Spring is just around the corner and many people are looking forward to getting outside and getting active again. For those of you who may have dropped the ball on your New Year’s resolutions a few months back, this is the perfect time for a restart—especially since March is National Nutrition Month!
Getting into shape for spring means a lot of things; it doesn’t just mean losing weight. After all, you could just starve yourself for a week and lose 10 pounds, but then you would not have the energy or muscle mass to do anything other than start feeding yourself again. So let’s approach it differently. You want to be in great shape come spring; you want to look good, feel good, and move well. All of that goes way beyond weight loss. Instead, it focuses on “body composition optimization,” which requires a better diet, exercise, and the right nutrition to feed your body.
Since it is National Nutrition Month, let’s focus on the nutrition portion. This will leave out exercise, chiropractic, supplements, and other things we know are important to overall health—for now! There are a number of things to cover for nutrition, but let’s start with tossing out some of the old, outdated ideas that still seem to show up—ideas like butter is bad and margarine is good for you—that are just plain wrong! That belief was wrong when the idea first came out in the 1970s and it is still wrong; Some people just haven’t caught up with the science. Another outdated and incorrect piece of nutritional “advice” is that eggs are bad for you.
This whole idea that dietary fat is bad for you came out of a bad study by Ansel Keys that led many people to believe that fat in your diet caused cardiovascular disease. Dr. Keys did a 22-country study then conveniently tossed out the 15 countries whose results did not align with his theory. It took us almost 50 years to get that bad advice out of our system. If your health care provider is telling you that butter is bad, eggs are bad, and grains and margarine are good, please move on to someone else. What is making us fat is a combination of this mistaken idea that carbs don’t make you fat (some don’t, most do), and that high fructose corn syrup is better than regular sugar. The fructose in high fructose corn syrup raises our uric acid, makes us insulin resistant, and gives us high glucose, high cholesterol, and high weight.
So, what makes a healthy diet? A good balance of protein (grass-fed if possible); fruits and vegetables (locally grown and organic if you can find them); no white food like white rice, white potatoes, white sugar, white bread; complex carbs (and even then, limit them); and the less processed food, the better. Forget the food pyramid and the whole “MyPlate” mess. America is fatter and less healthy than ever. One recent statistic pointed out that 65% of all Covid-19 deaths were caused by lifestyle choices, diet being one of them. All of the comorbidities that have become such a buzzword recently? Most have been caused by lifestyle choices, especially what we eat.
The keto diet is a very healthy one which will restart the genes that tell your body to burn fat. The Paleo and Mediterranean diets are pretty healthy as well. A good diet is one you can stay on after you have lost the unhealthy fat and still be healthy, energized, and satisfied.
One final word for now on nutrition. Even if you grow all your own food—including your own chickens, cows, etc.—you still need to be taking vitamins and supplements. Factory farming over the years has left our soil depleted in a number of important minerals, and the fresh fruits and vegetables you eat are not the same as 50 or even 25 years ago. Consider top quality pharmaceutical grade supplements to be an important part of your healthy diet.
The choices you make now have the potential to transform your health. As a functional medicine expert my passion is to help optimize your body’s systems to lead you to your best health. We provide top-quality supplements, blood draws, nutritional consultations, and chiropractic care to get you there. Here’s to a healthier you come spring.
Dr. Burtis, MS, DC, CFMP, has been providing natural healthcare to the Fairmont area at Burtis Chiropractic Center for over 30 years. He uses a combination of chiropractic, nutrition, and functional medicine to help individuals restore and maintain health and healing through individualized care plans. The mission of Burtis Chiropractic Center is to provide transformational healthcare that takes an individual’s life to the next level. We strive to be a solution for families to experience transformational healthcare and help create vibrant and resilient lifestyles that can be passed to future generations.