Dieting

How many of you are still trying to lose weight as part of your new year’s resolution? How many of you made losing weight your new year’s resolution? Weight loss has become a major part of our society, and a major money maker too. Watch TV or listen to the radio and you’re sure to hear ads for different supplements, dieting centers, or low calorie meals to help you get that model figure. Yet while we are obsessed with weight loss, we certainly have trouble reaching it.

Despite all the information you hear in commercials and the new medical miracle secrets they come out with yearly, weight loss is a fairly easy concept. Let’s talk about cars…

Cars run on gas, and if you are driving much in the U.S. today, you might think your car runs on too much gas. Gas mileage differs from engine to engine, and even if you let them idle in your garage (keep the garage door open), they will still burn gas. If your car burned 15 gallons a day idling in your garage and you kept adding 20 gallons every night…some simple math would tell you that you will end up over flowing your tank. Your body is no different. You have a gas mileage too, but it’s called your BMR, or Basal Metabolic Rate.

This is the key to weight loss or gain. This number will tell you how many calories you burn a day. Eat more, gain weight. Eat less, lose weight. Simple, huh? So what about all these supplements and special diets, why can’t we just eat a lot less, but eat Twinkies? We can! And guess what, you will lose weight! Is it healthy? Probably not. But no matter what you hear or are “sold” on, the simple truth is if you eat fewer calories than you burn, you will lose weight.

What if you really don’t eat much, or have been dieting for a long time and you don’t seem to lose any more weight? Well, you could just eat even less…but there comes a point when your nutrition and basic body function is at risk. So instead…get a bigger engine! While we want our cars to be efficient and get 500 miles per gallon, we want our bodies to be inefficient. Several things slow your metabolism, which means your BMR drops. Dieting does this, which is why you plateau in your weight loss. Age does this too, and even your diet can change your metabolism.

Muscle burns more calories than fat, so increasing your muscle mass will boost your metabolism. While cardio exercises will burn a lot of calories, having bigger muscles will burn those calories too…even while sitting on the couch! Nice huh?

Your food can affect your metabolism. Insulin, which is critical to live, helps shove sugar into fat cells. So although it’s important, you don’t want much. Insulin is produced in heavy quantities from a rush of simple sugars. You can drink a sugary soda or eat a pound of broccoli, and even though they might have the same amount of carbs, you will produce more insulin with the soda because all of those carbs are absorbed at once.  Sorry kids, if you were trying to use this analogy to avoid eating your vegetables. Simple carbohydrates should be avoided.

Glucagon, which is the opposite hormone, is produced more when your body eats protein. This actually makes you burn fat! This is another reason the Adkins diet was so popular. But be careful, your brain can’t use protein for energy, so you need some carbs.

Remember, your body burns energy all day, even if you are watching the Rocky Marathon on the couch. Want to increase your metabolism? Exercise and stay active. Can’t get motivated to break away from the TV? Eat fewer calories! Knowing your body’s gas mileage, or BMR, will help you make good decisions when choosing food and maintaining your weight.

Back Pain

We’ve all heard the statistics about back pain affecting 80% of people and being the leading cause for missed work. So why is back pain so prevalent and so hard to treat?

 Your back is complicated, and although symptoms may vary, they are often the same even if the problem is different. That makes diagnosis more difficult. Your joints are for the most part avascular. That means there isn’t much blood flow, so nutrition isn’t as accessible as it is in your muscle, which has a lot of blood flow.  Cartilage gets most of its water and nutrition through movement, just like squeezing a sponge under water. Many of our daily activities put a lot of pressure on your joints in your back without a lot of movement.  This leads to desiccation, or water loss. Eventually your joints will break down and arthritis forms. Injured joints also develop inflammation, and because there isn’t a lot of movement, healing time is pretty slow.

There are as many types of treatment for back pain as there are reasons for it. Pain medication and steroids are very common, but as you know, they do nothing to fix the cause, so let’s ignore those for now.  Surgery can be risky, and as a few years ago, the American Medical Association stated that most patients experiencing back pain that received surgery were no better off after two years than those that didn’t. Is this because surgery doesn’t work? Often time, surgery does exactly what it’s supposed to, and can be beneficial…if it’s done for the right reasons. As I stated, it’s hard to diagnose exactly where the pain is coming from. There are many different structures, ligaments, muscles and nerves in your back. Narrowing down where the problem is coming from isn’t as easy as checking your symptoms because they can mimic other problems.

Conservative treatments are best to try first. Most physical therapy and chiropractic treatments address the source of the problem with minimal risk of side effects.  Even a minor surgery comes with long term risk and almost all have side effects of scar tissue.  Chiropractic care works by restoring motion into the joint, which brings nutrition and water to the injured area, and allows your body to heal itself more quickly. Pressure and irritation are removed from the nerves, which act as communication for every system in your body.  And while the exact cause of pain may not be that easy to pin down, adjustments and exercise work on broad areas of your back, improving the chances that the affected area will improve.

No one wants to be in pain, so it’s understandable that pain medication and steroid injections are very popular, and sometimes necessary to be productive during the day. Just remember that while you may feel better, you need to actively address the cause of your pain too, to make sure that it doesn’t become a worse problem later.

Insurance care

People take better care of their car than they do themselves. Ask any car owner, “How often should you get your oil changed?” 3-5000 miles. It’s been ingrained in us. Why do we do it? Because we know if we don’t take care of our car, more expensive problems are soon to come. If we don’t fix our brakes it could lead to an accident. If we don’t change our oil, it could lead to our engine overheating and freezing up. That will cost a lot more than a $25 oil change. None of these maintenance items are covered by insurance, yet we all get them done. So how come we don’t do the preventative maintenance on ourselves?

People are no different than cars. We need maintenance too, and without it, costlier problems will arise. Waiting until you have an ache or pain to take care of yourself is the same as waiting until your oil light goes on before you get your oil changed. Sure it may be minor, but it’s telling you there is already a problem.  We know that we don’t wait for our teeth to hurt before we see a dentist.

Why don’t people get regular adjustments, teeth cleanings, or physicals? Many times it’s because our insurance coverage isn’t enough to cover it. And with health insurance premiums on the rise and benefits dropping, it’s time we started treating our bodies like we do our cars.

Taking care of yourself regularly will help prevent more dangerous and chronic health conditions. The U.S. spends $16 billion a year on back surgery alone, not counting the rehabilitation and loss of work that goes along with surgery. And very few health plans cover 100% of costs.

We no longer have the benefit of insurances that cover what we need.  Insurances are a business; don’t ever assume they have your heath as a priority. The Joint is working to help you stay healthy…affordably. Our cash prices are probably cheaper than your co-pays through insurance; and with regular adjustments you can avoid more chronic health problems.  Take responsibility for your own health with regular chiropractic care, dental cleanings, and health screenings from your primary doctor.