7 Keys to Staying Fit and Healthy During Injury Rehabilitation

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Summer time is so awesome with warm weather and long days. It’s stays light out until almost 9pm and that means many more hours to cycle, hike, paddle, swim, wind surf–you name it, as long as it’s light out we can just keep on playing! But engaging in more activity can sometimes mean more injuries too. If you happen to be spending some of this summer rehabbing an injury that doesn’t mean you have to let your health go downhill or lose all of your strength, stamina or flexibility.

As a Physical Therapist, people ask me this all the time, “How do the pros do it? They seem to be in surgery one week and back in the game the next!” Well, it may not be that fast but it often looks like that because their PT’s, Nutritionists and trainers are making sure that they are attending to many of the same critical keys that I’m listing here. Take a look at these 7 key areas so that you can not only expedite your recovery but also maintain your health and vigor for when you are ready to jump back into your physical activity.

1. Pay particular attention to eating a healthy and balanced diet.
   This is a particularly important time to eat super well. Your food should be fresh and organic as much as possible. If you have had surgery, your body is already burdened with and working to detoxify and eliminate the chemicals from anesthesia and subsequent pain medications. Choose fresh vegetables and increase their quantity to 3 – 5 cups per day so that your bowel is moving easily and regularly, especially if you are still on pain controlling medicines. Include all of the macronutrients in your meal: protein, healthy fat, slow release complex carbs, and non-starchy veggies. And eat as many colors of the rainbow when it comes to your fruits and veggies, that way you know you are taking in plenty of antioxidants–the compounds that keep healthy cells healthy.
2. Your diet should be anti-inflammatory.
   Your injury or surgery may already be creating swelling, your diet should not contribute further to increasing your inflammation. Make sure that you are avoiding all trans fats and keep acid producing foods like sugar, alcohol and coffee to a minimum. If you consume any red meat it should definitely be grass fed and free range. Avoid highly charred meats from the grill. Do eat well from the world of cold water fish like salmon and sardines and include walnuts and ground flax–all of these are high in antiinflammatory omega 3 fatty acids. Learn to balance your blood sugar since blood sugar spikes alone can be a cause of inflammation in the body.
3. Exercise everything else that is not injured and that does not aggravate your injury.
   This is a BIG key to why you see those professional athletes return to their competitive sport so quickly. Granted, these are highly paid professionals and there is a lot at stake when they aren’t at practice or on the playing field. But the concept is critical. If you’ve injured your knee, still do your upper body, well leg and torso workout. The idea is similar with an upper extremity injury. If you’ve injured your spine or ribcage, workout with your limbs in positions that do not aggravate your spine–that is most commonly supine which is lying on your back.
4. Continue your cardio fitness if at all possible.
   Using the same concept in #3 above, use an arm ergometer (arm bicycle), if you have injured a leg and use a stationary or recumbent bike if you’re rehabbing an arm. Water work outs with flotation belts and kick boards can be relieving to spinal problems yet maintain cardiovascular fitness. If walking isn’t aggravating to your injury, that is a simple activity that can maintain your fitness as you recover especially if you can safely add hills or stairs.
5. Work with a nutritionist for optimal supplementation during injury rehab.
   Here is another area where many of the pros know how to choose the right supplements to keep their muscle protein and metabolic energy sufficient despite being less active during injury rehab. Seek out a certified nutritionist to teach you which supplements are most important for you during your recovery and how to maintain an optimal nutrient balance. Amino acids, antioxidants, minerals and essential fatty acids are all important when healing from an injury.
6. Get plenty of rest.
   I like to call this “active rest”. I just finished talking about exercising all of your UNinjured body parts and keeping up your cardio. This is in a very wise balance with really resting not only the injured area but also the rest of you so that your energy stores can be used to heal the injured tissues. Getting enough rest also means getting sound restorative sleep. This can be particularly challenging in the early phases of rehab and your nutrition and supplementation can play a very helpful role here.
7. Engage in fun and stimulating mental activity.
   There is nothing like an injury to take you down physically and it can take you down mentally and emotionally as well if you aren’t mindful about it. It’s so important to really see this one as a homework assignment and find things to do that are truly fun, stimulating and interesting while you are on the mend. This is a good time to catch up on those good books that you’ve been wanting to get to. Comedy movies are a great tool for healing as is laughter in general with your friends and family. Staying or becoming engaged with what really interests you, subjects that you really love or have wanted to learn more about is a great way to keep your spirits up during what can be a tough time.

I hope you are injury free this summer, but in case you find yourself with some unexpected down time, remember to attend to these 7 areas so that your injury recovery is a breeze and you’ll surprise yourself when you return to your sports that you aren’t in as bad of shape as you thought you’d be. Remember to always check with your physical therapist as to your readiness to engage in some of the key areas that I outlined above as well as when it’s safe for you to return to sports.

Your Liver Health: 10 Clues that your liver could be letting you down!

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Is your liver helping you or hurting you?

Other than your skin (yes, that is an organ), your liver is the largest organ in your body weighing in at 3 – 3.5 pounds, it has an incredibly broad range of critical functions in the body which is why you really canʼt live without it. It lies under your right lower ribcage and is only separated from your right lung by your main breathing muscle, the diaphragm.

Among the liverʼs many functions are to optimize your metabolism by processing, storing or making protein, fat and carbohydrates, to make cholesterol and triglycerides, to synthesize proteins and hormones for proper blood clotting and blood pressure, to breakdown circulating hormones for excretion, to produce bile for fat digestion and to detoxify the entire bodyʼs system from chemical, medication or other ingested toxins.

Basically, the liver is a giant transformation machine and can be your healthʼs best friend when functioning optimally  OR it can be your biggest ball and chain if over burdened and under functioning, dragging you and your health down into common persistent symptoms that you canʼt seem to resolve.

Clues that your liver health needs some attention:

Obviously, seeing your doctor to rule in or out a serious liver problem is always your first step. But then there is that gray zone of dysfunction that I often refer to, where thankfully, you donʼt have a specific diagnosis but you do have certain nagging complaints that you might even seek out over the counter remedies for.

The health complaints that are heard of most commonly and that you see TV ads for are the ones that can a have a variety of sources and an overburdened or under functioning liver that can no longer detoxify the existing system yet alone what continues to come into it can be an important source of persistent symptoms that should not be overlooked.

The top 10 signs of sluggish liver function are:

1.   poor tolerance or strong reaction to coffee, alcohol or other fumes and smells.

2.   headaches and foggy brain anytime, but especially in the morning.

3.   burping or indigestion after eating.

4.   constipation, diarrhea or light colored stools.

5.   difficulty losing weight even though youʼre dieting.

6.   high cholesterol or tiglycerides that donʼt change with diet.

7.   pressure or pain under the right ribcage, right shoulder or should blade, possibly including limited range of motion and absent of initial injury.

8.   neck pain and stiffness that is hard to resolve and might present with a pronounced bump at the base of the neck. This may be from an unhealthy fat pad and/or from misaligned vertebrae, both issues can come from suboptimal liver function.

9.   Difficult to lose belly fat that is above your waistband.  Ladies might even feel this as their bra getting uncomfortable at their ribcage by the end of the day!

10. a pattern of waking at night between 2 and 4am. You might feel irritable, agitated or even notice your heart rate is a little higher at this time as well.

A bonus clue for the ladies:  your perimenopause or menopause might be very symptomatic and difficult to control.

What you can do about it:

When your digestion works as it should, everything you eat and drink breaks down in

the digestive tract and the byproducts, whether good or bad for you, all pass through the liver! That is a HUGE job for the liver to do.  Not at all unlike sorting all of the garbage that is dumped at the recycling center into what should be kept that is actually useful vs what should be thrown out vs what should be handled in a special way because itʼs actually dangerous!

Optimizing liver function boils down to ……..

1.  Donʼt put SO MUCH into it–remember that the digestive tract, ie. what we eat and drink, is a main entry point to the liver.  Not putting so much in allows the liver to rest a bit and to catch up with what it has to work on already.

2.  Give your liver a break from what taxes it the most:  alcohol, coffee, processed foods with chemical additives and flour, sugar and fructose products.

3.  Give your liver the support it needs to strengthen and encourage its detoxification function with specific nutrients like B vitamins,  amino acids such as glycine, taurine and methionine and herbs like milk thistle, dandelion and artichoke.

4.  Eat vegetables that naturally cleanse the liver and amp up its detoxification function such as all the green leafy veggies like kale, collards and spinach and broccoli, artichokes, garlic, onions and beets.  Drinking green juices made from these vegetables is also great for boosting liver function.

5.  Exercise to improve blood flow to and through the liver which promotes detoxification of the liver itself. Stretching and yoga help to break up the physical tension patterns that develop between the liver and the shoulder, ribcage or neck.

A total detoxification program that addresses all of these areas to optimize liver function is the best recommendation to improve your health. Taking time at least 1x/year to engage in a cleansing program is your insurance to keep your liver and you healthy!

Out of sight, out of mind……….

You clean out the lint trap on the dryer, you even get the windows, carpets, pool or chimney cleaned, you would never think of letting the garbage pile up or not running the disposal. What if you didnʼt see your dental hygienist or get your car tuned up for several years? You get what I mean.

Just because you canʼt see your liver and maybe not even feel it, it doesnʼt mean that your liver is functioning as well as it could be for you.  Reread the list of clues and see if any of these ring a bell for you.  If so, consider adding your liver to the list of what might need an annual tune up!

My summer detox is about to start:  June 8 – 29, 2011

Cleanse Your Body, Change Your Life!™

Please join me for a professionally guided detoxification program!

3 HIDDEN FACTS ABOUT HEALING YOUR FATIGUE!

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I don’t know anyone nowadays who doesn’t answer affirmatively to dealing with some kind of stress.  The question really is for how long?  For some people it’s been low to moderate stress for quite a long time and for others it’s been high stress in repetitive episodes.  No matter what kind of stress you have experienced, at some point your adrenal glands will suffer.

The underlying stress induced biochemical changes that are occurring in your body that  not only lead to fatigue that you may or may not recognize are the same chemical changes that can be at the core of your resistance to losing fat (especially your belly fat)  even though you eat well, your erratic energy patterns that might make you get a second productivity wind at night or food cravings that just seem like they’ve got you by the tail!

All of these issues can be coming from some stage of adrenal dysfunction which has to be found and fixed before you can really attend to resolving the other related health conditions!

What’s in between Addison’s Disease and Cushing’s Syndrome?

Both Addison’s and Cushing’s are medical diagnoses of adrenal pathology, Addison’s being not enough adrenal output and Cushing’s being too much output.  Your doctor can diagnose these for you but what about the large grey zone of suboptimal adrenal function that lies between these diagnoses that can be present for long periods of time without ever being found?  I call it the grey zone of suboptimal function because traditional medical practitioners don’t know to look for it, there isn’t a formal diagnostic name or medical code for it and yet these less than optimal adrenal levels can contribute to serious shifts in your chemistry that can account for growing abdominal fat, out of control inflammation, insomnia, depression……..the list goes on!

How do I know if I am in the grey zone of dysfunction?

The primary adrenal hormone that is assessed is cortisol and that can be done with a fasting morning blood draw, a 24 hour urine collection or multiple salivary samples. Although the 24 hour urine test tells you about your total cortisol output for the day which is much more information than just an early morning blood cortisol will give you, it still doesn’t give the circadian rhythm of cortisol output which is so important to see when it comes to assessing the brain’s communication with the adrenals or the adrenal’s normal high to low shift of daily cortisol output.  The salivary sampling test gives you all of this information which allows you to know the stage of adrenal fatigue that you are in within the grey zone of dysfunction.  Normalizing the different stages of dysfunction requires different regimens.

A Breakfast of organic fruit and yogurt is always better than salty sausage and eggs, right?

Not if you are in Stage 3 of  adrenal decompensation!  A few of the hallmarks of stage 3 adrenal dysfunction are low morning cortisol felt as fatigue no matter how many hours of sleep you’ve had,  difficult to control blood sugar, cravings for salt, sugar and/or spices, irritability, low mood, low blood pressure and a host of other symptoms. Low adrenal hormone output defines this stage and that often results in low sodium levels in the blood.  You might actually crave salt and will feel much better with a bit of salt in the morning.  A protein breakfast is critical in this stage to get blood sugars to rise slowly and to begin stabilizing you for the day, you won’t snack so much through out the day because of constantly dipping brain energy.

These are just a few facts among many about identifying and healing adrenal gland dysfunction.  Among the primary pillars that make up optimal health, balanced hormones are among them and the adrenal hormones are as crucial to creating vibrant health as are the androgens and estrogens that we usually think of first  when it comes to hormone balance.

I am passionate about helping people sleuth out the reason for their persistent health issues and finally fix them which is why I am including a section on this topic of adrenal health within my upcoming class:  Manage Your Energy, Master Your Health!™ on May 7th, Corte Madera, CA. 

KNEE BONEʼS CONNECTED TO THE……..HIP BONE, HIP BONEʼS CONNECTED TO THE…………..INTESTINE?

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Yes, you read that right! In the human body, it’s all connected, whether by bones, muscles or other soft tissues or fluids. All bodily structures can influence each other through tension and force patterns that are created, for example, through the system of joints that the song refers to. There are also connections between the less obvious ‘soft articulations’ as we say in orthopedic manual therapy. Examples of soft ‘joints’ would be the upper portion of the stomach or liver as it lies just under the breathing diaphragm or the kidneys that glide behind the membrane that lies toward the back of your abdomen. There are also numerous mixed connections in the body between a soft surface and a hard surface such as your brain inside the skull, or your lungs against the ribs or your intestines resting inside your pelvic bones. So it isn’t just the influence of one bone to another through the joints as you know them but actually mechanical communication occurs between all structures in the body no matter of their density.

Knee pain is probably only 2nd to spinal pain among the most common pain complaints that I see in my office. After 30 years of clinical practice you can imagine the amount of knee pain that I have witnessed and you might think the most difficult cases have been the ones that have involved the most trauma such as compound spiral thigh fractures or triple ligament ruptures. But in fact, the more difficult knee pain to solve is when there hasn’t been any mechanical trauma at all! This is actually critical information in the knee pain owner’s history and immediately alerts me to look for other structures and systems that are not functioning optimally and could be contributing to their knee pain.

Certainly, if the hip or lower back were not in good alignment, it’s a no brainer that stress and strain at the knee could result. What is less obvious and rarely considered by your doctor and particularly by your orthopedic specialist is the fact that your colon or large intestine may be the source of your unrelenting knee pain. How can that be? Well, if you can accept that all structures in the body that sit next to each other can create influential tension patterns among themselves, then you can realize that an unhappy intestine can create an abnormal tension or improper movement pattern with your hip bone which, in turn, produces strained motion at the knee.

If you are someone who suffers from unexplained and unresolved knee pain, your MRI scan has negative findings and you haven’t suffered any trauma, perhaps someone needs to be assessing the functional health of your intestine and asking you questions about your food choices, your elimination pattern, the quality of your bowel movements and your hydration. It’s an amazing and wonderful experience to alleviate someone’s chronic constipation, irritable bowel or frequent loose stools and find that their long standing knee pain vanishes as well.

I’ve given you a fairly simple example of a soft structure having a mechanical influence on neighboring bone structures, but in reality, it can get much more complex than that where structures at even greater distance are the source of pain, unhealthy biochemistry can be creating an abnormal environment throughout the system and invisible nerve impulses from elevated stress levels may be communicating a core message of danger. So, if you’re still trying to imagine how systems and structures far removed from the knee could actually be creating pain in the knee, it might help to remember how you felt on a turbulent flight with screaming babies or bickering teens seated a few rows away from you! What, you didn’t have a good flight? They were 5 rows away!

FIXING YOUR HEALTH STARTS WITH BEING HEARD!

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Have you sought help from one professional after another for a persistent health issue only to end up with……the same persistent and unresolved health issue? If this is a yes for you, you are not alone. So many people have gone from one health care practitioner to another hoping to finally find a solution to their problem but only end up feeling frustrated, confused, hopeless and feeling that they’ve not been understood.

As a health care practitioner who has experienced my own hard to explain let alone hard to solve health issues, I have come to learn that having a full understanding of how you arrived at your current health complaints is fundamental to a successful treatment plan and that begins by listening to you and your health story. This, of course takes time, an ingredient of our medical model that seems to be running out as evidenced by this recent article on the economic UNfeasibility of your doctor spending more than 2 minutes with you.

I would encourage you to get an understanding from your prospective practitioner what their evaluation of you entails. Can you tell if enough time has been allotted to not only hear about your current symptoms but also to listen to your entire health history? Your health today is influenced by all that you have inherited and encountered since the time of your conception. I am interested to know if you are an only child or are you #7 of 7 children in your family? If you are the latter, that tells me that the potential for adrenal dysfunction at a very young age exists for you since your Mother’s adrenal reserves were probably low by her 7th pregnancy and it has been shown that pregnant women can infringe upon the adrenal energy from their growing fetus. I am interested to know if you were born via C-section or a vaginal delivery and whether you were breast fed. This lends information about the earliest establishment of your microbiome, the dynamic balance of all of your microorganisms that plays a critical role in your immune system’s perception and response today. I am interested to know whether you had ear infections when you were 2 or got your tonsils out when you were 6 or had allergies that "you grew out of." It’s not about a check mark in a box of your health history’s laundry list, it’s about piecing together the answers to the very rich question of……..Why?

I hope that you could notice that your practitioner is interested in not only WHAT you are saying with regard to your health history but also HOW you are saying it. How my patients say what they do about their health reveals so much to me about their connection and knowledge of their symptoms. Someone might tell me that they eat a small breakfast, often skip lunch not eating til 3 or 4pm and in a cavalier fashion, remark that it doesn’t bother them, they’ve done it for years. This tells me that they aren’t very aware of, after 7 hours without food, their low blood sugar symptoms. Another dismissive phrase I hear is "…….oh that’s my usual pain, I’m used to that, what I’m really here for is……..". This tells me that the information behind a recurrent pain issue has not been not fully understood or perhaps even attended to.

There should be 2 parts to being heard by your health professional. The part where you are allowed time to explain your situation, symptoms and give information you feel is important and the second part where you are being asked carefully crafted questions. I find that this part of a skillful inquiry is not only informative to me as a practitioner but can also be the seed that sprouts your first awareness about solving your long standing complaints.

For me, listening to you and encouraging you to answer questions and tell your story is fundamental to finding a solution to your situation. I have come to realize that your symptoms today are a result of an underlying ongoing previous story. It may be a short story or a long story but the clues and even answers to solving your issues are within your story and hearing your story is the first part to finally fixing your health!

CHOCOLATE: GOOD NEWS OR BAD NEWS? YOU DECIDE!

What puts chocolate on the list of health enhancing, anti-aging foods is its’ high content
of powerful antioxidant compounds called flavonoids. Other flavonoid-rich foods are tea, berries, grapes, apples and many of the other color filled fruits and vegetables.

The flavonoids in chocolate are called flavonols and have been shown to be helpful in lowering blood pressure, diminishing fatty plaques in arteries, and lowering clot formation by making blood platelets not so sticky. Most people know that the darker the chocolate, the higher the flavonol content.

The brain lifting compounds in chocolate are theobromine, caffeine, tyramine, and phenylethylamine (PEA). Additionally, tryptophan and anandamide are soothing and relaxing to the brain and promote the feeling of well being. How can you not love chocolate when it gives you a dose of energy, clears your foggy brain, soothes your anxiety and dampens your pain all the while keeping your healthy cells healthy and blood flowing smoothly for fewer negative cardiovascular events?

Well, that’s the good news–and now, the bad news…..

Even though there have been 2 large epidemiological studies showing the benefits of chocolate consumption specifically on lowering carotid artery plaques, blood pressure and other vascular problems, these studies were not well designed for clear and specific correlation about cause and effect from chocolate. Other flavonoid rich foods were being consumed simultaneously and chocolate contains additional health
benefitting nutrients that obviously were not isolated from the flavonols.

Because chocolate has such a brain energizing effect, individuals with any chronic fatigue syndrome or adrenal exhaustion will be particularly drawn to consuming it, but cocoa, in addition to other caffeine containing stimulants should actually be avoided in this case. The same PEA in chocolate that lifts brain energy also creates a transient rise in blood pressure and blood sugar which is followed by a not good for you low blood sugar episode. If you have any kind of persistent or recurring fatigue issues, you need to support and nourish your brain to allow it to heal, avoid high glycemic reaction foods like chocolate and take in more energy sustaining proteins. Other conditions that can involve poor brain endurance and fatigue and should omit chocolate include Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson’s Disease, Closed Head Injuries and even Post Polio
Syndrome.

Chocolate has been placed on the list of offending foods by many different researchers involved with migraines headaches, irritable bowel syndrome, allergies, joint degeneration, skin problems such as rosacea and mood disorders. Chocolate is also high in oxalates and most people who have suffered from kidney stones should be on a low oxalate diet which means no chocolate. Oxalates are also famous for binding
calcium which prevents its absorption and a diet high in oxalates is not recommended for anyone trying to maintain or improve their bone density. If you have any bladder irritation or particularly have been diagnosed with Interstitial Cystitis (IC), chocolate should definitely be off of your grocery list. Anecdotally, there are groups of people who comment that chocolate weakens their immune system. They notice that they get sick soon after consuming even a small amount of it.

Despite chocolate truly having a high ORAC value (high antioxidant power), this healthy cell preserving ability is greatly diminished from processing, which is why it is best to eat high percentage pure dark chocolate and even better cacao in its raw form. Most of the chocolate consumed in the US is highly processed and can even include health stripping preservatives. It is pretty clear that chocolate does contain compounds that are health promoting, even the pharmaceutical companies are trying to isolate them,
however, any benefits from flavonoids are totally drowned out when chocolate comes in the form of cake, caramel, ice cream, corn syrup and gooey candy bars. These foods do not count as healthy chocolate products.

So, you can hear the good part about chocolate, it is real, however, I’m hoping you can hear the negative aspects about chocolate as well and that it may not be a wise food choice for you depending on the status of your health . Where are you on the continuum of reaction to chocolate, is it good for you or is it bad for you?

You decide!

Create Change This Year With A Clear Mindset!

The 3 most common areas that people want to create change in are their health, wealth, and relationships. Having been a healthcare provider for over 30 years now, I am able to see what helps people become successful with their healthcare goals.

Even though the primary doctrine of my work is about finding the source(s) of your unresolved health issue so that a successful treatment plan can be established there remains the need for the client to have the correct mindset and do the internal work that’s needed to successfully achieve their goals with their health.

What is mindset? What makes up the internal work that we need to be doing that is critical to creating change? There are many ways to describe this but I like to boil it down to Goals, Vision and Alignment. All 3 of these aspects are essential to really move toward your desired change.

SET GOALS:   Big or small, be concrete and write them down! Be VERY specific about them, make sure that these goals are YOUR goals and check out from how deep of a DESIRE do they come? Don’t say, “I want to lose weight and get back to exercise this year.” Be very specific; state the new realistic weight that you will be weighing on a particular day and date. Declare the number of times per week that you will be exercising. Provide yourself with 3-4 exercise choices, all ones that you enjoy, which makes your goal attainment more realistic. Revisit your list of goals frequently and rewrite them with even more detail as you know more specifically what it is that you want.

CREATE VISION: This is exactly about what it says–can you envision your goal? And actually, can you see it, feel it, hear it? From how many senses can you experience your desired change? What does it feel like when you are living this achievement? What are others around you saying? What are you doing, wearing, thinking or perceiving when you are living your attained goal? How are you and your life different and how does that feel when your goal is realized? There are many ways to create a vision of you with your attained goal, from imagery and writing or recording your spoken thoughts to painting and mixed media artwork such as vision boards (one of my personal favorites). Keep working with your vision creation so that it evokes a lot of emotion in you and brings a sense of present moment tangibility. Now revisit this often by having your vision creation in full view.

LIVE IN ALIGNMENT:  You have precisely declared your goals and you have a clear vision and feeling of their manifestation. Now, are you living in a way that supports your ambitions? This category of living in alignment is broad and can include anything that helps you achieve your goals. From hanging out with others who are supportive of your desires to getting help from professionals who can adeptly assist you on your path. Even your daily actions, no matter how small, could be supportive in your process. Be aware of particular environments, books,  seminars, words you choose, habits you have and so many other things that can all contribute to bringing you and your desires to a point of connection…..or not. The key here is that you are conscious about your movements in life and are aware if they are supportive, neutral or actually opposing your path to your goal. 

In the healthcare industry, we often speak of the need to address lifestyle and personal habits since these are well known for being the core cause of many chronic and degenerative illnesses. Addressing lifestyle choices is one thing, assisting someone through the process of goal setting to goal achievement is another. Bridging that gap from declaring your goals to achieving them boils down to a personal internal process that is actually the essential blueprint from which your ambitions for your health, wealth, career or relationships are realized!. 

Are You Healthy Enough To Lose Weight?

Obesity rates in the US have had some staggering numbers in the last 10 – 15 years and the US actually captured the title of ‘the most obese country in the world’ back in 2007 (recently surpassed only by Australia)!  These facts and ‘awards’ are nothing to be proud of but they do point toward the epidemic of obesity and prevalence of weight related health issues in the US.

While it is obvious that we are eating too much as a Nation and too much of the wrong foods as well, there is ample data showing that people are also signing up to try and  lose weight.  It’s also safe to say that the US has a plethora of weight loss methodologies, programs, professionals and opinions about the subject. Just  go to www.worldometer.info and plug in ‘money spent on weight loss programs in the USA today’  and watch the dollar counter steadily and rapidly rise in front of your eyes–I had to stop watching at the ‘65 million dollars spent mark’ just so I could get on with my day, but the dollar counter continued to soar swiftly upward without hesitation and didn’t seem to have a plan for stopping any time soon.

Even though you may not be obese, defined as Body Mass Index at 30 or greater, you might relate to being overweight, having 10, 15 or 20+ pounds to lose.  You may also relate to having tried very hard a number of times to lose weight.  Maybe you’ve signed up for various programs or have even been supervised medically or established a weight loss group among your friends.  And even with all of that, the extra weight just doesn’t stay off let alone come off at all for some of you.  The question we all need to be asking is WHY?

Has anyone explained to you that in order to lose extra weight, that weight that really isn’t you, your body and its chemistry has to be functioning optimally. In other words, you have to be healthy first in order to successfully lose weight! There are so many reasons for one’s inability to lose weight despite diligent effort:  from insulin resistance and leptin resistance to undiscovered food intolerances, mounting toxic burdens or intestinal infections.  Maybe your genetics is tipping the scales in the wrong direction for you starting with a bias in your taste system or maybe your liver enzyme chemistry isn’t as efficient as your neighbor’s.  There are many reasons why your valiant attempts to lose weight are experienced as futile and it’s not because you aren’t trying.  If you know that you have tried and your weight isn’t budging then you need to work with someone who will search among the many reasons for your weight loss resistance and find what is limiting you.

As a Certified Nutritionist I work to find ‘weight loss limiters’ and the greatest success with weight loss resistance occurs when a client realizes that getting their body’s chemistry healthy first is key to achieving their weight loss goals.

Is Your Fatigue From Anemia But No One is Finding It?

Fatigue is one of the more common complaints that brings people to see their
Primary Care Provider and even accounts for a loss of productive work days.  As most people know,  fatigue can stem from so many different sources including food allergies, insomnia, thyroid problems,  Lyme Disease , chronic pain, adrenal dysfunction and so much more.  Another very common cause of fatigue is anemia, typically defined as a deficiency of the oxygen carrying components of the blood, either the red blood cells themselves or the amount of hemoglobin within the red blood cell.  Anemia itself has a multitude of possible sources and is beyond the scope of this article, however, important to note is that the presence of anemia can be foundational to other unresolved health issues.  That’s why it is so important to discover if anemia is present as well as to understand how its presence can be hidden on a routine blood test if you are dehydrated at the time of your blood draw.

As a Physical Therapist, I am suspicious of anemia when someone is trying to follow through with a prescribed rehab program but can’t due to fatigue, light headedness, disproportional shortness of breath, extended heart rate recovery time, or even increased breath rate, heart rate, weakness or pallor at rest.  Additionally, as a Nutritionist, I am on alert when someone is on an anemia prone diet like vegan or vegetarian or when I see food diaries that are  low in leafy greens, veggies, and legumes. I am highly suspicious of anemia when someone shows evidence of a malabsorption condition such as Gluten Intolerance.  I ask about stool color and consistency and look for paleness in the lower eyelids, nail beds and palmer creases.  Just as Xray, MRI and surgical reports provide me with all of the orthopedic data I need when treating someone as a Physical Therapist, knowing the results from blood work, glucose studies and GI workups that a physician has ordered also round out the patient’s total picture when I am working with someone on Nutritional Therapy.

Your  Primary care Provider will test for anemia usually by ordering a standard blood panel called a Complete Blood Count (CBC). It is looking for the anemia markers I first mentioned about red blood cells and hemoglobin.  Red blood cells are a solid particle in the blood and are  quantified in relation to the liquid portion of the blood sample.  If you happen to be dehydrated (lacking adequate fluid) at the time of your blood draw, then the proportion of solid particles (cells)  to the liquid portion of your blood will be skewed and it will look like you have more red blood cells than you actually do.  Your blood values can look normal and  if you really are anemic, it may have been missed!  That’s why it is imperative that you hydrate sufficiently the day before your blood draw and even drink a glass of water upon waking the morning of your blood test.

On your last blood draw for your annual physical were you told to be adequately hydrated?  These are simple instructions that could make the difference of finding a possible cause of your chronic fatigue or not!

You Really Can Be Gluten and Dairy Free On Thanksgiving

Here’s a few tips for a Gluten and Dairy free Turkey Day that I’ve used over the years!

• Remember to cut up and toast your gluten free bread cubes on low heat for a long time to get them nice and dry and crunchy to use for your GF stuffing.  Leaving them out ahead of time to get a bit stale helps too.  And of course, look for gluten free croutons which make great GF stuffing.
• If you want to avoid any kind of bread stuffings then go with super healthy wild rice or quinoa pilafs and add the same stuff you would to your bread stuffing.  These are fabulous, add some turkey or veggie stock to it and let the flavors really meld together.
• If you want to lighten up your potatoes use a combination of celery root and potato and really whip them with a hand blender stick.
• If you want to go really light–try steaming cauliflower til tender and then place in a high speed blender.  Don’t add any liquid, just push it down til it’s totally creamy. Add a touch of olive oil, salt and pepper and then serve piping hot with a tiny drizzle of olive oil and snipped chives on top.
• For die hard gravy fans–there is no problem using tapioca or potato starch for your thickener.   Not quite as high glycemic as corn starch, but almost.
• Remember that sweet potatoes are named as such because they are already…….sweet!  No need to add anything sweet to them for goodness sake!
• You can easily buy GF pie crusts now or my favorite GF flour mixture is:  2 cups brown rice flour, 2/3 cup potato starch and 1/3 cup tapioca starch.  Just mix this in a sealable container and scoop from it as you need it during the holidays.  I change it up often in order to experiment so this year I might try using quinoa flour instead of potato starch to increase the protein.  Just follow your favorite flaky pie crust recipe using this flour mixture.  I’ve also used ghee instead of butter and that was ok too.
• My pumpkin pie is gluten and dairy free and I get there by using unsweetened almond milk in the filling, an extra egg white, and only about 1/3 cup of maple syrup for the large can of pumpkin.  I decrease the almond milk by about 1/3 since I am using a liquid sweetener and then I double the spices for big flavor!  I bet some of the popular coconut products could be a nice dairy alternative also, give it a try and let me know.
• Remember you can always make the pumpkin pie filling in ramekins or custard cups and skip the crust.
• If you want to avoid eggs altogether, then definitely go with apple crisp or even baked apples or other warmed fruit with toasted nuts for a lighter dessert.

Hope some of these tips are helpful for you and do leave me a comment about your favorite ways to lighten up your Thanksgiving dinner and keep it allergen free!

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