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Top 3 Ways to Exponentially Improve Heart Health

Here are the stats:

  • 600,000 people die in America from heart disease.
  • More than half of the deaths are males.
  • 65% of the people had ZERO symptoms prior to the attack.
  • USA ratio is 106.5 deaths out of 100K have heart attacks. In Japan, it’s 30 out of 100K.

This is a major issue for our country especially since we rank number 1 in expenditures for healthcare. We keep spending more money on healthcare than any other country but we keep getting sicker. Currently healthcare in the USA is 17.9% of the GDP which is far more than any other country.

When people talk about the economy getting stronger and recovery I feel the best asset is to get people healthier. Not through mammograms, cholesterol checks, blood pressure screenings, or other early detection devices but through TRUE healthcare such as nutrition, fitness, chiropractic, proper mental attitude, adequate sleep, and love.

There are three categories where we can truly maximize heart health: Nutrition, Fitness, and Love.

There are places around the World that are called Blue Zones which represent the healthiest communities where more people live to be over 100. Those communities are: Okinawa, Sardinia, Nicoya, Icaria, and the 7th Day Adventists in Loma Linda, CA.

In anything in my life I always want to strive for greatness and the best way to get there is to stand on the shoulders of giants. Success leaves clues and by doing what winners do then your odds of living a great life increase exponentially.

If you want to be rich and have money then you don’t want to hire a poor financial planner, if you want to have a happy marriage then you don’t hire a relationship coach who has been divorced 5 times, if you want to hire a health coach then you don’t hire a doctor who only deals with sick people and prescribes medicine, and if you want a successful life then you don’t hire a life coach that is on the verge of suicide and loaded up with anti-depressants.

We are going to follow some of the trends these communities do and for more info watch this 22 minute video on How to Live to Be 100.

Below are the top 3 recommendations for building a massive heart muscle and drastically reducing your risk of heart disease (or any lifestyle disease).

1. De-Inflame the Heart

Many of you know that I currently eat paleo and can truly say this “way of eating” (not diet) has positively impacted my energy                  levels, physique, and overall health. This way of eating is not something you do for 1 day, 1 week,1 month, or even 1 year but something you do for life which would be true for anything healthy for you (working out, thinking positive, chiropractic, massages, meditations, etc). 

It is unfortunate how many people are put on medications their whole life and NEVER question their doctors but the instant someone says they have to do something healthy for themselves for their life that person usually questions.

The question then becomes, how does paleo work?

Before I even go through what paleo is and how it works there is an event at our office “Paleo Cooking Class” where we will be making 2 health paleo dishes. We will be making a chicken stir fry and paleo chocolate panna cotta. This class is limited to 40 people so make sure you register and let us know how many guests you will be bringing.

Paleo is based on the concept that for 90% of human existence we have been hunter and gatherers. This means that there is no processed food, sugar, grains, dairy, or legumes in the diet. The best description I found of paleo was on the Whole9Life website and below is what they wrote. If you would like a shopping list than please reply to this e-mail and I will send it to you.

 “I eat “real” food — fresh, natural food like meat, vegetables and fruit. I choose foods that are nutrient dense, with lots of naturally-occurring vitamins and minerals, over foods that have more calories but less nutrition. And food quality is important — I’m careful about where my meat comes from, and buy produce locally and organically as often as possible.

 It’s not a low calorie “diet” — I eat as much as I need to maintain strength, energy and a healthy weight. In fact, my diet is probably much higher in fat than you’d imagine. Fat isn’t the enemy — it’s a great energy source when it comes from high quality foods like avocado, coconut and nuts. And I’m not trying to do a “low carb” thing, but since I’m eating vegetables and fruits instead of bread, cereal and pasta, it just happens to work out that way.

 Eating like this is good for maintaining a healthy metabolism, and reducing inflammation within the body. It’s been doing great things for my energy levels, body composition and performance in the gym. It also helps to minimize my risk for a whole host of lifestyle diseases and conditions, like diabetes, heart attack and stroke.”

2. Less = More in Exercise

In the Blue Zones where people live to be over 100 they are not constantly on treadmills, exercise bikes, or other machines that most people waste hours on. They are performing constant functional movements such as climbing mountains, walking through the hills, working the land, and generally using their bodies in a constant grind as they perform their daily activities. These movements are considered functional movements and would be parallel to crossfit training. In crossfit we are performing olympic lifts, pull-ups, sit-ups, squats, and lots of other functional movements that keep us fit and adaptable to daily human movements. 

For someone who is looking to get really fit functionally, lose weight, and increase muscle mass then a great workout routine would be to perform Tabata training.

This training has you perform 20 seconds of work with 10 seconds break for a total of 8 rounds meaning the work lasts 4 minutes. Here is a virtual video to describe how to perform a 20 minute Tabata workout: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQp8q1aDKA4

By doing this video 4 times per week I can almost guarantee you would get into the best shape of your life and feel amazing.

 3. Have Date Night Once a Week

As part of my goal setting exercises every October, one of the categories I create is tangible goals in the category of “People”. I make it a point to build certain relationships and one of the relationships is the one with my wife. 

This year I have made a concrete goal that no matter what happens in our schedules we will have a date night once a week. It is so easy to let the weeks go by without quality time with each other and this year I have made it a point to change that. Having regular date nights slow down the weeks and really gives me an opportunity to relax and take a break from .

This past Saturday night we went to watch “The Producers” and each week we have committed to spending one night with each other. This night creates  exponential growth in our relationship and brings us closer each time. I even feel it makes me much more present and focused in my professional life.

If you are in a serious relationship then I would recommend holding date night every week and if you are not in a serious relationship then make it a point to have 1 night a week where you go out with a friend or get put in some social setting.

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Let the Games Begin!

games-begin-yoga

Many of you may be aware but on February 17, 2013 I will be competing in The Garage Games-One in Suwanee, GA. This competition will bring out some of the fittest athletes in the country that will not just be competing against each other but against themselves and how far they have come within the past year.

Personally I have seen tremendous gains in this kind of training and lifestyle and am looking forward to seeing how I perform with my team in February.

As a result of this training and way of life over the past 3 years I have learned MANY valuable lessons that have helped with not not my physicial fitness but life in general.

The biggest lesson learned is that working out does not have to be long or take hours but needs to be of high intensity and shorter durations. Remember that this Tuesday, January 22nd from 6:30 PM – 7:00 PM we will be hosting a workout class that will explain how to use these techniques and get fit in only 12 minutes a week. Yes, only 12 minutes a week!

 1) You Can Workout in 4 Minutes and Get Fit – A style of working out called Tabata is designed to get your body in high intensity training levels and burn fat. While you are working out your body burns sugar and 24 hours following your body burns the fat. Here is a great video explaining how Tabata works: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ym7d2MzZ96I.

In the past 3 years the longest workout I have done is about 20 minutes and usually my workouts are between 3 – 9 minutes. I can honestly say I am in the best shape of my life and this is proof that it is not about the quantity of the workout but the quality.

Here is another link to how to perform this workout and if you have specific questions please post them under comments or come out to the workshop this Tuesday night.

http://www.shape.com/fitness/cardio/tabata-4-minute-fat-burning-miracle-workout

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I am sick…Now what???

sick-with-flu

If you have not turned on the TV or listened to the radio recently then you may not be aware but the media is non-stop talking about the flu. They are talking about how important it is to get vaccinated and it seems they are almost using scare tactics by showing us those bold red graphs.

Everyone has a choice on whether or not to get the vaccine but whether you get it or not you are still susceptible to getting sick. Unfortunately on Thursday night following work my body started to develop symptoms such as coughing, fever, chills, night sweats, and  headaches. I woke up Saturday morning literally only 36 hours later and felt like a million dollars without have taking any medicine or vaccines. I thought about what I did to help myself while I was sick compared to what most people do and wanted to share this.

I notice when most people get sick they stay indoors, take medicine, drink water, and tend to live more of a mechanistic life. Here is what my 36 hours looked like:

Thursday @ 6:30 PM – Left the office and filled up 2 gallons of alkaline water at pH of 9.5
Thursday @ 7:00 PM – Power Shot from Whole Foods that was ginger, lemon, cayenne, and wheatgrass
Thursday @ 7:30 PM – Ate dinner which was a Kale-Avocado Salad (kale, red onion, red bell pepper, and avocado). Kale has an ANDI score of 1,000 on a scale of 1 – 1,000. ANDI = Aggregate Nutrient Dense Index score (How dense food is with nutrients)
Thursday @ 8:30 PM – Took my Standard Process vitamin pack. (If you are not taking this then you need to get a box. Amazing product)
Friday @ 7:30 AM – Took my Standard Process vitamin pack.
Friday @ 8:00 AM – Went to R Thomas for a Big Bang Drink (lemon, ginger, apple), shot of ginger, and eggs with seaweed.
Friday @ 9:00 AM – Got my weekly chiropractic adjustment from a good friend (When you are sick this is the MOST important time to be adjusted. Your nervous system controls your immune system so you want that functioning at its highest level)
Friday @ 10:00 AM  – 60-minute massage with Monica Miller
Friday @ 11:30 AM – Soaked in a bath with oils for 30 minutes
Friday @ 12:00 PM – Laid in bed for a few hours to rest and drank tons of water
Friday @ 12:30 PM – Ate the rest of the kale avocado salad
Friday @ 2:00 PM  – Drank a cup of Monkey Picked Oolong tea from Teavana
Friday @ 5:30 PM – Went to Pho Dai Loi #2 for some Vietnamese soup. (Anecdotal trick towards kicking the flu)
Friday @ 7:00 PM – Took my Standard Process vitamin pack.
Friday @ 8:30 PM – Took a shot of probiotics before bed
Friday @ 9:00 PM  – Went to bed

Saturday @ 6:00 AM – Woke up feeling great and had our busiest Saturday ever!

I share this day with you so many of you because when you begin noticing symptoms it is ESSENTIAL to do the things necessary to build your immune system. Yes, you should always be building your immune system through whole food nutrition, functional exercise, and a optimally functioning nervous system but you can still get sick.

If you find yourself developing symptoms then instead of diagnosing yourself and becoming a victim of that 4 letter word (SICK) start to take action. Here is the USA’s ranking in healthcare so either follow what everyone else does when they get sick and become this statistic or do something different and what the true healthy people are doing.

 

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Begin With the End in Mind

begin-with-end-in-mind

If on December 31, 2013 you were to tell me that this was the best year of your life, what would have had to happen? Instead of starting the year with a laundry list of resolutions, begin looking at what needs to happen in order for this to be your best year ever.

Be specific on what exactly you want by the end of the year and start taking the action steps for it to come to pass.

If you want to improve the relationship with your spouse by the end of  2013 then how many dates do you need to plan ahead? Does technology need to be turned off by a certain time? Do you need to read some books on communication?

If you want to lose weight then how much do you want to lose? How often will you work out? How often will you cook your own meals? How often are you allowed to have cheat meals? Are you reading books on nutrition?

Here are my top 3 tips to help with your health goals and make 2013 your best:

1) Eat like a hunter and gatherer

For 90% of human life on Earth we were known as a hunter-gatherer society and would hunt our wild game and pick our own vegetables. We were not walking into air conditioned supermarkets and picking up pre-packaged foods that can last on the shelf for months or even years.  Think about how our ancestors ate and look into a diet based more on what they were doing or what people in the Blue Zones do. There was primarily no grain, sugar, dairy, or legumes. If dairy is something you would like to eat or consume then be sure the source is from grass-fed cows that are humanly raised, otherwise begin to look at almond milk or coconut milk as other sources.

Check out my favorite way of eating known as The Paleo Diet. I have personally gone from 10% to 5.4% body fat and went from 175 to 165 pounds. I would add reading the book “Paleo Solution” to your reading list and understand the science of how the body breaks down certain foods.

2) Burst Train

21st century research all points that high intensity interval training is great for helping people burn fat and get fit. When we workout for quick bursts and take short breaks we put our bodys into sugar burners during the workout but put ourselves into fat burners post workout. I used to go to a Globogym where I would see people working out for hours but never losing weight or even worse they would get bigger. They never knew how to properly workout and once I explained to them about burst training they ended up saving time in the gym and losing more weight. The technique is named after Dr. Tabata who has proven that by working out intensely for 20 seconds then taking 10 seconds to rest, we can increase our VO2 max (maximal oxygen consumption) and get fit.

The way the workout works is you pick 1 movement to do for 4 minutes and perform 20 seconds on then 10 seconds off for a total of 8 sets. Here are some examples of workouts that can be performed: treadmill, bike, jumping jacks, air squats, push-ups, sit-ups, or pull-ups. Here is an example of 1 workout:

20 seconds @ 100% on the treadmill
10 seconds rest
20 seconds @ 100% on the treadmill
10 seconds rest
20 seconds @ 100% on the treadmill
10 seconds rest
20 seconds @ 100% on the treadmill
10 seconds rest
20 seconds @ 100% on the treadmill
10 seconds rest
20 seconds @ 100% on the treadmill
10 seconds rest
20 seconds @ 100% on the treadmill
10 seconds rest
20 seconds @ 100% on the treadmill

3) Get Your Nervous System Working

When many people in our culture think of a chiropractor they think it is only used for car accidents, neck pain, back pain, or headaches. This may be the most common reason people see chiropractors but it is only 10% of what chiropractors do to help their clients be their best. Unfortunately we live in a culture that lives a reactive life, meaning they wait until problems occur before they take action to better their health and life. The nervous system which is comprised of the brain, spine, and nerves controls and coordinates all functions in your body including digestion, reproduction, circulation, and everything else. Since today’s lifestyle has an abundant amount of stress chemically, physically, and emotionally, our body can give us signals that there is an error or malfunction happening. One of the biggest signals or last warning signals it gives us is pain which is only 10% of our nervous system. This means you can have 89% nerve blockage and feel no symptoms which would be true for almost every disease.

We all know people who feel great one day then get diagnosed with cancer the next. Some people are playing tennis one day then the next they drop of a heart attack and get diagnosed with heart disease. We cannot live a life of chasing symptoms and must take care of ourselves before we are in pain or diagnosed with a disease. This is where chiropractic care and your nervous system become very important, making sure our brain is communicating with our organs at 100% which means our body is functioning at an optimal level and we can handle stress much more easily. The best way to know how your nervous system is functioning is by seeing a chiropractor to have them check and detect for vertebral subluxation (misalignments of the spine causing dysfunction in the nervous system). If you need any recommendations for a great chiropractor please follow me on twitter @AtlantaChiro or e-mail ACohenDC@Gmail.Com.

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