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