Begin - to begin is half the work, let half still remain - again begin this, and thou wilt have finished.
-Decimus Magnus Ausonius

Tell Us Your Story!

Healthy Utah invites you to share your wellness success story. By doing so, we are able to educate our members of the importance of making healthy changes for life. They will be a resource and inspiration to help others improve their health. Download a Success Story Form (Word document).

Ron's Story, January 2008

Basically I am hoping to live a long healthy lifestyle now and hopefully it will be free of Cancer and Heart Disease.  I don’t know if you would be interested in some of my lifestyle changes that I had made since last spring.  I would be happy to share them with you if you would like.  Some of the changes may seem extreme to some people.  But I knew I had to make some extreme changes and it has worked very well for me. Ron

  • What health behavior did you change?  My eating habits.  But most of my improvement had come a little after my last Healthy Utah screening last March when that I learned that I had nearly 25% body fat and realized that I had to do more than I was doing.  I then made some very drastic lifestyle changes. 
  • Why did you decide to make this change?  I have been concerned about my health for quite sometime and especially as I am getting older now and feeling it too. Cancer and Heart disease runs very high in both sides of my family.  I have lost both of my natural parents of Cancer.  My father was 54 when he passed and my mother was 62. I have an uncle who was 51 when he passed from Cancer.  My grandfather was 49 when he passed from a heart attack.  A lot of my family members have high cholesterol and are taking cholesterol lowering drugs to manage it.  A few years ago during one of my Healthy Utah screenings I learned that my cholesterol was at 276.  When I went to my doctor he immediately wanted to put me on one of the cholesterol lowering drugs.  But I wanted to try changing my diet first before I went to the cholesterol lowering drugs.  During my first year my cholesterol had already started falling rapidly and I was able to keep it a little over 200.  During my last yearly physical in Sept my cholesterol level is now down to 189 from the additional lifestyle changes that I have made since last spring.  I have also lost a lot of weight and am now less than 150 lbs.  It has been over 20 years that I can remember being below 150 lbs.
  • How did you accomplish your success?  Reading the Bragg healthy lifestyle books and living a lot of their lifestyle ideas and sticking with it.
  • How did Healthy Utah help you?  By the information that I received from going to the Wellness Conferences was very motivating.  Being the chairman of our Wellness Council certainly didn’t hurt either.  I didn’t want to be this unhealthy overweight guy on the Wellness Council.  How would that look?
  • How did your Healthy Utah Testing Session results improve?  I was able to improve my cholesterol levels and am really looking forward to my next session to see how much I have lowered my % of body fat too.  I expect a significant drop.
  • What goals and obstacles did you have?  My goals are to continue getting healthier and staying that way!  Some obstacles are trying to keep eating healthy by eating lots of vegetables and minimal fatty foods, salts and sugars. I even cut out alcohol.  It can be hard at times when my spouse isn’t as strict about what she eats and having the unhealthy foods in the house gets very tempting at times.  My wife wants to eat better because of what it has done for me. She plans on doing it in small increments though.  She has already quit smoking, quit drinking pop, and has cut down from eating fast food everyday.
  • Who supported you during this experience?  My wife supported me by letting me eat healthy and making my lifestyle changes even when she wasn’t for it herself.  But most of it had to have come from deep within and sticking to my plan.  It became easier as I started to see immediate changes in my weight loss and of how I felt.  I feel better now than I did 10 - 15 years ago!  
  • What advice do you have for others who want to make this change?  First you will have to want to do it and to do it for yourself.  Once you decide to take control of your health you need to stick with it no matter what obstacles that you may run into.  I guarantee that the longer you stick with changing your eating habits and lifestyle changes it does get easier.  I still eat some of the things that I enjoy I just do it sparingly now.