Health Challenge!

If you’re the sort of person who loves a challenge, reroute your challenge energy to your health! Dr. Weston gives some tips and life advice on how to be a healthier you!

I love a challenge. Always have. As a child, I was the first one to take a dare. I didn’t care if it was to be the one in the front car of the roller coaster or to lead the pack into the scary haunted house at Halloween. As a teen, I jumped off a 65-foot cliff into a shallow lake just because my friends dared me to. I was the first one to shoot the pier on my surfboard at Huntington Beach on a huge wave. This personality trait is what led me to be reading the paper one day, many years ago, where I saw the announcement for the first annual Las Vegas Marathon. This was about 1980, well before normal citizens knew anything about such things as marathons. I told my wife about it and said, “I could do that.”

She laughed and said, “Oh, you cannot.”

“Yes, I can.”

“Bologna. I dare you,” she retorted.

That was all I needed to hear. Never mind that it was only eight weeks away and that I’d never run more than two miles at a time in my life. I laced up my tennis shoes and hit the pavement every night after work, every extra moment I could spare. After the first few days, I thought “What have I gotten myself into?” but remember, I love a challenge, and I had something to prove. I had no experience, no knowledge, no plan, and really no time. Eight weeks later, I came in #156 out of approximately 1500 runners. I didn’t win the race, but I finished, and that changed my life. It started a long line of physical challenges: road races, cycle races, triathlons, mud runs, and Tough Mudders. My wife no longer says, “You cannot.” Instead, she now wonders, “What’s next?”

I’m approaching sixty-nine years old, just won my division in a mountain 10K run, and I'm preparing for a 35-mile bike road race. Additionally, I've had two tours of Vietnam as a military officer, been on a police riot squad, played Division 1 Rugby for a major university, come back from major injuries, and served five years in foreign service in two different countries. ON top of that, I’ve been married to the same woman for forty-six years, and we have five children, one of which is a special needs, and 18 grandchildren. All challenges that I wouldn't think of changing.

Sorry if I belabored my past, but I do have a point. Challenges, whether we seek them out or they just happen to us, in a major way are what make us who we are. For those of you who have not been eating as healthy as you should, I want to issue you the special Sunwarrior Challenge. I challenge you to give it a one month test. You can customize it to your own personal goals and desires. Make your breakfast a Sunwarrior illumin8 protein shake. For lunch, a Supergreens and illumin8 smoothie with a healthy salad. Need a pick-me-up snack? Slam down a delicious Sol Good protein bar. Finish off the day with a nutritious, sensible dinner. Keep moving and hydrate. Personalize a delicious, raw, living, bio-available Superfood addition to a healthy, plant-based menu for a month.

If you are anything like me or hundreds of others, you will lose weight, feel better, and look better. Really! I dare you. Accept the challenge. You can thank me later.

A great way to get you going on resolutions is joining our fitness challenge!