Colorado Springs Functional Medicine

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Obesity: A Sign of Extreme Intelligence but a Monster Ego

This post is for all those fatties out there. You know who I’m talking about…fatty, fatty, fat, fat.  Yeah, I called you fat, look at me I’m skinny.  Never stopped me from getting…slapped in the face.  Before you turn this off or post negative comments, hear me out for 3 seconds.

Being fat is a sign of extreme, high-level intelligence. Yes, that’s right.  When you are assessing that booty and belly shake in the mirror, don’t think disgusting. Think Einstein, Hawking, or even Dwight K. Schrute.

Being fat is a sign of extreme, high-level intelligence. Click To Tweet

Your body NEVER does stupid stuff. It always gives you the absolute best chance of surviving the next 30 seconds, even if it’s at the expense of your next 30 years.

Why would the body take excess energy substrate and convert it to fat?  Because it’s the preferred fuel for your brain and body to operate.  Animals that go into hibernation are living off their fat stores.  Humans don’t hibernate but there is (or was) a great possibility that we would go without food for a lengthy time.

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Silent Starvation

If you were to ask my wife, current and past co-workers, and kids what I really suck at, I’m sure it would take them about a microseconds to spit out EMPATHY.  It’s enormously difficult for me to relate emotionally with someone else’s struggles.  It doesn’t mean I don’t care.  I just hard for me to shed a tear…except for the movie Rudy.

But the more I dive into looking at the disruptions at the cell level and even genetic level, my view of individual’s health struggles is starting to change, especially when it comes to people that struggle with obesity.  The empathy really grows when I see them do so much that is right but can’t seem to have a break through.

One of the biochemical factors that keep the person unsatisfied is because often times they are starving.  Really.  In other words, what they are eating isn’t being shuttled into the cell to produce that universal energy currency we all learned about in high school biology called ATP.  One of those main reasons for an overfed but under nourished state is due to inefficiencies of the Kreb’s cycle. As a result, the person is going to crave more and more energy substrates (usually carb type foods) to flood the system to ultimately produce ATP.

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Metabolism Summit

 

Metabolism Summit

Reboot your metabolism to lose weight and gain energy!

Is willpower the reason you can’t lose weight? When’s the last time you reset your metabolism? Maybe your lack of energy and weight loss challenges aren’t a diet issue, but a metabolism that needs a wake up call!

Learn from 30 experts at The Metabolism Summit when you register for free today!

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WHY ATTEND?

Sara Vance created The Metabolism Summit to help those who are suffering with weight and chronic health issues. No diet will work until the underlying metabolic issues are resolved. And, many falsely blame themselves or a lack of willpower for not being able to lose or keep off the weight. But this has never been a failure of will, it’s due to a broken metabolism.

Optimizing your metabolism can help you:

  • Lose excess weight and increase energy
  • Reduce inflammation and cultivate digestion
  • Advance brain function and improve mood
  • Upgrade sleep and reduce stress
  • Boost immunity and prevent disease
  • Manage cravings and help hormones

Attend and listen to the following experts (and 25 others!):

Register today and you’ll gain access to the following free gifts:

  • Expert Talk #1: Ann Louise Gittleman, Bile: Your Metabolism’s BFF
  • Expert Talk #2: Jeffrey Smith, Hidden Ways GMOs Can Devastate Your Health
  • Free Gift #3: Your Host, Sara Vance, Interviewed by Dr. Eric Zielinski, Fix The Metabolism: The Real Secret to Optimal Weight & Health
  • Free Gift #4: The Perfect Metabolism Plan, Chapter One: Break up with Sugar, by Sara Vance

The Metabolism Summit is online and free from February 1-8, 2016!

Register for FREE

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Own all of the expert talks to listen at your own pace:

The live event is totally FREE.  But what happens if you miss a topic you were craving to hear?  Or what happens when you want to review the information?

Own the entire line up for your personal health library.  But act fast.

The price to own the talks will increase once the event starts on February 1, so check out this amazing opportunity to improve your health now!

You’ll own these talks forever, with the ability to learn and share what you’ve learned with friends, family and your medical professionals to truly help the world be a healthier place!

Plus, your purchase comes with over $350 in healthy eGuides, videos, eBooks, discounts and more, at no additional cost to you!  Best of all, you get a 100% money back guarantee, no questions asked.

Pre-Order Today!

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Fat and Fabulous or Inflamed and Ignorant

Fat and Fabulous

I was giving a presentation to a group of other doctors and students and in the mental health field last week. One attendee interrupted me when I was talking about insulin resistance.

She was probably 100 pounds overweight but told a story that she has already lost about 30 pounds, had decreased her thyroid med dose by 1/3, and even had regression of ovarian cysts. These were fantastic changes and I praised her.  She said she was fat and fabulous.

But the part that made her over step her boundaries was her statement that I shouldn’t lump all fat people as unhealthy and that all skinny people are healthy.  After all, she was fat (her words not mine) and she is healthy.

First of all, I didn’t; those words never spewed from my mouth nor will they ever. What I was discussing was how certain areas of the body have more or less affinity to store energy (insulin resistance), hence why people gain weight in the butt, gut, and thighs.  It’s an area that is a lot less resistant to insulin than the liver or muscles.  It’s an easy area to store excess energy.

Then she went on to say how healthy she was and that all her labs came out looking good, etc. I didn’t have time to get into why both of those statements are false in front of the group, so I thought I would tackle it here.  She wasn’t looking for my help, just looking to be heard in a crowd.

In my mind, I don’t look at fat as fat. I look at fat as an outward expression of inflammation. You can be fat and fabulous but don’t let that blind you to being inflamed and ignorant.

The fact that she said her labs look good is a huge red flag in my book, especially when she says that other conditions are present, like hypothyroid.  Those ‘normal’ ranges on blood work lump 95% of the population as ‘normal’ and fabulous. When I read them, I tighten and interpret those values in a much more narrow spectrum.  It ends up being more predictive and preventative in nature.

Secondly, the standard lab work is the epitome of lazy healthcare. I doubt that she was tested for anything of value, especially anything that would be measuring levels of inflammation.  If your doctor is only running a TSH to assess thyroid, your cholesterol levels to assess heart disease, or blood glucose to check diabetes, it’s time to go elsewhere.

With that said…

Inflammation

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The Hunger Conspiracy

I hate to even use the word conspiracy, as it lays claim that someone or some group is doing something malicious on purpose and trying to cover it up.  But the more I see campaigns surrounding feeding the hungry, the more I feel something weird going on beneath the surface.

I’m not denying there are people that don’t get enough food or there are many that go to bed hungry.  But are Americans really dying from starvation?  Hunger and starvation are different beasts.  Is there a problem that is bigger but being brushed under the carpet?  Is the media tugging at our heart strings to appease the people that pay their salaries?

Back in 2012, there was a report in Lancet (a British Medical Journal), called the Global Burden of Disease that reported obesity as now a bigger problem than hunger, except for sub-Sahara Africa.  This report also has a LOT of controversy around it.  I haven’t dug too deep but I think there’s one industry that is the spear head of the controversy, or dare I say it…conspiracy.

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Failure…The Story Behind More Health, Less Healthcare

Every company, every success, and every movement has a story.  This is the story of More Health, Less Healthcare.  It may be long and boring to you so here is the take home message.  Instead of asking, ‘what could I accomplish if I knew I couldn’t fail?’  Ask the question  ‘what is WORTH doing even if I do fail?‘  Failure is an option.  

Sometimes you need a reminder of the journey so this post is more for my benefit of getting it down on paper to see and recount the obstacles that have happened.   You may not care about it but maybe you’ll glean some hope out of it to keep fighting for that thing you want badly but hesitate because you fear failure.

Childhood

I remember being sick.  I remember almost every February in grade school, a friend delivering all my Valentine’s day cards because I was absent from school.  It wasn’t just that day, it was multiple days and sometimes a week at a time…or so I remember.

I remember ear infections, bronchitis, strep throat, laying on a rubber heating pad that looked like a whoopee cushion, and I remember lots of antibiotics.  I also remember when they finally figured out I was allergic to Penicillin.  I remember not being sick for so long after they realized that.

I remember writing a report for school on what I do after school and the report listed all the TV shows I watched from the moment I got home until dinner time.  I remember also listing the bowls of potato chips and cookies I ate.  Then I remember my parents getting called in for a parent-teacher conference.

I remember moving and going to a new school.  I was not only the new kid, I was the ‘husky’ new kid.  I remember my mom and I school shopping for husky jeans.  I remember thinking husky was a brand name, like Bugle Boy, instead of a code for ‘fat kid’ jeans.  I also remember bragging to my friends that I wore husky jeans like they were the latest pair of Jordan’s.  I also remember sucking in my gut for school pictures because I was embarrassed of my weight.  I remember I was only in 5th grade at the time.

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