money

Vision and Health: Can’t have one without the other

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Vision for Health

I had worked at a homeless shelter for 2 years giving free chiropractic care to the down and out in Hamilton. The man in front of me had come in for back pain. I always asked these men the same question at their intake exam:

“What is the vision of what you want to do with your life?” His response tore my heart: “I have failed at everything I have ever tried and I’m not even sure if I want to live anymore.”

As you can imagine if people have LOW or NO vision, like the above example, their investment of time and money into health disciplines like nutrition, exercise, spinal health and relationships will probably be VERY LOW to NON-EXISTENT. Consequently, their health will be very poor, as it was with the above man. The BEST way to get healthy is to NEED good health because of your vision for amazing health. 

If we NEED our bodies to be healthy in order to accomplish our BIG dreams, then we MUST take care of them. 

Vision is EVERYTHING. As a chiropractor for 20 years now, I realize that the MOST important piece of information we can glean from the New Patient exam is precisely what I asked that man: “What is your vision for your life?”  We then ask: “What do you miss MOST due to your poor health right now?”.  Finally we ask, “If this condition was left alone for 5 years and did not improve how would that affect your life?”

EVERYONE has a vision and desire for CRISIS care. This puts us in a place of “no choice” meaning that we MUST fix the problem, no matter how long it takes or how much it costs. Crisis care may be the 30 year old Dad who can’t work as a mechanic due to sciatica. His wife and kids will starve if he can’t get his spine fixed. No choice. It may be the 65 year old widowed grandma who has hip pain and can’t play golf. Her Tuesday and Thursday night golf league is what she lives for and she can’t give it up. No choice. These people will ALWAYS proceed with their corrective care plan. 

The BIG SOLID YELLOW differentiating line is this: once the crisis is gone, do people have a vision for ongoing wellness care? This may mean weekly or bi-weekly adjustments for life. The answer to this question depends on their belief. Will on-going wellness chiropractic in some REAL way help me achieve my dream of being healthy until I’m 90? If they can’t see how chiropractic may help do that then they will NOT continue into wellness care. This same decision making process will determine whether they work out for life and eat healthy food for life.   

The first pre-requisite here is that you have a VISION for good health which means a compelling REASON as to why you need good health. This varies for everyone but could be grandkids, travel, ministry work, sports and golf, taking care of sick family etc.   

The second pre-requisite is understanding how a healthy spine will get you there. A spine that has good mobility and structure IS that key to amazing health in older years. A spine that is immobile, mis-aligned, arthritic and decaying will rob people of their ability to fulfill their dreams especially in later years.

Recently at my clinic my patient, a 60 year old lady, had her adjustment and then sat on the table and announced that she got an award from her Gym. She had hit the 1800 mark.  She had done 1800 workouts over a 13 year period of time. WOW!! It just so happens that she finished 10 years of wellness care with me; close to 300 adjustments. She is one of the healthiest and most joyful people I know. She always comes in with a smile and is praising our team and her husband and her kids and friends. She has a VISION for wellness and believes that chiropractic is a large part of the HOW to be optimally healthy. 

Ultimately as humans we have two choices when a health challenge robs our ability to do what we love to do. The first choice is to LOWER our vision and NOT fix the health issue.  An example would be the 70 year old who decides to quit golf because it causes him extreme back pain every time he plays.

The second choice is to MAINTAIN our vision and dream and to FIX the health issue. This would be the 70 year old man who follows through on a corrective care plan and then ongoing wellness care for 20 years and continues to play golf until he is 90!

The most important question for the patient is: “What vision do you believe will allow you to have the most abundant and healthy life possible?” Life-time wellness chiropractic care OR symptom-based crisis-relief care? If you believe life-time wellness care is best for you then find that chiropractor that also believes this.

Without a compelling vision for your life, you may not need good health. If you lose your health you lose everything. If you lose your vision you also lose everything. They both go hand in hand. You can’t have one without the other. 

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Guest Blog by Dr. Mark del Cantero

Dr. Mark del CanteroDr. Mark Del Cantero has been a structural corrective chiropractor for 20 years now in Ancaster, Ontario.  He has helped thousands of people to not only restore their health but to maintain it and achieve high levels of health and vitality.  He not only takes an interest in spinal health but also in nutrition, exercise and stress management.  

He graduated from the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College as a Chiropractor in 1996 with clinical honours and has since taken all of the core courses in Chiropractic Biophysics Technique.  He completed his  undergraduate degree in Biology at the University of Toronto in 1990.

He has been a speaker at various venues including Warrior Coaching and dozens of groups locally in Hamilton.  

He lives with his wife and three children in Ancaster, Ontario.  

You can find Dr. Mark at:

Website: http://www.cedarspringschiro.com/

Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cedarspringschiro

Twitter: https://twitter.com/chirocedar

Instagram @cedarspringschiro

When you hear “retirement strategy”, what do you think about?

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retirement strategy

I’ll bet you think about some sort of financial strategy that you either are using, paying attention to, focusing on, or thinking about in order to be able to retire with enough money/financial resources to live out the remainder of your life.

I’ll bet that you, or someone in your family, has spent time, energy, and money, learning about and consulting with people who give advice on retirement strategies.

The concept is always the same: “How do I ensure that the efforts that I make NOW can positively affect me in the future.” 

It’s interesting to me that this seems to be universally important for people. In fact, we have an entire industry focused on this topic. You see books about it, commercials for it, advertising in print, articles online, blogs and even podcasts on the topic of preparing for retirement.

Here’s the thing: when I think of retirement strategy, I think of having ALL of the resources that I’ll need, not just money. In fact, I think that there is one resource that I’ll need when I retire that is more important than money – MY HEALTH! 

What good is having early retirement with sufficient money if you don’t have your health?

I have met hundreds of patients over the years that had the financial resources to live when they retired, but were near bankruptcy when it came to their health. It’s almost like people just assume that health will still be there without effort.  Not true!

If you want to still have your health 10, 20, even 40 years from now, what would you have to do NOW?

What type of INVESTMENT would you need to make NOW? 

What specialist would you need to consult with, hire, and learn from in order to have health in the future?

What would you need to prioritize today in order to have what you want decades from now?  When is a good time to start investing in your health?  At what point would it be too early to stop investing in your health?

As a chiropractor, I can share that getting adjusted regularly lays the foundation for your body to be able to FUNCTION (work properly), DEVELOP (make new healthy cells after stressful times in your life), and HEAL (overcome damage from stressors in your life) as efficiently as possible.

If your body can to that (function, heal and recreate new cells properly) you lay the foundation for the kind of health that you want to have in the future.

Eating well, exercising, thinking positively, growing yourself spiritually, etc are all things that you can do to INVEST in your health. You can do any (or all) of these things starting TODAY!

Or you could do the latter. 

You could be like the person that NEVER saved a penny their whole life, and then ended up in financial crisis. This is the same as the person who never invests into their health, and then loses all of their money trying to recover it in the future.

There is a recent example of a patient that I saw this week. Over the last 10 years, Jerry has started and stopped chiropractic care 6 times. Every time he restarted, he was in crisis and needed extra care to recover back to functional levels.  In that time, because he was inconsistent, his health status has gone up and down like a yo-yo. Not OK! 

If he just stayed consistent, we calculated that he would have had 25% fewer adjustments in that time (saving him about $3,600) and his health would have been consistently better. In that scenario, had he been more consistent, his future health prognosis would have been much higher too.

What’s the bottom line? Just like financial investing, if you want your “health account” to be full in the future, keep consistently investing in your health now.

You, and your family, are worth it.

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Guest Blog by Dr. Ryan French

Dr. Ryan FrenchDr. Ryan French is a family chiropractor practicing in Bolton, Ontario. Together with his team of incredible support staff and associate doctors, he has built the largest family chiropractic practice in the area.  He is a health coach, mentor, teacher, and writer.

He is blessed with an incredible family, including loving wife Suzanne, and 4 beautiful children, Jessica, Jackson, Jordyn and Jacob.

Dr. Ryan received his doctorate from the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College in Toronto.  His other academic accomplishments include a Degree in Kinesiology from McMaster University in Hamilton, a post-doctorate fellowship in pregnancy and pediatric care rendering him the title FICPA (Fellow of the International Chiropractic Pediatric Association), certification in The Webster In-Utero Constraint Technique (better known as the breech-turning technique), certification to practice Clinical Acupuncture, and many other courses in nutrition, exercise, and preventive health care.

His hobbies include coaching, hockey, fishing, golf, and never-ending learning!

He offers one-on-one mentoring to other chiropractors to help them grow and achieve more.  If interested in more information, send an email to [email protected].

He can be reached at Inside Out Family Chiropractic, 27 King Street East, Bolton, Ontario. OFFICE PHONE: 905-951-9911.
WEB: www.insideoutchiro.org
EMAIL: [email protected]
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/DrRyanFrench
TWITTER @DrRyanFrench

 

Stop Throwing Away Juice Pulp! Do This Instead

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Stop Throwing Away Juice Pulp! Do This Instead

If you are anything like me when it comes to making homemade juices, it absolutely kills me to fill up my green bin and throw away the pulp leftover from juicing. It feels like I’m throwing away vegetables or fruit that still have nutritional potential, not to mention hard earned money.

The reason we want to take the pulp out of the vegetables when we are juicing is to give the digestive system a break from having to do any work, while the nutrients in the juice are absorbed directly into the bloodstream and go to work feeding our cells.

But the pulp is by no means devoid of nutritional value simply by removing the liquid from it. It has a ton of fibre and other nutrients that are not extracted during the juicing process. Use the following ideas in your own kitchen to get the full benefit of your fruits and vegetables.

Top 7 Ways to Use Juice Pulp and the Best Fruits/Vegetables to Use for Each

  1. Freeze It – Pulp can be stored in freezer bags or glass containers in the fridge or freezer for use later in any of the below ideas. If you don’t have plans of using the pulp within 48 hours then it is best to freeze it immediately.
  2. Crackers – The best pulps to use for crackers are the naturally drier pulps like celery, zucchini, carrot, and sweet potato. Crackers can be made in a dehydrator or in a low temperature oven.  Simply mix the pulp with ground flax seeds and spices and dehydrate until crackers are crunchy and dry.
  3. Soups/Stews – Pulp is great to add to soups and stews as a thickening agent and to give your meal extra fibre. The best options are carrots, celery, parsley, kale or spinach, zucchini, and sweet potatoes.
  4. Homemade burgers/veggie burgers/falafels – This might be my favourite option, because the pulp can be so easily hidden in these patties. It also adds a binding factor to keep the burgers intact as they are cooked. Try using carrot, zucchini, and celery pulp.
  5. Add to muffins – Zucchini or carrot pulp can easily be added to traditional zucchini muffins or carrot cake recipes. For healthier baking look for recipes that are lower in refined sugar, flour and lower in saturated fats.
  6. Smoothies for extra fibre – Fruit or vegetable pulp can easily be hidden in your favourite smoothie recipe. My favourites are zucchini, pineapple, apple and cucumber pulp due to their mild flavours and textures.
  7. Homemade vegetable broth – Just like you would use leftover carrots or celery and onion to make a homemade vegetable broth, do the same with leftover juice pulp. Add a variety of herbs and spices to add an extra kick of flavour to your broth and simmer on low heat. Once cool, strain broth for use. Extra broth can be frozen for use later.

So, before you throw your next batch of juice pulp in the green bin or compost pile, consider the above options to get the full benefit of your produce.