It's time to take this series down the fitness road and start exploring.  We have spent the last few weeks getting you started healthy eating, and learning how to manage your diet, so the next step is getting you moving.  It is true, you can lose a lot of weight and get healthier by diet alone, but you will not get fit with just diet.  You can go ahead and lose 20, 50, 100+ pounds, but if you have not exercised, you still won't be able to comfortably climb stairs, go for a jog, or even bike ride without getting fatigued.  I think a lot of people set out to achieve the wrong goals, they want to "look" good instead of feel good.  The coolest thing about fitness is if you are trying to "feel" better by exercising, the looking better part nearly comes naturally, even more so if you are eating healthy.  I understand vanity in our society is HUGE, especially with social media pictures at our fingertips all day.  You must have the understanding that so many of those pictures are not real.  The filters and adjustments are crazy!  Not to mention many of those people make it their career to constantly post near nude fitness pictures daily.  Nothing can drive me more crazy than seeing pictures of women with their goods hanging out everywhere and "lifting" weights, especially when they are not the least bit sweaty and you know darn well that if they were at a real gym they would be kicked out for simply being unsanitary....gross!  I am 39 years old and I bought my first gym membership the summer of my freshman year of college, so I was 19.  That calculates to roughly 20 years (give or take a few months off for moving) of gym memberships, and many many many day gym passes during traveling.  I've seen a lot, and I can tell you I've never seen those insta-famous social media models in any of those years, thank heavens!  

Anyway, off my rant and back to the importance of fitness.  The definition of fitness straight out of the dictionary; the condition of being physically fit and healthy.  The definition of physically fit out of the same dictionary; to be in a state of health and well being. Physical fitness is defined as the body's ability to function efficiently and effectively in work and leisure activities, to be healthy, to resist disease, and to react to emergency situations.  I know these seem pretty self explanatory, but if you think a little bit deeper here, some people that are "thin/skinny" may NOT be physically fit, and on the flip side, you can be overweight and be physically fit.  This is a debate that many argue with me and it is my personal opinion, but I believe you are far healthier to be 10-20 pounds overweight and able to physically keep up with workouts of any kind then those that are lean and not able to run even a mile.  Fitness does not have to be defined as lean.  The purpose of fitness is to FUNCTION optimally in a healthy state.  Function is a huge word and I am going to keep bringing it to you.  Fitness is having a healthy cardiovascular system, meaning your heart and lungs are not taxed and tired from simply walking up a flight of stairs.  The heart and lungs function to move blood and nutrients throughout your body with ease.  The only way to keep the cardiovascular system happily working in harmony in you body is to make it work. 

Quick Disclaimer: these are all generalized calculations.  As with any calculations made or programs started, it is best to be under physician supervision if you have preexisting conditions or other concerns.  These are not personal physician based plans for just you. 

There are various Heart Rate Zones to understand and those include resting, target, reserve, and max.  There are 5 other Zones to help describe percentages of your heart rate under working conditions.  The general calculations for Heart Rate are below:

Resting Heart Rate: heart rate at rest; typically taken as an average of calculations counting beats per minute optimally in the morning before you arise from bed.

Maximum Heart Rate = 220 - Age

Heart Rate Reserve: the difference between resting heart rate (HRrest) and maximum heart rate (HRmax).  
                         HRR = HRmax - HRrest. Heart rate reserve is used when determining exercise heart rates.

Target Heart Rate: is defined as the minimum number of heartbeats in a given amount of time in order to reach the level of exertion necessary for cardiovascular fitness, specific to a person's age, gender, or physical fitness.

Example:
Myself: 
Max Heart Rate         220 - 39(my age) = 181 beats/minute (Max HR)
Resting Heart Rate      50 beats per minute (fitbit and machine morning average)
Heart Rate Reserve      181 - 50 = 131 beats/minute
Target Heart Rate    131 (reserve) x .5 (50%) = 65.5  --------65.5 + 50 (resting) = 115.5 Target
*these are specific to my and my personal calculations for example purposes

Zone 1 - Healthy Heart Zone: 50% - 60% of your Max HrEasiest, Most Comfortable Zone, Beginner Safe
Light walk with friends or pet
*Exercise Benefits: Body fat decreases, blood pressure lowered, cholesterol lowered, muscle mass improvements, decreased risk for degenerative diseases, safety high.


Zone 2 - Easy Transition Zone: 60% - 70% of your Max Hr Fat Burning Zone – you can train for extended periods of time in this zone. 75% - 85% of all calories from fat as fuel, Beginner Safe, early intermediate
Easy power walk or light jog, able to still talk with ease
*Exercise Benefits: Gain muscle mass, lose fat mass, strengthen heart muscle, fat utilization zone.


Zone 3 - Aerobic Zone: 70% - 80% of your Max HrAerobic Zone – Moderate energy expenditure. Running is a great example.  You can speak, but not easily hold a long conversation with ease due to heavier breathing. 
Intermediate and early advanced
*Exercise Benefits: Improved overall functional capacity with increase in the number and size of blood vessels, increased vital capacity, respiratory rate, max pulmonary ventilation, pulmonary diffusion, increase in size and strength of the heart, improvements in cardiac output and stroke volume.


Zone 4 - Threshold Zone: 80% - 90% of your Max Hr
Anaerobic & max caloric burn, intense exercise, breathing hard/panting
Advanced
*Exercise Benefits: Max fat burn, but you must be fit enough to train with some oxygen present for additional fat burn. No fat burning if exercising above fat burning heart rate,  high total calories burned during exercise, carbohydrates as source of calories/fuel, improved VO 2


Zone 5 - Preformance Topline Zone: 90% - 100% of your Max HrPeak Race Zone – Athlete Only Zone! Advanced +
All out training, example: sprints
*Exercise Benefits: Highest total calories burned, but lowest percentage of fat calories.  This zone is only for the very healthy and fit!!! Spending too much time in this zone, even for elite athletes can be painful, cause injuries and lead to over training, which leads to poor performance!

The chart above is one representation on the heart rate zones with the heart rate percentage on the left and age on the top of the graph.  Again these are relative not exact because everyone is different.  Depending on personal goals, you can aspire to reach zones.  In the light yellow above, this zone should most definitely be reached by everyone DAILY.  It is basically movement in general.  Even if you had a great and super intense week at the gym or marathon training, whatever, you should still get some movement in at least in the light/moderate zone daily.  The darker yellow is labeled obviously as the "fat burning" level and it is that, but it's not the only level that will lose fat.  I find that there is a strong confusion in the fitness industry that leads us to believe that just a little Zone 2-3 workout here and there will be all we need to get fit and stay fit.  Yes, it's totally better than nothing BUT, you don't keep pushing yourself.  On the contrary to what you may think and feel some days, our bodies physically adapt VERY quickly to exercise.  Over just the course of a few weeks, your heart becomes more efficient and the workouts become easier.  You stop pushing your heart to get stronger and stronger.  There is a point that you do indeed need to not keep pushing so hard and maintaining that fitness achievement is super important, but keep pushing yourself and your body a little bit more each week or workout, etc.  The fallacy that you don't burn fat when doing anaerobic workouts is just that, a fallacy.  It is true that our bodies switch fuels dependent upon workout load.  As the rate of our breathing increases in anaerobic workouts, which decreases oxygen, we switch from burning fat as fuel to glucose.  So technically during those shorter duration of time that we are in a high intense/hardcore workout, we are burning up glucose as fuel, but briefly.  The high intensity training end result is the body staying in "training mode" post training for a few hours following training.  So much research is out there showing us that high intensity training will keep the body needing more fuel (burning fat because it's post workout time) longer, PLUS you are going to burn more overall calories during a high intense workout than an aerobic workout just due to its workload.  More calories burned = bigger deficit  = weight loss if that is your goal.  I know I touch a lot on weight loss for everyone on here, but I am going to start including tips for my athletes also.  In regards to the heart rate zones for athletes, hitting those two top zones is crucial in making performance improvements.

Next week I will go more in depth with my training schedule, but I wanted to briefly touch on it now to put the heart rate zones into more perspective for training purposes.  I schedule my training for all eight days of the week (I know there are only 7 days in a week, my workouts typically fall into an eight day cycle), this includes an active recovery/rest days.  I don't structure this program on particular days of the week, because it's impossible with life interfering.  My entire week is scheduled around my hardest day of the week, for me that is leg day.  Leg day is the lightest cardio but most strength challenging day of the week.  This is the day I try my hardest to push through barriers and work at my highest peak.  Leg days also leave me in a pretty good world of hurt from muscle soreness.  My typical week is designed below with a lot of room for change ups.  Nothing is set in stone, I just try my best to get the following in for my week.

                  Day 1:                              Leg Day                                                                                          Zone 2-3
                  Day 2:                             Mix Day; Cardio and Strength Training                             Zone 3
                  Day 3:                             Active Recovery/Rest day                                                        Zone 1-2
                  Day 4:                             High Intensity Training                                                           Zone 4-5
                  Day 5:                             Long distance Endurance Training                                     Zone 3
                  Day 6:                             High Intensity Training                                                           Zone 4-5
                  Day 7:                             Mix Day; Cardio and Strength Training                              Zone 3
                  Day 8:                            Active Recovery/Rest                                                                 Zone 1-2
 
There is a lot more detail to bring to you about the training schedule above, but I can't squeeze it into today's post.  Next week I'll explain to my personal preferences to my training program, and why I have structured the program the way that I have for myself.

I'm going to bring this topic to you and I sincerely ask that you take a moment to read through it. I know a lot of people are quick to close the book, so-to-speak, when the topic of obesity comes up. Either they think they don't fall into the category, or they don't want to admit to being among those in the category. It's not a fun topic, and surely it is not fun to take ownership of it, but there is a lot more to just the label of obesity. It's the realization that as a society we are REALLY struggling with the ramifications of poor eating habits and lack of exercise from toddlers to the elderly. The personal reason I decided to write about this today was because of a turning point in my life to work hard and make changes for me and our community. About 5 years ago, my family was sitting at an outdoor event here in Northern Michigan and the magnitude of our sinking health status really struck me. I am a people watcher, I LOVE watching people for hours on end. While watching people at this particular venue, I was astonished by the number of overweight people walking around. Seriously, it was hard to find enough fit people to count on one hand. It truly hurt my heart, and I told my husband that very day that I was going work as hard as I could to get into great shape and try to be an inspiration and teacher for as many people as I could. The moment was pretty significant, because I can tell you almost every detail of that day, nearly 5 years ago. As I have said earlier, this is my way of giving back to help others. Bringing you the obesity topic, is not just for you the reader, but also for you as the parent, caregiver, teacher, counselor, employer, etc. The obesity epidemic is very real and rapidly growing, sadly even among our children. The children, in my opinion, need the most help. The eating habits, lack of activity, and physiological damage done as such a young age is so very scary and much more difficult to change.

Definition of obesity: The national Institutes of Health tells us that obesity is having a BMI (body mass index) of 30 or above.  A BMI between 25.0 - less than 30 is considered overweight.
Class 1 : BMI 30-34.9
Class 2: BMI 35-39.9
Class 3: BMI of 40+.  Class 3 is considered extreme or severe.
According to the CDC,  children and adolescents age 2-20 year of age, a BMI in the 85th-94th percentile for age and gender is considered overweight; a BMI in the 95th percentile or above is considered obese.

United States Map of Obese Percentage is Adults

The line graph above clearly shows the increase in obesity over the last several years in not only adults but children also.  Currently we are looking at almost 38 percent of our population falling into the obese category.  Please note, this is the OBESE category, not the over weight category.  According to the 2017 Youth Risk Behavior System, 14.8% of high school students were obese, and an additional 15.6% were overweight.  From 2011-2014, middle-aged Americans (ages 40-59) had the highest obesity rate at 41.0%, followed by seniors  (ages 60+) at 38.5%, and then young adults (ages 20-39) at 34.3%.  The scariest of information I came across was that research stating that the youth ages 2-5 had the most significant weight gain percentage.  Obesity rates in this group rose to 13.9% in 2015 and 2016 from10.1% in 2007 and 2008.

Below is a very similar line graph produced by Forbes recently.  The article mentioned that we are currently at a point in society where there are more obese people than those suffering from hunger/starvation.

It's not rocket science to tell you what causes obesity, especially if you've been reading my posts.  We are literally eating ourselves into a premature death.  Obesity is not just being overweight, and unable to perform daily tasks easily.  It is the gateway into suffering from MANY different aliments.  To name a few, obesity is a contributing factor to heart disease, diabetes II, some cancers, reproduction problems, chronic back pain, strokes, asthma, sleep apnea, osteoarthritis, metabolic syndrome, gallbladder diseases, fatty liver diseases, kidney diseases, and hypertension. 
                                        Eat too many calories + decrease physical activity = weight gain
The major contributing factor to this epidemic is they change in the way we eat.  I hear the argument that we eat so much LESS FAT today than our grandparents and great grandparents since they used to cook with pure lard, and literally eat the fat on a side of beef, but remember that those wonderful relatives also worked their tailfeathers off in labor intensive jobs.  Plus their foods were whole foods, none of the processed crap that you stop at the gas station for during the break at your desk job.  Today there is a fast food joint on nearly every busy intersection.  The number of restaurants, gas stations, and vending machines have skyrocketed.  Those places don't carry much of any fruits or veggies simply because they would lose money if those things perished.  The money makers are foods that can sit on the shelves for weeks on end, full of preservatives and other countless chemicals.  I would be lying to you if I told you I didn't like to go out to a nice restaurant for dinner now and then, I think we all do.  If you decrease the amount you eat out, you become aware very quickly of how much the restaurants use yummy butter, salt, and sugars on all of those tasty dishes.  They taste incredible, but they can also add to you daily calories very quickly.  Those daily caloric increases from eating out then quickly add up into pounds of body fat.  Suddenly you've put on 10-15lbs in the last 6 months, and working out becomes too uncomfortable.  BOOM!  Too many calories, lack of physical activity, scale keeps climbing, and wowzers you are maybe teetering between overweight and obesity quite quickly.  Fast food sales in the US rose 22.7% from 2012-2017, according to Euromonitor, while packaged food sales rose 8.8%.  Back to physical activity, or lack there of, 80% of American adults do not meet the government's national physical activity recommendations for aerobic activity and muscle strengthening. 

I just pulled this from The State of Obesity website. 
The Healthcare Costs of ObesityObesity is one of the biggest drivers of preventable chronic diseases and healthcare costs in the United States. Currently, estimates for these costs range from $147 billion to nearly $210 billion per year.1 In addition, obesity is associated with job absenteeism, costing approximately $4.3 billion annually2 and with lower productivity while at work, costing employers $506 per obese worker per year.3
As a person's BMI increases, so do the number of sick days, medical claims and healthcare costs.4 For instance:

• Obese adults spend 42 percent more on direct healthcare costs than adults who are a healthy weight.5
• Per capita healthcare costs for severely or morbidly obese adults (BMI >40) are 81 percent higher than for healthy weight adults.6 In 2000, around $11 billion was spent on medical expenditures for morbidly obese U.S. adults.
• Moderately obese (BMI between 30 and 35) individuals are more than twice as likely as healthy weight individuals to be prescribed prescription pharmaceuticals to manage medical conditions.7
• Costs for patients presenting at emergency rooms with chest pains are 41 percent higher for severely obese patients, 28 percent higher for obese patients and 22 percent higher for overweight patients than for healthy- weight patients.8

Reducing obesity, improving nutrition and increasing activity can help lower costs through fewer doctor's office visits, tests, prescription drugs, sick days, emergency room visits and admissions to the hospital and lower the risk for a wide range of diseases.
A 2008 study by the Urban Institute, The New York Academy of Medicine and TFAH found that an investment of $10 per person in proven community-based programs to increase physical activity, improve nutrition and prevent smoking and other tobacco use could save the country more than $16 billion annually within five years. That's a return of $5.60 for every $1 invested.9 Out of the $16 billion, Medicare could save more than $5 billion and Medicaid could save more than $1.9 billion. Also, expanding the use of prevention programs would better inform the most effective, strategic public and private investments that yield the strongest results.
Notes
1 Cawley J and Meyerhoefer C. The Medical Care Costs of Obesity: An Instrumental Variables Approach. Journal of Health Economics, 31(1): 219-230, 2012; And Finkelstein, Trogdon,
Cohen, et al. Annual Medical Spending Attributable to Obesity. Health Affairs, 2009.
2 Cawley J, Rizzo JA, Haas K. Occupation-specific Absenteeism Costs Associated with Obesity and Morbid Obesity. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 49(12):1317?24, 2007.
3 Gates D, Succop P, Brehm B, et al. Obesity and presenteeism: The impact of body mass index on workplace productivity. J Occ Envir Med, 50(1):39-45, 2008.
4 The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the American Stroke Association, and the American Heart Association. A Nation at Risk: Obesity in the United States, A Statistical Sourcebook. Dallas, TX: American Heart Association, 2005. (accessed April 14, 2008).
5 Finkelstein EA, Trogdon JG, Cohen JW, Dietz W. Annual Medical Spending Attributable to Obesity: Payer-and Service-Specific Estimates. Health Affairs, 28(5): w822-831, 2009.
6 Arterburn DE, Maciejewski ML, Tsevat J. Impact of morbid obesity on medical expenditures in adults. Int J Obes, 29(3): 334-339, 2005.
7 Teuner CM, Menn P, Heier M, Holle R, John J, Wolfenstetter SB. Impact of BMI and BMI change on future drug expenditures in adults: results from the MON-ICA/KORA cohort study. BMC Health Services Research, 13(424), 2013.
8 Peitz GW, et al. Association of body mass index with increased cost of care and length of stay for emergency department patients with chest pain and dyspnea. Circ Cardiovasc Qual Outcomes, 7(2): 292-298, 2014.
9 Trust for America's Health. Prevention for a Healthier America: Investments in Disease Prevention Yield Significant Savings, Stronger Communities. Washington, D.C.: Trust for America's Health, 2008. (accessed April 2013).

My goal for this post was not too preach about obesity.  I truly hope in my heart that some of you will read this and think about what you can do to help with this epidemic.  Maybe you fall into the obese or overweight category and this hits home for you, great news for you, this is fixable!  There are so many resources to tap into, like myself, to help you get healthier.  If you are a parent, caregiver, teacher, or even family friend of a child that you can see is struggling with weight problems, maybe you can step up and invite them over to learn a little bit more about eating healthy and keeping active.  Encouragement is KEY for everyone!  Offer some healthy snacks and take that opportunity to explain why you choose to eat strawberries for a snack instead of a snickers.  Ask the neighbors to come over and play a friendly game of kickball, or even family bike rides.  If you are active, healthy, and happy, others feel that energy, especially children. 
                    Be a good role model, because you never know who is watching you.

By Dr. Chelsea Bachelor

​​
Depression, fatigue, and anxiety are three very common issues among the female population today. Too often these symptoms are overlooked as “feeling run down”, or even misdiagnosed as a generalized anxiety disorder. If you are chronically suffering it may be time to take a deeper look, and these three symptoms could all be linked to a disorder in your Thyroid Gland. This gland, located in the front part of the neck, releases chemicals to help monitor our metabolism a.k.a. the way the body uses energy. It's job is to influence and monitor things like heart rate, how quickly we digest food, even our menstrual cycles.
Thyroid dysfunction affects women about 8 times more often than men, usually between ages 20-40. Symptoms can range in severity, and women often find themselves ignoring the signs or being wrongfully encouraged to just “push through” it until even getting out of bed is a challenge. Accepting this anxiety or low level of energy not only creates the opportunity for a dangerous problem to worsen, but it can keep you from taking advantage of the things you love doing.
No one wants to miss their daughter’s soccer game or not enjoy a warm day with their friends because they are just too drained to participate.
 
Many of our hormonal activities are controlled via feedback loops. Signals such as stress or temperature changes create hormonal cascades to either increase or decrease the mixture of substances in our bodies. Our nerve system is responsible for receiving information, interpreting it, then sending it out to other organs to communicate what the body needs in order to reestablish balance.

​When circulating thyroid hormones are low, the hypothalamus stimulates the pituitary gland to release Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH). Once TSH reaches the thyroid gland it creates a positive feedback loop and initiates steps to create Triiodotyrosine (T3) and Thyroxin (T4) to release into the blood stream. When enough T3 and T4 are made, then a negative feedback loop is created with the brain, encouraging it to stop asking for more.
T3 and T4 are important drivers of our metabolic function. Too many of these hormones in circulation is referred to as hyperthyroidism, and too little is known as hypothyroidism. As mentioned above, the symptoms of having too much or too little can be slow to develop but have many similarities. Things like muscle weakness, fatigue, depression, weight gain, temperature intolerance, difficulty concentrating, joint pain, muscle cramps, menstrual irregularities – the list goes on. Some women may experience all of these issues at once or just a few, which can be where the difficulty lies with identifying the root of the problem.
If a chiropractor recognizes your issues as thyroid dysfunction, they will refer you to another doctor in order to co-manage using the accepted standard of care treatments.
 
You may be wondering – what on earth does chiropractic care have to do with the thyroid and hormonal imbalances??
Complications in the thyroid can happen for many reasons- one of which being that the correct information is simply not reaching it.

All signals passed between the brain and the body are sent via your nerve system roadway. Think of it like a complex game of telephone - if everyone in the group is paying attention then the message makes it around the circle with no issues. However if one or two group members are mumbling or distracted, then the final message will not match the intended one.
Same goes for the signals in your spine, except the inattentive members of the group are misalignments of the spinal bones relative to each other. 
Discovering these problem areas and correcting them is what chiropractic is all about! 
The thyroid gland receives its signals from the nerves in your neck region. Improper movement of the neck bones could interrupt the nerve signals being passed from brain to body and affect the communication between the pituitary gland and the thyroid gland. Without the proper information on what the rest of the body needs, the thyroid gland may be producing too many or not enough hormones- leading to or worsening thyroid disorders.

A study published in October of 2017 followed a 34-year-old woman's improvements with her Hypothyroidism and Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) while under chiropractic care. She was diagnosed with hypothyroidism in 2014 and had been taking a thyroid medication prescribed by her medical doctor ever since.
After receiving regular care from her chiropractor she reported less discomfort from her IBS and thyroid, as well as relief from her low back pain. When she went to her medical doctor for her yearly physical, a follow-up thyroid function test was performed. It was discovered that all of her thyroid markers had normalized, and her T3 levels were actually slightly elevated. Her medical doctor explained that her thyroid had “over-replaced” itself, and she was promptly taken off her medication!1
 
 
Contact your doctor if you suspect that you may be suffering from thyroid dysfunction. Confirmation is made using a simple blood test, and chiropractic care can be of great support to help your body heal!
 
 
​
1. Campbell A, Delander K. Resolution of hypothyroidism and irritable bowel syndrome in a 34-year-old female following chiropractic care to reduce vertebral subluxation: a case study and review of literature. J Vert Sublux Res. 2017;2017:209-220.

What is carb cycling?  If you are keeping up with this blog, you are likely understanding a lot more about carbohydrates in our diets.  For this blog, we are adding another health and fitness weapon to your arsenal. 

Carb Cycling is a planned alteration of your carbohydrate consumption over a chosen time period, or an enjoyable and capable lifestyle habit.

Carb Cycling is considered by some to be an aggressive and high level nutrition strategy in order to prevent a fat loss plateau, plus help maintain a good metabolism without hindering workout performance.  This last sentence is obviously pretty loaded, so I'm going to break everything down for you.  Yes, carb cycling is a nutritional strategy, one in my opinion is GREAT!  I LOVE it and utilize it often.  I don't feel it is "aggressive", but rather easier to use since it gives you some wiggle room and is not as difficult.  I will say that I don't think carb cycling is for beginners trying to figure out how to lose body fat while making positive lifestyle changes.  If you are just learning how to count calories and macros while trying to incorporate exercise, keep at it my friend and keep making those changes to your lifestyle.  Now, if this isn't your first rodeo and you understand the macro stuff, carb cycling may be something you can throw into the mix.
 
The Benefits of Carb Cycling

• Keep favorite meals on your menus
• Keeps hormones balanced
• Aids in muscle recovery and prevents muscle wasting
• boosts weightloss
• helps prevents metobolic dip
• helps prevent hunger and fatigue
• Increases energy and endurance
• Easier to manage and maintain since it is less restrictive

The basic idea behind Carb Cycling is to plan a certain amount of days when you eat higher carbs verses lower carbs.  There are MANY different varieties and ways to cycle.  Some people will try to sell you plans saying one way is better for fat loss, another is better for muscle gain, etc etc.  Personally, I go with what my body tells me.  I have structured my carb cycling based mostly on my workouts and water retention. 

After spending a lot of time discussing the Keto diet last post, I am hoping I left you with an understanding that carbs are NOT bad.  To revisit for a brief moment, Carbs are needed as a fuel source for your workouts.  Carbs replenish glucose and glycogen to prevent fatigue and help repair tissues.  When in ketosis, you use fatty acids (fat) as a fuel to live and even workout, but you will not have much success in building muscle without glucose (carbs).  Those carbs aid significantly in recovery and support of muscle growth, cause the body to burn more calories, and provides you with ENERGY.  One of the biggest fallacies is that eating carbohydrates makes you fat and even eating carbohydrates at the wrong time will make you fat.     
                                                                 WRONG
Eating too many CALORIES makes you fat. 
Insulin has unfortunately been thrown under the bus A LOT the last few years.  Once again, Insulin does not make you fat, overeating does.  Revisiting the job description of Insulin and why people presume it's bad:

• Insulin stops burning fat and tells the body to start burning what's available from what you just ate.
• Insulin causes the body to store a portion of the energy you just ate (from food) as body fat.

So naturally people think:
high carbs = high insulin = burn less fat = store more fat = fatter & Fatter & fatter
                          or
low carb = low insulin = burn more fat = store less fat = stay lean

HOWEVER, this completely violates the principles of energy balance, which is how much energy you eat and how much energy you burn. 

Weight gain results in a surplus of energy stored as fat.  You cannot lose weight without an energy deficit.

For those into building and maintaining muscle mass (that should be all of you since muscles increase metabolism), insulin actually decreases catabolism.  

Muscle growth = increase in carbohydrate diet = increase in glycogen: which improves performance = more strength & energy for workouts = helps progressively overload muscle fibers = muscle growth

Research shows that low carb/low glycogen levels post workout reduce cell signaling related to muscle growth.  Also, resting cortisol levels rise and testosterone decreases with the lack of glucose/glycogen.

So how do you carb cycle?  Lets talk about ways to match lifestyles and activity levels.  Another reminder here, go ahead and read this post, but if you are still working on your macro counting and trying out other things like intermittent fasting, don't rush to jump into this until you are ready.  It's easy to bombard yourself too early with everything without enough time to make the other changes habitual and a lifestyle.  Come back to this when you are ready and want to try it out. 

For carb cycling, you are going to continue to follow your calories and macro that we already calculated (see macro post here).  Those macros will now fluctuate with carb cycling.  As I said earlier, there are many different "cycles" you can use and I'll give you examples.  Basically you are going to increase and decrease your carbohydrate intake depending on the day.  Some people will tell you to stick with a pretty strict cycle of maybe a 1:1 ratio of a high carb day followed by a low carb day.  Others use a 3:1 ratio of three low carb days followed by 1 high carb day.  Another possibility is a fluctuated carb cycle of low, moderate, and high carb days throughout the week.  Lastly, there are those that like to live on the wild side and decide to put no carb days into the mix.   The other macros are not going to change significantly.  The idea is that the lower carb days, are days that you caloric intake will be lower, even lower than maybe what you have calculated for your daily caloric needs.  An important factor is not to decrease your protein consumption.  So yes, you will still macro count or go back to macro counting for a little while until your food choices become natural and you just "know" what you are eating. 
Planning your personal cycle...it's all about your personal needs.  If you are getting to the point of trying this, then I am assuming you are pretty disciplined with your workouts plus you know your caloric needs.  Nobody is going to tell you what is right for you, only you will know that with experimentation.  For me personally, I know I need high carb days thrown in when I have a hard workout planned.  I don't have a particular "plan", I base my cycle on my activity.  My leg days are ALWAYS high carb days.  My gym days that I do a mixture of Olympic lifting/powerlifting/crossfit are also high carb days.  Days that I run, bike, kayak, and weight train are moderate carb days.  My rest days are no carb days (unless its a cheat day).  Honestly thought, cheat days are not to much of a "cheat" day if you are putting yourself through a killer hard workout. 
Here are a few examples below:

As you can see from this picture, the plans are put together differently with different end goals.  Both of these cycles are for the individual that is in training.  By that I mean you that is exercising.  If you are working out, it also means you are training.  You don't have to be "training" for anything other than staying alive and healthy longer.  The top example is this chart, for me, is more favorable.  One of the reasons I enjoy cycling besides using it to keep myself in check with macros, is to have the ability to manage my water retention.  If I cycle 2-3 days on lower carbs, I will lose a lot of water that I am retaining.  I'm going to go down the personal road for myself here, so forgive me please.  If I have something that I want to where that is very fitting, or I want to look more cut for an event, I'll carb cycle for 3-4 days before the date.  The carbs get low, water drops, you look and feel less bloated.  Keep that little side note in your brain for a later date. 

The above chart is maybe the easiest to follow and I think I like this one the best.  I don't think you necessarily need it to have a day of the week mapped out for you, but it may help.  I also wouldn't binge on the "high fat" aspect of the chart, just stick with your macros remembering to keep your proteins up.  The fats can fill some of the caloric needs without all of the carb calories, but it's okay to fall under a little too.  Remember that fats are 9 calories per gram instead of the 4 calories like carbs and proteins, so they add up much faster.  Also with the above, you can switch out any of those rest days for aerobic exercise.  Get a extra run/walk/hike/paddle in...it's summer and you should be enjoying all the time you can outside!  Please try to remember to keep those carbs lower and in check on those days with less activity, it's a pretty important key.  Also, hitting back to making this a lifestyle and not a "diet", try not to be too hard on yourself.  Make this easy by learning how this works for you and easily use it every day.  If you know that you are going to be sitting in meetings all day next Tuesday, try to grab a salad instead of a sandwich, walnuts instead of m&m's, beef jerky instead of crackers.  Things do start to become second nature, I promise.  As I mentioned earlier, you activities will easily start to dictate you eating.  For me, when my cycling is on point, I can't go longer than three days without watching my weightlifting struggle, or my mileage decrease.  That is for me though and may not be for everyone.  You will know when your body NEEDS to refuel and recover.  Lastly on the csrb cycling, after a few weeks or even a couple of months, hit the reset button.  Throw your entire system off by having 3- 4 high carb days, or maybe absolutely no carbs for 3-4 days.  Our bodies adapt so fast, and our brains need to make sure we mix things up.  Your metabolism needs breaks and mix-ups to keep it burning healthy. 

Nutrient Timing
Nutrient timing is planning your food intake at a particular time centered mostly on your workout schedule.  Some make sure to have certain nutrients upon waking and going to bed also, but I'm only going to briefly hit on the nutrient timing around workouts.  The research has shown that there is a pretty significant importance in planning to digest particular nutrients pre and port workouts.  Most importantly the "window of gains" post workout that you will likely hear from the muscle building world.  They used to believe that you only had about 30 minutes to make sure your body would optimally uptake all the nutrients it could post workout from whatever you were trying to feed it.  Now they are getting a little bit more relaxed and saying you don't need to rush.  My thoughts, you absolutely DO benefit from a nutritious post workout meal/shake.  Physiologically, if you just finished a pretty intense workout, your cells are depleted of nutrients, particularly glucose, and need to refuel for repair, which lead to growth and strength.  I don't feel however, that you need to pack a full meal to the gym and eat it as soon as you finish your last rep.  Refuel with healthy carbs and protein on those hard days, your body needs it!  In relation to the intermittent fasting post, when you come out of your fast make sure you are not instantly hitting the carbs.  Put a meal together with healthy proteins, fibrous carbs, and some fat first.  Save those yummy carbs for after your workouts.  The most optimal time to consume your carbohydrates is after your workouts.  The key to understanding Nutrient Timing is understanding when your body is in need of particular nutrients. 

• My personal nutrient timing: I come out of my intermittent fast one of two ways

1. I have a Beet Juice (black cherry flavored & naturally sweetened shake with a scoop of collogen protein "pre-workout", then I workout, and eat a slice of homemade bread with honey and a protein shake "post-workout"
2. or: I have protein (typically grilled chicken breast) and veggies for my first meal.  This is then followed by the above #1 prior to my workout. 

I hope that makes sense to everyone.  The number 1 above will typically always by my pre & post workout routine for nutrition.  This schedule all depends on what my day looks like and when I am going to fit in a workout.  For days that I just do cardio and take a weight training day off, I exclude the bread and honey and eat berries to fill my sweets for the day instead. 

Soon I hope to start putting together a few workout ideas for everyone to help you get started, if you haven't already, on your fitness journey.

Have you ever drove lost for miles and miles before stopping and asking for directions? Before the invention of GPS, that was pretty common. When you finally discovered how off course you were, you most likely had to re-trace the roads you were on to get back on track. 
Getting lost with your health is similar. If you've "traveled" the wrong way for miles and miles with your health -- popping pills to mask your pain or searching endlessly for the right pillow -- when you finally stop at a chiropractor's office to get good directions, you may have to retrace those lost miles with intensive care to get back on the right track. But the good news is, you won't be lost any longer!
Once you are pointed in the right direction, chiropractic care is the GPS that keeps you on course. Get checked regularly, take adjustments when necessary and stay on the right road- we'll help you reach your destination!

Allostatic load is the physiological wear and tear on the body that results from ongoing response to the being alive. It was coined in 1993 by two Medical Doctors. There are three forms of life “stress” (load) that every human encounters every single day of their lives. These stressors falls into three categories:
1. Emotional
2. Physical
3. Chemical
You can also think of these 3 as:
1. Thoughts
2. Traumas
3. Toxins.
We refer to those as the three T’s.

The allostatic load is a combination of the measurements of different factors that would increase the stress in the body. Things such as aging, weight, height to waist ratio, stress, medication use are all part of the equation. Many people experience gradual declines in physical and cognitive abilities even in the absence of clinical diagnosable disease. Increased stress has been associated with many health conditions that are widely discussed in the medical literature. Some of the most familiar include cardiovascular disease, gastrointestinal disease, and hormonal dysfunction. Prolonged or chronic stress impairs health through a complex array of physiological functions initiated by the release in the hypothalamus of corticotrophin releasing factor, CRF. CRF triggers the release of adrenal corticotrophic hormonal, ACTH, from the pituitary which in turn causes the release of cortisol from the adrenal cortex. Cortisol helps maintain blood glucose levels. Chronic stress or chronic administration of pharmacological cortisol preparations causes insulin resistance, hypertension, redistribution of body fat, and decreased protein synthesis. Further more stress compromises the immune system. The immune system is weakened through a decrease in the production of blood cells, antibodies, and gamma globulins but also through the inhibition of pro and inflammatory interleukins, tumor necrosis factor, and gamma interferon.

We have the best life saving and emergency medicine on the planet, yet the US leads the world in cancer, diabetes, and heart disease! Why? We pay little attention to ALLOSTATIC LOAD. Stress can have a wide ranging affect on the emotions, mood, and behavior. Equally important but often much less talked about are the accumulative affects of stress on the various systems, organs, and tissues of the body.

Northern Michigan Spine and chiropractic’s unique position is: Regular CHIROPRATIC increases the body’s ability to respond to STRESS, the (allostatic load)!! It does this by influencing the body’s response to it’s environment through the nervous system. This is a big thing to understand about good Chiropractic. When making decisions about your health one must discuss with their doctor the allostatic load the decision puts on the body. But the true art of spine care is to allow your body the ability to better respond to the three T’s in your life.

Chiropractic is essential to your life and planning if you want to live the best possible life you can. Genetically we all have a physiological tipping point. As the allostatic load rises beyond what we can withstand it crosses over to chronic illness and chronic disease. It is essential for you and your loved ones to be checked.

Spine health and great chiropractic are essential to living and feeling well.

To Our Health,
​Dr. MJ Wegmann

If you were the unfortunate recipient of a nasty cut, you know what it's like to get stitches. With a little local anesthetic and some skilled suturing, your cut looks much cleaner. After a few days when the stitches come out, you barely notice there was even a wound. So did the stitches do the healing?

Stitches and Chiropractic Adjustments have one thing in common- they can't heal you. Sure, both may be necessary after an injury. But both can only create a cleaner environment for healing to take place. Stitches align skin to seal a wound, adjustments align vertebrae to ease nerve pressure- but its the healing power of life inside you that completes the job.

The next time you come in for an adjustment to instantly fix your headache, your sciatica or your sleeping problems, understand it isn't the adjustment that produces the result. It simply creates an environment more conducive for healing.

The doctor inside you is the one who deserves credit for the work!

Study directly looks at pesticide effect on human cells: Most of the previous studies were based on either animal studies or on epidemiological data. The Guelph scientists say they are the first to investigate the effect of the agrochemicals on human cells.  The experiment used stem cells from people with Parkinson's disease that had a mutation in a gene called synuclein that's highly associated with an increased risk of Parkinson's.

In addition, the study used normal embryonic stem cells in which the risk- associated mutation was introduced by gene editing. From the two types of stem cells, Professor Ryan and his team made dopamine-producing neurons—the specific nerve cells affected in Parkinson's disease—and exposed them to the two pesticides. Because of that exposure, energy-producing parts of the cells were prevented from moving to where they were needed, depleting the dopamine-producing cells of energy. Neurons from the Parkinson's patients and those in which the mutation was introduced were impaired at doses below the lowest observed effect level previously reported by the U.S. Environment Protection Agency. By comparison, higher doses were needed to impair function in normal neurons. The upshot: people with a predisposition for Parkinson's disease are more affected by these low level exposures to pesticides and therefore more likely to develop the disease.

Farmers and those living near farms at greater risk: This is one of the reasons why some people living near agricultural areas are at a higher risk,' said Professor Ryan. He said the findings indicate that public health officials need to reassess current acceptable levels for these two agrochemicals. 'This study shows that everyone is not equal, and these safety standards need to be updated in order to protect those who are more susceptible and may not even know it.'

​Source: The study was published in the journal Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.

Dr. MJ Wegmann thoughts: The two most likely pesticide exposure points in our lives are the application of pesticides in and around the house on the lawn and the weeds. And the second is, hidden exposure is in the fruit and vegetables we consume. Make sure you wash and peel your fruit and vegetables to minimized your exposure to pesticides.