October 10, 2017

The most important question you can ask for your health is a very simple one…

“Energy,” especially when it comes to the body, is one of those topics that get pretty hippy-dippy pretty quickly, depending on who’s explaining it to you.

But take a step back for a moment and think. What causes you to move throughout the day? How does your brain communicate things to the rest of your body? How do your muscles move?

The answer? Energy. Electrical energy, in fact.

Are you ready to lose weight… FOR GOOD? Register for our FREE Wellness Dinner Seminar and learn how here.

If you remember back to seventh-grade science, energy exists in two states. Potential energy is the energy that’s stored up. It’s not doing much of anything except sitting there. Kinetic energy, however, is the energy that is in motion. It’s the life force that powers everything from the miraculous microbes in your gut to the distant stars growing in strength and brightness by the moment.

THE MEANING OF LIFE

Philosophers have been at work for centuries attempting to figure out the meaning of life. And while that’s still an open question, I’m convinced that energy factors into it. Namely, we’re supposed to tap into our kinetic energy and, well, move.

If you take a look at the diabetes and obesity epidemics in our country, you see a lot of potential energy. A lot of stagnation, and very little growth and change (apart from our waistlines, which, c’mon, that doesn’t count.)

Growth is one of the six basic human needs (along with, according to Tony Robbins, Certainty, Variety, Significance, Love and Connection, and Contribution.)

And growth is just another example of kinetic energy.

We are designed to change. To grow. To become wiser, healthier, better.

We’re not designed just to sit back and let the world happen to us. That’s a recipe, quite literally, for disease. For death.

So, you have a choice. We all have a choice. We can continue to commit slow suicide by eating the junk we’ve always eaten, spend our time avoiding the problems that come standard with each human life, to exist in toxic relationships with those around us, and keep remaining in a state of potential energy.

It’s Newton’s first law of motion. Whatever state of motion (or lack thereof) you’re in will continue until something pushes it in a different direction.

And honestly, I see the consequences of remaining in this state of stagnation every single day. It doesn’t end well.

But, again, Newton gives us the key. Allow that other force to move you towards growth and change, and you’ll find health and happiness.

What’s Your “Why”?

And what’s that other force? What’s your “why” for getting healthy and staying that way?

For some, it’s knowing that your loved ones need you. For others it’s waking up one morning and deciding that enough is enough and it’s time to live. For some that “why” reveals itself when they catch a clear, terrifying vision of the future if they continue to stay the same.

Any of these reasons are perfectly valid for deciding to change your life and seize happiness.

Watch a video on choosing life each moment of every day below!

Or listen here…

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September 30, 2016

“For he who has health has hope; and he who has hope, has everything.”– Owen Arthur

The hardest part about getting healthy is, for a lot of people, knowing where to start.

And the hardest part of knowing where to start is the fact that every time you look into some health tip, you find a countering opinion. You have so much information at your finger tips— Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Youtube, Pintrest— but what is true? What will work? So, you start researching, hoping that you’ll find the right information to get you started.

But instead of finding a solution, all you find is information.

And there is A LOT of it. Much of which contradicts itself.

For example: Bananas are good. Also, they are bad.

Or: An apple a day keeps the doctor away… or does it?

Or: Grains are good. But they are also the opposite of good.

Or: Fats make you fat. And… they make you thin.

It’s enough to make your head explode.

And that’s just the beginning of the pain a solo journey down the path toward wellness is going to bring you.

Not to add to your confusion unnecessarily, but here are a number of other obstacles you are probably going to encounter in just trying to figure out where to even begin.

Want more great information about the foundations of a healthy life? Download the first installment of our NEW 7-part eBook series The 7 Habits of Highly Healthful People for FREE right now, right HERE!

Labels

Labels are hard to read. (And that’s not by mistake.) So, even if you’re attempting to begin eating better by choosing low-fat or reduced-sodium processed foods (don’t do this, btw), you’re still fighting an uphill battle with information.

For example, look at this label for cornmeal:

All of that seems pretty okay, right? You have corn, the word “whole grain” (which is supposed to be good, right?), a little plant oil, some salt, and then… what is this TBHQ business?

Well, the answer to that question is this: TBHQ (or Tertiary Butylhydroquinone) is a petroleum-based preservative. It’s there to lengthen the shelf life of the cornmeal. It also increases your risk of cancer. It’s also a neurotoxin. And, oh yeah, consuming more than five grams of it at one time may possibly kill you outright.

And that’s just one example. Figuring out what you’re actually eating when you choose processed foods—even the ones that claim they’re good for you!—is almost impossible without at least a doctorate in biochemical engineering.

Marketing

When was the last time you saw a commercial for a vegetable?

Probably never.

And there’s a very simple reason for that: Vegetables aren’t good business in the same way that soft drinks or breakfast cereal are. The reason why is because vegetables can’t sit on a shelf for months at a time in the market, don’t offer very good margins for the corporations themselves, and aren’t filled with addictive substances designed specifically to get you to buy more and more (and more) of them.

Advertisers know this. And so, they aren’t going to waste their time trying to get you to consume them.

Which is why it’s so hard to try to eat healthy. You are constantly bombarded with messaging telling you to eat things that will eventually kill you. And even if you know this, it’s still so hard to fight against that level of psychological warfare.

When you’re a single target, it’s hard to keep from getting shot up with arrows at every turn.

Everyone Else is Eating Junk

This is probably one of the most powerful adversaries you have when attempting to fly solo on your health journey. By nature, humans are communal when it comes to food. Sunday dinners with grandma. First dates out at an Italian bistro. Thanksgiving dinner.

We eat together.

So, when you drive past a McDonalds at noon on a Tuesday and the parking lot is filled beyond capacity, it’s easy to sort of make up your mind that yeah, McDonalds is terrible for you, but still… everyone else is doing it.

In working with our members at the Wellness Training Institute, this issue of community is far and away the biggest hurdle we have to tackle. So many of our members come into the program attempting to get healthy, but have little to no support back home with their friends and family. Misery loves company, and that applies to food as much as it does to anything else.

For all the reasons I gave above why getting healthy alone is such a hard—if not impossible—task, this one is probably the most revealing why.

I’ve had countless members come to me, right before they graduate, and say how they never would’ve accomplished their wellness goals if it hadn’t been for the community they found in our Healthful Evolutions program. They found the necessary support with the other members of the program—people with similar goals, encouraging and celebrating with each other—that they didn’t have back in their regular lives.

That’s really the moral of the story. You can’t go it alone. If you want to get healthy, you have to surround yourself with others who want the same thing—both for themselves and, just as importantly, for you.

So… where are you on your health journey? What are your goals? What are your struggles? Share them below in the comments!

The post Why You Can’t Get Healthy Alone appeared first on Wellness Training Institute.

September 27, 2016

Very few people have ever decided that they are going to just throw up their hands, decide that whatever happens happens, and just choose to stay sick and broken down and headed for an early grave.

But at the same time, the evidence is there that a big chunk of our culture has done just that.

We eat terribly. We’re addicted to distraction. We spend enough of our lives not moving around to the point that movement becomes difficult—if not impossible—later in life.

And, any commercial break during any TV show at any time of day shows how much encouragement we are getting from the corporations intent on selling us more and more of this lifestyle that’s killing us quicker than we could ever hope to manage on our own.

So, how do we fix it? How can you, today, start making better nutritional choices to feel better, live better, and simply be better?

I’m glad you asked. It’s not nearly as hard as you might think.

1. Look at What You’re Eating

The best way to get as many calories (and toxic chemicals, empty carbs, and stuff that isn’t even food to begin with) through your mouth and down into your body is to just shovel it mindlessly in.

It’s like the old adage: If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. In this case, if all you’re eating is food from a bag or a box, then everything looks like food.

Which, of course, it isn’t.

Instead, if you choose your food mindfully—and then eat it in the same way—you are quickly going to become aware of what, exactly, it is that you’re eating.

And with everything you eat, ask yourself this question: Is this helping my body or hurting it? People know a Double Whopper with bacon-flavored cheese isn’t good for you. But, what if you thought about it in this way: If I continued to eat this, every day, would it help me or hurt me?

The answer is obvious. And if you keep that question in mind when both choosing and consuming food, you’ll be a lot more enlightened about what exactly is going into your body.

Just shovel it in. Seriously. Whatever it is, just eat it.

2. Eat Plants.

It’s really that simple. Plants are healthy. They have almost all the nutrition inside them that you will ever need. Vitamins. Minerals. Fiber. A whole array of nutrients.

And the best way to start introducing more plants into your diet is to do just that. Introduce them.

Don’t take anything else out of your diet. Eat what you’re eating now. But add in two servings of vegetables to every meal. For those of us who aren’t keen on counting, think about it this way: For every meal, half your plate should be vegetables. You like Twinkies? Fine. Keep eating Twinkies. But also add in some broccoli, or carrots, or (if you want to get fancy) a rutabaga. Whatever.

Just fill up half your plate with whatever vegetable you choose.

After a while of not feeling so horrid from dawn until dusk, you’re body is going to adapt. It’s going to want those vegetables. Like a truck you’ve been filling up with maple syrup for the past decade that now has a taste of what it feels like to run on premium gasoline, you’re going to be surprised at how much you won’t miss the garbage.

Don’t eat them. Don’t think about them. Don’t even look at them. Pretend they are all poisonous. (Because let’s face it… they are). 

3. Quit Frying things.

Seriously. Just stop it. No more frying your food.

Oil just adds calories. You can still use your frying pans, but use them for steaming or sautéing. Or, if the temptation is too much, take all your frying pans and make decorative planters out of them. Or give your cat a little treat in the form of a much wider, slightly shallower, and be-handled new watering dish. Or fill them up with soil and start growing sprouts for all the salads you are going to look forward to eating in the future once your veins de-grease themselves and your body is more animal than off-shore oil well.

4. Understand Why You Eat What You Do

This is a big one.

A lot of why we eat isn’t from nutritional deficit, but instead because we feel a certain way.

Happy? Grab an Oreo.

Sad? Grab a Double-stuff Oreo.

The food we eat often has very little to do if we’re hungry or not. A lot of people (and I used to be this way, so don’t accuse me of getting preachy on you) just eat out of simple boredom.

An Oreo in our culture is legitimately just something to do.

Being mindful about WHY you eat, on the other hand, puts the nutritional factorial back into the equation. If you are upset and start reaching into the snack cabinet, take a breath, and ask yourself why your hand is currently wrapped around a Ho-Ho. Are you hungry, really? Or are you eating out of emotion?

Eating mindfully is one of those habits that can make a big difference very quickly. We have members that come into the program that have legitimately never once thought about WHY they eat what they eat. And once that lightbulb goes on above their heads, you can see the change almost visibly in their faces.

Once you get it, you get it. And then, combined with the other steps on this list, eating starts becoming something life-giving and rewarding, and not a mindless exercise in chewing.

What steps do you want to take to begin eating better? Let us know in the comment section below!

The post 4 Things You Can Do Nutritionally RIGHT NOW to Improve Your Life appeared first on Wellness Training Institute.

August 4, 2016

One of the things that sort of drives me nuts when I see a Facebook ad about getting healthy is how narrow the perspective is.

For example:

Does losing six pounds per week necessarily make you healthy?

Probably not.

Or, at least, not in isolation.

WHAT HEALTH REALLY MEANS
We’ve gotten so far away from what health means in this country that ads like this can just pass us by in our daily feed scrolling that no real red flags come up.

Which is why, at the Wellness Training Institute, our approach to health is holistic. Health is an all encompassing thing.

Is it changing our diets so that we can lose weight and belly fat? Sure.

But it’s also learning how to breathe, how to move, how to get our thoughts in order, and how to just—well—be.

It’s about getting our bad habits shoved to the side and replaced with good ones.

Which is the main reason that when we begin working with someone—no matter where they are on their health journey, no matter how old they are, no matter what their end goals might be—we to start with a gratitude journal.

THE GRATITUDE JOURNAL
You’re probably thinking exactly what most of our members think at first.

A gratitude journal? Seriously?

Isn’t that for second graders? What possible good could writing down what’s going well in my life do when all I want is to get my weight under control, my heart disease reversed, or my diabetes managed?

So, I get it. But stay with me for a second.

Nothing exists in isolation. No matter how independent you might consider yourself, you still came from somewhere, you had two parents, you live somewhere now, you have to eat food and drink water and breathe air to live. You are not an island.

In the same way, neither is your health. You can’t break it down into parts and attempt to reverse, say, your autoimmune disease by only treating the physical parts of it. You can’t just replace the starter in your car if the whole wiring system has been chewed bare by that nest of mice living in your carburetor.

And that’s why we start with the gratitude journal. There’s something very powerful, and very effective, about getting your thoughts and emotions pointed in the right direction before starting in on any of the other repair work.

A big part of this—and I’ll ask that you please forgive my extended car metaphor here—is that true health happens when you get the maintenance schedule in order.

You don’t keep a car running for 500,000 miles by taking it into the shop whenever something breaks.

No, you keep it running for decades by being proactive and giving it regular tune-ups.

You fix the problems by not allowing the problems to happen in the first place.

I’m talking about habits.

And because the mind—your thoughts and emotions— control so much of what the rest of your body does (often automatically, without any thought at all), starting to get that system in order is really the first step in getting the rest of the system fixed.

There are three reasons for this:

1. BEGIN AT THE BEGINNING
Firstly, change is hard. So, it’s nice to start with something simple to get the ball rolling.

How we do the gratitude journal is this: Every morning you wake up, and the first thing you do is grab a pen and the pad of paper you keep on your bed stand. You then write down five things that you’re thankful for.

Five: That’s it.

They could be the big, obvious things: friends, family, pets, etc.

Or they could be small, but vital: The air you breathe, the warm patch of bed you’re currently sitting in thanks to the sunlight streaming in through the window, the fact that you’ve been blessed to have awoken to meet another day.

It’s easy (it really is, I promise). There’s no pressure. You can even repeat yourself. It doesn’t matter. Just get it down.

You do this every day.

And soon enough, it become a habit.

Which is the whole point. Health— and sickness, for that matter— are a matter of habits. Health is one set of habits. Sickness is another.

2. AMPHIBIAN CULINARY TIPS
Which leads to the second reason for starting with the gratitude journal: Big, hard changes happen when you make a lot of little, easy ones.

It’s in the way we’re built as humans: We don’t go through complete overhauls overnight. Change—for good, or for bad—happens incrementally.

It’s the whole “frog in the cooking pot” adage. If you throw a frog into a pot of boiling water, it’s going to jump out as quickly as it can. If you put it in cold water, however, and gently let the heat rise, the frog becomes so accustomed to the gradual change in temperature that by the time it realizes it’s in trouble, it’s already being served up with whatever condiments make frog meat even slightly palatable.

(If such a thing even exists. Gross.)

So. We change slowly. That’s how we’re designed, even from the start. They don’t call them “baby steps” for nothing.

3. SETTING THE TONE FOR SUCCESS
So the gratitude journal is the first healthy habit we work to instill. It’s the first because it sets the tone for the rest.

Dave Ramsey is a pretty famous financial counselor. His systems are designed to help people pay down their debt, and his success rate is pretty impressive. Through his method, people have paid down hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. It’s impressive.

One of the first steps in his system is to pay down the smallest credit card balance you have. It seems kind of counterintuitive at first. Why wouldn’t you tackle the big stuff first, kill those dragons, and then move on the smaller stuff after that?

The reason is a question of positive momentum.

There’s something innate within us that needs smaller successes to build out upon. We’re way more likely to get past the third step if we take the first two one at time, rather than taking all three at once.

So, by doing the easy stuff first, getting focused on the journey ahead, and then gaining that first little bit of momentum early and often, we’re far more likely to push on towards realizing our bigger, harder health goals.

That’s why the gratitude journal is such an effective way to start any change you want to make in your life—especially when it comes to your health.

Which brings us to a pretty basic question: Why do you want to be healthy? Health for its own sake isn’t a terribly valuable thing. For example, say you’re healthy and active at the age of 110, but… all your friends and family have passed on and you live alone in a cave by sea. Your physical health, at that point, isn’t worth much.

So, it makes sense that a big part of overall health also has a ton to do with your outlook on life. You could call this your mental health.

That’s what the gratitude journal does, first and foremost. It gives you a positive perspective on your life. And, after just a few days, you’ll find that because you know you have to write down something positive the next morning, you’ll begin looking for happy things. Our perspective changes so much of how we live. A positive outlook—as cheesy as it sounds—serves as the first few bricks in the foundation of your health.

And that positive foundation is where healthy habits begin to accumulate. As they accumulate, you’ll be shocked to find how great your life can be!

I hope that you’ll take these ideas to heart. You’ll be surprised at how much this one activity, done diligently over the course of the next month or so, will begin to transform the rest of your life. And if you have any questions, or want to learn more, I encourage you to join us for a free dinner!

Want more great information about the foundations of a healthy life? Download the first installment of our NEW 7-part eBook series The 7 Habits of Highly Healthful People for FREE right now, right HERE!

The post Thank Your Regular Stars: Why You Need to Start a Gratitude Journal Today appeared first on Wellness Training Institute.

July 21, 2016

You wouldn’t know it from the way the job title is used these days, but the root word for “doctor”—from the Latin docere (pronounced DO-key-ray)—means “to teach.”

Which sums up nicely one of the biggest problems with today’s American medical system.

When I was a young man—eighteen or nineteen, tops—I went to my doctor and asked him how to be healthy. He looked at me as if I were crazy, and told me to come back when something went wrong.

TO TEACH
That’s not teaching. That’s not even helpful. A doctor should be there— docere— to teach.

Which is one of the foundational reasons for why I started the Wellness Training Institute. To teach. To show my patients and Wellness Program Members how to reverse what’s wrong with them—or to prevent it outright.

I have patients coming in all the time with issues that could’ve been completely eliminated if only they’d known a few key things when they were younger.

And one of the conditions I come across time and time again—and one that breaks my heart simply because it isn’t the inevitable outcome of just getting older—is metabolic syndrome.

WHAT IS METABOLIC SYNDROME?
Metabolic syndrome is a little bit of a touchy area among diagnosticians, only because it can be a little slippery to define. But because I’m a doctor who’s decided to embrace the classical definition of the title itself, I’ll attempt to define it here.

Metabolic syndrome is sort of an umbrella term that covers a number of conditions that lead to cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, as well as a wide range of autoimmune disorders. Metabolic syndrome also covers thyroid disease (Grave’s disease, for example, or Hashimoto’s), high blood pressure, dimention, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Osteoporosis. And many others.

The key here is that none of those things that falls underneath this particular umbrella is anything you’d ever want to have. All of this stuff is bad with a capital B.

The other key here is that these conditions account for a huge portion of deaths in America every year.

And each and every one is preventable. They are all lifestyle-related.

Want more great information about the foundations of a healthy life? Download the first installment of our NEW 7-part eBook series The 7 Habits of Highly Healthful People for FREE right now, right HERE!

THE 5 SNEAKY SYMPTOMS OF METABOLIC SYNDROME
Here are the five main signs that you might be developing metabolic syndrome. Sometimes people experience each of them. Other times, it’s only a couple. The point is that if any of these apply to you, it’s time to take a good, hard look at what habits have led you this far.

Here are the five symptoms:

1. Abnormal craving for sugar
This goes above and beyond that craving for the occasional Snickers bar. It’s a total and unrelenting desire to stuff yourself with the substance that, when put into a gas tank, completely destroys an automobile.

2. Unexplained belly fat
This doesn’t mean that you wake up one morning to find that aliens have abducted you, stuffed you to the point of popping with goose down, and left with no explanation. No need to contact either Mulder or Scully. This is when you’ve gained weight, tried to get it off in ways that have worked in the past, but that inflatable pool toy you now call a gut just won’t disappear.

3. Brain fog
You might feel a little off. A little slow. Thinking becomes hard. In fact, you often find yourself thinking about thinking, which just makes things worse.

4. Excessive fatigue
Have you ever had mono? Do you remember how tired you felt? This feels the same, only with none of the making out beforehand.

5. Irregular sleep patterns
You are tired. It’s 4 AM. So very tired. But you can’t sleep. But now it’s noon. Let’s get some lunch. Lunch sounds good. But you are still so tired. So very ti…

WARNING SIGNS
By themselves, these conditions are sort of irritating. No one likes brain fog. Nobody would willing want to walk around with an extra tire around their midsection. Irregular sleep sucks.

But when you see these annoyances for what they are—symptoms—you may start to get a glimpse of what’s to come. A glimpse of what’s actually happening inside you. They might not just be little annoyances. They might actually be honest-to-gosh warning signs.

The good news, of course, is that to a great point, metabolic syndrome is reversible. For most people, lifestyle changes—especially if the symptoms are caught early on and new healthy habits are formed—can change course pretty drastically.

TOO LIGHT TO NOTICE/TOO HEAVY TO BE BROKEN
The underlying theme here, of course, is that all kinds of diseases—metabolic or otherwise—are completely preventable. All it takes is education up front. Knowing the end result of what today’s habits are going to lead to is a powerful form of prevention.

Education is key.

But habits are sneaky. You don’t always even know they are habits. Warren Buffet has paraphrased the 18th century British poet Samuel Johnson on a number of occasions to just this point: “The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.” I think that sums the dilemma up nicely.

It’s the job of the younger person to take care of her older, future self. So, if good habits are formed—and if those habits are shaped by doctors who are doing what they should be, namely, teaching—a whole world of hurt and heartache will be saved down the line.

If you are younger (in your 20s, maybe or 30s) and one or more of these signs is flaring at you, take action now. The younger you are, the easier it is to change direction. Catch it now, act on it, and change your habits, and you will be surprised at how different your future will look.

But maybe you’re past that. Maybe those symptoms are already manifesting in a big way. If so, I would encourage you to begin taking steps to reverse it. Switch to a plant-based diet, join a yoga class, or just quit drinking pop.

Whatever.

Just start somewhere. And then find someone who knows what they’re talking about to help you along through the journey ahead.

THE SIGNS ARE THERE FOR A REASON
Don’t ignore the warning signs. Each of the five symptoms above is unpleasant. But compared to what is coming down the line if you don’t do anything, any one of them will feel comparatively like a vacation.

Don’t be complacent. Don’t be reactive. Be proactive.

Just because you’re getting older doesn’t mean you should be feeling any worse.

Give the body what it needs and it will take care of you for a long, long time.

Just remember: No one can give you back your health. That’s why they call it “your health.” It’s yours. You own it. You can throw it away, or you can take a small step right now in the right direction and, even with that first small step forward, begin creating a future that’s much, much brighter.

(If you really want to get serious about preventing or reversing metabolic syndrome, I would encourage to attend one of our FREE educational dinners. It’s a great starting point, and you’ll walk out at the end far more enlightened than when you started. I’d stake my title as Docere on it. Plus, it’s FREE.)

The post The 5 Sneaky Signs of Metabolic Syndrome appeared first on Wellness Training Institute.