Have you ever woken up with sciatic pain so bad that you can’t walk?

I have.

How about 30 pounds overweight with borderline high blood pressure as well?

That was my life back in September of 2018. I started going to Dr. Gary Torres every 2 weeks, he did acupuncture and chiropractic and I started to get better.

I’m pain free today with no drugs, no surgery! I’m back riding my motorcycle and doing normal stuff. I can even go up on a roof and look at a solar array without tumbling off!

For 2019 me and my sister Andrea (pictured above) decided to drop 15% of our body weight in order to make it to 2020 lighter and healthier. My goal weight is 178 pounds, Andrea’s goal weight is a closely guarded government secret.

She’s my accountability partner in this, so it will be fun, and since I’m single I have a great reason to slim down and stay that way. Most ladies want to date a guy in better shape, and I look better when I’m leaner.

Last year I discovered Intermittent Daily Fasting, but I failed to do it often enough. I discovered that I felt really good if I fasted 20 hours each day, and really bloated when I didn’t! This time I’m going to hold fast to IDF, only tea all day (with nothing added) until a healthy dinner after 5 or 6PM.

My stomach has gotten smaller even with my inconsistent fasting, so I no longer have the capacity to eat a ton of food. I want to see what happens if I do 20 hour fasts every day for multiple weeks.

If you’ve never tried IDF take a minute and watch Thomas Delauer’s clips on YouTube. Everything that he says is true; you feel better, less bloated, more aware, etc.. 5,000 years of medical wisdom from India and China probably has some wisdom in it.

Speaking of China… my health journey would be incomplete without acupuncture and chiropractic. Before my sciatica hit a few months ago I had not gone to see Dr. Torres in many years, and my lower back and shoulders were really out of whack.

I’m determined now to visit with Dr. Torres once a month or so to stay healthy. I pay him out of pocket, but if I lose weight and I’m pain free I can earn far more money and enjoy a much better lifestyle. Worth it. Your health is your WEALTH.

The other part of this picture is the Fitbit on my wrist. 10,000 steps per day, as my schedule allows. Yesterday I did 4,000 steps just climbing up on my roof and taking down my Christmas lights! I also knock on doors to generate solar leads… so 10,000 steps a day is a nice baseline for my health. If I get to the end of the day and I’m at 8,000 steps I just go out and walk around my neighborhood for 20 minutes.

The other piece is regular swimming in the large community pool in my subdivision. I’ve been swimming for many years, but my diet was poor. With the fasting, acupuncture and 10,000 steps the swimming works my upper body and rounds things out.

The last piece is yoga. I’ve been doing some yoga poses and getting more flexible. There are many people older than 100 years old who still do yoga and are also mentally sharp, active and healthy. There is no doubt that yoga does some very beneficial things to the human body that we don’t fully understand.

I might join a yoga studio, still kicking that idea around……………………….

In all I’m approaching my health as a daily hobby, spending some time and money on making my physical reality as optimized as possible at my age.

In summary: Fasting,  Acupuncture / Chiro , 10,000 steps, swimming + yoga!

If you would like to join our accountability group let me know!

Ben Alexander

January 4rth, 2019