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Hormone imbalance

Hormone imbalance is a true epidemic in our country. The average American female and male over 35 years of age suffers from some form of hormonal imbalance. With the poor diet, stressful lifestyles and declining popularity of physical exercise, more and more young men and women are developing hormonal imbalances. The effects of such imbalances increases as we age and become more devastating and harder to treat the longer they go on and the worse they become. Because most of the symptoms come on gradually, it is difficult to figure out initially, until the problems become more pronounced and the hormones become even more imbalanced.

It becomes a vicious cycle that slowly robs you of your energy, your vitality and your life and lifestyle. It also robs your loved ones of their lifestyle. Unless properly diagnosed and evaluated, proper recovery is very difficult to achieve. This is where a properly trained healthcare professional is so important. You will require a doctor who is up to date on hormonal function and can discover “subclinical” hormone imbalances, not just “diseased” glands or organs.

Often times it is the simplest of signs that indicate hormone imbalance, but these signs are blamed on other factors. Some of the initial symptoms include:

  • Fatigue not relieved by rest
  • Tired all the time/no energy
  • Difficulty getting up in the morning
  • Poor sleep
  • Craving for salty or sugary foods
  • It takes more effort to perform every day tasks and duties
  • Decreased sex drive
  • Decreased ability to handle stress
  • Increased time to recover from illness or injury
  • Light headed when standing up quickly
  • Depression
  • Lack of enjoyment or happiness
  • Weight gain/loss
  • Excessive allergies
  • Anxiety
  • Digestive disorders
  • Dry and thin skin
  • Excessive hunger
  • Hair loss
  • Unexplained headaches
  • Immune deficiencies
  • Inability to concentrate
  • Chronic pain
  • Inflammation
  • Blood pressure problems
  • Low body temperature
  • Hot flashes
  • Night sweats
  • Mood swings
  • Poor memory
  • PMS
  • Sleep disorders
  • Tender breasts
  • Weakness
  • Difficulty building muscle
  • Cramping
  • Fluid retention
  • Slow metabolism
  • Irritability
  • Chronic illness
  • And more and more and more

Various clinical conditions are the direct result of hormone imbalance that, in most cases, can be completely preventable. Such conditions include:

  • Chronic viral infections (EBV, Herpes, etc.)
  • Yeast overgrowth
  • Allergies
  • Chronic fatigue syndrome
  • Migraines
  • Autoimmune disease
  • Cancer
  • Cardiovascular disease
  • Insomnia
  • Hypoglycemia
  • Type II diabetes
  • Osteoporosis
  • ADD/ADHD
  • Irritable bowel disease
  • Celiac disease
  • And more and more and more

Quite simply, hormones affect body function.

Hormone imbalances affect body functions in a detrimental way. The more hormones and systems involved and the longer the time that the imbalances have been present, the more symptoms will devastate your life.

This isn’t how the story ends, however; there is hope! Hormone imbalances can be corrected by taking the correct action steps and supplying the body with what it requires to heal – This first requires the correct testing to determine what the TRUE cause of your problem is.

Be sure to read my next upcoming 3 articles on Female Hormones, Male Hormones and the Correct Testing!

One of the most common questions I get asked is “how do I know if what I’m eating is healthy or not?”

There is so much deception in our food industry today that it has become difficult to determine what is healthy and what is not. Every food manufacturer is competing for your dollar, so they come up with catchy commercials, campaigns, slogans and buzz-words to attract your eyes and buy their product.

I’m going to share with you some simple tips that will allow you to easily and quickly determine is a product is healthy for you and your family.

Okay, so let’s dive in

Tip #1:   This may sound a little crazy or unorthodox, but DON’T  focus on the amount of calories, fats, proteins and carbohydrates. When we are eating healthy foods, the amount of calories, fats, etc… don’t matter. The type of foods you’re eating is much more important to focus on.

Tip #2:   What I DO want you to focus on is the ingredient list.  This is where you’ll actually find what’s in your food. If you see a long list of ingredients with big words that you don’t recognize or are hard to pronounce; odds are this product does not belong in your shopping cart.

Smaller ingredient lists with easy-to-read words that you recognize are best. Also, whole foods that don’t come with a nutrition label are obviously your best choice; fresh fruits and veggies, good quality meats and healthy fats are whole foods that don’t need a nutrition label.

If there is one ingredient quantity/amount you do want to look for, it would be the amount of SUGAR in a product. Even if a product says “organic” or has few ingredients, if the sugar content is high, skip this product.

Tip #3:   Organic foods are preferred because they are not exposed to the amount of harmful pesticides and herbicides of conventional produce.

When it comes to meat or animal products, look for words such as “grass-fed”, “free-range”, and “wild-caught”.

Tip #4:   Shop the perimeter of the store; this is generally where you will find the healthier quality foods. The inner aisles of the store will generally contain the most processed, pre-packaged and boxed foods.

Tip #5:   Avoid buzz words that are intended to catch your eye. They are misleading and often do not deliver a healthier product. This words include: Diet, Zero-Calories, Calorie-Free, Light, Fat-Free, 0g Trans-Fat and even the words All-Natural, which has a very vague meaning in today’s world.

The 7 most dangerous food ingredients to avoid:

1) Artificial Sweeteners – This will include sucralose, aspartame and saccharin. They are found in many zero-calorie drinks and the blue/pink/yellow packets on diner tables.

2) Synthetic, Man-Made Fats – Trans fats, partially hydrogenated oils, vegetable oils, canola oil.

3) Artificial Flavors – Typically labeled as “artificial flavoring”.

4) MSG – Monosodium Glutamate is known as an “excitotoxin” that causes brain-chemistry problems and brain cell death.

5) Artificial Colors – These include the blue, red, yellow dye’s added to many foods.

6) High Fructose Corn Syrup – See below.

7) Preservatives – BHT, Sodium Benzoate, Sodium Nitrate, Sulfites and many other chemicals that are toxic to your body and raise cellular inflammation.

Finally, it is hard to look for GMO foods on labels because North America is one of the only countries in the world that does not require food companies to label GMO ingredients; however, some companies have taken the initiative to self-label that their products do not contain GMO’s.

Some of the highest concentrations of GMO food crops in the world are found in corn and soybeans. For this reason you want to avoid almost all products that contain corn, high fructose corn syrup, soybeans and soybean oil unless labeled organic and non-GMO

This is an extremely insightful article, written by Dr. Mark Hyman about the dangers of consuming wheat; beyond the gluten-free reasons. When it comes to diet and lifestyle changes, I’m always educating my patients about Cellular Inflammation and how it is the one underlying commonality in every one of the chronic, degenerative diseases we see today.

Cellular inflammation can come from a variety of sources, but one of the things we most commonly discuss is sugar’s role in raising inflammation -and not just table sugar, but anything that breaks down to sugar. This includes nearly all grain, as Dr. Hyman indicates.

This article will set the record straight and show you physiologically why it is so important to eliminate grain and wheat from your diet temporarily if your goal is to reverse a chronic disease or to lose weight. Once your health goals are achieved, there are healthier grains Dr. Hyman discusses; such as ancient einkorn grain, that have healthy benefits once your body is no longer in an inflamed state.

Click here to read the article

 

If you’ve been to one of our health seminars or are a current patient, you’ve probably heard me say that weight-loss is 70-80% diet. The types of food you eat on a regular basis (not the amount of calories) play by far the largest role in determining what type of physiology your body experiences.

There are only 2 types of physiology when it comes to the type of fuel your body uses for energy; you’re either a SUGAR burner or you’re a FAT burner. Everybody desires to have the metabolism that burns fat with ease; you know, when you wake up in the morning looking more lean and vascular than the night before? Don’t we all hate those people? Haha.

Well the truth is that this internal physiology is capable and achievable for everyone -it just takes the right type of training.

We’re not going to get into the dietary aspect of that, here; in a nut-shell one must be following our Advanced Plan Nutrition Protocol for at least 90 days to begin reshaping physiology. The simple version is that if you wish to switch from being a sugar burner to a fat burner, you must stop eating so much sugar and grain.

Once that is in order –and it MUST be in order first– there is an extremely powerful way to exercise that almost seems to good to be true. If you would like to:

  •  Massively boost your fat-burning hormones like Testosterone and Growth Hormone
  • Lose weight while you sleep
  • Maximize your time by only exercising short amounts -Like literally 10-20 minutes!
  • Only have to work out every other day

Then Burst Training is exactly what you’ve been looking for! Gone are the days where you must toil in the gym on the treadmill, trying to maintain your presence in the “anaerobic” zone; those exercises are outdated and only burn calories while you’re exercising.

The phenomenal benefit of Burst Training is that you actually burn more fat after you’re done exercising, for the next 24-48 hours! This is because when you work in in short bursts at a very high intensity level, your body will dramatically raise your fat burning hormones and they remain elevated. Better yet, if you’re truly going all out during each “set”, you only need to perform this exercise for around 10-20 minutes every other day!

Make sure to watch the posted video of Dr. Josh Axe demonstrating a simple, 6-set Burst Training workout for a visual example, but the premise is simple: Perform an chosen exercise at a very high intensity (90 % of your maximum) for a duration of 30-60 seconds. You then rest for another 30-60 seconds before doing a second set of the same or different exercise. That’s it! It may sound easy enough, but trust me, if you’re doing this correctly, these sets of a minute or less will KICK YOUR BUTT! And if you get to the minute mark and you don’t feel tired or feel like you could have done more, ramp it up!

Add this workout to an awesome diet and watch your body transform!