Know The Cause - Newsletter Articles

Kyle Drew

I grew up listening to preachers in the South. When I speak in public, if I’m not paying attention, my cadence and delivery slowly starts to emulate the old-fashioned preachers I grew up listening to. And if I’m not careful, I start to sound overly “preachy.”

This happened to me the other day at the Health Food Center in Oklahoma City. There was an all day seminar, and I had the opportunity to speak.

Here’s what happened. The person who spoke before me was a nutritionist who simply asked the question, “How many vitamin pills are you willing to take in a single day?” Overwhelmingly, the answer was “one.” One vitamin pill each day. This nutritionist was promoting a vitamin that you had to take three times each day. I could see that she wasn’t getting any “takers,” merely because you have to take it three times each day instead of once.

I had a presentation planned, but in light of the audience’s response to the previous speaker, I had to do what no public speaker, (except for Doug), likes to do: I had to deviate from my planned talk, and wing it.

I began by asking how many pharmaceuticals people take each day. The average was about five. So, this was a group of people who would happily take five or more side-effect laden drugs each day, but wouldn’t take three, naturally-grown, side-effect free, immune-enhancing, health-promoting vitamins. Red Flag Number One.

I asked how many times each day that everyone ate a meal. Three. So, they can’t get all their nutrition needs met in only one meal per day, but they do want to get their supplement needs met in only one pill per day. Red Flag Number Two.

Discouraged, I asked, “Why won’t you take more than one vitamin pill each day?” The response? “It’s inconvenient.”

I’ll be honest with you. I got preachy.

Let me confess to you first that I have zero trouble taking all of my pills each day. And anyone who knows me knows that I take handfuls. But I never miss unless I run out while I’m on the road.

I don’t say that to brag, (can you really “brag” about something like that??). I say it for this reason only: THE ONLY THING YOU HAVE TO DO WITH PILLS…. IS SWALLOW!

Pills don’t weigh a lot. You don’t have to pick them off a tree or drag them several miles to your house. You don’t have to wrestle with them. They’re just…. pills.

The reason I was first attracted to pharmaceuticals is that I found pills fascinating. That’s because life is a series of work events. You work when you work, you work when you get home, and you work at your relationships. You even work when you play! But pills are different. Pills do the work for you! All you have to do is swallow.

In past articles, I’ve written extensively about the mistake of asking supplements to undo a poor diet. Diet is first. Exercise may even be second in importance. But supplements are critically important, and of all the health habits you could adopt, swallowing supplements is, without question, the easiest.

(See how preachy I can sound if I’m not careful?)

Now if you’re a person who actually has a problem swallowing pills, and your gag reflex kicks in, I promise that I’m not directing this to you. If your budget is such that supplements are something you have to sacrifice right now in order to keep quality whole food on the table, that is completely understandable, too. But if you’re sick, and you can swallow, and you have the means to do so, but you simply refuse these new generation, marvelously effective capsules, because it seems “inconvenient” to you, I simply wouldn’t know how I would advise you if I were your nutritionist.

I hope this doesn’t sound mean. I hope you hear the sincerity in my voice. It’s the voice of someone who has seen people sacrifice their energy, their sleep, their heart health, and even their families and quality of life simply because swallowing seemed like it was too high a price to pay.

What’s keeping you from achieving the best health of your life? If you distill them down to their essence, the things that keep us from our health and fitness goals are often unbelievably small.

Please, don’t let something small derail you.

Off my soapbox,
Kyle