Columbia Advanced Chiropractic, LLC

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The Official Word on Sports Nutrition Regarding Diets and Body Composition…Discussion Over!

The Official Word on Sports Nutrition Regarding Diets and Body Composition…Discussion Over!

Let’s end this debate now.  The puzzle is now complete.  We have the data and we know what works.  We know the  ‘too much protein is bad for your kidneys’ talk that some doctors and others tout is wrong.  There is simply no data to validate this unless you have pre-existing, unrelated, kidney disease.  We know that fasting/cleansing is good for you, not bad.  For those who say ‘your body is always cleansing…that’s what the kidneys and liver are for,’ we can reply by showing them the research that far more can be done.  For those who say that ‘protein is protein, ‘  we can clearly demonstrate that this is not the case…not even close.  Many say ‘I’ve tried everything and nothing works.’  Maybe that person has tried other programs, but they most certainly have not incorporated caloric restriction and intermittent fasting.  If they had, they would’ve achieved the results they were looking for.  Being 80% of health and how we look is due to nutrition, whereas only 20% is due to exercise, it’s quite important to have a lifestyle system that addresses the 80% part.  By taking care of the 80% part, you will perform and recover better with the exercise part.  They are not mutually exclusive.  Lapses in nutrition will only get you more injuries.  I see this all too often.

You get the point.  It’s time to do what we know works instead of looking for excuses when it comes to diets and body modification.  This is about YOU and how you can feel, function, and look better.  Continue Reading →

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Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS) and Some Ideas About How To Deal With It

Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS) and Some Ideas About How To Deal With It

So you have had an active and/or stressful day and you lay down to go to bed.  Your leg or legs feel a bit twitchy and they won’t relax.  Finally, you get to sleep and you are awakened by a really uncomfortable pain in your legs.  This happens night after night and finally you cannot deal with it anymore.  What is wrong and what can be done?

Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS) is considered by many to be a neurological problem but there are many causes of the condition. So many, in fact, that it’s really tough to categorize the condition into one simple issue.  What we need to do is consider any and all factors that could influence the condition and help minimize/eliminate it.  The medical approach is to turn to medications to help with the condition, but those have side effects.  There are natural ways to address RLS, and to many, it makes sense to start with these before going the medication route. Continue Reading →

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Introducing the InBody 570 Body Composition Analyzer Part 3

Introducing the InBody 570 Body Composition Analyzer Part 3

The 3rd and final part of our discussion about the incredible InBody 570 covers 3 more studies that further validate its accuracy.  I know blogs that discuss studies aren’t always the most ‘fun’ to read, but it is important to have evidence readily available to show others that your InBody 570 bioelectrical  impedance analyzer assessment is vital to your health and should be part of your medical health history.  It can be used to help your primary care doctor (PCP) figure out ways to help you…hopefully many times through dietary intervention (like caloric restriction and intermittent fasting) vs. just administering drugs. Continue Reading →

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Do You Want Your Brain To Function Better?

Do You Want Your Brain To Function Better?

As a sports chiropractor, my training involves learning how to best treat the body to effect changes in many ways for dysfunctional joints, muscles, ligaments, cartilage, fascia, and more. We know that chiropractic adjustments alter neurological pathways that change joint mechanics and alter muscle tone and tension, allowing for a change in biomechanics at local and more global regions.  This is great and it works well, but what about all the ‘holistic’ training we receive? Chiropractors are supposed to take care of the whole body, inside and out, but most of us do not do that when we only treat the body from the outside.  This approach is not complete and it does not allow us to fully help our patients. Continue Reading →

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How To Overcome Your ‘Set Point’ To Maximize Body Composition Change

How To Overcome Your ‘Set Point’ To Maximize Body Composition Change

Whenever we engage in any type of weight loss/body modification plan, we have to be realistic with our goals.  The trendy ‘lose 30 in 30’ programs rarely yield results that last because the programs are quite abusive to your body and not many people have the will to continue on such a tough voyage.

Before I go any further, I will touch on the difference between weight loss and body modification.  Weight loss is just that: losing weight.  You will lose fat and muscle weight.  This is not a good thing.  We want to be lean and muscular, not lean and soft.  Most all programs on the market can only address total weight loss and this is not what you want.  Body modification is achieved through losing fat weight while maintaining or gaining muscle percentage/weight.  This should be the goal of all diet programs but virtually none on the market can achieve this goal because they do not employ the proper system.  Dieting is not about cutting calories.  It’s about working with your body to get it leaner and stronger and using validated science to achieve this.  Going forward, I will only refer to dieting programs as body modification as this is really the goal of anyone who is trying to get leaner and healthier.

The key to any successful body modification program is sustainability.  In other words, can you continue this program into the future or will you eventually fall off the tracks and go back to your old ways?  In the overwhelming number of cases, people try a program for a while and then back off of it as it is too hard to maintain.  They end up where they were before they started.  This time, though, they tend to be more frustrated and their bodies are more resistant to future change.  We should not have to endure these failures. Continue Reading →

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Why The A1C (Glycated Hemoglobin) Test For Diabetics Does NOT Give Us The Whole Picture

Why The A1C (Glycated Hemoglobin) Test For Diabetics Does NOT Give Us The Whole Picture

Diabetics are familiar with the A1C test.  It is performed to assess roughly a 90 day period of sugar that is attached to your hemoglobin.  It is supposed to tell us if we are taking good care of ourselves.  The test is performed every 3 months because the average life of a red blood cell is 90 days.

Diabetics are told that the A1C is the ‘holy grail’ of knowing if you are in good health or not.  It’s the aim of most every diabetic to get that number lower!  I’ve been diabetic for over 35 years and it’s great to learn new things.  What have I learned?  I now know that the A1C, although a great test to determine the ‘average’ blood sugar reading over 3 months, does really nothing more than that.  It does NOT accurately tell us all we need to know about our diabetic health.

The A1C for a non-diabetic person is about 5.7%.  A ‘well-controlled’ diabetic will have an A1C at 6.5% or lower.  If someone’s A1C is 8.0% or higher, then they are generally in trouble!  Long-term high blood sugar levels lead to high levels of oxidative stress (free radical damage).  This damage is mostly what is responsible for killing diabetics.  Afterall, 65% of diabetics will die from heart disease/stroke and this damage is caused by, you guessed it, poor blood sugar control. Continue Reading →

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Teaching An Old Dog New Tricks: My Personal Experience With Caloric Restriction and Intermittent Fasting

Teaching An Old Dog New Tricks: My Personal Experience With Caloric Restriction and Intermittent Fasting

INTRODUCTION

I’ve been in the health and fitness business for close to 20 years.  I’ve worked with many supplement and nutrition companies but none could fully deliver what I needed for both my patients and me. I’ve always considered myself to be ‘in great shape’, but there is never a time that more cannot be done for a diabetic, like me.  I’ve always looked for products or systems that could lower my oxidative stress (high free radical levels) so that there would not be cumulative damage to my body by such stressors. There are options, but they are all allopathic in nature…meaning, they treat an existent problem yet do nothing to reduce/eliminate what is causing the problem.  With diabetes and most other health issues, this is too late.  I needed to find a system that could get to the cause of the oxidative stress.

My evolution led me to a program that I have now discovered is unmatched by any other in the industry for my health, and for yours.  Period. Continue Reading →

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Dry Needling Support Models (2 of 4): The Trigger Point Model

Dry Needling Support Models (2 of 4): The Trigger Point Model

In the last blog, we discussed the first model (The Radiculopathy Model) that helps explain why Dry Needling works.  Now we will continue with the second of four models.   This one is probably the most well-known one and there is a plethora of medical literature supporting it.  Again, we will try to explain any concepts that are a little difficult to understand.  These models really shed light into how our bodies work and they are great to learn about.

The Trigger Point Model

Myofascial Trigger Points (MTrPs, or TrPs for Trigger Points) are defined as ‘hyper-irritable spots in skeletal muscle that are associated with a hypersensitive palpable nodule in a taut band’ (Travell and Simons).  The resultant pain/discomfort that one gets due to such points is referred to as myofascial pain syndrome (MPS).  Simply put, MPS is defined as ‘sensory, motor, and autonomic symptoms caused by myofascial trigger points’ (Travell and Simons).  Sensory symptoms refer to what you feel, motor symptoms refer to how the muscles work, and autonomic symptoms refer to the things that you do not realize.  This seems a little odd, but consider what happens when you bang your arm really hard.  You will feel the pain (sensory), the muscle might be painful and not contract properly (motor), and your heart rate goes up as does your respiration due to the ‘adrenaline rush’ (autonomic) of the injury. Continue Reading →

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We Are A Sick Society, Literally!

We Are A Sick Society, Literally!

When we look at what Americans spend on prescription drugs yearly, we see that we are really an unhealthy society.  In fact, last year we spent over $374 billion dollars. Spending on prescription drugs went up 13%..and that is a huge amount of money.

Besides trying to fathom this amazingly huge number of dollars spent on prescriptions, what more-so led me to write this blog was the sick feeling I got in my stomach after reading the statement by Michael Kleinrock, director of research development at IMS Health. Although there was a lot of great news on the treatment/cure of Hepatitis C, the overall dollars are very high.  On the news of the $374 billion, he was quoted as saying “This was an outstanding year, really a once-in-a-lifetime year.  It was the largest dollar growth in a single year we’ve ever measured. This is a huge amount of extra spending.”  Continue Reading →