BY DONALD SHRUMP
“It is more important to know what sort of person has a disease than to know what sort of disease a person has,” Hippocrates
As a C.H.E.K Holistic Lifestyle Coach and NJ Shore Fit Master Trainer, I work in the field of post-rehabilitation, sports conditioning, weight loss and optimizing health.
The approach I have successfully used over the years does not include diagnosing or treating symptoms. Instead the focus has been on building health from the ground up.
What do I mean by Optimal Health?
Optimum health has been described as:
- Functioning at our best physically, mentally and emotionally.
- Optimal physical functioning means being energetic, active, full of vitality, free of aches, pains, illness and disease.
- Functioning optimally mentally and emotionally implies that we are cheerful, optimistic, enthusiastic, eager, free of stress, kind and loving, and having peace of mind.
The majority of people believe that if they have no symptoms, they are therefore healthy. For instance, if you have health check and you have no positive results, then you are given a clean bill of health. However, a lack of symptoms does not equal health. There is a huge gap between ‘optimal health’ and ‘symptoms and disease’.
In the majority of cases it can take 10-20 years to go from having optimal health to experiencing symptoms. Everyday things that you take for granted may be signs of symptoms to come.
I mean to say:
- needing to snooze your alarm clock may be a sign
- needing a cup of coffee everyday may be a sign
- craving certain foods may be a sign
- energy highs and lows through the day may be a sign
- not dreaming in your sleep may be a sign
Thomas Edison once said, “ The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest his patient in the care of the human frame, in diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease” .
As a C.H.E.K Holistic Lifestyle Coach, I work as Edison suggested. I use the Foundation of Health principles as taught to me by Dr. Clifford Oliver, the co-creator along with Paul Chek of the C.H.E.K Institute’s Holistic Lifestyle Coaching Program.
Once you put these foundations in place, you will notice an improvement towards optimal health as described above. However, Dr. Oliver suggests, “If any of the Foundations are missed off it is like having a dam with a hole in it.” Therefore, it is important to incorporate all the foundations into your lifestyle. I tell my clients, “achieving optimal health has many steps and every step you take in the right direction for you is worth doing.”
So what are the 6 Steps to building The Foundations of Optimal Health?
They are:
- Thought Awareness
- Breathing
- Hydration
- Eating right (for your biochemical individuality)
- Exercise
- Sleep
So now you’re thinking, I know how to do all that. Why should I waste my time reading this article? It may not quite be what you are thinking. If you understand the human ego than you will understand the need for everyone to think what they are currently doing is right. I am no one to say who is right or wrong, but I feed my ego with logic (lots of research) and experimentation (trying what ‘they’ the so-called experts say).
So let’s look at each area in a little detail.
Positive Thoughts
It is believed that we have between 60,000-72,000 thoughts per day. I have read that women have twice as many thoughts as men, which is why when women ask men, “what are you thinking?” it may really be nothing.
Remember, everything we do in life begins as a thought. The thought then becomes a word and then an action. Some thoughts however, never become actions. Without a thought, nothing would ever get done.
Our thoughts are integral to everything we do. Many experts believe that many chronic diseases are caused through our thoughts or beliefs. Read about adrenalin addiction, and I don’t mean bungee jumpers.
Every cell in our body has intelligence and is listening all the time. Hormones get released from thoughts and change the function of that cell and start a chain reaction of cascading events that I we can discuss another time. So be careful of what you say to them!
It has been shown that people who believe they will be successful or lucky usually are. Those who believe they will not be successful or lucky are usually unlucky or unsuccessful. So be careful what you wish for life, because you will probably get it, whether it is positive or negative.
We also know that those who regularly set positive goals are likely to be successful. If you need help in setting goals, a Life Coach can be very helpful.
Breathing Right
Breathing is essential to optimal health. We can only go 3 minutes without oxygen before brain cells begin to die. Also, with each breath our body scans itself to see if there is any disease requiring attention.
Breathing rate affects our pH balance. We should breathe between 12 and 16 breaths per minute. I see many people today breathing too rapidly (often due to a stressful lifestyle).
We should also use our diaphragm for breathing. Breathing is the primary function of the diaphragm. Many people however, use what is known as accessory respiratory muscles to breathe which causes those muscles to become over worked. We call these people chest breathers, because they breathe through the chest and not the abdomen. These people often complain of tension in the shoulder/neck area. To breathe with your chest and through your mouth will change your posture over time. Forward head posture is a result and this posture change has been linked to early death by David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, Los Angeles, California in 2004.
Diaphragmatic breathing also massages the intestines, which helps with the flow of food through the body (known as peristalsis).
To re-learn how to breathe correctly, C.H.E.K. Zone Exercises, Yoga, Tai Chi and Qi Gong classes can be very effective. Singing lessons or working with a C.H.E.K Practitioner can be equally effective too.
Hydration
In today’s society the majority of people are dehydrated most of the time. In Your Body’s Many Cries for Water, Dr. F. Batmanghelidj found that Unintentional Chronic Dehydration (UCD) contributes to and even produces pain and many degenerative diseases that can be prevented and treated by increasing water intake on a regular basis.
Hydration we know is directly linked to performance and if you can exercise more, your chances of a great physique or optimal health are therefore increased. Your brain needs water to function correctly, and it was found through medical studies that a 3% decrease in hydration causes a 20% decrease in the brain’s ability to function. So when you need to concentrate, be creative, or LIVE drink high quality water.
There are only 3 types of water that I recommend. Reverse Osmosis filtered water (with a pinch of good sea salt), Evian or Vittel bottled water. Fiji is great too but as much oil as water in bottle got it to the US, so be green.
Why do I recommend these? Unlike most carbon filter systems, reverse osmosis will actually remove from the water the contaminants that most water authorities in this country add. Reverse osmosis will remove virtually all contaminants from the water, including chlorine and fluoride, especially when combined with a pre- and post-carbon filtration system.
Tap water should be avoided because it contains chlorine and may contain fluoride. Chlorine and fluoride are toxic substances that, with ongoing consumption, can have dire consequences for the body. Distilled water should also be avoided because it has the wrong ionization, pH, polarization and oxidation potentials, and can drain your body of necessary minerals. Distilled water has been connected with hair loss and tooth decay, which are associated with certain mineral deficiencies.
Drink water at room temperature if possible, as ice-cold water can harm the delicate lining of your stomach and reduce the time taken to re-hydrate as the body has to heat up the water before allowing it into the stomach.
Evian and Vittel are recommended as they have a good mineral content and they do not hang around on stores shelves for too long. Bottled waters in plastic containers when left on the shelves for too long begin to leach plastic into the water.
The dry residue mineral content in Evian and Vittel are 309mg/L and 403mg/L respectively. Ideally, you should drink water with a minimum of 300mg/L. If your water contains less than 300mg/L, you can always add a pinch of non-processed organic sea salt.
To ensure you are consuming enough water, a minimum of ½ you bodyweight in lbs in ounces of water per day is a good guide. If you drink less than that now do not try to drink that much today. You would want to figure out how much water you drink and increase it by 10-15% each week until you are where you need to be.
Beware that fruit juices, sports drinks, fizzy drinks, alcoholic and caffeinated drinks will use more water to digest them than it is adding to the body. Therefore, these drinks will dehydrate you, not re-hydrate.
Eating Right
As we are all bio-chemically individual we all need to eat a diet that is right for us. So how do you know what to eat to optimize your own health?
By taking a Metabolic Typing test. This can be done either at a Basic, Intermediate or Advanced Level.
The Advanced Test which I recommend is done with a Certified Functional Nutritionist which I can refer you.
In simple terms, your genetics and environment influence what foods are right to optimize your health, weight, mood, creativity and performance. Metabolic Typing has also been used to help reverse some chronic diseases.
In very simple terms those whose family originated in colder climates and had game meats in their geographic location do best on high fat, high protein and low carbohydrates. These are known as Protein Types.
Those whose families where from warmer climates and had no game meats to hunt do better on a high carbohydrate, low fat low protein diet. These are known as Carbo types.
For more information check out William Wolcott’s book “The Metabolic Typing Diet.”
It is also essential to eat whole organic foods as our ancestors would have done thousands of years ago. Avoidance of processed and commercially farmed foods is crucial to optimal health despite what you might hear in the media.
Exercise
There is no doubt that exercise is crucial to optimal health. However, again there is so much contradictory information around exercise.
Generally speaking we do not exercise enough. However, exercise has drug like effects on the body. Therefore, it is important to ensure you are doing the right type of exercise.
Exercise is a stress to the body. We have to be careful that we do not over-stress an already stressed body.
You adrenaline addicts listen to the next part!
One way to evaluate how much stress your body is under, or if you are overtraining, is to take your heart rate first thing in the morning for 5 days. From the 5 readings, calculate your average heart rate. If your heart rate goes 5 beats over the normal range on any one day you should rest on that day or just do Chi Cultivating exercises.
Chi Cultivation exercise gives the body energy instead of using energy. Examples of Chi Cultivating exercises are C.H.E.K. Zone Exercises, Yoga, Tai Chi, Qi Gong or even Meditation.
Practically everyone I see 1-on-1 is doing some form of corrective exercise, whether they know it or not. This involves lengthening only the muscles in the body which are tight and strengthening the muscles that are weak. Corrective exercise optimizes posture which helps to reduce aches, pain and injuries, improve performance, improve energy and decrease the likelihood of future injury.
Many people believe they must do lots of aerobic exercise to be fit and healthy. This is not necessarily true. A workout with weights in a circuit format has been shown to be at least as beneficial and takes less time to achieve the same benefits. Aerobic exercise does also release stress hormones into the body which are tissue destroying. If you enjoy aerobic exercise or sports just ensure you get adequate rest and nutrition.
Exercise can only be beneficial if you actually do it. Therefore, ensure you choose types of exercises that you know you will enjoy. Seeking the help of a C.H.E.K Practitioner to help you put an exercise program together is highly recommended.
Sleep
Everywhere in the universe there are Circadian Rhythms. For example, planet Earth orbiting the sun, the moon orbiting Earth, tidal flows, the four seasons and sleep wakes cycles.
Sleep is something we have control over and is essential to optimal health, yet very few people today understand what good sleep is.
For instance in 1910 we slept on average 4,370 hours of sleep per year or 9-10 hours per night. Today it is 2,555 hours of sleep per year or 7 hours per night.
In evolutionary terms we have developed in sync with the seasonal light/dark cycles. Our natural rhythms are still the same as they were 10,000 years ago. We would rise with the sun at dawn and go to sleep soon after dusk.
Whether it is light or dark and the time of day effects are delicate hormonal balance. Therefore, it is essential we sleep during the dark hours and be active during the lighter hours.
Coffee, cigarettes, sugar, bright lights and electrical sockets can disrupt your sleep/wake cycles
Also if you consistently go to bed too late it entrains the body to do so making it difficult to get to sleep at a reasonable time. I suggest to my clients that they slowly phase in earlier bed times.
So What Should You Do?
- Get to bed by 10-10.30pm and sleep for a minimum of 8 hours
- Minimize exposure to bright lights 2 hours before bed time
- Sleep in a totally dark room.
- Avoid the consumption of stimulants after lunch
- Eat right for your Metabolic Type especially at dinner
- Drink plenty of water.
- Exercise correctly
- Unplug all electrical appliances in your bedroom including clocks
Summary
By putting into practice the 6 Foundational Principles of Health, you will no doubt improve your health and wellbeing.
By:
- Thinking right and setting goals
- Breathing diaphragmatically
- Ensuring you are well hydrated with good quality water
- Eating whole non-processed organic foods which are right for your metabolic type
- Exercising right for your body’s level of stress and
- Sleeping from 10pm-6am each evening
Once you put the Foundations of Health into practice you will notice:
- Energy increases
- Aches and pains reduce
- Performance improves
- More mental clarity
- Stress reduces
- Excess fat melts away and
- Life becomes easier.
Give it a try and if you need some help, feel free to contact me.
In health and happiness,
Donald D. Shrump Jr.
Disclaimer
No person should rely on the contents of this article. We expressly disclaim all and any liability and responsibility to any person in respect of anything contained in this article. It is advised that you always follow the advice of your Doctor.
Resources:
J Am Geriatr Soc. 2004 Oct;52(10):1662-7.Hyperkyphotic posture predicts mortality in older community-dwelling men and women: a prospective study.Kado DM, Huang MH, Karlamangla AS, Barrett-Connor E, Greendale GA.
The Metabolic Typing Diet, William Wolcott
Your Body’s Many Cries for Water, Dr. F. Batmanghelidj
The Schwarzbein Principle – The Program, Dr. D. Schwartzbein
The Schwarzbein Principle II – The Transition, Dr. D. Schwartzbein
How to Eat, Move, and Be Healthy, Paul Chek
