Lois Pratt, C.P.T., N.T.P. Exceptional Determination! That is what it takes to reclaim our rightful place of wonderful health. It is difficult in this 24/7 world of stress and processed food but the goal is reachable.The practice of Nutritional Therapy is a little different than other nutrition consultants. We have many tools in which we use to get a very thorough understanding of where our clients are nutritionally and what systems we can support for optimal health. We use a detailed symptom survey, a thorough interview, a food journal and we also conduct a hands-on functional evaluation. The functional evaluation is a process in which I will check many different reflex points on the body in order to determine specific nutritional deficiencies. After I conduct the evaluation, I will test different supplements against the results so that I may provide you with a tailored protocol that is specifically designed for you. Your body will make it clear what supplements you respond to favorably and what will aide you in your path to reach optimal health. Please visit Lois' business site HealthyDetermination.com
In no period of our history as a nation have Americans been so concerned about the subject of diet and nutrition. Yet if we accept the premise that what we eat determines our health, then we must add the observation that in no period of our history as a nation have Americans eaten so poorly, a statement that the most cursory survey of current statistics can prove.
Although heart disease and cancer were rare at the turn of the century, today these two diseases strike with increasing frequency, in spite of billions of dollars in research to combat them, and in spite of tremendous advances in diagnostic and surgical techniques. In America, one person in three dies of cancer, one in three suffers from allergies, one in ten will have ulcers and one in five is mentally ill. Continuing this grim litany, one out of five pregnancies ends in miscarriage and one quarter of a million infants are born with a birth defect each year. Other degenerative diseases--arthritis, multiple sclerosis, digestive disorders, diabetes, osteoporosis, Alzheimer's, epilepsy and chronic fatigue--afflict a significant majority of our citizens, sapping the energy and the very life blood of our nation. Learning disabilities such as dyslexia and hyperactivity afflict seven million young people. These diseases were also extremely rare only a generation or two ago.
Today, chronic illness afflicts nearly half of all Americans and causes three out of four deaths in the United States. Most tragically, these diseases, formerly the purview of the very old, now strike our children and those in the prime of life.
Americans spend one dollar out of every fourteen for medical services, or over $800 billion yearly--more than the national deficit, the food bill and the profits of all U.S. corporations combined--yet we have little to show for this tremendous drain on our resources. Medical science has not even been able to lengthen our life span. Fewer persons alive at 70 today survive until 90 than forty years ago. And those who do survive past 70 are often a helpless burden to their families, rather than useful members of society. Credit for today's relatively long life span belongs to improved sanitation and the reduction of infant mortality.
New killer viruses now command newspaper headlines and even infectious diseases such as tuberculosis are making a comeback, this time in forms resistant to allopathic drugs. Chemical sensitivities and problems with the immune system abound. We have almost forgotten that our natural state is one of balance, wholeness and vitality.
Politically Correct Nutrition
Clearly something is very wrong, even though many Americans have been conscientious about following orthodox dietary advice. They take exercise seriously, many have stopped smoking, consumptions of fresh vegetables has increased, many have reduced their intake of salt, and a good portion of America has cut back on red meats and animal fats. But none of these measures has made a dent in the ever increasing toll of degenerative disease. We buy foods labeled low-fat, no cholesterol, reduced sodium, thinking they are good for us. Why, then, are we so sick?
The premise of this book is that the advice of the Diet Dictocrats--what they tell us and, just as important, what they don't tell us--is wrong. Not 100 percent wrong. There is a certain amount of truth in their pronouncements, enough to give them credibility, but not enough to save us from the sufferings of chronic disease.
Who are the Diet Dictocrats? In general they are doctors, researchers and spokesmen for various government and quasi-government agencies, such as the Food and Drug Administration; the American Medical Association (AMA); the American Dietetic Association (ADA); prestigious hospitals and research centers, such as Sloan-Kettering, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI); university medial schools and nutrition departments; The National Academy of Science (NAS); and large so-called philanthropic organizations like the American Cancer Society (ACS) and the American Heart Association (AHA), ostensibly dedicated to combating our most serious diseases. Bases on what we read in the newspaper and national magazines, these organizations speak with one voice. "Exercise, eat vegetables, stop smoking, reduce salt," they say, "cut back or eliminate animal fats and red meat." Recently, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) issued new nutritional guidelines in the form of a pyramid, calling for a diet based on grains--bread, pasta, cereal and crackers--along with fruits and vegetables. The guidelines recommend only small amounts of protein foods--meat, fowl, fish, nuts and legumes--and strictly limited consumption of sweets and fats.
The new guidelines have their good points. The experts are right, for example, in calling for a reduction in sweets in the American diet. We must recognize and applaud progress wherever we find it. Since 1923, when a US Farmers Bulletin recommended one pound of sugar per person per week, consumers have heard numerous government reassurances that sugar is harmless. During the last few years these soothing voices have fallen quiet as the evidence against sugar continues to mount. The new Department of Agriculture's guidelines represent a rare establishment warning against eating too much sugar but it is doubtful that the popular press will emphasize this feature of the Food Pyramid.
Nutritional Health
It seems I began a journey I didn't even know I was on, in the Spring of 2009. After a 25 year career in the Health and Fitness Industry, a consistent exerciser myself and a vegetarian diet, I believed I was following the path of a long, disease-free life. Symptoms began to creep into my life and it was my awareness of my body that made me pay attention. No one would have considered these symptoms anything abnormal and for a 48 year old woman, would have called them "expected". I knew my body was crying for help and I was deficient in some aspect of my lifestyle.
I began reading everything I could get my hands on pertaining to this phase of aging. Approaching this from a holistic view, patterns began to emerge. I researched the reading list required when studying to become a Nutritional Therapist and the first book I read changed my life. Nora Gedgaudas, in her book "Primal Body-Primal Mind" put all the pieces of the puzzle together. This prompted me to have my cholesterol levels checked even though cholesterol is only an indicator and not a diagnosis of disease. Our misconception of the role of cholesterol in our bodies has us very misguided in our quest for health but is making the pharmaceutical companies very rich. After 20 years on a low-fat, low cholesterol, vegetarian diet, my cholesterol numbers came back in the abnormal range. Particularly shocking, was my HDL's (the supposedly "good" cholesterol) was a low number of 26 (for woman, it should be above 35). Here I was following the ever popular media of the correct way to maintain health and the indicators were pointing to a failure of that goal. Nora Gedgaudas showed me the fallacy of this belief system.
The deficiencies of a vegetarian diet, along with years of strenuous exercise, were leading me to deficiencies in Vitamin B-12, Folic acid, Vitamin D, Zinc and Vitamin C. It first showed up in my endocrine (these are the messengers of the body directing every function it performs) system but in digging deeper through blood work, showed the extent of the true path I was following. Some of the symptoms showing disruption in the body were:
Achy joints, "head rushes" or light headedness (I liked to blame this on living at 9400' elevation), dull headaches, night sweats (usually associated with menopause but also a symptom of a sluggish liver), dry eyes, insomnia.
Quite the list for someone who was eating from the USDA Food Pyramid (not based on scientific research but on supply of a food souce, particularly carbohydrates), NEVER eating fast food or drinking soda and junk food. I baked my own bread and all our food was made from scratch using organic ingredients with very little packaged foods. So what in the world could be causing the pesky symptoms?
It turns out that a low-fat diet and especially a vegetarian diet causes nutrient deficiencies that lead to organ damage is some form. It may not show up until the aging of our bodies can't repair the damage anymore but it is a life time of small deficiences that cause disease. It can be prevented or repaired USING THE RIGHT FOOD AS MEDICINE. The largest problem in the American diet is our sugar intake and I am not talking about the obvious sugar in candies and desserts. Sugar (in the form of high fructose corn syrup) is in just about all packaged foods in the supermarket. All grain products are broken down to sugar in our bodies and our bodies do not treat a candy bar or a potato any differently in the digestion process. Sugar is so damaging to the body that just about every so called "metabolic syndrome" can be traced back to this one substance that has permeated our food supply. It is no coincidence that diabeties is on the rise. Factory farmed animals are then fed an unnatural diet of grains (instead of their natural diet of grasses) which destoys nutrients like the much needed Omega-3, an essential fatty acids that humans MUST have. It wasn't just because I was lacking meat in my diet that Omega-3 was a problem because the majority of Americans are also lacking it. This is due to the factory farming methods in the meat industry so if you are buying your meat products in a regular grocery store and it is not marked as 100% grass-fed, you, too, are lacking Omega-3's. This is just the tip of the iceburg. If I had followed the "standard medical system" with the above symptoms, I would have been given HRT (hormone replacement therapy) and a statin drug (cholesterol lowering medication) further complicating the underlying problem of a damaged liver! This book is a must read in reclaiming your health!
It takes a certain determination and willingness to take responsibility for one's own well-being. It takes a certain decision to take charge of discovering the answers for one's self. Sometimes (in keeping with human nature), it takes reaching the point where the pain of the problem is worse than the pain of the long-term solution, to arrive at a real lasting change. Health is a choice we all make and a responsibility we ourselves shoulder. No magic pill will ever take the place of a diet and lifestyle that honors our primal physiology. pg.233 Primal Body Primal Mind
Below are excepts from Sugar Blues the health bestseller.
If physicians a hundred thirty years ago had trouble accepting the radical notion that their own dirty hands spread unnecessary disease and suffering, it is a bit much to expect them to connect the whopping rise in sugar consumption with the whopping rise of new diseases.
Traditional Oriental Medicine has aways insisted the mind and body are not separate. What we call disease and illness are merely symptoms that the entire body is out of kilter. To make a man whole again, he has only to eat whole foods.
Obesity is not a disease. It is a symptom, a sign, a warning that your body is out of order. Many overweight people are undernourished. Eating less can aggravate this condition unless one is concerned with the quality of the food instead of the quantity.
The simple but long (4-5 hours) glucose tolerance test should be a part of ALL initial medical tests especially for all kids with apparent issues; ie:obesity. Then we can avoid shit like this:
In 1940, Dr. John Tintera suggests "it is ridiculous to talk of kinds of allergies when there is but one kind, which is adrenal glands impaired... by sugar. Allergists had a great racket going for themselves... until someone says's "none of this matters, take them off sugar, and keep them off it."
The only thing ailing most people is the result of consuming sugar!
In 1924, a year after the discoverer of Insulin was awarded a Nobel Prize a professor of medicine discovered the cure for low blood glucose or hyperinsulinism (also commonly and misleadingly called low blood sugar). Patients must give up refined sugar, candy, coffee, and soft drinks. These items had caused the troubles... it was a do-it-yourself proposition and the disease establishment would not have it!
"... ever food contains varing amounts of substances from which the body benefits...". If that statement is accepted as accurate, it follows that sugar is not a food.
In 1973, a U.S. senate committee used the word antinutrient to describe sugar.
The most manufactured drug and principal food of mankind for only a few hundred years... sugar.
Combining a sandwich with a soda is enough to turn your stomach into a still.
"Why must we accept as normal what we find in a race of sick and weakened human beings?" Dr Herbert M. Shelton asks. "Must we always take it for granted that the present eating practices of civilized men are normal?"
Mixing proteins with sugar, broken down become non-usable substances.
The conscientious objector to sugar is alone, moving through the day like a drunk navigating a minefield.
In parenting today punishment means the cola, or candy, or cookie is taken away or withheld. On good behaviour should this poison be given back to them? ... or should our actions be questioned.
Sugar consumption is related to physical degeneration on a global scale...
95% of serotonin is produced in the human gut. Sugar disrupts the body's ability to produce serotonin, the brain and body's happy-feeling chemical. Today more and more people are being diagnosed with Depression. This is how some people manifest their sugar-caused disease, a reduced production of serotonin. When it becomes important enough for you to find out the cause of your disease demand a glucose tolerance test first before accepting any drug...OR the do-it-yourself method is to stop all sugar consumption for a year. Being sugar-free for a few weeks alone might blow you away... along with the symptoms of your disease. You will be sugar-free and drug-free... and medical bill free.
Both coronary disease and diabetes have a common cause: white sugar and white flour. Are we, with our sugar industry programed eating habits, setting ourselves up for one of these conditions?
Sugar depresses the immune system, hinders calcium and magnesium absorption, exhausts the body's chromium supplies, and causes the body to start stealing minerals from bones and teeth.Sugar stimulates the pancreas to produce insulin which is needed to metabolize sugar.The pancreas wears out from sugar consumption over load, and most likely, runs out of the minerals it needs to produce hormones, and diabetes is the result.We are now seeing an epidemic of obesity and diabetes in our nations' children.It is ironic that we are both obese and starving.
Nobody but us can stop ourselves from digging a grave with our teeth.
With the sweet taste of sugar comes it's bitter sweet ending. Sometimes sickly lasting a lifetime... until we kick it. Kick the sugar curse. Sorry to be sooo brutal. Learning sugars history and hidden/hard to find medical testing results from it's consumption blew us away.
Much of today's environmental degradation is out of our control. What goes in our mouth IS within our control. We personally can stop the food conglomerates from putting garbage in our food. This we need to celebrate! Research and practice creating your Sugar-Free Zone!
