Paul A. Akers - Lean Health: Aging in Reverse

A Word from Paul

If I were to summarize my entire book in one word it would be Ferrari. The secret to excellent healththe answeris to treat your body like you would treat a Ferrari. A Ferrari is the archetype of a sports car, one of the most precise and high performance machines ever made. It is exotic, fast, agile and beautiful. If you take care of your body as you would a Ferrariusing only the best fuel and regularly taking it to the best mechanic for maintenanceyour body will give you ten times what you put into it, for the duration of your life. So ask yourself, Do I treat my body like a Ferrari or a Pinto?

Your body is a high performance sports car transporting you through life. It is the vehicle you use to experience everything. If your vehicle is in excellent condition, your life experiences will be more full and complete. If you choose to take average care of your high performance sports car, you should only expect an average life experience. The more you respect your body and care for it the more magic you will experience.

Lean Health tells the story of how I went from having average health to having exceptional health. I achieved this exceptional health in just one year. These are the four things that define exceptional health for me:

Most of my life I was over 210 pounds. Now I find it easy to maintain 165, which is the correct weight for my height of 510. (Go to the link at the end of this section to watch Excellent Health has Many Benefits video)

When I go to the doctor for a checkup, he says, You look amazing and your health is excellent. What are you doing?

I have a strong, muscular body with a chiseled abdomen; something that was just a dream before.

Finally and most important, it is easy to sustain exceptional health. After a full year of living healthy, I have no temptation to backslide into any unhealthy habits. I just have a total love affair with serving and taking care of my greatest customermy body! (Go to the link at the end of this section to watch my One Year Lean video)

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Foreword

by Jeffrey K. Liker

When Jim Womack was working on The Machine that Changed the World he was struggling to name this remarkable phenomenon that Toyota seemed to exemplify.

Toyota was thinking long-term; innovating, designing and building high quality cars at a steady pace, with very little inventory or other waste, while claiming their purpose was to contribute to society. It sounded too good to be true! A graduate student at the time, John Krafcik, suggested he call this unusual way of thinking and behaving lean because Toyota was doing more of everything with less of everything, like a lean athlete.

Now we come full circle and Paul has provided wondrous imagery of what it is like to live a lean lifestyle. And he is able to provide himself as an example. He is on his lean journey at work and is now extending that to a lean personal lifestyle.

This is also a lean bookwritten crisply, clearly and in a way that engages us from the first line. I love the Ferrari metaphor. Take care of your body like you would take care of your very expensive and beautiful red Ferrari. It raises the irony that we may value things more than we do our own bodies.

Toyota today presents their own way as having two pillarsrespect for people and continuous improvement. Pauls book brings to mind respect for ourselves, including the impact we have on the world and continuously improving ourselves.

Continuous improvement means exactly what it saysnever stop or pause. A lean lifestyle suggests that we do not take vacations from living healthy and do not proceed in fits and starts. Most diet fads lead to unusual eating patterns to lose a lot of weight, and then fight a losing battle to maintain the lower weight. In The Toyota Way when I talk about leveling the workload I use the analogy of the tortoise and the hare. A lean lifestyle is more like the tortoiseslow, steady and consistent. This is automatically self-sustaining.

I had a similar experience to what Paul describes, though at a much lower level. When I reached my mid-50s a friend suggested I try her personal trainer. I had been creeping up in weight every year and saw a photo of myself in a tee shirt and it frightened me to see my belly hanging out over my belt. I went to the gym and began working with the personal trainera petite woman who was much more gentle on me then Pauls trainer. I explained my weight loss goal and she made it simple. Only two things matter in weight losscalories you take in minus calories you burn.

Over time she gave me eating tips. For the last six years I have maintained daily workouts, personal training for 1 hour 2-3 times a week, walking an 18 hole golf course every chance I get and eating more healthy then I used to. I get a fair share of compliments on how I look. But I use artificial sweetener, my workouts are still on the treadmill, I do not measure anything and I take over-the-counter drugs. I do not have a six-pack and have not climbed to Mount Everest Base Camp.

As you read Pauls description of how he is leading a lean lifestyle, think of it as a source of inspiration like Toyota is to many organizations throughout the world. Toyota thinks of the Toyota Way as true North, something they never can live up to 100%, but as providing a direction they aspire to. Paul is giving us a powerful true North direction. Anyone who does half of what Paul is describing will find themselves happier and healthier, at least that is what I am telling myself.

As I was writing this, my wife sent me an email with an appropriate quote that happens to be from one of the leading advocates of holistic medicine:

Every time you are tempted to react in the same old way, ask if you want to be a prisoner of the past or a pioneer of the future. ~Deepak Chopra

Paul is providing a sensible vision of a desirable future for us all. It has already inspired me to make some changes in my own life: more pushups as part of my daily exercise, more vegetables and fruit. I am right now at an airport and after reading the book selected a chef salad instead of a barbeque sandwich.

So please read this book, reflect and enjoy. What do you want your life to look like down the road? What one positive step can you take to start on a new path? Paul suggests it gets easier and at some point exercise and healthy eating are joyous experiences.

Jeffrey K. Liker
Author of The Toyota Way

2secondlean.com/lh-foreword

Word on the Street

After my 18th birthday, a restaurant owner at the time, I started gaining weight. I gained 4 pounds per year to be precise. Fast forward 30 years and the math becomes obvious. Obese was an understatement at a weight of 310 pounds. Then comes this 2 Second Lean Health process outlined by Pauls trials and tribulations. It took a little while to get it but when I did, the rockets started firing . I have managed to lose 4 pounds a week over the past 10 weeks! Are you kidding me? I would never, in a million years, have thought this was possible. When I am done, I will be back at my high school weight and will have added 20 active years to my life. What a gift! This is a must-do-type book. After you break through the barriers that Paul describes, you will never look at your life the same way. Paul may be a Ferrari, but I am the Space Shuttle Discovery!

George Trachilis, P.Eng., Author of OEM Principles of Lean Thinking, President & CEO, Lean Leadership Institute

In his new book, Lean Health, Paul Akers presents a relentlessly logical, elegant approach to improving ones own personal state of health. Its CLEAR. His book is loaded with specific examples. A favorite of mine is the picture diet. Its ATTAINABLE. Everything he suggests is possible for all of us. Paul does a great job of challenging the excuses we make when we try to convince ourselves that in some circumstancestravel, for examplehealthy practices arent possible. He proves they are. It PAYS OFF more than it COSTS. By making this approach simple and fun, Paul takes the cost out of the recipe. By sharing the benefits of his own journey, from being in the best shape of his life down to the exquisite tastes of non-processed, natural foods, fruits and vegetables, we can taste the payoff for making healthy changes in our own daily practices. Simply by reading this book, I have bought into launching my own Lean Health journey. Once you read it, so will you.