For the State of Israel and for the Jewish people as a whole, this is a year that will always be remembered – mostly for what went wrong.
All of this has had an untold negative effect on our mental and physical health. With our stress response turned on more than it is turned off and the constant and chronic anxiety on everyone’s plate, it’s very difficult to deal with the everyday problems and challenges that we meet on a regular basis.
I have always made it a point in my last article of the Jewish year to find the positives from the previous year and to project ahead to what we can look forward to in the year to come.
Quicker on the draw
One of the positive changes this past year has been our ability to receive new research quickly and put it into practice immediately. Generally when it comes to the field of health and medicine, things move very slowly. Dr. Michael Greger sites research showing that any discovery made through research may not make it to the clinic for as much as 14 years.
Both in lifestyle medicine or pharmaceuticals, knowledge that could have helped a patient feel better and get better isn’t being used, even though that information is available. It is very heartening to see positive change among lifestyle medicine practitioners keeping up with the research. I look forward to this getting even better in the year to come.
Seeing it close up
It is one thing to read research and examine the texts to see what simple changes in diet and lifestyle can do to prevent illness and disease. But to actually watch the results happen in front of your eyes is a whole different, and extremely rewarding experience. This year, many people who have had 50 years or more of bad habits, reduced their risks of cardiovascular disease, reversed their type 2 diabetes, many lost substantial weight and some have brought their cholesterol way lower than they could have with drugs alone.
I watched metabolic disease go down and quality of life go up. I witnessed people achieve excellence in their day-to-day function – and then they all tell me the same thing: why didn’t anyone tell us about this? Here are just a few examples that inspired me, and I hope will be an inspiration to you as well.
The teacher
Aaron is a social worker and teacher. He has a tough job that can cause a lot of frustration: working with boys that need a lot of help and attention. This man, in his mid-30s, was using food as a way to deal with stress, as many do, to the point of becoming pre-diabetic.
Over the course of three months under my supervision, he turned it around completely. The 11 kilograms (25 pounds) he lost is only a small part of the story. His cholesterol dropped 60 points, his triglycerides fell 50 points and he went from being a pre-diabetic to having normal blood sugar. We worked together to successfully fit his program into a very hectic daily routine. He switched to a plant predominant and oil-free diet, walked daily and made his health his new priority.
When I asked him how he felt about the sustainability of his new way of eating and new lifestyle, he told me he sees no problem to continue doing this forever.
The rabbi
When a communal leader comes to you for help, you can’t help but feel an awesome responsibility. When Rabbi “D.” came to me, I understood how imperative his success was for both himself and his community.
In the 10 months he has been coming to see me, the turnaround is nothing short of astounding. His cholesterol has dropped almost 100 points and, more importantly, his LDL (bad) cholesterol is down almost 80 points. His blood pressure is now in the normal range and he has lost over 20 kilograms (44 pounds). His blood glucose levels have also dropped and his medications have been substantially cut back.
D. has told me how much easier it is to walk up hills, and that his general energy levels are higher than ever. Most impressive, though, is that although those around him continue to eat an unhealthy diet, he stays the course (he says they are starting to take note). Changing more than 50 years of poor health habits isn’t easy, yet he keeps asking me why he and everyone else doesn’t know about this way of eating and this way of life.
Even though we still have work to do, the rabbi feels like a new person, and he is never hungry while his weight loss continues on it’s slow and steady pace. His cardiologist is extremely pleased.
The businessman
Abe happened to grow up on my street. Today he is a successful businessman whose business revolves around food. As a child, he was the fat and pudgy kid. Now in his mid-30s, with obesity and very high cholesterol, he felt the time had come for change. We started out learning how to eat in a healthy, plant prominent manner with the emphasis on putting more whole foods into the diet. He quickly understood that you can’t just eat whatever you want and be healthy.
Abe was and is a huge success. He has lost 32 kilograms of weight (70 pounds), his cholesterol has dropped about 70 points and his triglycerides have also decreased by 45 points. As busy as he is, he has made time to exercise and do personal training in our clinic in addition to being very strict with the foods he chooses to eat – no matter where he is or how busy he is. He looks like, feels like and is a healthy person with a new lease on life.
She put it off long enough
After first making contact with me a few years ago, Roberta has now started to come to me on a steady basis. After her initial intake session, she worked hard to be compliant with her new and healthy way of eating. She also elected to do our personal training program. Last week, she checked and saw that her now-healthy weight hasn’t been this low in 18 years – and we are not done. Roberta finds her eating plan very sustainable and continues to work out. She looks and feels different, and we are hopeful that she will be off her diabetes medication in another month.
THESE ARE just a few of the accomplished clients from this past year. For the coming year, we all hope and pray for peace and prosperity and that health will be a priority. We live in the most difficult of times, but we still need to take care of ourselves – because ultimately, our state of health is largely up to us.
Let’s try to give our health and wellness the needed attention in the year to come. I am grateful to all of you who read my columns and I pray that this coming year we will all “add hours to our days, days to our years and years to our lives.”
The writer is a wellness coach and personal trainer with more than 25 years of professional experience. He is a member of the International Council of the True Health Initiative, and of the board of Kosher Plant Based. He is the director of The Wellness Clinic. alan@alanfitness.com