Plenty of people go through plenty of suffering trying to lose weight. But why does it have to be that way? Surely there's some discipline involved, but the process can actually be empowering and personally fulfilling. Weight loss doesn't need to be about suffering. Losing weight can actually be fun.
The fun part of losing weight is the fulfillment and personal satisfaction you get out of doing what you said you'd do. The fun part is seeing the pounds come off, week by week. The fun part is seeing yourself get back in shape. And, the very fun part is the free day that you enjoy each week. The free day is built-in to your losing-weight food plan.
What's a free day? You want to be on a food plan that changes your body's metabolism - one that flattens out your blood glucose levels, one that flattens out your blood insulin levels. The result is a body that knows how to burn glucose for energy, rather than a body that's out of synch and stores glucose as fat.1,2
The best way to normalize your metabolism is to eat five or six small meals per day. This is not news. This powerful approach to maintaining optimal body weight has been around for many decades. And the multiple small meals food plan works just as well today.3
This approach has a surprise bonus - a built-in fun factor - the free day. The free day fulfills two important functions. First, your body needs to know that it's not in starvation mode. If your body thinks it's starving, you'll begin to store fat. So you actually need to have a free day once a week.
Your free day also has a very important psychological purpose. You're doing work and following a plan. A break from the plan is necessary, otherwise it's going to become boring. It's great to look forward to your free day and the opportunity to break the routine.
On your free day you can eat anything you want. After a while, you become less exorbitant on your free day. You still eat more pure-fun foods, but you find you're eating less in terms of mass quantities. You just get more normalized, naturally, as you find yourself listening more to what your body really wants and needs.
Your free day, combined with the ongoing positive feedback from your bathroom scale, makes it possible and realistic to continue on the multiple small meals per day plan.
Over time your weekly weight loss decreases and eventually you stop losing weight - you've reached your body's natural weight. This is a major accomplishment. Your food plan has become a way of life. You've learned how to eat so that you're healthy, fit, and well. Make sure you celebrate!
In decades past, very few urban kids had ever even heard of a parsnip, a fennel bulb, or a bunch of kale. In those days, fruit and vegetable consumption typically consisted of apples, bananas, corn, potatoes, peas, and lettuce. Oranges were infrequent and grapefruit was a rarity. Today a veritable cornucopia of produce is available year-round, providing the possibility for substantial variety in a family's daily diet. But with the exception of families that include dedicated foodies, most diets could still be considered reasonably barren with respect to consumption of a range of healthful fruits and vegetables. Importantly, taking the single step of providing a variety of produce for the daily table will lead to multiple benefits in terms of health and wellness.
Eating a wide variety of fruits and vegetables is so valuable that this daily habit ranks high on the list of federal health and public policy recommendations focusing on nutrition. In the United States, the Department of Agriculture has launched the ChooseMyPlate campaign to support public policy, highlighting the five main food groups: fruits, vegetables, grains, protein foods, and dairy. The ChooseMyPlate program recommends that fully one-half of every plate of food consist of fruits and vegetables.
Physiologically, all bodily systems, most especially the gastrointestinal system and immune system, depend on nutrition gained from fruits and vegetables. Consuming fresh produce daily enables the gastrointestinal system, that is, your stomach, small intestine, and large intestine, to process food effectively and facilitate the transit of food throughout the stomach and intestines. Deficiency of fresh fruits and vegetables will slow transit time, resulting in blockage, bloating, and compromised regularity. Similarly, immune system functioning depends critically on the availability of specific nutrients derived from fresh produce. These nutrients, known as phytochemicals, provide biochemicals that aid immune system cells such as neutrophils, macrophages, and natural killer cells in defending the body against bacteria, viruses, and other microscopic disease-causing invaders.
Nature has provided us with an easy means of identifying the types of produce that contain the most healthful nutrition: the more colorful the fruit or vegetable, the more phytochemicals and other nutrients it contains. For example, foods rich in phytochemicals include blueberries, carrots, greens such as kale and chard, broccoli, apples, oranges, beets, rutabaga, sweet potatoes, and tomatoes. Produce such as bananas do not contain many phytochemicals, but are still valuable sources of complex carbohydrates.
Thus, all of us, both children and adults, need our daily portions of fresh fruits and vegetables. Of course, merely having this information is not sufficient. Action is required. A four-week trial of adding fresh produce to your family's daily diet should provide many indicators of the available health benefits of these marvelous foods. Such evidence will likely be sufficient to cause a healthful long-term shift in your family's dietary habits with numerous positive outcomes in the years to come.
Sources
1. Zhang YJ, et al: Antioxidant Phytochemicals for the Prevention and Treatment of Chronic Diseases. Molecules 20(12): 21138-21156, 2015
2. Guillermo Gormaz J, et al: Potential Role of Polyphenols in the Prevention of Cardiovascular Diseases: Molecular Bases. Curr Med Chem. 2015 Nov 27. [Epub ahead of print]
3. Ghosh N, et al: Chronic Inflammatory Diseases: Progress and Prospect with Herbal Medicine. Curr Pharm Des. 2015 Nov 12. [Epub ahead of print]
"Above-down, inside-out" is a poetic coinage by Dr. B.J. Palmer, one of the founders of the field of chiropractic. "B.J.", as he has been affectionately known by chiropractors for almost 100 years, was describing the inner workings of the brain and spinal cord, the complex nerve system connected to all parts of the body, and the cells, tissues, and organs comprising the bulk of human physiology.
In his inimitable style, Dr. Palmer was addressing many deep, complex phenomena all at once. From a high-level viewpoint, he was describing how the central nervous system communicates with the rest of the body. One major conclusion is that the brain (as the originator of nerve signals that flow to the spinal cord and from there to the organs, tissues, and cells) is the master controller of all the other systems. The gastrointestinal, endocrine, cardiopulmonary, and musculoskeletal systems are all ultimately controlled and regulated by activities within the brain.
More than this, "B.J." was pointing directly to an organizing intelligence responsible for all the operations of living tissue. This concept, "Innate Intelligence", was propounded by his father, Dr. Daniel David Palmer. "B.J." expanded, publicized, and promoted the idea of Innate Intelligence as he helped the field of chiropractic grow into the second largest healing arts profession in the United States.
In the above-down, inside-out paradigm, Innate Intelligence is an intrinsic guiding and instructional force that maintained ongoing health and healing. Innate Intelligence knows how much oxygen and other nutrients a cell needs to meet its energy requirements. Innate Intelligence knows how to direct B lymphocytes to build a new antibody to fight a previously unencountered bacteria or virus. Innate Intelligence knows how much insulin should be released by beta cells in the pancreatic islets of Langerhans in order to properly use the carbohydrates you ingested during your last heart-healthy meal.
But disorder within the nerve system can interfere with the body's ability to carry out the instructions of Innate Intelligence. Symptoms, pain, disorders, and disease ensue from such nerve interference. Chiropractic care helps restore balance within the nerve system, thus helping restore health and well-being.1,2,3
Being connected is very important in our modern world. Could you imagine how you'd feel if you left your cell phone at home? For teenagers, a cell phone is much more than a tool. For teens, cell phones are status symbols, but they also represent a connection to the tribe, a connection to their human network. For teens and adults, cell phones are lifelines. What about web connectivity? Many of us begin to experience withdrawal symptoms if we're separated from our Internet connection for more than a hour. Others check their email every few minutes, ongoingly, throughout the day, every day.
We may feel secure if we're well connected in the external electronic world, but it's even more important to be well connected in the internal physiologic world. In the external world we think in terms of networks, primarily in terms of Internet connections. In the internal world networks are the key, too - neurologic networks, of which our nerve system is comprised.1,2
The nerve system consists of the brain, cranial nerves, spinal cord, spinal nerves, and miles of peripheral nerves which connect the spinal cord and spinal nerves to every other cell in the body. In the body, the rules are simple. If a cell is not connected to the nerve system, the cell's activities become disorganized and it becomes diseased and eventually dies. In a related scenario a cell may be connected, but the nerve signals it is receiving are inaccurate or inappropriate, due to problems within the nerve system itself. The results are the same - the cell's activities become disorganized and it becomes diseased and eventually dies. If enough cells are affected, the person develops symptoms and becomes sick.
"Problems" within the nerve system often result from spinal subluxations - a loss of full mobility between one or more pairs of spinal vertebras, with associated spinal muscle tightness or spasm, spinal joint inflammation, and spinal nerve irritation. The free flow of information between the nerve system and the rest of the body becomes compromised. Both ends of the network receive inappropriate, ineffective information and the result is a "system crash" in the form of symptoms and disease.
Chiropractic health care is especially designed to restore effective connectivity and communication between your nerve system and your other body systems.3 Your chiropractor specializes in identifying the spinal subluxations at the root of the problem and using gentle, safe, effective methods of care to restore proper balance to your spine and nerve system. Optimal functioning begins to be restored and improved levels of health and well-being are the natural result.
1Coward LA: The hippocampal system as the cortical resource manager: a model connecting psychology, anatomy and physiology. Adv Exp Med Biol 657:315-364, 2010
Ancient peoples closely observed and interacted with the rhythms of their immediate environment. The sun rose in the East and set in the West. Day followed night, and approximately 12 hours later night followed day. The seasons progressed through a more leisurely, although no less regular, rhythm. A season of rebirth and new growth followed a season of restriction and retrenchment. A season of increasing sunshine, longer days, and bounteous expansion was succeeded by a season of harvest, transformation, and preparation for the next round of seasonal change. The moon waxed and waned. Tides rose and tides fell. The life cycles of all creatures - humans, animals, fish, birds, insects, and plants - were precisely attuned to the natural rhythms of the complex world in which they survived and thrived.
Life flows and life ebbs. The rhythm of life is sinusoidal. Rise to a peak. Rest momentarily. Return to baseline, then descend to a trough. Rest momentarily. Return to baseline, then ascend again to a peak. Breath in, breath out. Heart beats, heart relaxes. Muscles contract, muscles relax. Plough a field. Sow a crop. Reap the harvest. Allow the land to recover. A year or two later, plough the field again. Cyclical, rhythmical, sinusoidal activities.
When a person is healthy, all aspects of her physical functioning are aligned with these ancient rhythms.1,2 Disease always reflects an aberration - a defect - in the cyclical, sinusoidal patterns of normal physiology.3 Persistent low back muscle contractions without corresponding relaxation cause pain. Persistent muscle contractions in small arterial blood vessels cause high blood pressure. Persistent abnormal cellular growth without corresponding cellular death results in cancer. Persistently elevated or depressed hormonal levels cause specific forms of disease. The list of these ebb-and-flow abnormalities - the named diseases - is extensive.
The nervous system is also affected by defects in normal rhythm. Epilepsy reflects an extreme of rhythmical aberration - jagged, compressed peaks of electrical discharge suddenly traversing large areas of a person's brain. On a subtler scale, small groups of nerve cells may fire inappropriately due to distortions in normal ebb-and-flow patterns. If such an altered pattern persists, these groups of nerve cells may transmit incorrect information to other important systems. Pain, symptoms, and even disease may result from such faulty connections.
Honoring the deep nature of how our bodies work goes far toward alleviating many disease states. Getting back into the natural rhythms of being human certainly helps many conditions involving back pain, neck pain, and headaches. Chiropractic care is an important part of helping reestablish the normal ebb and flow. Contact our office today and set an appointment to further discuss how chiropractic care may help reestablish your ebb and flow.
Scientists and philosophers have pursued the notion of mind for thousands of years. [Of course, being able to think about the mind's origins and place in the universe presumes having a mind, but that's a separate piece of this puzzle.] Regardless of mind's origin, we are well aware that the human mind interacts intimately with the human body and vice versa.1
For example, the notion of stress cuts both ways. Psychological stress, stemming from troubles in the workplace or family difficulties, often results in physical pain. A person's headaches, lower back pain, or even annoying numbness and tingling in the fingers may originate in their personal daily stresses. From the opposite perspective, chronic headaches, persistent lower back pain, or ongoing sciatica can cause a person to become anxious or even depressed. Physical and mental states are deeply connected.
For many persons it's almost impossible to determine the first cause, to determine whether their problems started in the mind or in the body. Ultimately, such a distinction may not be necessary. A person might begin to regain their mental balance by learning how to meditate or learning a new activity or skill.2,3 Learning how to draw, studying Italian, or taking photography or astronomy classes may be all that's needed to alleviate certain stressful mental states. As the person learns the skill of focusing on the task at hand, repetitive stressful thoughts begin to dissipate and mental ease and clarity begin to return. As a result, physical pains begin to diminish.
Approaching a person's problems from the physical side first may achieve the same benefits. For example, engaging, demanding physical activity may be the key missing ingredient in a person's life. Regular physical activity makes the heart and lungs stronger, providing more healing nutrition to all of the body's cells, tissues, and organs. Regular physical activity helps eliminate toxic metabolic waste that would accumulate otherwise. And regular physical activity causes the brain to produce endorphins, an opiate-like neurotransmitter that induces the experience of ease, well-being, and euphoria. The body learns to relax as it engages in these healthful activities. Overall physical tension and pain begin to resolve, leading to overall reductions in mental stress, anxiety, and depression.
Mind and matter are not separate and distinct. For a person to be really healthy these two components of human nature need to be much more fully engaged, on a much more regular basis than is the case for most of us. As we become more awake and aware, improved health and well-being will follow naturally.
Is a computer like a human brain or is a human brain like a computer? When machines allow us to extend our abilities, are we enhancing our humanness or becoming more machine-like? What are the meaningful distinctions between humans and machines and how do these impact our daily pursuits of health, well-being, and happiness?
One primary practical distinction is that humans initiate spontaneous, unique, non-predetermined actions and machines do not. Advanced machines such as military early warning systems may initiate spontaneous activities, but all of these are predetermined and predefined to a greater or lesser degree. And for any machine responses that are not previously designated and programmed as routine, human interaction is required for initiation of the suggested action.
Generally, even the "smartest" machine only has access to a built-in suite of responses. Noted exceptions include computer programs based on simple rules which emulate living systems. The "cellular automata" generated by these programs demonstrate spontaneous emergent behaviors not predictable from the simple rules themselves. The "artificial life" thus observed is exceedingly complex and can even provide optimal solutions to deep scientific problems posed to the system by investigators.
Cellular automata are examples of complex systems, defined as systems which are critically sensitive to small changes in initial conditions. Complex systems achieved fame in Michael Crichton's novel (and the subsequent Stephen Spielberg film), "Jurassic Park". In the book, the paleobotanist Dr. Ian Malcolm uses the weather as an example of the nature of complex systems. In a scene which has achieved iconic status, Malcolm relates how a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon rain forest can cause a tornado in the American Midwest. Small changes in a complex system's initial state can lead to substantial unpredictable results in the system as a whole.
The human nervous system is such a complex, dynamic system.1,2,3 Small changes in the nervous system's initial state can result in dramatic outcomes. For example, a spinal misalignment (resulting from an innocuous low back muscle strain) can irritate a spinal nerve (a small change in initial conditions) which can lead to chronic indigestion, allergies, migraine headaches, or even high blood pressure down the road.
Most machines are not complex in this way, but they do require regular maintenance and care. As human beings, we are complex systems by our very nature and the importance of regular maintenance and care is that much greater. A healthy spine and optimally functioning nerve system go very far toward ensuring the health of our body-as-machine and our associated happiness and well-being.
Most of us are plenty tired of having experts tell us we should do more exercise. Our chiropractors tell us. Our family doctors tell us. Friends who just started taking their first yoga class and aren't really experts tell us. Celebrities tell us. Kid stars on Disney Channel tell us. Now even local television news anchors are telling us.
Intentionally or not, the result of all this "encouragement" is just more and more guilt. We already know we should be exercising. Hearing about it all day long really doesn't help. We're working hard at our jobs, keeping it together, taking care of the family, but as long as we're not also doing our daily exercise we're just not doing enough. We're not being healthy and the experts are only too glad to recite all of the long-term consequences of our slothful behavior.1,2,3
So what's a person to do? On one hand, we can dig in our heels, deny reality, and desperately resist all those do-gooders. Some will bet their future on ancient family legends - "My grand-dad smoked two packs of cigarettes for 50 years, never exercised a day in his life, and died in his sleep when he was 92." Others will simply leave things up to fate, taking their chances as well as the path of least resistance, doing the same old same old, and hoping everything will be OK.
There is another way. First, it's very important to distinguish what I choose to do from what I should do. No one wants to do what they should do. Should means having to, should means having no choice in the matter. Should means someone else is telling me what to do, and no one really wants to do that. We want to do what we want to do. So telling a person they should do more exercise merely engenders resistance. People will only take the time and make the effort to exercise regularly if they want to do it, if they themselves choose to. Not because someone told them they needed to.
The secret of adding exercise to your life is discovering why you would want to do it. Discovering the payoff. Sure, the payoff includes being healthier, lowering your blood pressure, improving your metabolism, and lowering your serum glucose. But these are not really motivating factors for most people. If they were, everyone would be exercising. The real payoff, what gets people into the gym and out on the road walking, bicycling, and running, is that exercise is fun. You feel great afterward, often for the whole day. And pretty quickly, the more you exercise the more your body wants to do it. Your body takes over and your mind goes, "yeah, I'm going to the gym".
So the secret is to make a choice, pull yourself together, grit your teeth, and go exercising a few times. Almost always you'll discover that you actually do like it, that there's a tremendous feeling of accomplishment and fun. And all of a sudden, to your surprise and astonishment, you've become a person who exercises.
Not too many people would agree that "oh, yeah, my work is relaxing". For most of us, work involves plenty of stress. If we're in customer service, there's always a seemingly never-ending stream of customers with an abundance of problems that need to be handled yesterday. If we work in an office, office politics adds an unnecessary layer of stress to the normal daily stress of the work we're supposed to be doing. If we work for ourselves, there's the ongoing stress of lining up the next contract, even while we're dealing with the pressures involved in fulfilling the demands of the current project. And on and on.
If we work at a computer there are additional physiological stresses. Our bodies were not designed for prolonged sitting, nor were they designed for staring a computer screen for hours at a time. The highly complex and highly delicate structures of our forearms, wrists, and hands were not meant to be used for typing on a keyboard. Anyone can type for 15 minutes - that's not a problem. But typing for most of the day, day after day, week after week - that's definitely a problem.
These few work scenarios are common. We can recognize ourselves in the descriptions. No one would describe such circumstances as relaxing. But this is how we live. How can we turn what might be thought of as "lemons" into lemonade? Are there tactics we can employ in an overall strategy of causing our lives to be healthy, satisfying, and meaningful, as well as fun and relaxing?
The answer is a resounding "yes". But there is effort involved. We need to be creative and willing to take action on our own behalf. First, it's important to acknowledge the conundrum each of us faces every day. We are required to work to obtain food, shelter, and clothing for ourselves and our families. But the work that we're doing may not be our first choice. Or the second choice. Or sometimes even the third. Still, there it is. We need to work. This is where the creativity comes in.
Our work environment and/or our work itself may never be relaxing. However, we can actively choose to be relaxed. This is an ongoing process and occurs in the moment. For example, you can affirm "I am relaxed. My work is fulfilling and satisfying." And then, pretty soon, something happens to which you respond with tension. As soon as you come back to yourself and remember that you want to be creating a relaxing environment, you reaffirm your intention. This is very much like Zen or other practices which focus on centering. In Zen, the student is reminded to pay attention, to believe nothing, and that nothing is personal.
These powerful reminders can help us greatly in our intention to have our work be relaxing.1,2,3 The key is to take on the concept of practice. We are practicing centering. We are practicing self-awareness. We are practicing relaxing. And as we practice these things, our overall experience is one of being centered, relaxed, and self-aware, regardless of all the things that are going on around us.
