It takes life….to give life!

QUESTION:

I‘ve got a client who wishes to gain weight and bulk up he has a high heart rate and suffers from tremours in his right arm and hand his diet consist of nourishments drinks and protein weight gain drinks along side a normal healthy diet. i suggested that he should have his thyroid gland checked out do you have any suggestions? Thanks

 Answer:

There is a lot that you can recommend or even do with your client, but some of it may be out of your scope of practice. Here are my recommendations in no particular order:

1. The foundation of life is food, good quality food. Without it, the body will not function properly, heal properly and dysfunctions will arise. As Paul Chek says, “you are what you eat!” My first recommendation would be to either educate him about food quality or refer him out to a holistic nutritionist, CHEK NLC practitioner, or someone else in the field that can accomplish this.

 Most protein shakes and so called health drinks are mostly sugar, also filled with synthetic vitamins, minerals and nutrients that are a huge stress to the body. This has a large impact on the gut, causing inflammation, as well as creating an insulin and cortisol spike them crash. The pancreas and adrenal glands take the body for a roller coaster ride each day. So if he is experiencing highs and lows, fatigue, or GI discomfort, this is where it is coming from. There is a lot more to this, but to make a long story short, I would recommend: 

1. eating organic foods

2. staying away from sugars, flour, table salt, gluten containing grains and pasteurized milk

3. if he can’t pronounce an ingredient, don’t eat it

4. if he wants to eat something and it has a shelf life, don’t eat it

5. if it was not here 10,000 yrs ago, don’t eat it

6. drink half his body weight in ounces of water per day

7. stay away from microwaves

 Anytime someone is trying to put more energy into their body’s bank account, it takes life and energy. Non-foods, such as protein drinks, bars, boxed foods, etc take more energy away than they give. It takes life to give life!   

When trying to gain weight, the most important thing in regards to exercise is the variables in the program design. You want to make sure you take him through the stability, strength and power paradigm in order to facilitate his success. I don’t know much about your client, but in a general sense, most strength and weight gaining programs with have intensity’s of 75%+, reps between 8-12, and faster tempos (maybe a 101, etc). A great place to learn more about this is by reading any book by Charles Poliquin.

Anytime the body is under stress and it is releasing catabolic hormones such as insulin and cortisol, the body is going to be broken down. Make sure he is getting enough rest on his off days, not over training when he is working out, that he is getting enough sleep to repair and regenerate, as well as working on adapting stress relief principles into his day to reduce the amount of stress during the day.

In regards to lab tests, there are a lot of functional medicine practitioners out there which he can use. Most are out of pocket, but the results are impeccable. If he does not want to pay out of pocket, I would recommend getting a gut test and/or adrenal stress test. This will tell you exactly what is going on in order for someone to treat it. There are so many other labs that I would recommend and this recommendation is in the future if he is not getting results from the above. The reason I mention an adrenal test and not thyroid is because there is lots of research by Lee, Simpson, and Peate proving that anytime the adrenals are under a state of stress, the body’s master regulator of metabolism (thyroid) will slow down in order to protect the body. Not always, but you see most people with thyroid issues as the byproduct of an adrenal issue, estrogen dominance issue and so forth.

1. Supplement recommendations: adrenal support herbs (through herb pharm or bio-health diagnostics), 4000mg of Cod Liver oil each day (natural anti-inflammatory), eating balanced organic meals throughout the day, and DHEA and pregnenolone only if he is tested and his levels indicate that he needs them.

 Joshua Rubinwww.eastwesthealing.com 

The body is the mind in action!

QUESTION:

I have a teen client who can’t eat more than 1100 calories a day without gaining 3-4 pounds in a day. She does an hour cardio and strength training everyday. She is 5′6″ and weighs 132. Her ideal weight is 125. She eats very healthy. I assumed it was her thyroid; but after having it checked her TSH is below 2.5. Any suggestions?  

Answer:

This is the common theme of most Americans these days. We see either most people eating lots of CRAP (Caffiene, Refined/Processed foods, Alcohol or Aspartame and Pasteurized Milk) foods within some fad diet program or cutting calories back in order to loose weight. I can tell you from my clinical experiences, that neither one works. Remember, it takes life to give life! The body actually needs about 1500 calories a day just to survive. The body is a fine tuned piece of machinery that needs the right amount of energy in order for things to happen, be produced, eliminated and so forth. So we actually need more than 1500 calories when we are active, are in school and thinking a lot, have kids, are pregnant and so forth in order to keep up with the demands of what we are doing. The Chinese believe that the more we think, the more we use our spleen (which makes qi and blood) and the more qi and blood deficient we become. This can lead to a lot of issues, but internal stagnation being one of them. Which in TCM, excess weight is typically due to qi or blood stagnation.  The thing I see most is that most people yo-yo diet.

There are many downfalls to this:

1. You don’t learn anything from dieting. All you learn is how to imprison yourself for 3-6 months. Nutrition is a lifestyle that needs to be taught so one can apply it for a lifetime!
2. You create more lipogenic enzymes (fat storing) each time you diet
3. You decrease the number of lipolytic enzymes (fat burning) each time you diet
4. You create increase in the size of fat cells
5. You decrease lean body mass and basal metabolic rate
6. Each diet makes it harder to restore normal basal metabolic rate
7. You create insulin and blood sugar handling problems, which most of the time creates fat storage and hypoglycemic symptoms = cravings!
8. Any time insulin goes up, estrogen goes up, which creates estrogen dominance (not enough progesterone to oppose estrogen). You can read up on this by reading work done by Ray Peate (www.raypeate.com).
9. With dieting, which is a stress, the body converts more hormonal precursors (cholesterol and pregnenolone) to cortisol, than to progesterone. This leads to estrogen dominance, which leads to excess weight around the midsection and gluteal cleft area (according to Charles Poliquin, this is where there are a lot of estrogen receptors). Estrogen is stored and produces in fat cells. The more you have or the more dominant you are with estrogen, the harder it is to loose fat.
10. With dieting, which is a stress, more cortisol is released. When cortisol goes up, insulin goes up to protect the body. Both of these are convert glucose into fat =fat storing hormones.
11. With dieting, most decrease the amount of protein intake. The liver needs protein in order to detoxify estrogen. Estrogen inhibits T4 to T3 conversion, which slows down the thyroid and metabolism.
12. Most people decrease the amount of good fat when dieting. You can’t get fat from eating fat. Fat requires bile to be broken down, not insulin (which is a fat storing hormone). It actually takes fat to loose fat!

 Eating, life and nutrition is supposed to be fun. I personally feel that most Americans have turned eating into their own prison. You can’t eat this, you must do that, shame for eating this, shame for doing that. How fun does that sound? The goal here is fun, that is what life is all about. It should be celebrated and not just lived! It is impossible to loose weight and keep it off while cutting calories. The more you cut, the more stress it is, the more you body will eat itself, the more your hormones will be out of flux, the more fat storing hormones are released in order to keep fuel (fat) for the body, and the more you tell you thyroid to slow down as a protective mechanism in order for the body to keep what little fuel it has to live on.  In the beginning it will be tough. She might gain weight, but in the end she will loose a bunch and keep it off. You need to educate her on how to eat and how to live, not how to cut calories. Loosing weight is all about the physiology in your body and getting healthy within. That will create the body she wants.  As for the lab test, well if they did not run a full thyroid lab and test for everything, than it was a waste of time. Just testing TSH, which is released by the pituitary to signal the thyroid to turn on, is not valid.

Here is why:

1. Most are blood tests that are done to be cost effective. Most of the function of the thyroid cells happens inside the mitochondria out of reach of standard tests.
2. The thyroid might be inhibited by adrenal stress or if one is estrogen dominant. So the thyroid typically just ignores the signal from the pituitary. So one might show up with high levels of TSH, because the pituitary keeps releasing TSH so the thyroid will respond or vice versa.
3. The thyroid does much more than just release TSH, according to Rothfeld in Thyroid Balance, total T4, FT4, total T3, FT3, rT3, TBG, RAUI, antithyroid microsomal antibodies and anti-TPO antibodies need to be tested as well in order to get a true function of what they thyroid is doing.
4. Some will disagree, but from my experience, I find most have thyroid issues as the byproduct of an adrenal gland issue or from being estrogen dominance. This can come from many areas such as poor nutrition, stress, the birth control pill and so forth.

 Here is what I would do to get her on track:

1. Find someone that can run some labs on her. She would want to do an adrenal test and full female hormone profile. You can sue the company BioHealth Diagnostics (www.biodia.com).
2. Begin educating her that you have to get healthy to loose weight, not loose weight to get health. Some resources you can use are local Holistic Health Practitioners, CHEK Nutrition and Lifestyle Coach, www.mercola.com, finding a Metabolic Typing Advisor (www.metaboliced.com) or to a skilled nutritionist that is schooled more in the holistic aspect of healing. There is more to health and loosing weight, than just nutrition.

Joshua Rubin

www.eastwesthealing.com

Exercise: Flexion-Extension Imbalance

QUESTION:

I was hoping you could help me with this…my client came down with a virus about 2 weeks ago. He just resumed weight training this week, and he noticed that his pulling muscles are as strong as ever (he can row, chin, and lat pull as much as he did before the virus). But his pushing strength has really been affected by the virus. He can’t bench or dip as much as he could before the virus. I’ve never heard of viruses affecting one muscle group more than another. I though viruses have a systemic affect. Have you guys ever heard of a similar situation? Any ideas on how to better explain this strength discrepancy to my client would be appreciated.   

ANSWER:

In all my years of working in hospitals and rehabilitation centers, I have never heard of one particular virus affecting one group of muscles and not the others. Of course there are certain diseases that do, but in this situation I can’t pinpoint anything to it. In most cases such as this, I personally feel it is more of a psychological experience, more than anything else.  When we become sick, there are a lot of things physiologically, physically, nutritionally, etc that can affect us during, as well as after we recover. Certain things you need to look into are: did your client lay in bed for 2 weeks, was he sitting on a couch, did he work,  what did he or not eat, what did he or not drink, etc.? These things will play a big part in answering some of your questions.  

We have muscles in our body that are phasic:

1. fast twitch
2. prone to inhibition
3. mostly used for movement
4. have early susceptibility to fatigue
5. react to faulty loading by weakening

 As well as that are tonic:

1. slow twitch
2. prone to hyperactivity
3. mostly postural muscles
4. have high endurance threshold
5. react to faulty loading by shortening

 So, when your client was sick with this “virus,” if you look at the above most of his phasic musculature became short and tight and his tonic became lengthened. This creates a flexion/extension imbalance throughout the entire body. Thus, when working out most will use their global movement muscles for everything, negating the important use of the tonic postural system. This could be giving him the psychological experience that he is stronger. Another area to think about is the most Americans do have a flexion/extension balance in the body, secondary to working more and moving less. So we see most Americans hunched over at their desks all day and when they get up, they look the same. So you see people with Upper Cross Syndromes walking around with more short thoracic flexors and short cervical extensors and elongated long thoracic extensors and deep cervical flexors.  In the case of your client, maybe taking time off during his sick state allowed his overly shortened muscles to relax, giving him more ROM and use of his extensor muscles. Thus providing him with the experience that he is stronger, but in reality he just has increased ROM. Just a thought that might make sense. One more idea is this; most people over train and think more is better. Maybe taking time off gave his body the rest it needed to recover so he is actually at his potential. Maybe he is working out too much which is creating pattern overload, lack of recovery and pulling him away from his potential?

Joshua Rubin

www.eastwesthealing.com

Atlas assessment: Marching Test

Question:

A friend of mine recently visited a personal trainer at her local gym. As part of her assessment she was was asked to march on the spot with her eyes closed. She found that she moved some distance froward and turned to the right. She came away unsure as to what the test was for? Can you help?

ANSWER:

The test you are talking about is actually a Upper Cervical Spine evaluation for the atlas or atlantoaxial complex. This test should not be used by itself and must be used in conjunction with many other tests, such as ROM of the cervical spine, assessment of the odontoid and apical ligaments, assessment of the vertebral artery, supine and standing palpation tests of the atlas, as well as many other upper cervical proprioception tests, full kinetic chain assessments (breathing, jaw, shoulder, nose, hearing, vision, cervical spine, entire body, pelvis and so forth) and X-Rays. What I am actually saying is that one should not perform this test unless for one they are licensed to, fully understand the atlas, as well as its affect on the entire body.  There are many other things that should be done when doing this test. It is a proprioception test, so it must be done with a blind fold and earmuffs as well, within a quiet/low lit environment. The atlas is a very complex structure that can create dysfunction through the entire body. Erikson states in Upper Cervical Subluxation Complex that through research that most people that have some type of back pain actually have a subluxed atlas. This is secondary to the pull of the dentate ligaments on the dura mater of the cord, which is closely related in orientation to the spinocerebellar and spinothalmic tracts (pain, temperature, joint and muscle movement, etc). As well, within the dorsal aspect of the cord, the lumbar and sacral innervations are most caudal, which would be affected by the pull of the dentate ligaments.  

Due to all the neurovascular structures that run through, attach to and run around this structure, you might see someone move forward, to the right, to the left, etc. This should be correlated with many other assessments, but as well it is not always an atlas issue.  If someone has a disc derangement, they will move away from the pain (same goes for a nerve root irritation). If someone has a postural imbalance (for example, scoliosis), they might move away or even towards the imbalance. There are many other reasons, but you can see how this test alone is not conclusive. As a CHEK Level 4, we are skilled in assessing this, as well as we use N.U.C.C.A Chiropractors for adjustment of this. We come into play to assist with the assessment, but designing programs to help the atlas stick in place. My first recommendation with any client that you suspect of having an atlas issue or that you feel is out of your league, refer them out or refer them to an N.U.C.C.A Chiropractor if you have any suspicions it is the atlas.

It is great that trainers want to add assessments to their process, which I feel adds a lot of value. But make sure that you just don’t know how to do the assessment, but being able to correlate the results to anatomy and other assessments. To read more on atlas and its complexity, you can read Upper Cervical Subluxation Complex by Erikson.  What to do?

1. Read up so you know exactly what you are doing
2. Refer out, when in doubt

 Joshua Rubinwww.eastwesthealing.com 

Should I juice in the morning?

Is it good to juice fruit and veggies in the morning?

Remember, these thoughts are my approach. I am not saying that juicing does not work for some or have its purpose, but it is not something I use in my practice for the reasons below. We are human beings that are meant to eat food, not drink it. Try eating all the veggies and fruit that go into your drink, you might have a hard time getting it all down. Then why do we drink it?

I don’t reccommend juicing in the morning, unless you have some after a meal. Small amounts are OK, but here is my reasoning for why not:

1. You are dehydrated and hypoglycemic from sleeping all night. This is a big stress and causes low insulin and blood sugar levels and elevated cortisol levels. If you wake up and have juice first, your insulin levels will spike along with your cortisol levels. Before you body has a chance to regulate this, they drop and your body release blood sugar to compensate. So you are setting your self up for a roller coaster of a ride hormonally all day, as well as starting off the day by releasing large amounts of fat storing hormones.

2. You have to figure that a lot of veggies and fruit actually go into one drink. You could not actually sit down and eat all that food. So why drink all that food? It is a huge stress to the body.

3. Sugar is sugar is sugar is sugar. With juicing, you are taking in A LOT of sugar at once.

The best thing to do would be to wake up, drink 1-2 glasses of water, eat your meal and then if you really want to juice, have half the amount and see how you feel from there.

Joshua Rubin

www.eastwesthealing.com