I admit, I was terrified.

It was in June, 2005, that I received some bad news from my doctor. I was, officially, at a very high risk for a stroke.

Specifically, my triglycerides were in the red zone – the exact count was 508. That’s actually not the red zone – that’s a completely separate zip code. Triglycerides above 150 are cause for concern – anything above 500, and you might as well have an ambulance sitting outside your house.

Along with that, my LDL (bad) cholesterol level was high, and my HDL (good) cholesterol level was low; my ratios were the stuff of scary movies.

For years, I’ve looked forward to the day when my children would bring me my first grandkid… and now my doctor was telling me that, unless I underwent radical changes, I wasn’t ever going to see my grandchildren.

What sorts of changes did my doctor recommend? Mostly pharmaceuticals – and I wasn’t going near that stuff. When you read about all the dangerous and nasty side effects of statin drugs, you’ll understand why. I hadn’t even taken an antibiotic in the past 30 years – I wasn’t about to expose myself to these hardcore drugs that, as I later learned, only serve to mask and compound the problem anyway.

But I was determined to make some changes. That triglyceride number – 508 – became my motivation, my magic number. In life, sometimes there are little triggers, little keys that help you unlock big doors. 508 became my key, and it spurred me to action.

I began addressing 15 years of neglect. This led me to the secret of Omega-3s – a secret that may very well have saved my life, which we’ll discuss later – but I didn’t get there immediately.

At the time, I was about 15 lbs overweight. I had a spare tire growing around my mid-section. My liver was not in good shape from a bout of hepatitis I contracted while working as a missionary in India way back in 1976. When I checked it out, an ultrasound revealed I had a fatty liver! Enough was enough.

Wake-up Call and Commitment

I wasn’t sure what I was going to do yet, but I knew I was going to do something. Turns out, my first decision was to stop eating beef.

This happened after I met Joe Theisman, the NFL Hall of Fame Quarterback. He was the keynote speaker at a tradeshow I was attending. He had stopped eating beef 20 years ago.

“Not only have we got hormone problems with the beef, but did you know it takes 3 days to digest or longer? I haven’t got time to digest for 3 days, I am a busy man!” Joe said.

Today, I enjoy the occasional steak – but only when I know I’ll offset it through exercise and I make sure it grass-fed, organically raised.

That, of course, was another huge change for me. I joined a gym and found out they offered free classes included in the price of membership, and I became a class hound.

Think about this: A personal trainer can run you $50 - $75 an hour. If you join a Gym, and take advantage of the free classes such as Yoga, Body Flow, Body Pump, RPM (cycling), etc., then you can get nearly personal instruction included in the price of the membership.

Most of the classes I take have 3 to 8 people in attendance. Not only do I get personal instruction, I have the added benefit of the support and chemistry involved in a group activity.

Today, I take on average 3-4 free classes a week (there are literally 40 hours of group classes scheduled!) and my membership costs $40 a month. That works out to about $2.87 per class hour. This of course doesn’t take into account the round the clock hours that the gym is open to me with over one million dollars in various workout equipment if I choose to use it. If I do a measly two hours a week in the gym using all this great equipment then my fee per hour drops below $1.80.

That’s about the cheapest dollar commitment I can think of to your health – with the greatest possible returns. Of course, the great stumbling block that most people have is getting out there – and that’s where I had the toughest time too.