Whoo Hoo! I just watched a segment on the Dr. Oz website interviewing Dr. Mercola! While I feel the Dr. Oz show is limited by short glossy, segments and is generally not as helpful for me, he brought trailblazer Mercola on the show! This indicates that the general public is starting to be open to holistic ideas. Oz recently did a segment on bio identicals, which I will talk about later in this post.
I am a huge fan of Mercola, and Oz was able to publicly ask why Mercola is so entrepreneurial with supplements that are both promoted and sold on his website. This could be considered a conflict of interest and money-making. Mercola explained that for the first three years of his publication he sold no products, and he ended up $500,000 in debt due to expenses for his newsletter. He had three choices: stop the newsletter, get ads, or sell his own products.
Mercola chose not to have advertising, which would inevitably conflict with his content and values. He now sells his own brand of natural supplements, but it is not necessary to buy them to get his free newsletter. Although he is entrepreneurial, the content of his newsletter is thoroughly researched--his staff reads 1,000 articles a day, and he interviews researchers who have devoted their whole careers to a pertinent topic. Much of his content focuses on intensely healthy eating and exposes corporate manipulation in the food industry.
As mentioned in earlier posts, this newsletter is geared to the part of the population that is not as extreme as Mercola, but are right on the heels of the innovators as and early adaptors of holistic health. We are the critical mass who will tip the scales.
Marketing experts know that 85% of the population (consumers who are "followers") will tag along with those of us close to the forefront of new ideas. As we build an informed critical mass, inevitably, the general population will also come to question the status quo of the food industry in this country and demand corporate transparency and better access to healthier food.
A friend of mine, who is a personal trainer certified by Paul Check mentioned that Dr. Oz was not progressive enough, and sometimes Mercola seems too hard-core for people. She agreed with me that there is a definite niche for this blog that lies somewhere between Oz. and Mercola.
Paul Check is a Holistic health Practitioner and trainer who founded the C.H.E.K. Institute in California for advanced trainers and holistic health coaches. He wrote How to Eat, Move and Be Healthy, and I recommend his website. I learned about Mercola.com from Paul Chek's blog. (Paulcheksblog.com and Chekinstitute.com)
In fact, meeting a C.H.E.K. trainer changed my entire life. I was exhausted and sleeping 10-12 hours a day--much more on weekends. This exhaustion has been recurring, on and off for many years. Nothing in Western medicine solved this problem. Kristie Yaakoby, a certified C.H.E.K. trainer and Functional Nutritionist was able to help me.
Over the past 15 years, I had been to sleep disorder clinics and had every test possible, including hormonal, with my Doctor. I was told by a sleep clinic that I was a "long sleeper," and that tests showed I was totally healthy. A wide array of medical and blood tests over the years showed no abnormalities. Eventually I came to a dead end, and was still exhausted. It was then that my Western medicine doctor had a phone conference with my new Functional Nutritionist Kristie.
"Western Medicine is not good with Chronic Fatigue," my doctor admitted and recommend that I go with the testing recommended by Kristie. I took a saliva test provided by Kristie that is more sensitive than the ones I took at the doctor's office. This alternative test revealed that my hormones were imbalanced and that I was Estrogen Dominant, with disturbingly low levels or progesterone. Also, that I had adrenal fatigue, which is a condition not recognized by Western medicine. (Adrenal fatigue is often linked with estrogen dominance in women.)
With my Western medical doctor's support I moved deep into the world of holistic health and followed an intense nutritional and supplemental protocol recommended by Kristie, including bio identical hormone replacement.
Estrogen Dominance has been mentioned on the Dr. Oz show, as well as the bio identical hormones that treat it. Bio identical hormones are natural (the ones I took are made from yams) and do not lead to cancer, unlike their synthetic counterparts. Unfortunately, many American women are still at risk of cancer because they are taking synthetic progesterone cream, rather than the natural counterpart, which is just as effective.
Initially, I was uncomfortable about venturing into the unknown, even though I had been attuned to holistic health for years, but had not yet tried bio identicals for estrogen dominance or glandulars for the adrenal fatigue (glandulars are ground up adrenal glands from animals.) But the results I have seen have literally been amazing. Not only did I have no adverse side effects from the hormones, but immediately I was sleeping two hours less a night (down from 10-12 hours or more), and had immediate energy. I am only half-way through the protocol, and expect to see more great results as I go.
I will talk more about suppliments and nutritional protocol for the estrogen dominance and adrenal fatugue in my next blog about Paul Chek.
A Votre Sante (Here's to your Health), Alix
*Tip of the day: On the Dr. Oz show, Mercola recommended 1-3tsp of coconut oil a day to stave off Alzheimer's. The coconut oil acts as a sort of brain fuel that can be absorbed past the brain-blood barrier--I already use coconut oil, so I'm going to try this.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Welcome to Elan Vital! (part 2)
Many people are familiar with the film Super Size Me (2004) in which filmmaker Morgan Spurlock subjects himself to 30 days of eating at McDonald's, leading to horrific results. Two other excellent documentaries about the food/beverage industry are the award winning Food, Inc. (2009) and Tapped(2009). Food Inc. explores the disastrous consequences of factory farming, and Tapped looks at the ills of the bottled water industry where consumers are being duped into buying tap water and water full of toxins leached from the plastic by the bottled water industry.
These documentaries are great introductions to how some American corporations manipulate, exploit, and distort the concept of our very definition of food. In general, many items containin artificial ingredients and fructose, are man-made, have toxic fillers, and overcomsumption leads to disease--but are sold under the nomenclature of "food."
The element of corporate "betrayal" is a thread that runs through almost every part of the food industry. The ugly truth is that many national companies who proclaim to be genuinely concerned with offering quality products are lobbying hard to manipulate laws, minimizing/hiding the truth of what studies show about toxic ingredients, and even making moves to stomp out healthier competition.
Netflix houses many expose films about the food industry: Ingredients (2009) examines the local growth movement, Food Fight (2008) entails a chef's effort to promote locally grown organic food, and Food Matters (2008) discusses obesity and food-related disease.
The vastness of corporate manipulation leads to the unfortunate but direct link between common foods and disease, including cancer. Questioning every sector of the food industry and being armed with information allows people overcome the habits and denial that cause powerful blocks to making change. Being able to unmask corporate hypocrisy and making peace uncomfortable truths is absolutely critical to walking through the gateway to holistic health and being open to new options in healthy eating.
Dr. Joseph Mercola does an excellent job of challenging the corporate status quo on his website Mercola.com. He often exposes corporate hypocrisy and sometimes has links to online petitions. Mercola often discusses GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) which are also detailed in the films The Future of Food (2004), Bad Seed: The Truth about our Food (2005), and Deconstructing Supper (2002).
Many of the issues Mercola's site will be discussed in this blog. However, not with the intensity and expose feel of a trailblazer like Mercola. This forum will involve ideas that are outside of the conventional box, especially the box advertising has put us in, but this blog is not an extreme blog. This forum will be more practical than activist in tone, as it assumes readers are generally aware of corporate manipulation in the food industry.
This blog assumes that the initial mental obstacle of overcoming denial about the food industry has been cleared. For a a birdseye view of how corporate entities function within the current system check out Media That Matters: Good Food (2006) includes 16 short documentaries showing how issues of free trade and sustainability affect what we eat.
Logistical matters will also be discussed in this forum such as overcoming the huge inconvenience in revamping how one shops, thinks about food, where to buy it, and, for some, how to deal with the potential cost of organic food.
Subsequent posts will be geared to sharing both information and my personal experiences along the holistic health path.
A Votre Sante (Here's to your Health), Alix
*Note: I have not seen every one of these films, but I will review them in future blogs.
These documentaries are great introductions to how some American corporations manipulate, exploit, and distort the concept of our very definition of food. In general, many items containin artificial ingredients and fructose, are man-made, have toxic fillers, and overcomsumption leads to disease--but are sold under the nomenclature of "food."
The element of corporate "betrayal" is a thread that runs through almost every part of the food industry. The ugly truth is that many national companies who proclaim to be genuinely concerned with offering quality products are lobbying hard to manipulate laws, minimizing/hiding the truth of what studies show about toxic ingredients, and even making moves to stomp out healthier competition.
Netflix houses many expose films about the food industry: Ingredients (2009) examines the local growth movement, Food Fight (2008) entails a chef's effort to promote locally grown organic food, and Food Matters (2008) discusses obesity and food-related disease.
The vastness of corporate manipulation leads to the unfortunate but direct link between common foods and disease, including cancer. Questioning every sector of the food industry and being armed with information allows people overcome the habits and denial that cause powerful blocks to making change. Being able to unmask corporate hypocrisy and making peace uncomfortable truths is absolutely critical to walking through the gateway to holistic health and being open to new options in healthy eating.
Dr. Joseph Mercola does an excellent job of challenging the corporate status quo on his website Mercola.com. He often exposes corporate hypocrisy and sometimes has links to online petitions. Mercola often discusses GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) which are also detailed in the films The Future of Food (2004), Bad Seed: The Truth about our Food (2005), and Deconstructing Supper (2002).
Many of the issues Mercola's site will be discussed in this blog. However, not with the intensity and expose feel of a trailblazer like Mercola. This forum will involve ideas that are outside of the conventional box, especially the box advertising has put us in, but this blog is not an extreme blog. This forum will be more practical than activist in tone, as it assumes readers are generally aware of corporate manipulation in the food industry.
This blog assumes that the initial mental obstacle of overcoming denial about the food industry has been cleared. For a a birdseye view of how corporate entities function within the current system check out Media That Matters: Good Food (2006) includes 16 short documentaries showing how issues of free trade and sustainability affect what we eat.
Logistical matters will also be discussed in this forum such as overcoming the huge inconvenience in revamping how one shops, thinks about food, where to buy it, and, for some, how to deal with the potential cost of organic food.
Subsequent posts will be geared to sharing both information and my personal experiences along the holistic health path.
A Votre Sante (Here's to your Health), Alix
*Note: I have not seen every one of these films, but I will review them in future blogs.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Welcome to Elan Vital!
Elan Vital is a health and wellness newsletter* geared toward the busy, overscheduled adult who doesn't have time to conduct in-depth research on holistic health or forge ahead with complicated cooking and who is, perhaps, budget conscious when it comes to organic eating-- yet has come to understand that knowledge of health and wellness must expand beyond the unhealthy average American diet. This forum is geared to educated, savvy readers interested in increasing their health and vitality who sense they need more depth-of information than delineated by talk-show pop-health gurus or the short, time-constrained, glossy segments on Dr. Oz. Readers may have had some experience with naturopathic doctors, but want to expand upon that knowledge.
Whether driven by health concerns, a desire for weight loss, or being fed-up with corporate manipulation of the food industry, this blog is directed toward readers who have derived that holistic health is a much needed exponent to conventional dietary wisdom. Bon Vivants will also benefit from implementing different culinary ideas discussed on this site from the expanded palate of the natural health arena. This forum is designed to draw from the most progressive and well researched holistic health professionals, which includes a subgroup of western medical doctors, and it serves as niche or bridge that moderates between "hard-core" holistic health--which may be overwhelming or uncomfortable for the average wellness seeker--and mainstream dietary habits that are both unhealthy and slyly proliferated by mass corporate leveraging.
This format, metaphorically speaking, is for the "upper-middle-class" of wellness seekers; for those whose interest falls somewhere between mainstream Americans concerned with their health and in-depth enthusiastic, all-out, adaptors of holistic health. It will include explanations of terminology on subjects that are absolutely crucial for holistic health and will sometimes open doors to options for healing that are not available in Western medicine, many times referencing important studies that actually defy conventional medical wisdom about the nutritional veracity and safety of common foods.
The blog will also include some easy recipes and comparative shopping as well as websites and references for holistic health coaches and practitioners. The entire purpose of this forum is to distill the most important cutting-edge, in-depth information from the holistic health arena and cull it down into practical hands on tips that can support, enhance and restore health and vitality.
A Votre Sante (Here's to Your Health), Alix
*Note: Elan Vital Forum is a newsletter and is not affiliated with any wellness center, although there happens to be a wellness center of the same name; the name of this blog was derived organically from terminology coined by French philosopher Henri Bergson from his theory explaining the spontaneous evolution of organisms, postulating a vital impetus, the life force.
Whether driven by health concerns, a desire for weight loss, or being fed-up with corporate manipulation of the food industry, this blog is directed toward readers who have derived that holistic health is a much needed exponent to conventional dietary wisdom. Bon Vivants will also benefit from implementing different culinary ideas discussed on this site from the expanded palate of the natural health arena. This forum is designed to draw from the most progressive and well researched holistic health professionals, which includes a subgroup of western medical doctors, and it serves as niche or bridge that moderates between "hard-core" holistic health--which may be overwhelming or uncomfortable for the average wellness seeker--and mainstream dietary habits that are both unhealthy and slyly proliferated by mass corporate leveraging.
This format, metaphorically speaking, is for the "upper-middle-class" of wellness seekers; for those whose interest falls somewhere between mainstream Americans concerned with their health and in-depth enthusiastic, all-out, adaptors of holistic health. It will include explanations of terminology on subjects that are absolutely crucial for holistic health and will sometimes open doors to options for healing that are not available in Western medicine, many times referencing important studies that actually defy conventional medical wisdom about the nutritional veracity and safety of common foods.
The blog will also include some easy recipes and comparative shopping as well as websites and references for holistic health coaches and practitioners. The entire purpose of this forum is to distill the most important cutting-edge, in-depth information from the holistic health arena and cull it down into practical hands on tips that can support, enhance and restore health and vitality.
A Votre Sante (Here's to Your Health), Alix
*Note: Elan Vital Forum is a newsletter and is not affiliated with any wellness center, although there happens to be a wellness center of the same name; the name of this blog was derived organically from terminology coined by French philosopher Henri Bergson from his theory explaining the spontaneous evolution of organisms, postulating a vital impetus, the life force.
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