The True Wealth of Health

Exercise and nutrition... the ultimate prescription for optimum health and long life. But the exercise must be correct and the nutrition must be biologically compatible with our human genome complex. Fall short and you can expect deleterious consequences more reliable than rising gas prices. Obey the laws that dictate optimum health and that is exactly what you get.

Nature isn't prejudice. She takes everybody down who ignores her. As stated by Francis Bacon, "To command nature we must obey her."

Exercise and nutrition... still light years ahead of prescription drugs as the best medicine. Dr. James Wright, professor of medicine at the University of British Columbia extols the multiple benefits of exercise and nutrition therapy. 29 billion dollars of annual statin drug sales can't hold a candle stick to bathing our genes in whole food, routine physical conditioning and an almost endless variety of natural health products. His expert advice is to do what works and what is proven through scientific research. Statins fall short on both counts, but only the inquisitive mind would take interest in this.

The simple truth is that our bodies are meant to move. Until recently, if you didn't farm, fish, hunt or gather, you didn't eat. You had to expend calories to get calories. That's balance. Blood type B. That's me. Today we can simply order-in or drive-through. Of course our original diet consisted of organic, unrefined whole food loaded with micronutrients. That's quality. This wholesome clean dietary approach is called the ancestral or paleo diet. Now what we call "food" is chemically produced, genetically modified, highly refined, packed with added salt, sugar and fat for taste and extremely low in micronutrients. It is foreign to our DNA and highly toxic to the neurons in our brain.

The Chi acronym for DIET is Discipline In Energy Transfer. Do you have any? The function of food is first and foremost related to biological supply and demand. This concept ties in with the Chi Prime Directive. Like Star Trek. Supply YOUR individual biological demand of energy and micronutrients (vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients and enzymes).

The Chi Prime Directive ranks higher than taste, mouth feel or pleasure. Food is far more than just fuel for the fire. It's a drug according to Dr. Barry Sears, author of the Zone Diet, a drug consisting of thousands of bioactive natural chemicals in their primal organic state. Eat the correct amount of protein, carbs and fat at the right time and you can expect insulin stability and blood sugar balance. No more highs or lows. No more cravings for sugar and refined sterile food or what Dr. Abram Hoffer calls "food artifacts." Hoffer MD PhD is best known for his research in psychiatry, niacin biochemistry and orthomolecular medicine.

Controlled exercise AND physical activity are necessary to our survival because they are the only means of compensating for living without physical effort in the 21st Century. They both pave the way to better health and longevity of life through transformation of mind and body. The body is servant to the mind. Measure your health by the state of your mind. To measure the state of your mind look at your body naked in the mirror.

Most people do not understand what exercise is. Going for a walk isn't exercise. Neither is golfing, gardening, hiking, dancing or any sport. These are all examples of physical activity, but they are not exercise. Here's the difference and it's a major one. Physical activity refers to any expenditure of energy brought about by bodily movement through the contraction of skeletal muscles. This includes a complete spectrum of activity ranging from very low resting levels, like walking, to maximal exertion, like a shift in a hockey game. Exercise is a component of physical activity but its distinguishing characteristic is that it's structured, planned, progressive and organized by science to develop and maintain total physical fitness for the benefit of health and performance. It's something you measure and calculate progressively using sets, reps, poundage and time. E = MC2

Exercise is the means; physical activity is the end. You strengthen and condition your body so you can use your body as it was and is designed to do life long. If you don't it literally disintegrates prematurely due to neglect, poor diet, uncontrolled free radical oxidation, gravity and entropy. The medical term is sarcopenia or "poverty of flesh." The Spartans understood that both mind and body are equal in terms of value, development and condition. Go see the movie 300.

When performed correctly and consistently, exercise will give you TOTAL PHYSICAL FITNESS, which cannot occur without resistance training, aerobic conditioning and stretching. No single sport or physical activity provides total physical fitness. Every wonder why professional athletes all go the gym? Why don't they just play their sport? Now you know.

Walking is therapeutic but it will not prevent the atrophy of muscle observed in men and women as they age. It's also not strenuous enough to release growth hormone or elevate testosterone. Strength training targets every muscle symmetrically and keeps your anabolic drive alive, but you still need to stretch to retain the flexibility of youth and perform some form of continuous aerobic activity for the sake of your heart, lungs and arteries. Life is in the blood. That's why nutrition is critical and continues to surface as a health factor in all the geriatric research.

The function of exercise is to develop muscle strength, muscle endurance, aerobic capacity and flexibility, the outcome of which, when combined with an optimum diet and dietary supplements, is an ideal body composition, greater tolerance to stress and improved resistance to disease and infection. Fitness is something you can measure. It's recognized as a functional gauge for health and performance. This is why all of my student graduates must submit the results of a personal fitness assessment. Where there is health there must be evidence of health. An annual fitness assessment is by far the most reliable predictor of morbidity and risk of mortality. You simply can't cheat on the treadmill and iron in the gym plays no favorites.

We're all engaged in the Sport of Living. No job, no matter how physically demanding, can give you total physical fitness or the balance and symmetry achieved through exercise management. The body adapts to the intensity of the work stress imposed, and once it has adapted, it will never go beyond that standard. Meanwhile the natural forces around us responsible for causing sarcopenia are constantly working on every living organism. The worst offender of all is sitting in front of a computer for hours without end. It impedes circulation, So in the same way you eat, sleep, breathe and work, you can make time for something that can raise your performance standards, resistance to infection and appearance to a level not possible without formal exercise training. And you can do it in 5 hours or less per week. Don't expect to keep your youthful shape or prevent degeneration disease without paying the price. Take action and listen to the wise words of Hippocrates, the father of Medicine, or you will fall sick.

Don't take supplements to compensate for a bad diet, that's based on a negative out dated paradigm. The new paradigm is that you add the finest supplements you can find to the best possible diet you can eat, and then combine that strategy with controlled exercise. The new paradigm of sports nutrition focuses on health, biological age and function. It parallels nutrition science and clinical research in human performance. The objective is to minimize damage to your body as you age, extend your health span and maximize the quality of your life. Health span is the time you spend alive in a functional state without chronic pain or the need for prescription medication. For the average Canadian it ends at age 35, but according to both Dr. James Fries and Linus Pauling PhD it's possible to extend our health span or "compress morbidity" well into our eighth decade and beyond.

As a health consultant specializing in human performance and clinical sports nutrition, I routinely engage with a wide variety of clients who express enormous variation in body chemistry, origin of descent, body composition and knowledge in health, fitness and nutrition.

On a one to one basis, my initial goal is to determine their present functional health status and physical condition. This is achieved through a personal interview and an eclectic variety of health assessments and screening procedures including a compulsory fitness assessment, hair analysis, a customized blood & urine chemistry profile, somatotyping (blood & body type, ethnic origin, gland dominance), a chiropractic exam, extensive dietary analysis, evaluation of thyroid function and a complete review of medication, recreational drug use and dietary supplements. Next, I identify their personal objectives and then design a practical lifestyle strategy for the achievement of their goals. This always includes the addition or modification of the following triad:

1. A structured one-hour exercise program (5 days per week), which emphasizes a brief warm-up period, resistance exercise (one body-part), core training, aerobic conditioning and a complete body stretch.
2. A compatible dietary protocol consisting of whole non-contaminated natural food from both plant and animal origin, based on ancestral and traditional evolutionary patterns, biochemical tolerance and the science of biological medicine.
3. Dietary supplements featuring essential micronutrients, mixed source antioxidants, protein shakes blended with omega-3 rich sport oil, whey protein isolate, creatine monohydrate, L-glutamine, ribose, calcium ascorbate and a variety of accessory nutrients and selected botanical and homeopathic agents.

The vast majority of modern day illness is caused or exacerbated by inactivity, micronutrient insufficiency, chronic acidosis, dehydration, sleep deprivation, drug abuse, etc... Through an integrative process of health care assessment and discussion, I have found that virtually every symptom of illness, such as infection, fatigue or obesity, can be traced back to its origin of cause. Treating chronic symptoms with drugs will not remedy the problem. Any gardener knows that to kill a weed, you've got to pull it out by the roots.

The original medical paradigm of diagnoses and treatment was developed by necessity in a time dominated by widespread infectious disease. This paradigm no longer applies to today's epidemic of heart disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity. These conditions are imposed on the body directly and primarily via lifestyle, not by an infectious agent. In other words the outcome of your health is based on the choices you make. Simple cause and effect.

Managing your health is like managing your money. You have to spend it carefully, invest it wisely and pay attention to it. Ignore it and it will ignore you. Good health can slip away right through your fingers if you take it for granted and avoid the work that goes into maintaining it. In our home health is spelled W.O.R.K. Smart work and hard work. Smart work applies to knowing why and following through with consistent action. Hard work applies to the action itself. There is no substitute for hard work in the gym. Going through the motion is a waste of time. If you're going to exercise then do it with integrity and enthusiasm. Muscle is our health engine. It's where the power for movement and action is manifest.

As always, stay well and live free!

Dr.C