Tuesday, May 13, 2014

The Scary World of Weight Loss


The world of weight loss is scary.

I want to introduce you to the one of the most RIDICULOUS things I have ever read. It was brought to my attention that I need to look at the ABC Diet. As a warning, This diet is based on a pro-anorexia template.


functional medicine new start. Dr. Moz, Dr. Mozingo

Feel free to look it up at abc-diet.com.

This is a dangerous, ultra-low calorie diet that is designed for dramatic weight loss. Ironically, you can see at the bottom of the page, The Risk Factors.



Granted, this is a gross example of what under eating calories can do to the body, but realistically, it is all the same. If you diet in a form of just under eating calories by skipping meals, or eating two carrots, and a mini Snickers per day, these risk factors are relevant.

I have written a lot on the topic of weight loss, and tried to teach as many people as I can about the epidemic of obesity in our country. Some listen, receive the information, and make some drastic life changes to ensure they are healthier and enjoy their life to its fullest. Some, on the other hand, hear me, understand what I am saying, but are just not driven enough to take the necessary changes that it takes to lose weight. The vast majority or the patients I see, unfortunately, already know what is causing their weight issues, but try to look beyond it and dive headfirst into some whimsical fat loss miracle pill that will cure all of their weight problems and never have to change a thing with their diet or lifestyle.

The real issue is that there are so many within the weight loss industry that are just out to make a quick buck and sell as much of the newest gimmick product as they can before they close the doors and erase any traceable evidence that they even existed.

I constantly research and study biochemistry, and I fluently understand the many metabolic pathways that are involved in fat reduction, or losing healthy weight. The majority of people think that weight loss is all about CALORIES. I am sure you have read that if you eat 3500 less calories than you burn, you will lose 1 pound. This is completely untrue. Losing weight is so driven toward the scale, that the entire weight loss industry has lost sight of what is really important. How much you weight on a scale has no regard to your total health spectrum. Body fat percentage, muscle percentage, total water percentage, and your BMI are important. If you diet plan is not driven to lose FAT tissue ONLY, then you are not on the right diet.

Resting Metabolic Rate, or RMR, Basal Metabolic Rate, BMR, and Total Energy Expenditure, TEE, are the real caloric factors that you should be looking at. If you want to lose weight, you need to make sure you don’t decrease your RMR by losing muscle tissue or you will simply shut down your thyroid gland, and all of your metabolic function. The only way to increase your systemic RMR metabolism is to increase muscle mass. Eating 6 small meals a day does not increase metabolism. Not eating 3 hours before bed does not increase your metabolism. Skipping breakfast does not hurt your metabolism. What hurts your metabolism is under eating calories, not providing enough fuel for your muscles, causing muscular depletion, and shutting down your thyroid gland.

You never want to lose weight at the expense of your muscles. You do not want to do a colon flushing diuretic based diet that will just dehydrate you. You want to eat in a pattern that supplies your muscles with protein, nervous tissue with fats, and every cell in your body with carbohydrates.

This is where I could go on a thirty page discussion about how to fit your proteins, fats, carbs, to supply your body with the adequate amount of calories to fit your Total Energy Expenditure, but not exceeding it because you need to eat more than your RMR, but not more than your TEE if you want to lose weight. Blah, Blah, Blah.


dr moz, health columbus, columbus chiropractorSTOP thinking about food as calories. Stop wondering how many Snickers Candy Bars you can fit in and stay under 1400 calories/day. Start thinking about food as fuel. The body needs a lot of fuel, it needs a large volume of food, and it really doesn’t care about calories. The body needs proteins to be broken into amino acids. The body needs carbs to be broken into glucose. The body needs fats to build hormones. The body does not care about how many calories are associated. The body needs vitamins to make each cell function. The body needs minerals to ensure muscle contractions are strong and organized. The body needs sunlight to be converted into Vitamin D.

Let me be clear. The body has no concern, governing body, or control over how many calories you eat. The body can store excess calories taken in as fat, and the body can utilize that fat tissue in a later date if you under eat calories, but this has no regard to your health or weight loss on a long term scale.

Do you want to know why the body does not prefer to run on the stored calories that you have as fat?

Do you want to know why these health risks that the ABC diet discusses are associated with under eating calories to lose weight?

Do you want to know why focusing on calories in, calories out, and no regard to nutrients or vitamins is detrimental to your health?

 I say this because the body does not store the majority of micronutrients, vitamins, and minerals that are involved in the body’s daily metabolic functions in fat cells. There are a few fat soluble vitamins that can be stored, A, D, E, K, but in all actuality, these all act within the body more as hormones than vitamins, so they are not as relevant when discussing micronutrient intake in your diet. The water soluble vitamins, B-Complex, are utilized in every cell, in every muscle and are NOT stored in fat tissue. SO when you go days without eating the proper amounts of fuel, or food, your body will be running on the stored calories from your fat, but it will be depleted of the vitamins that are not able to be stored within the body. This means that the body does not govern the use of these vitamins, it does not ration them. It uses them as it gets them. So, the more you feed it, the more you will use, and this means the more calories your body will be able to utilize.
So why do the ABC Diet risk factors happen?

As I stated in this blog, calories in/calories out is not the holy grail of weight loss. There is much more to the epidemic of obesity.

But I can assure you that the risk factor of Depression is linked to a deficiency in B-Vitamins.

Symptoms of Vitamin B Deficiency
  • fears
  • fatigue
  • depression
  • paranoia
  • confusion
  • hostility
  • rage
  • anxiety

Symptoms of Neuropsychiatric Disorders
  • morbid fears
  • severe fatigue
  • depression
  • paranoia
  • confusion
  • anger
  • suicidal tendencies


So, before you go on a crash diet, or start skipping meals to “lose weight” be sure you consult a physician that can help you get on a safe and healthy diet plan.

Eat Well. Feel Well. Be Well.

Dr. Moz

If you are tired of seeking pain relief with no results, call (812) 799-0668 TODAY and schedule a FREE CONSULTATION, and let's get you back to the PAIN-FREE Life you are missing.

Visit www.NewStartHealthCenter.com TODAY!

Monday, May 5, 2014

5 ways to know if you are a Chiropractic Patient or Chiropractor’s Paycheck.

5 ways to know if you are a Chiropractic Patient or Chiropractor’s Paycheck.

I am a board certified Chiropractor, and I am taking a stand against all of the sham doctors out there that continue to give the chiropractic profession a bad name.  I get so tired of hearing writers on behalf of the AMA bash this life changing profession because the majority of chiropractors are practicing a style of care that is outdated. I am afflicted with a very scientific, left handed, analytical brain that will not let me believe in wish-washy crystals and body energy based therapies, nevertheless, expect them to work. I focus on scientific, reproducible, evidence-based, and clinically proven methods of patient care to ensure that each patient that walks in my door will get quality care that they can depend on. Each patient that enters New-Start Health Center will know their exact pain generator, they will know how long my treatment plan is supposed to take to alleviate their pain, and they will know that I am not going to drag them through an exhaustive examination, expose them to unnecessary radiation, or give them a 6 month, 40 visit, treatment plan that “might” help.

dr mozingo, dr moz, new-start, newstart
(This is an actor, not a patient)
I love my profession, and I love what it can do for patients, but since the birth of chiropractic about 110 years ago, things have changed. DD Palmer made the first chiropractic adjustment when he adjusted a deaf janitor named Harvey and his hearing came back. Unfortunately, in the majority of the chiropractic curriculum, these are the stories that you hear. They teach the students how chiropractic adjustments are the only therapy in the world that can put the spine back in alignment and turn the power of the nervous system back on to restore health. I remember stories of how adjusting the right ankle of someone with hemorrhoids has made them disappear. Adjustment of a patient’s big toe made his back pain go away. We were trained that each spinal level has a set of nerves that innervate each organ, tissue, and cell in the body, and if they spine is out of alignment, the body cannot heal itself. All of these concepts were so inspiring to hear, I, Me, could heal the entire world with any condition, with my hands.

Unfortunately, science happens, and the medical world demands you to prove that you can treat a condition. Considering the facts, you will not find any clinical studies that prove that any bone is displaced in the body, and that bone puts pressure on spinal nerves. You will not find reproducible evidence that adjusting the first vertebrate of anyone will lower blood pressure, or adjusting the lumbar spine in a child will cure bed wetting.  You can find case studies and hear stories of these miraculous events, but again, they are not scientifically proven, or even suggestible that they will work. It is only a trial and error method. A treat and hope plan. NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME.

Where you will find scientific evidence, case studies, control trials, and even validity within the medical world is this. The chiropractic profession is proven, time and again, to be more effective at treating acute back pain and keeping it at bay, than medication and surgery.  That is what the profession has settled into. We are PAIN MANAGEMENT doctors. The adjustment is effective at blocking the pain receptors. We have a superior education to any other primary care physicians in the realm of the musculoskeletal system. Considering low back pain is one of the top reasons Americans seek out medical relief, I would say we have settled into a pretty good niche. Chiropractic physicians need to understand that we are primary care physicians, we are capable of diagnosing any major condition, but we are not treating these conditions with adjustments, there just isn’t enough proof to suggest it.

You should NEVER hear at a doctor’s office, “this might work” or “this has worked before.”  If you are wondering why you have been to your chiropractor for so many visits and they never seem to address what is really going wrong with you, then there is a good chance you have become a Chiropractor’s Paycheck instead of a Chiropractic Patient. 

 Here are some quick tips to analyze if you have been seeing a sham doc instead of a real doc.

1.       X-ray every patient on their first visit.   
chiropractic columbus, dr mozingo, new-start

 The traditional chiropractor loves the use of x-rays to tell patients things that will scare them, and ensure each of them that ongoing care for the rest of their life is necessary.  Chiropractors love showing the patient the film, too. This is where a trained eye can point at anything and tell a layman person whatever they want, and the patient has no choice but to believe them because odds are, they have no clue what the doctor is pointing at.  The basic concept I want you to take from this is that you cannot see any pain generators on an x-ray that were not determined from the history and physical examination.

If you present to a chiropractor with a new ache or pain and you haven’t suffered from any trauma, make sure you ask if an x-ray is necessary and ask the doctor what they are looking for with this film. If they say something like, “we are looking to see how healthy your spine is,” run. You should not expose yourself to the radiation if you can avoid it.
The common findings on x-rays that I am sure you have heard are:

  Reduced curvature in your neck
I am sorry, but there is no evidence that displays how a reduced curvature in your neck will lead to a pain syndrome. Better idea, why not just do a physical examination and check the patient’s posture. I can bet that if a patient has a forward head translation in regard to their shoulders, they have a reduced lordotic curvature in their neck.

 Degenerative Disc Disease
“We cannot cure this in your spine, but we can make sure it doesn’t get worse.” I can understand why every chiropractor wants to tell a patient they have this. It is SCARY. The irony is, general osteoarthritis, Degenerative Disc, Degenerative Joint Disease, or whatever you want to call it, is NOT an inflammatory process within the body. This means, there is no pain pattern that is clinically reproducible with this diagnosis.

2.       They diagnose you with a SUBLUXATION.
The principles of chiropractic are based around this concept. A bone in the spine gets out of alignment and it puts pressure on the vital nerves coming from your central nervous system, reducing nerve flow to the peripheral tissue.
 
As I stated before, it all sounds good and believable, but scientific evidence says otherwise.
If you even hear your chiropractor use the term subluxation in his report of findings, RUN.

3.       40+ visits treatment plan
Have you ever heard your friend say, “Once you go to a chiropractor you have to go forever!”
This is my favorite. The profession is always thinking of ways to maintain patient compliance. So they have designed a generic treatment plan that will cure your ails.

3 visits/week for 3 months, then 2 visits/week for 1 month, then 1 visit per week for 6 months, then 1 visit/month FOREVER.

News Flash, if a chiropractor does not make a considerable difference in your symptoms in 3 weeks, chances are, they, WON’T.

4.       Same treatment for every conditionI have shadowed some doctors in my educational pursuit. I kept questioning whether I was crazy or the doc was. It did not seem to matter what the patient was coming to see that doctor for. Headaches, back pain, neck pain, dizziness, vertigo, digestive issues, bed wetting, pregnancy, You NAME IT, the doctor always did the exact same treatment. They would start face up, get their neck adjusted, on both sides, then rolled up into a ball and their mid back adjusted in about 3 places, then the doc would roll them on each side and adjust both of their hips or low backs, (pretty much whatever they could get to make the popping sound), then EVERY patient went to the next room where they would either get electric stimulation and heat or the traction table.

Either way, it did not matter what the patient was suffering from, they all got the exact same treatment protocol.

Rule of thumb, if you do not find your treatment plan to be focused on your area of complaint, or if you do not find your treatment options progressing through the treatment plan, RUN.

Of course, we all like the feel goods that go with a traction table or a heating pad, but you are not at the chiropractor for this fluff, you are there to get treated.

5.       “Wellness” Center
I constantly ask my colleagues that name their business, Bob’s Chiropractic and Wellness or Smith’s Chiropractic Wellness Center, “How exactly are you promoting “Wellness”?” The responses are always entertaining. Some discuss the obvious chiropractic mentality, “Alleviating the subluxation in the spine will allow the body’s natural healing powers to make every cell in the body well and happy.” Some reply with a better answer, “We always promote a healthy lifestyle in the office.”

Wellness can only come from one thing, good health. Do not let any chiropractor tell you that your spine is out of alignment and this is why you are getting the flu. Wellness comes from a low stress life that encompasses a healthy diet and some moderate levels of physical activity. If you think that you are going to have “Wellness” by getting adjusted after eating a McDonald’s Big Mac and fries, sorry, you are sadly mistaken.
 

There is always a principle that I follow, To Each Their Own. Maybe you have experienced all of the five things and think that I am crazy for saying it. You might love the way you can go into your chiropractor’s office and get treated the same way you always have. Maybe you get great relief from this style of therapy, and maybe you have been one of those miracle cases that demonstrate that a chiropractic adjustment can do more than just block pain.

I am just trying to help the stability in my profession by explaining the true evidence behind our profession. Chiropractic was created by a genius of a man that was 70 years ahead of his time. He was designing adjustment protocols and treatment strategies long before they were even understood. But this is now 2014, we have the Internet, and anyone in the world that googles “subluxation” is probably going to think that their chiropractor is out of his mind.
If you have heard your doctor say, “you are suffering from a subluxation, and it is putting pressure on your nerves, keeping your body from homeostasis,” RUN.

It is scientific research and evidence that shows how effective a chiropractic treatment plan can be for managing any musculoskeletal pain syndromes. If you are seeking relief from any aches or pains, be sure to find a chiropractor that is geared to take on the case. Make sure you get into an office that is primarily working to get your out of pain so you can better enjoy your daily life, and stop wasting money on the flying 7 adjustment and some electric stimulation.

Dr. Moz


If you are tired of seeking pain relief with no results, call (812) 799-0668 TODAY and schedule a FREE CONSULTATION, and let's get you back to the PAIN-FREE Life you are missing.

Visit www.NewStartHealthCenter.com TODAY!