Archive for the ‘June 2010’ Category
Dr John: The Secret to Burning Calories
Wednesday, June 30th, 2010I’ve heard many things about fad diets and quick ways to burn calories. There are some that say chewing gum helps you burn calories. While I can’t say I’ve heard of any research that reports how many calories chewing gum burns, I can speculate that chewing gum is not the way to slimming down your waist line. There are a lot of promotions and magazine articles that pull us in saying they have the way to burn the most calories in the least amount of time. But there is a good, proven, scientific way to burning calories: DIET AND EXERCISE.
What many people don’t know is that your body does, in fact, burn calories when you are not doing anything. It’s called the Basal Metabolic Rate or BMR. It’s based on a person’s height, weight, gender and age. Everyone’s BMR is different, but it is best defined as the number of calories your body burns while performing zero activity. So with BMR, you burn calories watching TV and sleeping. However, most of us do not burn enough calories with BMR to cause any weight loss. There is also a way to calculate the amount of calories you burn with your daily activity. The Harris Benedict equation calculates total caloric needs based upon your BMR and your activity level. Activity being work or exercise. “Total caloric needs” means how many calories you would need to maintain your current weight. Right there is the BIG SECRET. If you know your total caloric needs for the day and you want to lose weight you simply need to consume less calories that what you need to maintain your current weight.
It’s a simple arithmetic problem. Determine how many calories you need per day to stay at your current weight and then take some away. How many should you take away? That’s something you would need to determine yourself. How much weight do you want to lose? One pound = 3500 calories and most experts say that healthy weight loss is 1-2 pounds per week. I recommend seeking out a health care profession like a registered dietician/nutritionist or a chiropractic physician that provides nutritional counseling such as myself or Dr. Ducat for help with establishing these types of goals. There are also websites that provide the calculations I spoke of above. You can visit the site and input your information into the equations and determine your BMR.
Dr Erin: What about personal responsibility?
Wednesday, June 30th, 2010Whose job is it to fix your health problems? Is it yours? Your employer’s? Is it your doctor’s? The answer to this question is difficult for patients to answer because it forces us to take personal responsibility for the state our bodies are in.
The majority of chronic illnesses in the United States are preventable. Diabetes, heart disease, cancer and obesity are all preventable. They are caused too much refined junk food and not enough physical activity. Yes, you might have bad genes from your family, but all of the research shows that if you make wise lifestyle choices, you can still prevent these costly illnesses.
I’m not a fan of taxing pop and fast food. It’s not the junk food that is at fault for our problems. It’s how we choose to consume junk food that is the problem. The same goes for video games, computers and the couch. It isn’t the couches fault that we sit there for hours at a time.
Making small changes to improve our diet and activity levels make a big difference as get older. Taking that walk tonight or skipping the drive thru might save you thousands of dollars later on. Do your part for true health care reform — take personal responsibility for the body you have been given.
Dr. John: Why have I hit a plateau?
Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010Hitting a plateau in any rehab or fitness program is every person’s worst fear. It’s the point where you feel like you are no longer seeing any results, but can’t figure out why. It’s also the point that most people commonly give up. So why do we plateau even when we work so hard? It’s a simply issue of adaptation. Most programs plateau because they have out lasted their worth. We continue with the same program, performing the same exercises, seeing great results that eventually fizzle out. Why? It’s because our bodies are amazing at adapting to change.
When you first begin a program, you feel sore the next day, right? The reason for that is because you’re using muscles in a way that they have not been used in quite some time. Those muscles work harder than they usually do because you stress them in a way they are not usually stressed. Think about your daily activities at work or home. You use muscles, but are you ever sore the next day? No. That’s because your muscles are used to performing that kind of work every day. Your body has adapted to the tasks at hand. Hitting a plateau is explained in the same way. If you perform the same program with the same exercises for too long, your body will get used to doing that kind of work and will learn how to do that work more efficiently and then you will stop seeing results.
So, the solution is simple. Or is it? It is. Modify the program. Switch exercises, equipment, intensity levels, training days, switch the time of day if you’d like. In the office, we are constantly changing exercises with patients. If we have a patient doing the same thing for 8 weeks we are doing a disservice to them. Constant change stresses the body (in a good way) and forces it to adapt. And that adaptation is progress and progress equal result.
Dr Erin: Should I be afraid of carbs?
Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010It seems like everyone is talking about carbs these days. Good carbs, bad carbs, no carbs, all carbs…it’s hard to get a handle on what all of this hoopla is all about. Carbs is a nickname for one of the macronutrients called carbohydrates. The other two macronutrients are fats and proteins. A balanced diet contains all three macronutrients, within proper proportions. People who do not eat a balanced diet often have limited energy and start suffering from malnutrition within a few months. It’s especially important to eat a balanced diet when healing from an injury or engaging in sports.
Most doctors agree that the average individual should consume about 30% of their calories from fats, 30% of their calories from protein and the remaining 40% from carbohydrates. Carbohydrates is a big category and includes everything from the sugar in candy to pasta to vegetables. The problem most of us have with carbs is that we eat too many of them in the candy or pasta form and not enough in the vegetable or whole grain form. This is where the terms simple and complex carbs comes into play.
Simple carbs digest easily and have very little vitamins with them. They include sugar, pop, white bread, white rice, white pasta and potato chips. These are the carbs that people crave. Our diet should include very little or no simple carbs. Complex carbs digest more slowly and have lots of nutrients packed inside of them. They include whole potatoes, vegetables, whole wheat, brown rice and other whole grain products. This is where your 40% of calories from carbs should come from.
So the next time you go to the grocery store, make sure that you load up on complex carbs and you should soon see your waistline become a little trimmer and your body a little happier!
Dr. Erin: Why am I so tight?
Tuesday, June 15th, 2010
I recently came across this video on YouTube that shows an anatomy professor explaining how muscles get tight and form scar tissue (or “fuzz” as he calls it) during the night and after an injury. He shows what this looks like on a cadaver as well as compares healthy and injured tissues so that you can understand why you have limited motion or chronic tightness in your muscles.
What was particularly interesting in his lecture was how injuries limit motion and allow this “fuzz” to accumulate, night after night” without any loosening because of the pain associated with stretching. Patients frequently ask why they can’t just stretch out a tendonitis or sciatica pain. The reason is after you have 10, 30 or 500 nights of “fuzz” build up, you require additional force (such as assisted stretching, trigger point work or Gua Sha) to break up this stuff in order to start the healing process. Patients that have these types of deep tissue treatments as part of their plan tend to heal faster and stay pain-free longer.
*Warning: the video does show actual cadaver muscles.*
Dr. John: Muscle “Isolation?”
Tuesday, June 15th, 2010Having come from the fitness industry, one of the things I’m asked about a lot is “muscle isolation.” It’s big in bodybuilding and in the personal training circles and many of our patients ask about it in regards to their own rehab. But, anatomically, it’s just not possible to isolate one muscle in the human body and fire that muscle and only that muscle.
Here’s a great way to test this out: place your left hand on the top of your right forearm just below your elbow and curl the arm like you are performing a bicep curl; really fire those bicep muscles. Do you feel something pushing against your left hand? That muscle is called the brachioradialis. Like the bicep muscles, it flexes the elbow. Try to perform the same exercise without firing that muscle. It’s difficult to do and, dare I say, impossible.
To say that one exercise “isolates” one particular muscle is a misnomer. Our muscles are made to work together. Every muscle in the human body has a job and many of them involve assisting other muscles with work. Our bodies were made to work as a unit. Think about it; you can’t move your muscles without your brain sending the signals and you can’t move the body without muscles pulling on the bones. The human body is an amazingly elaborate machine. When you exercise, either for fitness goals or for rehabilitation, focus on muscle integration not isolation. There are about 640 muscles in the human body, don’t let any of them go to waste.
How do you become a chiropractic physician?
Wednesday, June 9th, 2010I am often asked what type of education and tests are required to become a chiropractic physician. Most chiropractors start their college education in a “Pre-Med” program with a major in biology and a minor chemistry. After completing their bachelor’s degree, they then apply to a school that has a chiropractic medicine program. Currently, there are 19 schools in the United States with a chiropractic program. We have one right here in Lombard, Dr. Campione and my alma mater, National University of Health Sciences. Although there is no entry test for chiropractic, applicants are chosen based on ther GPA from college, recommendation letters and essay.
Once that you are in the chiropractic medicine program, your classes look almost the same as your colleagues in medical, osteopathic, or physical therapy programs. We study anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, pathology, microbiology, and spend almost a year studying and dissecting cadavers. Approximately after 1 1/2 years of these basic science courses, chiropractic students sit for the first part of the chiropractic board exams that tests them on all of these subjects and makes sure that they are ready to proceed with the clinical part of their education.
The clinical portion of the chiropractic education differs from medical or osteopathic schools in that we start to focus much more on the musculoskeletal/neurological systems and not as much on the surgical or pharmeceutical side of medicine. Many classes focus on the art of history taking and asking patients the right questions to make sure that you have the right diagnosis. It’s also during this time that students are taught how to manipulate, or adjust, the spine and extremties.
The last year of chiropractic school contains a variety of clinical rotations and internships that help the students start to apply their skills to patient cases and allow them to perfect their clinical skills. Before completing their rotations, they must also complete parts 2 and 3 of the chiropractic boards that test them on clinical knowledge.
Most chiropractic students complete the program within 5 academic years and then apply for a license from the state that they will be practicing. In the state of Illinois, chiropractic physicians must past parts 1-3 of the chiropractic boards as well as complete 50 hours of continuing education each year to continue their license. For more detailed information, check out this interesting article that compares chiropractic and medical education in the United States.