May I have your permission to share a struggle that I’ve had?
May I have your permission to share something incredibly personal,something private that not many folks know about?
It was nearly 4 years ago when my wife and I were going through some incredibly hard times. Evangeline was in the hospital and my oldest daughter was starving for attention.
On top of all of that, I was fat & unhappy.
Photo courtesy of ShutterStock
I was grinding through life, taking one moment at a time juggling what seemed to be a pretty impossible act.
At nearly 6’2, I’ve considered myself fairly athletic all my life. I could pretty much eat and drink whatever the heck I’ve wanted to.
I’ve never been the all-star athlete, but I’ve worked pretty darn hard to keep in shape. 180 to 190 pounds is my happy spot. I swore I would never get over 200 pounds.
With all the stress we were going through pre and post-delivery of Evangeline (born at 12.4 ounces 23 weeks gestationally), I still worked out, but I was getting older and my metabolism slowing down.
Frankly, I let myself go a little bit. I was drinking a couple of sodas a day and consuming all kinds of yummy fatty foods like pizza and fast food withour crazy hectic schedule.
I’m about to tell all of you something that I’ve never revealed to anyone except my wife and my oldest daughter. I don’t think I even told my own parents! (If they didn’t know, I guess they are now!)
In this podcast, you will discover….
- The health scare that freaked out my wife
- What I did to turn around my circumstances and how I’m still working through it
- My challenge to you
Resources Mentioned In This Podcast
The Freedom Formula for Physicians Book
TRANSCRIPT
Welcome back my friends, this is Dave Denniston your host. I am so excited. We have a ton of content coming up that I know you are going to find helpful. As a matter of fact, my friends, THE doc outside the box, Dr. Nii Darko is joining me on November 4th. I just loved spending time with him and I know you will too.
Thanks so much for being here, seriously, for taking time out of your day and out of your compressed schedule. If this is your first time listening in, welcome and please subscribe because we have a lot of great content coming.
Also, If you are a faithful listener and you are coming back to the show, thank you, because I am so grateful for my faithful listeners and the conversations we have. Keep the comments coming. Keep the words of encouragement coming and keep the suggestions coming for guests too.
Also, I am looking for more listeners to share their stories and their journey on a physician fireside chat. If you are willing to step into the mic for a few moments, I know there’s something other physicians can learn from you. Please email me at dave@doctorfreedompodcast.com if you are interested in joining me in a future episode.
Speaking of future episodes, as a matter of fact, next week we are going to talk about 5 financial lessons from broke athletes. I am super stoked about this episode. It’s been fun to do a little research and share these stories. I know you’ll learn from them.
Anyhow, Today, I’d like to share something really personal, but before I do, let me tell you a story…
A frog was hopping around a farmyard, when it decided to investigate the barn. Being somewhat careless, and maybe a little too curious, he ended up falling into a pail half-filled with fresh milk.
As he swam about attempting to reach the top of the pail, he found that the sides of the pail were too high and steep to reach. He tried to stretch his back legs to push off the bottom of the pail but found it too deep.
But this frog was determined not to give up, and he continued to struggle. He kicked and squirmed and kicked and squirmed, until at last, all his churning about in the milk had turned the milk into a big hunk of butter.
The butter was now solid enough for him to climb onto and get out of the pail!
My friends… “Never Give Up!”
My friends, I felt a bit like this frog. May I have your permission to share a struggle that I’ve had?
May I have your permission to share something incredibly personal, something private that not many folks know about…
It was nearly 4 years ago when my wife and I were going through some incredibly hard times. Evangeline was in the hospital and my oldest daughter was starving for attention.
On top of all of that, I was fat & unhappy.
I was grinding through life, taking one moment at a time juggling what seemed to be a pretty impossible act.
At nearly 6’2, I’ve considered myself fairly athletic all my life. I could pretty much eat and drink whatever the heck I’ve wanted to.
I’ve never been the all-star athlete, but I’ve worked pretty darn hard to keep in shape. 180 to 190 pounds is my happy spot. I swore I would never get over 200 pounds.
With all the stress we were going through pre and post-delivery of Evangeline, I still worked out, but I was getting older and my metabolism slowing down.
Frankly, I let myself go a little bit. I was drinking a couple of sodas a day and consuming all kinds of yummy fatty foods like pizza and fast food with our crazy hectic schedule.
I’m about to tell all of you something that I’ve never revealed to anyone except my wife and my oldest daughter. I don’t think I even told my own parents!
In the midst of all of that, I re-wrote my term life insurance to $1.5 million increase the coverage. Heck with Evangeline’s situation, I wanted to make sure my family had as much money as they could have in the worst case scenario.
I knew I wasn’t going to look forward to going on the weigh scale and I was dismayed by the results.
I was pushing close to 220 pounds. For me, that was a ton of weight! I had never weighted that much.
Then, to top it all off, the lab results were kind of scary. Here’s a picture of them below:
My family (okay, my wife) was freaked out by the results!
Here I am in my early 30’s, and my GGT levels, Cholesterol levels, and triglycerides were all sky high!
So, I stopped moping around and became committed to making a change.
This had to stop!
I had to be there for my kids!
I started by incorporating more salads & smoothies in my diet, having egg whites rather than a whole egg, and making sure I cut down on the carbs.
I invested in an exercise program- Insanity- from BeachBody and worked my tail off.
I took massive action and changed my lifestyle OVER the long-term.
I didn’t stop with those changes.
I kept investing into new exercise programs and testing new diets.
I felt sooo much better!
Slightly more than a year later, here were my new lab results:
As you can see, CHOLESTEROL and TRIGLYCERIDES went way down! That was awesome. However, my GGT levels were still even higher! I saw a holistic doctor and had a great heart-to-heart conversation. I had to make more changes.
I committed to doing more. I committed to eliminating high fructose corn syrup (i.e. normal soda) and trying to eliminate gluten from my diet. I love(d) bread and so that was very, very, verrrrrry hard to do.
Yet, that did the trick and my GGT levels went down dramatically last year! I can’t wait to do it again this year and see what happens.
Here’s something I want you to think about for the next six months:
Where’s an area that you know you need to improve in? Where are you frustrated? Where could you use some help?
What are resources that you can surround yourself with? What are you going to invest in to make this change?
Who do you have around you that can keep you accountable? Whether it is health, wealth, or a spiritual need, we need people to push us and keep on us on track. Who can help keep you on the straight and narrow path? How often will you meet with them?
When you accomplish this goal, how will it feel? Where will you be? Who will you be with? How will you celebrate this achievement?
I have to confess. I’m not there. I’m still reaching for my health goals, for my marriage, to serve my clients better. There’s always something to work on, something I can get better at.
What are you going to be like a year from now?
Will you have transformed your life or are you going to be in the same place?
Think about it and let me know what you want to work on and how you can achieve extraordinary results!
My friends, let me leave you with this…
YOU have an abundance of god-given talents & skills within you that you haven’t even begun to reach for yet. YOU are an amazing doctor who cares for your patients like family. YOU are a physician who can reclaim the love of medicine.
Furthermore, YOU have the ability to be financially free. YOU have the ability to slash your debt and slash your taxes be financially free.
Sometimes, all we need is a coach in a critical situation to help us uncover and see those things so you can realize that you are powerful beyond measure.
My hope for you is that you’ve realized some small aspect of freedom today while listening to this. I encourage you to take action, I believe in YOU. I believe in YOUR future.
I want to say thank you for taking the time to listen to me today and for letting me being your coach. It is an honor to have you here. Thank you for tuning in. Your time is sacred and I am delighted that you’ve chosen this episode to listen to in your compressed schedule. However, I fit into that routine, I want you to know that I appreciate that you’ve chosen to fit time in today with me as we learn these strategies.
For the Freedom Formula for Physicians Podcast, this is Dave Denniston. Remember my friends, slash your debt, slash your taxes, and live a liberated lifestyle.
