The Ultimate Health and Happiness Plan

By Travis Wade

I’ve been an EMT for over 18 years now and it’s great to be able to help people out especially when they need it most. The down side is most of the people we deal with are people who don’t help themselves so we have to help them. There is way more depression out there than I ever thought and people have what they call “failure to thrive”. They don’t die. They live out their life on our stretcher. It’s not a great way to live and the number one reason why we get called is loneliness. What I do now is help people before they get to that point. I help people who want to help themselves. I keep people off the stretcher.

The main reason I do what I do is because I’ve seen what fitness has done for me. Of course it does a lot physically, I’m faster, stronger, feel better, look better, and move better in general, but it does way more. It created a lot of confidence for me which spilled over into every aspect of my life. That’s what I see in others as well. It starts with getting fitter and then confidence starts when someone accomplishes a goal. Confidence creates success for people.

What I Do…

“The Blue Zones” is a book by Dan Buettner. He talks about the 4 regions of the world where people are living the longest and what they all have in common. Research shows that people who live happy are the people that are living the longest. The 5 things that these people have in common is:

1. They have a sense of purpose. In other words, you can’t retire. The people that retire and sit at the coffee shops complaining about the world around them are miserable.

2. They have friends and family around them. They don’t believe in moving out. They live together. You can’t move to paradise island and be happy. You will last about 3 months and then it’s time to come home.

3. You have to surround yourself with the right people. You could have the best job in the world, but if you go to work with a bunch of dirt balls everyday it’s going to suck.

4. Proper diet with proper proportions.

5. Proper exercise.

What I do creates happiness and longevity.

My mission is to create a community of happy people around me that are beautiful on the inside and out. I encourage volunteering and altruism when I can and try to help out when I can as well. This is why I do what I do.

How I do It…

Exercise

The first thing I try to do is get people exercising doing things that they will enjoy. You have to like it or you won’t continue with it. You’ll have the initial motivation and after a while you’ll have all kinds of excuses to not show up.

Diet

The next thing I do is to try to get people to eat healthy. The number one thing you want to do with food is get the nutrients your body needs. The book I most commonly use to help my clients eat well is called “The 10 Day Detox Cookbook” by Dr. Mark Hyman.

Sometimes diet and exercise is all people need and they feel great and get their goals. I heard a trainer say once that people aren’t fat because their bodies are broken. He’s partially right. There is usually something more going on, but almost everybody has underlying physical health issues these days that contribute as well.

So my next step after diet and exercise is to look at nutrient deficiencies. Without doing a panel on someone I just address the top nutrient deficiencies in north America. Sometimes this is all people need to accomplish their goals and feel great.

Meditation

Next, I educate people on the importance of meditation. It’s an easy concept to laugh about because people appear to be doing nothing but people that overachieve dedicate their ability to overachieve to all the meditation they do. Many cultures have been doing it for thousands of years and they know the benefits.

More recently in our culture we have been studying the effects with MRI and other technology to see what’s happening in the body. Activating the relaxation response is the only intervention known to man that actually makes a person’s biological age younger. It also allows a person to focus to get more done.

Other Resources

Microbiome

After that I will get to know someone and get a feel for other possible resources to make them as healthy as possible. viome.com will test a person’s microbiome to see what they have going on inside them.

We are made up of 10x more bacteria than we are human body cells and we have 10x more viruses than we do bacteria cells. We have a huge ecosystem going on in and on us and it has a massive, massive impact on us. One example is there are two main types of bacteria in us; bacteroidetes and firmicutes. Bacteroidetes is skinny person bacteria and firmicutes is fat person bacteria. You need to know how to manipulate these to your advantage.

Hormones

I might ask people to work on hormone imbalances. A place called True Balance does a full panel including nutrients, blood cell counts, hormones, and even antigens. It’s great to see this and they educate people about their particular situation and offer treatment as well.

DNA Test

A couple other resources available are The DNA Company. They test your DNA and tell you what things you need to avoid and what things you should be doing.

Detoxification

Another resource is Wendy Myers who deals with toxicity and minerals. We are exposed to over 200 toxins before we are born and 3000 more are being created every year. A hundred years ago our liver could take care of us, but not anymore. Toxins accumulate in the brain and in our mitochondria which are responsible for creating our energy. We become slower and can’t think as well over time. We need to detox.

Mental Barriers

I guess I should mention Jon Gabriel. My friend that talked about how people’s bodies aren’t broken has a point. We’ve all been through some mental trauma in life. Sometimes it’s enough to prevent people from attaining their goals. Jon Gabriel deals with that side of things and his website is thegabrielmethod.com.

Journaling

Finally, I try to get every client I have to journal. My coach journals twice a day. I journal once a day in the morning. If I give you the formula to happiness, it doesn’t mean you will be happy. You have to implement the formula. The best way to hold yourself accountable to implement the formula is to journal. These are some of the key factors to implement in your daily life that have been proven to significantly increase happiness.

Journal in the morning because starting your day by taking time for yourself is the best way to start a day. If you start your day on a positive note then you will live your day on a positive note. If you start every day on a positive note that is how you will live your life. Rate your happiness out of 10 and journal for a month and rate your happiness out of 10 again.

Journaling allows us to relive the good things in our lives. No matter what happens to you in a day, no matter how good it was, journaling will be the best part of your day because you get to relive whatever happened without the bad.

When good things happen it creates dopamine which is the “feel good” neurotransmitter. When we journal we relive the good things without the bad and we get the dopamine again. We all need dopamine! Some people get it by eating sugar, I’m asking you to get it by journaling.

If you want more information on journaling watch this Tedtalk with Shawn Achor. If you want to know what I journal, contact me and I will send you the happiness template.

I wish you lots of health, love and happiness!

Travis Wade

The only holistic personal trainer in Edmonton

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Why Do Most People Call An Ambulance? Besides Loneliness

By Travis Wade

I have worked as an EMT for over 17 years. I have seen all kinds of health problems and it’s hard to watch when I know how to prevent health problems. The most common problem I’ve seen is abdominal pain. About half of the abdominal problems leave the hospital undiagnosed. You have to wonder why.

My full time job now is personal training and I am still helping people, but in a preventative way. That’s why I just want to go over some of the most common problems people have that I’ve seen and why.

Abdominal Pain

You can’t exercise your intestines the same way you can exercise your biceps. The number one nutrient I recommend to people is not even on the list of highest nutrient deficiencies in North America. It is soup broth. The types of food most people will eat these days does so much damage to their intestinal wall and most people don’t do anything to improve it. Your intestinal wall is made up of mostly collagen. How are you getting collagen in your diet?

Soup broth not only has collagen, but it has the amino acids proline, glycine, L-glutamine, and it has zinc, iron, magnesium, and lots of other nutrients your body needs. All of these are recommended to build up your gut lining. Also, you just don’t get the same effect if you use supplements; you need to eat properly with high nutrients and lots of fibre.

Heart Problems

Atherosclerosis and arteriosclerosis are generally the causes. The most common causes of atherosclerosis and arteriosclerosis was not on the list of nutrients to prevent heart disease that I just read, but it is on the list of most common nutrient deficiencies. It comes in third behind vitamin D and Omega 3s. Vitamin K2 is what reroutes calcium to its proper destinations like in the bones to prevent osteoporosis.

It also prevents the calcium (plaque), building up in your vasculature preventing diseases like heart attacks, stroke, deep vein thrombosis (DVT), and pulmonary embolisms. It also prevents the incredibly painful kidney stones and gallstones. Fermented foods like sauerkraut and kimchee have vitamin K2.

Diabetes

Caused by sugar, but even more by sweeteners including stevia, sucralose or Splenda, aspartame, and anything diet. Artificial sweeteners are even more addictive than sugar and produce diabetes faster. This may be intentional. Food companies want you buying as much of their addictive food as possible and a side bonus is they can get you on medication too.

Depression

Caused by many things, but a huge contributing factor is gut problems. Serotonin, dopamine, and other neurotransmitters regulating your mood are created in your gut. Take care of your gut with soup first, then find out what is in your microbiome. You might be able to manipulate your gut bacteria with natural methods or you might have to take a medication to get rid of severe pathogens under the guidance of a medical practitioner of course. Then take the steps to build a good strong microbiome with sauerkraut, sources of fibre, rice starch, and probiotics.

Autoimmune Diseases

Again this is caused by gut problems. The weakened gut lining allows bigger molecules to pass through the lining which your body doesn’t recognize and attacks. These molecules and inflammation along with the toxins being produced are what cause the autoimmune diseases. In every autoimmune disease you will find leaky gut syndrome. Some of the things that contribute to leaky gut syndrome are genetically modified foods, gluten, dairy, and lectin found in beans.

Thyroid Problems

Gluten is the protein in bread or flour that binds it like glue and one of the molecules that will pass through a weakened gut lining. Your body doesn’t recognize gluten and will produce antigens against it. Your thyroid has proteins that are very similar to gluten. The gluten antigens also attack the thyroid. Once you fix your weakened gut with soup, you can add some gluten back to your diet, however, gluten is one of the proteins that cause a weakened gut.

Another very common problem for the thyroid is everyday chronic stress. It creates an overactive adrenal gland and when cortisol is high, thyroid hormone is low. Experts don’t know which causes which but adrenal problems and thyroid problems go hand in hand.

Toxins

Toxins need an honourable mention here. I was talking to someone about mycotoxins in their coffee and they wanted to show me an article that said the mycotoxins in our coffee was under the legal limit and considered safe. The article also talked about how there was mycotoxins in dairy, peanuts, grains, and is even found in breast milk. All of the above are things I recommend avoiding in your diet for reasons much more than the mycotoxins. All except the breast milk which I highly recommend.

How did the mycotoxins get in the breast milk? Like a lot of toxins, mycotoxins are difficult to eliminate and end up in breast milk. This is another really good reason to reduce your toxic load. You are exposed to over 200 toxins before you’re born and if your mom wasn’t careful it’s in her breast milk. I am not saying you have to avoid everything that has toxins, but you have to take care to reduce your toxic load.

The mycotoxins in your coffee, along with the milk in your cereal, the grains in your cereal, the sugar… how much toxins have you swallowed at breakfast? By the end of the day? Week? Month? They accumulate and are very hard to eliminate. Is the accumulation below the legal limit? The legal limit isn’t a standard you want to follow by the way. I’m going to stop there.

Toxins = The external sources include air, water, diet, drugs, organic pollutants, heavy metals, radiation, and physical or psychological stressors. Internal processes include inflammation, free radical production and oxidative stress, allergens, infections, and even gut flora.