“Diet and exercise” is possibly the most common recommendation given to people before, during, and/or after a health crisis! While a healthy diet and consistent exercise can have a profound positive impact on overall health, the combo alone will never work to completely prevent or reverse disease for two HUGE reasons. First, and probably the most obvious reason, is the fact that health care providers and fitness professionals never seem to agree on the most effective way to eat right and exercise. Second, and the least obvious reason, is that healing doesn’t come from only focusing on diet and exercise. I have never met a person that hasn’t wanted to improve their overall health, but I have met, and worked with, hundreds of people that were given the wrong information to get there.
Imagine this scenario, you go to your primary to review your bloodwork, you get some not so great results, and you leave with two things (a prescription and the recommendation to start eating better and begin exercising). So you go home and search “BEST WAY TO EXERCISE,” and you will literally get 570 MILLION results. Then you search “BEST NUTRITION PLAN,” and you get 269 MILLION results! The problem in this scenario is that beyond giving the advice of eating better and exercise, most doctors are not able to give good advice on how to do so. When you take the search into your own hands, there are millions of results to sift through. While it is unrealistic to expect to find a single cookie cutter approach to diet and exercise that works the same for every person, it is fair to expect a logical approach that will work regardless of where you are starting from. Our Essentials Foundation class is a monthly class that explains where to start with nutrition and exercise and will give you solid action steps to begin making positive changes whether you’re an experienced pro or totally inexperienced with eating healthy and incorporating exercise into your life.
Now let’s fast forward the scenario from before. You find and exercise program and nutrition plan that helps you lose weight. You begin feeling better and even start to look better. You continue this approach to your newfound health regimen and rely only on how you look and feel. This approach is common for many fit people. The problem is that we commonly mistake fitness for health. How we look and how we feel is the barometer for many in regards to health, but it doesn’t give all of the information. Health is NOT the lack of symptoms. In reality, the symptoms are telling you something is not right, but a lack of symptoms, a great number on the bathroom scale, or the ability to run a 10K does not mean that everything is perfect. Many people are never taught that our body was created for life! It was designed to heal! The only thing it needs to heal is no interference and time. Your body doesn’t know the difference between a cut, a pimple, or cancer… its job is to heal regardless of what’s going on. Our choices and actions every day should be based on removing interference to allow healing. Nutrition removes interference by correcting deficiencies. Exercise removes interference by helping to increase oxygen and blood supply. Most importantly, chiropractic removes interference between the brain and body by ensuring there are no misalignments in the spine. None of the Five Essentials are about removing symptoms. They are about removing interference! If you know someone that has been running around in circles (maybe literally) looking for answers with their health, suggest that they find a doctor that will help them find the cause and remove interference so that the body can do what it was created to do. HEAL!