A few days ago my family and I spent the day at Schlitterbahn – also known as “The Hottest Coolest Time In Texas”. It’s a water park that’s been voted #1 in the country for 13 straight years.

Every time that we’ve gone, the plan has been to get there really early so we don’t have to wait in long lines in the sweltering heat to get on the rides. It finally occurred to me this time that everyone else is thinking the same thing, so there’s no real value to getting up early and rushing to get there.

My 15 and 12 year old daughters brought 3 of their friends who had never been there before.

Upon arrival, we went through our usual routine of getting a locker for our valuables and securing a covered picnic table where we could stash our coolers. That’s one of the coolest things… they let you bring your own food. You just put it under the table and nobody messes with it.

There is one small caveat. They search your cooler for glass and alcohol when you come through the door. Not that big of deal. At least you don’t have to subject yourself to an enhanced pat down by the TSA.  Come to think of it, what does a terrorist in a swim suit look like?

Once settled, it was a bee line to the tower where you can choose to ride The Master Blaster, The Wolf Pack, or The Black Knight. The girls chose the Master Blaster even though the wait was 1 hour and 45 minutes. We chose the Wolf Pack because the wait was ONLY 45 minutes to an hour.

The Wolf Pack is kind of like 3 Men In A Tub with water pushing you down and around a fast curvy chute. I was facing backwards this time and got the benefit of hearing the screams and seeing the expressions on the faces of my wife and daughter.

After that, the girls all decided to explore things together and we decided to leisurely ride the Torrent River. It’s a circle of water about 5 ft. deep that winds around the park and has a strong current accompanied by small Tsunamis at various points for added thrills. Most people ride inner tubes provided by the park but you can go solo as well.

We kind of lost track of time and in our fun ended up going around a lot more times than I realized. That resulted in me actually getting a little sea sick from the jostling water and the heat. Nothing bad though, just a little uncomfortable. At that point it was around noon so we decided to stop and get something to eat. Isn’t food the cure for everything?

After lunch the girls headed to the original part of the park and we went to Boogie Bahn. I was still feeling a little sluggish so my wife found me a lounge chair that we strategically placed beneath a big oak tree. I decided to take a nap while she waded into the Crystal River. It’s similar to The Torrent River but without the Tsunami surges.

While trying to take a nap it occurred to me just how derned hot it was. I was in the shade with my cap over my eyes and I had to keep adjusting my cap just to breath. I felt like weanie on one of those hot dog rotisseries.

After about 45 minutes I got up and felt a lot better. It was at that point that I spotted the people next to me feasting on chocolate ice cream from a cornucopia disguised as a waffle cone. It was a signal from God that I needed some ice cream to be whole again.

So we set out looking for an ice cream oasis. We found one and I zeroed in on the mint chocolate chip. It really was what the Dr. ordered, me being the doctor of course and at that point I was completely revived. So I took advantage of one last ride in the original park before heading back to meet the girls. The ride was called Soda Straws. And if I don’t go down the Soda Straws when we go to Schlitterbahn… it’s as if we didn’t go at all.

Once back at the Torrent River concrete beach my wife and I put some beach chairs in the water to just relax and observe people having fun. So what did I observe?

A man that was so hairy he looked like he was half ape.

People with tattoos ranging from the interesting to the WTH ridiculous.

More cleavage than a night at the Oscars.

A guy with nipple rings.

A girl that was 6 ft. tall with pink hair and tattoos that snaked around her body from her shoulders to her feet. She even had a wedge of hair cut out of the top side of her head where her scalp was inked. I’m sure if I had a chance to talk to her I’d find she was really “sweet”.

I saw all different sizes of people from the anorexic to the morbidly obese.

But one of the most interesting things I observed was people trying to get out their inner tubes when they washed up close to shore. Many couldn’t get out because they let themselves get too close to shore and they didn’t have the buoyancy of the water to help push them out. They ended up having to roll out onto their stomachs onto the cement. And once out, many of them in their forties and fifties had a helluva time just trying to stand up without help. It was kind of funny until I thought about what other things they couldn’t do because of their poor physical conditioning.

It made me realize there are a lot of people who could use my help.

We don’t stop exercising because we grow old. We grow old because we stop exercising.

When you start down the road to a healthy life it’s important to have a good idea from whence thou comest. Uhhh… say what Bevis? In contemporary terms; what’s your status? Do you know how much you weigh or at least what your measurements are?

Becoming healthy is progressive. It’s not going to happen overnight. Just as you got to your current condition a little bit at a time, it will take time to become fit and healthy. So the first thing you need to have is a clear picture of yourself. You may not like it. It may not be pretty. But you have to see and accept your current state so that you can start moving from where you are and toward what you actually want.

What we’re talking about here is the joy of transformation.

I have mixed feelings about goals and setting goals but what I do know is this

The difference between a dream and a goal is a PLAN.

While visualization is important, you’re not going to dream your way to the body you want. What it takes is commitment and a plan of action.

So yeahhh… Look at yourself naked in the mirror. The point is not to make yourself feel bad. The point is to be clear about your starting point. It’s that honesty with yourself that will allow you to start tracking your progress. So don’t get started without the numbers.

In my book, “The Untold Secrets To Fitness Fast After Forty”, I provide you with a page for before and after pictures. It’s very motivating if you use it. But not knowing the numbers means not being committed. And being committed is the hardest exercise you’ll ever do.

But you can do it! Yes you can. One rep at a time.

Yesterday was my daughter’s 15^th birthday. Like many families, it’s tradition that we go out to eat on your birthday. While we could have gone anywhere, she decided she wanted to go to a hamburger joint.

We’d been to Fuddrucker’s and other local hamburger haunts so we were looking for something a little different. We chose a legendary place where none of us had eaten before with a reputation that spans from coast to coast. “Dirty Martin’s Kum-Bak Place”. The place is famous for having some of the tastiest and greasiest hamburgers known to man.

It’s near the “Longhorn worship center”, otherwise known as the University of Texas and it’s been around since 1926. Legend holds that it got its name “Dirty’s” because it still had dirt floors up until 1951.

We got there about 7:30 which is still a little early for their Sunday evening crowd. We had a choice of sitting up front on stools or booths by the grill, a backroom that was sort of a musty cave or outside on picnic tables with cool mist fans. We chose outside with the kool-zone fans.

I ordered the double cheese with mayonnaise, tomato, pickles and lettuce. It came with a mountain of shoestring fries and my wife agreed to order the onion rings with her burger so we could share more of the greasy goodness. Oh yeah! It was cheeseburger heaven. My son didn’t finish his bacon cheese burger so I got the opportunity chase my cheeseburger with a little of his bacon cheeseburger. Does it really get any better than that?

When we got home I had a modest piece of confetti birthday cake in my daughter’s honor, followed by a cup of Intense Chocolate ice cream. It’s chocolate ice cream with lots of solid chunks of chocolate and chocolate syrup. I’d say the name Intense nails it perfectly.

So why am I telling you all of this? Because I didn’t conjure up one ounce of guilt for the things I ate. Nor did I think about the calories I was devouring or worry that it was going to make me phat.

Let me share with you a couple of reasons why. 1) I don’t eat that way every day. 2) Three times a week I use a method of exercise called The 1-5-3 Fat Burning System. It only takes 15 minutes and burns away phat up to 9 times faster than traditional methods of exercise. So it’s like having a control knob for my health and fitness.

You can have this same control knob for your health too.

On Tuesday of this week I had to put down our dog, Marley, who had served our family well for 10 years.

He was a very special dog because he came to us as a gift. My wife was on her daily walk and he started following her home as she left the park near our home. He had a red collar but no tags and we were unable to find his owner.

His coat was a beautiful burnt orange with white “Santa Claus fur” on his chest, and black mixed in on his muzzle. From our research, he appeared to be part Border Collie and part German Shepherd.

It wasn’t long after we had him that we figured out why someone may have abandoned him. He was an escape artist… he could leap a 6 ft. fence. We couldn’t believe it either until we saw it happen. One time on the 4^th of July, I made the mistake of putting him out in the back yard while fireworks were going off in the neighborhood. He not only leapt the fence to get out, he was out all night and climbed the fence to get back in as evidenced by his bloody paws!

Sometimes he would bait us into chasing him around the backyard. We had a trampoline on one side of the yard and a swing set on the other and he would run around these in a Figure 8. He’d usually run around twice and if we weren’t paying attention, on the third round he’d jump the fence with a full head of steam and race down the street to Cat Lady’s house to see what he could snag.

As much as we hated having to chase him, we came to realize that this was his “work”. Border Collies are herding dogs and with no cattle or sheep to herd, he had to do something. He also got work from his commitment to a one mile daily walk.

His physical nature served him mentally and emotionally. It’s no different with us. As the body goes so goes the mind. We’ll miss his role as courageous protector of our family, his need to do something physical, and his sense of duty to serve.

Do you have the courage to protect your health? How are you serving yourself by doing something physical?

You have the ability to give yourself the “gift” of health by the actions you take. You can also relinquish your health by taking no action. What choice will you make?

KDEXXZ3YX4U6

Our ancestors who lived in pre-agrarian days or before farming, got most of their exercise by hunting and avoiding being hunted themselves.

Their number one goal everyday was to exist until the next day. In order to do that they had to eat. In order to eat they had to hunt. How’s that for planning your work and working your plan?

They were big eaters of protein which came from the meat of dangerous animals. In order to slay these beast required not only stealth, but intense burst of energy sustained for a short period of time. If they didn’t kill the beast, they stood a very good chance of becoming protein for the beast they hunted.

Most of the time it took numerous attempts to bring home the bacon. So man adapted to this and his body became lean and muscular. He also created a strong heart and lungs without “cardio” or aerobics.

What’s interesting is… there was no heart disease and no diabetes. The two biggest killers of people in the world today.

Today, the American Heart Association and traditional medicine recommend only small amounts of red meat, large amounts of carbohydrates, and exercise like aerobics that weakens your heart and lungs by causing them to shrink over time.

Sadly, the most exercise people get is walking from the couch to the pantry and back again. Thanks to big food manufacturers, most of us are addicted to high glycemic carbohydrates like crackers, chips, cookies and pastries that sap our energy and inflame our arteries.

If our practice of medicine is so sophisticated, why are two thirds of the people in the US obese? The answer is … the practice of medicine is just that. It’s not the prevention of illness. It’s the treatment of symptons of the ill.

Perhaps Big Pharma sees it as job security? Let’s be real. I know they see it as job security.

We no longer have to hunt for our food or avoid animal predators. The predators still exist, they’ve just taken on a different form.

If you want to learn how to get a body that’s lean and muscular like our pre-agrarian ancestors and also have lungs that support a strong immune system, stop by www.kevinfurey.com

All the best,

Kevin Furey – The Fitness Vigilante

Vaccine mania has taken the world by storm. If you’re considering getting a Swine Flu shot, here’s a few things you might want to think about.

1) Getting a Swine Flu shot does not guarantee you will not get the Swine Flu.

2) Why has the Federal Government felt it necessary to grant complete immunity to pharmaceutical companies who manufacture the vaccine if taking it results in critical long term side effects or death?

3) In a survey conducted by Nursing Times magazine, it was found that only 37% of nurses and front line health workers said they would take the vaccine.

4) 49% of doctors in the UK polled by Pulse magazine would reject the vaccine with 9% still undecided

5) All vaccines cause inflammation of the brain. The older you are the more inflammation exist. Some more severe cases lead to neurodegenerative diseases as a direct result of vaccines.

6) The Swine Flu vaccine will contain the heavy metal mercury which is toxic. It also contains immune stimulators called adjuvants. They’ve been associated with severe autoimmune diseases such as Lupus.

7) Why is the Federal Government involved in this to begin with?

92% of children who contract measles, mumps, or other childhood illnesses have been vaccinated.

9) Why have their been no mass epidemics after it was discovered that protection from childhood vaccines had waned in adults?

10) A 30 year study concluded that the regular flu vaccine did not reduce deaths or hospitalizations for pneumonia from flu, yet the CDC, and the American Academy of Family Practice still strongly promote it for the elderly.

There’s a heap of evidence now that the best way to combat the flu is with proper nutrition and supplementation.

Vitamin D3 stimulates a group of proteins called peptides which can kill or inhibit viruses, bacteria and fungi. The more you take the more microbe killing peptides it makes.

The government recommends only 400 international units per day. Dr. Russell Blaylock M.D., whose been studying things in this area for the last 30 years recommends 5000 IU’s per day and 15,000 IU’s per day if there is a true epidemic. Let’s see? Who’s advice should I take?

Start taking control of your own health. All the information you need is at your finger tips.

It’s also critical to exercise to get your blood flowing properly and stimulate your lymphatic system.

Learn more about the exercise part, especially if you’re over forty at www.kevinfuey.com

All the best,

Kevin Furey – The Fitness Vigilante

If preventing a heart attack is simple, why is heart disease the number one killer of Americans?

We’ve all heard the terms associated with heart disease and heart attacks. Blockage, placque, high tryglycerides, clogged arteries, etc.

Most people just figure that the arteries that lead to your heart get plugged up with placque and blood can’t flow through to your heart and WHAMMY, you have a heart attack.

And this is true. But the way it happens may not be what you think.

It happens from the outside in instead of the inside out.

Placque builds up on the inside of your artery walls. So if you thought of your arteries as pipes that you were looking through from end to end, you couldn’t see it because it’s inside the walls of the arteries.

Then what happens is your arteries become inflammed and start to swell. This narrows the space on the inside of the artery for the blood to pass through. If there’s enough inflammation it creates a clot or bulge in the swollen artery which then closes the artery. All from the outer walls of the artery.

So the key to preventing a heart attack is to prevent the inflammation.

The media points to cholesterol as the culprit but your liver makes more cholesterol than you get from the foods you eat.

Inflammation is also caused by what you eat. Wanna know the two biggest culprits?

Sugar and processed oils like vegetable, soybean and canola oil.

So the simple way to prevent a heart attack is to limit your sugar intake and avoid vegetable oils. The best oils to cook with and that are completely healthy for you are olive and believe it or not, coconut oil.

Another simple thing you can do is use your own body weight for exercise. Exercise helps your body to work properly and when done properly, builds a strong heart. You can find out more about what type of exercise is best at www.kevinfurey.com

All the best,

Kevin Furey – The Fitness Vigilante

So we’ve talked about how your energy levels decrease with age and how CoQ10 can give you loads of energy.

We’ve also talked about how fr*ee radicals terrorize your body and how CoQ10 acts as an antioxidant to help prevent heart disease and other chronic illnesses.

Another thing this wonderful enzyme does is slow down the aging process.

It’s believed that aging is a result of less energy production.

We know that CoQ10 works within the cells to help produce energy. As you get older, you don’t produce as much CoQ10 and consequently have less energy.

Our bodies were designed for activity. As you get older and your energy levels decline you become less active. This lack of stimulation has a negative effect on your muscles, bones and internal organs which hastens the aging process.

CoQ10 has the ability to in a sense, reset the aging process in your cells. No, it won’t give you the cells of a teenager but it will provide you with the energy that will help you become so incredibly active that you might FEEL like one again.

Short burst of exercise using your own body weight also help energize your body, make it work better and turn back the clock on the aging process. Find out more at www.kevinfurey.com

All the best,

Kevin Furey – The Fitness Vigilante

No, I’m not talkin’ about the fr*ee radicals in Washington, D.C. I’ll save that for another discussion.

But I need to tell you something that might shock you. There’s a war going on in your body.

The funny thing is… that’s how your body was created. And the result of the ongoing war inside your body is AGE.

When your body converts food into energy it naturally creates some byproducts that attack enzymes, proteins and cell membranes. They’re called fr*ee radicals. And if these attacks are not answered, it can lead to hardening of the arteries.

It gets even worse because of additional environmental and lifestyle contributors. Things like air pollution, chemical toxins, certain pharmaceutical drugs, stress, smoking, alcohol and some of the foods we eat. All of these things contribute to the oxidation process. But instead of pipes rusting, your arteries harden and clog and eventually may cause a heart attack or stroke.

But there is good news. Your body fights back against the fr*ee radicals by creating antioxidants. You get this ammunition from fruits and vegetables. So when fr*ee radicals are contained by a sufficient arsenal of antioxidants you maintain your health and reduce the aging process.

There’s a couple of problems though. We can’t eat enough fruits and vegetables, especially as they’re grown nowadays, to keep sufficiently armed. Your body makes it’s own antioxidants but the amount decreases with age.

So we need supplements.

Vitamin C and E are really good ones to help fight this war. But one of the best ones is CoQ10. It has a special quality that combats the oxidation of LDL cholesterol (the sticky bad cholesterol).

CoQ10 is also known to protect the brain, the muscles, the liver and other vital organs. It’s hard to say enough about this vital enzyme and how it can protect you from disease and premature aging.

Another thing that protects you from disease and premature aging is exercise. It doesn’t require whole lot of it either. You’ll see what I mean if you go to www.kevinfurey.com

All the best,

Kevin Furey

I started taking CoQ10 for the benefits it would provide for my heart and my brain. But I never imagined the amount of energy I would have as an added benefit.

Energy is produced in the cells of your body. They take in oxygen, combined with sugars and fatty acids from food. These raw materials are then sent to the mighty mitochondria in your cells. I call them the mighty mitochondria because they are the “power plants” of your cells where energy is produced and every cell has 500 to 2000 mitochondria.

In the mitochondria the raw materials are combined with enzymes to produce energy. And that’s where CoQ10 does its job. It works as a go between so to speak, to provide the spark to produce the energy. Without sufficient amounts of CoQ10, it’s like trying to light charcoal without lighter fluid.

The lack of energy can have a serious domino effect on your body as you get older. So don’t take it lightly. When your cells don’t have enough energy it can damage your tissues. This in turn spreads to the muscles and ultimately damages the organ systems of the heart and brain.

Start supplementing with CoQ10 and see if you don’t turn into the Energizer Bunny. If you’re over forty the recommended dosage is at least 100 mg per day.

Another way to increase your energy is with simple body weight exercise. To learn more go to www.kevinfurey.com

All the best,

Kevin Furey