Colorado Springs Functional Medicine

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Backyard Bug Benefits: Adding Crunch to the Paleo Lifestyle.

Are you feeling hungry? Or worse, are you bored of eating the same old mundane food? Well, adventurous ones, simply go to your backyard, catch a juicy grasshopper and eat it all up. At this point, I can imagine the kind of thoughts that may be running through your mind. Is this writer crazy? Or better yet, how can a person eat a gross bug?

Lifestyle Medicine Colorado Springs

 

I can understand where the shock is coming from but eating insects is not a new phenomenon. Insects have been eaten as a part of cultures since times ago, and in some countries, it is even considered to be national cuisine, prepared in delectable, epicurean recipes. While you may find it a bit off-putting, eating insects actually does come with a host of health benefits. This practice of eating insects is known as entomophagy.

Insect Eating Facts!

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Maximize Recovery…Reassess These

The point of exercise and training is to break the body down.  Your workout is actually doing damage.  This damage is essential and intelligent to you getting stronger, faster, quicker, and more efficient.  The only way the body gets better is through challenges. 

The problem is that many think it’s the workout that creates the magic.  The actuality is that it’s the recovery that is key.  Most people might workout 30 minutes.  That leaves 23 1/2 hours to recover.

Reassess these 3 common practices that put a damper on your recovery and ultimately your performance.

caffeineCaffeine

Many consume coffee pre-workout to boost their performance.  It’s essentially a performance enhancing drug.  There’s no denying that coffee boosts energy.  Just ask the 54% of Americans over the age of 18 who consume coffee daily.   It’s also no mystery that kids consume caffeinated beverages like energy drinks and such, which would drastically raise that 54%, if you included the entire population.

The problem is that this habit may boost short term performance at the expense of longevity, injury prevention, and recovery.  If you ever have lab work, usually there is a panel that lists out the type of white blood cells.  You will see these as neutrophils, lymphocytes, monocytes, eosinophils, and basophils.

Monocytes are cells that clean up inflammatory damage as well as debris from destroyed microorganisms.  They differentiate into macrophages and play a huge role in tissue repair whether you are injured, you are sick, or you have been training hard.  Without monocytes, muscles would not be able to heal after training or injury.

Cortisol and adrenaline (hormones released during times of stress, which can be physical, chemical, or emotional) lower macrophage activity and count.  In essence stress lowers your immune system.  Your immune system stimulates inflammation.  Caffeine is a direct hit to the adrenals, causing release of cortisol and adrenaline, lowering your healing inflammatory response triggered by your immune system.

Think about this way.  If you’re running from a bear, it would not be efficient if you had to stop to cough, sneeze, or dig a hole and pop a squat because you’re fighting the flu.  It also wouldn’t be conducive to your survival if you rolled your ankle and it ballooned up and caused you to be immobile.  Ever get injured during the heat of competition but not realize it until it was all over?  That’s the cortisol and adrenaline kicking in to keep you surviving.  Caffeine is a stress on the body.

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Best Seth Godin Advice Ever.

I just read a great blog post from one of my most favorite authors on the planet,  Seth Godin.  It was only 2 sentences long.  It goes something like this:

“Don’t measure anything unless the data helps you make a better decision or change your actions.  If you’re not prepared to change your diet or workouts, don’t get on the scale.” – Seth Godin.

Mr. Godin is in the marscaleketing world but he just nailed one of the biggest reasons why our healthcare system fails to create health. We have become a nation that is focused on our numbers.  Most people know their total cholesterol, blood pressure, their weight, and maybe even their blood sugar levels.

The problem is that with all the emphasis on the numbers, only 1 solution has been offered…a drug to control that number.  We have been led to believe that the only reasonable and successful manner to manage those numbers is through chemistry not innate to the body.

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