Why would I make such a seemingly negative statement to start the new year? The simple answer is that it is true. The vast majority of normal, everyday people become less healthy and have a diminishing quality of life over time – sad but true.

      I also understand that anyone reading this article is likely not a normal, everyday person and you are therefore much less likely to suffer the same fate.  In fact, the reason I am writing this article to help to ensure that you do not.

     When it comes to health and well-being this is the time of year that people make resolutions. I have seen dozens of articles about New Year resolution pop up on social media. I have written many articles on resolutions over the years. The problem with resolutions is that they almost never stick and not only do we not follow through they can actually harm us by chipping away at our resolve and self esteem. So, instead of leading us to our best self we just get one year sicker and more miserable.

     It doesn’t have to be that way but in order to get a different result, we must take a different approach.

     One of the main issues I see with resolutions (through personal experience btw) is that they are GOAL FOCUSED. It could be ‘lose 20 pounds,’ or ‘squat 500lbs,’ or ‘run a marathon,’ or other goals regarding our career or finances. Don’t get me wrong, I think having clearly written goals is a good thing. However placing most of our focus on the endgame can be a recipe for disappointment and disaster.

     The problem with focusing on the end goal is that it can distract us from what is  most important which are the habits and systems that move us in the right direction. Habits and systems that we implement daily are a lot less sexy than victory at the end yet they are absolutely necessary. As James Clear points out in his book Atomic Habits, ‘You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.’

     Why is it advantageous to focus on habits and systems over goals? The first is that there are many ways to achieve a goal, but is it healthy in both the short and long-term? Is achieving it in that manner sustainable? You can lose 20lbs with a crash diet or diet pills but for how long can you keep that up? What other costs will you have to pay for that approach (health, well-being)? Focusing on eating a good breakfast each morning is not as exciting and may require more time but the long-term outcome will be far superior.

     Another problem with being goal focused is that you can do a lot of great work (habits) before there is any obvious pay off. Does that mean you are failing? It can take a fair bit of time before healthy breakfasts and exercising show up on the scale. Perhaps your weight remains the same but you are gaining muscle and losing fat. Does that mean you should stop? Don’t let the goal distract you from what is best for you.

     The other question is what happens after you reach your goal (on the small chance you do)? Most people slide right back into old habits and end up worse than when they started. The super ambitious then up their goals to a higher standard. This is great, but what if they systems they used are not sustainable?

     This year, I give you permission to put the resolutions on the back burner. Focus on habits. Once your new habit becomes ingrained in your life (systematized), add another one. Instead of focusing on the outcome, place your attention on getting just 1% better every day. That is the only way to become healthier and happier in 2020.

Begin with the End in Mind

In the last article applying Stephen R. Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People to your health, we looked at how to apply Habit 1 – Being Proactive. Proactive people consistently look to add to their health as opposed to waiting for a crisis to look after themselves. As a result, they are not only healthier, more vital and have more energy, they typically face fewer costly health crises as well.

This week we continue our journey and will delve into Habit 2 – Beginning with the End in Mind. Habit 2 is about knowing where you are ultimately going in the short and long term, taking a BIG PICTURE view of your health, and asking yourself what is REALLY important when it comes to your health.

Being clear on what end you have in mind is important for several reasons. First, it will prevent you from going down avenues that either don’t help or actually hurt your big picture goals. Second, it will provide you with motivation and inspiration when challenged. Finally, it will serve as your guide when faced with choices about what to do or not to do.

Let’s say you want to lose some weight. Nothing wrong with that goal if it is important to you. A short-sighted approach would ask, ‘how much weight?’ If we begin with the end in mind, several other questions need to be asked.

“What is the purpose of losing the weight? Why do I want to lose it? What value will losing the weight provide me? Opportunities as a result? What other benefits will I get? How will the weight loss impact those I care about? Is this consistent with the Ultimate vision for my life?”

Do you see the difference? The first approach MAY produce a transient short term change that may or may not have an overall benefit to your health. The second approach is much more likely to succeed in both the short and long term and actually get you what you really want.

If we took the short sighted approach to losing weight, there are many ways we could go about it. For example, starting to use heroin could be an effective strategy for achieving your goal.

‘Ridiculous!’ you say? Absolutely, yet this is why it is important to begin with the end in mind. Along the same lines as heroin – but less ridiculous – doing a fad, crash diet, working out incessantly, taking a diet drug or herb or looking for any one of the many quick fixes out there can help you with the short-sighted objective without moving you towards what you really want.

If you begin with the end in mind you know WHY you want to lose weight. Perhaps it is to have the energy and vitality to achieve other goals. Maybe you want to look more attractive. Live longer and healthier so that you can play with your grandchildren and watch them grow up. Maybe you just want to be healthy enough to dance with your spouse.

You see, if you know WHY you want to lose weight, now it becomes much clearer HOW you will go about doing it. In any of the examples in the above paragraph, taking heroin (or following any of those options) is inconsistent with what you really want and are therefore really NOT options. Different focus, different destiny.

I invite you to all spend some time to look at your goals from the perspective of Beginning with The End in Mind and I will leave you with some homework before next week. Again, feel free to apply this to ALL areas of your life – not only your health.

While this may sound a bit morbid, the first part of your homework is to write your own eulogy. Imagine you are sitting at the back of the room at your own funeral. Write the script for what you would want your eulogy to say about you and your life. What will you be remembered for? What did you value? What did you contribute? Who did you inspire and how? Spend some time on this exercise.

Once your eulogy is complete, I would like you to write a personal mission statement in regards to your health. A short paragraph with 2 or 3 sentences is plenty. When it comes to your health, what are you about, what are you committed to and what are you creating. Make sure your mission is consistent with the life vision you created with your eulogy.

Please, do this homework and next week we will be ready to Put First Things First!

While I had planned to move on to a different topic, I had an interesting conversation last week that prompted this article. I think that looking at this example of weight-loss may aid in helping many people shift their focus when it comes to their health and therefore avoid being doomed in that area.

I was speaking to a friend (who is extremely fit) at the gym who was telling me about their sister. The sister has been over-weight and unhealthy her whole life and had really struggled with weight-loss. My friend was very happy to report that her sister had begun a group program (which I am not criticizing here) focused on weight loss and had made more progress than she had in a long time. The program included exercise and coaching on diet – both great things for your health.

After acknowledging her success and asking a few more questions, I said to my friend, “The thing is that if a person is solely focused on weight-loss…they are completely doomed (only I used a harsher word than doomed).” My friend’s jaw dropped and I could tell that she thought I was a bit crazy!

Here is the thing. If the sole focus is weight-loss (and I am not saying that it is in this program), what is the best possible outcome for this person? That’s right, to lose the targeted amount of weight. Total success would be reaching the target weight. Most people won’t get there but the ultra-successful and most dedicated likely will.

What now? What happens after all of that weight that had been a cause of suffering in her life is gone? Now she has to focus her efforts in keeping it off! The elephant is still in the room and now she won’t even have the motivation of the pain of being fat to keep her in line. Even though she is now thin, she will still be controlled by the weight that she does not want to put back on. This is suffering and this is a lifetime of doom – unless she can learn to shift her focus.

I completely acknowledge the power and value of starting the journey using weight-loss as a motivator to get you started. However, if this focus does not change quickly, it results in the yo-yo doom we see so many people struggle with.

What if the focus instead shifted to having amazing and sustainable energy and vitality? That focus could certainly include weight-loss, but would provide so much more. How about to age gracefully so I can lift weights with my grandchildren? Do you see how weight-loss creates a prison, where a shift in focus creates freedom?

I see the same dilemma in health care. People focus on being pain or symptom free. First of all, some pain is a necessary part of life and being completely pain free for any length of time is impossible so you are failure before you even start!

Also, pain and symptoms are always SECONDARY to something else (like being overweight is secondary to something else) and focusing on what is secondary won’t help you address what is PRIMARY. Fighting pain leads you to a lifetime of fighting pain. It will never end. DOOM.

Instead, why not focus on creating great health, performing and functioning well and expressing life to the fullest. Will you have less pain if you do that? Very likely and when symptoms do inevitably show up, you won’t care so much.

In our office, we focus on Neurospinal Optimization. As the spine and nervous system are optimized a whole host of secondary conditions improve or disappear – often some conditions that the patient did not even tell me about.

I encourage you to implement this way of thinking and living to any and every important part of your life. Parenting, relationships, finances, career, etc. Life is too short to live in our own self imposed prisons and it is a lot more fun to be free.

If you would like to learn more about how we help people in a fun and comfortable setting, you are welcome to attend one of our Introductory Presentations on select Monday and Tuesday evenings. Phone the office for details.

While we are on the topic of weight loss, check out this interesting article and pictures comparing the average man’s body in different countries around the world by clicking HERE.

…and my updated Morning Smoothy Recipe.

As most of you already know, I more or less follow a “primal” style of healthy eating. This means I eat almost entirely meat, seafood, vegetables, fruit, nuts and some seeds. Straying from this I also eat dairy as I tolerate it well AND I leave room for frequent treats. Those who know be a bit better know that I love to live and celebrate!

Sugar Addicts

One of the challenges I have encountered and a challenge many others have shared with me following a primal or paleo lifestyle are the sugar and refined carbohydrate cravings that go along with the transition. Said another way, we are a bunch of sugar addicts! The typical pattern is that we get strict for awhile, get sugar cravings, give in after awhile and then end up back on the insulin rollercoaster. This sabotages not only our health, but any fat-loss goals we may have.

Recently, an old friend – John Markell (he’s not old, we have just known each other a long time) – directed me to the blog of one of his Queen’s classmates that has had a huge impact on my approach to eating and sugar cravings and I hope it will be helpful to you as well.

War on Insulin

The man’s name is Dr. Peter Attia and his blog is www.waroninsulin.com. Without going into the details, he is documenting his own experiment and research on eating an extremely high fat diet as a way to be healthy and lose weight! Most people think this is absolutely crazy. I encourage you to put your culturally programmed ideas about fat consumption aside and read what this man intelligently has to say.

Leaner, Stronger, and less like a Sugar Zombie!

My own experience in applying his principles is that I have lost a significant amount of body fat and the increase in dietary fat has truly been the secret to ending the daily sugar cravings. In addition I have gotten stronger (I am a beginner competitor in Olympic weightlifting). Dr. Attia is a long distance swimmer and discusses how his diet has impacted his athletic endeavours as well.

If you are concerned about cholesterol levels and cardiovascular disease, the blog goes into detail explaining and dispelling myths in a much more eloquent way than I ever could.

Please, check out what his website has to offer.

We have recently had some requests for my famous Gault Family morning smoothy recipe and I thought there is no better time to update it as there have been some changes since discovering www.waroninsulin.com. Here it is:

Gault Family Morning Smoothy

Use portions according to number of people and preferred consistency.

-Whey powder concentrate (high quality with no filler or aspartame)

– banana

– coconut milk

– almond milk

– organic whipping cream (if dairy tolerated)

– Greens powder supplement

– Fish Oil (high quality extremely important)

– frozen berries

– 3 raw organic eggs (not for kids)

– cinnamon

This is a great, fast breakfast that feeds the entire family. The high fat keeps me satisfied until lunch when I eat some high fat meat and veggies.