• Your Health and Your Body Weight
• The Least Invasive Approach to Restoring Health
• The Five Factors Interfering with Great Health
• Find Out If These Factors Affect Your Health
• Free Health Seminars in September
• Yoga Workshop

In naturopathic medicine, we always make an effort to utilize the least invasive therapy that will restore health. Giving any kind of medicine, natural or otherwise, is more invasive than removing whatever might be causing the problem. So we must look for factors that are creating a weakness in the body physiology.

There are five factors that I find in my naturopathic practice that are most often causing interference in the body being able to regulate itself, and create or maintain a state of good health and a healthy body weight.

1. Food Sensitivities. Food Sensitivities cause inflammation in the intestinal tract that impairs absorption of nutrients from the food you eat. This means, that even if you are taking in all the nutrients needed for a healthy body, they are not getting into your blood stream or into the cells that depend on them to function. Food sensitivities are not an issue for everyone, but when they are present, it is crucial that they be addressed or optimal health and body weight will not be achieved.

2. Heavy Metal Toxicity. Modern life exposes us to many heavy metals such as mercury, aluminum, lead, and more. Our elegantly designed bodies have systems in place to rid ourselves of these metals when we are exposed to them. If, however, the physiological mechanisms become overwhelmed, these metals can get lodged in our tissues, where they impair the ability of that tissue to function properly. As an example, aluminum, from drinking canned sodas, can disrupt the functioning of the thyroid gland, leading to impaired metabolism.

3. Immune Challenge. An acute or chronic immune challenge is another factor that can keep your body from getting on top of its game. This can be anything from a virus, a bacteria, a fungus, or a parasite. These immune challenges can not only interfere with the optimal function of vital organs, but they can be a source of many muscle and joint aches and pains, fatigue, swelling, and headaches.

4. Chemical Toxicity. The number of chemicals humans are exposed to is ever increasing, from car exhaust, to perfumes, and fragrances in skin care products and cleaning products, to the increasing array of plastics. As with metals, our body tries very hard to remove these toxic substances so that they cannot impair the functioning of our cells. As with metals, the body’s ability to keep up with all that we are exposed to, can become overwhelmed. Organ function diminishes, and the body unable to move towards better health.

5. Scars. Believe it or not, scars on the surface of your skin from old injuries or surgeries can cause hidden disturbance to the normal functioning of the body. This can interfere with the nervous system being able to send messages clearly from one area of the body to another. The result can be impaired function of an organ, that may be quite distant from the location of the scar. As an example, chronic constipation, which would be a factor in difficulty losing weight, could be caused by a scar on the shoulder.

Addressing these five factors are not necessarily difficult once you know that they exist. As an example, one way of decreasing the nervous system interference from a scar is to rub Wheat Germ Oil into the scar daily.

In my naturopathic practice I use a Neuromusclular testing technique called Nutritional Response Testing, to determine if any of these five factors may be causing interference that is keeping my client from restoring their health, and the healthy body weight that follows from great health.

I offer a free screening for these five factors at each of my Health Seminars offered twice a month at Yoga in the Pearl (See below for upcoming seminars).

I will give two presentations in the month of October. Both will take place on Wednesday evenings from 6:30 PM to 8:00 PM at Yoga in the Pearl, 925 NW Davis in Portland.

October 12: More on What Stands Between You and a Healthy Body Weight.

October 26: Natural Soultions for Acute and Chronic Pain.

There is no charge for either presentation. Please RSVP at the front desk of Yoga in the Pearl in person or by calling 503-525 YOGA (9642).

I am excited to announce that I will again be teaching my yoga workshop Exploring Body Weight and Body Image in October. This four week workshop will meet on Saturdays from 12:30-3:00 PM on October 8, 15, 22, and 29.

We will meet in the beautifully renovated hatha yoga studio of The Movement Center - Yoga for Everyone in NE Portland. The cost of the workshop is $100

To register for the workshop or for more information, contact The Movement Center at 503-231-0994.

More on the Body Weight and Body Image Workshop