Monthly Archives: July 2012

Are you color blind?

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Do you see the world in black and white? Do you observe the world in black and white? Do you consider situations to be black and white? Do you take perspective on the grey?

Yeah, we’re not talking about the physiological trait that allows people to see the world only in the absence of color and the blending of all colors. I’m talking about your perspectives, experiences, understandings, and opinions on life.

  • Black and white – One or the other in a given situation, right or wrong, one way or the highway, take without giving.
  • Grey – An understanding that there’s more to a situation, no one is right nor wrong, an attempt to hear all sides to gain perspective, giving and taking.

The grey represents the ability to see the details: our conditioning, our programming, our influences, our education, our reasonings, our inspirations, our habits, our intelligence, our beliefs, our nutrition, our genetics, our environment.

The black and white can be the result of those details…

For instance, when a person is steadfast in their claim that a chair is black they could be very well fueled by their details: an education that taught them that “black” is actually navy blue to the rest of the world; the chair could have been in a dim-light room which made the chair look black, but once a claim is in place there is a conditioning of pride that prevents one to be “wrong;” the person couldn’t have eaten much all day and a lack of calories could have produced a “slower” brain response to think a brown chair is black; or there is a need to be “right” just to prove the other wrong out of spite, influences, habits, beliefs, reasonings, and just all of the above.

I used a very dumbed-down example to illustrate how our personal details can really turn something simple into a complex situation.

There are details to every situation. While it may not always be necessary to look into the details whenever an opinion, decision, conflict, difference, or confrontation arise, it certainly doesn’t hurt to consider them or to put them into perspective. Try to really look into the details of yourself first before you go ahead judging, assuming, or deflecting on others. It may take a while and it may bring up some painful truths, but getting to know yourself for who you have become can help pave the way for who you want to be.

If you’d like to discuss this perspective along with other health-related insights, please contact me for a FREE Conversation.

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Thyroid, metabolism, and symptoms

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So I plowed through Selye’s “The Stress of Life,” which was a pleasant read given its depth and some need for pre-requisite knowledge, and now I’m onto Broda Barnes’ “Hypo-thyroidism: The unsuspected illness.” Throughout the book Barnes’ discusses his personal experiences [as a doctor] with a vast majority of symptoms and how most [symptoms] really boil down to a lack of metabolic efficiency; generally-speak, producing a low amount of thyroid hormones, and, in effect, an inefficiency at maintaing body heat and a “normal” pulse/heart beat. Barnes’ definition is a little less too-cool-for-school wordy, “It is the thyroid which controls the metabolism – the process by which food is transformed into energy and many vital chemical changes take place.” Combine those and you’re on your way to a decent idea of the thyroid’s direct relationship with metabolism. Now, metabolism is a tricky thing because most believe, Broda’s definiton included, that it’s just about burning calories at a high rate and having the ability to eat whatever you want. While that is true and is what we’re basically taught from a young age by Dr. Aloysuis Snuffleupagus, the means towards establishing a high metabolic rate of an individual is a very important and intricate piece to the body puzzle.

There are two things that I’m really intrigued about in this book. 1) The vast majority of symptoms that can result from a thyroid deficiency, and 2) The approach to treat a low thyroid (hypothyroid) condition with the simple prescription of thyroid medication. Let’s begin at the first…

Barnes begins on page one with a bulleted series of patient symptoms

  • A young housewife who feels run down, tires easily, is sleepy much of the time, and strangely oversensitive to cold weather.
  • A middle-aged man who has managed to distinguish himself in his career by fighting all his life against his low energy reserve but now has become tired of fighting and convinced there must be some physical explanation for his problem even though none has ever been found and more than once he has been told to consult a psychiatrist and more than once has done so without benefit.
  • A victim of severe recurrent headaches.
  • A barren couple.
  • A child or adult unusually prone to infections, particularly respiratory, but not limited to them.
  • A sufferer from severe rheumatic pain and potential heart attack victim.
  • A woman whose skin is abnormally rough, scaly, almost fishlike and patients with other skin problems including eczema, psoriasis, and acne.
  • At least one man or woman in a state of severe mental depression.
  • A woman with a menstrual flow problem – painful flow, or irregular flow, or sometimes excessive flow that suggests possible need for hysterectomy.

All of this is some great stuff that can really get people thinking as to what could be more of an underlying cause to their symptoms. Try to look at it this way: The body is (yes, yes) a system of systems and when a very important [thyroid] gland is not working at full capacity, other activities, processes, and reactions will not work as they are designed. Out of the above mentioned, the ones that stick out to me the most are 1) the man with low fatigue that knows there’s something physically wrong with him but all of his lab work comes back negative and he’s slapped with the stereotype that “it’s all mental,” and 2) the ability to become severely depressed as a result of low thyroid activity. I picked these out from the list because they are examples of “mental disorders” or, so-called, “chemical imbalances” that actually have a true physical cause. I am a huge believer that the mind can control, affect, dictate, and sway the body, but the exact same is true for how the body affects the mind and it is quite possible that professionals or scientific tests can completely misdiagnosis this pattern as a purely mental state. In my opinion, there is never a purely mental disease or a purely physical disease because one doesn’t function without the other!

Here are some other common symptoms of a low thyroid function: Weakness, Dry or coarse, Lethargy, Unmotivated, Laziness, Fatigue, Slow speech, Edema, Cold hands, Cold feet, Cold nose, Sensitivity to cold, Cold body despite warm environment, Rapid heart beat, Impaired memory, Brain fog, Forgetfulness, Decline in libido, Decreased sexual function, Decreased sexual desire, Shrinkage of the gonads/sex glands (testicles, ovaries), Erectile dysfunction, Irregular menstrual cycles (heavy, painful, non-existent flow), Overly emotional, Temper tantrums, Anxiety, Depression, Nervousness, Headaches, Weight loss, Weight gain, Loss of appetite, Hair loss, Easily prone to stress, Muscle weakness, Joint pain, Low activity endurance, Increased sleeping (even a good night’s sleep isn’t enough), Hard waking up in the morning, Poor vision, and the list can really go on and on.

Now that I’ve given you a-whole-lot of examples to make your mind go, “Hm, maybe I have hypothyroidism and I can solve all of my problems with medication?!,” let’s take a moment to reflect and to put some things into perspective (and to also address the 2nd point in which I was intrigued). Barnes says that a dose of thyroid medication was the simple solution to a majority of his patients who had had at least one, if not more, of the previously mentioned symptoms. But he fails to mention any nutritional or lifestyle advice in order to “correct” the condition of hypothyroidism. He does state in a few examples that his patients changed absolutely nothing else about their daily lives, eating habits, or routine and with a simple dose of thyroid medication they were good as new within 2-6 months, yet once they stopped taking thyroid their symptoms came back almost immediately. Ok, so he found the cause to their problems, but is it the true cause or just the effect? What about the mechanisms that fuel, drive, and provide the thyroid gland with the energy to function properly?

Barnes patient experiences and learned understanding of how the thyroid basically affects the entire body is huge, but I also think it brings up the question of “how does the thyroid become inefficient?” I believe hydration, nutrition, and rest play some very big factors, but, again, they’re not the end-all-be-all when you throw in mentality, emotions, and relationships.

A simple home-test to check your thyroid includes a thermometer and your tongue. First thing in the morning – absolutely the very first thing that you do upon waking to negate any emotional or physical influence – reach for a thermometer and stick it under your tongue for 2 minutes. Any body temperature that is “below the normal range of 97.8 to 98.2 degrees F strongly suggests low thyroid function.” Why? Because when you’re body isn’t running “hot” then certain activities are paradoxically slowed down or increased; i.e. slow hormonal processes, slow digestion, slow movements, slow thought patterns, or increased heart rate, increased blood pressure, quick bursts of energy via the release of adrenaline followed by a long crash.

Matt Stone of 180degreehealth.com wrote an article Broda Barnes and Ray Peat and its relation to thyroid and he summed it up rather nicely…

Body temperature is just one tool in the bag. It is not the only tool. Assessments of the warmth of your feet and hands, sleep quality, the number of hours you can comfortably go without eating, pulse rate, sex drive, energy levels, fatigue after eating, bowel frequency, water consumption (should be high), calorie consumption, reflex quickness, blood glucose levels – both fasting and postmeal, menstrual regularity – anything and everything should be used in making an overall assessment of your health and self-diagnosing what may be needed to rebalance your “body chemistry” as Melvin Page called it. With those in mind, you can use nutrition and lifestyle change to the fullest.

If you’d like to discuss these perspective along with other health-related insights, please contact me for a FREE Conversation.

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Sunday wrap up july 29th

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Miss any posts this week?

Check out the blog archives for all posts!

If you’d like to discuss these perspective along with other health-related insights, please contact me for a FREE Conversation.

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Life’s energy reserves

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Throughout Selye’s book, “The Stress of Life,” he refers to a type of “energy reserve” with which each person is born. This so-called “Adaptive Energy” serves as a reservoir that can support and adapt to whatever life’s daily wear and tear from stress may bring – individually-speaking, of course. He places a theoretical limit on this reserve, “It is thought, at birth, each individual inherited a certain amount of adaptation energy, the magnitude of which is determined by his genetic background, his parents. He can draw upon this capital thriftily for a long but monotonously uneventful existence, or he can spend it lavishly in the course of a stressful, intense, but perhaps more colorful and exciting life. In any case, there is just so much of it, and he must budget accordingly.”

When I first came across this only 65 pages into his 306-page book, I had my eyebrow raised in intriguing fashion with this new, yet familiar perspective. As I read further about his General Adaptation Syndrome theory, his experiments with stress hormones, and the removal of organs or glands to “fix” a stress-related disease I began to question if his hypothesized limit for Adaptation Energy really held ground because, and I may be bold here, the scientific solutions of his lab-based experimental problems were merely fixing the symptoms, not the cause. He focused on the internal responses and symptoms of stress-induction. His mechanisms to support his theory were rather limited because he had to prove that stress was a real thing and that it had a physiological effect on the body via specific stressors. While he was successful in proving his theory, there are many grey areas that can be found between the fine lines.

Now would be a good time to provide his definition of Adaptation Energy: “The energy necessary to acquire and maintain adaptation, apart from caloric requirements.” The ending is what has me pump the brakes on the limits of Adaptation Energy. If we were to run off of absolutely zero caloric energy, we would die. Yes, we can fast (go without food and live solely on water) for an extraordinary amount of days, but it is my understanding that this can only be done with a well-rounded reserve of nutrients, glycogen stores, muscle tissue, and fat stores; that is, a reserve of energy stored and then converted from calories. In a state of caloric deficiency (aka stress), the body will release stress hormones which can tap into stored “energy” to maintain life (adrenaline to use up stored sugar/glycogen in the liver and muscles, and cortisol to convert muscle tissue/proteins/amino acids into sugar). So what if we didn’t have those foundational stores? What if the caloric energy was comprised of non-nutritious foods that created more of a stress environment? What about external factors such as climate, relationships, personal happiness? How is energy created if there’s nothing to create it?

I do back the theory of Adaptation Energy as a form of reserve energy which the body can tap into in times of [great or average] need via stressful situations (dietary, exercise, emotional, mental, etc.). However, I do not full buy into the concept of a defined limit with which we are born and must “use wisely” throughout our lifetime because once it’s gone then sayonara life. The body is a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant machine, so-to-speak, in the sense that it has the power to rejuvenate and recover itself under the most wild circumstances because of its ability to, in the words of Gunny Highway, “improvise, adapt, and overcome.” But those very mechanisms it uses to adapt to such situations are ever-so precious and must be built upon a sturdy foundation to take on anything – that foundation, as I see it in my current understanding of health, is a combination of hydration, nutrition, rest, and mental strength. I wish it were as simple to say it’s just caloric energy, but that would overlook the incredible importance of sleep and mentality; how creating energy is parallel with expending energy (yin and yang) and the mind-body connection, respectively.

Selye does come around at the end of the book to chalk one up to possibility, “Still, we have not fully excluded the possibility that adaptation energy could be regenerated to some extent, and perhaps even transmitted from one living being to another…” Given his theories were published in 1956 and new perspectives have since developed, it doesn’t write off the fact that Seyle was onto something universally important and has left a solid foundation for understanding the mechanisms of stress, wear and tear on the body, disease, and possible underlying causes.

 

If you’d like to discuss this perspective along with other health-related insights, please contact me for a FREE Conversation.

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Bikini season shmakini season

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Why does the thought of being scantily clad for three months out of the year suddenly spur us into a buckle-down-and-get-healthy mode?

Do the people that bust their asses for bikini season just leave it at that and the rest of the year they spend their days foraging for hibernation season?

Given we naturally store more body fat during the winter months to keep our body at a warm temperature, so why can’t that be taken into consideration as an adaptation mechanism/maintaining homeostasis and not a reason to punish ourselves [in the gym or kitchen]?

Why does bikini season have to last just for three months?

Why does bikini season have to be synonymous with ripped and shredded (when it could really mean malnourished, catabolic, chronically stressed, and hyperthyroid)?

Why does a fashion model-featured summer catalogue have to be the stereotyped basis for body comparison when a good majority of the featured are the complete opposite of healthy on the inside?

Why can’t we just make whole, well-rounded, considerate, and balanced decisions throughout the year and not put our bodies through a boot camp-esque hell just to “look good” in publicly accepted underwear?

If you’d like to discuss this perspective along with other health-related insights, please contact me for a FREE Conversation.

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Think of and use food as a supplement

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I think one of the biggest hurdles in encouraging people to eat healthy is that they lose their power to choose. Think about it: to choose what you’re going to eat, not going to eat, how much, how little, and how often is one of your only forms of control in this life. Yes, people choose to go on diets to “get healthy,” but they don’t necessarily choose the foods they’re eating or choose what falls within the diet’s guidelines. Diets suggest restriction and place limits or boundaries. They have no staying power because 1) they’re extreme and 2) they revoke our gosh-darn-god-given free right to choose! How many do you know someone who has gone “on a diet” and gone off in the not-so-distant future only to come back again… and then off… and on… and off? How many do you know someone who has gone Paleo or Low-Carb to see them really progress and then completely plateau, regress, or go sugar-crazy? And so the yo-yo saga continues.

I’m going to throw this out there: instead of completely changing your diet in the name of all-things-healthy, which usually ends up as all-things-the-hell-with-this-shit-I-want-some-damn-ice-cream, try viewing and using food as a supplement. I highlighted food because, in my experience, people will pop vitamins, toss back protein shakes, run miles upon miles, and guzzle bottles of water just so they can “balance” their I-eat-like-a-5-year-old diet and I-get-drunk-every-weekend lifestyle with an I’m-trying-to-be-somewhat-healthy-with-a-few-what-are-considered-to-be-healthy-choices approach and COMPLETELY NEGATE any possibility of simply choosing healthier food (now, the definition of healthier food is absolutely different for everyone so we won’t get into that). Food as a supplement involves exactly that – eating food – and it involves an awareness of a) what foods are healthy and b) what type, how much, and how often you need said healthy food in accordance to your lifestyle. For instance, the health-enthusiast word is rather programmed to drink a post work-out protein shake after every session to do all sorts of magically healthy things, but the main reason is to supplement energy, calories, and nutrients to an energy-calorie-and-nutrient-depleted body. Now, take this concept – to provide your body with the appropriate individualized ratio, quality, and timing of food to meet and/or replenish your unique energy demands – and transpose it to every day life!

Healthy eating doesn’t really have to be a daunting task or a complete lifestyle change as long as you are aware of the benefits it can provide compared to the choices and consequences which occur when “unhealthy eating” takes precedent. What seems to be the greatest hurdle, yet quite a simple “fix,” is actually eating any type of food to meet the demands and stress of the body and not necessarily eating poorly. The concept of supplementing food takes on a whole new dietary-approach because it gives a less-complex means to an all-encompassing end. Supplementing food provides your body with what it needs at the appropriate time and in the appropriate ratios through a cycle of experience, consequence, awareness, adaptation, preparation, and wisdom.

 

 

If you’d like to discuss this perspective along with other health-related insights, please contact me for a FREE Conversation.

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How often do you poop?

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As the Hippo-crates, the greats, put it, “all diseases begin in the gut.” So, in terms that you may better understand… when you ain’t poopin’, you ain’t bein’ all healthy and shit. 

This is a (whole)istic blog. We are not about – and by “we are” I mean, “me are” – we’re not about telling you to run a few daily miles, drink 8 glasses of water, eat a lot of green vegetables, and cut back on sugar! Quite the complete opposite if you haven’t caught on yet AND we’re (me’re) going to continue to talk about how often and how well you poop, pee, fart, smell, taste, hear, feel, walk, talk, think, sleep, experience, love, hate, give, take, want, need, breathe, believe, and be!

Ranting aside, pooping is a necessary DAILY function to aid in the all-sought-after “total health & well-being.” Holy shit I cannot stress DAILY… DAILY… DAIL-EE function more than enough. WebMD (which is supposedly the go-to-mecca when the question begs “what’s wrong with me?!”) is out of their mother-freakin’ minds stating that “most people pass stools anywhere from 3 times a day to 3 times a week. If your stools are soft and pass easily, you are not constipated.” What kind of back-asswards logic is that? Telling people they’re not constipated when they have perhaps FOUR DAYS worth of rotting fecal matter constantly creating toxic gases, enabling a breeding ground for bad bacteria, and recirculating toxic water into the bloodstream!

I’m not trying to scare you – I’m trying to bring some bright awareness lighting into your foyer. If you’re not pooping on a daily basis – ideally 1-3 times depending on your body’s natural way doing things – then there should be a ring-a-ding-ding in your brain saying that there’s something wrong… not, “meh, I’ll deal with it later.” The poop isn’t really to blame in this situation – it’s just trying to be poop. The problem(s) lie within the digestive system (really every system is involved/affected but we’ll keep it simple), the amount of digestive enzymes and fluids produced, the ratio/type of bacteria present, the amount and frequency of hormones produced, the quality/amount of calories/nutrients/food/water that energizes said amounts, ratio/type, and systems, and… the power of choice.

Now, there could be a number of causes which prevent poop from getting the heck out…

  • Inflammation of the intestines – a swollen intestinal wall creates a smaller passage for poop to get out, thus creating a blockage
  • Increased production of estrogen, prolactin, parathyroid, serotonin, cortisol, and adrenaline hormones – when these are made in excess (due to a natural stress response) they become pro-stress, pro-inflammatory, pro-degradation of normal bodily functions and energies – it is wise to note that many situations can create these hormones in excess
  • Imbalance of intestinal flora which can create an overdose of bacterial toxins which are reabsorbed into the bloodstream – good bacteria create a better “living environment” for poop to pass while toxins can burden the body’s functions
  • Food intolerances and food allergies – the body can only do so much with food it literally cannot digest or handle – either the food burden’s the body from doing its job or it literally stays undigested
  • Dehydration via over-hydration, under-hydration, lack of dietary salt/potassium/magnesium, water-retention, over-activity, excess stress, nutrient-void food - when dehydrated the body will often pull water from from your poop through the intestinal wall, thus leaving it hard to pass
  • Not sleeping enough – You, betcha! The body rebuilds, recovers, and regenerates its energy reserves for the next day’s fun-a-palooza. If it doesn’t have enough rest to create said reserves to function as it’s supposed to then some corners will be cut.

These are just some of the possible causes, but, again, these “causes” are really just symptoms, too. Bring the body back into homeostasis – aka everything working in order with a holistic balance of the good and the not-so-good – and you’ll be smooth sailing. Keep that awareness up and take some time to put your poop (or the lack thereof) into perspective.

If you’d like to discuss this perspective along with other health-related insights, please contact me for a FREE Conversation.

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I made it happen for myself

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You, and only you, can make things happen for yourself. While there may be people that encourage or have an influence on your life, at the end of the day you are the only one who allows such encouragements or influences to have a positive or negative effect on your being.

It is only up to you to take everything that you can from every single situation. I know that sounds daunting and rather limiting (if you are trying, you are not experiencing), but what good does it really do for your being to go through a “same shit, different day” life, routine, or mentality? I often jokingly use that phrase to my peers whenever I’m asked, “What’s new?” because, in my reality, every single thing that I experience is new and ever-evolving, and most of those experiences are felt rather than spoken.

If you want things to happen you need to make them happen. Set goals and work towards them. You may not know how to reach those goals when you first set out, but every step, every experience, and every situation along the way offers some sort of possible insight, guidance, or interpretation as to how you can reach your goals (that is if you are open and unbiasedly experiencing). Experience everything that you can within reason because you never know what it may bring. Experience without boundaries, expectations, regrets, or judgements. Experience, learn, and then make it happen.

 

If you’d like to discuss this perspective along with other health-related insights, please contact me for a FREE Conversation.

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There is no pure disease

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From what I gather thus far through reading Selye’s work, a specific reaction (a “disease”) is a resulted manifestation of non-specific reactions (a “syndrome”).

There is no pure disease. It is physically impossible to have a disease of the heart, liver, kidneys, lungs, thyroid, or reproductive organs without having symptoms or signs of a dis-ease elsewhere in the body (physically and/or non-physically).

Dis-ease can result from non-specific reactions. By non-specific, I mean a general effect due to a general cause. For instance, a cold, influenza, a virus, or bacterial infection all have common, non-specific symptoms that occur in each dis-ease – i.e., fever, coated tongue, fatigue, weight loss, appetite loss, varied elimination habits, etc. – and their cause usually pertains to non-specific adaptations – i.e., low immune function or a low metabolic rate (both lead to susceptibility and their cause cannot be defined from one single antagonist).

So…

To treat a disease, wouldn’t it be better to treat the body that has the disease rather than treating the disease that has the body? 

Could diseases be “cured” through general observations and approaches? Through connecting the dots and retracing steps to understand what general adaptation encouraged a specific disease? Through a specific knowledge of cause and effect rather than a specific knowledge of effect?

 

If you’d like to discuss this perspective along with other health-related insights, please contact me for a FREE Conversation.

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jdperryhealth@gmail.com

Sunday wrap up july 22nd

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Miss any posts this week?

Check out the blog archives for all posts!

If you’d like to discuss these perspective along with other health-related insights, please contact me for a FREE Conversation.

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jdperryhealth@gmail.com