60 Day Turnaround

Over the years, we have altered our lifestyle education to reflect the better our understanding of the “truth”.  One of these truths that has not changed much, is our view of pasta.  Yep, that classic easy meal that so many of you would say “oh, we don’t eat much pasta”, yet you still find a way to consume it once a week.

I understand, I grew up in a household where pasta was king.  We had spaghetti weekly as a minimum, lasagna and manicotti were also weekly choices.  And when my mother made them, it was a serious amount of food, capable of supplying at least two more meals with the leftovers.  Basically, all we ate was pasta.  Many of you get that this is not a wise decision, but how about once a week, it can’t be that bad, right?

So the answer is that it can, especially if you are someone looking for some weight loss, or for some hormonal changes, or some decrease in inflammation based on diet.  You really cannot accomplish that if you are eating grains, especially refined grains.  I am not saying that you can never eat pasta again, but you can’t when you want to see something big happen in your health life.  The problem doesn’t come just from the high carbohydrate (means it turns to sugar in your blood stream) load, but it also has something to do with the inflammatory response of this food.  If you look back at the daily sprouts on inflammation, you can review some of that info to better understand this.

The real issue is that these foods are rich in lectins (not leptin), which are protein molecules that play a role in digestive system distress.  Some of the research suggests a direct link with lectin consumption and leptin resistance.  So, all of this to simply say, you should stay away from pasta!  And that being said, I need to make sure you know how to make pseudo pasta.  Funny thing, is that it is good, and very pasta like, and my almost four year old thinks the “green pasta” is GREAT!

First thing is that you do need a spiral slicer if you want it to work well.  Otherwise you can use a potato peeler and attacking a zucchini will never be more fun.  I had a meeting at one of my patients homes recently, and they prepared thai noodles for dinner.  Though I had used zucchini noodles before, I hadn’t had them in a thai dish that was perfectly healing diet, or “advanced diet” approved.  This was a great step for me to realize that we could do some great things with these noodles.

So take the step, and you will be shocked at how great these are.  So the pictures are a simply thai dish, I don’t have a recipe for you (because as usual this was thrown together), but I do have some guidelines.  I made some zucchini noodles, I grilled some chicken, then mixed up some: seasonings, peanut butter (trader joes brand, organic), with some coconut milk.  Once the sauce was hot I poured that over the raw “noodles” (which could be cooked if you prefer), and let the sauce mildly soften them.  Chop up the chicken, mix it up and viola!

We enjoy the noodles raw with olive oil, or lightly steamed with tomato sauce, or sauteed with anything!  Be healthy, Eat healthy, God Bless!  – Dr. E

Whoot!!  Here it is!! Your favorite posting that I ever do, a lovely little workout to get you moving!  Hey, if you don’t mind, would you let me know if you have any interest in being part of a workout program sponsored by our office?  Max T3 is a workout program offered by Maximized Living.

We might start holding “bootcamp” style classes three times a week.  It would be offered at a relatively cheap cost compared to boot camps, and allow you an opportunity to experience group camaraderie.  This is not a substitute for CrossFit by any means, but it surely is a great stepping stone for those who want to go after the great fitness that comes from that proven strategy.  So if you have interest, let us know.  Email info@healthsprout.com and say “I like the idea of Max T3” and we’ll keep that as a possibility.

So on to today’s workout… I want to make it athletic, but not so demanding that you will say “I cannot do that”.  So here are the movements:

Run (jog, walk, sprint, crawl… whatever it takes to move as best as you can)

Broad Jump (jump as far as you can, if you can only jump one foot because it hurts to jump further, then one foot it is… if you can jump eight feet, then I want you jumping eight feet every time, this is a standing still, squat and jump movement)
Squats (my squat is as deep as you can go, not your chest going deep, but your butt; making sure knees are back, butt is back, chest is up and you are facing forward, not bent over to the ground)
And lastly, the favorite of so many people, the push-up.  I don’t care if you are pushing up on the floor with your toes on the ground, your knees, or if you are leaning against a wall… just don’t sell yourself short.  You are made strong, and honestly, David might have been a pretty amazing Biblical man, but you are gifted equally when it comes to physical potential.  So push-up hard!

So the workout is this:

Run 100M (take 50 long strides while walking, this will be the “turnaround” point)
Broad Jump 10 times
Squat 10 times
Push-up 5 times

The workout will be timed for a total of 8 minutes.  That is all that it is, so in 8 minutes I want you to try to get through this several times.  Just go as hard as you can for eight minutes.  It is an awesome workout time domain, and allows you to tax your anaerobic systems as well as your aerobic systems.

This is really good stuff!

Check out the picture as a good diagram for what a decent squat looks like (you will not be using the ball though).  Have fun, and post your results here online please!

Lastly, if you have  a chance, come by the Cherokee Outdoor YMCA this Saturday from 9-4 to watch some crazy competition that my gym is hosting.  Check out the details here.  Be well , be fit, God bless!  –  Dr. E

So as we continue to work through questions of “how best to” and “what if this breaks” in my backyard.  We are getting closer and closer to a final product.  Our goal is to take this information, and provide solutions for aquaponics gardens in back yard settings.  If you are new to this, aquaponics is the merger of hydroponics with aquaculture.

Basically a pond of fish, creating waste, which is then pumped into a garden of vegetables growing in a clean non-dirt medium (rock works great), then re-capturing the filtered water to return to the fish pond. The water provides all the nutrient that the plants need to grow, and the plants provide all the cleanliness that the fish need to live. Pretty cool!

WHEN YOU WATCH THE VIDEO… it uploaded poorly, so you will want to kill your sound right at the fade out/fade in, otherwise you’ll be annoyed by a loop of me saying “another update, another update, another update”!!

Just wanted to take a day to talk about the other changes coming your way from our office over the next few weeks.  As we come out of Maximized Living Conference, we find ourselves really wanting to do the best possible job at educating.  We spend a lot of time reading, and absorbing media and news, discerning and looking for the best way to reach the truth about health.  And the more we pursue that truth, the more we want to share.

We had started a group over two years ago that is names, “Open Box Health”.  The design for the group was to have it run by and for the benefit of patients, non-patients, basically anyone who had a desire to talk about health pursuit from the perspective that God has a plan for health beyond the belief that we are not capable of it on our own.  The tag line, “letting God out of the box when it comes to your health” is directed towards those who might profess a trust and faith in God, but the moment they are told that they incapable of health, they falter.

Realizing that most people fall into this category of not having that confidence to fully trust in natural pursuit of healing, is what drives our desire to educate through this group.  Unlike that patients who we have been fortunate to have, who have fought hard fights to naturally overcome cancer, or diabetes.  Our goal is to help build on the knowledge behind these success stories, to help others make small steps that mimic these large victories.

Our first step towards building this community of health warriors, is to start holding lunch time workshops on the five essentials of health. Maximized: mind, nutrition, nervous system, exercise and reduced toxins.  These workshops will be held at 11:45, and they will be 20 minutes.  Focusing on small pieces of the full essential.  We are doing it this way so that they can be very inclusive, with no significant barriers.  Moms can bring kids and put them in the play-room.  You can invite friends, and it will be very non-threatening for them.  You could stop in and still get plenty of time for other lunch time activities.

We will brand these under the Open Box Health umbrella, so that long term we could have any number of you hosting a workshop.  Our plan is to hold them every two weeks on these topics.  Our first one is in one week, on our Healthy Spine Day (invite anyone in to receive a full exam and x-rays for $25); and our 20 minute topic is Genetically Modified Foods.  Dr. Eric will bring you some of the key concerns of GMO’s, what to look for, and how to avoid them, then offer a Q/A period so that you can walk away with some knowledge and with less questions, not more!

Two weeks following this workshop, Dr. Levi brings to you a “Get the big picture” talk on vaccines.  He will hit several vaccines, but in so doing will hit your concerns for all of them.  You will not want to miss these talks!

Moms, did you see the sign up for the HealthSprout playgroup?  If you have young children, and want to spend some time around Open Box Health moms.  This is for you!  The group will work to arrange meeting times, and meeting groups (age difference planning for the kids) and will be communicating about it.  Also – an Open Box Health venture.

To further elaborate on next weeks Healthy Spine Day, our theme will be Back To School.  So we hope you will refer as many students as you possibly can to be checked.  We will also be checking backpacks for safety, and giving away some backpacks, compliments of REI!  So do not miss it, and if your children are struggling under their backpack, be sure to bring it in with them!  Be well, God Bless – Dr. E

If you bought beef with a use or freeze by date of August 12, you need to take it back.  This would be beef bought from Publix, Kroger or possibly some other local stores.  The concern is E-Coli; which by the way, is practically impossible to grow in grass fed beef.  Yes, it is interesting but true that the risk of e-coli in grass fed is so low that it is considered impossible.  Which is why my burgers this weekend that I prepared were all Medium Rare!  Whooo Hooo!

There is a man who has done more for corrective chiropractic care importance, than he ever would have imagined.  Dr. Kampanji, not a chiropractor, nor a fan as far as I can tell.  Established some incredible principles with his research that are as sound as anything in research, and incredibly pro-chiropractic!  But not just any chiropractic, curve correction chiropractic stands shoulders above the rest when you read his work.

We have been focused on corrective chiropractic for 9 of the ten years HealthSprout has been around.  We have seen some incredible things as it relates to change in the spine, as well as disease and symptom reversal.  One thing for sure, to get full benefit, it takes time and continued effort.  And effort outside of the office cannot be avoided if you truly want change.

OK, so what does this Dr. Kampanji say?  Well, his research shows that resistance to forces both axial (straight down) and sheering (across the plane of the spine) is increased with more curves.  The spine when normal, is considered to have 5 curves in it.  The cervical (neck) curve, the thoracic (chest) curve, the lumbar (low back) curve, the tail bone curve, and the last one is the curve at the base of the skull rounding forward.  The last is seemingly the least important, as it doesn’t really seem to be a full curve anyways.  However, Kampanji’s work took that curve as an equally important piece of research (we focus on the atlas as the most important bone, and it is this bone that most directly influences the skull position).

So in his work, he discovered that the resistance was a function of the number of curves.  You square the number of curves then add one, to get to the “unit” measure of resistance.  So if there were only 1 curve, as what we would see in an early developing fetus, then the resistance is (1×1)+1= 2.  As that baby develops, the cervical curve is now started in utero, so it is (2×2)+1 = 5.  As a child emerges from the womb the cervical/occipital relationship is complete so now it is (3×3)+1 = 10.  As the child crawls both the sacral curve and the lumbar curves differentiated from each other, so in reality you jump past four curves and go to five, (5×5)+1 = 26.  A fully functioning spine with normal curvature is 13 times more resistant to stress than a simple c-curve.

When I began to wonder about the sheering stresses and HOW it could be resistant to sheering forces, I was immediately reminded that every other four legged animal on the planet primarily walks on all four legs, meaning that the forces on their spines are almost ENTIRELY sheering forces.  And they possess the same curvature.  Of course they usually don’t live as long as we do, which could be due to neurological degeneration when we consider the resistance might not be as much as it could be if the loading were different.  (I am obviously not an evolutionary biologist, however if those guys ever wanted to get a better guess why an ape would start to walk upright, I would argue that it would be because the axial loading on their spines would cause much less degeneration vs sheering.  Either way, their still missing another 10 to the 8th power of genetic change explanation, so I am comfortable as a creationist!)

I regress… sorry.  OK, so lets consider you.  If you sit at a computer for 15 years (the amount of time that it takes to reduce a cervical curve by 70% in the average person.  And you do nothing to restore both the cervical curve and to reduce the increased thoracic curve (rounding of the shoulders).  You have now taken yourself from a 26 resistance, to a 10.  By removing both occipital (skull) and cervical curves.  In addition, the increased curvature of the thoracic spine, though still a resistant curve, is causing neurological damage by stretching the spinal chord.

Drum roll time……………  your curves matter.  Don’t take them lightly.  Don’t take your traction lightly, don’t take head weighting lightly, don’t take your children’s spines lightly…. if they aren’t under care here, you should be asking yourself why not.  They do sit at desks more than anyone else in the world, and they do it enough to completely remove their curves.

Second – don’t expect overnight results, especially if you are still in the bad habit of poor posture.  Take steps to improve your posture and to build the strength to maintain it.  This is all way too important to ignore.

See you standing nice and tall, Be Well, God Bless!  – Dr. E

My wife just got back from a weekend away.
She was with a friend who is getting
re-married.  She was divorced after
attempting to reconcile with her husband
a friend of mine, who threw his life
away for an affair with a young girl.
Have you struggled getting over
a difficult situation in your life?
Stress kills… be sure to face it head
on, else you will never be free.

So after being obliterated with the bad news of GMO foods, you are now ready to find out how inflammatory the actual foods that you eat daily, really are.  Even the health foods!  This site is such a great resource, so go check out the IF rating system at www.inflammationfactor.com and if you think you are an inflammatory plagued individual, buy the book!

You might ask how you would know if you are an inflammatory plagued person, and I would be glad you asked!  The implication is huge.  We live in a new world of inflammatory conditions, and as we clearly see from Wednesday’s Daily Sprout, Genetically Modified Foods are a huge cause for this, however, so are the foods you eat everyday, even if they are not GMO.

Fibro myalgia, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel conditions, celiac disease, asthma and other bronchial disorders, food allergies and so many more conditions are inflammatory in nature.   And inflammation starts with the gut, and the food you put in it.  As the intestinal lining swells, the gut permeability goes up, and foods that are inflammatory to the gut become inflammatory systemically as they enter the blood stream.  Causing joints, muscles and lungs to swell.

So what are these highly inflammatory foods?  Well, check out the inflammatory ratings of some of these common foods, where the more negative the rating, the more inflammatory it is.  In addition to this random resource, we can begin to cross reference inflammation with glycemic effect as well.

When you start to look at those foods that increase your blood sugar as well as inflammation, we quickly get a “who’s who” of foods to be avoided on the Advanced Plan/Healing Diet.

White Rice has an inflammatory effect of -244 and it has a glycemic index of  86 to 109 depending on the exact type and how it is cooked (these are high blood sugar inducers) , whereas brown rice has an ultra low inflammatory effect of -229 (joke, not sure it is worth the brown rice when you start looking at it this way) with a glycemic index in the 80’s and 90’s.  Quinoa is -126, which is interesting considering we recommend it as a wise alternative to grains, and here it is with a considerably painful inflammatory level and a moderate glycemic index of 53 .  Ground flaxseed (flax meal) has an inflammatory level of 26, which means it is anti-inflammatory (mildly).

Looking at the glycemic index we can see why the advanced plan prefers quinoa, but we can also see why it is in moderation.  The advanced plan is more about the glycemic effect than inflammation, yet you will find that the two largely go hand in hand.

A recommendation if you want to become more informed and perhaps develop some memorization of these foods would be to get the two apps that exist in the world of food tracking.  One is the IF tracker, great for inflammation tracking.  The “A Low GI Diet” app is also fantastic for looking up glycemic indeces on the spot.  These two resources together will help you decide if you should avoid certain foods, and if you need to alter your entire life style (likely).

So that concludes part II; between GMO foods and other inflammatory foods.  Keep an eye out for more as this is an ever growing concern!  Be well, eat well, Dr. E

This is a messed up world.   It has been for almost all time, but I think it is more messed up now than ever, and heavily thanks to the people who have messed up our food supply.  I would agree with Prince Charles speaking to the press about Genetically Modified food (GM or GMO).  There is danger in messing with our food supply.

One of the greatest concerns that we are seeing with the increase in GMO foods, is the effect on gut inflammation. As these foods tend to wreak havoc on the intestine, leading to highly inflamed tissue and gut permeability. As seen on the nongmoproject.org website:

Are GMOs safe?
In 30 other countries around the world, including Australia, Japan, and all of the countries in the European Union, there are significant restrictions or outright bans on the production of GMOs, because they are not considered proven safe. In the U.S. on the other hand, the FDA approved commercial production of GMOs based on studies conducted by the companies who created them and profit from their sale. Many health-conscious shoppers find the lack of rigorous, independent, scientific examination on the impact of consuming GM foods to be cause for concern.

We have expressed our concerns over the years, but it wasn’t until lately that we have now seen the science that suggests that these other countries commissions are being the wisest of them all, by saying no.  Since 2006 we have grown to 22 countries producing GMO crops, with 53% of all of them grown in the US.  Currently, the following foods are grown in these percentages GMO vs conventional: Soy – 91%, Cotton – 88% (used primarily as cotton seed oil in food products), Canola oil – 88%, Corn – 85%, Papaya – 50%.

By the way, organic can be GMO.  It MUST say Non-GMO to insure that it isn’t.  Otherwise, it just might be, which is sad.  The UN is actually positioned to adopt new labeling guidelines for GMO and NON-GMO foods.  Which would be a fantastic step, however guidelines is all they would be.  Not laws.  http://www.nongmoproject.org/2011/05/18/un-commission-poised-to-adopt-new-labeling-guidelines/

I know most don’t really grasp GMO foods for what they are yet. But consider this, the “Roundup Ready” Soybean, has had Agrobacterium Sp. Strain CP4 genetic code injected into the plant with a gene gun, which simply drives this genetic material into the plant, in hopes that it will lash on to the genetic code. It does, but in different ways, so the plant is not typically an exact duplicate from one plant to the next. This bacteria gene sequence provides protection to the soybean as it is resistant to roundup herbicide. This allows the soybean to be sprayed without concern for the plants survival. For anyone who eats anything organic… why? If it is to avoid pesticide, then just know that your one serving of anything soy that is not guaranteed Non-GMO, just ruined you for weeks, and all the organic food in the world would not undo what was just done.

How about corn? Bacillus Thuringiensis (BT) genetic code is injected into the corn. This provides resistance to the corn borer bug. You won’t believe this, the way it does that is by producing a natural pesticide. So this bacteria is a poisonous one, and the poison is toxic enough to kill the bug. So this is where the real concern comes from. More recent science has shown how this pesticide producing DNA strand can alter the DNA of your gut bacteria, causing your normal healthy bacteria, to now become producers of mass destruction.

And yet another scary thought. Your gut is a highly proliferative tissue, meaning it is constantly regenerating. These types of tissues are susceptible to alteration, and sure enough, some research now shows that human gut tissue can be altered to a degree that it is also producing that BT pesticide! This would suggest that your own tissue can adopt that gene into its sequence.

The finale. If you are producing pesticide, or if the food you are eating is producing pesticide. Your gut will inflame, you will not be able to limit what is absorbed into your gut and you will result in:
arthritis, fibro myalgia, lupus, food allergies, celiac, irritable bowel syndrome, and other problems along these spectrum. Stay tuned for part II to learn about the foods that are highly inflammatory, and how you can heal yourself once you have gotten to this point.

This weekend we spent a bunch of hours sitting in a freezing cold room, getting a ton of information.  Awesome information, and teaching.  But being taught, and having information piled on us, is never what is going to make us the best at what we do.  We realize that we get to be the best at leading people to health, because of what we go through beyond the information.

You see, having knowledge never makes you good.  Having knowledge is a stepping stone towards being good, but the step is a huge one.  In a world where marketing and sales are the driving forces behind health information, or better yet, healthcare LIES.  The step between knowledge and good, or greatness, is a huge leap towards faith.  This weekend we heard, more than once, that at some point to be a great leader you need to stop worrying about the consequences, and just say what is right.

This is a difficult thing to manage in a world where we are told that we cannot tell you what to do when it comes to medication.  That would be practicing medicine without a license.  We cannot advise you in matters of medical advice, only in spinal advice, lest we risk being reprimanded by the state board, penalized, fined or even have a license revoked.  To me, the biggest issue we have with a system like this, is that too many chiropractors are scared to speak truth because of it.  As a matter of fact, most organized chiropractic associations are lobbying to become more inclusive in the medical procedures, and to submit our will, so that we might find ourselves in the favor of the establishment.  To me that is selling out, and it is taking your best interest for granted.  I bet one day I will find myself in court because I am not scared to say what needs to be said.  I will count on God when that day comes.

It was about six years ago that I was driving down to Orlando for a seminar (put on by Maximized Living, though they had a different name back then).  My younger brother was going to school here at Life to become a chiropractor, and he worked with us too, so he was on the trip with me.  I got a message that a Dr. Anderson wanted to talk with me about one of my patients, a young boy with autism.  I did not know who Dr. Anderson was, I just knew that my patients (the mom and the boy both) were in the docs office, and he wanted to talk with me now.  I called him up, to find that he was a pediatrician (actually pretty well known I have since found out), and he was trying to convince my patient to give her son a flu shot.

When I got on the phone he came after me hard.  “I was just curious why you would be advising this mom to not give her son the flu shot.  He has an asthmatic condition that puts him at greater risk for the flu, and he needs this shot.  He could die without this shot, and you are the one who will be responsible should anything happen to him!”  I wasn’t expecting it, but I was ready… “his mom is fully responsible for his decisions, all I have done is provide information and the obvious truths of that information have allowed her to make her wise choice.  You are telling me that you have no concern for putting additional mercury into a child who is full spectrum autism, with profound signs of neurological dysfunction?  The reality is that he is at no greater risk of influenza because of his rare asthmatic events, and the real truth is that the chance of the flu shot preventing death according to medical literature is one in one hundred million, and his mom has followed a plan very specifically to improve his immune system, and all that flu shot would do is weaken it.  Do you believe that putting additional mercury, aluminum, and unknown amino acid strands from chickens will not have a negative effect on his immune system and nervous system? Are you really willing to take the risk of worsening his autistic tendencies through increased toxin exposure?  The mother has made me aware of his toxic assay showing his arsenic levels are twenty times the normal acceptable level, do you think it wise to increase his toxic load?  If you do, then YOU educate your patient and let her make her informed choice!”

He put her on the phone for me, I told her to stick with whatever decision made sense.  She found a new pediatrician… well, she mostly used us from then on.  Her son had improved continuously since that day as she aggressively pursued options to remove toxins.

You don’t just need a good chiropractor, you need a great leader.  God is where that leadership flows from, we are good because we trust Him, and we know that we have the support of a creator.  All we need to do, is to train ourselves to trust in that support, and take larger grander steps than the culture opposing us.  So, how do we do that?  One thing that I believe in, is conditioning ourselves to overcome pain.  There is a doc (Chris Pellow) who used to sit around at these Maximized Living events, kind of quietly hanging in the back… he never built a big practice, or impacted many people. Until.  One day he was driving home and he heard a dad on a radio show, talking about how his son was suicidal, he was on antidepressants, and he seemed to be worsening.  The dad was crying, he didn’t know what to do, and he communicated that he had found his son with a gun.

The dad was pleading for advice, and Dr. Pellow thought “I can do this, I can call him”, but then a voice in his head said, “no, not you, this isn’t for you… what are you going to be able to do?”  So an MD calls in and advises him to keep upping the dose of antidepressants (this was before antidepressants were labeled with the black box warning of causing suicidal behavior).  Dr. Pellow found himself staring in the mirror at home later that day, swearing to never be a coward again, to never let an opportunity to save a life slide by.  His practice grew from a meager 150 visits a week, to 1500 in six months time.  Perhaps the fastest growth ever seen in a chiropractic practice, as he began touching lives in his community.  Seeing medication use drop, and filling his office with testimonials of healing.

One of Pellow’s convictions, is that God gives you opportunity, and that opportunity is usually painful.  He works out like we do, to the point of real pain.  He lost 70 lbs in short time as he transformed his life and his practice.  This story of practice success is directly related to his willingness to do what was uncomfortable.  To begin speaking about uncomfortable things.  To win over a community from the lies of the medical model, a model that tells you to be complacent, that you can’t do enough yourself, that somewhere a pill will take the place of exercise, diet, and chiropractic.  Even if that pill is a holistic vitamin, it is still a pill.  Vitality lies within your tissue, within your brain and intersects with your soul.  This is cool stuff!

So, on the path towards pain, your staff has taken a huge step this weekend.  They all workout to the point of pain a few times a week, every week.  But I put them through a couple great tests, and they did it out of their desire to be more… for you, for their families and for the world that desperately needs a more powerful them.  On Friday they worked out hard in nearly 100% humidity and 95 degree heat directly in the path of the relentless sun.  It was a heart pounding 8 minute or less effort that left them all lying in the St. Augustine grass, unconcerned for the itching that it was pounding on them, because of their desperate need for oxygen and general lack of concern for anything else.

Later that night as we marinated our grass fed dinner, we went out after another workout.  In this, we had to accomplish hundreds of group sit-ups, push-ups, squats and jump ropes while one at a time we went out and ran a pre-determined course.  The kicker was that I was the only one with a watch, and we had pre-set the minimum speed that each of us had to run the course in.  If they ever came in over the time allotment, they automatically just added one extra lap to all of the teammates.  Without having a watch to look at, each of them obliterated the times that were pre-set, and we finished the workout 4 minutes faster than we thought we could.

And the final straw… I drove them 7 hours after the seminar ended Saturday night, and as we turned onto I-575, I turned down the radio and informed them that even though it was 2am.  I was not taking them back to the office to drive home… yet… I was taking them straight to the gym.  I heard no verbal complaints, though none of us wanted to do it.  The only reason why I did it, is because I told Levi we were going to (a few hours earlier) so now I couldn’t back out.  We had to each pick a workout to do that we had a known prior time.  If we could all successfully do the workout and  have our total cumulative time come in under the previous, then we would be good, and we would all go home.  If it was over, then we would run.  If the run was slower than the time allotment, we would run more, and this would continue!

Well, this team knows how to overcome pain and work towards a mission.  We crushed the previous times (which would have been following more rest, and no 7 hour drive)!  This was accomplished by Loree, Angel and Dr. Levi… I was part of it, but they were the warriors that made it happen.  I think most would have said no way, and would have complained and whined.  I did not hear one verbal complaint.  They solemnly did.

We are committed to helping you as best as possible.  We are likely going to take a bunch of you and add some more specific home exercises where we see fit, you might be asked to invest in some head weights, as we realized this weekend that it is likely that more of you could benefit from these.  We are going to bring more workshops to the lunch hour, and cut them into 20 minute segments so that there is increased accessibility to all that we offer.  Life is a constant battle of choices.  We all know this, and we all know that the choices that come easy, are usually not the best ones.  If we are to help you make the best choices, then we need to help make hard… easier.

Love that you are part of the mission!  God Bless!!  – Dr. E