How are you feeling?

After seeing the title of this article, most readers are going to expect that this article is about how I am feeling. Is that what you thought? Well, it’s not. Frankly, I am feeling great, super in fact. But, this article is about how you are feeling. Mostly, it’s about those who are not feeling so well.

I know that this article will be controversial to some. Give me a chance to explain myself, though.

Let me get the controversial statement that I’m going to make out of the way. You get to decide how you feel. Yes, it is all up to you how you feel. At least that’s the way that I see it.

Now, I know that many people who are ill and suffer from various ailments are going to be angered when I say that. Many such people are going to say that it is not within their control. That is just the life they have been given. Based on my own experience, I disagree. Perhaps I am not right, particularly in some cases, but I’ll explain why I feel this way.

I recently turned 56 years old. Honestly, I never thought I would live to 56. I lived an entire life of obesity. At the young age of 39, I had a stroke. That is a very young age to suffer a stroke. But, I did, and I almost died. When I went home from the hospital, I could not walk, nor could I talk. I had to learn to do those things again. My sheer determination, though, allowed me to learn how to do those things quickly, and much quicker than the doctors predicted, I was more or less back to normal again.

I had diabetes starting at age 29. Well, let me correct that statement. I was diagnosed with diabetes at age 29, although I’m sure I had diabetes long before I was diagnosed. Diabetes brought me many ailments and caused me to feel terrible for many years. I’m sure it caused my stroke. Last year, at age 55, I reversed my diabetes. My blood sugar numbers are now well outside the range that would be considered diabetic. Even my endocrinologist agrees, I no longer have diabetes.

In 2016, at the age of 54, I had a heart attack. Thankfully, I survived it. My father had a heart attack at age 55, he didn’t get another chance as I did. Later in 2015, I found that I needed to have a quadruple bypass operation. Just before the operation I nearly died. However, after my surgery, recovery, and turning my health around became my full-time job. It was my laser focus almost immediately after my surgery had been completed. The diabetes was also the major cause of my heart disease.

I suffered many other ailments over the years, mostly related to diabetes, caused by diabetes, are caused by my obesity and overeating.

The heart attack and heart bypass surgery were a major wake-up call for me. I knew that if I did not turn my life around and make major changes to my lifestyle, I would not live very much longer.

My doctors told me all sorts of things that I needed to do. I needed to eat a low-fat diet. I needed to do this, I needed to do that. Now, I am not against doctors, nor do I think that I am smarter than doctors. However, I also do not think the doctors are right about everything. In fact, after I started doing research, I felt that almost everything that doctors have told us in the past 50 years or so in regards to heart disease, diabetes, and obesity, has been incorrect.

Instead of eating a low-fat diet, I chose to eat a high-fat diet. I chose to stop eating carbs, or at least to eat them in very small quantities. As my journey continued, I chose to stop eating for days at a time. I have done fasting for periods up to 20 days at a time. 10-day fasts were very common for me. Today, I fast five days per week and eat two days per week. When I first started doing this, my doctors told me that I would be dead in a short time. Instead, my recovery has gone wildly better than my doctors even thought was possible. I have lost a lot of weight. I feel better than I have in decades. Most of my doctors still do not understand how it is possible. But, they cannot really berate me, because they can see that the results have been huge.

So, getting back to my controversial statement that you get to decide how you feel, I believe that I chose a path that was going to make me feel good, thus I feel great. Frankly, I believe that if I had followed the advice that had been given to me by my doctors, I would not be doing nearly as well as I am now. In fact, I feel that I would still be diabetic.

Speaking of diabetes, after my heart attack, while I was in the hospital, as part of the dismissal from the hospital, I had to have a visit from a nutritionist who would advise me on how I should start eating. Honestly, she told me, advised me, that I should eat 1 cup of potatoes three times per day. That is a lot of carbs. I would certainly be suffering from even worse diabetes now if I had followed that advice. Instead, I no longer have diabetes.

I have a lot of online friends and followers. I have several very popular websites, and because of that many people have been following me for years. Because of the number of people who follow me, I get a lot of emails, people asking for advice, that sort of thing. During the rest of this week, I will be having some articles on this website about some of the health questions that I get from people and health statements. Frankly, a lot of these people are in very poor shape, healthwise. They follow what their doctors tell them, but in my view, that is not always the best advice. Instead, I feel that these people could turn their health around, start feeling a lot better and enjoy life. My coming articles will feature this theme, tell about the sorts of problems that these people have, and why I think it would be better for them to do things that are generally unconventional.

Remember, I am not a doctor, nor do I claim to be (I don’t even play one on TV, LOL). I am only relying on my own research and the effects that that research has had on my life in the past year or two. I have been on a journey, and it has been an amazing journey for me.

So, I stand by my statement: it is up to you how you feel. It’s kinda like the old saying, happiness is a choice. How you feel is a choice. How healthy you are is a choice.

Come back again tomorrow and read my first article on this topic. The article is about a family member and my hopes that he will see the light, and follow a different road than he is on now.

See you then?