60 Day Turnaround

The Back and Forth of it….

It was several months ago, I was working out and as we are always prone to do when active, I had something go slightly wrong. I was working on reaching a goal, one that involves cleaning a heavy weight… 300#, that is where I planned on this going, and still do given some recovery time. (a clean is pulling a barbell from the ground up to your shoulders to “catch it”)

3 months ago….

One morning in the middle of an EMOM (every minute on the minute) where I was doing 5 cleans per minute, I chose to reach a slightly heavier load than I had used before in this type of work. Knowing that the best way to get to this goal is to be sure that I am pushing myself. 255#, not a ridiculous choice for me, but definitely a test.

There is this thing… fast elbows, complete the movement and complete the catch. It makes us better at what we do as athletes, as well as protects us. In this case, protects the wrist.

(PAUSE – I know for most you have no idea what I am talking about, no worries, there is a universal point we are going to make).

I was at the 4 minute mark, first rep fine, second rep fine, third rep.., slow elbows, wrestled with it for a second then… uh oh. I stopped right there, and avoided more for the day. I was stuck in a bad place for just a second. But that bad place has lasted for 3 months.

4 weeks ago…

I was feeling pretty good, I had managed this back to a good place. Through adjustments, an X-Ray just to be sure (showed nothing), and rest, all was looking good. Flexibility was back and the world was once again spinning appropriately. Then a competition. World Wide WOD. This day I was going to do three workouts in a short time, all to compete with people doing the same all over the country. On the last workout, on the first rep (of a lovely, well known in the CrossFit world, “Grace”) of a 30 clean and jerk for time workout, I caught it a little off on that wrist, and just like that I was feeling a little sting again. It wasn’t bad, I was only off my best time in that workout by 20 seconds (2:51 was my time BTW), and afterwards felt only mild limitations.

So back to the rest, cautious movement, and careful consideration of what I was doing. Until.

6 days ago…

I was doing front squats, which requires a little pressure on the wrist. But the workout required that the athlete (me in this case), lift 15,000#. Do it anyway you want, but you can only use 4 movements, and only 20 reps per movement. So after doing 20 dead-lifts, I planned on squatting the rest, but i dropped the weight to 225 to do one clean. I felt fine doing it… but then, you wonder. Have you ever done something that you felt fine doing, then later had something awful come on? It is a common discussion I have in my office, “Well I felt fine while I was doing it”.

I don’t know if it was the clean, or the front squats, but that night I adjusted with minimal pain, just discomfort. But last Friday morning, my whole wrist was swollen. It was agony to adjust. This was now the worst it had been since the start 3 months ago. I wore a wrist wrap all Monday trying to adjust confidently, and it was even more swollen afterwards. Typing is a bit stressful. Yesterday I did a workout where I held a bar in a way that it PULLED on the wrist, vs PUSHED on the wrist. I designed this for me to try to stretch it out. It was wonderful. But not the magic elixir I had hoped.

So for you who don’t know these terms or these descriptions well. The reason I wanted to share this experience is to shed light on the consistency that exists across our lives. I told a young patient last week “All poor choices stem from some form of addiction”. He was too young to really get what I was saying. But what I was saying was simply that all of our choices that fly in the face of wisdom, are due in some part, to a strong desire to pursue something.

I am addicted to the work out, the competition, the effort and the feeling. A healthy addiction at most times, but I could have avoided some of this trouble by erring on the side of rest. For most people whom I teach lifestyle change to, it is the obvious addiction to sugar, or to some other unhealthy molecule. The addiction to comfort of sitting in front of the tv vs being active. The addiction to the way it is, or perhaps being addicted to change.

We all have addictive tendencies, and these are not all bad, it is when we let them rule over us that they are bad. Or when we see them as destructive, yet they continue to rule our life. We are powerful when we are in control. We are weak when we see ourselves as out of control. The 60 Day turnaround is more about overcoming addiction, and taking charge, then it is about anything else. I pray that you stop, see what is in your life that should not be, and take charge of it.

Be well and Be blessed! – Dr. E

Measles out break, and the Indoctrinated point their fingers.

So here we go again. The Measles comes out strong at Disneyland, and what happens. Those like me, who do not vaccinate their kids, get blamed. And I am fine with that blame, stick it on me, push it all back on me, because then I get to tell you how blatantly irresponsible and… get ready for it… UNEDUCATED that line of thinking is.

Yes, I said it. When the Bloggers of the world like BABY SIDE BURNS start swearing and flying off the handle with literally no desire to get educated, but just wants to get mad… well, it is my opportunity. My opportunity to stick this graph up one more time. (Thanks CDC for supplying this data, I know you never intended it to be used so successfully to defend a decision in opposition to yours…)

AND OH WHAT A PERFECT GRAPH IT IS!!!

Yeah, I know, a bit obnoxious, but I have cause. There is a portion of this country in arms over the outbreak. The one that has a high percentage of vaccinated individuals in the group of affected. In addition, the outbreak that has caused the CDC to quickly blame the antivaccine movement, but it has also brought up the question of how is that possible when these people were heavily vaccinated? The US NEWS article points out the fact that the age of these people is PRE-anti-vaccine movement. It brings all the attention, right back to the EFFECTIVENESS of the measles vaccine.

Damn people, look at the facts. The graph above is all you need. Measles… it existed at a HIGH prevalence… well before there was ever a vaccine, it existed at low prevalence.

(quiet pause… no words from me… no plausible argument in response… we stop and realize that if there is any one thing to blame first and foremost… it is the ineffectiveness of the vaccine)

From the article above:

Two doses of a vaccine are 99 percent effective in preventing infection. According to the CDC, children should get a first vaccine around 12 months and then receive a booster by the age of 6, or before kindergarten. Teens and adults also can get the vaccine if they haven’t before – and can discover immunity through a simple blood test.

Most Californians who were infected in the Disneyland outbreak were not vaccinated. As of Friday, the state public health agency had vaccination information on 39 cases. Of those, 32 were unvaccinated and seven were vaccinated.

However, from another article… on PBS.org we hear about the chance of non-responders creating holes in immunity because they do not develop immunity to the virus from the shot. Of course, I have no problem defending the idea that what we are seeing out of them, is opinion. The reason, is that they have yet to produce valid studies that show reliable immune titers, or responsiveness to the shot. The data is primarily based on public health data, thus there is no definitive answer as to what a non-responder is.

OK, back to the graph. If the measles disappeared before the shot… why did it do so? Opinions? I find that as much as we might try to veer from the idea that natural immunity was occurring in our population, there really is no possible answer. Cleanliness should have little to do with the spread of measles. So lets play nice with Dr. Eric for a moment, and trust that it was natural immunity. If so… why then, is it coming back?

My opinion, which to many is now discredited completely because you won’t listen or consider, your sold out. Like I once was. But… but… what if the lack of the potential for natural immunity, is leaving this society completely inefficient at all immuno-adaptation. I kind of think that based on the general public health situation we have.

OK, last straw. This is the one that will lose all the science rich vaccine supporters. I believe in God. Yeah, I know, very UN scientific, and probably worth full discrediting to most… but if you believe you were created, would you not believe you were given the potential to overcome? I know, I am really an optimistic guy, but how could I not be? Have you by chance seen the graph? You know, the one above. Sure, I hang a lot on that. But its kind of like the big bang… I am pretty sold out on creation because my other option is a big explosion.

Be well and Be blessed! – Dr. E

Here We Go Again

By Dr. Mark Richards

Round 3 here we come. This will be my 3rd time doing the 60 Day Turnaround. I’m excited about this, not necessarily the process, but the outcomes I KNOW that are coming. As I’ve said before I had great success the first time through, loosing about 30 lbs. The second time through wasn’t as great, only dropping about 5-7 lbs overall. Getting myself so close to my initial goal of below 200, which unfortunately I haven’t hit yet.

So what was the big difference from the first time to the second? My commitment to being strict. First time we were strict to the end, and it showed with the results. I really should have kept going from that point, but vacation happened. I thought that to enjoy my vacation I had to come off the diet, that it would be torture to stay strict. That was a mistake. So I started my second Straight 60 right after that week vacation and I never fully committed myself to it. Small cheats here and there, maybe one big cheat per week, falling back into my old thought processes, such as, “its not a big deal if I eat this now, I’ll just make up for it tomorrow by starving myself all day.” Obviously this way hadn’t ever worked for me in the past. I’d rationalize it to myself, saying it was practice for being off the straight 60. In actuality, I was off of it. Where I was that second straight 60 would be a good place to be had I already reached my goal because I was pretty much maintaining weight, actually slowly loosing, but I wasn’t ready to be there. Thanksgiving and Christmas came and the diet was lost. I gained back weight there, which was hard to deal with, but I’m staying positive. (I should note, had I not been doing Crossfit, I’d be even worse off).

So that brings us to this 60 day turnaround! I’m committed again, and this time I will NOT be stopping until my final goal is met. Under 200 is just the first step, there’s still a lot to go after that point. So those of you doing this with us, learn from my mistake, cheating this doesn’t work. Commit to being strict for as long as it takes! I was so naive to think that after only 60 days I had it completely figured out, that I had broke the habits, the addictions, that I had developed for the previous 30 years, that I was ready to drop the rules and go on my own.

I’m not even a week in to this straight 60, but I’m feeling great again. Every time I think about how frustrating it is to fall back to eating culturally and feeling like garbage, and how quickly I start to feel better when I just alter my diet. Thankfully, this time I did not have those awful feelings that I did the first time through. I had mild fatigue and one mild headache and some slight grumpiness the 2nd day, but not nearly as bad as it was the first time through. I’ve started to get more energy back and look forward to having even more as I drop this extra weight I’ve been carrying for far too long.

If you are on the fence about joining us, stop thinking about it and just do it. You will not regret it!

Thanks for reading.

-Dr. Mark

Optimism = A Healthier Heart

By Dr. Mark Richards

Heart disease is the number one killer disease in our country, if you recall from the doctor’s report, every 1 out of 2.5 deaths in our country is from heart disease. Its a serious problem!

A recent study out of the University of Illinois looked at peoples mental health and compared it to their heart heath. “Individuals with the highest levels of optimism have twice the odds of being in ideal cardiovascular health compared to their more pessimistic counterparts.” In other words, the people that were optimistic had healthier hearts. This really shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, it seems pretty common sense to me. I think most people realize that being stressed is not good for the heart. So, while this does seem like common sense, it’s still good to have scientific evidence to back it up.

The problem with this, well not really a problem, but what is lacking, is everything else that effects heart health. This, like most of our culture’s health system attempts to take a disease and find one single cause or marker, like cholesterol, and treat that one thing in a hope to cure the disease. This approach might make sense when an infection is the obvious culprit, attack and kill it off (which the body should be able to do on its own anyway) and the body heals on its own. But transferring this method to heart disease and cancer just isn’t working.

The body is more than a cholesterol number, and more than a state of optimism. We understand that, and that is why we educate on the 5 essentials, Maximized Mind, Maximized Nerve Supply, Maximized Quality Nutrition, Maximized Lean Muscle, and Minimized Toxins. In our office you obviously are well aware about the need for maximized nerve supply and hopefully you have heard plenty about the other 4 essentials as well. Pursue these 5 areas of life and you will be on your way toward health. If you need more information on how to do that you need to be doing the 60 day turnaround, there you will learn how to pursue all 5 of these essentials.

Dr. Mark

Link to article: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-01/uoia-oph010915.php

Macro Nutrition VS Generality

I rarely talk about the difference between the 60 Day and he Macro Nutrition methods that are so popular in the performance athlete world. The reason I don’t, is because so few of the people I reach are actually in that truly high performance world. I will say, they are often trying to get there, but being there and trying are two different things. And I want to explain why I currently believe that just about every individual needs a corrective change before getting to macro counting. So here we go…

First off – Macros. What the heck are we talking about here. No, this isn’t the first of a long line of boring classes on how governmental policies end up destroying your interest rates. This kind of maco has nothing to do with economics. In nutrition, we look at macro nutrients as simply being a classification for Carbohydrates (carbs – readily turn to sugar), Proteins (building blocks that can also be converted to blood sugar), and Fats (primarily used for hormone synthesis and cellular re-building, but can be burned for energy in the process that many are familiar with as ketosis. Most people are not currently wired to burn fat very well, simply because of the high availability of protein and carbs.

When a diet focuses on macros, it focuses on having a very specific percentage of protein, carbohydrate and fat in the diet. With this highly sensitized, balanced percentage of each macro, athletes have found they can build muscle, train very hard, recover, and still not gain weight. For the sake of my discussion today, the key word in that sentence… is athletes.

What makes an athlete an athlete? The amount of work put in is high. The physical demand on the body is high. The Engine that drives the body is significant ALREADY, and the rest is appropriate as well. This state allows someone to be in a place where fat can be used for energy at a significant rate still, and the overall total burn that one is experiencing is significant based on that engine.

When the individual who is pursuing the “athlete” status has yet to build the engine, this diet can be good for achieving great results in strength and endurance increases, but might leave one stressed out over the difficulty of achieving the correct weight. This is why we teach the 60 Day Diet (Straight 60) as a starting place for anybody who has spent time in the cultural diet. The cultural diet simply means carbohydrate dominated, minimal protein and fat. That is what the world around us is eating.

Leptin is a hormone that drives sensitivity to blood sugar and the body’s ability to respond appropriately to a rise in blood sugar. It moves right along with insulin, but has a greater impact on your ability (now and future) to burn fat for energy, and to feel satiated. If you have a leptin number outside of the range of 2-5 (men closer to that 2 as a target number, and women 3-4 as their target), then your body will have a hard time feeling satiated. You will have a hard time burning fat. As that number drops, then this improves.

I recommend that “athletes” who have a leptin outside of this level should follow the 60 day diet, to perfect this number, and thus move to a macro mentality diet for performance following this period. The “Generality” principle, simply means that there is no weighing and measuring… no counting of calories, no focus on a percentage of the macro nutrients. It is simply a rule based diet of ALLOWED and NOT ALLOWED. This rule based diet drives knowledge and understanding of glycemic loads and through that understanding, will assist somebody pursuing a macro diet in understanding which foods might still have negative impact on their results.

The 60 Day Turnaround Diet is the diet, it is the delivery method, that we have seen incredible results with. Both with athletes as well as with the average American when it comes to activity levels (nobody is average)!

Love to assist your efforts, Be Well and Be Blessed! – Dr. E

Finding Health in 60 Days

Of course I want you to join us for the 60 Day. Better than picking up bits and pieces of knowledge from a webinar, or a catchy blog post; to really dig in for 60 Days is something special. Nobody tends to pick up on the why and the how in a 30 minute presentation. I have found that 40 Days isn’t enough for most.

60 Days.

The reason I moved to 60 Days was two fold. First, many people don’t heal their leptin in 40 days, and honestly most won’t in 60 Days. But most will begin to feel the changes in 60, and that is enough to get long term commitment. If you haven’t been listening to the last group of testimonials, I recommend you do here – http://youtu.be/C3lxf_1sMKM

The second reason is that you cannot learn enough in 40 days to be prepared to live on your own, making wise decisions for life, without feeling like you are just following rules. But be inspired by your efforts.

And be inspired by the knowledge that there are more than ten people from my last turnaround, who are here now at 120 days, who are still on it. Because they choose to, and because they know the value. Three people who are 50# plus weight losers. Today I had a guy at CrossFit Silos tell me it was the best paradigm shift that he has had. He is approaching 50, he is a successful guy, he had weight to lose, and he had a diet that needed to change. This was his time to literally change his life.

This is very likely your time to change your life. As I like to say in our workshops, Why live another day where you look in the mirror and wonder why. Why you’re not the ideal weight, or why you are losing energy, having random pains that we cannot solve… so many why’s and honestly, mostly one answer.

I told a young patient yesterday that every bad decision that happens in life, stems from addiction. I believe it. I believe in temptation… however you want to say it, I believe it is supernatural in origin… I also believe that the effort is to create addictive habits. Ones that are detrimental to life and health. That are damaging to the best outcomes, and build bad ones. Addiction. Think about it.

We need to break that cycle. Why wait another day, why waste another day wondering why. You were made for great things, and great things start with a clear mind, a strong body rich with energy. This is your calling to the greatest opportunity in your life. To be in the mission that you have been designed for.

Be Blessed and Be Well! – Dr. E

The Spa – Detox in a DAY!

It isn’t possible. If you were attracted by that title, I can understand. The buzz word of “DETOX” coupled with the current mentality of here and now, and don’t wait, get us a bit excited when we see things like “Detox in a day”. Even if we know it is impossible.

The thing that I believe most people are unclear about, is exactly what detox is. My wife ran into someone who likes to go to the Grove Park Inn annually, someone who she knows from our life here in Woodstock, who commented when they caught wind that we were going for the long weekend… “Oh… I love going there every year. But i missed my trip this year, and I can tell I am missing my detox.”

When she told me I laughed, she laughed, we laughed together. Not AT this person, but rather at the mistakes made in the mentality. Going to the Grove Park Inn is not a detox. Sure, there might be some detox drinks, and some fantastic smelling oils in the inhalation rooms, and the mineral pool… and the outdoor tub… even the tea, that might be detoxifying. But, to truly detox means you need to DRIVE toxin accumulation out, while stopping toxic accumulation in. There is a two – fold process, and it does not involve eating fancy dinners loaded with who knows what.

See, the idea of a health spa… is entirely different than the idea of a spa. Now, I know that all spas want to fit into the health spa mentality. But the retreat that I have run in Cashiers at the High Hampton Inn, involves meeting with the chef, and altering the meals… and putting you through workouts, not just sitting in the tub.

Now, I will say, I hit a pretty hard workout in the little fitness room (they have a huge facility across the street, but they had 50# dumbbells in the close fitness room, and 20 minutes of Squat cleans, and thrusters with 50# DB’s will make anyone cry); but this was mostly relaxing. Granted as well, that I have always preached health of the nervous system above all else. It is why I am a chiropractor, before a nutrition specialist, or before a CrossFit gym owner. I trust in the nervous system as the crux of health, and we build off of that.

So, back to the idea of detox. If you really want to get clean, then get on the 60 Day Turnaround Diet. This is a detoxification machine all by itself. Follow a few steps to cleanse, and BOOM! Actually, I am coming out with the steps to achieve a Suero Plus+ cleanse this 60 day. It is based around Suero Viv and sustained with Juice Plus. I was doing some testing myself, and found that this synergistic effect will definitely kick up anybody’s energy!

You should first watch the testimonial vid’s from the last 60 Day. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqOgNLT3GWtVqiU2UBJR_hNudB3ChuOkg

So lets circle back around again – what Detox really is = reducing the toxic stuff in, while increasing the rate at which the toxic stuff comes out. Through homeopathic aids, through nutritionals that aid in reducing inflammation and assisting in pushing out through the liver. These are the key steps to detox, and they require time and effort. Go get it!

Last parting thought – If you want to relax. Go to Grove Park Inn in Asheville… it was awesome.

Be well and Be blessed! – Dr. E

60 Day Returns!

This is a re-post from August 2013 – the start of the 60 Day. Converting the 40 Day Challenges into a longer challenge was an idea I had had a few years ago, but wasn’t sure what or how to do it. Now I am pleased to say we have a book coming, and an app, and the brand is solid. I thought I would post this, as it is no longer exactly as you see, but I love how close it is. Notice in the first paragraph, I reference the retreat. We did one with a retreat to the mountains, and it was awesome! Join us Monday January 26th for the launch, then Wednesday nights after that for the next 60 Days.

Thanks and enjoy the reading!

Prior Post

This is what is in store for you! Yep, it is your life, and your time, and your reasons are so varied. But I am going to be telling you more about some of our past stories in the next coming weeks as we prepare for the 60 Day Turnaround. And during this, some of you are going to come with me to the High Hampton Inn in Cashiers October 4th – 7th. This will take your breath away, it will amaze you, and make you smile big smiles all at once.

So what is the 60 Day Turnaround? It is a combination of efforts to turn your life around from any negative direction, for any level of individual. You could be at 90% great food in your diet, your postural carry, your exercise and your peace… and this will still help you to pick out a massively important piece, and drive it forward in the right direction.

For those of you who are 40%, 30% or better yet, for so many of you who have no idea where you are with this… we will drive you to better understanding, and better commitment the truth and the life that will set you free. I know that is a little poetic and dramatic, but it is the truth. SO many of you have these addictions that you think nothing of. And you don’t need to turn away forever in all instances, but you need to kill it once.

For example. SUGAR. You might profess that you have control of your sugar intake, but then if i ask you to go 24 hours with NONE. No fruit, no grains, no root vegetables, better yet… simply fast on water for 24. 90% of you will fail, if not 99%. Lets take the step to figure out how you could do that.

There are a lot of good leaders in this new health world; sadly, they also base a lot of what they teach on rhetoric and popularity. For example, there was a time, about ten years ago, when cortisol problems were everyone’s issue. Well, there has been a whole lot of treatment of cortisol issues, with medication, diet, herbal remedies, etc. And the problems that were supposed to go away, are still there. So when a group gets stuck heavily on cortisol, I cringe. Yeah, we’ll teach you about it, but you need to know it is a symptom, and a response to other things. Not a cause.

I have had countless patients of the 10,000+ we have taken care of in the last decade, go through protocols from groups like Progressive Medical, only to end up in the exact same boat. The 60 day turnaround will address the true problems, and it won’t be scared to stress your body in a positive way, VS run in fear of some excessive cortisol production (so often I hear about people being advised not to “stress” the body). You just need to get your body working right, so you can HANDLE the cortisol production.

I like being right, its called being a man. Stubborn, and always want to be right. Well, if there is one place I have been fortunate enough to be right about very often in the last five years. It is nutrition. How do I know? Results. Weight loss when it was thought to be “hormonally” impossible. Pregnancy when five different docs said never. Thyroid function when 20 years of synthroid was said that it would turn into a lifetime of it. The stories go on and on. (PS – I was wrong about nutrition for a bunch of years prior – 🙂 )

So what will we do in the 60 Day Turnaround?

Suero Cleanse to get you rolling. 3 Days, all fluid, no solid.
The Healing Diet will be discussed and taught. We will teach you paleo, as well, but give you the pitfalls.
Posture with a focus on your spine. You need to get your spine right if you want the rest of you to work, period.
LEPTIN 101 – know your master hormone and the fat burning cycle.
Exercise – if you are, then great, if you aren’t, that will change. With four associated CrossFit gyms, will give you some time at one.
Detoxification – the cleanse starts the process, but how do you keep it going? This includes a ton of info on Gut Health, Leaky Gut Syndrome, and healing the GI tract.
Goal Setting and Peace Building – the last five years have been stressful on many people. We are going to dig in to setting goals, and reaching them without stress. Effort does not have equate to stress!
Shopping tours at Trader Joes, and the organic section of Kroger.
Dunk Truck Body Fat assessment pre and post.
Pre and Post pictures, and weigh ins pre and post and weekly along the way

So it is all coming fast, mid September we will kick off. To do it well, you really need to be budgeting between $119 – $229 per person. To do it at all, you might be able to fall in at $49 if you are a member at one of the gyms, or HealthSprout.

The best news. If you ask me what night of the week, i’ll tell you it is all sorts of nights. We will be holding a TON of the workshops, at different times, and different places, all over these associated locations. CrossFit Silos, Towne Lake and Bridgemill. The Garage, HealthSprout, and Better Health By Design (Cumming). Approximately 8 workshops, taught 20 different times.

Hope you are excited! I am! It is your time, the 60 Day Turnaround is coming!

Be Well and Be Blessed! – Dr. E

More Frustration

By Dr. Mark Richards

My last post I talked about going back to NY, and how it was fun and was a great time, but I left some of the story out. Amanda and I both got sick while we were there along with my son Eli. Besides being sick we pretty much felt like garbage the entire time we were there, from what we were eating. We completely dropped the straight 60 rules and basically ate cookies and pizza for a week. So, you can imagine how awful we were feeling and I think that lead to us getting sick, or at least made it worse.

So I was actually planning on writing about this a week ago, and my plan was to write this with a pretty intense almost angry tone, because it was just stupidity to revert back to eating like that, to that extreme at least. Having a few cookies and some pizza wouldn’t have been horrible, but the extend we did it was just dumb. So I was pretty upset with myself, especially considering I knew that it would make me feel like garbage. So my big point was going to be WHY do we do this to ourselves? It wasn’t just Amanda and me, I’ve talked to quite a few people that pretty much did the same thing during Christmas. We all know its not good for us, and that we will feel sick after eating that way, so why?

I think addiction is the main culprit. We are addicted to sugar, and its a hard one to break. I showed myself over this break that I was not over it. So my next thought, how was I able to avoid it, if I still have such a strong addiction to it? I think the answer is commitment. We were 100% committed to the straight 60 our first time through and we had great results. Second time through we were not completely committed, which was evident in our minimal results. When completely off the diet, and left to just myself, I obviously wasn’t ready for that.

The reason I waited a week to write this post was so I could have this past week to add. We were much better, followed the straight 60 a bit more, still not strict, but I started feeling much better. Its amazing to me how much better I feel when I limit the sugar, which still when I think about that makes me angry that I don’t recognize this all the time and just avoid it all together.

The point of this, is that the sugar addiction is very real and very strong. Committing 100% is really necessary to reap the full benefits of this straight 60. Amanda and I are committing ourselves to this again, and this time I’m not stopping until I’m where I need to be because taking time off from the plan in the past has obviously set me back and slowed my progress.

See you on the right side of this, January 26th at 7pm. – Dr. Mark

Comedian Kelly MacLean and Whole Foods

I cannot share the whole article, because as an adult comedian, language is not appropriate for this blog… but… this whole article is really funny – “Surviving Whole Foods”

The point of the article is not to simply bash Whole Foods and tell you never to go there. In the video at the bottom of the article where the Huffington Post Interviews her, she mentions she has been going to Whole Foods her whole life, despite the feeling in the article that this might have been a first trip. But she does recognize that there are some unique features to a Whole Foods excursion that might just make you feel a little bit uncomfortable.

My wife has said many times to me as we are walking to the parking lot with our three bags in hand… “Check the receipt, I think they made a mistake.”

“Yeah”, goes the speech bubble in my head, “they made a mistake because they forgot to steal our car in the process”. But seriously, we have added up the receipt many times, wondering where the money went. I admit, and if you have read me for very long, you know I believe in this… red wine. Christ’s first miracle. And don’t tell me it didn’t have time to ferment. Really? He isn’t held down by any other law of physics, or science, but this one somehow stumped Him?

Sorry, back on track. So I like to drink some red wine here and there, and I will tend to fall victim to trying something new that just might have that thick yet smooth taste that I enjoy. (I have been expressing health this past week, so none since last Sunday a week ago… be wise still people) But subtract out the Red Wine, and you will still have sticker shock if you don’t put the brakes on when walking through the store. Honestly, it is possible to shop Whole Foods and pay no more than you would at another grocery store, but you won’t purchase the items that are the lure.

See, the GT’s Kombucha that is referenced in this below excerpt, is cheaper at Whole Foods than at Kroger most of the time. And I love this stuff. Even though my wife has turned my house into a fermentation warehouse for Kombucha (not yeast fermentation mind you… didn’t you notice we have moved on from the wine discussion); I still don’t get quite as excited over her kombucha as I do GT’s. If she doesn’t read this, I might not get cut off from her special recipes. Take a look at Kelly’s response to the Kombucha Display –

The first thing I see is the great wall of kombucha — 42 different kinds of rotten tea. Fun fact: the word kombucha is Japanese for ‘I (peed) in your tea.’ Anyone who’s ever swallowed the glob of mucus at the end of the bottle knows exactly what I’m talking about. I believe this thing is called “The Mother,” which makes it that much creepier.

I found this next piece very funny, and very true. I served on the board of a non-profit for two years where a significant area of focus was on lower income health efforts through education. And the reality is there is no dietary restrictions when you’re simply hungry. Now, I will say, there is high incidence of disease in this group, so the reality is that there should be dietary restriction and change. But this is pretty funny!

Next I see the gluten-free section filled with crackers and bread made from various wheat-substitutes such as cardboard and sawdust. I skip this aisle because I’m not rich enough to have dietary restrictions. Ever notice that you don’t meet poor people with special diet needs? A gluten intolerant house cleaner? A cab driver with Candida? Candida is what I call a rich, white person problem. You know you’ve really made it in this world when you get Candida. My personal theory is that Candida is something you get from too much hot yoga. All I’m saying is if I were a yeast, I would want to live in your yoga pants.

Ha. Yes, that is true, in any environment. Which is one reason why those probiotics in the kombucha are so valuable. 1-2 billion per bottle. If you really want to get serious, jump on an amasai and get that number up to 80 – 100 billion per bottle. The link lets you get it frozen shipped home. I recommend you try it frozen… delicious.

One other great observation that this comedian makes. Is ow lucrative the supplement market can be in a whole foods. I have noticed, while perusing their aisles, at the relative rate at which money is spent in that part of the store. It can be very significant. Handful of people every half hour, but $40-$100 is common per person.

Next I come to the vitamin aisle which is a danger zone for any broke hypochondriac. Warning: Whole Foods keeps their best people in this section. Although you think she’s a homeless person at first, that vitamin clerk is an ex-pharmaceuticals sales rep. Today she talks me into buying estrogen for my mystery mustache and Women’s Acidophilus because apparently I DO have Candida after all.

Read the full article to understand the mustache. But I do want to remind you of the first focus in nutritional healing being what you eat. Eat more vegetables first, then supplement where needed. And start with Juice Plus – it is a great easy and affordable way to avoid spending $200 at whole foods in the vitamin Aisle!

Enjoy your next Whole Foods Visit!

Be well and Be blessed! – Dr. E