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By now, most people have heard of Omega 3 Fatty Acids. Those essential fats that are both good for us and in short supply. Composed of EPA and DHA fats, Omega 3 fatty acids are critical for proper health and function. Unfortunately, they are, for the most part, missing from our diets.

The World Health Organization recommends eating a diet high in Omega 3’s and many of the healthiest and longest-lived people in the world do just that. Omega 3 fatty acids are found mainly in fish and other sea animals, but can also be found in organic, grass-fed meats and some plant sources such as flax and hemp seed.

While the benefits of Omega 3 supplements are well documented for adult conditions like heart disease, high cholesterol, inflammation and certain rheumatoid conditions, the benefits in children are mainly in the areas of brain development and IQ.

Studies have shown that maternal supplementation with Omega 3’s during pregnancy and lactation has also been demonstrated to increase children’s IQ. Benefits after year one include: focused attention, stimulates neuron growth in the brain as well as improved memory and learning.

Unfortunately, the standard Canadian diet is woefully deficient in Omega 3 fatty acids. Canadians will typically consume a diet high in processed foods, rancid vegetable oils from frying, trans fatty acids from packaged foods and grain-fed meats. These foods have very little Omega 3 content.

It is very difficult to obtain adequate Omega 3 quantities from our diets alone. Of course, living 3000 km inland from the sea doesn’t help either. Therefore, proper supplementation with a good quality fish oil is key for families wishing to optimize their Omega 3 levels.

Look for purified brands from small marine animals like anchovies, sardines and krill. Also, check the labels for EPA and DHA concentrations: the higher the better. Avoid Omega 3-6-9 combinations and buy liquid brands instead of capsules when possible.

Although the recommended daily allowance (RDA) for Omega 3’s has not yet been established, a good rule to follow is 500mg for every pound of body weight. For example a 50lbs child will need 2500mg or approximately 2.5 teaspoons per day.

                          

From www.mercola.com:

Give your child a head start in life. Supplement with Krill oil before and during pregnancy, and while breast-feeding. The DHA and choline are critical to your child’s brain development and IQ. Your child is wholly dependent upon you to provide those nutrients through at least the first three months of life. Incidentally, this also supports your overall health and positive mental outlook both during and just after pregnancy.

Breast-feed your child if at all possible, for as long as possible. Infants receive vital DHA through your breast milk. Longer is better, in this case. If you can continue breast-feeding through the first year, you will give your child an even greater head start for success in life.

Provide structure for your child’s life. Children like a dependable schedule — regular times for meals, bedtimes, getting up times, and more. It helps them understand time, routines, and gives them a sense of security.

Be sure your child eats a diet strong with high-quality (organic if possible) meats and veggies. Early influence in training your child’s taste buds to like veggies will make it easier for them to resist the peer pressure of junk food throughout childhood. Avoid sweets, and every food with artificial colorings, preservatives, and high fructose corn syrup, at all cost.

Encourage your child from a young age to get daily exercise. Make it a part of your special time with them. Go for walks and bike rides, play badminton, take your dog for a run, jump rope, shoot baskets… and make it fun!

Provide clean inside air by not smoking, and by limiting toxins from cleaning products. If your home was built before 1978, test for lead paint hazards.

Strengthen your child’s immune system by giving them a probiotic daily. When everyone else’s kid is struggling with the latest bug to hit their school, you’ll be glad yours has a strong immune system.

Replace detergents, soaps, and shampoos containing risky ingredients, like parabens, mineral oil, paraffin, petrolatum, Sodium laurel or lauryl sulfate (SLS), sodium laureth sulfate (SLES), Acrylamide, Propylene glycol. The potential problems may not be worth the risk.

Just say “no” to immunizations vaccinations. They provide more health risks than benefits. You can read more about this elsewhere on this website (www.nvic.org), and an entire chapter is devoted to it in Take Control of Your Health.

Get your child outside in the sunshine for at least 15 minutes per day, preferably in mid-day, to optimize his or her vitamin D levels and thereby his/her immune and overall health.

- I would add one more: Get your kids checked for spinal subluxation!

Dr. CHRIS

                          

Here’s a list of  where to shop.

Your shopping list MLNP Grocery List

                          

Saturday, Feb 20 from 9-12pm
Chiropractic Life Centre 1431 Corydon Ave., Winnipeg MB.
FREE! Limited Seating!

Call 477-5433 to register!

                          

Last Saturday, 600+ attended the one day Maximized Living Makeover at the Burton Cummings Theater in Winnipeg!

Thank you to everyone who helps make this event possible. We raised over $1000 for Winnipeg Harvest!

                          

The Heart and Stroke Foundation recently warned the public of an impending “perfect storm” where young adults are now being diagnosed with heart disease.

Coupled with the increasing number of baby boomers already suffering with heart disease, the so-called storm will continue to place an increased strain on an already bloated healthcare budget.

Currently, provincial governments spend approximately 40% of taxpayer’s money on sick care. With more and more young adults being diagnosed with heart disease, that number is expected to rise to 50% within the next decade. In the meantime, Canada already spends close to $22 billion annually on heart disease and stroke.

How can we fix this problem? As usual, politicians will call for more tax money, the medical profession will call for better drugs and the public will continue to hope that someone will fix them when they get sick.

Of course, no one will be talking about prevention. Sure, someone will suggest more tests and early detection as a solution. However, medical tests can only tell you when you’re already sick and early detection is not prevention.

Everyone in healthcare knows that most heart disease is preventable with simple lifestyle changes like diet, exercise, not smoking, drinking less etc. We know that prevention is the key eliminating much of the sick care costs, yet there will be no mention of the drastic lifestyle changes which are truly required to prevent disease and illness.

Never mind the fact that the documented benefits of alternative healthcare systems will continue to be ignored by policy makers. For example, research has shown that people under regular chiropractic care reduce health care spending and medical visits by 31%. They take fewer medications and they have less sick days but you won’t hear anyone telling you to see your chiropractor, naturopath or massage therapist.

While policy makers are arguing over how to pay for this problem, I would suggest you take your health into your own hands: Learn to eat well, exercise everyday, manage your stress and take care of your body. If you don’t know how, consult an expert who can set you in the right direction. Yes it will be hard to change at first, however, the more you invest in your health and prevention now, the greater the returns later.

                          

Canadian children are officially overweight and unfit, according to Stats Canada this week. Since 1981, waistlines have continued to expand to the point where 17% of children are overweight and 9% are now considered obese.

Many experts blame junk food, too much TV time and inactivity as the culprits. This would seem quite reasonable since junk food is still readily available in many schools, physical education programs continue to be shortened and kids rarely walk anywhere these days. However, I believe these are simply symptoms of a far greater problem, one that strikes a little closer to home — parents.

The fact of the matter is parents are the real problem here, since more often than not parents help facilitate these unhealthy lifestyles. Consider the fact study after study continues to show that parents that lead healthy, active lifestyles also have children that lead healthy active lifestyles.

Childhood obesity rates continue to rise because adult obesity rates continue to rise. Period. After 11 years of family practice, I can tell you with certainty that if mom and dad are unhealthy and overweight, the kids will be the same. Conversely, parents who exercise and eat well are more likely to have children who are active and eat well. Lifestyles and attitudes towards health are a far better predictor of obesity rates than genetics.

If we are being truly honest, we will come to the following realizations: that ultimately it’s parents who do the grocery shopping and give money for school lunches; its parents who allow countless, unchecked hours in front of the TV; and its parent that make the decisions for their children’s health. Not the other way around.

                          

Hormones • Toxicity • Anti-Aging • 21st Century Weight Loss
… and how to avoid the top killers in Canada through Nutrition, Exercise, Stress & Time Management

You will learn…

• The 3 things you must change to maximize your family’s health.
• The 3 rules to apply when choosing the foods you eat.
• The 5 diet myths that will transform your thinking.
• The shocking truth about fat and cholesterol that doctors may not tell you.

Plus…

• The 5 essential factors for determining which diet is best for you.
• The true cause of cancer, heart disease, and diabetes, and how to avoid it.
• Learn what 2 hormones cause premature aging and how to reverse it.
• Discover what hormones make weight loss impossible, regardless of how much you diet or exercise.
• Revolutionary Surge Training – get in the shape of your life in just 12 minutes.  More is not better!

REGISTRATION DETAILS
Registration Includes…

• Seminar Registration
• Local foods directory and grocery shopping guide, consistent with the Maximized Living Nutrition Plan
• Access to Recipes and meal plans for your entire family
• FREE access to all ML workshops over the next 30 days

Pre-registration Fee: $30 ($40 at door)

Date:    Saturday, February 6, 2010
Time:    10:00 am – 1:00 pm
Registration opens at 9:30 am – Please arrive early!

At-the-door registration: Cash, cheque or credit card accepted.  Pre-Registrations are not available after 12:00 pm on February 5 or on the day of the seminar.

Location: The Burton Cummings Theatre, 364 Smith Street, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada  R3B 2H2
View Larger Map

Registration, Information, and Questions:
Call (204) 233-3060

www.maximizedlivingwinnipeg.com

Shelley and Maximized Living from Jared Buffie on Vimeo.

                          

(Guest post: Dr. BJ Hardick, D.C.)

Week in and week out, patients come to me in frustration, “Doctor, I’m doing everything right … why can’t I lose weight?”  The answer to this question has more to do with individual body chemistry than what particular diet works best.  In fact, there isn’t one diet perfect for every person.  Our individual heritage and genetic makeup predispose us to what foods are best for our body’s needs.

In the Maximized Living Core Nutrition Plan, we advise 3 things that need to be changed in everyone’s diet regardless of your heritage or genetic composition. These three essential changes are: (1) the type of fats you are eating (as well as ingesting more of them), (2) switching from commerically-raised to naturally-raised animal products, and, (3) eliminating processed carbohydrates.  The details of these changes are covered extensively in the Maximized Living Makeover.

As these three changes transcend all cultures, the exact amount of fat, protein and carbohydrates someone can process largely depends on where your ancestors are from.  For example, northern descents seem to favour diets high in protein and good fats, whereas individuals from warmer equatorial regions seem to thrive on higher amounts of unprocessed carbohydrates, including fruits, vegetables and whole grains.

This explains why some people lose weight on a vegetarian diet, some on the Atkins Diet, some on the South Beach Diet, others with Weight Watchers, etc., and why others are left wondering why the diet they chose didn’t work for them.  Chances are that diet wasn’t metabolically correct for their body chemistry.

However, it is HORMONES (not calories, grams of fat, or even your genetics), that are the MOST essential parameters that dictate what diet is best for you. While we have been taught for years to count calories and grams of fat, hormones are most often overlooked.  The one most note-worthy for weight loss is leptin.  Leptin is a hormone in your body that tells your brain when to stop eating, when to burn fat.  Leptin also regulates the function of other hormones, including sex and stress hormones.  If leptin is out of balance, despite your best efforts, you will not lose weight. Your brain will not get the message to burn fat for energy.  Instead, you will continue to be a sugar burner – and never a fat burner.  As a result, you will not use your fat stores for energy (nor lose fat), and you will have constant and uncontrollable cravings for sugar.  You will break down muscle tissue which your body converts to sugar for energy, causing a decrease in muscle mass, metabolism, and a constant downward spiral.

Remember: fat doesn’t make you fat.  It is the inability to burn fat that makes you fat! In the Maximized Living Makeover, we utilize a client questionnaire, and direct participants to the proper blood tests for leptin to determine what diet is best.  This is now truly “Customized Weight Loss,” which answers the questions left unanswered for so many years.

-Dr. BJ

On Wednesday, January 13 @ 6pm we will be teachingThe Maximized Living Nutrition Program for Weight Loss:

* Learn how to lose weight safely, without restrictive fad diets,
* Eat healthy, nutritious foods that are simple to prepare.
* Learn how to control insulin and leptin levels naturally without pills.
* Lose weight permanently by changing your body type

Wednesday, January 13, 2010 @ 6pm
1431 Corydon Ave.
Reserve your seat today! Call 477-5433.