How I came to holistic health
“You know what my brother-in-law did? He started drinking pomegranate juice.”
That’s what the paramedic said, as I sat on the exam table at the cardiologist’s office. The first thing that came to mind was: Why is this guy telling me about pomegranate juice—and what’s a pomegranate anyway?
Minutes earlier I was on a treadmill, trying to get my heart rate to 120. At 90, my chest hurt so badly I could not continue. The doctor injected what people often call “dye”—in a stress-imaging setting that is usually a radioactive tracer. A camera uses it to show how blood is reaching the heart muscle under load. I stepped off. I watched my heart rate fall straight to about 30. The cardiologist yelled, “Call an ambulance!”
Back up three days. In 2007 I was forty. Sunday morning, warming up for a soccer game, I felt tingling and tightness across my chest, elbow to elbow. By Wednesday I was winded walking my son into preschool. My wife said, “You look gray.”
In the hospital they did an emergency angioplasty. Through a catheter they inject contrast dye so X-ray can outline the coronary arteries—the vessels that feed the heart muscle—and open a blockage if needed. They found a 95 percent blockage and a lesser narrowing around 40 percent. The 95 percent lesion was the emergency; that is the one that got a stent. A moderate narrowing can still limit how much blood the vessel can deliver when you push hard, but percentage alone is a rough map. The severe blockage is what had to be opened that day.
The cardiologist’s drug plan was clear: Plavix (an antiplatelet, so blood is less likely to clot on the new stent), a beta blocker (to ease the heart’s workload), and a statin (to lower LDL cholesterol and cut the risk of another event)—framed as lifelong.
I asked, “How long do I have to take these?”
He said, “For the rest of your life.”
That did not sit well with me. I was an athlete. The idea of prescription medication for the rest of my life felt like my life was eroding.
I rebuilt the diet
A stent is a mechanical fix. It opens a narrowed artery. It does not rewrite how you eat, sleep, train, or handle stress. After the hospital, the work I put my hands on was food.
I got on the internet and started researching pomegranate juice—why would anyone suggest that for health? That search pulled me into a nutrition rabbit hole I did not know existed. For most of my life I believed food did not matter much, and that anything bad I did with eating could be undone by rigorous exercise. I was very wrong. I started listing foods said to be hard on the heart (to avoid) and foods said to help (to eat). The thinking at the time treated all meat as bad, so meat went on the ban list. Vegetables—especially leafy greens—went on the eat list. For the next six months I basically lived on unsweetened green juice, leafy greens, leeks, some broccoli. It tasted like a chore. I used niacin to work on my lipids. Noah and Jonah were four and almost three. I wanted decades with them.
High-dose nicotinic acid—niacin—almost certainly did most of the measurable work on my blood lipids afterward. A short history matters, because most men only hear “statin or nothing.”
Doctors have used nicotinic acid to change blood fats since the mid-1950s (work often traced to Rudolf Altschul)—roughly fifty years of lipid use by the time I was in that hospital. The first statin, lovastatin, was approved in the U.S. in 1987. Even the 1988 U.S. cholesterol guidelines (ATP I) still listed niacin and bile-acid binders as first-choice drugs after diet. Over the 1990s and early 2000s, large outcome trials made statins the default first-line pills for many patients. Niacin did not vanish overnight; its place in routine care shrank as statin evidence grew and later trials complicated the niacin-add-on story.
I am describing that timeline so you understand the landscape I stepped into. High-dose niacin can cause flush, and it can affect the liver, blood sugar, and uric acid.
What I can say about the greens: they were dense in dietary nitrate. The body can convert dietary nitrate toward nitric oxide, which matters for how blood vessels behave. That pathway is well described in the research literature now. In 2007 it was not dinner-table talk in most cardiology waiting rooms. I will not claim green juice reversed arterial disease. I cannot prove that. What I did, and stayed with, was the diet rebuild.
I stopped Plavix
Two days after the stent, I stopped the Plavix, the beta blocker, and the statin. I have not taken pharmaceuticals since. My resting heart rate sits in the mid-40s. That is my outcome data, not a promise of yours.
Plavix is a dangerous drug. Nobody should be on it for a lifetime, because that lifetime is cut short by taking it. Stopping it was not the dumb move. Lifelong Plavix would have been.
For about twelve years after that scare, I coached Noah and Jonah in soccer. Standing on those sidelines is part of why the food experiment was never abstract. I was trying to stay useful to my kids.
From that story to holistic coaching
“Holistic,” for me, does not mean anti-doctor. It means the whole picture: food, movement, sleep, stress, relationships, and medical tools when they are needed. Western care is often excellent at acute fixes—stents, imaging, emergency drugs. The long game for men in their 40s, 50s, and 60s is usually habits. Clinicians manage disease and prescriptions. A health coach works the daily pattern beside that care.
I am building Male Longevity Coach for men roughly 40 to 70 who want education and accountability without pretending a coach is a cardiologist. I am currently completing NBHWC training. I am not a certified, board-certified, or licensed healthcare professional. Educational content only.
A coach helps you turn the healthier life you want into actions you can repeat. You stay in charge of goals and decisions. We do not diagnose, prescribe, or rewrite your meds. We dig into what is crowding your plate, your calendar, and your follow-through—and we build defaults you can keep on a bad Tuesday.
If you want the fuller boundary list, read What is a Holistic Health & Wellness Coach? and Health Coaching vs. Medical Care. The FAQs below answer the short version of what a coach is and is not.
I would rather explain a process carefully than sell a slogan. That is why this site leads with education—starting with Autophagy Explained and the rest of the blog—before any offer goes live.
Health coaching FAQs
Here are plain answers to questions men ask when they hear “health coach.” This is education about the role. It is not medical advice.
What does a health coach do?
A health coach helps you become clearer about what you want for your health, then turn that into habits you can keep. The work is insight, follow-through, and building a life that fits you—not handing you a one-size meal plan or a diagnosis.
You stay in charge. The coach helps you notice what works, adjust what doesn’t, and stick with changes long enough that they stop feeling like a project.
Do health coaches diagnose or treat?
No. A coach does not diagnose conditions, prescribe medication, or replace your doctor, dietitian, or therapist. Coaching sits beside clinical care. Clinicians manage disease and medical decisions. Coaching supports the daily habits that make those plans livable.
How is that different from “just getting advice”?
Advice often ends when the conversation ends. Coaching is a process: you set goals you choose, try a next step, review what happened, and build skills you can use after the sessions stop. The aim is sustainable lifestyle change—not a short burst of willpower.
Can coaching work with my doctor or care team?
Yes. Many men use coaching to prepare better questions for appointments, organize habits after a visit, and stay accountable to the plan they already agreed to with a clinician. The coach does not reinterpret labs or rewrite prescriptions.
What’s needed to make coaching useful?
Honesty about what’s hard, willingness to try small changes, and patience. There is no finish line where health is “done.” The useful frame is a long game: better defaults, better recovery, better consistency.
Where does my training stand?
I am currently completing NBHWC training. I am not a certified, board-certified, or licensed healthcare professional. Educational content only. For the fuller boundary list, see What is a Holistic Health & Wellness Coach? and Health Coaching vs. Medical Care.