How I got into food and fitness and men’s vitality
What do you want your life to be like as you get older?
Contrary to popular opinion, you can recover much of your youthfulness and thrive in your 40s, 50s, 60s, and even later!
I am living proof, as are so many men my age and older. I am currently 66 and living some of the best years of my life. After falling apart at 50, I needed to find a way to recover, and I did through the generosity and wisdom of others. It wasn’t difficult once I learned a few very basic guidelines that anyone can follow.
I was born into a family of athletes and raised in the golden era of Aspen, Colorado. I have been healthy and athletic most of my life, but at age 50 things started falling apart. My perfect vision got worse, I had no energy and was always tired. My prostate enlarged. My libido declined. Anxiety and depression increased. My muscles got smaller and my belly got bigger. I developed crippling sciatica. Mental fog and forgetfulness got really bad. Every time I visited my doctors they insisted that all this was just normal signs of aging, that it was to be expected at my age and that the normal declines of aging had begun! everything got progressively worse. After being taken to emergency in an ambulance for heart attack symptoms I had been suffering for months, I was told I was actually quite fit but that I had developed acute anxiety disorder!
The doctors’ solutions were medications, potential surgeries, and chiropractic therapy. The medications only created a temporary illusion of relief but actually made everything worse. When I added alcohol to the mix, it was a disaster! I was falling apart – and quickly.
Eventually a close friend recommended a holistic doctor and, after years of pain and torture, I was ready to try anything! What do you know. My life was about to change!
With a few simple changes to my eating and sleeping habits things began to change relatively quickly. When I took the positive changes of granted and reverted to some old bad habits, my progress was slammed back down to zero. I got it!
I had a team of three experts who brought me back to life and made me younger and better and stronger than I had been in decades! The holistic doctor guided me through dietary and lifestyle management. A sports medicine doctor (for some of the most well-known athletes in the world) guided me through physical training and a sports medicine psychiatrist (for the same athletes) took care of what was going on in my brain.
Within a couple of months these three people brought me back to life and left all the “typical signs of aging” that had plagued me behind! I was in thew best shape of my life in my late 50s and subsequent 60s!
Inspiring men with this knowledge is my way of giving back to those of you who are facing your own mid-life challenges. I will share with you everything I know and continue to learn every day in my quest to make this a better world by helping men rediscover their vitality through newfound hope, strength and the joy that comes from confidently living your best life yet!
Welcome to Vital Guys!
A little history about my life:
For the past six decades I have lived a life that many people only dream about.
I have lived a life of excitement and adventure, with and without money and, most importantly, I have lived it on my own terms.
For better or for worse, based on my decisions and efforts, I have enjoyed world travel, designing and living in the house of my dreams, being broke and having millions, working hard at shit jobs and thriving with work that I love, having my own TV show, being friends with celebrities and everyday folk, held loved ones as they were born into my hands and others who died in my arms. I have known great love of life and profound self-loathing, experienced love and betrayal in family, friends and passionate relationships. I have known mental and physical health as well as sickness, and so many more things that most of us long for or suffer through that make us truly feel alive!
All in all, I call this a life well-lived.
If I died today, I could not complain.
How many of us can say that?
This statement has been true for decades, but it must be renewed each and every day.
Through all the highs and lows, the one thing that remained consistent was a voice deep inside me that wanted to learn and to make the most of each day. Sometimes I ignored the voice, and sometimes I even did my best to block or destroy it, but it was always there – except for the two darkest weeks in my life where the voice stopped. Without it there was not so much as a pinprick of light at the end of the tunnel. It was the worst two weeks of my life at the bottom of a years-long downward spiral. But, as the saying goes, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger – not invincible, but richer, stronger and, sometimes, somewhat wiser.
on the set of my regional cable TV cooking show, “Cooking With Anton”
Ever since I was a little boy I was always talking to an invisible audience, sharing what I was seeing and learning and experiencing. Every time I go to the gym to workout, every time I am painting a new canvas, every time I am cooking, I am talking to an audience, both real and imagined. Every time I am around my children, I am observing, learning and storing information to share with others, sometimes for the simple joy of it, and sometimes in hopes of saving them the long and painful learning curve of my experience.
I started writing when I was fourteen but it wasn’t until I was in my fifties that I realized I had something to say. A friend once pointed out that it is selfish not to share what we have learned so others might benefit from it.
No one can tell anyone else how to live or what decisions to make. Not everyone will hear or understand the words we have to say. It is not for us to guess who might hear our words or to judge or determine how they must be heard. Someone will hear. Someone who is ready and waiting for just these words at this time and place. Always speak and sing your song, not matter what.
I have seen highs and lows over the past sixty-plus years. I have loved and hated life, but life clings to us with ferocity and, as quickly as it goes by, it usually goes on longer than anticipated. If you are reading this, I am certain that you, like most of us, are looking for clues to reduce the pain and expand your vision and sway the balance so you too can say, All in all, mine is a life well-lived. It is my intention to help you utter those words with conviction!
Living your best life is not a reward at the end of a long to-do list.
Living your best life is an attitude that determines, here and now, how you make your way through the to-do list of your life, with all its joy and pain, so you can live your best life.
The best was not the good old days.
The best is not something coming someday.
The Best Is Now.
My name is Anton. I am an author and artist and father of two, living as an openly gay man with a profound interest in Chi and healing energy. I am curious and adventurous and have lived in 12 cities around the world. I speak four languages and am a generous spirit with a great love of people.
