good morning Wellness Warriors it's September 26 already so obviously the kids are back to
school and they've just started Siege up and that got me thinking about education
right like the this whole idea that we go to school to learn and we expect to get the facts
about how the world works we expect to get our questions answered this information isn't
only supposed to help us prepare for our adult life for those of us who are on a career path
it's the basis for the medical legal financial decisions that you're going
to be helping your clients to make now considering how expensive University is
we have a pretty high expectation that the information that we're getting
quality information and that it's correct right and so you can imagine that I was really
shocked in my University first semester in no it wasn't first semester it was third semester when
my abnormal psychology teacher professor while explaining to me and the rest of the class that
the brain is usually like we're barely using 10 of our brain he pointed out that although we've
made amazing advancements in the health field we only really know a fraction about healing the body
and the impact of medication on the body and mind and that was frustrating for me to learn
at the time although I feel like as life is going on for me I'm realizing how true it is
I've Heard lots of doctors talk about the fact that the half-life of medical knowledge is 18 to
24 months so the medical practices that doctors are taught is outdated after just two years why
isn't that health is not approached with more curiosity doctors don't take the time with us
to really understand what for example the last two months of our life has looked like
so they don't ask us what foods we've been eating they don't ask us what kind of exercises we do
they don't ask us how things are going at work right unless we talk about stress then they'll
ask another question but as a general practice a general rule that's not the first thing that
they're asking us they don't ask us how our marriages are doing how our friendships are
doing how our kids are doing beyond the point of hey how's it going but like to really truly
understand are you struggling and raising your children don't ask us about our sleep before
making huge diagnoses and giving us prescriptions I I remember this because I remember going to the
doctor when I had my thigh that was numb and the doctor didn't ask me any questions about
what I was eating or any of my history of my life now I did come in with the idea that wow you know
the only thing that's changed is I'm taking this medication but the doctor was in the room with
me for a grand total of I would say six minutes and told me I need to learn to live with it which
wasn't true by the way I digress I think part of the reason part of the answer that doctors don't
ask those questions is because the basics of human health hasn't actually changed that much so what
we're learning in labs is about our body and like how the body functions and you know how our body
makes certain things or breakdowns like we're learning how the body functions in more detail
but our body has been doing that for centuries our body has been doing that well since I was born but
since my parents were since my parents parents were born like so we're just learning it but
our body has always been doing it and that piece of information that is new to our understanding
impacts the medical interventions that get applied in the extraordinary circumstances when doctors
need to save our lives and that's really important right it's really important that we're getting
these incremental upgrades in our knowledge but how does that translate to our day-to-day
how we live our lives our day-to-day habits one of the things that we need to think about is that
as we gather more information slowly slowly over time we're getting more and more understanding
of how the body works but we don't see the whole picture the big picture of how that intervention
because you have this symptom I give you this medication because we just figured this out how
that is going to impact the rest of my life so how does the ripple effect right you throw a pebble
in the water and it ripples out how does that impact the rest of my body so I saw one thing
and we're so excited about it right we're so excited about the discoveries and we put them
into practice immediately with the expectation that maybe we can finally beat Mother Nature
right we can live longer live stronger live healthier live be be the perfect specimen
I want to give a concrete example so let's look at birth control as most women in North America take
an oral contraceptive at some point in their lives the reason to take a birth control pill
is to make sure that you don't get pregnant very simple very basic we're trying to stop
one thing from happening so what are the side effects the minor side effects nausea breast
tenderness and enlargement headaches spotting so that's like breakthrough bleeding missed periods
the medical term for that is amenorrhea which if you have it for any other reason
you're in trouble weight gain mood changes so like depressed mood and emotional instability which I
have a hard time believing that this is in the minor side effects category decreased sex drive
vaginal discharge contact lens um use intolerance or visual changes again I have a hard time
believing that that's considered a minor side effect the rare but serious side effects are blood
clots and in order to know if you have a blood clot what you need to look out for they call it
aches a c h e s which is abdominal pain chest pain headaches eye problems or so visual problems and
severe leg cramps legs are severe leg pain that's how you would know if you have blood clots so
I want to point out that headaches and eye problems were initially called minor problems but
actually are a possible sign of a blood clot which is a severe problem I secondly want to point out
that cramps tend to happen in the abdominal area so how do I know if I'm having just cramps or I'm
having signs of a blood clot I remember for myself I had severe headaches I had severe cramps it
never occurred to me oh I didn't wear con contacts at that time so I don't know but it never occurred
to me that that could be a possible side of a blood clot so the the other rare but serious side
effects that you might live because that was just one of them are high blood pressure liver tumors
breast cancer risk cervical cancer risk not only did I have those symptoms that I mentioned but
I don't even remember asking my doctor or reading the pamphlet really about the side effects because
I just assumed that my doctor wouldn't prescribe me something that could be a cause of cancer or
high blood pressure and I feel like most people approach things that way before they realize that
there's a potential for for mistakes to be made at the hospital or in the medical world
or that sometimes we're being given things because it's the easy answer versus the right answer but I
know when I was starting off in my birth control Journey when I was how old was I 20 something my
goal was I don't want to get pregnant my belief was my doctor's protecting me we want solutions
to our problems we don't want to have to think for our doctors we don't want to have to be expecting
that we want solutions to our problems and that the medical research that is looking to solve
these problems and are making advancements at an incredible rate by the way might I add that they
would also be as concerned about those side effects as we are and only Implement things
that they have found where the benefit greatly immensely ridiculously outweighs the possible side
effect and I can tell you that I don't think that the benefit of birth control now looking back on
it outweighs those side effects that I just read there and especially if I would have gotten one
of those well I don't know did I have those side effects I had the headaches I had so maybe I did
have some of those side effects but had I gotten one of the severe blood clot and had a stroke or
like I don't I don't think that that was the only solution for not getting pregnant there were other
Solutions and it's frustrating to know that these side effects were considered minor and even the re
and even the severe ones were not explained to me in detail before I started to take the medication
you know if we have information that says for example apple cider vinegar can help
with abdominal fat or we have information that says for example the order in which you eat fat
carbs and protein can lead to a diminished insulin response does that mean that we found the answer
to what our body is doing and how it's managing fat on our body and that we should try to apply
these measures immediately or is that one more step to understanding the way that the Body Works
and I want to say from my experience of jumping in and trying that apple cider vinegar experiment
challenge whatever you want to call it right now I have to say that no we shouldn't just jump in
without knowing all the repercussions because sure in an unhealthy population
of overweight people who were eating all the wrong foods and had large abdominal
um visceral fat to manage they got a benefit in a healthy person who was eating very clean
already and was already at goal weight with a little annoyance happening around my midsection
it caused havoc in my body and re returned the inflammation to my joints and it was not a fun
time most of us are starting from a place of insulin resistance and metabolic damage and
that means that we need to first and foremost try to solve our health issues based on getting
the body back to a healthy state so we need to allow the structures internally to be repaired
if you were renovating a house and you decided to start with the façade so the the outside of the
building that what people see from the street and then you did the kitchen and then you did
the master bedroom and obviously the logic being when I pull up to the house it's gonna
look beautiful and then when I'm in the house the kitchen and the master bedroom and maybe
even the living room are the rooms that I'm in the most and I want to feel comfortable in here
and it would feel amazing to have accomplished that beautiful façade it would feel amazing to be
sleeping in that beautiful bedroom or watching TV in that amazing living room but if the electrical
is a fire hazard the plumbing backs up every time you flush and the heating doesn't work
your house isn't worth much right nobody's gonna buy that from you and you shouldn't
and you're not going to be comfortable in that space because you're gonna go to the bathroom
it's gonna get cold there are certain things that matter more than the look in our effort to repair
our health it isn't about finding ways to make the exterior look fit while the interior is still
malfunctioning one of the most confusing examples I've encountered is the use of berberine it's
another you know it's there's other plants natural plants that they talk about too but berberine is
the one that comes up often because it can lower insulin and the thing that always frustrates me is
why not reduce the amount of sugar you're eating can can we stop and realize that every medication
that we take if we decide to take one comes from a natural plant or mineral
it's not as if you know it's like yes it was chemically altered but it's not as if because
it came naturally from the plant that makes it something that we should first of all there are
certain plants that we just shouldn't be eating and I feel like I need to talk about that more
you know I've talked about nightshades how the negative impact they have on me
you know doctors are talking all the time about then well I shouldn't say all the time
keto doctors are talking all the time about oxalates about like anti-nutrients in plants
and just things that are in vegetation that causes problems for people if we can take a plant or eat
a something in a certain order or do to try to do what to try to trick our body into being healthy
while we're still eating too much of the wrong food if we continue to expose our body to toxins
our body will continue to experience the effects of the toxin the question is are
you more interested in looking healthy or being healthy and the obvious answer is being healthy
right that's the good answer that's the correct answer we want to be healthy but
to accomplish true Health you need to give your body the correct building blocks clean energy
and avoid the toxins right all the toxins I'm not just talking about sugar I'm talking about you
know alcohol I'm talking about other chemicals if you want your body to be healthy you need to take
care of it properly and so how do we actually get healthy you need to eat the right Foods right and
I'm going to put a video on the screen and I'm going to put it in the description that you can
go deeper on this topic but it's about doing what we're talking about and putting your health first
prioritize health over chasing flavors it's going to do you good it's gonna do your body really good