Rebuilt U: A show about unlearning

What happens when Dr. Altman's date night turns into a nightmare?

I was sitting in a restaurant with my wife having a nice date night 6 weeks ago. We got a phone call that instantly altered our life. You think bad things will never happen, until they do.

It was loud in the restaurant so we didn't hear the phone in time and just got the voice mail from my son. "Hey, Grace (my daughter) was in a ski accident and broke her leg"...CLICK.

Of course calling him back didn't work. As a parent, having one of your kids seriously hurt is one of the worst feelings. Then having to wait...and wait...and wait for news is like the air being sucked out of the room.

The ski patrol called me back and told me she broke her femur and would likely need surgery. What !!!

My nightmare kept getting worse. So my evening started on a date and 5 hours later, we were in a deserted waiting room at 12:30am while my daughter was in surgery.

Life has so many twists and turns.

When people hear "femur fracture", the cringe face always shows up. People know inherently it's one of the most painful things you can have as a human being.

So what do you do?

Now, I have a teenage daughter with a major bone break, surgery, and almost toddler-like dependence.

#1 I'm thankful it wasn't worse.
#2 I'm thankful for the countless people who helped her.
#3 I'm thinking, how fast can she get back to normal.

The ripple-effect is incredible.

Accidents happen every day. Heck, every day in Salt Lake there is a car accident. I saw a video yesterday of a car falling off a parking garage onto the sidewalk. Unbelievably, no one was hurt. You just never know.

So what does it take to heal?

#1 Time
#2 Raw materials (nutrition, nutrition, nutrition)
#3 Rest
#4 Maximal coordination of healing (proper nervous system function)

Each injury and tissue heals at a different rate. Bones heal faster than tendons and ligaments. This is one of the reasons people in car accidents take longer to heal, they mostly have ligament injuries. Even if you cut your hand, you'll still have a scab for 3 weeks.

What you're like before an injury and how you eat after makes a big difference. If you are healthy and robust before an injury, you'll be back in short order. If you are sick and frail, it'll take forever to heal.

Your body needs vitamins, minerals, amino acids, etc. to rebuild tissue. There is no short cut to this. You can't build a house without raw materials. What you eat and the supplements you take matter. Medications don't do that. If your medication list is longer than your supplement list, you may want to rethink how you are doing things.

Rest is critical. There is a reason they cast broken bones. If you break your leg, it would be illogical to sign up and try and run a 5k race. People do this all the time with low back injuries. The moment they feel better, they want to garden or exercise. Injured tissues can be used, but shouldn't be overly stressed.

So, my daughter is going to start walking this week, not running.

I see a huge advantage for patients getting adjusted. My daughter has been getting adjusted since the day she was born. The first day she got home her spine was a mess, from the crash, from surgery, from being confined to a bed, from crutches.

Your nervous system controls everything happening in your body, everything. That control is influenced by the health of your spine. If your spine is out of alignment, injured, irritated, or degenerated from neglect, it can adversely affect your nervous system. You can't exercise or stretch this out. If you are taking pain killers, you definitely won't feel problems.

Let's say the tires on your car are out of alignment, does your car still roll down the street? Of course it does. Can you drive your car back into alignment? Of course not. The longer you leave the alignment out, the faster the tires wear out.

Right?

So, does the performance, traction, and safety of your vehicle improve over time, or degrade? Seems obvious, but the same thing happens to your spine and nervous system.

If you want to heal fast and well, you need the coordinator of your body working well. You won't hear that from other doctor's, but I'm telling it's 100% true. I've seen it for 2 decades and lived it.

I wrote this email for a few reasons.

For one, I want you to learn a bit more about healing and to understand that it can be faster and better.

Two, I want you to think about accidents. For most people, insurance is fairly useless now-a-days, unless you're in an accident. Couple things to think about, raise your auto accident coverage, in Utah it's called PIP, and look into getting an Aflac policy. It's not amazing, but it helps. The auto accidents are much more likely to happen. Too many people suffer, and don't seek care because they are worried about bills. The Aflac helps pay.

Third, this is a fairly stripped down version of my last 6 weeks. I think there is a lot to learn. To give you an example, my daughter was taking 16 supplements, 3 medications, and broth. She was off pain killers in 3 weeks. We had to have a white board to keep it all straight.

I would consider this an advanced health care lesson. I want to give you the opportunity to learn more. I'm not sharing the details with the general public, so it won't be in the emails, the blog, or the podcast. If this is interesting to you, you'll be able to learn more from our private Facebook group. You can get access by signing up for any of the classes at Rebuilthealth.com You'll get an email with an invite.

Why?

Well, if you aren't doing the basics, the advanced stuff really won't matter. If you are signed up for classes and are not in the Facebook group, let me know. You may have signed up before the automatic invites started. I can send you an invite or get you into an alternative option :)

Have a great week.
-Dr. Altman

"A nail is driven out by another nail. Habit is overcome by habit." Desiderius Erasmus

I was riding the train in to the office last week and I listened to this profound podcast. This particular podcast was by a business coach, who has been helping teach for more than 40 years.

He said there is only one thing that separates success.

It's your habits

We've talked about this many times, but I think it is so important to getting healthier and then maintaining that.

If you've ever done a "diet" and lost weight, then gained it all back, probably more too, then your habits weren't changed.

If you've done a boot camp fitness program, lost weight then proceeded to go back to your old ways, then you really haven't changed.

If you even go to the chiropractor, feel better, then quit going for a few months and your symptoms return, you haven't changed your habits.

If you start an exercise program and get derailed easily, then it isn't part of your regular routine. That habit hasn't stuck.

We could go on for a while, and if you pick a problem and you still have it, your habits need some tweaking.

Not your will power, not your discipline, your habits.

A person can be morbidly obese and want to lose weight and you can blame them for having no willpower or discipline, but that's not true. When times are stressful they have a habit of reaching for snack cakes and diet soda, instead of carrot sticks and celery.

They may actually have tremendous willpower to seek out sweets in the grocery store. The willpower is just misguided with bad habits.

The underlying problems still remains...the habits.

What if you really want to change something? We are now into spring. Summer is right around the corner. Do you want more energy? Do you want to lose weight? Do you want to be stronger? Have you failed in the past?

If you have then you didn't follow this formula. You won't change a habit and make a breakthrough unless you flow through these.

#1 commitment
#2 courage
#3 capability
#4 confidence - feels really good

Commitment always comes first. You can't gain new skills unless you commit to doing that. If you follow the 10,000 hour rule to get very good at something, you'll quit long before that if you aren't committed.

Courage feels awful. You've committed yourself but don't have results yet. This is the hardest stage because it isn't fun. If you decide you are going to change your diet, it isn't fun at first. Junk food is engineered to taste amazing. They use chemicals to alter your sense of taste. You won't see results right away.

If you have a problem in your spine and it's been building for years, it isn't fun fixing it. The benefits of fixing it far outweigh the consequences of letting it go. You won't see results right away, especially if there are decades of damage. When I was 20 I had a big scoliosis. Now, it's all gone. I've potentially added 10-20 years to my life and saved untold misery. I've seen a patient die at 59 of complications from scoliosis. She let it go.

Capability is now needed. This is the fun part for me. I like learning. You need skills. This is why I wrote the class series Rebuilthealth.com. Part one is just the basics. But, like starting with commitment, they are important to your overall success, and most people don't do them. Years ago, it took my wife and I about a year to switch our diet.

Confidence in your new skills or health or fitness or whatever is the end result. You are now the master of that skill and your habits are rebuilt to support that skill. Once you do them long enough, donuts won't tempt you, and soda has no power over you.

What habits do you want to change?

This post is very time sensitive only because the last free class (from today’s guest) of the year is Tuesday Dec. 8th. Since this is an interview, listening to it will be much better. It’s in iTunes under SLCSAW #27 Eliminate negative emotions.

Today I have a very special surprise guest for you. This is William Wood. He has a very unique talent, and there is something that I think you guys will benefit from a lot. He teaches some very special classes, and he has some free classes for you that will help you with emotions. I just got done talking to him, and he’s got some very powerful insights for you, your future, and your health. So, I’m just going to let him talk a little bit more about what he does.

William Wood: Hey, thanks for having me on the show today. I am a certified hypnotherapist, and what I do for a living is I help people with their mind and their heart. My main job is to help you get your mind set- right, so that you can achieve your goal, so that you can lose weight, so that you can feel good about your life- and whether you’re working on losing weight, whether you’re working on kicking an old habit, whether you’re working on something that really drives you- whether it’s a relationship goal, or a financial goal, or some kind of personal goal to take your life to the next level. I help you get your heart right, I help you get your head right.

This whole interview, which is awesome, is online at SLCSAW.com

Plus all of William's contact info

It's often said physically and metaphorically that to combat darkness you need just the smallest amount of light.

Last month, I was mad to hear about the DARK act. Deny Americans the Right to Know.

Once I got a glimmer of knowledge about it, I was mad and taking action. So were many patients.

Last week, I showed you why you can't avoid heavy metal toxicity, especially aluminum.

Today, my intent is to shine a little light under your door and show you things happening right in front of you.

So here is my major concern for myself and for you. Aluminum is a neurotoxin and it can accumulate in your brain.

This study took nanoparticles of heavy metals in the air and exposed rats to them and watched where the metals accumulated.

Results:
Aluminum- Brain
Lead- liver, lung, brain
Arsenic- "prominently" in the brain and blood
Cadmium- no specific organs

So take a wild guess at which disease is a destruction of your brain?
It's also running rampant and increasing every year.
There is no "known" cause.
There is no cure.

If you guessed Alzheimer's or dementia you win.

Now, before you go crazy, let me share with you that there are potentially multiple causes and aluminum has been extensively studied.

Full Article: SLCSAW.com

Maybe, the most important article I’ve ever written. I’m dead serious.

It certainly has taken me the longest, and by that I mean, it’s been 1 year in the making. This article has been the culmination of one years worth of work on MYSELF. But in actuality this article has been brewing for 14 years. Do NOT take this lightly, like I did that many years ago.

I’ve been in practice 17+ years and in that time the world and healthcare has changed a lot.

What would you say if I told you, I could do a lab test on you, and I could guarantee you’d fail? I have 100% of patients with this problem. No one has ever passed. Not even ME.

Now, what if I told you that same test could reveal a major risk factor for a disease with NO cure, none. 1 out of 9 of us will get this disease and the rates double about every 5 years. The one and only solution is to try and prevent it. Would you want to know that?

That question will separate the healthy from the sick. If you are overwhelmed by that possibility of knowledge, it’s best to stop reading now, because your life will never be the same by the end.

Health is a blessing, ask any one who’s lost it. I’m afraid every year it becomes more work and the people in charge are working very hard to take it from you. The only way for you to make a difference is to take responsibility for you. You are the only one who can.

Back in September, I talked about toxicity and the importance of dealing with it on a daily basis and if you’ve never done that, you should do the purification program, now or next January.

I have purposely avoided talking about heavy metal toxicity because I had to wait until October to get my last test results back. I was like a kid waiting for Christmas morning, nervous and excite all at once. Was it going to be better, or was it going to be worse?

So… what are toxic heavy metals?

Full article

The vanity quiz...Even Cosmo won't print this one.

Keep track of your score 0=never 10=always
1. How many selfies on your social media? 0-10+
2. Do you consider spray tan a BFF? 0-10
3. Would you be OK with looking AMAZING, but you have to feel like roadkill? 0-10
4. Do you look to cosmetics to change the appearance of your skin? 0-10
5. Do you forget to look at ingredients labels of Bathroom products? 0-10
6. Do you use perfumes to smell "pretty"? 0-10

0-19: You can skip to the end and start shopping online at Thrive Market.
20-39: You will want to skip to the end and go to the online cosmetic checkers. These are the best databases for info on toxicity. The FDA is worthless in this arena.
40-60: Keep reading.

What's the largest organ in your body?

Ding...Ding...Ding...Correct, your skin.

This is an area most often over looked by nearly everyone. You are going to learn a lot about toxicity over the next few months so lets start big.

If you are eating organic (good job), and cooking your own whole food meals (once again, good job), are you still using commercial lotions, shampoos, cosmetics, spray tans, lipsticks?

If yes, then you're doing it wrong.

You're poisoning the largest organ you have every day. Most of these cosmetics go right through your skin and into your body. Use the links at the end to check yours.

The most common side-effects listed?
Hormone problems...Nearly EVERY woman has these.
Cancer...1/3 Women will have this.

The FDA has zero power or influence to change this. You have to take back your health. For example: mascara is still allowed to contain mercury. Are you kidding me! Hair straighteners are allowed to contain formaldehyde. Hello, cancer. Read more here
http://www.ewg.org/research/exposing-cosmetics-cover/true-horror-stories-of-cosmetic-dangers

I know this from personal experience with a patient. We did hormone testing with her and the numbers were off the charts. She ate organic and had a pretty clean life, so I called the lab. They asked for a sample of her lotions and cosmetics and were kind enough to test them.

Sure enough, they were all laced with hormones. No joke, they aren't labeled. That was 10 years ago.

The makers have free reign to put nearly anything in there under the label of fragrance. A few years ago I posted a picture on facebook from across the street on a bridge I was standing on of Abercrombie and Fitch. I could smell the store from up there.

These are potent chemicals. When women wear perfumes in the office, it always rubs off on my hands if I adjust their necks. It generally takes 4-5 hand washings over the next few hours to get the smell off.

Here's what I tell my kids. If you wear a perfume or a cologne you will instantly turn-off or offend 1/2 the people in your vicinity. That means if you go in for a job interview, you just decreased your odds by 50%.

If you smell like nothing but a clean human, you won't offend anyone. If you do nothing else today, stop wearing perfume. You'll be instantly 50% more popular.

I can already hear the moans. "What am I going to wear, or use for lotion, or wash my face with?"

Start learning...that's the best way to make better choices. Look here at the major ingredients. http://www.safecosmetics.org/get-the-facts/chemicals-of-concern/

So you aren't likely to change things over night. I get that. But, please be aware that you are exposed to toxins DAILY. So do something daily to combat that.

#1 Eat more cruciferous veggies and greens (Kale, Brussels sprouts, Broccoli)

#2 Re-read my article in March about daily detoxing. I take the product LIVAPLEX from Standard Process daily. You have to be taking care of your liver daily. http://slcsaw.com/detox-easier-than-ever-with-livaplex/

#3 Start thinking about doing the Purification Program in January. It'll be on sale again. You can lose more weight and do yourself more good in January with that, than any gym membership.
http://healthyweightlosspurificationprogram.gr8.com

Cosmetic checkers
http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/
http://www.safecosmetics.org

Buying options
https://thrivemarket.com
Whole Foods
Trader Joes
Natural Grocers

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Hours downtown
Mon. 10-6
Thurs. 10-6
Friday 10-1
Sat. 10-11:30
Schedule SLCSAW.com
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P.S. I rarely sign petitions, but you should look at this very seriously.

Tell the Senate: Stop the DARK Act!
Rep. Mike Pompeo's (R-Kans) Deny Americans the Right to Know – or DARK – Act was recently passed in the U.S. House of Representatives.

If Big Food gets its way and the DARK Act passes the Senate next, the fight for GMO labeling is OVER. There will be no second chances.

We need a supernova of opposition right now to protect our right to know what we're eating and defeat this bill!
http://action.ewg.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=2162&tag=2015DARKSenSDHP

This is a new company that I've been asked to help with on a nutritional and chiropractic performance level. But, I think if you have an athlete in the family, you need to listen to this podcast. 

They are doing amazing things.

Your athlete can be getting sponsors at a very early age.

Your schools team could be getting custom uniforms for free.

Your athlete and team could be getting a mineral water for free to stop dehydration problems.

They could be getting school tutoring to help with grades.

They could be getting free chiropractic care to improve health and performance. 

I saw the jersey's they made for a local High School team and they were awesome and custom and half the price of what the team paid for them last year.

There are many, many possibilities. Just listen to the podcast and reach out to us if you need more info. 

She does yoga, exercises almost daily, she eats better than you do, lectures on health to 1000's of people, she's written a book on health, all doctor's should read. Heck, I even contributed to the book. She runs a health food store. She's spent most of her life dedicated to health and helping others when no one else will. This lady may be one of the healthiest ladies in the Salt Lake Valley.

What can be wrong?

She has a severely degenerative spine and she suffers from a common human trait, procrastination and a little bad luck. Oh, yeah I forgot, she doesn't have any pain...until I touch one spot on her spine. So walking around she feels great. But, she knew chiropractic can improve health, so she has been going for years and years.

Now, you might be thinking, why the heck didn't a lot of chiropractic adjustments help, or the yoga, or the exercise, or the rockin' diet?

Actually, I'm pretty sure they did. I think she'd be in very serious trouble and possibly in a wheelchair if she hadn't. That's how severe some of the degeneration is. Let me back up, You're probably thinking, "what's so bad?"

When degeneration happens the nervous system itself is affected and that can alter the function of any part of your body at the other end. Think, your organs, your hands, your feet, your brain, etc.

Back in the 1920's a medical doctor (Dr. Harry Windsor) studied 50 cadavers "to determine whether any connection existed between minor curvatures of the spine, on the one hand, and diseased organs on the other."

In these 50 cadavers there were 139 diseased organs.
He traced 128 of those diseased organs to a curve in the spine, directly.

So what went wrong?

This one time being health conscious hurt her. She didn't want xrays. I don't really blame her, the radiation isn't good for you. I could tell there was something wrong, and over a year ago asked her to get some xrays to see what was going on. There are times the benefits outweight the risks.

Guess what...she finally got them done. (with a little extra pressure :)

I now knew why she could never get better and her spine was wearing out at an accelerated rate. She was born with a nearly 2cm short leg. Her whole pelvis was dropping to one side. Her spine is sitting on a slant and has no chance of EVER being straight, unless she wears a heal lift. That's why yoga, exercise, or chiropractic could never fully fix it.

This would be like if your new neighborhood hired the crappiest cement contractor and when they put in your sidewalks they all sloped to the right 2 inches. It would be annoying to walk on.

or...

This is like driving your car on misaligned tires FOREVER. You would be mad that you have to replace your tires every year, but you CAN replace your tires. Your spine is not replaceable.

This is continued online, the xrays are worth seeing. There's much more on our blog SLCSAW.com

The point of today's class is to highlight some of those lesser known things that can interfere with your ability to lose weight, or maintain your homeostasis (body balance). Dysfunctions of the body aren’t always obvious.

Have you ever heard of someone with thyroid problems? They most likely have a lower metabolism because of it. It makes it hard to lose weight. The nerves that go to the thyroid come out of the neck. Hmmm.

Now, thyroid problems could be also be from iodine depletion, adrenal fatigue, soy consumption, tap water, common tooth paste, eating bread can drop thyroid output, and dieting too much and resticting your calories too hard.

You may have just read that last paragraph and thought, “what are you talking about?” toothpaste? water? soy?

Quick fix celebrity trainer diets don’t work in the long run. If you’ve neglected your body for 20 years, it’s going to take you some time to recover it and hard work. What I want you to learn is an all around healthier lifestyle.

If you are this far along, I’m proud of you, you’re interested in learning. In the last email I wanted you to write down some emotional scars, basically negative talk. If you speak to yourself or about yourself poorly, you will sabotage any efforts you try and make.

You could spend a ton of money on psychotherapy, but try some EFT (emotional freedom technique) first. This site has a good lay out that will help you with the basics, just scroll down to the bottom.

It dove tails nicely with what I was saying about the nervous system. If your brain is working against you, you’ll never succeed.

You can start with that everyday.

So lets say you are an emotional rockstar. Where else can weight be hanging on?

Take a quick look at this list. Figure out the percentage of problems.

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This is a good time to head over to the blog post, because it has a good graphic of hormone problems.

In part 1 of Weight Loss we talked about the basic fundamental that "you can't out exercise a bad diet."  After that email, I got a reply from an old patient from Minnesota. She was kind enough to let me share it.

"Hey Doc! How’s it going? I enjoyed this article and what I find even more surprising is that as much as you tell people that you should do more weight training if you want to see results, 90% of the people will still kill themselves on step machines, treadmills and ellipticals. You can also tell them what to eat but if they are not specifically training for a purpose – something they have for a goal, they will never stick to that diet. It’s exactly what it took me to be serious about what was going in my mouth. It’s all about clean eating and weight training. Not Jenny Craig, not trive, Not Isagenix or whatever it’s called, just the all natural eat what you should be eating that wasn’t created by some company to force your body to drop the pounds. Just saying…I’m off my soap box now. Hope you’re doing well!"

She hit a couple of key points.

#1 Free weight training is better than anything else when you are trying for a fitness or strength goal. I've only joined one gym in my life and there wasn't a treadmill in site. Weight lifting can be helpful in losing weight by increasing insulin sensitivity, not burning calories. That's why it's the best exercise for diabetics. Weight training isn't the focus of this series because we have to start with basics.

#2 Real weight loss isn't about a fad or a trend. It is a lifestyle.

#3 You need a goal, a reason, a burning desire to make a change. Because, being healthy is work. Don't let any one tell you they have a hack, or a short cut. Most people need to learn a whole new way of living, so you need a reason big enough to get you through the rough times. You can take a pill to force your body to lose weight, heck, you can take steroids. But, there are bad consequences waiting on the other side. Most "weight loss pills" are adrenal stimulants and there is a world of trouble waiting a few years down the road by doing that.

I hope you have your goal from last week. You can't just say, I want to lose weight. That won't work. You need the kind of motivation a bride has a month before her wedding.

If you are one of the lucky ones that can exercise and drop weight, this isn't so much for you unless...

If you stop exercising and your weight starts to go up.  There will likely be a day that exercise ceases to work so well. Today, of all days, I was listening to a podcast from one of the top trainers in America. She is now over 40 and has 7 lbs. to lose for a video shoot and is stressed about how hard that is going to be. She eats pretty good from listening to her, so there must be more going on.

Full Article SLCSAW.com