Background

Thanks for stopping by. I'm a "regular joe," eternally in search of health of happiness. I'm a husband, and father of three daughters. I work as an engineer in the chip industry, something I've done since graduating from college. My wife is health care management, and we've been happily married for 12 years. My daughters are regular kids, who love to play as much as fight.

We have the same issues every family has. We're so busy working, schooling, and everything else that families do on a daily basis that we constantly struggle to live a balanced and healthy life. We try to "eat right and exercise" and try to teach and involve our kids as much as possible. We try to spend as much quality time together, but it never seems like enough.

Personally, I've been involved in a 20-year struggle, between being in great shape, physically fit, well nourished, mentally and spiritually centered ... to the other extreme. As a kid, I was always active, played sports on teams, never had any injuries or health issues. I ate anything I wanted, mostly junk food, and it really didn't matter because I was so active. After college, I stayed pretty fit for a while, changed my dietary habits, and remained very active. Then somewhere between that point and the blur that is midlife, I found myself moving toward the other extreme. My diet was awful, and exercise was limited to sitting at my desk working on a workstation or computer. I was a shell of myself, and it seemed like the changes happened overnight, when in fact, took many years. I said enough is enough and began anew, then something happened.

My father, who was 56 years old, at the time, became gravely ill. In a matter of weeks, he went from healthy and happy to sickly and dying. He passed away in 7 weeks from liver cancer. It forever changed my life, as those of you have lost a parent already know. My father was very active, but didn't exercise regularly. He worked all the time, to help support his immediate and extended family. His diet was awful. To this day, I don't know what the root cause of his cancer stemmed from, but I'm pretty sure if he took better care of himself better, he'd still be with us today.

Since my father passed away, I've began to take more notice of the disease and illnesses that are present in my family. My mother is a Type II Diabetic, my younger sister has epileptic symptoms, my older brother is a lifelong smoker, and my older sister yoyo's with her health and diet as much as I do. We all have our personal health issues, and I've constantly wanted to do something about it. Over the past 20 years, I've toyed with many diets and exercise programs, too many to name, I've read I don't know how many books, watched countless movies, research endless papers and websites, and experimented like mad...all in search of the answer to finding health and happiness.

In the coming days, I'm going to lay out what I tried over the many years, and share this information with you, and the reasons for doing so. I wish you health and happiness and thank you very much for stopping by.