Lifestyle Medicine: EAT WELL, MOVE MORE, STRESS LESS, and LOVE MORE

Mar 13

Written By Char

The more I dive into this work, the more I believe in it -by my studies and research but even more so by experience. Teaching about lifestyle medicine has me looking back on my healing journey reaffirming why this practice works. Lifestyle medicine, in short is: eat well, move more, stress less, love more. That’s it. As an Integrative Nutrition Health Coach, I provide nutritional guidance whilst addressing all aspects of my client’s life - emotional and physical health - so they can achieve whole body health. Real change occurs from the inside out, and that’s why Lifestyle Medicine works. Below, I will be discussing my learnings from Dean Ornish, M.D., and Anne Ornish’s book Undo it!: How Simple Lifestyle Changes Can Reverse Most Chronic Diseases - the true pioneers on this revolutionary field of lifestyle medicine.

SO, what is lifestyle medicine?

The 4 major components

Each a healing modality on its own and synergistic when done together.

A whole-foods plant-based diet

Naturally low in animal protein, fat, sugar, refined carbohydrates and high in flavor —primarily fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, and soy products in their natural, unprocessed forms. Mostly, eat foods as close to their natural form as possible, avoiding processed foods.

“When diet is wrong, medicine is of no use. When diet is correct, medicine is of no need.” —Ayurvedic proverb

To sum it up and keep it simple

Consume mostly plants
Minimize or, even better, eliminate animal protein and replace it with plant-based protein
Avoid sugar, white flower, white rice and other “bad carbs.”
Consume 3 grams per day of “good fats” (omega-3 fatty acids)
Reduce intake of total fat, and especially “bad fats” such as trans fats, saturated fats, and partially hydrogenated fats.
Organic is optimal —foods taste much better, and they are much lower in pesticide residues, which can disrupt your hormones

Moderate exercise, such as walking and strength training

Do what you enjoy — if you like it, you’ll do it. And I personally cannot stress this enough, I got into the best shape of my life when I decided to enjoy my “workouts” and redefined it as a time to move my body, and give it what it needs, nourish it. I’ve always been very sporty, but had somehow gotten lost along the way and persuaded into believing the “no pain no gain” workout mentality and nothing could be further from the truth. Once I started enjoying my workouts and feeling like I was rewarding my body - not punishing it — I began to see real results.

“The best things in life make you sweaty.” — Anonymous
Stress management

If there is one thing I could attribute to completely changing my life that is meditation - breath work. It enables me to do more and stress less. I used to suffer from chronic stress to the point that I thought it was normal. I lived in chronic pain and with stomach ulcers. Of course, now we know your lifestyle choices matters, but, I truly believe there is no bigger pain than the one we create for ourselves. Stress comes from primarily not only what happens to us but, more important, how we react to what happens to us. Once we’re able to quiet the mind, then and only then, we are able to make space to show up as our true selves, come into alignment and be, do, have everything we want. Researchers at Harvard found that meditation alone can change the expression of genes that regulate inflammation, programmed cell death (apoptosis), and oxidative stress in only a few weeks. Another maestro on the subject and that has changed my life is Dr. Joe Dispenza.

“The great thing, then, in all education, is to make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy.” — William James
Love, social support, and intimacy

People who feel lonely, depressed, and isolated are 3-10 times more likely to get sick and die prematurely from virtually all causes when compared to those who have strong feelings of love, connection and community. How well you love is meaningfully influenced by how well you love and how well you are loved. The need for connection and community is primal, and fundamental to our health and well-being as the need for air, water and food.

Loneliness exerts its negative influences via the same biological mechanisms - every organ system and biological mechanism are affected. For example, loneliness causes chronic emotional stress and thus an overactivation of the sympathetic nervous system, resulting in chronic inflammation.

Good news is, just as it can turn on the gene expression in over a thousand genes associated with chronic illnesses, the opposite feeling of love, intimacy, and connection can exert their healing influences via the same mechanisms, but in positive ways.

Social support buffers the stress response
Intimacy (anything that brings us closer together) is healing. It can come from romantic love or platonic love from a friend, child, parent, pet and plenty more!
Intimacy can also be transcendent. Paradoxically, meditation and other techniques that help quiet down the mind and body (activities done “alone”) enable us to directly experience a greater sense of interconnectedness with each other and ourselves. I can fully attest to this; I meditate daily and the effects of it alone have not just brought an immense sense of fulfillment to my life, but have made me feel more connected to everything, everyone and to myself more than ever.

In a moment of lucidity, I got a tattoo of the words "Love more” because I truly believe love is the ultimate truth…and you can always love more.

“Do not feel lonely. The entire universe is inside you." - Rumi

What’s the lifestyle program and how does it work?

Dr. Ornish’s lifetime work has been compressed into a 9-week lifestyle medicine program that has been successfully implemented in hospitals, physician groups, health systems and clinics across the country. Because it is efficacious and achievable. In 2010, after 16 years of comprehensive review, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) created a new benefit category, “intensive cardiac rehabilitation,” to begin providing Medicare coverage for “Dr. Ornish’s Program for Reversing Heart Disease.” This was the first time that CMS provided Medicare coverage for a lifestyle medicine intervention to reverse heart disease. It’s gained the support from the White House, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health, the head of the AARP, and leading physicians and scientists across the country. This recognition has allowed for many commercial insurance companies to cover the lifestyle medicine program - some not just for reversing heart disease, but also for reversing type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, and elevated cholesterol levels.

Overall, it’s creating a new paradigm in healthcare at a time when it is badly needed by providing better care to more people at lower cost.

Most physicians spend only about ten minutes with a patient at an office visit. As a Holistic Health Coach, this is an issue that frustrates me since it is insufficient time to talk about what matters most: their marriage, their kids, their work, their friends, their finances, their home, and their spiritual life. In my practice, I deliberately set aside at least 50 minutes with my clients to discuss and touch on everything purposefully to leave no stone unturned.

On a personal side note, there are new companies in the tech-healthcare space that operate on a membership based model that like to distinguish themselves by claiming to spend ‘3x more time with their members per doctor visit.’ I, curious and excited joined, and got all my hopes up thinking ‘this is the future!’…. When the time came, I barely got 8 minutes with the doctor in the office. I left feeling underwhelmed to say the least. So, be cautious about this. I think the revolutionary way to better healthcare is personalized patient care that extends beyond a 10 minute visit. It is precisely in that space where we create enough time with our client to talk about what matters most that makes the visit transcending.

This is where programs like Lifestyle Medicine and mine as a Holistic Health Coach come in. Our programs work because we are addressing the root cause - not the symptoms. Real change occurs from the within.

For more information on Dr. Ornish’s program visit www.ornish.com