Health

Leave a comment Posted on August 21, 2015 Uncategorized

Preventing My Own Inevitable Death

I’m constantly aware of all the ways that today could be my last day alive… each and every day.

So instead of sweeping those thoughts under the rug, I welcome them and keep my self aware of them, as doing so make me more prepared for them.

And by being more prepared for them, I can do a better job of preventing my own inevitable death; instead of just hoping I win the “long, healthy life lottery.”

Statistically, a car accident would likely be the easiest way for me to “slip into eternity”; as I have a 45 minute commute to work everyday in fast-paced Nashville traffic.

But I do what I can. While I’m driving, I always wear my seat belt, I stay off the phone, and I keep the radio’s volume at a low enough level.

I am aware that if I do my part, and pray daily for God to keep our family safe, then I’m doing everything I can in my control to prevent my inevitable death.

So that brings me to my next most likely way to go: heart disease or cancer.

I feel that the more I listen to men who are around age 50 talk, I hear phrases like “open heart surgery” and “stomach staple surgery” and “all my medications.”

So while my vegan lifestyle, which includes running and mountain biking, may sound extreme, I would say the other things awaiting me if I don’t live this way now are actually more extreme.

Granted, I’m only 34, so I still have some time before my body really becomes susceptible to going on “auto pilot to self destruction.”

But the way I see it, I actually do have a decent amount of control over my ultimately preventable death.

It could all end today, or tomorrow, for me- I realize that. However, I choose to focus on the parts I do have control over; not the other way around.

I don’t want to work hard my whole life, only to get cancer the moment I retire. I want the quality of my life to good the whole way through; not have to hurry up and try to fix things once it may be too late.

In the end, I won’t have any regrets about my crazy vegan lifestyle if it means I get to spend another healthy day with my family.

Leave a comment Posted on July 16, 2015July 16, 2015 Uncategorized

Dear Jack: Green Meanie’s Protein Conspiracy

4 years, 8 months.

Dear Jack,

As of today, you are officially 4 years and 8 months old. At this point, you’re basically 5 as far as I’m concerned. But it’s not official until we’re celebrating in Destin, Florida; as we plan to do for your actual 5th birthday… still 4 months away.

This week I finally got to publish, “2015 Chevy Colorado Maxwell Air Force Base Road Trip,” which tells the whole story (with dozens of pictures and several custom videos I made) of us driving down to Montgomery to see your cousin Matt graduate boot camp and to celebrate your cousin Calla’s 4^th birthday in Fort Payne, where I’m from.

(The pictures you see here are taken from that story.)

For the past several weeks, I’ve been sharing our newest Jack-Man webisodes with you in my letters. (We’ve made 17 Jack-Man webisodes so far!) However, I’ve decided that you and I shall take a break from them for a while.

One reason is simply because it’s so hot outside right now. With my Green Meanie costume, it’s already hot enough, but then to be running around in the sun for an hour or more at a time with you… I say it’s just too much right now.

Another reason we’re taking a Jack-Man break for right now is to test out a theory: that perhaps I can get just as many hits on YouTube by playing as my Green Meanie character to make informative videos, which require much less editing on my part.

For example, each Jack-Man video is about 3 and a half minutes long, but requires at least one hour of editing for each of those minutes.

But I can shoot a Green Meanie video in about 3 minutes and it only takes 20 minutes to edit.

Therefore, I’ve now published 3 of these Green Meanie videos in the past week. First I did one where Green Meanie shares his “Vegan Protein Smoothie” with everyone by demonstrating with a blender.

Then yesterday I made one where Green Meanie explains what he calls “The Protein Conspiracy.” He points out that most Americans believe we are in serious danger of not consuming enough protein, when in reality, we’re consuming too much protein, which leads to cancer and disease.

He goes on to point out that, ironically, most people assume vegans (like Green Meanie) don’t get enough protein. Green Meanie responds by using himself as a living, human experiment.

Since he hasn’t consumed any meat, dairy, or eggs in over 2 years (and no meat a year before that), he in theory should be just skin and bones; lacking so much protein.

Green Meanie then simply explains the 6 sources of his daily protein:

Veggies, fruit, grains, beans, nuts, and seeds.

So we’ll see how the free market accepts my Green Meanie character’s videos. You never know what might happen as a resort of something so silly yet deliberately educational and entertaining…

Love,

Daddy

P.S.

At the same time, I am very excited that last week, Health & Medicine Magazine reached out to me regarding my “Vegan Life” page here on Family Friendly Daddy Blog.

They have offered me a one-page space in theirmagazine, where I can share my thoughts, recipes, experience, photos and the most popular posts I have.

Health & Medicine Magazine is a high quality healthy lifestyle print publication that will be distributed free of charge for our readers throughout Florida. They wish to inspire many more people to join the healthy life and are working on securing funding via the Kickstarter platform.

In Florida, there are not such healthy free publications. So Health & Medicine Magazine plans to fill that void with their beautiful, quality publication promoting healthy lifestyle (fitness, yoga, healthy food, actual trends in health, nutrition, beauty etc).

Their magazine is completely free of charge to its readers.

Anyone can visit their Kickstarter page to catch a glimpse of what their magazine looks like and is all about: http://kck.st/1SZZqgm

Leave a comment Posted on July 8, 2015July 8, 2015 food reviews, Health

My 3 Minute Vegan Protein Morning Shake Recipe/Kickstarter for Health & Medicine Magazine

Now more than 2 years into being a vegan, I’ve been having inspired people ask me what I eat in the morning.

I am not a fan of vegan powder shakes. Instead, I believe in the importance of keeping ingredients from being processed whenever possible, so that the food is more alive.

So I invented my own “2 Minute Morning Vegan Protein Shake”, which is full of protein and healthy fats, with no added sugar; so it’s sweet in addition to having a healthy amount of good fats and a sweet, rich taste.

Here’s my new video about how to make it:

Please note that as a vegan, I never am able to physically consume even 1% of my daily cholesterol. While plants do contain some cholesterol, check your labels and you’ll see that it never amounts to even 1% of your daily allowance of it.

My video below demonstrates how quick and simple my recipe is for you:

1 cup of unsweetened almond milk

1 banana

1 cup of additional fruit (I prefer blueberries and strawberries)

1 tablespoon of chia seeds

1 tablespoon of unsweetened cocoa powder

1 tablespoon of unsweetened peanut butter

Pour into the blender, then use “4” setting of blender for about 10 seconds. Finally, pour into a travel cup and enjoy once you get to work.

Thanks for learning about my recipe. Please feel free to ask any related questions here on Family Friendly Daddy Blog or on my YouTube video.

In the meantime, I am very excited that this week, Health & Medicine Magazine reached out to me regarding my “Vegan Life” page here on Family Friendly Daddy Blog.

They have offered me a one-page space in our magazine, where I can share your thoughts, recipes, experience, photos and the most popular posts I have.

Their magazine is completely free of charge for our readers.

You can visit their Kickstarter page to catch a glimpse of what their magazine looks like and is all about: http://kck.st/1SZZqgm

Leave a comment Posted on June 25, 2015June 25, 2015 Jack-Man, parenting, Uncategorized

Dear Jack: Webisodes 12 & 13 of Jack-Man, Featuring Rainbow Child Care Center

4 years, 7 months.

Dear Jack,

This week in Jack-Man news, you and I made our most popular webisode to date, Webisode 12: “The Great Indoors.” It received 100 views in less than 2 days.

My long-time friend Ben Wilder guest starred as a villain alongside me. He was the Recess Rebel and I reprised my role as the Playground Ninja.

It featured my new song, “The Taste of Defeat”:

What’s that bitter taste in your mouth? Things are about to go south

Too late to figure it out

That’s the taste of defeat

Yes, the taste of defeat

You can’t take my playground away, I’m here to stand in your way

I’m going to make you pay

That’s the taste of defeat

Yes, the taste of defeat

I had arranged it with your preschool to shoot a webisode there, so we met with the school director on Saturday morning.

After about an hour of filming, Ben followed us back to our house to film Webisode 13: “Dog Days of Summer,” in which Ben played a new villain named Salt Water Guy, who attempted to convince Jack-Man that “sports drinks” are healthy, despite the fact they contain so much sugar, as well as artificial food dyes.

It featured my new song, “You Can’t Be Ready for This.”

So you think you can dance?

Looks like there’s ants in your pants

You should moonwalk away

While you still have the chance

You can’t be ready for this, oh no

Nobody warned you ‘bout me, oh no

You can’t be ready for this, oh no

You won’t believe what you see, oh no

You can’t be ready for this

Do you want my autograph?

So you’ll remember my name

The one who defeated you last

In this cat and mouse game

Coming up we have some more exciting Jack-Man webisodes, as Chevy has sent us a brand-new 2015 Chevy Colorado crew cab pick-up truck. You love it!

Love,

Daddy

1 Comment Posted on June 4, 2015June 4, 2015 Jack-Man, parenting

Dear Jack: Webisodes 7 & 8 of Jack-Man, Plus Motivational Speech; Shia LaBeouf Style

4 years, 6 months.

Dear Jack,

This week we released 2 new webisodes of Jack-Man. In Webisode 7, “Caffeine Conspiracy,” Green Meanie attempts to sell Jack-Man on drinking soda by explaining it will give him extra energy.

Of course, he is referring to the addictive, unregulated caffeine. Green Meanie openly acknowledges his “caffeine conspiracy” to addict others to his soda.

He also recruits his old friend Caffeine Cowboy to intimidate Jack-Man into drinking soda, resulting in a draw.

Webisode 8, “Banana Shenanigans,” shows Caffeine Cowboy becoming a politician in an attempt to make bananas illegal, so that Jack-Man will no longer have access to what gives him his superpowers.

We also decided this week to take advantage of a trending video of Shia LaBeouf.

You, as Jack-Man, delivered the same motivation speech.

This coming weekend, we’re planning on filming 2 more webisodes, which will introduce a new concept in our Jack-Man webseries: allowing Green Meanie to interact with the audience in attempt to get ideas to drink Jack-Man to give in to Green Meanie’s agenda.

I like the concept of “choose your own adventure” being incorporated into our show. So we should have 10 episodes up by early next week.

Before we know, we’ll be doing our 100^th webisode. And so many cool things can happen between now and then.

It helps that you’re so cooperative as we make this videos. A few weeks ago as we were filming in the Franklin Factory, a lady walked by and commented under her breath, “Good luck getting a kid to make a video.”

She didn’t realize I didn’t need good luck.

Making these videos is what we do. It’s our father and son quality time each weekend, which is important.

I love knowing in the midst of our busy lifestyle, we get to dedicate time together for this.

Love,

Daddy

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