Nutrition
In our quest to attain the greatest degree of health for our patients and ourselves proper nutrition must be one of the key components. In life there are several key components to achieving and maintaining health, happiness and general well being. We must care for our spiritual and emotional well being. Our belief system and our coping mechanisms for dealing with life and the inevitability of death must be well established and comprehensive enough to sustain us in good times and in bad. Our physical well being can be greatly affected by the state of our spiritual and emotional well being. We must care for our physical bodies to attain the highest level of health possible. We should exercise regularly. This helps use to have greater physical capabilities and can also be a great source of stress relief. We should get adequate sleep to allow our bodies to rest and recover. We should avoid exposing our bodies to or ingesting toxic substances as these will at least cause our bodies stress in dealing with them and at worst lead to death from our bodies inability to deal with them. We must provide our bodies with the proper fuel and building blocks to maintain and heal itself. Our diets should be sufficient in nutrients and calories to sustain and repair our bodies. There are numerous books and plans written offering promises of lean, muscular healthy bodies. There is likely some truth in most of these approaches. Most diets today are geared toward weight loss, as obesity is one of our largest health hazards in the United States today. Our diet should not be a strictly prescribed limited menu but a set of principles of what to eat. I am glad to see that the widely recommended low fat diet is finally falling from favor after forty years of counterproductive results. In general our goal in eating should be to nourish our bodies, but also provide some enjoyment for us. A variety of foods with high nutritional content should be the foundation of our diet. Proteins, fats and complex carbohydrates are all valuable and appropriate in our diet. Fats supply many vitamins that are essential to our health, this does not include the trans fats which are primarily used in processing foods. Fats are essential for us to maintain our health. Proteins provide the building blocks for our bodies and many B vitamins essential to health. Complex carbohydrates provide minerals and vitamins as well as dietary fiber which provide energy and intestinal health. Simple starchy carbohydrates are mere sustenance foods. They provide energy in the form of glucose and will keep you alive in a starvation environment. They provide very little nutritional value and in a country with little true hunger contribute mainly to weight gain, diabetes and inflammatory processes. These simple carbohydrates and highly processed foods can give us some enjoyment in eating and when used in small amounts are not unhealthy. If we must use a measuring tool to monitor our food intake, we would probably be better off using a glycemic index than counting calories. If weight loss were our only concern with our diet almost any diet would work. Weight loss comes from burning more calories than we consume. We could lose weight eating nothing but candy bars, but it would not lead to good health. Our dietary goal should be to eat in such a way that we supply our bodies with enough nutrients and calories to provide us with energy and maintain our health.
Nutritional Supplementation
While our objective is to supply our nutritional needs through our diet, we often fail to do so. General nutritional supplementation can be helpful to ensure we have proper nutrition. I have studied nutrition for almost thirty years and personally prefer whole food supplementation. I personally use and recommend products from Standard Process. They use organically grown foods and remove the fiber and water leaving all the nutrients and trace minerals. Most people trying to eat a proper diet will be short in Omega 3 fatty acids (sometimes called fish oils) and often minerals. Taking an Omega 3 supplement can help make sure you are getting enough of these important fatty acids. Many people especially women can benefit from taking a reasonable amount of calcium. If you feel that you are deficient in proper nutrition we will be happy to schedule a consultation. Nutrition for Specific Problems
Nutritional supplementation is not used to treat specific conditions but to support the body during treatment. There are instances when specific diets are used for treatment. Avoidance diets are used when a known food or type of food is problematic. Low carbohydrate diets are used to help control blood glucose levels in people with type 2 diabetes. We provide nutritional counselling for our patients seeking to improve their health. Many people want help in general health and feeling better and some want support in dealing with a specific problem. We start with a nutritional symptom survey to understand possible nutritional deficiencies. Recommendations for dietary changes and nutritional supplementation are made based on the information gathered. Changes are made to the recommendations as progress is made in addressing the complaints. Specific supplementation is a temporary approach in most instances. There are instances where long term dietary changes or specific supplementation is needed. The following article is interesting and is an example of a specific dietary approach used as a treatment for a serious medical condition. http://www.rxpgnews.com/epilepsy/Ketogenic_diet_prevents_seizures_2852_2852.shtml |
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Making a Dietary Change
Many of our patients decide to change their diet to improve their health. We recommend following an eating plan limiting simple carbohydrates and highly processed foods. An approach including a lot of complex carbohydrates and protein sources with an increase in servings of healthy fish. Vegetable and fruits provide complex carbohydrates with fiber. They will help you feel more satisfied because of the volume of food eaten. An approach such as the Mediterranean diet is a balanced healthy approach. When making a change a lot of people decide to make a drastic change to help them trigger change in their metabolism. I have personally used and have many patients who have benefited form the Standard Process 21 Day Purification Plan. It involves eating fresh fruits and vegetables for 10 days before adding meat to the plan on day eleven. Supplements are taken during to process to promote metabolic changes and improve health. Following the twenty one day program a healthy diet is started. Gary Taubes a correspondent with the journal Science wrote a very well researched article for the New York Times in 2002 looking at the research behind dietary recommendations and came to a surprising conclusion. This article was written at a time when very few people were questioning the efficacy of the low fat diet being recommended.This is a long but informative article and is worth reading. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/magazine/what-if-it-s-all-been-a-big-fat-lie.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
Many of our patients decide to change their diet to improve their health. We recommend following an eating plan limiting simple carbohydrates and highly processed foods. An approach including a lot of complex carbohydrates and protein sources with an increase in servings of healthy fish. Vegetable and fruits provide complex carbohydrates with fiber. They will help you feel more satisfied because of the volume of food eaten. An approach such as the Mediterranean diet is a balanced healthy approach. When making a change a lot of people decide to make a drastic change to help them trigger change in their metabolism. I have personally used and have many patients who have benefited form the Standard Process 21 Day Purification Plan. It involves eating fresh fruits and vegetables for 10 days before adding meat to the plan on day eleven. Supplements are taken during to process to promote metabolic changes and improve health. Following the twenty one day program a healthy diet is started. Gary Taubes a correspondent with the journal Science wrote a very well researched article for the New York Times in 2002 looking at the research behind dietary recommendations and came to a surprising conclusion. This article was written at a time when very few people were questioning the efficacy of the low fat diet being recommended.This is a long but informative article and is worth reading. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/magazine/what-if-it-s-all-been-a-big-fat-lie.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm