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## Hey Hive, it's been a while, right?

#### This is a preface to a series of more in-depth posts in the #selfimprovementcommunity regarding my astronomical growth in several areas of my life recently.
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Although I do find posting on life event's to be a useful practise to review progress over time, this is not my purpose, I believe that some of the strategies that have proven to be so valuable to me may be of use to those who are struggling, especially with illness and problems brought on by a less than stellar lifestyle over many years or just sheer bad luck.

#### It will also give a little clarity and context to just where I have been recently, some might say:

### I've been down the rabbit-hole
#### As you can see, the rabbit-hole was not kind to me, oh man, that's an awful picture!
![20220501_195725.jpg](https://images.hive.blog/DQmNh6TJQJnRAYEKAVgVmYXkdXwiRATjNfhdec2mNgYjYYJ/20220501_195725.jpg)

## Firstly let me say Hi, I've missed you!
####
My upcoming forray in to long, long, long overdue replies can hopefully assure you of this...
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However, I do not regret my disappearance for an instant, the last few months have been quite possibly the **greatest** and **most terrifying** period of my life over the last 50 years. Make that 'almost' 50 years as it is exactly 50 days till I turn 50, ((Jeez that was a lot of 50's!!!)), there's a more than coincidental synchronicity that is hard to escape in my showing up to the blockchain doors on this most auspicious of days.
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D'you remember my massive life goal? If you are new around these parts you may not have heard even the slightest inkling about it, if you are fairly regular here you may well remember.

I set myself the HUGE challenge quite some time ago to be #fitterat50than40 the reason for this being quite so huge is that my health has been in somewhat of a freefall for several years. This left me feeling more than a little morose so I resolved to take things in hand.

#### As so often happens with great goals and bold plans, fate decided to step in and (seemingly) scupper them in quite magnificent style as the end date came in to view.
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I sometimes think such things are **far** from coincidental. I have a sneaking suspicion that the universe is keen to know just how much you want those things that you claim to. I further claim that there is a process by which not insignificant hurdles and problems are thrown in to your path to test your resolve, I think of it as an 'apprenticeship' of sorts.
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Suffice to say my health reached the lowest point of my life just 2 short months ago. I was forced to walk out of a 7 till 7 nightshift at work at 3AM as I told my boss I simply couldn't go on... I felt so overwhelmingly emotional about it and I simply couldn't shake a single pervading, mocking thought...

# #fitterat50than40
https://images.hive.blog/DQmV3cMSMpmWW2praBHd6cBQTs4EyUuEEp4f2v7c94wcntB/20220501_195717.jpg

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Jeez, it felt like I was being mocked by my own words and the very essence of my naive, foolish optimism wanted to take me down. I'm not kidding, I just couldn't shake that goal I had set from my mind, it sounds like a crazy thing to say right now but I was embarrassed!
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The best way of describing it is that I felt as though my battery had plummeted to 3% and I had literally no energy to perform one more action. It is no understatement and I have no embarrassment in telling you that **I was scared.**

This was on the back of discovering that I had C.O.P.D last year and several years of my diabetes being wildly out of control and my blood sugars completely unresponsive to medication. I also had incredibly low iron and over the last couple of years the dose has been raised and raised and each time I adapted and fell ever lower. The slightest infection floored me and because of the diabetes it was incredibly difficult to heal and come back from. There was one stage where an infection in my toe started to affect the bone and amputation was a scarily real possibility.
## I asked myself how life would be living in this potential future...
![Think, really think before you answer. final.jpg](https://images.hive.blog/DQmd4eZ6kzCHkAY74M5ZtW7pKoTDcpgpqfqmPWjSwDSucVh/Think,%20really%20think%20before%20you%20answer.%20final.jpg)

A culmination of physical health issues had unsurprisingly took a huge toll on my mental health several times over the last couple of years. This time round though, I felt like I was in real trouble.
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While my immune system was severely compromised I caught covid OBVIOUSLY!!! This caused me a whole raft of other issues but that's a story for another lifetime...
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Anyway, back to my latest health blip as I was euphemistically calling it, trying to keep a bright façade and strong appearance for those nearest and dearest to me. I had more tests than I have had in my whole life combined, the most serious of which was stomach cancer screening by way of  a CT scan, although I never seriously believed there was a possibility of this, the very process is disconcerting to say the least.
### I became aware that I was starting to look old pretty quickly too!
![20220612_161151.jpg](https://images.hive.blog/DQmb5nUauH9MTg5K6oazGBRABhcS6cGvXKKgcPisbLwMbJ6/20220612_161151.jpg)

I had what felt like 1200 bottles of blood liberated from my protesting, aching veins and thank heavens I did, as one of those small bottle from one of the more innocuous tests held the answer.
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### I had a severe vitamin D deficiency...
### 
Now don't get me wrong, I was happy to arrive at an answer after several weeks of my GP being stumped but concerned and of course my own mind had run away on all sorts of fanciful, slightly terrifying scenarios that I desperately hoped not to be true BUT it felt a little unsatisfying!
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### I'm not sure if you know what I mean by that? 
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My life felt like it had been tipped upside down and my health was so poor, I felt like a bullet train had knocked me down on the hour, every hour for several weeks in a row. The answer felt so unsatisfactory and punt that I felt it couldn't possibly be right.
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We all know that vitamin and mineral deficiencies can be fairly serious but **seriously** all the turmoil of recent weeks and months was caused by what is tantamount to low Vit D???
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### Seriously???
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As you can imagine, the first thing I did on learning this was an internet search to find the major symptoms. Severe fatigue, aching, painful joints and muscles, susceptibility to infections and difficultly in healing and a low immune system in general led me to believe that maybe these Dr's weren't all idiots and were quite possibly on to something after all.
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I called my workplace and informed them that I would not be back within the next week or 2 as I was not gonna risk ending up in the same place a coupla weeks down the line as I knew that I had to get myself on the right track once and for all, I suspected they would not be happy about this but felt that my health was far more important than if I was fired or not. I was off for a little over a month all in all.
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## What a month it was!
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I was so pleased to finally have a diagnosis to deal with. A vitamin deficiency I thought, GREAT! That's something I can do something about quickly. I grabbed the most basic over the counter supplement and went to work on researching and I found a fabulous far more potent liquid supplement online. 
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Next up I decided that this would not be the end of my personal health interventions and set to work on researching the latest studies on all of my ailments, after all, I had some time off work and an overwhelming urge to heal myself. At the start of this post I told you this was a summary that would lead to several posts a little more in depth on a few different aspects of my recent journey.
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![One life is enough!.jpg](https://images.hive.blog/DQmWG5GbGHAUwXHvvCp9oLRk9Yty9n5K49VoYsEtZHJdC6o/One%20life%20is%20enough!.jpg)

### Let me give you a couple of headlines regarding what has happened since;
### I dropped around 35 pounds in weight and am now what I last weighed in my early 20's!!!
### I cured my stomach acid problems that have plagued me for a couple of decades and no longer need the medication that when I used to forget to take it left me doubled over at the waist in agony.
### My diabetes seems like it as all a dream, my blood glucose is in a perfect range for the first time in many, many years. Yup, you guessed it, I ditched those meds forever. I test myself regularly to find how foods, activities and other factors affect me. 
### My cholesterol meds? Not neccesary, GONE!
### I have more energy than I can recall having at any point in the last 20+ years.
### Oh and did I mention that I eat 1 meal a day and have done for around a month now and I feel F#?*ing fantastic!!! Hunger, you ask? Nope! Never.
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#### No! You did not misunderstand the timeframe involved.
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The majority of these amazing almost miraculous transformations took me a little over 1 week to feel the initial benefit from, after 2 weeks I felt like I had been upgraded to a younger more powerful model and at this point a little over a month in I feel magnificent. I am so unbelievably thankful and more than a little proud of myself.
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**After photos will just have to come, well, after, as my camera is fighting me endlessly right now, I guess everything in life cannot be on an upward trajectory, right?**
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I have gone on quite the journey and my initial research and investigations in to cutting edge scientific breakthroughs has left me gobsmacked.
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### You will likely not be surprised to learn that my next endeavour is to rewire and upgrade my brain function. Not a joke, the initial benefits are heartening to say the least and I feel so mentally dynamic right now.
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If someone else relayed this story to me I would struggle to believe them! I barely believe it myself and I am living it. bases on some of the beneficial results I have gained others around me have begun to make some similarly big changes in their life too. Those who know me know that I will put in the work to keep up with the science, data and commit to the learnings necessary to keep making improvements in the most scientifically healthy way possible.
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BUT remember that my goal for 50 included not just health changes but, **health, wealth, happiness and spirituality** changes for the better. In each of these ways I want to be fitter at 50 than I was at 40!
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I should point out that in my case, spirituality probably doesn't mean what you may expect it to. You can probably guess that my happiness has improved exponentially and you would be 275000% right, which is coincidentally the % improvement I have experienced thus far.
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Most people would assume (myself included, before recent events) that it takes a significant amount of time to make real improvement to health. I do wonder though if the intensity behind the intention is a factor. In my case the resolve that existed inside me to move mountains wherever necessary to find answers and implement the newfound knowledge created an exponential compounding effect.
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I will of course, be detailing all of the life changes I have implemented in upcoming posts. I will be glad to offer support to anyone who has questions about any of these strategies too.
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#### A matter of weeks ago I believed my #fitterat50than40 goal was dead in the water, I did start wondering if I wouldn't be too far behind it, but who knows the power that lies behind intention sometimes?
![image.png](https://images.hive.blog/DQmZWfbVdfs1E1fxgdTBTc4Ah7peLpBUTXa3t5cfGnRWN63/image.png)

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I made one other proclamation regarding a gift I wished to give myself for my 50th birthday...  It seemed like a gift significantly far out of reach to be worthy of being called a goal and was a gift of something I had NEVER owned.
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### I promised myself six pack abs.
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I have the written goal close at hand somewhere and will post it here soon. It says something along the lines of. I want a six pack by my 50th, it can be visible but ill defined, a little saggy and still in need of work but must be visible and exist lol.
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### I just think that is a crazy goal to have something as closely tied in with peak fitness and youth for the first time ever at 50 years of age.
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I can concur that it does not exist in a visible form yet but I feel my stomach getting flatter and flatter and less and less flabby so Mid September feels like a doable timeframe for me given my new upgraded titanium mindset.
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I am embarrassed to say this but I feel obliged to take pics whether I succeed or fall a little short as accountability is important to me right now. Don't worry, those pictures will come with an advisory warning beforehand haha.
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Don't ever let anyone tell you that you're too old, too small, too tall, too dumb, too unfit or **too anything** to do whatever the hell you want to. Possibility lies in your hands and your hands alone. 

### Whatever happens make sure 100% that the person telling you that you are not capable is not living inside your mind, that would be a real tragedy! 




 
https://images.hive.blog/DQmeJ4Z7Me4m2BcDCDYpJ888Mk6qLE4yZuNfsXmpaAYbkhC/Regret!.jpg
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Thank **YOU** for taking the time to read my post and if you're one of those amazing people who like to hit the comments section... Then I *doubly* thank **YOU!** 
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Either way I want you to know that you are appreciated! 
#### Keep taking the time to connect with each-other both here **and** in the *'so-called'* real world and try and look after each-other, because as you already know... 
![Together We're Just Better.png](https://images.hive.blog/DQmZLyXRT8VZKsB7twDD5Jff4G4cN6Qd7iLKcaAxpGLR6jM/Together%20We're%20Just%20Better.png) 
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![image.png](https://images.hive.blog/DQmfYSzAwPRpvsb8KX5T47K95ybK3FYHfMQcr36ZVtA56e6/image.png) 
#### I am an incredibly proud member of #TeamUK I love the global community immensely, but it is nice to have a home-team banner to add to my posts. The banner was made by the inimitable RoastMaster General himself @c0ff33a If you are an active UK member and would like to be added to the teamUK community on Discord, just let me know 😎</h1>  
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##### Most designs/photos are my own or created in Canva.