Sustain Community Acupuncture - ”Well in 30″

At Sustain Community Acupuncture we are in the business of creating wellness in our patients. It is in our name, we want to create a healthy state in our patients and maintain it.  We accomplish this through the use natural healthy medicine and simple straight forward lifestyle recommendations. In the “Well in 30″ challenge, we challenge our friends, neighbors and patients to take 30 days and improve their health. Its easy to do.

Eat Well

Eating well means removing certain inflammatory and toxic foods that may have negative or harmful effects on your health.  These foods are primarily grains, legumes (beans) and dairy. You may not even realize the negative effects these foods are having on your health, performance, longevity and weight management.

• Energy issues
  • poor sleep
  • low energy
  • inability to sleep
  • waking throughout the night
• Digestive issues
  • bloating
  • acid reflux
  • diarrhea
  • constipation
  • leaky gut
  • IBS
  • Celiacs
  • Crohn’s
• Body aches, pains and inflammation
  • acute or chronic inflammation
  • fibromyalgia
  • autoimmune conditions
  • repetitive stress
  • non-healing injuries
• Allergies Skin conditions
  • Asthma
  • acne
  • psoriasis
• Diabetes
• Cardiovascular health
• High cholesterol
• Thyroid function
• Infertility, Hormonal and Reproductive concerns
• Weight management
• Psychological/Cognitive/Emotional issues

We recomend a paleo diet free from grains, legumes and dairy to help make you feel better, manage your condition and potentially decrease your need to medicate. Take 30 days to remove these inflammatory, potentially harmful foods from your diet and gain the health benefits you deserve.  For 30 days we will cut out all foods that cause inflammation, spike our insulin, are calorie dense and nutritionally insufficient. In 30 days you will eat lots of fresh delicious nutrient rich foods and let your body recover. Eating paleo lowers inflammation, detoxifies the liver, heals the gut lining and reverses the deleterious effect of toxic food choices. Well in 30 rejuvenates the body and turns off dysfunction.

What to eat:

• Daily:
  • Lean animal protein (Eggs, Poultry, Fish, Beef, Pork, Venison, Bison, Etc. – Wild, pastured or organic when possible)
  • Leafy greens (lettuce, spinach, rocket, spring greens)
  • Colorful vegetables (tomatoes, bell peppers, green beans, zucchini)
  • Fruit (1 serving a day)
  • Nuts (no more then 2 oz a day)
  • Favorite herbs and spices (avoid overly spicy foods for the challenge)
• 3 x week
  • Oily fish (wild caught salmon, sardine filets or anchovies)
  • Broccoli, cauliflower, kale, chard (cruciferous)
  • Squash and sweet potato (about 1 large sweet potato a week)
  • 1 oz dark chocolate
• 0 x week
  • Grains, sprouted or otherwise (pasta, bread, corn, quinoa, amaranth, rice, wild rice, cereals and beer)
  • Legumes (beans, lentils, peanuts, soy, soy sauce, tempe, tofu or edimamae)
  • Dairy (milk, cheese, butter, cream, yogert ,whey, casein, icecream etc. from cows, sheep or goats)
  • White potatoes (red, russet, golden, yukon etc. are all white potatoes)
  • Added sugar, artificial sweeteners or calories from drinks
  • Processed foods, no shakes, bars, chews, gels or other products
  • Alcohol (Beer, liquor, wine, etc.)

Eat 3 meals a day. don’t skip breakfast and don’t substitute any non-paleo foods that aren’t on the list.

Sleep Well

Sleep is the most important element of our health and more and more of our patients are chronically sleep deprived. To be “Well in 30,” we need to allow ourselves to turn off early enough to get a good night sleep and allow our body to heal, de-stress and get ready for the next day.

How to sleep:

• Black out your room
  • Get black out blinds or tape tinfoil over the windows for 30 days to see how light pollution affects our rest
  • Get the light out, computers, clocks, phones and other gadgets produce enough light to keep us awake all night
• Cool your room down. We all sleep better in a slightly cool room
• Stop the stimulation.  Turn the television, computer off and the lights down 30 – 60 minutes prior to bed.
• Put your mind at ease by not taking your work home and making a to do list so you don’t have to worry about remembering anything tomorrow
• Move your bedtime up until you wake up before the alarm or easily with it.
• Go to sleep (this is where Chinese herbal therapy and acupuncture can help you transition into natural healthy sleep)

Move Well

Exercise is important for health; moving the body, deep breathing and getting an hour or two of fresh air sunlight every day ensures good circulation, digestion and regulation of the sleep wake cycle.  Not to mention a little sunlight lets us produce vitamin D and other necessary hormones.

How to move well:

• Stretch it out every 15 minutes at work
• Move around every hour (think a water or bathroom break with a little stretching)
• Use lunchtime for a light meal and a walk outside (Walking a lot at work does not count)
• An hour a day outside in the sunlight

De-Stress Well

People are designed to handle stress well. When our ancestors experienced stress it was quick, short and over quickly.  Think about running from a bear, climbing up a tree for food or chasing down tonight’s dinner.  This healthy kind of stress gave us the speed, strength and hormonal response to survive.  Today stress is a constant onslaught of deadlines, bills, traffic, obligations and hyped news stories.  This kind of stress is toxic, tragic and could kill you given the chance.

How to de-stress:

• Eat well
• Get some sleep
• Move your body
• Schedule time for yourself
  • This means no phones, no e-mail, no chatting, face booking or twitter
• Turn off the television
• Get a hobby (Yoga, dance, martial arts, etc.)
• Live below your means.  This is a big one, no one can relax if they are worried about two new cars a house and the kids.

How to start:

Start now! Cold turkey is best.  In 30 days you will look, feel and be healthier then you have been in years.

Step 1: Count out 30 days on your calendar and start now!

Step 2: Clean out your pantry, make a list for a weeks worth of food and go shopping.

Step 3: Look at your bedroom and get rid of or lock out anything that will keep you from sleeping well (sorry kitty)

Step 4: Go for walk, meditate, relax

Step 5: Get a good nights sleep

Starting is not as scary as it seems.  This is a easy to follow eating plan full of nutritious healthy foods and if you have been suffering any health issues at all, isn’t 30 days a small price to pay to turn your health around now and start feeling better?  The only way this program will work is if you commit to it, no exceptions. It takes 30 days to heal the gut, turn off inflammation and start to reverse health problems affecting you. It takes 30 days to start to recoup you sleep deficit and your natural sleep wake cycle.  Cheating and slipping are not an option, if you break down, you break down the restorative healing function of the body and we need to start over.  After 30 days, we can talk about what foods are appropriate to add back in and which ones are not.

Measure: We all want to measure our progress when we start something new.  But for your sanity and ours, do not step on the scale it will drive you crazy and drive us crazy with emails if your weight plateaus. Skip the scales and use a measuring tape and pictures.

Tale of the tape: Use a a measuring tape to measure the circumference of your hips at the widest part of your buttocks and the smallest part of your waist, usually just above the navel. To determine the ratio, divide your waist measurement by your hip measurement. (36 inch waist/ 42 inch hip = .857). A ratio of 0.7 for women and 0.9 for men have been shown to correlate strongly with health, fertility and a decreased rick of disease.

Take a picture: Worth a thousand words, a picture can give us motivation and show us signs of overall improvement. Take a picture today and every seven days your eating paleo and following the wellness plan.  Compare them at the end of the thirty days, don’t dwell on your pictures, rather compare them side by side to see your improvement. restore

Participate: Last but not least, share your experiences!  Brag a little…you’ve earned it. Inspire others with stories of your accomplishments, or commiserate with others about your challenges.  Please post your stories, questions, recipes and tips on our website. Become part of a community in the shared spirit of wellness–we’re all in this together.