The basics of healthy diet choices: Eat close to the ground.

Some subjects are just plain contentious; rife with conflict, prone to disagreement and likely to result in argument. Religion, and politics for example are two things you tend to try to steer away from at the Thanksgiving table. I'd add a third to that list: diet. There are many different approaches to diet: low fat, high fat, low carb, vegetarian, paleo, high protein, vegan, macrobiotic and so on. The proponents of each pontificate on the virtues of their diet, and hold firm that theirs is the one true healthy diet, and all the rest are sure to result in ruinous disastrous health.

The idea that there is any one true and only healthy diet is an obviously ridiculous concept. It is pretty clearly disproved by looking around the world at our few remaining indigenous cultures. Groups of isolated peoples that continue to eat their traditional foods remain free of the sort of disease that are becoming rampant in today's society. Yet each of these cultures eat wildly different diets. Some, like the Masai tribe of Eastern Africa consume more than 50% of their calories from saturated fat, yet are rail thin and have much lower rates of heart disease than we do. Other indigenous cultures, such as the Kitavans in the Pacific islands consume more than 70% of their calories from carbohydrates, yet have no problem with diabetes or obesity. As we go through the list of remaining authentic indigenous cultures we see diets all over the board, with varying amounts of carbohydrates, protein and fat, yet despite their differences, they all have similarly low levels of disease and low BMIs.

All of these cultures do have one thing in common: the fact that their foods are procured and prepared without the tools of industrialized society. A phrase I have adopted to describe this is that they eat "close to the ground." When we walk into the store in our country and examine our food options many of them are several steps removed from their initial sources. They may have many ingredients and each of those ingredients likely passed through numerous steps of processing before finally being combined together into a "food product." The more removed from its natural state a food is the more of a mismatch it is with our physiology and ultimately the more problematic it is for our health.

This model of evaluating food choices takes a more realistic view of the health value of different food choices. For a lot of diets, food choices are very black and white. For instance with the paleo diet a food is either allowed or it isn't. With vegetarian diets the division is even more black and white. But few things in life, and even fewer things in biology are that black and white. Rather foods exist on a spectrum from healthy to unhealthy. When you evaluate a food choice, consider how far from the ground it is, ie, how many steps removed it is from it's natural state and you can take that into consideration as you prepare your meals. A few grains, or bread products within an otherwise unprocessed diet can be acceptable. On the other hand, eating a strict diet based on dogmatic following of a fad diet is not only unnecessary, in some cases it may even result in poorer health outcomes.

Our diet guide, "The Essential Health Diet*," is built on this premise that foods can be placed on a spectrum from healthy to not so healthy. It offers three basic tiers for addressing different levels of health or goals. You can choose a level that is right for you and your current health state. This becomes your core diet. In addition to those foods, additional food recommendations may be added to personalize the diet for your personal health goals or challenges. But the plan itself is very flexible, there are no calorie restrictions and you don't need to count calories. Rather foods are grouped into different levels of health value and servings are chosen in amounts based on the health of those foods. It keeps you accountable to eating in moderation, without chaining you to a strict dogmatic diet that is impossible to stick to, or too difficult to cook for.


*The Essential Health Diet is available to current patients at no additional charge and includes a 30 minute nutritional counseling session.  

How does acupuncture work?

Despite being one of the fastest growing medical modalities in the western world, the medical system of acupuncture remains surrounded by a certain mystic. That's understandable given that it originated in a culture and belief system very different from our own. However, acupuncture is a very logical and organized practice. A practitioner takes clear, logical steps to identify the cause of illness in a patient and then similarly follows established logical steps in selecting of the points for treatment. If you have a clear understanding of how an acupuncturist diagnoses illness and decides on a treatment a lot of the mystic and skepticism about acupuncture may prove unwarranted.

Over the past several thousand years this system of medicine has been developed mainly through clinical experience. That means treating patient after patient and watching the results. The points have been mapped on the body and their functions established and elaborated on through thousands of medical texts written by acclaimed doctors over the centuries. Over time the number of identified points grew to what we have today, over two thousand specific acupuncture points on the body.

"Point" is the word that is most accepted in the west to describe these locations on the body, however the actual Chinese character, 腧穴, "shu xue" actually translates to "flowing hole." This is a powerful concept. Think of walking along an iced over river, and periodically there are holes through the ice where the water flowing underneath is exposed. This is the concept of shu xue. Acupuncture points are holes where you can exert influence on the regulation functions in the body. Each of these different points have specific functions inside the body. For instance there is a point on the shin, Zu San Li, that we know increases the rate of digestion. It moves the contents of our stomachs through the intestines more quickly. It also increases gastric acid secretion, treats infections in the breast, reduces abdominal pain, treats pain in the knee, and increases energy.

If it sounds to you like that's a lot for a single point to do, you're right, and that's typical for acupuncture points. Each single point has multiple functions in the body. Knowing that, now imagine seeing an acupuncturist for low back pain. With two thousand points on the body and each point having multiple functions, you may imagine there are a lot of possible points for your complaint, and you'd be right. There are a few dozen points just in the region where you are having pain. There are also several dozen points on the arms, legs, hands, feet, ears and scalp that can treat low back pain. All told, there are maybe 100 different points on the body that can be used to treat the pain in your low back. Fortunately for you, you do not have to put needles in all of these points to effectively treat your back pain. In fact several of these points won't have any effect for you, because they aren't the right points for your back pain. (because not just every type of back pain, but also every type of patient is different.) In order to figure out which points will be effective for you, your acupuncturist needs to investigate deeper. They may ask you a lot of questions about your pain: when does it occur, what sort of pain is it, is it better with heat or cold, is it worse with stress, or activity, or rest, and so on. They'll do a physical exam, just like your doctor does, to identify the structures involved-discs, muscles, nerves, bones. They also need to understand the context in which your back pain is occurring. That means they need to understand you and your health. They will set aside your chief complaint for a moment and ask questions ranging your entire life, even your family history, different illnesses, the various functions of your body outside of your back pain-digestion, skin, sleep, emotions, thirst, and so on. Those questions are all vitally important as they create a richly textured understanding of the context in which your symptoms occur, the landscape against which your symptoms are presenting. Once that rich texture has been created the acupuncturist returns to those hundred or so points for your back pain, and out of those points identifies which points also treat all the other areas of your health that appeared through the course of your conversation. Those are the points, or "flowing holes" that are active in your case, and where they will be able to influence your health and restore function and comfort. Because Chinese Medicine is a truly holistic medicine, it doesn't necessarily just treat your back pain. What it does is treat your back pain within the context of you as a whole person.

Safe, honest health information for the public.

Welcome to our first post!

The Healing Jones blog is a resource for our patients to get access to deeper explanations of what we talk about in the clinic. There are a lot of subjects where it just isn't possible to give the full story on different lifestyle suggestions, diet recommendations, and current health information.

This blog serves as a venue to direct patients to in order to facilitate the education that must come if health is to truly transform.

We look forward to sharing our constant exploration of good health choices with you. Here are a few subjects that we are looking to cover in the next few weeks.
-How acupuncture works.
-The basics of good diet choices.
-How to get perfect sleep every night.
-How to pick a good supplement.
-Avoiding toxins in a chemical laden environment.
-How to support your liver.
...and more.

Keep an eye out, and better yet, make yourself a follower of this blog to get updates when new information is posted!

As always, if you are looking for an appointment there are multiple locations available, and multiple times. See our website for more information.

www.healingjones.com