You can listen to the article here.

From a very young age I always wanted to make a difference in people’s lives regarding their heath and even when I was newly licensed as a physical therapist I rebelled against one size fits all treatment protocols. Later, as I became a certified nutritionist  I realized that to only practice and dispense Brand X care was intellectually shallow, professionally irresponsible, not rewarding for myself or the patient and never really empowered people to regain control of their health.

Brand X health care is all about giving this because you complain of that.  You have sinus congestion so take an antihistamine.  You have heartburn so take an antacid.  You have muscle tension or spasm so use some heat.  You have acne, take an antibiotic.  Tight hamstring?  Stretch.  Don’t get me wrong, symptoms can be very serious and do need to be controlled to avoid debilitating health crises. But without bringing Brand WHY into the health care picture, one continues to suppress symptoms while the unfound reason for those symptoms continues to erode the foundation of one’s health.

Enter Brand WHY.  Brand WHY is not really a brand at all but a model of health care that seeks to answer the question……why?  Why do you have heartburn?  Why does your skin breakout? Why does your back keep ‘going out’?  Why do you have high cholesterol?  Could it be because you have an under functioning thyroid gland? (I did and when my thyroid problem was finally found and treated my cholesterol went down 90 points!).

This model of health care that seeks to answer the question why? is not a quick ‘grab and go’ model.  Seeking the answers to why a symptom is there requires deep and detailed knowledge of human physiology and an understanding that all systems in the human body communicate with each other and  that we can have physical responses to our emotions, our thoughts, our food and our environment.  The answer to why may require study and research and the putting together of seemingly disparate pieces of someone’s health history.  Treatment in the WHY model requires taking time with the patient to have a dialogue that brings out important wisdom filled words that exist within the patient.  The treatment approach in the WHY model of health care may require an action step that needs close monitoring, asking more questions, making course corrections and customized adjustments, there is no one size fits all!

Where as Brand X has much more to do with the question of WHAT?  What do I have and so what do I take for it? (ie.  you have a cough so take a cough suppressant).  Brand WHY is all about why do I have what I do?  Those people who continue to seek help for chronic or recurrent health issues know that the WHAT model no longer serves them and they may or may not know that they are looking for someone who will help them answer the question, WHY do I continue suffering from this problem?   Brand WHY takes more time, it requires advanced training and high level thinking from your practitioner, it demands patience with the process and asks for continued connection between professional and patient.  It’s not just a matter of thinking ‘out of the box’ because in the Brand WHY model of health care — there is no box!

From a very young age I always wanted to make a difference in people’s lives regarding their heath and even when I was newly licensed as a physical therapist I rebelled against one size fits all treatment protocols. Later, as I became a certified nutritionist I realized that to only practice and dispense Brand X care was intellectually shallow, professionally irresponsible, not rewarding for myself or the patient and never really empowered people to regain control of their health.

You can listen to the article here.

Yes they do!  And I can’t tell you how incredibly easy it is to forget that food can be causing not only your pain, but your skin problems, your irritable or low mood, your fatigue, your restless legs, infertility or PMS!  Whew……… I could go on but this article is centered specifically on food and pain.  People often ask me why I added nutritional therapy to my already established and busy practice of physical therapy.  Each profession by itself requires a ton of study, skill building, artful practice and work to keep up and stay on the leading edge of emerging information.

So why did I take on a second profession?  Because my manual therapy skills showed me that those patient cases that were the most difficult to improve with physical therapy skills had the most soft tissue tension patterns leading to or coming from their digestive tracts.  It didn’t matter what kind of high level manual techniques, stretching or exercise programs I did with this group,  they either did not improve at all or improvements were temporary at best and they would always return with the same pain complaints!

It is an advanced skill to be able to feel the relationship of the digestive tract with other parts of the body and it is because of honing this skill over many years that lead me to realize that I didn’t have the tools to fully resolve someone’s recurring pain complaints.

If I wanted to help more people with their hard to resolve pain issues, then that meant becoming a Certified Nutritionist to clearly understand digestion, food compatibility, metabolic and nutrient therapy.   I’ve been integrating that work for quite a few years now so I thought I would give you some examples of how the food and pain picture presents and how I resolved each patient’s pain.

Case #1:  Erin and debilitating low back pain!

 Erin was in her mid to late 30’s when she came to me with complaints of low bak pain that occurred about 3 – 4 times each year and when it did, it was so debilitating that she would be totally stuck in a forward bent position, couldn’t go to work and would need 2 – 4 days just to be able to stand upright, let alone be free of back ache which took another 2- 4 weeks.  Manual mechanical treatments helped as did her exercise program but none of this prevented these acute painful episodes from reoccurring.

My assessment with Erin revealed some mild digestive complaints, and irregular bowel pattern but nothing really that she felt was a problem.  My manual assessment, however, showed that Erin had tremendous tension in her lower colon creating significant restriction with her sacrum.  Her stomach and spleen tension were also strong and made me highly suspicious of a food intolerance.

My treatment plan with Erin included education and instruction about how to find her incompatible foods and to improve her digestive function with whole, real foods and a couple of supplements.  It took some time to assess the benefits since Erin’s acute episodes only happened 3 – 4 times in a year but even after 3-4 months of her new eating plan she could tell that something was different.  That first year she only had one  acute back pain episode and now, 18 months later, Erin’s back never ‘goes out’!

 Case #2:  Lynda and her annoying upper back pain!

 Lynda had upper back pain that ached and ached and was so annoying.  She got frequent massages and all kinds of mechanical treatments with chiropractic, physical therapy and rolfing.  She loved rolling on foam rollers and tennis balls to relieve her constant muscle tension that was across her upper back, mostly on the right.

Lynda had seen very good practitioners but none of them dealt with nutrition or digestive dysfunction. My exam showed that Lynda’s upper right ribs were chronically in poor alignment along with several of the vertebrae of the mid and upper back.  Her soft tissue tension pattern included the area of the liver and gall bladder.  More verbal inquiry with Lynda confirmed for me that her gall bladder function was less than optimal.  Her stools were often light in color and almost always floated in the toilet water.  She experienced a fair amount of burping after eating and more so after certain meals.

I advised Lynda to make some changes with her foods, gave her some supplements that  would enhance the action of her liver and gall bladder and specifically taught her what to look for to know that what she is doing is moving her in the right direction.  In this case, she still needed manual treatments and exercises for her ribs and spine since they had adopted a compensatory alignment over many years.

Lynda had only small changes initially but over several months with her dietary changes and manual treatments Lynda began to be upper back pain free for the first time in years!  Now, Lynda uses the first shadow of tension in this same area of her back as the  canary in the coal mine about having just eaten something that slows her gall bladder function.  She knows to stay away from that food and feels totally empowered now about being able to prevent her pain!

 Case #3:  Shelly and her big toe pain!

 Shelly saw me in my office several years ago with complaints of right big toe pain.  Not just “my toe kinda hurts”, but “my toe REALLY hurts, I have to limp and walk on the side of my foot when it’s bad and that throws everything else off too!”
My exam of her entire structure revealed a clear cut tension pattern right to her liver!  She also appeared slightly swollen with water retention, her tongue looked very congested and she said she would get constipated somewhat frequently although tried to control this with prune juice and fiber.Of course I wanted to make sure that she had had Xrays, had seen an Orthopedist and or a Podiatrist which she had.  Her Xrays were negative and no one had a

clue what to do with her except togive her a hard flat bottom shoe so that her toe wouldn’t bend when she walked. This really didn’t allow her to walk normally at all and almost caused more back problems than it was worth!

I remembered that several of the acupuncture meridians go to the big toe and I didn’t think it was a coincidence that  my manual exam showed a congestion feeling around her liver, spleen and kidneys — all the meridians that end at the great toe!  I told Shelly that she really needed to change her diet, find her food intolerances, clean out her system and then let’s reassess the situation.  Well, that went over like a lead balloon and I never saw Shelly again………until this year when she joined my group detoxification program.  She went through the 21 day program flawlessly and looked lighter and brighter each week.  Several days after the program we talked and she told me how great she felt and oh by the way, the toe pain was gone!  She admitted to me that she thought I was nuts years before to have suggested that she improve her diet and detox her system in order to heal her toe pain!  Now she wishes she had done it then and not suffered another 2 years with a limping gait!

These are very typical examples of what I see every week when it comes to pain and how food can be a critical and often missed component to the treatment plan.  So the next time you have an ache or a pain that’s all too familiar and the help you are getting isn’t resolving it, do remember that your digestive tract may be a silent (or not) source of your pain and that you may need some help there too!

Yes they do!  And I can’t tell you how incredibly easy it is to forget that food can be causing not only your pain, but your skin problems, your irritable or low mood, your fatigue, your restless legs, infertility or PMS!  Whew……… I could go on but this article is centered specifically on food and pain.  People often ask me why I added nutritional therapy to my already established and busy practice of physical therapy.  Each profession by itself requires a ton of study, skill building, artful practice and work to keep up and stay on the leading edge of emerging information.

I hate this term — PRE-diabetes! Pre is a prefix that means ‘before’. So, in other words, pre-diabetes implies the status before being diabetic, a status that could easily be misconstrued as…..your getting close but you’re not there yet, so as long as you can stay out of the diabetic category — you’re good! There could be nothing farther from the truth! The PRE-diabetic status actually has real diagnoses with billing codes that are proof of the medical conditions that are really going on here. The symptoms and more importantly, the health risks, that are present during the pre-diabetes stage can equal those that are commonly seen during full blown diabetes. It’s critical to take a look at and learn about these PRE-diabetic conditions because this is where a large portion of the American population is living and dying!

You can listen to the article here.

I hate this term — PRE-diabetes! Pre is a prefix that means ‘before’. So, in other words, pre-diabetes implies the status before being diabetic, a status that could easily be misconstrued as…..your getting close but you’re not there yet, so as long as you can stay out of the diabetic category — you’re good! There could be nothing farther from the truth! The PRE-diabetic status actually has real diagnoses with billing codes that are proof of the medical conditions that are really going on here. The symptoms and more importantly, the health risks, that are present during the pre-diabetes stage can equal those that are commonly seen during full blown diabetes. It’s critical to take a look at and learn about these PRE-diabetic conditions because this is where a large portion of the American population is living and dying!

THE UNDERLYING MECHANISM THAT’S NOT WORKING
Underlying pre-diabetes is a dysfunction in glucose metabolism called Insulin Resistance. This has nothing to do with the inability to produce insulin but rather that the muscle cells are at some stage of not recognizing insulin knocking on their door. Therefore, the muscle cell door never opens and insulin never gets to lower blood sugar by shuttling glucose into the muscles which really love to use this fuel source for activity!

Insulin is a very powerful worker bee regarding the packing away of nutrients in the body. We call this storing of nutrients anabolic thus insulin is a very strong anabolic hormone — it builds the body up and it’s not choosy about what it’s building up. So, if the resistant muscle cell will not open its doors to insulin, then insulin will go on down the line to the equal opportunity fat cells that open their doors to everyone with the only cultish condition that all who enters becomes one of them! That carbohydrate you ate — is now part of the ever growing fat family that particularly resides around your abdomen, torso and even back of your neck. This fat is actually a hormonally active organ — and a very dangerous one! It has the uncanny ability to ignite and perpetuate inflammatory fires all over your body! That could be in your joints, your blood vessels, your heart, your brain, your uterus or prostate and so on.

CLUES THAT YOU MAY BE INSULIN RESISTANT
This inability to properly utilize glucose from the carbohydrates that you eat starts to show up as belly fat expanding around your middle, feeling tired after you eat or craving sweets after eating and you may find that your waist size is approaching your hip circumference. So even though you are eating, your muscles are still starving since they aren’t getting much fuel from glucose. A typical insulin resistance pattern of eating is someone who eats more at night but then doesn’t have much appetite for breakfast. Since the belly is growing, they feel glad that they can easily skip those breakfast calories but then nonstop grazing starts around midday or in the evening!

CLUES IN YOUR BLOOD WORK
Your annual blood work usually includes a fasting glucose but this may be the last thing to be abnormal when insulin resistance is brewing. More helpful would be to know your insulin values after fasting as well as after a glucose challenge.

Rising triglycerides, even with normal cholesterol values, are a clue to the presence of insulin resistance–remember, due to the growing fat family! And always ask your doctor to measure a Hemoglobin A1C (Hb-A1C) test which is much more helpful than fasting glucose. Hb-A1C is a stable value that tells us about how much glucose has been in the blood stream over a period of 3-4 months vs. glucose which is a moment to moment varying value depending on if you have eaten, what you have eaten or if you are stressed.

ANOTHER DANGEROUS PRE-DIABETIC CONDITION
Another pre-diabetic condition is called Metabolic Syndrome. Insulin resistance precedes Metabolic Syndrome and one only has to have 3 of the following criteria positive in order to receive a Metabolic Syndrome diagnosis:

a waist to hip ratio approaching 1 (ie. abdominal obesity)
triglycerides equal or greater than 150 mg/dl
HDL cholesterol at 40mg/dl or lower for men and 50mg/dl or lower for women
fasting glucose of 110 or greater
blood pressure that is 130/85 or greater
So the sequence of pre-diabetic events goes like this:

INSULIN RESISTANCE >> METABOLIC SYNDROME >> DIABETES

You may never ever get to diabetes but you might definitely be insulin resistant or even have Metabolic Syndrome. These pre-diabetic states greatly increase your health risk for life threatening conditions such as heart disease or any vascular compromise, cancer, obesity, dementia and a multitude of degenerative conditions that includes arthritis.

THE LATEST FINDINGS
Lastly, another subtype of diabetes known as Type 1.5 or LADA which stands for Latent Autoimmune Diabetes in Adults is just starting to show up in mainstream media. It is still being researched for greater understanding about it’s mechanism of onset but, as its name implies, has an autoimmune component to it. It is generally slow to progress, is often misdiagnosed as Type II diabetes and insulin resistance might not always be present as LADA develops.

This last piece starts to get confusing so let’s just stick to the main points here. It’s critical for you to understand and know whether you have or even tend toward insulin resistance. Do you relate to the paragraph of symptoms I already mentioned? If so, learn everything you can about Insulin Resistance and start making your dietary and lifestyle changes NOW. It could save your life!

You can listen to the article here.

When it comes to describing the growing suspicion around toxicity and chronic health conditions we often use the term cumulative body burden (of toxins).  This describes the fact that toxins, most of them unseen, many of them odorless yet all of them pervasive enter our bodies in consistent small quantities over time!  This accumulation of toxins in our bodies turns small quantities into larger amounts that at some point derail the body’s hormones, impair the digestive system and even change our genetic expression.  No wonder there is a rising prevalence of hard to explain health conditions in both children and adults today!

Having just finished a recent detoxification program with my clients, I’m reminded to share this practical and valuable information from a handout that I give out during the third and final week of the program, right before the participants are transitioning back to their customary food and lifestyle routines.  Some of these tips might seem trivial to you but it is the small changes that we make in our daily lives that changes the cumulative exposure to toxic products that can make the difference between a chronic health issue or not in ourselves and our children!

Which of these health changing detoxification tips can you already check off and which ones can you immediately make a change with this week or this month?

1.  Eat organic!  Yes, spend the money on cleaner, safer food.  I swear it’s less money than you’ve probably spent on some luxury items that don’t positively impact your health at all!  All oil or fat containing foods such as meats, dairy products, nuts/seeds and eggs MUST be organic to be safe for you and your family’s health.

2.  Install a high quality water filter on your tap water source at home.

3.  Use a HEPA filter on your furnace at home and vacuum frequently, dust is known to trap a lot of toxins.

4.  Always use no VOC paint on home or office painting projects.

5.  Throw out your Teflon nonstick cookware and replace it with proven safer nonstick pans.  You probably only need 1, maybe 2 of these pans at most.

6.  Throw out aluminum cookware, especially baking pans and other containers.  Your  deodorant and baking powder should also be aluminum free!

7.  Get rid of all of your plastic containers and replace them with glass!  There’s nothing like a good ‘ol glass jar to store some of your favorite foods (especially if they contain oils of any kind).

8.  Forget chlorine containing products, the BIG one being bleach!  Chlorine is implicated in several health conditions such as endometriosis and asthma.  There are good chlorine-free bleaches such as 7th Generation or Ecover.

9.  Change to safe skin/hair care products and makeup without parabens, sodium laurel sulfate, pthalates, triclosan, oxybenzone or BHA.  Check out the safety of your current product at  www.cosmeticsdatabase.com

10.  Change out all of your house cleaning and yard products to nontoxic green brands.  There are many of them out there now.  Look online before you shop and find out where those brands are sold.

11.  Find out whether the furniture, linens and household items you are purchasing have flame retardants in them, especially with your children’s clothing, sleepwear, mattresses and pillows.  PBDE’s have been shown to disrupt brain development and hormone systems and their presence in fetal umbilical blood is documented.

12.  I’d like to say OMIT but realistically it might be wise to say significantly decrease your use of canned foods.  The lining of the can contains BPA, a known endocrine disrupting chemical.  So, can you choose a bottle or a jar of the same food item instead of a can?  Buy your kids’ favorite beverage in a bottle instead of a can.  Even your beer should be from a bottle, not a can.  Many good quality soups are sold in a carton now instead of a can.

Oh sorry, but those to-go or home delivered pizza boxes and microwave popcorn bags are also lined with BPA!  Google it if you need a reminder about how to make popcorn the old fashioned way and as for the pizza……well, I say throw out the pizza along with the box, it’s got too many allergenic food groups in it!!

I hope I’ve given you some practical, easy to do right away tips to lessen the toxicity that is impacting you and your family every day!  Why wait until you have an unchanging,  hard to explain health symptom or condition, make these changes now so you never have to face that.

Remember when there was a time when we didn’t think just a few cigarettes each week would be a problem either?!

When it comes to describing the growing suspicion around toxicity and chronic health conditions we often use the term cumulative body burden (of toxins).  This describes the fact that toxins, most of them unseen, many of them odorless yet all of them pervasive enter our bodies in consistent small quantities over time!  This accumulation of toxins in our bodies turns small quantities into larger amounts that at some point derail the body’s hormones, impair the digestive system and even change our genetic expression.  No wonder there is a rising prevalence of hard to explain health conditions in both children and adults today!

Click below to listen to the podcast!

I could just say “yes” and call it a day but I would really like you to have a deeper understanding as to why this is so!

We need to start off by having an understanding of  what detoxification really means.  Generally speaking, detoxification is the process of   removing chemical substances from the body.  Among the thousands of chemical reactions that occur in your body and that are responsible for making your body function normally, there is a handful of reactions that are specifically designed to help your body rid itself of chemical toxins.

Just as most of the chemical pathways in the human body have been studied extensively and have become well understood, the particular reactions that take care of removing toxins from the body have also been solidly documented and in fact, have been clarified in such detail that only a true biochemistry geek would stay awake reading about them.  This level of detailed understanding about detoxification reactions exists largely due to the work that has been done on drug metabolism– which means how medications clear the body.

Detoxification chemistry is no different than other chemical reactions in the body, it has particular requirements for optimal function.  It needs specific nutrients available in order to turn fat loving chemicals  into easily eliminated, water soluble substances.  Some of these nutrient requirements are vitamins A, B2, B3, B6, B12, Folic Acid, specific amino acids, certain minerals like zinc, selenium and sulphur and a slough of antioxidants.  Final excretion of toxins through the kidneys requires a specific pH that is on the alkaline side of the pH scale.

Losing Weight by Detoxification
So now let’s get to the point at hand.  We are all exposed to chemical toxins whether that’s from our skin and hair care products, the lining inside pizza boxes, canned food or microwave popcorn bags, or maybe from plastic water bottles, clothes that have been dry cleaned or even the dust in your house which holds a plethora of toxins.  These toxins, omnipresent yet invisible, can have tremendous effects on our system of hormones as they slowly accumulate in our tissues over time.  It is this accumulated burden of toxicity that can start to erode our health by instructing our hormones to act in very different ways than originally intended.  I often speak of the ability that toxic chemicals have to derail your metabolic train to another track whose destination is stubborn weight gain.

The balance of your hormonal health, particularly insulin, is critical to maintaining normal weight. It is well documented that conditions involving resistance to insulin and therefore weight loss have correlated with higher blood levels of chemicals such as Bis Phenol A (BPA) and pthalates.  If you have tried to lose weight over and over again and can’t, doesn’t it make you wonder what is blocking your body’s ability to do that?

Cleansing vs Detoxification
These 2 terms are often used interchangeably (even I exchange one for the other at whim) but in reality, detoxification refers to the particular chemical pathways I’ve discussed while cleansing has more of a sense of lightening the incoming food burden while improving the elimination function of various organs such as the bowel, kidneys and skin.  If we speak of detoxification in a more biochemically exact way then the following comments are of interest:
~taking a bowel cleansing product and still eating a nutrient depleted diet, doesn’t mean you are truly detoxifying your body.
~fasting on liquids or using The Master Cleanse of water, lemon juice, cayenne and maple syrup does not mean that the detoxification reactions are enhanced.
~eating a totally raw diet does not insure optimal detoxification function.
~following a vegan or vegetarian diet certainly does not secure optimal detoxification.

This isn’t about one being better than the other but really that one beautifully complements the other. Providing the required nutrients to enhance detoxification reactions while cleansing the organs by improving their elimination is your best combination to rid the body of accumulated toxins, particularly the ones that just might be blocking your weight loss!

The holidays make us too busy, too stressed and therefore too tired.  And because we’re tired but need to keep going, we reach for the easiest and fastest thing that seems  to help us do that and that’s not a salad–it’s sugar!  If you understand the metabolic mechanics of the holidays then you’ll know how to beat the fatigue, depression and out of control cravings that come from this wonderful but chaotic time of year!

1. FRUIT: Forget about fruit juices and keep your fruit servings down to 2 low glycemic fruits per day.  No dried fruit.  Fruit cake, banana bread or persimmon pudding does not count as a fruit serving and just because a fruit is in the name doesn’t make it
   healthy!
2. SWEETENERS: Turbinado, demirara, brown sugar, maple syrup, agave, honey, fructose, palm sugar, evaporated cane juice, dried palm sugar, rice syrup, barley malt……….need I go on? These are all high glycemic and need to be limited.  Don’t sweeten your hot beverages and absolutely DO NOT substitute with artificial sweeteners……unless you’d like to gain weight and add toxins to your brain.
3. FAT FREE: Yeah right, less fat but guess what there is usually more of?  Yep, sugar.
   Remember to read the label for the GRAMS OF SUGARS in the food item particularly if it says it is reduced fat or fat free!
4. BREAKFAST: Have it! No, not a coffee and a bran muffin.  That might sound healthy
   but it’s just a cupcake for grown ups and hence, a high glycemic load!  Be especially aware about having a protein dominant breakfast during the holiday season, not a carb laden bakery item.
5. ALCOHOL: Ok, here is where you can really pack it in!  The triple whammy for glycemic load, calories and food intolerance is the traditional egg nog–let alone spiked egg nog!  Run to the other side of the room if this is being served. Those seemingly cozy hot toddies are carbohydrate bombs.  Remember that alcohol is expert at moving through mucus membranes and will start effecting your blood sugar even before you swallow it!  If you are going to enjoy ONE glass of wine, do so with your meal!
6. BALANCE: This doesn’t mean to figure out how to hold your wine glass and hors d’oeuvres plate in the same hand so you can grab more from the buffet table with the other.  It means to make sure you are having lean protein servings, healthy fat choices and many low glycemic vegetable servings with a modest 1/2 cup healthy carb on your plate.  Balance means that you know you are going to a Holiday party where you will likely have a dessert (1 small serving), so you don’t eat ANY sweets the rest of the week.
7. EXERCISE: No matter what–move!!!  You MUST use your muscles during the holiday season in order for them to burn stored carb and fat!  I know it’s cold and rainy out–go to the gym, just get there.  No gym membership but you have a 2 story house or an uphill driveway?  Then burst up those stairs or driveway with an easy walk down and repeat and repeat and repeat!  Get that book on tape and go for a walk, in fact, as one of my clients does, she allows herself another chapter–but onlyif exercising!

If you are super vigilante about your carb and sugar intake through out the holiday season, a small indulgence at your favorite holiday get together won’t turn into days and days of continual carb loading,  elevated insulin levels and a source of next year’s resistance to weight loss!