Rebuilt U: A show about unlearning

Most people have heard of CBD and we did a podcast on CBG in December of last year.  Now, we bring you CBN and it’s potential to change your life especially if you have anxiety and sleep. Great new research out there.

In this podcast we talk about how a spine gets so weak that the little movements cause pain.  We also talk about how to become more durable and get your life back.

For more info about CBD go to Sucavu.com or SLCSAW.com

This is a great charity project. We talk about the need for these kids and how nice it is to give. All the details are inside if you want to participate by donating pajamas or books. Who doesn’t like buying PJ’s? 

Would you like to be Healthy, Wealthy, Well respected, and Well loved? If that sounds like a life you’d like, then this email will have a profound impact on you and the people around you.   Can you imagine skiing down a mountain at 100 years old?   Here in Salt Lake there is a local gentlemen who is still skiing at 101. Would you want to be water skiing, climbing mountains, and lifting weights at 100 years old? It’s possible.  First, we need to get you into a blue zone.    What’s that? A blue zone is a designation by Dan Buettner and his crew that studies populations with a high percentage of centenarians (people 100 years old).   The researchers found populations all over the world, then traveled there and studied the people, what they ate, how they lived, who their friends were, etc. They wrote a book about it if you want more. It’s called the Blue Zones.   In a strange twist of fate, when they launched their project to improve the health of the US, it was across the street from my office. That’s were I saw the pictures from his travels, and of healthy centenarians.   The presentation was a big media event. They had all the local news organizations and hospitals represented and speaking about their roles.  According to the CEO of Allina hospitals, the U.S. healthcare system costs 2.5 times more than any other country and we get to be #24 on the list of countries for longevity.   Basically our medical money is wasted.  The nice thing is he recognizes the problem and wants to do something.  They are looking to “focus upstream on wellness because according to the CEO, 60% of the resources are wasted in chronic diseases.     Here are some of my notes from the book BlueZones.   The 4 BlueZones are Loma Linda, California; Okinawa, Japan; Saldinia, Italy; Northwest corner of Costa Rica.   In Sardinia, the cheeses were very high in omega-3 fatty acids (decreases inflammation and pain) compared to our cheese which is higher in omega-6 fatty acids (pain, inflammation).  Why?  Because their animals are still grass-fed.  Most of ours are grain fed.  Products from grass-fed animals are healthier for you.  They also drink wine regularly.   In Okinawa, they have a saying they say before every meal, kind of like our Grace.  I couldn’t repeat the Japanese, but this was the rough translation.  “Stop eating when your stomach is 80% full,” they say that before each meal.  It takes 20 minutes before your stomach realizes what you have eaten, so the message here is...eat slowly.  If you remember to stop at 80% you will consume about 400 calories less per day which = about 8lbs. a year.   Also, they have a social circle that is setup when they are 5 years old.   Basically, given friends that they are expected to take care of for life.  Dan had slides of a group of ladies that had been getting together regularly for 96 years.  They all were 101.   They also have an “ikigei”.  The rough translation is “why I wake up in the morning?”  Their purpose. What is your purpose?   Off the cuff, he said the longest lived people sleep 7 hours a day.   In Loma Linda, they were only the 7th day Adventists.  They took their diet from the bible.   Grains, seeds, nuts, green plants, no meat, and some fish.  They had regular routines they followed and they focused on keeping the sabbath.  They focused on God, family and going for nature walks together.   In Costa Rica, they had a special diet, very hard water, family focused, a light dinner, dry climate, strong social network, worked into older age and had a strong PURPOSE in life.   Dan Buettner summed up his findings for living to 100 and beyond in a few simple terms.   #1 Move naturally.  They didn’t run marathons or any other extreme.  They all lived in walkable communities.   #2 They had the right outlook.  They had positive attitudes and lived a downshifted life.  They either prayed everyday, or napped, or meditated.   #3 They didn’’t diet.  They ate wisely.  They also ate a lot of plants.  They followed the 80% rule and ate slowly.  This may surprise some of you.  They had a few alcoholic drinks / night.  Mostly wine.   #4 They put their family first.  All of them.  Grandparents on down.   #5 They had a strong sense of belonging.  All but 5 of them believed in God.  Being religious adds 4-7 extra years to your life.   #6 They hung out with the RIGHT people.  Positive people like them.  He noted that you are your peer group.  Smokers tend to be with smokers.  Overweight people cluster together or influence others in the group to gain weight.     There is a lot of wisdom in these few things. Read the book or just take and apply these few things.   - P.S. Bonus for you if you want a better life as you age. I’ve talked to a few patients about this and it fits well in to todays email. I was listening to an interview with Darren Hardy, publisher of success magazine, about who had the most impact on his life. Darren has interviewed the most successful people over the last 20 years for his magazine. Just Goggle him.   By pure happen stance, he learned of a centenarian who was very private, very wealthy, well respected, and well loved. He did not want to be in the magazine, but Darren interviewed him for his own personal knowledge. The interview is short but fascinating and here is what 100 years of wisdom has to say about success in anything you do.   #1 only a few things matter — to anything. Find those few things, stick to them, then master them.                

What is your end game?    Where do you want to be in 2 year, 5 years or maybe 10 years?   Do you have your future planned? Are you retired? Working? Skiing? Maybe...you see yourself playing with grandkids.    Are you healthy?   Most people would say yes, of course. The tough reality is that most people over 65 y.o. aren't very healthy. I have a lot of experience with older patients and finding someone vibrant, energetic, and not taking medications is rare. They exist and they have some commonalities.    What if you could predict your health in 2 years?    This test may do it. Holmes-Rahe Life stress inventory.  https://www.stress.org/holmes-rahe-stress-inventory/ Stress is a big part of everyone’s life. It seems to have the ability to over rule most good healthy life habits. Take this test and see how you fair.   What Does Your Score Mean?   150 points or less = a relatively low amount of life change and a low susceptibility to stress-induced health breakdown   150 to 300 points = 50% chance of health breakdown in the next 2 years   300 points or more = 80% chance of health breakdown in the next 2 years, according to the Holmes-Rahe statistical prediction model   If you are constantly frustrated or stressed you are being reactive to life. Being "reactive" means that you wait for life to push you around and then you respond. That could mean waiting until your boss tells you to do something, or it could mean you wait until your out of underwear to do laundry. I used to wait until the last minute to study for an exam.    I see this every day in the office. People wait until they have pain, before coming in.     Being "reactive" is a much more stressful way to live. Unfortunately, human beings seem to be hard wired to be reactive. How often have you goofed off all day, then 10 minutes before a project is due, you sit down to do it.    This is a paraphrase of what I heard a pastor say about relationships and being a better person.   -Self control is the opposite of being impulsive. It is to be disciplined and invest your time and energy wisely. The best way to do that is to invest small amounts of time over a long period of time. If you lack self-control you are always reacting to life around you. In a twist of irony, you will also try to control other people if you lack self-control.     So, let's go proactive for a minute. At work you could be doing the projects ahead of schedule. You'll look like a super hero and drastically up your job security. You could plan your meals on a schedule.     If you know your lifestyle produces poor posture or you have old injuries, getting adjusted before the pain hits, is a better plan.   Same goes for eating nutritious food before you need a bigger pants size, or exercising regularly so you don't have a heart attack climbing stairs.    This is one of the main reasons so many people have health problems, they are reactive and wait, and wait some more until the body breaksdown.     You might be thinking " that sounds so boring". Maybe, until you think about how much more peace it brings to your life. Our lives run more effectively and smoothly with order.    Think about this. Would you want to drive to work with no traffic lights? I can't even image the chaos that would bring here in Salt Lake.   If you want more peace in your life,   #1 Get up earlier. Even 15 minutes will help. This will give you a little more time to plan.   #2 Plan your top 3 things to do each day. Really successful, high level achievers have very short to-do lists.    #3 Be on time. Everything in your day will be smoother if you are on time. If you are perpetually late, plan to leave 5 minutes or even 10 minutes earlier.   #4 Plan on being healthy. This is of utmost importance and and the same time one of the most difficult things. Being unhealthy is fast, cheap, and easy.   If you go through life doing what you want, when you want, with no regard to the future, it may turn out very different than you'd do hope.   Your priorities will determine your future.    If you want a retirement, you'll save money. If you want to know your kids, you'll spend time with them. If you want a great marriage, you'll spend time with your spouse. Pretty obvious, I know, but do you do it.   When it comes to health the same rules apply. They are just often forgotten in our rush, rush society.   This is very difficult, especially in health care because there is no immediate consequence or reward. If you are grabbing a burger at a fast food place, you'll feel the same tomorrow as right now.  I take supplements every day, but I don't feel different from day to day.   It takes vitamins, minerals, amino acids, etc to run your body. Just like it takes gas to run your car. You need raw materials to grow, repair and keep moving. So how does that affect you over time?   If you don't put enough in, nutrient deficiencies happen over time. You have reserves in which to draw upon, so you can eat junk food for awhile, but it does catch up with you, generally not until you're over 30. I see this more and more with each mineral analysis I do with patients.    The most common cause is lack of nutrient density. The food we eat simply doesn't have enough nutrition in it. If it's processed at all, it most certainly won't.   So what can you do?    This is a 5 step basic formula that I use.   #1 Get your spine checked by a chiropractor every month or so. Once every 5 years isn't often enough. Physiological joint destruction starts happening in 1-2 years after an injury, if left untreated. Pain isn't always present, especially if it happened when you were young.   Once degeneration gets a raging head start on your body, you won't be able to undo it. You can only manage it.    #2 Eat more organic, whole foods (lot's of nutrients). No more junk food (no nutrients.) It's called junk food for a reason. The simplest way I’ve found for someone who wants to learn, is the Purification Program.   #3 Do a hair analysis to look for toxic metals and mineral deficiencies. I do 2 a year. I can 99% guarantee you have some deficiencies. It is the simplest, cheapest and easiest way to get your energy systems back online and working again.   #4 Do a parasite cleanse. Yes, I know it has a certain ick factor. It is important for a lot of people to do at least once. I may have picked up a parasite in the Dominican. I also got food poisoning about 3 months ago and my guts were not right until I did the parasite cleanse and the purification program.   #5 Work towards simplifying your life. "With a clear a purpose installed as the heart of simplicity, you live a life that is unified and focused; everything flows out of this center, and you move steadily and directly towards your goals.” (The spirituality of simplicity) Stress really is a killer.   To be healthy, wealthy, wise, or self-controlled, it takes a conscious choice to pursue those things. They don't come automatically. It's human nature to rebel against those. It's much easier to wait until things breakdown before we notice them.    Try and do small things everyday. Your future will thank you.      -   P.S. My formula= Better body function (get adjusted) + better nutrition + yearly (and daily) detox + periodic parasite killing + simplying life + Bonus points if you can be active every day.   This simple formula will take you a very long ways in your health journey.

As people age, they have fairly common complaints. #1 is they hurt a lot more, and #2 they are more tired. One of the prime reasons people die from cancer is because they run out of energy. How do you lose energy? They have energy drinks, right?   I found out 5 years ago I was running on my reserves. I was very tired and felt like something just wasn’t right. I had massive stress at the time. So, I did some testing. It was surprising to see how low my mineral reserves were. Minerals are important because they are the backbone of your energy systems.   It takes vitamins, minerals, amino acids, etc to run your body. Just like it takes gas to run your car. You need raw materials to grow, repair and keep moving. So how do you lose them?   You don't put enough in or you use them up faster than you add them.  It's really that simple. Nutrient deficiencies happen over time. You have reserves in which to draw upon, so you can eat junk food for awhile, but it does catch up with you. I see this more and more with each mineral analysis I do with patients.    The most common cause is lack of nutrient density. The food we eat simple doesn't have enough nutrition in it. If it's processed at all, it most certainly won't. Our supplement company started in the 1920’s because Dr. Royal Lee noticed that the sick people in his life were nutrient deficient. He is one of very, very few people I’d consider a genius. His accomplishments in many fields of study and inventions are incredible.    Here is what he said in an article in 1960. “Number One Ailment—Malnutrition”    “We must look scrupulously at our health problem, realizing the healthy individual is not beset with complaints of chronic fatigue, nervousness, and digestive disorders. These are simply the first signs of health inefficiency; the first signs of chronic malnutrition,”  -Dr. Lee   He was talking about a study with 500 people. 97% of the people had digestive problems, 75% had nervous disorders, and nearly that many had fatigue.    Think about how much less REAL food people eat today. I’d say nearly all people are running low on vitamins and minerals.    The next most common is a high burn rate. People don't rest much any more. Go, go, go is a way of life. This is what happened to me 5 years ago. I was burning through more than what I could take in. Remember that minerals are needed for energy.    Be careful how you use your energy. There are many ways to waste it, such as: -Stressful people  -Exercising past your ability to recover  -Being over committed   Nutritional deficiencies can complicate the first problem of toxicity.   Dr. Nuzum is a toxicologist with 7 doctorates. "If you are nutrient deficient, you are a toxic sponge." To give you an example, if you are iodine deficient, you will soak up fluorine and chlorine and block the function of iodine. That spells bad news for your thyroid. We will get to more issues of detoxification later, but we have a few things to cover first and to get you ready for that.        

Aging. We all do it, but some do it better than others. We are going to explore this topic and give you some insights about healthy aging.     The great thing about this job, is that I get to meet a wide variety of people. I think every one has something to teach me.  The super healthy and the super sick both offer lessons.   A couple of months ago I had someone come in that was "too late", much too late. Advanced neurological destruction and severe liver problems. Those are hard ones, because there is a point of no return for the body.   One of my pet projects over the last 20 years has been to find as many ways to prevent problems as I can. I think it's important because it can keep you from jumping the rails and going off course.    Health is a nebulous concept, like wisdom. There is no end point to arrive to. But, we definitely know what unhealthy is. That's pretty easy.      You have pain. You are over weight. You are chronically tired. You have diabetes. You have XYZ disease.     There are more than 10,000 labels of problems I can give a person in the insurance code book. To my knowledge there isn't a code for "healthy."   Being healthy is when your Mind, Body, and Soul are at peace with one another.   You know veggies are good for you and cupcakes aren't.  The basics aren't hard to understand. It gets tricky in the modern world with the temptations from advertising everywhere. Your friends will tempt you at work and the sirens song of sugar is always playing.    When I was reading yesterday I came across this from C.S. Lewis. I thought it was a good way of looking at temptations.      "No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good. A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie.      Only those who try and resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting against it, not by giving in.      You find out the strength of the wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later."     You might be thinking, "that's all well and good, but I don't know how to exercise, I don't know how to cook, and my spouse isn't on board."     In modern society, you'll always encounter roadblocks...always. I have them too. You'll also constantly have temptations.  You will fall off the wagon, every one does. The difference will be if you get back on.    It's actually good for you to fall off every once in a while. It makes you appreciate the wagon more.   Ultimately, you are responsible for you. You are a priority. You are "the" priority. If you are ill, everyone around you suffers. If your spouse refuses to get on board with doing healthy things, then let it be and focus on you. Maybe, slip an extra life insurance policy in there :)   You can't force someone to believe something. It won't work no matter how hard you try.  Have you ever tried to force some one to believe anything? What happens, they dig their heels in against you. Just like trying to push a dog forward, they resist.  Try pushing a string.    You can't force people to believe in chiropractic, in organic food, or even God, for that matter. I get the "I don't believe in chiropractic" all the time. That's nice. Can I change that person's mind? Probably not. I actually can, but they have to crash and burn first, then try all other options.    Then we run into the problem of "it might be too late."   So how can you help yourself?   The first step is to just be aware that learning is a life-long process that never ends.    Look within...If you are unhealthy, realize you need to learn more. Remember the naive person is the intelligent person. They recognize they need to change something. I'm learning more about toxic metals every day.  Where ever you are on your health journey is perfect for you, as long as you are learning to be better.   Look around... If your grandfather is slumped over and in constant pain, and you don't want to end up like that, don't do what he did. If your doctor is overweight, maybe get a second opinion on health advice. If your friends tease you at lunch about eating "health food". They are just mockers and their opinion doesn't count. Wisdom is trying to make the best choice, not the easiest or most popular choice.     Let’s start at the beginning...THE BABIES   A few weeks ago, I wrote about the water contamination from the city I live in. There was fluoride, lead, and copper contamination. Toxins can affect us all. Particularly concerning are the heavy metals such as lead, arsenic, mercury, and cadmium.    Last week, a patient showed me this article about baby foods and their contamination with these heavy metals.   ”One of the biggest worries: cognitive development in very young children.   Babies and toddlers are particularly vulnerable due to their smaller size and developing brains and organ systems,” says James E. Rogers, Ph.D., director of food safety research and testing at Consumer Reports. “They also absorb more of the heavy metals that get into their bodies than adults do.” -Consumer Reports https://www.consumerreports.org/food-safety/heavy-metals-in-baby-food/   Lets try and slow your aging down by limiting your toxic exposure.      Let's say you go for a hike and every 100 yards you need to pick up a tiny rock and put it in your back pack.  How far could you go? Eventually the weight will start bothering you.    You have chemicals in you right now, guaranteed. These are like the rocks in the back pack. They come in so slowly that you won't notice them for a while. Over time, though, they cause more and more damage.    As you age, your body becomes a warehouse of chemicals. It's often said people don't need to be embalmed anymore because of all the chemicals in them. The accumulation and burden of chemicals is the most common cause of cancer.    Sadly this is happening to babies. Yes, babies.   If you have a baby and are feeding them anything (even organic) in any package please go look at this web page from Consumer Reports. You will be shocked at the number of baby foods that have heavy metals in them.  https://www.consumerreports.org/food-safety/heavy-metals-in-baby-food/   You as an adult may have a myriad of health problems from toxic metals that you may not even realize you have been accumulating over the years.    This is why I do 2-3 tissue mineral hair analysis every year. It is the best way to monitor toxic metal exposure.   Let’s go to the end ... THE ELDERLY   The most common toxic metal problem as you age is aluminum toxicity. It goes in you almost every day, and it is very difficult to get out. Aluminum accumulation in the brain is one of the main causes of Alzheimer's. That's why only elderly people get it. It accumulates.   Toxins are every where. I mean every where. Do your part by buying organic products. Use natural cleaners, detergents, soaps, shampoos, etc.  Help your body out by exposing yourself to fewer chemicals. Cancer, the scourge of our time, is often attributed to toxins.   If you use 1 tablespoon of lotion over 5 years, you’ll absorb over 7 gallons of lotion and all the chemicals in it. Check your skin care products here. Ewg.org/skindeep    More than 10 years ago the CDC did a study looking at Toxicity. They found an average of 212 chemicals in a persons blood, saliva, and urine.    If you want to slow down your aging effects try and take in less toxins and increase your bodies ability to eliminate them.    I use Livaplex from Standard Process, LivCo from Mediherb and I do the Purification Program once a year from Standard Process. I do hair analysis yearly to monitor my levels and I try and buy as many organic products as I can.   

Special interview on living a better and more successful life with...   Dr. Fab Mancini. In the our chiropractic world he is very well known. He is becoming much more well known as a guest and friend of Dr. Phil. He is Fox News’ health expert, he’s on The Doctor’s show and he’s a best selling author.   I had a chance to sit down with him last weekend and record some of his best words of wisdom. More than 30 years of personal development went into his latest book. We summarize the 5 rules to live by. Please, listen and let the words sink in. Your life could change in the next 30 minutes. You will get at least one pearl of wisdom that will make your life better.   Rule #1 Live every day as if it is your last.   Rule #2 Focus on service over survival.   Rule #3 Do what you love and find some one to pay you for it.   Rule #4 Love yourself (accept your imperfections).   Rule #5 Prioritize your physical, mental, and spiritual health.   We go into detail on these topics and give you some action steps.  

  ”One of the biggest worries: cognitive development in very young children.   Babies and toddlers are particularly vulnerable due to their smaller size and developing brains and organ systems,” says James E. Rogers, Ph.D., director of food safety research and testing at Consumer Reports. “They also absorb more of the heavy metals that get into their bodies than adults do.” -Consumer Reports https://www.consumerreports.org/food-safety/heavy-metals-in-baby-food/

You can’t afford to NOT know about this secret Mexican clinic. This is about the most dangerous thing you might face in your life. I was talking to a patient yesterday about this email and I said “statistically” 1 in 2 males gets this. “That means either you or I will get cancer”. He laid there thinking for a minute. Then I told him 1 in 3 women get cancer. He asked me if that was ALL types. It is. When you think about it, that’s really what matters. Cancer is cancer, no matter where it is. I have something very special for you today. I sat down with a long time friend, Dr. Shetlin, and we talked about cancer as husbands and fathers and not as doctors. Why would we do that? Most of you know, I write a lot about breast cancer this time of year. I help out a breast cancer charity for survivors, and I’ve lost two close relatives to cancer. I will likely lose another relative very soon. Dr. Shetlin’s wife is currently battling cancer and he was kind enough to sit down with me and talk about it and the alternative treatments they are doing. We talk about the clinic she is going to, in Mexico, and why? We talk about the treatment she is getting. We talk about why it was the best option. Most importantly, we talk a lot about what you can do, right now, to improve your life. This is an hour interview of information on the most important health topic of our time. Neither of us treats cancer, but both of us know a lot about prevention and being proactive in your life. Remember, 1 in 2 males, and 1 in 3 females will face cancer. That puts a lot of gravity on this topic.

I had a unique opportunity to sit down with two wonderful chiropractors, Dr. Shetlin and Dr. States, and talk health. Plus, we were on gorgeous Lake Powell.    Were sitting around on the house boat having a casual conversation about health and things people don’t know about chiropractic.    I got them to share a few amazing stories.  It’s much better if you listen to them. Dr. States comes from a multigenerational family of chiropractors.    Inside you’ll get their amazing stories, their dark days, their morning routines and advice that they wish all patients knew.    If you have questions about chiropractic or health, it’s a great podcast to learn from and laugh along with.    -Dr. Altman   P.S. Please let me know if you like this podcast. I’d like to get your feedback.   SLCSAW.com Healthy services available in the office: -Chiropractic -Massage -Laser fat loss -Cranial therapy (fussy babies love this) -Purification programs (everyone should at least once) -Auto accident recovery programs -Nutritional and supplement counseling  -Employee wellness programs

This is a great story about life at the bottom and rising up.  Sean was literally thrown away at birth, was drinking alcohol at 9 and doing drugs at 13. He’s had a tough life, but sitting in jail he heard the whisper. He’s turned his life around and is a very successful counselor for people with addictions. He can help the people who have failed every other treatment.  Even though this is an important message and serious business, we made it light hearted and fun to listen to.

Minerals are critical for life. If you want to learn about a few simple ways to tell if you are running low then this show will be for you.  Outward signs like gray hair are just the body’s way of telling you that you are running out of gas. Enjoy, Dr. Altman

This episode covers artificial sugars. The importance of water and my daily secret supplement for inflammation reduction and better health. The herbal supplement alone could change your life. Enjoy Dr. Altman

You'll learn a lot about the psychology of pain and addiction. The most fascinating thing about addiction I learned was how a seemingly common trait such as perfectionism can be a precursor to addiction.    The transcript will be up shortly.

In this episode we'll cover the first part of living a pan free life. #1 The importance of essential fatty acids.  #2 why hospitals are adding massage therapy #3 The primary 3 causes of pain. #4 The destructive power of sugar. I got more comments in the office on this part than any other. #5 The down side to sugar substitutes.  You can find each part broken down online at RebuiltU.com  Just go to the articles section.

She was dying. She saw 14 different doctors and got a different diagnosis from each of them. She was sick and frustrated. She was losing hope and losing her life. She lost 20lbs and her job. She was bedridden for an entire year. She never gave up and kept searching for answers. By a bizarre twist of fate she found them. The whole story and the answers are so amazing, I don't want to spoil it for you. I want you to listen to her story in her own words. I've known her for about 6 years, but the last 2 years she has been living outside of the salt lake valley. By a simple email, we reconnected and she was kind enough to come in and let me interview her for you. She's doing amazing. Listen here -Dr. Altman. P.S. If you like good stories you'll want to listen to this. P.P.S. Thursday hours added at the office SLCSAW.com Laserfatlosscenter.com Text (833) AGE-WELL Hours Mon. 9-7pm Wed. 1-7pm Thur. 9-7pm Fri. 9-7pm Sat. 10-12pm (Check the schedule first) P.P.P.S. 6 warning signs not to ignore. 1. Obesity- Fast track losing fat with our Zerona laser and the Purification program. 2. Gray hair- Get the hair analysis done. You are running out of energy. 3. Chronic pain- Get to the chiropractor 4. Digestive trouble- Ask me 5. Ongoing illness- Ask me 6. Ongoing fatigue- Ask me                

All Women should read this guide or listen to this podcast. If you want a printed version, you can get it here. http://bit.ly/BreastCancerFreeGuide Here are the links in the show. The easiest place to start is with the government's own list of cancer-causing agents. They actually have 3 lists: 1) things that definitely cause cancer, 2) things that probably cause cancer, and 3) things that most likely do cause cancer. http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/othercarcinogens/generalinformationaboutcarcinogens/known-and-probable-human-carcinogens   For further reading on glutamate, this is a great summary. http://neurotransporter.org/glutamate.html How I avoid this sneaky pitfall? I try hard to avoid these 3 things. 1.) L-Glutamine. This is a very popular amino acid supplement for intestine problems. I've had 2 patients taking this without my knowledge and accidentally discovered this. There are better ways to heal the guts. 2.) MSG. Monosodium Glutamate and all its derivatives. That list is too big to put here, so to read more sneaky names go here www.truthinlabeling.org/hiddensources.html The food manufacturers are wise to the fact that people are avoiding MSG so they often use one of the sneaky names in the ingredients on the back label. Never believe the front label, always read the ingredients on the back. ============================= "Breast Cancer Break Through. Cut Your Risk In Half. " http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/02/14/beating-breast-cancer-a-guide-to-prevention-treatment-and-recovery.aspx  ==============================  According to a World Wire press release: (Do read this) http://www.world-wire.com/news/0911240002.html Here is what they had to say. "Routine mammography delivers an unrecognized high dose of radiation, warn Drs. Epstein and Bertell. If a woman follows the current guidelines for premenopausal screening, over a 10 year period she would receive a total dosage of about 5 rads. This approximates the level of exposure to radiation of a Japanese woman one mile from the epicenter of atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima or Nagasaki." “Mammography is a striking paradigm of the capture of unsuspecting women by run-away powerful technological and global pharmaceutical industries, with the complicity of the cancer establishment, particularly the ACS, and the rollover mainstream media," they warn. Whether you get a mammogram or not is purely up to you, but please don't rely on that alone. Here are more resources for you to read. More resources: More things you should know about mammograms. http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/11/06/breast-cancer-prevention-s-dirty-little-secret.aspx Moving beyond mammograms and into Thermography http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/12/04/why-mammography-is-not-an-effective-breast-cancer-screen.aspx

This episode is worth listening to just to hear her accent.  Enjoy  Dr. Altman  

If you ever thought life was tough, this will inspire you. If you thought you were strong, this will make you stronger. If you need hope, this is it. If you think America is bad, you absolutely will want to listen to this. This is not a typical interview about health, but it is about perseverance and human endurance and an unbending will to survive. This was an inspiring interview for me. I hope you enjoy it. -Dr. Altman

Are you over 30 and getting REFLUX? PART 2: Digestion Part 2 is on digestion and getting this right can make everything else you do better. So why is digestion second on the list? Your nervous system is first because it controls everything. Digestion is next because it controls whether or not nutrients get into your body. Since, nutrition is one of the cornerstones to your health, you need good digestion to utilize the good food you're eating and the whole food supplements you're taking. Take a look at the symptoms ABOVE. These all represent some kind of digestive problem, but the most common, the most insidious, the most over looked, and the most dangerous is acid reflux. So, if you get the burning after supper, we should talk. It is alarming to me when I walk down the grocery store aisles and look at the empty shelves of acid blocking products. There are countless people, unknowingly, slowly, killing themselves and it doesn't have to be that way. This is physiology 101. #1 You were born with, and need stomach acid. Stomach acid is there to digest food, ionize minerals, and kill bacteria. #2 That burning people feel coming up the throat ISN'T stomach acid over-production. It is organic acids from food putrefying, rancifying, and rotting in the stomach from LACK of stomach acid. (Think roadkill in your guts) #3 What does your body do when you eat bad food? You throw it up, and/or have diarrhea to get it out as quick as possible. Your body isn't dumb, it is trying to send this rotting mash back to where to came from. So if you take an acid blocker, you temporarily quell the rebellion and pass the fight on to your intestines. #4 Right now, if this is you, you are likely thinking you like being able to pop a pill and prevent that burning. I get it, but...it's not natural, and it will slowly starve you of minerals like calcium. That's a well known side-effect. So, if you are female, worried about osteoporosis, this is a bad scenario. #5 So how does this happen? When you were 18 you likely didn't have too many problems, right. First, nutritional deficiencies play a role, and especially if people are eating processed foods and a lot of simple carbohydrates like bread, cereal, and pasta. Second, It takes water to make stomach acid, and I rarely meet a new patient who's drinking enough water. Third, as you age, your stomach acid production drops. Fourth, and my favorite, subluxations (bones out of place) in the mid-back and the upper neck. Those nerve areas control the stomach. (This goes back to part 1) -Dr. Altman P.S. Quick bit of trivia. Nearly all fibromyalgia / chronic pain patients have digestive problems. P.P.S. To fix this is fairly simple, stop in and ask, or send me an email docaltman@protonmail.com  

Why 30? This is the magic age. I thought it was all BS too, but once I crossed 30 years old, I noticed more aches, more pain, less energy, and in general, a feeling of not being quite the same. If you feel terrible and you aren't 30 years old, you have more trouble than you realize. Why? Because every decade after that gets harder, degeneration accelerates, nutritional deficiencies compound, and your ability to heal, in general, declines. Take advantage of youth. If you are like me, and well north of 30, then life can still be great, it just takes a little more work. Hence, this 6 part series. We are going to walk through a basic plan to get most health conditions resolved. -----------------Quick office update------------------------------------------ We have officially moved to Murray, Utah. Hours, directions, pics Check online SLCSAW.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Take a quick look through the list above. If you have no problems in this section, congrats. If you do, why do you think the problems exist? "Why" is the best question to ask. For this particular section, these are all nervous system problems. What I didn't tell you on the graphic, is that there are parasympathetic and sympathetic problems mixed in. Those 2 parts of your nervous system control how you speed up and slow down your body. Are your organs running like the cartoon road runner or being dragged through the mud by a horse? If the balance is off, you will be off. There is a combination of chiropractic needs and nutritional problems mixed in there. Earlier in the year, I put out a quick survey on what interests readers the most. Guess what was the run away winner? Detoxification. I'm cool with that. It's incredibly important in the modern age. So why am I not starting with that? Well, there are two main reasons. #1 I used to consult with people about nutrition and supplements 15 years ago. Back then, It was mainly over the phone. After 5 years of doing that, I noticed something that changed how I did everything. The people not getting adjusted by a chiropractor, even in their home towns, did significantly worse, no matter what supplements they took. Your nervous system is the master of your body. If it isn't balanced, nothing else works right. #2 Dr. Nuzum said it best. He is a toxicologist with 7 doctorates. "If you are nutrient deficient, you are a toxic sponge." To give you an example, if you are iodine deficient, you will soak up fluorine and chlorine to block the function of iodine. That spells bad news for your thyroid. We will get to detoxification, but we have a few things to cover first and to get you ready for that. If you have or still have problems in section one, I'll bet you want to know why? There are a lot of variables at play here. How old you are, how long the problems been there, what you eat, what your hobbies are, your work environment, your stress level, etc. It ultimately boils down to your ability to heal. I even put a video online of a guy who was remarkably better in just a few visits, I interviewed him on his lifestyle. He ate amazing food. Two years ago, I wrote an article on accelerated healing. It was about my wife and an injury that left her unable to walk and 13 days later she ran a 1/2 marathon, on trails in Moab, Ut. What I've noticed over the years is that healing takes time. Often times, patients ability to heal is outpaced by their lifestyle, hobbies, or work stresses. When my daughter broke her leg, she needed time to heal and not be training for a 5k. You might remember Rulon Gardner from The Biggest Loser or the Olympics. He won an Olympic gold medal against a guy who hadn't lost in 13 YEARS. He retired in 2004 and didn't take good care of himself. He ballooned up to 474 lbs over the next 8 years. How humbling would that be? To go from the Olympics to the Biggest Loser. Healing comes from within, right? Do you think he's mad at the gym, or his coach, or at his spouse, because he let his body go? Did he go to the gym just once? No, they worked him to death daily. What if he only went to the gym every 3 months? What about every 6 months? Do you think he'd lose weight at all? In a 2012 interview with ESPN, he said "Yet, in the end, it wasn't enough. Gardner admitted Saturday that his one regret was not focusing as much on his nutrition as he should have." Rememeber those check boxes above? Do you know what symptoms tell you? I know, stay with me though. They tell you something is wrong. Not only that, they tell you something is wrong enough, that your body can't deal with or adapt to it any more. This survey section is a mixture of chiropractic specific problems and nutrition. If you aren't getting adjusted regularly, you are taking the longer, slower road to recovery. I've seen it in clinical practice over and over. This is why they've had a chiropractor head up the medical team for the Olympics. Chiropractic has saved some gold medals, but that's another story. On the flip side, if you give no thought to your nutrition, you will never ultimately get 100% better. You will linger in the middle. This is why most people don't do very well if they don't get adjusted at least once a month. Life is busy, stressful, and hard on the body. Most people don't have the time to cook every meal or exercise every day, or go on TV and exercise your guts out and have a professional chef cook for you. You can't go to a chiropractor once and expect it to undo 20 years of deterioration. Just like you can't go to the gym once and undo 200 lbs. of weight gain or just cook one organic meal at home and have it undo eating fast food all week. The laws of thermodynamics can't be ignored, the farther you drift from being healthy, the more work it takes to get back. The good news is that Rulon proved you can get back. If you are struggling with section one, talk to me in the office or send me an email, because I can't give specific advice in this format. -----------------Quick office update------------------------------------------ We have officially moved to Murray, Utah. Hours, directions, pics Check online SLCSAW.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Text the office for a quicker answer (801.896.3259) email docaltman [at] protonmail [dot] com (this is my new encrypted email) It will be much better for your privacy. -Dr. Altman  

Yes, it's the 1980's all over again. It seems unbelievable, but this is a reality. Let's say your kid falls and need stitches -$10 Let's say you break an arm -$10 Let's say you need a strep test -$10 If you participate in the regular healthcare system, those could be $100's to $1000's of dollars. It doesn't have to be that way. Dr. Rachot pulls the curtain back on medical care in America. We have been forced into a health (sickness) system that is unsustainable. Copay's are at an all-time high. Deductibles are at an all-time high. What do you get? Basically nothing but a big bill. I speak from first hand experience. The system exploits patients, it's wrong and it needs to change. But, it can't until you and I do something. If you are tired of paying obscene amounts of money for nothing? You can change that. That is today's podcast. If I get my way, you'll be able to use chiropractic care to prevent problems and basic medical care for 90% of the other problems that pop up in life, all for less than you are paying now. By the way, this is a wonderful system for your business. If you are an employee, send this podcast to your boss. If you are listening outside of Utah, buy Dr. Rachot's book and give it to your doctor and they can possibly reduplicate his medical system. You win, and they win. Listen to the podcast with Dr. Rachot Linkedin articles Medallus Website   Employee Benefits

People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof, but on the basis of what they find attractive. - Blaise Pascal I've had 2 instances in my life that made me stop and question my beliefs. The first one was when I hurt my back. I was just playing volleyball and instantaneously my back went into a crippling spasm. I spent the whole night on the floor (literally I couldn't get into bed). I was 21 and thought I could do anything. I could do anything, until that day. It was so humbling. Heck, I'd even broken my leg 7 years earlier and that didn't phase me like this back pain. I think it was because I was debilitated. I realized I could be taken down at a moments notice. That chiropractor changed my life forever. I saw scoliosis, I had been accumulating for years and didn't know it. I changed my behavior and I've had adjustments almost weekly ever since. I didn't know what I didn't know. My beliefs about myself, life, and health were completely upended. The other time, I was sitting in a lecture and the speaker was talking about how destructive soy products are. I was drinking soy milk at the time and buying American made tofu. What? My ears perked up because someone was challenging my beliefs. At the break, the guy behind me confirmed what she said with a scholarly tone of voice. After doing my own research, I quit taking soy products of any kind. I'll bet when you think about your life, you can find instances like that where someone melts your mind. Over the last 20 years, "truth" has been a quest of mine. As a chiropractor, I get to see a constant stream of lies and misdirection from the health care "business" industry. The truth can be elusive because your beliefs can create a filter for your mind. I'll give you an example. Where do we see evidence needed most? In a court case, right? Each side, piles up their own facts and a jury or judge makes the call on who's right. Back in 1987, a trial between the chiropractors and the AMA concluded. (The Wilks case) The AMA was guilty of conspiracy against chiropractors. Crazy right. They had a committee with one job, to smear chiropractors. For decades that propaganda hurt people. People still "believe" the propaganda, even though the mountain of evidence says otherwise. So where do your beliefs come from? The first place is your parents, then maybe your friends, and society in general. You might have a church leader thrown in there. Now it starts to get more interesting, i.e...things that Blaise Pascal was talking about in the beginning. Things you find attractive, peaceful, and give you comfort. Are those really good reasons to believe something? Just because triple brownie fudge ice cream makes you feel amazing, is it true that it's good for you? Just because your parents taught you that a certain race of people are evil, does that make it true? Just because heroin can make you feel great, is it true that it must be good for you? How you feel about something isn't a great way to decide if it's true. If you believe something that isn't true, it can kill you. The truth protects you. If you keep shooting heroin into your veins, you'll eventually die. The truth may hurt if you challenge it. If you like standing in the street, sooner or later when a bus hits you, the true pain of physics will be revealed. I have believed many lies over my life. Now, to me, finding truth is an adventure. Here is a way to evaluate something that challenges you. Truth: is true 100% of the time, for all people. Truth is timeless and absolute. Truth exists whether we believe it or not. The earth was still round even when people believed the world was flat. If you feel something is true for you and someone comes along and says they believe the opposite, by simple definition, you both can't be right. You can believe something different from someone else, but you can't have two different truths. Why is this so important? Who cares if things are true or not? Discovering the truth will help protect you in life. If you hold onto false beliefs, you will be lead down many false paths in life. For example, I have "discovered" 100% of patients tested have aluminum in their bodies at a toxic levels, myself included. Now, if someone comes along and shows me one person without it, I should, and will change my belief. Aluminum is a neurotoxin and the primary cause of Alzheimer's. If I believe it's no big deal and harmless then I'll suffer the consequences over time. Pain is another one. Do you believe pain is a signal that something is wrong? Is that true for 100% of normal humans? There are a few people born without pain sensations, but that's not normal. If you just suppress pain and don't investigate the cause you are traveling down a false path. Whether you believe it or not. The truth that pain is a signal is still valid. I sat in on a patient consult once where the lady's arm was completely numb. It didn't work...at all. The other health practitioner asked my opinion on the relevance of chiropractic in this case. She'd already done everything else more extreme, including steroid injections and neck surgery. I did a 5 minute presentation on how releasing the nerve compression might help. She nicely turned me down saying she didn't believe it would help. She was 100% right. I left and 5 minutes after that, the other practitioner dismissed her from the office. Her belief was so strong, she had no chance of getting better. Things to think about this week. 1. Seek the truth in all areas of your life. If you disagree with someone, that might be an opportunity to learn a new truth, or teach one to someone else. 2. People spend a great deal of time, money, and effort to hide the truth. So don't be afraid to challenge them. It could save your life. It makes the truth fun and frustrating. 3. If the people you try to help with XYZ belief, and you care about them, try and get them to agree to the definition of truth. Ie...Use gravity for example, it always works, 100% of the time on earth. Gravity doesn't just work for me and not for you. -Dr. Altman P.S. Silent Soldier day is on the 7th of July. If you know a active military member suffering in silence, have them come to the office Thursday the 7th. It's free to them and they may discover some new truths about health.  

The great thing about this job, is that I get to meet a wide variety of people. I think every one has something to teach me. The super healthy and the super sick both offer lessons. A couple of months ago I had someone come in that was "too late", much too late. Advanced neurological destruction and severe liver problems. Those are hard ones, because there is a point of no return for the body. One of my pet projects over the last 20 years has been to find as many ways to prevent problems as I can. I think it's important because it can keep you from jumping the rails and going off course. Yesterday was Fathers Day and I took the day to read, and read, and read some more. I'll admit, I was very lazy. I had some interesting things jump out at me. Health is a nebulous concept, like wisdom. There is no end point to arrive to. But, we definitely know what unhealthy is. That's pretty easy. You have pain. You are over weight. You are chronically tired. You have diabetes. You have XYZ disease. There are more than 10,000 labels of problems I can give a person in the insurance code book. To my knowledge there isn't a code for "healthy." They sure as heck don't pay me to keep you healthy. That's crazy talk. Being healthy is when your Mind, Body, and Soul are at peace with one another. Good health practices have known for thousands of years. You know veggies are good for you and cupcakes aren't, right? The basics aren't hard to understand. It gets tricky in the modern world with man-made problems. The temptations from advertising are everywhere. Your friends will tempt you and the sirens song of sugar is always playing. When I was reading yesterday I came across this from C.S. Lewis. I thought it was a good way of looking at temptations. "No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good. A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try and resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting against it, not by giving in. You find out the strength of the wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later." You might be thinking, "that's all well and good, but I don't know how to exercise, I don't know how to cook, and my spouse isn't on board." In modern society, you'll always encounter roadblocks...always. I have them too. You'll also constantly have temptations. You will fall off the wagon, every one does. The difference will be if you get back on. It's actually good for you to fall off every once in a while. It makes you appreciate the wagon more. Ultimately, you are responsible for you. You are a priority. You are "the" priority. If you are ill, everyone around you suffers. If your spouse refuses to get on board with doing healthy things, then let it be and focus on you. Maybe, slip an extra life insurance policy in there :) You can't force someone to believe something. It won't work no matter how hard you try. Have you ever tried to force some one to believe anything? What happens, they dig their heels in against you. Just like trying to push a dog forward, they resist. Try pushing a string. You can't force people to believe in chiropractic, in organic food, or even God, for that matter. I get the "I don't believe in chiropractic" all the time. That's nice. Can I change that person's mind? Probably not. I actually can, but they have to crash and burn first, then try all other options. Then we run into the problem of "it might be too late." If your spine has old injuries (i.e.. Car accident 30 years ago), you can't exercise or eat your way out of those problems. I've had plenty try. Not happening. Last November's blog post had a great story on this. So how can you help yourself? You can be on the lookout for more skillful living. This is the seeking of wisdom. Wisdom allows you to make better choices. Your life is a reflection of your choices. The sermon I heard on Sunday highlighted four characters you will meet or you may become in a pursuit of wisdom. I see these characters in health care all the time. When I find someone with a lot of wisdom in an area I interview them for the podcast (SLCSAW). The naive: This person lacks experience. It's fine, you know you don't know. Nothing wrong with that. It's actually an intelligent place to be. We are all there at sometime. You can't know everything about everything. This is a proactive mindset because you are aware. The fool: knows right from wrong but doesn't care. You know smoking or fast food is bad for you, but you continue to believe nothing bad will come from it. You can get here by accident because there are often no immediate consequences. This is a reactive mindset. The mocker: Makes fun of what's right. You can also get here by accident. You run into this mindset with people that are resistant to change. They are tough to be around. They will make fun of people eating organic food or doing anything else healthy. The wise: Knows right from wrong and chooses the best option. You CAN NOT get here by accident. You need to be deliberate in your path. This is the fun part of constant learning. You need to study yourself and others that have gone before you. The first step is to just be aware that learning is a life-long process that never ends. Look within...If you are unhealthy, realize you need to learn more. Remember the naive person is the intelligent person. They recognize they need to change something. I'm learning more about toxic metals every day. Where ever you are on your health journey is perfect for you, as long as you are learning to be better. Look around... If your grandfather is slumped over and in constant pain, and you don't want to end up like that, don't do what he did. If your doctor is overweight, maybe get a second opinion on health advice. If your friends tease you at lunch about eating "health food". They are just mockers and their opinion doesn't count. Wisdom is trying to make the best choice, not the easiest or most popular choice. Would you like more info on what I've learned about proactive health over the past 20 years? -Dr. Altman

9 Secrets of Energy Production (+Memorial Week Hours) -------Memorial Day / Week Crazy Hours----- -Monday (Memorial Day) -Closed -Tuesday -10-6pm -Wednesday -12-6pm -Thursday -10-12:30pm --------------------------------------------------------- Is energy is in short supply for you? Today, we're not talking about the basics, I'll give you a little more to think about. And...don't even think about an "energy" drink. The shear popularity of these drinks is a indicator of the need for real energy and not stimulants. Just to refresh.  The basics of energy are function and nutrition. So look to these and check yourself. If you have these down, then the 9 secrets will kick you up a notch or two. #1. Nutrition. Energy is a fundamental byproduct of food being broken down into the useable form called ATP.  ATP is the bodies gas. Think of it like raw oil coming from the ground and being refined to a useable gasoline. If you put bad gas in your car, it'll run poorly. Your body needs good whole foods, not cereal, pasta, donuts, and soda. Processed foods have all the real energy producing nutrients stripped out. #2 Sleep. This is pretty obvious. If you don't sleep, or sleep well, you're pretty tired the next day. #3 Chiropractic. This is one of the first things I noticed getting adjusted. I had more energy. Basically, you have more because you are wasting less. If your muscles are in spasm or 1/2 your body is not working properly, your other half is working overtime. #4 Water. 70% of your body is made of water. It makes you go. The number one cause of afternoon fatigue is lack of water. You don't need a $3 "energy" drink. #5 Rest. You do need to give your body time to heal and recuperate. If you owned a million dollar race horse, would you keep training it until it collapses? Ok...so you have those down. Pretty basic, and you should be doing those without much effort. But, life happens. Sometimes you need to dig a little deeper and try and find the smaller problems. These can come over a lifetime of stress, toxicity, etc. -------Memorial Day / Week Crazy Hours----- -Monday (Memorial Day) -Closed -Tuesday -10-6pm -Wednesday -12-6pm -Thursday -10-12:30pm --------------------------------------------------------- The secrets #1 Adrenal fatigue. I've had 2 rounds of this. One was bad enough I couldn't get out of bed after 10 snooze alarms. The easy warning signs are fatigue, getting dizzy when standing, and not being able to get up in the morning. This is primarily a lifestyle issue. Just stop being busy. It's hard, but necessary. #2 Thyroid issues. This can have a myriad of sources, but for today, we'll stick to low iodine levels. For one, people don't eat enough natural sources, i.e...things from the sea. Secondarily, people often eat or drink too many iodine blockers. Those would be things with chlorine, fluorine, and bromine. Municipal water and bread are probably the biggest contributors. #3 B vitamins. These are a real common deficiency. They are one of the first vitamins ripped out of food after processing. Also, synthetic versions are often sprayed back on the "food". We do a simple, cheap test. We just give a patient one tablet of Cataplex B from Standard Process / hour and if the patient picks up and feels better, there's likely a nutritional problem. #4 Minerals. magnesium, iron, manganese, phosphorus, iodine are the big players here. It takes a bit more testing to figure these out. Hair analysis and a urine test will do quite nicely to get a handle on these. One thing I've learned over the last few years of testing, is that most people are fairly low in minerals. If you have grey hair you should check on these. #5 Mitochondria damage. These are your energy powerhouses inside of your cells. They make the ATP your body runs on, but like any factory they can be shut down. Toxins, inflammation, infections, nutritional deficiencies and low thyroid function are all capable of making you tired. Eating whole foods and detoxing daily will help this a lot. #6 Lipoic acid. Common place to find this is in Cruciferous vegetables. Brussels sprouts, kale, cauliflower, broccoli are the most common. #7 CoQ10- Gateway to Energy, primarily something called the electron transport chain (ETC).  The ETC is the most efficient was to create energy.  It's 16x better than just burning sugar. When your body can make energy with the ETC, you are rockin. The best sources are fatty fish, beef and chicken. You can get some from veggies and nuts, but not near the same concentration. Plus, CoQ10 needs fat for absorption. If you are on a low-fat vegetarian diet, you might be tired because of this. Also, cholesterol drugs block this from working. #8 Medium chain fatty acids. The BEST and easiest source is coconut oil. These go right into the Electron transport chain to make the most energy for you. If you aren't using coconut oil in your cooking or smoothies, you are missing out. This is 16x more efficient than eating sugar. #9 Essential amino acids. They are called essential for a reason, you need them.  If you cook all your food, you could be low in these. Let's say you are a car manufacturer, except someone forgot to order ignition systems. You'll have the most beautiful car that can't start. Amino acids can act like that. Eat more raw foods. Also, if you have trouble sleeping, this may be a problem and taking them as a supplement may help. We use Protefood from Standard Process. Modern life is stressful, busy, and tiring. If you don't take active steps to take care of yourself, you'll eventually get beat down. -Dr. Altman -------Memorial Day / Week Crazy Hours----- -Monday (Memorial Day) -Closed -Tuesday -10-6pm -Wednesday -12-6pm -Thursday -10-12:30pm --------------------------------------------------------- Schedule https://www.schedulicity.com/scheduling/DDA9FL

This is a fun, quick episode. This is really and episode to get you moving.    With today's topic, I'm going to give you some insider perspective. I see all aspects of health every week. Some people are struggling to rebuild their bodies and some are setting new records for strength.   Talk to any doctor and they'll ask about your exercise and tell you it's good for you and you might even need more.   What if you didn't exercise for a year?  Did your heart just stop? Would you be relieved?   Ask yourself this... What do you ultimately want from exercise?   Do you want to be healthier?      -Great, exercise can usually do that. Do you want to look better?      -Exercise might help, you might need something else. Feel better?      -Exercise might help, you might need something else. Lose weight?      -Exercise is definitely the slowest way to do this. Maintain your strength?      -Exercise is your ticket. Gain strength?      -Gotta go with exercise again. (Really just free weights are the way to go) Yes, I realize body weight works for a while.  Do you want more endurance? Do you want some competition? Do you want a challenge?   I normally try and give you something useful to do and think about at the beginning of the week, but this has proven to be a very large topic.    We can all agree that you need some level of activity every day. I prefer that you be active. You don't need to join a gym for basic levels of healthy activity. Get out and walk, run, garden, do yoga, chase your dog, anything that gets you moving.   If you have a sedentary job and lifestyle then this is where to start. Get out, and get moving. Life is about movement: your blood, your muscles, your lymph, your spine. If you don't move a muscle for a month, it dies off. If a joint in your spine doesn't move, it dies. If you've seen bone spurs on an X-ray, that's spinal death.   If you are already exercising, great, keep it up.    Now ponder if what you are doing actually matters. The body is a system. It works together and is meant to be trained that way.    How many times (sarcasm is coming) do you curl your hamstring at your job? Do bicep curls help you work around the house?   My point is... If the body works as a unit, don't try and train it in parts. You could think of it like this, exercise to be useful. Probably the worst thing to happen to exercise is the invention of nautilus machines.   If you are stuck doing machine based training, start working your way out of that. It just sets you up for future injuries, and muscle imbalances. It helps give you "show muscle" but not "go muscle".   This is the last type, and by far the trickiest. If you love to exercise and it is a large part of your life, slow down and read this section. Let me tell you the story of Jill. She shows up in the office one day with her 2 kids and with her husband. Her husband was the patient, not her.    Her hubby mentions that she has back pain, while I'm adjusting him. So after some casual conversation I come to learn that she has pain so bad she can't even sit at the dinner table with her family. Are you kidding me!   She had just adapted her life and "pain" became her norm, so much so, that she didn't even think it was abnormal not to "sit" at dinner. Her perception of life and pain was way out of balance.   Come to find out, she's also exercising 2 hours a day to make herself feel better. She's using exercise to combat pain and loss of energy.   You might be thinking "what's wrong with that?"   Sounds like a good plan, right?   Exercise is stimulating, fun, and makes you feel good, but it can be used as a crutch. Here's how you tell. If you stop exercising for 3-7 days and you feel depressed, tired, or more aches and pains. That's who you really are.    If you are a hard core exerciser and keep finding that you are doing more and more exercise, you are living off the narcotic-like effect of the stimulation.   You can get away with that for awhile because you have reserves of minerals to draw upon. It's a very interesting phenomenon. As the reserves deplete, your natural ability to produce energy declines. The energy loss, starts to change your brain and numbs it, so you can still function. You actually start having perception problems. Just like Jill. She had no idea how bad she was.   You can feel healthy, but your not. Let me give you an example...me. I was working out, hard, in 2014. The kind of workouts that end in laying on the floor, gasping for air. Sometimes I really dislike being the Guinea pig.   So, in the fall of 2014 I did a tissue mineral analysis. Here is what the lab told me.   Basically, I felt really good, but I was burning through minerals at an accelerated rate. If I kept going, I was going to be in trouble.   What kind of trouble? Well, everything you do, your life, is revolving around your ability to make energy.   Do you know why most people succumb to cancer? They run out of energy.   Energy and the lack of energy should be taken very seriously. If you've read this far, I'm going to give you a real gem. There is one easy, easy way to tell if you are in trouble. Whether you feel good or not. Remember exercise and other stimulants can trick you. If you have grey hair, you are running low on energy. There is much more science behind that, but that's a whole other email.   Summary for you. Exercise is good for you, but maybe this will help make it better.   1. If you are doing nothing, get out and be active.    2. If you are active, do something useful.   3. If you are dependent on exercise, stop for 7 days. See who you really are.   P.S. If you do have grey hair, you should get a hair analysis done. It's the best way to look at minerals.

I have 2 teenagers and I am fully aware of the increase in stress. Being a parent could be one of the most stressful things in life, especially now.   Todays guest will impart 35 years of wisdom on parenting and as a pastor he sees all manners of family dysfunction.    If you improve your skills as a parent, your life will be much less stressful. As a chiropractor for nearly 2 decades, I can tell you stress is one of the primary causes of poor health.   So when I hear patients saying their kids are killing them, they are actually speaking the truth.    If you get a lot out of this interview, you can get hours of more free info on his churches website.  Smccutah.org

Just do a little today and every day. Would you rather fill your house up with garbage and take it out once a year? Or Would you rather take it out daily? If you answered with number one, I think we can get you on a guest appearance of "hoarders". Many people actually never take the garbage out...of their bodies that is. Your body has the ability to take the garbage out with it's own detoxification mechanisms. But, it needs certain nutrients to do that. Popcorn and chips don't qualify. If you've never done a detox program or do something to improve your liver daily, this is for you. Ideally, helping your liver daily is the best thing you can do. Why? We are surrounded by a toxic soup. Toxins rain down from the sky, are in the water, and on the food you eat. You can not escape them no matter how hard you try. No matter if you live in a cave in the mountains. If you don't believe me, we can get you tested for about $250. National geographic paid more than $10,000 to have a journalist tested for everything they could. Many health practitioners will advocate a yearly cleanse. That's fine we do that too. But, daily is best with a yearly to deep clean. Kind of like spring cleaning. The house just feels better. If you want to spring clean your body, you can read more about that here. http://traffic.libsyn.com/slcsaw/Patient-Purification-Program-Guide.pdf What you do daily will matter over time. #1 Eat clean. Organic would be best. #2 I take Livaplex from Standard Process to feed the liver lots of good things daily. The liver needs certain nutrients to clean. #3 Increase your Glutathione. That's the most powerful detoxifying enzyme available. It's mainly made from Palmitic acid. So where do you get that? Meats, butter, and palm oil are good sources. If good, clean saturated fats scare you, we should talk more in the office. #4 Kale and Brussels sprouts also supply some of the other components your liver likes. This is a short list, but a good, easy list. The main thing to notice is that whole foods make your body happy. Just don't make it a high grain diet, that'll back fire on you. Enjoy an organic salad with a grass-fed steak tonight :)

What happens when Dr. Altman's date night turns into a nightmare? I was sitting in a restaurant with my wife having a nice date night 6 weeks ago. We got a phone call that instantly altered our life. You think bad things will never happen, until they do. It was loud in the restaurant so we didn't hear the phone in time and just got the voice mail from my son. "Hey, Grace (my daughter) was in a ski accident and broke her leg"...CLICK. Of course calling him back didn't work. As a parent, having one of your kids seriously hurt is one of the worst feelings. Then having to wait...and wait...and wait for news is like the air being sucked out of the room. The ski patrol called me back and told me she broke her femur and would likely need surgery. What !!! My nightmare kept getting worse. So my evening started on a date and 5 hours later, we were in a deserted waiting room at 12:30am while my daughter was in surgery. Life has so many twists and turns. When people hear "femur fracture", the cringe face always shows up. People know inherently it's one of the most painful things you can have as a human being. So what do you do? Now, I have a teenage daughter with a major bone break, surgery, and almost toddler-like dependence. #1 I'm thankful it wasn't worse. #2 I'm thankful for the countless people who helped her. #3 I'm thinking, how fast can she get back to normal. The ripple-effect is incredible. Accidents happen every day. Heck, every day in Salt Lake there is a car accident. I saw a video yesterday of a car falling off a parking garage onto the sidewalk. Unbelievably, no one was hurt. You just never know. So what does it take to heal? #1 Time #2 Raw materials (nutrition, nutrition, nutrition) #3 Rest #4 Maximal coordination of healing (proper nervous system function) Each injury and tissue heals at a different rate. Bones heal faster than tendons and ligaments. This is one of the reasons people in car accidents take longer to heal, they mostly have ligament injuries. Even if you cut your hand, you'll still have a scab for 3 weeks. What you're like before an injury and how you eat after makes a big difference. If you are healthy and robust before an injury, you'll be back in short order. If you are sick and frail, it'll take forever to heal. Your body needs vitamins, minerals, amino acids, etc. to rebuild tissue. There is no short cut to this. You can't build a house without raw materials. What you eat and the supplements you take matter. Medications don't do that. If your medication list is longer than your supplement list, you may want to rethink how you are doing things. Rest is critical. There is a reason they cast broken bones. If you break your leg, it would be illogical to sign up and try and run a 5k race. People do this all the time with low back injuries. The moment they feel better, they want to garden or exercise. Injured tissues can be used, but shouldn't be overly stressed. So, my daughter is going to start walking this week, not running. I see a huge advantage for patients getting adjusted. My daughter has been getting adjusted since the day she was born. The first day she got home her spine was a mess, from the crash, from surgery, from being confined to a bed, from crutches. Your nervous system controls everything happening in your body, everything. That control is influenced by the health of your spine. If your spine is out of alignment, injured, irritated, or degenerated from neglect, it can adversely affect your nervous system. You can't exercise or stretch this out. If you are taking pain killers, you definitely won't feel problems. Let's say the tires on your car are out of alignment, does your car still roll down the street? Of course it does. Can you drive your car back into alignment? Of course not. The longer you leave the alignment out, the faster the tires wear out. Right? So, does the performance, traction, and safety of your vehicle improve over time, or degrade? Seems obvious, but the same thing happens to your spine and nervous system. If you want to heal fast and well, you need the coordinator of your body working well. You won't hear that from other doctor's, but I'm telling it's 100% true. I've seen it for 2 decades and lived it. I wrote this email for a few reasons. For one, I want you to learn a bit more about healing and to understand that it can be faster and better. Two, I want you to think about accidents. For most people, insurance is fairly useless now-a-days, unless you're in an accident. Couple things to think about, raise your auto accident coverage, in Utah it's called PIP, and look into getting an Aflac policy. It's not amazing, but it helps. The auto accidents are much more likely to happen. Too many people suffer, and don't seek care because they are worried about bills. The Aflac helps pay. Third, this is a fairly stripped down version of my last 6 weeks. I think there is a lot to learn. To give you an example, my daughter was taking 16 supplements, 3 medications, and broth. She was off pain killers in 3 weeks. We had to have a white board to keep it all straight. I would consider this an advanced health care lesson. I want to give you the opportunity to learn more. I'm not sharing the details with the general public, so it won't be in the emails, the blog, or the podcast. If this is interesting to you, you'll be able to learn more from our private Facebook group. You can get access by signing up for any of the classes at Rebuilthealth.com You'll get an email with an invite. Why? Well, if you aren't doing the basics, the advanced stuff really won't matter. If you are signed up for classes and are not in the Facebook group, let me know. You may have signed up before the automatic invites started. I can send you an invite or get you into an alternative option :) Have a great week. -Dr. Altman      

"A nail is driven out by another nail. Habit is overcome by habit." Desiderius Erasmus I was riding the train in to the office last week and I listened to this profound podcast. This particular podcast was by a business coach, who has been helping teach for more than 40 years. He said there is only one thing that separates success. It's your habits We've talked about this many times, but I think it is so important to getting healthier and then maintaining that. If you've ever done a "diet" and lost weight, then gained it all back, probably more too, then your habits weren't changed. If you've done a boot camp fitness program, lost weight then proceeded to go back to your old ways, then you really haven't changed. If you even go to the chiropractor, feel better, then quit going for a few months and your symptoms return, you haven't changed your habits. If you start an exercise program and get derailed easily, then it isn't part of your regular routine. That habit hasn't stuck. We could go on for a while, and if you pick a problem and you still have it, your habits need some tweaking. Not your will power, not your discipline, your habits. A person can be morbidly obese and want to lose weight and you can blame them for having no willpower or discipline, but that's not true. When times are stressful they have a habit of reaching for snack cakes and diet soda, instead of carrot sticks and celery. They may actually have tremendous willpower to seek out sweets in the grocery store. The willpower is just misguided with bad habits. The underlying problems still remains...the habits. What if you really want to change something? We are now into spring. Summer is right around the corner. Do you want more energy? Do you want to lose weight? Do you want to be stronger? Have you failed in the past? If you have then you didn't follow this formula. You won't change a habit and make a breakthrough unless you flow through these. #1 commitment #2 courage #3 capability #4 confidence - feels really good Commitment always comes first. You can't gain new skills unless you commit to doing that. If you follow the 10,000 hour rule to get very good at something, you'll quit long before that if you aren't committed. Courage feels awful. You've committed yourself but don't have results yet. This is the hardest stage because it isn't fun. If you decide you are going to change your diet, it isn't fun at first. Junk food is engineered to taste amazing. They use chemicals to alter your sense of taste. You won't see results right away. If you have a problem in your spine and it's been building for years, it isn't fun fixing it. The benefits of fixing it far outweigh the consequences of letting it go. You won't see results right away, especially if there are decades of damage. When I was 20 I had a big scoliosis. Now, it's all gone. I've potentially added 10-20 years to my life and saved untold misery. I've seen a patient die at 59 of complications from scoliosis. She let it go. Capability is now needed. This is the fun part for me. I like learning. You need skills. This is why I wrote the class series Rebuilthealth.com. Part one is just the basics. But, like starting with commitment, they are important to your overall success, and most people don't do them. Years ago, it took my wife and I about a year to switch our diet. Confidence in your new skills or health or fitness or whatever is the end result. You are now the master of that skill and your habits are rebuilt to support that skill. Once you do them long enough, donuts won't tempt you, and soda has no power over you. What habits do you want to change?

This post is very time sensitive only because the last free class (from today’s guest) of the year is Tuesday Dec. 8th. Since this is an interview, listening to it will be much better. It’s in iTunes under SLCSAW #27 Eliminate negative emotions. Today I have a very special surprise guest for you. This is William Wood. He has a very unique talent, and there is something that I think you guys will benefit from a lot. He teaches some very special classes, and he has some free classes for you that will help you with emotions. I just got done talking to him, and he’s got some very powerful insights for you, your future, and your health. So, I’m just going to let him talk a little bit more about what he does. William Wood: Hey, thanks for having me on the show today. I am a certified hypnotherapist, and what I do for a living is I help people with their mind and their heart. My main job is to help you get your mind set- right, so that you can achieve your goal, so that you can lose weight, so that you can feel good about your life- and whether you’re working on losing weight, whether you’re working on kicking an old habit, whether you’re working on something that really drives you- whether it’s a relationship goal, or a financial goal, or some kind of personal goal to take your life to the next level. I help you get your heart right, I help you get your head right. This whole interview, which is awesome, is online at SLCSAW.com Plus all of William's contact info

It's often said physically and metaphorically that to combat darkness you need just the smallest amount of light. Last month, I was mad to hear about the DARK act. Deny Americans the Right to Know. Once I got a glimmer of knowledge about it, I was mad and taking action. So were many patients. Last week, I showed you why you can't avoid heavy metal toxicity, especially aluminum. Today, my intent is to shine a little light under your door and show you things happening right in front of you. So here is my major concern for myself and for you. Aluminum is a neurotoxin and it can accumulate in your brain. This study took nanoparticles of heavy metals in the air and exposed rats to them and watched where the metals accumulated. Results: Aluminum- Brain Lead- liver, lung, brain Arsenic- "prominently" in the brain and blood Cadmium- no specific organs So take a wild guess at which disease is a destruction of your brain? It's also running rampant and increasing every year. There is no "known" cause. There is no cure. If you guessed Alzheimer's or dementia you win. Now, before you go crazy, let me share with you that there are potentially multiple causes and aluminum has been extensively studied. Full Article: SLCSAW.com

Maybe, the most important article I’ve ever written. I’m dead serious. It certainly has taken me the longest, and by that I mean, it’s been 1 year in the making. This article has been the culmination of one years worth of work on MYSELF. But in actuality this article has been brewing for 14 years. Do NOT take this lightly, like I did that many years ago. I’ve been in practice 17+ years and in that time the world and healthcare has changed a lot. What would you say if I told you, I could do a lab test on you, and I could guarantee you’d fail? I have 100% of patients with this problem. No one has ever passed. Not even ME. Now, what if I told you that same test could reveal a major risk factor for a disease with NO cure, none. 1 out of 9 of us will get this disease and the rates double about every 5 years. The one and only solution is to try and prevent it. Would you want to know that? That question will separate the healthy from the sick. If you are overwhelmed by that possibility of knowledge, it’s best to stop reading now, because your life will never be the same by the end. Health is a blessing, ask any one who’s lost it. I’m afraid every year it becomes more work and the people in charge are working very hard to take it from you. The only way for you to make a difference is to take responsibility for you. You are the only one who can. Back in September, I talked about toxicity and the importance of dealing with it on a daily basis and if you’ve never done that, you should do the purification program, now or next January. I have purposely avoided talking about heavy metal toxicity because I had to wait until October to get my last test results back. I was like a kid waiting for Christmas morning, nervous and excite all at once. Was it going to be better, or was it going to be worse? So… what are toxic heavy metals? Full article

The vanity quiz...Even Cosmo won't print this one. Keep track of your score 0=never 10=always 1. How many selfies on your social media? 0-10+ 2. Do you consider spray tan a BFF? 0-10 3. Would you be OK with looking AMAZING, but you have to feel like roadkill? 0-10 4. Do you look to cosmetics to change the appearance of your skin? 0-10 5. Do you forget to look at ingredients labels of Bathroom products? 0-10 6. Do you use perfumes to smell "pretty"? 0-10 0-19: You can skip to the end and start shopping online at Thrive Market. 20-39: You will want to skip to the end and go to the online cosmetic checkers. These are the best databases for info on toxicity. The FDA is worthless in this arena. 40-60: Keep reading. What's the largest organ in your body? Ding...Ding...Ding...Correct, your skin. This is an area most often over looked by nearly everyone. You are going to learn a lot about toxicity over the next few months so lets start big. If you are eating organic (good job), and cooking your own whole food meals (once again, good job), are you still using commercial lotions, shampoos, cosmetics, spray tans, lipsticks? If yes, then you're doing it wrong. You're poisoning the largest organ you have every day. Most of these cosmetics go right through your skin and into your body. Use the links at the end to check yours. The most common side-effects listed? Hormone problems...Nearly EVERY woman has these. Cancer...1/3 Women will have this. The FDA has zero power or influence to change this. You have to take back your health. For example: mascara is still allowed to contain mercury. Are you kidding me! Hair straighteners are allowed to contain formaldehyde. Hello, cancer. Read more here http://www.ewg.org/research/exposing-cosmetics-cover/true-horror-stories-of-cosmetic-dangers I know this from personal experience with a patient. We did hormone testing with her and the numbers were off the charts. She ate organic and had a pretty clean life, so I called the lab. They asked for a sample of her lotions and cosmetics and were kind enough to test them. Sure enough, they were all laced with hormones. No joke, they aren't labeled. That was 10 years ago. The makers have free reign to put nearly anything in there under the label of fragrance. A few years ago I posted a picture on facebook from across the street on a bridge I was standing on of Abercrombie and Fitch. I could smell the store from up there. These are potent chemicals. When women wear perfumes in the office, it always rubs off on my hands if I adjust their necks. It generally takes 4-5 hand washings over the next few hours to get the smell off. Here's what I tell my kids. If you wear a perfume or a cologne you will instantly turn-off or offend 1/2 the people in your vicinity. That means if you go in for a job interview, you just decreased your odds by 50%. If you smell like nothing but a clean human, you won't offend anyone. If you do nothing else today, stop wearing perfume. You'll be instantly 50% more popular. I can already hear the moans. "What am I going to wear, or use for lotion, or wash my face with?" Start learning...that's the best way to make better choices. Look here at the major ingredients. http://www.safecosmetics.org/get-the-facts/chemicals-of-concern/ So you aren't likely to change things over night. I get that. But, please be aware that you are exposed to toxins DAILY. So do something daily to combat that. #1 Eat more cruciferous veggies and greens (Kale, Brussels sprouts, Broccoli) #2 Re-read my article in March about daily detoxing. I take the product LIVAPLEX from Standard Process daily. You have to be taking care of your liver daily. http://slcsaw.com/detox-easier-than-ever-with-livaplex/ #3 Start thinking about doing the Purification Program in January. It'll be on sale again. You can lose more weight and do yourself more good in January with that, than any gym membership. http://healthyweightlosspurificationprogram.gr8.com Cosmetic checkers http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/ http://www.safecosmetics.org Buying options https://thrivemarket.com Whole Foods Trader Joes Natural Grocers ============ Hours downtown Mon. 10-6 Thurs. 10-6 Friday 10-1 Sat. 10-11:30 Schedule SLCSAW.com ============= P.S. I rarely sign petitions, but you should look at this very seriously. Tell the Senate: Stop the DARK Act! Rep. Mike Pompeo's (R-Kans) Deny Americans the Right to Know – or DARK – Act was recently passed in the U.S. House of Representatives. If Big Food gets its way and the DARK Act passes the Senate next, the fight for GMO labeling is OVER. There will be no second chances. We need a supernova of opposition right now to protect our right to know what we're eating and defeat this bill! http://action.ewg.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=2162&tag=2015DARKSenSDHP

This is a new company that I've been asked to help with on a nutritional and chiropractic performance level. But, I think if you have an athlete in the family, you need to listen to this podcast.  They are doing amazing things. Your athlete can be getting sponsors at a very early age. Your schools team could be getting custom uniforms for free. Your athlete and team could be getting a mineral water for free to stop dehydration problems. They could be getting school tutoring to help with grades. They could be getting free chiropractic care to improve health and performance.  I saw the jersey's they made for a local High School team and they were awesome and custom and half the price of what the team paid for them last year. There are many, many possibilities. Just listen to the podcast and reach out to us if you need more info. 

She does yoga, exercises almost daily, she eats better than you do, lectures on health to 1000's of people, she's written a book on health, all doctor's should read. Heck, I even contributed to the book. She runs a health food store. She's spent most of her life dedicated to health and helping others when no one else will. This lady may be one of the healthiest ladies in the Salt Lake Valley. What can be wrong? She has a severely degenerative spine and she suffers from a common human trait, procrastination and a little bad luck. Oh, yeah I forgot, she doesn't have any pain...until I touch one spot on her spine. So walking around she feels great. But, she knew chiropractic can improve health, so she has been going for years and years. Now, you might be thinking, why the heck didn't a lot of chiropractic adjustments help, or the yoga, or the exercise, or the rockin' diet? Actually, I'm pretty sure they did. I think she'd be in very serious trouble and possibly in a wheelchair if she hadn't. That's how severe some of the degeneration is. Let me back up, You're probably thinking, "what's so bad?" When degeneration happens the nervous system itself is affected and that can alter the function of any part of your body at the other end. Think, your organs, your hands, your feet, your brain, etc. Back in the 1920's a medical doctor (Dr. Harry Windsor) studied 50 cadavers "to determine whether any connection existed between minor curvatures of the spine, on the one hand, and diseased organs on the other." In these 50 cadavers there were 139 diseased organs. He traced 128 of those diseased organs to a curve in the spine, directly. So what went wrong? This one time being health conscious hurt her. She didn't want xrays. I don't really blame her, the radiation isn't good for you. I could tell there was something wrong, and over a year ago asked her to get some xrays to see what was going on. There are times the benefits outweight the risks. Guess what...she finally got them done. (with a little extra pressure :) I now knew why she could never get better and her spine was wearing out at an accelerated rate. She was born with a nearly 2cm short leg. Her whole pelvis was dropping to one side. Her spine is sitting on a slant and has no chance of EVER being straight, unless she wears a heal lift. That's why yoga, exercise, or chiropractic could never fully fix it. This would be like if your new neighborhood hired the crappiest cement contractor and when they put in your sidewalks they all sloped to the right 2 inches. It would be annoying to walk on. or... This is like driving your car on misaligned tires FOREVER. You would be mad that you have to replace your tires every year, but you CAN replace your tires. Your spine is not replaceable. This is continued online, the xrays are worth seeing. There's much more on our blog SLCSAW.com    

The point of today's class is to highlight some of those lesser known things that can interfere with your ability to lose weight, or maintain your homeostasis (body balance). Dysfunctions of the body aren’t always obvious. Have you ever heard of someone with thyroid problems? They most likely have a lower metabolism because of it. It makes it hard to lose weight. The nerves that go to the thyroid come out of the neck. Hmmm. Now, thyroid problems could be also be from iodine depletion, adrenal fatigue, soy consumption, tap water, common tooth paste, eating bread can drop thyroid output, and dieting too much and resticting your calories too hard. You may have just read that last paragraph and thought, “what are you talking about?” toothpaste? water? soy? Healthy metabolism and healthy weight is a reflection of lifestyle. Quick fix celebrity trainer diets don’t work in the long run. If you’ve neglected your body for 20 years, it’s going to take you some time to recover it and hard work. What I want you to learn is an all around healthier lifestyle. If you are this far along, I’m proud of you, you’re interested in learning. In the last email I wanted you to write down some emotional scars, basically negative talk. If you speak to yourself or about yourself poorly, you will sabotage any efforts you try and make. You could spend a ton of money on psychotherapy, but try some EFT (emotional freedom technique) first. This site has a good lay out that will help you with the basics, just scroll down to the bottom. It dove tails nicely with what I was saying about the nervous system. If your brain is working against you, you’ll never succeed. You can start with that everyday. So lets say you are an emotional rockstar. Where else can weight be hanging on? Take a quick look at this list. Figure out the percentage of problems. ==== This is a good time to head over to the blog post, because it has a good graphic of hormone problems.  

In part 1 of Weight Loss we talked about the basic fundamental that "you can't out exercise a bad diet."  After that email, I got a reply from an old patient from Minnesota. She was kind enough to let me share it. "Hey Doc! How’s it going? I enjoyed this article and what I find even more surprising is that as much as you tell people that you should do more weight training if you want to see results, 90% of the people will still kill themselves on step machines, treadmills and ellipticals. You can also tell them what to eat but if they are not specifically training for a purpose – something they have for a goal, they will never stick to that diet. It’s exactly what it took me to be serious about what was going in my mouth. It’s all about clean eating and weight training. Not Jenny Craig, not trive, Not Isagenix or whatever it’s called, just the all natural eat what you should be eating that wasn’t created by some company to force your body to drop the pounds. Just saying…I’m off my soap box now. Hope you’re doing well!" She hit a couple of key points. #1 Free weight training is better than anything else when you are trying for a fitness or strength goal. I've only joined one gym in my life and there wasn't a treadmill in site. Weight lifting can be helpful in losing weight by increasing insulin sensitivity, not burning calories. That's why it's the best exercise for diabetics. Weight training isn't the focus of this series because we have to start with basics. #2 Real weight loss isn't about a fad or a trend. It is a lifestyle. #3 You need a goal, a reason, a burning desire to make a change. Because, being healthy is work. Don't let any one tell you they have a hack, or a short cut. Most people need to learn a whole new way of living, so you need a reason big enough to get you through the rough times. You can take a pill to force your body to lose weight, heck, you can take steroids. But, there are bad consequences waiting on the other side. Most "weight loss pills" are adrenal stimulants and there is a world of trouble waiting a few years down the road by doing that. I hope you have your goal from last week. You can't just say, I want to lose weight. That won't work. You need the kind of motivation a bride has a month before her wedding. If you are one of the lucky ones that can exercise and drop weight, this isn't so much for you unless... If you stop exercising and your weight starts to go up.  There will likely be a day that exercise ceases to work so well. Today, of all days, I was listening to a podcast from one of the top trainers in America. She is now over 40 and has 7 lbs. to lose for a video shoot and is stressed about how hard that is going to be. She eats pretty good from listening to her, so there must be more going on. Full Article SLCSAW.com

We live in America where gyms are plenitful and fat to burn is also in a full abundance. A quick perusal of Instagram and you'll have no trouble finding fitness sites or before and after pictures of amazing success stories. These are inspirational and a welcome site for me, to see such an interest in health. Kind of... I am in a very fortunate position, in that I get to talk to patients every day about spinal health and health in general. Weight loss is a very common topic...very common. It has been for as long as I can remember. When I did a survey last month, the number one topic people wanted info on was....weight loss. Even from people who don't need to lose weight. So, lets switch hats. You be the doctor. Dr. You--"So, John Doe, what have you tried to lose weight?" John-- "Well, I started exercising, stopped snacking, and ate less in general." Dr. You--"Awesome John, keep up the good work." See... You know how to lose weight. This is like me telling a smoker, "Hey, cigarettes are going to kill you". They know that. They smoke any way. Here's what I want to avoid, just telling you the same old stuff, you know already. I want to delve into deeper issues. These are psychological issues, hormonal issues, and fundamental nutrition issues.  One of the big problems is that you don't just wake up chubby. You don't go from a high school athlete to an extra 200lbs, overnight.  People slowly drift of course. You don't fall of course, you drift, ever so slowly, you don't realize it. This whole series is going to be focused on the little things that push you of course. -being busy -added stress (I'll tell you my story later) -skipping breakfast -even tap water -etc... Real weight loss isn't about tricks, diet pills, special diets, exercise, or meals in a box from a MLM diet company. Rewind...I wish I could make that cool rewind noise in writing. You can lose weight with the above and most people do, but is that real? Yes, exercise is a sacred cow here in the land-o'-10,000 gyms. So, DO NOT misunderstand, exercise is good for your body, and can cause weight loss, but, it is often misused. Exercise for fitness and strength is awesome, but exercise for weightloss is inefficient. Being fit and being healthy are actually different. Exercise is very good at hiding underlying problems. We talked about it in the Chronic Pain article. In relationship to weight loss, two scenario's show up.  I hear these complaints weekly in the office. #1 If I don't exercise, I'll gain weight. #2 I exercise everyday and don't lose a pound. If you identify with either of those statements, then the month of September could be very good for you. Especially #1. People who identify with #2 already know something is off, they just haven't found it. The #1's are blessed that exercise still makes a difference. Here is something to think about. It is a very common statement for trainers / fitness guru's to make, that "abs are made in the kitchen". The full article is at SLCSAW.com

7 simple steps to pain controlOne of the major health problems in America is chronic pain. Over the age of 65, chronic pain is the most common problem. I see chronic pain every day in the office and there are reasons some patients do better than others.This is dedicated to a patient that suffered with headaches for 50 years. I'm not kidding. No one ever told her these simple things. The first step on this list stopped that headache cycle for her.This article is going to be longer than most, but considering the social impact and potential life changing steps for you, please take each step seriously. You could drug yourself, it's cheap, it's easy, and insurance pays for a lot of drugs, but take a moment to look up the side effects of pain killers. NSAIDS have more side-effects than just about any other drug.We aren't going to cover exotic jungle juices or expensive foreign underwater electro therapies performed by unicorns with scuba gear.This article will expose you to common pain theories and observations I've seen directly in the office. These are easy to obtain and do. My observations over the years have shown me that many of these aren't utilized on a regular basis. In here we'll cover.1. Mechanical control and brain chemistry2. Omega 6 / Omega 3 ratio's and inflammation3. Sugar / insulin resistance4. Excitotoxin exposure (ie...Aspartame, MSG)5. ATP energy depletion (important if you're tired)6. Vitamin D7. Water / dehydrationOnce you read all the way through this article, you'll understand why so many people have chronic pain. Full Article: SLCSAW.com

We’re going to start with getting a little healthy today in a different way because I had a very interesting conversation with a patient yesterday. She was fortunate enough to spend a month on a pseudo-vacation. She had work to do. She actually did amazing. She did great, had very little trouble. Since returning home, she’s had a significant amount of pain return back into her life.We started investigating why on earth that would occur and why does pain come back. We see it all the time when people come back from vacations. They’ll get adjusted before they go on a vacation. Lo and behold, they do amazing. They have no pains, no problems, no troubles. Monday morning rolls back around and they’re back at work and they’re having all kinds of trouble.As we dig into life and what’s going on, I discovered a little bit of a secret. That busyness is a major risk factor for health. She was busy, so busy, crazy busy and didn’t know how to be any different, she didn’t know that was a problem and felt an overwhelming compulsion to be active in some capacity, all the time. A little idle time was basically frowned upon in her family. She was raised that way and always felt that she had to go, go, go, go and never stop, never stop, keep pushing, work harder, work faster, work more.Ironically, when she had a chance to lay on the beach, do some down time with her kids, it was amazing experience. It was something that I think a lot of people struggle with. We’re going to dissect this a little bit and see if we can identify your busyness and ways to fix it. That will be later, because I did a blog post many years ago on how to fix it in 5 minutes. (It's here)----------------------If you’re crazy busy or if you ever hear yourself saying that, then you might want to pay attention to this podcast. The difference is... being busy is most oftentimes a lifestyle choice, very much like for this lady. She chose, if she had an extra 20 minutes, to go and do something, anything than just sit and be, or take a nap or slowing down. She has an amazing volunteer track record and does very useful things, but there has to be some way of slowing down and creating idle time.Other people, that’s not really a choice. But that’s out of necessity and that’s not exactly what we’re talking about today. If you’re supporting 6 kids and you’re working 3 jobs just to keep the lights on and you’re taking care of a sick parent, you’re really not just busy, you’re tired and exhausted and just trying to keep your head above water. If you are getting congratulations on being busy from people as you’re talking to them around the water cooler, then this is really for you. It is not a badge of honor to be busy because it is a choice. It’s a voluntary decision that really affects people. I am affected by this. I was heavily affected by this. I’ll talk to you about how that’s changed over the years for me.Do you actually want to be busy?Is that really part of what you really want in life? Are you feeling like you’re even forced to do it? Sometimes that’s your expectation from your family.In the end, what I want you to think about is "does it even matter"? Are you actually making something to be useful? Are you creating something to help people or better the world? Are you just having idle hands and just basically trying to stay busy without actually producing anything? Being productive is a whole different level of being busy. Busy people are different than productive people. The trouble is, and I’ve been subjected to this too, is it feels good to be in demand every second of the day. You’re so busy. It’s kind of an ego trip because you clearly are very important because you’re busy.   If you’re go, go, go and never have any down time, then you may be subject to being too busy. There’s a balance in there. What does being busy look like?1. When you lay down at night, you might be too busy if your brain basically has a thousand things that run through your mind that you need to worry about, be anxious about, to be thinking about. If your brain never shuts off, you are too busy. You’re not giving it time during the day to deal with those issues. Being busy, you never have down time for your brain.You may be too busy when:2. You can’t remember your last vacation. You may have not even ever taken a vacation. I have to confess. For probably about 7 years, I never took a vacation. I was like, I couldn’t afford to take a vacation because it would take too much time away, take too much money away, and all your typical excuses. Finally I got talked into taking a week vacation. It was a very, very scary step as a business owner. It was probably one of the best things that I ever did. Going on a week’s vacation to a remote campsite in the northern part of Minnesota. We actually were 50 feet from Lake Superior and listening to the wave’s crash all night. It was amazing. Being out in the wilderness was rejuvenating. It was life-transforming. My brain actually felt better. My body felt better. My best ideas come from idle time and just letting my brain be.If you haven’t ever taken a vacation, you have got to start thinking about doing that. You might be missing out on some of the best days, live, times of your life. Do consider doing that because if you have not ever taken a vacation or you almost never take one, you can almost guarantee, actually I can guarantee, you are too busy.3. You might be too busy if you have less focus than a gold fish. Yeah, I’m not kidding. Time magazine actually did an article about this. This was in May 2015.  Microsoft did a study on brain activity. People generally lose their concentration at about 8 seconds now. In 2000, it was 12 seconds. But now in 2015, it is 8 seconds. A gold fish can concentrate for 9 seconds. 77% of people surveyed between 18 and 24, when they had nothing to do, guess what they did? They reached for their cellphones to do something. If you are looking at your cellphone constantly, you’re losing your ability to focus. Your brain is not getting enough idle time. The early warning sign... texting in the middle of a conversation.4. You might be too busy when you are more tired in the morning. I did a whole article on what it’s like to be tired in the morning, ways to deal with it, how to look at it, lifestyle changes, dietary changes and some tests you can do. But the fundamental problem is that you’re most likely too busy. I had the same thing happened many, many years ago. I had to make some other lifestyle choices and go through a lot of supplements.5. These are things that you might say if you are too busy. If you constantly say, think or feel like you’re in "survival mode", that you’re "never caught up". Busy people, don’t intend to invest in themselves. They don’t take care of themselves. They just forget about themselves. If you’re always feeling like you’re in survival mode, it’s just probably because you are and you are too busy. 6. You’re almost always late. If you’re always late for appointments, always late for this, always late for that. You’re often finding yourself speeding because you’re late. You’re running red lights because you’re late. You’re potentially risking your life and other people’s lives, because you are too busy. We see this all the time in Salt Lake. It is in nearly every single intersection that somebody’s running a red light. That is very easy to fix. Get up earlier. Set your alarms. Being late is a sign that you are too busy and there is no good that comes from that. It’s easy to fix by simply leaving 5 minutes earlier. You never have to stress. Life is much easier when you drive the speed limit because you don’t have to worry about being pulled over.7. These are signs that you might be too busy when your to-do list is 24 things long. If you have never ending constant to-do list, you are most certainly too busy. Productive people on the other hand will probably have 4 things on their to-do list. Most times when productive people have 3 or 4 things, they’ll actually have a laser beam focus and they’ll get things done. A busy person is jumping and flittering from one project to the next. That is not the same thing – being busy and being productive are very different. You might be both creating action or activity but productive people have a priority list that is very, very short. Focus your priorities to cut down busyness.8. You’re too busy if you are constantly meeting the expectations of others. That could be your boss, maybe your customers. It could be some lazy family members that don't help around the house, but are more than capable. Guess what? You’re going to get too burned out, If you’re constantly trying to meet other people’s needs.9. You are just flat out exhausted, not just tired. The companion guide I linked to in the show notes is on being tired. This is exhausted, meaning you physically can’t get out of bed. You’re constantly feeling like everything is a huge effort. You always feel like if you sit down, you’re going to fall asleep. You just don’t have energy to do much of anything. You need to read that article on being tired and you have to recognize that things need to change because if you don’t, you’re going to be labeled with chronic fatigue syndrome or fibromyalgia or something like that. Your body basically will quit on you. Better to deal with it now. Start changing things otherwise your body will force you to change things at the least opportune time.10. This kind of an unusual one but I think it plays into a subtle trend in our society and that is being unhappy really for no reason. You don’t know why you’re unhappy. You’re just unhappy. Busy people often have distractions from reality or problems they don’t want to deal with. It’s much easier just to ding around on Facebook and check out of life for awhile. Sometimes you’re just simply unhappy and you don’t know why, you need to step back, start meditating, start taking some time to yourself and figuring out what truly is creating a disruption in your life.11. If you skip or cheat breakfast, basically because you have no time. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. People are just pounding down cereal because it’s theoretically fast. Or you’re just skipping breakfast because you have to… I have people who come to the office at 11 o’clock in the morning. I’ll ask them about what they had for breakfast and they say, “Oh I didn’t have breakfast. I just barely got here in time.” It’s 11 o’clock. You should have been up a long, long time ago, having a nice breakfast, maybe spending some morning time reading or meditating. If you are sleeping until 10:30 and racing to the office, your life is out of balance.If you’re skipping breakfast or just dumping cereal in a bowl and pouring milk on it. This is a good thing to start working on because breakfast is important. It's the easiest way to make a huge impact in your nutrition because cereal is not nutritious in any way, shape, or form. You need to be getting some fruits, some veggies, some eggs, some yogurt or something else into your system besides cereal. Don’t skip breakfast, and don't cheat yourself with cereal.12. If you find yourself not being able to say no.  If people ask you to help out at church or people ask you to help out with their kids or people ask you to do anything and you always say yes. Saying "YES" is easy. Saying "NO" takes disciple and is much harder. You are going to be too busy eventually, if you always say yes. Warren Buffett, the most successful investor, has got a really good handle on this. For every 100 opportunities, he says "no" to 99 of them. He only says yes to one. Very successful people, in general, say no more than they say yes. But people feel obligated. They feel like they have to please people. They have to meet the expectations of other people. They’re looking for acceptance. But in the end, you actually are hurting yourself. Take this to heart. This changed my perspective immensely. Did you know that researchers found out that when you die only 10 people will care enough about you to cry at your funeral. No matter how famous or beloved you are, on average, 10 people really care. To make it worse, if it's raining at your funeral, half of the people will skip your burial. Say "NO" to someone today.If you’re noticing a trend here and you’re too busy, now is the time to start looking at things that you can start saying no to.13. The last one is if you talk about how busy you are, you’re so busy, you’re crazy busy or how little time you have, this is the ultimate sign you don't have priorities. Your priorities get time. Things that you value, you make time for. All of a sudden if you have a sick kid, your priorities are with your sick kid. You’re not going to work. When you have higher priorities, you will give time to those things. A lot of times, people don’t have their priorities figured out. They just stay busy because they don’t really have a direction. If you’re starting to talk about how busy you are, then you are busy, but in a bad way. These are things that you might want to start fixing.How do you fix these stuff? Where do you start? What are some steps to changing a busy lifestyle? 4 Easy Solutions on our site, here. Fixing fatigue blueprint, here.

Start solving your fatigue problems tonight in your kitchen. Today we’re going to be talking about ENERGY. For those of you who are struggling with fatigue, this might be your show of all shows. If you’re tired and can’t get out of bed in the morning or you just don’t have that zip and energy like you used to have. Here’s a whole bunch of stuff that could help you out a lot today. This all started many, many years ago for myself because I was just tired all the time. I couldn’t get out of bed very well. At one point, it was about ten snooze alarms into the morning and my wife pretty much had to actually kick me out of bed because I couldn’t get up. That was a problem and I had to come to some realizations that I was working too hard, so I cut back on the hours that I worked. That’s where I am today. I work fewer hours and that’s okay, because I’m a lot happier and I can actually go out and have fun and play with my kids and do things that I sometimes was not able to do. Today we’re tackling fatigue, so that you can get back to your normal life. There are some other crazy things that can cause fatigue. I will just tell you from my own personal experience, I’ve had two bouts of extreme fatigue. One of them was lifestyle related. The other was actually a parasite. That’s a very difficult one to diagnose, very difficult to find. That took me a long time. But when all the basics didn’t work, all the fatigue stuff didn’t work, that we’re going to cover today, then we start turning you over lots and lots of different little rocks and looking for the obscure things. Full post is HERE. Anti-Fatigue guide is HERE.

People often ask me about supplements because they either know they need to take more, or they want to simplify what they are taking, or upgrade to something more natural. People are more interested in nutrition, in general, now-a-days than ever before. Over the past 17 years, I’ve seen a great shift in the thinking of most people about their health over all, more people are choosing organic foods, eco-cleaners, farmers markets, and most patients take supplements. I started using Supplements in practice about 16 years ago because patients were struggling to heal. I've noticed a trend, about every 7-10 years it seems to be a harder for people to heal. As I learned more, and realized whole food supplements and herbs wield tremendous power to help people, so I started counseling people from all over. It took me about 5 years to see a stark difference in patients. All of the patients I was adjusting and giving supplements to were doing much better than the ones who were just getting supplements. And so my number one rule for supplements began. “Supplements come second” I still don’t counsel people about nutrition unless they are getting adjusted. So, when people call me from other areas of the country for help, I’m glad to help, but my first question is, “When was the last time you got adjusted?” Every action in your body is controlled by your nervous system, every one. Your nervous system is influenced by the function of your spine. The University of Colorado found that a misalignment can cause up to a 60% loss of function of the nerve. How much pressure does it take? About the weight of a nickel. By their very name “supplements”, they are supplemental. Meaning they are used to help off-set missing vitamins and minerals, to help the patient regain their health or maintain their health. The reality is that supplements are necessary by nearly every one. Researchers started seeing nutritional deficiencies back in the 1920’s. The nutritional situation of America is much worse today. Those are things I think about when I am feeling bad or awesome. Yes, I get adjusted and take supplements even when I feel amazing, because I still want to feel amazing 20 years from now. So this is just a reminder for many of you long-time readers and possibly new info for those of you who I haven’t adjusted. For the best results… make sure you are getting adjusted by a chiropractor no matter where you live. #1 Get adjusted. Even if you are only getting adjusted 1x a month that’s enough for many of you to keep your body running very well. #2 Use whole food supplements. That means the supplements are still living foods not ripped apart dead, deficient, items from a national brand. If you see your supplements on TV. They are not worth buying. There are 3 main things driving these nutritional needs. 1. Toxicity: It's everywhere. Polluted water, food and air. 2. Processed foods: It's everywhere. 3. The “How cute am I?” effect. Let’s face it, people want to look good. But, to be healthy and look good requires a few things, besides new clothes and a good haircut. The glow that radiates healthy energy, good skin and an award winning smile comes from great nutrition and some good posture from getting adjusted regularly. Good isn’t good enough any more. Finding real food is easy. That includes fruits, veggies, and meats and other things that don’t come in packages. Real food is available in every town. Real food supplements are harder to find. They aren’t generally on store shelves. You have to order them from somewhere. So why go through the hassle? #1 The nutrition in most food today is very low compared to even 50 years ago. #2 The amount of processed food people eat is alarming. #3 Supplements without actual food ingredients you can recognize, are made like processed foods. They can not nourish your body. Truth - nearly everyone needs a multivitamin. There is much more info in my Supplement guide. Why? Processing of food either creates a void of vitamins and minerals or it renders them useless. Let me give you an example, “natural forms of vitamin E (as alpha tocopherol) lose up to ninety-nine percent of there potency when separated from their natural synergists, (tannins, fatty acids and phospholipids).” Annual Rev. Biochemistry, 1943, P.381 Also, in 1943, D.T. Quigley M.D. wrote the book “The National Malnutrition”. I actually have the book in my possession. On Page 54 “A study of the requirements for normal nutrition and a study as to how well the average dietary meets these requirements leads to the conclusion that the average diet of the average civilized person of the present time is a deficient diet. Civilization has brought with it factory foods, and factory foods have in no way contributed to health. On the contrary, in every case where factory foods have been adopted, health has been seriously impaired.” Nearly everyone needs to support their liver for daily detoxification. What $15,000 can buy you in testing. National Geographic paid that to test one journalist for 320 chemicals. Interestingly, he tested off the charts for PBDE, a flame-retardant chemical, ie… from mattresses, carpets, TV’s, automobiles, and even the insides of airplanes are drenched with these chemicals. These chemicals are so wide spread, they have been found in polar bears in the arctic. The EPA reviews an average of 1,700 new chemicals every year. WOW! There are only a handful of labs that can go really deep in testing. This journalist learned that some of his chemicals likely came from his mother. We now know, cord blood of a newborn can contain over 200 chemicals. He also did an experiment eating large fish. He had a couple meals of Halibut and Swordfish and retested his blood. His levels of mercury more than doubled. This was depressing, because I love those two fish. It highlights the point, that we are surrounded by chemicals. Daily. You can not escape them. Things to do: 1. Obviously, minimize the chemicals you are exposed to. The big ones would be pesticides, solvents, and household cleaners. 2. Eat foods, daily, that help cleanse your body. Bitter herbs, lemons, Kale, Brussels sprouts, eggs, etc. 3. Stopping things that hurt your liver, processed foods, partially hydrogenated oils, alcohol, certain meds (ask your MD), smoking, etc. 4. I find this is a big job, so I take supplements and herbs daily, to help. Nearly everyone needs omega 3 essential fatty acids. It would be best to read the rest in the Supplement guide.

This article started from a conversation with a patient. She's having trouble sleeping and has tried to get into a sleep study. Problem is, she can't get in for 4 months. Nice. So, we had a conversion about ways to sleep better now. One of the quickest ways to improve sleep is to get a new bed. I'll give you more tips at the end, as well.So, to add to your sleeping better knowledge I sat down with a local sleep expert from IntelliBed, Kristin Moyle.I know a lot of people who have trouble sleeping. I thought maybe we could get some more tips today on how to sleep better. We’re going to try to give you lots of ideas and ways to improve your sleep. She has a background in health. I’m going to let her talk a little bit about her story and what she can bring to the table for you today. Take it away, Kristin.Kristin Moyle: Thanks, Dr. Altman. I have a background in health. My degree was in Health Promotion at BYU. I came to IntelliBED a couple of months ago, because I feel like the gel that’s inside the bed contributes to the fact that it’s a health and wellness product. It has been something in our own home that I’ve slept on since I’ve worked here. I can tell you that it’s helped every morning when I wake up, every night when I go to bed.Dr. Altman: When you are at home, though--what you were telling me earlier--is that your daughter has some back problems. Can you tell me how IntelliBED helped her?Kristin Moyle: My daughter is 17. She is a swimmer at Lone Peak High School. She likes to be active and is an athlete. She has back issues that were giving her a lot of pain. It was affecting her swimming, affecting her sleeping, and affecting her in the classroom. There was just a lot of constant pain. We bought her an IntelliBED a few months ago. After the first night, she woke up and said “My back lower back pain is gone.” She still has some issues that need to be addressed with the chiropractor. But as far as her waking up sore in the morning--that has been eliminated due to our IntelliBED. I really believe that that’s helped her night after night. She’s doing much better with her back.  Dr. Altman: One thing that I want to be covered--that I think you can be the expert on--is how the IntelliBED differs from an innerspring mattress or maybe a foam mattress? A lot of people sleep on foam or they sleep on an air mattress of some sort. How is that different? Maybe go through that a little bit.Kristin Moyle: Okay, that’s a really great question. There are about four main beds that are out there. There’s the innerspring bed, which is your normal mattress that you would get at a department store, for instance. Then there is the foam bed that has the memory foam in it. There is an air mattress. We feel like we’re the other one that’s out there--IntelliBED. The difference is that the gel was made by a group of engineers here in Utah about 17 years ago. It was meant to replace foam. The memory foam that’s in popular beds, they spray that with chemicals and fire retardants and things like that, in order to make it a memory foam. It’s not intended to be slept on, as far as the chemicals go. There’s a lot of off-gassing that can occur with those types of beds. (Dr. Altman interruption here, If you want to read up further on off-gassing, this is a good article, It references the flame retardants as specific toxicities. If you remember, we talked about this briefly in my toxicity article, here. National Geographic paid $15,000 for a journalist to get chemicals tested, the flame retardants were very high.) The rest of the interview, show notes, and bonus sleep tips are here.

This is Dr. Altman. I am in Rawtopia with Omar. He is the owner and the master chef here. I have something very special for you because we were in the office the other day and he was telling me all about his purpose in life. He has an amazing story and I think you guys can all benefit from his history, his story and maybe a little journey on finding your own purpose. Maybe if you want to just tell people a little about what we were talking about in the office last week and how you ended up in the restaurant business. I think it's a fascinating story because you've been all over the world and you have a story unlike anybody else I've ever heard. Maybe if you want to just refresh people like who you are, how you got into the restaurant business, and really just your story and how you ended up in Salt Lake. Thanks for having me on this podcast. It’s an honor. Anyway, we were talking about purpose. Purpose is something incredibly important. I feel like we're all destined to do something that we’re sent here to do. I'm originally from Lebanon. I'm Lebanese. But my parents met in Ghana, West Africa, and got married there. I was born and raised in West Africa, Ghana, and then Nigeria. Of course, we traveled a lot.  We've went all over the world when I was a kid, traveling, living in different places, because they like to explore. But for the most part, I did live in Nigeria. Then at the age of 11, I went to Lebanon to learn the language and the culture. When I was 16, visiting my dad in Nigeria, I told him that I wanted some more opportunity. I don't want to be in third world countries. I felt like I'm destined for more things than just owning his factory, and running his business, and doing what he does. That's pretty unusual, because at a young age like that, most people are just playing soccer and baseball. They're not really thinking about greatness or destiny. Did you have some inspiration at that age? That's really young. Growing up, my mother introduced me to meditation when I was very young. I was in love with meditation. I remember I would read books about it. I would close my eyes and journey in myself. I feel like meditation really helped me personally. I was always spiritual growing up. I always prayed because I just believed in prayer. I felt like every time I prayed, it manifested. Also, I felt like I'm a little different. Were you asking the universe just in general for things, or for inspiration? Not really. No, I didn't know what that inspiration meant. When you're a kid you don't understand inspiration, you just do things. You’re just full of action and ambition. You don't really understand what those concepts are when it comes to new age philosophy, having intention and vision and all the intelligent things like tools we need in life to accomplish our goals and dreams. I felt like I wanted adventure. I wanted to explore the world. I'd been to America before. I just had this dream that I would go to America. I just loved the fact that, I felt like I would much rather be in a cleaner environment. Living in Nigeria and living in Lebanon, it's chaotic. I needed some more, you would say, order. I felt like America had everything under control. It's not chaotic. They have laws and orders. I like that. But back then, I didn't understand that either, but I just felt like, you watch Hollywood movies and you see clean grasses and trimmed trees. It's paved roads and it's really nice. I want to go there. It's like the American dream. I have actually been to America. I remember Utah very clearly. My aunt lived here. I remember when I was 6 years old, I came to Utah. We used to go fishing. The rivers were amazing and the lakes. My uncle had a boat. It was a fun time. I really enjoyed Utah. I remember a lot of times I would close my eyes and I would see the rivers here. You were back in West Africa? Yes, I was in Nigeria. We went to Lebanon. We got the Visas. We came to America. My father of course agreed with me. He said, “You're very smart to think like that. I'm going to send you and your mom and your sister and your brother, because we don't want to lose you.” They believe America is the “sin world”. It's where everyone can do whatever they want. He was scared to lose me in that conglomeration of people. They're like your chaperones? Yes. “All of you are going to go there so that you're contained. You have family, and you're not going to be lost amidst the chaos of America,” new-aged culture that they don't quite understand because Lebanese people are very cultured. They're very conservative. Is it more formal? Does it follow the rules for specific…? I come from the Druze tribe. Yes, we're supposed to marry within our tribe. When you got here, did you come to Utah? Did you go to school here? Yes, I came to Utah. My senior year of high school was here, because I had one year more to go. I went to school here at Granger High School in West Valley City. It was a shock for me. That's when I remember feeling extremely lost. I was like what did I do in my life? How did I leave Lebanon and come to this country because it was not what I expected at all. How was it different? It's a weird culture. I want to say conservative and not and you have more Mormonism which is very conservative. But then in high school, I remember people swearing in the hallways and acting crazy. Then they would come knocking on my door, wearing missionary suit's telling me about Jesus Christ and about Mormonism. I would be a little shocked by that, like, “Wait, you were just swearing across the hall the other day, and here you are in my door telling me about your gospel and acting like you just love Jesus Christ and you're following His work.” I don't know. I was confused and I'm not raised Christian. I did go to Christian school when I was in Lebanon so I know all about the bible. It was very interesting for me. Then how people viewed things here was also incredibly interesting. Not a lot of people are well-traveled. I would say I’m from Lebanon and no one would know where that is. I would say I lived in Nigeria. No one would know where that is. To me, it was very interesting. Then I remember people dress really bad. In Lebanon, people dress really good. Even an electrician dresses really good. Here I remember people were going with their pajamas and teddy bears to high school, which in Lebanon, that's a big no, no, no. We have rules and regulations in school on how to dress. Then I remember seeing men, like gothics, having black nail polish and black lipsticks. That was a little scary for me. I didn't understand it. I thought: “Are these what they call Satan worshippers, or what?” I didn't know. I'm from a small town in Lebanon, from a village. In Nigeria, we also lived in a small community. I was blown away by the difference of culture here. You had Mormons, Mexicans – all kinds of people. It was very interesting but I was very scared, I remember. Once you got through the system, I know you went to a University. You did stuff with geophysics for a few years, didn't you? I studied for 5 years, and then graduated, and got a job in Tooele Army Depot doing some groundwater analysis that was contaminated, mapping that. Then I was working with a PhD guy from Berkeley who was a part the US Army Corps of Engineers. He got me a job in Monterey, California, working with Parsons Corporation. From there, I was working with Ordinance, finding where the Ordinance were after the military practice their test bombs. I would be the one going in there and finding where they are and pulling them out so that it could be habitable again. From there, I was sent to Kaho’olawe Island Reserve in Maui. Most people have never been there because I don't think you can actually go there, can you? You can't. No, it's an island reserve for the US military. But they have given it back to the Hawaiian people, but it's under construction right now. You were doing geophysics and you're working in Maui, then how on earth did you get in to the restaurant business?  That's a big jump. Trust me, I never ever imagined myself owning a restaurant or being a chef at all. That's far from my reality, to be honest with you. But I feel like something happened in Kaho’olawe. This is where I'll start sounding weird maybe to people. But I believe that… That's why I want to interview you because you have a really good perspective in life. I just want people to hear a little bit about it. Something happened when I was working on the Island of Kaho’olawe. I think being on a place where not a lot of people have been to, and it's surrounded by the ocean, and being Hawaii in general, it gave me this feeling of, “Wait a minute. I feel like I'm in Africa again.” I feel like I'm in Nigeria again because Nigeria is by the ocean and we always went to the ocean. It was really good childhood memory for me. Being around all the fruit that I remember, like mangoes and papayas, and seeing tropical environment again after being in America for 5 years or 7 years. I felt like something about the energy of that place started awakening me. I don't know how to explain it. But it's like I started feeling more connected to nature. I was so attracted to hippies and I didn't understand why. I'm an engineer. I'm very serious. I would go to the beach and I would see these hippies and I'd be like, “Look how they're living. They're just having fun, playing drums, playing music, swimming on the beach.” I remember talking about it to someone. What year is this? That was like 2004 or late 2003. I remember going to work and telling everyone about these people. They have these weird hairs. They call them dreadlocks. They're hippies. What do they think about them? I've never seen people like that before. Of course people at my work would be like, these are absolute riffraff. They're dirty. They're scroungers, things that were very negative. I remember feeling really hurt because I felt like they were actually good people. I've spoken to a few of them and they're all about love. I said, “What's wrong with that?” I feel like just because they don't wear a suit and tie and look like you, why are they so bad? I started going to the beach and communicating with all these people. I remember I met a beautiful girl that told me she was from Israel. She was telling me how she did a movie about the peace between Israelis and Palestinians. I was so fascinated. I went and saw it in college. I was just so impressed by her. That's not very important, but that's the energy that I started being attracted to. I started realizing also what they were eating. We're generalizing about hippies. The hippies, at least, that I've met were eating food that was more natural. They were eating greens and nuts and seeds. I was just looking at them going, wow. In Lebanon, we eat a lot vegetables, nuts and seeds. I was so intrigued by that and I asked them, I was like “Can I get a book about this?”  To educate myself more about it. You didn't have any background in natural foods or anything at that time. No, I was eating Burger King and fast food. I didn't know anything. I really didn't. Then I remember I got a book called A Diet for a New America by John Robbins. I started reading it. I remember I was just fascinated. I didn't realize anything about the food industry, about the chemicalization of food, how the GMO is working around all the growers and commercial growers and about the pesticides, larvicides, insecticides, chemical fertilizers, the importantance of top soil and how the top soil is being diminished and how important the top soil is for the future generations to come. I was actually really shocked. I remember researching more about commercial growers and seeing planes flying over fields and spraying, then also all the Mexican workers that they are paying low wages and being around these toxic wastes. Their children are being born deformed because of the chemicals that they’re spraying. Further on I’m like, wait a minute: and so all this run-off water is going to the ocean. The ocean is where we're dumping a lot of our chemicals and wastes. Fifty-percent of the coral reefs are dying now. That's the biodiversity of the ocean. I don't know if you understand biology but we’re evolved from the ocean. How sacred the ocean is to me and to understand, wow this is not right. Then the rain forest: fifty percent of the world’s rainforests are being cut down. It's very intense for me. But it's like the planet is so sacred to me. It really is. I felt like, what am I doing working as a geophysicist, working for a company. I'm doing environmental work, great, but it doesn't feel good to me. I feel like I'm not living my passion. I remember thinking--working as a geophysicist at work--thinking, God, in ten years if I'm still doing this I'm going to commit suicide. I cannot see myself doing this for a long time. I don't understand this. This is not something I want to do just for money. I couldn't do it. My goal was to go back into geophysics, get my Masters. Then go back into working in oilfields in Saudi Arabia because I spoke Arabic. Then I could make so much money. Then I realized: wait a minute--it's not about money here. I was born in a wealthy family. My eyes are filled with wealth. I don't need wealth anymore. It's like Buddha. He came from a very, very wealthy family. His father was a king. He wanted to find out why people are suffering. He went out to the world in absolute poverty and lived amongst the people in absolute poverty and found nirvana. I find it very beautiful to step into the wilderness and learn from the trees and nature and from people and try to find your way through that. That's when I was so intrigued by raw food. I remember I got a book about raw food and I started eating a ton of raw food. I remember how my body felt, how my spirit felt, how I sweat out all these toxic wastes from my body. I can feel it. I remember looking into the mirror going, “Oh my God, I look like I'm 17 years old again.”I remember feeling so young and I'm looking at my skin. I'm looking at my stomach. I'm looking at all these areas where I remember I started developing some fat, acne and all kinds of weird things in my body and pain at the age of 23. I’m like, this is not right. When I started eating raw food, I just felt literally like I was 16, better than I was at 16, even. I remember when I was younger, I always had stomach aches. All of a sudden, this food is cleaning me. A miracle happened where as I was making this food, I feel like I've been doing raw food my whole life. My dreams started becoming really vivid. I started seeing things happening. My dreams would tell me what was going on in my life. It was very interesting. I was like all of a sudden tapped in a way that I've never ever felt. Were you doing anything else at the time? Or just raw food? Raw food, yes, I started eating a ton of raw food. Meditation, I started meditating too. I was meditating a lot. The discipline that it takes to eat only raw food in itself is a spiritual journey because I realize how addicted I am to processed foods and sugar. They make them addicting on purpose. That's why I want to talk to you because I want people to maybe be more inspired to eat better because it helps everything in their life go better and health is very important. Absolutely! When I started eating raw food, I remember all my friends thinking, this guy has gone berserk. He's lost it. I remember all the people that I worked with looking at me and started saying, you're turning like a hippie. You're turning weird. You're going to waste your life away. It was bad. My mom and sister, they all thought I was absolutely nuts, too. But then I came back to Salt Lake City because the project ended in Hawaii. My dad had cancer. I started taking care of my dad. Because he was in Africa, he went to Lebanon and had surgery there and came to live with us here so we can take care of him. I remember feeling like I was going to heal him with raw food but he didn't want anything to do with raw food. Then I realized, some people just don't think like that and don't care about food and don't relate food to their illnesses, or to their psychological []thinking. Does that make sense? Yes, we see it all time. I often warn people: “Your friends will think you're weird,” which I always thought it was weird, because you should want to be healthy. It's weird for me to try to convince people to be healthy and to eat better food. But that actually does happen and people don't realize that people will look at you like you're a crazy person because you eat actual raw food or just cleaner, healthier food. The other thing is organic. It’s not just about raw food. It's about supporting a sustainable environment and not supporting things that are using chemicals and pesticides and GMO product. We have been given the seeds from ancient times to cultivate it, to grow it, to tend the soil, to create compost, to create more soil. The health of the planet is related to the health of your body. Native Americans believe that earth is my body; water, my blood; air, my breath; and fire, my spirit. They feel like their bodies are replicas of the planet earth. Even if you zoom into yourselves and to your blood structures, you'll realize that there's proton, electron and neutron which is something similar that is happening if you zoom out into the galaxy and see the sun and the moon and the earth and the planets. There is an incredible relationship we have to our environment. To be disconnected from that, to me, it blows me away. I don't understand it. Do you think health is too hard for people? No, I think it’s just a mindset. I don't think it's hard at all. Actually what's hard about feeling good? It's not, but it seems to be a challenge because either there's a lack of knowledge, or a lack of desire.Definitely a lack of knowledge and, unfortunately, I realized I was blessed coming from a Lebanese family and coming from a tradition that makes food. My mom is a chef, too. She works for a really popular restaurant called Maza. We come from the mountains in Lebanon and we’re from Druze tribe. We have been living in the mountains for a long time. They came in the mountains because they were being attacked by Islam and Christians. So they hid in the mountains and they learned how to forage for wild food and how to preserve food during the winter because it's really cold in the winter. They learned how to do all this. Being in Utah, I know Mormons have a similar view where they also learned how to forage and learn from the Native Americans how to get herbs and heal from those herbs that grow in the wild. Also, it gets really cold in the winter, so how to preserve food for them to last them in the winter. Of course, they preserve food for the end of days. But for me, it’s just about getting in the summer harvesting enough food to help you survive during the winter. In the summer, it's always going to be prosperous. That's why I dry a lot of fruit in the summer as I forage for a lot of foods. I make a lot of ointments for my skin or for using camphor, nettle, or dandelion. There's so much wild fruit growing here--burdock, yellow dock. It’s pretty incredible. Did you learn that on your own or did somebody take you under their wing and show you? No, I just started learning it on my own. I started going out in nature, hiking, getting books about wild food and learning what they are. I started getting into a lot of indigenous cultures like Native American cultures and sweat lodges and learning how they use the sage, how they used to buckle, how they use cedar wood, how they use juniper berries, how they use opal and frankincense and different things that they pray with. Their prayers and their forms of prayers involved nature and using the elements of nature and the fragrances. It’s divine. I really got into all that as well. Then with raw food, in my restaurant, a lot of the things I do are very similar to what we do in Lebanon.  Tabbouli,  instead of using bulgur wheat, I use hemp seeds. Hemp seeds are a very sustainable product. It's not marijuana. Hemp is different. It's the male plant. It actually grows wild in North American. People have used it a lot to create clothing, to create ropes during World War 1 and 2. It grows, really, literally, wild and it’s such a sustainable crop. But it's been made illegal, unfortunately. Now we have to get it from Canada and other countries. However, it is native to North America. Are there any simple steps people listening could take to just start getting healthier right now? Absolutely! I don't condone veganism, although I think veganism would be a healthy start to cleanse your body. In the future, if you would like to drink milk that is raw, unpasteurized, and from grassland cows, that’s no problem because of how greens have been so GMOed and altered and hybridized. It's not the real thing that we’ve had in ancient times. Meat – hunting is a different energy than supporting an animal factory farm, which is horrendous, not just for the environment, but also on the animals. It's very harsh and it's senseless. I believe animals are sacred creatures. Even in ancient times, people that hunted paid reverence to the animals that gave their lives to them and supported their families. They used everything in the animal. In today's world, we don't really see things like that. I definitely would say stay away from meat and stay away from dairy and focus on eating a lot of fresh foods like making salads and juicing and fortifying your body with cleansing foods and cleaning out your cells and your tissues through the chlorophyll content that exists in these vegetables. Vegetables, you'll be surprised: they give you life. They have life and they give you life. Yes, you're killing them, too, but on a much smaller scale than what you think of an animal would be like. It's very cleansing. Chlorophyll has a lot of benefits. You could research it and also the amounts of minerals especially if it's grown in sustainable environments and in an organic environment where the amount of nutrients are a lot more than the commercial crops because of the organic soil that yields a lot of minerals in the vegetables. Eating fruit seasonally, I mean a lot of people, when they start wanting to be eating more raw food, they go get a bunch of seedless watermelon, seedless grapes and a bunch of foods that are not in season and are totally hybridized. There's no seed in them. It's totally sugar and it's really, really toxic because it creates an overgrowth of candida and yeast infections and bacterial growths because of the high amounts of sugar. That's why--if you notice I am saying you need to eat a lot of greens, a lot of bitters, do a lot of cleansing things just at least for one month--just do greens. Don't even do fruit. Then eventually, you start eating fruit seasonally.In Utah you could, in the summer time. We have an abundance of fruit. But we also have wild berries. Not only in Utah but, for example, in fall, we have pomegranates growing in St. George and in California. We have persimmons, and things like that are actually very tasty and should be eaten. That’s seasonal as well, even though you live in Utah. I believe in the early spring, you have like bit more berries coming in from Washington. Then you have more fruits starting to become available, like cherries. Even though they are in high sugar, it’s just in season. It's good for you because of the nutrients involved with cherries. Then during the summer, you have a ton of fruits. In the late fall, you have a ton of apples. I only eat apples in the fall. It's learning how to navigate through that. When it does come in abundance, you can actually dry it or freeze it, then use it in the wintertime when you want to make yourself smoothies with greens. You could use that. There's a lot of ways. You could make treats for yourself. A lot of people are so used to buying packaged food, which is really high in sugars, like brown rice sugar. People are like, “Oh, but it's protein.” No, it's a lot of sugar. It's almost more sugars than proteins. They use a lot of things that you don't understand what they are. I believe in making foods for yourselves, unless you really know the company and the integrity of the company, which a lot of times, you don't. What they claim on their packages is not being enforced by any law force or anything to make sure that these are the things that they’re doing.  For me, it's very simple. Getting a dehydrator is crucial, a good Excalibur Dehydrator. They’re the best. Taking simple things like walnuts. Walnuts grow here. Taking things, like for example, pears or apples or something that is growing there. Using flaxseeds because they’re high in omega 3, 6, and 9, and chia seeds and then putting all that in a food processor with the fruit and then drying it. This lasts pretty much forever. It could get rancid if you don't vacuum seal it. But it will last forever if you preserve it right. You can put a little bit of honey in it because honey is the oldest preservative. They found honey in Egypt, and in the Mayan cultures back in ancient times. Honey doesn't go bad and it's a super food. I love taking dandelions and wrapping them up and I put hemp seeds with that and red onions. I mix that with lemon juice and olive oil and sea salt. Then I put that on a cabbage with avocado on top and eat it like a taco. That's delicious and that's wild. We do need bitters because bitters help our liver and kidneys.  I like to put some nettle with that too because it's so good for you and anti-inflammatory as well. Then you could take, for example, camphor and soak that in olive oil under the sun and then make little tinctures of it. In the winter time, if you have an injury, you can put that on your injury or something bruised in your body. I think people forget a lot of those things. Then, being clean allows you to be aware and be connected to everything around you – the energy and the force. A lot of people think of God as someone out there in Heaven. That we need to pray and be good people to earn our place in heaven. Everything around us is so disconnected, like we're not connected to the trees. We're not connected to the plants. We're not connected to each other. It's very interesting to me. I feel like God to me is not a noun. It's a verb. It's an action. It's a force. It's a living force that exists in us and in everything around us constantly in the present moment. I can tell you, I'm very inspired. I don't know if people listening to this can tell that. But you have a lot of energy and passion. You might want to listen to Omar, because most people need some more energy. Is there anything that inspires you? Are there people that inspire you? Love, I think love is the key to creation, compassion. Gandhi, Martin Luther King inspires me. Anyone that is in integrity inspires me with their selves in the realm of goodness--and wanting to good things in our world, and live sustainability, and take care of our planet, and take care of people—inspires me. Native cultures inspire me, from the Amazonian jungles to the Arabian deserts, to the bushman in Africa, to the indigenous tribes of Australia, to the native Indians in Canada. These people inspire me a lot, because they live in harmony with nature and they haven't cemented nature around them and created paradigms of money and greed and war. Is there anything you're grateful for? I'm grateful for America for providing me the opportunity to be who I am. I'm also grateful for people that have the energy of love in them and the capability of changing our world. I'm inspired by children and their innocence and their ability to be so joyous and happy and playful. I feel like that's a big part of it. A lot of adults aren't like that anymore. I know. I'm afraid that the adults are basically brainwashing their children to be more like them. Eventually, they lose their inspiration in life and their joy. The parents want their kids to follow their paths, which is not necessarily their children's path or their path in life. That's what creates a lot of confusion in people. They find it hard to find who they are. Do you have any advice for people on how to either find their purpose, or get in touch with who they are, or their purpose? I feel like it's about being present and it's about cleansing their bodies. Being present with themselves and their feelings and their emotions, and being present to their thoughts, and being present to what they’re eating. I think once you're clean in your diet, then you have the ability to… I really suggest getting books like Dane Waire. Getting books like Eckhart Tolle, Deepak Chopra, Oprah or different people that talk about life in a beautiful way. There's a really good book called Siddhartha by Herman Hess, which is very inspirational. I feel like it's so important to understand our thought patterns and the way our belief system works, to really start understanding and mastering your mind. I think that's very important. The mind is the key to joy and happiness. How we navigate through our minds is very important. Learning how not to get caught up in our minds, and stepping behind our mind with the master mind, and being with the observer rather than being caught in the intensity of our thought patterns, but learning how to get out of that and being with, actually, God that is witnessing life through our eyes. I think people maybe can get in touch with that with meditation if they just let it happen. I don't think there's an intentional way to do that. Even meditation, you can be caught up in your thinkology, but learning how to be okay with that and just breathing, and then eventually the thoughts will bubble up and disappear. New thoughts will come and just being okay with that. Learning how to really breathe and being conscious of your breath. That's the bottom line. It's like plugging into the inside world which everything is one in the inside world, I believe. When we open our eyes, everything is so different. But it's all a reflection of ourselves anyway.Everything for you is pretty upbeat, pretty happy. You've got tons of energy. Were there any dark days growing up or opening your restaurant, confusions? Of course, we constantly are faced with challenges. The key to facing those challenges is viewing them as challenges and not as problems, and letting that be a way for you to conquer that and become a winner. A lot of times, we have to fail in life to become successful. Failure is okay. Life is okay. When bad things happen, bad things happen, not to take that personally, and it's all perfect for our growth. I think God gives me challenges so I need to learn a lesson. Yeah, every challenge, even pain in our body, or broken bones, or accidents – is all part of the great gifts that we’re given to awaken and to grow even more and become better people. I don't know about you but I know for me, deep sadness and pain have allowed me to create amazing art. I didn't know you're an artist. Do you have any in the restaurant? I use water color paints. No, I have them at home. They’re still not framed. But a lot of my paintings, I gave to my sister because she was the one who gave me the money to start my restaurant. I started this restaurant on $5,000 in a little hole in a back of Herbs for Health shop back in 2005 in the old Sugar House mall. I remember everyone was literally unhappy about I was doing. They thought I was absolutely crazy. Even your family? Yes, everyone. They're like “What are you doing having a raw food restaurant? No one needs raw food. Maybe a coffee shop or a Lebanese restaurant or something that people are more familiar with. But a raw food restaurant? You must have gone mad.” Also, I was buying all organic food and it was extremely expensive. They're like he's going to shut his doors for sure. I’d never really gotten any support. But when I started making the food and people started eating, they realized, you know what? This is actually really good for us. They felt different. I grow a lot of my marjoram and thyme and herbs, and I dry them myself. I also support other local organic farms. I buy a lot of their herbs and then I dry it and then I package it, put it in glass jars and use it to spice my food. I also like the tomatoes. For the tomato sauce, I basically support a lot of farmers that grow heirloom tomatoes, and I buy over a thousand pounds of tomatoes in the summer time and I dry it all. I use it throughout the winter to make my tomato sauce so it can contain the flavors of real tomatoes from heirloom tomatoes. It's very difficult in winter time to get heirloom tomatoes. Everything I do here is from scratch. We do dandelion salad as well with hemp seeds, which is very incredibly nourishing. We use a lot of flaxseeds and chia seeds in all of our food, and Irish moss for mineralization purposes. We have products here that also help assist with adding more nutrition value to your diets, like minerals and vitamins and protein. We use only local honey to sweeten our food with, or 100% maple syrup from farms in Vermont, that is very high in minerals as well. For me, the key is minerals--because of the over- growing of food, our soils are deficient of minerals. That's why foraging also for wild food is important to me, because it contains a lot of minerals in wild food that our bodies need that we’re deficient of. The only way to really get it--I mean, you go get a pill, but I don't believe everything is absorbable that way. I believe things come to us more naturally and easily through live foods, through eating out of nature straight, rather than taking that and processing it and then eating it, which is still good, but not as good as eating it straight from the land. That's why they're called supplements. They're not meant for your normal staples. They’re just to help to fill in the gaps. One of our biggest challenges is probably the under 30 crowd. About 30 years old, they start to wake up and pay more attention to health, nutrition, their bodies. If you could back up in time, do you have some advice for people right around 30-year old or just slightly under? I started my business when I was 25 but I was definitely incredibly ignorant until maybe after 30, I would say. I started waking up to a lot of things. My advice would be, for people that are in their 30s or later 20s or a little bit later 30s, that are awakening: I feel like it's very important to follow your gut. Challenge yourself. It's okay to be uncomfortable. Actually, I want you to be uncomfortable, because it's only through being uncomfortable you can really change and grow. If you’re comfortable, you're never going to get the courage to do anything in your life. That's like the pain to remain the same has got to be greater. Otherwise, people won't change. I think we're living in an age of comfort where we have our jobs; we go to the grocery store, we buy our potato chips, or whatever we're addicted to, and processed foods; we go home and watch TV; we don't read enough; we don't meditate enough; we don't exercise enough. All of these things are very crucial for our growth. But we're comfortable, so it's fine. Then we started getting fat and we get even more comfortable in it. When we try to work out, it's hard. We’re like, I’d rather go to the couch and sit down and watch TV right now because I'm exhausted. I believe being uncomfortable could be very rewarding. Exercising is actually the key to creating endorphins in your brain, so you're happy. I believe in eating right, working out right, and having a practice--like a discipline practice, like a yogi or a priest or someone that pays attention to God and creates a disciplinary way of worship. Create an altar in your house for Goddess or God; have flowers that represent Goddess and have statues of things that remind you of sacred and compassion and things like that, so that when you enter your home, you actually enter a space of healing all the time and protection. You always want to understand that there’s a lot of chaos in this world. I believe that I always see myself as a star. I surround myself with this bright light to protect myself. To protect yourself from the outside world and also to continue healing, and you don't want to pick up… A lot of people are empathic. They start picking up people’s energies and weird things. Then they start feeling crazy. I believe it's very important to energetically understand who you are as a person and as a being, and create those safe boundaries around you and always create that sacred place for you to pray and discipline yourself to work out, to do yoga, to meditate, to have that practice every day so that you're able to feel good and centered. The energy is a critical component that people often don't really get to until later on in their health’s journeys. I see that in the office, because in modern technology, there are all kinds of energy problems. There's more chaos in the world. There’s more frustration in the world. People don't realize that that actually affects them. If you could start over, what would be the first thing that you would do like if you move to a new town? What would be the first thing that you would do? Personally, I would see how I could get connected to a community. I cannot be alone in life. I don't believe we are designed to be alone. I believe that we need to surround ourselves with healthy people in order for us to be healthy. I guess who you’re surrounded by is extremely important. That's one of my next questions. Who do you surround yourself with now that gives you that support? I surround myself…it's so funny you asked that question, but I’d love to answer that question. I surround myself with people like psychotherapists and therapists. I surround myself with people that own their own businesses and have a strong mind. I surround myself with people that are engaged in spiritual practices like sweat lodges or things that further my spiritual growth. I surround myself with people that love nature. I surround myself with people that are not addicted to substance. I believe that the less we are addicted to things, the more our ability to spiritually grow is prevalent, absolutely. Is there still maybe a lesson you have to learn? Absolutely! Everything I spoke about is my journey. I'm still learning. I still have my addictions with caffeine sometimes. I feel like I'm also in the same journey as everyone else, and that we must keep refining ourselves constantly to keep on growing. I'm constantly learning how to engage in community, how to engage in sustainability, how to engage in more action and non-words. More like doing things like reaching out to schools and to educational facilities so that we're able to go in there and really change lives, and allow new inspirations to sprout in children. You're very well read. You're very well spoken. Do you have a book that you would buy again? If there was one book that you would recommend, or you would just run out and go buy it again because you read it multiple times a year?   I would like to say, again, Siddhartha by Herman Hess. I would also like to mention Kahlil Gibran. He wrote a book called The Prophet. It's actually mandatory for every Lebanese high school to have that book read, and also for some private schools. It's a very, very powerful book and it helps awaken spirituality in people. Kahlil Gibran is a magnificent writer. I think, The Power of Intention by Wayne Dyer, that's a very powerful book as well. There are a lot of books out there.  Maybe what I said right now would make sense and you would go get that. But maybe someone else would tell you, “Hey there's this really good book you should read. It is called so and so. You should get it.”There's a really good book called The Prosperity Paradigm. It's really good. It talks about instead of have, be, do, you should be, do and have. Be happy, do the things that you need to do to get where you need to be, and then have what you desire. But the important thing is to be happy first…be yourself…be present.How would you define success? Success is in your mind. Success is how you live your life. That’s success to me. Are you working out? Are you doing meditation? It's not in material things. Success is in the richness of your soul, and the depth of yourself, and the connection you have for yourself, and what you do to your community--how you treat your parents, how you treat your neighbors, how your treat your friends. That's all part of success. How would you define wellness? Wellness, I would define it in healthy brain attitude. It's an attitude. It's a healthy body. It's a healthy soul. It's learning how to integrate three things: mind, body, and soul. That's so funny, because the last podcast, we mentioned those very same things. If you guys want to learn more, go back one podcast and we'll talk about it. I have one last thing. In your restaurant, you guys make amazing food. So far, everything I’ve had is great. What tools do you have that you use to cook with? I have a dehydrator. I have a garlic peeler. I have a lemon juicer, because we juice our own lemons here from scratch. I have a food processor. I have a K Tec blender and Vita mixer. I have some really good knives and a really good cutting board. I didn't realize there were levels in cutting boards. Is that size, is it the material? What’s a really good chopping board? Of course, you got to have a good cutting board to be able to chop all your vegetables. It's the size. It's the material. A wooden one or a bamboo one is great, as long as you can oil it and take care of it. Sometimes, even that goes bad. Sometimes we get the plastic ones too, unfortunately, but those are the ones that don't warp so much. I've gone through so many boards, and it's pricey. I keep on getting them. But for my personal home, I would definitely suggest a bamboo cutting board or a wooden cutting board, for sure. I like a big one; I like big boards. Not just small ones, because then you can take your freedom in chopping a bunch of things all at once. Then a refrigerator, of course, and an ice cream maker, and a gelato machine.  I appreciate you taking the time. My spirit and my hunger are now satisfied, so I appreciate that. I hope you guys learned something. If you would get a chance to come down to Rawtopia, we are in Sugar House, Utah. It’s 2148 Highland Drive. What's the website? Any other places I can find you? It’s omarsrawtopia.com or rawtopia.com. I’m also on Google, on Yelp, on Instagram, and Facebook. Facebook and Instagram are at Omar’s Rawtopia. My name is Omar Abou-Ismail. Thank you very much I appreciate it and you guys have a great day. Blessings, thank you!

Here is something that you may not know, and a little background for the questions. Chiropractic is 120 year old profession that's been scutinized more than any other, and the largest and most politically powerful organization in the world has tried to bury it with a orchestrated conspiracy. You might be thinking, yeah right!  In 1963, the AMA formed a committee to "contain and eliminate" chiropractic. So you might want to ask, why would you want to contain and try and eliminate something?   There is a very well documented court case you can watch in the movie "Doctored".  You can even watch it for free on AMAZON PRIME.  supportchiromovie.com has a trailer and a great video with the producer.   New Zealand tried everything possible to keep chiropractors from practicing, and in another court case, found no reason that the public couldn't benefit. Chiropractic is the largest natural health profession, licensed in all 50 states. If you want to be a healthier person, we're pretty good people to talk to.    Sometimes I think patients just don't know what to ask, or what is even possible. Chiropractors don't give you anything or take anything away, we just increase the natural function of the body back to the way it is supposed to be. Who wouldn't want that?  So here is what I wish patients would ask.   1. Once I'm out of pain, is there anything I can do to prevent it coming back?   There are many things, but the most important is to understand pain and understand healing, especially as it relates to the spine. The main problem in the spine, is the fact, that there aren't very many pain nerves in the middle of a disc. The second problem is that the spine can adapt amazingly well for a long period of time to injuries, so you don't feel pain, until there are a lot of underlying structural changes.    So, one thing is to appreciate that pain is your friend. Yes, your friend.  Pain is trying to tell you something. If you reach out and touch a hot stove, pain is telling you that your skin is burning. If you are hopped up on morphine, you might not notice your hand is melting until you smell burning flesh.   Don't wait for the emergency. If your house is burning down and the fire department comes, what do they have? Firehoses and axes, right? Does it make sense to call them tomorrow and have them come down and spray your house again? Then call them again to make sure that your house doesn't catch fire. That is very similar to how many people use painkillers.   This is just one of the Laws of nature. Pain is just a warning mechanism. To prevent it, you need to identify the source of the pain and try not to reduplicate the actions that created it. This is where it gets tough because most people's lifestyles are at fault. I see this a lot with upper back pain and neck pain because people are always on their smart phones looking down. Sitting at a desk is terrible for the low back.    2. How often do you get adjusted and why?   I've been getting adjusted for over 20 years. The last time I went longer than three weeks was 15 years ago. I get adjusted just about every week. You'll be really, really hard pressed to find a chiropractor that goes longer than a month without an adjustment. You might be asking why?   It's probably not what you're thinking. I know from my own experiences and scientific research, that I'm healthier. Being pain free is nice, but that's not the core of chiropractic. University research has shown us that even the slightest amount of displacement / pressure on the nerves of the spine can decrease the function up to 60%.  Since the nervous system controls everything, nearly anything is possible. The very first chiropractic patient got his hearing back after the first adjustment. I have patients who can breathe better, instantly. Pulse rates dropping, bladders working better, stomachs less upset.  These are just experiences I see every week.    Science is catching up to the clinical stories chiropractors have seen for 120 years in offices.  This is the coolest study. They looked at how an adjustment affects the brain.   Altern Ther Health Med. 2011 Nov-Dec;17(6):12-7. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22314714   The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of Chiropractic Spinal Manipulation on brain responses in terms of cerebral glucose metabolic changes measured by PET scans. PET scanners are one of the most high tech machines used to monitor cancer patients and glucose utilization by the body.   RESULTS: (This is important to people who don't believe in chiropractic)   Increased glucose metabolism was observed in the inferior prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulated cortex, and middle temporal gyrus, and decreased glucose metabolism was found in the cerebellar vermis and visual association cortex, in the treatment condition (P < .001). Comparisons of questionnaires indicated a lower stress level and better quality of life in the treatment condition. A significantly lower VAS was noted after CSM (Chiropractic Spinal Manipulation). Cervical muscle tone and salivary amylase were decreased after CSM. Conclusion The results of this study suggest that CSM affects regional cerebral glucose metabolism related to sympathetic relaxation and pain reduction.   BENEFIT of increased brain GLUCOSE. "The key ingredient is glucose, which boosts people's cognitive performance, according to psychologists Paul Gold, PhD, and Donna Korol, PhD, of Binghamton University, and Carol Manning, PhD, of the University of Virginia. In research described in a 1998 article in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (Vol. 67, p. 764S­771S), they found that it particularly improves people's adeptness at tasks involving memory and attention." -American Psychological Association, March 2000, Vol 31, No. 3   More cool things about GLUCOSE in the brain, from the Alzheimers Association http://www.alz.org/research/science/earlier_alzheimers_diagnosis.asp#Brain "Functional imaging research with positron emission tomography (PET) and other methods suggests that those with Alzheimer's typically have reduced brain cell activity in certain regions." "PET (scans) indicate that Alzheimer's disease is often associated with reduced use of glucose (sugar) in brain areas important in memory, learning and problem solving. "   Now, what would be even better is if someone studied chiropractic and Alzheimer's.   Remember, chiropractic primarily affects the nervous system and that study documented a reduction in sympathetic nervous system.    Why is that so important?   Consequences of central sympathetic overactivity   This comes from Autonomic Neuroscience 2009, June 15 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2679852/ "There is growing evidence to suggest that many disease states are accompanied by chronic elevations in sympathetic nerve activity." "The sympathetic nervous system is not only important for BP (blood pressure) control, but is also intimately involved in numerous other physiological processes ranging from metabolism to renal control."   "An overactive sympathetic nervous system has become an identified characteristic of several cardiovascular diseases including, ischemic heart disease (Graham et al., 2004), chronic heart failure (Leimbach et al., 1986), and hypertension (Grassi, 1998). However, elevated SNA is not isolated to diseases of the cardiovascular system and has also been reported in a plethora of other conditions including: kidney disease (Converse et al., 1992), type II diabetes mellitus (Huggett et al., 2003), obesity (Grassi et al., 2007), metabolic syndrome (Grassi et al., 2005), obstructive sleep apnea (Narkiewicz and Somers, 1997), pre-eclampsia (Greenwood et al., 2003), depression (Barton et al., 2007), and ulcerative colitis (Furlan et al., 2006). Importantly, sympathetic overactivity is associated with poor prognosis in patients with chronic heart failure (Barretto et al., 2008; Cohn et al., 1984) and end-stage renal disease (Zoccali et al., 2002)"   Reread that last paragraph. I know it is filled with lots of references, but think about what that could mean for you and your family. If you are healthier, you are less dependant on the system.     3. Is there anything I can do to heal faster?    Healing is fundamentally related to a few important things.       -Your nutrition. Garbage in = garbage out. Your body needs real food and real vitamins, minerals, amino acids, etc. People with really good diets heal faster. I use a few supplements to increase the nutrition supply so my body has enough raw materials. This is one area patients could easily improve.          -Your attitude. If you want to get better, you'll do it. Believe it or not, there are people who don't want to get better and need something to complain about. I meet about one per year.           -Your actions. If you break a leg, you get a cast, right. Why?  You need to protect it and leave it alone to heal.  This is perhaps one of the toughest things patients deal with. EVERYONE wants to be better yesterday. The problem for most spine injuries is that they are ligament injuries. That means they heal SLOWER than a broken bone. Appreciate the healing process. If you do too much too fast, you can easily reinjure it and it can take even longer.    4. Why does it take so long?    This is related to the last question. Think about this, if a tornado comes through town and rips 1000 roofs off the houses. Now, your house is open to the sky, whats the first thing you do when you get a chance. Maybe after calling your insurance agent. You'll put a big blue tarp on your roof, to get some basic protection from rain. If you have to wait for a contractor, it could take months to get a permanent roof put back on.    Your body works the same way.  Often, temporary scar tissue is laid down to get you back to being functional. Then over months of time a more permanent scar is put down. So reinjury can happen easier than many people realize especially when you feel great.   Unfortunately, many people haven't been exposed to chiropractic early in life. So, patients often come in with degenerative (rotting)  joints. If you were injured in high school sports or auto accidents and never saw a chiropractor, you can easily show signs of degeneration before you're 30 years old. If you have rotting tissue thats injured, it's going to take longer.   WORK. Yes, I know, most people are simply not independently wealthy. Having to get back to a job that often contributed to the problem, can be a problem getting better.    Lastly, many parts of the spine have a very poor blood supply. Healing is proportional to blood supply. This is why a broken bone heals so much faster than a torn ligament. Bones have tons of blood, ligaments do not.    I hope this helps you realize some of the power of chiropractic and the importance of taking care of your spine. If you have more questions, just contact me online SLCSAW.com or Instagram/docaltman

This may be one of the most important podcasts I've done. How much are YOU worth? Are you worth X dollars per hour? Are you worth love from your family?Are you worth ____________fill in the blank?"Your self-worth has nothing to do with your craft or calling, and everything to do with how you treat yourself." -Kris CarrHow people spend their time and money is very telling of how much they value themselves. The body that you were born with is yours and it is a blessing. It is the vehicle that carries your soul around.Most people would agree that true health is eating more than a salad and hitting the gym. Healthy people have a...Healthy MindHealthy Body &Healthy SoulWe've talked about these concepts in chiropractic for more than 100 years. I look at it like this. Is your mind full of giving, caring, graciousness, love, and helping others? orDo you think about how to get things, one up someone, take from others, talk over some one or down to them? Is your mind filled with peace? or Angst or worry?Are you thinking about how you can race ahead of the car in front of you and cut them off, so you can get to the stoplight a microsecond earlier? or Are you leaving your house early, so you have plenty of time to drive the speed limit and not be stressed about a red light?These may seem pretty obvious, but they are common scenarios and they affect your mind and how you go through your day. For more than 100 years, "thoughts" have been known to cause the spinal problems (subluxations), I see it every day in the office. It's often overlooked because the patients first thought is that they "did" something.The stress of a frantic mind is detrimental to your health. As you let the world's problems run through your mind, the stress on your adrenal glands can decrease your immune system, increase blood sugar problems and even decrease magnesium levels. Ironically, being busy, keeps you from enjoying life and you can miss out.Are YOU worth slowing down for? I want you to treat yourself better, because you're worth it.  This could be my most important post ever, because I know some people reading this feel the opposite. I started writing this on June 4th because I had a patient quit care.  She came in with very serious issues that dramatically affected her quality of life. I'm talking, she was out of work because of these problems. In a month, 2 out of 3 problems were significantly better and she was back to work.  She decided that she couldn't afford to come in any more, even though the only reason she's making money again is because of the chiropractic care. She didn't value herself over bills and things. I rarely have people get such great results and decide they don't want that any more.I started writing this as I was thinking about her and how I can help increase every ones value of health and life. You are more than a paycheck.Some of my best memories have come from hardship, some of the greatest lessons in life, come from difficulty. I'm pretty sure that's how God teaches me lessons I need to learn. Life is hard.  I'm a slow learner. If you never have hardship, grief or sadness, you lose the appreciation for all the good experiences. It's like when I did the purification process and didn't have meat for 3 weeks. That first steak was amazing, absolutely indulgent. But, if I had eaten steak everyday, it wouldn't have that amazing affect anymore. Life really is filled with ups and downs. I experience it myself and I see it daily in the office. One of the harder parts to being a chiropractor is seeing people in very low places in life.Today, I'm in a low place. Yesterday a good friend of mine decided to take his life. So, I woke up very early this morning to make sure I finished this post and let you know that you matter. No matter how low or lonely you feel, you are a gift to other people. You may not feel like it, my friend certainly didn't feel like he was a gift, but he left a huge hole in lots of peoples hearts.If you don't feel loved in your current situation, it's time to find a new one. Every person I've met has something to teach me. That means you have a unique skill or lesson the world needs. You may not realize it, but it's there. If you don't feel appreciated, or loved, it's not you.           You matter to people, but I fear people are too busy. I fear that about my self and my friend. I had no idea he was struggling that much. I absolutely know that if he would have said one word about how he was feeling I would have been there to listen and help. If you feel like you don't matter, now is the time to talk to someone, any one that you know. They'll listen. Most people, at the end of their life, won't be wishing they'd worked more.  They often want to be with people they love and reminisce about past experiences. This was originally going to be a long post, but I think I need to give you something that will make a lasting impression on you. It made my life better. If you've made it this far in the post, do yourself and your family a huge favor and watch this speech from Jim Carrey.  http://m.omeleto.com/199433/"Your need for acceptance can make you invisible in this world"-Jim CarreyThe world really needs what you have to offer. For more SLCSAW.com

Today I have something very special for you.This is part 3 of our basic supplement series. Ninety-one percent of people, statistically with a researched data, have the problem that we’re going to talk about today. Most of you can benefit immensely from today’s podcast. We are talking about omega three fatty acids and my personal favorite, cod liver oil. For hundreds of years, cod liver oil has been used as a staple for people’s general health. Where did it all go? Many times people have memories of their grandmother having some cod liver oil maybe when they were kids. But you don’t see it as often nowadays. But actually people need it more than ever. I think maybe years ago the taste was so awful that people just got rid of it from their cabinets. That’s probably understandable. But today the manufacturing has gotten to be significantly better, and it doesn’t really taste like much of anything. A lot of it just has some simple flavors like lemon. It seems to be the most common for the ones that we sell or recommend. In recent years, the processing has gotten to the point where even my kids like it. It shouldn’t be that big of a deal for you. There’s a resurgence in interest in Vitamin D, this is where cod liver oil becomes my favorite. As people become more inside people and less outside people, there is a greater demand for Vitamin D and you can hardly watch a news show today without seeing somebody talking about the deficiencies of Vitamin D and a bazillion other diseases that it helps prevent. Most people talk about prevention of cancer, heart disease and autoimmune diseases with vitamin D. It’s not without trouble. It’s can also be one of the most most toxic vitamins. The natural way you would normally get Vitamin D is from the sunshine and your food. It goes in to your liver and it creates an active Vitamin D hormone and you get the health benefits from that. The best way to get Vitamin D is actually sunshine, but that’s not the only way. Sometimes for those of us who spend a lot of time inside, we need to get it in our diet. That’s where cod liver oil comes in, because it also occurs with Vitamin A which has a natural protective benefit. Full Post

Welcome back. This is Dr. Altman and today I have a very special guest with you.  His name is Garrett Gunderson. He is a financial guru that has a fabulous book out called ‘Killing Sacred Cows.’  He’s done numerous TV shows. and they run a very successful financial program here in Salt Lake City.  Today, I want to bring you a little bit more with him because he does something that a lot of very successful people don’t do very well, that is take good care of their health, and I want to let him kind of give you a little information on his health journey, maybe some success tips, and in general, make your life a lot better. So I’ve just got to turn it over to Garrett, if he has anything new to say, but also I kind of want to know how your journey into better health started.   Garrett: Well for me, I think it was 2005, I want to…What I told my wife, I said… It was a spa, but it was actually a week long health retreat that we went to.   Dr. A: Is this the one at Sanoviv?    Garrett: It was, yes. Sanoviv that we went to.  What happened was, I was speaking in Colorado, and at that time, I usually kept my hair short. It’s kind of long now, but I started growing it long and someone said, “Why are you growing your hair?” And so I just told the group, when I was speaking, I was like “I want to grow it and not get it cut, until I get in the type of health that I want to get into.” And this guy came up and told me about Sanoviv and so I booked the trip.    That all kick started it. “I’m just gonna immersed myself in it,” And I learned that there was so much more that I didn’t know, that I got a full kind of assessment of all sorts of different things about myself.  So, that’s where the journey began.     I’d started to read on health. I started to meet health professionals. I… I then met Dr. Patrick Gentempo went to a 3-day course that was really meant for doctors, that I got to sit through.  Then I became a speaker at it on the financial side.  So that was a big part, but it really kind of turned a  corner when my son was having some issues.  We were seeing what we could do to help his health.  Then when my wife got involved that way, it’s been a journey of navigating through all that stuff.   Dr. A: I actually have two questions to piggy back on that. When you went to Sanoviv, what was the one thing that just stood out to you, that you just didn’t realized about health?    Garrett: It seems almost naïve now, because it seems so basic, but I wasn’t mindful about what I ate at all. I just ate whatever I wanted to eat, whenever I wanted to eat it. All of a sudden, you know I was like “Oh, so look at this. This is impacting all sorts of stuff that’s going on with me,” You know because I was in my 20’s at that time, it’s like, metabolism and being young can compensate for really bad choices.  It was just starting to catch up. I mean I had high triglycerides. I had higher cholesterol. I had stuff that was surprising for someone my age. And I was definitely heavier than  I should be, but I still carried my weight well. So it wasn’t like anyone would look at me and call me fat, but I definitely had much higher percentage body fat.  I hadn’t really thought about what eating healthy meant because people eating healthy is something different, unless they’re maybe reading your stuff, listening to you. I mean a lot of people think, you know “Oh, well, I had my heart healthy cheerios,” but that’s all grains. And we know that a lot of grains cause a whole lot of gut issues.   ...Or you know I’ve had my yogurt. “Oh yeah, that yogurt has high fructose corn syrup in it” because I mean when I was... when I was going to Sanoviv, they send you a list of things like, “Hey, stop eating any dairies. Stop--especially don’t have yogurt” because I was thinking like the… The normal kind of sugary stuff that I was “Oh, yogurt’s got that good healthy bacteria in it, right”   Dr. A: Right.   Garrett: Underneath all the sugar apparently.  I started reading, “Don’t use… Don’t be… Don’t bring colognes.” Like you start realizing all the toxic things that were exposing our body to every single day. And I was just an awakening for me.   Dr. A: I know you’ve done some chiropractic stuff as well, how has that affected your family?   Garrett: Well, I started under, my first chiropractic visit, was probably 12-13 years ago. I went just because my feet were going numb when I was running.  The chiropractor made a big difference in a short period of time, and he really sold me on “Hey, you know, your body is this machine, do you want to keep it fine-tuned? You want to do well with it or do you just want to come in and fix a problem,  and wait for the next problem to happen.” So I’ve been in chiropractic care for… for a very long time.    When I went to Sanoviv, they actually have chiropractors, plus MDs, and they had dentist's there, it was a comprehensive place.  It wasn’t like “Oh, I’m an MD and this is a chiropractor”, so we just disagree with everything. They subscribe to a philosophy which helped me out quite a bit. Chiropractic made the biggest difference for my son, because he was really struggling having auditory processing issues. Chiropractors brought in the right nutritionist. Chiropractors brought in the right chiropractors that did specific types of adjustments.  They really bonded together. They coordinated and referred us to the right people, they were really were the catalyst to help us get him in a much, much better place.   Dr. A: That’s cool. I wish more people would use that for their kids because we see some pretty amazing things with kids. People don’t realize that it is even something that can be beneficial to kids.   Garrett: Yeah, I mean when our second son was born for the first couple of days, he was very fussy and so I took him in the chiropractor. My wife was very reluctant. She hadn’t been exposed to it quite like I had, and our chiropractor at that time was 245 pounds of muscle, like a big giant Norwegian looking Viking.  She was worried. But he’s super gentle and it made immediate difference. Think about going through the birth canal and all the tugging and pulling and, everything that’s happening to the spine. Now, my wife’s really an advocate for it. She’s telling a whole bunch of people about it. She’s gotten her father into it, who really is skeptical about a lot of stuff, but he’s started seeing results and my whole family is in to it now.   Dr. A: Now, sitting here looking at you, you still have long hair.   Garrett: Yeah.   Dr. A: Are you still on to health journey?   Garrett: Yeah, I guess we’re always on a health journey but… I just have long hair because in my world you have two types of haircuts. You shaved your head because then you just go and do it in your garage at any time or you grow it long because that way if you don’t get it cut, it doesn’t really look that different from week to week.  I just don’t really enjoy going to get my haircut. Plus, my wife likes it long.   Dr. A: Okay. I was just checking because to me health really is a never ending journey.   Garrett: Exactly.   Dr. A:  You don’t get to the finish line and ring the bell and go “woohoo, I’m healthy,”  I was just curious.   Garrett: It is a journey. I mean, because the body is a complex mechanism. It has got so much going on and we have so many things we’re exposed to from an emotional standpoint, from a chemical standpoint, from a physical standpoint. I look at it like, you don’t just go exercise once and call it good for life. You don’t get to eat once and call it good for life. So health is a daily journey from the emotions that we have in how we think to,  just who we spent our time with impacts our health. I’m going be on an airplane tomorrow. I think that’s gonna impact my health. I wanna get adjusted after that.   There’s just certain things that you know and what I boiled it down to is this, and I’m not saying this is right, and it will probably evolve. But one, I feel like sleep is one of the most important things that we could do for our health. Second, having enough water, because I think a lot of people are just chronically dehydrated. Third thing is, I think meditation is big for health because so many people are constantly stressed and they’re not in the present and because of that it really tends to take away from how they feel overall and how they operate. I think getting adjusted regularly, that just makes a lot of sense because when we have stresses, things are going to shut down and the body can protect us, so that it won't get overworked.    But, If you don’t release that or open that back up, then you’re going to have blockage or interference and a less than an ideal situation. I think in addition to that is getting some testing. Like that when I went in with you, you got me a blood test to kind of figure out what my omega 3 levels to omega 6 levels and ratios were. And that was a big insight because even though I was eating relatively healthy, I was eating a lot of nuts. You know I’m eating a lot of cashews. Those have a lot of omega 6’s and anti-nutrients you know, a lot of almonds. Those were what I was snacking on then. Look I’m a big guy. Those things go pretty quick and I’m like “Oh, that was actually a whole bunch of stuff that had problems”. Even though it may not have been a grain, it still had some issues. I found out that I had more information than I would like, by getting that test. And I was able to counter that by limiting the amount of intake I had with the nuts, but at the same time increasing my intake of omega3’s, and then when we retested, I was actually in the proper range.   Dr. A: That’s kind of what I want to sit down with you today is just so people understand that there are things available out there that you just don’t necessarily know. Today we’re going talk about cod liver oil and later on in the blog post and so, this would be a dovetail into that very issue.  Those of you listening to this, make sure you check out the podcast and the blog post because we’ll have more info on that test, and the omega 3 testing and the benefits of omega 3 fatty acids.   Garrett: Just to finish out the list, I think exercise. I think movement. There’s just a lot of people that they think they’re too busy for it, but at the same time, they have so much less energy because they don’t do it.   I think exercise is a big part of that. I think what’s not a big part of that is... I just don’t take any pharmaceutical pills. There was one time where my blood pressure was higher and they were trying to get me on pharmaceutical pills and I was like “Well, I think that the body actually is responding to something else going on.” And by taking that, now I’m actually potentially exacerbating that problem. And what I need to do is say “What else is happening that might be increasing that blood pressure?” and for me, meditation helped out with that. For me, eating right helped with that, exercise, doing things that I enjoy, spending less time with negative people. I mean there were several factors, but part of it is I have genetic things with my family, with my kidneys, but I’ve really adopted this philosophy of epigenetics of saying “Look, okay. I’ve got my genes and that’s not my destiny. It may limit what my overall potential is but through my choices, I can impact what my health is. It’s not a predestined event.”   Dr. A: I think you’re the perfect guy for this next question because I’ve heard you talk about the relationship between success and health / wellness.  How do you see those correlating together? The more successful you get, a lot of times, people focus more on health, eventually.  I’m wondering how those correlate because sometimes people sacrifice one for the other.   If you are reading ahead, this is the kind of interview, that is best listened to.  But, if you'd like to read more, just jump over to our blog.  Some of the questions I ask 1. I’ve heard you talk about 5 tracks of wealth before... So what would you say? Would you give up your health for all the money in the world? 2.  You talked about something called easy hard and hard easy. 3. A lot of people look up to you for advice, all over the world.  Who do you look up to? 4. If you’d go back in time, what would you say to a 30 year old? Or what have you learned about success and wellness? What advice would you give yourself maybe if you were 30? 5. How would define wellness? 6. How would define success? More amazing links in the show notes on our blog.  SLCSAW.com