When health-conscious friends improve their health, their friends’ health improves as well.
Rick Cortez is the graphic artist who makes my public television shows look so beautiful. He and I have known each other for years. Rick is thirty-one years old, a very talented, hardworking, sweet man. Since I have known him over the last seven or eight years, his weight just went up and up until he ballooned to 350 pounds. I encouraged him to get healthy, but not much happened. Then, a few weeks after we shot my last public television special, he wrote me the letter below.
Dr. Amen,
I wanted to let you know of an exciting change in my life since the taping of your new public television special. In the 5 or 6 weeks since the live recording, I’ve lost 30 pounds and counting.
At the time of the taping I had over 350 pounds weighing down my frame. Fast food was a staple of my diet, and portions were always big. Despite the large amount of food I’d take in daily, I had regular cravings for more of the same. I loved the “high” that came with double cheeseburgers for dinner and ice cream for dessert.
After your program I honestly didn’t expect a life change. I knew myself too well—impulsive, no willpower, and no endurance…
But in the days following your program’s taping, Marco, a co-worker of mine, decided to follow one of the Solutions you offered: “Influence others to be thinner, smarter, and happier …” He asked me if he could join with me to help create a healthy lifestyle, in line with the principles you laid out.
Marco then showed me before-and-after photos of a friend of his who had lost more weight than I was hoping to lose (150 pounds). The key to his sustained weight loss was a lifestyle change, not a fad diet.
That was all I needed. Suddenly it was no longer impossible, it was inevitable—I knew I was going to lose this weight.
About a year from now I’ll be at my ideal size. But I’m in no rush—I’m having a great time getting there!
Thanks for inspiring my co-worker. In my case, it made all the difference.
Rick
The last time I saw Rick he had lost 97 pounds!
According to Rick, Marco was the kind of guy who enjoys seeing others succeed, so about a week after the final taping of my special, he told Rick, in passing, “Hey, both you and I could stand to lose some weight. What do you think about trying this Amen Solution together? You want to give it a shot?” Rick had nothing to lose, except 150-plus pounds, so he agreed. “It was having a friend who I would check in with every day on my progress, just two or three minutes sometimes, that made all the difference in keeping me motivated.”
He’s more than halfway to his goal weight and not only does he look ten years younger, there’s a bounce in his step and an obvious feeling of self-confidence that radiates from him. What is so inspiring to me is the domino effect of influence that has happened simply because of one friend encouraging another. One person lost 150 pounds and inspired Rick’s friend, Marco. Marco reached out to Rick, and now they are both reaping benefits of mutual support. Now Rick is inspiring his family, co-workers, and all who are reading his story here. We don’t change in a vacuum. We need each other.
In a recent visit, Rick shared a little more about his journey. “I remember the weight began to creep on after I left home (and Mom’s healthy cooking) for college and discovered fast food, late nights, and a sedentary lifestyle. In high school, I was active in sports, but my chosen degree and career path required many hours in front of a computer screen. I’m a huge film fanatic too, so instead of walking or working out after a day of work, I’d grab a double cheeseburger for dinner, then sit down to watch a movie with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s. Did you know there’s a thousand calories in one of those babies? I gained all this weight in 10-to-20-pound increments, one year at a time.”
Rick went on to share the loss of energy and the desire and ability to move; he began to take walks and dance with his lovely wife of four years (who loves to dance!). He hired a personal trainer during one serious attempt to lose weight but found himself even more hungry, and the effort expended to the amount of pounds lost hardly seemed worth it. He settled into a state of stable misery in terms of his health. “I’m generally a happy guy, but in this area I’d simply accepted defeat,” Rick admitted.
Why would you want to recruit others in joining your efforts to look and feel younger? Because they will help sustain you in the inevitable vulnerable times. There is victory in numbers and regular support. You can find friends, family members, co-workers to gather with, or join our online community at www.theamensolution.com.
I can’t emphasize this enough: Social support is one of the main key elements of success! Many studies have shown that positive relationships strengthen health and longevity, while a lack of social connectivity is associated with depression, cognitive decline, and earlier death. In one study of more than three hundred thousand people, researchers found that lack of strong relationships increased the risk of premature death from all causes by 50 percent! The health risk of being socially disconnected compares with smoking fifteen cigarettes a day and is a greater threat to your longevity than being obese or not exercising.
What makes positive social connections so effective? Researchers have found being part of a connected community helps relieve chronic stress, which contributes to obesity, memory problems, heart disease, gut problems, insulin dysregulation, and a weakness in the immune system. When you are in a group of people with mutual care and trust, stress-reducing hormones are elevated. Women, who so naturally get together with one another to talk, chat, and bond often feel a euphoric kind of peace after a time together. Studies have shown that oxytocin, the trust hormone, is released when women share and bond. Healthy love between people is medicine that helps you live longer. Another benefit of healthy social relationships is that when your thoughts get negative or become unreasonable, healthy friends and family will give you realistic, positive feedback. Without proper feedback from others, we’re all more susceptible to believing negative thoughts, which contributes to depression and diminished health.
Who you spend time with also matters. You’ve got to be selective because people affect your brain, mood, and physical health. A number of studies report that if you spend time with people who are unhealthy, their habits tend to be contagious. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that one of the strongest associations in the spread of illness is who you spend time with. The study was conducted using information gathered from over twelve thousand people who had participated in a multigenerational heart study collected from 1971 to 2003. The study showed that if a person had a friend who became obese, that person had a 57 percent higher chance of becoming obese themselves. This number went up to 171 percent if both friends identified the other as strong friends. Friendship was apparently the strongest correlation: It didn’t matter how far away the friends lived, as geographic distance proved a negligible factor. Sibling influence was also ranked high, with an increased 40 percent chance of becoming obese if another sibling was obese.
The study highlights the social network effect on health issues and makes an important point: Our health is heavily influenced by many factors, not the least of which is the role models around us. The powerful influence of friendship works both ways. Researchers also found that when health-conscious people improve their health, their friends’ health improves as well. By taking the information in this book seriously, you can influence your whole network of friends and family. If you lead the way to better health in your circle of friends, your friends may also benefit. The author of the study said, “People are connected, and so their health is connected.” People can connect to improve their lives through walking groups, healthy-cooking groups, meditation groups, new learning groups, and so on. When you spend time with people who are focused on their health you are much more likely to do the same.
Engaging others to be healthy is a win–win. It’s helping you, and it is helping them. Just as when we get emotionally healthy as individuals, our relationships improve; so it is with physical health. If we get physically healthy, it tends to be contagious and our relationships improve in terms of more activity, eating better, feeling well, looking younger. What a gift to receive, give, and share!
A large Swedish study of people ages seventy-five and over concluded that dementia risk was lowest in those with a variety of satisfying contacts with friends and relatives.
Did you know that the Cleveland Clinic, a hospital known for its innovative technology in the field of medicine, has one of the world’s busiest McDonald’s per square foot on its premises? Does this strike you as an obvious conflict of interest? As I started writing this book I went to an appointment with my wife to see her endocrinologist. He had bowls of candy and cookies in the waiting room. So let me get this right. Sick people go to the doctor, or a well-known medical clinic, and they’re invited to snack freely on food that makes them sicker. Unbelievable! Over the last decade as my work has focused more on the connection between physical and emotional health, I have realized that many schools, businesses, hospitals, and churches could do a much better job of helping people they serve.
In August of 2010 I went to a church near my home with my family and told my wife I would save us seats while she took our daughter to children’s church. As I walked toward the sanctuary, here’s what I passed:
Doughnuts for sale for charity
Bacon and sausage cooking on the grill
Hot dogs being prepared for after church
As I found a seat, the minister was talking about the ice-cream festival the church had the night before.
I was so frustrated that when my wife found me in church I was typing on my phone, which she absolutely hates, and she gave me that look that only your wife can give you: Why are you on that thing in church? Then I showed her what I was writing:
Go to church …get doughnuts …bacon …sausage …
hot dogs …ice cream. They have no idea they are sending people to heaven early!
Nearly everywhere we turn there is evidence that multiple institutions of our society, including our public schools, churches, and doctors’ waiting rooms, however well meaning, are hurting us with the food they offer. There has to be a better way. Churches, businesses, schools, hospitals, and all of our other social institutions have the potential to be powerful positive influences on our health and connect us with the kind of support network that leads to success. We have to do more to make that happen.
For me, church was the obvious place to start. During that service I prayed that God would use me to help change places of worship. The house of God, no matter what religion, should not be a place that fosters illness.
Two weeks later Pastor Steve Komanapalli from Saddleback Church called me. Saddleback is one of the largest churches in America with about thirty thousand members and ten campuses across Southern California. Pastor Steve is Rick Warren’s personal assistant. Pastor Warren is the senior pastor at Saddleback and author of The Purpose Driven Life, which has now sold over thirty-five million copies worldwide. During the 2008 presidential election, Pastor Warren and Saddleback Church hosted a civil forum with Senators John McCain and Barack Obama. Pastor Warren also gave the invocation at the 2009 inaugural address and he was on the cover of Time magazine with the caption “America’s most powerful religious leader takes on the world.” His positive influence has crossed denominational and political boundaries.
Steve asked if I would talk to Pastor Warren about a new initiative at Saddleback Church called Decade of Destiny. The staff was putting together a ten-year plan to get the church healthy physically, emotionally, cognitively, financially, vocationally, and relationally. Would I be willing to help with the initiative to help the people at Saddleback have a better brain and a better body?
I was a little stunned with how quickly my prayer of two weeks earlier was being answered. Steve set up a time for me to talk with Rick.
I found Pastor Warren to be warm and friendly. He laughed easily. But he had a serious goal: to help his parishioners (including himself) get healthier on every level. If it worked at Saddleback, he hoped he could export the plan to churches around the world (Saddleback is connected to four hundred thousand churches around the globe), as he had done with previous initiatives. To increase the health of his congregation, Pastor Warren put together a team of experts. He had already recruited noted physicians and bestselling authors Mehmet Oz (heart surgeon) and Mark Hyman (functional medicine specialist). He hoped I would provide guidance on brain health. I told him, “Count me in! Your call is an answer to my prayers about the need to change churches.” I have been a Christian since a small child. I grew up Roman Catholic, was an altar boy, served at Mass when I was in the U.S. Army as a young soldier, and went to a Christian college and a Christian medical school. The project felt like home for me.
During our conversation, Pastor Warren asked, “Is there anything I can do for you to thank you for helping us?” I was just getting ready to shoot my public television special The Amen Solution—Thinner, Smarter, Happier with Dr. Daniel Amen and asked if he might be able to gather me an audience for a practice run. “No problem,” he said, and we set a date for the following week. Pastor Warren asked if he could interview me after I completed the rehearsal and play it at the kickoff of the health portion of the Decade of Destiny program. I readily agreed.
On the day of the taping, I got to meet Pastor Steve in person outside the media center. Of East Indian heritage, his skin was the warm color of a strong latte. His dark eyes were kind and his laugh easy. I liked him immediately. He was 58 and about 300 pounds, however, and I hoped my work would help him get healthy.
The food in the green room was awful. There were candy bars, sodas, muffins, and pastries. I asked Steve if they were trying to kill the pastors with the food they were serving. He laughed and said, “If you think this is bad, I run a Saturday morning men’s Bible study group and give the guys barbecued ribs as a reward for learning Bible verses.” I was beginning to understand why God answered my prayer. With the current mentality of enticing or rewarding its parishioners with junk food, it was like one giant coronary just waiting to happen. I could also see that changing this mentality was not going to be easy.
The auditorium was a great place to practice my new show, and the audience loved the program. Afterward I met Pastor Warren, a very large man, both in stature and weight. I was in the middle of our NFL study so I was used to standing next to people who were 64 and 300 pounds, but Rick did not look healthy or vibrant. He looked tired and sick.
When we sat down for the interview, Rick started by asking me three questions in quick succession. One of the questions was about my work with ADHD (his rapid-fire questions now made sense). We talked about stress and about how increased exposure to the stress hormone cortisol puts fat on your belly and kills cells in the major memory centers of the brain.
He then asked me about the dinosaur syndrome, which I had talked about in the new show. I’d shown a slide that said:
Dinosaur Syndrome
Big Body. Little Brain. Become Extinct.
“That really got my attention,” Rick said. “Can you explain that some more?”
“Sure,” I replied. “ ‘Dinosaur syndrome’ is a term I coined after reading Dr. Cyrus Raji’s research from the University of Pittsburgh, which reported as your weight goes up, the actual physical size of the brain goes down. The researchers found that when subjects had a BMI between 25 and 30, considered overweight, they had 4 percent less brain volume and their brains looked eight years older than healthy people’s. When subjects were obese with a BMI over 30, they had 8 percent less brain volume and their brains looked sixteen years older than healthy people’s. In a follow-up study from my research group at the Amen Clinics published in the journal Nature Obesity we found that as a person’s weight went up, the function in the prefrontal cortex [PFC], the most human, thoughtful part of the brain, went down.”
“Is that why my sermons are getting longer?” Rick joked. The audience chuckled, and then we moved on to the topic of motivation.
“What moves you?” I asked Rick. “Why are you doing this new initiative?”
His answer was precise. “I want the next ten years to be the best ten years both for myself and for the church to get healthy.”
We then talked about his diet. He volunteered, “I am not hungry until two in the afternoon. I could fast until noon every day of the week, but then my appetite kicks in and I eat large quantities of food until late in the night.”
“You have to stop that eating pattern,” I said. “Study after study has shown that people who eat breakfast are more likely to lose weight and keep it off. By eating regularly you keep your blood sugar more stable throughout the day. Stable blood sugar wards off cravings. Keeping blood sugar stable doesn’t just help weight loss; it also helps your focus, memory, and decision-making skills.”
The interview was fun and pleasant to that point. But then it seemed to take a strange turn. Rick asked me to give the audience some tips about brain health.
I said, “It’s not magic; it’s simple mathematics. If you want to be healthy you cannot eat too many calories and the calories you choose need to be of high quality. Otherwise your body and brain become bankrupt. I sent you an e-mail a while back saying if you really wanted to get the church healthy you could start by putting the calories and nutritional content on the food you serve at Saddleback. When I didn’t hear back from you, I figured you weren’t too keen on that idea.”
This is where Rick seemed to become irritated with me. “I read that e-mail and thought, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s a great idea …I am going to become the health nut and the Gestapo for food at Saddleback.’ ”
I replied, “This would be one of the most loving things you can do for your church. But you have to buy into the concept, on a real emotional level, that if you overeat you are not being a good steward of your body. I can see we need to do a little therapy around this topic.”
“But we built this church on doughnuts!” he replied.
Now I was horrified. This helped to explain new research from Northwestern University that reported people who frequently attend religious services are significantly more likely to become obese by the time they reach middle age. The traditions of potlucks, ice-cream socials, pancake breakfasts, spaghetti dinners, and doughnuts to get people to stay at church longer are clearly not good for the brain, body, or soul. When your brain is sick, your soul is not at its best. We’ve got to get creative with alternative social activities and healthier food in our churches.
I left the interview feeling unsettled. Rick was asking for help but seemed resistant to it at the same time, the same way many addicts I have treated react when confronted with the truth. “It is a process,” I told myself. “Be patient.”
Over the next three months the staff and the other doctors and I developed the Daniel Plan, named after the prophet in the Old Testament who refused to eat the king’s bad food.
In the first chapter of the book of Daniel (1:3–16), Daniel and his three enslaved friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, along with other young men, were commanded to eat from the king’s kitchen of rich foods and wine. Daniel and his friends were determined not to defile themselves by eating the rich food and drinking the wine. Daniel asked the chief of staff, Melzar, for permission not to consume these unacceptable foods. But Melzar implored Daniel to do as he was told, so that he, Melzar, would not be beheaded for going against the king’s orders to feed the malnourished-looking Daniel and his friends.
Daniel then gave Melzar this challenge: “Please test us for ten days on a diet of vegetables and water. At the end of ten days, see how we look compared to the other young men who are eating from the king’s food. Then make your decision in the light of what you see.”
Melzar agreed to Daniel’s challenge and tested them for ten days. At the end of ten days, Daniel and his three friends looked healthier and better nourished than the young men who were eating the food assigned by the king. So after that Melzar fed them only vegetables instead of the food and wine provided for the others. God gave these four men an unusual aptitude for understanding every aspect of literature and wisdom. Daniel and his friends looked better and were smarter than the others.
The Daniel Plan is a fifty-two-week small-group program to get the church healthy. Small groups are the secret sauce of Saddleback Church, where members meet weekly for an hour or two at someone’s home or at a restaurant to study a specific topic, such as a book in the Bible. It’s the secret sauce because social and community support is the key ingredient to any real change. You cannot do it alone. These small groups enhance commitment and learning and provide ongoing encouragement and emotional support. Saddleback has about five thousand small groups, and the plan was to use this format to maximize results and help the church get healthier. The prophet Daniel had his posse of like-minded supporters and you should too.
Research shows that those who have the highest levels of social activity experience one quarter the amount of mental decline in their golden years as those who are not at all socially active.
In November and December Pastor Warren talked to his church extensively about the Daniel Plan. On December 12, with my wife, Tana, and me in the service, Rick told the congregation that he was coming after them to get healthy on January 1. I was so pleased to see the progress of the pastor and the church. But then he said something that completely baffled me.
“But between now and January first, eat anything you want!”
I looked at my wife Tana in disbelief. “Did he really say that?” I asked. If I had a tomato, I might have thrown it at him. For real change to take place, the new behavior cannot occur sometime down the road. It needs to start now, not some date in the future.
Shortly after the service, Rick and I had a chat about the comment. Almost immediately he got the idea. “So you’re saying what I did was kind of like telling a young man that since he is about to get married, he should have a few last flings before he ties the knot.”
“You got it,” I said. “If people are serious about wanting to change, now is the best time to start, not tomorrow, Monday, or January 1.”
For Christmas I bought Rick a first edition of C. S. Lewis’s parable The Great Divorce, a wonderful book about lasting change. I highlighted the following passage: “The gradual process is of no use at all …This moment contains all moments.” For change to occur, you need to have a sense of urgency, in this moment right now. That is why many people decide to get healthy after having a heart attack or being diagnosed with cancer. My hope for you is that you do not need a crisis to start to get healthy and that the value of avoiding a crisis has enough emotional motivation.
The formal start of the Daniel Plan kicked off January 15, 2011, with a big rally at Saddleback Church. It was an enormously popular event and the church had to turn away thousands of people. The excitement was palpable. We’d designed a brain-smart curriculum and ninety-two hundred people signed up to be in our research study. On this day, Rick weighed in at 292 pounds. By the time of our third rally in October, Rick had lost 50 pounds and ten inches off his waist, looked healthier, and …ten years younger! He told the congregation that his secrets included:
Rick |
|
Before |
Down 50 pounds after ten months of the Daniel Plan |
1. Focusing on his motivation every day and deciding to view physical and emotional health as a spiritual discipline. He often repeated this New Testament verse: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19–20).
2. Keeping a food journal so he knew what he was putting in his mouth. He said it was quite a wake-up call.
3. Drinking water throughout the day.
4. Getting proper sleep. Until we met, Rick spent a day or two a week up all night with no sleep at all. He never knew it was a problem, but research suggests that when people get fewer than six hours of sleep at night, they have lower overall blood flow to the brain, which means more cravings and more bad decisions. Other research suggests that sleep deprivation causes people to be unrealistically optimistic and engage in riskier behaviors. To look and feel younger it is critical to focus on getting enough sleep, which usually means more than seven hours a night.
5. Consuming high-quality calories. Rick dumped the junk food and focused on only eating high-quality food. He told the congregation he eliminated the four white powders: cocaine (he was kidding), sugar, bleached flour, and salt. He eliminated doughnuts from his diet and started each day with a healthy breakfast. He ate smaller meals throughout the day. He stopped drinking his calories (especially sodas) and using artificial sweeteners, and he dumped bread from his diet, as it immediately turns to sugar in the body. Eating this way curbed his cravings. He also started eating slower to enjoy his food more and increase his sense of feeling full faster.
6. Getting regular exercise, which included weight lifting and cardiovascular work. He was being much more consistent with his trainer.
7. Taking simple supplements, such as a multivitamin, fish oil, and vitamin D.
8. Being accountable to his weekly small group.
All of the components were necessary for the plan to work, and they are all necessary for you to look and feel younger, but it was the small-group component that turned out to be the secret sauce that really made the whole thing work. When you do this program with another person, your family, a group of people at church, work, or within your community, the healing process becomes much more powerful.
I’ve no doubt, with a team of support and the program outlined in this book, you can do this too.
Whenever I am on the Saddleback campus, I hear story after story of how people’s lives have been changed, using the principles in this book in a small-group format, where people gather together weekly to support each other. People have told me:
“I’ve lost 20 (or 30 or 60 or 90 or 150) pounds.”
“My numbers are so much better!”
“No more headaches! It’s amazing. I was taking prescription pain medication almost daily, and now it’s been more than two weeks without any pain or pills!”
“My clothes fit loose and I can get back into my old ones.”
“Color is coming back to my gray hair …who knew?”
“My mood is so much more stable and positive.”
“My asthma is better.”
“With the elimination of sugar, flour, salt, and processed foods, I rarely have any cravings and have found I eat smaller amounts of nutrient-rich foods.”
“My husband also lost 25 pounds!”
“I just finished chemo. Everyone is amazed at how much energy I have and how fast my hair is returning. I am running circles around a friend who is ten years younger who doesn’t have cancer. (He is not on the plan.)”
“My complexion looks great; the improvement in the smoothness of my skin is remarkable.”
“I’ve been off wheat for six weeks, and no more acid reflux.”
“Ninety-eight percent of my headaches at night have disappeared. I wake up feeling clear-headed instead of foggy.”
“I don’t have body, joint, muscle pain in the mornings.”
“I’m off my high blood pressure meds …and am working on getting off my type 2 diabetes and cholesterol meds.”
“I am diabetic. Now my blood sugar is dramatically better than when I was on insulin. I am not taking either now.”
“I’m having less arthritis (inflammatory) pain.”
“I lost 3 inches off my waist and 4 inches off my hips.”
“I have smoother, healthier facial skin with reduced acne.”
“I have fewer PMS symptoms.”
“I enjoy the adventure of discovering new foods, cooking new meals, and trying new things at restaurants.”
“My triglyceride levels have lowered; I have reduced joint pain by at least 90 percent and am no longer taking that harmful medication! Oh, and I can play with my grandkids!”
“Odd to say this in church, but my sex life has dramatically improved!”
It is Sunday afternoon, and Cindy, a single working mother of four young kids, and a recent cancer survivor, is in her kitchen surrounded by several other women friends. All have full-time jobs, and all decided to get healthy together. The house is filled with delicious smells and the sounds of happy kids in the background. It’s clear these women are having a blast cooking healthy meals together for the whole week ahead. One friend is making brain healthy nutritious mini breakfast casseroles in muffin tins that will be warmed up on busy school and work mornings to come. The jobs—grocery shopping, menu planning, cooking, and storing the meals—are divided up between the women according to their preferences. What was once an enormous chore for these single moms and working women is now fun, and the time saved by pooling their efforts on meals gives them much needed downtime to rest and be with their kids.
During her cancer treatments, Cindy was given steroid drugs and gained 30 or 40 pounds, which her body hadn’t been able to shed. In fact, all the drugs she took for her cancer therapy had still not detoxed completely from her body. Because Cindy and her friends were no longer on a diet, but on a brain healthy lifestyle, she is now consuming foods that are actually helping her body heal itself. Her weight is falling off, her energy is returning, and she’s feeling the old Cindy coming back to life. But Cindy would say it is the camaraderie that makes all the difference—not only in helping launch a new way of eating but in sustaining the changes. In addition, the women meet to walk and talk every week, encouraging each other spiritually and emotionally.
Dee Eastman, a friend of the Amen Clinic for over a decade and the director of the Daniel Plan at Saddleback, enthusiastically shared Cindy’s story above, along with many others like it. As you know by now, support in the form of teams or groups is a major key to your success if you plan to look and feel younger. The research is clear that people rarely change in isolation; it tends to happen most often in small groups.
Dee said she expected to see people’s weight drop and their bodies get more fit, but remarks, “I was literally blown away by the amount of extra health benefits that were pouring in and being reported to us in such a short time. Within just three months, the folks who immediately jumped in, got their blood work done, and ran with the program began seeing radically better medical lab results. Many were able to get off blood pressure and cholesterol medication. Others reported being able to sleep through the night without the need for sleep aids.” She is seeing with her own eyes what I’ve been saying for years: “Food is medicine.” (For more on this, revisit chapter 2.) In addition to better lab numbers, Dee is hearing reports of depression lessening, anxiety fading, moodiness calmed. Dee admits that such impressive changes, across a wide spectrum, would not have occurred without the secret sauce of mutual support via small groups and online support groups.
Here are a few observations of the positive dynamics for change that Dee has observed happening because of friends supporting friends in getting healthy and functionally younger.
Health is creatively incorporated into visiting and social gatherings. One active, intergenerational group (one of the couples is seventy-nine years young) meets to walk and talk together three times a week, then meets on Saturdays at a local gym to do circuit training. As they walk or work out, they casually share healthy recipes and cooking tips, along with other life joys and struggles. They are finding it is possible to get connected and get healthy at the same time.
Inner and outer healing go hand in hand, particularly in a supportive group culture. There is a woman who had almost thrown in the towel on life, who found refuge and encouragement in a group. She was about 52 and weighed in the mid-300-pound range. She dove into getting healthier with her whole heart, feeling buoyed by the nutritional and exercise plan and supported by her new friends. Not only has she lost 40 pounds (the first time she’s been under 300 pounds in years), but she’s also healing emotionally while getting better physically. (It makes one wonder about possibilities for therapists doing counseling while they walk instead of sit with their clients!) The exercise has helped her depression with good endorphins and blood flow and body composition, and in Dee’s words, “being enfolded into a loving community” is healing her heart and soul. Human beings were created and wired to grow best in community, emotionally, spiritually, and physically.
Healthy support groups create a safe environment for being honest with ourselves and each other. Dee credits Rick Warren with leading the way in being truthfully vulnerable. “It was really freeing when Pastor Rick admitted, ‘Hey, I got off-track in my health. I’ve been focusing on trying to save the world, but I’ve neglected my physical body. Now I have ninety pounds to lose.’ Rick also reminds his congregants often that they don’t have to go through anything alone. He’s in a small group that is encouraging and holding him accountable alongside the rest of the church.
Groups can create change in the kind of eating that happens in social situations. One group meets at a well-known healthy restaurant once a week to enjoy a nutritious meal together. People are bringing brain-smart foods as refreshments to meetings and events. One group is planning a healthy potluck, where each member is going to bring their favorite brain-smart dish, along with the recipe and nutrition information.
Studies show that overweight and obese young adults who had more social contacts trying to lose weight were more likely to want to lose weight themselves. Encouragement and approval from social contacts account for this association, researchers say.
Debbie Eaton is an expert in small groups. She oversees seven hundred of Saddleback’s small groups and has done so for many years. She offered some tips for making groups succeed. You may want to consider these as you join or create your own support group to begin implementing this program into your life.
Problems in groups almost always occur when one of these traits is out of balance. Too much accountability without plenty of cheerleading leads to feeling discouraged or feeling as though group members are pushing toward perfectionism. Lots of encouragement, without the balance of holding each other’s feet to the fire, leads to groups that stagnate and do not stretch or grow.
It is important that those who join your group share a passion, such as passion for physical well-being. Small groups often work best when two good friends invite other people they know, so there’s some sort of connection already in place. Perhaps you have one good friend who is “all in” with you in this journey to health. If both of you can think of one or two other friends who are passionate about losing weight, feeling good, and growing younger, the group can form and expand quickly and organically.
The ideal size for a support group is eight to ten people. If the group gets any bigger than this, the introverts may shut down and extroverts take over. Also, after a group exceeds ten people, they start thinking the group is so big now that their occasional absence won’t be missed. People aren’t as consistent and accountability is not as high. On the other hand, if a group is too small, over time it can stagnate and seem to get off kilter and ingrown. There aren’t enough personalities or a wide enough experience base to keep the dynamics lively and vibrant.
If your purposes are smaller and more specific—to exercise regularly or check in with a nutrition coach daily, for example—it may be served by just one or two committed friends, such as was the case with Rick and Marco.
Generally, it is best to commit to a group for a set period of time. You may try starting with a six-week commitment, and then re-up if the group is working well for everyone.
In addition to these ideas, here are a couple more researched-based thoughts on successful support teams.
Willow Creek Church, another of the largest churches in America, realized its small groups were not working to help people feel and stay connected in their real lives. It was not until fairly recently that Willow Creek began tapping into neighborhood communities (called Table Groups), which met together several times a week, that people once again began to care, share, struggle, grow, and bond. So consider convenience and location to make meeting together happen more easily. In Rick Cortez’s case, having an accountability partner at work made it convenient to check in with each other before the work day or on their lunch breaks. Neighbors make wonderful walking or jogging partners. Make getting together as simple as you can and you’re more likely to do it.
You have to be ruthless for your health and a warrior for the health of those you love. Research shows that when group members go soft on one another, to the point where they accept or empathize with backsliding too much, the group dynamics change. Without meaning to, the group has now become supportive of slacking off …and a deterioration of health occurs. Patients sometimes ask me why I am so direct and do not just simply accept excuses. This is not my personal nature, believe it or not. By nature, I’d love to be a middle-of-the-road, everything-in-moderation, just-try-your-best kind of guy. But the truth is: This is not helpful, not loving, and not in your best interest. Have you ever had a friend who cared enough not to bullshit you? That’s me. If I’d let Pastor Rick continue telling people to eat anything they want, we would have started the plan tomorrow, and because tomorrow never comes, his congregation would remain sick and headed toward an early grave. Let’s create a movement together. It can start with just you and a few friends.
The following story is one about using the secret sauce of unwavering support within marriages and families, so you can leave a legacy of joy and health to your children and grandchildren.
Remember Pastor Steve Komanapalli? As part of his evaluation at our clinic, he had a SPECT scan. His brain was not healthy and showed very low activity in his PFC, the part of the brain involved in judgment and impulse control. On cognitive testing, he also scored poorly, especially in the area of attention. He was on multiple medications for diabetes, hypertension, and cholesterol problems. At his first appointment he had to roll off the couch owing to his weight. When I first met Steve, he and his wife, Nicole, were expecting their first child, Karis, a baby girl. I liked Steve a lot, so I had to be straight with him. He could not have his chocolate cake (and barbecued ribs, buffalo wings, fried chicken, loaded pizzas, and supersized root beers) and his health and longevity too. He could not eat without limits and leave a positive legacy for the next generation. I told him that if he did not get serious about his health, then a stepfather would be raising Karis because he would be dead. Did he really want to put Nicole and Karis through his early illnesses and death?
Around the same time, he had a talk with Nicole, during which she told him, “If you die of something preventable and leave me to raise our child without you, I will mourn your loss, but I will be deeply disappointed that you didn’t love us enough to make your health a priority. I am really going to be hurt that you didn’t put your well-being, and our family’s needs, above your appetite.” These two conversations began Steve’s ascent into health.
Steve became one of the leaders of the plan on the Saddleback campus. “I began to see that the single biggest impact on how I feel is what I put in my mouth,” Steve said as he described one of his many “aha” moments. Within one month of making food changes, Steve’s cholesterol and triglycerides had come down to the normal range. He is now playing Ping-Pong, which is one of my all-time favorite games for improving the brain, and when played well, a game of Ping-Pong will get your heart pumping but is also doable at Steve’s size. When he’s hungry, Steve snacks on fruit and nuts and finds he is satisfied with a small amount, unlike the never-ending cycle of craving and hunger that junk food perpetuates.
After five months on the plan, Steve lost 35 pounds and 4 inches off his waist. His health numbers improved dramatically:
• Triglycerides decreased from 385 to 63
• Cholesterol decreased from 200 to 130
• HDL (good cholesterol) increased from 22 to 46
• Blood sugar decreased from 128 to 89
• HgA1c (a marker of diabetes) decreased from 7.2 (abnormal) to 5.7 (normal)
• He is off both his blood pressure and cholesterol medications!
Steve’s follow-up SPECT scan showed remarkable improvement in his PFC, and his attention scores had dramatically improved. His brain, body, and mind were significantly younger within just five months of starting the program. Steve is blessed to have a wife who loves him enough to challenge and support him. Sometimes the best secret sauce is right in your own backyard or looking at you from across the dining room table.
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Steve’s Before Brain SPECT Scan 
Many areas of decreased activity |
Steve’s After Brain SPECT Scan 
Overall improved activity |
Studies show that people in loving relationships tend to live longer, in part because they help monitor each other’s health.
The Saddleback story and its combined statistics are staggeringly positive. In the first five months the church lost a total of 200,000 pounds, about 7.68 percent among our research participants. A 5 percent reduction in body weight decease the risk of diabetes by 58 percent. Eighty percent of our participants said they were compliant or very compliant with the program. Eighty percent said it was easy or very easy to do. Fifty-five percent were doing it with someone else in their families, and 80 percent said they had increased their exercise.
However, it is the individual stories that touch your brain and inspire change. It is the real people behind the numbers that make me smile. The other day I took a walk on Balboa Island near my home in Orange County and was stopped by a number of people out for a walk who recognized me from public television. One couple, who had been incorporating these principles into their lives, had lost 60 pounds between them. Everywhere I go I meet people who express their gratitude for how this knowledge has led them to better lives.
The keys to getting healthy are absolutely important to know; but the secret sauce that makes it work and last, and adds fun and motivation to the process, is doing it together. Grab a friend or family member to do this program with you. You will both be better off.
A Tale of Two Ricks is about using the resources in your relationships to get and stay healthy. I am in a professional support group run by my friend Joe Polish. In a recent group he gave us an exercise on the power of networks, which he has graciously allowed me to share with you. Called “Create Your Own Genius Network,” it can help you thrive and keep you on track toward your goals, in a similar way to the small groups at Saddleback. Research has demonstrated that strong relationships are associated with health, happiness, and success. The health of your peer group is one of the strongest predictors of your health and longevity. This exercise will help you create and sustain your own network.
WHAT ARE YOUR HEALTH GOALS? (BE SPECIFIC.)
1. ____________________________________________________________________________
2. ____________________________________________________________________________
3. ____________________________________________________________________________
4. ____________________________________________________________________________
5. ____________________________________________________________________________
WRITE DOWN THE NAMES OF FIVE PEOPLE WHO CAN HELP YOU REACH YOUR GOALS AND BE SUPPORTIVE OF YOUR EFFORTS TO GET AND STAY HEALTHY.
1. ____________________________________________________________________________
2. ____________________________________________________________________________
3. ____________________________________________________________________________
4. ____________________________________________________________________________
5. ____________________________________________________________________________
WHAT WISDOM DO THEY HAVE (HEALTH ADVICE, EXERCISE BUDDY, SUPPORT, ETC.)?
1. ____________________________________________________________________________
2. ____________________________________________________________________________
3. ____________________________________________________________________________
4. ____________________________________________________________________________
5. ____________________________________________________________________________
HOW CAN YOU BE HELPFUL TO THEM? GIVING BACK IS A KEY INGREDIENT TO MAKING A GENIUS NETWORK WORK.
1. ____________________________________________________________________________
2. ____________________________________________________________________________
3. ____________________________________________________________________________
4. ____________________________________________________________________________
5. ____________________________________________________________________________
HOW CAN THEY HELP YOU? BE SPECIFIC (WALK TOGETHER ONCE PER WEEK, SHARE HEALTHY RECIPES, ETC.).
1. ____________________________________________________________________________
2. ____________________________________________________________________________
3. ____________________________________________________________________________
4. ____________________________________________________________________________
5. ____________________________________________________________________________
Set aside time each week to connect with the five people in your genius network, whether in person, by phone, by e-mail, or by text. If you do this one exercise, you will start to build a great network to help you look better and live a healthier, longer life. Even though this exercise is very simple, it is also powerful. Keep your genius network constantly up to date and make sure to support others in their efforts to use their brains to change their age. You will be supporting yourself in the process.
1. The secret sauce for brain health and longevity is to do it together. Start making a list of people who will support you and vice versa. We are more powerful when we use more than one good brain at a time.
2. According to C. S. Lewis, in his short parable The Great Divorce, “The gradual process is of no use at all …This moment contains all moments.” Now is the time to get well, not at some undetermined date off in the future. Choose people to join you who are ready to get healthy now!
3. Begin every day by focusing on your goals and planning how you’ll meet them, and then share this with your accountability buddy. Short daily check-ins are powerfully motivating.
4. You have to snooze to get healthy! Sleep is a critical ingredient to longevity success. Focus on getting eight hours of sleep at night to boost brain function and follow-through. Encourage your friends to do this as well.
5. Are you a friend or accomplice? Write down the names of five people with whom you spend the most time. Are you supporting their health efforts (are you their friend)? Or, are you supporting their bad habits (are you their accomplice)?
6. Combine healthy eating with friendships. Prepare healthy meals and snacks for the week ahead with friends; share recipes and ideas for cutting calories and upsizing nutrition; bring delicious, healthy food to potlucks and parties.
7. Exercise regularly, with a partner or a group of friends. It helps if you can make this convenient by walking with people who live nearby, or working out at the gym together before or after your regular get-togethers.
8. Create a Facebook group of friends who commit to check in with what they did to incorporate exercise into their routines that day.
9. Incorporate exercise into social routines. Take an after-dinner walk with friends, meet someone to play tennis before lunch, bike to social events.
10. Create warm memories in the kitchen with your family in healthier ways. For example, instead of baking sugar cookies, let the kids decorate their own mini pizzas or fruit or veggie “art” sculptures (with bits of fruit or veggies and toothpicks).
11. Remind your kids and spouse that what they put in their mouth affects how they feel. Offer your family plenty of attractive and tasty good-mood foods that nourish their brains and bodies.
12. Determine to create a healthy legacy for your family. It starts with you showing the way. Prioritize time for active play, gardening, or shopping at farmers’ markets, and cooking healthy meals together.
13. In your support group, whether it is made up of two people or ten, be sure you have a good balance of high accountability and high encouragement. Be warriors for each other’s health.
14. Plan ahead when dining out for dates, social lunches, couples’ nights out, and so on by scouting out healthy restaurants in your area. Or start a dinner group where you take turns hosting other couples for delicious, brain healthy meals.
15. Create a genius network using the form in this chapter, contacting five people who you think might be willing to support each other in developing new healthy habits.
16. Spend more time around healthy people in general, as you really do become like those you spend the most time with. Healthy habits are contagious!
17. Commit to “influence others to be thinner, smarter, happier and younger.” Be patient with their process but consistent with your new behaviors. Encourage every step made in a positive direction.
18. “Tell the truth in love” to someone whose health you care about. It wasn’t easy for Steve’s wife, who loved her husband unconditionally, to challenge him to change. But by doing so, she likely gifted them with many more healthy, happy years together.
19. Make a group goal to celebrate your success together. Rick Cortez is looking forward to dancing with his wife. Other groups choose to run a 5K race together, and some climb a summit to celebrate.
20. Consider the possibilities of joining an online community of support. We created the Amen Solution community website (www.theamensolution.com) to offer just such an opportunity. I’m there as your “virtual brain coach,” along with others choosing the same journey toward a brain healthy lifestyle.