What if it was 680,000? Would that make you even MORE scared?

Here’s the thing: there’s a PREVENTABLE disease that kills 680,000 Americans. . .EVERY. . . SINGLE. . .YEAR! And has for many years.

Why are we not up in arms about that?

Let’s prevent THAT! (Along WITH doing what we can to prevent CoVID.)

Oh, yeah, and by the way, preventing it will also make it LESS LIKELY that you’ll get a SERIOUS CASE of CoVID!

A good Win-Win; no?

So what IS this disease? It’s heart disease! 

Yes, the most common preventable disease of the Western World. More than one person every. . .single . . .minute succumbs to this disease in the United States! 

It killed more people last year than CoVID did (though we don’t have the exact numbers yet.)

As someone living in this society, it’s highly likely you already have it without knowing or are well on your way to developing it.

“Who me?” I can hear you asking? 

Yes, you! The one with high blood pressure, who conveniently forgets that your dad died of a stroke, just like my dad did or your mom died of heart failure when she was only 70, or any of the other ways it can display that we just avoid thinking about.

What about your heart and properly placed fear?

Yes, you! Sitting there eating your cheese and crackers and your burgers! 

Yes, you! Who’s stressed about the kids, the job . . .and . . .and . . .and. . .

So, how do you prevent it? 

It’s not like you don’t know this: it mostly comes down to what’s on the end of your fork.

Doctors who work to prevent and reverse heart disease agree on the basics:

A whole food plant-based diet  with no added oil.

Keeping nuts & seeds to a minimum (2 ounces or less per day). Oh, yeah, and skip the avocados and coconut too. 

To become what they term ‘heart-attack proof’ you want to get to and maintain a total blood cholesterol of under 150. 

Once you cut out animal products, added oil, and most nuts, that’s really not hard. (Truth be told, if you don’t already have heart disease, you can eat a little animal food on occasion IF you can still keep your cholesterol below 150.)

Where do you begin?

How about by getting rid of the junk food and restocking with healthier whole food?

If that seems like a reasonable place to start, 

Let me help you by starting with a Zoom Pantry Clean-out. 

Once you’ve done that, the rest is SO much easier. Just like anything else you want to accomplish in life: you just need to make the ‘doing’ more effortless; putting systems and habits in place to get started and keep going in the right direction.

So let’s agree: what’s happening with CoVID19 is heart-breaking and what’s literally without hearts is heart-breaking as well. Let put the pieces in place to prevent ALL of it. NOW! Let’s concentrate on your heart and properly placed fear and appropriate prevention.

I know this has been harsh, but it all comes from love and compassion and from being sick and tired of remaining silent while people suffer.

You can schedule your pantry clean-out here:

The post CoVID19, Your Heart, and Properly Placed Fear appeared first on Dr Leslie K. Empowered Wellness.

My purpose with this blog article is simple: Asking, what you can do to minimize the risk for both yourself and your family?

I don’t necessarily mean the risk of CONTRACTING CoVid19 but the risk of getting a serious case of it.

After all, we know that this disease can be so mild as to be asymptomatic for many (perhaps the vast majority). Yet it can kill.

The more data we see, the more conclusions we can draw. Recent journal articles discuss that there is essentially a dose-dependent risk for a serious case of CoVid19.

But this dose is NOT how much of the virus you are exposed to (though that also does matter).

The dose I’m speaking of has to do with the dosage of poor lifestyle habits.

A study of over 387,000 people in the UK showed that the number of adverse lifestyle habits and risk factors a person had was directly proportional to the severity of the illness in those who acquired it.

So, this is going to be harsh for some of you, but if you’re obese, your risk factor is higher than if you’re (just) overweight. If you have diabetes, your risk factor is higher than if you don’t. The same can be said for high blood pressure, lack of physical exercise, chronic inflammation, and more. If you have more than one risk factor, your risk of a serious case is proportionately higher. Actually, there is about a 4-fold increase for those most at risk compared to those least at risk.

Similarly, U.S. physicians and scholars have used data out of Wuhan and other areas to extrapolate to the U.S. population and estimate that 45.1% of those under 65 in the States are at increased risk for a serious case of CoVid19 due to diet and lifestyle factors!

But there’s a huge silver lining in this evaluation and that’s what I want to talk about. . . your ability to control all of this!

Here’s the amazing thing about it:

As I said: Your ability to change your risk with CoVid19 is on the end of your fork and in your feet!

Most importantly, you can improve it in a single day!

Science shows us that decreasing inflammation can begin with a single healthy meal.

-EAT YOUR VEGGIES!!! Get out and start walking or getting some other form of exercise and tie that single meal to MORE healthy meals and you can make a substantial difference in just days.

CoVid19 has brought our chronic health problems to the forefront and now is the time to address them.

That’s why I’ve chosen now to start my group health coaching program “Journey to Wellness.” By expanding my coaching to a group format, I’m making it more accessible for a more reasonable fee so more people can take advantage of it during this time.

The Beta-Launch of this program will begin on June 24, 2020, and will go for 8 sessions over Zoom.

It will include group coaching on diet, lifestyle, exercise, hormone balance, your gut microbiome, environmental factors and more. I’ll even help you do a pantry clean-out over Zoom!

You can find a full description & registration info here. You can get $100 off the fee by registering with the code “EarlyBird” by Sunday June 24^th at midnight.

I’m also opening up a couple of limited scholarships for those whose financial situation has been majorly impacted by CoVid19. Email me to set up a call regarding this if appropriate.

I look forward to serving you and helping you succeed on this journey.

The post CoVid19 Risk: On Your Fork and In Your Feet appeared first on Dr Leslie K. Empowered Wellness.

Would you like some quick, succinct no-nonsense tips that can decrease the likelihood of you or a loved one getting a serious case of CoVid19?

Let’s lay a basic foundation here:

The good news: I’ve spent some time reading journal articles and listening to people who are apolitical. People like John Ioannidis, Stanford epidemiologist, and researcher. People like David Katz MD, Epidemiologist, Preventative Medicine Specialist & author of over 200 peer-reviewed Journal articles. Both are using data to suggest that the fatality rate is significantly lower than what we originally thought.

In addition, other data has also revealed that there is a definite pattern that can be discerned about who is more likely to have a significant case of this disease. And here is more good news:

Most of the conditions that leave people more susceptible are conditions that we can control and even reverse through diet and lifestyle changes! More health, more wealth.

So, what conditions are we talking about? Most people who come down with a more serious case have Type 2 diabetes, are overweight or obese, have cardiovascular disease, or have asthma or COPD. The unfortunate thing is that because our country is so over-fed, this represents about 45% of the general public under 65 years old!

So losing weight and eating more healthfully can literally save your life!

To help address this issue, I will be starting a group coaching program soon.

Watch for my upcoming announcements about my program “Journey to Wellness.”

The post Your Health is Your Wealth: Controlling What You Can in Uncertain Times appeared first on Dr Leslie K. Empowered Wellness.

I think much of the fear has moved beyond healthy respect, normal avoidance and prevention all the way into a full panic mode.

A couple of things about panic:

1. We don’t make good decisions when we are operating out of panic. This is how our brains are wired. When we go into ‘fight or flight’ response, our frontal cortex is essentially shut down & overpowered by the more primitive part of our brain that can’t see anything more than the two options of either running away or fighting back. Since we are being told there IS no ammunition to fight back, we’re all in fear mode dutifully panicking inside the 4 walls of our homes. I’m not necessarily saying this is wrong, but I AM saying it’s very difficult for us to look at the problem and bring sane science to bear here. (more on what some experts are saying next time).
2. The hormones racing through your system when you’re in ‘fight or flight’ are damaging to your body in multiple ways.
   • These hormones adversely affect the very immune system you want and need to be strong to fight this invader.
   • These hormones also adversely affect multiple other systems in our bodies, most notably our cardiovascular system and our digestive system.

How your body behaves differently in “Fight or Flight” response:

We all have heard about highly stressed executives and how much more prone they are to a heart attack.

But did you know that the same hormones that are active in fight or flight also cause digestive issues and a tendency to lay down extra fat!? Yup! It’s true; when Cortisol levels are high, we gain weight easier, our blood sugar levels are adversely affected and our hormones that regulate hunger and appetite are impacted as well. In addition to all that, the digestive system basically shunts everything you take in either for immediate use, raising your blood sugar levels or for immediate storage, laying down extra fat. Yeah, so basically, forget intermediate functions like glycogen storage, general repair, growth, immune function and more. By evolutionary standards, this makes sense; get through the crisis and then worry about repair. But when stress is chronic, it has devastating results.

So what are some basic mechanisms to get us out of the loop?

1. Limit your exposure to amped-up coverage. Do you really need to listen to the news, the President or local news conferences daily? Be selective.
2. Get some aerobic exercise. The hormones our body secretes in fight or flight are designed for us to have the capacity to run or fight back. Aerobic exercise mimics that; thus using up the hormones. This gets us back into a healthier state.
3. Meditate, do yoga, self-hypnosis, EFT tapping or use other methods. Most are working via video call) to bring your brain and nervous system back into alignment. (Contact me for a referral to a practitioner if needed)
4. Get a chiropractic adjustment. It also helps normalize nervous system function & helps the connection between your Nervous System and your Immune System
5. Eat your fruits & veggies: Keeping your diet balanced positively impacts all your systems. Just start here.
6. Breathe: If you’re not someone who has ever adopted meditation, yoga or other things, just the simple act of taking 10 long slow deep breaths several times daily can be a big help. Try it before you sit down to eat a meal. It will bring the hormone levels down a little and will help your digestive system do a better job of processing your food properly.

So, what this about CoVid 19 and it being an ‘equal opportunity invader?’

We’ve heard some amazing things over the past month: over a million cases of the infection, 100,000 deaths world-wide and tragic stories.

We’ve heard that most cases of death are in older people with weakened immune systems, but we’ve also heard of the tragic cases of healthcare providers and younger people dying. Let’s look a little closer: Much of the data is still being calculated and interpreted. However, a study undertaken by the Kaiser Foundation has concluded the following:

1. About 4 in 10 of ALL adults over 18 are at risk for more serious infection.
2. Just over ½ of those in #1 above are age 65 and older. (Therefore, a little less than 2 in 10 under 65 are at increased risk)
3. The adults between 18 and 64 that are most at risk have these co-morbidities: heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), uncontrolled asthma, diabetes, or a BMI greater than 40.

Note: They did not track cancer or immune system compromise as a co-morbidity (they chose to not track that so that it wouldn’t falsely elevate the stats).

Further research on the rates of the above conditions in the US indicates that in adults 18-64, about 9.4% have diabetes, about 8.2% of those living in rural areas have COPD and about 4.7% of those in metro areas have COPD. About 7.1% of adults in the U.S. have asthma and about 60% of that is uncontrolled. I was unable to find data that distinguished adults 18-64 from the rest of the population regarding morbid obesity but 18% of the general public is considered morbidly obese. (All found by simple google search)

Given all these factors together, a picture emerges of the ‘at risk’ adult under 65 which basically suggests that while there could be a very rare exception, almost all the people developing serious disease have one or more conditions that pre-disposes them to the disease.

Here’s the thing that most others won’t say: too many people with the conditions listed above (and other diagnosed health conditions as well) don’t really think of themselves as being chronically ill and so don’t want to recognize that they are more susceptible than others to this and other infections.

Add this to the fact that the media reports deaths by age and generally doesn’t mention mitigating factors and we can begin to see some of the reasons the public is so spun up about this infection.

Yes, it is theoretically possible for an otherwise healthy person to get Covid 19 and die of it, just as it’s theoretically possible for them to get some other infection they could die of. There are no guarantees in life.

Part of what I’m attempting to distinguish here is that too many of us who have chronic conditions and take medication to mitigate symptoms ignore our problems and consider ourselves ‘healthy’ or fool ourselves into believing we are invincible when the data clearly shows otherwise. These health conditions make people more susceptible to death from ALL causes. Considering that and in light of these stats, I’d like to suggest that it’s time that if you have any health condition, you take an honest look at it and make a choice to do something about it. Most chronic conditions can essentially be reversed with the right diet and lifestyle.

So while you’re stuck at home, you might give some thought to some questions like:

1. Am I going to use this time to begin to address some of my health issues that may make me more susceptible to other problems (including CoVid19)?
2. Are the health conditions I have amenable to being resolved with diet and lifestyle?  (the answer is likely ‘yes’ but you may need assistance)
3. Am I willing to put a plan in place that can help me reverse these conditions?
4. If you’re on any medication: Do I understand the long-term effects of the drugs and other conditions they are likely to cause?

And perhaps most importantly: Am I willing to accept the consequences of my inaction?

I’m happy to offer a Free Consultation about your condition.

The post CoVid 19-An Equal Opportunity Invader? appeared first on Dr Leslie K. Empowered Wellness.