Rebuilt U: A show about unlearning

We live in America where gyms are plenitful and fat to burn is also in a full abundance. A quick perusal of Instagram and you'll have no trouble finding fitness sites or before and after pictures of amazing success stories. These are inspirational and a welcome site for me, to see such an interest in health. Kind of...

I am in a very fortunate position, in that I get to talk to patients every day about spinal health and health in general.

Weight loss is a very common topic...very common. It has been for as long as I can remember. When I did a survey last month, the number one topic people wanted info on was....weight loss. Even from people who don't need to lose weight. So, lets switch hats. You be the doctor.

Dr. You--"So, John Doe, what have you tried to lose weight?"

John-- "Well, I started exercising, stopped snacking, and ate less in general."

Dr. You--"Awesome John, keep up the good work."

See... You know how to lose weight. This is like me telling a smoker, "Hey, cigarettes are going to kill you". They know that. They smoke any way.

Here's what I want to avoid, just telling you the same old stuff, you know already. I want to delve into deeper issues. These are psychological issues, hormonal issues, and fundamental nutrition issues. 

One of the big problems is that you don't just wake up chubby. You don't go from a high school athlete to an extra 200lbs, overnight.  People slowly drift of course. You don't fall of course, you drift, ever so slowly, you don't realize it. This whole series is going to be focused on the little things that push you of course.

-being busy
-added stress (I'll tell you my story later)
-skipping breakfast
-even tap water
-etc...

Real weight loss isn't about tricks, diet pills, special diets, exercise, or meals in a box from a MLM diet company. Rewind...I wish I could make that cool rewind noise in writing. You can lose weight with the above and most people do, but is that real?

Yes, exercise is a sacred cow here in the land-o'-10,000 gyms. So, DO NOT misunderstand, exercise is good for your body, and can cause weight loss, but, it is often misused. Exercise for fitness and strength is awesome, but exercise for weightloss is inefficient.

Being fit and being healthy are actually different. Exercise is very good at hiding underlying problems. We talked about it in the Chronic Pain article. In relationship to weight loss, two scenario's show up.  I hear these complaints weekly in the office.

#1 If I don't exercise, I'll gain weight.
#2 I exercise everyday and don't lose a pound.

If you identify with either of those statements, then the month of September could be very good for you. Especially #1.

People who identify with #2 already know something is off, they just haven't found it.

The #1's are blessed that exercise still makes a difference. Here is something to think about. It is a very common statement for trainers / fitness guru's to make, that "abs are made in the kitchen".

The full article is at SLCSAW.com

7 simple steps to pain control
One of the major health problems in America is chronic pain. Over the age of 65, chronic pain is the most common problem. I see chronic pain every day in the office and there are reasons some patients do better than others.

This is dedicated to a patient that suffered with headaches for 50 years. I'm not kidding. No one ever told her these simple things. The first step on this list stopped that headache cycle for her.

This article is going to be longer than most, but considering the social impact and potential life changing steps for you, please take each step seriously. You could drug yourself, it's cheap, it's easy, and insurance pays for a lot of drugs, but take a moment to look up the side effects of pain killers. NSAIDS have more side-effects than just about any other drug.

We aren't going to cover exotic jungle juices or expensive foreign underwater electro therapies performed by unicorns with scuba gear.

This article will expose you to common pain theories and observations I've seen directly in the office. These are easy to obtain and do. My observations over the years have shown me that many of these aren't utilized on a regular basis. In here we'll cover.

1. Mechanical control and brain chemistry
2. Omega 6 / Omega 3 ratio's and inflammation
3. Sugar / insulin resistance
4. Excitotoxin exposure (ie...Aspartame, MSG)
5. ATP energy depletion (important if you're tired)
6. Vitamin D
7. Water / dehydration

Once you read all the way through this article, you'll understand why so many people have chronic pain.

Full Article: SLCSAW.com

We’re going to start with getting a little healthy today in a different way because I had a very interesting conversation with a patient yesterday. She was fortunate enough to spend a month on a pseudo-vacation. She had work to do. She actually did amazing. She did great, had very little trouble. Since returning home, she’s had a significant amount of pain return back into her life.

We started investigating why on earth that would occur and why does pain come back. We see it all the time when people come back from vacations. They’ll get adjusted before they go on a vacation. Lo and behold, they do amazing. They have no pains, no problems, no troubles. Monday morning rolls back around and they’re back at work and they’re having all kinds of trouble.

As we dig into life and what’s going on, I discovered a little bit of a secret. That busyness is a major risk factor for health. She was busy, so busy, crazy busy and didn’t know how to be any different, she didn’t know that was a problem and felt an overwhelming compulsion to be active in some capacity, all the time. A little idle time was basically frowned upon in her family. She was raised that way and always felt that she had to go, go, go, go and never stop, never stop, keep pushing, work harder, work faster, work more.

Ironically, when she had a chance to lay on the beach, do some down time with her kids, it was amazing experience. It was something that I think a lot of people struggle with. We’re going to dissect this a little bit and see if we can identify your busyness and ways to fix it. That will be later, because I did a blog post many years ago on how to fix it in 5 minutes. (It's here)
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If you’re crazy busy or if you ever hear yourself saying that, then you might want to pay attention to this podcast. The difference is... being busy is most oftentimes a lifestyle choice, very much like for this lady. She chose, if she had an extra 20 minutes, to go and do something, anything than just sit and be, or take a nap or slowing down. She has an amazing volunteer track record and does very useful things, but there has to be some way of slowing down and creating idle time.

Other people, that’s not really a choice. But that’s out of necessity and that’s not exactly what we’re talking about today. If you’re supporting 6 kids and you’re working 3 jobs just to keep the lights on and you’re taking care of a sick parent, you’re really not just busy, you’re tired and exhausted and just trying to keep your head above water.

If you are getting congratulations on being busy from people as you’re talking to them around the water cooler, then this is really for you. It is not a badge of honor to be busy because it is a choice. It’s a voluntary decision that really affects people. I am affected by this. I was heavily affected by this. I’ll talk to you about how that’s changed over the years for me.

Do you actually want to be busy?
Is that really part of what you really want in life?

Are you feeling like you’re even forced to do it?
Sometimes that’s your expectation from your family.

In the end, what I want you to think about is "does it even matter"?
Are you actually making something to be useful?
Are you creating something to help people or better the world?
Are you just having idle hands and just basically trying to stay busy without actually producing anything? Being productive is a whole different level of being busy. Busy people are different than productive people.


The trouble is, and I’ve been subjected to this too, is it feels good to be in demand every second of the day. You’re so busy. It’s kind of an ego trip because you clearly are very important because you’re busy. 
 
If you’re go, go, go and never have any down time, then you may be subject to being too busy. There’s a balance in there.

What does being busy look like?

1. When you lay down at night, you might be too busy if your brain basically has a thousand things that run through your mind that you need to worry about, be anxious about, to be thinking about. If your brain never shuts off, you are too busy. You’re not giving it time during the day to deal with those issues. Being busy, you never have down time for your brain.

You may be too busy when:

2. You can’t remember your last vacation. You may have not even ever taken a vacation.

I have to confess. For probably about 7 years, I never took a vacation. I was like, I couldn’t afford to take a vacation because it would take too much time away, take too much money away, and all your typical excuses. Finally I got talked into taking a week vacation. It was a very, very scary step as a business owner. It was probably one of the best things that I ever did. Going on a week’s vacation to a remote campsite in the northern part of Minnesota. We actually were 50 feet from Lake Superior and listening to the wave’s crash all night. It was amazing. Being out in the wilderness was rejuvenating. It was life-transforming. My brain actually felt better. My body felt better. My best ideas come from idle time and just letting my brain be.

If you haven’t ever taken a vacation, you have got to start thinking about doing that. You might be missing out on some of the best days, live, times of your life. Do consider doing that because if you have not ever taken a vacation or you almost never take one, you can almost guarantee, actually I can guarantee, you are too busy.

3. You might be too busy if you have less focus than a gold fish. Yeah, I’m not kidding. Time magazine actually did an article about this. This was in May 2015.  Microsoft did a study on brain activity. People generally lose their concentration at about 8 seconds now. In 2000, it was 12 seconds. But now in 2015, it is 8 seconds. A gold fish can concentrate for 9 seconds.

77% of people surveyed between 18 and 24, when they had nothing to do, guess what they did? They reached for their cellphones to do something.

If you are looking at your cellphone constantly, you’re losing your ability to focus. Your brain is not getting enough idle time. The early warning sign... texting in the middle of a conversation.

4. You might be too busy when you are more tired in the morning. I did a whole article on what it’s like to be tired in the morning, ways to deal with it, how to look at it, lifestyle changes, dietary changes and some tests you can do. But the fundamental problem is that you’re most likely too busy. I had the same thing happened many, many years ago. I had to make some other lifestyle choices and go through a lot of supplements.

5. These are things that you might say if you are too busy. If you constantly say, think or feel like you’re in "survival mode", that you’re "never caught up". Busy people, don’t intend to invest in themselves. They don’t take care of themselves. They just forget about themselves. If you’re always feeling like you’re in survival mode, it’s just probably because you are and you are too busy.

6. You’re almost always late. If you’re always late for appointments, always late for this, always late for that. You’re often finding yourself speeding because you’re late. You’re running red lights because you’re late. You’re potentially risking your life and other people’s lives, because you are too busy. We see this all the time in Salt Lake. It is in nearly every single intersection that somebody’s running a red light. That is very easy to fix. Get up earlier. Set your alarms. Being late is a sign that you are too busy and there is no good that comes from that. It’s easy to fix by simply leaving 5 minutes earlier. You never have to stress. Life is much easier when you drive the speed limit because you don’t have to worry about being pulled over.

7. These are signs that you might be too busy when your to-do list is 24 things long. If you have never ending constant to-do list, you are most certainly too busy. Productive people on the other hand will probably have 4 things on their to-do list. Most times when productive people have 3 or 4 things, they’ll actually have a laser beam focus and they’ll get things done. A busy person is jumping and flittering from one project to the next. That is not the same thing – being busy and being productive are very different. You might be both creating action or activity but productive people have a priority list that is very, very short. Focus your priorities to cut down busyness.

8. You’re too busy if you are constantly meeting the expectations of others. That could be your boss, maybe your customers. It could be some lazy family members that don't help around the house, but are more than capable. Guess what? You’re going to get too burned out, If you’re constantly trying to meet other people’s needs.

9. You are just flat out exhausted, not just tired. The companion guide I linked to in the show notes is on being tired. This is exhausted, meaning you physically can’t get out of bed. You’re constantly feeling like everything is a huge effort. You always feel like if you sit down, you’re going to fall asleep. You just don’t have energy to do much of anything. You need to read that article on being tired and you have to recognize that things need to change because if you don’t, you’re going to be labeled with chronic fatigue syndrome or fibromyalgia or something like that. Your body basically will quit on you. Better to deal with it now. Start changing things otherwise your body will force you to change things at the least opportune time.

10. This kind of an unusual one but I think it plays into a subtle trend in our society and that is being unhappy really for no reason. You don’t know why you’re unhappy. You’re just unhappy. Busy people often have distractions from reality or problems they don’t want to deal with. It’s much easier just to ding around on Facebook and check out of life for awhile. Sometimes you’re just simply unhappy and you don’t know why, you need to step back, start meditating, start taking some time to yourself and figuring out what truly is creating a disruption in your life.

11. If you skip or cheat breakfast, basically because you have no time. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. People are just pounding down cereal because it’s theoretically fast. Or you’re just skipping breakfast because you have to… I have people who come to the office at 11 o’clock in the morning. I’ll ask them about what they had for breakfast and they say, “Oh I didn’t have breakfast. I just barely got here in time.” It’s 11 o’clock. You should have been up a long, long time ago, having a nice breakfast, maybe spending some morning time reading or meditating. If you are sleeping until 10:30 and racing to the office, your life is out of balance.

If you’re skipping breakfast or just dumping cereal in a bowl and pouring milk on it. This is a good thing to start working on because breakfast is important. It's the easiest way to make a huge impact in your nutrition because cereal is not nutritious in any way, shape, or form. You need to be getting some fruits, some veggies, some eggs, some yogurt or something else into your system besides cereal. Don’t skip breakfast, and don't cheat yourself with cereal.

12. If you find yourself not being able to say no.  If people ask you to help out at church or people ask you to help out with their kids or people ask you to do anything and you always say yes. Saying "YES" is easy. Saying "NO" takes disciple and is much harder. You are going to be too busy eventually, if you always say yes. Warren Buffett, the most successful investor, has got a really good handle on this. For every 100 opportunities, he says "no" to 99 of them. He only says yes to one. Very successful people, in general, say no more than they say yes. But people feel obligated. They feel like they have to please people. They have to meet the expectations of other people. They’re looking for acceptance. But in the end, you actually are hurting yourself.

Take this to heart. This changed my perspective immensely. Did you know that researchers found out that when you die only 10 people will care enough about you to cry at your funeral. No matter how famous or beloved you are, on average, 10 people really care. To make it worse, if it's raining at your funeral, half of the people will skip your burial. Say "NO" to someone today.

If you’re noticing a trend here and you’re too busy, now is the time to start looking at things that you can start saying no to.

13. The last one is if you talk about how busy you are, you’re so busy, you’re crazy busy or how little time you have, this is the ultimate sign you don't have priorities. Your priorities get time. Things that you value, you make time for. All of a sudden if you have a sick kid, your priorities are with your sick kid. You’re not going to work. When you have higher priorities, you will give time to those things. A lot of times, people don’t have their priorities figured out. They just stay busy because they don’t really have a direction. If you’re starting to talk about how busy you are, then you are busy, but in a bad way. These are things that you might want to start fixing.

How do you fix these stuff? Where do you start? What are some steps to changing a busy lifestyle?

4 Easy Solutions on our site, here.

Fixing fatigue blueprint, here.

Start solving your fatigue problems tonight in your kitchen.

Today we’re going to be talking about ENERGY. For those of you who are struggling with fatigue, this might be your show of all shows. If you’re tired and can’t get out of bed in the morning or you just don’t have that zip and energy like you used to have. Here’s a whole bunch of stuff that could help you out a lot today.

This all started many, many years ago for myself because I was just tired all the time. I couldn’t get out of bed very well. At one point, it was about ten snooze alarms into the morning and my wife pretty much had to actually kick me out of bed because I couldn’t get up. That was a problem and I had to come to some realizations that I was working too hard, so I cut back on the hours that I worked. That’s where I am today. I work fewer hours and that’s okay, because I’m a lot happier and I can actually go out and have fun and play with my kids and do things that I sometimes was not able to do.

Today we’re tackling fatigue, so that you can get back to your normal life. There are some other crazy things that can cause fatigue. I will just tell you from my own personal experience, I’ve had two bouts of extreme fatigue. One of them was lifestyle related. The other was actually a parasite. That’s a very difficult one to diagnose, very difficult to find. That took me a long time. But when all the basics didn’t work, all the fatigue stuff didn’t work, that we’re going to cover today, then we start turning you over lots and lots of different little rocks and looking for the obscure things.

Full post is HERE.

Anti-Fatigue guide is HERE.

People often ask me about supplements because they either know they need to take more, or they want to simplify what they are taking, or upgrade to something more natural.
People are more interested in nutrition, in general, now-a-days than ever before. Over the past 17 years, I’ve seen a great shift in the thinking of most people about their health over all, more people are choosing organic foods, eco-cleaners, farmers markets, and most patients take supplements.

I started using Supplements in practice about 16 years ago because patients were struggling to heal. I've noticed a trend, about every 7-10 years it seems to be a harder for people to heal. As I learned more, and realized whole food supplements and herbs wield tremendous power to help people, so I started counseling people from all over.

It took me about 5 years to see a stark difference in patients. All of the patients I was adjusting and giving supplements to were doing much better than the ones who were just getting supplements. And so my number one rule for supplements began.

I still don’t counsel people about nutrition unless they are getting adjusted. So, when people call me from other areas of the country for help, I’m glad to help, but my first question is, “When was the last time you got adjusted?”

Every action in your body is controlled by your nervous system, every one. Your nervous system is influenced by the function of your spine. The University of Colorado found that a misalignment can cause up to a 60% loss of function of the nerve. How much pressure does it take? About the weight of a nickel.

By their very name “supplements”, they are supplemental. Meaning they are used to help off-set missing vitamins and minerals, to help the patient regain their health or maintain their health. The reality is that supplements are necessary by nearly every one. Researchers started seeing nutritional deficiencies back in the 1920’s. The nutritional situation of America is much worse today.
Those are things I think about when I am feeling bad or awesome. Yes, I get adjusted and take supplements even when I feel amazing, because I still want to feel amazing 20 years from now. So this is just a reminder for many of you long-time readers and possibly new info for those of you who I haven’t adjusted.

For the best results… make sure you are getting adjusted by a chiropractor no matter where you live.

#1 Get adjusted. Even if you are only getting adjusted 1x a month that’s enough for many of you to keep your body running very well.

#2 Use whole food supplements. That means the supplements are still living foods not ripped apart dead, deficient, items from a national brand. If you see your supplements on TV. They are not worth buying.

1. Toxicity: It's everywhere. Polluted water, food and air.
2. Processed foods: It's everywhere.
3. The “How cute am I?” effect. Let’s face it, people want to look good.

But, to be healthy and look good requires a few things, besides new clothes and a good haircut. The glow that radiates healthy energy, good skin and an award winning smile comes from great nutrition and some good posture from getting adjusted regularly. Good isn’t good enough any more.

Finding real food is easy. That includes fruits, veggies, and meats and other things that don’t come in packages. Real food is available in every town.

Real food supplements are harder to find. They aren’t generally on store shelves. You have to order them from somewhere. So why go through the hassle?

#1 The nutrition in most food today is very low compared to even 50 years ago.
#2 The amount of processed food people eat is alarming.
#3 Supplements without actual food ingredients you can recognize, are made like processed foods. They can not nourish your body.

Truth

- nearly everyone needs a multivitamin. There is much more info in my Supplement guide.

Why?

Processing of food either creates a void of vitamins and minerals or it renders them useless. Let me give
you an example, “natural forms of vitamin E (as alpha tocopherol) lose up to ninety-nine percent of there potency when separated from their natural synergists, (tannins, fatty acids and phospholipids).” Annual Rev. Biochemistry, 1943, P.381

Also, in 1943, D.T. Quigley M.D. wrote the book “The National Malnutrition”.
I actually have the book in my possession.
On Page 54
“A study of the requirements for normal nutrition and a study as to how well
the average dietary meets these requirements leads to the conclusion that
the average diet of the average civilized person of the present time is a
deficient diet. Civilization has brought with it factory foods, and factory
foods have in no way contributed to health. On the contrary, in every case
where factory foods have been adopted, health has been seriously
impaired.”

What $15,000 can buy you in testing.

National Geographic paid that to test one journalist for 320 chemicals.
Interestingly, he tested off the charts for PBDE, a flame-retardant chemical, ie… from mattresses, carpets, TV’s, automobiles, and even the insides of airplanes are drenched with these chemicals. These chemicals are so wide spread, they have been found in polar bears in the arctic.

The EPA reviews an average of 1,700 new chemicals every year. WOW! There are only a handful of labs that can go really deep in testing. This journalist learned that some of his chemicals likely came from his mother. We now know, cord blood of a newborn can contain over 200 chemicals.

He also did an experiment eating large fish. He had a couple meals of Halibut and Swordfish and retested his blood. His levels of mercury more than doubled. This was depressing, because I love those two fish.

Things to do:
1. Obviously, minimize the chemicals you are exposed to. The big ones would be pesticides, solvents, and household cleaners.
2. Eat foods, daily, that help cleanse your body. Bitter herbs, lemons, Kale, Brussels sprouts, eggs, etc.
3. Stopping things that hurt your liver, processed foods, partially hydrogenated oils, alcohol, certain meds (ask your MD), smoking, etc.
4. I find this is a big job, so I take supplements and herbs daily, to help.

Nearly everyone needs omega 3 essential fatty acids. It would be best to read the rest in the Supplement guide.

This article started from a conversation with a patient. She's having trouble sleeping and has tried to get into a sleep study. Problem is, she can't get in for 4 months. Nice. So, we had a conversion about ways to sleep better now. One of the quickest ways to improve sleep is to get a new bed. I'll give you more tips at the end, as well.

So, to add to your sleeping better knowledge I sat down with a local sleep expert from IntelliBed, Kristin Moyle.

I know a lot of people who have trouble sleeping. I thought maybe we could get some more tips today on how to sleep better. We’re going to try to give you lots of ideas and ways to improve your sleep. She has a background in health. I’m going to let her talk a little bit about her story and what she can bring to the table for you today. Take it away, Kristin.

Kristin Moyle: Thanks, Dr. Altman. I have a background in health. My degree was in Health Promotion at BYU. I came to IntelliBED a couple of months ago, because I feel like the gel that’s inside the bed contributes to the fact that it’s a health and wellness product. It has been something in our own home that I’ve slept on since I’ve worked here. I can tell you that it’s helped every morning when I wake up, every night when I go to bed.

Dr. Altman: When you are at home, though--what you were telling me earlier--is that your daughter has some back problems. Can you tell me how IntelliBED helped her?

Kristin Moyle: My daughter is 17. She is a swimmer at Lone Peak High School. She likes to be active and is an athlete. She has back issues that were giving her a lot of pain. It was affecting her swimming, affecting her sleeping, and affecting her in the classroom. There was just a lot of constant pain. We bought her an IntelliBED a few months ago. After the first night, she woke up and said “My back lower back pain is gone.” She still has some issues that need to be addressed with the chiropractor. But as far as her waking up sore in the morning--that has been eliminated due to our IntelliBED. I really believe that that’s helped her night after night. She’s doing much better with her back.
 
Dr. Altman: One thing that I want to be covered--that I think you can be the expert on--is how the IntelliBED differs from an innerspring mattress or maybe a foam mattress? A lot of people sleep on foam or they sleep on an air mattress of some sort. How is that different? Maybe go through that a little bit.

Kristin Moyle: Okay, that’s a really great question. There are about four main beds that are out there. There’s the innerspring bed, which is your normal mattress that you would get at a department store, for instance. Then there is the foam bed that has the memory foam in it. There is an air mattress. We feel like we’re the other one that’s out there--IntelliBED.

The difference is that the gel was made by a group of engineers here in Utah about 17 years ago. It was meant to replace foam. The memory foam that’s in popular beds, they spray that with chemicals and fire retardants and things like that, in order to make it a memory foam. It’s not intended to be slept on, as far as the chemicals go. There’s a lot of off-gassing that can occur with those types of beds.

(Dr. Altman interruption here, If you want to read up further on off-gassing, this is a good article, It references the flame retardants as specific toxicities. If you remember, we talked about this briefly in my toxicity article, here. National Geographic paid $15,000 for a journalist to get chemicals tested, the flame retardants were very high.)

The rest of the interview, show notes, and bonus sleep tips are here.

This is Dr. Altman. I am in Rawtopia with Omar. He is the owner and the master chef here. I have something very special for you because we were in the office the other day and he was telling me all about his purpose in life. He has an amazing story and I think you guys can all benefit from his history, his story and maybe a little journey on finding your own purpose. Maybe if you want to just tell people a little about what we were talking about in the office last week and how you ended up in the restaurant business. I think it's a fascinating story because you've been all over the world and you have a story unlike anybody else I've ever heard. Maybe if you want to just refresh people like who you are, how you got into the restaurant business, and really just your story and how you ended up in Salt Lake.
 
Thanks for having me on this podcast. It’s an honor. Anyway, we were talking about purpose. Purpose is something incredibly important. I feel like we're all destined to do something that we’re sent here to do. I'm originally from Lebanon. I'm Lebanese. But my parents met in Ghana, West Africa, and got married there. I was born and raised in West Africa, Ghana, and then Nigeria. Of course, we traveled a lot.  We've went all over the world when I was a kid, traveling, living in different places, because they like to explore. But for the most part, I did live in Nigeria. Then at the age of 11, I went to Lebanon to learn the language and the culture. When I was 16, visiting my dad in Nigeria, I told him that I wanted some more opportunity. I don't want to be in third world countries. I felt like I'm destined for more things than just owning his factory, and running his business, and doing what he does.
 
That's pretty unusual, because at a young age like that, most people are just playing soccer and baseball. They're not really thinking about greatness or destiny. Did you have some inspiration at that age? That's really young.
 
Growing up, my mother introduced me to meditation when I was very young. I was in love with meditation. I remember I would read books about it. I would close my eyes and journey in myself. I feel like meditation really helped me personally. I was always spiritual growing up. I always prayed because I just believed in prayer. I felt like every time I prayed, it manifested. Also, I felt like I'm a little different.
 
Were you asking the universe just in general for things, or for inspiration?
 
Not really. No, I didn't know what that inspiration meant. When you're a kid you don't understand inspiration, you just do things. You’re just full of action and ambition. You don't really understand what those concepts are when it comes to new age philosophy, having intention and vision and all the intelligent things like tools we need in life to accomplish our goals and dreams. I felt like I wanted adventure. I wanted to explore the world. I'd been to America before. I just had this dream that I would go to America. I just loved the fact that, I felt like I would much rather be in a cleaner environment. Living in Nigeria and living in Lebanon, it's chaotic. I needed some more, you would say, order. I felt like America had everything under control. It's not chaotic. They have laws and orders. I like that. But back then, I didn't understand that either, but I just felt like, you watch Hollywood movies and you see clean grasses and trimmed trees. It's paved roads and it's really nice. I want to go there.
 
It's like the American dream.
 
I have actually been to America. I remember Utah very clearly. My aunt lived here. I remember when I was 6 years old, I came to Utah. We used to go fishing. The rivers were amazing and the lakes. My uncle had a boat. It was a fun time. I really enjoyed Utah. I remember a lot of times I would close my eyes and I would see the rivers here.
 
You were back in West Africa?
 
Yes, I was in Nigeria. We went to Lebanon. We got the Visas. We came to America. My father of course agreed with me. He said, “You're very smart to think like that. I'm going to send you and your mom and your sister and your brother, because we don't want to lose you.” They believe America is the “sin world”. It's where everyone can do whatever they want. He was scared to lose me in that conglomeration of people.
 
They're like your chaperones?
 
Yes. “All of you are going to go there so that you're contained. You have family, and you're not going to be lost amidst the chaos of America,” new-aged culture that they don't quite understand because Lebanese people are very cultured. They're very conservative.
 
Is it more formal? Does it follow the rules for specific…?
 
I come from the Druze tribe. Yes, we're supposed to marry within our tribe.
 
When you got here, did you come to Utah? Did you go to school here?
 
Yes, I came to Utah. My senior year of high school was here, because I had one year more to go. I went to school here at Granger High School in West Valley City. It was a shock for me. That's when I remember feeling extremely lost. I was like what did I do in my life? How did I leave Lebanon and come to this country because it was not what I expected at all.
 
How was it different?
 
It's a weird culture. I want to say conservative and not and you have more Mormonism which is very conservative. But then in high school, I remember people swearing in the hallways and acting crazy. Then they would come knocking on my door, wearing missionary suit's telling me about Jesus Christ and about Mormonism. I would be a little shocked by that, like, “Wait, you were just swearing across the hall the other day, and here you are in my door telling me about your gospel and acting like you just love Jesus Christ and you're following His work.” I don't know. I was confused and I'm not raised Christian. I did go to Christian school when I was in Lebanon so I know all about the bible. It was very interesting for me. Then how people viewed things here was also incredibly interesting. Not a lot of people are well-traveled. I would say I’m from Lebanon and no one would know where that is. I would say I lived in Nigeria. No one would know where that is. To me, it was very interesting.
 
Then I remember people dress really bad. In Lebanon, people dress really good. Even an electrician dresses really good. Here I remember people were going with their pajamas and teddy bears to high school, which in Lebanon, that's a big no, no, no. We have rules and regulations in school on how to dress. Then I remember seeing men, like gothics, having black nail polish and black lipsticks. That was a little scary for me. I didn't understand it. I thought: “Are these what they call Satan worshippers, or what?” I didn't know. I'm from a small town in Lebanon, from a village. In Nigeria, we also lived in a small community. I was blown away by the difference of culture here. You had Mormons, Mexicans – all kinds of people. It was very interesting but I was very scared, I remember.
 
Once you got through the system, I know you went to a University. You did stuff with geophysics for a few years, didn't you?
 
I studied for 5 years, and then graduated, and got a job in Tooele Army Depot doing some groundwater analysis that was contaminated, mapping that. Then I was working with a PhD guy from Berkeley who was a part the US Army Corps of Engineers. He got me a job in Monterey, California, working with Parsons Corporation. From there, I was working with Ordinance, finding where the Ordinance were after the military practice their test bombs. I would be the one going in there and finding where they are and pulling them out so that it could be habitable again. From there, I was sent to Kaho’olawe Island Reserve in Maui.
 
Most people have never been there because I don't think you can actually go there, can you?
 
You can't. No, it's an island reserve for the US military. But they have given it back to the Hawaiian people, but it's under construction right now.
 
You were doing geophysics and you're working in Maui, then how on earth did you get in to the restaurant business?  That's a big jump.
 
Trust me, I never ever imagined myself owning a restaurant or being a chef at all. That's far from my reality, to be honest with you. But I feel like something happened in Kaho’olawe. This is where I'll start sounding weird maybe to people. But I believe that…
 
That's why I want to interview you because you have a really good perspective in life. I just want people to hear a little bit about it.
 
Something happened when I was working on the Island of Kaho’olawe. I think being on a place where not a lot of people have been to, and it's surrounded by the ocean, and being Hawaii in general, it gave me this feeling of, “Wait a minute. I feel like I'm in Africa again.” I feel like I'm in Nigeria again because Nigeria is by the ocean and we always went to the ocean. It was really good childhood memory for me. Being around all the fruit that I remember, like mangoes and papayas, and seeing tropical environment again after being in America for 5 years or 7 years.
 
I felt like something about the energy of that place started awakening me. I don't know how to explain it. But it's like I started feeling more connected to nature. I was so attracted to hippies and I didn't understand why. I'm an engineer. I'm very serious. I would go to the beach and I would see these hippies and I'd be like, “Look how they're living. They're just having fun, playing drums, playing music, swimming on the beach.” I remember talking about it to someone.
 
What year is this?
 
That was like 2004 or late 2003. I remember going to work and telling everyone about these people. They have these weird hairs. They call them dreadlocks. They're hippies. What do they think about them? I've never seen people like that before. Of course people at my work would be like, these are absolute riffraff. They're dirty. They're scroungers, things that were very negative. I remember feeling really hurt because I felt like they were actually good people. I've spoken to a few of them and they're all about love. I said, “What's wrong with that?” I feel like just because they don't wear a suit and tie and look like you, why are they so bad?
 
I started going to the beach and communicating with all these people. I remember I met a beautiful girl that told me she was from Israel. She was telling me how she did a movie about the peace between Israelis and Palestinians. I was so fascinated. I went and saw it in college. I was just so impressed by her.
 
That's not very important, but that's the energy that I started being attracted to. I started realizing also what they were eating. We're generalizing about hippies. The hippies, at least, that I've met were eating food that was more natural. They were eating greens and nuts and seeds. I was just looking at them going, wow. In Lebanon, we eat a lot vegetables, nuts and seeds. I was so intrigued by that and I asked them, I was like “Can I get a book about this?”  To educate myself more about it.
 
You didn't have any background in natural foods or anything at that time.
 
No, I was eating Burger King and fast food. I didn't know anything. I really didn't. Then I remember I got a book called A Diet for a New America by John Robbins. I started reading it. I remember I was just fascinated. I didn't realize anything about the food industry, about the chemicalization of food, how the GMO is working around all the growers and commercial growers and about the pesticides, larvicides, insecticides, chemical fertilizers, the importantance of top soil and how the top soil is being diminished and how important the top soil is for the future generations to come.
 
I was actually really shocked. I remember researching more about commercial growers and seeing planes flying over fields and spraying, then also all the Mexican workers that they are paying low wages and being around these toxic wastes. Their children are being born deformed because of the chemicals that they’re spraying. Further on I’m like, wait a minute: and so all this run-off water is going to the ocean. The ocean is where we're dumping a lot of our chemicals and wastes. Fifty-percent of the coral reefs are dying now. That's the biodiversity of the ocean. I don't know if you understand biology but we’re evolved from the ocean. How sacred the ocean is to me and to understand, wow this is not right. Then the rain forest: fifty percent of the world’s rainforests are being cut down.
 
It's very intense for me. But it's like the planet is so sacred to me. It really is. I felt like, what am I doing working as a geophysicist, working for a company. I'm doing environmental work, great, but it doesn't feel good to me. I feel like I'm not living my passion. I remember thinking--working as a geophysicist at work--thinking, God, in ten years if I'm still doing this I'm going to commit suicide. I cannot see myself doing this for a long time. I don't understand this. This is not something I want to do just for money. I couldn't do it. My goal was to go back into geophysics, get my Masters. Then go back into working in oilfields in Saudi Arabia because I spoke Arabic. Then I could make so much money. Then I realized: wait a minute--it's not about money here.
 
I was born in a wealthy family. My eyes are filled with wealth. I don't need wealth anymore. It's like Buddha. He came from a very, very wealthy family. His father was a king. He wanted to find out why people are suffering. He went out to the world in absolute poverty and lived amongst the people in absolute poverty and found nirvana. I find it very beautiful to step into the wilderness and learn from the trees and nature and from people and try to find your way through that. That's when I was so intrigued by raw food. I remember I got a book about raw food and I started eating a ton of raw food. I remember how my body felt, how my spirit felt, how I sweat out all these toxic wastes from my body. I can feel it. I remember looking into the mirror going, “Oh my God, I look like I'm 17 years old again.”

I remember feeling so young and I'm looking at my skin. I'm looking at my stomach. I'm looking at all these areas where I remember I started developing some fat, acne and all kinds of weird things in my body and pain at the age of 23. I’m like, this is not right. When I started eating raw food, I just felt literally like I was 16, better than I was at 16, even. I remember when I was younger, I always had stomach aches. All of a sudden, this food is cleaning me. A miracle happened where as I was making this food, I feel like I've been doing raw food my whole life. My dreams started becoming really vivid. I started seeing things happening. My dreams would tell me what was going on in my life. It was very interesting. I was like all of a sudden tapped in a way that I've never ever felt.
 
Were you doing anything else at the time? Or just raw food?
 
Raw food, yes, I started eating a ton of raw food. Meditation, I started meditating too. I was meditating a lot. The discipline that it takes to eat only raw food in itself is a spiritual journey because I realize how addicted I am to processed foods and sugar. They make them addicting on purpose.
 
That's why I want to talk to you because I want people to maybe be more inspired to eat better because it helps everything in their life go better and health is very important.
 
Absolutely! When I started eating raw food, I remember all my friends thinking, this guy has gone berserk. He's lost it. I remember all the people that I worked with looking at me and started saying, you're turning like a hippie. You're turning weird. You're going to waste your life away. It was bad. My mom and sister, they all thought I was absolutely nuts, too. But then I came back to Salt Lake City because the project ended in Hawaii. My dad had cancer. I started taking care of my dad. Because he was in Africa, he went to Lebanon and had surgery there and came to live with us here so we can take care of him. I remember feeling like I was going to heal him with raw food but he didn't want anything to do with raw food.
 
Then I realized, some people just don't think like that and don't care about food and don't relate food to their illnesses, or to their psychological []thinking. Does that make sense?
 
Yes, we see it all time. I often warn people: “Your friends will think you're weird,” which I always thought it was weird, because you should want to be healthy. It's weird for me to try to convince people to be healthy and to eat better food. But that actually does happen and people don't realize that people will look at you like you're a crazy person because you eat actual raw food or just cleaner, healthier food.
 
The other thing is organic. It’s not just about raw food. It's about supporting a sustainable environment and not supporting things that are using chemicals and pesticides and GMO product. We have been given the seeds from ancient times to cultivate it, to grow it, to tend the soil, to create compost, to create more soil. The health of the planet is related to the health of your body. Native Americans believe that earth is my body; water, my blood; air, my breath; and fire, my spirit. They feel like their bodies are replicas of the planet earth. Even if you zoom into yourselves and to your blood structures, you'll realize that there's proton, electron and neutron which is something similar that is happening if you zoom out into the galaxy and see the sun and the moon and the earth and the planets. There is an incredible relationship we have to our environment. To be disconnected from that, to me, it blows me away. I don't understand it.
 
Do you think health is too hard for people?
 
No, I think it’s just a mindset. I don't think it's hard at all. Actually what's hard about feeling good?
 
It's not, but it seems to be a challenge because either there's a lack of knowledge, or a lack of desire.

Definitely a lack of knowledge and, unfortunately, I realized I was blessed coming from a Lebanese family and coming from a tradition that makes food. My mom is a chef, too. She works for a really popular restaurant called Maza. We come from the mountains in Lebanon and we’re from Druze tribe. We have been living in the mountains for a long time. They came in the mountains because they were being attacked by Islam and Christians. So they hid in the mountains and they learned how to forage for wild food and how to preserve food during the winter because it's really cold in the winter. They learned how to do all this.
 
Being in Utah, I know Mormons have a similar view where they also learned how to forage and learn from the Native Americans how to get herbs and heal from those herbs that grow in the wild. Also, it gets really cold in the winter, so how to preserve food for them to last them in the winter. Of course, they preserve food for the end of days. But for me, it’s just about getting in the summer harvesting enough food to help you survive during the winter. In the summer, it's always going to be prosperous. That's why I dry a lot of fruit in the summer as I forage for a lot of foods. I make a lot of ointments for my skin or for using camphor, nettle, or dandelion. There's so much wild fruit growing here--burdock, yellow dock. It’s pretty incredible.
 
Did you learn that on your own or did somebody take you under their wing and show you?
 
No, I just started learning it on my own. I started going out in nature, hiking, getting books about wild food and learning what they are. I started getting into a lot of indigenous cultures like Native American cultures and sweat lodges and learning how they use the sage, how they used to buckle, how they use cedar wood, how they use juniper berries, how they use opal and frankincense and different things that they pray with. Their prayers and their forms of prayers involved nature and using the elements of nature and the fragrances. It’s divine. I really got into all that as well.
 
Then with raw food, in my restaurant, a lot of the things I do are very similar to what we do in Lebanon.  Tabbouli,  instead of using bulgur wheat, I use hemp seeds. Hemp seeds are a very sustainable product. It's not marijuana. Hemp is different. It's the male plant. It actually grows wild in North American. People have used it a lot to create clothing, to create ropes during World War 1 and 2. It grows, really, literally, wild and it’s such a sustainable crop. But it's been made illegal, unfortunately. Now we have to get it from Canada and other countries. However, it is native to North America.
 
Are there any simple steps people listening could take to just start getting healthier right now?
 
Absolutely! I don't condone veganism, although I think veganism would be a healthy start to cleanse your body. In the future, if you would like to drink milk that is raw, unpasteurized, and from grassland cows, that’s no problem because of how greens have been so GMOed and altered and hybridized. It's not the real thing that we’ve had in ancient times. Meat – hunting is a different energy than supporting an animal factory farm, which is horrendous, not just for the environment, but also on the animals. It's very harsh and it's senseless. I believe animals are sacred creatures. Even in ancient times, people that hunted paid reverence to the animals that gave their lives to them and supported their families. They used everything in the animal. In today's world, we don't really see things like that.
 
I definitely would say stay away from meat and stay away from dairy and focus on eating a lot of fresh foods like making salads and juicing and fortifying your body with cleansing foods and cleaning out your cells and your tissues through the chlorophyll content that exists in these vegetables. Vegetables, you'll be surprised: they give you life. They have life and they give you life. Yes, you're killing them, too, but on a much smaller scale than what you think of an animal would be like. It's very cleansing. Chlorophyll has a lot of benefits. You could research it and also the amounts of minerals especially if it's grown in sustainable environments and in an organic environment where the amount of nutrients are a lot more than the commercial crops because of the organic soil that yields a lot of minerals in the vegetables.
 
Eating fruit seasonally, I mean a lot of people, when they start wanting to be eating more raw food, they go get a bunch of seedless watermelon, seedless grapes and a bunch of foods that are not in season and are totally hybridized. There's no seed in them. It's totally sugar and it's really, really toxic because it creates an overgrowth of candida and yeast infections and bacterial growths because of the high amounts of sugar. That's why--if you notice I am saying you need to eat a lot of greens, a lot of bitters, do a lot of cleansing things just at least for one month--just do greens. Don't even do fruit. Then eventually, you start eating fruit seasonally.

In Utah you could, in the summer time. We have an abundance of fruit. But we also have wild berries. Not only in Utah but, for example, in fall, we have pomegranates growing in St. George and in California. We have persimmons, and things like that are actually very tasty and should be eaten. That’s seasonal as well, even though you live in Utah. I believe in the early spring, you have like bit more berries coming in from Washington. Then you have more fruits starting to become available, like cherries. Even though they are in high sugar, it’s just in season. It's good for you because of the nutrients involved with cherries. Then during the summer, you have a ton of fruits. In the late fall, you have a ton of apples. I only eat apples in the fall.
 
It's learning how to navigate through that. When it does come in abundance, you can actually dry it or freeze it, then use it in the wintertime when you want to make yourself smoothies with greens. You could use that. There's a lot of ways. You could make treats for yourself. A lot of people are so used to buying packaged food, which is really high in sugars, like brown rice sugar. People are like, “Oh, but it's protein.” No, it's a lot of sugar. It's almost more sugars than proteins. They use a lot of things that you don't understand what they are. I believe in making foods for yourselves, unless you really know the company and the integrity of the company, which a lot of times, you don't. What they claim on their packages is not being enforced by any law force or anything to make sure that these are the things that they’re doing.
 
For me, it's very simple. Getting a dehydrator is crucial, a good Excalibur Dehydrator. They’re the best. Taking simple things like walnuts. Walnuts grow here. Taking things, like for example, pears or apples or something that is growing there. Using flaxseeds because they’re high in omega 3, 6, and 9, and chia seeds and then putting all that in a food processor with the fruit and then drying it. This lasts pretty much forever. It could get rancid if you don't vacuum seal it. But it will last forever if you preserve it right. You can put a little bit of honey in it because honey is the oldest preservative. They found honey in Egypt, and in the Mayan cultures back in ancient times. Honey doesn't go bad and it's a super food.
 
I love taking dandelions and wrapping them up and I put hemp seeds with that and red onions. I mix that with lemon juice and olive oil and sea salt. Then I put that on a cabbage with avocado on top and eat it like a taco. That's delicious and that's wild. We do need bitters because bitters help our liver and kidneys.  I like to put some nettle with that too because it's so good for you and anti-inflammatory as well. Then you could take, for example, camphor and soak that in olive oil under the sun and then make little tinctures of it. In the winter time, if you have an injury, you can put that on your injury or something bruised in your body.
 
I think people forget a lot of those things.
 
Then, being clean allows you to be aware and be connected to everything around you – the energy and the force. A lot of people think of God as someone out there in Heaven. That we need to pray and be good people to earn our place in heaven. Everything around us is so disconnected, like we're not connected to the trees. We're not connected to the plants. We're not connected to each other. It's very interesting to me. I feel like God to me is not a noun. It's a verb. It's an action. It's a force. It's a living force that exists in us and in everything around us constantly in the present moment.
 
I can tell you, I'm very inspired. I don't know if people listening to this can tell that. But you have a lot of energy and passion. You might want to listen to Omar, because most people need some more energy. Is there anything that inspires you? Are there people that inspire you?
 
Love, I think love is the key to creation, compassion. Gandhi, Martin Luther King inspires me. Anyone that is in integrity inspires me with their selves in the realm of goodness--and wanting to good things in our world, and live sustainability, and take care of our planet, and take care of people—inspires me. Native cultures inspire me, from the Amazonian jungles to the Arabian deserts, to the bushman in Africa, to the indigenous tribes of Australia, to the native Indians in Canada. These people inspire me a lot, because they live in harmony with nature and they haven't cemented nature around them and created paradigms of money and greed and war.
 
Is there anything you're grateful for?
 
I'm grateful for America for providing me the opportunity to be who I am. I'm also grateful for people that have the energy of love in them and the capability of changing our world. I'm inspired by children and their innocence and their ability to be so joyous and happy and playful. I feel like that's a big part of it.
 
A lot of adults aren't like that anymore.
 
I know. I'm afraid that the adults are basically brainwashing their children to be more like them. Eventually, they lose their inspiration in life and their joy. The parents want their kids to follow their paths, which is not necessarily their children's path or their path in life. That's what creates a lot of confusion in people. They find it hard to find who they are.
 
Do you have any advice for people on how to either find their purpose, or get in touch with who they are, or their purpose?
 
I feel like it's about being present and it's about cleansing their bodies. Being present with themselves and their feelings and their emotions, and being present to their thoughts, and being present to what they’re eating. I think once you're clean in your diet, then you have the ability to… I really suggest getting books like Dane Waire. Getting books like Eckhart Tolle, Deepak Chopra, Oprah or different people that talk about life in a beautiful way. There's a really good book called Siddhartha by Herman Hess, which is very inspirational. I feel like it's so important to understand our thought patterns and the way our belief system works, to really start understanding and mastering your mind. I think that's very important.
 
The mind is the key to joy and happiness. How we navigate through our minds is very important. Learning how not to get caught up in our minds, and stepping behind our mind with the master mind, and being with the observer rather than being caught in the intensity of our thought patterns, but learning how to get out of that and being with, actually, God that is witnessing life through our eyes.
 
I think people maybe can get in touch with that with meditation if they just let it happen. I don't think there's an intentional way to do that.
 
Even meditation, you can be caught up in your thinkology, but learning how to be okay with that and just breathing, and then eventually the thoughts will bubble up and disappear. New thoughts will come and just being okay with that. Learning how to really breathe and being conscious of your breath. That's the bottom line. It's like plugging into the inside world which everything is one in the inside world, I believe. When we open our eyes, everything is so different. But it's all a reflection of ourselves anyway.

Everything for you is pretty upbeat, pretty happy. You've got tons of energy. Were there any dark days growing up or opening your restaurant, confusions?
 
Of course, we constantly are faced with challenges. The key to facing those challenges is viewing them as challenges and not as problems, and letting that be a way for you to conquer that and become a winner. A lot of times, we have to fail in life to become successful. Failure is okay. Life is okay. When bad things happen, bad things happen, not to take that personally, and it's all perfect for our growth.
 
I think God gives me challenges so I need to learn a lesson.
 
Yeah, every challenge, even pain in our body, or broken bones, or accidents – is all part of the great gifts that we’re given to awaken and to grow even more and become better people. I don't know about you but I know for me, deep sadness and pain have allowed me to create amazing art.
 
I didn't know you're an artist. Do you have any in the restaurant?
 
I use water color paints. No, I have them at home. They’re still not framed. But a lot of my paintings, I gave to my sister because she was the one who gave me the money to start my restaurant. I started this restaurant on $5,000 in a little hole in a back of Herbs for Health shop back in 2005 in the old Sugar House mall. I remember everyone was literally unhappy about I was doing. They thought I was absolutely crazy.
 
Even your family?
 
Yes, everyone. They're like “What are you doing having a raw food restaurant? No one needs raw food. Maybe a coffee shop or a Lebanese restaurant or something that people are more familiar with. But a raw food restaurant? You must have gone mad.” Also, I was buying all organic food and it was extremely expensive. They're like he's going to shut his doors for sure. I’d never really gotten any support. But when I started making the food and people started eating, they realized, you know what? This is actually really good for us. They felt different.
 
I grow a lot of my marjoram and thyme and herbs, and I dry them myself. I also support other local organic farms. I buy a lot of their herbs and then I dry it and then I package it, put it in glass jars and use it to spice my food. I also like the tomatoes. For the tomato sauce, I basically support a lot of farmers that grow heirloom tomatoes, and I buy over a thousand pounds of tomatoes in the summer time and I dry it all. I use it throughout the winter to make my tomato sauce so it can contain the flavors of real tomatoes from heirloom tomatoes. It's very difficult in winter time to get heirloom tomatoes.
 
Everything I do here is from scratch. We do dandelion salad as well with hemp seeds, which is very incredibly nourishing. We use a lot of flaxseeds and chia seeds in all of our food, and Irish moss for mineralization purposes. We have products here that also help assist with adding more nutrition value to your diets, like minerals and vitamins and protein. We use only local honey to sweeten our food with, or 100% maple syrup from farms in Vermont, that is very high in minerals as well. For me, the key is minerals--because of the over- growing of food, our soils are deficient of minerals. That's why foraging also for wild food is important to me, because it contains a lot of minerals in wild food that our bodies need that we’re deficient of.
 
The only way to really get it--I mean, you go get a pill, but I don't believe everything is absorbable that way. I believe things come to us more naturally and easily through live foods, through eating out of nature straight, rather than taking that and processing it and then eating it, which is still good, but not as good as eating it straight from the land.
 
That's why they're called supplements. They're not meant for your normal staples. They’re just to help to fill in the gaps. One of our biggest challenges is probably the under 30 crowd. About 30 years old, they start to wake up and pay more attention to health, nutrition, their bodies. If you could back up in time, do you have some advice for people right around 30-year old or just slightly under?
 
I started my business when I was 25 but I was definitely incredibly ignorant until maybe after 30, I would say. I started waking up to a lot of things. My advice would be, for people that are in their 30s or later 20s or a little bit later 30s, that are awakening: I feel like it's very important to follow your gut. Challenge yourself. It's okay to be uncomfortable. Actually, I want you to be uncomfortable, because it's only through being uncomfortable you can really change and grow. If you’re comfortable, you're never going to get the courage to do anything in your life.
 
That's like the pain to remain the same has got to be greater. Otherwise, people won't change.
 
I think we're living in an age of comfort where we have our jobs; we go to the grocery store, we buy our potato chips, or whatever we're addicted to, and processed foods; we go home and watch TV; we don't read enough; we don't meditate enough; we don't exercise enough. All of these things are very crucial for our growth. But we're comfortable, so it's fine. Then we started getting fat and we get even more comfortable in it. When we try to work out, it's hard. We’re like, I’d rather go to the couch and sit down and watch TV right now because I'm exhausted. I believe being uncomfortable could be very rewarding. Exercising is actually the key to creating endorphins in your brain, so you're happy. I believe in eating right, working out right, and having a practice--like a discipline practice, like a yogi or a priest or someone that pays attention to God and creates a disciplinary way of worship. Create an altar in your house for Goddess or God; have flowers that represent Goddess and have statues of things that remind you of sacred and compassion and things like that, so that when you enter your home, you actually enter a space of healing all the time and protection.
 
You always want to understand that there’s a lot of chaos in this world. I believe that I always see myself as a star. I surround myself with this bright light to protect myself. To protect yourself from the outside world and also to continue healing, and you don't want to pick up… A lot of people are empathic. They start picking up people’s energies and weird things. Then they start feeling crazy. I believe it's very important to energetically understand who you are as a person and as a being, and create those safe boundaries around you and always create that sacred place for you to pray and discipline yourself to work out, to do yoga, to meditate, to have that practice every day so that you're able to feel good and centered.
 
The energy is a critical component that people often don't really get to until later on in their health’s journeys. I see that in the office, because in modern technology, there are all kinds of energy problems. There's more chaos in the world. There’s more frustration in the world. People don't realize that that actually affects them. If you could start over, what would be the first thing that you would do like if you move to a new town? What would be the first thing that you would do?
 
Personally, I would see how I could get connected to a community. I cannot be alone in life. I don't believe we are designed to be alone. I believe that we need to surround ourselves with healthy people in order for us to be healthy. I guess who you’re surrounded by is extremely important.
 
That's one of my next questions. Who do you surround yourself with now that gives you that support?
 
I surround myself…it's so funny you asked that question, but I’d love to answer that question. I surround myself with people like psychotherapists and therapists. I surround myself with people that own their own businesses and have a strong mind. I surround myself with people that are engaged in spiritual practices like sweat lodges or things that further my spiritual growth. I surround myself with people that love nature. I surround myself with people that are not addicted to substance. I believe that the less we are addicted to things, the more our ability to spiritually grow is prevalent, absolutely.
 
Is there still maybe a lesson you have to learn?
 
Absolutely! Everything I spoke about is my journey. I'm still learning. I still have my addictions with caffeine sometimes. I feel like I'm also in the same journey as everyone else, and that we must keep refining ourselves constantly to keep on growing. I'm constantly learning how to engage in community, how to engage in sustainability, how to engage in more action and non-words. More like doing things like reaching out to schools and to educational facilities so that we're able to go in there and really change lives, and allow new inspirations to sprout in children.
 
You're very well read. You're very well spoken. Do you have a book that you would buy again? If there was one book that you would recommend, or you would just run out and go buy it again because you read it multiple times a year? 
 
I would like to say, again, Siddhartha by Herman Hess. I would also like to mention Kahlil Gibran. He wrote a book called The Prophet. It's actually mandatory for every Lebanese high school to have that book read, and also for some private schools. It's a very, very powerful book and it helps awaken spirituality in people. Kahlil Gibran is a magnificent writer. I think, The Power of Intention by Wayne Dyer, that's a very powerful book as well. There are a lot of books out there.  Maybe what I said right now would make sense and you would go get that. But maybe someone else would tell you, “Hey there's this really good book you should read. It is called so and so. You should get it.”

There's a really good book called The Prosperity Paradigm. It's really good. It talks about instead of have, be, do, you should be, do and have. Be happy, do the things that you need to do to get where you need to be, and then have what you desire. But the important thing is to be happy first…be yourself…be present.

How would you define success?
 
Success is in your mind. Success is how you live your life. That’s success to me. Are you working out? Are you doing meditation? It's not in material things. Success is in the richness of your soul, and the depth of yourself, and the connection you have for yourself, and what you do to your community--how you treat your parents, how you treat your neighbors, how your treat your friends. That's all part of success.
 
How would you define wellness?
 
Wellness, I would define it in healthy brain attitude. It's an attitude. It's a healthy body. It's a healthy soul. It's learning how to integrate three things: mind, body, and soul.
 
That's so funny, because the last podcast, we mentioned those very same things. If you guys want to learn more, go back one podcast and we'll talk about it. I have one last thing. In your restaurant, you guys make amazing food. So far, everything I’ve had is great. What tools do you have that you use to cook with?
 
I have a dehydrator. I have a garlic peeler. I have a lemon juicer, because we juice our own lemons here from scratch. I have a food processor. I have a K Tec blender and Vita mixer. I have some really good knives and a really good cutting board.
 
I didn't realize there were levels in cutting boards. Is that size, is it the material? What’s a really good chopping board?
 
Of course, you got to have a good cutting board to be able to chop all your vegetables. It's the size. It's the material. A wooden one or a bamboo one is great, as long as you can oil it and take care of it. Sometimes, even that goes bad. Sometimes we get the plastic ones too, unfortunately, but those are the ones that don't warp so much. I've gone through so many boards, and it's pricey. I keep on getting them. But for my personal home, I would definitely suggest a bamboo cutting board or a wooden cutting board, for sure. I like a big one; I like big boards. Not just small ones, because then you can take your freedom in chopping a bunch of things all at once. Then a refrigerator, of course, and an ice cream maker, and a gelato machine.
 
I appreciate you taking the time. My spirit and my hunger are now satisfied, so I appreciate that. I hope you guys learned something. If you would get a chance to come down to Rawtopia, we are in Sugar House, Utah. It’s 2148 Highland Drive. What's the website? Any other places I can find you?
 
It’s omarsrawtopia.com or rawtopia.com. I’m also on Google, on Yelp, on Instagram, and Facebook. Facebook and Instagram are at Omar’s Rawtopia. My name is Omar Abou-Ismail.
 
Thank you very much I appreciate it and you guys have a great day.
 
Blessings, thank you!

Here is something that you may not know, and a little background for the questions. Chiropractic is 120 year old profession that's been scutinized more than any other, and the largest and most politically powerful organization in the world has tried to bury it with a orchestrated conspiracy. You might be thinking, yeah right!  In 1963, the AMA formed a committee to "contain and eliminate" chiropractic. So you might want to ask, why would you want to contain and try and eliminate something?

There is a very well documented court case you can watch in the movie "Doctored".  You can even watch it for free on AMAZON PRIME. 

supportchiromovie.com has a trailer and a great video with the producer.

New Zealand tried everything possible to keep chiropractors from practicing, and in another court case, found no reason that the public couldn't benefit. Chiropractic is the largest natural health profession, licensed in all 50 states. If you want to be a healthier person, we're pretty good people to talk to. 

Sometimes I think patients just don't know what to ask, or what is even possible. Chiropractors don't give you anything or take anything away, we just increase the natural function of the body back to the way it is supposed to be. Who wouldn't want that?  So here is what I wish patients would ask.

1. Once I'm out of pain, is there anything I can do to prevent it coming back?

There are many things, but the most important is to understand pain and understand healing, especially as it relates to the spine. The main problem in the spine, is the fact, that there aren't very many pain nerves in the middle of a disc. The second problem is that the spine can adapt amazingly well for a long period of time to injuries, so you don't feel pain, until there are a lot of underlying structural changes. 

So, one thing is to appreciate that pain is your friend. Yes, your friend.  Pain is trying to tell you something. If you reach out and touch a hot stove, pain is telling you that your skin is burning. If you are hopped up on morphine, you might not notice your hand is melting until you smell burning flesh.

Don't wait for the emergency. If your house is burning down and the fire department comes, what do they have? Firehoses and axes, right? Does it make sense to call them tomorrow and have them come down and spray your house again? Then call them again to make sure that your house doesn't catch fire. That is very similar to how many people use painkillers.

This is just one of the Laws of nature. Pain is just a warning mechanism. To prevent it, you need to identify the source of the pain and try not to reduplicate the actions that created it. This is where it gets tough because most people's lifestyles are at fault. I see this a lot with upper back pain and neck pain because people are always on their smart phones looking down. Sitting at a desk is terrible for the low back. 

2. How often do you get adjusted and why?

I've been getting adjusted for over 20 years. The last time I went longer than three weeks was 15 years ago. I get adjusted just about every week. You'll be really, really hard pressed to find a chiropractor that goes longer than a month without an adjustment. You might be asking why?

It's probably not what you're thinking. I know from my own experiences and scientific research, that I'm healthier. Being pain free is nice, but that's not the core of chiropractic. University research has shown us that even the slightest amount of displacement / pressure on the nerves of the spine can decrease the function up to 60%.  Since the nervous system controls everything, nearly anything is possible. The very first chiropractic patient got his hearing back after the first adjustment. I have patients who can breathe better, instantly. Pulse rates dropping, bladders working better, stomachs less upset.  These are just experiences I see every week. 

Science is catching up to the clinical stories chiropractors have seen for 120 years in offices.  This is the coolest study. They looked at how an adjustment affects the brain.

Altern Ther Health Med. 2011 Nov-Dec;17(6):12-7.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22314714

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of Chiropractic Spinal Manipulation on brain responses in terms of cerebral glucose metabolic changes measured by PET scans. PET scanners are one of the most high tech machines used to monitor cancer patients and glucose utilization by the body.

RESULTS: (This is important to people who don't believe in chiropractic)

Increased glucose metabolism was observed in the inferior prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulated cortex, and middle temporal gyrus, and decreased glucose metabolism was found in the cerebellar vermis and visual association cortex, in the treatment condition (P < .001). Comparisons of questionnaires indicated a lower stress level and better quality of life in the treatment condition. A significantly lower VAS was noted after CSM (Chiropractic Spinal Manipulation). Cervical muscle tone and salivary amylase were decreased after CSM. Conclusion The results of this study suggest that CSM affects regional cerebral glucose metabolism related to sympathetic relaxation and pain reduction.

BENEFIT of increased brain GLUCOSE.

"The key ingredient is glucose, which boosts people's cognitive performance, according to psychologists Paul Gold, PhD, and Donna Korol, PhD, of Binghamton University, and Carol Manning, PhD, of the University of Virginia. In research described in a 1998 article in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (Vol. 67, p. 764S­771S), they found that it particularly improves people's adeptness at tasks involving memory and attention."

-American Psychological Association, March 2000, Vol 31, No. 3

More cool things about GLUCOSE in the brain, from the Alzheimers Association

http://www.alz.org/research/science/earlier_alzheimers_diagnosis.asp#Brain

"Functional imaging research with positron emission tomography (PET) and other methods suggests that those with Alzheimer's typically have reduced brain cell activity in certain regions."

"PET (scans) indicate that Alzheimer's disease is often associated with reduced use of glucose (sugar) in brain areas important in memory, learning and problem solving. "

Now, what would be even better is if someone studied chiropractic and Alzheimer's.

Remember, chiropractic primarily affects the nervous system and that study documented a reduction in sympathetic nervous system. 

Why is that so important?

Consequences of central sympathetic overactivity

This comes from Autonomic Neuroscience 2009, June 15

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2679852/

"There is growing evidence to suggest that many disease states are accompanied by chronic elevations in sympathetic nerve activity."

"The sympathetic nervous system is not only important for BP (blood pressure) control, but is also intimately involved in numerous other physiological processes ranging from metabolism to renal control."

"An overactive sympathetic nervous system has become an identified characteristic of several cardiovascular diseases including, ischemic heart disease (Graham et al., 2004), chronic heart failure (Leimbach et al., 1986), and hypertension (Grassi, 1998). However, elevated SNA is not isolated to diseases of the cardiovascular system and has also been reported in a plethora of other conditions including: kidney disease (Converse et al., 1992), type II diabetes mellitus (Huggett et al., 2003), obesity (Grassi et al., 2007), metabolic syndrome (Grassi et al., 2005), obstructive sleep apnea (Narkiewicz and Somers, 1997), pre-eclampsia (Greenwood et al., 2003), depression (Barton et al., 2007), and ulcerative colitis (Furlan et al., 2006). Importantly, sympathetic overactivity is associated with poor prognosis in patients with chronic heart failure (Barretto et al., 2008; Cohn et al., 1984) and end-stage renal disease (Zoccali et al., 2002)"

Reread that last paragraph. I know it is filled with lots of references, but think about what that could mean for you and your family. If you are healthier, you are less dependant on the system.

3. Is there anything I can do to heal faster? 

Healing is fundamentally related to a few important things.

    -Your nutrition. Garbage in = garbage out. Your body needs real food and real vitamins, minerals, amino acids, etc. People with really good diets heal faster. I use a few supplements to increase the nutrition supply so my body has enough raw materials. This is one area patients could easily improve.

    -Your attitude. If you want to get better, you'll do it. Believe it or not, there are people who don't want to get better and need something to complain about. I meet about one per year. 

    -Your actions. If you break a leg, you get a cast, right. Why?  You need to protect it and leave it alone to heal.  This is perhaps one of the toughest things patients deal with. EVERYONE wants to be better yesterday. The problem for most spine injuries is that they are ligament injuries. That means they heal SLOWER than a broken bone. Appreciate the healing process. If you do too much too fast, you can easily reinjure it and it can take even longer. 

4. Why does it take so long? 

This is related to the last question. Think about this, if a tornado comes through town and rips 1000 roofs off the houses. Now, your house is open to the sky, whats the first thing you do when you get a chance. Maybe after calling your insurance agent. You'll put a big blue tarp on your roof, to get some basic protection from rain. If you have to wait for a contractor, it could take months to get a permanent roof put back on. 

Your body works the same way.  Often, temporary scar tissue is laid down to get you back to being functional. Then over months of time a more permanent scar is put down. So reinjury can happen easier than many people realize especially when you feel great.

Unfortunately, many people haven't been exposed to chiropractic early in life. So, patients often come in with degenerative (rotting)  joints. If you were injured in high school sports or auto accidents and never saw a chiropractor, you can easily show signs of degeneration before you're 30 years old. If you have rotting tissue thats injured, it's going to take longer.

WORK. Yes, I know, most people are simply not independently wealthy. Having to get back to a job that often contributed to the problem, can be a problem getting better. 

Lastly, many parts of the spine have a very poor blood supply. Healing is proportional to blood supply. This is why a broken bone heals so much faster than a torn ligament. Bones have tons of blood, ligaments do not. 

I hope this helps you realize some of the power of chiropractic and the importance of taking care of your spine. If you have more questions, just contact me online SLCSAW.com

or Instagram/docaltman

This may be one of the most important podcasts I've done.

How much are YOU worth?

Are you worth X dollars per hour?
Are you worth love from your family?
Are you worth ____________fill in the blank?

"Your self-worth has nothing to do with your craft or calling, and everything to do with how you treat yourself." -Kris Carr

How people spend their time and money is very telling of how much they value themselves. The body that you were born with is yours and it is a blessing. It is the vehicle that carries your soul around.

Most people would agree that true health is eating more than a salad and hitting the gym. Healthy people have a...

Healthy Mind
Healthy Body &
Healthy Soul

We've talked about these concepts in chiropractic for more than 100 years. I look at it like this. Is your mind full of giving, caring, graciousness, love, and helping others?

or

Do you think about how to get things, one up someone, take from others, talk over some one or down to them?

Is your mind filled with peace?

or

Angst or worry?

Are you thinking about how you can race ahead of the car in front of you and cut them off, so you can get to the stoplight a microsecond earlier?

or

Are you leaving your house early, so you have plenty of time to drive the speed limit and not be stressed about a red light?

These may seem pretty obvious, but they are common scenarios and they affect your mind and how you go through your day. For more than 100 years, "thoughts" have been known to cause the spinal problems (subluxations), I see it every day in the office. It's often overlooked because the patients first thought is that they "did" something.

The stress of a frantic mind is detrimental to your health. As you let the world's problems run through your mind, the stress on your adrenal glands can decrease your immune system, increase blood sugar problems and even decrease magnesium levels. Ironically, being busy, keeps you from enjoying life and you can miss out.

Are YOU worth slowing down for? I want you to treat yourself better, because you're worth it.  This could be my most important post ever, because I know some people reading this feel the opposite.

I started writing this on June 4th because I had a patient quit care.  She came in with very serious issues that dramatically affected her quality of life. I'm talking, she was out of work because of these problems. In a month, 2 out of 3 problems were significantly better and she was back to work.  She decided that she couldn't afford to come in any more, even though the only reason she's making money again is because of the chiropractic care. She didn't value herself over bills and things. I rarely have people get such great results and decide they don't want that any more.

I started writing this as I was thinking about her and how I can help increase every ones value of health and life. You are more than a paycheck.

Some of my best memories have come from hardship, some of the greatest lessons in life, come from difficulty. I'm pretty sure that's how God teaches me lessons I need to learn. Life is hard.  I'm a slow learner. If you never have hardship, grief or sadness, you lose the appreciation for all the good experiences. It's like when I did the purification process and didn't have meat for 3 weeks. That first steak was amazing, absolutely indulgent. But, if I had eaten steak everyday, it wouldn't have that amazing affect anymore.

Life really is filled with ups and downs. I experience it myself and I see it daily in the office. One of the harder parts to being a chiropractor is seeing people in very low places in life.

Today, I'm in a low place. Yesterday a good friend of mine decided to take his life. So, I woke up very early this morning to make sure I finished this post and let you know that you matter. No matter how low or lonely you feel, you are a gift to other people. You may not feel like it, my friend certainly didn't feel like he was a gift, but he left a huge hole in lots of peoples hearts.

If you don't feel loved in your current situation, it's time to find a new one. Every person I've met has something to teach me. That means you have a unique skill or lesson the world needs. You may not realize it, but it's there. If you don't feel appreciated, or loved, it's not you.          

You matter to people, but I fear people are too busy. I fear that about my self and my friend. I had no idea he was struggling that much. I absolutely know that if he would have said one word about how he was feeling I would have been there to listen and help. If you feel like you don't matter, now is the time to talk to someone, any one that you know. They'll listen.

Most people, at the end of their life, won't be wishing they'd worked more.  They often want to be with people they love and reminisce about past experiences.

This was originally going to be a long post, but I think I need to give you something that will make a lasting impression on you. It made my life better. If you've made it this far in the post, do yourself and your family a huge favor and watch this speech from Jim Carrey. 

http://m.omeleto.com/199433/

"Your need for acceptance can make you invisible in this world"
-Jim Carrey

The world really needs what you have to offer.

For more SLCSAW.com

Today I have something very special for you.
This is part 3 of our basic supplement series. Ninety-one percent of people, statistically with a researched data, have the problem that we’re going to talk about today. Most of you can benefit immensely from today’s podcast. We are talking about omega three fatty acids and my personal favorite, cod liver oil. For hundreds of years, cod liver oil has been used as a staple for people’s general health. Where did it all go?

Many times people have memories of their grandmother having some cod liver oil maybe when they were kids. But you don’t see it as often nowadays. But actually people need it more than ever. I think maybe years ago the taste was so awful that people just got rid of it from their cabinets. That’s probably understandable. But today the manufacturing has gotten to be significantly better, and it doesn’t really taste like much of anything. A lot of it just has some simple flavors like lemon. It seems to be the most common for the ones that we sell or recommend.

In recent years, the processing has gotten to the point where even my kids like it. It shouldn’t be that big of a deal for you. There’s a resurgence in interest in Vitamin D, this is where cod liver oil becomes my favorite. As people become more inside people and less outside people, there is a greater demand for Vitamin D and you can hardly watch a news show today without seeing somebody talking about the deficiencies of Vitamin D and a bazillion other diseases that it helps prevent. Most people talk about prevention of cancer, heart disease and autoimmune diseases with vitamin D. It’s not without trouble. It’s can also be one of the most most toxic vitamins.

The natural way you would normally get Vitamin D is from the sunshine and your food. It goes in to your liver and it creates an active Vitamin D hormone and you get the health benefits from that. The best way to get Vitamin D is actually sunshine, but that’s not the only way. Sometimes for those of us who spend a lot of time inside, we need to get it in our diet. That’s where cod liver oil comes in, because it also occurs with Vitamin A which has a natural protective benefit.

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