60 Day Turnaround

If you recall, it all starts with philosophy.  In the past two weeks, Dr. Mike has written two Daily Sprouts which are there to take on your philosophy.  One was titled Overdosed America, and the other… Milk.

If you begin your “Pursuit of Health” based off of a set of beliefs, swallowing the pill that goes along with abrupt messages, is easy.  I speak from experience, as I had no philosophical basis for my health, nor did I understand the need, nor did I accept the need when it was first placed in front of me.  Dr. Goldberg,  has/had (not sure if he is still in this capacity) the opportunity to teach 4th quarter Life University Chiropractic students about nutrition.  The first step to understanding blood sugar, inflammation, healthy fat… it was all brand new information to myself and at least 80% of our class which was about 300 strong at this point.

I can remember the conversations after class… “Do you believe he said Milk is unhealthy? What a crazy notion, he doesn’t look healthy to me, not sure I want to listen to anything he says.  Doesn’t he always look a little green?”  The shock was enough to offend us to the point where we had to attack him.  Judgement out of defense.  A common problem in our culture; those of you who have pursued health in the presence of co-workers have probably felt it.  The judgement because you have made healthy choices.  People don’t like change, they don’t like feeling that they were wrong.

Which is why spending some time looking at your health through some philosophical eyes, will win you a better opportunity in any discussion.  If you were to defend a health decision, could you?  Most commonly, our decisions for health are based out of fear.

I take a drug because I am fearful of what would happen without it.  I workout because I am fearful of the consequence if I don’t.  I eat better because I don’t want diabetes.  We even teach from a standpoint of fear many times.  It is often the only way to get your attention.  But then, we switch gears, and we move towards philosophy.  You have to if you hope to have any staying power.  Fear is only a good motivator for a moment.

Seriously, have you ever seen someone after a heart attack?  The average person will alter their lifestyle for 60 days following a heart attack.  A great article in 2005 in Fast Company discusses this problem.

…the knockout blow was delivered by Dr. Edward Miller, the dean of the medical school and CEO of the hospital at Johns Hopkins University. He turned the discussion to patients whose heart disease is so severe that they undergo bypass surgery, a traumatic and expensive procedure that can cost more than $100,000 if complications arise. About 600,000 people have bypasses every year in the United States, and 1.3 million heart patients have angioplasties — all at a total cost of around $30 billion. The procedures temporarily relieve chest pains but rarely prevent heart attacks or prolong lives. Around half of the time, the bypass grafts clog up in a few years; the angioplasties, in a few months. The causes of this so-called restenosis are complex. It’s sometimes a reaction to the trauma of the surgery itself. But many patients could avoid the return of pain and the need to repeat the surgery — not to mention arrest the course of their disease before it kills them — by switching to healthier lifestyles. Yet very few do. “If you look at people after coronary-artery bypass grafting two years later, 90% of them have not changed their lifestyle,” Miller said. “And that’s been studied over and over and over again. And so we’re missing some link in there. Even though they know they have a very bad disease and they know they should change their lifestyle, for whatever reason, they can’t.”

Man that is powerful.  But it isn’t changing people.  Because the philosophy hasn’t changed.

My philosophical basis comes from a desire to be well.  To be able to do things that people cannot, to have as much true health as possible.   I want to be honoring to God with my decisions, and helpful to others by my leadership, and my decisions.

I don’t want fear to be my guide, I don’t want to make poor short term decisions based on the moment of fear.  My philosophical bend is that this body, was made by a perfect creator, to do exactly what it needs to do… IF I give it a chance.  I have a leg with varicose veins, and they have worsened over time.  I believe that my theory is dead-on, so I work on it, and I have seen the problem ebb and flow based on my focus on the solution.  But, my focus wanes because my philosophical bend doesn’t have me fearing the outcome.  (I am stretching my hip in effort to relieve the pressure on my vessels, so that they have more easy flow).

In addition, I have a rash of some sort on that leg.  I developed it two years ago following poison ivy.  The dermatologists do not know what it is.  2 Years later, all we know, is that it is no longer a simple response to poison ivy, it might be an immune response to the poison ivy that simply hasn’t figure out it is time to leave (over-simplification), it might be some sort of unique localized eczema, or perhaps something in the arthritide fmaily.  No blood test shows anything, so our next step will be to biopsy, even though every dermatologist believes there will be nothing gained from a biopsy.

You see, I am not in fear, I know that we are providing an opportunity for healing, except for the varicose vein which might prolong the immune response.  Thus without panic, I am working towards the most plausible solution given a decent amount of research and professional opinion.  Sure, every professional wants to medicate, but none think the medication is a solution.  Just a way to suppress it temporarily.  So why?

Dig into your beliefs, see them through.  Be well and Be blessed!  – Dr. E

I grew up on this stuff.  Loved it.  I put it in my cereal, dipped my Oreos in it, drank a glass of it with every spaghetti dinner (trust me, that’s the way to go), I consumed a lot of it.  I also had a lot of health problems as a child, with chronic ear infections and digestive issues.  Had I gone to a naturopathic doctor as a kid, milk is likely the first thing that would’ve been taken out of my diet.  My parents were never informed of the dangers of the industrialized milk that we find in our local grocery stores.  I’d like to follow the path that this sort of milk takes from feedlot to your shopping cart.  It will explain why milk is a heavily allergenic food, and not the super food we are led to believe it is by the dairy industry.

Brace yourself, because this is about to get icky.  Milk originates not on a farm, but in feedlots that are termed Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations a.k.a. “CAFO’s”.  These are large industrial feedlots that are designed to create massive amounts of milk at the lowest cost.  By now, you’ve probably noticed on some dairy products either or both of the phrases “rBGH free” or “antibiotic free”.  This is because a common method of milk production is to inject the cows with a genetically engineered bovine growth hormone.  The subsequent engorgement of the cow’s utters that ensues after injection causes mastitis to occur because the utters literally begin to rip at the seems. With any infection comes pus, and that pus cannot be kept completely out of your milk.  Since this has posed a new health problem, the FDA has an allowable amount of pus cells in your milk.  This is termed the Somatic Cell Count, and it should not exceed 1 million pus cells/ milliliter. But, to keep the levels below this new standard, it is necessary to use antibiotics.  These drugs can easily end up in your milk as well.

By now we have:

1. Put the cow that produces your milk in unhealthy and confined conditions,
2. Fed it an unnatural diet full of grains that skews the omega 3:6 ratio in the omega 6 direction, causing increased inflammation both in the cow and you,
3. Injected it with “rBGH”, which not only gets into your milk and can increase your risk of diseases like breast cancer, but also there is overwhelming evidence that the genetically engineered hormone causes physical harm to the cows, including increases in infection and mastitis.
4. Injected it with antibiotics to dilute the amount of pus cells down to 1 million cells per droplet of milk.  These antibiotics work in your gut as well, killing any good bacteria your gut or the milk may have had.

Before we go on, raw milk can definitely be considered a “super food”.  It contains an abundance of fat, protein, and carbohydrate… along with plenty of vitamins, enzymes, and nutrients.  Milk “does the body good” in other words. But, not after the dairy industry is done with it, because next comes pasteurization.

5.  Milk is pasteurized at high heat for an extended period of time to “kill anything that moves”, so to speak.   If it was alive and nutritious, or alive and harmful… it’s not anymore. Vitamins and enzymes are killed, while proteins and fats are denatured.  Nothing healthy is left in tact.
6.  Milk is also homogenized.  Your gallon of milk is not one gallon of milk from one cow.  It is mixed in with hundreds of other cow’s milk from different CAFO’s with different processes and medicating types.   If that doesn’t sound dangerous enough, research has linked the homogenization of milk to heart disease.

At the end of the day, milk can be very nutritious or it can be extremely detrimental to our overall health.  It all depends on the source.  It is also helpful to know where to find raw milk.  You can visit www.Carltonfarm.com to learn more about where you can find healthy living raw milk in the local area.

I want to tell you briefly about Winter the Dolphin.  I have written about him in the past, and will write more in the future.  But the current, is to simply say “How cool that animals can inspire people!”

I was talking with one of my patients last week who recently authored her own book on marketing and leadership.  She was speaking in front of 1,000 ish people the week before, and she spoke on Maximized Living, and on our office, and on the 60 Day Turnaround.  She gave testimony to the effort to change, and the accomplishment of said change.  She said it was awesome.  People really poured out their appreciation for her testimony, for her leadership, and ultimately, her inspiration.

“People need to be inspired” – Me
“Yes, yes, the sure do!!” – Her

Back to Winter.  The Dolphin lost its tail several years ago now, and was given a prosthetic.  The dolphin is a smart mammal, but not as smart as we are.  Meaning, it was given a tail, it made use of it.  She fought it at first out of animal instinct.

Discomfort ruled her mind, and she simply said no.  But then with coaxing, she decided to move forward with the tail.  And though it hasn’t been anything more than a therapy for her spinal health, it has become the therapy that has been saving her life.

In my prior Daily Sprout about Winter, I mentioned that she would die before her time.  I know this because of her spinal degeneration.  But, I would guess that in these three years that I have now seen her, that she will likely live longer than I originally expected.  Because of her willingness to move forward.

We need her story.  So many of us are stuck in a rut.  Stuck not moving forward because of fear.  Fear of the unknown, of the unexpected, of great possibilities even.  Our fears are strong, and Winter is the inspiration that breaks us through.  More on this story to come, for now, be inspired.  Watch Dolphin Tale, and then look out for Dolphin Tale 2 coming soon!  Be well and be blessed!  – Dr. E

In Time magazine last month, I was reading an article on our healthcare system when I came across a startling statistic.  Down in the bottom right-hand corner of the page in small print, it read “10% of Americans are on 5 or more drugs, while 50% of Americans are on 1 or more pharmaceuticals.”  This should jump off the page at you…  because we live in #1 superpower in the world with all the best resources.  We have the best hospitals, the best doctors, the best surgeons, the most research, the best technology, and the most money to pour into our medical care system.  Yet, more than half of our nation is afflicted by chronic disease, so much so that they need a drug to help manage daily. If you look at the rates of disease, they are going up every year.  Not only are they going up but also, diseases like cardiovascular disease are no longer exclusive to the older generations.  We see children on cholesterol lowering medications and blood pressure medications.  This is a real problem.  I think by now our medical healthcare leaders have recognized it as a problem, but because they don’t study where true health comes from in school sadly, they have only the option to stay the course.

We, as chiropractors approach your health in a radically different way than conventional medicine does. If we take a look at the definition of health as defined by the World Health Organization it says that “health is not merely the absence of symptoms and disease, but 100% function of the your physical, mental, and social well-being.”  If you break down the first half the definition and really understand what that says, it’s saying “Health isn’t just when you feel good”.  It’s important to know that it is very possible and very common to be very sick and feel fine.  Think of cancer and heart disease.  They are called the silent killers for a reason.  So, we cannot be reactive in our health.  We’ve got to be proactive, continually working at improving our health.  So how do you add health? You add function.

The key word in the definition is function.  That is our goal as chiropractors, to get you functioning at 100%.  Because, when you have 100% function you have 100% health.  So, we look first to the one system in the body that governs all healing and all function.  Your nervous system.  When we restore function to the nervous system, that’s when we see miracles occur.  We’ve had some exciting and quick restorations of health recently, and those are amazing to see.  But, more commonly we see slow progressive movement out of a place of dysfunction, to a place of function and health.  These are no less of a miracle. When a patient comes off of a medication we do a little dance in our heads because that person has been “unstatistic-isized” (that’s a good word, you can use it sometime… copyrighted, Dr. Mike).  The big picture now is that 150 million more people need to hear that they have the power to heal.  Anyone that has a nervous system has the same God given power to heal.

So, we go over these quite often I know, but only because it’s that important. The 5 essential steps to adding function and health are:

Maximized Mindset- It is vitally important to know that you can get healthy and that you can move from a place of dysfunction and lack of health, into a place of function and health.  Without this mindset, there is no hope.

Maximized Nervous System- If you are reading this, you are probably taking care of that right now by getting adjusted. But, who do you know that isn’t taking care of their nervous system?

Maximized Nutrition- Come to “Dinner Done Right!” and learn some easy,        delicious, and healthy recipes!  Also, pick up a “green book” on your way out.  They have all the information you’d ever want to know about nutrition, along with a grocery list of what to add and subtract in your shopping cart, and a bunch of really tasty recipes in the back.

Maximized O2-

Minimize your toxins- Ask us how you can flush the toxins out of your body and out of your life!