I used to think of health as an either/or proposition – either you’re unhealthy or you’re healthy. But I now think of health as a continuum – with extremely poor health on one end, and optimal health and vitality on the other end. And if we labeled this continuum from one to ten – with 1 being very poor health, and 10 being optimal health and vitality, I’d guess that most of us over 50 are somewhere in the sub-five category. And in most cases these people don’t realize it. Let’s say they’re a 4 – but they’ve been at a 4 for so long that it’s become their baseline. These people often don’t understand the vast improvements in quality of life available to them. This was certainly my experience in my mid-forties. It took a health scare to shake me up, to awaken me. To bring me to the realization the “not being sick” is NOT the same thing as having optimal health. As Dr. Tracy Gaping called it in the last episode, I was at a crappy health baseline, and didn’t realize it, because it was my normal state.But why is that? Why are so many of us living in states of poor health without realizing what’s available to us? For one, the deck is stacked against us. We’re told in midlife things like it’s all downhill from here, that fat gain and muscle loss are a natural part of aging, that us older people need to slow down and take it easy. Industrial food companies and big pharma certainly don’t help our cause, ultra-processed foods make us sick and pharmaceutical companies sell us their cures… except they aren’t really curing anything – they’re treating symptoms and do nothing to attack the root cause of our health issues. We’ve traded health for convenience, to the point where even the water we drink and the goods in our homes are making us sicker. It’s a bit like the movie the Matrix, where many are unaware of the reality of what’s happening. But then though some twist of fate we are given a choice – we can take the blue pill and return to our crappy baseline, or we can take the red pill and choose optimal health. Since you’re listening to this podcast right now, I’m guessing you’re a red pill person. And today’s episode is definitely a red pill episode.  My guest today is Tim James. Tim is the founder of Chemical Free Body and the host of the Health Hero Show podcast, and as you’ll soon hear, he’s very passionate about optimal health. Tim shares his wild red pill awakening moment, and in this episode he gives us some practical tips that we use to up-level our health – even when the odds are stacked against us. This was a fun and eye-opening conversation, and I know you’re going to take away a ton of valuable information.You can connect with Tim in the following ways:Website – www.chemicalfreebody.comYouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4IL0twSUqtlNaqwo1FbRnAFacebook - https://www.facebook.com/chemicalfreebodyInstagram - @chemicalfreebodyguyHealth Hero Show Podcast - https://chemicalfreebody.com/podcast/ We mentioned the following resources during this episode:Documentary Movie – Tapped - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1344784/Website - www.mypurifiedwater.comHippocrates Health Institute - https://hippocratesinst.org/