It's Your CHOICE To Be OVERWEIGHT & UNHEALTHY

   Some revelations are subtle where others are as noticeable as an earthquake. My revelation about my health was so personal and obvious it shook me so hard that it forever put me on a path to change my life. I woke up one night in late February 2013 in a frenzy because my heart felt like it was going to explode and I panicked causing me to experience more difficulties managing my breathing. I thought I was finally having the heart attack that my Cardio doc had warned me about a couple of years before. I couldn't talk to scream out to either my wife or my daughter so I just crawled to the bathroom and cried. I wept because the pain was so intense and unbearable that I feared I was going to die. While enduring the uncontrollable and uncharacteristically violent convulsions of my body and the tears soaking my face I called out to the God I place my faith in.

   I begged him to save my life. I pleaded to him not to take me away...not like this. Not on the bathroom floor where my wife and daughter would find me lifeless the next morning if this particular episode went bad. After what felt like an eternity of torture the heart spasms finally ceased, my rib cage stopped heaving and I could take breaths without excruciating pain. As I pulled myself up onto the toilet I continued to cry. But now it was out of sheer gratefulness because I knew my guardian angel had done well, she had managed to save me one more time. I stood up in the bathroom and drank from the sink trying to calm myself then I looked up into the mirror and saw a look of terror. And for the first time ever I didn't recognize my own face. I saw a face that was heavily burdened both physically and mentally. So right there at that basin I promised myself that my health would not be the reason I checked out early. I called my doctor the next morning and explained what happened. He explained that because my condition is so sporadic any factor could have triggered the episode. Just wanting to do something and have a little more control I asked him would losing weight help. He said it wouldn't hurt. Less weight means less pressure on the heart.

   So to make a long story shorter. I thought about what he suggested and took his advice to bed for a couple weeks before deciding that I wanted to live better. And to live better I needed to do better, so I changed my food intake and committed myself to a consistent exercise regimen. Beginning March 31st I made a lifestyle change so that my life would change. As of July 30th I have lost 26 pounds. I can walk around shirtless now without having to suck in my gut ever time Crystal comes around. I can run and play with Haven without stopping every two minutes to breathe and perhaps the best result is that I have not had one heart episode not even a mild flutter since I changed my lifestyle! At 30 I am in the best physical condition I have ever been in my entire life and when I look in the mirror I am proud of what I've done and how I look. I won't lie it is a CONSTANT CHOICE to eat healthy and workout regularly but I do it...more so for my girls benefit than for my own...I owe it to them to be healthy and to be here! I am sharing my experience not to flaunt my personal success but in an effort to help someone that may be teetering on the dangerous borderline of living healthy or dying sick. We don't know when or how we greet our last day on earth but I'm doing my best to make damn sure that my last day won't be spent curled up in pain leaking tears on my own bathroom floor. So I guess the moral of this testimony is that after more is said than done... it's your choice to be overweight and unhealthy.

"Those that have greatness in them also possess the power...to bring greatness out of those around them." - TWIL