Losing Weight Is Wrong!

Yep, you heard me right. If your goal is to lose weight, you’ve already lost. It’s a pointless goal; Really. What happens when you lose weight? Then what? You’ve met your goal, now you can go shovel down some pizza and chocolate cake again because your goal was simply to lose weight. Or, you can get off that treadmill and plop back down on the couch because, yep, you’ve met that goal of losing weight.

Being fat, overweight or obese isn't really the problem. It's the life-style you lead that gets you fat, overweight or obese that is the problem. So losing weight doesn't solve anything. If it did, liposuction would actually work long term without modifying your eating or exercise. So simply losing weight is wrong!

You see, obese people aren’t the only ones that suffer from heart attacks and strokes. Thin people do as well. So why is it that you want to lose weight? Just to fit into an old pair of jean? Because society seems to grovel over people with “hot bods”. Not good enough. Obesity and the unhealthy habits associated with it don’t just lead to heart disease, but cancer and diabetes too. Diabetes can be a precursor to many other health problems as well.

The reason I say losing weight is wrong is because you are simply addressing the symptom of a problem. Treating the symptoms of a problem is akin to pulling the batteries out of your smoke detector rather than put out the fire that is causing the smoke. My training teaches me to address problems, not symptoms.

So what’s the problem then? The problem is, the reason you are overweight or obese is because you are unhealthy. The problem is you are unhealthy and being fat is a symptom of that problem. You become unhealthy first and then get fat second (and obese third). So you need to address the problem that caused the symptom, not the other way around. So, how do you start?

1. Identify the Problem. Is there some metabolic problem? Is there a problem with your thyroid? Is there some other problem? Maybe it’s as simple as your eating habits are horrible and you make bad choices for the type of food you purchase and eat. You need to go to your physician and find out.

2. Educate yourself. You need to learn about your problem. You need to learn exactly how unhealthy you are and then learn what changes you need to make in your life to properly fix the problem. How do you educate yourself. Here’s a list:

1) Go to your family doctor or internist and get blood and urine tests. You want to know the basics which are:
2) Your pertinent family health history
3) Your cholesterol level
4) Your good/bad cholesterol ratio
5) Your Triglyceride level
6) Your body’s ability to handle sugar? Are you diabetic or pre-diabetic?
7) Your blood pressure
8) CTa – A CAT scan of your heart / heart blood vessels
Stress Test (Nuclear)
9) Your thyroid function

Once you have this information, you can set proper goals. Your goals should be specific, positive, have a date in which you want to achieve them & action steps on how you are to meet your goal. For example:

GOAL: I am going to reduce my cholesterol from 290 to 190, and my triglycerides from 255 to 150 by January 1, 2007.

ACTION STEP: I will achieve this by:
Cutting out all Trans Fats & Hydrogenated Oils from my diet
Cutting out all products with high fructose corn syrup
Cutting out all products with corn syrup
Cutting out products with added sugar
Cutting out dairy products
Cutting out refined foods
Eating only whole food based meals
Eating only whole grain breads
Eating steel cut oatmeal rather than rolled oat oatmeal
Cutting out all sodas, regular and diet
I will schedule out 4 specific times per week to be in the gym and exercise 4 days per week.

Stupid diets (which are most of what you see advertised) based on calorie restriction just don’t work, which is why you’ll never win if your goal is to lose weight. If your goal is to become healthy, then you’ll win.

1st, choose the right goal, then you can create a success plan around that goal. Losing weight has an end, becoming healthy is a life-style.

Oh…one more thing. Once you make the decision to learn to be healthy. If you don’t want your children to grow up and develop the same problems as you, don’t be selfish.....Teach your children. It’s your responsibility.

DocT

Find out more about me at: www.NaturalSportsMedicine.com

____________________________________________________________________
Dr. Narson is a 2-term past president of the Florida Chiropractic Association’s Council on Sports Injuries, Physical Fitness & Rehabilitation and was honored as the recipient of the coveted Chiropractic Sports Physician of the Year Award in 1999-2000. He practices in Miami Beach, Florida at the Miami Beach Family & Sports Chiropractic Center; A Facility for Natural Sports Medicine.

Reduce Blood Pressure Naturally...With Chiropractic?

Well, who would have thought this was possible. I guess when patients say they feel so much more relaxed after being adjusted, there really is some deeper validity to it.

I'm sure more study needs to be done on this phenomenon, but a new study published in the Journal of Hypertension suggests that correcting a misalignment of the Atlas vertebra (the very top bone in your spine) can correct high blood pressure.

The pilot study, “Atlas vertebra realignment and achievement of arterial pressure goal in hypertensive patients: A pilot study,” conducted by researchers at Rush University Hypertension Center, Chiropractic Health Center, Barrington Family Medical Clinic, and the Atlas Research Foundation, all in the Chicago area, showed that abnormalities of the cervical spine at the level of the Atlas vertebra increased blood pressure. Correcting malalignment of the Atlas vertebra reduces and maintains a lower blood pressure.]

The study used a double-blind testing method. The researchers concluded, “No adverse effects were recorded. We conclude that restoration of Atlas alignment is associated with marked and sustained reductions in BP similar to the use of two-drug combination therapy.”

Now I wouldn't go throwing away those blood pressure medications yet. Of course, speak with your physician about simply adding chiropractic to your hypertension management program and hey, one day you just might find yourself not having to go fill your prescription.

Source: Journal of Hypertension, www.nature.com/jhh/index.html
Re-printed from www.Chiroeco.com

Dr. Narson is a 2-term past president of the Florida Chiropractic Association’s Council on Sports Injuries, Physical Fitness & Rehabilitation and was honored as the recipient of the coveted Chiropractic Sports Physician of the Year Award in 1999-2000. He practices in Miami Beach, Florida at the Miami Beach Family & Sports Chiropractic Center; A Facility for Natural Sports Medicine.

For More Information on Dr. Narson, please visit: www.DrNarson.com

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Lipitor: How I Beat Lipitor in 6 Months (And You Can Too!)

So, in my original blog post on How To lower high triglycerides and high cholesterol, I told you that my personal physician gave me a prescription for a book called Ultrametabolism and told me to read it a live it. And so I did. I have to apologize to my family for driving them nuts over the past 6 months. I’ve taught my children to read ingredient labels to look out for evil things such as hydrogenated oils, partially hydrogenated oils, high fructose corn syrup and corn syrup. All of which have no place being inside a human and all of which your body has no physiological idea how to process. As I learned, so did they.

My goal specifically was to lower my cholesterol from 290 to under 200. “Woolfie” (More professionally known as Islon Woolf, MD) called me while taking a break on Friday and told me the good news. My follow-up cholesterol test measured my total cholesterol at 195. I did it - I Hit My Goal! Now I want to bring it to 170.

Lipitor is not even a remote consideration at this point. My cholesterol and all the subfractions of cholesterol were great. So, now I am proud to say that I am not in a heart disease risk category any longer and it only took 6 months. I probably did it in 3-4 months but I couldn’t get back in to see Dr. Woolf to get my bloodwork due to my own busy schedule.

What did I do in the past 6 months? Basically, it was good food and exercise. More specifically, I’ve followed the guidelines in Mark Hyman MD’s book Ultrametabolism and I’ve been in the gym 4-5 days per week doing a combination of interval training on the Life Fitness elliptical machine and the Stairmaster; cardio kickboxing classes & group power classes at Equinox and good ‘ole weight training. For those who want to see an outline of what I do and don’t eat, see my earlier blog post Dr. T’s Guidelines to Reduce High Cholesterol & High Triglycerides.

I’ve become very comfortable with what I can and cannot eat at this point. So much so it feels normal. I cook various foods that I use to love but just with healthier ingredients. I eat out, but am more selective and will ask for things to be cooked in Olive oil, without cheese, broiled or grilled instead of fried. If I’m going out for the day, I prepare ahead of time a meal and a snack or two just in case I get stuck, at least I’ll have something healthy to prevent that hunger sensation from coming on.

Bottom line; regaining your health and losing weight isn’t as much a chore as it is a mindset. Get your attitude in-line with your goals and then it’s easy simply because there is no other choice. If you decide to do it, then you will. If you say you will try, then you will fail because saying you will try is leaving yourself a way out.

Today I did 70 minutes of speed intervals on the Stairmaster. For my cardio it's either that or the (Life Fitness) Elliptical trainer. I just had my suits altered in the jacket and 2 ½ inches taken in on the pants. I easily fit back into a size 36 jeans with a bit of room to spare and I have to go buy new belts because I’m on the 6th belt loop. Yes, by reducing your cholesterol and triglycerides you will lose weight too. But, I warn you, don’t try to lose weight to lower your cholesterol and triglycerides. No, it's not the same. The mindset is all wrong and the results could be disastrous . Thre are a lot of ways to lose weight that are very unhealthy. Just because you are thin doesn’t mean you are healthy. Trust me, I’m living it.

Healthfully yours


DocT.

PS, yes I eat fruit, veggies, Larabars; Steel Cut Oatmeal, Ezekiel Breads pastas and wraps & "Flat Out" wraps. I eat a whole food diet with virtually no refined foods. In my opinion, no & low carb diets are crap. You need carbs. You just need the right ones at the right times. Read Ultrametabolism and discover the truth. You can order it by simply clicking on the link to the right------->.

Dr. Narson is a 2-term past president of the Florida Chiropractic Association’s Council on Sports Injuries, Physical Fitness & Rehabilitation and was honored as the recipient of the coveted Chiropractic Sports Physician of the Year Award in 1999-2000. He practices in Miami Beach, Florida at the Miami Beach Family & Sports Chiropractic Center; A Facility for Natural Sports Medicine.

BMI - Finally, The Truth Comes Out!!!

This has been my nemesis for years. I would get into what I thought was good shape and check it against the BMI (Body Mass Index) charts and find that I was bordering on obesity. What a bunch of crapola I would always say. I’m a 5’11” athletic built guy. Yeah, I let myself go for a few years, but I was never obese. At my heaviest I hit 218 when I wasn’t looking (now happily to say I’m 196). But even at 196, the body mass index charts say I should weigh 165-lbs. [Click here to calculate your BMI and you tell me if you think it's accurate or not]

Can any of you that know me picture me at 165? There’s no freaking way! I’d look like a broomstick with glasses!!! I’ve always thought the BMI was way off base; that it didn’t take into account if the person was a mesomorph (athletic body), ectomorph (typical marathon runner) or endomorph (typical couch potato). Nor did it take into account their age, muscle mass or even %-body fat. Merely your hight and weight. Turns out a recent medical study agrees with me.

In the article: BMI Not Accurate Indicator of Body Fat; the researcher points out the fallacies of the classic BMI. For you physicians and trainers out there, read this article and take it to heart. .....You know it’s true too don’t you?
Finally, someone in the medical community uses their common sense for a change rather than simply perpetuate a classic myth only because "that's the way its been". So stop going crazy trying to diet and exercise down to the size of a pencil. It’s not necessary. Just eat healthfully, exercise regularly and have your yearly checkups, blood work, (prostate exam for guys and breast exam for the ladies, and enjoy your life. After all, isn’t that why you exercise and eat right?

Ahhhh, it feels so nice to be proven right!

Enjoy. Healthfully yours

DocT

Dr. Narson is a 2-term past president of the Florida Chiropractic Association’s Council on Sports Injuries, Physical Fitness & Rehabilitation and was honored as the recipient of the coveted Chiropractic Sports Physician of the Year Award in 1999-2000. He practices in Miami Beach, Florida at the Miami Beach Family & Sports Chiropractic Center; A Facility for Natural Sports Medicine.

For More Info On Dr. Narson Go To: www.NaturalSportsMedicine.com

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Muscle Basics: The Secret of The Total Muscle

So, you walk into your gym and you have one of 2 basic choices. Do I build strength with weights or work my cardiovascular system and do aerobics? And yes, you can do both. Even if you do both, you’re still missing something important. The Total Muscle.

There are 3 basic functions that a muscle must perform in order to be complete & functional:

1) Strength
2) Power &
3) Aerobic

All 3 components together give you the ability perform your basic everyday tasks. From lifting your children, to running up a hill, you need all 3 components of a muscle to have them function as they were designed. You see, in order to lift an object, and break through that initial inertia, you must conjure up some power. Once you’ve lifted it, you just need to have good strength to support the weight. Then, if you want to be able to do anything useful with this object for any given period of time, you need to train that muscle aerobically so that you can do it over time.

When I work with patients on rehab, 1-set of exercise typically consists of 10-reps of strength, 10-reps of power & 10-reps of aerobics. Aerobics as it pertains to this type of rehab is simply a much faster set of repetitions; fast flicks is how I describe them. I will start a patient with strength reps consisting of an equally slow positive and negative rep. Usually 1 or 2 seconds up, 1 or 2 seconds down. The power rep is an explosive rep on the positive (aka: concentric contraction) and a very slow negative (aka: eccentric contraction). Similar to what is known as plyo-metrics. The final set of repetitions are the aerobic reps. The aerobic reps are typically fast flicks done at the end of the power reps. When the patient finishes their 10th power rep, they go right into the 10 fast aerobic “flicks” and if they don't feel it already, this usually brings out that oh-so-wonderful burn.

If you want to really build a total muscle, you must include components of strength, power and aerobics to really complete the job. In rehabilitation and performance enhancement training, you must also factor in proprioception. Which is an important topic itself and I’ll address that in a future post.

So yes, there is more to exercise that building those “show” muscles and running on the treadmill. You must build the complete package; and by including strength, power and aerobic components to your weight training you will enhance not only your workouts but your life too.

For all you Equinox Fitness members, try the group power classes. You'll get the “Total Muscle” you are looking for. For those dedicated fans of MG Fitness & The Saturday Morning Bootcamp, they are 1st-class trainers who have you covered all over, inside and out. After all, who else do you know who runs the Chicago Marathon 5-months pregnant and stops along the way to help others complete the race?

Healthfully yours

DocT

Dr. Narson is a 2-term past president of the Florida Chiropractic Association’s Council on Sports Injuries, Physical Fitness & Rehabilitation and was honored as the recipient of the coveted Chiropractic Sports Physician of the Year Award in 1999-2000. He practices in Miami Beach, Florida at the Miami Beach Family & Sports Chiropractic Center; A Facility for Natural Sports Medicine.

For More Information on Dr. Narson, please visit: www.DrNarson.com

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Exercise: The Downside; The Negatives

Since this is in fact, my blog, I get a chance to air some of my pet peeves and today is one of those times.

I think any person new to training and even new to a particular gym (i.e., you just joined) should hire a personal trainer to show them the lay of the land. Learn the particulars of their machines, the gym and the local gym etiquette. Let them train you once; even if you think you know what you’re doing. Unfortunately, most don’t know what they’re doing and although that’s good for me because I get to fix them and get paid for it; I’d much rather they learn properly and not have to come to my office in agony. Learn to train correctly from the start and save yourself the aggravation and expense of injury.

Now, (one of my many gym pet peeves) today is about doing less than half the workout you think you’re doing; and most are clueless about it. They're missing out on the benefits of “the downside”.

So what is the downside? What are the negatives I refer to in the title? I’m talking about eccentrics; also known as negative repetitions. So, I’m in the gym and there is some guy pulling up 40-lb dumbbells with each arm. He’s struggling to get them up and manages to get 10 repetitions out of it. The problem is when he gets the weight all the way up, he simply drops it back down as fast as gravity will take it. There was another guy who did the same thing with bench pressing. He would drop the weight to his chest and push ever so slowly back up to the top. A 3rd person, attempting triceps extensions was simply swinging the weight like a pendulum. So what’s the problem with that?

The problem is, you get the majority of your power from the eccentric strength of your muscle. Unfortunately, I can’t find any specific reference for you that described the specific contribution of eccentric to concentric (aka negative to positive) to the overall power of a muscle, but it is widely accepted in the sports medicine community that (approx) 60% of the strength of a muscle comes from the eccentric. So, the next time you are in the gym, don’t forget about the “down side” of your repetitions. Otherwise, you’re losing out on a majority of your efforts and robbing your body of true, complete functional strength.

The last word….Put It Down Slowly. And yes, this is especially important for rehab as well.

Healthfully yours,

DocT

For More Information About Me, Go To: http://www.naturalsportsmedicine.com/

Dr. Narson is a 2-term past president of the Florida Chiropractic Association’s Council on Sports Injuries, Physical Fitness & Rehabilitation and was honored as the recipient of the coveted Chiropractic Sports Physician of the Year Award in 1999-2000. He practices in Miami Beach, Florida at the Miami Beach Family & Sports Chiropractic Center; A Facility for Natural Sports Medicine.

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LASER Therapy, Pain & Sports Injuries: Does Your Doctor See The Light?

First conceptualized by Albert Einstein in 1916, laser technology has been around since 1965 and has been fascinating us whenever or where ever we've see them ever since. In the past couple of decades, laser technology has made some extensive advances and with that, has shed some new light to a new therapeutic approach to treating sports injuries (and many other injuries and conditions).

You must understand that our bodies use light energy in a similar way that plants do. I’m sure you remember photosynthesis from high school biology and how plants turn the sun’s energy into food that the plant survives and thrives on. Well, we have some of that ability too. Like plants, when our body’s tissues are stimulated by specific wavelengths of light, research has shown that our body will have the following physiological effects:

 

1. Decreased pain levels
2. Reduced inflammation
3. Increased tissue proliferation & regeneration
4. Accelerated soft tissue and bone repair
5. Increased tissue tensile strength
6. Enhanced nerve regeneration & function
7. Increased cell metabolism
8. Increased enzymatic responses
9. Increased cell membrane potentials
10. Increased microcirculation & vasodilation
11. Increased lymphatic flow
12. Increased collagen production
13. Enhanced angiogenesis (creation of new blood vessels)

So what does this mean you ask??? It means biostimulation of damaged tissue with LASER will cause tissues to heal faster and heal-stronger-faster. It means it can stimulate the regeneration of tissue, reduce inflammation and pain. What does this mean for an injured athlete or the victim of a car accident? Not only faster relief of symptoms, but faster healing of the damaged tissues as well. Not bad for a super-duper flashlight on steriods.

Understand there are 2 basic camps in the laser world; hot lasers and cold lasers. Hot lasers are the kind used for surgery; they cut, they burn, they get hot. Hence the name. Cold lasers (aka LLL or Low Level Lasers) generate laser light which can be in the visible or invisible spectrum but do not generate heat. The cold lasers don’t actually get cold either, they’re only called cold because they don’t get hot. Cold lasers (what I like to call therapeutic lasers) are used to increase the rate of healing damaged tissues, reduce inflammation, reduce pain, increased blood flow and in the case of some therapeutic lasers and red lasers are known to also reduce infection.

Sounds too good to be true right? What are the side effects? Well, there really are none. Just don’t shine them in your (or anyone else’s) eyes because they can burn the retina and blind you; so, always wear safety glasses. Don’t use the laser over the thyroid, nor over a developing baby in the womb during the 1st trimester of pregnancy. Lastly, since therapeutic laser helps increase the rate of tissue healing, do not use it over cancerous growths as it can speed up the rate of the cancer’s growth. Outside of these very specific things; Let There Be Light.

What are the down sides? There has been no research to date that shows cold lasers can hurt any condition. At worst, they’ve only shown that over exposure to cold laser therapy causes a plateau in the rate of improvement. Otherwise, doctors who do see the light are getting incredible results from this simple tool that simply stimulates the body to heal faster. So next time you’re enjoying the Pink Floyd Laser Light Show on a Friday night, ask yourself if your feel any better when you wake up Saturday morning.

So, does your doctor see the light? I know I do.

For more information, you can visit the following:

USA Laser
www.NAALT.org
Laser World

References:

Jan Tuner, Lars Hode; The Laser Therapy Handbook

William Prentice, Therapeutic Modalities in Sports Medicine, Chapter 10, pp 215-238

DocT

Dr. Narson is a 2-term past president of the Florida Chiropractic Association’s Council on Sports Injuries, Physical Fitness & Rehabilitation and was honored as the recipient of the coveted Chiropractic Sports Physician of the Year Award in 1999-2000. He practices in Miami Beach, Florida at the Miami Beach Family & Sports Chiropractic Center; A Facility for Natural Sports Medicine.