I have compiled a list on “how to love yourself” for readers who are facing difficulty knowing what to do in embracing themselves. When I first began to be aware that I need to love myself first prior to developing any meaningful relationships with others, I realized that I did not know where to start.
This was a surprise to me then as I would have thought I’d be an expert on love and relationships by then. After all, as I recalled, in my younger days, I have spent much time looking for the best spouse or romantic partner. But I soon realized that my search was meant to fill the void or emptiness I had inside. Finding a good relationship with myself seemed to be an even harder task! However, as things turned out, I found myself failing miserably in my early relationships because I had insufficient or little self love.
I have found that self-esteem and self-love are issues that are often related together. If you suffer from low self esteem, it is possible that the the root cause is a case of insufficient self-love. And so, you have found it difficult to find that little bit of love for yourself. Loving yourself feels unnatural for a start because your mind has been ingrained with self sabotaging thoughts for the longest time.
However, nothing is going to happen if you do not make a conscious decision. And that includes attracting abundance. When you don’t love yourself, you are basically telling the Universe that you are unworthy or undeserving of any love or positive outcomes that have the same vibrational match as love.
Learning to love yourself starts with making a conscious decision, an intention to become happy and lead a fulfilled life. When you do not love yourself and suffer from low self esteem, it is almost impossible to ever reach the potential that you suspect you have.

“Love yourself first and everything falls into line.”

Lucille Ball quotes (American radio and motion-picture actress and comedy star, 1911-1989)

When you make a decision to love yourself, you are really saying that you want to come alive. You accept that you are responsible for the outcomes that you experience in your life and would like yourself to shine from living a fulfilling life.
So if you’ve decided on loving yourself but are as equally stumped on how to love yourself, as I was back then, here are 17 ways which I believe can be helpful:
1. Fall in love with yourself. Think about what makes you You. Just like a flower that needs watering to grow, learn to nurture yourself in every way. Love yourself for all the good that you see and accept your flaws and the fact that you are imperfect. This does not mean that you do not learn to change from your shortcomings; instead, you are being gentle and kind to yourself despite all your “flaws”. Look in the mirror and fall in love with the reflection that is You.

“To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.”

Oscar Wilde quotes (Irish Poet, Novelist, Dramatist and Critic, 1854-1900)

2. Eliminate Self Criticism. Do you often berate yourself over the tiniest thing? Is there a little voice inside your head that often tells you that you are no good because you are stupid or make mistakes. If you find that you criticize yourself often, make an effort to stop the self criticism.

“I CAN is 100 times more important than IQ.” — unknown

3. Be Kind And Positive. When you start to think kindly and positively about yourself, the love you have for yourself just grows. Make it a habit to praise yourself everyday, while in the front of the mirror. Because of such thoughts, you naturally undertake empowering actions that support your development.
4. Acknowledge Your Effort. It is not always about winning or coming up tops in everything that you do. Many times, it is the effort that counts! Acknowledge that you have done your best, even if you have failed to produce tangible results.
5. Let Go Of Worry. Loving yourself requires you to let go of your worry. It is a horrible way to live a life filled with constant worrying. I can attest to that! Worry does not help in any way. It cannot, on its own, make things happen. Only wise actions can! So instead of worrying, spend time thinking about what you can do to help in the situation. If the situation is beyond your control, then make a request to the Universe/God about what you want. Next, surrender your outcome.

“There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.” — Epictetus quotes (Greek philosopher associated with the Stoics, AD 55-c.135)

6. Trust Yourself. Have confidence in your abilities. Know that you have the ability to make important changes for yourself, for as long as you put your heart to it. You can also support yourself by visualizing desired outcomes.

“Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.”

Benjamin Spock quotes (American Pediatrician and Author, 1903-1998)

7. Forgive Yourself. If you have made mistakes in the past that had caused you to feel less worthy, then you need to forgive yourself. All of us make mistakes; so there really is no need to beat yourself up over them. Also, if you have been carrying around a baggage of emotional hurt because of a childhood trauma, learn to forgive yourself.

“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.”

Lewis B. Smedes quotes

8. Be Truthful To Yourself. Loving yourself requires you to be truthful about your own feelings. If you are happy, acknowledge the joy. If you are sad, acknowledge the sorrow. When you are truthful about your feelings, you do not try to lie to yourself or seek to bury your negative emotions. Instead, acknowledging what you feel provides a good guide to what your thoughts are. And as we all know, thoughts can be changed, so that healing and self growth can take place.
9. Grow Spiritually. When you spend time growing spiritually, loving yourself becomes automatic. You become more peaceful, connected, kind, loving and compassionate. You nurture a mind that grows more beautiful by the day. You naturally love yourself in the process.
10. Make Positive Affirmations Everyday. Reframe your mind with positive affirmations. For instance, say this to yourself “I love and accept myself completely and unconditionally.” Read your affirmations out loud several times a day.
11. Express Gratitude. Express gratitude for the person that you are. For instance, cultivate an appreciation for your strengths and gifts. Also, feel a sense of gratitude that you are alive and well, and fully capable of making a difference in your life.
12. Nurture Your Dreams. Why deny yourself your dreams? When you nurture your dreams, you would love the life that you are leading. Every moment that you live is a joy because you are expressing yourself fully.

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. —Mark Twain

13. Boost Your Self Confidence. Make a deliberate attempt to look for opportunities that can help improve your confidence. For instance, if you are particularly good at doing something, set aside more time to indulge and improve your skills on it. Knowing that you have particular gifts can boost your self esteem.
14. Relax. Give yourself space to take breaks every now and then. If you spend your time working, without paying attention to your health, it also means that you do not love yourself well enough to take care of your own body. Fill your time with silence, soothing music and visions of beauty; anything that nourishes your Soul.
15. Have Fun. Inject some fun into your life. Life is meant to be an enjoyable. Don’t take life or yourself too seriously. If you can think of life in this manner, you automatically relax and quit worrying over things that do not matter.
16. Look After Your Body. It is important that you strengthen yourself with proper nutrition and regular exercise. Your body is a temple and you should treat it with respect, love and care. It has been found that the lack of self love is often the root causes of conditions like eating disorders, obesity or even terminal diseases.

“Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.”

Jim Rohn quotes (American Speaker and Author. He is famous for motivational audio programs for Business and Life. )

wind, or the myriad hues of an evening sky.

“I am Me. In all the world, there is no one else exactly like me. Everything that comes out of me is authentically mine, because I alone chose it — I own everything about me: my body, my feelings, my mouth, my voice, all my actions, whether they be to others or myself. I own my fantasies, my dreams, my hopes, my fears. I own my triumphs and successes, all my failures and mistakes.

Because I own all of me, I can become intimately acquainted with me. By so doing, I can love me and be friendly with all my parts. I know there are aspects about myself that puzzle me, and other aspects that I do not know — but as long as I am friendly and loving to myself, I can courageously and hopefully look for solutions to the puzzles and ways to find out more about me.

However I look and sound, whatever I say and do, and whatever I think and feel at a given moment in time is authentically me. If later some parts of how I looked, sounded, thought, and felt turn out to be unfitting, I can discard that which is unfitting, keep the rest, and invent something new for that which I discarded. I can see, hear, feel, think, say, and do. I have the tools to survive, to be close to others, to be productive, and to make sense and order out of the world of people and things outside of me.

I own me, and therefore, I can engineer me. I am me, and I am Okay.”

Denis2005 Virginia Satir quotes (American Psychologist and Educator, 1916-1988)

Staying active is one of the important ways to stay young as you age.
Embrace these lifestyle changes today to live younger, happier and healthier.

• Eat a healthy diet
• Get sufficient sleep
• Exercise 30 minutes at least five days a week
• Don’t smoke
• Keep your mind alert and engaged
• Stay optimistic
• Socialize regularly
• Lose excess weight
• Drink plenty of water
• Get regular chiropractic check ups
• Avoid risky behaviors (addictions, sky-diving, etc.)

Please chat with me about your personal goals you have made for yourself. I would love to hear them and help! ]]> http://www.gebhardtchiropractic.com/wellness/living-longer-living-younger/feed/ 0 http://www.gebhardtchiropractic.com/weight-loss/how-posture-affects-your-health/ http://www.gebhardtchiropractic.com/weight-loss/how-posture-affects-your-health/#comments Wed, 18 Jan 2012 15:03:23 +0000 Denver Chiropractor Dr. Gebhardt http://www.gebhardtchiropractic.com/?p=986

Our posture is vital to either our well-being or our weakness.

Posture is important not only for our spinal health, but also for our emotional, spiritual and mental health. It is so important not only to learn proper posture, but to make it a habit and a top goal to improve your own posture.

Proper posture can relieve headaches, prevent back problems, prevent exercise or lifting injuries, improve your confidence, decrease muscle fatigue, keep your body in alignment, reduce pain in general, and make it look like you’ve lost 10 pounds. Why not work on your posture?! Bad posture takes a little time and effort to correct, but the rewards for your health and well-being are so worth it!

Check out these tips from the American Chiropractic Association for proper posture.
How do I sit properly?

• Keep your feet on the floor or on a footrest, if they don’t reach the floor.
• Don’t cross your legs. Your ankles should be in front of your knees.
• Keep a small gap between the back of your knees and the front of your seat.
• Your knees should be at or below the level of your hips.
• Adjust the backrest of your chair to support your low- and mid-back or use a back support.
• Relax your shoulders and keep your forearms parallel to the ground.
• Avoid sitting in the same position for long periods of time.

How do I stand properly?

• Bear your weight primarily on the balls of your feet.
• Keep your knees slightly bent.
• Keep your feet about shoulder-width apart.
• Let your arms hang naturally down the sides of the body.
• Stand straight and tall with your shoulders pulled backward.
• Tuck your stomach in.
• Keep your head level-your earlobes should be in line with your shoulders. Do not push your head forward, backward, or to the side.
• Shift your weight from your toes to your heels, or one foot to the other, if you have to stand for a long time.

What is the proper lying position?

• Find the mattress that is right for you. While a firm mattress is generally recommended, some people find that softer mattresses reduce their back pain. Your comfort is important.
• Sleep with a pillow. Special pillows are available to help with postural problems resulting from a poor sleeping position.
• Avoid sleeping on your stomach.
• Sleeping on your side or back is more often helpful for back pain.
• If you sleep on your side, place a pillow between your legs.
• If you sleep on your back, keep a pillow under your knees.

I can help you achieve proper posture by recommending stretches and exercises for you to do with me and at home. Bad posture is worth correcting! You will love the results.

Since I’ve gotten serious about health, and diet & weight loss specifically, one of my biggest gripes was about dinning out. On average, Americans eat out four to five times a week. That means that the majority are eating fast food and not doing any cooking at home. This obviously is contributing to the obesity epidemic, but why do we accept that in exchange for a little convenience our health?

Instead of going into the numerous problems with restaurants and making them a staple of your diet, I am happy to talk about a local Denver catering & Denver restaurant that breaks the mold and overcomes all the dining out hazards.

( for more information about the ill effects of fast food look for future articles and take a loot at these books:  Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, Chew On This: Everything You Don’t Want to Know About Fast Food, Food Inc.  A Participant Guide and these movies:  Food Inc.,  Food Matters )

ModMarket – Healthy Fast Food

We discovered ModMarket completely on accident. After a long morning run I was ready for an early lunch and the place we had in mind was not open yet. I drove past ModMarket and reluctantly decided to give it a try.

I am not an adventurous eater, and often find the convenience of dinning out to be more of a hassle than making my simple regular meals at home.  Having a wonderful wife that is also an amazing cook and shopper helps, and having a 2 year old really makes you re-think the benefits and cost of eating in public places.

First impressions we strangely mixed for me – The sleek and modern styling suggested that I was nowhere near cool enough to be in such a sweet place (which isn’t hard considering my complete lack of style,) but the large monitors displaying a beautiful high tech menu tugged at my inner nerd (which isn’t hard considering my inner nerd is huge and not so subtle) and was the first of many ” ah ha! – I’ve always wondered why places didn’t do x,y,z” moments for this meal.

Working our way to the very friendly staff at the counter and getting close enough to read the menu I was stuck dumb founded by the single most brilliant thing I’ve ever seen on a restaurant menu… Nutritional Information. Right there, each item had the ingredients and the basic nutrition information. As part of my diet and weight loss plan, meticulous documentation of nutritional information was important for discovering what I was eating and how it was affecting my body. This added considerably to the “hassle factor” of eating out as many restaurants do not provide this information, make it difficult to find, or are so outrageously unhealthy you just choose not to eat there.

ModMarket is all about Real Food

For healthy dining and catering ModMarket is great. Everything is made with simple whole ingredients fresh from farms in here Colorado. The menu is seasonal for this reason, but every favorite that goes out of season seems to be replaced with a few new favorites.   As they admit, making everything scratch is a “pain in the ass” but it pays off when it comes to taste and quality.  I’m a big fan of the pizza. I love pizza, and I love pizza I can eat and consider healthy even more. That picture is what the pizza actually looks like on your plate – no food make up artist with expensive light and camera tricks. Something about food made from real ingredients actually makes food more photogenic.

I’ve been wanting to write a post about this place since I finished off my first pizza, but being a food critic doesn’t really fit the Chiropractor profile. However, I got a chance to talk to  ModMarket founding partner Anthony Pigliacampo about his business and he pointed out ” Like you, we are fans of holistic health and believe strongly in what you do. ” and likewise I’ve become a fan and strongly believe in what ModMarket is doing.

With a little impromptu interview, I am now able to write a glowing review of my personal favorite restaurant because their approach to local business, sustainability, and health does fall within the scope of my area of interest and expertise.

Anthony Pigliacampo – ModMarket owner/partner/founder

Getting to talk to Anthony about his restaurant was a lot fun for a non-food, non-writer like me – but I was so genuinely impressed with the concept and execution I had to learn more.  I asked about the inspiration for this concept and any future plans -

“Our main inspiration is our own lifestyle.  My partner and I both are young, active individuals who eat out a lot b/c we have busy lives.  We felt like very few restaurants fit into our lives.  Like I said before, I eat at Modmarket every single day.  I know I can eat at Modmarket pre or post workout and have no ill effects.   There are not a lot of restaurants I can say that about.  I think lots of people feel the same way I do.  We don’t really have a ‘plan’ forModmarket other than to keep serving as many people as possible sustainable food that tastes great.  If we are lucky, that means we end up as a large company with a huge impact.  The great thing about our business is that the larger we get, the more good we can do and the more change we can affect.”

This is definitely the type of restaurant anyone that is conscious about their diet has been wanting for years, and I’m sure there have been more than a few that have come and gone without notice. I personally believe ModMarket succeeds by making healthy, quality food completely accessible and affordable.  Many healthy options by other well meaning places are often exotic and different – not a great move for getting the McDonald’s “everything is the same in the world” crowd converted. ModMarket’s Salad, Soup, Sandwich, Pizza offerings? That’s food people know and already love  – Just done better.

ModMarket talks about “Real Food” but Americans consume preservatives and artificial sweeteners along with chemicals even most chemist can’t pronounce without a thought. One of the concerns a lot of people seem to have is that eating natural, real, and quality foods is super expensive, but your prices don’t reflect that at all and considering it is all made from scratch – I guess the question is why is everyone else doing it the wrong way?

We have always believed that the scale and efficiencies you gain by having a restaurant can be used to make healthy food cheaper.  We built Modmarket around a production system.  We took techniques used in fine dining and said, how can we do this in a fast food environment.  It was a total rethink of the fast food model.  Fast food as a business is incredible.  There are lots of levers you can pull to make things more efficient.  We pull all of them, with the goal always being how can we serve higher quality food at a lower price.  That is what is going to be required to get people to really change their habits.  We will never be able to serve burgers for .99, but no one should, it is not sustainable.  However, I think people are willing to pay a little more if the quality is there.  Running a modmarket is a lot more difficult than running a burger restaurant, but that is what makes it worth doing.  Most restaurants take the easy way.  We are taking the hard way.  But the result is that we have much less direct competition AND we can sleep well at night knowing that everyone that passes through a Modmarket has made a sustainable food choice.

One of the more surprising answers came from a response about putting the nutrition labels on the menu and receipt. I asked: “Personally, I believe nutrition labels on food packaging are not well understood by the general public but are still an important tool for consumers. When it comes to restaurants large chains usually have nutritional values posted somewhere – often hard to find, incomplete, and of dubious accuracy, and some of the smaller small business don’t have anything at all. Modmarket not only puts it on the menu, but on your receipt too. How and when did this idea come up?”

We came up with the nutritionals on the receipt idea b/c we wanted our customers to see that we have nothing to hide.  We actually don’t really care about calories and think most people have a skewed view of how calories indicate health.  But by putting that information in the most accessible place possible, we begin a conversation with our customers about our food.  They immediately realize that we have nothing to hide and, I think, believe we must be serving healthy food or we wouldn’t put the numbers on the receipt.  In many cases, this causes them to ask us questions and we can have meaningful dialogue around the reasons are foods are the way they are.  On the whole, restaurant food is TERRIBLE, both for the people eating it and on the environment from which it was harvested.  We believe transparency is the best way to educate people and start affecting change in those areas.

Going on along those lines of questioning Anthony really nailed the big picture nutrition summary as I pushed on the impressive stats on the menu items ( For example, two slices of cheese pizza from any of the top 3 pizza delivery chains have the same amount of calories as your ENTIRE 3 cheese pizza – which hands down beats just about any other pizza place as far as quality and taste is concerned )  So I asked: “ People often eat with their eyes, how different do you think the restaurant industry would be if those eyes where seeing nutritional value with those good glamor shots? Speaking of glamor shots – what is it that makes your food appear just like the picture whereas so many other restaurants serve plates that look absolutely nothing like the ads or menu pictures?”

Like I said before, calories are not that important to us.  The explosion of obesity in the US is directly tied to when fat starting being villified and low calories became the solution to everything.  All calories are not created equal in our minds and therefore we strive to make our foods be balanced between calorie, carb, protein, fat and portion size.  Portion size is probably the biggest driver of calories on our menu.  Our pizzas are low relative to other restaurants b/c we do things like making a super thin crust.  Interestingly enough, if we chose to make our dough out of 100% white flour, like virtually every other pizza place on the planet, our calorie count would be lower.  This is an example of where calories don’t tell the whole story.  Our dough is about 90% whole grain.  This gives it a bit higher calorie number as well as a higher fat number, but you are getting a TON of fiber.  This makes it digest a lot slower as your body works to digest the whole grains.  White dough, on the hand, is treated just like sugar by your digestive system.  We trick people by packing a ton of whole grain goodness into our crusts.  It is WAY more work to make whole grain dough taste good – the process is longer, more complex and more expensive.  But we think it is the right thing to do so that is why we do it.  Regarding pics of our food – we have never had the budgets to hire ‘real’ photographers, food stylists, etc, so our food always looks the same, whether it is landing on your plate or under the camera lens.  The great thing is that when you use simple, high quality ingredients, the food LOOKS really good.  Making things from scratch is a complete pain in the ass, but it yields better food.  I eat at Modmarket every single day, usually for more than one meal.  If the food didn’t look good, I wouldn’t be able to do that!

I was left with an even greater appreciation for ModMarket following this last exchange, but while Anthony is technically correct – Calories alone are not a measure of health or food quality- I have to disagree slightly because of how people may interpret that fact. From my perspective of health and weight loss as it really is important statistic for those of us returning to a normal healthy weight. I wanted to comment not so much in disagreement but clarification of his statement regarding low calorie diets and increasing obesity.  I was unable to follow up because it took me some time to thing about it, but the basic ideas Anthony expressed about nutrition reminded me of the book Why We Get Fat.

Based on my own research and professional opinion the obesity epidemic and connection to low calorie  diets come from the misunderstanding and use of “diet foods” artificial sweeteners and other means of selling “low calories” over simply measuring calories and eating reasonable portions. It is a little complicated, and if we could solve obesity and related health issues with a simple blog post it would have already been done.

Calories are useful if you use them correctly as a sort of fuel gauge, and as you monitor your “fuel tank” improving the quality of food at home and when dining out will only help increase weight loss efforts and improve over all health. However, they are not always the same as Anthony and ModMarket point out.  For example, similar to ModMarket’s pizza dough, a can of Diet Soda with0 calories is considerably worse for you than a Regular 110 calorie can which is more so than the Throwback 110 cal cans with real cane sugar.

Speaking of cane sugar… ModMarket has an amazing fountain drink set up with real cane sugar. I would proudly claim that I don’t drink soda, it is terrible for you on many accounts, but I am just not a huge fan of it to begin with -  but boy does that cane cola and ginger taste amazing.

Going back to that first experience eating at ModMarket – When was the last time you ate an entire pizza after going for a 12 mile run and actually felt better for eating it?

ModMarket Location & Contact info

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My first “season” started on a whim really – randomly choosing a single race to complete. A couple months before that goal race I entered a few events earlier and actually made it more of a race season. This year I wanted to take some time to carefully select my goals and plan races around them so I can try to be competitive and make it through this year while improving , gaining experience, and having a lot of fun.

If you are more of a recreational athlete and you are training and competing as part of your general fitness, planning a race season probably has more to do with checking vacation time at work against summer cook-outs and birthday parties.  In that case, this post isn’t going to be that interesting for you.

Based on an article I ready by Matt Russ I like to think of planning races as the ABC’s of race planning.  This is an homage to athletes planning their race schedule to have “A” events – important goal races, “B” races – training and practice for the A events, and “C” races where there isn’t a real set goal other than participating.

To have an A race – you need to have some sort of goal. I’ve been back and forth from the end of the last season on where I really want to go as far as goals are concerned. Ironman and iron man distance races where high up there, but I missed the boat on registering for the ideal ones this season around. Winning my division and age group would be nice, but I’m not entirely sure that is a reasonable goal given my experience and fitness levels.

That really only leaves two options for myself – Destination and Performance goals. So my A races are going to be races that hold a certain appeal in either the situation or location and racing against myself to beat personal best at all distances and disciplines.

The great thing about triathlon is you don’t have to win to be competitive.  You get a chance to win over all, but you also get to compete and could win for your age group – a very fair proposition.  Most importantly you can compete against your self to always better your performance from race to race and year to year.  Interestingly endurance sports like triathlon are one of the few where you can still improve with age, and where most of the top athletes are over 30 years old.

For the coming year, my “A” races are going to be sprint distance triathlons with the goal of besting my times last year and each race this season.

I’d like to expand my race resume and look at adding more Olympic and even a half-iron distance race into this season and will make those my “B” races.

“C” races will most likely be non-tri events that I’d like to do such as a few charity 5ks, trail runs, and cycling events.

The advantage of using this breakdown of races is now I am looking at my calendar I can put the “A” races in first and fill in the “B” and “C” to assure there is an appropriate amount of time for recovery, training volume, and race specific training.

My Tentative Race Calendar for 2012

• June 6 2012 Mt. Evans Accent -run race
• June 10 2012 Denver Triathlon
• June 26 2012 Aquaman Series
• June 23 2012 Loveland Lake to Lake Triathlon
• June 30, 2012 Lookout Mountain Triathlon
•  July 3 2012 Aquaman Series
• July 10 2012 Aquaman Series
• July 17 2012 Aquaman Series
• July 24 2012 Aquaman Series
• July 28, 2012 My Way or the Tri Way
• July 29, 2012 HITS Triathlon Series – Fort Collins Race Day
• July 31 2012 Aquaman Series
• August 18 2012 Rattlesnake Triathlon
• August 19 2012 Rattlesnake Triathlon
• September 8 2012 Littlefoot Triathlon
• September 9 2012 Harvest Moon -long course
• September 15, 2012 Crescent Moon Triathlon

If I Need Treatment For This Injury, Do I Have To Pay For It Myself?

Insurance companies realize the many advantages of Chiropractic Care. This treatment is generally covered in full by automobile insurance policies, whether you are a driver, a passenger, or a pedestrian… and regardless of who is at fault. Our clinic will assist you in dealing with insurance paper work and filling a claim with your insurance company.

I’ve Been To The Hospital And My Medical Doctor, Do I Really Need to See a Chiropractor?

You need a doctor who focuses in the treatment and diagnosis of auto accident injuries. Usually hospitals will check vital signs, make sure there are no life-threatening conditions and release the patient with pain relief medication. They normally do not treat the underlying improper musculoskeletal biomechanics that can and often do lead to future pain. If you are still having problems, you should get a second opinion.  If your M.D. has given you pills, you must understand that pills do not correct structural or soft tissue damage. There are special therapies designed for that, and we offer these modalities at our office.

So please drive safely, and remember to put down the phone. You have precious cargo in your car- you!

Safe Travels,

Dr. Gebhardt DC

Tips to Avoid Headaches-

• Change positions- If you work at a computer, at a sewing machine or any other fixed position it is important to take breaks and walk or stretch. Make sure to maintain proper posture while you are working.

• Eat Healthy and Drink Plenty!

• Stretch and Meditate-Stretches that help relieve headaches are listed below. Add these to a whole body stretching program and use them when headaches first start:
• Neck range of motion: Tip your chin forward to your chest, upward to the ceiling, and then turn your chin to touch each shoulder.
• Shoulder shrugs: Shrug shoulders up, then up and forward, and then up and back.
• Neck isometrics: Place your palm on your forehead and press your head against it. Be very still and don’t move your head or hand as you press one against the other. Repeat with your hand on each side of the head.
• Head lift: Link the fingers of your hands together and hold then behind your neck at the base of your head. Pull your elbows forward and up so you can feel your head lifting up slightly from your neck.

Hoping this finds you headache free!

It is no secret that obesity is large problem for Americans and is an epidemic of huge proportions. It is directly related to almost all the leading causes of death, and cost us all a lot of time and money.

Even for our average patient with low back pain, 90% would have less severe symptoms or recover faster having lost 10-20lbs or more.
It was these facts that really got me motivated to be an example for my patients and family and loose over 155 pounds – you read that correctly, I am nearly half the size I was when I graduated Chiropractic College.

If losing weight is something you want to address, or you know a friend or family member who is struggling with their weight, please talk to us about it. I have battled with my weight for most of my adult life. I have written a book of my tips, tools, and secrets, and I will happily share this with you for free.

Following my success, I now offer weight loss coaching and nutrition into the scope of my practice. Please read my articles here if you are interested in reading about my personal weight loss journey and my triathlon training. Do not waste another second being unhappy with your body. I suffered too long with anxiety, stress, and health problems because of my weight – You shouldn’t have to.

To achieve any goal remember to make them SMART-

Specific- A specific goal has a much greater chance of being accomplished than a general goal. To set a specific goal you must answer the six “W” questions: who? what? where? when? why?

Measurable- Establish concrete criteria for measuring progress toward the attainment of each goal you set.
When you measure your progress, you stay on track, reach your target dates, and experience the exhilaration of achievement that spurs you on to continued effort required to reach your goal.

Attainable-When you identify goals that are most important to you, you begin to figure out ways you can make them come true. You develop the attitudes, abilities, skills, and financial capacity to reach them. You begin seeing previously overlooked opportunities to bring yourself closer to the achievement of your goals.

Realistic- To be realistic, a goal must represent an objective toward which you are both willing and able to work. A goal can be both high and realistic; you are the only one who can decide just how high your goal should be. But be sure that every goal represents substantial progress.

Timely-A goal should be grounded within a time frame. With no time frame tied to it there’s no sense of urgency. If you want to lose 10 lbs, when do you want to lose it by? “Someday” won’t work. But if you anchor it within a timeframe, “by May 1st”, then you’ve set your unconscious mind into motion to begin working on the goal.

“Another fresh new year is here . . .
Another year to live! To banish worry, doubt, and fear, To love and laugh and give!
This bright new year is given me To live each day with zest . . .
To daily grow and try to be My highest and my best! -William Arthur Ward

Wishing you a Happy and Healthy 2012!
Cheers!

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Did you Know… After Christmas Santa visits a Chiropractor before going on vacation? We don't get to see Saint Nick very often, being so busy up at the North Pole and all, but on Christmas Eve he has about 1.8 Billion Children to visit – which requires some  heaving lifting for that sack of toys and leaves him with a sore back.* We only get a visit from Santa once a year, but we would love to see you a little more often. Even if you don't have to carry 5 Billion pounds of toys, getting adjusted lifts your holiday spirits just for a brighter for Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Year! The joy and warmth of the holiday season comes the stress accumulating in your nervous system. To feel your best this holiday season, please call us to schedule an appointment. After all, even the big guy himself needs an adjustment for his holiday to be complete.   Wishing you the happiest and healthiest Christmas and New Year,  Dr. Ryan D. Gebhardt, D.C. * I like to leave some Bio-Freeze next to his cookies to help him get through the night.  follow on Twitter friend on Facebook forward to a friend  Copyright © 2012 Gebhardt Chiropractic, All rights reserved.  unsubscribe from this list | update subscription preferences