Weight Loss Part 1: Butter Meets Beach
May 18th, 2012 § Leave a Comment
A blessing of living in a city with inexcusably walk-able (and beautiful) beaches, means after 6 months cursing of rain you go when the sun comes out.
With the sudden onset of summer in Vancouver, many the pale bum and yet to be chiseled ab was prematurely ushered into their sun-kissed debut…and I’ve sure had more patients inquire about weight loss in the past few weeks than in February. Whether or not admittedly to prep our beach-bods, the season does beckon our figures to be flaunted more readily than when the weather calls for muck boots. And it’s a cruel truth that ice cream happens to taste way better at the beach than under grey cloudy skies.
When we say we want to lose weight, what we usually mean is that we want to lose fat. A visual a friend once told me was used to demonstrate what fat is and where it comes from is this: Go to the dairy section, pick up a pound of butter, put it on your hip, and there you have it.
DIY Big Mac.
A perfect butter-soaked breakfast.
The horror & disgust meant to be generated by holding this 1 pound brick of lard speaks volumes about how we interpret and experience fat in our culture.
Fat is not a part of our bodies by mistake. Adipocytes & superficial fascia are stored under the skin or viscerally, surrounding and protecting our abdominal organs. Too much (especially visceral) is linked to insulin resistance, heart disease, diabetes, and myriad of wellness woes. Too little leads to other metabolic anomalies like missed menstrual cycles, depression, and even brain atrophy (aka. shrinking).
Step back from “fat” for a sec, and instead think “fluffy resonant fleece”. A soft woolly coat worn under our skin and over our musculature that helps dictate the shape our bodies take form.
Think structured fluid bubble wrap. Think specialized sense organ with it’s own nerve and blood supply; a listening device channeling signals from outside to our insides. Think endocrine gland, working alongside the pancreas and the adrenals, sending and receiving hormonal signals to regulate itself, our appetites, and how our cells respond to insulin, estrogen, and testosterone. Think stem cells, lymphatics, and safe houses for energy storage.
Fluff
My Favourite Fat
J. Campbell & S. Keleman’s book “Myth & the Body”, describes our predisposition to body types (ecto/meso/endomorph) as archetypes for our personal and also mythical journeys through life.
Keleman developed a framework for the body that is reflected everywhere else in nature, which is that “Life Makes Shapes”. He describes our individual shape as “a dynamic interaction between personal emotional history and genetic shape, an on-going process in which emotions, thoughts, and experiences are embodied.”
So the slim cerebral ectomorph, compared to the muscular action-oriented mesomorph, compared to the fuller embodiment of the endomorph, predisposed to gathering and incorporating, are each examples of our journeys into and out of forms through various stages of life. Each type gives us a certain orientation to the human experience, and can open a dialogue between body & brain that shifts the pattern of meaning both for ourselves and others.
Magritte, “Dangerous Liasons”
This has led me to believe that the first step toward meaningful “weight loss” (or more rightly “changing form”) happens when we begin to live our destiny. When we recognize and choose to embrace our somatic emotional-inheritance. When we accept and experience the body we have, the body we live, and always the possibility of the body we can become.
If you’re not feeling good in your body, or you’re easily “icked” by another person’s form, there is likely something in your life that requires your action and/or attention. Something in your individual journey that is lacking empowerment. An honest assessment of what you’re doing here, and where it is you want to be going.
When you’re ready to choose to move into a new form, it should be for the fun of it. For the experience and for the knowledge and transformation that is to come. For your whole health. As our lives change shape, so do our bodies, and vice versa, and we are always the one in charge.
Part 2 will breakdown some of the ways we can trans-form our figures without starving or dragging our sorry butts to the gym. But before embarking first ask yourself; what are you weight loss goals? What is your motivation? What benefits do you hope to gain? What do you require to get there?
Is everybody supposed to be the same size? 
What’s in a Name?
May 8th, 2012 § 2 Comments
“That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”
Kale?
If “rose” meant disease and “sweet” smelt revolting, you’ve pretty much summated this post and my feelings about differential diagnosis and the labels we give our illnesses.
Affectionately known as ddx, differential diagnosis is what Docs use to group symptoms together and give your batch of health troubles a name. The ‘differential’ part of the ‘diagnosis’ means identifying your particular illness when multiple, often closely resembling alternatives are possible.
For example, if you woke up this morning with a sore throat and just want to sleep all day, it’s likely that you have a viral infection. BUT you could also have strep (a bacterial infection), or allergies, or maaybe it could be a product of all that karaokeing you did last night…
Essentially, ddx is a process of elimination based on your history, symptoms, blood work, and any other scraps of information we can find in order to smack a label on your troubles. And smacking labels on things feels oh so good. It’s admittedly why on occasion I indulge in the watching of House. It’s that feeling you get when you flip to the back of a textbook for the answer and find that you picked right!
But did you?
Does circling (b) really account for all things in a person?
seed bank nomenclature.
Not a rose.
As a student clinician I remember one of my most difficult patients, who was both the sweetest and most forlorn woman I’d ever met. She came in with a diagnosis of fibromyalgia from a rheumatologist, depression and bipolar from her psychiatrist, and suffered from insomnia, IBS & chronic migraines. Totally addicted to both sugar and caffeine (read: drank 6 diet cokes a day) and on a laundry list of inarticulable and anti-everything medications.
Beaming with optimism I was ready and willing to take on her case. I felt sure that with the right treatment protocol we could figure this out. I submerged myself in endocrinology and pharmacology texts, got as clear as I could about the metabolic processes involved in fibromyalgia, mapped out the bearings of her neurotransmitters, hormones and nutrition status…
I made a perfect plan that was going to solve everything.
It didn’t.
What my “perfect plan” left out were the pathological effects of her one-hundred-hanging-overhead-diagnoses (ending pronounced eeez).
What I didn’t recognize at the time was that her major obstacle to cure was the labels of her illnesses. Beyond the multitude of stressors in her life she lived her dis-ease emphatically, to the point where those labels had been applied with industrial strength superglue.
Pretty horsey or the Last Unicorn?
Fries n gravy or Potato wrapped meatballs?
My DDX’ing had ignored what Caroline Myss calls “Woundology”, which is a powerful and addictive way that we carry our wounds as protection. They become a source of comfort, define us, and are rarely allowed to be challenged. They seduce us into a false and subtle safety for our psyches, and this is dangerous territory for healing.
But without labels communication between health care practitioners and the prescription of treatments would be a bit of a total gongshow. And at times, ascribing a name to an uncertain set of symptoms provides a great source of relief. When it has a name, it has a face. A face that we can choose to stand up to, or wear around like a mask.
I don’t believe we are meant to stay wounded. By getting stuck there they fester and block our innate potential for growth & transformation.
The best part of my job is watching this transformation happen in my patients. And it’s humbling that this is almost never on my terms. I can only show the way, but actually walking the path to wellness is for each of us to decide for ourselves. Some will start the journey later than others. Some maybe never. Those patients teach me patience. And compassion. And that there are gifts inherent in our wounds that will unexpectedly float down from the sky to save us (*cough* Hunger Games *cough*).
Whatever your diagnosis remember Tis’ but the name that is thy enemy.
Thou are thyself.
A Case of the Tuesdays (An Addendum)
April 24th, 2012 § Leave a Comment
Yesterday it seemed like no matter what I tried, I couldn’t turn my Mundane Monday into anything more than that which it was. Which was Drab-tastic. Tuesday has been marginally better.
ho-hum.
And for this, I blame The Hunger Games.
I didn’t want to. But I did it. I started The Hunger Games. And from Friday to Sunday I did little else but read that blasted book. Against all attempts of literary snobbery and self-proclaimed distaste for “pop-fiction”, I seriously had the best weekend.
It was like I was 12 years old all over again and had just discovered Narnia. When literature literally makes your heart race, suddenly nothing seems more important than what happens next…
Until it’s over. And now I’m back in front of my laptop. Alone. With a monster to-do list. Back to authors that won’t let me turn pages so quickly. Feeling that poignant combination of boredom and restlessness. Craving the busy-ness of imaginary adventures.
I force myself to pick up Rainer Maria Rilke. Hoping his trademark reclusive insights might help. And of course…they do.
It’s taken me weeks to finished Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet because every page is so beautifully and meaningfully written, that I stop myself to ensure that I allow it’s magnificence to properly seep in. I don’t want to take one word for granted. I don’t want to miss a beat. Not at all about what happens next, it’s about what’s happening in this word. In this sentence. In fact it’s about going back and reading the sentence before it. Sometimes twice. Forcing me to be present, while reflecting on what’s past.
‘Letters to a Young Poet’ is a compilation of Rilke’s correspondence between a fellow poet who is struggling with the complications of being an artist. Being in love. Being human.
I <3 Ri
I re-read one letter today in my Hunger Games hangover and wished I had been able to include it in my last post when I realized that, hey, I’m the boss of this blog, the master of my domain name. It’s my party, and I will addendum if I want to!
So here’s some more on solitude, and the importance of being bored & restless….
“You should not let yourself be confused in your solitude by the fact that there is something in you that wants to break out of it. This very wish will help you, if you use it quietly, and deliberately and like a tool, to spread out your solitude over wide country.
People have (with the help of conventions) oriented all their solutions toward the easy and toward the easiest side of the easy; but it is clear that we must hold to what is difficult; everything alive holds to it, everything in Nature grows and defends itself in its own way and is characteristically and spontaneously itself, seeks at all costs to be so and against all opposition.
We know little, but that we must hold to what is difficult is a certainty that will not forsake us; it is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be a reason that more for us to do it.”
So the discomfort of “unhappy restless me” is actually the beginning of freedom from it. Instead of fighting to rid ourselves of any ounce of dis-ease, allowing whatever it is, to be, serves the health of both our bodies and our psyches. Making us stronger and more resilient than we previously could have imagined.
A lesson from Nature once again. And from the pages of different books taking me different places, teaching different lessons…
Like it’s time to start tackling that to-do list, and that this week, I probably need to get out more 
Where To Turn
April 18th, 2012 § Leave a Comment
Introvert, extrovert, and ambivert are built on the latin verb verto, to turn. So in literal terms, if your thoughts are constantly turned inward (intro) you are an introvert; outward (extro), an extrovert, and in both directions (ambi), an ambivert.
Depending on your personality and unique brand of principles, one chooses the directions they’ll turn daily. And often (but not always) consciously we shift our alignment towards those worldly interactions that make feel us the most comfortable or at home in our skin.
For myself, choosing where best to turn can tend to cause a weeee bit of angst sometimes. While I might wish to flow freely, reaping the best of all worlds, I have a tendency to get “stuck” and associate regret or even shame with choosing one path over another, regardless of where it’s going. Yet the ‘angst’ of these anxious moments is often followed by a hidden superhighway of potential growth and discovery. Which of course I always, always forget at the time.
And in a way, life inevitably finds some way of nudging us in another direction, or plopping us in an interaction which we may never have chosen otherwise. Into a serious conversation with ourselves, a heated conversation with others, or just finding yourself somehow alone, with a television and full tub of ice cream on a Saturday night.
In practice I often find myself suggesting to patients that they turn inside, to listen to the still small voice that hums quietly for health, while the outside manifestations of dis-ease (aka. symptoms) flash wildly in bright neon lights.
There is power in introversion. This part of our personality that orients us towards exploring our own inner riches, even if it may feel like they’re hidden beneath piles of muck or, worse, not there at all.
Solitude and contemplation is a standard part of the story for almost all spiritual gurus (think Buddha under the Bodhi tree, or Jesus out in the wilderness). Exploring this space allows us to come up with our own unique solutions to problems, and within it there is a certain comfort in getting to know who you are, the good bits and the bad.
However life as a straight-up introvert can separate one from the world. And especially during illness, we can isolate ourselves, believing that people won’t understand, or just don’t want to listen to what it is that we’re going through (note: if your nose is full of dripping green snot… you should probably just stay home). Our outer world should energize us, and being interested in other people and their stories is the brilliance behind the efforts of extroverts.
Landscape with figures - George Tooker, 1965
Embrace of Peace II - George Tooker, 1988
And so this dance of the ambivert becomes I think important for health.
Pendulation between the inner reflection of our joys and pains, our angels and demons; while sharing and listening to each others stories is an integral form of healing itself.
In the words of Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen:
“I can trust another person only if I can sense that they too, have woundedness, have pain, have fear. Out of that trust we can begin to pay attention to our own wounds, and to each other wounds – and to heal and be healed.”
And so maintaining our physical and mental health is not so much what we do with our lives but what we allow to happen. Honouring our natural processes of stillness & action, sitting back & speaking up, moving us toward greater health and wholeness.
Whether your wander into the wilderness is spent alone or surrounded by party-goers, bring back what you’ve found and share your suitcase of souvenirs (slash Intstagrams?) with the world…or maybe just your bestie and a tub of ice cream
The Skinny on Skin Care
April 10th, 2012 § 2 Comments
Prepare yourself readers, PWH is about to get superficial.
While I usually like to write about the magical unseen processes that happen inside our body, today it’s what on the outside that counts (sorta).
Me, attempting to smile.
As a teen I remember eagerly flipping open an issue of Seventeen magazine that promised the solution to problem pimples. The article was a sequence of photos of some gorgeous gal demonstrating how to casually cover up blemishes using an assortment of hand positions, attempting to conceal zits with not un-obvious gestures. Thanks, Seventeen.
Of all of our organs we probably curse our skin the most. We smear it with colours and chemicals, pick and scratch, obsess and demand perfection.
ahh, the language of adolescence.
Skin is our primary interface between ourselves and the world. It’s the only thing standing between what’s inside and what’s ‘out there’, and we neglect it’s care using quick fixes as we do so much of our other bodily ails.
Skin is an elimination organ. It’s an outward manifestation of our inward selves. When our other organs of elimination (eg. liver, bowels) aren’t doing their jobs properly, the first place we’ll know is on the skin. It’s important to take into account the health of the whole body if skin issues are ever to properly resolve.
Skin is a sensory organ. A sensual and even sex organ. There is a deep and complex relationship between the skin and the nervous system. Embryologically, both start from the same line of cells, and our psychological states both impact and are impacted it’s appearance. It’s how we perceive, express and experience much of our self image. Communicating who we are and how we feel through what we choose to hide or reveal.
So how can we naturally care for our skin?
Diet is obviously a great place to start. Reducing your intake of saturated fats, increasing your fiber, and providing the vitamins and minerals your body needs is crucial to the health of all of our organs, including skin. I’m also a big fan of fish oils for skin health. I like Ascenta’s products, and you can read more about how they help here.
Balance your Hormones. Changes in the ratio of estrogen to androgens like testosterone can often be a culprit behind breakouts, especially if you’re a lady who notices them around menstrual cycles, which is a perfect example of how what’s happening inside manifests on the outside.
Go get some sun. Our skin’s relationship with the sun goes way back, and yet we are literally told to fear the light that is the source of all life on the planet. Moderation ‘member? Don’t broil yourself bronze, but don’t smear yourself in synthetic sunscreens either. Our skin knows how to protect us from UV radiation. It’s called melanin. You know your skin type. If you have lots or a little, adjust your exposure accordingly.
Brush. Brushing’s not just for teeth anymore…skin brushing is one of the oldest forms of Naturopathic care. This doesn’t mean your pink puffy loofah tho ladies. A real skin brush should be stimulating, maybe even sting a little. Sloughing off old cells will potentiate the growth of new ones.
Bathe. A recent tip I got and like a lot (thanks to Tommy & Shelby) is to take a cup of coconut oil in the bath with you. Soak in it, and without rinsing off, just pad yourself dry to thoroughly moisturize.
Love your liver. Eating whole foods and especially those high in vitamin A and zinc great for the skin. Accutane, a popular pharmaceutical for cystic acne is nothing but a super high dose of synthetic vitamin A, with potentially super toxic side effects.
Relaaax. Find your stress coping mechanisms and use’em. Remember how your skin is connected to your nervous system? Keeping your “nerves” on keel as much as possible will translate into even keel skin as well.
Drink water. Obviously.
Dirt + Water = Mud.
Play in the Mud. I like clay masks a lot. The benefits of healing earth have been known for centuries. Choose a mineral-rich soil or clays without perfume, additives or preservatives. Their colloidal properties act as a cleansing agent to both feed the skin trace minerals while removing harmful substances from the pores.
My Herbal at Home Facial:
Merry Marigold.
Kitties like it too.
Make a cup of Calendula (Marigold) tea. Using the petals & flowerheads, steep a strong cup for about 15 min, then put it in the fridge to cool. Calendula is anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial and vulnerary (wound healing to the skin and digestive tract).
- Mix some of the tea with your choice of clay, let it sit and thicken for an hour. Enjoy sipping on the leftover tea.
- Apply the clay to the skin for about 20 min. Rinse off with a warm cloth.
Effectively treating the skin is rarely accomplished through just topical applications. Like most dis-ease, prevention is key. And like any of our other organs, their health happens through taking small steps today, to avoid bigger problems tomorrow.
Stand up proudly in your skin. Quit cursing. And quit being $old the solution to your skin problems in fancy overly scented bottles. Remember that health is always in your hands.
