Eating Plants First: A Simple Shift for Good Health
If you start each meal with a healthy portion of vegetables, it will help fill you up on fiber and nutrients. Another byproduct of this habit is that it balances blood sugar, improves digestion, and is a healthy alternative to dieting. An easy way to think of this is to start with salad, steamed veggies, or veggie-rich soups before eating your starch, protein, and fats.
The Right Protein: Fuel for Performance
It’s not easy in America to have high-quality, nutrient-dense proteins in our diets. These grass-fed, grass-finished, outdoor sources of animal proteins help with lasting energy and fullness. Start with eggs, fish, and fatty meats. Including a source of protein at each meal will support muscle growth, mood, and metabolism. When shopping for protein sources, try to determine whether the animal was running from or running to a predator or prey. We don’t want our animal proteins to be sitting in a cage and injected with chemicals, antibiotics, and poisons.
Carbohydrates and Insulin: Mastering the Balance
Simple carbohydrates can negatively affect our blood sugar and insulin response, so choose low-glycemic carbohydrates like beans, steel-cut oats, and sweet potatoes, paired with protein and healthy fats; this allows for slower absorption and fewer energy crashes.
Fats Are Healthy—Don’t Believe What You Read
Embracing healthy fats in your diet is one of the simplest and most effective ways to support your health. Embracing fats like avocados, nuts, olive oil, and fish daily will support your brain, hormones, and physical health. These healthy fats also help you feel full at the end of each meal.
Calories in Energy Balance: Tap into the Simple Science of Your Own Body
We all know we need to manage the balance between the calories we take in with food and the calories we burn through movement and exercise. Start by tracking your food intake to gain awareness. Make changes slowly based on your goals. Combining your meals with movement will help you achieve long-lasting results. A simple approach is to finish eating by 6 p.m. and enjoy a gentle but brisk walk for 20–30 minutes every night afterward.
Emotional Eating: Understanding Why Most of Us Continue to Have Trouble with Our Relationship with Food
Identify the stressors in your life. Many of our eating habits stem from boredom or triggers that lead to overeating and unnecessary calorie intake. Start by hydrating first. Often, the first pangs of hunger are due to dehydration. Then ask: Am I physically hungry or emotionally hungry? Replace the emotional eating with other healthy habits like going for a walk, checking in with a friend or family member, gentle deep breathing, or a yoga practice.
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How Our Better, Stronger, Healthier Plan Works
1. Better
Many people seek help from a chiropractor only when they are suffering from such intense pain that it is interfering with their daily life. Chiropractic classifies treatment in this period of intense pain as relief care. The chiropractor’s focus during this period is to alleviate your symptoms. Sometimes, this will require daily visits or two to three visits per week for some time.
2. Stronger
We regard eliminating your symptoms as the easiest part of a persons care. If we stop there it’s very likely that the underlying cause of the pain (disk problem, curved spine, limited range of motion, etc.)will cause a recurrence of the condition. If you repeat the process of treating only the pain, then over time your structural problem will only worsen leading to a chronic state of pain and suffering.
3. Healthier
Once the chiropractor determines that you have fully recovered from your injury you are ready for treatment in Stage 3 – Wellness. As strange as it may seem this might well be the most important part of the entire process. Most of the injuries that people suffer that lead them to chiropractors occur because their bodies aren’t really in overall good health.
Supplements We Recommend in Escondido, CA
I get questions about supplements all the time. “What supplements should I take?” or “Why would I even need to take supplements?”
First and foremost, you cannot make up for a poor diet. Do not even waste your time. So which supplements would you want to take for health, fitness, and longevity? And why is it that the organic food, high-quality water, and clean living do not provide my family with the right amount of vitamins, minerals, and nutrients? When walking down the aisle at your local health food store, Costco, or CVS drugstore, you will be bombarded by all the supplements to choose from. These can be costly, confusing, and most likely useless.
Second, you get what you pay for. If you are looking to save money on supplements, I recommend not taking them at all. Supplements can be dangerous, and supplement companies have been using deceptive tactics for many years to sell their latest and greatest wonder pills.
This chapter is not designed to review every supplement, but to give you my top five recommendations to support a health-conscious, performance-oriented person looking to improve their longevity and that of their family.
If you are like me and what I would call a “health nut,” you research your health, exercise daily, have a good connection with your maker, and you make decisions to improve your health through nutrition, exercise, and spiritual connection.
I will provide scientifically based reasons your body will thrive with the following supplements. These are the things I recommend to my family, friends, and patients.
Maintaining health in America is not easy. An abundance of comfort foods and convenience surrounds us. It takes work to maintain health. Dealing with being sick and managing a disease also takes work. So whether you want to maintain health or deal with sickness, it is going to take work. This chapter is dedicated to one of the EASIEST ways to maintain health and treat disease: nutritional supplementation.
Before we talk about supplementation, it only makes sense to start with why you would want to take them. In a nutshell, our current industrial modern world is polluted, and our toxin-filled lifestyles demand more nutrients than the food we eat can provide. The chronic stressors of our modern lifestyle—whether it is our screen time interfering with our circadian rhythms, our never-ending work deadlines, or the fear-induced media that raises our cortisol levels—all increase our nutrient needs. In addition, if you are a frequent exerciser, an athlete, or a hard charger, this will, of course, increase our needs that food can provide.
Every day, we are exposed to hundreds, if not thousands, of toxins from the pollutants in our air. Nutrients help remove toxins from our bodies and prevent the formation of damaging free radicals.
Even more challenging, when you eat modern-day American food, you are unlikely to get the nutrients our grandparents enjoyed. Because of modern farming techniques and fertilizers, most, if not all, soil is depleted of nutrients. This greatly reduces the levels of minerals, beneficial vitamins, and antioxidants when we eat conventionally grown crops.
Remember that our not-so-distant ancestors ate what is now nearly extinct and hard to find: cell-rich carbohydrates like wild tubers, as well as grains like quinoa, amaranth, and millet. This is in contrast to the refined acellular grains and white rice we mainly eat today as part of our modern carbohydrate intake. These rich carbohydrates are starches that are bound up in plant cell walls. Acellular carbohydrates are the ultra-processed foods, such as added sugar and flour, where the cell walls have already been broken down. The current American diet is rich in these acellular carbohydrates, which are less nutrient-dense. Another huge advantage of cellular carbohydrates is that they provide the essential prebiotics that support the growth of our probiotic bacteria.
The abundance of refined carbohydrates in processed foods has created significant blood sugar swings and glycemic variability that our grandparents did not experience. I travel frequently and often see in the hotel lobby the abundance of bagels, muffins, and sugary cereals that most of us rely on for breakfast and snacks, trying to make it through our inevitable mid-morning blood sugar crash. These blood sugar imbalances lead to chronic inflammation and most chronic diseases such as Alzheimer’s, obesity, depression, heart disease, and cancer.
In addition to our nutrient-weak carbohydrate consumption, the meat, eggs, and dairy products that we find in our grocery stores deliver far less anti-inflammatory nutrients like omega-3 fatty acids that we would normally find in wild and pastured animals. Most Western diets consume a huge imbalance in the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids. The westernized ratio can be as high as 40 to 1! The ratio we should aim for is 4:1 omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids.
Making all of this even more complicated are modern harvesting, processing, shipping, and storage techniques that have all downgraded the concentration of nutrients that we are getting in our foods. Plants grown with modern fertilizers can obtain only 25% of the micronutrients compared to those grown with traditional farming methods. We then ship our food and let it sit on shelves, causing even less nutrient availability. At that point, we treat our foods with preservatives like methyl cyclopropane, which gives the average apple a shelf life of up to 10 months in our stores. While these preservatives appear to maintain the freshness of the foods we eat, they also decrease the bioavailability of the nutrients they contain. This increases our bodies’ need for nutrients to process the synthetic additives. This is a bad combination.
As if that is not bad enough (our modern agricultural practices, preservatives, and the huge influx of toxins that have left most of us nutrient-deficient), we also have a huge increase in sedentary lifestyles! Combine that with the fact that we are all getting older, and that alone impairs our ability to absorb nutrients from our food. These are the major reasons we are nutrient- and micronutrient-deficient in America.
There are multiple examples of our ancestors using supplementation. Ancient supplements included things like roots, stems, and leaf teas that we used medicinally for specific symptoms. We also know that our ancestors ate dirt, which has a wide range of beneficial probiotics.
This is why I recommend you take something from nature. This allows for concentrating nutrients in a form that is medicinal and micronutrient-dense, providing your cells and systems with a readily available source.
Omega-3 Fatty Acids
Doctors have been recommending fish oil for immune support, brain health, and overall health for years.
Oily fish such as mackerel, herring, tuna, salmon, sardines, and trout are rich sources of EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) and DHA (docosahexaenoic acid), and two to three servings per week should provide approximately 1 g/day of omega-3 fatty acids.
Lean fish, such as cod or haddock, have lower amounts, and fried fish (fast-food restaurant fish or frozen fish sticks) contain minimal amounts of omega-3 fatty acids.
Plant sources of omega-3 fatty acids can come from chia seeds, hemp seeds, walnuts, flaxseeds, and marine algae.
It is important to supplement daily with a blend of essential fatty acids that includes omega-3, -6, and -9 oils. Supplements like Udo’s Oil contain flax oil, sunflower oil, sesame oil, coconut oil, evening primrose oil, rice bran oil, oat germ oil, and organic soy lecithin. Supplementing with pharmaceutical-grade fish oils is also recommended, as they contain EPA and DHA, which are very important for cell membranes in our bodies and brains.
Pharmaceutical-grade omega-3 fatty acid supplements such as Nordic Naturals Ultimate Omega provide several grams of DHA and EPA per capsule. Their sources for these omega-3 fatty acids are from wild-caught sardines and anchovies.
Volumes of research indicate that omega-3 essential fatty acid fish oil supplements are a safer alternative to nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) for reducing inflammation and supporting cardiovascular health.
Ashwagandha
This ancient medicinal herb, also known as Indian ginseng, has been used for human health benefits for over 6,000 years. Commonly known as “the king of Ayurvedic herbs,” Ashwagandha helps regulate blood cortisol and other symptoms of adrenal fatigue. It is an adaptogen, meaning it is part of a select group of herbs that support the body’s natural ability to manage stress—whether those stressors are physical, chemical, or biological.
Ashwagandha has been shown in laboratory rats to increase swimming performance (can you imagine what that study looked like?!). In human studies, it helps prevent stress-induced ulcers, reduce tumor growth, improve memory, and confer many other positive health benefits.
Sleep Supplements
Patients ask me all the time what I recommend to improve their sleep quality and quantity. I first recommend reviewing chapter 12 on sleep and developing healthy sleep hygiene, then use the following supplements. For many years, I strictly used a mixture of 1 teaspoon of apple cider vinegar and 1 teaspoon of local raw honey in warm water right before bed. I can tell you with great confidence that this is the easiest and most natural way to knock me out. Here are supplements that have been shown to improve sleep:
- 5-HTP: 5-hydroxytryptophan is an amino acid precursor to serotonin and melatonin, and helps increase REM sleep
- Magnesium: maintains healthy levels of GABA
- Phosphatidylserine: reduces serum cortisol levels
- L-theanine: an amino acid found in green tea and some mushrooms that increases alpha-wave activity in the brain as well as the levels of serotonin, dopamine, and GABA
- GABA: gamma-aminobutyric acid is an inhibitory neurotransmitter that increases alpha-wave patterns in the brain
My recommendation is to take a sleep formula like Calm (a magnesium citrate supplement) or Sleep Remedy that was designed to help extremely hard-charging athletes, as well as people overwhelmed by stress, settle down at night without using synthetic and harmful drugs. It contains very small amounts of the natural nutrients that produce melatonin.
Creatine
If you have ever been in a supplement store like GNC or the Vitamin Shop, you could easily be overwhelmed by the number of powders and pills available to enhance human performance. The one supplement available at these stores that is actually the real deal is creatine monohydrate. Creatine is a simple peptide that is likely the most researched performance- and brain-enhancing supplement on the planet. It has been shown to improve cognition, repair muscles faster, help heart health, increase testosterone, improve bone health, improve strength, power, and endurance, and decrease muscle breakdown.
I grew up taking whole-food supplements from Standard Process and always avoided supplements made in laboratories. This is the one lab-produced supplement that is safe, effective, and easy to take.
Vitamin D
The rest of this chapter is dedicated to the incredibly important and often misrepresented super vitamin that we will likely find out is much more than just a vitamin. There are not many precious vitamins like the fat-soluble vitamin D. Although the recommendations for sufficient vitamin D levels are very controversial, it is safe to say that most people are not getting enough of this important fat-soluble vitamin.
Vitamin D, also known as the sunshine vitamin, is formed naturally by the body when exposed to the sun. As little as 10 minutes of exposure is thought to be enough to prevent deficiencies if a person lives below the 42nd parallel (think below the border of California and Oregon). Vitamin D is fat-soluble, which means that when you supplement it in your diet, the body can only absorb it when it’s consumed with foods that contain fat, like avocado, chicken, or nut butter. People who have trouble absorbing fat may, in turn, be predisposed to vitamin D deficiency, which carries its own risks.
Being a fat-soluble vitamin, vitamin D is naturally present in very few foods, added to others, and available as a dietary supplement. It is also produced endogenously (from within) when ultraviolet rays from sunlight strike the skin, triggering vitamin D synthesis. Vitamin D obtained from sun exposure, food, and supplements is biologically inert and must undergo two hydroxylations (chemical changes) in the body for activation.
Researchers have long stated that the primary function of vitamin D, in combination with vitamin K2, is to maintain normal blood levels of calcium and phosphorus. They are best known for helping the body to absorb calcium into the bones, improving bone density, and preventing osteoporosis. Research also suggests that vitamin D may help protect against hypertension (high blood pressure), cancer, and several autoimmune diseases.
Recent research indicates that vitamin D plays an even more important role than bone health. According to recent research, vitamin D is a powerful nuclear receptor-activating hormone of critical importance, especially to the immune system.
There was a statistical error in the Institute of Medicine’s estimation when they set the RDA at around 600 IU of vitamin D per day. A reanalysis suggested the correct amount is closer to 8,000–9,000 IU to achieve sufficiency in most people! Do not supplement with 8,000 IU of vitamin D, as you will likely cause arterial calcification. Instead, go outside and bask in the sun’s rays daily. Make sure you are getting vitamin K along with your vitamin D when you are ingesting it.
The only dietary recommendation for vitamin D deficiency is to consume natural sources of vitamin D and calcium-rich foods. It is
Recommended that you get at least 1,000 IU of vitamin D daily in addition to gaining exposure to the sun.
Sources of Vitamin D
- The sun is a good source of vitamin D. If you have limited exposure to the sun, whether it is because you work indoors or live somewhere that does not get a lot of sun, you should make sure to eat foods that are good sources of vitamin D. Here are 5 healthy foods that are high in vitamin D.
- Cod liver oil: Many people confuse cod liver oil with fish oil supplements. Cod liver oil is different from fish oil supplements you see on the shelf. In short, cod liver oil is a nutrient-dense source of essential vitamins, including vitamin D and vitamin A, as well as anti-inflammatory omega-3 fatty acids.
- Salmon & fatty fish: Ocean-grown fatty fish are rich sources of vitamin D. Make sure the fish is wild and ocean-sourced. Most of the salmon and other supermarket-bought fish are farmed and do not receive natural food sources. Other common options are sardines, trout, mackerel, tuna, and eel.
- Egg yolks: Free-range chickens produce eggs that contain vitamin D3. Forget the egg-white omelet; vitamin D is only found in the yolk. It contains roughly 50 IU per egg, so you need to make a big omelet to get your full dose of vitamin D!
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Water Your Best Medicine?
The majority of us are walking around dehydrated, and we have no idea. With proper hydration, our energy is boosted. Our brain functions better, and the health of our spinal discs lasts longer. Make sure to drink water with minerals, like mountain spring water, rather than reverse osmosis water. RO water has been shown actually to deplete our bodies of minerals.
What supplements should I take?
Depending on your health history and goals, we recommend a variety of supplements, including Omega-3 Fatty Acids, Ashwagandha, Sleep Supplements, Creatine, and Vitamin D. For more specific recommendations, call us to schedule an appointment!
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330 W Felicita Ave Suite B-1, Escondido, CA 92025
$149 New Patient Special
Includes Private Consultation to discuss your needs & concerns, Gentle Chiropractic Examination to find out what’s wrong, Any necessary X-rays to understand your condition fully, Report of Findings.
