At the Sunday, October 21st meeting of the Pattaya City Expats Club, “Professor Karl” Hahn presented his journey from sickness towards health. As he stated, at some point life throws you a curve, and the outcome is not what was expected.
In early 2016 Karl was shaken to the core with the results of a health check special at Bangkok Pattaya Hospital. Karl was expecting just to be told to lose weight and exercise more, just like his American doctors had told him. And he expected the same results… more weight instead of less.
But at BPH the outcome of the examination declared that he was obese. Ok, this he knew. That he had a mildly fatty liver. No doctor had ever explained this before; especially that it could lead to diabetes in the future. Now this was worrisome.
But the most disturbing news was that there was something in his bladder that needed further examination. After having a procedure going into his bladder and removing what was there, it was confirmed. It was the big “C” and unless he did something it could come back.
This became the motivation to learn all he could about health and what a person could do besides eat less, exercise more. This was the beginning of his journey to lose 96 pounds (43 kg), remove the fat from his liver and from around his internal organs; plus beat back any return of cancer.
The professor’s health plan would follow several stages, the first being removing as many toxins from his life as possible. This included plastics (such as BPA), cooking utensils such as Teflon, non-organic soaps and cleaners. Plus he started filtering all his water, especially from plastic bottles into glass containers.
Next the good professor decided best to remove the “empty” calories and sugars from his diet. And to remove processed foods. A good cleanout of cupboards resulted. He knew that “willpower only” isn’t enough when you are hungry at midnight.
Studying on-line and through many books, Karl was now certain that he needed to stop being obese. The question was how. In America he had tried many diets, and following his doctor’s advice of eat less. Knowing this didn’t work for him, he reviewed many new diet approaches. Diets such as Ketogenic, Paleo, Vegetarian, Mediterranean and so on.
It became apparent that going on a fad diet never worked for him, and probably never would. What Karl needed was a healthier lifestyle. So, he has adopted an eating strategy, a mixture between paleo (meats) and vegetarian; which is heavy on vegetables. Such a strategy is the inverse of the American food pyramid. A more Ketogenic approach.
All of this was helping the good professor become healthier, but one more thing was needed for weight loss. What was this for him? Fasting… Not the kind where you are always hungry, but the fasting where your body has a chance to heal itself. In fact, Karl attributes intermittent fasting with the largest change in his health. Well, along with limited fast foods and no added sugars!
So back to what is the magic bullet to health? Karl is a firm believer that fad diets, special pills, eating less and exercising more is not the way… at least for him. What he feels is the magic bullet is “YOU” – that you need to make a commitment to learning about health, what works for you and then follow it. A happier, healthier retirement is available to all of us.
If you have questions, or want some coaching, please feel free to email Karl at: [email protected]
After the presentation, MC Richard Silverberg brought everyone up to date on upcoming events and then turned it over to the Open Forum portion of the meeting where questions are asked and answered and comments made about Expat living in Thailand, Pattaya in particular. For more information about the PCEC and their activities, visit www.pcec.club.
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