8 Steps to Your Best Health

8 Steps to Your Best Health EVER!

Can you believe we are already in the first week of February? Are you following through with your resolutions? Did you make any?

I'd like to begin this post with a Tony Robbins pep talk. He has a podcast entiltled "Raise Your Standards". I listen to it every year about this time. He reminds us of how important it is to have rituals in order to change, or make progress in any area of our lives. Rituals are action steps you take DAILY.

All results come from daily rituals. If you want to reach any goal in your life, you must create strong, daily rituals. Rituals define us and we must back up our goals with observance to them.

For example, if your goal is to lose weight, you must have DAILY action steps that support that goal such as exercise, changing how you eat, bringing your lunch to work, and so on.

The same is true if you intend to change your financial situation, improve your relationship with your spouse or your maker, or build a new business. Tony suggests that we write down our goals, then write down the daily rituals necessary to obtain the goal in another column. Read the list every morning and review it again at night to see how you did. This works for me and keeps me motivated, accountable, and on track with what I hope to accomplish each day, week, and month.

Creating consistent rituals are paramount if these 8 steps are going to work for you to achieve your best health ever!

Get ready to feel younger, stronger, and more vibrant than ever...

Step #1 – Stop Eating Fake Food!

We are what we eat!! We’ve all heard it, but probably don’t quite believe it. Our bodies are literally manufacturered out of the food we consume. One year from now, your skin, heart, liver, and our entire body will be made up of the foods we are placing in our bodies today. That’s why clean eating is so important. Everyday, with your food choices, you are doing one of two things, building health, or producing disease!

The root of most all health conditions and diseases is inflammation in the body. Including conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, auto-immune disorders, and even arthritis. Eating foods that are not nutrient dense such as packaged foods, processed foods, or junk foods create inflammation.

Certain foods (like sugar, grains, and dairy) can have negative effects on your body. Low energy, aches and pains, skin problems, digestive issues, imbalanced hormones, and allergies are just a few of the conditions that can be directly related to your diet.

• Eliminate harmful, inflammatory, hormone dysregulating foods such as sugar, grains (including gluten), dairy, processed foods, alcohol, caffeine, artificial sweeteners, and hydrogenated oils (vegetable oils)

• Enjoy healing, whole, real, fresh foods such as high quality protein, fresh organic vegetables and fruit, and healthy fats

Enjoy

• High Quality Protein: Grass fed beef, organic eggs, organic poultry, wild caught fish

• Fresh Organic Vegetables and Fruits

• Nuts and Seeds: almonds, walnuts, brazil nuts, macadamia nuts. Chia and flax seeds

• Good Quality Whey Protein

• Coconut Milk and Almond Milk

• Hormone Balancing Healthy Saturated Fats: Coconut oil, olive oil, avocados, grass fed beef, grass fed butter, grass fed ghee, nuts and seeds, eggs, wild caught fish

• Decaffeinated organic coffee and Herbal Teas

• Organic Honey and Stevia

• Pure filtered Water

Eliminate

• Sugar: All forms of sugar: candy, cookies, coffee drinks... including High Fructose Corn Syrup (It's in EVERYTHING)

• Grains (including gluten): rice, bread, all flour products, bagels, pasta, cereals

• Processed Food/Packaged Food/Junk Food

• Artificial Sweeteners

• Dairy Products: Milk, cheese, yogurt

• Hydrogenated Oils & Trans Fats: vegetable oils, canola, soybean, sunflower, safflower, margarine, buttery spread

• Coffee and all caffeinated beverages

• Alcoholic Beverages

• Sodas and Fruit Juices

It is important to buy organic meats and vegetables to avoid exposure to the antibiotics, bovine growth hormones, pesticides, and herbicides. Organic foods can cost slightly higher, if this is a concern for you, at the very least, make sure to buy the "dirty dozen" as organic. Apples, celery, bell peppers, peaches, strawberries, nectarines, grapes, spinach, lettuces, cucumber, blueberries, and potatoes should all be organic. I also include kale and green beans on my list.

Contrary to popular belief, healthy fats are critical for proper health and hormone balance. Include these healthy fats with every meal. Coconut oil, olive oil, avocados, nuts and seeds, grass fed beef, grass fed butter and ghee.

Counting calories is missing the bigger picture for health and nutrition. Eliminating high insulin producing foods is the key to improving your health and losing weight. Insulin is a hormone and is the key hormone in weight issues. So, don't be concerned about restricting calories. Eat healing foods, eliminate grains and sugar, and your health will return and the weight will fall off.

Step #2 – Get More Sleep

You can be eating right, exercising, and taking all the right supplements, but if you aren’t getting enough sleep, you simply can't be healthy. Sleep is when our bodies heal and replenish from the stresses of the day.

We all know that when we get enough sleep, we just feel better, but it goes way beyond that to improve our overall health and wellbeing. Nearly two-thirds of Americans aren't getting enough sleep.

I often hear my patients say they don't need as much sleep as other people. They explain they really only need 4 or 5 hours a night or, "I don't have TIME to sleep". Sleep is paramount for good health and no one is excluded.

Not getting enough sleep is setting yourself up for sickness, weight gain, bad moods, misfiring hormones, and forgetfulness.

Adequate sleep is also shown to improve your heart health, prevent diabetes, improve your immune system, and even promote a healthier sex life!

Tips for Better Sleep

• Sleep from 10pm-2am - The deepest and most regenerative sleep occurs between the hours of 10pm-2am. This magic time frame is when most of our healing hormones are produced. Our fountain of youth hormone (HGH) is produced during these first few hours! Sleep 7-9 hours to give your body time to repair and heal. There is no way around it and no one is excluded!!

• Avoid caffeine - avoid coffee, tea, and sodas after 2pm. Try a nighttime tea. Chamomile tea is a sleep inducer and promotes relaxation

• Avoid alcohol - It may seem to promote sleep initially, but it ultimately robs you of deep sleep and changes your sleep quality.

• Eliminate light exposure from phones, laptops, tablets, and TV several hours before bedtime. It disrupts melatonin levels and keeps your mind too busy! Pick up a book!

• Create a Restful Space- Make your bedroom quiet, dark, and relaxing. Save it for sleep and sex only!

• Use Essential Oils - I have found that essential oils are the best, most effective, natural remedy to assist with sleep. I put lavender, vetiver, and sandalwood on the bottoms of my feet and I sleep like a baby. (try this Sleep Assist Blend)

Step #3 – High Intensity Interval Training -(HIIT)

More isn't Better, Better is Better!

Exercise has been proven time and time again to have direct positive benefits on our health and hormones. Exercise aids with detoxification, balancing hormones, and improves heart health. Walking is a wonderful practice, but unless you are power walking or climbing hills, it doesn't elevate your heart rate, or provide enough resitance. I recommend High Intensity Interval Training. I discovered HIIT a few years ago. I've exercised consistently most of my life. It's a priority for me. I want to encourage you to make exercise a daily ritual. It's easy to make excuses to not exercise. I've heard them all from my patients. People who choose to exercise don't have any more time than you. They just MAKE the time. I'm a strong advocate of HIIT for many reasons. Mainly because it's so time efficient, but also because it's so effective. One of the important developments in fitness science is the superior benefits of High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). Research studies show that interval training burns four times more calories and fat than traditional cardio.

HIIT uses intervals of high and medium intensity exercises followed by periods of rest. Intensity is the key for gaining the greatest benefits from interval training. To perform correctly, you want to raise your heart rate to your anaerobic threshold for 30 seconds, then rest for 30 seconds to 1 minute. (Beginners should rest for 1 minute) Repeat this at least 8 times.

Interval training can be performed on a stationary bike, an elliptical machine, with body weight exercises, interval training DVD's, and even with fast paced walking or sprinting. It really is that simple. Work as hard and as fast as you can for 30 seconds, then rest for 30 seconds to 1 minute.

If you complete 8 rounds, your total work out time is 12 minutes and you would have burned 4 times the calories than a traditional 45 minute walk in the neighborhood. That's efficient fitness!!!

• You can give up the long runs on the treadmill

• You can avoid the hour long aerobic classes

• You can cut your workout time by 70% and get 4X the results

To receive the greatest benefit from interval training, only perform 3-4 times per week. Our bodies need time to recover. I alternate weight training with HIIT workouts. This creates a hormone balancing, fat burning firehouse!

Intermediate/Advanced HIIT Work-Out (Repeat 2-3 times)

• Squats 30 sec/Rest 30 sec

• Push ups 30 sec/Rest 30 sec

• High Knees 30 sec/Rest 30 sec

• Mountain Climbers 30 sec/Rest 30 sec

• Lunges 30 sec/Rest 30 sec

• Bicycle Crunches 30 sec/Rest 30 sec

• Jumping Jacks 30 sec/Rest 30 sec

• Tricep Dips 30 sec/Rest 30 sec

Step #4 – Reducing Your Toxic Load

One of the most important actions you can take to improve your health is to REDUCE YOUR TOXIC LOAD! In our daily lives, we are over-exposured to harmful environmental toxins. These toxic chemicals can be found in pharmaceuticals, pesticides, personal care products, plastics, detergents, processed food, and cosmetics. They can disrupt the normal function of our endocrine system that controls our hormone activity. You might be surprised at how common they are.

• Avoid plastics - Rid your life and home of all plastics. Plastic contains Bisphenol-A (BPA). Replace plastic water bottles with glass water bottles or stainless steel and plastic storage containers with glass storage containers. Canned foods also contain BPA. Avoid canned veggies, beans, soups, and fruit. Find these products in glass jars!

• Avoid commercially raised meat and dairy products - These products are contaminated with bovine growth hormones and antibiotics. BUY ORGANIC!

• Avoid pesticides and insecticides - These are used in farming and can be in everything we eat from grains, fruits, veggies, and nuts.

• Avoid tap water - most tap water is contaminated with a host of pollutants. Including chlorine and flouride. Drink pure, filtered water. Use a filter system in your kitchen.

• Avoid personal care products and cosmetics that contain parabens or phthalates. These harmful chemicals are found in many conventional hair care products, make-up, deodorants, lotions, soaps, sunscreens, and toothpaste. Use natural, chemical free alternatives.

• Avoid conventional laundry detergent and dryer sheets - they contain toxic chemicals and hazardous air pollutants.

If we don't take the topic of environmental toxins seriously, we will slowly accumulate more and more in our bodies and it can lead to chronic health concerns.

Step #5 - Supplementing Your Incoming

Are supplements really necessary? Some people question if vitamin supplements are just a waste of money. Recent studies show that our food is not fortified with the proper nutrition. Even in idyllic conditions, it's hard to get the nutrition we need. With soil health declining and toxicity on the rise, we need more nutrition than we can consume on a whole foods, organic diet to tip the scales in our favor. As a nutrition coach, optimizing your nutrition status is always the number one focus.

There are 2 kinds of supplements maintenance and therapeutic. Maintenance supplements are those that provide basic vitamins and nutrients, and therapeutic supplements are for individuals with specific deficiencies. For maintenance, I recommend "The Power 3" - Omega 3's, Vitamin D3, and Probiotics.

• Omega 3- Omega 3's are considered the miracle drug because of the effects it has on reducing inflammation in our body and radically improving your health. Deficient levels can lead to severe inflammation, heart disease, digestive disorders, allergies, and joint pain. Everyone should be taking a good quality fish oil. Omega 3's come from both animal and plant sources (wild caught fish, grass-fed livestock, eggs, walnuts, flax). My preferred choice for animal-based Omega 3 fats is krill oil.

• Vitamin D3 - Vitamin D is a must for optimum health and most of us are deficient. It works to balance hormones, improve immune function (fights colds and flus), reduce inflammation, improve weight management, support digestion, and even regulate testosterone. Regardless of the numerous studies showing the benefits of vitamin D, an estimated 77% of Americans are deficient. Researchers have shown that increasing vitamin D3 (D3 is the best form to take) levels among the general population could prevent chronic diseases and even reduce the incidence of certain cancers.

Vitamin D also impacts your sex hormones and your mood. Vitamin D deficiency can cause low estrogen in women which translates into low libido. It also causes low testosterone in men.

Most nutritionist recommend staying within the therapeutic range of 3,000 to 5,000 units daily. (Approximately 25 units per pound of body weight).

• Probiotics - I believe the single most important thing people can do to improve their health is to heal your gut. You may be seeing a lot more about the power and benefits of probiotics. Probiotics maintain the proper balance of bacteria in your digestive system. These microorganisms are shown to reduce digestive issues such as indigestion, bloating, constipation, diarrhea, and reflux. Recent research has shown the powerful benefits of probiotics for health outside of the GI system. Probiotics have been shown to improve weight loss, reduce allergies, and improve mood.

With up to 70% of the immune system located in the digestive tract, it's important to keep that space healthy. The best way to get probiotics is with fermented foods like kefir, sauerkraut,

kombucha, fermented vegetables, yogurt (live cultured or greek yogurt) and apple cider vinegar. However, if you don't eat fermented foods, a good probiotic is the best option.

Step #6 – Move More!!

Is sitting really the new smoking?

In recent years, research has shown that the more time you spend sitting, the shorter and less healthy your life will be. Recent studies shown that those who sit more are more likely to have chronic pain, diabetes, heart disease, and higher cholesterol.

What’s even more concerning is that studies show that even if you exercise, its not enough to counteract the negative effects of sitting.

So, what is the solution? MOVE MORE!

If you have a sitting job, I recommend standing every 20-30 minutes. Even if you do not leave your work area, stand, stretch, squat, take steps in place, or refill your water glass frequently. I am also a strong advocate of adjustable workstations that offer the abiltiy to sit or stand. Standing workstations are becoming more common in the workplace. Frequently changing positions is the proven remedy for a healthy workstation.

Prolonged sitting leads to repetitive strains and poor movement patterns. Poor movement patterns lead to low back pain, hip pain, headaches, migraines, neck pain, and shoulder pain.

As a chiropractor, I see many of these conditions in my office. Chiropractors are movement specialist and focus on identifying your mechanical restrictions and restoring proper body mechanics. The first step is to assist my patients on how to remove the stress on the body that is causing the breakdown on your structure. Adressing sitting posture, the height of the chair, monitor, and keyboard, and avoiding long periods of stillness is the key. I also recommend Foundation Training early in my treatment plan. It is a series of exercises that builds a powerful core and healthy posture.

Tips for MOVING MORE

• Stand every 20-30 minutes and stretch, squat, or do high knees for at least 20 seconds

• Get an adjustable workstation and alternate sitting and standing frequently

• Practice core building exercises throughout the day

• Get a chiropractic adjustment for optimum joint mobility

• Take a walk at lunch

• Set a timer on your phone or fitbit to remind you to stand

Step # 7 - Managing Stress

Stress is just as important as sleep and the same rule applies. If you fail to manage stress, even if you are making other healthy strides, your health will continue to decline! Recent research shows that 60-90% of doctor visits were stress related. Chronic stress can lead to many health concerns including heart disease, gastrointestinal issues, muscle and joint conditions, and wreak havoc on your hormonal health. THE TOPIC OF STRESS SHOULD BE TAKEN VERY SERIOUSLY!

Your body produces cortisol in response to stress, and our levels increase so you can be ready to fight or flee. This CAN be a good thing if you have a family emergency or if you are running from a dangerous situation. Once you respond and cope with the situation, your cortisol levels should returrn to normal levels. The problem is that most of us live such hectic lives and are experiencing unrelenting stress. This elevates our cortisol to harmful levels and the result is a nightmare on our health. Excess cortisol causes abdominal weight gain, salt and sugar cravings, difficulty sleeping, high blood sugar, depression, easy irritation, and decreased immune function.

• Make time for exercise, it's the perfect oulet for stress

• Turn off the news

• Avoid people who stress you out

• Set boundaries with people in your life.. family, friends, or co workers

• Get a massage or a chiropractic adjustment to relieve your physical stress

• Get more sleep

• Take time for prayer and meditation

• Make a gratitude list

• Limit internet and cell phone usage, read a book

• Use essential oils - they are all-natural and can promote a sense of relaxation and calming, help ease anxious feelings, provide patience, balance, and peacefulness (try this Stress Less Blend)

Step #8 - Call to Action

This last step is a call to action. If nothing changes, nothing changes! I would love to see you implement these steps and see you regain your health this year.

Try changing just 3 daily rituals. Pick 3 things that are keeping you from reaching your goal and write them down. Replace unhealthy habits with empowering practices. Make a commitment to make your health a priority!

• Exchange the time you spend on FaceBook or TV for reading 10-15 pages of a book that inspires you, teaches you a new skill, or offers solutions for a secondary income

• Swap drinking sodas and coffee for green tea, chamomile tea, or pure filtered water

• Replace that donut, muffin, or bagel at breakfast for a protein shake with organic fruit, a green drink, or whole eggs and spinach

• Stop laying around so much and become more active, get outside, or join a gym or yoga studio

• Bring lunch instead of eating out everyday

• Change your bedtime from 11pm to 9:30

• Replace that dessert (bowl of ice cream) after dinner with a square of dark chocolate and almond butter

• Instead of reading emails all morning, take 10 minutes to make a gratitude list!

I hope this is your BEST YEAR EVER!

Wishing you Health and Happiness,

Dr. Angela

I'm Dr. Angela Walk and I am a wellness physician and holistic health coach. In 17 years of private practice, I have had the opportunity to help hundreds of men and women regain health and become the best, most vibrant version of themselves. I am the creator of "Balance Your Hormones, Balance Your Health", A 7 step guide to balance hormones NATURALLY! I am also the founder of Guardian Essential Oil Blends.

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