Why Eating Like A Caveman Is Your Best Bet

In 1 word….EVOLUTION.

Yep, our bodies evolved over millions of years with our genes stretching back an estimated 2.6-4.5 million years, adapting to our environment all along the way. This is the key to how we as a species are supposed to eat.

I understand the argument from all those vegetarians and vegan types out there that it’s cruel to eat animals and there are more modern ways to eat. But the bottom line is, if you eat like a caveman, you’ll increase your health, reduce your weight and finally be feeding your body what it was designed to eat. Your physiology was actually developed out of our specific adaptations to our diet. A diet of fresh fruit (mostly berries), fresh veggies and animal protein from animals that ate their natural evolutionary diet (you see, your health also depends on the health of your food's food), throw in some nuts, seasonal eggs, the (very) occasional honey comb (stingers included) and all the work it took to hunt and gather these foods and you have a clear blueprint to health.

What we aren’t supposed to eat has pretty much been invented and introduced into our diet over the past several hundred years and research shows the downfall of our diets dating back to the inception of the agricultural age 10,000 years ago. We simply haven’t had the luxury of time for our anatomy and physiology to properly adapt. That takes hundreds of thousands of years to happen.Until then, we'll suffer from what's called "adaptive physiology" where you body does its best to adapt to something foreign and results in the abnormal changes we call disease. 

This week in a newsletter from Men’s Health Magazine, a new study was reported on where volunteers were put on a hunter-gatherer diet of berries, nuts, lean meat, fish, and vegetables. The volunteers cut out cereals, dairy products, and refined sugar. After only 3 weeks they had lost 5 pounds, their waistlines were slimmer, and their blood pressure was lower.

This however, was not a controlled study. The results weren't compared to a standard low-calorie diet, and the long-term effects of this “hunter-gatherer” way of eating still need to be tested (you'd likely fall short on calcium without some dairy in the mix). However cavemen probably ground (or chewed their veggies) and plants longer, breaking up the cellular matrix and releasing the calcium that typically goes undigested in our modern day unhealthy guts. So, when you eat that salad, think about grinding your greens longer (yes, like cows do). The study group size was small—only 14 people were included—so take the results with a grain of salt, as more info from larger study groups is needed.

But let’s look at the big picture. The basic findings would help anyone lose weight: Nix the hydrogenated fatty, processed crapola, unhealthy oils, any grain products, the enhanced processed sugar and high fructose corn syrup sweetened junk (this includes Agave Nectar which has higher levels of fructose than HFCS) in favor of whole & healthy foods, and make the healthy stuff convenient (this means prepare ahead of time).

As Men’s Health put it, even Fred Flintstone would have opted for a Whopper if it meant he didn't have to hunt for his dinner.

‘nuff said, now where the (grass fed) meat…!?!?

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.

#chiropractormiamibeach #MiamiBeachChiropractor #SportsInjuriesFixedHere #DrNarson #ToddNarson #Narson #TriDoc #TriathlonDoc #ChiropracticSportsMedicine #ACASC #SportsMedicine #SportsChiropractor #MiamiBeachSportsMedicine #SportsMedicineMiami #MiamiSportsMedicine #MiamiChiropractor #Triathlon #Running #Ironman #IFixPeopleInPain #TrainWithoutPain #MiamiBeachChiropractor #GrastonTechnique #FAKTR #IASTM #Chiropractor #FootPain #Narson #NarsonBodyMechanic #NarsonTool #DACBSP #CCSP #ACBSP #BackPain #NeckPain #ShoulderPain #RotatorCuff #ITBandSyndrome #runnersKnee #PlantarFasciitis #Plantarfascitis #AchillesTendonitis #AchillesTendonosis #GettingAthletesBackInTheGame  #MiamiBeachChiropractor #MiamiSportsMedicine #MiamiBeachSportsMedicine #WeFixPeopleInPain #TrainWithoutPain #ChiropracticSportsMedicine #ACASC #ProSportChiropractic #FunctionalMedicineMiami #DrNarson #BackPainRelief #NeckPainRelief #SportsInjuriesFixedHere #LaserTherapy #RockTape #KinesioTape #KTTape #Nutrition #21DayPurificationProgram #DetoxProgram #PaleoDiet #PaleoDoc #FunctionalNutrition #Chirooractor #Chiropractic #ChiropracticPhysician #DoctorOfChiropractic #USATriathlon #USAT #TeamUSA #CorporateWellness #HappyEmployeedProfitableBusiness #HeadacheRelief #MigraineHeadacheRelief #Migraine #SportsSpecificExam #SportSpecificTreatment #WorkCompDoc #WorkersCompensation #ankleSprain

Taking care of yourself first

I’d need 10 pair of hands to be able to count how many times I’ve told my patients to realax and take care of themselves this week. People seek advice from me about how to best handle their injuries, their aches and their pains. Yet, when I tell people to apply ice or apply heat, or to take a hot bath, I’m constantly told I don’t have time.

What? You don’t have time. Well, then you’ll just have to continue to suffer. (Sometimes I think it, sometimes I actually say that to them)

There’s no way you can walk into a doctors office, regardless of discipline or specialty, dump your problems off on your doctor and then come back in a week or two and expect your problems to be fixed. Good results in your health always come when a patient and a doctor work together as a team.

So, let me let you in on a little secret…..

Shhhhhhhhh.

Ya ready???

Start taking care of yourself first.

That’s it.

Start taking care of yourself first. Seems simple enough. That's your part in this doctor-patient "TEAM". At the end of the day, come home, eat a light dinner then when you start to wind down…take a nice warm or hot bath for 20 minutes and just relax your body and mind. Let the physical and emotional stresses of the day just float away. I bet you’ll sleep better as well.

If you sleep better, you will get the proper release of growth hormone from your pituitary. Growth hormone helps your body heal and really rejuvenates you. It's like a little in-born fountain of youth. That’s why all studies on sleep deprivation show a link between poor sleep and just about every condition you don’t want. Diabetes, cancer, obesity and a general piss-poor attitude.

So, start with numero-uno. Start by taking care of yourself. An unhealthy ‘you’ can’t perform your job, your career or take care of your family to the best your potential will allow. By taking care of yourself first, you’ll be able to best handle all things life throws at you and then some. So tonight, go take a nice bubble bath and see how much better you feel in the morning.

Unless you have some medical condition that you shouldn’t use moist heat on or increase your heart rate, this should be a nice way to get started on taking care of ‘you’

OK?

Good. Now, on your mark….get set…..GO.

‘nuff said

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.

HCFS Is Not Natural Says the FDA!!!

FINALLY more justice for my blog articles. For the past couple years I have been mouthing off about this horrible sweetener called High Fructose Corn Syrup and I featured 2 prior posts on this just this HFCS stuff(Drink Soda-Get Diabetes & Is Yogurt As Bad As Soda).

Put up as another form of a "natural type sugar", this crapola is used to sweeten everything from ketchup-to-Yogurt-to-Coke & Pepsi. And, in all those wonderful children's cereals and other foods. But finally, the FDA has take the double talking money mongering larger than life food industry corporations to task. High Fructose Corn Syrup, even though it is derived from corn, is not natural. Because, it takes a chemical process to create it. Read more on the FDA decision.
Hear me now food industry...JUST BECAUSE SOMETHING STARTS OFF AS A NATURAL OR WHOLE FOOD, WHEN YOU ARE DONE PROCESSING IT, IT IS NO LONGER NATURAL.

Valium once started out as Velerian Root. Does that make Valium natural? NOT!!!

The stuff this chemical process creates is something foreign to the human body. High Fructose Corn Syrup (here after known as HFCS) is as artificial as any other artificial sweetener and in my humble opinion, can have equally devastating effects. Basically, you are forcing your body to use a sweetener it was never made to use. Therefore, the digestive process must process something it hasn’t spent the last 100,000+ years evolving with. Corn itself, in its current form hasn't been in evolutionary food chain long enough for our physiology to adapt it as a healthful food for us, so HFCS a real no-no (read the book, The Omnivore's Dilemma for more info on that).

Now, any food, drink or other product to be consumed that contains HFCS can no longer advertise as “natural” or “all natural”.

BUT….WATCH OUT!!!! I “guaran-damn-tee” you that you’ll find products on the market, such as breads, advertising “100% whole wheat”, which in the mind of the consumer, will imply it’s a natural product. Flip the package over and I’m sure you fill find my sugar-wannabe arch nemesis high fructose corn syrup. Read the food label, not the packaging. They'll find a way to fool you on the packaging, but the food label is closer to the truth.

Why is this HFCS so bad? Well, I’ll have to refer you to an early blog post. The explanation has more to do with the history of our evolution as humans over the past hundreds of thousands and even millions of years. If you are a Discovery Channel or Science Channel buff, you’ll find it very interesting. If not, then, well, it may put you to sleep.

So, chalk one up for the consumer. We finally get a little closer to the truth in labeling we all deserve. Now, if a company wants to increase its profits by using a cheap artificial version of sugar in the form of HFCS, go right ahead. I'm all for making a profit. After all, why else are you in business? But, just label your products as such so we as consumers can make the right choice for ourselves and our families based on truthful information.

I for one don’t mind paying a bit more for something that I know is good for me, rather than getting fooled into the belief that something good for me is basically a Trojan horse for a company trying to hide the truth. Let's be honest capitalists, okay big food corps? This way we let the consumers drive the markets based on the truth.

As a doctor though, my advice is to cut out all HFCS and hydrogenated oils, add whole grains, fresh fruit and veggies and you’ll have a much better life. Remember, HFCS is one of the main culprits in childhood obesity, diabetes and weight gain. 3 more great reasons to cut it out of your life.

For those who read my blog and ask what the heck does this have to do with sports medicine….well, if you put good high quality food into your body, you’ll get better performance out of it.

‘nuff said.

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.

Whole Grains & Health Get More Positive Support

I love it when I'm right. Don't you?

Another recent study recently published shows the benefits of whole grains and your health.

A Few months ago, I blogged about whole grains and included the Food For Life Company that makes Genesis and Ezekiel breads and other whole grain products. More and more research proves this stuff is one of the nutritional keys to good health.

Please don't be deceived any more by products that say they contain "whole grains" on the packaging. Turn over the package and read the ingredient list on the nutritional panel. If it says "flour", then it's not whole grains anymore and pretty much garbage. Whole grains are just that....Still Whole & Still good for you. Flour...well, NOT!!!

Anything crushed into flour is processed and not worthy of your money or your body.

Whole Grains + Fresh Fruits+Fresh Veggies + Anti-inflammatory Meats = Good health, Higher Quality of Life and Longevity...

'nuff said..

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.

Over Fed & Under Nourished.... Let Food Be Thy Medicine...

It’s been just over 18 months now since my personal physician told me to make some big changes in the way I eat or I’d probably die of a heart attack in 10 years.

To recap, I had just had a CTa; a 3-dimensional CAT scan of my heart so that a radiologist can check the condition of my heart’s blood vessels. By some grace of G-d, my cardiac vessels were in great shape; in-fact, they were in incredible shape. But, the problem was that my cholesterol was high, my triglycerides were high and my blood pressure was borderline. Not to mention, I was pushing the scales at just under 220lbs. So although my heart was in excellent shape, the cholesterol, triglycerides and blood pressure were setting me up for a hard fall in the not so distant future.

On a prescription pad Dr. Woolf wrote the name of a book: Ultrametabolism, by Mark Hyman, MD. My prescription was to read the book and to live the book…and so I did. The book in summary told me to eat whole foods, not processed foods. Told me not to skip meals or reduce my calories, but to eat the right foods at the right times to speed up my metabolism. And of course, get recommitted to exercising. All of which I did, and I did well.

It worked. After 6 months, my cholesterol, my triglycerides and my blood pressure were normal again and I weighed in at 194. To read more on out how I did this, read my blog on beating lipitor in 6 months

My struggle continues though as I’ve realized that crappy food is so abundant in our society, it’s nearly impossible to eat and snack healthfully (and tastefully) without examining the label on everything I want to purchase from the grocery store. Even Yogurt has high fructose corn syrup, the same sweetener as you will see in Coca-Cola & Pepsi and every other soda on the market and yes, another man-made substance that is slowly killing our children and ourselves. Most of the foods we consume also have hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils in them. A substance that is incredibly toxic to which scientists have said that this substance is like ingesting plastic into our bodies.

Most of you know how I felt when I stumbled onto Larabars. Which, I continue to enjoy to this day and hope to for a long long time; but, I’ve found another snack that can also be used as a meal!!!

Yes, I’ve finally found another source for not just in-between meal snack, but for real whole foods that you can replace any meal with. The Company is The Whole Food Farmacy. At a recent continuing educational seminar in Orlando, I bumped into an old schoolmate of mine. We talked and he actually had, in addition to his practice, another business that surrounded his incredibly healthy way of eating. Stephen, as I remember, would eat the entire fruit or vegetable. Stem, seeds, core, leaves and all. He left nothing over, and his business was based on healthy packaged meals made up of a multitude of whole fruits, whole vegetables whole seeds and whole grains that were in simple, easy to manage self-sealing very tasty packages. To my amazement, they tasted awesome and I immediately got as excited about this as I did when I first found out about Larabars.

Everything was packed kind of like a bag of “trail mix” and with incredible variety. I first tried something called Veggiliscious, which, I could easily chow down on in place of a bag of potato chips. They were crunchy and flavorful. There was even a spicy version too! There were so many choices from mixes of traditional fruits, seed & grains, to tropical fruits and various flavorful mixes. There were a multitude of shakes and soups as well, all made from a natural whole food source. The bags seal up like a zip-lock storage bag and they are so easy to throw in your gym bag or brief case or purse and take with you.

To put it like my California buddies…I was Stoked!!! I enjoyed the flavors, the whole food mixes were very hearty and I could easily eat one of these for a meal if I wanted. And, funny thing, I was going to and from so many classes and meeting, I actually ate 6 of my 8 meals that weekend from the Whole Food Farmacy and was totally satisfied. I simply didn't have time to sit down for a normal meal.

Now, this isn’t some fad diet, or new vitamin pill company, this company understands the benefits of whole food nutrition and packages it so it makes it easy for you to incorporate into your life. If you eat your meals from real whole foods, you will regain your health, you will lose weight and you will improve your health and recapture that long lost youthful energy again.

Top athletes are using this as part of the pre-competition preparation strategy. It’s becoming very popular with marathon runners and especially tri-athletes. Because it’s pure whole food the way we were meant to eat it. It’s just in a nice little bag.

If your kids need something good to snack on, this is absolutely the thing for you. If you’ve been wondering how to regain your health, lose that weight that somehow showed up around your waist one day, then this is for you. The Whole Food Farmacy has 7 & 13-day cleanses (some people call them fasts) to kick start your quest to regain your health. If you’ve hit a plateau in your weight loss, give this a try. It’s not a “diet”, it’s not a “fast”, you’re just bombarding your system with a lot of very dense-high nutritional value whole foods. Your body will thank you for it by getting back in balance again.

It’s easy, it’s tasty and it’s extremely good for you. As with anything, check the ingredients to make sure you don’t have any allergies to the foods and if you have any questions, make sure to check with your doctor about it.

I’ve set up a website so you can check out the company’s products and if you think this is the right time to regain your health, then join the wholesale club like I did and join me in taking back your health and the health of your family. (It’s kind of like a Costco for their whole food products). Just go to: http://www.mywholefoodfarmacy.com/ and achieve your goals in your quest to regain your health.

So, as Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine said back in the “B.C.” days, “Let food be thy medicine and let medicine be thy food”.

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.

Heart Health For The Holidays

Enjoy yourselves for the holidays and stay as "good" as you can. If you're not sure what's being server for dinner, eat before you go. I know there is a incredible amount of tempting foods, desserts and drinks out there this time of year and hey.....you deserve a little palate pleasure for working so hard this year.

But, as it often goes, what's good for the taste buds isn't typically great for your heart. So, I offer you this link to my nutrition mentor Dr. Mark Hyman's Blog about heart health.

It's simple. Read this easily numbered list of what to do and followit if you want to lower your weight, your cholesterol, your triglycerides and your blood pressure. But, take this one to heart. It only works if you actually do it.

Have a wonderful holiday season.

Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas & Have a Wonderful New Year

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.

1 Year Later, Still Missed

Well, today is the 1 year anniversary of the murder of Dr. Brad Timpf. A great sports chiropractor, a great friend, a great person. The day he was laid to rest, I wrote a heartfelt recap of my getting to know Brad and the brief time we shared as friends. You can read about it here

During the past year I had the chance to get to know Brad's Mom, Dad & Sister. All wonderful people; incredible people in fact. They continued to celebrate Brad's birthday and continue to this day to celebrate his life.

They have set up a scholarship in Brad's name and pursue the apprehension of of whomever robbed them of their loved one.

Brad & I strolled the halls of the same high school (JP Taravella)and pursued the same specialty within the same profession (Chiropractic Sports Medicine). I still feel the same way about Brad. In fact, everyone I know who is a "sports chiropractor" here in Florida misses him dearly.

I look forward to the day we get to watch some idiot fry in the electric chair and get sent to hell on a one-way ticket.

We Miss Ya Buddy.....

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.