Olympic Thoughts.

Fundamentally what do you believe? Watching the 2018 Winter Olympic athlete makes me believe that anything is possible. They are passionate, they believe in themselves, their common message is don't ever give up. The USA silver medalist Chris Mazdzer exclaimed he was in a good place mentally, physically and emotionally. He had been through tough times and felt confident to do his best. He had the love and support of family and friends, no matter the outcome. He believed in his own abilities.

To make great jumps and leaps, one must have confidence in one's abilities.

So, as the author of the Healing From Within Blogpost, I must ask:

"Do you believe in your own innate ability to heal from within? If you cut your finger, will it eventually heal on its own?" 

What are your beliefs? Do you believe the multi-million-dollar advertising campaigns that dis-ease is the absence of a synthetic chemical that your body is lacking? Do you believe the television and radio ads that you will be happier and healthier drinking coca cola and eating artificially manufactured chips, and if you get heartburn, no worries, just take the latest pharmaceutical drug for the latest ICD 10 diagnosis code GERD for gastrointestinal esophageal reflux disorder?! Do you believe in your man-made diagnosis?

OR do you believe the message from the latest Functional Forum/Evolution of Medicine Conference in the UK where the message from the Medical Doctors was,

"The Doctor of the Future, is the Patient."

What do you believe? Do you believe that your symptoms are a sign that you are flawed and that you need a pill for every ill? 

OR are you ready to begin to believe in yourself? Are you ready to take personal responsibility for where you are today? I'm not saying that it's your fault that you've received a cancer or other chronic disease diagnosis. Perhaps you were unaware of the toxins in your food, water, air, or thoughts that may have contributed to the dis-ease. Perhaps you are unaware that most of what you are eating is void of necessary vitamins, minerals, enzymes and cofactors for healthy mitochondria (cellular) function. Perhaps you are unaware of the toll that chronic hidden stressors have, and the role it plays in dis-ease. Maybe you never thought of creating a different medical mantra; focusing on love and self-care rather than the "war on cancer".

What I am saying is that we all have a choice now, and every day, how we react to these challenges. No matter the current course or the defeat, you can choose to feel beaten, trodden, depressed, and discouraged...Or

You can believe in your innate ability to heal from within. 

You can stay paralyzed in fear and believe the naysayers, or you can rise to discover newfound inner strength and wisdom. 

To discover Olympic Thoughts.

Do you have the courage to take an honest personal assessment to explore what might be at the root cause of dis-ease?  Do you have the confidence in yourself to seek a health coach to co-create a personalized plan for yourself? Will you make this commitment to self?

Marketing myths attempt to convince us of the quick fix, of instant gratification.

Instead, these athletes inspire us. They demonstrate the power of consistent, holistic, dedication to their goal; touching all areas of their lives.  Consistency, commitment, perseverance, even when the first US Gold Medalist 17-year-old Gerard admits that he didn't feel like getting out of bed this morning.  Food for Olympic Thoughts...

With Love & Gratitude,

Lisa

About Lisa Jackson, RN, CHC, RYT-500, AFMC

Lisa is an author, functional nutrition and function medicine trained health coach, yoga teacher, and retired Registered Nurse with the mission to "Inspire, Educate and Empower" individuals to heal from within.

Lisa's book, Savvy Secrets: Eat, Think & Thrive is a self health book offering her Seven Steps to Optimal Health.

When she is not coaching, speaking or advocating reform, you can find Lisa joyfully sharing Carpe Diem Dance or playing with her two grandchildren. She is the mother of four adult children and believes, "Optimal health should not be a secret."

Woo Hoo, I did it!

I'm very proud to say that I passed my Functional Medicine exam and am now certified as a Functional Medicine Practitioner!

Here's a video about my school filmed last fall.

Last year I completed the coursework to become a Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner. This allows me to help you find the root cause of your dis-ease so that you can become your own best advocate. After all, no one knows your body better than you do. To quote Dr. Jeffrey Bland,  the Father of Functional Medicine,

"The origin of the disease is always unique." 

This I know for sure. Ten clients could have the same diagnosis and have ten different root causes. So how do we expect that one pill is going to reverse illness and rebuild health? It doesn't. It will merely mask the symptoms so you feel better and hope that your body heals itself. Hence the title of this blogpost Healing From Within.

"Your body's self healing and self repairing, if you can just get out of your own way." 

Functional Diagnostic testing helps you do that. So does the D.R.E.S.S. for Success Program addressing Diet, Rest, Exercise, Stress reduction and Supplementation customized to you after identifying your HIDDEN stressors. Together, we identify Stressors caused by imbalances in your Hormones, Immune system, Diet, Detoxification capacity, Energy production and Nervous system.  We then use fundamental principles to rebuild health.

So what is Functional Medicine? This is the evolution of medicine. I can't tell you how many of my clients see multiple physicians, and have multiple diagnoses and labels, each given multiple medications, to manage their dis-ease.

In my former clinic, I would see patients with Crohn's disease, or stomach cancer, or iron deficiency anemia (and witness) not one physician (from well known institutions) recommending a change in diet to alleviate symptoms. One of my favorite patients had had 5 bowel resections and had been bleeding for 10 years requiring regular iron infusions and b12 shots. I asked him if anyone had suggested he go on a gluten free diet. He replied

"No, but I've read about that and have considered it myself." 

I gave him my Kick-Start to Wellness Guidebook with recipes and 3 weeks later received an email from him. For the first time in 10 years he stopped bleeding and his hematocrit and hemoglobin (H&H) blood levels rose. H&H measures the amount of oxygen in your blood, when low you may get a diagnosis of iron deficiency anemia. A prime example of how health begins in the gut.

To quote the Institute of Functional Medicine,

"Functional Medicine asks how and why illness occurs and restores health by addressing the root cause of disease for each individual."

How many times have you gone to the doctor, received a diagnosis and a prescription drug and told to just exercise more and lose weight?  What's wrong with this picture? First of all, if it were as simple as this, you would have done it already. A Functional Medicine Practitioner helps you uncover the hidden internal and external stressors that is keeping you stuck.

In fact, most of my clients need to do just the opposite. Most need to exercise less and eat more healthy fat. This is not a typo. Despite the recent hoopla on the news, coconut oil does have benefit and (healthy) fat will not make you fat. Understanding that cholesterol is the essential precursor to your sex and metabolic hormones as well as the lining of your cellular membranes is key to changing these old medical myths.

So in a nutshell, this is what I do. I help you uncover what your unique body needs. We then co-create a plan to replete digestive and nutritional insufficiencies, eliminate hidden internal and external toxins, and help you prioritize you so your unique body will do what it naturally does...heal from within.

Carpe Diem and enjoy this glorious weekend!

With Love & Gratitude,

Lisa Jackson,

About Lisa Jackson RN, CHC, RYT-500, FDN-P, AFMC
Lisa is an author, inspirational speaker and a functional medicine coach with a mission to inspire, educate, and empower, clients towards optimal wellbeing.

She is the former Executive Director of the Integrative Wellness Program for the Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders.

Lisa's book, Savvy Secrets: Eat, Think and Thrive outlines her seven-step process towards optimal health that is fun and transformational.

Lisa is part of the Functional Forum and Evolution of Medicine, the New Self Health Movement and the founder of the Wellness Inspired Network and Carpe Diem Wellness. When she is not coaching, speaking or writing, you can find her practicing yoga and joyfully sharing Carpe Diem Dance.

Fundamentals: Sometimes we just plain forget the Simple Solutions!

Optimal Health is not complicated. Maximize, Minimize and Prioritize. Do these three things consistently and your body can naturally heal and repair from even the scariest diagnoses.

I've put in over 10,000 hours of study in applied functional medicine and functional diagnostic nutrition. I've coached hundreds healing from everything from infertility to autoimmune disease and cancers. I'm fascinated by complex health histories and marvel at the bodies natural ability to heal, once we've uncovered hidden stressors and get to the root cause of of the dis-ease.

I say this not to brag (although client testimonials are what keep me going). I say this because sometimes it's so easy to get caught up in all the data and to forget the fundamentals. To forget the simple solutions.

Let me give you an example. I've seen multiple clients with intense anxiety and autoimmune disease (where the body is literally attacking your own tissue), heal both (symptoms in remission), by eliminating gluten and other food sensitivities. I am not talking about celiac. Many will test negative on IgE test but that does not mean that they can tolerate gluten.  In fact, if you have a cancer or an autoimmune disease then the first thing you have to do is remove inflammatory foods, and heal the gastrointestinal tract. It is intestinal permeability (leaky gut) that has allowed large protein molecules to enter the gut associated lymphatic tissue (GALT) to create the antibodies that attack the tissue.  If you cannot remove the inflammatory foods, then you cannot heal the gut.

This is fundamental to functional medicine. Unfortunately, this is still not common knowledge in conventional medicine. Once you have one autoimmune disease you are prone to others. The only way to reverse the flood of antibodies attacking the body, is to turn off the spigot.

I've asked myself, why do we suddenly have this epidemic and increasing numbers of autoimmune disease? When I graduated from nursing school in 1981 there were a handful, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, MS, Crohn's. Now there are over a hundred! We didn't know then that epilepsy, macular degeneration, and type 1 diabetes (called juvenile diabetes way back then) are also autoimmune. I didn't know this as a nurse. Most of your doctors don't know this. I didn't know this until I studied functional medicine. Years ago, I was diagnosed with my first autoimmune disease, vitiligo. I was told there was nothing I could do about it. I was told to just wear sunscreen over my unsightly hands, elbows, knees and spots on my mouth and eyelids. I also wore a lot of makeup back then.

How has this happened in my lifetime? First, we are bombarded with chemicals and toxins in our food, water, personal care, cleaning products and lawn service products. Second, our wheat used to be 4% gluten. Today it has been hybridized so that it is ~50% gluten which makes for wonderful gummy, gooey breads. Good for the tastebuds, not so good for your gut.

Unfortunately, both of these factors play havoc on the gut. Chemicals, toxins, OTC drugs and gluten cause inflammation and wear and tear on the thin lining between the gastrointestinal tract and the immune system. The immune system is your friendly police force designed to protect you. When there are foreign invaders like undigested food, the police start firing and your body feels the collateral damage.

Gluten also causes the excretion of zonulin which actually opens up the tight junctures in the gut allowing undigested protein to enter the gut associated lymphatic tissue (GALT).  These tight junctures are designed to only allow macronutrients like amino acids to pass thru the gut and send bigger molecules downstream for further breakdown and digestion.

If your your defense system has to spend all of its resources fighting undigested food particles, what is left over to fight viruses, toxins, chemicals and pesticides (which also pass through)?

Today, a colleague just posted another new study from the NY Times that dormant viruses can cause multiple diseases . A second colleague posted a story in the Atlantic how autoimmune disease is the root cause of psychiatric disorders in young children. These are treated with heavy duty pharmaceutical interventions which can be life-saving. What is missing from these stories are the fundamentals. Well meaning providers and newscasters are not educated on the fundamentals. Review the first slide to see the effects on the brain, the adrenals and systemic inflammation.

So what do we do to prevent, and heal and repair our out-of-control autoimmunity? We enlist the 5 R's of functional medicine. Simple Solutions that are the fundamental foundation to health:

1. REMOVE the inflammatory foods, 
2. REPLETE nutritional insufficiencies, (whole foods/micronutrient testing)
3. REPAIR the gut lining with supplemental herbal solutions, aloe vera, bone broth soup
4. RE-INOCULATE the gut, 
5. REST and digest (or mate and ovulate if that is your goal) and alleviate external and internal hidden stressors. 

This is why food is the foundation. Stress reduction, addressing toxicity, and a healthy gut are essential fundamentals to health.

The truth is this. I don't care how many supplements and/or medications you are taking. If you cannot sleep, and you are still eating food that is inflammatory, then you are resigned to a lifetime of drugs to alleviate symptoms.  Good for big pharma and the processed food industry, not good for you!

If you want to heal, then commit to simple, small incremental changes over a minimum of 3-6 month period. Otherwise you will continue to waste money on other therapies. You cannot ignore simple solutions, and the fundamentals. Not if you want to heal from within.

This is where a health coach with applied functional medicine and functional diagnostic nutrition training becomes an invaluable member of the healthcare team. Health coaching and nutrition can uncover key missing pieces to your unique puzzle.

Let me know if you are ready to remove the physical blocks and uncover hidden stressors that are keeping you from obtaining optimal health. I have left the Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders and am now opening up my practice to taking on a few more committed clients. I welcome the opportunity to be a witness to your optimal health. Please schedule a short discovery call with me to see if we are a good fit for each other.

Carpe Diem,

Lisa

About Lisa Jackson, RN, CHC, RYT-500, FDN
Lisa is an author, inspirational speaker and a coach with a mission to inspire others to feel and look their best at any age.

She is the former Executive Director of the Integrative Wellness Program for the Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders.

Lisa's book, Savvy Secrets: Eat, Think and Thrive outlines her seven-step process towards optimal health that is fun and transformational.

Lisa is part of the New Self Health Movement and the Wellness Inspired Network. When she is not coaching, speaking or writing, you can find her practicing yoga and joyfully sharing Carpe Diem Dance.

Let's Put Down Our Swords for a Minute

Let’s put down our swords for a minute. My last blog, I talked about fear, fright or flight. This week I want to talk about courage. How do we turn fear and overwhelm to empowerment?

Education is empowerment.

What if we took a different stance; opposite to the war on cancer? What if we stopped fighting, we put down our swords and our defenses for just a moment.

So we could take a pause and let new thoughts, new ideas, new healing opportunities to enter our body.

What if instead of asking ourselves, “What’s wrong with me”, we asked a different question.

What if we asked, “What is my loving body trying to tell me?” 

What different answers and solutions might we come up with?

Last post I shared that Brad, my Son-in-Law, was recently diagnosed with stage 4 renal cell carcinoma. Sounds really scary, sounds like something we have to defend our life over.  Yes, this is super scary and yes, you have to defend your life…the life force inside of you. You have to honor, love and support that internal flame and life source. Nurture it; nourish it.

I’ve been studying functional medicine and functional diagnostic nutrition. This focuses on restoring health in a non-specific manner. We look at diet, rest, exercise, stress reduction and supplementation as tools to restore the body’s natural ability to heal. The pharmaceutical model studies one drug for one action. 

But nature isn’t linear, it’s web-like, it’s multi-dimensional.

     Case in point. If you take vitamin D, it will turn on your tumor suppressive genes, your cancer fighting genes.[1] [2][3]  It’s going to turn off your oncogenes, cancer causing genes, at the stem cell level. Not even chemotherapy, surgery or radiation can do this. In fact stem cells are smart, they become resistant to chemotherapy just like antibiotics.

 Vitamin D will protect the tight junctures in your cellular, gut, and brain barriers.  It will have multiple positive effects. Vitamin D is actually a hormone and is “the conductor of your genetic orchestra”, according to Victoria Wood, CNS. In fact, if pharma could patent it, Vitamin D would be a number one seller.  An optimal vitamin D level between 60-80ng/ml decreases mortality from every disease.

If I look at this frightful diagnosis from a functional medicine viewpoint, the function of the body, I have to ask, what do these three organs have in common? Cancer in the kidney, the lung and the liver are all organs of detoxification. So what does that say to me? The body needs to be detoxified.

There are many paths to healing. No matter what treatments you choose, have faith in your innate ability to heal and repair. We teach in our Integrative Wellness Program at The Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders, what I learned from my functional medicine guru, MIT trained, cellular biologist, Tracy Harrison. The body needs three things for optimal health:

 1. We need to maximize what your unique body needs. This is personalized medicine. The body needs clean air, clean filtered water, nutrition, the right vitamins, minerals, anti-oxidants. Love, the right thoughts we are putting in our minds. Are we positive and optimistic? Are we fulfilling our passions and our dreams? Are we open and honest with ourselves and our relationships? Minimize toxicity and inflammation. What is toxic in our life? Is it the air, the water, the food, the relationships, the job? I’m asking these questions. Only you can answer them for yourself. What loving responses can you make to that? Can you make more loving and nourishing choices? Maximize what is good. This can be fun! This isn’t about diets or deprivation. This is about life, living and loving the life force. Minimizing toxicity and inflammation. It’s all around us. We can put our head in the sand and easily get overwhelmed, 

“OMG I can’t do this or do that.”  

OR we can make loving choices. I am now saving a hell of a lot of money since I got rid of toxic cosmetic, hair, skin care and cleaning products. AND my skin has never looked better! I’m even saving money on my grocery bill. Even though I only buy organic, my grocery bill has gone down as I buy less meat, alcohol and acidic junk food. A green tea costs far less at Starbucks (today and in future healthcare costs) than the addictive coffees and sugary drinks. Green tea has both calming and anti-carcinogen properties. I love my food, people love my food, but most importantly, I love how I feel when I’m eating what my body needs.  

2. Minimize toxicity and inflammation. We’ve known for over a decade that inflammation is what causes oxidative stress and free radical damage leading to DNA damage. These rogue DNA-damaged cells mutate, refuse to die, and eventually interfere with functions in the body. There is a natural cycle of life and death for us, as well as our cells. Cells need to die and regenerate. In fact we get an entirely new body every 7 years.We are NOT defined by whatever label or dis-ease we’ve been given. In fact, we are not defined by our genes.  Diet and lifestyle are far more influential and can change the expression of our genes as proven by studies of epigenetics. Here’s a quote from Craig Venter, PhD who mapped the Human Genome:

“Human biology is actually far more complicated than we imagine. Everybody talks about the genes that they received from their mother and father for this trait or the other. But in reality, those genes have very little impact on life outcomes. Our biology is way too complicated for that and deals with hundreds of thousands of independent factors. Genes are absolutely not our fate. They can give us useful information about the increased risk of disease, or the actual fear incidence of somebody getting it. Most biology will come from the complex interaction of all the proteins and cells working with environmental factors, not driven directly by the genetic code”-Dr. Craig Venter, PhD

Fear makes us do irrational things. Angeline Jolie made headlines when she had a double mastectomy for fear of cancer when BRAC1 and BRAC2 genetic mutations were discovered, and sadly many women have followed. Do you know when these genes were first discovered, the incidence of breast cancer was 40%?  It is now 80%. What has changed in the last 20 or 30 years? The genes haven’t changed. Our diets, lifestyle, levels of toxicity and fear has changed.  One of the largest studies, the Framingham Nurses study looked at the 20% of women with BRAC1 and BRAC2 that did NOT get cancer. The #1 differentiating factor was the diversity in the diet. 

The more phytonutrients and phytochemicals that down regulate inflammatory responses, the less risk of cancer.

The body follows the mind and the mind follows the breath. Simple breath work. Learn meditation and how to quiet the fear and automatic negative thoughts, ANTs in your head. Do what one Radical Remission Thriver did.  Get up before sunrise and go to the rooftop and watch the sunrise. Take slow deep breaths when the oxygen level is highest in the atmosphere. Breathe in life affirming thoughts and healing loving thoughts to your tumors and body.

Spend time with yourself and allow these thoughts and healing opportunities to occur.

3. Prioritize Self Care. This is the most challenging. Every time you over commit, every time you say yes but your body needs to say no, you are saying no to yourself. This takes a toll. I know this as well as anyone. It is very hard for me to say no and to realize that it’s not my job to heal anyone. No one can heal you. Your body heals itself. People can guide, coach or educate you. The original role of the doctor was to teach. Unfortunately now, with our pharma and insurance run healthcare system, the physician has little time to spend educating himself or patients. Unfortunately, they’ve been given 10-15 minutes to make a quick assessment and to write a prescription. Worse, yet, nutrition and functional medicine have not been taught in medical or nursing schools.

How many people know how to listen to their bodies and then co-create a plan for healing? I loved listening to The Quest for Cancer’s 9^th episode of interviews from those who healed their cancers against all odds, in spite of the limitations of conventional medicine.

I particularly loved Jordan Rubin’s interview. He was told if he didn’t do surgery on his aggressive testicular cancer, there was 100% chance he would die within months. He said he was going to take 40 days and heal himself, and he did. He put away his iphone and communications for 6 weeks. This was not easy for him as a successful entrepreneur and business man. He told his employees they would not hear from him for 40 days. He made a commitment to himself and prioritized his own healing.

My ultimate goal and mission in life is to inspire wellness. The Chinese symbol for crisis, equals danger or crucial point, opportunity and change. Every healing crisis is an opportunity for healing and positive change.

This is NOT saying that if you are ill it is your fault! This is not about guilt. Guilt serves no purpose. Worse yet, guilt is counter-productive and an excuse to beat yourself up. This is about taking an honest personal assessment and then lovingly responding with uplifting, life affirming choices. Yes, you can change the terrain to make cancer un-hospital in your body.

Cancer cells feed on sugar and are anaerobic. Simply starve them and flood them with oxygen.

I leave you with a final quote from Victoria Wood, RD, MPH, CNS, “The power on your plate is profound”. You cannot do chemotherapy every day of your life. Your life will be miserable and short. But you can do chemotherapy on your plate through food and herbs three times a day. Most of our medicines were derived from natural food and herbs.  Here’s just one powerful example, Curcumin is one of the highest antioxidants and can turn off the transcription factor NFkB, deemed cancers master switch. Curcumin is the active ingredient in the spice turmeric. See this chart comparing it to many common chemotherapy drugs. 

Spices, like nature are web-like and have multiple beneficial affects. Chemotherapy targets just one affect and has negative side-effects. One choice is simple and loving. The other creates war on the body.

Curcumin is the highest antioxidant and can turn off the transcription factor NFkB, cancers master switch. Sulforaphane Glysinolate (SGS) found in cruciferous vegetables can cause cancer cells to die, a process called apoptosis. We have supplements for both of these phytonutrients. You can take them prophylactically to lower inflammation and at therapeutic levels if you have cancer.

Food for thought. Make Love Not War. 

Carpe Diem,

Lisa

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[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21870057[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10565372[3] http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0058725

About Lisa Jackson, RN, CHC, RYT-500

Lisa is an author, inspirational speaker and coach with a mission to inspire others to feel and look their best at any age. 

She is also the Executive Director of the Integrative Wellness Program for the Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders. Lisa's book, Savvy Secrets: Eat, Think and Thrive outlines her seven step process that is fun and transformational. 

Lisa is part of the New Self Health Movement and the Wellness Inspired Network. When she is not coaching, speaking or writing, you can find her practicing yoga and joyfully sharing Carpe Diem Dance.