I remember sitting in my chair at work one day and standing up and my back gave out on me. I immediately felt a sharp pain shoot through my body and I was stuck in a hunched-over position. After sitting for a few more hours the pain went away and I was okay. I thought to myself “Man I must have pulled a muscle.” Little did I know that being almost 400lbs so long my spine began to put major pressure on my back and was eroding a disc in my lower spinal cord. I started to have issues with my knees, and I would have intermittent pain that would cause my knees to buckle at times. I then found myself in a doctor’s office because there was an intense pain in my wrists and I couldn’t do anything with my hands. These were the times of my life at the tender age of 25 my body began to send me major warning signs that I had some major problems.

I ignored these warning signs because quite frankly I had more important things to do! like working and making money, partying with my friends, and drinking my emotions and crippling loneliness into a pit deep inside of myself. I found myself on dating websites trying to simply have a conversation just because I needed some morsel of attention. I was giving myself to any and everyone just to try to fill these voids that I had created inside of myself and wasn’t sure how or why they were there. At times I’d come home at 3 am and lay in bed with the room spinning, thinking of calling my dad and hoping he would give me some advice. I realized he may not even understand what I was dealing with. Living in a body that I hated and thinking that nobody could ever love someone like me was the worst thing I’ve ever experienced and never will I ever go back to that person.

I was recently asked, “Stephen, why are you always fasting, eating rabbit food, and drinking all of that juice?” My knee-jerk reaction in my mind was to say “Because it tastes good!” While that is true, If it was all about taste I’d be eating double-fried crispy hot wings with a side of french fries ranch, and carrot sticks. The truth is those are not the most delicious foods. The truth is that I have realized that for me to maintain the health that I have captured I must eat, think, breathe, drink, and speak completely differently. I have over the years been working on not changing just the foods I eat, but the identity of the man I am and how that man lives his life.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure translated to our story, this means that when we feel good we need to focus on doing the small things daily. Making sure were eating a variety of colored foods and keeping our toxic load low. Fasting is not just for weight loss but also to lower inflammation, and to put ourselves in a state of autophagy to prevent cancer, eliminate brain fog, increase energy, increase blood flow in the body, to allow the liver to detox without the burden of creating tons of bile along with its other jobs. The ounce of prevention is worth more than having to go through months of fasting to get our health back. It’s easier to maintain something once you have it than to get it initially. Have you ever bought a car? all the effort shopping, test driving, running your credit, and having to gather your deposit; all of this can be a massive process. Once you have the car you simply need to make payments monthly and you will keep the car. If you are not in the place where you want to be, you see how much energy and effort you must put into things to make progress. I promise after you hit a point where you are happy, healthy, and comfortable inside of your skin; it’s easier to maintain by making small changes than all the effort it took to get there. This is a lesson we should have learned as a child… It is a lesson we now know and can teach to others around us.

Wellness Challenge of the Week

Determine where you are maintaining in life and where you are putting the most effort to change or the “Cure” part. Write 3 tools that you can use to help maintain the part of you that is causing you the most energy expenditure. How can you put some of the smallest effort into maintaining that progress and move more into prevention other than having to cure that area of life constantly?

For example: If you had poor hormonal balance and now you have found a good space 3 tools that you could utilize to maintain would be.

1. Focus on removing endocrine-disrupting chemicals via air fresheners, toxic detergents, and perfumes.

2. Do a quarterly Liver and gallbladder flush to ensure the body is removing harmful chemicals frequently?

3. Take a daily dose of Root Clean Slate to remove harmful toxic heavy metals that disrupt hormonal balance.