Happy Friday (here in Texas anyway : )

Today is day two of my break from food. Entirely... For a tbd amount of time. I have been researching health and what it takes to build tissue and regenerate some of the health we thought we had lost for good. So far at 41 years old I have to say that I have more energy than I did in my late 20's.

This journey started some time ago where over the course of about 8 months I lost roughly 80 pounds or 36.2874 kilos. While I said I would not post updates on my facebook page I thought it would be a bummer to not share my experience with this amazing group so we can all learn together.

After refining the foods I had been eating to a new and more varied mostly plant base diet I realized I was not getting hungry as often. In the past during that 8 month spell I completed a short 2.5 day fast where I simply waited to eat until I was actually hungry. I didn't do that again between then and now mostly because there are so many delicious foods.

I left the corporate world to showcase wildlife and nature after recovering my health for two reasons. One, the wildlife I used to see so easily because it was so abundant in the past is dwindling, even in the big pockets of nature that we have here in the US. Two, what we eat and how we consume everything (one time use items at home included) is in fact impacting every aspect of our wild regions and hurting our own health at the same time.

Whether or not we as a civilization are beyond recovery in terms of reversing whatever has happened to Mother Earth, we can in fact regain our own health if we approach things with an angle of curiosity and hope. Before I carry this message forward in a more positive manner, I needed to cleanse my mind in a way that was meaningful to myself. I see too much correlation between personal sacrifice and personal progress to deny the results so I am pressing on with the other often overlooked portions of the teachings we have all been exposed to in some form or another... Food coupled with spiritual insight (think religious texts), overlooked research (think non-FDA, non-consumer driven studies) and seasonal abundance (think spring time, fresh seasonal fruit and the absence of growth in wintertime).

In the past, our ancestors ate maybe once per day when times were good. Their bodies did not suffer the same ailments as we suffer today, and obviously we have new medical advances today that help us to bypass some ailments and overcome some of the shortcomings of our aging bodies as time goes by. However, I myself imagined combining the two aspects in regard to both having a naturally healthy body AND having the option to take advantage of today's medicines and treatments if I needed them. Not as a crutch though.

I can go on and on about all the benefits I have experienced in just eating a more natural array of foods, but instead I will simply document and share the journey on my youtube page whose link I will include in this post for anyone who is interested in subscribing to see what I go through over the course of this fast. The segment will begin the first week of March and will vary from episode to episode since it is all unscripted. Although I will return to these subjects over the course of my lifetime, my MAIN focus will be to showcase wildlife and nature here and abroad, so if you are also interested in places of beauty and wildlife and how we all tie together please consider subscribing to my youtube channel anyway! 

I will showcase some exciting new content going into quarter two of 2018 with the first stop being a fuller documentary of what exactly the Big Bend National Park is like here in Texas. I will then visit Chaco Canyon where another fellow Being Healthy and Fitter crew member will show me his favorite place just like I have done with Big Bend for so many of my friends and family. I can hardly wait to bring these destinations to those of us who are limited in time or ability from getting to these areas, and it is my honor to be able to do this as a profession.

Without further delay, here are some basic details that will be of interest:

Peak weight - 283.3 approx 12/2015

3/13/2016 - 263.4

5/1/2016 - 265 (in my notes I noted a "slump")

9/18/2016 - 259.4 (noted having gone with less meat)

9/25/2016 - 255.2 (one week in)

10/9/2016 - 248.2 (three weeks in, out hiked companions)

3/20/2017 - 221.4 (slow and steady progress by this point)

2/1/2018 - 203.3 (holding steady at 80 pounds lost)

On 2/7/2018 I had raspberries and a scallop and some black eyed peas after a long work day. Because I was not hungry and because the timing of this corresponded with the absolute dates I was going to kick off this entire journey as a full time professional wildlife and nature advocate, I decided to carry through with my spiritual cleanse and go forward with a slightly longer fast than the one I had tried so long ago just to see how it compared to what I had read and researched.

2/8/18 - 201.8 (end of day one of my fast)

The rest? TBD. Stay tuned!

https://www.youtube.com/user/stngrr

Rey : )