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What if you could control the matrix?

When the bullets are flying, wouldn’t it be great to be able to see them coming and bend left, then right, and watch them fly by in slow motion?  To do that you need to learn some secrets of slow motion.

I’m sure you could make a cool Youtube video of you in slo-mo.

Is it possible to live a slower life and actually enjoy it?  Absolutely.  Now, it wouldn’t be fun to actually live and move in tree sloth time.  What I want you to see is the perception of time shifting into a lower gear.  The real “secret” is being intentional about the speed of your life.

Time, itself, slows down when you do.

Talk to almost anyone older than you and they all say the same thing.  “The older you get the faster time goes.”  I would say that most of the retirees that I know are busier now than when they were still working.  On the flip side, if a retiree sits in the rocking chair and does nothing, they quickly degenerate and die.  It’s true that “a rolling stone gathers no moss”, but what if the stone is rolling too fast?  Chaos can quickly ensue with an out of control boulder.  “Rock Slide”

It is hard to do less. I spent Thanksgiving and the days after hanging out with family and friends purposefully doing nothing.  It was hard to slow down. Oh, so worth it.

Every part of our lives are built around being as productive as possible, or at least as busy as possible.  Everyone feels more important if they are busy, or appear to be busy.  I’ve seen elementary kids with planners.

If you don’t have much experience in simple living and slow living you may just have to take a vacation to kick start a new out look on life.

“Doctor’s orders”

Now, any time off will be great, but you need at least 4 days, preferably longer, to let your brain begin to slow down.  For the first 3 days you will likely be antsy and wanting to do something, resist it. On a “vacation” don’t plan anything.  That’s right…NO plans.  You’re on the non-plan plan.  Some of the best trips and most memorable were never planned.  The patients I prescribe a vacation to need to do nothing and let their minds and bodies rest.  You don’t want to have to take a vacation after your vacation.

If you are taking a R & R vacation my suggestions would be to the mountains or the ocean.  Both of with have a lot of power, energy, and the ability to humble you with their grand scale.  I realize you can get peace anywhere but humans have always gravitated to these places, they offer that little bit extra.

Now if you are really in need of peace and reflection you could sign up for a month of meditation in a Katmandu monestary.  Since that kind of isolation would break most people, me included, go for the ocean or the mountains.

If you are really strapped for time a lake or a forest will do if you don’t live close to the big ones.

A few other suggestions to SLOW life down and enjoy it.

• Go to a foreign country- you will be forced to slow down with unfamiliar surroundings and language barriers.
• Turn off your phone and computer for the day.
• Have no plan
• Travel light - Walking on the cobblestone streets in Mexico I saw this poor guy dragging 2 huge suitcases along while he followed his female companion.  I thought “poor #$%^&*”  Don’t drag burdens around with you.
• Spend the night cooking a big meal and enjoy preparing each piece.

Benefits to you:

• You sleep better
• You feel less pain
• You have more energy
• Life can take on more meaning than to-do lists and bills.

But “I don’t have time…I have this to do…and that to do”

If anything close to those words just came out of your mouth…you must go.  Everyday you wait , you rob yourself of life.  All your stuff will be waiting for you when you get back.

Try this easy, warm, healthy potato soup.

Last night I made a potato soup that my wife and I love.  I savor each bowl of this filling soup.

If you need a warm meal after being outside try this.

Ingredients for 2 people:

• 3 medium potatoes (Preferably organic)
• Onion (small)
• Green beans (about 2 cups)
• Dill (as much as you like), we use a lot.
• 1 Tablespoon Butter
• 2 cups Milk (Preferably raw, if not then whole milk)
• Salt / Pepper (Preferably Celtic Sea Salt)

Step 1:  Start with the potatoes.  Clean the outsides, leave the peels on.  Cut into 4 pieces.  Boil for 20 minutes

Step 2:  Steam the green beans ~7 minutes

Step 3:  Heat the milk on medium on the stove ~10 minutes.  Be careful not to heat too high or too long.  You want it to be “soup” temperature hot.

Step 4:  Blend on “High” for 1 minute.  Milk,  butter, dill, 1/2 of the potatoes, 1/2 of the green beans, 1/2 of the onion.

Step 5:  Add the rest, blend on low to just chop the rest up.  This gives it a chunky texture.

Step 6:  Salt and Pepper to taste.

Enjoy, and eat it SLOW,

Dr. Altman

I hope you have a lot of really natural A’s.

Vitamin A is sooo good for your immune system. The natural stuff not the artificial junk in most supplements. The Atlas, or the first cervical bone is critical, and the Adrenal glands are also important to the immune system.

This is shaping up to be a nasty year for colds and flus. It has already started. Vitamin A can be a secret weapon.

Normally this time of year I’m thinking about how to promote football and chiropractic. The closest I’ve come, is the fact that all the NFL teams have a team chiropractor.

The best athletic teams use chiropractic for 2 key reasons. Chiropractic decreases injuries and enhances performance. Great joints just work better.

But this year, I can hear the coughing from anywhere in the office. The sneezing has already blown a disc for a patient. We have run out of kleenex’s wiping little kids’ noses. It’s not a pretty picture.

If you need any furniture sanded, my hands
can help from all the washing.

Kids in school, people in church, husbands, wives, dogs, cats, and random deer are coughing in the woods. Everybody seems to be sick. People I haven’t seen in 3 months are coming in sick, and they know they can get better by getting adjusted.

One of our tricks in school was to get adjusted 3-4 times a day. I was always better the next day. The upper part of the neck, primarily the Atlas bone, controls all the parts of the immune system. High stress in your body increases dysfunction quickly. That’s why 3-4 visits/ day works.

You need good nutrition to heal and be healthy, along with some good sleep. Your adrenal glands need those things too. If you are constantly tired and can’t get out of bed in the morning, Cha-Ching…you are whipping your adrenal glands like a race horse and they are giving up before the finish line.

Guess what else? Your adrenal glands also control your immune system in your nose, your mouth and your lungs. This is why lots of stress and the go…go…go… attitude can drive you to being sick often.

I first started thinking about long term patient health 9 years ago when I started reading Bruce West’s newsletter. He made a profound statement.

He said it is much harder to help people get well today than it was 20 +years ago when he started in chiropractic. After 13 years, I would have to agree. What used to take 6 visits now takes 16 for people to get better. People have fewer resources to heal.

Our acceptance and tolerance of bad, cheap, non-nutritious food won’t change unless we educate ourselves and our loved ones.

Back to being sick. I know where it comes from and I know I need your help to educate others.

Ramp up your immune system everyday.

A summary of 2004 research on Vitamin A

Vitamin A benefits:

1. Improved hormone patterns in girls

2. Enhance immune function

3. Protect against cancer

4. Modulates inflammation

5. Vit. A&D decreased cell number of pancreatic cancer cell lines.

6. Protects against chemicals and pesticides (this is one of my favorites, everyone needs this)

7. Lack of Vit. A screws up the lining of the small intestine.

8. Improves iodine efficacy in kids. A healthy thyroid is critical for healthy nerve functions.

This is also another reason to eat butter instead of margarine. Butter is a natural source of vitamin A. Margarine is made from laboratory chemicals. No matter what your doctor says or what the label says

Do Not Under Any Circumstance Voluntarily eat margarine

Last night I did a class on fat loss, and I wanted to give people new, different, and some outside the box ideas.

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Losing weight can be like water running down the side of your shower. As the droplets form they “stick” everywhere. As more accumulate and get bigger, gravity takes over and they fall. As they fall they hit more little drops and pick them up and get bigger and faster.

Once your have a nice steady stream running down your shower wall, you will notice that the water doesn’t run straight down. How amazing is that. It zigs and zags as it hits little droplets.

• But it always goes down.
• Water has a destination.

Water is a necessity that we all need and it has a lot to teach us. Losing weight can be very similar, and I’m talking about lasting weight loss not a fad diet.

I don’t want you losing weight.

Huh? Not just to lose weight, because you could put on a track suit and sweat off 10 lbs. In the class, I talked about lots of small changes that can add up over time and form a larger droplet of change that will snowball into major changes.

When my wife decided to lose a few pounds, the first month she didn’t lose a pound. Nada, zilch. Here comes the frustration, she wanted to quit, because she felt like it didn’t make a difference, so whats the point.

She didn’t quit. She also didn’t weigh herself for a whole year. It took doing some balancing of her hormones to really get her body rolling, but she never gave up. She knew she was losing weight because her clothes were getting looser.

Here are many little droplets of information on weight loss from the class. You can pick and choose at your leisure, but the more small things you do and incorporate into your lifestyle the more your body will drop weight like a stream of water getting bigger.

Just remember, even a stream of water doesn’t flow perfectly straight, you’ll encounter bumps in the road that will force you to zig and zag. But, if you have and keep your goal a head of you, you’ll get there. But you must have a goal. You need something to keep you on track and working towards.

I’m going to just give you a run down of my best thoughts on weight loss without dieting. Really, it is about clean, whole food eating. If you have questions about any of the topics, just do a little more digging, or send me an email.

1. Do not count calories. All calories are not created equal and DO Not react with your body equally. If you follow the rest of the advice you’ll never count calories again.
2. Malnutrition is guaranteed. Most people think of starving kids in Africa, but being overweight is a malnutrition. The food you are consuming is devoid of nutrition and instead of nourishing your body with vital nutrients that make your body hum along you are just packing on dead, empty pounds your body doesn’t have a use for. Get Standard Processes multivitamin “Catalyn” quickly and take it 1/2 hour before any meal. Start eating more whole foods and less packaged “enriched” foods. Quality leads to less quantity.
3. Seriously watch out for MSG. Watch labels for monosodium glutamate or (MSG) for short. It will trick your brain into eating more food than you need. When drug companies want FAT rats to experiment on they feed them MSG.
4. Are you tired? Have a hard time geting up in the morning? Do you ever get dizzy standing up? Then you are a prime candidate for adrenal fatigue. This is a long complicated subject so take this test for more confirmation. If this is you, you aren’t losing weight / fat easily.
5. Your liver. What else can I say. It is a powerful fat burner and at your disposal. There is a problem, though. It needs good nutrition from things like kale, Brussels sprouts, eggs, bitter herbs, etc. No nutrition, no detoxing. If your liver can’t get rid of junk, it is forced to store it. Ever seen a guy with a huge belly and stick legs? Classic liver junked up. Everyone, and I mean everyone, can benefit from helping their liver do it’s job better. I take Cruciferous Complete from Standard Process and alternate that with LivCo from Mediherb to help my diet.
6. Hormone problems are another huge stumbling block. This is how my wife switched on her fat loss fires. If you suspect your hormones are out of balance, you will likely want to see a homeopathic doctor, naturopathic doctor, herbalist, or someone who understands whole food supplements and herbs that support the glands. Try supplements and herbs before jumping right to natural hormones.
7. The all important thyroid gland. If you are tired and / or can’t lose weight. Have your thyroid tested, but be aware, the tests can be very deceptive and just wrong. I know this because most people have their TSH tested and tada!!! it is range. But, I’ve taken those same people and tested their “Free” T4, “Free” T3, and the thyroid antibodies and one of those numbers is off. They had thyroid problems. Here is a easy at home test. Look up Broda Barnes in Wikipedia and follow his morning thyroid test using body temperature.
8. We also talked about the importance of insulin control. Basically, the more carbohydrates, and sugar you consume the more your pancreas has to pump out insulin. The more insulin floating around your blood stream, the less fat you’ll lose. Insulin tells your body to “store” FAT. Don’t pound down a soda or a energy drink before your workout. You might as well lock your fat in a vault.
9. Exercise like you are being chased by a rabid dog. Pick up the pace and intensity. This is an enormous topic, but walking and gardening aren’t going to cut it. This is why programs like P90X and Insanity are so popular. The are higher intensity. If that is too much for you right now the single best and easiest thing to do is swing a kettlebell. It is like a one weight gym. I love simple.
10. The all important trio. Eat Protein, veggies, and legumes / beans. If you get those in each meal, you won’t be snacking later or counting calorie.

I forgot this one at my class and I have to go back and give each participant this one piece of advice. I think I forgot because they were all patients and already understand the amazing benefits of chiropractic for pain relief. There is something much more powerful at play. The nervous system controls everything going on in your body. I saw this directly in practice with patients. You know I don’t pull any punches and this is for your own good. I’ve had a patient with hyperthyroid problems get instantly better with an adjustment. I’ve also had a patient with hypothyroid problems start losing weight after getting a neck adjustment. ALL the patients who were getting adjusted did significantly better than the patients I only did diet counseling with. It was so black and white, that I no longer took on patients for diet or supplement counseling if they weren’t getting adjusted.

Since chiropractic frees up the nervous system to work at 100%, you have no down side. If you aren’t getting adjusted you are just making life harder for yourself and none of the above topics and ideas will be as effective.

-Dr. Altman