Killing Gout in 2017!

How did it go? 2016 was not your greatest year? Me either. 2017 is going to be the best year ever!

Letting Go of 2016

I wanted to do a bit of “the-state-of-the-gout-union”, stream of consciousness, kind of post to kick off the New Year…let’s get crackin’.

Let me start by saying, I don’t want to make this all about me, but I do want to share what my year of 2016 was about and maybe you can relate, and maybe we can learn from each other.

First of all, I lost my Mom. She was 93. She was the strongest person I ever met. Up until a few months before she sparked out, she was still driving her car and living at home alone. (she was so pissed when her doc took her license away) But her quality of life was getting pretty compromised and she did live a long and happy life and I am grateful her passing was not particularly long, drawn out, and difficult.

With that said, we all pretty much knew early in the year, this was going to be it…and it was. I worn myself down quite a bit trying to spend as much time with her as I could, and being there for her. More about that later in this post.

Secondly, in the middle of all of this, we moved away from the Colorado Front Range/Denver Metro area. (YAY!) Living in the city is not my thing. We spent the last 3 years being close to my mother and father-in-law to be there for them, and too far away from the mountains and the snow. It really took a toll on me.

To make a short story long, a “dream come true” happened as my wife’s brother moved his family (wife and 3 adorable small children) to the Western Slope of Colorado, the city of Durango.  And…low and behold, the property he bought, has a rental unit that we were able to slide right into. Since now the grand kids were near, Mom & Pops had to move over here too – it all worked out beautifully. (especially since we are 15 minutes from the ski area and there is KILLER mountain biking everywhere!) This too was not without it’s strain…more about that later in this post.

Lastly, living in the city, trying to take care of my Mom, uprooting our life and making the move across the state and stating over, on top of being sort of depressed about city life…was particularly financially challenging. (you guessed it; more about that later in this post.)

I watched my health become compromised and had to be extra careful about staying out of the gout zone. All along the way, I’ve been thinking about my own challenges and thinking how typical they are, and how you might be going through a lot of the same sorts of things – it continuously makes me think about how I can use my experience to help you.

How Are We Going To Be Killing Gout in 2017

Let me start like this: Thanks for listening to my 2016 sob story. All throughout the year, I felt like I was sort of letting you down by being so distracted with my own mess. That is the first part of my #killgout New Year’s Resolutions – this year I’m really going to deliver a whole new load of gout killing goods to you. I have so many ideas that have been simmering on the back burner and I want to share them with you right here, right now, so you have a bit of a preview of what to be on the look out for as we get into 2017.

• I finally squeezed out my eating guide & recipe book, but I still want to refine it.

Everyone is so obsessed with the idea that gout is all about food and what we eat – like it’s some sort of food allergy or something. For the record: It’s Not. It’s really all about how well your body is working to process that food your eat and make the most out of it…like it used to, before you started getting gout all the time. We are going to get you eating right, so you are healthy and using those foods right…like you used to, before you started getting gout all the time. That’s what killing gout is really about.

• I don’t believe in supplements…

…but I take a handful of them twice a day. Here’s why:

I, like you, abused and neglected myself for too many years. It biochemically threw me out of balance and now it takes me, like you, extra effort to get back in balance. Combine that with an over-abundance of nutrient devoid, processed foods available at every turn, even the best of foods (that we eat, or the animals we eat, eat) grown in seriously depleted soils, and synthetic toxins constantly making their way into the inner environment of our bodies and minds at every turn…and we need some help! Expect over the course of the 2017 year for me to turn you on to more ideas of how we can use supplements to add to your arsenal of gout killing tools.

• We need to move our bodies…

I know: Duh.  But here’s the deal – how much do you really move your body?  How much time to do you spend sitting in a car, sitting at desk, sitting at a computer, sitting in meetings, sitting and eating…sitting, sitting, sitting, and sitting…  And you know what?  We shouldn’t even call it “sitting”…because we are not sitting…we’re slouching!  You’ve probably heard:  “Sitting Is the New Smoking”  …it’s killing us…right after it plays a hand at giving us gout. (yeah I know – you’ve got your FitBit – so what…you really need to stop and consciously do your exercise just for the sake of doing your exercise – mindlessly walking back and forth to the copy machine doesn’t cut it in my book)

What it will look like I’m not sure, but I’m going to put together an exercise program to help you make exercise and movement part of your everyday (or at least, every week) kill gout plan.  Stay tuned for that.

. . .

Killer Tip #235 – Jeff, Thank You.

What am I thankful for? That would be you, Bert!!!

Not just for your assistance in getting me through my worst gout attack ever (LAST spring). And not just for the last 9 months of gout-free living. But also for “the freedom”. ???

It’s a little like “coming out of the closet”. This disease – more than any other form of arthritis – has become a social pariah (the rich man’s disease). Which has often subjected us gout-sufferers with just one more layer of shame, of guilt, of STRESS. You, your program, and your emails have opened the door enough for me to be okay with my disease. Okay and honest with and about my gout. Bert, honesty is good — deceit and lies are bad; bad for life, bad for stress, bad for gout.

Good on ya, Buddy
Jeff

. . .

• The other thing I am excited about and I don’t know exactly what I’m going to call them or how I will deliver them, but we are going to get into killing gout “style tips”…

…i.e. all those kind of lifestyle things we all need to continuously be stitching together to make ourselves gout proof. The most important thing that I think I have ever been able to do to help people stay gout free is this: KEEP THEM REMINDED!

Just so I have a place to put them and refer back to them, here is a short list of things/tips I’m going to put into emails, or videos, or do conference calls, or Google Hang Outs, or something about – stuff like:

  ☆ Brushing your teeth with baking soda, just to get a little shot of mineral balance everyday…

  ☆ Drinking a big 16oz glass of water FIRST THING every morning to start of your hydration plan for the day…

  ☆ Going out of your way to plan on eating foods that either detox your system, are very anti-inflammatory, or known urate lowering substances to keep your body chemistry doing what it should be doing…

  ☆ Finding something to be thankful for every day to circumvent the negative biochemical toxicity that all the bitching & complaining, and pissing & moaning & blaming create…

  ☆ Making yourself stop and throw your shoulders back and do your breathing exercises a few times a day to keep your blood oxygen saturation way up…

  ☆ Eating more cultured and fermented foods like sauerkraut, kim chi, kombucha, kefir, and good yogurt so that your digestive system and gut environment is working right and doing it’s part to keep you gout free…

  ☆ Making sure your 40oz water bottle is empty before you get home every day…

  ☆ Getting with a massage therapist, going to a yoga class, or getting regular chiropractic adjustments to help the structure of your body support your body chemistry…

  ☆ Limiting your time in front of screens or holding a cell phone (a gun) to your head because the EMFs (Electromagnetic Frequency) probably have something to do with disrupting your biochemistry and adding to your gout struggle…

  ☆ Slowing down, eating more leisurely & consciously, to allow you to drop into a parasympathetic state because it will help you breakdown, assimilate, and use those proteins better…

  ☆ Turning around and having a look at your poops to get a better understanding of whether or not your organs and systems are doing the job they should be – important clues to why you might be getting gout all the time…

  ☆ Taking your time in the shower or bathtub to really give your feet, ankles, knees, hands, wrists, the TLC they need to maintain the healthy gout negating attention they need and deserve…

  ☆ Scheduling regular blood donations – “therapeutic phlebotomy” will be getting more attention in the coming months and years as a simple and viable way to lower blood sugar, uric acid, and other blood related afflictions…

I have a MILLION ideas that fly through my head everyday that I want to share with you to help you kill gout with.  I will add to this list periodically just so I don’t forget them and, my plan is, to do short video clips and post them for you to wrap your head around and make use of.  What is especially interesting to me is that most of these thoughts and ideas have NOTHING to do with eating or food.

The 2017 #KillGout Top Priority

If I have one thing I would call a “New Years Resolution”, it is this:  SLOW DOWN.

I would like you to do the same thing.  I’ve saved this for this last part of this post – I haven’t talked about…STRESS.

Stress comes in many different forms and it disrupts our biochemistry, and I do believe it plays a major role in why we all are battling the gout beast with so much frequency and severity.  All too often we think of stress as being a mental or emotional thing – it is, but it also comes in many different biochemical forms as well.  We put undue stress on ourselves by letting ourselves become too dehydrated, too hot or too cold, by eating too much sugar, drinking too much alcohol, needlessly exposing ourselves to environmental toxic chemicals, exercising or working out to hard or too much, and even spending too much time in front of our computers.

Don’t get me wrong – divorce, loss of a loved one, unrealistic workloads, financial instability, social embarrassment, and a million other mental and emotional things create toxic biochemical reactions in our bodies that lead to un-health as well.  But I would like to invite you to stop, take more time to yourself, don’t overload your schedule, and make more time to relax and do fun things, or just do nothing.

There is an epidemic of “adrenal fatigue” or “adrenal insufficiency” in our country and world today.  It is a very real component to how we create unhealthy bodies that are prone to gout.  This compromised adrenal condition messes up the way we digest, manage blood sugar, detox, balance our minerals, use our micro and macro nutrients, and a million other biochemical processes of our organs and systems.  All of this can either directly or indirectly be contributing factors in your battle with the gout beast.

   ☆ Remember:  The easiest and best thing you can do for killing gout in 2017 is…just slow down.  It will all be there tomorrow…except for maybe the gout.  ;b)