Eat Move Sleep: How Small Choices Lead to Big Changes
By Tom Rath
3.5/5
()
About this ebook
In Eat Move Sleep, #1 New York Times bestselling author Tom Rath delivers a book that will improve your health for years to come. While Tom’s bestsellers on strengths and well-being have already inspired more than 5 million people in the last decade, Eat Move Sleep reveals his greatest passion and expertise.
Quietly managing a serious illness for more than 20 years, Tom has assembled a wide range of information on the impact of eating, moving, and sleeping. Written in his classic conversational style, Eat Move Sleep features the most proven and practical ideas from his research. This remarkably quick read offers advice that is comprehensive yet simple and often counterintuitive but always credible.
Eat Move Sleep will help you make good decisions automatic in all three of these interconnected areas. With every bite you take, you will make better choices. You will move a lot more than you do today. And you will sleep better than you have in years.
More than a book, Eat Move Sleep is a new way to live.
Tom Rath
Tom Rath is a consultant on employee engagement, strengths, and wellbeing, and author. He is best known for his studies on strengths based leadership and wellbeing and synthesizing research findings in a series of bestselling books.
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Reviews for Eat Move Sleep
64 ratings11 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5bit sized chapters with tidbits that add up on the 3 parts of a healthy life: food, exercise, and sleep.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5'Choices count!''Choices count. You can make decisions today that will give you more energy tomorrow.'Opening words that zap straight into my guilt ridden consciousness. I know this!Can this manifest be the one to help?I am older, seem to sleep less and my range of movement is somewhat curtailed.All of which I know could be helped by weight loss.Certainly the courage demonstrated by Tom helps to focus one's thoughts.Small steps. That idea gabs my attention.Of course I just had to sign up for the online personal program. (I did think the questionnaire was geared towards a younger demographic)...and there are timely reminders'even modest increases in proteins, coupled with a reduction in carbohydrates, helps us.' Good news as I love my protein. Maybe a bit too much.Read labels and 'set goals. Go for products that have a ratio 1 gram of carbohydrates to 1 gram protein.' That's a great hint.The treadmill with monitor I would love to try but space is a huge problem.They are so ugly you need a basement to hide them in.What Tom says I think we've mostly seen before.What sets this book apart is its short chapters with 3 steps to immediately implement.In other words the book has been designed for easy access that doesn't overwhelm the reader. That galvanizes me. I can cope with small bites.The web support is an added bonus.Certainly a fresh look at the whole weight loss conundrum.A NetGalley ARC
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5OK, I read a lot. I go to a lot of classes. I am a typical A-type personality who believes in movement and am always on the go, but who spends way too much time in the course of a day sitting on my ass. This book provides critical basic information for evaluating food choices and making healthy lifestyle changes that you can do bit by bit, such as standing at your desk more during the course of a day. Completely logical and direct, a very fast read - the subtitle of the book is "How small choices lead to big changes" and I can see how this would be true. Excellent.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5"Eat Move Sleep"
The title says it all! There are only three areas that you need to concentrate on for better health. Backing up his plan with very good research examples and a long list of references, the author makes his case for the 30 day plan described in the 30 chapters of the book. The chapters are recapped with 3 or 4 changes that can be implemented. This makes it easy to understand what can be done. There are also many guidelines such as proteins = carbs, 8 hours of sleep, eliminate sweetened drinks and get up and walk every 1/2 hour that simplify the process and make it easier to remember. Even if you don't follow the whole plan, there are plenty of actions and ideas that you can utilize to improve your health. This book really doesn't make any new revelations but gives the reader a program to work with and studies that back it up. There is, of course, a website to use with the book with more helpful info including a self assessment to further personalize your plan: eatmovesleep.org
I received this book free from Netgalley - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Sound, practical advice on living well.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5well researched book with a 30 day plan - helps to translate what i read into practical small steps
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Everyone should read that :-) Very good book
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5One of the best simple books on health that I have read. Clear and easy to understand. From the title the author focuses on the three main subjects, namely, to eat healthy, to get enough sleep and to move your body. My copy has tons of highlighting as I greatly enjoyed it and will be referencing this book for many years. Even a 30 day challenge at the end.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In his 20's, the author was diagnosed with a rare genetic condition. It shuts off his body's tumor-fighting capabilities, and makes it very easy for him to get cancer. While adjusting to a life of annual CT scans and MRI's and operations to remove small tumors, he became very interested in health and wellness. Here are some of the things he learned.The closest thing the human body has to a vaccine for the common cold is a good night's sleep. Permanently forget fad diets. Focus on eating the right foods. Look at the nutrition label of your favorite food or snack. If the sugar content is greater than 10 grams per serving, find an alternative. Carry a healthy standby snack wherever you go. Do not use your alarm's snooze button for an entire week. Then, see if you can stretch that week to permanently. Select restaurants based on how easy it is to order something healthy. If you are having trouble sleeping. try exercising for a few days before reaching for medication.Plan your days to eat more early in the day, less later in the day and nothing after supper. Identify something that regularly stresses you out. Work on a plan to keep it from happening. Limit yourself to no more than two hours of seated television daily. To get a really natural tan, eat more tomatoes and carrots. To improve your hair and skin, add some salmon and flax to your diet. Use vigorous exercise to clear your mind and body. Consider a new micro-activity, like parking far away from the door or taking the stairs. Replace all sugary drinks with water, coffee or other unsweetened drinks. Make sure you get at least eight hours of sleep every night. Last, but not least, be active every day; take a few more steps tomorrow than you did today.Sounds pretty easy, doesn't it? As with other books of this type, no one is expected to do everything in this book starting on the first day. Pick a few actions, and integrate them into your daily life, then pick a few more. This book is easy to read and follow, and is recommended for people from all parts of society.
2 people found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Everyone knows, like this book says, that we need to eat right, move more, and sleep better. This book will help you do that. I pretty much liked everything the author had to say. One of the things I agreed with was that some people sleep better with a constant noise in the background. This is 100% true for me. I can’t sleep with no noise. Silence is so loud in my head that it drives me nuts. Because of that, I’ve been sleeping with a fan at the foot of my bed since I was a young child. Every night. When the electric goes off, I immediately wake up and can’t go back to sleep until it comes back on. I’ve tried many times over the years to sleep without a fan…just can’t do it. My husband hates my fan as much as I hate his snoring.Rath also says that “Every Meal Matters” and I know this is a fact for me. For years I didn’t eat breakfast or lunch and by the time supper rolled around I was starving. And then I’d overeat. Even now I may not eat lunch everyday, but I rarely ever miss breakfast. And eating breakfast has helped me shed a few pounds.Included in the book is info about going online to eatmovesleep.org and create a personalized Eat Move Sleep plan. I haven’t checked this out yet, but plan to. There’s also a “First 30 Days Challenge” in the book and you can also download a PDF of the challenge at the link above.One of the tips he gives is to eat the healthiest foods first. He says his daughter loves pasta and would eat that first, then only have room to eat some of her vegetables. Instead of taking the pasta away, he told her she could have it after she ate all her veggies. Now she finishes her vegetables, and doesn’t always have room for all the pasta on her plate. I haven’t tried this yet, but will. I think that’s a great tip!One of the things I’m going to try is going to bed the same time every night and waking up at the same time every morning. I’m so bad at that. I tend to go to sleep and wake up whenever I feel like it…reading in bed has nothing to do with that though :). Rath says there was a 3 week study where the participants had different sleep/wake up times. Their glucose when haywire. So I’m thinking my sleeping habits may be contributing to my high blood sugar numbers. If so, that’s an easy fix to help bring my numbers down.What I didn’t like was that he sometimes said things over and over. And while I liked reading the “statistics”, not all of them were backed up as much as I’d have liked.I decided to read this book on the recommendation of Joy @ Joy’s Book Blog, and as one of my pics for her New Year’s Resolution Reading Challenge, and am glad I did. I can’t wait to add some of the things in the book to my daily fitness plan.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A simple no-nonsense approach to healthy living. It's in the little steps the small details changed daily that improve our lives. Each chapter is set up with a quick step to make it easier. It's really very basic Diet, Exercise and Sleep. Watch less TV, spend less time sitting, you can't just rely on that one hour a day to change you health.
Sugar is Bad, we all know it and yet we eat daily. We know we need more sleep but we try to avoid it. What is the quality of the food we are putting into our bodies ? The author helps you work through all these. Everything is very simple, clearly laid out and common sense. No weird gimmicks, fads or special treatments. Great for the yo-yo dieter who has tried and fallen back, or to any person who just wants a solid handle of their health.
Book preview
Eat Move Sleep - Tom Rath
Praise for Eat Move Sleep
"A passionate and practical guide to living better and longer. Eat Move Sleep will change your life. It might also save it."
—SIR KEN ROBINSON, Ph.D., author of The Element and Finding Your Element
"One of the most successful nonfiction writers of his generation, Tom Rath has produced a blockbuster book with deep insights alongside specific actions. Eat Move Sleep is a transformative work."
—DANIEL H. PINK, author of Drive and To Sell Is Human
"Tom Rath lays out ways of changing our eating, exercise, and sleeping habits that are easy to do at our own pace. Eat Move Sleep will be a big help to me and my patients."
—GORDY KLATT, M.D., founder of the American Cancer Society Relay for Life
You can’t stop reading … your health IQ will never be the same.
—PATRICK LENCIONI, author of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team and The Advantage
"Tom Rath has developed multiple creative strategies for a lifestyle of enduring health.
—CALDWELL B. ESSELSTYN, JR., M.D., author of Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease
Rath’s new book invaluably delivers.
—BRIAN WANSINK, Ph.D., author of Mindless Eating and Slim by Design
"Backed by science and filled with heart, Eat Move Sleep is the best self-improvement book I’ve ever read."
—ORI BRAFMAN, author of Sway and The Chaos Imperative
"Eat Move Sleep never lets the reader off the hook. All 76 million of us baby boomers should take heed."
—MERYL COMER, President, Geoffrey Beene Foundation, Alzheimer’s Initiative
"The new operating code for human health. Reading Eat Move Sleep should be as mandatory as health insurance."
—SHAWN ACHOR, author of The Happiness Advantage and Before Happiness
As a physician, I cannot begin to explain how vital this book is for improving human health and well-being.
—JASON POWERS, M.D., Chief Medical Officer, Right Step
"I learned surprising health secrets from Tom’s lifelong research. Read Eat Move Sleep; you will be stronger and live longer."
—GREG LINK, co-founder, Covey Leadership Center
A road map for leading a long and meaningful life. Every human being should have this book right next to the Bible on their nightstand.
—VAL J. HALAMANDARIS, President, National Association for Homecare and Hospice
Tom Rath knows this topic inside out and is sharing his best research-driven tips and proven ideas.
—KEN BLANCHARD, Ph.D., co-author of The One Minute Manager and Fit at Last
Being healthy begins by reading this life-changing book.
—ANITA BRUZZESE, author, USA Today columnist
Filled with valuable tips, this book will help you evaluate and improve your health by making simple changes.
—CRAIG GROESCHEL, Senior Pastor of LifeChurch.tv
Disclaimer: The material in this book is for informational purposes only. Every person has a unique individual situation and should use common sense in combination with advice from a healthcare professional before undertaking major changes in diet, exercise, or sleep. The author and publisher expressly disclaim responsibility for any adverse effects resulting from the use or application of the information contained in this book.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013935905
ISBN: 978-1-939714-01-5 (digital edition)
First Printing: 2013
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3
Copyright © 2013 Tom Rath.
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Missionday. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.
Bulk purchase discounts, special editions, and customized excerpts are available direct from the publisher. For information about books for educational, business, or promotional purposes, please email: SPmarkets@missionday.com Submit all other publisher requests to inquires@missionday.com
To book this author for a speaking engagement, contact the Missionday Speakers Bureau: speaking@missionday.com
Author’s website: www.tomrath.org
To my wife Ashley, daughter Harper, and son Everett, who brighten each day … and make the prospect of tomorrow even better
CONTENTS
The New Edition and Welbe App
Eat Move Sleep
1The Three Building Blocks
Forget Fad Diets, Forever
Make Inactivity Your Enemy
Sleep Longer to Get More Done
2Big Changes Through Small Adjustments
Every Bite Is a Net Gain or Loss
Step Away From Your Chair
Sleep Makes or Breaks a Day
3One Good Choice at a Time
What Counts More Than Calories
Use Product Placement at Home
Work Faster While You Walk
4Forming Better Habits
Sugar Is the Next Nicotine
Substitutes Are a Nicotine Patch
Take Two Every Twenty
5Giving Your Immune System a Boost
Judge Food by the Color of Its Skin
A Vaccine for the Common Cold
Quality Beats Quantity in Bed
6Lifestyle Choices That Count
Wear a New Pair of Genes
Measuring Makes You Move More
Target 10,000
7Arranging Your Day for More Energy
Be Less Refined
Family Style Is Making Us Fat
Burn Calories After Your Workout
8Why Timing Matters
Empty Stomach, Bad Choices
The 20-Minute Meal Rule
Move Early for a 12-Hour Mood Boost
9Quick Fixes
The First Order Anchors the Table
Move With Both Sides
Fight the Light at Night
10Making Smarter Decisions
Prioritize Your Protein
Stop Buying Junk for Friends
Find Your Motivation to Move
11Staying Healthy While You Work
Keep Work From Killing You
The Danger of Desktop Dining
Working While Intoxicated
12Going Cold Turkey
The Throwaway Foods
Help a Quitter Win
Hit Snooze and You Lose
13Myth Busting
The Butter Is Healthier Than the Bread
Don’t Eat Your Meat and Potatoes
Be Cold in Bed
14Health Starts at Home
Small Plates, Smaller Waistline
Staying Active Starts at Home
Make Sleep a Family Value
15Planning Ahead
Don’t Be Fooled by the Decoy
Structure Exercise for Enjoyment
A Night to Remember
16Staying Sharp
Avoid a High-Fat Hangover
Take Your Brain for a Walk
Try Exercise Instead of Sleeping Pills
17Rising to Expectations
Create Barrier Labels
Organic Does Not Equal Healthy
Go Public With a Goal
18Good Nights
Feast at Sunrise, Fast at Sunset
Television Shortens Your Life Span
Protect Your Final Hour
19Rethinking Things
Dried and Juiced Is Fruitless
Don’t Judge a Box by Its Cover
Make Noise at Night
20Fine-Tuning Your Routine
Less Heat, Better to Eat
Driving to Divorce
Sleeping in Only Sounds Good
21Living in the Now
Buy Use It or Lose It Foods
How You Move Matters
Keep Stress From Ruining Your Sleep
22The Ultimate Anti-Aging Solutions
Get a Tan From Tomatoes
Look Younger With Each Step
Sleep to Impress
23Giving Healthy Choices a Chance
Eat the Healthiest Food First
The Right Way to Get High
Sleep Your Way to a New Day
24Holding Yourself Accountable
Grab a Handful
Take Five Outside
Pay for Peer Pressure
25Preventive Measures
Eat to Beat Cancer
Get a Prescription for Exercise
Know Two Numbers by Heart
26Clearing a Path
Buy Willpower at the Store
Clean Your Brain and Bowels
Sleep On It
27Creating New Habits
Save the Cake for Your Birthday
Indulge Less to Enjoy More
Take Credit to Make It Count
28Being a Trendsetter
Broccoli Is the New Black
Stick With Coffee, Tea, and Water
Tame Ties and Tight Pants
29Everything’s Connected
Fight Risk With Food
Gain Sleep With Weight Loss
Eight Is Enough
30In a Nutshell
Every Meal Matters
Put Activity Before Exercise
Invest in Sleep for Your Future
Concluding Thoughts
Putting It All Together
Take Action: The Welbe Companion App
Appendix A: Creating Health and Well-Being in Organizations
First 30 Days Challenge
Notes
Acknowledgments
EAT MOVE SLEEP
The New Edition and Welbe App
We are living in a remarkable era when it comes to medical research and wearable technologies that have the potential to improve our health. Every single day, I read new research about specific actions we can take to be healthier and have more energy. With all of the information that emerges come opportunities for us to make better choices. However, the sheer volume of new research can also be confusing and overwhelming.
This new edition of Eat Move Sleep has been updated with the latest findings relevant to these core elements of health and includes a new guide to creating well-being in groups and organizations. I also revised this version considerably to speed things up and make it more concise. While it is always tempting to write more, as some people associate this with additional value, I tried to do the opposite. Instead, this second edition covers the same concepts in about 75 percent of the time it took to read the first edition.
Most important, this new edition is now paired with a revolutionary app called Welbe to help you track the way you eat, move, and sleep in real time. Over the last few years, countless wearable devices have emerged to help track your health and behaviors. Yet one huge challenge is the fact that most of these devices specialize in one area and thus make it difficult to track your overall health and well-being.
This is why the Welbe app is designed to integrate your data from multiple health and wearable devices (e.g. Fitbit, Jawbone) and platforms (e.g., iOS, Android) to provide customized information and advice for improving your well-being. The app will also allow you to compare your health and well-being with that of your friends, even if they are using different devices, apps, and platforms.
My team has worked with the developers of the Welbe app for the last year to build many of the ideas in this book into the app. Our aim was to help readers integrate these concepts with your personalized health tracking information. If you do just one thing to apply what you learn as you read this book or when you have finished reading it, I encourage you to visit www.eatmovesleep.com to register for and download the Welbe app.
Eat Move Sleep
Choices count. You can make decisions today that will give you more energy tomorrow. The right choices over time greatly improve your odds of a long and healthy life.
No matter how healthy you are today, you can take specific actions to have more energy and live longer. Regardless of your age, you can make better choices in the moment. Small decisions — about how you eat, move, and sleep each day — count more than you think. As I have learned from personal experience, these choices shape your life.
A Personal Perspective
At age 16, I was playing basketball with friends when I noticed something wrong with my vision. There was a black circle in the middle of my visual field. I assumed it would go away. Instead, it got progressively worse. I finally told my mom, who immediately took me to an eye doctor.
That black spot turned out to be a large tumor on the back of my left eye. The doctor said it might lead to blindness. As if that was not enough, I needed to get a blood test to rule out other medical problems. A few weeks later, my mom and I went back to the doctor’s office for the results.
The doctor told us I had a rare genetic disorder called Von Hippel-Lindau (VHL). While VHL typically runs in families, my condition was a new mutation that affects just one in every 4,400,000 people. This mutation essentially shuts off a powerful tumor suppressor gene and leads to rampant cancerous growth throughout the body.
I still vividly recall sitting on one side of a large wooden desk as my doctor tried to explain what it would be like to battle cancer for the rest of my life. It was one of those moments when your stomach sinks and your mind races for an alternate explanation. My doctor then described how I was also likely to develop cancer in my kidneys, adrenal glands, pancreas, brain, and spine.
While the thought of losing my eyesight was tough, these longer-term issues were even more daunting. That conversation with the doctor forced me to wrestle with much larger questions about my life. Would people treat me differently if they knew about my illness? Was there any chance I would get married and have kids? Perhaps most importantly, I wondered if there was any way I could live a long and healthy life.
Doctors tried everything to save my eyesight, from freezing the tumors to cooking them with a laser. But the sight in my eye never returned. Once I got over this loss, I turned my attention to learning everything I could about the other manifestations of this rare disease.
I quickly realized that the more I learned, the more I could do to increase my odds of living longer. As new information emerged, I discovered I could stay ahead of my condition with annual MRIs, CTs, and eye exams. If doctors caught tumors early, when they were small, the tumors were less likely to spread and kill me. Learning that was a huge relief. Even if it required some difficult surgeries, there was something I could do to live longer.
I have had annual exams and scans for 20 years now and currently have small tumors in my kidneys, adrenal glands, pancreas, spine, and brain. Every year, I watch and wait
to find out if any of these tumors are large enough to require surgery. In most cases, they are not.
Waiting around for active tumors to grow may sound nerve-racking. It could be, if I dwelled on the genetic condition that is beyond my control. Instead, I use these annual exams to stay focused on what I can do to decrease the odds of my cancers growing and spreading.
As each year goes by, I learn more about how I can eat, move, and sleep to improve my chances of living a long and healthy life. Then I apply what I learn to make better choices. I act as if my life depends on each decision. Because it does.
Small Choices Change Everything
Making better choices takes work. There is a daily give and take, but it is worth the effort. The vast knowledge we have to prevent cancer, heart disease, and other chronic illnesses is staggering. Every day, I read about new ideas that could help someone I care about live a longer and healthier life.
Over the last decade, I have dedicated a great deal of time to organizing this virtual sea of information in a way that can benefit others. What I look for are simple and proven ideas. I read a wide range of academic studies and research-based articles — from medical and psychological journals to in-depth books — and try to extract knowledge that can help people make better decisions and live healthier lives.
Let me be clear. I am not a doctor. Nor am I an expert on nutrition, exercise physiology, or sleep disorders. I am just a patient. I also happen to be a researcher and voracious reader who loves to extract valuable findings and share them with friends. In this book, you will find the most credible and practical ideas I have found so far.
What I learned from all this research influences my countless daily decisions. Every bite of food either increases or decreases my odds of spending a few more years with my wife and two young children. Half an hour of exercise in the morning makes for better interactions all day. Then a sound night of sleep gives me energy to tackle the