How Are You Waking Up in the Best Retirement City in the World?

How are you waking up in the best retirement city in the world? Just fine.  I hear you saying.  But the man of high status was not.  He was a man of high status, he was in charge of many under him, and also had many servants.  With all of this, he was not waking up just fine, he had a chronic skin condition. And he was not going to listen to his lowly servant on the natural remedy for his skin condition, after all, the servant was not a doctor. And so he stubbornly refused to heed his servant’s suggestion for the natural remedy, and his skin condition persisted and got worse.



The tidy and comfortable housewife in her upper middle class home was describing the strong ear infection her young son was afflicted with.  She was quite distressed, as she was telling the man she had hired to do house repairs. She did not know the man had a kind and helpful spirit.  And so when he proceeded to give her a natural remedy for it, she shrieked:  "I’M TAKING MY SON TO THE DOCTOR"! It was as if the man had told her to make a witches brew for her son.
 

He did not get a chance to explain that the freshly squeezed juice of a garlic clove mixed with a tiny bit of raw olive oil softly applied to a child’s ear infection had cleared his own sons ear infections all their lives. And that they are now full blown adults, yes they survived and thrived applying their parents natural remedies and healthy living.  But if he would have gotten the chance to explain how it healed his own sons, would it have made any difference?  After all, he was not a doctor.
 

Or was he?  When I look up the definition of ‘doctor’ I see it’s someone that is studied in ‘alleviating or preventing’ disease or injury.  Well that’s interesting isn’t it?
 

But just like the man of high status and the upper middle class north American housewife, we want to make things more complex.  What invariably happens is poorer health because medications only mask symptoms while ailments tend to get worse as we age.
 

                             Listen to YOUR Body
 

You are YOUR body’s best doctor!   Listen to your body and heed the red flags. Red flags are warning signals that our bodies give out to let us know something we are eating, or something we are doing, or “not doing” is causing an issue. If we do not heed these red flag warnings, a simple issue like IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) can develop into something worse overtime such as colon cancer.
 

   PREVENTION Is the Keys to GOOD Health
 

We can run to a doctor every time we feel ill and begin to see signs of organ malfunction or we can prevent our organs from malfunctioning in the first place. Now understand, this is not a new philosophy but an old Greek philosophy coined by the master of natural health himself, Hippocrates. He said, “Let food be thy medicine”. There is a lot more to say about this but that’s another article.
 

Scripture also talks about food for our nourishment.
And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. (Genesis 1:29 KJV)
 

When we take a beautiful untarnished (non hybrid) seed, and it is allowed to grow naturally, it bears fruit, and we eat of that fruit, our bodies will treat us well. If we eat a fruit that has been tampered with in anyway by man, whether through the growth process, pasteurization, processing, modifying its DNA, canning, milling, or making it into pharmaceutical medications, etc, it becomes bad food… and well, using these products over time will cause disease and a slow, agonizing death.
 

We can let food devour us or we can let food keep us well! 
 

We need to choose through a conviction within us that we WANT TO BE WELL.  Preventing conditions and disease is in everyone’s power to do so.  We have to decide to take responsibility for our health! Disease prevention involves having the knowledge of natural health methods, and applying a healthy eating diet into our lifestyle that incorporates healthy choices using whole foods, herbs, super foods, and making other daily lifestyle choices into positive habits such as exercise and eliminating bad habits from our lives, like smoking.          


                 Healthy and Wise in Ecuador
 

Frank and I meet with numerous newcomers to Cuenca on a regular basis; while some are in pretty good health, most are not. The average age for newcomers to Cuenca is in the 60ish and 70ish age range.  They come to Cuenca mostly for the healthcare and inexpensive pharmaceuticals.
 

Most of them have given up so much in their mature years to come live in Ecuador; namely grandchildren, children, friends, activities, nice homes,  North American living standards, you name it!



Some of them do not adapt well to this new environment because it is so different from what they are accustomed to, but sadly they think they can’t afford to live on their SS or pension in the u.s.  For them to be able to come to Cuenca Ecuador and have a doctor treat them for a $40 office visit, and to be able to go buy a $100 dollar medicine for just $12 dollars is what keeps them here.
 

The u.s is in a sad state of affairs right now and the health care system is in a shambles, which brings more and more elderly folks that are in failing health to (Cuenca) Ecuador. Some know they will die in Cuenca; others believe that moving to a place with cleaner food and more availability with less expensive produce options will heal them. However, it takes more than clean food to heal the body of health conditions we have had for years. And that is what Frank and I want to help folks moving to Ecuador be aware of. 



                Your Are Your Body's Best Friend



It’s true the food in Ecuador is cleaner, fresher, and anyone can afford to eat organic here! And that is wonderful news and it will help, but we have found over the course of several decades that there is more to total health than just diet!
 

                                Disease or Not?
 

Most people have been led to believe that some health conditions are a disease when they are NOT.   We hear how this disease and that disease is incurable and you will now need this or that medication for life. But we know this is untrue! We make them BE Diseases by masking them rather than curing them.
 

Addiction to being medicated is harmful to your life and liberty!  Get second and third and fifth opinions. The Internet is flooded with confusing information so be careful.
 

Myth: Diabetes is a disease and it is non-curable and you will need to take insulin for the rest of your life. Do you really believe that?
FACT: Diabetes is a condition that is curable through diet!
 

We want to share what we have learned over the past 30+years! It didn’t happen over night; it didn’t happen in two years; it happened over the course of many years, doing tons of research about natural health and gaining knowledge and actual use of healthy techniques, and of course, LISTENING TO OUR BODY.
 

We can’t be afraid to go outside of what we have been taught as children, and grow independently from the standards of mainstream thinking!!   After all we were taught the food pyramid in high school too, and well, look where that has taken us.
 

And this is what it takes! If our health is important to us we absolutely need to come out from among them and think, believe and behave separately. Better Health, Better Life is all about coming out from among them and doing something un-mainstream for your health!



With this book you can take charge of your health and your life, and have a life.  That’s what we did.  It’s our personal testimony of how we still do that to this day. We’ve written the book because it is our opinion that people need to know “there’s more to good health and good life in retirement than just eating right!"  



Frank and Angie are lifelong natural health practitioners. They have overcome many difficult health situations. They have been studying health and nutrition for over thirty years, and have taken their Better Health, Better Life seriously and are enjoying life abroad in their middle years with their three adult sons. 



We're an Expat Family of Five Living Frugal, Healthy and Happy in Cuenca Ecuador! Enjoy our blog!