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Dehydration may cause gout

Craig

People going through a lifestyle change can and will face something called a setback.

This year has been the most difficult for setbacks for several reasons but gout has been the main reason.

If you have never experienced gout then consider yourself lucky.

This year I have had four separate acute gout attacks.

Gout was taking control of my life and it sucked.

I had to find a solution to this before I went off the deep end.

When you get gout, life comes to a standstill.

Not only is gout extremely painful but you can not walk, sleep, exercise or think properly.

Worst of all, your sex life comes to an end when you have gout and that sucks even more.

The onset of an acute gout attack

Gout started to appear when I was in my early thirties, overweight and leading an unhealthy lifestyle.

Usually gout would appear after a night of too many beers and eating rich foods like T-bone steaks, ice cream and roasted cashews.

Since I am a healthy man now, I wondered why the hell this was still happening to me.

What I noticed was my gout attacks were occurring after hot yoga classes, high intensity work outs and after drinking coffee.

Sometimes I drink coffee after working out or a hot and sweaty yoga class.

Could drinking coffee after hard work outs or hot yoga classes be causing the problem?

When I work out or do hot yoga I leave puddles of sweat behind.

It never occurred to me that those puddles of sweat would cause trouble.

And then I would usually go for coffee at Starbucks.

So instead of replacing the essential nutrients, I was drinking coffee and not replacing the nutrients. My bad.

So I got onto the inter-webs and did some research.

I was sweating out magnesium and magnesium deficiency has been known to cause gout.

Full blown acute gout attack

Magnesium deficiency will increase uric acid levels.

Increased uric acid will cause the kidneys to produce excess uric acid which can cause gout.

Right away I ran to the health store and started to take magnesium supplements.

And wihin a few days my gouty arthritis symptoms started to recede, slowly.

Everything is slow when you have gout from walking, showering and even your clouds your thinking.

Receding

So instead of drinking coffee and hyper hydrating after a super hot and hard workout, I changed my pattern.

Now I drink copious amounts of water or an electrolyte drink to replace all the salt and essential minerals

From now on I will continue to take magnesium supplements and see if that helps to keep the gout away.

The health store owner told me that eventually gout will be a distant memory.

I hope he is right.

Exercise increases T-levels

Craig

High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) is important to increasing your testosterone levels.

Having high testosterone levels are important to get and maintain a hard erection.

In 2005 after a visit to the hospital for some chest pains, I found out that I high blood pressure.

Soon after taking medication to lower my blood pressure, I started to experience low libido and E.D.

So I went back to see the doctor and was prescribed another medication to fix a problem that a medication was causing.

Or at least, that is what I thought.

It did not seem like the best solution to me.

I stayed on track with my fitness goals, continued to work out religiously, hike, spin, do HIIT, practice yoga and eat clean and healthy.

After losing more than 100 Lbs, started to experience dizziness, nausea and went back to my doctor.

My doctor told me to stop taking the blood pressure medication.

I could not have been happier.

After a few months, my body started to come to life again.


Weight Loss with a High Speed Blender

Craig

Green Juicing helped me lose weight

Do you want to change your life, get healthy and lose weight like I did?

It’s important to be positive, set goals, and start taking baby steps.

One of the most important tools that I found to help with weight loss was a high speed blender.

The Personal Trainer mentioned she had a cleansing program to try.

I would need to have a high speed blender and a nut milk bag.

After I did some research and came across two high speed blenders that would work, the Vitamix and Blend-Tec Four Side blender.

I decided buy the Blend-Tec and have it was the best $400 I have ever spent.

When I got my blender home and started to make green juices and smoothies righ

That was three years ago and have used my blender more than 3000 times now, dropped 125 pounds and 10 inches off my waistline.

The Blend-tec makes healthy juices and other foods that are essential for someone who wants to improve their health.

If you want to add a tool to lose weight and get healthy adding a high speed blender is a great start.

Yoga changed my life

Craig

Yoga helped me change my life
Before and after photo

There was once a time not long ago when I would be sitting staring out the window of my local watering hole on Queen Street or from the picnic table in the park where I spent afternoons doing my multimedia work while waiting to pick up my son from school.

I would see people walking or biking past carrying their rolled up yoga mats.

Being a die hard hockey and football fan my entire life, I thought yoga was a sport for women but,  I was wrong…

Once I moved to Collingwood, I met a woman who was a yoga instructor. She was the first yoga instructor I’d ever met and suggested we attend a yoga class together.

I was very reluctant because of my closed-mind and limited beliefs about yoga but decided to give it a try and took my first yoga class in January 2014.

It was not exactly what I had expected it to be, it exceeded my expectations and I loved going to this place, lie down on a rubber mat and do strange movements with unusual names like Happy Baby, Cat Cow, Downward Dog or Shavasana! A place where I could get a quick nap in seemed like an awesome place!

Not long after I started practicing yoga, I began to notice that I was losing weight, my thinking was clearer and more focused, my mood had improved, my balance had improved. Something was happening to me by coming to yoga classes, something great.

I had found a cool place to go where I could clear my mind, meet women and get healthy and fit and I was accepted. It become a part of my daily routine and was a great place to go each morning instead of my regular routine.

What I didn’t realize until many years after was how grateful I was to the woman who took me to my first yoga class when I was overweight and in desperate need of a change to my lifestyle.

Changing how I thought about yoga lead me to experience new things, opened my mind, my body to relax, breathe, stretch, be in the moment, meet new people and challenged me in ways I could never have imagined and it was helping me lose weight.

Once I had improved at yoga, I joined a more advanced yoga class and from there I noticed people taking spinning and circuit training classes and signed up for those and loved it. The classes were high energy, fun and full of amazing people, just what the doctor ordered.

That lead me to become a personal trainer and help other people like myself to lose weight and make changes to their lifestyle.

If you have never tried yoga before, I seriously recommend that you do.

Yoga changed my life for the better and it might do the same for you.

Dead Man Walking

Craig

When I was 48 years old I was overweight and needed to have my wisdom teeth removed.

I don’t know if you’ve had your wisdom teeth removed but it’s one of those life experiences that I never wanted to experience and had avoided.

Luckily for me at that time I knew a parent from my son’s hockey team who just happened to be a Dental Surgeon. He offered to remove my wisdom teeth and I gladly accepted his offer.

On the day of my surgery, the nurse took x-rays and then escorted me into the surgery room and administered anesthetic.

The Dental Surgeon went to work but after a few minutes, I woke up and looked up at the doctor while he was pulling a tooth out of my mouth with a big pair of pliers.

The kind doctor looked down at me and said “Craig, you are a dead man walking and there’s a good chance you will die before before the age of 50 if you do not lose weight.”

He made me promise that I would have to make a serious effort to lose weight or he would not finish operating.

I reluctantly promised that I would change my life and lose weight and he finished removing my wisdom teeth.

That was a day that changed my life forever.

 

 

 

 

 

Lemons Helped me Lose Weight

Craig

In 2010 I was over weight and had numerous health problems.

My doctor sent me to get my internal organs examined to learn if something was wrong with me.

The technician was from Syria and shared her family secret with me to help with my weight loss.

She told me to drink a half an organic lemon squeezed in warm water every morning and wait for half an hour to have breakfast.

She explained that when the visceral fat surrounding the liver  dissolved from the lemon, my liver would begin to work better and help with weight loss.

The acid in the lemon and Apple Cider Vinegar may have negative effects on the enamel of teeth and a good idea to rinse your mouth with warm water but do not brush your teeth after taking this Elixir.

Hopefully this post will reach people who may be suffering from Fatty Liver Disease, High Blood Pressure or Gout and need a solution like I did.

 

 

 

Lifestyle change is worth it

Craig

In 2012, I made a lifestyle change and moved from Toronto to Collingwood,Ontario on the shores of Georgian Bay.

I have lost 125 pounds, no longer take high blood pressure medication, am healthier and more physically fit then I have been in my entire life.

Many people have helped me along the path to health and wellness and there is a lot of learning involved but the main decision to change comes from deep inside.

Lifestyle change will probably change your body overnight and will mean altering many things in your life that you have become used to.

If you or someone you know is considering making a lifestyle change to lose weight and get healthier and fitter, it is the right decision to make.

Go for it and never look back, keep an open mind, be grateful, embrace change and never let anyone change your mind.

What you have decided is the right decision and great things will follow, along with feeling very hungry and tired and not being able to walk for a few days because of sore muscles.