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December 12, 2007 | Issue 146 |
Scaling New Heights
“Thanks so much for giving me the opportunity to be healthy at 60.”
Ron Gerhart - Churchville, Virginia
Last year, Ron’s life was looking good.
Recently retired, the founding CEO and owner of a national advertising agency was living on his farm in the Virginia countryside with Cheryl, his wife of 35 years, their Sheltie Jack, two horses, and an Angora bunny.
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The only problem was, Ron wasn’t feeling good.
He was overweight, taking blood pressure medication, and his doctor had recently doubled his Lipitor dosage from 40 to 80mg daily, “which made my muscles ache. In bed at night, I couldn’t roll over. It hurt.”
Diagnostic tests on his coronary arteries weren’t looking good either.
“Do I want to live my retirement years not feeling well?”
“I was just feeling badly,” recalls Ron, “and here I was, entering what I’d hoped would be a great new era of my life. Cheryl and I had always enjoyed active vacations, but I was becoming less and less active – and fatter and fatter. I kept wondering, ‘Is this the way life’s going to be? Do I want to live my retirement years not feeling well?’”
He did not. So in March 2007 Ron flew to the Pritikin Longevity Center for a two-week stay. The first week, he recalls, was awful. “My body was going through all sorts of changes. I don’t think I talked the whole first week. Even at dinner, I just sat there.”
But then, come week two, “I REALLY started feeling good.” Everything started to click. “I was eating well, feeling satisfied and full without counting calories,” and charging away on the treadmills every morning.
The lab work “was amazing.”
And in just two weeks, the lab work “was amazing,” says Ron. His cholesterol fell 38%, from 194 to 121. His triglycerides shot down 56%, from 203 to 89. His LDL bad cholesterol plunged from 101 to 55. “Everything,” smiles Ron, “was in the groovy range.”
And everything since – blood values, energy, life – has stayed groovy.
40 pounds lighter
Ron shed 40 pounds, going from 227 to 187. He follows Pritikin exercise guidelines 100%, walking/jogging six days weekly, lifting weights, stretching, and even popping Sarah Gold’s yoga CD in the stereo for a few minutes several times weekly.
In August, he and Cheryl took off for heli-hiking in the Canadian Rockies. On the second day the guides, noticing he was in great shape, asked Ron if he wanted to mountain climb the following morning, “like with ropes and all that suspend-you-in-the-air equipment,” explains Ron, still in awe that he actually did it.
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Copyright 2007 Pritikin Longevity Center & Spa. All rights reserved.
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Pritikin Perspective - Healthy Living Made Easier
Pritikin Perspective is a publication for Alumni of the Pritikin Longevity Center. It is dedicated to helping people make healthy changes in their lives. The articles in this publication should not be considered specific medical advice, as each individual circumstance is different. You are strongly encouraged to seek medical advice before beginning a program of diet and exercise.
Editor/Writer: Eugenia Killoran.
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