Mental Health

The Green Ring — Peace. Presence. Inner Strength.

The Mental Leg is the quiet, hidden one. It carries a stigma that keeps too many people from talking about it honestly. I am going to talk about it honestly.

I have struggled with my own Mental Leg my entire life — and I deal with it to this day. To be perfectly transparent, this entire movement stems partly from those struggles. I need a community of like-minded people to build me up just as much as I want to build up the Live Prescription Free movement. If that surprises you — good. That is exactly the kind of honesty this leg requires.

My Own Story

Since third grade I was diagnosed with a learning disorder. I struggled to recall things I had just read, and memorization was a constant battle. Becoming a doctor or lawyer was never in the cards — those fields require exactly the kind of recall that did not come naturally to me. Math was different. Math made sense. So I chose Engineering, and that decision opened doors throughout my entire career.

But not being able to recall topics as easily as others, struggling in games like Trivial Pursuit, forgetting people’s names — all of it quietly chipped away at my self-confidence for years. Too many times I would pull back from a conversation rather than risk saying the wrong thing. What I lacked in confidence though, I made up for with true grit and effort. That has been my approach to everything in life — and it still is.

Why The Mental Leg Is Non-Negotiable

For so many people, their inner self is their own worst enemy. It starts with childhood trauma, the feeling of not fitting in, or the quiet erosion of confidence that builds over years. Whatever the cause, the effects last a lifetime — and for too many, they lead to habits that feel comforting in the moment but are quietly destructive over the long term.

Strong mental health means living in the present. Not suffering over a past you cannot change. Not worrying about a future you cannot fully control. Until you truly love yourself and genuinely want the best for yourself, you will not sustain the motivation to care for your body consistently. Not for a week. Not for three months. But day after day, month after month, year after year — which is what becoming a 7 Percenter actually requires.

I will be the first to admit that I love a good bottle of wine. A cold beer in the summer. A gin and tonic on a warm evening. Even knowing what I know about alcohol and its impact on the body, I still enjoy it. I have done Sober October and Dry January — so I know I can stop when I choose to. But do I want to? Not entirely. That tension is real, and I share it because I refuse to stand here and pretend I have everything figured out. I need this community as much as anyone. The difference is I am aware of it, I am working on it, and I am not using it as an excuse to stop trying.

The Hidden Connection — Mental Health and Chronic Disease

Does anyone remember the TV show The Biggest Loser? Every season, behind the competition and the dramatic weight loss, there was a darker story. Almost every contestant carried significant trauma — early loss of a parent, crushing self-doubt, the feeling of never measuring up to a sibling or a standard. Name the wound and someone had it. These people did not simply lack willpower. They had wounds, and food was how they treated them.

I used to think people with weight problems simply lacked discipline. As I have gotten older and started this movement, my thinking has completely changed. Now when I see someone struggling, I wonder what happened to them. What pain are they carrying? That shift in perspective is what I want this community to be built on — not judgment, but understanding and shared strength.

And here is what the medical world largely ignored when my wife got cancer: mental health was never part of the conversation. They treated the tumor. They saved her life — and I am grateful for that every single day. But no one ever asked why a relatively healthy woman developed cancer in the first place. I think about that constantly. Almost everyone I know who got cancer at a younger age had experienced significant trauma at some point in their lives. Deep, subconscious trauma keeps those immune system police officers so busy that the bad guys on the corner go unchecked. That connection is real. The research is growing. And it is one of the reasons this movement exists.

Many people will not agree with this message. They believe their health is largely outside their control — genetics, environment, circumstance. They are comfortable with how they eat and how they live, and they do not want to be lectured. I completely understand that. The fact that only 7% of Americans are metabolically healthy tells you everything about how hard this path actually is. That is exactly why the community matters. We are not here to lecture anyone. We are here to share what is working — and to pull each other forward. Their stories need to be heard.