO. These are DNA and Negative Ion infused lozenge drops that include proprietary blends of various plants that offer a true benefit to your wellbeing due to their high absorption rate delivering the biological action of plant constituents that benefit human health.

As a result of regularly using these natural health-enhancing products, consuming a mostly plant-based diet, and employing intermittent fasting, moderate daily exercise, good sleep habits, moderate exposure to sunshine, and daily meditation, I enjoy a level of health that is devoid of prescription and OTC medications. The last time I was even mildly sick was a three-day cold in December 2011. In late 2019, I suffered a chemical poisoning event that caused a temporary respiratory problem that lasted several days but was not serious enough to cause me to miss any work. With the exception of a slightly elevated PSA value, my annual check-ups have indicated normal values for the past six years.  

In conclusion, the lifestyle choices I’ve made over the past several years have made an extraordinary (positive) difference in my mind, body, and spirit. I encourage people of all ages to recognize the value of taking a consistent, proactive approach to their health and wellbeing. Focus on your health now – don’t wait until it’s too late!