Hear what Brent Peterson has to say about his use of the healthy cell concept and weight loss.
Background
In 1991 I graduated from high school at a reasonably fit 195 pounds. I was active in sports and work but did show some signs of liver dysfunction even back then in my bloodwork taken for my annual physical. Over the course of the next 30 years, I put on about ~4.5 pounds a year to reach my peak weight of ~325 pounds in 2020. In that year, I had a wake-up call regarding my weight. It was time to think about some weight loss after all the years of gain.
In 2020, a little virus called COVID-19 was going around, and I caught it in the fall. I didn’t think much of it as I thought I was eating decently and walking from time to time enough to keep blood circulating and immunity up with an assortment of AIM products. The problem was it was not as strong as it could have been. My body struggled with the excess weight I was carrying, and my cells were sluggish. Everyone knows excess weight increases the risk of severe illness from COVID-19 (and other illnesses), and now I was going to get to experience that reality. Even though I was walking daily, while I had COVID and supporting good nutrition through the Garden Trio, I was not fully supporting my cells through AIM’s whole healthy cell concept.
I lost my appetite as my body worked to fight the virus, and the only things that tasted good to me were apples and carrots. So, I progressed with my apples, carrots, and AIM’s Garden Trio for about a week when my wife suggested I should perhaps check in with the hospital because she said my breathing was inconsistent and labored while I slept at night. I went to the hospital, and the doctors found that they could not get my oxygen levels to rebound above 90%, and I had viral pneumonia. I checked into the hospital and was there for 5 days until it was confirmed that with some supplemental oxygen, I could maintain over 90% oxygen level. Also, I began to be able to tolerate the flavors of other foods again. Through the 14 days, I had COVID-19 and pneumonia, I lost ~20 pounds.
After COVID, I put a little of the weight back on and then thought, “This is dumb, I should figure out how to keep off what I lost and work further to get closer to the weight I was as a young man.” I wasn’t interested in a quick fix or weight loss, as everything I had read or heard was that usually, a crash diet would drop weight, but often, people will put back on more than they lost. I didn’t want to do that, so I set out to lose the weight sustainably. AIM’s healthy cell concept gives a great structure for getting to and maintaining a healthy weight.
AIM’s Healthy Cell Concept includes supporting each cell with the right food, exercise, environment, protection, and attitude. All five areas are important for healthy cells, and at least three of them were very important for my weight loss (food, exercise, and attitude). First off, I looked closer at the food I was eating. What was a benefit to my health, and what was taking away from my health?
Food
Weight loss is affected by what we eat and don’t eat. I was eating a lot of good whole foods and supplementing with great products from AIM, including The Garden Trio, but as I reviewed my habits, I had to admit that I also was eating a lot of garbage processed foods that burdened my cells. For example, all my life, I have enjoyed potato chips. I would take them over almost any desert. One of my favorite Christmas gifts ever was a box of potato chips from my mother as a child. If I wasn’t eating them every day, it was probably every other day. The problem was that they are typically highly processed carbohydrates that are fried in unhealthy oils. Potato chip consumption had to be greatly reduced for my cells to have a chance, so that is what I did; I went from having chips almost every day to having them once every couple of weeks. I also found a brand fried in avocado oil, which would generally be a better oil for consumption. That one was straightforward, as nobody would ever say chips are good for you. The next one was more of a surprise for me.
For years, I would drink orange juice almost daily as well, as I thought of it as a nutritious drink full of vitamin C. Reviewing the foods I was consuming, I found that orange juice was not as good for me as I thought. When a food is pasteurized, it is heated to kill unwanted bacteria. Orange juice, for example, is heated to around 160° F. This kills the bacteria but also denatures the enzymes and lowers the water-soluble vitamins, like vitamin C. There is still some nutritional value there, but it is much depleted, and the juice is very high in sugar. So, in the end, pasteurized orange juice isn’t much more than great-flavored, marginally nutritious, sugary water. I removed it from my refrigerator and just enjoy it now from time to time in a restaurant or hotel unless I juice my own.
Added sugar is horribly detrimental to health. Our bodies are not designed to process as much sugar as is in our typical American diets. It is so sweet and tasty, yet so bad for us. Many are addicted. It is fine as a part of a dessert, but it should not be part of everything we eat. Whether it comes in the form of sucrose (granulated sugar) or high fructose corn syrup, we need to find ways to consume less of it. The fructose component, beyond adding weight to a person, is particularly hard on the liver, leading to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, type 2 diabetes, and now studies are indicating Alzheimer’s.
I also found that I could use more fiber, so I made Herbal Fiberblend a regular part of every day, rather than hit and miss. I also introduced Fit ‘n Fiber to my routine, often mixing it in with Herbal Fiberblend once a day or including it in smoothies my wife would make (along with Pro Peas).
In general, when it comes to food, I have worked to reduce processed foods, especially added sugars, from my routines and add more fiber and good natural fats (like olive oil, avocado oil, coconut oil, butter, and bacon 😊). AIM’s Garden Trio, Herbal Fiberblend, Fit ‘n Fiber, ProPeas, and AIMega have all been part of my journey.
One other area I have worked in over the last year that I will put under food, although it is really not eating food at all, is fasting. I had read some about it from various sources, including a book Dr. Mary Ruth Swope had written called “The Roots and Fruits of Fasting” and decided that instead of just reading about it, I needed to experience it. Initially, I was just doing some intermittent fasting (I would eat at ~noon and ~six o’clock and not consume anything the other ~18 hours a day), but now I have experimented with how a variety of fasts work for me. I have done some alternate-day fasting and have fasted up to seven days in a row. When I say fasting, I mean I would only have water, coffee, or tea (and on the longer fast, some salt) and nothing else. Fasts can be great for not only weight loss (reducing fat, especially around the organs, which gives the liver a break) but also the immune system, the brain, and general health.
Exercise
Everyone understands that exercise and physical activity certainly effects weight loss. I have always done some exercise through the years of weight gain, and I thought it was good enough, as I could still play a decent pickup game of volleyball. But I had noticed that even walking was getting to be tougher as each year I put on a few more pounds.
As I reviewed my typical week of activity, I realized that it was time to get more regular movement built into my routine, so I began to include half an hour to an hour of physical movement into at least five days a week. I get bored quickly, so I like to mix it up. It is often a mix of walking, biking, mowing the lawn, swimming, hunting, moving snow, or other physical activity on our house, depending on the time of year. Once or twice a week, I like to try and get a high-intensity activity where I get my heart rate up to over 160 beats a minute for a time. For the first time in years, I could run again with youth to play a game of frisbee football at camp this summer. It is a blessing to be able to move. It is not only good for weight maintenance but for the brain as well. I began using Peak Endurance to support my more strenuous activities as well as regular electrolyte maintenance.
Attitude
Attitude can effect weight loss. I put on excess weight for nearly 30 years. It was like I was storing up fat for hibernation, and winter was never coming to use it. Thirty years of habits don’t get corrected in one day. We all want a quick fix, often without real change. We want different outcomes without doing anything different. I needed to do things differently, and I knew it would take time to adjust the weight back down. Patience was and is important, as it is a journey in which I would learn things as I progressed. On some days, my weight went up, and on some days, down, but I wasn’t interested in the day or the week as much as the month and the year. Some days, I ate a lot, being with friends and celebrating some aspect of life or holiday, and other days, I didn’t eat anything, recognizing we have amazing bodies from God that are able to feast and fast, so we should be doing both.
Results
As a result of putting some of these healthy cell concepts to work, I have dropped almost 90 pounds to as of this writing to about 236 pounds. Any given month may not look like much, as here is what my last month has looked like, including the feasting around Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.
I started to track my weight more specifically in March of 2022. Here is what my weight has looked like over the last 22 months. I have averaged going down ~2.6 pounds a month.
My original goal was to get down to 250 pounds, and that came and went. I set a new goal now to work towards 225 pounds and make it a full 100 pounds off, and I expect I will get there sometime in the spring. I see the changes I have made to be very sustainable for a lifetime, so I expect it will probably continue to drop from there as well, although probably slower, as I have less fat as a percentage of body weight. My wife says that she will just start adding things to my food so I can’t go any lower, as she prefers, I stay a little chubby for some reason 😊
Beyond the weight coming off, following these healthy cell concepts has had some other health benefits as well. I decided to have a physical this fall to see how I was doing with the weight loss adjustment and was very pleased with the results. My blood pressure is around 105/65. My cholesterol is <200, my triglyceride/HDL is at a good ratio, and overall, both my lipid and metabolic blood panels are all in a good range, including AST and ALT, a couple of enzymes tied to the liver that can indicate liver damage. I mention them because, at the start of this, I noted liver dysfunction even back then in my bloodwork taken for my annual physical in high school. For 30 years, my bloodwork showed signs of liver dysfunction, which I would attribute to a fatty liver I gave myself as a child largely with potato chips, Coke, Snickers bars, and ice cream. The bloodwork I had done this fall no longer showed any signs of liver dysfunction.
Going Forward
It was quite the trip going up and coming back down again over the last 30+ years. The weight loss is better than the weight gain was. I defiantly enjoy being slimmer again, and all the health benefits that go with carrying around less extra fat.