Use It or Lose It: PATHWAYS TO HEALTHY LIVING

By Dana Burnett and Sandra Jones

'Use It or Lose It' covers the incredible life of Lew Hollander, a champion senior ironman triathlete and endurance rider known worldwide. Lew still races in his 90s. The messages behind 'Use It or Lose It' teaches readers how Lew used his methods of Pathways to Healthy Living. Lew is also in the Guinness Book of World Rec

• Language: English
• Publisher: Green Mansions Inc
• Release date: May 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781639018741

Dana Burnett

Dana Burnett knew early on that she wanted to be a writer. She has been published all over the West Coast specializing in human interest, sports and horse-related stories. She has published her own coming of age youth adventure and continues to use writing as a way to combine adventure, information, awareness and love. Sports and exercise have always been an important part of her life. Dana has written about a diverse collection of topics over the years and has interviewed prominent actors, musicians and politicians. She has combined a life-long love of horses with writing and work and has had many notable successes in those areas. She knows that getting a worthwhile story always takes a lot of work and a little risk, and she's been working at it for over forty years. Dana has had a handful of truly great teachers over the years who encouraged her and always illustrated ideals with the way they lived their own lives.

Book preview

 CHAPTER 1 – THE TRIATHLETE'S PRAYER: ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE

Lew Hollander was on the fast track for success the day he was born.  He probably came out thinking Go Anaerobic but couldn’t quite verbalize it until a few years later.  Lew is now a famous guy, responsible for inspiring athletes of all ages around the world to keep pushing it.  To Use It Or Lose It.

It is the life force in the amazing human body.  Now more than ever, we realize how important Lew’s message is.  Google him on the internet and you will see his accomplishments as a legendary Ironman, Endurance Rider, noted Physicist and Author.  But it takes awhile to get to know him.  There’s the athlete, and there’s the thinker, and the deeper you dig the harder it becomes to try to separate one from the other.  And he has become lower key about his accomplishments the more he has collected.  Those who know him tend to describe him as great and humble at the same time.  But there’s no doubt he has a lot of confidence. There are themes that resonate and repeat in his life and it’s all about persistence, achievement, doing your best everyday, and personal honesty.  Self-knowledge comes along as a by-product of sticking to core values.

I believe we are part of a far greater system or endeavor, he says.  We all have our role.  We belong here.  I believe if there is spirit, after life, God or whatever you wish to call it, it will be best found INSIDE OF EACH OF US. Not told by priests, clerics, etc.  If you want the answers, look within.

In the hustle and flow of everyday living, there maybe days when you’re burned out, when you feel like we’ve all been cloned from some spiritless master plan and the same universal script is just going to repeat itself endlessly while the oceans continue to rise, pandemics savage the world, and other inconvenient truths manifest themselves.  So it’s nice to know that someone out there has broken the mold and reinvented it, laid down his own track, and rewritten aging stereotypes by putting a spin on it that most people find hard to believe.  

On his ninetieth birthday Lew completed a sprint triathlon in a virtual race in the area around his house.

The fact that I can do this is miraculous, he says.  There will always be those greater than you and those less than you, he states.  But the most important person you have to account to is yourself.  When you fail to try, it’s worse than losing.  

Lew Hollander is a natural phenomena, a mercurial presence, an intellectual power and an inspiring athlete who has few if any equals.  And that’s just on a good day.  Lew turned 90 in June of 2020.  He’s been famous a long time for different reasons but loved and respected because he defies the odds.  Whoever thought he would become one of the outspoken champions for senior athletes?  It doesn’t matter.  He is.  

Success does not come to you—you go to it.  And to that end Lew has courted success with the same amount of dedication and commitment that it might have taken Christopher Columbus to find America.  Lew has found something that is really big.  You’re going to have to read the whole book to find out.  And remember, that sometimes when you get out on the really, really long trails and you lose your sense of direction and think you can’t take another step, that maybe exactly when you actually find yourself.  But you have to battle with the feeling of being lost, before you rediscover who you are and who you really want to become.

At 90 Lew continues to inspire everyone around him with his commitment to going hard, living long, and doing it with class and style as a really unique athlete and human being.  How did this Ironman get so much Iron in his backbone?  Lew was born back in New York in 1930 into a flourishing family right before the Great Depression hit.  Family finances would change over a period of time and dictated that Lew go from private to public school.  It was then that Lew began to understand the theory of the survival of the fittest with new kids.  His father, the original Lew, taught his son how to fight back when he got bullied.  Occasionally, Lew Jr. experimented with chemicals and blew up things, and studied order and patterns in science.  He began to understand the feeling of empowerment resulting from understanding how pieces of the world fit together. And maybe over the years he wanted to help other people understand how to put the pieces together for healthy living.  It’s a step- by- step, day- by- day commitment.

As a young boy Lew became confidant that there was a way to age, and a way not to age, based on what he saw around him.  The best and most positive way to age would become his life long goal.  It could be said that mankind has a universal search for spirituality and wholeness that takes many different forms.  Certainly aging and what goes along with it form some of the most difficult questions.  Everyone wants that magic pill to roll it back, to have it not go so fast forward.  Like a legendary hero of sorts, Lew has done the battle with aging and shed some light.  In the midst of the battle he was able to ask some questions and pursue the answers, and so bring a type of healing for anyone who is