Habits of Health helped me identify areas to work on
It really surprised me when I did my first health assessment that I was rated in the unhealthy category. Once I dug into the Habits of Health, I found the areas that I needed to work on.
I needed to get rid of my job because it was causing most of my unhealthy habits. I wasn’t getting enough quality sleep, and I was able to correct that. I was a competitive cyclist and burned a lot of calories, but it allows you to eat some unhealthy things that don’t really serve your health. I really struggled with sweets my whole life. I was getting sick a lot, and I knew that wasn’t a natural thing to happen that somebody my age.
I have those habits under control now, and my health is fantastic. I rarely get sick. Before, I was taking antibiotics a lot, and that really manifests itself negatively. Everything was getting worse and worse even though I still looked like the picture of health because I didn’t have a lot of great healthy habits. Those are a couple of the things that really made a major difference in my life.
I was getting sick a lot, and I knew that wasn't a natural thing to happen that somebody my age.
Changing simple little things make such a difference over time
I was a truck driver, and I also was a father. My real passion was my family, and I wanted to be there for them. I went to working nights so I could split up my sleep to be at my son’s games and support my children in their activities. But then I started realizing that the sleep was really affecting me and how I showed up in the world.
We have this feeling of fulfillment now in our lives, whereas we were just surviving before.
One of the things I wanted was balance in life. The stress was actually a thing that manifested itself when I wanted to be somewhere and feeling guilty that I wasn’t there. My mental health was even finding it was worse than my physical health because I wasn’t living a life fulfilled. I wasn’t doing the things that were important to me, and I wanted to work my way back there. That’s why I really wanted to become part of this optimal health community, because I could see an avenue of how I could get to where I wanted to be from where I was.
I was really enjoying that aspect of being there for my family and having that stress reduced. I’m kind of an anti-stress junkie now. I get to the airport an hour early and sit in the lounge and have a cup of coffee while I’m waiting for my flight so I don’t stress through security. These are simple little things that make such a compound difference over time. So that’s one of my big goals now: any time I can reduce stress in my life, I go for it.
I can’t say enough about Dr. A and the mission and what it’s done for so many people. My family alone has been blessed. It’s changed the trajectory of our family and has an amazing impact on our close social network. It started with my wife, and it’s just blossomed throughout our family. Through that process, we’ve been able to help a whole lot of people, and that really is a great feeling. We have this feeling of fulfillment now in our lives, whereas we were just surviving before. Going from surviving to thriving just because one man made a decision to do something really amazing about seventeen or eighteen years ago is just phenomenal. I’m so appreciative to Dr. A and look forward to working with him far into the future.