Day 11

Considering an anti-inflammatory diet or a paleolithic diet is a lifestyle change more than a quick fix, many people I speak with are concerned with the thought of having to learn a completely new way to cook. Even more so, many don't want to say goodbye to their favorite foods. Although I can't give you all of your favorite foods and still fit it within a proper Omega 3 -6 ratio, I wanted to share some simple recipes for old favorites.

1) Omega-3 pizza!

Pre-heat oven and pizza stone to 500 for up to 1 hour.

Make a dough with tapioca flour, coconut flour, guar gum, salt, pepper, garlic powder, rosemary, and cold water.

-This will make a very sticky dough that you need to pound out onto a piece of wax paper

Heat 2 pots on the stove.

-In one, reduce chopped tomatoes and tomato paste with your favorite herbs, oils and vinegars. (No sugar!)

-In the other, brown some grass-fed ground beef with fresh sage, rosemary, and onions

Flip the dough onto the hot pizza stone and remove the wax paper. Cook both sides until they start to get brown spots

Remove the dough and splash it with some sauce and a crumbling of the meat mixture. Toss on some fresh veggies( spinach, mushrooms, sliced tomatoes) and crumble a bit of cheese on it. Only use a small amount of cheese. Bake until the cheese starts to bubble.

2) Salmon salad with Omega 3 friendly dressing

Dressing: 1 cup stone ground mustard (look for one with the fewest ingredients), 1/2 cup EVOO, 1/4 - 1/3 cup balsamic vinegar, 2tbs basil, 2 tbs thyme, salt and pepper, (this will make enough to last quite a while!)

Salad: Rinsed spinach, broccoli, green pepper, celery, and some organic alfalfa sprouts

Top with raisins, raw almonds/walnuts, a sectioned clementine, and some grilled wild salmon

3) Chocolate covered banana-sicle

Throw a peeled banana on a stick and put it on wax paper in the freezer while you follow the next steps. (option: slather banana with almond butter before you freeze)

Put together a pot of boiling water with a small glass mixing bowl on top. Melt a few pieces of dark chocolate in the bowl, stirring frequently.

Remove chilled banana and slather with chocolate. Sprinkle some shaved coconut meat over this and pop it back into the freezer until the chocolate hardens.

I hope you enjoy these simple recipes. A good source for more Omega 3 friendly recipes is on the many Paleo cooking blogs.

Day 10

In the second day of my treatment plan we continued with chiropractic manipulations of the TL junction and mobilization of the foot, but we also got into breathing and core. Justin evaluated my breathing which basically consisted of me laying on my back with my knees and feet elevated and ribs compressed. He then placed his hands on different parts of my abdomen and asked me to push his fingers out with proper breathing. I know it may seem odd to most, but when you take a breath, it is actually your abdomen all the way down to your pelvic floor that should be expanding, not your rib cage. This type of movement is only possible if you have a properly functioning diaphragm and a strong core.

So why is proper breathing important? Well this is impossible to sum up in one post, so I will hit on some key factors.

1)When you allow yourself to breath with your diaphragm, it presses down into your abdominal cavity. If this is countered by contraction of the pelvic floor and abdominal muscles, then you have successfully created a compact and secure band around your waist. This is your natural weightlifting belt! with proper diaphragmatic breathing and stabilization you can pretty quickly say goodbye to back pain and stability issues.

2) By holding the ribs down with the the abdominal muscles and the diaphragm, it creates a stable base out of your ribs. Other muscles that originate on the ribs are then performing their actions on solid ground rather than on a wobbly raft. So the serratus anterior can now function to hold down the scapula with less difficulty and you can start to say bye to shoulder instability!

3) Every time you perform a full breath cycle diaphragmatically, you extend at the TL junction and flex at the LS junction as well as moving each joint in between. The intervertebral discs are nourished through immbibition, a physical suctioning in of nutrients that requires this motion. So essentially, with proper breathing mechanics, every breath acts to nourish the disc. And with this you can start to prevent degenerative disc disease.

This is just one of the many powerful outcomes I have been privy to while under routine care from a doctor of chiropractic medicine. Small changes that create widespread positive results!

Day 9

Today I met with Justin Bryant, an intern in NUHS' student clinic. We did a physical and discussed some of my lingering aches as well as goals for continued health. Something most people don't know is how much you can benefit from seeing a good doctor when you go in without pain, hoping to hold onto continued health. My aches over my right hip have been constant for years, but so subtle that it has never bothered me. Although my right toe aches a bit, it hasen't acted up lately, so I never saw fit to go get it checked out before today.

After my physical and some orthopedic tests, Justin determined that my hip pain was primarily do to something called "Maigne's Syndrome". "Maigne's Syndrome" is actually a result of an immobile or inflamed thoracolumbar joint (T11-L2) which results in refereed pain/discomfort to the dermatomes associated with these root levels (iliac crest, buttocks, skin of the groin). You can read more about Maigne's Syndrome at the following link: Maigne's Syndrome and see dermatomes here: Dermatome Map. Justin manipulated my TL junction and all of the numbness and discomfort in my hip went away immediately! For years I have been stretching, and massaging my right hip with no improvement, and one properly placed manipulation does the trick! Justin explained to me that this is just the start of treatment and that one adjustment can't undo years of immobility. So we made a full rehab plan that included adjustments, stretches, stabilization exercises, and re patterning the way I breathe and sit.

At the end of this first visit, Justin also worked to provide more mobility in the rigid parts of my foot and applied some soft tissue techniques to reduce the tenderness and inflammation in my great toe. So why do we want to give mobility to a rigid foot? When applying Newton's 3ed law, it is easy to see that every time the foot strikes the ground with say, 200 lbs of force, the ground in turn is hitting the foot with 200 lbs of force! Each foot strikes the ground between 10 and 15 thousand times a day, absorbing the equivalent of 639 metric tons of force. Applying physics further, this is 110% of your body weight passing through you at 200 mph every single time you take a step! If your foot is not mobile and is unable to transfer this force through the kinematic chain, then something else has to compensate and take the brunt of the force. So even if I am not experiencing pain now, this repeated force could eventually trash my foot and and strain my hip and low back. Issues with the foot are now even proving to affect the human body all the way up to the atlanto-occipital complex.

Day 8

I decided to take a day off from the gym today to focus on my midterm exames and let my body recoupe and rest up a bit. Yesterday was my second day of gluteus medius workouts and I ended up adding 3 small exercises to it. "In the window" and "out the window" both have you on all fours and you move one leg as if you where climbing in through a window and then out through a window. "The fire hydrant" is a bit base, but you basically lift one leg to the sky as a dog would at a fire hydrant. These new three exercises incorporate more of the gluteus muscles and sure do leave you a little stiff the next day! The exciting part, is that after only two of these workouts, I have begun to notice a change in my gate. My adductors are no longer holding on for dear life, and I don't have as much of a heal whip. It is actually much easier to walk in a straight line. These are motivating results and I will make sure to keep you updated as I progress!

Day 7

Today I am 1 week in and feeling great. The goal of today’s post is to accurately update you on what changes have occurred in the first week of following the doctor’s orders.

1) Energy. This has been the biggest and most thrilling change for me. After nearly 6 years of feeling constantly worn down and fatigued, I am just bursting with energy. I am finding it easier to get up in the morning and a lot easier to focus in class. My mood has improved more than I thought it needed to, and I feel motivated. It is hard to express just how thorough and exciting this change in energy has been!
2) Physique. Slow and steady wins the race. While not expecting a huge change here, I definitely did feel my clothes loosen up on me at the end of the week. Lets compare some measurements from today to day 1

Weight: 207 lbs (- 5lbs)
Chest: 40.5” (- 0.5”)
True waist: 37” (- 1.5”)
Midsection (widest part): 40” (- 2.0”)
Hips & buttocks: 44” (- 1.25”)
Thigh: 24.5” (- 0.5”)
Calf: 14.75” (- 0.25”)
Bicep (flexed): 14.25” (- 0.25”)
Neck (at collar): 15” (- 0.25”)

Those are some pretty big changes for just 1 week of sticking to the plan! Although I don’t expect to see that big of a change every week, it is a nice boost to my motivation.

3) Cravings. This is perhaps the most surprising change to me. I no longer crave the foods that are bad for me. I don’t need grains or sugars or any of that stuff anymore. I still get hungry (quite often, I might add) but it is not a particular craving, and when I eat a piece of fruit or some vegetables, I am very content. If you are reading this and thinking, “it’s too good to be true”, I agree with you. I feel like I am getting away with robbery here!

Day 6

So what does a guy who can’t eat grains fill up on? I used to love making breads and pastas and homemade pizzas. Heck, I still love that stuff, but I owe it to my health to give this diet a whirl. I eat a lot of food on the anti-inflammatory “diet”! One of the first things that really hit me, was how much food you need to eat throughout the day when it isn’t calorie rich, carbohydrate dense food. A simple comparison is a plain bagel to steamed broccoli. 1 plain bagel used to fill me up pretty well and get me going for a while at about 254 calories. You would need to eat roughly 6 cups of broccoli to get a similar caloric intake (264 cal), but with broccoli you get lots of potassium and fiber and other nutrients that you can’t find in a bagel. Now I don’t sit down at one meal and eat 6 cups of veggies, but my portions are larger than my meals where on the typical diet. It is important not to eat once you are full!


Typical daily shopping list of consumed goods:

5 small zucchini
½ lb mushrooms
8 cups of spinach
4 carrots
4 celery stalks
½ lb broccoli
3TBS extra virgin olive oil
4 pieces of fruit (I should eat more)
1 omega -3 egg
4-8 oz wild salmon or wild game (venison or elk)
1-2 oz dark chocolate
½ cup raw almonds and walnuts
Tons of spices!
Lots of water and green tea

This is what I ate most of the week cooked into several different forms, including raw. It was a very delicious week, and everything just tasted fresher and less dense without the grain/sugar/preservative triad that finds its way into most of our food. I have to say it, “eat real food people”!

Day 5

Two days of core work and two days of jogging got me motivated to work on a specific muscle, the gluteus medius. In the majority of people, this muscle is neurologically inhibited, under-used, and weak. It is a very important muscle for stabilizing the hip and can easily spotted as the muscle that keeps the hips perfectly level as you step down stairs. I usually pass a number of muscle tests for the glut med, but I wear down quickly and I have some chronic hip issues. For about as long as I can remember I have had very tight adductor muscles, which elicit some soreness, and don’t respond well to stretching. The adductor muscles are on the medial side of the thigh and bring the leg closer to midline as well as helping out in a few auxiliary processes. After studying some anatomy books and a gait analysis book, I hypothesized that my tight adductors may be compensation for weak glut activation. So I followed this 40-minute glut routine:

10 minute warm up on treadmill

Clams (4 positions on each side) for about 12 minutes

Tri-planar squats, making sure to load my heal and gluts for about 10 minutes

Double leg, and single leg glut bridges for about 5 minutes

Cool down stretches.

This is not a sweat breaking workout, but it is mentally tough to focus on only letting one muscle do all the work without compensating, especially when it is a weak muscle. You definitely feel the burn throughout, but it doesn’t quite count as a cardiovascular work out.

The Switzerland Of Fats

Olive oil is like the Switzerland of Fats, because it’s impact on omega-3s is more or less neutral. When you use olive oil as the primary fat in your diet, it helps to displace omega-6 fats. Olvie oil is a well-established staple in the Mediterranean diet and a favorite among chefs for culinary purposes. It has been promoted for years as healthful oil because it is low in artery-clogging saturated fats.

Most omega-6 fats come from salad dressings, cooking oils, margarines, spreads, and grains. Here is a list of common oils and their ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids. Remember we are trying to achieve a ratio of as close to 1:1 as possible.


OILS: RATIO:
Grapeseed 947:1
Cottonseed 234:1
Sunflower 180:1
Safflower 77:1
Corn 46:1
Soybean 8:1
Vegetable 8:1
Olive oil 3:1 or better

It is important to remember that this ratio is not the only factor in choosing a healthy fat. Some oils are obesity/cholesterol inducing, and soybean oil is also linked to raised estrogen (cancer, obesity inducing). For healthy oils, stick to olive oil, coconut oil, or a small amount of butter from a grass-fed cow.

Also, as an into to a future topic:
• Beef, grain-fed, conventional
17.2:1 or worse
• Beef, grass-fed, grass-finished
2.7:1 or better (and naturally antibiotic free!)

Day 2

After feeling great on day one and this morning, I had very unsettled stomach all morning. It was one of those queasy feelings that wouldn’t go away for a few hours. After meeting with a clinician, it was pointed out that my multivitamin contained a reasonable amount of magnesium, and I was supplementing with clinical magnesium. Although magnesium is essential for the proper functioning of our bodies, and praised for its anti-inflammatory properties, it can also “make you go”. It is recommended that you work your body up to taking an appropriate amount of magnesium (up to 1 gram a day). With both supplements, I was starting my day off with 700mg all at once. Tomorrow I will start with the 400mg clinical magnesium in the morning and take the multi-vitamin in the evening. Even with the stomach ache my energy levels are through the roof!

In the evening I reintroduced my body to running and got a good sweat going within 10 minutes. It is important to keep your current health in mind when you hit the gym. If you jump in the deep end to soon, you can easily find yourself injured, or even with a cardiovascular injury. Elliptical machines and bikes are a great way to get your body used to cardio without causing shin splints or any other lower quadrant issues. If you are a bit overweight, a smoker, or have any family history of CVD, it’s also good to monitor your heart rate while exercising.

My routine was a 10 minute warm up on the bike to get my heart rate up to 130 beats per minute. I then switched to the elliptical machine and tried to maintain this heart rate and exercise pace for 15 minutes. I finished with a 5 minute walk at an incline to cool down. It isn’t necessary to switch equipment the way I did, but I find switching machines keeps my attention rather than getting bored on a single machine. I also spent 10 minutes stretching which is very important.

Another good day, and I learned a bit about the power of magnesium!

Why follow an anti-inflammatory diet?

Why follow an anti-inflammatory diet?

We are all inflamed. There is a long list of signs of inflammation including: Overweight, hard to loose weight, lethargy, chronic aches and pains, arthritis, allergies, digestive conditions, Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis, heart disease, depression, diabetes, feeling old etc. The list goes on. Although you or I may not have ANY of these symptoms, we are most likely kept from our full functioning potential if we don’t seek out an anti-inflammatory diet. We all experience micro-trauma from our daily activities, as well as the occasional macro-trauma from falls/accidents, and the mechanism of repair is hugely influenced by the inflammatory nature of our diets.

“In short, the human body’s biochemistry is altered when we eat inappropriate foods.” - David Seaman

On a basic level, inflammatory foods contain high ratio of omega-6 fatty acids, while anti-inflammatory foods have a high ratio of omega-3 fatty acids. The fallowing is a simple breakdown of inflammatory vs. anti-inflammatory foods:

Inflammatory

All grains & grain products

Margarine, packaged foods

Most oils

Soda & Dairy

Meat from grain-fed animals

Regular eggs(grain-fed)

Fast food french fries

Peanuts

Legumes and beans

Processed foods

Anti-inflammatory

All fruits & vegetables

Extra virgin olive oil

Coconut oil

Green tea & red wine

Meat from grass-fed animals

Omega-3 eggs (grass-fed/free-range)

Small red potato sautéed in olive oil

Raw almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts

Dark chocolate (high % cocoa)

Individual aspects of this diet will be expanded upon in a later post.

*Much of this information is taken from www.deflame.com. For further information please visit www.deflame.com , and consult your physician.

Day 1

I woke up at 630am and did a half hour core workout that I took from an isometric workout page: Isometric Core

Some of the exercises were easier than others, but all and all it was 30 minutes of sweat and muscle tremors. I will get a more specific core-workout posted here once I have had a proper core stability evaluation.

My breakfast was a hearty omelet of 2 omega-3 eggs, 1/4 cup of zucchini, 1/3 cup spinach, and topped with 2 TBSP organic salsa. Delicious!

10 pm snack: 1 Granny smith apple

12pm snack : 1/4 C. healthy nut mix (raw almonds, raw walnuts, raisins, and a touch of sea salt)

2pm lunch: Spinach salad with carrots, cucumber, cauliflower, red onion, green pepper, and a home-made dressing of Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Balsamic Vinegar, Lemon Juice, and Spices. (For future posts, this will be referred to as Salad #1)

4 pm snack: 1/4 C. healthy nut mix

6 Pm dinner: Salad #1

Hydration: 3 glasses of green tea, 6 glasses of filtered water.

Supplements: B Tri-plex, Magnesium, Zinc, muli-vitamin, and omega-3 fish oil. (supplements will be altered and discussed in a later post.)

This was a good first day with delicious food and no additional fatigue. I hope tomorrow is just as easy!

THE STARTING BLOCK

In order to quantify any changes that may occur during this experiment, I must first start with an unguarded report of my current health status.

Personal perspective: I have a formerly athletic build that has smoothed out over the last 5 years. I fit into the category of overweight, although my appearance is quite average. The extra pounds are of no psychological strain to myself, but I would like to slim down for health and appearance.

My normal diet has been entirely average with a mix of vegetables, fruits, bread and pasta, sandwiches, and the occasional fast food cheeseburger. I typically drink a diet coke about 4-6 times a weak, and other than that I consume water on the weekdays and a few beers every other weekend.

My core strength is weak-to-average in my opinion, but I will have a clinician fully evaluate that in a later post. I have worked out on and off for several years, but I have not consistently been to the gym since July 2010 (6 months ago)

I have no major health complaints, and I usually feel ok (not great). My minor health complaints are pain on the ball of my right foot, a sore right hip (constant for years, but minor), and the occasional headache. I also have a bit of fatigue most days, nothing too severe.

Here are some actual starting block measurements to follow any physical changes:

Weight: 212lbs

Chest: 41”

True Waist: 38.5

Midsection (widest part): 42”

Hips & buttocks: 45.25”

Thigh (widest point): 25”

Calf (widest part): 15”

Bicep (flexed): 14.5”

Neck (at collar): 15.25

I’m excited to see what happens!