60 Day Turnaround

Did you know that the Harvard Medical School has a special “Health Report” titled “Healthy Eating – A Guide to The NEW Nutrition”?  This guide is entirely focused on research done since 1990, and the marketing alone is enough to fuel the death to genetic labeling that I preach.

This from the Harvard Medical Health website: Forget your old ideas about healthy eating. Research done since the 1990s shows beyond all doubt that you can lower your risk for the most serious diseases of our time by following a healthy diet. 

I titled the article as such, because though it wasn’t the intention of the staff writer to BASH all who blame genetics for your heart disease, or diabetic issues; in the end, that is exactly what they did.  They go on to say 25% of cancers, which actually isn’t in line with most current research which would go up to 80% of cancer being controllable.  Regardless, my point is that if we look beyond our local health care practitioner, and hospitals, and look to the more aggressive research institutes of today, we will see a push towards taking your health destiny into your own hands.

This is the full excerpt from the store page on the Harvard Web Site where you order the Food Guide:

Some foods are good for you, some are bad. But which are which? You may think you’re eating a healthy diet? But do you know for sure?  The answers, according to the latest nutritional science, are not always the same as we once thought. Many previously held assumptions have turned out to be wrong, and new findings may be surprising. Do you know:

• Some of the healthiest foods are FATS (do you know which ones?)
• What’s the better choice: corn or avocado? (the answer might surprise you).
• Why organic spinach can be dangerous to your health (but not if you follow a simple tip)
• That frozen fruits and vegetables can be more nutritious than fresh?

Scientific evidence has shown that what you eat can reduce your risk for developing heart disease and diabetes, and ward off some forms of cancer, hypertension and osteoporosis.

Making healthy food choices is more important than ever. But are you sure you’re making the right ones? Our report, Healthy Eating: A guide to the new nutrition provides the latest thinking on the food-health connection, expert guidance on the best foods to incorporate into your diet, and more.

Make sure you’re making the right food choices for your good health. Order your copy of Healthy Eating: a guide to the new nutrition today.

Prepared by the editors of Harvard Health Publications with nutrition editor Teresa Fung, Sc.D., R.D., L.D.N., Nutrition Department, Harvard School of Public Health. 48 pages. (2011)

I like it.

So what does the publication say?  Well – a lot of what you might hear me say.  Eat fat, healthy fat, in relative abundance compared to the conventional wisdom which has failed us for so long.  Fruits should be controlled, but let loose on vegetables.  Watch sugar like a hawk, and reduce all foods which readily turn to sugar.

In other words, the US has changed from advising you to eat from the food pyramid, to the food plate.  And the plate, is just as screwed up as the pyramid!  

Though I don’t exactly agree with Paleo, I use a lot that you can gain from them (large movement, lots of buyers, so more people cater to this community, making it easy to find information and details).  The Paleo Food Pyramid is a much better guide towards health.  I have had people say, “All you eat is protein”.  And of course my response is that what I eat by volume, is green veges, nuts and seeds, protein followed by fruit.  And for me, I keep grain in the diet, just about equal to fruit.

If you are gluten sensitive (my estimation if what I see in my practice is a good sample of the population, is that about 80% of you are gluten sensitive), you should reduce those grains to NON-gluten grains.  You can use a list of gluten free grains like this one, to help you out.  Just remember though, because it is gluten free, it doesn’t mean that it is inflammation free.  All grains have some level of inflammatory effect, it is simply different from person to person.  If your greatest percentage of dietary intake are anti-inflammatory foods, 20% or less being grain, will not be a significant concern.  

Regardless of where you fall on the details, the truth is that if you start to pursue real knowledge, and take it seriously.  Yes, I am talking to all of you who use excuses like “what do I eat when I have to go out to eat all the time, I travel… I work downtown… I have to eat where my colleagues want to”.  Whatever.  Just make the wise choice.  You can do it, your excuses are your excuses, and I prefer to call them what they are, so that you can figure out who you are in the midst of it.

Be well and Be blessed.  You know I am not angry, just blunt!  Love you all! – Dr. E

Serve for the Sake of Serving.

This is known as “The Lasting Purpose” from Dr. Sid Williams, late founder of Life University.  Dr. Sid was an interesting guy.  A GA Tech Alumnus who had been an athlete (football) as well as a salesman!  This guy was a seriously focused leader who wanted to grow his vision beyond all others growth.  The guy was intense, and as committed to chiropractic as anyone you will ever meet.

I love his lasting purpose.  Somewhere in my office, I have an award that was presented to me after one of my seasons playing hockey at Life.  It is called the Lasting Purpose Award, suggesting that I had exemplified the lasting purpose in my season at Life.  I appreciated that, even the way in which it was presented to me…

“Boy, this is quite an honor… for you to be playing on that hockey FIELD, and being committed to the lasting purpose all at the same time.  Congratulations!”

 Dr. Sid had a way with words, and obviously a Southern Flair for life (it’s a RINK, not a field).  Anyways, my point in sharing the lasting purpose today, isn’t to honor myself for that award.  Though, I can only hope that I can still find ways and opportunities to live that today.  I say this, because I am very busy in life now.  A busy chiropractic office,  The Garage, CrossFit Towne Lake, CrossFit Silos, CrossFit Bridgemill, The Garage Games, The Firebreather Challenge, The Garage Games Leagues, The 60 Day Turnaround (and the book to go with it).  You see how easy it would be to simply get wrapped up in myself?  And I believe that I do get wrapped in myself too often… an eternal effort to avoid that.

I often find myself looking for ways to leverage my office as a way to serve.  Find me someone who cannot afford care at my office, but is deserving of my compassion.  Bring me a missionary to serve, for all the serving they are doing.  Help me find a way to pour life into someone who is being drained of their life.  It all sounds so noble on the surface.  But take a look at it, and I KNOW that I need to do more.  And likewise, I know you might need to do more.

Adding a patient to my practice is minimally adding work to my life.  I adjust 120-170 people a day depending on the day.  It used to be 220-280, whew, those were the days.  But my point is, if I could do 250, and I am only doing 150.  By adding five to ten people to the mix, I am incurring some expenses, giving some of my time, but ultimately this is not sacrificial giving.  There is no impact on my time, I am not taking away from time devoted to another business, or my family, wife, etc.  So, the hunt.  Where to find that place to give more, to love more, to serve more?

Enter the Be Rich Campaign.  I love this time of year, when Northpoint Church and their campuses (Watermarke being my home campus) digs in and raises money for the community.  This past Sunday our message was the launch of the Be Rich Campaign, and once again Andy Stanley dug in asking every adult to give $39.95 before they left the building. If it all works out, this will total $2.2M from all campuses.  But I suspect it will greatly eclipse that number.  However, I have to ask, is giving money an ample example of the lasting purpose?  I don’t think so.  Even if the budget is super tight, it is an easy way out compared to laying aside your busy life to give your time.

So I am on the mission, looking for some ways to give more of my time this season.  I once served on the steering team that launched Watermarke church, that was cool, and I felt like my time was given wisely.  I served on the board of the Cherokee County YMCA for a bit, worthwhile for some time.  I just spent three hours at a Naturopath appointment with my wife, looking for more ways to kill and destroy this Lyme disease she is battling.  I get that it is a wise way to spend my time, and a good investment of my time, but not outwardly serving.  So she and I, and our small group, are looking for definite service projects this season.  Places to spend our time serving.  Last year we posted a few possibilities for you.  This year we want to do the same.

So if you have a mission, or a group locally that you are involved with serving, let me know; and we will post it for the rest of the community to see and follow up with.  Hopefully it will fit our group’s needs and we’ll get out to serve one of these great local missions.  If you want to show others they are important, and get a great dose of the Lasting Purpose along the way, service is where it should start from.  Let’s get some service hours in!

From the desk of the Natural News staff writer Ethan Huff.  This article is a simple report of the recent article published in JAMA showing that the swine flu vaccine, indeed increased the risk of the neurological condition, Guillian Barre.  Over the years I have known about five people with this condition, and served two in my practice.

Guillian Barre is a bit like Lyme in some ways.  Neurological, and seemingly random and progressive.  Weakness in the extremities is often the starting point of GB, but it progresses, and it can become life threatening by affecting the autonomic nervous system.  Most common fears surround the loss of respiratory muscles.  The condition is bad, and to have it increased because you were a little scared over the swine flu, is not cool.  Read the article:

(NaturalNews) A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) admits that the vaccine widely administered for H1N1, also known as “swine flu,” is linked to causing neurological damage in the form of Guillain-Barre syndrome. The findings confirm several earlier studies in both the U.S. and U.K. that also linked the H1N1 vaccine to severe neurological damage.

Reuters Health reports that, for the new study, Philippe De Wals of Laval University in Quebec City and his colleagues evaluated rates of Guillain-Barre in Canadians during the six months following the initial roll out of H1N1 in Quebec. Upon review, the team says it observed a definite increase in Guillain-Barre cases associated with the vaccine.

For those who are unaware of what Guillain-Barre actually is, the condition is marked by an autoimmune reaction where the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks the nervous system as if it is a foreign invader, which can cause severe nerve inflammation, muscle weakness, paralysis, and even death. Guillain-Barre was also widely observed following the mass vaccination campaigns for swine flu back in 1976.

The Canadian study confirms what the U.K.’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) determined about the H1N1 vaccine back in 2010. The agency, which is akin to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the U.S., issued a public statement at that time admitting that the H1N1 vaccine is linked to “a slightly elevated risk of GBS.” (http://www.naturalnews.com/030266_vaccines_nerve_disease.html)

The U.K.’s Health Protection Agency (HPA) also reportedly sent a confidential letter to roughly 600 senior neurologists back in 2009 warning them about the H1N1 vaccine’s definitive link to Guillain-Barre. None of this important information, which was clearly meant to remain a secret, was distributed for public health purposes during that time. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk)

However, data gathered by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) following the massive roll out of H1N1 vaccines in the U.S. back in 2009 also linked the jab to Guillain-Barre. Though scientists and government authorities tried to downplay the findings and make them appear as though the risk of Guillain-Barre was inconsequential (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100413151906.htm), the cat was out of the bag, as there was no denying that the H1N1 vaccine is clearly linked to neurological damage.

Just ask 14-year-old Jordan McFarland, a high school athlete from Alexandria, Virginia, who developed Guillain-Barre syndrome just hours after getting his H1N1 jab. Jordan reportedly suffered extreme weakness and inability to walk following the vaccine, and developed severe headaches and muscle spasms. The young boy even had to use a walker for several months in order to maintain some kind of mobility. (http://vactruth.com)

Resources for this article can be found at the learn more link below:
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/042770_Guillain-Barre_syndrome_H1N1_vaccines_toxic_effects.html#ixzz2jdwfHXBx

I wanted to give a few quick bits to update those out there who are interested in knowing more about Laura’s situation.  So if you aren’t sure where I am coming from, go back and read about her being diagnosed with Lyme.  At this time she has been on antibiotics for about 9 weeks.  Shocking for me, or my family.  I had another chiropractor recently express their concern over that path.

Funny, you cannot rock me from my chosen path, no matter what you have to tell me.  I hate antibiotics, and it is obvious that I do in every area of my life, so for us to choose this, we are totally convinced that the short term impact outweighs the long term negative effect.  I don’t share that sentiment with chemo.  But for this… I have done more research on this in six weeks than most people who are exclusively treating lyme have ever done.  This is the best option.  The next thing I heard from another chiropractor, was the question of the diagnosis.  “That is often mis-diagnosed”.  Funny, he is right (in the completely opposite way), it is usually diagnosed as something else.  It is the most common disease that returns a false negative, of all diseases (google search results).

So, my point in sharing this, is to help you see that we know where we are with this.  Dr. Amy (you might recall her, PhD in biochemistry, post graduate work at Harvard, worked for me for almost two years), saw my post, and responded… “hit the doxy, and hit it hard”.  She is in the middle of Lyme country up in New Hampshire.  She left biochem, for chiropractic.  She gets what I get, and she agrees.  She also sent me some examples of some homepathics that can help.  We will begin a couple in another week.

So our current position, Laura has felt a bit better this week in general.  Though she has had some increased symptoms in her arms, and at times her feet.  But we feel confident that she has gone through a well known phenomenon called Herxing, also known as the Jarisch-Herxheimer reaction , where the symptoms are driven by the death of the harmful organisms in the body.  This is completely normal, it is healthy in a way (you wouldn’t necessarily feel confident the antibiotic was doing anything without this), and is relatively consistent in the timing which it arrives in people being treated.   The only issue is, there is NO WAY to know for certain that you are experiencing this reaction.  It might just be you getting worse.

So here we are at a place where we believe it is all getting better, but in the back of our minds, there is some thought that it might be worsening.  Good news, we are still confident in the ability of the body to overcome, but it might take longer.  For those who have been around, you might remember when I used to offer the ionic foot bath.  Well we got our hands on one of those, and we have begun doing regular foot baths at home to draw out toxins.  We will continue to step up the other supporting treatments until we have a full onslaught of homeopathic support.

Again, I appreciate your prayers.  We are hopeful that all will be well in time.  Be well and blessed! – Dr. E

Last year we collected candy and sent it over seas to the troops.  But the most congruent thing for me to do would be to send it overseas to enemies.  So, instead, this year… I’ll be collecting candy and sending it to the trash!

Bring your candy in, as long as you donate between 1 and 5# of candy, you get an entry to win a massage.  If you want two entries, you need to bring more than 5#.

The first 10# of candy, we will pick one raffle ticket to win a massage.  For the next 10# we will pick another, and so on, and so on.  So if we collect 100# of candy, we will give away 10 massages, and we will throw it all away!

This on the heels of the GMO candy Sprout, and the simple truth that we hate what sugar does to you.  Keep a piece, sure, no prob, keep five… ok, we can handle that, keep any more than that and the insult to your system is something we need to discuss!  Perhaps you should watch FOUNDATIONS 1, and be set free by the truth.

Candy will be collected for three weeks!  Thank you and God Bless!  Dr. E

Because for me, God, and better yet Christ, are at the center of life.  I may have offended people at times when I have said I don’t try to put God first, but rather I put my health first.  It sounds like I might be using my health pursuit as an idol over God.  And he is a jealous God.

However, my pursuit is not to put God first, but to put him in the middle, so that if I were to put anything first, it would be how I spend my time on life.  My health, my wife, my kids, my extended family, my friends, my patients, etc.  But instead of saying, “God is first”, I say “God is alongside of it all”.  My point, or my attempt here, is to utilize the lens that I think God is looking through, with respect to all of my decisions.  Especially health.  Let me give a quick example.

We started a group among the patients a few years ago, called “Open Box Health”.  It started, got warm, then fizzled.  What was the point of it?  To let God outside of the box when it comes to your health.  So, this is really a focus on this thing that we do, where we engage God, or Biblical principles, only when it is convenient to us.  So if you find yourself in the hospital, in a near death experience, do you pray?  Do you pray more than you have ever prayed?  Probably.  But did you pray for guidance and wisdom, and did you search for t hat wisdom, and then follow it once you found Biblical wisdom BEFORE your health was a disaster?  Probably not.

Let Him out of the box, give Him the reins.

Why would I put health first on the list then?  Shouldn’t my family be before me?  Well, of course when it comes to a commitment of time and money, family is first.  But I will never let that cost me my health pursuit.  Let me explain.  If I have a day completely filled with family commitments, so there is no time for anything else.  Yet I believe that exercise is a necessary part of health, then I will find the time.  Even if it is at 11pm at night, I will work out.  Or if my schedule is so crazy with them, because we are running all around Mickey’s kingdom.  And food is poor, yet only poor food is readily available.  I still eat healthy.  The backpack on my back is loaded with nuts, and with healthy snacks, and we eat a salad first, and are cautious about our choices.  We do eat 80/20 (you should have read this before), 20% off the perfect list… so we can do that, but if I eat all Disney food for one day, then I need to eat perfect for at least 5 days out of 7.  So 80/20 per day is a lot easier to maintain.  You know, something else that is hard to accomplish out in the world, is to get adjusted.  But I do it whenever I can.  Time out, and run off to a chiropractor to get the power turned on!

I know that to some, it might still look like health pursuit is my idol.  But it isn’t, really.  I enjoy it, but it is a means to an end. I want to be able to serve my God, and Christ til the day I die.  I believe that is what we have all been called to do.  I can say without question, there is nobody else on the planet that I would choose to emulate more than Christ. In order to do that, without anything getting in my way, I need to be healthy.  I need to have energy, and I need to have passion.  I want nothing to strip those things from me.  I want my children to always see my attitude as one who LOVES life.

Lets circle back; with health FIRST on my list, it allows me the opportunity to enjoy life, enjoy my family, to serve others and yet to be confident that I am preserving the best chance to do that for years.  It drives home a commitment for my kids to follow, one that we know is going to drive them to make wise choices as well.

I think we have wrapped up the health thing… now did we ever really get to the God thing?  Not so much, but we are well set up to hit it.  There is the obvious, “I believe He is the creator of all, so I put Him in my health life, just like everything else”.  But that is not what I am talking about.  Consider this… every day, people make decisions for their health life, because they have reached a place of weakness.  A place of concern, that is so great, they have no option for hope or health.  Ask most of these people about their faith, and it is inconsequential.  What I mean is, it doesn’t matter if they are atheist, or Christian, or Hindu.  They all look away from their philosophical belief, and simply begin trusting whatever is being told to them by the doc.

Contrary to this concept, is the concept that their is a God, who created this body, with everything that it needs.  And even in a period of crises, the body has more potential than the doc can add.  The body has more hope than anything else that could influence it.  Ultimately, the trust is in God and in the body.  Just dial it up, and fight for healing.  This is using God as the cornerstone.  When I make a decision for health, I don’t make it lightly, I make it with the belief that I can prevent cancer, and by truly believing that, It makes every decision more important.

Hey, now that I have made my point, and I have your attention.  Just a quick aside.  Why do I prefer to honor Christ over God?  Because God can me many things, but Christ only means one thing.  I go with Him, and thus His Father, because He is the only person to have ever risen from the dead.  Too many witnesses with nothing to gain for me to believe otherwise, and so then, I choose to WANT to emulate that guy.  I am not so good at it, but I try.  Thanks for reading… be well and be blessed!  – Dr. E