Weight Loss Journey and Fitness Transformation: 6 Things I Learned From 3,000+ Hours Of Research and Practice To Transform My Body and Mind

From Deadman Walking to Running a Half Marathon After Hobbling Around for 14 Years…

The knock on my car window startled me.

It was in the middle of the afternoon and I had fallen asleep at a traffic light, one block from my home in Austin, Texas.

I woke up to find a police officer looking at me with concern.

That was my proverbial wake-up call.

The next morning I noticed blood in my stool.

My name is Nate Brooks.

I’m 67 years old.

24 months ago, I tipped the scale at 352 pounds. I had a 56-inch waist, swollen feet and ankles, and blood pressure at stroke levels. I was depressed, my eating was out of control, and I blamed everyone but myself.

Today, I weigh 195 pounds, look great in my clothes, and I have the blood pressure of an athlete half my age. Best of all, I’m running again for the first time in 14 years and it feels amazing.

Take a look at my latest stats:

I feel like it’s my life purpose now to help as many people as I can.

So I’m starting to write about what I did, and what I learned.

I hope my story and the lessons I share about my weight loss journey and fitness transformation will inspire and motivate you to reach your goals too.

Top Of My Game to “Ticking Time Bomb”

I’ve always been an athlete.

High school and college sports, and later I taught old-school aerobics.

I was also a bowling champion in New York and California.

I felt proud of working my way out of the slums of New York to attend the Merchant Marine Academy, M.I.T., and Harvard Business School. Then rising to the top of my profession in real estate.

But I was now ashamed of the person I’d let myself become.

I wasn’t sure what to do. But, I had to do something.

I started at a local health store in Austin, Texas.

The clerk gave me the standard spiel: “Go see your doctor.”

Thankfully she also suggested that I get my blood pressure checked.

I got back in my car and drove to the HEB pharmacy in Northwest Austin.

Blood pressure, cholesterol, glucose levels…

Everything was off the charts!

The pain in my big toe could be gout, and falling asleep all the time was probably diabetes.

I was a “ticking time bomb” ready to explode.

As I went back to my car and sat in the driver’s seat, I felt like I was drowning.

How did I get so messed up?

My 10-Year Downward Spiral

I’d been running for years.

Why not do a Half Ironman race?

I trained for 8 months.

Then, two days before the race, my left foot “locked up.”

It was like I was paralyzed, and I couldn’t walk.

I hobbled around for the next six years looking for a solution.

I tried everything to heal my foot: sports doctors, physical therapy, chiropractors, acupuncture, acupressure, Graston technique, steroid shots, sports wraps, and all kinds of nutritional supplementation.

But nothing worked.

The so-called professionals took my money but none of them could fix my problem. I became depressed, frustrated, and angry.

“Life happened” over and over. My belly ballooned like I was pregnant, and my shoe size went up from a size 10 regular to a size 12, 4E wide.

Ten years later I woke up trapped in a body that was killing me.

Finally, My Chance To Break Free

I was still going to the gym but just using the hot tub and dry sauna.

I’d stop at the store on the way to the 24-Hour Fitness to grab a “snack,” Ding Dongs and Mountain Dew. Then I’d go to the gym, get in the hot tub, and often end up falling asleep right there in the water.

You had to be blind to not see that something was seriously wrong but I guess people didn’t want to offend me. Besides, I got good at hiding the depression and out of control eating behind my outgoing and fun personality.

I even tried to fool myself into thinking that I was okay, and I used the sore knees, shoulders, ankles, and gout to explain why I couldn’t exercise anymore.

I got excited about exercising again toward the end of 2015 when I joined Orange Theory Fitness. But my body wasn’t ready for the conventional fitness workout. I got reinjured and ended up back in the hot tub at my old gym.

Anyway, I got some success training real estate agents for one of the top teams in Austin, Texas, but I was still in denial about my health.

Then, one day, I walked out of fast food restaurant and I ran into a guy that I had trained with while preparing for the Half Ironman Race. He recommended a chiropractor in Liberty Hill…and that did the trick.

My foot was fixed.

It took another year before my foot was strong enough to start walking or exercising again but I was finally moving in a good direction.

Six Things I Learned From More Than 3,000 Hours Of Health And Fitness Research and Scientific Testing In My Own Body To Blast Away 157 Pounds

The first thing we need to do is get you to understand what you’re up against.

The professional world of health and fitness is a confusing maze of misinformation and outright lies that leave most people fat, sick, and broke.

I literally had to read through tens of thousands of pages of research and data, watch weeks of video, and spend a small fortune to find the truth.

I ended up getting my own health and fitness breakthrough and earning five certifications. I was also able to practice and help dozens of women in their 70s and 80s recover range of motion, get back into their gardens, and be able to pick themselves up if they ever fell down.

But I’m not here to be your guru. You’ve got to make up your own mind and take action to change your life. My job is simply to share what worked and what didn’t, what I learned, and point you in the right direction.

Here are six simple things to begin:

(1) You must take 100% responsibility for your own health and fitness.

I was wolfing down pounds of fast foods and drinking sodas by the gallon.

But it wasn’t me I tried to convince myself, it was agribusiness and the food companies. Of course, it was my own fault and my own poor choices.

Yes, there may be a conspiracy of lies regarding nutrition and fitness. However, the truth of the matter is that I had to take 100% responsibility for learning and doing the correct things for my life…no matter what.

No one wants to hear this, including me 24 months ago, but if you want things to be different in the future, you must be willing to own your present situation and take action to change it starting today.

(2) Moderation is a lie.

Moderation, the belief that a little of this or that is okay, was destroying my health slowly; but, surely. All of us are being told to eat virtually “anything” in moderation. However, I discovered that is an outright lie.

Think about it: You don’t tell a person who is addicted to cocaine that it is okay to take a little cocaine every now and then. It’s the same with sugar and processed foods. Food is an addiction.

I had to break my addiction to sugar, processed foods, and dairy products.

(3) You must learn what works.

I researched health, nutrition, and functional fitness for over 3,000 hours in order to get the correct information about what would really work.

Then I had to put it into practice, learn, and improve daily.

What I discovered is that there are secret accelerators that can actually speed up your results with health and fitness. You’ve still got to do the work but you are working in the right way.

For example, I learned that eating the G-BOMBS way was the answer for me.

G-BOMBS stands for Green Leafy Vegetables, Beans, Onions, Mushrooms, Berries, and Seeds and Spices. This one little food hack literally changed the chemistry in my body and jump-started my energy levels.

I’m going to write a detailed article about nutrition. Follow me on Twitter so you don’t miss it and so you can ask any questions that come up.

(4) Discipline plus action equals freedom.

I had to develop a tough mindset in order to reverse the damage that I did to my body over those 10 years. That fat on my body wasn’t going to magically melt away. I had to fight for every pound and inch to reclaim my body.

I had two sayings that helped me win the battle. The first one is a little weird, however, it made sense to me: I said, “it took discipline to get fat by eating the wrong things for ten years and it is going to take discipline to eat the right things to get healthy again.”

The second thing I told myself is that “You can’t find inner strength and mental toughness by being comfortable.” So, I knew it was going to process and I expected the journey to be a challenge.

The good news is that once you break through, it’s surprisingly simple to make strong, lean, and healthy a long-term lifestyle. The trouble is that you’ve got invisible forces working against you every day of your life.

(5) The problem isn’t in your belly, it’s in your brain.

The missing piece that most people never find out about is the role of your brain when it comes to health. I studied with the leading brain researcher in the world to understand what was going on in my head.

Once I understood what was happening to my brain, I developed a simple protocol for improving and strengthening my brain in just a few minutes each day using the Elevate app.

Take a look at the graph inside the app to see my progress:

(6) The secret of “micro functional fitness.”

Thinking about joining a gym?

STOP.

Before you even think about joining a gym or taking classes, there’s something important you must understand. Trying to get your body to go from zero to fit the way most people approach it is like slamming your foot on the gas with your car in park. It’s a recipe for discouragement and disaster.

Instead, begin with a “micro functional fitness” routine to reactivate your body and prepare it for the arduous process of getting in shape.

Something super simple is a plank.

Here’s a quick video showing you how:

(adding this soon, technology is not my strong point)

Ultimately, my goal starting on this journey was to make all these changes “stick permanently” and live a healthy lifestyle for the rest of my life.

It’s a journey, not a destination.

Follow me on Twitter to see the latest updates…

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