Wellness is one the largest pieces of our practice, particularly with people in the second half of life. Because of this, we think it is important to start a series on profiling medical doctors that have developed approaches to treating the diseases of our age. Most of these are rooted in increased inflammation in the body and are significantly, if not completely, caused by the Standard American Diet (SAD).
This diet contains chemicals and additives from processed foods, toxins from factory farming, and an oversupply of protein and sugar. Sounds appealing, right? Hopefully your answer to that is a resounding “no,” because these all result in the creation and storage of fat on the body. This analysis is not ours, it comes from the following schools of thought. All of these teachings are from medical doctors.
Dr. Mark Hyman has coined the term functional medicine and has founded and runs the Ultra Wellness Center in Lenox Mass .
Dr. Andrew Weil has founded the Integrative Medicine Center at the university of Arizona.
Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn who has become well known because of his work with former President Bill Clinton, and the movie “Forks Over Knives” has promoted the reversal of heart disease with plant-based diets.
Dr. Daniel Amen has focused on reversing brain damage through diet, and has created the Amen Clinic.
Dr. Joel Fuhrman is an author and maintains a private practice in Flemington NJ.
Dr. Dean Ornish has developed a program for reversing heart disease that is now accepted by many insurance programs.
All of these programs have a number of common themes:
- Limit sugar intake including alcohol and foods that are seen as sugar by the body
- Eat adequate amounts of protein
- Limit or eliminate processed foods
- Drink plenty of water
- Exercise
- Get proper rest
As transition and wellness coaches, it is our role to help our client decide which variations work for them. We also look at the bigger picture of why we do not follow the direction of these doctors, which can be summed up in the words of Michael Pollan – Eat food, mostly plants, not a lot. What stops us from doing this?
The proof of that is left to each person to figure out. For our clients, we help them figure out what toxic thinking they have that causes them to sabatoge their efforts to reach a normal body weight.
On Thursday of each week, our blog entry will speak to wellness themes, starting with a discussion of each of the medical doctors approaches to wellness and why you might consider their approach for you.
If you are tired of your toxic thinking and walking in the world with excess weight not only on your gut, but also with the weight of the world on your shoulders, you can get started here with a complimentary health history to see what might work best for you.
Whatever you do, do something. The major cause of our increasing federal deficit is the cost of health care. You do not have to get sick prematurely and suffer the effects of reverseable or preventable diseases. As the computer learned in War Games, the only way to win is not to play the game. Stop.