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Welcome to the very first edition of our new health eZine:

"My Health Corner!"

Our eZine will arrive monthly to keep you apprised of a featured health topic, what is happening at the clinic, exciting and controversial health topics in the news, recipes, and more.

We hope that you gain a piece of information that is new that can directly benefit your personal health goals or others that you may come into contact with.

There have been many things happening at the clinic and I wanted to share some of them with you. Many of you have seen or spoken with Melissa. She is the newest addition to our staff here at the clinic and has taken on the role of office manager. She is at the front desk full time and in her off hours attends Cal State Fullerton part time. We are happy to have her and she is here to support you so that you can receive a pleasing and supportive experience every time.

Dr. Singh is expecting, and we are all very excited for her as she begins her journey into Motherhood. She will be working with us at the clinic until her maternity leave in November. This month's featured topic is Weight Gain, why it is becoming an increasing struggle to battle weight and what we can do to keep ourselves healthy. I am excited to share our new weight loss program with you which takes dedication on your part but works amazingly well every time. Read on!

Sincerely,

Dr. Andrea Purcell, N.D.
Costa Mesa, CA 92627
Telephone (949) 722-6797

De-Stress, Lose Weight & Get Healthy!

According to the 2007 statewide consensus, the obesity rate in California is 22.6%. This means that 22.6% of our population here in California is obese. That number is pretty close to 25%, which means that about one quarter of our population is obese. These numbers are staggering when we look at how being overweight affects our health, our life span, our quality of life, and our emotional self-image. Obviously, many things come into play when thinking about weight gain, a few of the big players are: food choices, portion sizes, activity level, stress, and hormones.

Here in the United States there is no shortage of food. Food is everywhere, at the gym, on the TV, at the 7-11, fast food on every corner, chain restaurants, grocery stores; the list goes on and on. It is up to us to consciously decide what we want to put in our bodies. The opportunity to make this choice occurs multiple times each day. Every time we are hungry or find ourselves eating something it is up to us to ask ourselves what that food item is providing for us. Is it nutrition? Comfort? Sustained energy? Restful Sleep? Quick energy? And… can we make a better choice? Remember that food is our gasoline; we need to put high quality gas into our bodies to get the maximum output. To further complicate the weight gain puzzle, often food allergens can be causing us to hold on to unwanted weight. If we were to simply be aware of what foods were causing us to be bloated, swollen, and bogged down just by avoiding them our bodies could function better and allow us to release excess weight.

Portions are another way that we sabotage ourselves. Here in the US bigger is better: big trucks, big Las Vegas buffets, Vente lattes, Big Gulps, large pizzas and so on. The French aren’t healthier because they drink red wine, they are healthier because they eat about one-fourth of what we do at any given sitting, in addition to living a less stressful lifestyle. As seen in the Okinawa centenarian study, the oldest people on the planet live longer due to calorie restriction not due to and excess of calories. Okinawans only eat until they are 80% full at any meal.

Activity level or exercise is important because it can alter our metabolic rate. The faster our metabolism the more calories we can burn over a given time frame. In addition, the more muscle mass we have the more calories we burn at resting or sitting. Of course exercise can be helpful in helping to burn some if the additional calories we have taken in during the day. The problem occurs because most of us do not know how many calories we need to take in to match our metabolic rate so we workout and then “treat” ourselves to something that actually causes us to exceed our calories for the day and then no weight is lost.

Stress! Stress is everywhere in this American Life. Stress directly affects our hormone levels so I will discuss both here. When we are stressed our adrenal glands secrete cortisol. Cortisol is our stress hormone. Cortisol works with insulin to take sugar in our blood and store it as fat. Our body does this in response to stress because of the way we are wired. In a high cortisol environment our body switches from a fat burning mode to a fat storing mode. Historically, in times of starvation our body could draw on those fat stores to keep us alive once the offending stressor was gone. Today, the offending stressor never leaves, and many of us find ourselves in a chronic fat storage mode. In addition, thyroid dysfunction can interfere with our metabolism and stress interferes with thyroid function. Which is why we have so many cases of low functioning thyroid among women and men today. Finally, there are many substances in our environment that mimic estrogen. Estrogen is a hormone of fat storage. A great example of this is our food supply. Cows and chicken are injected with hormones just before they go to market to plump them up so the farmer gets a better price for his stock. Well, those hormones plump us up as well. That’s why it is so important to choose organic eggs, dairy products, and meats when at all possible; we don’t need any extra hormones plumping us up!

For some weight loss is relatively easy if they have someone to hold them accountable and make suggestions based on their individual system. For others weight loss can be a real struggle as they do everything they were taught to do and the weight still does not budge. I am happy to announce three separate weight loss programs that we have at the clinic for meeting all of your weight loss goals. There is the healthy and steady program, the more rigid and steady program, and for those difficult cases we have the fast and furious program that really works quite quickly, hands down, every time as long as you follow the recommendations. Lets get started today!

10% Off All Food Allergy Testing

“Have you ever wondered if the foods that your were eating were actually harming you or keeping you from achieving our desired weight?

Sometimes the foods that we think are good for us are actually causing an allergic response within our digestive and immune systems. Find out what foods you are incompatible with and start losing weight tomorrow!”

Send us your comments, feedback or questions! We'd love to hear from you.

Dr. Andrea Purcell, N.D.
1770 Orange Avenue
Costa Mesa, CA 92627
Telephone (949) 722-6797
MAP/DIRECTIONS

Please feel free to forward this eZine to everyone you know! They'll be glad you did!

Dr. Andrea Purcell, N.D.
www.PortalToHealing.com