We discuss in this interview about Paul’s dramatic reduction of rheumatoid arthritis symptoms:

• After three years with mild symptoms, Paul got COVID, his autoimmune system triggered and he was diagnosed with Polymyalgia rheumatica
• After an attempt with prednisone which didn’t work, he found Clint’s TedX talk and started the Paddison Program
• Strictly following the Program’s diet he quickly got tremendous results
• Protein intake
• The importance of exercise and some operational tips
• Spiritual and psychological aspects of managing RA
• Alkalization of the body
• Urad dal and chia seeds
• Mindset tips and journaling strategies
• Reintroduction tips

Clint – Thank you for joining me today here at rheumatoidsolutions.com on the Rheumatoid Solutions podcast. As always, we love happy stories and today we’re going to be inspired by Paul. Paul is going to share the improvements that he has successfully made by approaching his inflammatory arthritis with changes to his lifestyle. We’re going to learn about his dietary changes, we’re also going to learn about the physical changes that he’s made both to get himself his improvements, and how much those improvements are now showing up. He’s going to put it in his own words in just a moment, his before and after. Paul, thanks for joining me today.

Paul – Thank you, I appreciate it.

Clint – Now, we had a short chat only and I’ve saved myself from learning from you too much. It is because I want to do it live in this conversation. Can you just give us the TV commercial version of your before and after, before we dive deep?

Paul – 3 months ago, I would say maybe around March, I could not lift my arm to turn the radio on in my car. I could not lift myself out of the bed without pain. I was even afraid to go to sleep because of the pain that would ensue during the night. My hands were so swollen I could not make a fist and I was totally crippled. Basically, I was crippled and I was in pain to the point where it even brought tears to my eyes. At that time, I really didn’t know what was going on. But as you see now, I’m back in the gym. I put on five pounds of muscle and I also feel good. I still have in the morning a little bit of stiffness. But by 9 -00 am, my hands work, they’re not swollen, and I’m even wearing my wedding band. I was buying so many rings because I kept on getting bigger rings. I’m exercising regularly with almost back to where I was before I was so ill.

Clint – Wow. I mean, that’s obviously enormous. How do you feel emotionally being able to share that?

Paul – Of course, I feel great and I’m so thankful. God is just so good because God put me through the valley of the shadow of death. I did come out on the other side and I really appreciate that. I also had a lot of support because my wife was very supportive. Also, my church folk thought I was dying. It is because they were able to look at me in a different way than I was looking at myself. They actually thought I was pretty much done for and that’s how bad I looked.

Clint – It happens both through the disease itself and also if we lose some weight when we try and make some dietary changes. It seems like biologically we’re hardwired to think that if someone loses weight in the Western Society. They must have cancer and that is true. In a Western society, no one really loses weight unless they perceive that they have to work really hard to shed a few pounds.

Paul – I would tell everybody I’m trying to get to 10% body fat and that didn’t work. But that’s what I told them anyway.

Clint – Right, it is a way to appease them. Family members just worry more about weight loss than what they do, regardless of what concoction of drugs you might be taking. All the friends that you keep, if they were bad friends. Weight loss is probably the family member’s most highest concern of someone. Let’s go through this in detail and then I know you’ve got some tips to share. For other people who aren’t yet making the progress that they strive for. We’re going to hear about your ups and downs, and the medications that you came across if any. Then we’re going to talk about polls guide for life, if you’ve got autoimmune disease. First of all, walk us through when symptoms begin and where did it show up?

Paul – The symptoms began in my right shoulder, I would say three years ago. But I always chalked it up to working out with the weights or being active. Finally, I went to the chiropractor and he said it seems that I have inflammation in my arteries minor, which is the little muscle behind your rotator cuff. He said that I’ve got to chalk that up to the old disease. Then I had to massage it and do what he did, but it started to get worse. I went to a number of sports clinics and I did some testing. I went there to test if my rotator cuff was torn, but it wasn’t torn. Then I thought maybe because it’s starting to get worse, it might have been frozen shoulder. I went to the Deep Needling Institute and they did the deep needling. It’s sort of like acupuncture, but it goes into the muscle itself and it’s supposed to relax it. As a result, it really didn’t do anything and it started getting worse. I just did hot or cold and I just didn’t think of anything. But in December, I contracted the virus and whether it was COVID or not. I was down for 2 weeks and I’m never down for 2 weeks. After that, it triggered my autoimmune system to the point where I was absolutely destroyed and both of my shoulders were inflamed. I sat in an easy chair and slept in an easy chair for 3 weeks because I couldn’t get into the bed and I couldn’t get out of the bed. Everything hurt from my arms, shoulders, hands were swollen, ankles, and knees were really swollen. Fortunately, they weren’t as bad as some with the inflammation, but they were sore. I did have trouble going up and down the stairs, but up was better than down. From December to maybe February, I decided to go to the doctor. I went to the doctor and he looked at my hands and he said, I think you might have rheumatoid arthritis. I said, this is a kick-off from the flu and I don’t think I have RA. Then he said, I’m looking at your fingers and it looks like you have RA. I said, give me Celebrex because I was reading online, from Dr. Google, and Celebrex is supposed to alleviate things. I did Celebrex for a week and then I did ibuprofen for the next week, and it didn’t help at all. I went back to the doctor and he said that I have RA. Then I said, maybe I should make sure that it’s not Lyme’s disease or whatever. Then, he swore up and down it was all RA. After $650 later, I get all the tests back and everything is negative and I don’t have RA. But I do have what’s called PMR or Polymyalgia rheumatica, which has the same basic deterioration events as RA. It’s not as chronic, but still the effects could be as dramatic. He said that my inflammation level or my index was so high that I needed to go immediately on prednisone. Now, just to back up a minute, he did put me on prednisone for a week. But the day after, I’ll tell you, I went right back to being crippled and I knew that wasn’t the answer. From your videos and your discussion, I knew that wasn’t the answer either. He wanted to put me on prednisone for 6 months and I said, what are the side effects? Then, we laid it all out but I will find other ways to solve this. Then, I decided to the Goldberg Clinic because a friend of ours at the church had gone to the Goldberg Clinic and she had tremendous results. Then, I Googled Golberg Clinic, low and behold, they had a video about a guy from Australia was interviewing them, which was you.

Paul – After I heard them and I had called him already, had spoken to them already. But after I heard what they were saying and then I heard what you were saying. After that I said, I need to check out Clint Paddison and I listen to your TED talk. After watching that TED talk, I was totally sold. I recognized that to alkali your body because I’m into that health stuff too and I knew the alkalinization is important. Over the summer, I was eating a lot of meat and I was trying to get my protein. But it was just making me so acidic and it really didn’t help my situation. I followed your program to the T and I am still juicing now. I did that from April until last month or so and I started to introduce other things. The one thing I thought helped was a Chinese herb, which the Garden of Life sells. Here’s the problem with taking that with and everything else. All of a sudden, I got an allergic reaction with the Chinese herb. It is because it contains nitrates and I’m allergic to nitrates, and that was a wreck. Then I said, let me just stick with the natural stuff. It’s basically where I am today and I’ve been able to start again with a couple of things that I have added. I’m off the dairy, I added the bean curd, some chicken, but mostly vegetables. During the time when I was totally off meat altogether I had written to you about, how do I get my protein? It is because I thought I would get emaciated. Then, I did the garbanzo beans and all those things, and that did help. Then some of the protein powders that you had suggested, I try those and they help as well. At this point, I’m not 100% but I’m well back to 90%. I just need to get my hands right and my knees are still a little sore, but I’m doing really well. The only other thing is I’m going to encourage everyone to exercise. I use the bands and it could be either resistance bands. I look at all the videos and do the routines. I also do the free weights because I built a gym in my barn, which I can use. But then, what happens when you do exercises? Any time you use your muscle, it does cause inflammation. You just want to be really careful because I know if I’m doing anything heavy the next day. I’m a little slower than normal, but that’s where it’s at. It’s just to be encouraged and then you keep moving forward little by little. It’s been 6 months and this is my progress. After 6 months of research, sweat, tears, and being very regimented in my diet.

Clint – It’s beautiful and you are gaining strength now, aren’t you? You’ve put muscle mass back on and you probably want to continue in that direction, but are you seeing slow and steady gains with your workouts?

Paul – Yeah, absolutely. I have gains, I feel good, and I feel better mentally. Even if we’re just mental, it’s such a great encouragement. I think I wrote to you and I wrote that I couldn’t even get dressed and I couldn’t put my shirt on. I needed help to put my shirt on and I also couldn’t put my tie over my head. It was a horrible experience in my life. The therapy that I went through with the Sports Institute did nothing to help me improve. Always remember that the diet is key. Even if you never worked out or even if you never did any kind of exercise, the diet is key and the diet alone will get you to some great gains.

Clint – Yeah, 90% recovery is sensational. Can you provide some of your encouraging tips? You’ve mentioned the workouts and I agree with that wholeheartedly. We could go into more detail if you like? Over the years I’ve noticed that if my fingers don’t feel right, that actually appropriately using my hands hanging from overhead bars or from using resistance weights. With that, it helps the fingers as well. You wouldn’t think that it’s related. I’m actually working my chest muscles or my arms and why would my finger inflammation go away? It’s an interesting phenomenon and I’m curious to get your intuition on this. Do you think that workouts have also played a role in improving not just your rotator cuff issue that you had, but inflammation overall?

Paul – Absolutely and it is because it gets the blood flowing. In the morning, I would move my hands to be a professional musician, and I could do that now. Well, maybe even now I could go back there. In the morning, I would get up and my hands would be so swollen. With that, I would soak them and move them. Now when I wake up and they’re a little stiff, I’ll just move them and I’ll just do stuff like that. It just helps becuase it gets the blood flowing, it gets joints to get lubricated, and that’s important.

Clint – You obviously have a spiritual side and you are faith-based. Can you talk about those aspects of your life? Also, how they’ve helped you get to where you are?

Paul – When I was at my worst, I wasn’t doing much. I’m a minister, I am in the pulpit, and I drag myself into the pulpit. I was able to type, but it was a little difficult. In my worst or darkest time, I read the Book of Job and that’s where you go when you’re really hurting. In the West and I guess with you as well, no one wants to be put through any kind of a trial. Everybody wants everything to go well, but there’s so much learning. When you are afflicted or when you tried, it’s the time when you really start to put your priorities back into perspective. I think we can use our trials, whether it’s physical or family issues. I think we need to take into account the blessings. We don’t deserve any blessings really, but when we do we should be more thankful. We should really give thanks for those things Then, I realized that I was put through this so that I could help others. We have a young lady in our church who’s basically got the same issue here and I’ve encouraged her to go to your program. I think it really puts us back into perspective and prioritizes what’s really important. All that stuff out there is not that important. I consider that family and health are very important. We shouldn’t shun the hardship, although it is tough and I can attest to it. I didn’t think I’d ever get better and I thought I was done.

Clint – Do you think that it’s made you more empathetic and more of a person who can connect more deeply with others or with people who are suffering within your church group, families, and friends?

Paul – I’ve been always pretty sympathetic and even empathetic in many instances, but even more now because of the physical ailment. It’s been a learning process to your work and through my personal research. I think I have more tools now to offer to others in their quest to get better. I think we have a better toolbox with a lot of information and resources. I think that is something that we need to share with those who are hurting and I appreciate having those tools.

Clint – What about some advice that you’re giving the young lady, who has similar issues to you? Let’s say that she doesn’t want to go full on with the program at the moment, what essential changes are you recommending that she should make?

Paul – I would recommend a total alkalizing of the body. She had that issue since she was a child and the solution is to alkali the body. Here’s the other thing, this is no easy road and we don’t want to make it like this was easy because this wasn’t easy. It takes a certain psychological shift or a life change. I have to admit that for me, it was easier because my lifestyle was health-based. It was juicing because I had the juicer, mixers, and I had all the herbs. But even that was very difficult because it was pretty much a total change. I couldn’t eat the things that I wanted to eat or thought I should eat and it was a total change. When I was still watching your videos, I would go write everything down. I have to go by this or I have to buy this rice cooker and I had to find a place on the counter. My wife was saying, you’re taking over my kitchen. I’m like, that’s right, and this is important right now and this is how we have to live. We made the changes and we put our mind to it. If you can get the psychological issues in line, you’ve got 90% of the problem solved and then you just have to do it. This is life and there’s definitely restructuring everything. Just try to get on a schedule. For example, juicing in the morning or maybe in the evening and not eating the things that you like. I feel sorry for your little girl that she’ll never have ice cream, but you know what? Ice cream is not good for you anyway. I used to love ice cream and I don’t do ice cream anymore, but there are alternatives. I’ll make a smoothie out of protein drink and I’ll freeze it. Then, I’ll have that with some blueberries and it’s always an option. I think it is probably the hardest thing to give up and these are things that you really liked or really loved. But if you know they’re not really good for you, it’ll be a little easier to get rid of them.

Clint – It then brings us back into your comment just prior to that, which is all comes back to your mind and your attitude, doesn’t it? If we can get our headspace correct, then we can have the discipline to eat the right way and it doesn’t become easy. But we win the battle and we’ve always fought these micro battles. We want to go out to dinner with our friends, but those restaurants they want to go to aren’t compatible. Also, we just want to duck out of the house for a couple of hours to run some errands. But you’re hungry and you realize that when you’re out, you can’t stop at McDonald’s or with another one of the restaurants. We have these micro battles all the time and we have to get into a rhythm with our lifestyle so that it doesn’t have friction. But we set ourselves up to succeed more easily, don’t we?

Paul – Yeah, I’m from an Italian community and pasta is like a staple. I haven’t had pasta for 5 months and I’m not so sure I’ll ever have it again. But yes, at the end of the world and you are right mind will dictate your action. You can put your mind in gear and you’re fine.

Clint – I want to just encourage you and say, I eat pasta all the time. We had pasta last night and you can get to that place unless you are concerned from a point of view of celiac disease, if you actually have celiac condition. If you do not and you even if you have a gluten sensitivity and want to eat pasta or bread or so forth, I’ve seen people get there. You said that you’re like you’re only half a year into this. There’s going to be a point in the future if you persist and you have the progress ongoing that you’re witnessing. With that, you’ll be able to one day eat these foods that you want to eat that are not counterproductive and that won’t cause inflammation again. Why don’t we explore a couple of strategies that I have in mind for you that you might want to implement next? Are you open to that?

Paul – Oh, absolutely.

Clint – There’s a particular food that you mentioned and those are beans. You said that you’re eating garbanzo beans at the moment. Normally when one person can eat beans, they can end up eating most of the family of beans. Normally, the constituents of the bean mean that they’re somewhat similar and they overlap a lot. If you can eat Pinto, normally you can eat black beans and so on, right? If you can’t eat those, you can only have navy beans. This opens up an ability to vary your beans, which is great for flavor and for feeling compliant or happy with your foods. But also those little bits of variations in fiber that come with the variations of beans increase diversity if you got bacteria. It’s just that little bit more and so that’s a positive step. But it’s not the big step that I’m excited to share with you the most. There is a particular Indian dal called, urad dal and it’s a black lentil. This black lentil has the most extraordinary Omega-3 and Omega-6 ratio in favor strongly of Omega-3. It’s very hard to find plant-based foods that are so positively slanted to 3 to 6. I’ve heard where you’re up to and I really like that we’ve communicated by email. I want to see you continue and I want you to thrive. If I were you, given that you can already eat beans and it is likely that you will also eat lentils. Try if you can find that and you might have to order it online and see if you can find the black dal or an urad dal. Then, make that a regular meal in your routine and I think this could be a nice little tweak. The other thing is something that’s been working well within our support community in rheumatoid support is people are having success with just soaking some chia seeds and eating a few of chia seeds.

Paul – That’s my dessert and they get along with some fruit.

Clint – You’ve already got that in the mix and keep ramping that up until you’re able to easily have sort of 4 tablespoons of chia per day. You can just soak them for 15 minutes beforehand. As you said, they go great with fruit. If you open a papaya and scrape open all the black seeds that are in there and put the soaked chia seeds in there. Oh, that’s delicious.

Paul – Yeah, that’s usually my dessert and that is also what my wife made for me. I appreciate it and I feel like I’m back to normal in my eating, but I’m not eating the things that are going to hurt me. I pretty much become familiar with what I can do or what I can’t do and I don’t feel as I’m missing out on anything. I’m here at the college where people working and doing things. When it’s a Wednesday night, it’s a pizza night. I had steamed broccoli and they had pizza with pepperoni, which if I didn’t mind and It doesn’t matter. I don’t want it and I don’t desire it. It’s not something that I’m saying, my life is so miserable because I can’t eat the things I want and that’s not the way it is.

Clint – We’re going back to mindset now. It is because clearly, that’s an area that you have really developed some great competency around that. Can you give us some examples of the sort of thoughts that go through your head with regards to where you want to get to? Any kind of mantras or self-beliefs that you have in your mind that circulate these hidden things that other people can’t see what they are. For example, before I was diagnosed, I used to think I was the luckiest guy in the world. I used to genuinely repeat to myself, purely like through amazement, I’m the luckiest guy in the world. Then I got diagnosed and that mantra sort of dissipated for many years. It’s not something that kind of fleetingly comes in and out of my mind like it used to. But there are other sorts of thought processes that we all have. What are the ones that you think these repetitious thoughts that you have, drives you, and that give you the outcomes that you’re looking for?

Paul – The first thing I was thinking was, what can I learn from my difficulties? It is because there’s always a learning process somewhere. If I don’t learn from this issue or from this crisis, then it’s just going to repeat itself down the road and I can have to learn it all over again. With that, I want to learn the first time. I also want to learn, be thankful and be diligent. It drives you to look for solutions, which is good. It’s not only for yourself and usually you’re not looking for the solutions yourself. You didn’t look for the solutions only for yourself and you might have initially looked to yourself. Then you realize, I have a treasure here for others and I want to help others. We’re always doing something not only for ourselves but also for others and that’s how we should think. I did want to progress incrementally and I wasn’t looking for healing overnight, that usually doesn’t happen. I put it in my mind that I was going to be patient. I think that’s the one thing human beings don’t want to deal with. They don’t want to be patient because we live in a fast paced society or a fast food society. We are living in an Internet society, where you click the little mouse and you get whatever you want. Then if it’s a nanosecond too slow, you want to throw the computer out the window. With that new thing that’s the day (inaudible) live, right? I’m going to be patient and I’m going to work the process. Now, just to be fair and true, there were times when you’re at your wit’s end. Then you have to regroup and say, I said that I was going to be patient, work the thing out and what I did. I think what you suggested was to write a journal. I have 2 columns in my journal for each day. The first column contains what I ate and when I ate it. The second column was in the morning, what will my pain levels for fingers, wrists, shoulders, knees, ankles, and whatever. Then my journal would go from 1 to 10. I was looking back at that journal, just not too long ago. I stopped journaling because I don’t have to, but I was at 9 on some mornings. There were also times that I was at 9, or 7, or, 8 all day long. Then I would go back and compare it with what I have now. Now I’m only a 6, or, 4 or, 3, and there were days when it was zero. I had no pain in my knee or in the right knee or maybe the left knee was bothering me. Now I’m watching and I’m able to calculate very distinctly all of my progress, and that in itself was an encouragement. I do that with my weight and with my everything. You write things down so that you can go back even if it’s just little notes. Today, I didn’t sleep well and I couldn’t get out of bed very easily. With that, it will help you mentally and it will give you that push to go further. Let’s get to a 7 instead of 8 in a week and give yourself some goals.

Clint – Yeah, I love it! I want to underline this point so much. Tony Robbins has taught me years ago from watching his work that what we measure improves. Then he goes on to say that, what we measure or share improves exponentially. Then we add accountability to that measurement and I cannot emphasize this enough. As you were speaking there I was thinking, I wonder if I can quickly pull up all my gym notes. Every time I go to the gym, I used to list everything. With the lockdown, I’m using outdoor bars and stuff. I record everything like partial reps and how much I have done. When it’s cold, I’ll be using a full tracksuit and everything. Because I’ve got all this extra clothing on, I’ll add in brackets. All the clothes that I was wearing because of the extra weight. I know it’s only maybe a partial pound of weight. But I like that detail and the same like you talked about. There are books somewhere here of all of my pain journaling that you’re talking about. It has little notes and side comments like that hurt more, it felt different and it moved. Then, what we measure improves and it teaches the brain because it’s on paper that it’s important. I don’t know if you’ve done this, but sometimes I would take all of the numbers and then chart them so I could see visually the direction of the total pain level.

Paul – It becomes fun and you’ve become your own science experiment. It could be frustrating because you’re not seeing the progress. But if you’re patient, you work the system and you watch. With that, you can get better.

Clint – Yeah, I think this is a great discussion. There is something I want to share with you about your fingers that could help. It is because you talk about clearing those fingers. What you want to do is form your fist like this. Then actually try and open the fist against your own flesh. With that, the fingers can’t open because they’re locked into a fist position. Then actively try and open them. Then if maybe, hold them back by pushing or putting a thumb inside the fingers there and we’re trying to open them. Now, doing that addresses the micro tendinitis that exists at the joint, particularly the knuckle joints. It’s because we always think that our fingers are just synovitis or just rheumatoid arthritis, but this is a limiting view of what’s actually happening. It is because at the knees and the elbows is where we get more of a macroscopic view of the whole scenario. There is a lot of tendonitis going on as well on the side, as well as the joint inflammation from the autoimmune process. But the fingers also get tendinitis and this took me a long time to work out. The way that I was getting rid of tendonitis in the big joints was the same strategy with the small joints. The most effective way is to build grip strength. You should work with a grip strengthener or you can also hang from bars. With that, try and increase the length of time we can take our own body weight to build the finger and grip strength, but the reverse is true as well. Just like a leg extension is used to build quadriceps muscles and reduce tendonitis. We can do that by trying to expand out our fingers like that. At first, there’s tenderness there because there is tendinitis, right? I would ask you to explore this not in a way as an instructional way, but just as an experimental thing that you could add to your toolkit as we talked about.

Paul – What I would have had to do with some of the dumbbells. I had to get these grips that were bigger because my hands wouldn’t close. I use these big grips for a while now, but now I don’t need the big grips. It is because now they are too cumbersome. I was seeing what I could do with what I had and what I needed to get back to normal, and that was an experiment in itself.

Clint – How would the shoulders now? Are there things that you found you need to do for those specifically?

Paul – My left shoulder is still a little tender, but the right shoulder is fine. It’s with the left shoulder that is still a little bit tender depending on the movement. Mostly when it’s straight up this way or when you’re using it this way, that position hurts. But if it’s straight this way and back, it is not too bad. But if it is positioned sideways or this way, it’s a little tender. Also, even this one is a little tender as well, but that’s what I’m working on. That is why I am still not 100% but just 90%.

Clint – Well, this might sound a little bit of a strange statement, but I love shoulder issues. The reason that I love shoulder issues is that they normally respond really well to persistent particular interventions. I’ll tell you what I’ve found works best and I didn’t invent this stuff. There’s a book called, I’m going to have to look this up because I don’t remember it. I’ll come back to it when you speak next and I’ll check the Internet for this. But it is a book that’s written by a shoulder surgeon or an orthopedic surgeon, who does rotator cuff surgeries and so on. He says that most of those injuries or most of those problems can be resolved through physical interventions. One that he recommends the most is hanging from an overhead bar to change the shape of the shoulder capsule and to strengthen all of those muscles through your back. His protocol involves strengthening the shoulders and the back muscles. Also, changing the position of the capsule of the shoulder through hanging from overhead bars with a forward facing grip again and not chin up but forward facing grip. His book or the name of that book. which I will get and I would recommend you buy. It would cost you a couple of bucks for a Kindle version of that book. Then, he goes through all of the science behind it, all the results that he’s had, and it’s quite phenomenal. But also you can just skip to the exercises, where you see the pictures of what to do and you can have the pictures in front of you in seconds, right?

Paul – Yeah, you should put that on your website or somewhere.

Clint – I’ll share it with you straight after this, but I’ll also bring it up for people who are listening to this. They could be thinking, tell us the name. I just can’t remember off-hand but what’s worked for me. I’ve been through everything and I’ve had all these challenges with the shoulder problems amongst all the other stuff for nearly 16 years of rheumatoid. I can’t emphasize enough how pull-ups and chin-ups are the solutions to upper back issues. This immediately seems to tune out every sort of person who thinks that’s way outside of my comfort zone or something I could never even attempt. Just like my wife Melissa, who’s just this fabulously in shape healthy Yoga teacher. She’s like, I can’t do them and I just won’t even think about it. But just attempt to hold your own body weight as much as you need to begin.

Paul – I have a hanging bar and I’m going to do it tomorrow.

Clint – Get into it and get this book. While doing it, you should be facing forward facing grip and fist slightly wider than shoulder-width. Then just see if you can hang and see if you can take your body weight. If you can hang, attempt to pull up your body weight and you won’t be able to probably. Then each day just try and one day you’ll go up an inch and you will get there to your goal. I’m talking to you and I’m not saying everyone. I can see that you’re going to do it.

Paul – I have a dipping bar and I did that a little bit, but that really bothers me.

Clint – Do not do the dip bar because what we want to do is we’re going to entirely focus on that strength. It is because the dip bar is for the chest and triceps. I’ve found the book on Amazon and it’s called, Shoulder Pain? The Solution and Prevention. The author is Dr. John M. Kirsch, MD, and he’s a medical doctor. Go and check that out if you’ve got shoulder pain. Also, get yourself an overhead buy that you can also buy online. There are about $40 and you can put them in any regular doorway of your house. They are cleverly designed so that they can sit in the doorway and you can go through these exercises. I’m excited about that and with some of the things that we’re brainstorming here. Let’s get you from 90% to 91% the next month and 92% the next month, right? As they say, slowly but surely. I think it’s been a really fun discussion, and I hope you don’t mind that I’ve jumped in and made a few little suggestions. No one is solving this for us, are they?

Paul – That was the best line from your TED talk. No one is solving this for me, I’ve got to do it myself. I’m a smart guy and I know that I can do this, and that’s how I think that we can do it. God’s going to help us with whatever things that we need to do. We’ve got the Internet and you don’t have to go to the Library of Congress. We have the Internet, we can do the research, and then we use ourselves as our own guinea pigs. Then, we see what works and only we know what works.

Clint – Yeah, that’s right. We’re all our own little micro experiments. We all have differences, different problems, and different sets of challenges. With that, we can only just try stuff. As you said, it was 1 giant experiment test to see if it works.  Have you inspired anyone around you who’ve said, wow you’ve really come a long way and what are you doing?

Paul – I think there was a transformation among the people who I know, who is a church folk. From being looking like I was about to die to where I was pretty much my normal self or back to my natural weight. They said, this is great and what are you doing? I do want to add this if we have a minute. We have a man in the church who is very into horses and he was writing for a Horse Magazine. He introduced herbs that supposedly were helping animals to cure their rheumatoid arthritis. I even tried that, but it just didn’t work and this was before I met you. It just didn’t do it and it was really expensive. One of the things that worked was the diet. You should change your diet, fix your gut, and eat alkali. Then, buy the test strips or those pH test strips and test it yourself. You can do it every week or a couple of days, in the afternoon. Just see if you can chart that as well and it will show you your results. For example, you found out that your body is really acidic. With that, it is maybe the cause why I’m not feeling well today. Then you juice your celery, your cucumber, and maybe a little apple if you like it. For me, I like a little Apple in there.

Clint – I remember when I was paying on those strips. I used to buy maybe 3 or 4 boxes of those strips. Then, I’d be just paying on those things all the time. I completely understand that concept of alkalinity and when I’m trying to alkalize the body, and it’s definitely part of the whole picture. To the skeptics out there, we’re not talking about alkalizing the blood because the blood’s pH must maintain a very narrow range. If the blood deviates even slightly outside of its designated pH range, we die either up or down. We’re talking about the fluids in the body and not the blood, which there are a lot. We’re circulating water and we’re basically a skin that supports an aquatic creature. Let’s get the alkalinity right and we know that juicing does that. All the plant foods are alkaline-forming except nuts. But if we’re talking about the early stages of our program, alkaline is alkaline. Do you do anything specifically targeting stress reduction, have you found that? We’ve talked about exercise, which is effective, I think, particularly for men, we feel better after we push ourselves. But is there anything else that you do to target stress reduction?

Paul – The one thing that was very stressful while I was ill was I wasn’t able to exercise. It is because that was my only release.  Now that I’m able to exercise or do the bands, I’m feeling good about myself a little bit better and that’s my stress relief. Now, a lot of people do other things. When I was really bad, the doctor had put me on prednisone. I went to Florida with my wife and the day we got there was the last day for my prednisone. The next day I was miserable, but I was at a great resort. But at that time, I was still miserable because I was not feeling right, and even that wasn’t a stress relief for me. It’s about being able to be mobile or being able to get into the car without falling into the car. It is because I would have to put my back against the back and fall in because I couldn’t get in and get out. It was tough to get out because I have a car. I would have to drive my truck and then I could just slide out. Then I couldn’t get in and I was messed up. Just to be able to be functioning physically was my stress reliever.

Clint – It makes sense, doesn’t it? There’s no greater stress in our lives than when the disease that has brought us the most unhappiness gets worse. Yeah, that is the ultimate stress. It’s an acceleration to happiness and healing when that starts to go down. It is because we don’t only feel less physical stress, we then also have less emotional stress and energy starts to come back. Suddenly it’s like you are rapidly feeling better and quick mentally or physically.

Paul – I felt like, where was my masculinity? I’m like a little emaciated little girl and I felt horrible. It was so bad and I didn’t know what was happening. After that things got better, I’m feeling better, and I’m on the road to recovery now. I have to watch myself because I know if I stray off of that alkalinity diet, I’ll feel it the next day. I try not to stray and I try to be on it as long as I can. But now you told me that I can eat pasta, I’m going to give it a shot. I’m not going to lie but I’ll just give a shot or just a little bit and see what happens, but I’m sure I’ll be fine.

Clint – What you probably want to do there is, first of all, test the tomatoes. Can you eat tomatoes?

Paul – Yeah, absolutely I can eat tomatoes. Actually, I can eat stewed tomatoes and I think I have a threshold. If I go over the threshold or I have too much of the nitrate, then it kicks in. But if I have a little bit and then I lay off for a while, I can have a little bit more. I just have to be careful of the threshold. If I eat over that, it’s when I get sick.

Clint – Therefore we have the testing one thing at a time criteria. We also have the going back to one of your mantras of being patient. Then if you can’t handle too much now, just try again in another month. Definitely, on your list of goals, you should be able to add have a pasta with sauce that I can enjoy and have a regular size. Not some kind of test size, but a regular size. You could do that during Christmas this year or something like that. Just start with a little pasta sauce. My wife makes our pasta sauce at home and she did it in the United States. There were pasta sauces that we could buy, especially from Engine 2 which is the Esselstyn Family business. But here, there is no equivalent that tastes good and is oil-free. There are oil-free pasta sauces, but they don’t taste good and they taste it just a little out of fish. Melissa makes the pasta sauce and we do know that the tomatoes are strong, but test the tomatoes. See if you can eat them and then test a little pasta. While testing, you could have a baby-sized sample and see how you go. Before that, I’d be doing the dal and I’d be increasing the chia quantity to more. Also, just maintaining feeling well for another month or two before rocking the boat too much. I chatted to Dr. Brooke Goldner about this and she has a good phrase that she uses. She said, you are feeling good but at least let the paint dry. Yet you’re only just starting to feel good and I like that expression. The longer the period of time in which you remain feeling well whilst eating those foods and getting stronger, you’re healing on the inside, and it’s not that nothing’s happening. If the process takes a long time, then that’s advantageous because that period of time is a long healing process. Just remember, don’t try and test too many things.

Paul – Honestly, I really don’t miss it. It’s not like I’m dying for a bowl of pasta, but I know my limitations and I just want to be careful. I’d rather feel good and lay off the pasta than have the pasta and feel miserable. It is because when you are feeling pain, there is just no fun and you all know that.

Clint – I think we’ve covered most of what I’d like to go through. Is there something that you’d really like to share other than what we’ve covered?

Paul – No, I just appreciate all the information, all the research, your podcast, and the doctors that are on there. We’ll just keep pushing forward and experimenting. I’m definitely to buy that book and try that hanging tomorrow.

Clint – Yeah, go for it and it’s a fun thing to do too. I just feel that we’re physiologically designed to be able to climb. We’re all happy with the concept of we’re fast runners and so on. I think we’re good at climbing too and we should reinstate that natural ability. The one thing I’m a bit skeptical about is whether or not we’re meant to be swimming. I never really find swimming to be too easy. But I think climbing and running these things that humans are meant to have skills that from birth.

Paul – Actually, while I was swimming it was the first time I recognized that I had a problem with my shoulder. While I was backstroking, my shoulders were hurting and that was years ago.

Clint – Interesting. I’m not dissing swimming, but I certainly find that it’s not something that comes naturally. But anyway, we digress slightly and I just want to thank you again. I’m cheering you on and we’re in constant contact. I appreciate you and the efforts that you’re putting in. Let’s keep you on that path, and maybe we chat again in a year and see where you’re at. Let’s see if you’ve got that extra couple of percentage up and who knows, maybe up to 100.

Paul – Very good! Clint, thank you so much.

Clint – Okay. Thank you.

Paul – Thanks.