I’m 60 years old, and it has taken me over 30 years to learn the health lessons I’m about to share with you. I’ve been through some serious health crises in the past, and along the way, I’ve made some huge mistakes — mistakes I see people make every day. At that time, you couldn’t convince me I was wrong. I was stuck in a mindset where I thought I knew everything. I hope you are more accepting than I was because learning from my mistakes may save you years of misery and frustration.
This is not about pointing fingers. It’s about sharing hard-earned wisdom. I can empathize with many people with health problems because I experience almost every symptom described by my patients, from chronic fatigue and severe insomnia to arthritis and digestive nightmares. My journey has been a long and winding road, but it has taught me what really works and what is a waste of time and money. I want to pull back the curtain and show you the seven biggest mistakes I made on my path to health, and more importantly, what I should have done instead. (Based on the vision of Dr. Eric Berg)
Key takeaways
- Diet is king: Vitamins and supplements are useless and cannot fix a bad diet. Focus on whole, nutrient-dense foods first.
- Avoid aggressive detoxes: Harsh cleanses and detoxifications can disrupt your gut microbiome, deplete electrolytes, and make you sick without addressing the root cause.
- Don’t procrastinate: Your health won’t wait. The sooner you adopt a healthy lifestyle, the better your brain and body will function, saving you from future problems.
- Investigating root causes: The pain and symptoms are often signals from a different part of the body. Don’t just treat the symptoms; Find the underlying problem and address it.
- Embrace intermittent fasting: Reducing the frequency of eating is a powerful tool for controlling insulin, burning fat, and reducing inflammation.
- More is not always better: Even healthy foods like kale can cause excess problems. Listen to your body and aim for moderation, not extremes.
- Pay attention to your minerals: Deficiencies in important minerals like magnesium are incredibly common and can lead to a wide range of problems, including lack of sleep, muscle spasms, and even kidney stones.
1. Try to supplement a bad diet
There was a point in my life when I was taking over 100 vitamins a day. Yes, you read that correctly. I had a warehouse of bottles, each one a new hope for my cure Chronic fatigueSevere insomnia, and arthritis. I would drive to the health food store and walk out with bags full of more pills, desperate for a natural solution. I didn’t want to do drugs, so I thought this was the answer. The problem? It was all for nothing.
What I didn’t understand then is that supplements only work if your diet is already good. And my diet was terrible. I was a vegetarian at the time, struggling to get enough protein from plants and never feeling satisfied. I was missing the building blocks my body needed. If I could go back, I would have completely ignored the supplement aisle and gone straight to the butcher. I should have focused on fatty animal meats. The purpose of protein is to repair the body, and the energy we need should come from healthy fats, not carbohydrates. Starting the day with high-quality animal protein would have been a game changer.
2. Fall into the hype about “detox” and “cleanse.”
Detox treatments have been very popular, and I have tried them all. I did a colon detox that flushed out all the good and bad bacteria, resulting in my electrolytes being dangerously low and my digestion deteriorating. I did a juice cleanse, but constantly drinking fruit juice (like apple juice) kept me from entering ketosis, the state in which your body burns fat for fuel. Instead, I was hungry and miserable, running on small bursts of sugar.
I even did my famous cleanse using lemon juice, cayenne pepper, and maple syrup. It was a terrible idea. Then there were the herbal detox medications that were so strong that they would trigger an immune reaction, leaving me sick in bed for two weeks. The scariest thing was a gallbladder cleanse where I drank 12 ounces of olive oil and almost choked. It was all a complete waste of time. What I should have done was simply follow the right eating plan. A diet rich in animal protein, vegetables, healthy fats, and fermented foods like cheese and sauerkraut would solve my digestive problems naturally, without the use of dangerous and ineffective cleanses.
3. Say, “I’ll eat healthier later.”
In college, my motto was: “I will eat healthy when I graduate.” I was living on carbs and strong coffee, constantly tired and struggling to study. If I only knew what I know now, I would prioritize my nutrition. It wasn’t expensive, a few eggs or a can of sardines fed my brain much better than the fast food I was eating. That fatigue I felt was not normal; It was the result of constant spikes in blood sugar and crashes.
Did I start eating healthy after I graduated? Of course not. The procrastination continued. I became a vegetarian, thinking it was the ultimate health path, but beans and so-called “clean protein” inflamed my gut and caused my health to decline faster. It wasn’t until I discovered the healthier version of the ketogenic diet that I finally started turning things around. Don’t make the same mistake. Don’t wait for a health crisis to happen or when you get older. The damage you are doing now will come to you. Get started today. I promise that your future self will thank you.
4. Chase the symptoms, not the cause
For many years, I had constant pain in my right shoulder. I was convinced it was a muscular or skeletal problem. I went to every chiropractor, massage therapist, and physical therapist I could find to work on my shoulder, but nothing provided lasting relief. Besides the shoulder pain, I had constant tightness under my right rib cage. I just lived with it, without knowing what it was.
It turned out that the shoulder pain was a classic case of referred pain. The problem wasn’t my shoulder at all; It was my gallbladder and liver. The bile became thick and sludgy, causing inflammation and pressure in that area, which in turn sent a pain signal to my right shoulder. It was a red indicator light, and I was trying to fix the light instead of the engine. This was a big lesson: Always question whether you are treating the real cause or just chasing the symptoms. Your body is interconnected in ways you may not expect.
5. Reducing the power of intermittent fasting
When I first heard about Intermittent fastingI rejected him. “This is nothing,” I thought. It wasn’t until I actually tried it and understood the science that I realized it was a huge game changer. For years, I herded cattle and snacked. I thought we needed to eat frequently to maintain our energy. I was completely wrong. Every time you eat, the hormone insulin rises. It is this frequent eating, especially snacking on carbohydrates and eating late at night, that creates a lot of health problems.
Our bodies were not designed to graze like cattle. Once I stopped snacking and adopted a two-meal-a-day schedule, the results were amazing. My weight dropped from 211 pounds to 185. The chronic puffiness and swelling around my eyes, which was a sign of insulin resistance and fluid retention, completely disappeared. That feeling you think is hunger between meals is often just low blood sugar as a result of your carbohydrate-dependent metabolism. Intermittent fasting trains your body to switch to burning its own fat for fuel, so you can go from one meal to the next without feeling hungry, tired, or irritable.
6. Overeating “healthy” cabbage shakes.
I went through a major kale shake phase. I still have videos online about it. I was operating under the mindset that we needed a huge amount of fiber, so I was eating huge cabbage mixes. Although I was getting away with it for a while, I now know that for many people, overloading the gut with that much crude fiber, especially from goitrogenic vegetables like kale, can lead to major bloating, gas, and inflammation.
Moreover, to make these shakes palatable, you have to add sweeteners. I was using pineapple and berries, which added more sugar and carbs to my diet. Starting your day with a sweet, carbohydrate-rich shake is a recipe for hunger and cravings later in the day. If I could go back, I would be more moderate. I’m not against plants, but I now recommend a much smaller amount, maybe five cups of salad a day, and often replace it with Fermented vegetables Like sauerkraut. A protein-focused breakfast is always a better option than a sugary shake.
7. Ignore critical mineral deficiencies
My last big mistake was being too extreme Magnesium deficiency. I found this out the hard way when I had kidney stones. One of the best ways to prevent calcium oxalate stones — the most common type of kidney stone — is to get enough magnesium. It binds to oxalates and prevents them from forming into painful stones.
But that wasn’t the only offer I had. I had terrible muscle spasms, spasms and convulsions for years. Magnesium is an electrolyte that controls muscle relaxation. Without enough of it, calcium can take over and cause persistent shrinkage and tightness. I also experienced extreme insomnia and fatigue, both classic signs of a magnesium deficiency. One of the main reasons for this widespread deficiency is that our modern water supplies, especially city water, are often stripped of the magnesium that our ancestors obtained from well water. Taking magnesium has made a difference in my sleep, my muscles, and preventing future kidney stones.
source: Dr. Eric Berg
