Bismarck on Health

Reversing cognitive decline, knee damage, and high blood pressure

Bismarck: “War is too serious a matter to be entrusted to the military.”*

Me: “Health and fitness are too serious to be left to the fitness industry.”

I shared this whimsical post with my Buy Me a Coffee members, and I received an email from one of them, that illustrates this principle in action better than anything I could have said (shared with permission, emphasis mine):

Over 20 years ago, I was told I needed double knee replacement. I still haven't had the surgery. I have run** two miles a day, seven days a week, for ten months. I do 50-500 body weight squats depending on the day, with mild pain on very rare occasions. I do a one-minute full Asian squat every day. I do isometric and light resistance exercise twice per week. I practice Taiichi twice a week. I added ten net pounds of lean muscle in seven months.

The problem was that the doctors were not only wrong but also ignorant and unwilling to learn. I wasted massive amounts of money on physical therapy and gym memberships. It seems that I did not know how to exercise. In both physical therapy and the gym, I bought into the trainers' bullsh*t "no pain, no gain" philosophy. Turning around your physical condition or impairments and getting fit isn't about killing yourself. It is about getting educated and making a long-term commitment to making your life better. I am not a doctor or certified trainer; I am just a person who decided that being 70 pounds overweight, with chronic high blood pressure (even on multiple meds), taking ten prescription drugs per day, and Type 2 Diabetes was totally unacceptable. I changed my diet. I changed my lifestyle. I learned how to exercise the correct way. Two years later, I am off all meds. My blood work is excellent, rated 94 out of one hundred. My fitness level is better than 60% of men at age 65, and I will be 75 later this year. No medical advice, just real experience. I am convinced that unless you are terminally ill and confined to bed, you can improve your fitness.

While I am at it, two years ago I was diagnosed by Mayo Clinic with moderate, NOT mild, cognitive decline. I completely reversed it. When they called me after I waited a year to start the program, I told them I didn't need it. They said that it was impossible; cognitive decline is progressive. Finally, they advised me to repeat the screening schedule. So I did. 22 items, 21 correct. Dead silence. The only question I missed, she said, was the date. I got the day of the week. But missed the date by two days. Laughed out loud, and she asked me why. I said that may be the stupidest question you can ask a retiree. Who lives by the calendar? She said she didn't understand how the previous scan could have been that wrong. The assessment tool wasn’t wrong; at the time, I was experiencing significant issues. A year later, despite conventional wisdom, I had taken the necessary actions to reverse the condition completely."

**when he says “run”, he means “slow jogging”.

*Credit where it’s due: Bismarck didn’t actually say that. It was Georges Clemenceau, French Prime Minister in WWI. But really — would you have clicked on him?

Georges Clemenceau (from Wikipedia)