Colorado Springs Functional Medicine

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Fence Post or Bicycle Seat: Creating Life Balance 10% at a Time

Many of my clientele are either business owners or high end management/executives in their companies.  What does this mean?  It means they are drivers and achievers.  They push themselves hard to reach a goal.

The problem is that they often end up in my office totally tanked.  They have fatigue, sleep issues, depression, and chronic pain as a result.  They get to the point that the energy they do have gets put towards job performance and the home life suffers.  Their body is finding rest since they aren’t doing it actively.

In our conversations, they are often the ones to bring up that their work-life balance is tipping over.  The problem is that many feel they have to choose one or the other.  They feel they have to put their energy into work or they have to put their energy into life.  This just isn’t so.  Yes you can sit on a fence post and technically be balanced but that’s amazingly uncomfortable and not very sustainable.

Balance isn’t an either-or scenario.  Balance is an organization of everything life demands while making everything that life demands interconnected.  I think balance is more like sitting on a bicycle seat.  If you’re sitting on a bicycle seat and want to create comfort, you have to create motion.  You start pedaling.  As you gain speed and momentum, you can afford to back off on the pedals and coast and still maintain balance.

Yes, there will be valleys to climb out of and you may have to pump the brakes down some mountains but as long as you keep in motion, balance is maintained.  Trust me, I was that guy trying to balance my bike at the intersection waiting for the red light to turn green.  It’s great until you can’t get your clip out of your pedal.  Instantly, you become the guy laying on your side, feet stuck in the pedals, wearing spandex, in a small town that hate cyclists.

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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?

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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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Top 5 Health Tips To Keep You Out Of Your Doctor’s Office

I hate tips and lists but I’m not like everyone, or even close to the majority.  But I’ve had many questions and conversations about what I do personally to create and maintain health expression.  Hopefully this helps you in your journey.

Top 5 Health Tips To Keep You Out of Your Doctor’s Office

Read…a lot.

Reading isn’t just about information but also affirmation.  It’s not a question that I ask my clients but maybe I should.  “What was the last book you read or listened to?”  If the answer is romance novels, then we just need to add in some reading pertaining to their health challenges.  If they haven’t read a book since high school, that’s a problem.

If that resonates with you, then you’re destined to fail since you’re looking for someone else to solve the problem when you already possess the solution to 98% of your health issues.  The only long term, viable solution to you getting well is your personal efforts, on a consistent basis, for an extended period of time.  Picking up a book or listening to an audiobook about a health topic is the least expensive, yet most life changing thing you can possibly do to turn around your situation.

The clients that get the best results are the ones that say, “Hey, Dr. Kurt, have you read this book yet?”

Love Yourself.

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Double Diabetes

A few weeks back I had posted a picture of the infamous Unicorn Frappuccino.  It was an image that equated the sugar load of the beverage with eating 3 Snicker’s bars.  I made the comment ‘that if you’re as excited about this drink, then you should be as excited about diabetes.’

What ensued was a firestorm that I could have never predicted.  I was getting hammered for perpetuating the notion that sugar causes diabetes and the shaming police were flicking on sirens and showing their lights all over the place.  I was being accused of perpetuation a stigma, disease shaming, and diet shaming.

Functional Medicine Colorado SpringsAnd it wasn’t coming from anyone with type 2 diabetes but those moms and loved ones of people with type 1 diabetes.  The momma bears were in full force and after I let the dust settle, I understand why.  They are constantly having to explain and defend that their child’s condition isn’t from bad parenting nor chronic, reckless, lifestyle decisions.

Raising 3 boys with my wife, I know a mom will blame herself for anything that isn’t favorable, even if it’s out of her control.  But where my point was being missed was that even though something isn’t your fault, it’s still your responsibility.  And even if your child has type 1 diabetes, that child will have better outcomes by avoiding the things that contribute to type 2 diabetes…specifically a high sugar diet.

Regardless of the presentation of Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes, there’s a common theme, the regulation and utilization of insulin.  One doesn’t produce insulin, the other, the cells don’t listen to insulin well.

In either scenario, the less need for insulin, the better the outcomes.  If you consume the unicorn, regardless of endogenous insulin production or exogenous insulin injection, the high sugar load calls for a higher insulin need.

What I want to make clear is that even with type 1 diabetes, this doesn’t mean someone cannot develop type 2 diabetes simultaneously.  Insulin is essential to the body for many reasons.  But too much insulin becomes annoying to the cells, and the cells can start to ignore the signal, no matter if you’re type 1.

This means that for a type 1 diabetic, not only can you provide better health outcomes by limiting foods that require a high insulin response (grains, legumes, juices, sugar, etc), you can save some money by not needed as much insulin to combat those high glycemic foods.

I know for those moms with a type 1 diabetic kid, you want to provide what you can since they have started life with some extra challenges.  But I challenge the notion that even though the type 1 diabetes was not your fault, that creating a low glycemic diet with time restricted eating will benefit the ups and downs of sugar spikes and insulin needs.  So yes, that does mean limiting grains, juices, and everything that is the Standard American Diet.  Yes, that probably does mean trying the total opposite nutrition advice of your dietician, pediatrician, and USDA sponsored eating plan.

But I also know that I get discredited because I don’t have the right initials after my name or the specialty after my name.  But here’s someone that does.  Take a look at his lectures, his documentary, his book, and take that information in the context of the insulin demand, not if insulin is coming from internal administration or from injection administration.

And to the woman/women that automatically assume I’m trying to sell something with my anti-sugar message, the only thing I’m trying to sell is creating a life culture of creating more health and needing less healthcare.  It’s no surprise that healthcare is expensive.  86% off our healthcare costs are from chronic illness.  If we want to have better health outcomes, then we have to stop arguing over who is going to pay for healthcare and instead ask what are we paying for?  I said this with Obama, I will say this with Trump.  I didn’t say no healthcare and I didn’t say perfect health.  But if you haven’t realized it yet, the more we grant access of emergency interventions to treat chronic illness, the worst outcomes we have.

If the outcome is to create health then we have to question the health practices that have been drilled into our heads that have left us with ever increasing chronic illness.  Not sure where to start?  You know how to find me.

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Why I Recommend CrossFit to My Clients: The 5 UnExpected Benefits That Will Change Your Life

I admit it, I consider myself a CrossFit junkie…or maybe I’m just a giant poser.  I drank the Kool-Aid about 3 1/2 years ago and haven’t stopped.  Before I go to bed each night, I prepare my gym bag, my workout clothes, fill up my water bottle, gather the supplements I take in the morning, and look for the workout that I will be attempting the next morning.

Functional Medicine Colorado SpringsOver the past 3 1/2 years, I have noticed drastic changes in my strength, endurance, body composition, and the ability to run flat out for 1/2 a mile before my hands start shaking whenever my dog escapes the house. With 3 boys, ages 5 and under, the front door to my house routinely gets left open.

My internal dialogue has changed considerably as well.  It went from, “I’m not doing that,” to “I don’t think I can do that,” to “I don’t want to do that but I’ll try.”  That’s the moment you know you’re hooked.

But it’s not for these fitness reasons that I encourage my clients and my kids as they get older, to step into a CrossFit box.  Here are 5 unexpected benefits I have learned and experienced in my 3 1/2 year journey that encourage me to recommend this routine to almost all my clients.

Forced to Focus

CrossFit is defined as ‘constantly varied functional movements performed at high intensity.’  What does this mean?  It means you can’t multi task while working out.  There’s one objective in front of you and until you complete that task, you don’t get to move on.  There’s no breath for chit chat while the workout is happening, there’s no time to check your phone during the WOD, and there’s no possible way your ear buds are going to stay in place.

A huge problem I see with chronic health problems and the road blocks faced, is that the person hasn’t been focused.  During a CrossFit workout, you always have at least one coach keeping an eye on you, you have other members in the class tracking your progress and encouraging you, and you have a set rep scheme or time frame that you need to complete the routine.  You are forced to focus.

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Full Body Fix Radio: Pain, Inflammation, and Auto-Immune

Functional Medicine Colorado Springs

 

I was recently interviewed on Dr. Scott Mills’ podcast, The Full Body Fix.  You can subscribe to it on iTunes or click the image above for show notes.  We dive into the topic of when your aches and pains are more than just aches and pain and where to look when traditional body work isn’t fixing the problem.  Enjoy.

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Low Sodium Diets for Heart Health: Why Your Doctor and Dietician is Missing the Mark

If you are being treated for high blood pressure, I’m sure you’ve been told to watch your sodium intake.  The traditional medical theory is that since you consume too much sodium, your body is so defective that it doesn’t know what to do with it, so it holds onto the sodium.  And if you’re holding onto too much sodium, you will then unfortunately hold onto fluid.  And if you are holding onto fluid, this makes your heart work harder, thus raising blood pressure.  And if you don’t get that lowered, you’re going to die…like yesterday.

This all sounds good and logical…except that it isn’t.  Well not exactly.  Yes, sodium retention will create fluid retention whichFunctional Medicine Colorado Springs can create blood pressure elevation.  But your body has too many checks and balances to just let sodium hang around from dietary intake.

The part that contradicts the notion that you need a low sodium diet is that your body never does stupid stuff.  If your body is holding onto sodium to raise blood pressure, then there’s a very important reason.  And that reason is because you are attempting to escape something that is potentially or perceived as dangerous (whether you are aware of it or not).

Sodium is a major player in the communication signals from the adrenals to the kidneys.  If you’re in danger, those signals will create the retention of sodium so that there’s an end game expression of an increase in blood pressure. If you cannot get your blood pressure elevated to pump blood filled with all the nutrients and hormones necessary to engage muscle and nervous system activity to escape the danger, you’re done…like yesterday.

The general population experiences daily dangers from sitting too much, adverse childhood experiences that are unresolved, the Standard America Diet (not just salt intake), and staying employed at a job that is hated to earn money to impress people that aren’t liked, to buy stuff that isn’t even wanted.  Just because you don’t have an immediate deadline doesn’t mean you aren’t stressed.

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Two Truths and A Lie | Why What You Believe Determines Your Health

If there’s one thing I have learned from both working with clients for 12 years and trying this thing called parenting is that beliefs dictate behavior. If someone believes they can do something, they will at least attempt it.  If they don’t believe they can do something, they won’t attempt it.  Their belief dictates whether something is true or not.  If they feel something is true, there is subsequent action.  If they feel something is a lie, there is subsequent action in the opposite direction.

With that said, your belief regarding health will have a massive determining factor on your action steps, which will result in the promotion or negation of health expression.  I will present you with 3 statements.  Your belief in their trueness factor will be a good indication as to which path you choose in creating health.  And if you’re not satisfied with your health expression, then maybe you have to challenge some beliefs you hold regarding health.

Functional Medicine Colorado Springs

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Pregnancy Gainz | Why You Shouldn’t Avoid Exercise During Pregnancy

During the first trimester visit, many medical practitioners will tell pregnant women not to lift more than 15 lbs until 6 weeks after the birth of their baby (maybe). I truly believe these practitioners are doing what they think is best, but unfortunately, they are missing the mark for the vast majority of women under their care.

The positive intention here is that there are a handful of women who should not be lifting more than 15 lbs due to an impeding medical condition. I also believe there are a handful of women who do not have sound movement patterns and lifting more than 15 lbs resulted in a preventable injury (prevention being the right coaching not necessarily the lifting itself). So, to reach the widest audience with medical advice, practitioners speak to the lowest common denominator and continue to recommend not lifting more than 15 lbs during pregnancy.

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