In 2009 I was a typical Islander. Aged 60 on my way to Diabetes and being disabled.
In the next year we will find out that the health care system will not be able to look after us the way we thought it would. All sorts of cuts will have to be made.
But before we all panic, I want to tell you why you should not. For only you - not Doug Currie - can make you healthy. If you have a chronic illness, only you can cure yourself.
The issue is did you know this and what do you need to know to help you take charge of your health?
Back in early 2009, I knew what most of us do. I should eat lots of healthy grains, low or no fat and cut back on the sugar. And also take lots of exercise. This is what we are told is the recipe.
Back in 2009 I was doing all the things that we are told to do - especially eat lots of healthy grains. I did not eat much processed food or have much sugar. I did not drink pop. Compared to many who do eat a lot of processed food etc - I was a poster boy.
Some poster boy! I was doing it all except the gym bit and I was getting worse every year. Is this you too?
In the decade since I turned 50, I put on more and more weight and visceral fat. This is my least healthy and most at risk. My knees were shot too and I was looking into knee surgery. I had gurd, sleep apnea and low energy. Low other drives too!
Is this you too?
So what is different? I discovered that what we have been told is wrong. Grains are the worst thing that we can eat and that while we need to be active, going to the gym does very little on its own. Exercise is much leas important a factor than diet.
If you follow the party line as you get over the age of 50, you too will get fat and ill like me.
Giving up grains was the key to my changing my health. I don't eat all the other bad stuff either. I do eat a lot of meat and really a lot of animal fat. I eat NO vegetable fat or oil. I eat no legumes. I eat a lot of veggies but they are not as important as meat and fat. I put a lot of butter on my veggies. I eat some nuts but no peanuts - they are legumes.(Beans) I drink no beer except when I cheat but I drink a lot of wine. (Grains)
I look quite different now. I am still an old fart but I am a slim and healthy old fart. I weigh what I did when I got married 37 years ago. My blood and blood pressure are of a 25 year old. I sleep like a baby. The gurd and sleep apnea are gone. I hardly snore. My knees don't hurt all the time and let's say all the bits work just fine.
So how did I do this?
Years of Robin begging me to lose the tummy did not get me started. I believed that how I was transforming into a fat old man was part of my destiny. I thought that this was normal and that I would have to go to the gym for hours every week to get thin. I hate going to the gym.
But then a friend put me in touch with a remarkable scientist, Michael Rose, and I saw another path. He told me that we are all designed to be active and healthy for our entire lives. And that to return to my real destiny would mean that I needed only to eat what I was designed to eat. So I gave up grains as well as all processed food (I do cheat now and then).
I am more active now. I have a standing desk and sit maybe for 3 hours a day but I still don't go to the gym.
I already had a great social life and I do live in a small community - all part of the "design". I do have a lot of control too. But all these other factors I had too before I stopped being a fat old man.
This has been the project of my life. I have proved to myself that I can be in charge of my own health. You can be too. And hey we have no choice. The healthcare system is going to shrink. There are just too many of us old farts.
So will you be disabled and a burden on your family and yourself - the average Island male is by 65 - or will you take charge?
Here is another story of the same issue - How as we age and eat the wrong thing we have to get fat and ill but if we change the diet and take in some ways less exercise we get fit again - it's a paradox
