Twenty-one men met for the Healthy, Wealthy & Wise Symposium on January 31st at Holy Spirit Retreat Center.
Dr. Stephen Johnson began the day with opening remarks and a meditation, followed by the passing of the talking stick so that the men had an opportunity to introduce themselves, speak about their personal challenges and share how they are dealing with them. This gave the presenters an opportunity to have some awareness about their audience and how to direct their presentations.
Three experts in their fields gave exciting presentations: Richie Bizzaro on the state of business today, Chris Rudy on physical fitness, and Dr. Howard Elkin, M.D., on men’s health and aging.
Richie’s job was not an easy one due to the current state of finances in this country, yet his message was one of faith and positive thinking. He stressed that business and financial trends have always been cyclical, and this downturn was no different. He gave us a comprehensive slide presentation showing how in many cases the media has had a great deal to do with the continued financial panic in our country. Their doom-and-gloom reporting is geared to sell the sponsor’s products by any means possible, and fear is a wonderful tool to use. More people will watch channels that provide murders, rapes, crashes, and fires than those that talk about positive occurrences.
Chris’ presentation dealt with the basics of physical fitness and how to progress step-by-step from a state of physical unwellness to one of bodily fitness and health. He measured the body fat ratio of many of our attendees and explained in detail how our musculature works. He then went on to outline the four cornerstones of health: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual, and how we must balance them all to retain our well-being.
Dr. Elkin went into great detail on attaining heart health and proper nutrition, although time passed much too quickly for him to give us all the information he wanted to impart. He was a fountain of knowledge, speaking about what happens to men as we age, what signs to look for concerning possible dangers, and how to bring ourselves back to a healthy condition. He talked about the pre-diabetic condition affecting many of us , where we develop a ring of fat around our waist, our bad cholesterol and our triglycerides rise, and our testosterone level falls. His description of the national epidemic of obesity and the development of diabetes by children was hair-raising, as we see how the fast-food industry disregards the health of its clients for the sake of profits.
We learned an incredible amount of useful information, and the day went by like a rocket. I’m hopeful that we have many more seminars like today’s, and that they develop the large attendance they deserve.
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