The Solution Is Wellness

Squat max recent PR

2012-01-30T18:14:00.001-06:00

320

1/28/12 Wert

2012-01-28T13:33:00.001-06:00

1/28/12
Front squat
531: 185, 210, 230
531: 205,220,240
531: 220, 230 (2),250f

Push press
32: 185(2), 185
32: 185(2), 195

Squat clean: 95 x 5 for 4

Ring planks 3x1 min

1/26/12 OHS PR

2012-01-26T13:26:00.001-06:00

1/24/12

2012-01-24T15:15:00.001-06:00

1/23/12

2012-01-23T12:38:00.001-06:00

1/20/12

2012-01-20T14:03:00.001-06:00

1/19/12

2012-01-19T12:12:00.001-06:00

New Deadlift PR! 375 for 2.

405 isn't far off!

Chipper -WodClub open wk 3

2012-01-17T11:54:00.001-06:00

1/16/12

2012-01-16T13:03:00.001-06:00

OPT Construction Series Competition #3

2012-01-14T13:46:00.002-06:00

OPT Construction Series #3

01/13/2012

On the hour, every hour:

1st hour:
5,4,3,2,1
C&J - 205/115#
MU's

(1 score = time)
Scaled back to 135 C&J due to shoulder pain
Time: 3:48

2nd hour:
2K Row + Max DU's in 10 min

(2 scores = time for row and reps of DU's)
Row Time: 7:16.4
DUs: 87

3rd hour:
15,12,9
R KB Snatch - 2/1.5 pd
L KB Snatch - 2/1.5 pd
Burpees - vertical body at top

(1 score = time)
Time: 7:33

4th hour:
12 min amrap
10 wall balls - 20/14# to 10ft
5 toes to bar

(1 score = reps)
Reps: 215

Wod 1/13/12

2012-01-13T12:24:00.001-06:00

Run 800m @50%
10 min practice alternating b/w
L-Sit
Ring HSPU
HS walking
chest to bar chin ups
Run 800m @60%
10 min practice alternation bw
bar muscle ups
front/back lever descents on bars/rings
double unders
box jumps
Run 800m @70%
10 min practice turkish get ups with bar (light...no heavier than empty 45# bar)
Run 800m @50%

Another attempt at Bear Trap

2012-01-12T20:32:00.001-06:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oa4TKm8Yz8Y&feature=youtube_gdata_player

10+2 rounds with 125

WodClub open wk 2 trial

2012-01-10T11:06:00.001-06:00

Trial run with 145 = 6+4 rounds for 5800 points

Olympic Work

2012-01-10T10:42:00.001-06:00

1/9/12

2012-01-09T12:50:00.001-06:00

Fran 1/7/12

2012-01-07T12:50:00.001-06:00

Fran PR of 3:33

Yes, I did puke profusely!

What Is Your Exercise Strategy?

2012-01-06T13:10:00.001-06:00

What are you doing for fitness in the new year? Are you tired of the same old routine? Check out a short duration, high intensity exercise program that is variable. Crossfit is what I do. Other options are P90X, Insanity, or things like bootcamp classes.

Get off the treadmill and mix it up this year, you'll be happy with the results!

WOD 1/6/12

2012-01-06T13:07:00.001-06:00

WOD 1/5/12

2012-01-05T13:29:00.000-06:00

Paleo Diet - Paleo Recipes - Paleo Pizza - Meatza - Dr. John Bartemus - ...

2011-07-08T09:46:00.000-05:00

Chiropractor Cornelius North Carolina - Dr. John Bartemus - Chiropractic...

2011-06-02T14:03:00.000-05:00

Chiropractor Cornelius North Carolina - Dr. John Bartemus - Patient Test...

2011-05-02T11:26:00.000-05:00

Transcendent Lifestyle Center Patient Testimonial

2011-04-08T15:27:00.000-05:00

Primal Fit

2010-12-26T09:20:00.003-06:00

U.S. Life Expectancy Continues To Fall - Where Are We Going Wrong?

2010-12-12T21:02:00.003-06:00

According to a recent report by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, American’s life expectancy is falling, not rising.

Not good. Our life expectancy should be increasing, shouldn’t it? After all, we spend more money than any other nation in the world on “health care”. We have more hospitals, more doctors, more nurses, more drugs, and more surgeries than any other nation in the world; so how are we LOSING LIFE? And why are we ranked 37th out of 39 developed nations by the World Health Organization in terms of healthiest nations?

Because we are also the most irresponsible, lazy, and marketed to nation in the world. We are raised with the immediate gratification, “pop a pill”, victim mentality. Victims of our genes, victims of germs, victims of bad luck. How is that working for us? How is the brainwashing by Big Pharma, Fast Food companies, and Big Government affecting us? It’s killing us. Not just in terms of health, but in every societal and economic sense.

Our society and economy are affected because we are continuously marketed to and exploited by Big Business and a government that doesn’t care about our health or our quality of life, only our money. This money focus trickles down to the minds of the public and leads to a mentality of “more”; which leads to a loss of priorities and ultimately, a breakdown of the family unit. Instead of being home having a family dinner, parents are working late to “keep up with the Joneses” and letting strangers raise their children.

What does this financial stress do to families and marriages? It destroys them. Don’t look now, but two parent households are a minority in this nation. Do you think that impacts the self-esteem of our children? Do you think their self-esteem affects our society? Before you answer that question, take a look at the number of children on anti-depressant drugs, at the number of school shootings, and at suicide rates from birth to age 25.

The only solution to this societal, economic, and health decay is accountability. Accountability to yourself for your health, for your happiness, and for your focus. And accountability to your children to be a role model as to how to live a healthy life. We have to stand in opposition to the mainstream and consciously CHOOSE health and consciously CHOOSE life.

What does that look like? Continuously, on a day to day, minute to minute basis choosing healthy nutrition, healthy exercise habits, and healthy relationships and attitudes. It means educating yourself and discovering true health care practitioners like Chiropractors that have your best interests in mind. It means being proactive instead of reactive. It means spending a few dollars today to prevent becoming bankrupt by chronic disease tomorrow.

If you don’t educate yourself and take interest in what’s best for you and your family, who will do that for you?

An Agrarian View of Health

2010-11-02T21:34:00.003-05:00

Agrarianist Wendell Berry believed and wrote that we live with and from others in extensive webs of interrelatedness. In other words, our happiness and health follow from the acceptance of responsibility for our interdependence. Put a third way, we cannot hurt the Earth without hurting our bodies.

In his essay, "The Body And The Earth", Berry has a section devoted to health. Although this selection was written in 1977, I think you will find that it is just as relevant today as it was 40+ years ago. Please read it, think about it, and begin to think about how you can change your approach to health.

In it he writes:

"It is therefore absurd to approach the subject of health piecemeal with a departmentalized band of specialists. A medical doctor uninterested in nutrition, in agriculture, in the wholesomeness of mind and spirit is as absurd as a farmer who is uninterested in health. Our fragmentation of this subject cannot be our cure, because it is our disease. The body cannot be whole alone. Persons cannot be whole alone. It is wrong to think that bodily health is compatible with spiritual confusion or cultural disorder, or with polluted air and water or impoverished soil. Intellectually, we knwo that these patterns of interdependence exist; we understand them better now perhaps than we ever have before; yet modern social and cultural patterns contradict them and make it difficult or impossible to honor them in practice. To try to heal the body alone is to collaborate in the destruction of the body. Healing is impossible in loneliness; it is the opposite of loneliness."

Blaming Bad Genes For Breast Cancer Is A Medical Myth

2010-10-18T14:56:00.007-05:00

Article Of The Week:
Blaming Bad Genes For Breast Cancer Is A Medical Myth, Read Here

Doctor's Soapbox:
The studies continue to pile up! This one is from the journal Breast Cancer Research and the lead researcher found that "regardless of whether or not women have a family history of breast cancer, staying physically active, eating well, and avoiding excessive alcohol consumption reduce their risk of developing breast cancer to the same degree."

What does that mean? That means that if you have a "family history" of breast cancer, so what. You probably have a "family history" of poor lifestyle choices like sedentary lifestyle, poor diet, smoker, drinker, and/or high stress job, home, family life. In other words, it's not genetic, it's familial. You learned how to live from your mother who learned from her mother. If you all learned the same poor lifestyle and live the same poor lifestyle, you'll all more than likely develop the same chronic disease; in this case, breast cancer. Yes, genetics play a role, but it is a role that is far overblown by the media and industries that stand to make millions of dollars off of you living the victim mentality (Pharmaceutical companies, medical-industrial complex).

So take control of your life and your health. Live an anti-cancer lifestyle. Eat well, move well, think well, get adjusted.

Kate Pregnant Dance 37 Weeks 10-9-10.AVI

2010-10-10T08:26:00.000-05:00

Human Genome Mapping A Failure In Finding Cures For Disease

2010-10-08T07:42:00.004-05:00

Article Of The Week:
Human Genome Mapping A Failure In Finding Cures For Disease, Read Here

Doctor's Soapbox:
10 years ago, Bill Clinton announced that the complete human genome had been mapped. This was a huge day in science because the thought was that once we map the human genome, we can discover what genes cause what diseases and treat them accordingly by pharmaceutical methods. One quote by Francis Collins at the National Institutes of Health said, "you will see a complete transformation in therapeutic medicine."

10 years later, where are we? No better off. Medicine still has no answer for cancer, heart disease, diabetes, or obesity. The genomes are mapped, we know which genes and gene variants are linked to which diseases, yet disease rates are increasing across the board, not decreasing. Where is the pie in the sky? It's fallen on the faces of the medical establishment. You see, there are genetic factors that play a role in cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. But far and away, the more important factor when determining disease risk and prognosis is environment/lifestyle. This was proven yet again in an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association. After studying 19,000 women with heart disease and finding 101 different gene variants that contribute to heart disease, they found that the fact that the women had a gene that was linked to heart disease had zero predictive benefit over 12 years as to whether or not the women developed heart disease.

So what determined whether they developed heart disease? Their lifestyle. How they chose to eat, move, and think on a daily basis.

Harold Varmus, the president at the National Cancer Institute summed it up in one great line, "Genomics is a way to do science, not medicine."

Chiropractic Cuts Blood Pressure

2010-09-28T12:09:00.001-05:00

Chiropractic Cuts Blood Pressure

Study Finds Special 'Atlas Adjustment' Lowers Blood Pressure

By Daniel J. DeNoon
WebMD Health News

Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD

March 16, 2007 -- A special chiropractic adjustment can significantly lower high blood pressure, a placebo-controlled study suggests.

"This procedure has the effect of not one, but two blood-pressure medications given in combination," study leader George Bakris, MD, tells WebMD. "And it seems to be adverse-event free. We saw no side effects and no problems," adds Bakris, director of the University of Chicago hypertension center.

Eight weeks after undergoing the procedure, 25 patients with early-stage high blood pressure had significantly lower blood pressure than 25 similar patients who underwent a sham chiropractic adjustment. Because patients can't feel the technique, they were unable to tell which group they were in.

X-rays showed that the procedure realigned the Atlas vertebra -- the doughnut-like bone at the very top of the spine -- with the spine in the treated patients, but not in the sham-treated patients.

Compared to the sham-treated patients, those who got the real procedure saw an average 14 mm Hg greater drop in systolic blood pressure (the top number in a blood pressure count), and an average 8 mm Hg greater drop in diastolic blood pressure (the bottom blood pressure number).

None of the patients took blood pressure medicine during the eight-week study.

"When the statistician brought me the data, I actually didn't believe it. It was way too good to be true," Bakris says. "The statistician said, 'I don't even believe it.' But we checked for everything, and there it was."

Bakris and colleagues report their findings in the advance online issue of the Journal of Human Hypertension.

Atlas Adjustment and Hypertension

The procedure calls for adjustment of the C-1 vertebra. It's called the Atlas vertebra because it holds up the head, just as the titan Atlas holds up the world in Greek mythology.

Marshall Dickholtz Sr., DC, of the Chiropractic Health Center, in Chicago, is the 84-year-old chiropractor who performed all the procedures in the study. He calls the Atlas vertebra "the fuse box to the body."

"At the base of the brain are two centers that control all the muscles of the body. If you pinch the base of the brain -- if the Atlas gets locked in a position as little as a half a millimeter out of line -- it doesn't cause any pain but it upsets these centers," Dickholtz tells WebMD.

The subtle adjustment is practiced by the very small subgroup of chiropractors certified in National Upper Cervical Chiropractic (NUCCA) techniques. The procedure employs precise measurements to determine a patient's Atlas vertebra alignment. If realignment is deemed necessary, the chiropractor uses his or her hands to gently manipulate the vertebra.

"We are not doctors. We are spinal engineers," Dickholtz says. "We use mathematics, geometry, and physics to learn how to slide everything back into place."

Atlas Adjustment and Hypertension continued...

What does this have to do with high blood pressure pressure?

Bakris notes that some researchers have suggested that injury to the Atlas vertebra can affect blood flow in the arteries at the base of the skull. Dickholtz thinks the misaligned Atlas triggers release of signals that make the arteries contract. Whether the procedure actually fixes such injuries is unknown, Bakris says.

Bakris began the study after a fellow doctor told him that something strange was happening in his family practice. The doctor had been sending some of his patients to a chiropractor. Some of these patients had high blood pressure.

Yet after seeing the chiropractor, the patients' blood pressure had normalized -- and a few of them were able to stop taking their blood pressure medications.

So Bakris, then at Rush University, designed the pilot study with 50 patients. He's now organizing a much bigger clinical trial.

"Is it going to be for everybody with high blood pressure? No," Bakris says. "We clearly need to identify those who can benefit. It is pretty clear that some kind of head or neck trauma early in life is related to this. This is really a work in progress. It is certainly in the early stages of research."

Dickholtz has been teaching, practicing, and studying the NUCCA technique for 50 years. He says high blood pressure is far from the only thing an Atlas misalignment causes.

"On the other hand, if people have high blood pressure, there is a tremendous possibility they need an Atlas adjustment," he says.

Stress-Induced Coronary Heart Disease

2010-09-22T08:18:00.002-05:00

Stress Induced Coronary Heart Disease

By Dr. Paul J. Rosch, M.D., M.A., F.A.C.P.

Here are a half dozen of the numerous mechanisms that link stress to coronary heart disease:

1. For those who still believe in elevated cholesterol, stress has a far greater effect than fatty foods as demonstrated in tax accountants as April 15 approaches, students on the eve of an important exam and several other studies. Stress also contributes to other risk factors such as smoking, hypertension, diabetes and obesity.

2. Stress can cause constriction of the coronary vasculature and increased platelet stickiness and clumping that promote clot formation.

3. Stress increases homocysteine, CRP and fibrinogen, all of which are risk factors or risk markers for coronary heart disease.

4. Stress causes increased deep abdominal fat deposits that contribute to insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome with its varied and sometimes deadly cardiovascular consequences.

5. In addition to Type A behavior, hostility, excessive anger, stressful life events, depression, and anxiety, have all been demonstrated to cause coronary heart disease.

6. It has been proposed that unstable atherosclerotic plaque might actually represent a "microabscess" that resulted from an infection. There is surprising support for this theory, and it is well established that stress can increase susceptibility to infections.

Read the whole article here:

Stress Induced Coronary Heart Disease

Paul J. Rosch, M.D., M.A., F.A.C.P.

Dr. Paul J. Rosch is President of The American Institute of Stress,
Clinical Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry at New York Medical College,
Honorary Vice President of the International Stress Management Association and Chairman of its U.S. branch.

Diet-Induced Obesity Accelerates Leukemia

2010-09-12T13:36:00.001-05:00

Article Of The Week:
Diet-Induced Obesity Accelerates Leukemia

Doctor's Soapbox:
The title says it all. Lifestyle choice causes cancer. Lifestyle choice (poor diet leading to obesity; "diet-induced") causes cancer (Leukemia). It doesn't get any more cut and dry than this. And this is straight out of the medical literature: Cancer Prevention Research.

Each and every day studies continue to show that the more they look at lifestyle choices and their influence on cancer, the more they realize that lifestyle choices cause at least 80% of cancer.

The Fit Brain

2010-08-28T23:10:00.001-05:00

The Fit Brain Mark's Daily Apple

You love the runner’s high, chiseled physique, steady energy, knock-out sleep, and that alluring post-workout glow. And, sure, there’s always the extraordinary cardiovascular benefit, cancer deterrent, anti-inflammatory impact, and age reversal effect. If that isn’t enough congratulations for your fitness endeavors, here’s more. Physical activity helps fortify your brain as well as your muscles. Yes, exercise goes to your head in dramatically healthy ways – throughout the course of a lifetime. Let’s examine.
Changing the Brain
Exercise supports the brain in a number of ways. Most obviously, exercise increases blood flow to the brain, which provides more oxygen and energy but also reduces free radical damage and enhances memory. Researchers also know that exercise stimulates the creation of new neurons and the production of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a chemical that is instrumental in neuron preservation and formation. And then there’s the impact on gene expression (always a favorite of mine). Exercise specifically promotes gene expression that supports plasticity, the brain’s crucial power to alter neural pathways.
A more recent study highlights exercise’s role in boosting the brain’s stem cell activity – essentially the ability to divide and differentiate throughout our lifetime. Research at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine shows that exercise moderates the activity of bone-morphogenetic protein (BMP), which reduces stem cell responsiveness in the brain. Within a weeks’ time, BMP levels were halved in lab mice that ran on a wheel, and an opposing protein called Noggin increased. As a result, the mice displayed remarkable adeptness in cognitive tests.
In addition to enhancing cognitive performance and stimulating ongoing brain growth, exercise also influences the chemical balance related to mood. Research has long connected physical activity with relief of depression and anxiety. Exercise not only stimulates the brain’s release of “feel good chemicals” like endorphins that induce calm and contentment but also supports the brain’s efficient use of dopamine by increasing the number of receptors and the time dopamine remains in the synapses (PDF).
When it comes to the “aging brain,” exercise rewrites the script on that notion. Physical activity can not only preserve brain function but can turn back the clock. As mentioned, exercise keeps the brain’s stem cells working efficiently over the course of a lifetime and preserve brain tissue density. The difference shows. When researchers scanned the brains of fifty-five subjects (ages 55-79), those with the fittest profile (as measured by their maximal oxygen uptake) showed significant differences in the frontal, temporal, and parietal regions of the brain, areas related to learning and memory functions.
Researchers have also found that sustained exercise improves cognitive measures in older adults already experiencing mild memory loss.
Which Exercise?
So, what kind of exercise and how much are we talking here? Science is currently chasing that one down. A Taiwanese study compared mice that played on wheel at their own pace versus mice that were provoked to run at fast speeds. Although researchers found changes in the brains of both groups, the mice that got the more intense workout sported more numerous and more cognitively complex alterations. Their conclusion? Different exercise elicits different changes. Other research, however, suggests that more intense cardiovascular activity spurs more dramatic improvements in cognition and memory. And let’s not leave out resistance training. A recent Canadian study found that resistance training improved executive functioning measures related to attention and conflict resolution. Moderate levels of exercise appear to be effective, but any level – and amount – of activity leaves a positive impact.
When?
The evidence clearly shows, however, that exercise sharpens our mental acuity at any point in our lives. In children, of course, there are plenty of cognitive and behavioral benefits. Study after study (PDF) has demonstrated that physical activity boosts academic performance as well as cognitive related functioning itself in areas such as attention, planning, and organization. (Was there ever any question on that one?)
Most research, however, has focused on older adults who have either been active throughout their lives and those who take up exercise in their later years. The fact is, the more sustained exercise is over a lifetime, the better. Research suggests that a “cognitive reserve” exists in those who were active early in life. Every workout adds to the overall – and lasting – benefit. Finally, experts believe that the best impact comes from a potent synergy between exercise and good nutrition. Now where have I heard that one before?
Have a great day, everyone, and be sure to share your thoughts!

Burger with a side of Statins?

2010-08-15T14:19:00.004-05:00

Article Of The Week:
Doctor Urges Fast Food Restaurants To Hand Out Statin Drugs Like Ketchup Packets, Read Here

Doctor's Soapbox:
Seriously?...
I hope there isn't anyone out there that actually believes this is a good idea. This doctor, Dr. Darrel Francis of Imperial College London, recommends handing out Statin drugs at fast food restaurants to "offset the cardiovascular risk of the meal." Really? He thinks that taking the pill will offset the dangers of eating the fast food and all will be fine. How about this, fast food is a chemical concoction of toxic sludge. Statin drugs are a chemical concoction of toxic sludge. Last I checked, 1 + 1 = 2. This doctor seems to believe that 1 + 1 = 0. Take a toxic drug to offset a toxic meal and you're safe. RIDICULOUS.

As if the fast food wasn't bad enough to cause obesity, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, and stroke; now the doctor wants to add liver and kidney disease by handing you a Statin. Other side effects of Statin drugs include amnesia, muscle breakdown that leads to kidney failure, CoQ10 deficiency which leads to heart disease, and erectile dysfunction just to name a few.

It is this kind of mindless recommendation by the mainstream medical model that has enlightened and educated citizens looking to the "alternative" practitioners for answers. Mainstream medicine is the #1 killer in the United States (Read Here), ahead of cancer and heart disease, and it's this kind of thinking and recommendation that has earned them that title.

What the doctor should be recommending is "Stay away from fast food!". That way, you won't be exposed to a cardiovascular risk and you won't have to take drugs to be "healthy". By definition, all drugs are toxic. After all, the only difference between a drug and a poison is the dose. Therefore, the fact that you are on a drug immediately makes you unhealthy.

True health does not come from pills. True health comes from providing your body with the proper raw materials needed to express health from the inside out. These raw materials are: proper nutrition from REAL, WHOLE food sources, proper exercise, proper mental attitude/stress levels, and an optimally functioning nervous system to integrate and coordinate the expression of the raw materials into a healthy you.

Mind-Body: Why the Disconnect?

2010-08-02T16:12:00.005-05:00

Article Of The Week:

Mind Over Matter? The Psychology of Healing, Read Here

Doctor's Soapbox:

An often overlooked factor in health is the Mind-Body connection. For over 200 years, since Descartes promoted a separation of mind and body in medicine in the 1700s, mainstream medicine has neglected the mind in terms of its power to heal. Fortunately, science has recently taken steps to reconnect the mind with the body in the literature and in the healing arts. Unfortunately, this is not happening fast enough in mainstream medicine and a lot of patients are suffering and/or being exposed to far too many toxic treatments and prescriptions that would not be necessary if the mind was brought into the picture. The above article is perfect proof.

This article from the scientific journal Diabetologia studied diabetic patients (Type 1 and Type 2) that had foot ulcers. Foot ulcers are open sores which form when a minor skin injury fails to heal because of microvascular and metabolic dysfunction caused by diabetes. Up to fifteen per cent of people with diabetes, both Type 1 and Type 2, develop foot or leg ulcers with many suffering depression and poorer quality of life as a result. The researchers in this study found that "the way patients cope with the condition and their levels of depression, affect how the wound heals or worsens." Eureka!!!! Mindset matters! This goes right along with the findings of many other studies that have shown that the more depressed or negative a person thinks, the more often they are sick. Science continues to back this up folks, even if your medical doctors give no credence to it. Lucky for you, "alternative" practitioners like myself do recognize and acknowledge the monumental contribution a person's mindset makes to the healing process.

Let's take this a step further, if your mindset determines how quickly your body heals an ulcer, do you think it also factors into how quickly you age, and therefore, your lifespan? Absolutely! Negative thoughts increase the stress hormone cortisol in your body, just like physical or chemical stress. The body reacts to all stress the same, regardless of the mode of input. Increased cortisol leads to increased depression by depleting the brain's stores of serotonin. It also leads to atherosclerosis and increased LDL cholesterol. Does that sound like a recipe for heart disease to you? And what is the number 1 killer and robber of lifespan in America? Heart disease. Does mindset matter? You bet your life it does!

Mainstream Medicine Tries To Jump On Bandwagon

2010-07-30T12:59:00.003-05:00

Article Of The Week:

Physician Competencies For Prescribing Lifestyle Medicine

Journal of the American Medical Association July 29th, 2010
Lianov, L., M. Johnson. JAMA. 2010; 304(2): 202-203.

Doctor's Soapbox:
Here is up to the minute proof that what I have been preaching week in and week out is the key to health. Even mainstream medicine is admitting it, and has been. Lifestyle is the key to health. The only difference now is not only are they giving it lip service, but they're trying to get medical doctors to start practicing it. There's only one problem, medical doctors do not have the education or knowledge to provide it. As the article says,

"Even though the most widely accepted, well-established chronic disease practice guidelines uniformly call for lifestyle change as the first line of therapy, physicians often do not follow these recommendations."

Why? If research has proven again and again that people with chronic diseases (cancer, heart disease, obesity, diabetes, depression, etc.) get better faster and live longer, higher quality lives when instituting lifestyle change as the primary treatment, why aren't medical doctors screaming this from the rooftops? There are a couple reasons. First and foremost is money. Medical doctors have 2 tools, drugs and surgery. Those tools are very expensive and very profitable, teaching people to eat better, exercise more, and reduce stress is not as easy to give patients and requires a lot more thinking by the doctor (plus there are no kickbacks from Big Pharma). The second reason, which stems from the first, is that medical doctors don't have the knowledge base or paradigm to teach lifestyle. As the article states,

"Physicians also have cited inadequate confidence and lack of knowledge and skill as major barriers to counseling patients about lifestyle interventions."

So who does that leave to provide true health and healing? What profession provides lifestyle "medicine"? Chiropractic, specifically, chiropractors with the Certified Chiropractic Wellness Practitioner (C.C.W.P.) degree through the International Chiropractic Association.

While medicine tries to bail out their sinking ship by jumping on the wellness bandwagon and failing because they don't know how that bandwagon works, take care of yourself and your family by learning how to live a wellness lifestyle from an expert: John Bartemus, DC, CCWP.

Wellness Lifestyle Implementation Steps 7/18/10

2010-07-18T15:50:00.004-05:00

Did You Know???: the first Chiropractic adjustment was given to a deaf janitor named Harvey Lillard in hopes of returning his hearing? Guess what, it did! The janitor wasn't born deaf, he had become deaf after a fall and remained that way for years until D.D. Palmer (the founder of Chiropractic) gave him the very first Chiropractic adjustment. A remarkable story, and a reminder that Chiropractors are not "back pain" doctors, they are nervous system doctors. They find the spinal cause of nervous system interference, remove it, and allow the body to operate and heal at an optimum level. Chiropractors cannot cure deafness but your body can when operating on all cylinders. Is your body operating on all cylinders?

Book Of The Week: The Diseasing Of America's Children by: John Rosemond, MS and Bose Ravenel, MD

Recipe Of The Week: Walnut Broccoli with Carrots

1/2 cup walnut oil
1 medium onion, sliced in rings
2 large carrots, sliced diagonally 1/8 inch thick
2 large stalks broccoli, sliced 1/4 inch thick
1/2 cup raw shelled walnuts

Heat oil in heavy skillet and saute onion until tender. Add carrots and broccoli and stir-fry until tender yet crispy. Add walnuts and cook 3-5 minutes longer. Serves 2.

Quote Of The Week: "Don't let someone else's opinion of you become your reality." Les Brown

Goal Of The Week: Go the entire week without watching the news. Realize how positive your world becomes.

Article Of The Week:
Meditation Helps Increase Attention Span, click here

Doctor's Soapbox:
What is the cause of an inability to concentrate or "shut your brain off"? Stress. When we are stressed out, we sacrifice our ability to concentrate, or pay attention, for the ability to increase alertness. This is important evolutionarily because when we were under the stress of a sabertooth tiger attack we didn't have to memorize a grocery list, we had to be alert and aware of any and all escape routes. Today, we aren't battling acute stressors that could take our lives as often as we did back then. Now we face chronic stressors that kill us slowly. While we're under this stress, the same physiology applies, we trade attention span for alertness. So if you find yourself unable to concentrate, or have been "diagnosed" with ADHD, try meditation to decrease stress levels and bring your body back to balance. You will find your ability to concentrate improves very quickly.

A LONG AND HAPPY LIFE REQUIRES TLC!

Follow us on Twitter
Facebook Fanpage
YouTube Channel Subscribe
LinkedIn Connect
My Blog Read Here

Wellness Lifestyle Implementation Steps 6/27/10

2010-06-28T14:35:00.003-05:00

Did You Know???: Chiropractors work with extremities too, not just spinal joints? It's true, Chiropractic is beneficial for any joint in the body: shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees, ankles, feet, and jaw. After all, your spinal joints aren't the only joints that become misaligned. Think of the trauma that your feet and ankles take throughout a lifetime of walking, running, and sports. All that pounding, one misstep and those joints easily misalign. Have you ever sprained your ankle? There you go. A sprained ankle definitely causes misalignment in the ankle. Then, depending on how severe a sprain it is, it indirectly causes misalignment in the hips and back too due to favoring it and limping, or being on crutches for any amount of time. A handful (or less) of adjustments by your Chiropractor and proper rehab of the ankle by your Chiropractor and you're back to normal and prevented the possibility of arthritis in that joint down the road.

Book Of The Week: Statin Drugs And The Misguided War On Cholesterol by: Duane Graveline, MD

Recipe Of The Week: Baked Walnut-Cinnamon Apples

4 apples
1 cup raisins
1/4 cup walnuts
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp natural vanilla extract
1/2 cup water

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Core and pierce apples with a fork in several places around the center to prevent them from bursting. Mix raisins, nuts, cinnamon and vanilla in a small bowl. Fill center of each apple with this mixture. Place in a glass baking dish and pour water into pan. Cover with foil and bake for about thirty minutes or until tender. Serves four.

Quote Of The Week: "You don't have to be a person of influence to be influential. In fact, the most influential people in my life are not even aware of the things they've taught me."
-Scott Adams

Goal Of The Week: Take one day this week and eat only raw fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds. Feel the difference that eating only live food makes.

Article Of The Week:
US Government Panel Now Pushing "Vaccines For Everyone!", No Exceptions.

www.naturalnews.com/029081_vaccinations_public_health.html

Doctor's Soapbox:
They just won't quit. The CDC is hellbent on cowering to the desires of Big Pharma and polluting the health of everyone in the nation for nothing other than financial gain. Despite the continual scientific proof that those who get vaccinated are at greater risk of getting the flu (www.naturalnews.com/027102_vaccines_H1N1_flu_shot.html), and that governmental agencies (FDA, CDC, WHO) make these recommendations because they are getting paid off by Big Pharma (www.naturalnews.com/028936_WHO_vaccines.html), not because it's the right thing to do, they continue to persevere and try to push through their greedy plan.

Even worse is the fact that they can't even keep their facts straight. For example, everyone is familiar with the fact that hospitals inject newborns with multiple vaccines the second they are born. They do this because they say it is "safe" and will provide "immunity" for the children. Oh really? Well look what the CDC says in the above article:

"(CDC) recommends yearly flu vaccination for everyone except for children under the age of six months, whose immune systems have not yet developed enough for vaccination to be safe."

So why are we injecting them with not one, but multiple vaccinations the second they are born in the hospital? If their "immune systems have not yet developed enough for vaccination to be safe" when given just one vaccine, how is being injected with the Measles-Mumps-Rubella vaccine (3 at once) safe? Seems to me like they're a little conflicted. In cases like this, money and greed always win. Don't fall victim to blindly following the advice of these government gangsters. Educate yourself, and speak up to educate others. Otherwise you give up your health freedom and quality of life to those trying to pad their wallets.

A LONG AND HAPPY LIFE REQUIRES TLC!

Follow us on Twitter
Facebook Fanpage
YouTube Channel Subscribe
LinkedIn Connect

Wellness Lifestyle Implementation Steps 6/20/10

2010-06-20T18:54:00.003-05:00

Did You Know???: one of the benefits of Chiropractic is anti-aging? A study at the University of Lund in Sweden showed that long term (2+ years) Chiropractic maintenance care boosted antioxidant levels in the blood, whereas short term care and no care at all didn't. Why is this important? Aging has been shown scientifically to be caused by oxidative damage, i.e. Free Radicals. Chiropractic maintenance care was shown to boost blood Thiol levels. Thiols are potent antioxidants, i.e. they decrease/neutralize Free Radicals. Therefore, you age at a slower rate. Thiols also slow telomere shortening of DNA which has been shown to be another cause of aging. What a 1-2 punch! Chiropractic boosts Thiol levels which decreases Free Radical damage and increases DNA repair! Don't just sit there and grow old, get to your Chiropractor and preserve your youth and vitality!

Book Of The Week: Jumpstart Your Marketing Brain by Doug Hall

Recipe Of The Week: Altadena Baked Chicken

1 large chicken, skinned and halved
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp paprika
4 tbsp lime juice
2 tbsp walnut oil
1tsp dried tarragon

Place chicken halves in 9x13 inch baking dish. Combine remaining ingredients to make marinade and brush over chicken. Bake at 375 degrees for 45-50 minutes. Turn chicken occasionally while cooking and brush with marinade. Serves 4.

Quote Of The Week: "Learn the art of patience. Apply a little discipline to your thoughts when they become anxious over the outcome of a goal. Impatience breeds anxiety, fear, discouragement, and failure. Patience creates confidence, decisiveness, and a rational outlook, which eventually leads to success." -Brian Adams

Goal Of The Week: Go 3 days without eating any pasta, cereal, or bread of any kind and be conscious of how you feel and your energy levels throughout the day.

Article Of The Week:
Experts Explore Emerging Evidence Linking Diabetes And Cancer

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100616090023.htm

Doctor's Soapbox:
This is not a surprising discovery to anyone who is an expert in physiology. Diabetes and cancer share many of the same risk factors. Also, the cause of Type 2 Diabetes (hyperinsulinemia) is a perfect environment for cancer to develop in. Add to that the fact that Type 2 Diabetes is a lifestyle induced disease, and the discovery that diabetes and cancer are linked is no eureka moment at all. Why? Because the same lifestyle that causes Type 2 Diabetes (high processed, unrefined, sugar/acidic food diet, sedentary lifestyle) creates a microenvironment in your body that cancer thrives in. Cancer loves sugar, loves an acidic pH, and loves an anaerobic environment (lack of oxygen due to lack of exercise). The real surprise (not to me but to most physicians I'm sure) is the advice of the writers of this article (American Diabetes Association and American Cancer Society). Instead of recommending drug therapy, they recommend (and I quote):

"Healthy diet, physical activity, and weight management reduce the risk and improve the outcomes of Type 2 Diabetes and some forms of cancer and should be promoted for all."

A LONG AND HAPPY LIFE REQUIRES TLC!

Follow us on Twitter
Facebook Fanpage
YouTube Channel Subscribe
LinkedIn Connect

Wellness Lifestyle Implementation Steps 6/13/10

2010-06-14T15:58:00.003-05:00

HELLO TRANSCENDENT LIFESTYLE CENTER FAMILY!!!
Man it's hot!!! I hope everyone is hydrating enough, remember, you should drink half your weight in ounces of water everyday. And more on days like this! I have lots of announcements.
Coming up this week:
Tuesday night we have a Reiki Share at my office from 7-8pm. It will be taught by Stacy Quealey.
Thursday night from 7-8pm at my office Bernadette Sanders and I will be giving a talk entitled, "Exercise and Nutrition for Cancer and Chronic Illness". Please come and enrich your knowledge base.
Lastly, I founded a Meetup.com group called the
Charlotte Holistic Health Education Group. Please join and find out more about it at:
www.meetup.com/Charlotte-Holistic-Health-Education-Group/
Our first meetup will be Thursday, June 24th from 7-8pm at my office. Find out all the details at the above link. It's going to be a great health resource for everyone!

Did You Know???: Chiropractic care is a form of jumper cables for your immune system? The nervous system and immune system are intricately intertwined and cannot function without each other. The nerves that exit your spine in your midback between your shoulder blades play a key role in ensuring that you have a healthy immune response to any kind of adversity. If you have a misalignment or lack of movement in that part of your spine, your brain's ability to effectively communicate with and orchestrate your immune system is below optimal. A below optimal immune system is a chink in your armor. That's how sickness and disease creeps in. They're good at finding your weak spots. Don't make it easy for them. Maintain your health by maintaining proper spinal alignment and nervous system function. See your Chiropractor.

Book Of The Week: Influence by Robert Cialdini, PhD

Recipe Of The Week: Paleo Cookie Bars

1 cup smooth almond butter
2 whole eggs
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup coconut oil
1 cup almond flour
1/2 cup coconut flour
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup carob nips
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 and grease a 13" x 9" pan with coconut oil.
Mix almond butter, eggs, honey, and coconut oil first.
Mix in flour, cocoa powder, fruit, and coconut.
Pour mixture into pan.
Bake for 9-11 minutes.
Add any ingredients as necessary if mixture appears runny.

Quote Of The Week:

"Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence consistently applying the basic fundamentals." -Jim Rohn

Goal Of The Week: Replace all of your plastic water bottles, tupperware, and kitchen storage containers; anything that holds food or liquid that you will consume, will glassware. Pyrex is an excellent and inexpensive brand that you can purchase at Walmart and Target. By achieving this goal, you will substantially decrease the amount of toxic chemicals (like Bisphenol-A) that leach out of the plastic into your food and liquid.

Article Of The Week:
Poor Health? Easier For Some To Blame Bad Genes Than Change Lifestyle

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100608101025.htm

Doctor's Soapbox:
Here is a study from the Annals of Behavioral Medicine that reinforces what I teach: poor lifestyle choices are the most important factor in the cause of disease. What this study looked at was whether or not people really understand this? What they found was interesting. The answer is yes, people do understand that their choices are the major determinate in their state of health or disease, but they don't want to admit it because that makes them accountable. The researchers found that the poorer the health of the individuals studied, the more likely they were to have a victim mentality, i.e. blame their genes for their poor health. This mentality creates a vicious cycle. Instead of admitting that their poor health/disease is the direct result of their own poor choices and changing their lifestyles (which requires work) to reach health, the people continue making poor choices. They remain lazy (remain the "victim") and continue to slide down the slippery slope of disease because that's easier (takes no work) than getting off the couch to exercise, plan and cook real meals, and get involved in their community.

If this is you, the secret is out, you're not fooling anybody, you're hurting yourself and your loved ones. So please, do yourself and your loved ones a favor. Admit the truth, and start to make the simple and necessary changes to point you back in the direction of health. If you need help, please call me, this is my passion and I'd love to work with you.

A LONG AND HAPPY LIFE REQUIRES TLC!

Follow us on Twitter
Facebook Fanpage
YouTube Channel Subscribe
LinkedIn Connect

Wellness Lifestyle Implementation Steps 5/30/10

2010-05-30T20:05:00.002-05:00

Did You Know???: that asthma is caused by a hyperactive immune system? When you inhale pollen and/or other allergens into your airways, your body gets rid of them by creating inflammation against them by recruiting white blood cells to the area and causing them to release histamine. A hyperactive immune system causes too much histamine to be released, this causes narrowing of the airways (bronchoconstriction) making it difficult to breathe (asthma attack). Hence the mechanism of asthma drugs (Anti-histamines). The only problem is, the drugs are addressing the symptom (too much histamine), instead of the cause (hyperactive immune system). Chiropractic addresses the cause. When you receive chiropractic adjustments to specific vertebrae in the neck and upper back that send nerves to the immune organs, you return the immune system to balance. A balanced immune system is a properly functioning immune system. A properly functioning immune system will only release enough histamine to take care of the allergen, not cause an asthma attack.

Book Of The Week: Never Be Sick Again by: Raymond Francis

Recipe Of The Week: Fruit Smoothie
1 cup of water
1 banana
4 frozen mango halves
2 gala apples
1/2 cup of blueberries
1/2 cup of blackberries

Blend until liquid. For creamier texture, add more banana.

Quote Of The Week: "Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up."
-Thomas Edison

Goal Of The Week: Call your parents and every one of your siblings at least once this week and catch up on what's happening in their lives.

Article Of The Week:
Low Levels of Vitamin D Make Asthma Worse

www.naturalnews.com/028886_asthma_vitamin_D.html

Doctor's Soapbox:
This article goes right along with the Did You Know??? section above. Vitamin D is a neurohormone, it is a major player in the health and performance of our immune system. If we are deficient in vitamin D, we cannot possibly be at optimal health because our immune system is not operating at full potential. The best source of vitamin D is the sun. Fifteen to twenty minutes of direct sunlight a day is enough to produce 40,000 IU of vitamin D in your body, more than enough of your daily requirement. So if you haven't done so already this holiday weekend, get out in the sun!

A LONG AND HAPPY LIFE REQUIRES TLC!

Dr John Bartemus - Transcendent Lifestyle Center, PC - Successful Living...

2010-05-16T18:57:00.000-05:00

Dr. John Bartemus - Transcendent Lifestyle Center, PC - Successful Livin...

2010-05-16T18:56:00.001-05:00

Dr. John Bartemus - Transcendent Lifestyle Center, PC -Successful Living...

2010-05-16T18:56:00.000-05:00

Fruit and Vegetable Intake and Cancer Risk

2010-05-11T14:45:00.001-05:00

Article Review By : Dr James L. Chestnut

Boffetta, P. Fruit and vegetable intake and overall cancer risk in the European Prospective Investigation Into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) J Natl Cancer Inst 2010;102 (8):1-9

The above study has created a lot of discussion about the importance, or lack thereof, of fruit and vegetable intake. Once again this situation points out the importance of both reading the full study and also knowing how to critique the scientific methodology.

First of all let’s start by quoting the actual study. The study itself reports a STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT reduction in cancer risk with increased intake of fruits and vegetables.

“A statistically significant reduction in overall cancer risk was associated with increased intake of fruits and vegetables.”

“Our analysis of a prospective study from 10 European countries showed an inverse association between cancer risk and higher intake of fruits and vegetables, notably intake of vegetables.”

Considering how low the ACTUAL fruit and vegetable intake was even in what they label the “high intake” group this is almost incredible.

The participants in this study were categorized from “low intake” at 231 grams of fruit and vegetable intake per day to “high intake” at 511 grams of fruit and vegetable intake per day. This means the “low intake” group consumed the equivalent of about one large apple and one carrot PER DAY and the “high intake” group perhaps one large apple, one pear, and two carrots – PER DAY – and this was the HIGH intake group!!!

They did NOT categorize intake based on what human’s genetically require, they simply rated intake amounts based on comparing subjects to each other. Our Paleolithic ancestors consumed an average of 1500-2000 grams of vine ripened, locally grown, 100% organic, 100% pesticide and herbicide-free whole fruits and vegetables per DAY!! This means the human genetic requirement is about 4 TIMES GREATER THAN THEIR “HIGH INTAKE” GROUP. This alone totally invalidates the study!!

Add to this the fact that they did not control for type of fruit or vegetable consumed, whether they were organic or not, whether they contained cancer causing pesticides and herbicides and fertilizers, or what the actual nutrient content was.

Further all fruit and vegetable intake was self reported so the truth is we don’t know what was ACTUALLY consumed.

They say their results were adjusted for lifestyle variables like smoking, alcohol consumption, etc. but all this was ALSO SELF REPORTED meaning that they don’t have any data that can be validated.Most importantly the study was only 8 years long. There was no cancer screenings done at the beginning of the study (at baseline) so we have no way of knowing how many of the cancers that did show up were already present but undetected.We do know that cancer takes years and often decades to become clinically evident so the idea that an 8 year study could provide any valid data on this issue is highly suspect to say the least.

Further, there was no data collected regarding lifestyle habits in the years prior to the study and of course it is this data which is most significant with respect to the development of cancer during the 8 year study.

Even with all this they still found a STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT REDUCTION IN CANCER IN THIS STUDY!!

Over the study period of 8 years within the 470,000 subjects there were approximately 30,000 reported cases of cancer. This means that over 8 years a full 15% were DIAGNOSED with cancer. The real question is how many of these people had cancer at the beginning of the study. The real probability is virtually ALL OF THEM!!

The authors seem to go out of their way to minimize the importance of their statistically significant findings. Why would they state that only 2.5% of cancers could have been prevented if people moved up just one of the five categories in terms of intake? This represents almost 1000 prevented deaths, untold human suffering and millions of dollars of medical intervention. If a drug got these results it would be on the front page of every newspaper in the world and the drug company would make billions overnight!

Imagine how many lives would be saved if people actually consumed the amount of fruits and vegetables that are genetically required!!

Further weaknesses of this study are that subjects were not randomly assigned to groups; this is an observational study dependent upon self reporting.

What we need is a randomized controlled study where subjects are assigned to a control group or to an intervention group that has a specific diet to follow which tracks actual intakes of both food stuffs and nutrients.

Without this type of data available the only source of information that is valid is studying human populations with very low incidence of cancers and other chronic lifestyle illness.

This work has been done and is the basis of the Innate Diet. Without any doubt the human beings with the lowest levels of cancers and other illnesses and the highest levels of health and vitality are our hunter-gatherer ancestors. These people ate the genetically congruent diet for humans (The Innate Diet). They consumed nothing other than nuts and seeds, fruits and vegetables, and organic, grass fed wild game.

This study shows a clear and statistically significant dose specific effect of fruit and vegetable intake and reduced cancer risk. The problem is that they completely fail to take into account what amount of fruit and vegetable intake is actually required for wellness and prevention.

Just one more study validating the Innate Choice Essential Nutrient System and The Innate Diet!

We hope this clears up any confusion. Please also remember that we cannot look at nutrition in isolation. We must understand that how we eat, move, and think all combine to determine what level of health we genetically express.

In order to be well, we must eat well, move well, and think well at the same time for an extended period of time.

IF WE LOOK AT HEALTHY HUMAN BEINGS, THE ONES WITH THE LOWEST RATES OF CANCER AND ALL OTHER CHRONIC ILLNESS WE CAN VERY EASILY DETERMINE THAT THE INNATE DIET, THE DIET OF OUR ANCESTORS, THE GENETICALLY CONGRUENT DIET, RESULTS IN THE LEAST INCIDENCE OF CHRONIC ILLNESS AND THE GREATEST LEVELS OF HEALTH, FUNCTION , VITALITY, AND DECELERATED AGING.

Wellness Lifestyle Implementation Steps 5/9/10

2010-05-09T13:40:00.002-05:00

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY TRANSCENDENT LIFESTYLE CENTER FAMILY!!!

I hope you are enjoying your family on this beautiful day.

Please join me for "Health by Choice, Not by Chance" at Davidson Healthy Home Market on Thursday, 5/13/10 from 6-7:30pm as we discuss how to maximize your health and quality of life so that you can celebrate many more Mother's Days with your family.

Did You Know??? Soft tissue damage to the ligaments in your neck is an often missed post-whiplash injury? The Journal of Trauma, Injury, Infection and Critical Care states, "The ligamentous neck injuries that occur during side impact are difficult to detect clinically using present imaging modalities, and may remain overlooked in light of readily identifiable chest, rib, and abdominal injuries that have been associated with occupants of side impacts." This means that many times neck injuries sustained during whiplash (rear, side, or frontal impact car accidents) are overlooked due to more obvious injuries to other regions of the body. This also means that if you've been in a car accident that caused whiplash (no matter what speed you were traveling) you sustained injury to the ligaments in your neck. This injury may cause immediate or delayed symptoms of neck and upper extremity pain, numbness and tingling in the arms and hands, loss of full range of motion in the neck, and/or dizziness. If you are experiencing any of these issues, see your Chiropractor, he or she is a spinal injury specialist and can help you heal those ligament injuries and return you to optimal function and health.

Book Of The Week: The Omega Diet by Artemis Simopoulos, MD

Recipe Of The Week: Chicken In Hellfire

1.5 lbs boneless skinless chicken thighs
1-2 tablespoons of olive oil
2 cups balsamic or other red wine vinegar
1/2 cup dry white wine or vermouth
3 cloves of garlic, minced or pressed through a garlic press
1 tablespoon tomato paste (not sauce)
3 tablespoon minced fresh herbs, such as tarragon, basil, and parsley

Saute chicken thighs in oil. Cover and cook slowly until thoroughly cooked. Remove chicken from pan and keep warm. Skim fat off pan juices. Add vinegar, wine, garlic, and tomato paste to the pan. Reduce (boil rapidly) over high heat until the sauce has thickened. (The sauce will be reduced by about 2/3.) Add herbs. Return chicken to the pan and toss in the sauce until reheated.

Quote Of The Week: "Apply yourself. Get all the education you can, but then... do
something. Don't just stand there, make it happen."
-- Lee Iacocca

Goal Of The Week: Learn the true use of social media applications such as Twitter, Facebook, Blogger, and LinkedIn and start applying them to your business this week.

Top Article From This Week:
Chocolate Can Help Prevent Strokes

www.naturalnews.com/028729_chocolate_strokes.html

Doctor's Soapbox:
This article is a great Mother's Day present for mothers and non-mothers everywhere. It gives them the green light to eat chocolate!!! The article states that chocolate, especially dark chocolate, helps prevent stroke via its antioxidant ability and its production of nitric oxide; a gas that helps with healthy blood pressure. Additionally, chocolate was found to decrease stress, reduce pain, and promote relaxation. The only caveat is the more processed it is, the less health value it has, so eat organic chocolate as much as possible. Enjoy!

A LONG AND HAPPY LIFE REQUIRES TLC!

Sign Up For My Free Weekly Health E-Newsletter

2010-05-09T13:36:00.002-05:00

Hello everyone!!!

If you'd like to receive my free weekly Health E-Blast, please sign up here!

Wellness Lifestyle Implementation Steps 5/2/10

2010-05-02T11:23:00.001-05:00

Did You Know???: that a properly functioning nervous system is necessary for optimal sport performance? Your ability to move is determined by the efficiency of the nerve supply to the muscles. Proper nerve supply allows for maximal muscle recruitment which allows for maximum power production, speed, agility, and reaction time. All of these attributes are key to sport performance. With the summer coming, and training for summer sports beginning, give your child the best chance to reach their full sports performance potential by getting their nervous system checked and corrected by a Chiropractor.

Book Of The Week: In Defense Of Food by: Michael Pollan

Recipe Of The Week: Paleo Pancakes

3 eggs
1/4 cup of almond meal
1/4 cup of almond milk
2 tablespoons of ground flax seeds
cinnamon
maple syrup

Heat skillet to 200 degrees. whisk all ingredients except cinnamon and maple syrup in a bowl as if you're making scrambled eggs. Dump on skillet and scramble. When finished, put result in bowl and add cinnamon and maple syrup as you wish.

Quote Of The Week: "Every job is a self-portrait of the person who did it. Autograph your work with excellence."
-- Jessica Guidobono

Goal Of The Week: Send/leave your spouse, friend, or special person an impromptu card, note, or gift letting them know how much you love and appreciate them.

Top Article From This Week

Epigenetic Concepts Offer New Approach To Degenerative Diseases Read Here

Doctor's Soapbox

Every day science piles on more and more evidence that it's our daily choices in the way that we eat, move, and think that determine our state of health more than anything else. Yes, genetics play a role, but the genes your body expresses are determined by the environmental influences placed upon them. Your gene is a blueprint for the making of Y-O-U. That blueprint is only potential, it doesn't become a reality unless an outside/environmental influence acts on it.

For example, let's look at making a cake. The recipe for the cake is your gene. The cake is the potential of that gene brought into reality. If you take the recipe out, leave it on the counter, walk away, and return 8 hours later, what do you have when you get back? The same thing you had when you left, a piece of paper with a recipe on it, nothing else. The recipe will never express itself and become a cake without an outside/environmental influence. In this case, that outside influence is the cook. The cook brings the ingredients and tools, reads the recipe, and expresses the recipe to produce a cake. Depending on the raw materials (ingredients) used by the outside influence (cook), the recipe (gene) can express a delicious cake (healthy) or a disgusting cake (disease).

In the same way, your choices of raw materials (food, exercise, mental attitude) provide your genes with the means to produce a healthy product or a diseased product. Choose well!

A long, happy life requires TLC

Wellness Lifestyle Implementation Steps 4/27/10

2010-04-28T15:24:00.003-05:00

Did You Know???: Chiropractic care is excellent for reducing High Blood Pressure? In a recent study in the Journal of Human Hypertension, an 8 week study by George Bakris, MD found that Chiropractic care "has the effect of not one, but two blood-pressure medications given in combination and it seems to be adverse-event free. We saw no side effects and no problems."

On average, neck adjustments received by the subjects in the study led to a decreased systolic (top #) blood pressure of 14 mmHg, and a decreased diastolic (bottom #) blood pressure of 8 mmHg.

If you are on blood pressure medication and have never tried the natural, side-effect free option of Chiropractic to manage your hypertension, give it a thought.

Book Of The Week: Anatomy Of An Illness by Norman Cousins, MD

Recipe Of The Week: Lemon Chicken Kebabs

1/4 cup olive oil
2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
3 garlic cloves, crushed
1/2 tsp. coarsely cracked pepper
1 1/4 pounds skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cut into bite sized pieces

Preheat broiler, or light your grill. Soak wooden skewers in water for 20
minutes to prevent them burning. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, combine oil,
lemon juice, garlic and pepper. Add chicken pieces, and toss to coat.
Marinate 15 minutes. Thread 3 or 4 chicken pieces onto each wooden skewer,
reserve marinade. Grill chicken over hot coals, baste frequently with
marinade and turning, for 12-15 minutes. Or broil, turn frequently, for
about 5 minutes.

Quote Of The Week: "There are countless ways of achieving greatness, but any road to achieving one's maximum potential must be
built on a bedrock of respect for the individual, a commitment to excellence, and a rejection of mediocrity."
-- Buck Rodgers

Goal Of The Week: Walk at lease one mile each day this week at as quick of a pace as you can.

Top Article From This Week

Body's Response To Repetitive Laughter Is Similar To Response To Repetitive Exercise Read Here

Doctor's Soapbox

How wonderful is this? You can literally laugh your way to health. Norman Cousins did it. He was diagnosed with a terminal autoimmune disease in the 70s but was determined to heal himself. He did it by laughing himself healthy. Check out The Book Of The Week, above, that's his story.

So if we can laugh our way to health, what do we need drugs for? Good question. We don't. Combine laughter with the proper diet, exercise, and healthy nervous system (through Chiropractic), and drugs are obsolete. Just look at the following quote from the article:

"(Laughing) enhances your mood, decreases stress hormones, enhances immune activity, lowers bad cholesterol and systolic blood pressure, and raises good cholesterol (HDL)."

Sounds like a home run to me, and unlike drugs, there are NO SIDE EFFECTS or TOXICITIES involved. So rent a funny movie, go see a comedian, watch a toddler learn about its environment. Whatever makes you laugh, start doing that as much as possible.

A long, happy life requires TLC

Wellness Lifestyle Implementation Steps 4/18/10

2010-04-18T07:45:00.006-05:00

Did You Know???:

Chiropractic care sees remarkable results with ADD/ADHD? Research from the Journal of Vertebral Subluxation Research states, "The results of this study suggest that Chiropractic has the potential to become an important non-drug intervention for children with hyperactivity."

Key phrase: Non-drug. Our children do not need to be on more drugs. There are over 5 million children in the US on Ritalin today. America uses 90% of the world's Ritalin. According to Dr. Peter Breggin, MD, "Emergency room visits by children ages 10-14 involving Ritalin intoxication have now reached the same level as those for cocaine, which indicates escalating abuse of this highly addictive drug."

Ritalin is the drug treatment of choice for ADHD. It's documented side-effects include: stunting of growth, depression, chronic headaches, nervousness, skin rashes, high blood pressure, pulse changes, the development of Tourette's Syndrome, psychosis, and suicide. Does this sound like the best way of dealing with this supposed "behavioral disorder"? The side-effects of the drug are far worse than any "behavioral" issue caused by ADHD.

Human behavior and personality are governed by the nervous system. If your child displays signs of a behavioral disorder, having their nervous system assessed by a Chiropractor may address some of their needs. Chiropractic removes nerve dysfunction and enables the body to coordinate and control itself better, to cope with stress more easily. Nerve dysfunction is caused by stress placed on the body in the form of physical, chemical, or emotional trauma. Before the age of 6, the average child suffers 2,000 falls, 200 of which are considered serious. These falls may cause nerve dysfunction. When nerve dysfunction is present, areas of the brain and the chemical messages responsible for emotions can be affected. This may alter perceptions, moods, and memory, causing ADHD. If you or your child has never been assessed by a Chiropractor for nerve dysfunction, now is the time to get yourself and your child checked and corrected, enabling you to reach your full health and learning potential.

Book Of The Week: Health And Nutrition Secrets That Could Save Your Life by: Russell Blaylock, MD

Recipe Of The Week: Robert's Greens

1 onion, chopped
many cloves of garlic, chopped
1 carrot, chopped fine
1 1/2 long andouille sausage, sliced or chopped
1 large can chicken broth
1 cup canned tomato chunks
2 bunches kale, spines removed, coarsely chopped
olive oil
pepper
hot peppers, fresh (chopped) or dried flakes

Sauté first three ingredients in olive oil until onion is transparent.
Add andouille and cook for a few minutes. Add the broth and tomato and
bring to a boil. Add kale and peppers. Turn heat to very low and
simmer until done. Will be fairly soupy.

Quote Of The Week: "The human brain is unique in that it is the only container of which it can be said that the more you put into it, the more it will hold."
-- Glenn Doman

Goal Of The Week: Eat Fresh Fiber First at every meal. Begin each meal with fiber in the form of salad, fresh fruit, or vegetables. Fiber cleanses your intestines of toxins and gives your body the feeling of fullness faster, preventing you from over-eating.

Top Article From This Week

The FDA Shuts Down Common Infant Vaccine After Startling Discovery Become Empowered Here

Doctor's Soapbox

This vaccine with Pig Virus DNA in it was approved by the FDA in 2008. Over 1 million US children have been subjected to the vaccine, and over 30 million worldwide. Dr. Margaret Hamburg, Commissioner of the FDA is quoted as saying to CNN, ""It [Pig virus DNA] should not be in this vaccine product and we want to understand how it got there."

It's a little late, don't you think? Don't you think you should have tested the vaccine for these contaminants before approving it in 2008? That seems logical to me. But hey, that would slow down the profits for the pharmaceutical industry, GlaxoSmithKline and Merck, in this case. Why not poison people worldwide for 2 years, make our money, and determine it's safety in the process? And that's exactly what has happened. The corrupt collusion of our federal government and Big Pharma continues to destroy the American people while fattening the wallets of the elite and their payroll. No wonder this generation of children is the first predicted to not outlive their parents. It's designed to be that way by those in control!!!

And right now you may be offended that I even offer up that idea. If so, try and explain this, why did the independent team of scientists, who found the contamination, notify the vaccine manufacturer first rather than also immediately reporting their finding directly to the FDA? So they can get their cover-up story ready, perhaps?

The point of all of this is I, YOU, WE, need to become accountable for our health and the health of our innocent and vulnerable children. You cannot trust the government and definitely not the pharmaceutical companies to give you truthful, non-biased information. Do your research before subjecting your children to vaccines. The best site on the web to provide you with non-biased information that will allow you to make your OWN DECISION as to vaccinate your children or not is The National Vaccine Information Center. Please make it a priority to become empowered with the information necessary to make an intelligent decision. Your child's life depends on it.

A long, happy life requires TLC

Wellness Lifestyle Implementation Steps 4/11/10

2010-04-11T12:21:00.003-05:00

Did You Know???: Did you know that Chiropractic is well known for it's positive results with asthma and allergies? One cause of asthma is bronchogenic inflammation, or inflammation of the airways. This inflammation can be caused by many things: nerve irritation, viruses, allergens, and your own immune system. Chiropractic adjustments help by reducing the nerve irritation and normalizing the function of your immune system.

Book Of The Week: Well Adjusted Babies by Dr. Jennifer Barham-Floreani

Recipe Of The Week: Lamb with Sweet Red Peppers

3 pounds boneless leg of lamb, cut into 1 1/2 inch pieces
1/2 tsp pepper
3 Tbsp olive oil
2 garlic cloves, chopped
2 cups hot water
3 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley
2 large red bell peppers, cut into 1 1/2 to 2 inch pieces

Season lamb with 1/4 tsp pepper. In a large frying pan or flameproof
casserole, heat oil over high heat. Add lamb and cook, turning frequently,
3-5 minutes, or until browned on all sides. Add garlic, water and remaining
1/4 tsp pepper. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium, and cook partially
covered 30 minutes. Uncover and cook 10 minutes longer, or until lamb is
fork tender. Add parsley and red peppers to pan. Cook 10 minutes, or until
peppers are just tender.

Quote Of The Week: "The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven."
-- John Milton

Goal Of The Week: Tell someone at home you love them everyday this week.

Top Article From This Week

Expectant Mothers Reduce Diabetes Risk In Newborns By Eating More Vegetables Read Here

Doctor's Soapbox

If you didn't read one word from the article above, all you need to know can be deduced from the title. So what is the main point of the article? Just read the title? What do you think?

The main point is that the MOTHER's CHOICES of what to eat DIRECTLY EFFECTS THE LONG-TERM HEALTH OF HER UNBORN CHILD!!! Eat more grains and dairy, have a baby who's risk for Childhood Obesity and Type-2 Diabetes skyrockets. Eat more vegetables, have a baby who's risk of Childhood Obesity and Type-2 Diabetes plummets. Every choice the mother makes impacts the health of her unborn child, throughout the entire pregnancy (as well as preconception (father too) and post-birth). In the science realm, this field of study is called Epigenetics. Epigenetics is the study of how environmental factors (i.e. our choices) influence the expression of our genes and whether or not they produce health or disease. With each passing moment, we in the scientific community are discovering that our daily choices far outweigh our genes as far as determining our current and long-term state of health or disease.

Do you want to love your child? Do you want to be a responsible parent? Do you want to give your child the best chance possible at living a happy and healthy life? Make happy, healthy, responsible choices as far as how you eat, move, and think on a daily basis. After all, you are your child's hero, be a good role model.

A long, happy life requires TLC

Seasonal Flu Vaccines Increase Risk Of Pandemic H1N1 Flu, Scientists Discover

2010-04-08T17:55:00.001-05:00

(NaturalNews) I remember the H1N1 "swine flu" season of 2009 very well. People were rushing out to get vaccinated, scared half to death by the mainstream media which was pushing false reports that the swine flu would kill tens of millions of people and that only a vaccine could save you. The CDC and health authorities were pushing a double-barreled vaccine strategy that demanded people get both a seasonal flu shot as well as an H1N1 pandemic flu shot. Those who questioned the sensibility of vaccines for fighting the flu were attacked as "baby killers" for not kow-towing to the vaccine mythology that drives Big Pharma's profits to record profits nearly every flu season.

I specifically remember writing an article here on NaturalNews, warning people that taking a seasonal flu shot actually weakened your immune system and made you more susceptible to H1N1 swine flu (http://www.naturalnews.com/027102_v...). This suggestion earned me a highly accusatory email from a CDC employee who suggested that warning people to avoid the swine flu vaccine shot was equivalent to "an act of terrorism" and that all those who questioned vaccines should be arrested and stopped from writing anything on the internet ever again.

(Hilarious, isn't it, how deeply the vaccine mythology drives these vaccine-pushing nut jobs?)

Fast forward six months (or so) and now we have a new scientific paper published in one of the few remaining honest, independent medical journals out there: BLoS Medicine. The title of this study? Check it out:

Does Seasonal Influenza Vaccination Increase the Risk of Illness with the 2009 A/H1N1 Pandemic Virus?
Viboud C, Simonsen L (2010) Does Seasonal Influenza Vaccination Increase the Risk of Illness with the 2009 A/H1N1 Pandemic Virus? PLoS Med 7(4): e1000259. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000259

Care to guess what the study found? In short, it found that people who received the seasonal flu vaccine shot in 2008 were up to 274% more likely to be infected by H1N1 swine flu than those who skipped the season flu shots.

Season flu vaccines have a "counterproductive effect"

This result, which virtually all the top natural health writers openly predicted last year, apparently stunned the researchers. As explained in the published study, "Danuta Skowronski and colleagues report the unexpected results of a series of Canadian epidemiological studies suggesting a counterproductive effect of the vaccine."

In this case, "counterproductive effect" of the vaccine means that it works against you. Getting the vaccine shot appears to actually make you MORE susceptible to being infected with (and potentially killed by) a future pandemic.

If this sounds familiar, it's because we've been saying this over and over again to anyone who will listen: Flu vaccines are a medical scam, folks! A Big Pharma hoax. Getting a vaccine shot could actually result in you being killed by the next seasonal flu or pandemic outbreak that comes along. I even wrote this into the lyrics of my hip-hop song Don't Inject Me (http://www.naturalnews.com/Dont_Inj...).

Criminal neglect at the CDC and WHO?

So it turns out the CDC, WHO and FDA officials who all pushed these vaccines so hard were actually sending people to their graves. Meanwhile, they all engaged in what I consider to be blatant criminal neglect for not mentioning the simple, free solution for preventing virtually any widespread pandemic: Vitamin D and sunlight therapy. Vitamin D, we now know, works better than vaccines at preventing a flu infection, and the best part is that it makes your immune system stronger for the future, not weaker.

According to the CDC's official figures, well over ten thousand Americans died from swine flu infections. How many of those people could have been saved if they had taken vitamin D supplements instead of a seasonal flu shot? That is the question that now hangs over the heads of all the vaccine pushers at the FDA, WHO and CDC who have yet to admit in a single public story that vitamin D could have saved lives (or that the vaccine might be harmful to anyone).

To hear these agents of Big Pharma say it, vaccines are always good for you; they always work; and they never cause harm. Those are the beliefs of their vaccine cult, and they cannot be swayed by scientific evidence or actual reality.

What the new study actually says

The preamble to the study's findings:

The spring 2009 pandemic wave was the perfect opportunity to address the association between seasonal trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine (TIV) and risk of pandemic illness. In this issue of PLoS Medicine, Danuta Skowronski and colleagues report the unexpected results of a series of Canadian epidemiological studies suggesting a counterproductive effect of the vaccine [4]. The findings are based on Canada's unique near-real-time sentinel system for monitoring influenza vaccine effectiveness.

And here's the real kicker of what they found:

"...receipt of TIV [vaccine] in the previous season (autumn 2008) appeared to increase the risk of pH1N1 illness by 1.03- to 2.74-fold, even after adjustment for comorbidities, age, and geography."

In other words, those who were vaccinated with the previous seasonal flu were 103% to 274% more likely to be infected with H1N1 than those who skipped the vaccine.

And this analysis only measured the effects from one year of seasonal flu vaccines. What might the results show if they tracked consumers' vaccination patterns over the last decade?

I have no doubt that those who rejected vaccines for the greatest number of years would have the lowest rates of H1N1 infections. At the same time, those who received the greatest number of vaccine shots over the last decade would be far more likely to be infected with the H1N1 pandemic flu -- perhaps as much as 500% more likely (my guess).

It's all about repeat business

Let me explain the dirty little secret of the vaccine business, because it's exactly the same dirty little secret as the pharmaceutical business: They actually WANT you to get sick so that you keep coming back for more drugs (which make you even sicker).

See, a vaccine actually weakens your immune system from future infections. So the more vaccines you get, the more likely you are to catch the flu in subsequent years. The more you catch the flu, the more you automatically think, "Gee, I must need a flu shot" and you therefore go back to get another shot.

(Ka-Ching $!) Big Pharma scores revenue from you and sends you back out into the world with a weakened immune system yet again, perfectly positioned for endlessly repeating this cycle.

Big Pharma's high-profit medications follow the same strategy: Osteoporosis drugs, for example, actually cause bone fractures. Psychiatric drugs cause psychiatric disorders. Chemotherapy drugs cause cancer, and so on.

What the drug companies have figured out is that a patient cured is a patient lost. But a patient in which sickness can be induced by the medicine is a repeat customer! So vaccines, medications and cancer treatments actually become profit centers as they harm hundreds of millions of people who then seek out yet more medical care where they will be prescribed yet more drugs.

The whole medical cycle is absurdly sick, and yet this is the system upon which the entire system of western health care is currently based. The recent health care "reforms," in fact, are nothing more than an expansion of this system to make sure everybody gets sick rather than just those who can afford to buy health insurance.

How to escape the dark agenda of the vaccine pushers

The vaccine pushers have a clear agenda: They want to inject everyone -- pregnant mothers, infants, teenage girls and boys, senior citizens and even healthy adults -- with vaccines. In doing so, they can absolutely guarantee a windfall of future business (and profits) from all the people whose immune systems are compromised.

A vaccine is a repeat business generator for the drug companies. It has absolutely nothing to do with your health, or saving the people, or halting any pandemic. It has everything to do with trapping the public in a cycle of medical dependence from which they can never escape.

But YOU can escape. It's easy: Just say NO to vaccines and say YES to Vitamin D and sunlight. It's really that simple, and the same goes for your children, too. When you have vitamin D and good nutrition, you don't need vaccines and you're extremely unlikely to catch any seasonal flu.

Don't expect the CDC or WHO to leap right out and admit this, however: These people are still living in the Dark Ages of medicine. They have yet to see the (sun) light. They remain shackled to their distorted, dark beliefs in dangerous chemicals and needles, much like the Orcs were beholden to the Dark Lord Sauron in The Lord of the Rings. They are, in a very real way, creatures of deception and darkness who only seek to gain power by depriving the People access to information that could save their lives -- information about nutrients, sunlight, antioxidants, anti-viral herbs and many other remedies that make flu vaccines obsolete.

The Dark Lord Sauron, however, is very powerful, as is the CDC, WHO and FDA. They rule with intolerance for opposing views and without any regard for the value of human life. They censor scientific findings and conspire with the enemy drug companies to medicate everyone whether they need it or not. They invoke power through the spread of fear, and they take great solace in their power to dominate innocents. And yet they insist their vaccine cult is the one true belief -- their God -- and that anyone who dares step forward and question their vaccine mythology is a heretic who should be arrested or destroyed.

We are actually living out The Lord of the Rings right now in western medicine and the modern vaccine agenda. The clouds are roiling over the horizon, threatening to shadow us all in censorship and health ignorance. Meanwhile, we are being stripped of our healthy minds and immune systems through these highly neurotoxic medications and vaccines that make us less and less human with each passing day. It's almost as if the Dark Lord were expanding his own army of dark creatures by destroying the minds of innocents and reshaping them to fit his own medical domination agenda. Coincidentally, it is quite true that those are have already been vaccinated are the most likely to be vaccinated again... perhaps because the vaccine-induced brain damage has kicked in and destroyed their ability to think for themselves.

What the Dark Lords of western medicine fear the most is the truth: The truth about sunlight. The truth about vitamin D. The truth about nutrition and how natural medicine makes virtually everything in conventional medicine obsolete. The truth, in fact, is what will ultimately destroy this conspiracy of medical darkness that has blanketed our world in darkness for the last century. But there is light at the end of this tunnel, and it's sunlight!

Because as long as there are people who are willing to say NO to vaccines and medications, there will always be hope for a revolution in healing that sees the crumbling of the pharmaceutical empire and the rise of a new era of healing freedom.

Teach your children well, friends, because they will need their minds sharp and their bodies fit to rise up against the medical tyranny that now enslaves our fellow brothers and sisters. Teach your children the meaning of freedom and the skills of discernment so that they may tell the difference between tyranny versus freedom. And most of all, teach them the truth about their miraculous innate healing potential so that they will not be cowed into submitting to the tyrants of conventional medicine who prey upon weak minds.

Most importantly, feed your children well so that they will survive the next great pandemic that quietly steals the lives of those who foolishly believed in vaccines. In this way, your healthy children will inherit the earth while those who misplaced their faith by worshipping the Gods of vaccines and pharmaceuticals will quite literally perish.

We live and die by our beliefs, and those who believe in vaccines may very well die by them.

P.S. For the record, I have not been vaccinated for nearly 20 years and I take no pharmaceuticals whatsoever. I travel around the world frequently, and I'm on airplanes and in crowded public places on a regular basis. I can't even remember the last time I lost a single day sick in bed from any flu, pandemic or infection of any kind. I am not afraid of the swine flu and have almost certainly already been exposed to it, although I would never know because I never showed any symptoms. I truly and honestly believe that the next great pandemic, whenever it comes, will demonstrate a devastating mortality rate for those who depend on western medicine's vaccines and pharmaceuticals. Mark my words: The survivors will be those who rejected the vaccines. Will you be one of them?

Sources for this story include:
PLoS Medicine:
http://www.plosmedicine.org/article...

Health Day:
http://www.usnews.com/health/managi...

Wellness Lifestyle Implementation Steps 4/4/10

2010-04-06T20:39:00.000-05:00

Book Of The Week: Walden by: Henry David Thoreau

Recipe Of The Week: White Fish with Macadamia Salsa

2 white fish fillets
¼ cup macadamias, halved
½ cup chopped tomatoes
1 avocado, peeled, seeded and diced
3tbs coriander, chopped
3tbs parsley, chopped
Olive oil

Instructions

Pre-heat grill to medium heat.

Place fish on grill and cook for 3-4minutes or until cooked.

To make the salsa, place macadamias, tomatoes, avocado, coriander and parsley in a mixing bowl, combine well. Add olive oil to coat.

Place fish and salsa on a plate to serve.

Quote Of The Week: "In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure."
-- Bill Cosby

Goal Of The Week: Take time in the morning or afternoon to go outside for 15 minutes to a place with a view that is pleasing to you and just BE. Sit peacefully and focus on nothing but your breathing, deep belly breathes in through the nose, and long exhales out of the mouth through pursed lips. Notice your stress levels evaporate.

Top Article From This Week

90 Percent of Parents Want To Know More About Alternative Medicine, Survey Reveals Read Here

Doctor's Soapbox

A survey conducted by Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota (Children's), a nationwide leader in integrative medical approaches concluded:

"Parents should be aware that integrative medicine can be helpful from the onset of disease and can save time, money and most importantly, improve a child's quality of life. This is true for all kinds of conditions including acute illnesses like cancer or chronic problems like migraines or behavioral issues."

This is what we teach daily at Transcendent Lifestyle Center. So called "alternative" medicine is not alternative at all. According to national studies, "alternative" medicine practitioners such as Chiropractors, Acupuncturists, Massage Therapists, Homeopaths, etc are now the first choice for out of pocket health care dollars by the majority of the U.S. population each year. This is due not only to the failure of the conventional model of medicine to provide health for the people, but also to the fact that these age-old, time-tested healing arts get results day in and day out and continue to thrive despite the many negative labels given them by the mainstream establishment.

How can Chiropractic save you time, money, and quality of life when dealing with acute illness and/or chronic disease? Simple, Chiropractic decreases stress levels by balancing brain to body communication. Chronic stress is the foundational cause of cancer, of heart disease, of diabetes, of all of the chronic diseases affecting our society. By seeing "alternative" practitioners who promote prevention and health BEFORE symptoms and disease occur adults, as well as children, can avoid sickness and disease altogether. Chiropractic and the other "alternative" practitioners take a Holistic (whole body/whole life) view of the individual, thereby accelerating their results by addressing issues that the specialized, tunnel visioned mainstream medical establishment never think to address, nor have time to.

If you need your life saved in a crisis, by all means, GO TO THE HOSPITAL and get the drugs and surgery you need to survive. Once you've survived and you're seeking to return to health, find yourself an "alternative" practitioner to teach and help you to harvest the true healing potential within you.

A long, happy life requires TLC

Wellness Lifestyle Implementation Steps 3/28/10

2010-03-28T12:26:00.001-05:00

I'd like you all to mark your calendars. Transcendent Lifestyle Center, PC will officially open its doors on Monday April 5th!!! Call this week to schedule the first step on your journey toward achieving optimal health. Let's make Charlotte and its suburbs the healthiest city in America.

Book Of The Week: The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability by: Lierre Keith

Recipe Of The Week: Banana Pear Ambrosia
1 ripe avocado
1 pear
1 banana
1 tablespoon honey
Pineapple or lemon juice
Blender all ingredients until smooth. Serve in sherbet glasses.

Quote Of The Week: "Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't."
-- Erica Jong

Goal Of The Week: Rent the movie FOOD, INC. and watch it with your family.

Top Article From This Week

Scientists Cannot Figure Out Why Type-1 Diabetes Is Raising 3% Every Year The Answer

Doctor's Soapbox

If you were at my talk on Wednesday night at 3 Goats Coffee where we discussed genetically congruent nutrition, you know the answer. You're smarter than mainstream scientists. Research shows that our genes have not changed in 40,000 years. Mainstream science says that Type-1 Diabetes is a "genetic disease." If it was a genetic disease, then only the people born with the genes for Type-1 Diabetes would get it. If it was a genetic disease and you didn't have the gene(s), then it would be impossible to ever develop the disease. The fact that you can develop a disease at some point in your life that you haven't had your whole life, since birth, is proof that that disease is not genetic, but environmental/lifestyle induced.

If Type-1 Diabetes was genetic, and our genes haven't changed in 40,000 years, then there is NO CHANCE that the incidence of Type-1 Diabetes could increase 3% every year. That would mean that our genes are changing 3% every year and 3% more people who didn't have the "Diabetes Gene" last year, now have it this year. Impossible.

Clearly, Type-1 Diabetes is not genetic. It is an autoimmune disease caused by various environmental/lifestyle factors, one of which is the consumption of dairy products, especially milk. Other causes are Vitamin D deficiency, which weakens our immune system, vaccinations filled with pro-inflammtory ingredients such as oil adjuvants, and grain consumption.

It's not rocket-science. Our genes have not changed in 40,000 years, and only 2.5% of diseases are "genetic", as all mainstream scientists are taught. Therefore, genes are not to blame for the current pandemic of disease in our society. Environment/lifestyle is responsible for 97.5% of disease in our society. It's time we stop searching for "Wonder Drugs" and start being accountable for the way we're living.

Change Your Choices, Change Your Health.

A long, happy life requires TLC

Health Care Reform Bill Dooms America To Pharma-Dominated Sickness and Suffering

2010-03-22T21:22:00.001-05:00

(NaturalNews) Today the medical mafia struck another devastating blow to the health and freedom of all Americans. With the support of an inarguably corrupt Congress that has simply abandoned the real needs of the American people, the sick-care industry has locked in a high-profit scheme of disease and monopoly-priced pharmaceuticals in a nation that can ill afford either one.

And this Pharma-funded betrayal, it turns out, was led by the Democrats. Passed on a 219-212 vote that was only accomplished thanks to closed-door, last-minute secret meetings among the last holdouts, this new legislation puts America under the stranglehold of the medical mafia while doing absolutely nothing to address real health care reform. There is no mention in the bill, for example, of vitamin D for preventing cancer, or orthomolecular medicine for preventing degenerative disease. There's not even a word about protecting health freedom or ending the century of oppression that has been waged against naturopathic practitioners by the AMA, FDA and FTC.

The new legislation does, however, lock in billions of dollars in monopoly profits for the pharmaceutical companies -- the same companies who spent millions of dollars pushing for its passage and who depend on the continuation of sickness and disease for their future profits.

There's only one problem with this health care reform bill: It doesn't reform health care. It has almost nothing to do with health care at all, in fact: It's really more of an effort to expand a broken sick-care system. When faced with the problem that our sick-care system doesn't work, Congress somehow decided that fixing the problem merely involved expanding the failures to include everyone!

And you don't even get a choice in the matter, either. All Americans are now required to pay into a sick-care system of monopolized, pharmaceutical medicine even if they reject that failed system of medicine. So the healthy people who actually take responsibility for their health are financially penalized and forced to subsidize profits for drug companies!

Watch my recent video called Healthy Without Health Insurance in America. It's on YouTube right now at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWuX...

Has America gone mad?

I love America. Or, more accurately, I love what America is supposed to stand for: Freedom, opportunity, abundance, free choice, diversity...

But I'm increasingly noticing that America's leaders don't believe in those ideals at all. They are betraying the American people by selling out our futures to the corporate monopolists. They are turning America into a corporatocracy, and the passage of this monopoly sick-care system is yet another perfect example of just how easily our own lawmakers will sell out the People just to appease the powerful chemical industrialists who dominate medicine today.

They have sold out our futures to keep themselves in power, and isn't that the worst kind of betrayal of all? People's live are on the line here. While people like myself and many other health freedom champions are fighting for health freedom and an end to human suffering among our fellow brothers and sisters, we've got our national leaders essentially aiming the artillery at our own people and yelling "Fire!" Through their actions with this health care reform bill, they are forcing people into circumstances that are going to cost countless lives and many trillions of dollars in wasted expenditures and lost economic productivity.

Our Congress has betrayed us (yet again). I believe that with perhaps the exception of Rep. Ron Paul, every single Senator and House Representative should be thrown out of office at the next election, stripped of their power and sent home to face their home-district families that they have now doomed to a lifetime of sickness, disease and pharmaceutical toxicity. Our national leaders claim to be voting on Health Care but what they really delivered was Hell Care, because dying of cancer while on chemotherapy while no doctor can legally tell you that vitamin D prevents 4 out of 5 cancers is, indeed, a living hell (or dying hell, in this case).

And speaking of Hell, the dark energies that have been provoked and called upon in this battle for pharmaceutical dominance over the "disease management" of the American population almost seems downright demonic, as if some evil power from other world had been summoned into Washington D.C. to ensure the passage of this legislation that practically guarantees another generation of pain and suffering at the hands of conventional medicine.

All the health solutions that really work -- nutritional medicine, orthomolecular therapies, chiropractic medicine, Traditional Chinese Medicine and so on -- have been locked out of the system while those therapies that promote a lifetime of disease have been locked in. And in this way, our Congress has now made certain that America as we know it today will not survive another generation -- because no nation can achieve greatness when its people are drowning in toxic chemicals and degenerative disease.

We've got to save the America we love

America doesn't need more drugs, more chemotherapy, more mammograms, more vaccines and more nutritionally-ignorant doctors pushing more poison pills onto more uninformed patients. What this country needs is a grassroots health revolution that throws out the broken, failed system of pharma-medicine that doesn't work and replaces it with a new system of healing, nutrition, patient education and personal health responsibility that would slash our health care costs and set our nation on a new path of health and prosperity.

This goal can never be accomplished when the people writing our laws are determined to protect the financial interests of the very industry that depends on sickness and disease for its profits. When it came down to a choice between the People and the corporations, our U.S. Congress chose the corporations!

I love America, and I'd love to see its health restored. But more importantly, I would love to see the American people rise up against their betrayers in Washington, peacefully sweep them out of office at the next election and make a real effort to restore the rights and freedoms that are outlined in the United States Constitution -- a document that seems to have been written off by the Washington jackals who, themselves, are suffering from degenerative mental disorders and psychotropic drug side effects.

Watch my video to see more commentary on why our current health insurance system doesn't work and why I don't even carry health insurance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWuX...

Sources for this story include:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_healt...

Lifestyle Implementation Steps 3/21/10

2010-03-21T17:45:00.002-05:00

Book Of The Week: The Greatest Miracle In The World by: Og Mandino

Recipe Of The Week: Paleo-Chili

2 lbs ground buffalo
1 cup chopped onion
3 cloves chopped garlic
2-4 Tbs fat (I use pork fat)
2 cups canned chopped tomatoes (I use organic such as Muir Glen)
4 Tbs chile powder
1 teaspoon dry oregano
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup water

Brown ground buffalo with chopped onion and chopped garlic, in fat. Then
add chopped tomatoes, chile powder, oregano, cumin, and salt. Add water,
then simmer the mixture for at least two hours, until the meat is very
tender and the tomatoes pretty much cook into the sauce. Four hours is not
too much, but check to make sure it does not go dry.

Quote Of The Week: "So many fail because they don't get started - they don't go. They don't overcome inertia. They don't begin."
-- W. Clement Stone

Goal Of The Week: Start a journal. Journal for yourself so you can look back on it in a couple years and remember the little things that made your day today, but may become huge things in retrospect. Also, the journal is a heritage for your loved ones, especially your children. It is a way for them to really learn about you and the things that impacted your life. A journal is a legacy.

Top Article From This Week

Omega 3 Curbs Precancerous Growths in Those Prone to Bowel Cancer Read Here

Doctor's Soapbox

More evidence comes out of the scientific literature everyday stating that Omega-3 fatty acids, Fish Oil, prevent this cancer, that cancer, this heart condition, this allergy, etc. The science world studies Omega-3s to find out if it's a good treatment for a specific disease. Without fail, the answer of their research is always yes. Is this a wonder drug? NO, it's not a drug at all. It's an innate genetically required nutrient that we ALL MUST HAVE daily to manifest true health. The Western Diet has been shown time and time again to be deficient in Omega-3 fatty acids. We all must supplement with Fish Oil, you cannot afford to eat enough fish to get your daily requirement of fish oil, and even if you could, you'd become toxic in mercury, flame retardant, or some other pollutant that is rampant in our oceans today. So please, for the health of yourself and your family, start supplementing with fish oil. The best, most pure brand on the market can be found from Innate Choice.

A long, happy life requires TLC

Wellness Lifestyle Action Steps 3/14/10

2010-03-16T07:31:00.001-05:00

Hello Transcendent Lifestyle Center Family!

Thank you for listening in to Wayne Coolidge and I on 1350 AM radio Friday morning for our "Half Hour To Health" radio show. If you missed it, we're on every Friday morning from 9:15 to 10. Please feel free to email me topics that you'd like to hear us address.

Also, my next talk is coming up. Wednesday night, March 24th from 7-8pm, I'll be at Three Goats Coffee discussing the scientifically proven way that we should be eating each day. Let's just say it'll be worth your while to come check it out. For more info check out the Three Goats website.

Book Of The Week: The Richest Man In Babylon by George Clason

Recipe Of The Week: White Fish with Macadamia Salsa

Ingredients
2 white fish fillets
¼ cup macadamias, halved
½ cup chopped tomatoes
1 avocado, peeled, seeded and diced
3tbs coriander, chopped
3tbs parsley, chopped
Olive oil

Instructions
Pre-heat grill to medium heat.
Place fish on grill and cook for 3-4minutes or until cooked.
To make the salsa, place macadamias, tomatoes, avocado, coriander and parsley in a mixing bowl, combine well. Add olive oil to coat.
Place fish and salsa on a plate to serve.

Quote Of The Week: "To avoid criticism do nothing, say nothing, be nothing."
-- Elbert Hubbard

Goal Of The Week: Drink at least 64 ounces of water a day. Purchase a Klean Kanteen (a stainless steel water bottle) to carry your water around with you. Plastic bottles leach BPA into your water. BPA is an endocrine disrupter, i.e., it messes with your hormone levels.

Top Article From This Week

Nature Heals! Green Spaces Prevent Mental Illness Read Here

Doctor's Soapbox

This article is especially relevant for us, because we all live within close proximity of Lake Norman and various state parks. With the weather improving day by day, let us make an effort to get out in nature daily, whether in your own yard, or in one of the nearby parks. Research shows that the more greenery we are exposed to and surrounded by, the less depression, mental decline, and physical ailments we have. So grab a friend, loved one, or stranger, and get outside this week!

A long, happy life requires TLC

Wellness Lifestyle Action Steps 3/7/10

2010-03-07T09:15:00.002-06:00

Book Of The Week: Timeless Healing - The Power and Biology of Belief by: Herbert Benson

Recipe Of The Week: Barbequed Spicy Honey Chicken

3 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon fresh orange juice
2 scallions, finely chopped
1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh tarragon
1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh thyme
1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh sage
1 teaspoon fennel seeds, toasted and crushed
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
4 boneless, skinless, chicken breast halves (about 1 pound)

In a large bowl combine honey, lemon and orange juices, herbs, scallions, pepper and fennel seeds. Put the chicken in the bowl and marinate for 1-2 hours. Fire up the barbeque and grill the chicken, turning constantly while basting with the marinade until the breasts are cooked.

Quote Of The Week: "If you ask what is the single most important key to longevity, I would have to say it is avoiding worry, stress and tension. And if you didn't ask me, I'd still have to say it."
-- George F. Burns

Goal Of The Week: Exercise at least 30 minutes a day for the entire week. Be creative and change it up. Take and activity you enjoy doing and make it an exercise. The key is to get that heart pumping and sweat, the way that you do that does not matter.

Top Article From This Week

GABA Reduces Stress Read Here

Doctor's Soapbox

As this article states, GABA (Gamma Amino Butyric Acid) is an inhibitory neurotransmitter found in our brain and spinal cord. Its purpose is to inhibit messages from the outside world from traveling up to our brain and causing negative physiological effects (symptoms and disease). The opposite of inhibitory is excitatory. Excitatory neurotransmitters, like Adrenaline (aka Norepinephrine) function to stimulate the brain and spinal cord and get a given message across. Neurotransmitters are responsible for most body functions, including emotions, movement and the ability to experience pain.

Adrenaline is the neurotransmitter released during the Fight or Flight Response, i.e. Stress. The purpose of the stress response is to save our life in a dangerous situation, like being chased by a tiger. It is meant to be an acute response to provide you with immediate energy to allow you to run away from the tiger and save your life. In our society, where stress is a 24/7 thing for most people, the stress response has become chronic. Chronic stress is caused by poor diets, lack of exercise, lack of sleep, negative attitude and poor self-esteem, and spinal misalignments called Subluxation. This is very dangerous because chronic stress leads to chronic diseases like Cancer, Heart Disease, Stroke, Depression, Obesity, Type 2 Diabetes, Asthma, etc.

One way to oppose the stress response, or decrease stress levels, is to increase the production of inhibitory neurotransmitters such as GABA. This is where your Chiropractor comes in. GABA is found exclusively in the Central Nervous System (your Brain and Spinal Cord). The best way to stimulate GABA is by getting spinal adjustments from your Chiropractor, who is trained to correct spinal misalignments (i.e. Subluxations). The adjustment decreases stress in a couple of ways. First, the adjustment corrects the misaligned vertebra, this de-stresses the nerves at that level and normalizes the communication between the Brain and that area of the body. Second, the adjustment causes a burst of GABA in the spinal cord which inhibits the stress signals entering the cord at that level. Lastly, the adjustment decreases stress by increasing spinal range of motion, which triggers the release of the feel-good neurochemicals, like endorphins ("runner's high" chemical), in the brain.

The key to health is balance. We must have equal stores of excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmitters available at all times for the body to function correctly. If one side dominates the scene day in and day out, bad things happen in our bodies. The way to prevent this is by living a balanced lifestyle, consisting of good nutrition, daily exercise, proper amounts of sleep, a positive attitude, and a properly aligned spine.

A long, happy life requires TLC

This Week's Wellness Lifestyle Action Steps

2010-02-28T11:18:00.003-06:00

Book Of The Week: Start With Why by: Simon Sinek

Recipe Of The Week: Carrot-Ambrosia Salad

Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method
-------- ------------ --------------------------------
1 pound carrots -- shredded
20 ounces crushed pineapple -- drained
8 ounces Coconut milk
3/4 cup flaked coconut
3/4 cup golden raisins
2 tablespoons honey

Combine all ingredients, tossing well. Cover and chill.
Yield: 6 to 8 servings.

Quote Of The Week: "Active faith steps out on its belief and risks failure because it assumes it will succeed." -Napoleon Hill

Goal Of The Week: Read one hour a day. If you seek to be an expert in any field, reading on that topic one hour a day is a simple way to ascend the ranks. Reading one hour a day leads to 365 hours a year. That translates to 2 full weeks of your life each year that you are growing your knowledge in your field of passion. 365 hours of reading a year also translates to about 50 books a year. The average American reads 1 book a year. Do you want to get ahead? It doesn't get much easier than this.

Top Article From This Week

1. Rates of Chronic Health Problems in Children Soar Read Here

Doctor's Soapbox

This article discusses the same topic I taught on Wednesday night, chronic disease. As I mentioned then, 83 cents of every Medicaid dollar spent in America goes toward chronic disease. Medicaid money is primarily health care dollars spent on children. The Journal of the American Medical Association states, "Chronic health conditions in American kids have increased dramatically in recent years -- rising from 12.8 percent in 1994 to 26.6 percent in 2006." Chronic disease in our children has more than DOUBLED in the past 12 years.

How and why? The mass media would have us believe that it is bad genes, but think about it, do you think our DNA, after changing less than 0.02% in the last 40,000 years, could change that much over the past 12? Absolutely not. The real answer as to why are children are so sick can be found in our living rooms and our schools.

The typical American living room is full of kids watching endless hours of TV, playing video games, and consuming endless amounts of junk food and soda. The same goes for schools. The vending machines and cafeterias in schools do not provide health food, they sell Coke, Pepsi, Gatorade, Snickers, etc. Sugar, sugar, and sugar. Then the kids are expected to sit in their chairs 8 hours a day without any exercise; because, after all, there's a big push to get rid of recess and gym class in our schools. Robbing our children of the few moments that they were forced to actually move around each day. Coupled with the increased sugar consumption and decreased exercise, what have you noticed? An increase in ADD/ADHD, Obesity, Diabetes, Depression, and childhood drug prescriptions. I don't know about any of you, but if what I ate and drank throughout the day was mostly sugar, and I didn't have any chance to get out and run around to burn off some of that energy, I'd find it hard to sit still and pay attention for 8 hours too. And if I lived this LIFESTYLE chronically, week in and week out, I wouldn't be surprised if I developed Obesity, Diabetes, or Depression. What does sugar get converted to in our bodies if we don't burn it? Fat, insulin resistance, inflammation. Our children don't need Ritalin, our children don't need Xanax, our children don't need anti-depressants. What they need is what every child needs. They need healthy, whole foods, they need love and guidance, and they need tons of exercise disguised as playtime.

Have a blessed week!

"A long, happy life requires TLC."

Quick Video of Last Night's Talk

2010-02-25T07:49:00.003-06:00

Last night I gave my first wellness talk to the community here where I practice in North Carolina. It went great! Check out the quick 30 second clip.

God is really blessing me here and I look forward to each and every day. More news soon. I should have my logo finalized today, then I can update my website and really start branding myself. Stay Tuned...

View My Video

New Website Is UP!!!

2009-12-08T11:16:00.003-06:00

Hello Readers,

I wanted to drop you a line and let you know that my new website is running full steam ahead. Check it out!!!

www.TranscendentLifestyle.com

And stay tuned, a new blog will be posted shortly.

Dr. John

Ten Things You're Not Supposed to Know about the Swine Flu Vaccine

2009-07-28T07:31:00.000-05:00

Ten Things You're Not Supposed to Know about the Swine Flu Vaccine by Mike Adams the Health Ranger

She was deathly afraid of the flu.
So she asked her doc what she should do.
He jabbed her unseen
With a swine flu vaccine
Blurting, "Darling, I haven't a clue."
- by the Health Ranger

Let's not beat around the bush on this issue: The swine flu vaccines now being prepared for mass injection into infants, children, teens and adults have never been tested and won't be tested before the injections begin. In Europe, where flu vaccines are typically tested on hundreds (or thousands) of people before being unleashed on the masses, the European Medicines Agency is allowing companies to skip the testing process entirely.

And yet, amazingly, people are lining up to take the vaccine, absent any safety testing whatsoever. When the National Institutes of Health in the U.S. announced a swine flu vaccine trial beginning in early August, it was inundated with phone calls and emails from people desperate to play the role of human guinea pigs. The power of fear to herd sheeple into vaccine injections is simply amazing...

Back in Europe, of course, everybody gets to be a guinea pig since no testing will be done on the vaccine at all. Even worse, the European vaccines will be using adjuvants -- chemicals used to multiply the potency of the active ingredients in vaccines.

Notably, there is absolutely no safety data on the use of adjuvants in infants and expectant mothers -- the two groups being most aggressively targeted by the swine flu vaccine pushers. The leads us to the disturbing conclusion that the swine flu vaccine could be a modern medical disaster. It's untested and un-tried. Its ingredients are potentially quite dangerous, and the adjuvants being used in the European vaccines are suspected of causing neurological disorders.

Paralyzed by vaccines

I probably don't need to remind you that in 1976, a failed swine flu vaccine caused irreparable damage to the nervous systems of hundreds of people, paralyzing many. Medical doctors gave the problem a name, of course, to make it sound like they knew what they were talking about: Guillain-Barre syndrome. (Notably, they never called it "Toxic Vaccine Syndrome" because that would be too informative.)

But the fact remains that doctors never knew how the vaccines caused these severe problems, and if the same event played out today, all the doctors and vaccine pushers would undoubtedly deny any link between the vaccines and paralysis altogether. (That's what's happening today with the debate over vaccines and autism: Complete denial.)

In fact, there are a whole lot of things you'll never be told by health authorities about the upcoming swine flu vaccine. For your amusement, I've written down the ten most obvious ones and published them below.

Ten things you're not supposed to know about the swine flu vaccine

(At least, not by anyone in authority...)

#1 - The vaccine production was "rushed" and the vaccine has never been tested on humans. Do you like to play guinea pig for Big Pharma? If so, line up for your swine flu vaccine this fall...

#2 - Swine flu vaccines contain dangerous adjuvants that cause an inflammatory response in the body. This is why they are suspected of causing autism and other neurological disorders.

#3 - The swine flu vaccine could actually increase your risk of death from swine flu by altering (or suppressing) your immune system response. There is zero evidence that even seasonal flu shots offer any meaningful protection for people who take the jabs. Vaccines are the snake oil of modern medicine.

#4 - Doctors still don't know why the 1976 swine flu vaccines paralyzed so many people. And that means they really have no clue whether the upcoming vaccine might cause the same devastating side effects. (And they're not testing it, either...)

#5 - Even if the swine flu vaccine kills you, the drug companies aren't responsible. The U.S. government has granted drug companies complete immunity against vaccine product liability. Thanks to that blanket immunity, drug companies have no incentive to make safe vaccines, because they only get paid based on quantity, not safety (zero liability).

#6 - No swine flu vaccine works as well as vitamin D to protect you from influenza. That's an inconvenient scientific fact that the U.S. government, the FDA and Big Pharma hope the people never realize.

#7 - Even if the swine flu vaccine actually works, mathematically speaking if everyone else around you gets the vaccine, you don't need one! (Because it can't spread through the population you hang with.) So even if you believe in the vaccine, all you need to do is encourage your friends to go get vaccinated...

#8 - Drug companies are making billions of dollars from the production of swine flu vaccines. That money comes out of your pocket -- even if you don't get the jab -- because it's all paid by the taxpayers.

#9 - When people start dying in larger numbers from the swine flu, rest assured that many of them will be the very people who got the swine flu vaccine. Doctors will explain this away with their typical Big Pharma logic: "The number saved is far greater than the number lost." Of course, the number "saved" is entirely fictional... imaginary... and exists only in their own warped heads.

#10 - The swine flu vaccine centers that will crop up all over the world in the coming months aren't completely useless: They will provide an easy way to identify large groups of really stupid people. (Too bad there isn't some sort of blue dye that we could tag 'em with for future reference...)

The lottery, they say, is a tax on people who can't do math. Similarly, flu vaccines are a tax on people who don't understand health.Buzz

Calorie Restriction = Fountain of Youth

2009-07-16T07:51:00.011-05:00

A hot topic right now in the news, and one that is always on the minds of adults at some level, is aging. How can we prevent aging and retain our youth? There are plenty of gimmicks out there, one is Resveratrol, another is Mona Vi, and of course there are hundreds of options in the form of lotions, potions, and surgeries to spend your life savings on that claim to make you look younger. But do things such as facelifts make you look younger or just vain and fake?

Current research has "discovered" a way to stay young without spending a penny. I say "discovered" with quotations because scientists haven't discovered this method, they re-discovered it. Or better yet, the knowledge was present and being practiced by certain communities of people all along, we just didn't know the mechanism of this method. What is this method of staying young? It is Calorie Restriction (CR).

What is Calorie Restriction? According to the journal Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology, Calorie Restriction is "the reduction of macronutrient intake while maintaining sufficient micronutrient intake." In layman's terms: eating less overall carbohydrates, proteins, and fats while still getting all of the vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, and amino acids that you need. Broken down to even simpler terms: EAT LESS CALORIES while getting MORE NUTRIENTS from your food.

How do you do this? Simple, eat less grains and dairy, eat more fruits and vegetables. Not rocket science, right? That is why I said the scientists didn't discover this, it is age old wisdom that we all have inside us. You know the inner dialogue. You go to McDonald's, order two double cheeseburgers for $2, and right before you swallow them whole, you tell yourself, "I shouldn't eat this." Exactly, you shouldn't, it is poisonous, calorie dense food with zero nutritional value. Your subconscious knows you shouldn't eat it, and reminded you right before your first bite. But you, you are a sucker for marketing and would rather spend hard earned money on garbage than health.

The health effects of practicing Calorie Restriction are many. Research has shown that Calorie Restriction provides our body with potent antitumor activity (Kritchevsky, 2002). It also causes loss of weight/reduced fat, decreased metabolic rate and body temperature, decreased free radical damage, and decreased insulin resistance. Calorie Restriction also increases our antioxidant defenses, increases bodily repair, and increases protein turnover rates (Masoro, 2007). Yet more research has shown that Calorie Restriction prevents Alzheimer's (Alom et al., 1995), osteoporosis, muscle wasting, and weakened immune and organ function (Matsumoto et al., 2000; Morley, 2001) .

So, how do you start? It's simple, just make the decision to eat less grains and dairy while eating more fruits and vegetables and you're on your way. All of these health effects can be yours. And you don't have to do it alone. There are people all over the world who have made the lifestyle switch. To link up with them in an online community and learn more, check out the following resources:

Calorierestriction.org

San Fransisco Chronicle

BBC News

Remember, in these times of economic and "healthcare" uncertainty, the only one who can guarantee your health is you. You must be your own advocate. CREATE YOUR LIFE. Make the right CHOICES at every crossroads. Choose NATURE OVER MANMADE. Until next time, LIVE WELL.

REFERENCES

Minor, R., J. Chang, R. de Cabo. Hungry for Life: How the arcuate nucleus and neuropeptide Y may play a critical role in mediating the benefits of calorie restriction. Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology. 2009 Feb. 5; 299 (1): 79-88.

Kritchevsky D. Caloric restriction and experimental carcinogenesis. Hybrid Hybridomics. 2002; 21: 147-151.

Masoro, E. The role of hormesis in life extension by dietary restriction. Interdisciplinary Topics In Gerontology. 2007; 35: 1-17.

Alom, J., R. Galard, R. Catalan, J. Castellanos, S. Schwartz, E. Tolosa. Cerebrospinal fluid neuropeptide Y in Alzheimer's disease. Neuroscience Letters. 1995; 198: 1549-1551.

Matsumoto, A., B. Marck, D. Gruenewald, T. Wolden-Hanson, M. Naai. Aging and the neuroendocrine regulation of reproduction and body weight. Experimental Gerontology. 2000; 35: 1251-1265.

Morley, J. Anorexia, sarcopenia, and aging. Nutrition. 2001; 17: 660-663.

Ammunition For The Masses

2009-03-23T22:03:00.005-05:00

In speaking with one of my readers today, the statement was made, “Yesterday’s blog was excellent, but how does the average layperson go about beginning self-change, self-education, and self-becoming?” This is a very relevant question; after all, you cannot change a nation if you do not first change yourself.

The first question you must ask yourself is “what am I changing for?” Since you are reading this blog, and read yesterday’s post, you know that the change I called for was reform of the educational and healthcare systems. How are you, one reader, going to change the healthcare and educational systems of the United States of America? Simple, one choice at a time; and with each new choice you make, a colleague, friend, or family member notices and thinks, ‘it’s working for them, why can’t it work for me?’. It is in this grassroots, role modeling fashion that you, dear reader, are going to change the nation, and the world.

In order to make large scale changes in health and education on a national level, we must make large scale changes in our health and education as individuals. Now don’t worry, large scale change does not have to occur all at once. As my friend and mentor Dr. James Chestnut teaches, “Change should not be an upstream struggle, change should be like floating downstream on your back on an air mattress soaking up the sun.” In other words, if we try and change all at once, we will not succeed because wholesale change is stressful and stress is not conducive to success or health. Therefore, we must go about change in a gentle way. We do this by adding positive things without taking away negative things. Eventually, you realize how great it feels to perform the positive actions and they just become habit. The negatives gently, and sometimes unknowingly, fall to the wayside.

There are 3 key daily functions that we must target for change in order to accomplish our goal. The 3 areas we must make changes in are the way that we eat, move, and think (Chestnut, 2003). The following are simple changes for each category that you can institute today to begin changing the world:

EAT

The first addition you can make to your daily eating habits is DRINK MORE WATER. Shoot for at least 64 ounces of water per day. That is 8 normal size glasses.

A very close second is what Dr. Chestnut calls FRESH FIBER FIRST. This novel idea suggests that we begin each meal with some form of raw fruit and/or raw vegetable. Raw fruits and raw vegetables contain loads of cancer fighting phytonutrients and antioxidants that are lost when cooked. Your best choices are the cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, rutabaga, etc. An added bonus is that raw fruits and veggies are loaded with fiber which helps clean out your intestines and decrease your appetite. So start each meal with an apple, salad, or your favorite raw green food.

SHOP ON A FULL STOMACH. When you go to the grocery store with an empty stomach, you know that you make poorer choices than if you were full from a recent meal. So eat before you shop. And when deciding if you should purchase your favorite junk food, make the decision based on how you’ll feel after you eat it, not while you are eating it.

AVOID PROCESSED AND REFINED FOODS. The closer you buy a food to the form in which it is found in nature, the better it is for you. If it comes in a box or is microwaveable, it is probably not good for you.

READ FOOD LABELS. If you cannot pronounce it, don’t eat it. If grocery stores have an “Organic” and “Healthy Food” section what is the rest of the store called, the Death and Disease section? In short, yes. Avoid foods with artificial flavors and sweeteners, colors/dyes, high fructose corn syrup, MSG, preservatives, additives, and propylene glycol (which is literally anti-freeze).

Our food supply is DEFICIENT in healthy Omega-3 fatty acids (fish oil) and probiotics (good bacteria). Omega-3 fatty acids are essential for a healthy brain and joints. They are also anti-inflammatory and great for your skin. Probiotics are healthy bacteria that are supposed to live in our gut but don’t because of all the toxins in our food supply and the multiple courses of antibiotics taken each year by the average American. Probiotics are important because they produce B vitamins and Vitamin K for us. They also fight off bad bacteria thereby keeping us healthy. The best company I have found to purchase these products from is Innate Choice (www.innatechoice.com).

The best way to eat is to focus on meals consisting of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and grass fed meats. Buy organic when you can. Avoid grains and dairy because they are pro-inflammatory and lead to autoimmune diseases, GI disorders, and a plethora of other negative health problems.

MOVE

EXERCISE EVERYDAY. It does not have to be crazy, you don’t have to be a bodybuilder or a marathoner, just get moving. Start today by stepping outside and taking a deep belly breath. Tomorrow go outside, take a deep belly breath, and walk to the end of your driveway. In this way, add distance and difficulty (i.e. stairs, ankle weights, run, etc) as you feel ready. Research shows that just 30 minutes of walking a day (equal to burning 200 calories) 5 times a week prevents 30% (949,619) of deaths due to coronary heart disease and stroke, 50% of colon cancer (24,000 deaths), and reduces Alzheimer’s risk by 50%, just to name a few benefits.

HAVE A PARTNER. Exercising with a partner increases your chances of success because you can encourage each other and hold each other accountable. Eventually you can compete with each other, loser buys the broccoli smoothies.

MAKE IT FUN. If you have children and they hate “exercise,” how do you get them to exercise without them knowing its “exercise”? Make it fun, wrestle them, throw the ball with them, ride bikes with them, have push up, sit up and standing squat contests with them. Be creative, there are endless possibilities here.

CREATE EXERCISE. By this I mean incorporate more movement into your daily routine. Instead of taking the elevator, take the stairs. Don’t park in the parking space closest to the building, park in the one furthest away and walk extra. If you need to run errands or go to a friend’s house that lives close by, walk, run, or bike over instead of drive.

GET YOUR SPINE CHECKED. In order for your body to express full health, you must have 100% communication between your brain and the rest of your body. The brain communicates with the rest of your body by sending messages down the spinal cord and out the nerves to every cell, muscle, and organ. Every cell, muscle, and organ then communicates back to the brain in the reverse direction. If your spinal column is not properly aligned, this communication is dysfunctional and you are not expressing 100% health. We cannot reach our full human potential if we are not 100% healthy, so make sure you are getting your spine checked regularly.

THINK

READ 1 HOUR PER DAY. Brian Tracy, a high school dropout, self-made millionaire, and self-help guru says that the average American reads one book per year. ONE! How does that look for an educated country if we are finished with school (where we learned very little) by age 18-23 and our continuing education is one book per year. And what if that book is TV Guide? You see where I’m going with this. If we are to reform our health and our educational systems, we need to be educated and make educated decisions. Reading one hour a day equates to 365 hours a year. That is 15.2 days a year you would spend reading. I think you could learn a lot in just one hour a day. That one hour a day equates to about 50 books per year. Do you want to get ahead in your profession, or be an expert in your area of interest? Simply set aside one hour a day and you’re on the road to expertise. If you don’t know where to start, I recommend Think And Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill, or Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude, by Napoleon Hill.

AUDIOBOOKS. Instead of listening to the same 5 songs on the radio each day during your commute, purchase or download some audiobooks that cover an topic you are interested in. You’ll be amazed at how much time you spend in the car and how much you can learn by listening to audiobooks while you drive.

COMMUNITY. Surround yourself with positive, like-minded individuals. This way you can all support each other and encourage each other. Form a mastermind group and meet weekly or bi-weekly to bounce ideas off of each other. Have each member read a different book or look into a different topic for each meeting and share the best of what they found with the others. This will stimulate massive creativity and brainstorming sessions. Everyone will walk away enriched, and who knows, maybe a business, invention, or non-for-profit company will be born.

VOLUNTEER. Volunteer in your community. Get outside your comfort zone and go meet people. Recruit people to your cause. Volunteer with a genuine attitude of service and love and all new doors will be opened for you.

Dr. Chestnut teaches SUCCESS LEAVES CLUES. Look at the people at the top of your profession or area of interest. Read their biographies, Google them. What made them who they are today? How did they get to the top? I guarantee they’ve left clues as to how they’ve achieved prominence. Incorporate those things into your life. Start your day with positive affirmations such as “Everything my mind can conceive, and believe, it can achieve!” Say it out loud and with emotion, your subconscious mind will manifest your affirmations if you really believe them. Also, set goals and put them on paper! Make them challenging but realistic and set a definite deadline.

GET SPIRITUAL. Whatever that means to you. Whether it’s spend more time in nature, meditation, prayer, reading your Bible, going to church, or just laying on your back looking at the stars. A recent TIME magazine cover story was titled “How Faith Can Heal”. One article stated that regular church attendance provided an average of 2 to 3 years of additional life for churchgoers versus non-churchgoers (TIME, 2009). Founder of the Harvard Mind/Body Institute, Herbert Benson, MD, said “Religious commitment is consistently associated with better health. The greater a person’s commitment, the fewer his or her psychological symptoms, the better his or her general health, the lower the blood pressure, and the longer the survival.” (Benson, 1996).

WHISTLE WHILE YOU WORK. Literally, hum, sing, and/or whistle your work day away. It is hard to be negative when you are humming along to a tune you enjoy.

************************************************************************

So there you have it. I hope these suggestions help you on your quest of self-becoming. Remember, ROME WASN’T BUILT IN A DAY!!! You don’t have to wake up tomorrow and eat, move, and think to perfection. Start small, implement the steps that naturally make sense to you, and add as you see fit. You will see and feel changes almost immediately. This will lead to excitation and happiness. Feel free to let your joy be known. Please email me with any questions and share this with all of your friends and family. If we can change ourselves and get our friends and family on board, we will soon not only be CREATING OUR LIVES, but also CREATING OUR NATION.

REFERENCES

Kluger, Jeffrey. “The Biology of Belief.” TIME. February 23, 2009; pp. 62-72.

Benson, Hebert. Timeless Healing: the Power and Biology of Belief. New York:
Fireside, 1996.

Chestnut, James. The 14 Foundational Premises for the Scientific and Philosophical
Validation of the Chiropractic Wellness Paradigm. Victoria, B.C.: The Wellness Practice-
Global Self-Help Corp., 2003.

Chestnut, James. The Innate Diet and Natural Hygiene. Victoria, B.C.: The Wellness
Practice-Global Self-Help Corp., 2003.

Chestnut, James. Innate Physical Fitness and Spinal Hygiene. Victoria, B.C.: The
Wellness Practice-Global Self-Help Corp., 2003.

Chestnut, James. The Innate State of Mind and Emotional Hygiene. Victoria, B.C.: The Wellness
Practice-Global Self-Help Corp., 2003.

Tracy, Brian. 21 Secrets to Self-Made Millionaires. Audiobook

A Call To Arms

2009-03-22T14:15:00.013-05:00

The great 19th century American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, "Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of it's members...Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist." This quote portrays his strong conviction that the opinions of the majority of American society lead away from Self-Trust and into conformity.

Call me crazy, but Emerson wrote and believed those words in the 1830s and it doesn't look like anything has changed in 2009. We are a conformist, materialistic society that allows our "leaders" and television to dictate our lives to us. Where does this conformity begin? In our schools.

Look at this quote from Emerson, "Education is of value only insofar as it draws out one's own intellectual force. If education merely trains students for a career, it will lead them to despair."

Wow, somewhere along the way that quote got swept under the rug. Our schools today do exactly what Emerson warned against, they destroy any and all forms of creativity and creative energy. Creativity is destroyed by the structure of the education system. We sit at a desk and receive a brain dump from the teacher day in and day out for 18 years. We are given tests on this information that do not test our ability to understand and synthesize information, but whether or not we can memorize facts long enough to pick the right answer out on a page and then forget it all when the test is over. The only facts that stick are the ones we are forced to regurgitate repeatedly. Having to sit all day not only destroys our creative energy, it drains us of all energy. So instead of leaving school and going to exercise and be in community with others what do most students do? Go sit in front of a TV or computer somewhere.

At the end of their education, the students are robots who do what they're told to do and just spent $100,000 to learn how to do a job that they may or may not like doing. I remind you that the diploma does not even guarantee them a job! This should make you angry and sad.

Emerson saw this, he also saw the immense opportunities that were (AND STILL ARE) available to the average citizen of the United States. He saw these opportunities being squandered as the ambitions and values of every citizen were determined for them by the marketplace mentality that has come to dominate American culture. He saw then that, like today, American culture needs a change. Who can argue?

Where has our elitist, brain dead, "do as your told" culture gotten us? How about into the deepest national debt our country has ever seen? How about the most unhealthy, depressed and disease ridden state this nation has ever been in? Our poor health has been achieved by we as a people being lazy, brain dead, and willing to adopt the "pop a pill" mentality for any and all problems instead of being accountable for our own health and the way that we eat, move, and think.

According to the World Health Organization, the U. S. spends 16% of its Gross Domestic Product, or an average of $7,000 per person per year on sickness care. We have more doctors, more hospital beds, and more pills per capita than any country in the world. Where has that brought us? Try 34th out of 39 in the newest ranking of the healthiest westernized nations. Try 29th best country in infant mortality rates. Try an average of 9 prescription drugs per person and a national consumption of 25 million pills per HOUR! (Time, 2008)

It's time for a revolution, America. We as citizens need to take back our health freedoms and our brains from Big Government and Big Pharma. It has to be grassroots. They are not going to ever relinquish control on their own. How do we make this change? I bet our buddy Ralph has an idea:

"The power which is at once spring and regulator in all efforts of reform, is the conviction that there is an infinite worthiness in man which will appear at the call of worth."

In other words, Emerson thought that for social reform to be effective, it must absolutely be preceded by self-reform. He believed that self-reform was an ongoing process of self-becoming: "Every man believes that he has a greater possibility."

More evidence of his belief is seen in this quote, "A new degree of culture would instantly revolutionize the entire system of human pursuits." What is the key word in that quote? "Culture." In order to change the laws of this country, we must first change our minds as citizens, and this is done through "culture", or education. Not the education system, we know that has already failed us and needs reform. The education I speak of is self-education. It is every citizen taking it upon ourselves to educate ourselves and our neighbors about what it means to live a healthy lifestyle. We mustn't become complacent once we have the knowledge, or education. That knowledge is worthless unless we apply it. We must LIVE it. By living it we become healthier and happier and people begin to take notice. They take your example and adopt it in their own lives. The light comes on. Then we band together and start using our purchasing power to demand that our government protect our health instead of the interests of Big Pharma, the FDA, the USDA, and the dairy industry.

As Emerson said, "the State must follow, not lead the character and progress of the citizen."

If we, as a nation, want to climb out of this recession and the sorry state of health that played a huge role in causing it, we must return to the self-reliance and nonconformity that this nation was founded on. We must wake up and CREATE OUR LIVES on a daily basis instead of have them dictated to us by those who do not have our health or interests in mind. We live in a time where negativity and pessimism abound in the media and therefore in our thoughts. This constant negativity crushes creativity and the human will. It's time that we the people be fed up and take it upon ourselves to make a change.

"The power of the human will comes into being precisely through its encounter with limitations, and what is true for the individual will also be true for the nation. Do not go where the path may lead. Go instead to where there is no path and leave a trail."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

References:

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Essays and Poems by Ralph Waldo Emerson. New York:
Barnes & Noble Classics, 2004.

Dykman, Jackson. "5 Truths about Health Care in America." Time. December 1, 2008: 42-48.

What is Wellness? Part 2

2009-01-13T20:46:00.004-06:00

Well we're back for another episode. Last week we left off talking about how your state of Wellness is determined by the choices you make. Well we are going to continue that discussion this week. So, how about some meat and potatoes?

Right now, Mr./Mrs. Reader, what I want you to do is answer a question for me. What is health? Take a moment and think it over. In fact, write down your definition of health on a piece of paper for me...

Are you done? Good. I bet for most of you your answer went something like this, "Health is when I feel good. Health is when I am not sore and I'm not sick." Well, if you wrote that down on your piece of paper, you failed. But it's okay, because the majority of you probably put that, so you'll pass anyway due to the averaging out of all of your scores. If health is when you feel good then how do you explain Tim Russert's death last year of a sudden heart attack? Didn't he feel good until the moment he had it? Or how about the relative or friend we all know who died or was paralyzed by a stroke? Didn't they feel good until the moment of stroke?

So if health is not how you feel, what is it? You want the answer? Okay, I'll give it to you in 3 words, you ready? Here goes...Health is...

Homeostatic Cell Function

What?! I know, I know, brain cramps from the big scientific word. No worries, it's easy. Homeostasis means balance. So homeostatic cell function means that your cells are working correctly and everything is balanced; hydration, temperature, growth vs. waste, etc. So health, then, is when your cells are all functioning together in a state of balance, making up an entire body (your body) that is functioning in equilibrium. So health is balance, not too fat or too skinny, too hot or too cold, too active or too lazy, too happy or too sad, too stressed or too peaceful.

So if health is balance, what is sickness? Sickness is a loss of balance. This loss of balance has only 2 known causes: Toxicity and/or Deficiency. You are sick because you are toxic from something you ate, drank, breathed, or thought. Or, you are sick because you are deficient in a nutrient that is required for the expression of 100% health. For example: water, proper vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, essential fatty acids, probiotics, proper exercise, positive loving thoughts/relationships, or proper nervous system function. (Chestnut, 2003)

Notice the wording I used above, I said, "...required for the expression of 100% health." Expression implies that your genes play an important role in your health. This is true, they do. But they are not the be all, end all, like the medical world would have us believe. The most important determinant of your health is the environment, i.e., what you eat, how you exercise, what you think, your level of stress, etc. It is the environment that triggers your genes to express a given trait. We all have basically the same genes, it is the expression of our genes that make us different individually. Picture your genes as a light switch, this light switch is the gene for eye color. If the switch is in the "off" position, you will express one trait, say, blue eyes. If the switch is in the "on" position, you will express a different trait, brown eyes. It's the same gene, just a different expression. If all that mattered was that you had a light switch and there wasn't an "on/off" switch, then we'd be in trouble. Then women with the BRCA1 gene (breast cancer gene) would all be doomed to breast cancer. But wait, there are thousands of women with the BRCA1 gene that live their whole lives without ever developing breast cancer, how is this possible? It is possible because having the gene does not mean you will have the trait that the gene codes for (in this case, breast cancer). You must expose the gene to the right (actually, in this case, the wrong) environmental influences in order for it to express the trait. What might these environmental stressors be? Smoking, alcohol, pro-inflammatory diet, BPA and other toxic chemicals in our plastics, herbicides, pesticides, vaccines, subluxation, etc.
For more information on this exciting topic, known as Epigenetics, go here: http://www.ehponline.org/members/2006/114-3/focus.html

So great, if it's our environment that determines our fate, how are we any better off than when we thought our genes were our fate? That's easy. You can choose your environment, you can't choose your genes. By choosing your environment, you influence the traits that your genes express. You choose Wellness by choosing to eat organic fruits and vegetables, exercising daily, living a life of love and gratitude, and stimulating your nervous system by getting regular chiropractic adjustments. You choose sickness and disease when you decide to smoke, drink, eat processed foods, live a sedentary lifestyle, think bad thoughts, and not get regular nervous system checkups. Your Wellness is in your power of choice. Choose Well!

Thank you for reading and God bless your day!

Email any questions to thesolutioniswellness@gmail.com.

References

1. Chestnut, J.L. (2003). The 14 Foundational Premises for the Scientific and Philosophical Validation of the Chiropractic Wellness Paradigm. Victoria, B.C.: The Wellness Practice-Global Self-Help Corp.

What is Wellness?

2009-01-03T12:29:00.005-06:00

What is Wellness? What does it really mean?

According to dictionary.com, Wellness is a noun for:

1. the quality or state of being healthy in body and mind, esp. as the result of deliberate effort.
2. an approach to healthcare that emphasizes preventing illness and prolonging life, as opposed to emphasizing treating diseases.

These 2 definitions are very good and match up well with the Chiropractic paradigm. Let's look at why this is true. Chiropractic is a science, philosophy, and art that looks at the individual as a vitalistic and holistic being.

Vitalism is the belief that the body is a self-healing organism. It implies that there is a power within the body, that cannot be measured chemically or physically, that controls all the functions of your body. This power is known in Chiropractic as Innate Intelligence (Innate for short), and around the world as God, Allah, or whichever faith your prescribe to. Proof of this power has been observed by all of us. We get a cut on our hand and over a week's time it heals. Did you concentrate on the cut for seven days straight and repeat over and over, "you will heal, you will heal, you will heal,"? No, you went about your daily business and your body healed itself without you consciously directing it. Another example is the fact that you do not consciously cause your heart to beat or your lungs to breathe. These two things happen every second, of every day, for your entire life. These functions are maintained by Innate, which uses the brain and its connection with every cell, tissue, and organ in your body via nerves. The nerves provide information to the brain to let it know what is going on at all times and the brain communicates back and tells that specific cell, tissue, or organ how to react. It is a continuous cycle which travels from the brain, down the spinal cord, out the nerves to the cell, tissue, organ in question, back up the nerves to the spinal cord, to the brain. To see a picture of the nervous system as described, click the following link: http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/7173.html.

As a quick aside, whenever there is a metaphysical issue brought up (God, Innate, Healing Powers, Ghosts, etc) there are skeptics. And there always will be because these are things that cannot be physically or chemically measured by science, as stated above. But as one final example to leave you with, consider a cadaver compared to you. If I cut your hand and the cadaver's hand in the same spot, at the same time, what will happen? In one week we will compare you again. Your hand is healed, the cadaver's hand is still cut. What is the difference between the two of you? You both still have your brain, your nerves, your heart, lungs, stomach, pancreas, etc. You are both complete anatomically. The only difference is vitality. One of you still has a life force, whatever you choose to call it, and the other does not. One is a living, breathing, healing human being, the other is dead. Those facts are hard to argue.

Holism is the practice of looking at the individual as One. A person that comes into my office with a complaint of headaches, for example, is not viewed by me as just a head and neck. As a holistic minded doctor, I look at that person as a whole person. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. So not only do I look at the head and neck, I look at the whole body. Poor mechanics in the feet, knees, hips, pelvis, low back, etc. can cause headaches. So can a poor diet, poor posture, a negative attitude, etc. All of these things must be taken into account to get the best results for that person.

When practiced together, vitalism and holism lead to Wellness because they aim to get the person better by using the person's natural healing ability and the natural elements of our environment such as proper nutrition, proper exercise, and proper mind set (we will address these topics individually in future blogs).

We have just scratched the surface on how Chiropractic fulfills the second part of the definition of Wellness as given above. Let's now look at how it fulfills the first part, "the quality or state of being healthy in body and mind, especially as the result of deliberate effort." In other words, Wellness is a choice. Wellness is every choice you make. You bring yourself closer to Wellness whenever you choose exercise over television, broccoli over brownie, and gratitude over negativity. Chiropractors help an individual achieve Wellness in this way by being their Wellness coach. We are here to provide you with the encouragement and information you need to make intelligent and healthy choices that lead you to the longest, happiest, healthiest quality of life you can have. Modern research (Ostan, R., et. al. 2008. Immunosenescence and immunogenetics of human longevity. Neuroimmunomodulation. 15 (4-6): 224-240.) and the Bible (Genesis 6:3) both state that man is made to live for 120 years. So let us CHOOSE health and life at each crossroads of our day.

Thank you for reading and we'll talk again soon! God bless your day.

email any questions to thesolutioniswellness@gmail.com