D.C Alumnus

Dr. Blake Livingood graduated in 2009 from the Doctor of Chiropractic (D.C) program at Life University (Life U). He also married his wife Jessica that year, and together, they embarked on a journey to create their practice, named Triangular Health Center, which opened on August 9, 2010. He and his wife have since sold their practice, written books and continue to serve the community with their holistic health website, DrLivingood.com.

Dr. Livingood’s chiropractic journey began when his brother received chiropractic treatments for some sports injuries, and he then learned the value of this vital health care profession. When his brother left Palmer College of Chiropractic to attend Life U, Dr. Livingood followed suit and joined him in the chiropractic program. His brother had decided to come to Life U when Dr. Guy F. Riekeman made his move to Life U to become the University’s fourth president.

“I came to visit [my brother] and loved it and loved what was happening there. [Life U] was really taking off by the time I got there. It was the place to be,” said Dr. Livingood.

When his father became extremely ill with major heart issues and struggled for two years after enduring major heart surgery, multiple medications and doctors, Dr. Livingood, decided to move his father in with him to help him make some major lifestyle changes. This was all while Dr. Livingood was in Life U’s D.C. program. Together with his then-girlfriend and now-wife Jessica, they implemented a full lifestyle regimen for his father, which included regular chiropractic adjustments, dietary changes, exercises, positive thinking, meditation and stress-reducing activities. While his father was seeing the chiropractor three times a week, they found that he had nerve damage in the nerve that went to his heart.

Dr. Livingood then began to deal with many of the autoimmune components his father was suffering from and worked with his father to correct these components through lifestyle changes. Dr. Livingood took his father to the grocery store and pointed out the types of foods that he should be eating. They would also go to the track, and through very small and simple exercise steps – literally one step at a time ­– his father began to gain back his strength and, most importantly, his ability to go back to doing the things he loved: biking, fishing and spending time with his family. His father was never able to go back to work again, but he was able to eliminate all his medications and live a healthy lifestyle, giving him five more years of an active lifestyle that may not have otherwise been available to him.

“60-ish days go by, and my dad walks in my living room. [He] hands me a box, and I said ‘what’s this?’ And he said, ‘I don’t need it anymore.’ It was all of his drugs, and he had been weening himself off all of his medications. And he handed me that box, and we sent him home. When he got back home, he went biking again and fishing again; he got to live good again. He got five more years,” explained Dr. Livingood.

After his father passed, he and his wife Jessica, at the time a nurse for a major Atlanta hospital, discussed how they were able to help his father and how they wanted to help others just like him so that his father’s legacy would live on. Creating their business together, they would share with their patients Dr. Livingood’s father’s story and let them know how they could help them through chiropractic adjustments and a holistic healthy lifestyle.

So many patients were interested in the healthy lifestyle aspect that after 10 years in practice, they decided to sell their practice and focus solely on the online portion of their business, Drlivingood.com, which offers people a full range of holistic lifestyle changes and supplements. The website also features his book “Livingood Daily,” which shares his father’s story and discusses how to live a holistic, healthy lifestyle. Their online business also offers support to go along with the book, because it is one thing to read about being healthy, but another to implement a healthy lifestyle. There, they host monthly live challenges online, have a private, members-only Facebook group, and provide all members with training. His wife has also authored a cookbook called “Make Good Simple.” Both books can be purchased on their website and are also for sale on Amazon.

Through Dr. Livingood’s business, he teaches people how to fix healthy food, create fitness plans, fix stress levels, gain better sleep, fix body frames through adjustments, and fix filters through detoxing and keeping out toxins. According to Dr. Livingood, it is important to look at all aspects of your life to develop a truly healthy life.

As a Life U Alumnus, his best advice to current D.C. students is to “take care of yourself, because if you lose your health, you can’t live out your purpose; the degree does you no good. You can’t be there for your family; you can’t make any money. It’s the fastest way to lose all of your money. You have to be healthy, and I think once you better understand how to take care of yourself, then you are going to be able to provide that for others. No one is going to take better care of yourself than you.”