60 Day Turnaround

So it has been some time since I have written a Workout Daily Sprout.  But now with the cooler weather setting in, I feel like I need to try to motivate all of you to stay on track with your fitness.  I produce these Daily Sprouts with everyone in mind, so for many of you CrossFit athletes, they might not look exciting, but you will find that I will always make them equipment free.

You can go to this page, if you want to see the archived workouts on this site as well.

One thing you will always notice about my workouts, they are short and intense when compared to 30 minutes on an elliptical machine.  And they are also going to be highly functional, not a lot of  wasted movements.  Functional… what is it?

Running, jumping, pushing, pulling, squatting under load, standing up from the ground, lying down, sitting up, etc.  In the image below, the simple movement of jumping is shown, the movement that is so often left behind out of the lives of aging Americans, yet it is so functional in our lives as kids, and then somewhere we abandon it.  The reason, like most abandoned functional movements, is because we live in a society of ease.

I can however, give you some good reasons why you would not want to simply live into that life of ease.  The major one being that we have to squat, and stand until we die, if we want to take care of ourselves… and the only requirement to be able to squat, then stand from it, is that we never stop doing it.  By far the most functional movement we can do.

So to get all of you back on track with a life of function, I want to push you to do this workout as fast as you possibly can.  Be sure to set up your area first, so that you know exactly where you are going to do these movements, then blast away as fast as you can!

Movement #1 – squat.  Initiate the movement by pushing your butt back, so that your knees do not jut forward significantly, as you drop into the squat your weight should stay on your heels, and your knees should press out over your feet while your chest stays upright with you looking forward, not down.

Movement #2 – sit-up.  A complete sit-up if you can, from your back being on the floor, to your chest being perpendicular with the floor.  If you cannot do the full movement, first try to assist by throwing your arms, or by grabbing the backs of your hamstrings to pull yourself up.

Movement #3 – jumping jack.  An easy way to re-incorporate jumping into your life, is to do the jumping jack.  Just jump with feet together while hands clap over head, and feet go apart whenhands come down to their sides.

The workout:

5 times through:

20 Squats
10 sit-ups
20 Jumping Jacks

Just blast through this thing fast, no stopping.  It will be 100 total squats and jumping jacks, and 50 sit-ups.  You can do it with minimal rests I am sure.

Once you are done, expect to feel bad, that is a big part of what is so good about it!!

Be well and Be blessed – remember the Hopewell Baptist Bethlehem Walk is open this weekend through next weekend, check it out, it is awesome!  – Dr. E

This question came from doing the Doctor’s Report on Monday.  I have given this talk, or some version of it I should say, over 800 times.  And as I was talking about the changes that a Phase II patient would go through to insure improvement of their spine, I mentioned how if you were take pressure off of the portion of your spinal cord that controls organ function, by displacing the cord into the back of the spinal canal, you would in turn increase pressure on the component that controls muscle function.

By doing so, you would inevitably cause an increase in negative sensations eventually, through reduced muscle control, and irritation to the motor nerves, leading to possible increase in injury.  So who would opt for a longer life, with less risk of cancer and greater overall healing and function in your organs, over a decrease in overall function of the motor system.

The Answer….

Everyone who could see the value of it, and nobody who could not.  I have a patient who just recently chose to stop care, and I have another on contemplating it right now, because of not liking how they are feeling as we go through the process of change.  I can understand this, it is so easy to lose site of what we are trying to accomplish… health.

Remember the University of Tokyo medical doctors who determined that reversal of cervical curve, anywhere within the cervical spine, causes demyleniation and atrophy of the anterior funuculus… AKA – degeneration of the part of the spinal cord that controls organs… AKA the beginning of Lou Gehrig’s disease or ALS.  Shown to be more true than anyone might have originally thought, as the volumes of evidence piles up showing damage to the spinal cord following areas of compression/tension.  Posture is life.

So back to the question.  Why are we so quick to assess by how we feel?  Because we want to feel good.  I know I do.   Fortunately, I have experienced so much pain in the past, that I believe I have achieved a pretty good level of tolerance for pain.  The eye was bad, but trying to play hockey (this was the collegiate national championship game for the ACHA – not NCAA), on a completely torn AC Joint was really painful.  I had to stop after several attempts as I was a useless liability on the ice, but the pain was real.  My point is simply that I think I have enough of an appreciation for past pain, that I would be willing to endure low levels if I knew they were a better choice.

It is hard, because of course we assume health involves feeling good, and admittedly, in 95% of cases, when you achieve greater health, you should feel better too.  BUT FEELING BETTER IS NOT HEALTH.  Let me re-state it, feeling better is a product of good health, but good health is not a product of feeling better.  How many times have I had a patient going in for their first re-x-ray tell me “I know this is going to look great!”  I might ask why they think so, “because I have been feeling awesome, I know my spine has changed”.  And needless to say, their results speak differently.

My explanation is this – feeling good comes first as feeling bad came last.  You might think your problem started when you could feel it, but the reality is that it showed up way before.  Even in traumatic situations, you likely had some disposition going on before that time… or you had a trauma that you thought “was no big deal” or “didn’t hurt me” when in reality, that trauma was the predisposing incident.  No immediate pain, but damage to soft tissue resulted in slow degeneration of your nervous system.

Let me close up this discussion, and make sure you get why we started it in the first place.  IF an adjustment hurt ever
time you received one, but it was a corrective adjustment, the reality would be that if it hurt 100 times more, and took 1,000 times more adjustments to get you to corrected, it would be worth it.  Now that being said, we should be able to identify reasons for pain, and work around it in most cases.  But not all.

So why did I write this?  To recap this theme, and I’ll be happy to do it again if we need to review… judging your health by how you feel is an immature way to assess.  Thinking, “I don’t need to rush in for my adjustment, I feel great”, is a fantastic way to keep yourself in a declining state of health.  Assuming that you can keep eating processed garbage, because you feel ok, is a lie you are telling yourself.  In the end, the goal is more important than the assessment of how you feel along the way.  Ask any elite athlete, and they will tell you a story of pain to get where they are.

With much hope for your health and blessings!  – Dr. E

Stress, oh my, oh my.  So much of it this time of year, and you couple that with the economic stress that has been upon so many people, and you are left with serious trouble, at a time that should be nothing more than joyful!  I love this time of year, the music… I play it all year round, but it means so much more to me as we head into December.

I like it cold this time of year, 66 degrees is the projected high today, so not so winter-like right now, but that will change, and we’ll get some nice cool weather to bundle up to.  So lets dig into this stress thing, and see whats up with the number one killer.

Yep, that’s right, stress is the NUMBER ONE overall killer.  Medical interventions top the scale, but if we pull back and consider WHY so many people die from medical interventions, or from cancer, or from heart disease, we will realize that the number one cause of the WHY, is the nervous system.  Indeed, it is heavily based on the slow degradation of your spine through poor posture and living the cultural lifestyle… couch potato living is bad.  But it is also so heavily based on the damage to the nervous system that comes from stress.

Have you ever thought about how far reaching stress is?  You have a brain, controlling every single function in your body, and it is doing so endlessly, without pause, without stopping, without taking a day off.  This is never ending and ultimately the most important thing going on anywhere in your body, bar none.  And every time you let yourself walk down a path of stress, you weaken it.  Notice how a moment of stress can cause you to lose control of your body?  The need for an immediate bathroom, or a jump in heart rate, sweating of the palms, and more.  It is a normal process, but when overdone, it becomes a serious issue.

So what to do?  I just watched Act Of Valor, great movie… and what of that life?  Should nobody enter into a life that has the known outcome of stressful situations?  Of course not, there is no way to insulate yourself from stress, but apart from God, stress has no meaningful way to be dealt with.  You simply work through it to the next phase of your life.  But I look at stress as the stone that sharpens the sword.  I am not working at becoming better at coping, I am working on becoming better at trusting.  If you read my Daily Sprout last week about being thankful, you can probably understand where I am coming from.

All that I have been through is nothing compared to some people, and nothing compared to many of you, but I have been blessed with opportunities to use each stress as a step towards trust and faith.  I like challenges, because they give me opportunities to trust God’s outcome, no matter what it is.  Firebreather Challenge in Connecticut was another great example of this.  As I sat waiting for the first heat to start, with only one person to help me, and absolutely no volunteers anywhere to be seen, and God came through.  I sat there, alone at the far end of the obstacle course field, and I prayed, “God… I don’t know what you have planned here, but I am giving it to you, so please do something cool, or at least give me a great outcome on the other end of this”.

All was well, and I love the opportunity to grow in my trust and confidence.  If you don’t believe in God, I will tell you that the most important thing for you to do when it comes to stress, is simply to avoid it as much as you can.  And the first step to avoiding stress, is to stop having expectations.  Of any kind.  Be prepared for all outcomes, never expect, simply be at work in your life, and move in the direction that you wish to end up.  Stress is a killer, take it serious.

Be well, be blessed  – Dr. E

You might have read my prior Daily Sprout about Skin Care, if not, click the link.  If you have, then you know that my wife has been overjoyed by the Beyond Organic products, the simple “why” is because after years of us looking for organic products to keep in the home, and endless failure, we finally are happy with the cleanliness of the product, as well as the value and functionality.

In the past, whatever we have tried is either too expensive, as is the case with the Miessence products we both consumed and sold.  Just way to expensive for us.  Or, promises of products being healthy and clean, like the Arbonne products, but they are loaded with garbage chemicals.  And when we recently reviewed the price, their six piece anti-aging set is more expensive than Beyond Organic’s Eight Piece Anti-Aging set!  And we could safely eat everything in the beyond organic set (not a good use of these products)!

So, together, we have decided to run a series of parties to introduce the Anti Aging Line to friends, family and a select number of patients.  Eventually, we will figure out how to open this up to everyone, and you will have a chance to sample these products, but for now, because the company has yet to produce sample sizes of these products, we need to figure out how to best control the desire to test these, with your likelihood to use them.

So if you are interested in being part of a December and January testing party, then I need you to let us know!  Laura and I will run these together.  I will give you a short slideshow on the product from a functional health slide, including ingredients that we WANT to avoid that are in virtually every non-organic product on the market.  Then Laura will take you through the usage of the product, how to incorporate it, and the tips and tricks that she has picked up with this stuff.

I can tell you, she is so happy with it, I think her enthusiasm will be good for you to understand the importance of clean skin care long term, no matter what.  So if you want to come to one of these parties, dates TBD, then copy and paste these questions into your email composer, answer them, and then send the email to BeyondO@HealthSprout.com.

What products do you currently use for anti-aging:
What approximate price are you paying for anti-aging:
What foods are you currently eating exclusively organic:
What are the weeknights, and weekends in December that you are available:
Are you comfortable coming to Dr. Eric’s house for a party:
Would you be apt to purchase a product without being able to try it more than one time:

We look forward to adapting this party so that you can get a chance to see the value of what Beyond Organic has to offer in skin care!  Thanks!

Dr. Eric and Laura

It is always good to sit back and be thankful.  I am sooo thankful for the life that God has given me.  I have plenty of difficulty and trauma.  Yet how could I not be thankful?

It was about 7 years ago when HealthSprout was 5 years old.  We had been moving in a fast direction towards success, but with some changes in the insurance laws, some difficulty setting in with the economy, and a changing economic perspective… HealthSprout, at 7 offices, was looking like a bad idea.  I was trying to drive the company into a direction of mostly cash collections, and ignoring insurance; primarily because I didn’t like being at the whim of their rules, because their rules don’t allow us to bring health.  Secondly, I wanted my company to exude the Christian values that I had, and that was met with great adversity, as I had not grown it with people who all shared my beliefs.

This was a difficult time, and ultimately it ended with people leaving, and with offices losing money.  At one point, we had two offices covering the expenses of three others.  It was financially painful, and it was also a serious strain on my time.  Then my daughter was born.  I remember thinking, “didn’t we wait to have kids until we would be at a financially more stable time?”  Now I look back, and see our situation, as well as that of so many others, and realize how naive we were to think we would ever be in control of our “situation” at the time that we crossed into child bearing, child raising, or kids off to college.  Timing is inevitably not up to you.

It was around this time that I was met with two more challenges, in quick succession.  The first was the loss of my eye site.  Inevitably, when I write about this in my Daily Sprout, there is always a large number of people who are learning for the first time that I am blind in my left eye.  I had played competitive hockey my whole life, and won a college National Championship along the way.  A puck on August 3rd, 2006 took care of my left eye, and I have been blind in that eye ever since.  Shortly after, the IRS came calling and wanted to hunt through all of my tax returns, HealthSprout, personal… let’s see it all!

My point is that we are all faced with challenges, and so be it.  I would love to emulate Paul in my life.  Faced with an incredible pile of what would seem insurmountable conflict and controversy, yet he nearly single-handedly spread the church.  The greatest corporate expansion in all of history.  Why do we have anything in our hearts but thanks?  Because the person next to you seems to have it all going just right, and it is difficult for you?  I am sure there are some of you who would guess “it all goes easy for Dr. Eric”.  I hope this sprout lets you see that it isn’t true, but if you feel like I am an example of one who is always in a good mood, you need to know that it doesn’t come from me.  That is the product of being in step with the spirit, and it doesn’t happen everyday.

I do however intentionally give thanks every morning.  It is how I start my AM, in my bathroom, in the dark, with only a hint of light coming through from my closet, “thank you, thank you, thank you for my wife, for my practice, for my patients, for my children, thank you for my home, and my faith, thank you that I trust You beyond my belongings, thank you for a desire to do more and be active, thank you for a heart of youthfulness, and thank you for increasing my wisdom each day, thank you for hope and blessings that I cannot understand or know, thank you for friendships that I haven’t even used as true friendships, thank you for love and help me to explore that love.”

I find that in a morning that I DON’T make those intentional decisions to be thankful, I can feel the difference on the way into the office.  Working to find a peaceful thought, and a peaceful “rock” to hold onto.  When I have those mornings of thankfulness, it all just falls into place.  I am happy to be alive, happy to be on the road for the office, and happy to see that first patient looking to have the power turned on.  I hope thankfulness, can begin to permeate your morning routine, every day, not just on Thanksgiving.

So where else do we go with this?  What next?  What in the world should we discuss now that we have every reason in the world to be thankful?  I like the idea of going big.  You know I don’t like to settle on good enough, as my friend Andy will now say forever, “lets put a 40# pack on it”.  So, let’s do that.  As you know, I started the Random Acts Of Kindness here in the office.  My wife and I found that one of her old college roommates, recently divorced, was also recently moved from the city (NYC), out to the Jersey shore.  Her home was obliterated.  Everything totaled

Photographs, clothes, furniture, all scarred with sea water, mixed with sewage, now turned to bacterial growth, and time to be thrown away.  So we are looking to impact this one family in a big way.  You might have other places to serve right now (and if you want local, I will have some great options for you to support Turn Around Kids – more coming soon), but if you are looking for a place to serve.  We can use anything to mail to this woman.  Decent appliances, kitchenware, clothes for her 1st grade son and her pre-k daughter, certificates for IKEA to buy furniture, whatever.

Our goal, speak THANKFULNESS into her heart at a time when there might seem to be nothing to be thankful for.  My wife comments about how I took blindness.  “From the first day he began using his injury to inspire people around him to be thankful for everything, including misfortune.  And people responded.”  I wasn’t nor am I now special in anything other than my attempt to walk in step with the Spirit, and its amazing how that alone will make you smile.  I kind of love life.  That includes a love of you.  We will serve you chiropractically, nutritionally, with exercise, etc… but it is all nothing if not for our efforts to lead your spirit to peace.

Oh, please be thankful for you.  And if you can help our friend, please do whatever you can, I appreciate your concerns, and pray that you have an awesome Thanksgiving!

Be Well, and Be Blessed!! – Dr. E

Just relaxing this Sunday evening in our condo in Williamsburg, what a great place to visit.  We enjoyed Jamestown today, and all of it’s rich history.  Pocahontas and all.  Though as I sit here sipping some of this Nu Vino, I was inspired to tell you about this, not history.

I am very thankful for these new foods brought to us from Beyond Organic.  The Nu Vino provides an opportunity for some health benefits that I haven’t found in a similar product.  I k ow many of you have enjoyed Synergy Kombucha drinks from either Whole Foods, Ember Yoga, Life Grocery, or one of the other health retailers in the area.  These are good drinks, that provide you with many of the Nu Vino benefits, but not all.

The first thing that caught my eye, was the lacto fermented nature of the drink.  The natural fermentation process causes this to be both a probiotic rich drink, as well as a very nice sparkling beverage.  In other words, step one: make it enjoyable to drink as well as incredibly healthy; check!

Antioxidant rich botanicals, also an awesome benefit.  If you have been listening to me lately, you have probably heard the broken record suggestion of stop taking supplements, eat healthy food and Juice Plus.  This provides one more way to consume healthy, and avoid supplements.  The reality, is that I have stopped everything including fish oil.  Why?  Because I am eating 10-20 grams a day of omega 3 fat, so why would I supplement 1 gram, if I am eating that much naturally?

Instead, I have taken that $40 expense, and invested it in healthy food, along with the antioxidants that I took, and the extra minerals that I used to take… all food now, and supplements add up to a lot of food (I recommend Juice Plus, because I have found that it is nearly impossible in our culture to eat 10-13 servings of fruit and veges everyday).   So as I have taken steps to rearrange my diet, I hope that you can find ways to do the same.

So the other really awesome benefits of these drinks, is that they are loaded with anti-inflammatory ingredients.  And I have written more and more about the importance of anti-inflammatory foods in the last year, these products made me smile when I had a chance to sit back and look at ingredients.  From pineapple, to ginger, and basil.  In many cases the organic oil and healthy acids from these botanicals are the key ingredient.  They have a “soda” feel in many cases, and could surely satisfy a craving for soda for many, and all they are doing is delivering health!

If you are hardcore on the Advanced Plan, you should avoid these for now, as they have some free sugars in them.  But when you are on the core plan, the recommended 2oz per serving will do nothing to disrupt blood sugar, and even drinking 8oz at a time is fine for maintaining blood sugar levels.   And the health benefits will outweigh any concern over the minute sugar amount.

So as I sit here, relaxing and sipping, I hope that you will give the special offer that I have come up with for you a try.  I really love this Pineapple Cilantro, and the Ginger Beer… both incredible.  So, this is coming out of my pocket, as these prices are below my cost, but I think it is worth it to give you a chance to try these out.  We will be tasting them in the next ten days, so you’ll have a chance to taste some of these, but don’t wait til after November… I am pulling the deal as soon as we get to 12/1.  Have a great Monday, I will be wishing you a great Thanksgiving in Wednesday’s Sprout!  Be well, Be Blessed!  – Dr. E

Find the Deal ORDER FORM by CLICKING HERE or at the office!  You can drop it by, scan and email to dreric@healthsprout.com or fax to 770-517-2240.  We will ship to the office and share the shipping cost with you, or if you select ship to your home we will charge you

I recently read on ABC News about Sharon Osborne (Ozzy’s wife) having a double mastectomy because she had the “gene” for breast cancer, and had colon cancer once already.  And all I could think was “what a perfect business”.  Seriously, I can show you a gene, have you so scared that you are going to die because of it, that all you want to do is have your body parts cut off… and I am the guy with a knife.  That is a pretty amazing business model.

This is pretty sad.  Especially when the dichotomy is so strong between the cultural, doctoring pressure to get genetic tested then do something about, vs. the medical literature research that keeps coming out saying that it is all based on lifestyle.  I wonder if Sharon would be upset if she now turned around and read a research article describing how the breast cell very specifically has a set of criteria that it passes through on the path to mutation?

Sure, its possible with her lifestyle (past and present) that she might have been even more likely to have that criteria met.  But I wonder, is it really worth cutting off your body, discarding your tissue, because of fear?  One of those criteria, is that there is always a higher presence of estrogen in women who pass through that path to breast cancer.  It is an estrogen specific cancer.  One of the reasons why we are so against soy bean (other than fermented soy like miso or tempe), is because soy beans are loaded with phyto-estrogen and goitrogens.

Other environmental factors that destroy normal tissue function in the breast relate to outside in exposures directly on the skin.  For example, chlorine has been directly tied to increases in breast cancer, and was a front page USA Today article back in 2002.  Parabens, found in most skin lotions and sunscreens have also been linked to cancer of the skin and breast.  One reason why I so strongly suggest you try the lotion and anti-aging kit from Beyond Organic… a safeguard.

Most of you have heard me say, I like to apply the lens of God through all of my decisions.  So apply it here.  Is this really where God is taking us?  To a place where we are to cut our body parts of in order to be safeguarded?  Does that sound like we are leaning into His support and trust of Him?  Not so much.  You know, you have a phenotype expression of all genetics.  It means that you have bad genes and good genes, but you express the health the of those based upon your decisions, your lifestyle.  The genetic thing is so over done, and it really is all about money.

I pray you will take all of your decisions seriously still, but also that you wouldn’t be under the oppression of genetic marker.  Enjoy Thanksgiving, Be Blessed!  – Dr. E

I have a plan, I am a man with a plan!  Eat well for Thanksgiving.  Well = healthy in this context.

Turkey is good, but what about the garbage put in the average turkey? This site “Eat Turkey” gives us this description of the solution added to turkey:

TURKEY CONTAINING SOLUTIONS Self basting whole body turkeys and raw turkey products that have been injected with broth and/or fat-based solutions to enhance flavor and moisture content. The amount and composition of these solutions are regulated by the government and must be identified on the product package. These solutions commonly include: 
– Broth with seasonings. 
– Vegetable oil and solids with seasonings and flavor enhancers. 
– Butter with seasonings and flavor enhancers.

According to government regulation, raw bone-in turkey product or whole body turkey injected with up to 3 percent (of product weight) solution or boneless products injected with up to 8 percent solution may be labeled “Basted,” “Marinated,” “Added for Flavoring” or other similar terms.

If greater amounts of solution are added, the method of addition and amount of solution must be stipulated on the label (e.g., “Injected with up to 12 percent solution of water, salt and phosphates”). These products may not be termed “Basted” or “Marinated.”

Seasoning, flavor enhancers = spices (good), salt (good), MSG (not good), preservatives (not good), corn solids and other genetically modified food particulates that enhance solution retention (not good).  Sadly, the turkey, as a roaming bird pecking along the roadways of Woodstock and Milton (I have already seen over a dozen turkey roadside in the last four weeks… where is my bow?), anyways, as a roaming bird they are great to eat, but as a farmed animal… BAD.

So, what to do, what to do.  Well, did you remember my plan?  Whole Foods is involved!  Check out their web page on Turkey buying, preparing and everything in between.

So I am going to go get me a turkey!  One that is loaded with health, and not toxins.  Expensive?  You bet!  But how many full turkey are you buying this year?  Is it really impossible to find the extra cash to pay for a much healthier turkey ONE time a year?  But if you look at the Whole Foods web page, and utilize the bird for every budget component, I think you can get much more healthy than a traditional butterball.  Butterball… I bet there is no real butter anywhere near that thing.

You’ll notice that their turkeys are listed as never having antibiotics, no animal by-products in their feed, and no hormones.  These are “Natural” turkeys, so this is a great step.  The fact that there is no MSG should be enough to sway you from your typical bird.  But, if you really want to get clean, go for an organic bird. It will cost even more, but it is worth it if you can.  Why?  Nothing in the feed!  These Natural Turkeys will still have garbage feed with pesticide and very likely arsenic.  So by going completely organic, you get to free yourself of that.

Don’t use the once a year excuse to save money.

Just like I used it to spend more money, you cannot say, “well, its only once a year, it can’t be too bad if I just eat the garbage one”.  The reason why, is because you are probably already eating too much garbage.  Chick-Fil-A sandwiches, non-organic chicken and turkey from sandwich shops, deli’s or your fridge.

Did you ever hear the story of toxic bio-accumulation?  Consuming 1lb of beef is like consuming 20# of pesticide sprayed  feed.  Well, chicken and turkey is similar.  It takes a lot of toxin to get to a lb of turkey.  Consider what that is doing to you.  If you have anyone in your family who has ever had cancer, you better take this seriously.  It matters, and I care.

Be well, be blessed! – Dr. E

PS – I will be in Colonial Williamsburg for Thanksgiving this year.  In 1610 they had the first Thanksgiving celebrated at an established settlement.  If you haven’t been to this area and explored their rich history, you should make a trip.  I’ll try to post something about the area while I am gone!  Which reminds me, I’ll be transporting my turkey with a lot of ice, but I will buy frozen, and let the thawing begin while we are driving.

PPS – I will be running the Suero Cleanse as soon as I get back.  You should stock up now, it makes sense to cleanse post T-Day!  Click the link and buy Silver or Gold today!

And I am disappointed, but mostly in my lack of preparation.  Do you remember that I wrote a Daily Sprout not too long ago, titled: Preparation, Preparation, Preparation?  It was all about making sure that the plans are set, and at the time, I was setting incredible plans.  Getting the gear right, dialing in my food and nutritional planning.  I had a host of Beyond Organic food to eat, as well as an upped level of Juice Plus going into my system leading up to the hike and during.

Everything was being planned, better than I usually do.  I had tested my pack out, had it form fitted then worked it into a routine of carrying, and did a 5 mile hike with it.  Everything was going as planned, except one fatal error.  Testing a full day of equal effort.

Look at this image from the right to the left (it shows elevation).  The right is North, the left is South.  We started 3 miles South of the NC border, then went to the North, hit the NC border, then turned around and came South.  To the left of Blue Ridge Gap, there is a climb that is equivalent to Kennesaw Mountain in my best estimation.  We rested at Dick’s Creek Gap.  Then climbed for 4 1/2 straight miles before descending back down to Addis Gap (my video was around this area – and I was wrong about only having 8 miles, it was 11 from that point).  Tray Mountain was awful, though it doesn’t look so bad here, then Rocky Mountain was brutal for a finish.  My group of three ended in the dark, descending with headlamps at 6:30pm (12 hours from our start).  We had anticipated earlier that we would be done at 4:30… big difference in trail time.  Andy, Angel and crew finished around 5-5:30pm.  

I have done 30 mile days before, longer.  I have gone with little to no rest for over 24 hours, so the plan of 10 hours a day seemed perfect.  I was assuming that it would all simply fall into place.  But as the video below can show you, even at this point, where I felt like all was going to be fine, I was showing signs that it was not fine.  Let me give you the setup.

Andy and I had discussed “running the AT” for years now.  The thought was to run it straight through from NC line to Springer Mountain.  Have water breaks, and food breaks, but just keep moving for 36+ hours, and finish the whole thing.  As we developed the plan, it was switched into doing sections each day with rest… first resting on the trail was the plan, but of course that requires a lot of gear.  When it was altered to doing the work on the trail, but having a support crew meet along the way to aid in refueling, and gear change outs, then camping back at one central campground each night, I felt like we might be missing some of the allure.

I was given the challenge by a fellow crossfitter/racer, who suggested I carry all my gear, and so I thought “good plan, this will still be like ‘hiking through’, and I will have a nice story to tell”.  The goal was to find the full allure of the trail, but in essence, I was hiking through, at a rate faster than people hike through.  The average through hiker goes 8-12 miles a day, with the 12 really being an above average amount of distance.

When fully loaded, my pack was about 40#, slightly less than my youngest daughter.  The distance that I was planning on hiking was a little over 80 miles in three days, and close to 30 miles on day one.  If I ever stopped to really put this together in my head, that I was planning on carrying my daughter on my back for 80 miles, up and down mountains… I would have changed the plan.  My preparation was good up until the point of never testing a day of carrying that weight.  5 miles was easy, I felt like 12 miles on the trail was easy.  But the last 6 of the day was really hard, and I wasn’t prepared.

It ended up, that only Andy, Brian (Angel’s husband), and his friend Matt made the whole thing.  Everyone else dropped out after day one (Angel was on this as well, congratulate her for her 30 mile day).  The funny thing, is if I had even thought that it was possible for the others not to make it with lighter packs, I would have had much more fear for this challenge, and would have never thought to try to make it “tougher” with a heavy pack.  Their packs ranged from 10-20#, with one of them carrying closer to 25#.  There I was, trying to make my pack heavier, adding extra wherever I could, and the reality was I should have been thinking 10# maximum.

Its funny how we can sometimes make large, difficult tasks into something small in our minds.  But the reality is, that more of us do the opposite, they take small relatively easy tasks, and turn them into mountains.  As I sit back and recollect on this weekend, I am glad that I have now “run” a marathon plus, over some of the hardest part of the Appalachian Trail, with a 40# pack on my back.  I failed to accomplish the task I set out to, but in so doing, I believe I might have actually accomplished a task that was the greatest physical achievement of my life.

As I listened to Toby Mac singing about God opening every door that he has walked through, and how his efforts have always been about the music, and hoping God would use it to set somebody free.  It made it easy for me to decide on the last few miles, that I would be done after day one.  That I pushed beyond my ability to recover for day two, but that in this there would be opportunity for God to use me, and this story, to benefit someone.  And I believe it is in the understanding that you are better off having incredible confidence and faith in your ability, than to have incredible fear and concern.

Right now, my back is really tight, upper back, mid back and low back.  Legs are sore, but not bad.  I felt deathly ill for about 5 hours, but I think pushing the Juice Plus in my system, then straight rest was key.  I probably could have kept going with a light pack, but I think I might have really messed myself up had I tried.  Now I can look forward to traveling over Thanksgiving week, without any serious issues.  I can begin planning for next year *(yes, we plan on having this as an event every year, and I would love for many of you to join us, at least in a one day attempt at 30 miles), and as I plan, I am going to consider that I would like to test more of the course.  One thing for certain, is that being on the trail for this day, has given me a desire to do more of it.  I can now see myself hiking a week at a time, taking down sections of the whole trail over time… but I want my family in on it too.

I hope you see this as an opportunity, next year will be here fast, and I imagine for many of you, there is a life changing experience waiting to be had.  Thank you all for your prayers and well wishes.  Be well, Be blessed!  – Dr. E

Though I thought I might not be in the office Monday morning, I most definitely will.  I did one day of the AT and I am out!  I was over zealous with the plan.  We have guys out there today on Day 2, and they should be fine.  These were the guys who played it smart with light packs, and using the support system that we had put in place.

I tried to carry it all, like a “through hiker”.  Biggest difference, is that through hikers usually hike about 8-12 miles a day.  So on day 1, I took a 40# pack 30 miles, and paid for it.  So I am resting now, trying to recover.  My back is sore, my shoulders are destroyed, and my glutes feel like I have penetrated them with needles.  Pin point pain.

So next year we will be doing it again, and I guarantee that I am carrying the lightest pack possible!  I hope that you would consider joining us for your first attempt at this.  It makes sense to get out here and see this nature, and get a sense of how hard the AT is.  I’ll provide more details later.