Some people are natural born athletes. They can run and leap and bend and twist and do things with an alarming ease that prove difficult to mere mortals. They have fit and athletic bodies regardless of what they eat, it seems, and they can do many things wrong and still get results that others sweat buckets for months to earn.
I’m not one of those “natural athlete” people.
I have been an athlete my entire adult life but I’m one of those delusional Rudy-type-characters that wants to make up for God-given shortcomings with hard work. Years ago, I competed in powerlifting and even held a record at one point. Then I competed in bodybuilding and eventually fell in love with Boxing, Muay Thai and MMA. Again, lacking any genetic talent for these sports, I had to learn more than the average guy to get ahead. When you are born with talent there is no need to learn how to overcome your lack of it. In that sense, you could say I was very blessed to have such an exceptional lack of natural ability.
Since I was a teenager I have trained in all kinds of gyms devoting between 3 and 7 days per week to working out in some form or another. To look at me when I was 42 years old, you might assume I was one of those natural born athlete guys. I ate healthy, drank plenty of fresh water, I looked lean with thick muscles, yet while visiting Las Vegas on business, I ended up in hospital with some heart issues. After a two days and thousands of dollars worth of tests; I was smugly advised by a heart specialist that I would not live to see my 57th birthday.
He diagnosed me with atrial fibrillation, a severely enlarged heart, and congestive heart failure. My heart was not pushing enough blood through my body and my condition, I was told, would only deteriorate over time until it killed me.
I believed him and left that hospital knowing I had between 10 and 15 years left to live and that death would be slow and miserable. You can imagine how the next ten years went. I had frequent pneumonia, no energy most of the time, workouts were very hard but I did them anyway, and my condition got worse each year. I started having TIAs or mini-strokes and by the fifth one I ended up in hospital for extensive testing.
My wife Ana was there with me for all of it. She spent the time researching my issues, and praying, and when we left the hospital five days later with no answers, she sat me down and told me where God had led her. There was a lot of research being done at the time on inflammation and gut health. Long story short, we viewed the heart issues as being caused by severe inflammation that was created by gut health issues. I chose not to take medication that was subscribed simply because it hadn’t been doing anything to that point.
It was my personal choice to do so and I am not suggesting or making a recommendation for anyone else.
When I got home Ana fed me a strict anti-inflammatory diet. Within two weeks I started feeling much differently and at the end of the first month, I felt like a different person. I continued to follow the nutrition plan she had for me and started back training again but with a focus on endurance, speed and agility rather than size and strength. A couple years later I walked about of my cardiologists office ready to live again. My heart was a normal size and functioning above average for a man of my age. I had no detectible plaque in my arteries, and my atrial fibrillation was gone. The doctor sent me away and told me not to come back unless I had problems again.
I believe God answers prayers and performs miracles to this day. God led Ana to the information she needed when I was in hospital and he gave me the strength and motivation to do the work when I got home. The atrial fibrillation going away was 100% God as I have had that since my mid-30’s and it was suddenly gone. I didn’t take any medication, there were no treatments or procedures done, it just went away and my understanding is that Atrial Fibrillation doesn’t just go away on it’s own.
I celebrated my 57th birthday, alive, by doing 1007 pushups in 70 minutes. For the briefest of moments I thought about that doctor and how God proved him wrong, and I smiled. The extra seven pushups were in tribute to God creating the earth in 6 days then resting on the 7th. In June of this year, I will celebrate my 63rd birthday and I am in the best overall physical shape of my entire life.
The most important thing I learned is that God is the final authority on all things and he will decide when he wants me to come home. I also learned that eating to build muscles differs greatly from eating to be healthy and allowing your body function optimally. I know the smart way to do things is work with your body to reach any fitness and health related goals and that as long as you are alive and able to move, you can build muscle, burn fat, and slow the aging process.
There is nothing wrong with aging. It is a natural thing, but we should not try to speed up the aging process with bad eating habits, bad lifestyle habits, and a defeated attitude by telling ourselves we are old and incapable of living a more active and vibrant life through vigorous exercise.
Over the past five years, I have lost an alarming number of friends and acquaintances that may still be here had they taken better care of themselves. Most of them simply didn’t know how and were too proud to ask for help, or believed their state was unchangeable. If you are alive and will do the work, change is not only possible, it’s inevitable.
I am not a natural athlete, so I had to learn far more than most to be where I am now. I have quietly coached elite and professional athletes for over 35 years that were competitive in a variety of sports I have written countless articles on training, nutrition and other fitness related articles for many of the world’s top bodybuilding and fitness magazines as well as health and fitness related websites.
God has blessed me with a lot of information in this area, as well as experience, my own and many others, and I am going to write and post about it here. If sharing prevents another one of my family, friends, acquaintances, or even a stranger from an untimely death, or gives them a more vibrant and purposeful life, then it is well worth the time and work. I hope you come along for the ride and please invite someone that may benefit from all that gets posted here.
God Bless
Terry
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