I grew up believing
that diabetes was in my genetics. There's nothing I can do about this. I just have to brace for impact. All of my brothers and sisters with the exception
of one sister has battled with diabetes, but … I look back now to the foods we ate. When you look at this
whole slew of devastation that has … crippled my family
in so many different ways, it really boils down
to the food, it's the food. When I was growing up, I was always a little
bigger than most of the other … males my age. And I loved football, so I had
the fortunate opportunity to play football … and ultimately earned a football scholarship
at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. I was a big guy.

I'm 6'2", and in college I played at about 305 pounds. And I grew up believing that … I needed protein. I need protein and I need steak
and I need chicken, and I believed that,
and of course I was big and strong. I was eating a lot, I was eating like an ox. But the bottom line was, after my college playing days were over, twelve years later … I was diagnosed with diabetes. I saw what … his family members went through
because of diabetes. It was like there was a big storm coming. Our future looked dark, honestly. Like we have hope. I thought that it was just in his genes
and it was our destiny and … that I just had to make the best of it. So I'm taking insulin shots twice a day, I'm taking multiple medications for all
these conditions and on top of that, as time went on, I developed psoriasis all over my scalp,
I was overweight, I developed erectile dysfunction.

And again being a big macho football player, I thought that I was invincible, big and strong
and everything was going to be great. Once you develop erectile dysfunction, it is deflating as a man to not be able to go
and make love to… I have a beautiful wife. I know a lot of people, guys that I talk to,
they'll come to me and they'll say, "Hey, you know, I got that issue too." And really what's happening is
your arteries are clogging, your artery to your private
parts is clogging. And the issue with that is
that your other arteries are clogging as well. Your heart, your coronary arteries,
your carotid arteries, those are clogging as well. It's only a matter of time before that
stroke and that heart attack happen, and so that's the bigger issue,
that's the big train wreck that we need to avoid. And I say that and I share it openly
because a lot of guys don't want to talk about this.

They are embarrassed,
and I get it because I was embarrassed too. I didn't want to go tell people my business.
Who does? There's an estimate that 40-50 % of males
over the age of 40 … struggle with ED. Many guys think they're going to pop a pill,
they can go have sex, and life is great. But they're masking that bigger problem,
the train wreck that's around the corner: that's the heart attack and the stroke. And so, something had to change, I did not want to be caught in the position … where I wasn't going to be able
to see my daughter get married. I want to see my grandkids
and I want to see my great-grandkids. And I don't want to be, God forbid,
in a nursing home … or not able to get up and go and enjoy
those times with my family and my loved ones.

I knew at that point
that I needed to make a change and … that's when my wife and I adopted
a whole-food, plant-based lifestyle. I was on medications for a decade,
for ten years, and only getting worse every single year
as time went on. We adopt this lifestyle. And in two months
I was off all five of my medications. In three months I had shed 50 pounds,
which took me down to 210 pounds. And oh, by the way,
that was what I weighed in seventh grade. 13 years old was the last time
I weighed what I weigh today, and I'm 51. I feel like I'm in the best shape of my life,
and I'm the oldest I've ever been. How is that happening?
It's the food. And what we did was we actually adopted
a whole-food, plant-based lifestyle.

So, we eliminated all the animal products, we eliminated the oils out of our diet, and we're sticking now to really four
main food groups: And that's all the fruits, all the vegetables, all the grains, and all the legumes in any shape or form. Instead of cooking with oil, we will steam them,
we'll use veggie broth, we'll bake foods.
Anything we can, but you don't need the oils.
Oils are 100 % fat. And all these foods, when you look at them, they're just loaded and jam-packed with vitamins, with fiber, with minerals,
with phytonutrients, all of the greatness that will help your bodies thrive,
these amazing machines that we all own.

And they are devoid
and don't have any of the cholesterol … and for the most part no saturated fat. They don't have any growth hormones,
no antibiotics, a lot of this that you find in the animal foods. When I look at the changes that I went through, I was able to reverse my type 2 diabetes, reverse my high blood pressure,
reverse my high cholesterol. My erectile dysfunction is gone, my psoriasis is gone, my obesity is gone, and I feel full of life. I'm 51 years old and I feel like I am
literally in the best shape of my life at this point. And what's amazing is when you look
at my lifestyle, my transformation, here I am seven years into
this lifestyle now, and … I know they say never say never, but I'm never
going back to eating the way I used to eat … which was a lot of animal foods
and a lot of oils. I'm eliminating those foods I have for seven years now,
and I never see myself going back because … I feel too damn good now. So if you want to be a real man,
if you want to take care of your family, take care of yourself.

Because … your family doesn't need you to go have a stroke
or a heart attack and then have to take care of you. Be a real man, take care of yourself
and take care of your family. And it's not coming through a pill,
it's going to come through the foods you eat..

Video Transcript – As found on YouTube