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.

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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.

July 19, 2016

Sugar is addictive. Science is clear and in agreement about this.

A researcher named Dr. Serge Ahmad did an experiment a few years back where he gave mice sugar water and water with dissolved cocaine in it.

In that study, 94% of the mice continually went back for more…. of the sugar water.

You read that right.

Sugar is at least—if not more so—addictive than cocaine.

And above and beyond being simply addictive, it’s also one of the main things driving the obesity, autoimmune, and heart disease epidemics currently running roughshod through our culture.

So, it’s probably pretty obvious that cutting down on our refined sugar intake—or eliminating it altogether—would be a good thing for our health.

But, that’s easier said than done. We’re addicted to it, after all.

So, here are six ways to kick sugar—and take back your health.


PUNT ON PROCESSED FOODS
Back in 1977, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published their “low-fat diet guidelines” and recommended it to all Americans. The graph below shows pretty clearly that this was the EXACT MOMENT that the obesity epidemic in this country started.

Why?

Because when the food industry began to produce foods that were low in fat, the public balked because the food tasted terrible.

So, to make it palatable— and, oh right, profitable— they filled in the gaps where the fat used to be with two things: Salt and sugar.

And the epidemic started in full.

Which is why you should give up processed foods for good. If it comes in a bag or a box, don’t eat it. When you go to the grocery store, shop only around the perimeter of the store. That’s where they keep the healthy stuff.

READ THE LABELS
If you’re going to ignore my last point and still find yourself wandering toward the inner aisles of the grocery store, at least go in there with a little knowledge. You should at least know how to identify how much sugar is in what you’re buying. That’s what the labels are for.

So, it should be easy. Look for “sugar” in the print and then make sure there’s a only single digit before the “g” in grams. Simple, right?

Except… labels aren’t always exactly as forthcoming as we’d probably prefer.

For example: There are fifty-six names for sugar.

Fifty-six.

It’s nuts how far the food industry will go to hide the fact that they’ve got you addicted to sugar, and that they only make a profit by making you more and more addicted to it.

Here’s a great infographic from Woman’s Health… use this as a guide the next time you’re looking for what to buy at the grocery store:

You know what liars do? They call a particular thing by different names. The list above is a way to decode those lies.

Because, as you learned when you were four, lying is decidedly not sweet. Not sweet at all.

IDENTIFY YOUR TRIGGERS
In your quest to avoid refined sugars, one of the most important things that you need to understand from the start is that certain things are going to trigger the craving.

It’s going to be different for everyone, but here are a few common triggers:

+ Coffee
+ Tea
+ Anything high in saturated fats
+ Dairy
+ Stress
+ Etc.

Knowing what’s going to set off your own cravings is an important step. So, identify these as early in the process as possible, and thereby set yourself up for success.

PRIORITIZE YOUR FRUIT
All fruit is not created equal. Fruit contains sugar, of course, but it also contains a lot of other good stuff. And, just like with any other decision that you make in life, you need to find the right balance.

So, in deciding which fruit to eat, it’s a good idea to figure out which fruits are giving you the most good stuff—and the least bad stuff.

Here’s a great list of fruits—ranked from 32 to 1. It factors in calories, sugar content, fiber, antioxidants, and specific levels of vitamins and nutrients.

(Here’s the sneak peak: Blackberries, raspberries, avocados, guava, and strawberries are at the top, meaning “good”; grapes, figs, and bananas round out the bottom, meaning “not-so good.”)

AVOID SUGAR SUBSTITUTES
The main workaround the food industry has given us as consumers for avoiding the sugar that they put in everything is the introduction of “sugar substitutes.” These artificial sweeteners come to us under a variety of names: saccharine, aspartame, and sucralose, to name just a few.

While the medical community, as recently as the the mid-1990s, saw the potential for using these substitutes to get us all off sugar, the real dangers of these chemicals are now coming to light.

New evidence, for example, shows that people who frequently consume sugar substitutes may be at an increased risk of excessive weight gain, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.

Oh, and also… these chemicals are LITERALLY neurotoxins.

Which means: Artificial sweeteners are actually worse for you than sugar.

Blue? Pink? Yellow?

The color doesn’t matter. They’re all killing you at the same (rapid) rate.

UNDERSTAND YOUR SWEETNESS EXPERIENCE
Your tongue experiences five specific types of taste: saltiness, bitterness, umami, sourness, and sweetness. But that doesn’t mean that all sweetness tastes the same.

It’s incredible to talk to people who’ve gotten off refined sugar entirely. They all say the exact same thing:

Not only do they no longer crave sugar, they also understand “sweetness” in a different way.

Compared to a Dairy Queen Ice Cream cake, a carrot isn’t all that sweet. But once you kick the sugar habit, carrots (and so many other vegetables) taste incredibly sweet.

The skinny here is that our bodies have been evolutionarily set up to want sugar. The reason for this is because our ancestors—that is, the humans who survived without getting gored by an angry pack of woolly mammoths—sought out the highest energy sources. And those were the sweetest fruits and vegetables they could find. The ones that went for the foods with lower-sugar levels didn’t have the same level of energy— and paid for it evolutionarily.

But—and this is a big but—even though our bodies need sugar to function, that doesn’t mean that we were designed to take in the levels of refined sugar that we currently do.

In 1900, for example, the average American consumed 5 pounds of sugar per year.

In 2000, that number jumped to 150.

That has to change. We’re literally killing ourselves.

But also know this: giving up sugar doesn’t mean that you’ll be craving it all day long for the rest of your life. Instead, you’ll discover that the cravings go away after a week or two, and that the healthy foods you’ve put in as replacements will taste better than you could’ve ever imagined.

I hope you’ll take these simple ways to avoid refined sugar to heart as you look to get out of the rut of negative, destructive habits. Your future—and I’m not exaggerating this in any way—depends on it.

If you need a little guidance, or just want some company as you continue on your health journey, I invite you to join us for a FREE and highly informative dinner.

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