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February 28, 2009
The First Step
Hi ,
Is it spring yet? My daffodils think it is spring. They started blooming in the middle of the month. I guess it is as hard for them to know when to move into action as it is for us. They demonstrate trust and exuberance for life. This doesn't always work out, but more often then not the old saying "the early bird gets the worm" is very true. The trust to move into action even when you don't really know what to expect is often the difference between success and failure.
How are you doing with eliminating sugar from your diet? Sugar is so pervasive I thought we could tackle this huge shift in several steps. Lets begin with sugar in our beverages.
Health Challenge # 3: Replace soda pop and other sugar filled drinks with water, fruit essence flavored water, club soda, iced tea, herb teas, and other naturally flavored liquids.
The only sweetening agents you want to use are Stevia, Erythritol, Xylitol, or Lo Han. I know Stevia has been a poor substitute in the past because of the bitter aftertaste, however the FDA just approved a non-bitter Stevia extract 2 weeks ago and it is excellent. I have created a blend of Erythritol and Stevia in the office for the convenience of my patients that is either twice as sweet as sugar (for baking) or 4 times as sweet as sugar (for beverages). At these strengths it is less than half the cost of the Truvia brand in the stores. Some health food stores may have the non-bitter Stevia by now.
Do not use artificial sweeteners like Equal or Splenda. Not only are there too many toxic issues with these products, they are also found to disrupt blood sugar control. Also do not use fructose or products like Agave Syrup. I will devote a whole issue to the dangers of fructose.
Stabilizing our blood sugar is probably the biggest general step we can take to improve our health. We have been conned into believing that sugar is love. We associate the sweet taste with every imaginable good thing in our lives. The natural attraction to sweetness served us when we were hunters and gatherers of our food from the wild, as sweet things were usually safe to eat. But the sweetness of meat or fruit are a very different thing than the intense experience of candy, cookies and sodas. Letting go of the cultural addiction to sugar is a big step. It says you value yourself enough to stop poisoning yourself...even though the poison stimulates the happy part of your brain. Heroin does that too. Lets step out and find real happiness.
The First Step
Life is change. The only constant in life is change. These are true statements, yet in my experience of life the most constant thing I find is a universal dislike of change. More often than not this dislike is closer to outright terror. Other than a brief period of time between the late teens and the mid twenties, people generally seek out stability, predictability, and "comfortable" familiarity. Even "fringe" people who live way outside the norms of society still seek their own personal form of predictability and "comfortable" familiarity. Why?
We are problem solving geniuses. In each moment we are balancing dozens of factors - our needs, our wants, other peoples needs and wants, the physical options available to us, possible future outcomes from our choices, the effort involved, the perceived value gained for that effort, and so on. Our life is the result of a compromise between all the factors presented us. The choices we make are molded by our beliefs, values, fears, expectations, attitude, experience, established habits, and functional brain capacity all filtering and acting upon the dozens of factors just mentioned. The complexity is amazing. It is a wonder we ever get out of bed in the morning.
As we go through our days using our genius we hold on to choices and patterns of behavior that seem to get our needs met in the moment. Over time we identify with these choices as who we are...they become us...they define us. When life tosses a need for change at us we resist it, because to change would be to lose some part of who we are - who we have become. All the carefully learned balances between all the factors that took us so long to find a compromise with could come crashing down. We wouldn't know what to do. More accurately and truthfully we wouldn't know what to expect as an outcome if we did things differently. It has taken all our life to figure out how to survive as well as we do and we are not about to toss that away for who knows what. We are obsessed with controlling the outcomes in our life. We want to know what will happen so we can feel assured we will be ok.
This is where things get a little crazy. Even if we are not ok and know we are not ok we would rather stay being not ok then step forward into the unknown. Our brain says "Even though I am bad shape now, any change could make things even worse." Even simple and obvious changes for the better are viewed with suspicion because there is no telling how many of the different factors that we have carefully balanced could be affected. This is not imagined, a good example is with alcoholics. On the surface getting sober is an obvious positive choice. Yet 90% of the time when a married alcoholic gets sober they lose their marriage...even when the reason for getting sober was to save the marriage. Getting sober is a huge change and it upsets the old delicate balance in every area of the person's life. We understand this intuitively. We can feel that change opportunities carry unforeseen consequences.
But life is change and change is constant. What are we to do?
How to learn, grow, and change is a skill. Most people are terrified of change because they have not developed the skills of change. Learning how to change gracefully requires skills very different from those we usually learn to survive. It requires skills like trust in the unknown, the beginners mind, letting go of outcome, feeling your direction, creativity, active receiving, humility, and allowing in support, to name a few. These are not skills we are taught very often in our culture, but they can be learned. Usually we avoid them until we hit a crisis point in our lives where we have nothing to lose anymore. I would suggest that there is value in learning the skills of change by choice rather than having to wait until you are forced. That way you may be able to create more pleasure than crisis in your life.
The first skill I want to write about today is called The First Step. Life is a journey. Every journey begins with The First Step. Every change is a process that involves many steps. The first step is the hardest. Why? Because the first step requires us to make the decision and build the courage and commitment to begin the journey. Our mind automatically tries to anticipate the journey and its endpoint. It can't. The mind can not anticipate the unknown. This is one of the places trust is needed. Control is based on knowing and change requires that you don't know, so control is 'out the window' - not a possibility.
Our control obsession has to be replaced with a new skill called responsiveness.
We have to become aware of our surroundings and feel our moment to moment relationship to our surroundings. This concept is captured in the famous phrase "Be Here Now". Making the first step involves a lot. It is huge, and once you make it, your next step becomes your new first step. Why do I say this instead of calling this the second step? Because once you have made that first step, you are already a different person. You have to feel all over again where you want to go and why. As you walk your journey your goals will change. Your desires will change. You will change.
Each successive first step will get a little easier as you get more familiar with the skills of change. Seeing change as a series of small first steps also helps release the fears the mind dreams up about everything possibly becoming worse. If you make a little step and don't like how things are turning out you can change direction. The mind always thinks in terms of outcomes. It looks at the goal and tries to imagine how things will be if you travel a straight line from where you are today to that goal. It does not consider the possibility of the choice to change direction moment by moment. Yet that is exactly how life happens. Life does not travel in straight lines. Life winds and twists like a river. As you learn to respond to life and to yourself in the moment you learn how to keep your balance. This way the process of change is not scary. It is mostly our thoughts about change that scare us, not the actual process. We obsess on all the "what ifs" rather than the "what is".
If our desire for our original goal is strong and persists we will eventually wind and twist our way to that goal point. The crazy thing is, this winding and twisting is the fastest way to that goal. Straight-line pursuit of a goal actually takes longer because of the amount of resistance to change you have to fight. Making change in a light and loving manner allows for a much easier journey and also a faster journey. Toughing it out is not the point and actually slows you down. There is a skill here called flow - you are always moving forward, but with joy and positive anticipation...even over the rocky rapids. Light and loving manner does not mean a lack of focus, attention, and action - quite the opposite.
It means feeling and responding to your relationship to life in each moment and finding your balance and ease with life in each moment.
Toughing it out is all about ignoring balance and ease and forcing movement in spite of the pain the unbalance generates. Flow moves around the boulders in the way while straight-line movement requires you to smash through them.
Every day is the opportunity for a first step. Right now your life is mostly a mountain of compromises designed to keep you comfortable. To make your first step you must be willing to be uncomfortable...in fact you have to learn to be comfortable being uncomfortable. Comfort is about predictable sameness. Stepping up to change is about not having the same old life, but constantly creating a new life...a life that fulfills you more, enriches you more, becomes you more. Your new life awaits you...all it takes is one little step...The First Step.
Good Journey,
David
If you missed either of the three previous articles in this series: Health Priorities 1,2 or Health Priorities 3 please:
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Whale Watch: very little change over the last 2 weeks (only 3 lbs lost)
after that great start in the first 30 days. I suspect food sensitivities flared the GI tract up shutting down weight loss. I think I am going to have to bite the bullet and spend the dollars on an ALCAT food sensitivity blood panel. This is the best way to identify food sensitivities within any type of achievable time frame. Fortunately I can now order these for patients (and myself). California has very restrictive blood draw laws and no labs in the state would draw for these tests until this year. There is only one lab in the country that does these sophisticated food sensitivity tests. These are able to check all the many different kinds of reactivity patterns at once. Traditional lab blood tests only check one type (IgE - the type that can cause death) and miss 90% of the more common food sensitivity reactions. It is almost impossible to lose weight if you are busy having inflammatory food reactions. The body does not let go of any excess stored energy (fat) if you are under an inflammatory stress. Inflammation is one of the basic reasons weight loss is so difficult for so many people - because so many things can trigger inflammation...foods, blood sugar imbalances, emotions, chemical poisons, hormones, work environment, and so on. Solving the weight puzzle is really solving the inflammation puzzle. More on this later.
David
Ouestions - if you have questions of a health or growth nature we could discuss in this newsletter, or if you have comments or ideas about a future newsletter focus please email me at:
david@fairoakshealth.com
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On the Wire
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Without change, something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.
- Frank Herbert
Sugar Changes Your Genes!
One meal high in sugar alters the expression of your genes making you more susceptible to heart disease and diabetes for 2 weeks. The old days of believing that your genes were a fixed blueprint for your body are gone. The new science of Epigenetics studies how your genes are controlled by factors in your environment...like sugar. One brief episode of high blood sugar turns on the genes that cause hardening of the arteries for 14 days. Worse yet, frequent exposure to sugar can permanently switch on these genes leaving us with gradually progressive heart disease and diabetic artery damage. This is all happening even when our blood sugar tests at the doctor's office are telling us we are fine.
It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.
- W. Edwards Deming
Yellow Treehouse Cafe
I found this amazing bit of architecture the other day - a cafe built as a tree house. It is beautiful. I just had to share.
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
- Leo Tolstoi
Flu may not have killed most in 1918 pandemic
As many of you know, I am not a fan of flu vaccines. Over the years I have seen it give more people the flu than it ever stopped. The big scare the doctors point to is the 1918 flu epidemic in which millions died. This is always used to "prove" why flu vaccines are so important. Everyone seems to ignore that there are thousands of types of flu bugs and nobody has any idea what flu bugs may show up in any year. Each flu vaccine is specific for only 2 to 3 of these flu bugs. They start preparing these vaccines 2 years in advance by purely guessing what bugs to prepare for. They are usually wrong, so the vaccine you receive is worthless. Regardless, the question is "is a vaccine necessary even if they do guess right?" This study says the big scare is probably false. The real killer in 1918 was not the flu but a secondary infection with bacterial pneumonia. There were no treatments for bacterial pneumonia back then so huge numbers died.
Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts.
- Arnold Bennett
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About Dr. DeLapp
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Dr. DeLapp has been a philosopher, non-force Chiropractor, medical intuitive, and health innovator for over 30 years. He began experimenting with medical intuition in 1972 while studying physics at UC Davis. In addition to physics he designed and completed an individual major in the philosophy and psychology of education. Shortly after he choose to pursue a career in the only truly health oriented profession available at that time, Chiropractic. He graduated with honors in 1981 with his doctorate and opened a private practice.
Since that time he has continued his research into the effects of consciousness and learning on health.
He developed the Biomagnetic Retraining system for correcting movement abnormalities.
Since 1991 he has focused on developing a powerful system for uncovering and assisting the mind-body connection in health and personal growth. The in-depth coaching, guided by the subconscious direction from the body, is called Heartflow and the simpler mind-body retraining for health and unfoldment he has named Gracework. Both are available at Fair Oaks Health.
Fair Oaks Healing
& Arts Center
Staff
Dr David DeLapp DC
Chiropractor
Ellen Flowers FGM
Spiritual Life Coach
Susan Richardson
Front Desk
Gypsy Andrews
Metabolic Nutritionist
Front Desk
Better Butter
I love butter. The only reason bread exists is as a transport for moving butter from the table to my mouth in a socially acceptable manner. Unfortunately butter contains whey, a milk protein to which I am allergic. Milk allergy is the third most common food reaction after soy and wheat so many many people need to avoid milk products. In fact milk reactions and sugar imbalance have been found to be the biggest dietary cause of ADD and ADHD. It triggers a brain inflammation that messes up the ability of the brain to process information effectively. So what to do...create a Better Butter!
1 c. Coconut Oil - melted
1 c. Macadamia Nut oil
1 tsp. Powdered Sugar
½ - 1 tsp. Popcorn Salt
optional:
2 Tbs. Butter Buds
Blend all the ingredients together until smooth. Sugar alternatives and healthier salt sources are preferred but you need to be able to powder them for proper dispersion in the oil. Taste to adjust the salt content to your liking. Put into a glass storage container in the refrigerator. After ½ - 1 hour (before it sets up completely solid) mix it up again with a spoon to be sure all the dry ingredients are well blended. Use once solid.
Other oils can be used besides the Macadamia nut oil like almond, walnut, avocado, or even olive oil. If you use the coconut oil alone it generally ends up so hard you need a chisel to serve it, however if you leave it out at room temperature it will work fine. Coconut oil is perfectly safe being left out.
I went to the manufacturer's website for the Butter Buds to discover what they actually are and what I read seemed ok. For milk sensitive people - the label lists 0 protein so it should have no whey in it, but try it yourself and see how you react as trace amounts of milk protein could be present. For everyone else - enjoy this healthy alternative to dairy butter.
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