Posts Tagged ‘Westgate Wellness Centre’

Make sure you catch the “outtakes” at the end.  Enjoy– may this video help guide you to balancing out your blood sugar and insulin levels and move you in the direction of a healthy diet.

Getting physically active actually SHUTS DOWN the stress response.  If you don’t make physical activity a part of your life, then there is no excuse for you if you start to fall ill and get sick.  Your physiology, in order to function at 100% requires exercise of some sort.  You can’t blame genes if you are ill.  But exercise doesn’t have to be boring.  Check this out!

photo by www.photobinphotograpy.com

It’s not Rocket Science. If you are under a great deal of stress (which most people are), then being under the care of a chiropractor has been shown to remove tension from your nervous system.

Nobel Prize recipient Dr. Roger Sperry says that the spine is the motor that drives the brain. According to his research “90% of the stimulation and nutrition to the brain is generated by the movement of the spine.” Only 10% of our brain’s energy into thinking, metabolism, immunity, and healing. Sperry demonstrated that 90% of brain energy goes into processing and maintaining the body’s relationship with gravity.

Why this relates to you.

It means that every day your body not only has to cope with the stresses of your hectic day and family and work issues, but it now has to deal with the arduous task of having to adapt to the postural habits of sitting improperly and being out of alignment.  This makes your body have to adapt to EVEN MORE stress.  It makes you miserable. It gives you headaches, back pain, stomach issues, problems with balancing hormones, anxiety, depression, and anything else that is a dis-ease.

So here’s the strategy with my patients and students in my workshops:

1) Teach ‘em what stress does to the body

2) Keep their nervous system functioning at maximal levels to cope with physical and emotional  and chemical stress through chiropractic care.

3) Give them lifestyle tools on proper exercise and how to gain control of their eating habits and food addictions

4) Teach them how to change their thoughts and perceptions about their life stories and situations so they can let go of their past, and overcome fears about the future and have lives filled with purpose, gratitude and unconditional love.

It’s a strategy that’s changing lives.  It gets people connected to their purpose.  It’s making our community healthier.  It’s taking people’s reliance off of medication.

Stay tuned for episode 3!  As always, we welcome feedback, suggestions, as well as re-tweets and facebook recommendations.  Feel free to drop a comment about your experience as well.

This is me every day. If I didn't have powerful tools at my disposal, I wouldn't survive.

Do you ever feel that instead of life getting easier, it seems to get more complicated?   Do you ever catch yourself thinking “remember when things used to be simple?”

This year, I made a commitment to step outside my comfort zone and expand my reach.  As I did, I noticed the challenges seemed to pile up.  Trying to juggle running one of the Greater Vancouver’s largest Multi-Disciplinary Healing Centres, while having a busy patient load,  all the while speaking, writing, and coaching—and trying to balance all that with my married life (Happy wife- happy life)—let me tell you it isn’t easy.  I know you are busy too–going through your own specific challenges… if you have kids you’re probably thinking “Nima, you think you’re stressed now….wait until you have children!”

Breakthrough moment

I remember a time back this summer where I felt like my back was up against a wall.  That the world was caving in.  I remember feeling overwhelmed with the stresses of life… it was affecting my sleep and my relationships and overall enjoyment of life.  I then had an “aha” moment.

In every moment, you are either in crisis/survival mode or you are in a growth/repair/creation state.  You can’t be in both at the same time.  I had been bogged down so much that I stopped practicing what I preach.  So as the saying goes… “those that can’t do… TEACH”… I decided to turn my “mess” into my “Message”.

I started writing about the stress I was going through.  I started researching what these uninspiring, repetitive, destructive thoughts were doing to my mind and body.  What I discovered changed my life.   I poured my thoughts onto paper.  I realized that I could turn all the knowledge I had in my brain, organize it into a simple format—and then teach it to others and help save some lives.  But first I had to practice what I preached.  Let me explain to you what I mean.

What is stress?

In an ever-changing environment, you’re either adapting to the changes, or you are resisting them.  Stress comes from an inability to ADAPT to a changing environment.  It’s really that simple.  Yet so difficult.

Stress can come from being married to a woman for 10 years and then one day discovering that her work as a grocery store attendant was really a cover up for the CIA.  Stress can come from discovering that a relative you have been on bad terms with has suddenly died, and you are now faced with the guilt of not mending things in a life that’s way too short.  Stress comes from all of a sudden being faced with a change in your life.  But pre-historically, we didn’t have to worry about work, marital issues, financial problems.  Our main challenges were about finding food, and avoiding becoming food, or attack by another tribe.  Either you adapt to the changes in the environment, or you die.  Period.

As a Chiropractor in Maple Ridge, I have to be keenly aware of this reality when a patient shows up in my office.  I can see it in their eyes, I can feel it in the tension in their spine on palpation… Most people are in a chronic fight or flight state.  For months to years at a time.  You don’t have to look to hard—if you examine the overall state of health in our society, we’re on a progressive downward spiral.  I can remember a few weeks this year where I layed in my bed in a state of fear and panic about the challenges I had to face every single day.  It got so overwhelming that I had to step back into the basics.

What’s in store for you in 2011

It was exactly what I needed.  In this 5-part series called “Stressbusters”, I show you specifically what tools and strategies I used.  It was so fulfilling, I had to share it with the world.  My goal is that you will participate with me over the next several weeks as each episode is launched, and give me feedback on how you’ve been progressing.

My mission is to share with the planet the truth—that chemical imbalances in the mind and body that produce illness are mostly under our control.  This can only happen if we first realize the power that lies in the choices we make in how we eat, move, and think—and the state of connection between our brain and the 70-100 trillion cells of our body.  Since Dr. means “teacher” it’s my intention to teach the world this truth.  I want to teach you to become a better adapter to the inevitable changes of your life.

I’m also going to be starting a new series of workshops at the end of each month at the Westgate Wellness Centre called “Stressbuster Workshops” where I will teach powerful tools that I’ve learned to help me overcome the adversities of life.  And I never run out of opportunities to use the tools with the setbacks I perceive every day.  Every great teacher I know has one thing in common: They are students—and so as I learn more tools, I expand my reach and teach more.  It’s been a fun ride so far, and I’m ready to help people take it to the next level in these fun and dynamic workshops.  January 29^th we begin with “Getting excited about your depression”.  We’ll be adding more workshops as the year unfolds, but some more topics will include

Overcoming grief, heartbreak and loss,

The dynamics of anxiety and depression and how to transcend it,

Finding your values and understanding the values of your loved ones,

Overcome relationship conflicts

Letting go of Past Trauma

How to not take things so personally

Stress, Food Addictions, and Weight Loss

I can’t wait to teach this stuff.  To be honest everything I teach is really for me.  I guess it’s true—those that can’t do—teach.  And selfishly, as I teach you to become a better adapter to the inevitable challenges of life– I heal and adapt to my challenges too.  Enjoy the first episode.  Many thanks to Nina from Oh Just Peachy Studios for her great work and guidance.

It’s finally over.  This is the first time I’ve ever participated in a competition like this.  Originally, it was Paul’s idea to get off his derriere because it seems that if he didn’t tie in his lifestyle change to his highest priority—his internet blogging business—then he would continue his downward spiral towards obesity and poor health.  I was up for the challenge—I mean—who couldn’t afford to lose a few pounds and lean up?  I got on board so that I could experience first hand the challenges that people face when trying to change their destructive habits and lose weight and get healthier.  Boy did I ever get more learning that I bargained for.  I will share and summarize with you some of  those strategies.  In fact I’m now going to dedicate my life to teaching them.

Who won?

Here are the gruesome before and after pics, as well as the final weigh in shown above .  I started at over 172 pounds, and I ended up with 161.2.  I realized that I could have even done better if we had a bigger “why” and a tougher goal to reach.  Anyone can lose 10 pounds (or 6% of their body weight) if they really wanted to.

As you can see… 10 pounds doesn’t look significantly different.  But it did account for my clothes fitting much looser, especially my pants.  It’s nice to not feel as self conscious about my gut anymore.  Still there is work to be done.

We went to visit Peter at bodycomp.ca for our “progress report” scan.  Since we did our first body fat scan 2 weeks into our competition, I had already lost half the weight—it would have been great to see the difference if we got the scan before it started.

The results were quite revealing.  It showed that even though I lost around 5 pounds since the scan 6 weeks ago, I also lost .7% body fat– around 2.5 pounds of fat off my mid section.  This picture underneath shows what that looks like approximately. I promise you I wasn’t sucking in my gut!

BUT….I also lost around that much muscle!  BUSTED!

So the revealing fact is—IT REALLY DOESN’T MATTER HOW MUCH YOU WEIGH.  It’s all about body composition.  These scans tell more the truth of the story.

Taken from Paulymath.com-- the fat I had lost around my mid section was the equivalent to 5 of these sticks of butter!

Here’s the truth:  I didn’t go crazy with the muscle building, as surprised as you may be from seeing the pictures  I didn’t increase my workout routine. In fact due to some trips– the workouts decreased.  I was finding that the early morning workouts didn’t work for me, so I did what I did before—worked them into my schedule and didn’t really change that—except because of my schedule they lessened.  So this competition was mainly a dietary shift for me to get over my carb addiction. My exercise regimen was simply to get my body moving, heart rate pumping, and get a healthy dose (minimally) of resistance exercise.  Plus, I wasn’t packing in the protein like you should if you want to increase muscle mass.  From the results of the scans, my muscle mass even decreased around my legs– as a result of me reducing my resistance workouts.

The scan reveals to me that if I want to trim down and put on muscle, I can do so easily (if I have a big enough “why”)— i.e. If Calvin Klein wanted me for their spring underwear catalogue (and pay me big bucks to do so), here’s what I would do:

1)Increase my protein intake with protein shakes.

2) Start doing more heavy duty interval sprints

3) Add in a day or two extra days of resistance exercises for entire body

And then the fun part is to do a scan six weeks later to see the change.  The most empowering part of doing the scans is that it gives you ongoing feedback so that you can see how your daily choices impact your overall results.  Plus, if you’re lucky enough to get a great guy like Peter—he’s a wealth of knowledge about diet and exercise to maximize the results you are looking for.  He works with some elite people who make it their business to look the part.

Your body is a dynamic process that is still unfolding

In other words, if you look in the mirror RIGHT NOW, then what’s staring at you is your history.  From your body weight, to muscle mass, to your financial situation, to your relationship status, even your overall health—everything staring back at you right now is a result of the choices you’ve been making up until now.

“Should I eat the salad or the french fries?”

“Should I spend my money or invest it in myself?”

“Should I be in this relationship because I want to—or is it because I’m afraid of being alone?”

“Should I watch TV tonight or exercise?”

“Should I take these pills or actually try to SOLVE the problem I’m taking the pills for?”

We live in a society where we love to blame our current life situation on others– our parents, our employers, or on the government, and give external influences all our power to hold us back.

The body scan was an “aha” moment for me—To know that I have choices in how my body heals, grows, and re-creates itself.  It’s happening to you right now.  You lose 10 million cells every second, and every second you regain 10 million more, but as they grow, they are gathering information from the environment, and that will dictate if the cells grow towards strength, balance, and health, or towards imbalance, illness, and disease.  I ask my patients this all the time:  Right now, which direction are you heading towards?  (FYI—the stressful thoughts we have actually cause the cells to move towards illness and disease).

So are you going to go crazy on carbs again, Nima?

I think we’re all working towards finding a healthy balance of eating mostly the “right” foods.  I estimated that over the past 8 weeks, without an increase in my exercise, I ate 95% perfectly as a paleolithic hunter gatherer would, with a couple of trips I took where I wasn’t a very good boy, and I still managed to lose weight.

I’m going to stick to my plan:  Eat 90% of foods that are REAL, start with the real stuff (salads, proteins, chicken, meats preferably from organic sources), and then portion control the carbs.  Instead of binging on cookies once a week, and then punishing yourself, why not just stop at 3 bites and stick to that?  Repressing your desires leads to some ugly manifestations.

What’s most impressive to me is that Paul seems to have really caught on and has become inspired to make a permanent healthy change in his life.  I’m going to publicly challenge him to keep it up.  He admitted that before the competition, he was drinking 4 cans of coke per day.  PER DAY!  That’s around 32 teaspoons of sugar.  That’s just in his drinks.  Never mind the other habits.  He cut that down dramatically, but admits he didn’t cut it out.

What’s been inspiring to me is to hear your stories.  I’ve had many chiropractic patients in Maple Ridge and beyond and readers of my blog tell me that this competition I’m participating in has inspired them to take action to lead healthier lives.  Many have lost weight and started exercising themselves.  That’s huge for me.  I guess Michael Jackson was right:

“If you want to make the world a better place

take a look at yourself and then make the change.” -MJ

Dr. Nima’s tips to get you started on losing weight and changing unhealthy habits:

1)   Start by ADDING.  If you are ready for the suffering involved in the first few weeks of cutting carbs and junk cold turkey, and your why is big enough, then be my guest.  Otherwise you will fail.  So start by adding salads, veggies and some fruits BEFORE you reach for the junk.

2)   Plan your meals.  If you don’t plan what you’re going to be eating that day—and when, then you when your blood sugar gets too low, your will power is GONE.  You hear me?  GONE.  And what’s readily available to you when the cravings come?  You guessed it… starbucks and McDonalds.  There goes your whole day.

3)   Research “Paleolithic” diet.  You can pretty much paleolithically all day and you won’t be suffering any cravings.

4)   Start moving, and increase your motion.  If you want to really burn the fat, then do your research in “Burst” or “Surge” or “Interval” training.  It’s all the same thing.

5)   Observe your stress and learn tools to overcome it that don’t involve medicating or self medicating.  Be healthy for a cause that’s greater than for yourself.  Otherwise your unhealthy habits and addictions will take you over.

This is exactly why I’m now expanding my reach to inform the world in a very simple and fun way about the devastating effects of stress on the body, and strategies we can use every day to overcome it.  Stress is at the underlying root cause of most food addictions and weight gain as well as every other health problem… so why not learn to attack it from it’s root cause?  I present to you in the next couple of days….the beginning of my 5 part series called “Stressbusters”.  Please feel free to retweet, comment, like, and share.  And let me know what else you would like some guidance and information on!

There’s only a little over 2 weeks left in the competition.  Paul just posted on his blog that he’s reached his target already… he’s already lost 6% of his body fat by weight measurement (if you recall we through out our body fat % scale as it’s a piece of useless inaccurate crap).

I’ve reached my initial goal as well—but like many things in my life, I suffer from the “it ain’t good enough” disease.  I wonder if there’s a pill for that—maybe I should create one and market it.  Does anyone share this disorder with me?  No matter how good you do, it just ain’t good enough– More on this later.

Have you found your soul mate but are now trying to change them every day?  Are you earning the dollar amount that you had in mind 10 years ago, but still it’s not enough to make ends meet?  Or in my case, did you reach a goal—a weight loss challenge and still manage to find a way to beat up a part of yourself for it?  Or am I the only one with this “disease”?

I just recently came back from a retreat/course with other Doctors of Chiroractic.  I knew that sticking to my paleolithic hunter-gatherer diet was going to be difficult while on the road, but I didn’t think it was going to be this impossible!  One of the doctors who was there was a gal from Boston who was a regular follower of my blog.  I would catch her looking at my plate when I took a dessert and shaking her head and saying “what about your competition?  I thought you were off carbs!  That looks like carbs to me!”  My first reaction was to say “shut up b____!”  but then again that was probably the carbs talking.

First time I was up in this altitude 8600ft for so long. I was wondering why a 30 second walk to the conference center was causing me such grief.

The course was called “Total Solution” in the Mountains just outside Colorado Springs… Designed as a retreat, plus a training for Westgate Wellness Centre’s brand new “Insight” machine that measures how your body is storing stress, and how your body’s adapting to stress.  The reason why I bought the machine is because I’m branching out in my influence to become an authority and expert on my favorite topic– Stress.

Since we all know that 75-90% of the reason why you are visiting the doctor is because of Stress, I want to specialize in early detection of the devastating effects of stress—both in the Nervous system, and globally throughout the body.   This machine called the “Subluxation Station” does just that.  If I can catch it early and measure how your autonomic nervous system (the part of your Nervous System that is responsible for your stress response) is functioning, we can work out a strategy that will enable you to move towards balance, before you’re forced to do it after a devastating diagnosis of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, arthritis, you name it.  We can make lifestyle recommendations to correct something even before it shows up in a blood test.  How frikking cool is that?

This 5-day course was to train me on how to use the technology and interpret the results so I can be a better doctor to my patients.

A few of my new "TS Bastards" family. I love them all-- SMTO (some more than others)

Let’s just say I got way more than I bargained for.  This turned out to be a personal development seminar as well.  Not only was it enlightening for me, but I would watch doctors from around the world, young and old, break through some of their own personal stories that have held them back.  I would even help coach some of them through their stories until they got to the point that there’s nothing they would change about their lives.  It was uplifting for all of us.  I made some lifetime friends.  I love them all—some more than others (that’s our little inside joke).  The biggest aha moment I had was a bit of a breakthrough for me, and I thought it was so valuable that I wanted to share it — for those of you having challenges with your relationship with money.  Have you ever found yourself to be in a “Scarcity Mentality?”– in other words, fear that you don’t or won’t have enough?  That’s been my biggest challenge for the past few years even though I know it’s absolutely ridiculous.

I pride myself in constantly striving to grow and learn more about myself and become a better communicator.  I have read countless books and taken courses on personal growth, on business success, on relationships, on money, on health… but the one thing that plagued me was the disease of “never enough”… because I discovered that despite all my efforts, I still struggle with a “scarcity” mentality… fear of lack.

I watched my father work for great companies that started to struggle in difficult economic times throughout his career, which drove me to want to be my own boss.  I watched my family’s nest egg disappear with the collapse of the stock market in the earlier part of this millenia.  I graduated with a $100,000 student debt (that was 10 years ago remember) at the age of 25 and felt it was a dark cloud that followed me around.  Pretty crazy how strong my scarcity mentality has been.  I’ve been in denial about it all this time.

The upside of my perceived scarcities

Now, my scarcity mentality has had it’s benefits:  I’ve managed (along with my staff and associates of course) to turn the company I own around—when I first started at Westgate, the previous owner was borrowing Peter to pay Paul.  He would often ask me to hold on to my paycheque a few days before depositing it.  Slowly, over time, Westgate started to turn around, and now, 3 years after I bought the clinic (another huge debt I took on), Westgate Wellness Centre won the 2010 “Business Excellence Award—under 20 employees” category with the Maple Ridge Chamber of Commerce.  The fun part was knowing that all the other companies nominated are run by patients of mine.  (or should I say former patients?)  We’ve had the most successful year in the history of the clinic.  So what’s holding me back from letting go of my scarcity mentality?

I got my answer.  We had a brilliant young entrepeneur, who was a millionaire by the age of 26– he’s now 32– Garrett Gunderson (author of Bestseller “Killing Sacred Cows”) show up to talk to us about creating value for our clients and answer questions about the business side of our profession—the part that we often just neglect.  We assume that we have to be loving/caring healers, and that includes us having to become martyrs and not expect a fair compensation for the value we give in exchange (huge contradiction).  And when we start investing in stocks, mutual funds, houses and rental properties for the purpose of expanding our wealth, we are only distracting ourselves from our Soul Purpose.  In a nutshell, there were a few key things I learned that I would love to pass on that will help you:

Things to consider about your financial head-space

1)   Invest in your Soul Purpose.  This means invest in the expansion of your reach.  In my case, having a rental property and chasing down tenants for the rent is a distraction.  Investing in staff, equipment, and courses, coaching– all stuff that is in alignment with my mission and purpose will provide a MUCH greater return.  Are you investing in your soul purpose?  Do you even know what that is?  When would you like to find out?

2)   Don’t invest money that will put you in a scarcity mode.  That will affect your level of service.

3)   To get out of scarcity mode, put yourself deliberately in growth mode:   Exercise, meditate, do your affirmations, read books that expand your reach, and visualize every single day, and be grateful for what you have.  Don’t wait for things to change before you do what’s necessary for your growth. (Basic stuff– try it for 90 days and watch the magic happen).

4)  High level achievers are all unique in that they HIRE A COACH that they resonate with.  Read, study, go to classes and seminars, and watch your dreams start to unfold when you have the private instruction of someone you think has got what you’re looking for.  In other words, you wouldn’t hire someone to advise you on finances who is more broke than you are.  You wouldn’t go to a doctor who looks unhealthy– WOULD YOU?

5) Be grateful.  Have fun.  I know I said it before… it’s worth mentioning again.  Even though we all say we are grateful, we can always increase the moments in our day when we stop and become consciously aware of everything we have to be grateful for.  Why not have some fun with it?

Believe me, one of the greatest realizations for me was that if everything I had were taken away from me now, I would be telling you with great regret that “I had it all”.  You’d probably be in the same boat too.  I just had a patient tell me about all the stresses in her life– “I have 3 rental properties and it’s difficult managing tenants.”

Believe me, I know first hand the frustrations you can have with tenants– but why not start focusing on how grateful you are to have the ability to afford 3 rental properties?  Maybe you’d attract better tenants!

Body Transformation and Stressbusters Seminars.

Even as a fat man-- admit it-- I'm still a hot piece of tail.

(My dog is licking my face right now and wants to go for a walk.)  I have 2 weeks left before I have to post up some embarrassing shirtless pictures of myself– funny how I did that a few weeks ago and I had the most hits ever on my site.  What do I have to do to get you guys to pay attention– keep getting naked on my blog????

Paul has done quite well– he’s already reached his goal.  He had a survey on his blog that asked who looked hotter…. Me or him?  He was shocked at the reply:  5 people voted for him, 7 people voted for me.  I was shocked too.  How on earth did 5 people vote for his fat ass?  I have some major work to do.

Oh, by the way—the time has come—I’m going to be launching my Stressbuster’s video blog series.  My question to you is this:  Can you tell me other than stuffing your face with junk food—what do YOU do to manage your stress?  If I put together some seminars on food addictions, weight loss and stress– would you be interested?

This is what I could potentially look like if Paul hadn't suggested we do a challenge.

So, here we are, pretty much at the halfway point in our little body fat loss challenge.  Both Paul and I seemed to have plateaued at around 10 pounds lost.  On his blog, he brags about doing Carb Night’s where he gets to binge on carbs.  Aside from a few days of weakness, I’ve been pretty damn good sticking to my food plan.  This has been a huge growth and learning process for me.  In a nutshell, here’s what I’ve learned:

Nima’s Weight loss commandments:

1)That the process of “weight loss” is a lot tougher than I thought.  If you don’t have a meaningful reason WHY, then hear me now and believe me later:  YOU WILL NOT LOSE WEIGHT.

That these fad diets will work easily for the short term.  EVERYTHING works in the short term.  Dr. Bernstein, Weight Watchers, Starvation diets, Atkins… all of them WORK if your goal is to lose weight fast.  In fact, its normal for your weight to fluctuate + or – 5 pounds in a week depending on a weekend of binging.  I experienced it myself.

I’m talking about the 10, 20, 50 pound gains and losses.  In order to stay off, a self-directed, internal change in thinking is required.  You can even have your stomach reduced in size with staples or a lap band.  YOU WILL GAIN THE WEIGHT BACK EVENTUALLY if you don’t change the underlying reason why you are covering up your pain with food.

2) That food addictions (sugar, caffeine, carbs) afflict 99% of people.  That means probably you.  I define an addiction as something you can’t stop doing, something you do to cover up pain or feelings of emptiness.  Most of us aren’t even consciously aware of it.  We have a craving– and we simply fill it.  And year by year, we rob ourselves of our God given right to health and self-esteem.  My exploration of my food addictions has opened up a whole new series of doors of awareness for me.  Stuff I didn’t even realize.  I don’t know exactly how, but this realization is something I want to share that will help many people take control of their lives.

3) You can’t escape pain, whether you succumb to your addictions or you overcome them.  Any time you look outside yourself for fulfillment, be it a chocolate bar, slice of pizza, a line of coke, or even a relationship—the result is always emptiness.  The most successful people in life are the ones who become comfortable with pain and discomfort.

Uncomfortable with Pain and Lacking General Purpose:  A recipe for fatness.

I’ve learned a lot.  I’ve had to sit and observe my pain, and humbly admit to myself that I am not present most of the time.  I’ve observed that my fears and pains each and every day cause me to seek external things to help me run away from them.  As I have become aware of this, and observed, I have become more comfortable with pain.  I’ve had some amazing moments of clarity, and bitter moments of sadness.

It’s made me a more conscious person.  I can now look at other people, and instead of judging them, I see them as people doing what they can to cover up their own pain.

I’ve also observed when I am totally present, and not covering up anything, seeking any pleasure or avoiding any pain.  It’s when I’m writing, when I’m speaking, or when I’m delivering an adjustment and talking to a client and helping them resolve their physical or emotional issue.

What do YOU do to cover up your pain?  Conversely, when do YOU feel the most present?  What activities do you perform that cause time to stand still?  To know what that is, and to dedicate your life to the advancement and refinement of that activity is to truly live and succeed.  I’m one of the lucky ones, I guess—I know what that is.  The seeds have been planted, and things are well on their way.

I just have to remind myself that I’m never going to get “there”.  It’s the doing… being present the entire time and appreciating the process—that’s where the magic is.  The more time I spend in that space, the more fulfilled I become.  When I step out of that “mission mode” as a buddy of mine calls it… then my addictions take over.

And so do yours.

Looking better and liking what I see

So far, it’s been an up and down climb.  I don’t count body fat % any more.  You’ll notice from my last blog as to why.  My friends and family have taken notice and told me that my face has slimmed down as well.  I’m toning up, feeling pretty good when I look in the mirror, and I’m loving the way my clothes are fitting on me.  My wife has even been taking notice and complimenting my sexy derriere.  Still room for improvement, but I’m liking what I’ve seen so far.  I’m not ashamed of my gut anymore… there’s hardly one there now.

It’s my 35^th birthday next week, and I’m proud to say at this point that I’m looking better than I ever have in my life, and I’m now in the best shape I’ve ever been in.  I only say this not because I’m bragging…. But because I want you to know that anything is possible for you if you 1) have a reason WHY, 2) make the decision to work at it, 3) Become aware that your addictions are simply a “scratch” for a mostly unconscious “itch”.  When you work at coming to terms with the discomfort of the itch, the urge to scratch goes away.

I’m opening the door for discussion here:  What challenges do YOU face with your eating?  When do you crave the most?  What have you tried?  What has worked for you?  What has been your biggest challenge with your weight loss plan?  Drop a line and we can cover it on the next blog.

In the meantime, try this for the next 12 hours:  Observe when you have an “itch” (craving for a cigarette/drink/coffee/sweet) and watch how painful it is to not scratch it.

In the past, you would often see me downing an entire tub of Haagen Dazs ice cream.  The calories, the sugar… I could easily get away with it.  Now that it’s catching up to me, I’m finding I have to resist it for the first time.  One of the most difficult things a person could accomplish is mastery over his/her addictions.  And, except for one minor slip up…for the most part, I’m winning over mine.

How you can gain power over your addictions if you choose to

The old me would have downed these two faster than you can say "Haagen Dazs"

I went to a buddy’s place and he put these two tubs right in front of me, because he is such a gracious host and loving friend.  Immediately, as the urge started rushing through my body and attempted to take over my mind, I woke up and sat back and started to observe my physiological reactions to the visual stimulus.  Tell me if this sounds familiar to you:

My heart rate slightly increased.  My eyes became focussed and alert to the ice cream.  My pupils dilated…The salivary glands started churning and making my mouth water.

“Interesting how my body is reacting,” I thought.  I’ve become like Pavlov’s dog.  Visual stimulus, body reacts.  All unconsciously, without any effort.  The moment I awakened to it, I wasn’t feeling the pain.  I was tuning in and out… Whenever I thought of the body fat composition scan I had earlier this week, it made it that much easier for me not to indulge.  (More on this scan later).

You see, the reason why we reach for our addictions, be they cigarettes, alcohol, sex, gambling, or sugar, even over-exercising—is because we are trying to cover up some form of emptiness… there’s something we are running away from.  Most of the time, we’re unconcious.  There’s a drink in your hand and you don’t remember how it got there, or you just finished a few puffs of your cigarette and you don’t remember even lighting up.  Addictions can only take hold when you’re unconscious.

The moment you snap out of it and get in the moment and become an observer to your cravings—you are in the “now” where you realize that you are more powerful than your body.  Some use meditation.  Others exercise.  Most just transform one addiction to another… All I know is… I was craving and it was starting to hurt.

Chiropractic and addictions?

Nerve system interference = Increased Stress hormone secretion. Adjustment = less stress hormones = overall sense of well-being = one of many tools to help with your addictions!

My gracious host, Dan, who also happens to be a Chiropractor, checked my spine and found some subluxations (nerve interference) in my neck and upper back… from all the traveling and work I do, it puts quite a strain every day… not to mention sitting in front of a computer and writing… Like all Olympic and pro athletes, I’m a regular chiropractic patient because I know I can’t be at optimum performance in my life if my nervous system is out of wack.  As soon as he adjusted me, my body felt so much more relaxed and calm.  I could feel my stress hormones decrease.  That just killed my cravings—in an indirect way.  Less stress hormones in your bloodstream—less the need to crave and produce more fat and sugar (building blocks of stress hormones).  I always knew there was a connection.  I was just able to FEEL it right then and there.  Awesome stuff.

If you are trying to overcome an addiction, the best way is to come up with a good enough reason, and then step back and observe your physiology every time you feel the cravings.  Chances are, you are Pavlov’s dog as well.  It also just seems that whatever challenge you’re going through, or want to be at your peak performance physically and mentally, you want to have a clear nervous system.  These carb withdrawl symptoms are quite challenging, and getting adjusted is making it easier for me.

Throw away your home body fat scale!

If you’ve been following my body fat loss challenge with Paul, you would have known that I started with 172.2 pounds, and 21.9% body fat.  After a couple of weeks I managed to crawl down to 163-165 pounds and 18-20% body fat depending on the time of day.  But how accurate are these numbers?

I’ve been using a bioelectric impedance scale.  The video on day 1 shows my first weigh-in.  The way it works is that it sends a low voltage electrical current from one end into the body and measures the time it takes to reach the other end.  Not very accurate.  So Paul and I were invited to get an accurate measurement done.

Peter from Bodycomp Imaging here in Vancouver measured our height and put us on a machine that is now

Minutes before he broke me the bad news...

considered the gold standard of body composition testing.  You can check the link and see a quick video on the whole process I went through… but here’s a pic of what it looks like.

My Scan: Notice where most of the fat is-- the ever so attractive over-sized mid section.

It’s called a DXA scan.  This stands for “Dual energy x-ray absorptiometry”.  Long story short it sends an x-ray through your body and measures how well it passes through certain tissues.  This way it calculates how much of your body is comprised of muscle, fat, and bone.

In a nutshell, the results were shocking.  FRIKKING 28.5% body fat!  28.5!  This is not a joke!  This is almost 9-10 percentage points higher than that crappy scale I have at home.  If you have one… just throw it out—it’s pretty much useless.

The saddest part is the summary that came with my results:

“For males under the age of 40 a body fat value of greater than 23% is suggestive of increased health risks. You may want to discuss this with you health care provider. We encourage you to take active steps to decrease your body fat and look forward to retesting you in the future to help you monitor your progress as you move towards your goal.”

Discuss with my health care provider?  I AM A HEALTH CARE PROVIDER!  You encourage me to take active steps to decrease my body fat?  Gee, thanks.  What a kick in the pants that was. I had to cry myself to sleep after that one.

Peter, who could tell I was quite upset, said that most people who estimate their body fat are under-estimating.  Seeing that he was in better shape than us, I asked what his body fat percentage is… He said it was 19%.  He then proceeded to lift up his shirt to show off his abs.

Peter is 19% Body Fat. Looks pretty good to me... Maybe that's why he's got that smirk on his face as if to say "hey fattie, don't you wish you were me???"

The ride home was very sobering.  I was downright depressed.  Peter gave me some ground breaking advice:  Exercise in bursts (which I’m already doing), eat a paleolithic hunter gatherer diet (which I’m doing), and…. You guessed it…. cut out all carbs.  Thanks a lot for the advice Mr. Flatstomach.  You can see Paul’s results and scan on his blog.  He was at 38%.  Again– about a 9-10 percentage points higher than what he thought.

I wish I did this scan in the beginning, not 2 and a half weeks into the competition, but it’s given me even more drive than ever to work my ass (literally) off and to see the “after” scan in several weeks with an accurate difference.

I am still at the 8-10 pounds loss point since the beginning, and I’ve posted this DXA scan on my fridge as inspiration.

If you feel like you need to get motivation to exercise and change your food plan to something more healthy, and you’re in the Greater Vancouver Area, contact Peter and have a consult with him.  He’ll set you on the right path.  He’s good at what he does and he’s well versed in giving you the proper advice.  I’m going gangbusters now baby.

Summary (Tips):

1) To help you reach your goal, start with an accurate body composition scan.  This way, you can track and monitor changes to your physiology.  You want to be able to quantify your progress. Be aware of your starting point.

2)  Be aware of how stressed you are and nip it in the bud.  Keep nervous system stress on the down-low by (shameless self plug) getting adjusted… and regularly.  I didn’t even realize this week how badly I needed to get adjusted until after the adjustment.

3)  Be aware from a 3^rd person’s perspective of your cravings.  When you feel them, step out of your body and observe them.  Hold this awareness for as long as you can—because that’s the key to overcoming them.

4) Be grateful for everything you have.  Be grateful for your body.  Be good to it… it’s the only place you have to live.

Confession:  I had my first slip-up since starting this challenge.  This is probably one of the most difficult things for me to admit.   I’m not that comfortable with failure.  Just ask anyone who knows me well.

I went to Los Angeles to visit with friends and have a getaway, as well as speak to the students at the Los Angeles Chiropractic College to give them some words of wisdom in the transition they are about to face between student and health care practitioner.  More on this later….  This trip was business and pleasure.

Why it’s so difficult for you to stick to your food plan on your trips

Your success in your day and often depends on routine and rhythm.  When I’m at home, I have all my fruits and veggies ready for the next day.  Meals are planned in advance, and everyone who’s made a lifestyle change knows that healthy eating is all about planning.  If you don’t plan your meals, you are at the mercy of your cravings and there’s an over-abundance of fast food options to screw you all up.  For me, it’s all about starting strong—I usually make myself a green smoothie with a table spoon of almond butter.  Yummy, filling, nutritious.  It controls my cravings, and the day goes a lot smoother with it.

When you’re on holidays, you don’t have a kitchen, you don’t have your VitaMix blender, and especially if you’re in the good ol’ US and A…(As Borat likes to say), there aren’t too many easy-to-find raw food options.  I admit, California is good that way—lots of Raw food restaurant choices, one which we went to—we were good the first night—but in retrospect, we didn’t think this through enough and plan accordingly.

In a nutshell, we ate too much.  One of my favorite Persian restaurants is in L.A—called Darya… I promised myself I wouldn’t, but I had rice with my meal.  And a bite of dessert.

That night, it felt like I had rocks in my stomach.  Amazing how much carbs weigh you down.  Do you know what I mean?  It immediately gives your tummy that “beer belly” look.  Waking up with a tummy ache and heartburn I knew too well, but hadn’t experienced in a couple weeks. If you haven’t seen it before, on my last trip to New York, I documented what happens to me when I have a world famous Frozen Hot Chocolate.  850 calories!  Too much Sugar! (for those that didn’t see it)

The next day, I was with my friends in Beverly Hills at Jack and Jill Café and Bakery, and this was placed in front of me.  Banana cream pudding.  Would you be able to resist taking a bite?  I just had a bite of this one, that’s all…. I promise.

Louisiana Banana cream pudding.

Quickly I felt the carb cravings that were subsiding start to come back.  I finished the trip off with a visit to PinkBerry, a frozen yogurt joint where you can get all the toppings you need to give your Pancreas a crazy workout.  My diabetic buddy gave himself a shot of insulin just before we went in.  He bragged about how great his blood sugar levels were.  He’s had diabetes for over 20 years, so he’s gotten good at knowing how much insulin he’s got to shoot himself with.  He made me so grateful to have a properly working pancreas, and I made a vow to be a better man to it.

So I had a few moments I gave to myself to beat myself up for re-gaining about 5 pounds back over the weekend.  Wow.  Almost 2 weeks of work almost blown to smithereens in one weekend.  Easy go, easy come back.

The Pleasure/Pain Cycle

The funny thing is that there is just as much pain in gaining the weight back as there is in losing it.  Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you’re avoiding pain by stuffing your face.  It’s painful—the guilt, and then the physical suffering after the fact.  Your stomach feels distended, heartburn starts to kick in, indigestion, tired, lethargic, then the worst part—you get fat.  Very quickly.  That’s painful.  It’s unhealthy, and it’s unsightly.  Extreme pain.

The pain of self control and discipline is much better than the pain of regret.  One evolves you, the other keeps you miserable.  One pain could set you free and increase self esteem, the other keeps you in bondage and lowers your self esteem.

I’m pleased to say I had a great time, but I’m back to my routine and eating healthy again.  I’m not too worried—I appreciate I’m human too, and gave myself permission to learn from the experience.

Why diets don’t work, and who’s really going to capitalize on it

Capitalizing on the fact that you aren't going to want to get to the root cause of your obesity

On my way to LAX airport, I must have seen 75 billboards on the side of the road and bus stops that looked exactly like this one.

This billboard is wrong on so many levels:

Level #1

The fact that it’s offering a quick fix for a problem that is possible for anyone to change if their “why” is big enough.  This is a surgery that has a long list of side effects and complications.  Plus, if you don’t change your lifestyle, the surgery doesn’t work!  I know people who’ve had the surgery and after losing the weight, are slowly starting to gain it back because the lifestyle (food addictions) DIDN’T CHANGE.

Level #2

The affirmation that you are going to fail in your diet.  They’re capitalizing on the fact that most people try to change their food intake without changing who they are, how they think, and their environment and deal with the root cause of their food addiction.

Level #3

The American Flag in front of the photo is a priceless illustration that this is what America has become.  Overspending, overindulging, overdrugging, over-the-top surgeries.   This gluttonous approach to life is what is causing the fall of the United states—in their economy and their health.

It’s my mission to take people, one and many–whoever wants to learn– to where they deserve to be… living their God-given right to a healthy and fulfilling life.  I intend on doing this FIRST by living one myself.

Today, I had an official body scan done in downtown Vancouver with a machine that provides almost pinpoint accuracy what your body fat % is.  It was bad news.  It seems that my scale that uses bioelectrical impedance is grossly incorrect, and it’s not good.  Will post about it later.

I wanted to end off sharing what I was telling the students at LACC.  The principle applies to you as well.  Everyone has their insecurities, their anxieties, their depressions, their challenges, their pain.  Just remember that the more you can appreciate that people will be counting on you to be the solution to all of those issues for them, the more successful you become.  And my job as a Chiropractor in Maple Ridge and a Life Coach and Teacher throughout the world is the same.  And the only way I can be a solution to the challenges of others is to start by clearing up my own challenges, blazing the path, learning from those giants who have gone before me, and teaching with an open heart to those who wish to live healthier, more fulfilling lives.

For those of you who are struggling with your weight—just remember one thing for you to draw strength in the moment you are craving that is helping me tonight:

The pain of regret is far worse than the pain of discipline.  You can’t avoid pain, either way.  Just make your choice where you want to feel it.  Is your “why” big enough to make the healthier choice?  Why not?

My brother is an a-hole.  More on this later.

My weight fluctuates now from 163 pounds to 167.  Pretty huge how much different we weigh in the morning or the afternoon/evening.  I didn’t realize this, because its never been an obsession of mine.  But man, does your weight ever fluctuate!  Has this been your experience?  I’ve lost about 7-9 pounds and almost 2% body fat judging from this “who knows if this is accurate?” digital scale.

To me, it’s not about how much you weigh… Superficial as it sounds, it’s all about how you look.  Think about it… who cares if you weigh little, like if I was 160 pounds, but with no muscle and it was all flabby.  It’s all about body composition to me, so I never payed attention to my weight.  I would weigh myself a few times a year.

Lunch made by Maria: Romaine Lettuce wrap with turkey breast, hummus, cucumbers, carrots, red pepper, onion and cilantro. FREAKIN DELISH.

The typical breakfast I could eat at White spot. The waiter was so confused at the substitues-- Tomatoes and fruit cup. This whole meal came out to $18.50. Can you freakin believe it? Oh and I had to take them back to request REAL eggs. Newsflash. Most scrambled eggs are processed, ASK FOR THE REAL STUFF!

But oh, the lovehandles.  Confession time:  I always looked at my increasing belly every day, but this competition makes me look at them carefully now as I have been obsessively looking at my hairy-but- nicely trimmed shirtless body every single chance I get. The lovehandles are fading away.  Funny, aside from that, I’d be pretty happy with the rest of it (maybe bigger legs).  It’s just those damn lovehandles.  Just ask any guy who’s working to improve himself physically.  Chances are, he obsesses about them.

You gals think you have it so rough, and there’s immense pressure on just YOU to look a certain way.  Well, I have news for you.  We obsess about it too.  Just look at every guy who hits the gym regularly.  He’s obsessed.  Why?  Because it’s hard to look lean and fit.  You can’t really fake it.  With only a few exceptions, in order to be healthy, lean, fit… there’s a lot of work involved.  If you invested that much time and money and sacrifice eating addictive foods… you’re damn straight you want to see results.

And when we KNOW we can look better, and we don’t look as good as our potential… we get frustrated, depressed, and it effects our self-esteem as well.  Most guys just hide behind it better than you ladies do.

I’m watching a show on TV right now talk about Obesity.  It’s called “Super Size vs. Super Skinny” where a fat girl and a skinny girl get put in a home for 1 week together and have to eat the diets of the other girl—one obese, one almost anorexic.  This is forcing both of them to look closely at their eating issues.  There was a feature on a woman who was so obese, she was now immobile and getting help to breathe from an oxygen mask.  She was miserable.  I will share her words of wisdom for you procrastinators at the end.  I hope it inspires you the way it inspired me.

Wow.  I never realized how prevalent are the emotional issues surrounding eating.  I’m going to explore this more.  I’m so interested.  I’m going to report you what I find… because either you are an emotional eater, or you stop eating during emotional times.  Take your pick…. And I am willing to bet that although you might know which type you are—you probably 1) have no idea why you became this way, or 2) have no idea what you can do to resolve the specific triggers for your over-eating or starving yourself.  I want to help those people become conscious.

I’m not saying I’m going to become an eating disorder shrink.  I’m saying I want to coach people in the process of overcoming their food issues—either starvation or binge eating.  I’m willing to bet that there are some principle causes.  This challenge, which has forced me to face my food addictions and their connections to my stress, has been one of the most educational personal development seminars I have ever gone through (other than being married).    Please stay tuned for upcoming insights on food and your emotions and share your story if you want to.

The Bakhlava-Stress connection.

On Sunday, I went to a family dinner.  My parents were visiting from Seattle, and quite honestly, despite the love we all have with each other—when we love each other too much the way we do, we tend to have many spirited debates.  As I approached my grandparents home, I felt the cravings start to surge.

I had a chicken salad.  My mom follows my blog and knew not to serve me any rice or “tah-deeg”.  That’s the delicious, golden brown, crusty flatbread at the bottom of the pan of rice.  The way my grandmother makes it, my wife and I usually fight for it, sometimes to the point of physical violence. To not swallow the tah-deeg was the toughest pill to swallow— but I made it.  My why is big enough, remember?

Afterwards, she did the worst possible threat to me overcoming my sugar cravings:  She broke out her world famous Bakhlava.  Oh dear lord.  Look at these pieces of heaven.  Enough said.  Ingredients include (other than sugar):  Phyllo, butter, sugar, almonds, butter, sugar, butter, sugar, and cardamon, and more butter and sugar.  When you combine stress with fat and sugar, you have the secret ingredients of obesity.

Do YOU think you could resist these bad boys?

I made it through.  My brother and I went to a movie later on.  Late show.  After dinner.  My brother’s food cravings were insane at the theater.  (He’s an addict like me… I guess it must be genetic).  He realized that if he was to go on a no-processed food diet, no sugar, no grain… there’s nothing to eat at a Theater except water.  He proceeded to order a Whopper Jr. (he said the fact that he got a junior whopper should make it ok).   During the movie, the smell of the burger was making my mouth water.  I was going crazy, feeling the hunger pains surge… I said no.  My brother offers me a bite.  I said no.  He then proceeds to waft the burger right under my nose.  That’s right. My brother is an a- hole.

But I guess that’s what a loving brother does.  Tests my will.  And I thank him, because I passed.  It IS possible if you want to.  You just have to have a reason why.

For those who love McDonalds, here’s an eye-opening video about the Bionic Burger.  I imagine that Burger King is the same.

And by the way…. The quote from the obese lady?

“You can save yourself, if you really think about it.  Never believe that evil little voice in your head that says ‘you can start eating well tomorrow’.  Never listen to it.  That voice is trying to kill you.”