Kaizen Health and Wellness

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How Nutrition Affects Your Health

February 1, 2024

Food matters! What you eat greatly impacts your health. We want people to feel good and to live healthy lives. If you feel sluggish, tired, foggy, or run down, what are the chances that you’re going to feel like moving your body and getting some exercise each day?

We’re not prescribing a meal plan and we’re not going to suggest a particular diet – there is no magic cure. We are just talking about eating real, naturally occurring, from-the-earth, FOOD.

Western Medicine is failing us. Most practitioners won’t even consider the idea that chronic diseases can be reversed. As a nurse, this has been so confusing to me. It’s confusing because it seems so obvious – what do healthy patients look like, what do their habits look like, what does their lifestyle look like, how do they manage stress, how do they sleep, how do they eat? Then, what are those answers when it comes to unhealthy patients?

How can unhealthy eating habits affect me?

In early 2019, Bryan was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis. From what we can understand, chronic stress, lack of sleep, and at times a “poor diet” led to inflammation and caused him to get this autoimmune disease. We thought he had colon cancer; all the symptoms were there. It was a very scary time and it still sucks to think about. It sucks that it happened.

After his diagnosis, he was told several times by doctors of different specialties that his “symptoms would likely get worse and that he would be on medication for the rest of his life.” He was also told that “when medications stop working, he would need to have a bowel resection,” and that was his prognosis. Pretty grim, right?

So, we started asking questions. Our first question, which seems most obvious, was how is his diet affecting this disease process? From doctors, we got nothing! They didn’t know, they said maybe, they said could be – one even said, “Diet won’t change this.” This is where I think Western Medicine really drops the ball: a few (respected) practitioners looked us straight in the eyes and told us that this disease (that occurs in the digestive system), has nothing to do with the food (that goes through the digestive system). Looking back, it’s nearly laughable now.

So, we looked elsewhere for answers. The answers we got were not good enough. We knew he could do better than daily medications and planning for scopes and surgeries the rest of his life.

We dove into research, alternative medicine, met with nontraditional practitioners, and studied how foods affect the body.

Turns out, many foods are inflammatory, which is what colitis is: inflammation of the colon. There are also foods that can decrease inflammation. We believe that there is no “one size fits all” when it comes to diet. But we know from our experience and studying the experiences of others that certain diets aren’t always compatible with a person’s genetics. Many triggers likely led to this disease but we have found that there are foods that can help reduce symptoms and reverse disease processes.

We are happy to report that Bryan is doing well and is not on any medications. He is still being monitored a few times each year.

How do I avoid future health issues?

All this to say, we believe there is not just one “fix all” diet, but we do believe there are guiding principles that can lead us all to better health. This is in no way a claim that we can cure whatever disease process you’re struggling with, but we can help you implement better habits to lead to a healthier lifestyle.

Medications are such a blessing and oftentimes very necessary. Working in the medical field, I have seen that many patients are so busy with life that they don’t take time to take care of themselves, and taking a pill to fix their symptoms or treat their disease is much faster/easier than making big changes. Illness can also be pretty scary, and we (as humans) want to be better RIGHT NOW. We are creatures of habit and change can be hard but it is worth it.

Being consistent is the only way to create change. The food that you choose to eat and the amount of movement you decide to get in will determine your outcome. That choice, of course, is up to you.

Kaizen means continuous improvement or change for the better. We can’t improve on what we don’t know. But once we know better, we can do better. Book a Discovery Call today, and join us!

What if I am having problems?

Feel free to come see us or book a discovery call so we can get to know you better and find out how we can help!

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