I’ve watched too many people I love suffer and die from preventable disease
I realized something painful…
I haven’t done a good enough job explaining what I have learned.
This website is my attempt to change that.
The truths that saved my life — and my father’s — might save yours.
For most people his age, the future becomes a long line of prescriptions and doctor’s appointments.
But my father and I chose a different path…
Today, I take my dad to the Treeline…
Not the prescription line…
To the mountains… not the waiting room
This is our Story!
I BUILT A CHAMPION’S BODY
I once built a champion’s body.
Not with drugs. Not with shortcuts.
I competed drug-free my entire career
The lightweight division. My only choice.
In 92, a 2nd place, at the Mr. New Mexico
In 94 and 95, two consecutive Mid-USA titles,
Symmetry, discipline, and heart were enough for me.
I believed staying natural would protect my future.
THE DECLINE
But for years, quietly and slowly, my body began falling apart.
Arthritis stole my mobility. Every joint burned.
Every morning waking up stiff,
shuffling like a man twice my age —
I couldn’t sleep without pain. I couldn’t sit without pain.
Raising my arms above my head felt like fire!
shoulders screaming even when I wasn’t moving.
So many people know that pain…
I was living in it every day.
THE REAL DANGER
But the real danger wasn’t the pain.
It was the diet I trusted —the high-protein, meat-heavy,
low-carb lifestyle I had been told my whole life was “healthy.”
I trained harder… but I only got sicker. My diet was sabotaging me.
Then my vision began to dim.
Diabetes slowly stealing color from my world…
sunrises and sunsets greying, beauty fading…
my world slipping away…
What terrified me most wasn’t the pain, or the fading colors…
but the memories slipping —
and the forgetfulness that followed
I was fearing old age, more than death itself.
THE STORY CONTINUES
The fog, the fear, and the final warning shot.
Barely fifteen, twenty minutes in the car and my body would stiffen and seize. I’d hobble to the store entrance hunting the nearest cart to use as a walker. Then I’d walk back out, pushing my alarm, listening — “Where did I park my car?”
My thoughts slowed. The fog rolled in. My brain’s arteries were closing like clenched fists, and the fear welled up strong enough to pull me under.
Then came the final warning shot. I was told my future was a smorgasbord of drugs, stents, and surgeries. My declining body and mind were called a one-way street — a downhill slide where diet and exercise were of little consequence. My decrepitude was declared irreversible.
I remember standing outside, looking into a greying sunset, certain every sunset after it would be nothing but a deep, dark abyss.
THE TURN
Real food. Real nutrition. Real science.
Then everything changed. No gimmicks — just beautiful, nutritious whole foods. And almost impossibly, I came back.
Within three days I walked without pain for the first time in years. Colors didn’t just return, they came flooding back. The fog lifted. Strength, energy, and hope returned. My body and mind began to heal — a rebirth. My soul was soaring again.
THE REBUILD
Muscle came back. Definition came back. Life came back.
A whole-foods, plant-based diet gave my body the tools it needed. Not hours in the gym. Not protein powders. Not expensive supplements. Just food — the right food — plus a sensible, proven workout program.
I rebuilt a better body at 53, and an even better one at 65. The physique I admire isn’t the mass-monster. It’s the athlete — the middleweight boxer, the gymnast, the triathlete. Lean. Fast. Agile. Built for a powerful, dynamic life, not for show.
The protein question. People always ask, “Where do you get your protein?” The same place my little friend gets his — only my sources are far better. I call them Superfoods.
The new Lex at 65. More than thirty years older, I move better, look better, and feel better than I ever did in my youth. No meat. No pills. Half the training. Twice the life. Today I fly downhill at 65 — strong, balanced, alive in every sense of the word.
MY FATHER — BROKEN TO BOLD
My sister and I used to call him Shuffles.
For years, shuffling was about all he could do. At 79 he broke his hip — the break that ends far too many lives. For almost 48 hours he lay hallucinating and critically dehydrated. His doctor told me he was hours from death. Nearly a third of people his age die within a year, and most never regain functional mobility.
Yet he rebuilt his body and his mind on the same food that saved mine. Today, at 88, he isn’t just surviving — he’s creating. Rebuilding porches. Installing windows. Laying pavers with hands that refuse to grow old. We rebuilt ourselves together.
THE GIFT
Mornings in the hills, with my dad and our dogs.
Now every morning the hills blaze with color again. My dad walks beside me. Our dogs run ahead. The world feels new, as if life handed us both a second beginning. These ordinary, breathtaking mornings are the greatest gift I’ve ever been given.