Doctors See 12 Patients at a Time

© Jacquelyn Johnston, M.Ed. Diabesity Coach

When you’re with friends and family do you often hear comments about the health care system? Do you hear people complaining that they only get to see the doctor for 10 minutes, and that the doctor asks that they only discuss one health issue per visit?

I hear that all the time—at meetings, forums, conferences, and, of course, in social situations.

I don’t think it takes an Einstein to figure out that, if you’ve been smoking for 40 years, you will have courted a poor immune system. You may have eaten too much fast food, skimped on veggies, been an exercise-shunning couch potato, and slept much too late at night.

You’re dehydrated. You’re probably overweight, and your doctor has told you you need to take a few (in a manner of speaking) pounds off. And if you’re a guy, chances are you don’t exactly have a six-pack.

SO, you go see the doctor, and want all these issues taken care of. In 10 minutes.

I can see how many people can feel frustrated when they wish to address all their needs in 10 minutes.

I can also see how doctors can feel frustrated when they can’t meet all these needs in 10 minutes.

Our health care system is being stretched thinner and thinner. The population is getting older, and there is a lot more chronic disease than ever before. Much of what is happening to people in their retirement years is happening because of lifestyle habits that have gone on for decades.

We now have a shortage of family doctors. What to do? The BC ministry of Health has put out a trial balloon, which works like this.

One of our doctors here in Richmond has started seeing people in groups.

As many people are in the same boat, our system has decided to try grouping people with the same problems, such as diabetes, in one doctor’s visit. Together, they get more Doctor time than they would if they had seen the doctor individually. The doctor’s happy, because he doesn’t have to repeat core advice 12 times. Patients can then see the doctor for individual issues not covered in the group visit.

The experiment’s too new for statistics right now, but some patients, initially not keen on the group setting, now say they are relieved to see people with the same problems.

Patients can bring a family member or friend along. Everyone agrees to keep everything confidential.

What do you think? Would you join such a group, say, if you had heart disease?
I think it’s one solution. It’s got its merits. It’s better than not having a family doctor.

It’s a good reactive measure, since there are things people need to know.

This said, I’ll ask you: wouldn’t it be better never to have a chronic condition at all? A condition like diabetes, obesity, heart disease, kidney disease, COPD (Lung disease), high blood pressure and cholesterol. All these things are preventable. Many are reversible.

You can find out how from a Health Coach.

Interested? Contact me for details. You have half an hour to get your questions answered. For free. Go ahead, call.

Talk soon.

Jacquelyn

Jacquelyn Johnston M.Ed.
Professional Health Coach and Educator,
Solutions and Support for Optimal Health
www.LifestyleForLongevity.com
www.LoseTwentyPoundsNow.com
Richmond, B.C. Canada
mail to:jj@lifestyleforlongevity.com
Tel. 604.276.8673 Fax. 604.276.8675

Turducken On Your Thanksgiving Menu?

© Jacquelyn Johnston, M.Ed. Diabesity Coach

I added a new word to my vocabulary today. The one you see in the title. Turducken. Priceless.

Here in Canada we do Thanksgiving on the second Monday of October, and its history is somewhat different from that of the American one. The Canadian Thanksgiving is a day to give thanks for a bountiful harvest. It’s believed to be a practice brought over to Canada from early European farmers who settled here. They’d fill a curved goat’s horn with grains and fruits. The horn was called a cornucopia, meaning “horn of plenty”, and it symbolized gratitude for a successful growing season.

I’ve been looking at magazines covers in both bookstores and supermarket racks for a few weeks now, and I must say some of the most fabulous food pictures come out in anticipation of Thanksgiving. Even more so than at Christmas, when decoration and glitter surround the seasonal fare. At Thanksgiving the focus seems to be more on the fabulous food and the generous earth it came from.

I was having a lot of fun reading up on the American Thanksgiving when I came across that delectable word “Turducken”-- a chicken inside a duck inside a turkey. There’s an on-line demo that shows you how to telescope one inside the other by de-boning each bird first and adding pork stuffing. Fascinating. What really surprised me was that these Tri-Fowls are also widely available in Britain, where Thanksgiving isn’t such a major event.

Apparently, a close cousin to the Turducken is the Turporken, is also available at many places around the country. My dictionary’s getting fatter.

One description of the first American Thanksgiving circa 1620, where settlers sat down for a meal with the First Nations people, was particularly interesting. Apparently, as there was no flour there was neither bread nor not pumpkin pie, as there was no wheat to make them with. The early diners ate turkey with corn and other whole foods.

At this time I know of one group that will be worried if they get invited to Thanksgiving dinner—those with a gluten sensitivity. I was reading a gluten-free cook book in the library yesterday. The writer, who teaches gluten-free cooking, said many people have this sensitivity, even Celiac disease, because our insides have never really adapted to wheat and other gluten-filled foods. Not even after thousands of years of human evolution.

With the popularity of processed, packaged foods we have acquired the practice of eating too much, with disastrous results such as epidemic obesity and diabetes, not to mention heart disease, lung diseases like COPD, and arthritis. Coupled with that, we are thirsty and don’t know it.

Maybe this thanksgiving it would be a good experiment to eat like Celiac sufferers. In fact, I suspect that’s actually the way we all ought to be dining. Hey, find something wrong with eating whole foods! A pioneer meal would have included turkey with the fruits of the earth. Apparently there was lots of pumpkin. Without churning masses of sugar into it. Add pure spring water to this and you have a meal that would make your heart specialist really happy.

Enjoy some Turducken, Turporken, Turshrimpken, Turlambken or even Turbeefken. Go out for a walk two hours before your meal. Don't "Walk it off". Not a good idea. Drink a large glass of alkaline water, rest, then sit down to your Thanksgiving dinner. Stop eating as soon as you’re no longer hungry. Your waistline will thank you.

Happy Thanksgiving. May you be blessed with an abundance of all good things.

Jacquelyn

Jacquelyn Johnston M.Ed.
Professional Health Coach and Educator,
Solutions and Support for Optimal Health
www.LifestyleForLongevity.com
www.LoseTwentyPoundsNow.com
Richmond, B.C. Canada
mail to:jj@lifestyleforlongevity.com
Tel. 604.276.8673 Fax. 604.276.8675

Dear God, I pray for the cure of cancer.

© Jacquelyn Johnston, M.Ed. Diabesity Coach

Do you receive requests to pass on this kind of e-mail to 10 people, following which all manner of good things will be showered on you? I get quite a few. Today, I got one with the picture of a burning candle.

You may have seen the one with the woman walking from the left to the right of the screen, with a pink ribbon in the corner. Or the one with a pink T-shirt and a pink ribbon in the middle of the page.

Run for the cure, walk for the cure, Cops for Cancer and others. Now, especially, since Dr.Wayne Dyer was diagnosed with lymphoma, I’m getting quite a few of them both personally and on my Facebook page.

It’s always good when people reach out to people who have had such a diagnosis. Or when people just reach out. I’m all for outreach.

That being said, I had a few thoughts this morning. Some of these activities do raise a lot of money, but to what end, I ask myself. If the aim is to raise money for the existing Cancer-related model, I’m not sure I see the point. You raise the money, you give it to existing agencies which have been working to zap cancers with powerful drugs, subsidizing a model that hasn’t worked for a century.

Now, the people who do these activities are fabulous. The cops, for instance. They get on their bikes and do a circuit like the Tour de France, only it’s a Tour de Vancouver. It’s a little shorter and stunningly scenic, and they raise the moolah. Cheerfully, enthusiastically, garnering considerable support along the way.

The women who do the 60-kilometre walk camp overnight at various checkpoints. They have a rollicking good time chatting, and huddling in tents with hot chocolate. That’s a lot of effort in support of a failed model.

What if we added one word to these activities: how does Run for Cancer Prevention, Walk for Cancer Prevention, Cops for Cancer Prevention, Wear pink for Cancer Prevention sound to you?

What if we had Whole Foods Only Day, Zero Processed Food Day, Eat your fresh greens Day, Drink Micro-clustered Water Day, and the like. What if all those runners doing fund-raisers were to channel their energies into the activities that we know contribute to cancer prevention and cancer treatment? Or diabetes prevention?

Take Richmond’s own Mary Gazetas, for example. This dynamo of a community giver (and what a giver!) has organized many terrific projects here in Richmond, including a Fruit Tree Sharing Project. This is an amazingly thoughtful venture where produce is grown and distributed fresh to the Food Bank. (Alas, we have one in Richmond too).

Strikes me if more people ate this way there would be a lot less cancer, diabetes, obesity, heart and kidney disease, liver and lung disease, arthritis and skin conditions…you get my drift?

The papers are still full of the H1N1 non-event.

Could it be we’re really supposed to spend more time on what’s really endemic? On remedies that have worked for thousands of years? On what doesn’t have savage side-effects? What benefit is there to a system that essentially makes every discomfort a disease that has a matching pharmaceutical?

Join me. I’m going out to walk for prevention. What do you think?

Jacquelyn

Jacquelyn
Jacquelyn Johnston M.Ed.
Professional Health Coach and Educator,
Solutions and Support for Optimal Health
Richmond, B.C. Canada
http://www.LifestyleForLongevity.com
http://www.LoseTwentyPoundsNow.com
mail to:jj@lifestyleforlongevity.com
Tel. 604.276.8673 Fax. 604.276.8675

World Diabetes Day Happy Birthday Fred!

© Jacquelyn Johnston, M.Ed. Diabesity Coach

Fred? Who’s Fred? And why is his birthday of any significance?

Once upon a time, in 1841, a little boy was born in Ontario, Canada. He attended local schools and attended the University of Toronto, becoming a medical doctor, then a lawyer, and acquiring a PhD in science in the course of his extraordinary career. Sir Frederic Banting was killed in a tragic air disaster at age 50, having packed in more accomplishments than most people can fit into three lifetimes, including the 1923 Nobel Prize in Medicine.

World Diabetes Day is fittingly scheduled on his birthday, November 14th. But why?

After distinguished service in the Canadian Army in the First World War Fred began to be interested in diabetes. For some time he had wondered what made pilots black out in flight. In 1922, working with three colleagues, he discovered how to use insulin to treat Diabetes.

Prior to that, diabetics were given only the meagre amount of food their bodies could break down and use. As a result many literally starved, losing so much weight they withered away and died.

Frederick Banting and his assistant Charles Best had their fist startling breakthrough in 1922 when they treated a 14-year-old diabetic boy. Their success was so startling millions calmoured for the insulin they had developed. In 1934 Banting was knighted for this discovery.

Today, we do not associate diabesity with people who are wasting away and dying. Rather, we associate it worldwide with people who are overweight, and even have a new name for it, Diabesity. This has become the most dreadful epidemic of modern times.

Countries around the world have been asked to light up their buildings in blue today to draw attention to the World epidemic of diabetes. You can see some of them if you go to You Tube and tyoe in World Diabetes Day. People from Los Angeles to Dubai are participating, as the numbers have gone up astronomically all over the world.

285 million people across the planet have diabetes. And those are the known cases. Most of these are obese. In North America 10.2% are known to have it, but when you factor in all the overweight people who have pre-diabetes, the numbers are much higher.

Is your waistline greater than half your height? You could be one of them.

Has your doctor asked you to shed 20 or 30 pounds? You could be one of them.

From India to Russia to the pacific islands, from North through South America, the numbers of people with diabetes are staggering. Most of those who have it have Type 2 Diabetes, and most could reverse it with lifestyle changes. Those who do not take it seriously are playing with their longevity.

70% of people with diabetes live in the world’s richest countries. Let’s stop for a moment and think. The richest countries have the greatest access to food. Doesn’t take Einstein to figure out there could be a connection between geography and diet.

And, get this, most diabetics are of working age—they are their families’ breadwinners.

When did you last have your blood sugar checked? Who’s counting on you? What would happen if you could no longer work?

Points to ponder on World Diabetes Day. Fred must be turning in his grave.

To start on a solution download my free report at the websites below. Feel free to call me for more.

Jacquelyn

Jacquelyn Johnston M.Ed.
Professional Health Coach and Educator,
Solutions and Support for Optimal Health
www.LifestyleForLongevity.com
www.LoseTwentyPoundsNow.com
Richmond, B.C. CanadaPoundsNow.com
mail to:jj@lifestyleforlongevity.com
Tel. 604.276.8673 Fax. 604.276.8675

Woman Jumps onto Railway Tracks

© Jacquelyn Johnston, M.Ed. Diabesity Coach

It was played every hour.

The unintentional suicide attempt I saw on the news this morning. For anyone who doesn’t watch the news, a woman jumped straight in the path of a speeding train, got sandwiched in the middle of the tracks. The train came to an emergency halt over her, but she walked away unscathed, aided by kind witnesses.

The lady was drunk.

As a woman, I’m sorry she was driven to that.

It would be easy to dismiss her as an insignificant crackpot, but there might just be a message there. Women don’t jump into the path of a speeding train for fun.
There’s a pathway.

A long history of choosing one method of solving problems. Let’s de-construct.

Screenplay #1

She’s unhappy. Feels a void. Chooses to take away the pain with a quick fix.
Hits the bottle, and maybe a couple of joints while she’s at it. Brain gets befuddled. She gets hallucinations. Listens to the inner voice that tells her to self-destruct. Life is just a cartoon. She’d be squished but will get up again. It’s easier to act without thinking. It’s too painful to think. The tracks look empty. Let’s jump.

Don’t judge her. Look at this.

Screenplay #2

She’s unhappy. Looks at the scales. 40 pounds overweight. Been shopping a lot in the last few months because nothing fits. Doctor tells her she’s heading for Type 2 Diabetes. That she needs to lose weight. Coupla months later, gets a diabetes diagnosis. Goes to the supermarket. Buys the usual tub of ice cream. You gotta have some fun in life. Picks up the usual fast food burger and fries on the way home. Forget the insulin. Nothing’s gonna happen anyway. Lands in hospital in a diabetic coma.

Don’t judge her. Look at this.

Weight comes with a gradual slide down a slippery slope. There are, of course, many paths that lead to obesity or even those dreadful pounds that sneak up on you. However, I’m talking about how it usually happens. Hey, all it takes is a hormone-laced burger, a serving of preservative-sprayed fries there, a super-sized soda to wash it down. This followed by a couple of smokes in front of the TV, popcorn and chocolate, then bed at 12:30 am.

These are all choices we make. Overcoming discomfort by covering up the symptoms, or dealing with it by analyzing it and finding a sure remedy. A scientific, personal and especially spiritual one. Most people can’t do it on their own. Even if they know a lot. Even if they read a lot, watch a lot and talk a lot.

Most people need someone to hold their feet to the fire, with a proven rock-solid plan. That’s what professional health coach does. She customizes a twelve-week plan that takes you from the danger zone to a longevity zone.

Want to keep denying it? It’s your choice.

Want to do something concrete? Start off by downloading the free report on the right of this page. Let me know in a comment what you intend to do. I’d enjoy helping you.

As I said, the choice is yours. Ready?

Jacquelyn

Jacquelyn Johnston M.Ed.
Professional Health Coach and Educator,
Solutions and Support for Optimal Health
www.LifestyleForLongevity.com
www.LoseTwentyPoundsNow.com
Richmond, B.C. CanadaPoundsNow.com
mail to:jj@lifestyleforlongevity.com
Tel. 604.276.8673 Fax. 604.276.8675

“We Want To Lower Health Care Costs so it’s Affordable for All”

© Jacquelyn Johnston, M.Ed. Diabesity Coach

That was the first thing I heard on the news this morning. And I thought, what a good idea. While our Acute Care Systems are under overhaul, wouldn’t it be a good time for us to help the government help us?

We were ordering lunch at a Vancouver restaurant by the sea when the subject of our two Acute Care systems (don’t you think this a better way to describe the service than “Health Care”?) came up, and most of us could see that there were many points in common. Most people say off the cuff that Canadians have to wait longer for care than our friends south of the border. However, dinner-time chat often reflects the experience of one or two amply-insured friends we know who have flown south for diagnostic procedures because the wait was too long.

I recently attended a conference in Vancouver on this topic, where guest speaker John Goodman PhD, of the U.S. National Center for Policy Analysis—Consumer-Driven Health Care—told us that , in fact, our systems are 80% the same! His powerpoints illustrated this, and he suggested that it would be a good idea for us to learn from each other for the remaining 20%.

So I thought, what can we learn from each other? In Canada there are no uninsured. Period. However, we also have Extended Health Care insurance, which not everyone has. I won’t go through the exhaustive comparison study—you can look it up on the internet yourself.

However, I do think we do need Health Care Reform.

Our own.

Can you name me one government-run acute care system can take care of its citizen’s health? Not even France’s can. And they’re reputed to have the best in the world.

The need for our own personal Health Care Reform is urgent. If only for the fact that the obesity epidemic is soaring. And the diabetes stats are horrific.

To illustrate: I was loading my groceries into my car when I saw a couple with one child doing the same, next to me. Mom, Dad and son were clearly all obese. Most of what they were loading into the trunk was in boxes, and hence processed. There was a special going on for frozen dinners this week, and they had what must have been 20 boxes of these. Plus several cases of multi-coloured fizzy drinks, large bottles of pop, and 3 large tubs of ice cream. As well, several jars of peanut butter, the brands with hydrogenated oils. And chips! Omigod! Maybe there was a party in the offing, ‘cos there were enough potato chips to drown a small dog in.

I wondered if their doctor had spoken to them about the current diabesity epidemic.

What, in your opinion, do you think that family could be doing in the way of Health Care Reform? Their own, that is. I’d be real happy to hear your views, in the comment section. Something like what they could do right away—today.

Cheers,

Jacquelyn

Jacquelyn Johnston M.Ed.
Professional Health Coach and Educator,
Solutions and Support for Optimal Health
www.LifestyleForLongevity.com
www.LoseTwentyPoundsNow.com
Richmond, B.C. Canada
mail to:jj@lifestyleforlongevity.com
Tel. 604.276.8673 Fax. 604.276.8675

Catastrophe! Shortage of H1N1 Vaccine!

© Jacquelyn Johnston, M.Ed. Diabesity Coach

Do you remember Chicken Little’s answer to the other animals who wanted to know where she was running off to so fast? “Oh, dear, the sky is falling! I must go and tell the king!”

Now imagine Chicken Little, Ducky Lucky and Turkey-Lurkey all showing up at the palace at the same time. His Majesty King Fixitall is out in the garden walking his pet Weasel Belette, noticing with delight how the glorious sunshine has made his roses grow bigger than his personal jewelled finger-bowl.

As you all remember, what had fallen on Chicken Little’s head was actually a humble acorn. When she arrived at the palace she demanded with an almighty cluck that King Fixitall see her right away—and he did. King or no king, Fixitall had a reputation to uphold. Plus, he did not relish the thought of daily hen-pecking, (OK, groan) so he gave her an audience.

Now, as His Majesty did not have a PhD in psychology, and thus did not know how to remove the delusion from Chicken Little’s head, he just went along with it. He assured Chicken Little he would patch the hole in the sky above the coop. He also assured her it would not fall again, as he would use his own Royal chewing gum—no less—to patch up the hole.

All was well in Chicken Little’s world again; she went back to the farm and chatted with the sheeple, who bleated their praise on her for restoring the social order.

And so it is with the sheeple, crying foul that the government has not got enough H1N1 Vaccine in spite of promises everyone would have been vaccinated by now.

Ladies and gentlemen, there is an epidemic that is already overwhelming out health care systems, and it isn’t H1N1. And it’s getting worse. 1 in 5 Canadians is already struggling with diabetes, and the weight of the nation is turning it into diabesity, which is where obesity and diabetes merge.

The same people who are looking to someone in authority to solve the vaccine shortage are looking for one thing to take their problem away. This is flu season—no one is saying the contrary. But we are getting indications that the H1N1 virus is thinning out. Let us not confuse flu deaths with those caused by pneumonia, which is what kills people in much greater numbers.

The ability to fight an invading virus is not dependent on one thing—in this case the vaccine. To begin with, I wonder if those who are clamoring for the vaccine have any idea what’s in it—neurotoxins and other attackers that are even more dangerous than the flu itself. Yesterday I heard on the radio that they have just brought out a vaccine without adjuvants, for pregnant women. You can figure that one out for yourself.

There will be smokers who will line up for the vaccine. There will be obese people. There will be the morbidly obese, dealing with diabetes and heart disease. Surely they do not expect the vaccine to protect them (or anyone, for that matter) from the army of flu bugs that are apparently lying in wait for us? By the way, the army is already retreating, by all accounts.

A sense of proportion might help. And a sense of the fundamental choices we each need to make on a daily basis about our health. The real epidemic already in our midst is that of diabesity. I bet you know someone who has it. Suppose, just suppose all the Chicken Littles out ther would begin by drinking 6 glasses of oxygenated water every day. I’ll tell you what else you can do in the upcoming blogs.

To your health! The sky is NOT falling. And don’t bother telling the king. He’s too busy counting his gold. Drink up!

Jacquelyn

Jacquelyn Johnston M.Ed.
Professional Health Coach and Educator,
Solutions and Support for Optimal Health

Whether you need to lose those pesky 20 pounds,
work on prevention or regain health, I can help.
Call me. 604.276.8673

www.LifestyleForLongevity.com
www.LoseTwentyPoundsNow.com
Richmond, B.C. Canada
mail to:jj@lifestyleforlongevity.com
Tel. 604.276.8673 Fax. 604.276.8675

H1N1 or Diabetes?

© Jacquelyn Johnston, M.Ed. Diabesity Coach

Interspersed in the current health care debate is the urgency surrounding the swine flu shots. This week, many journalists talked around the topic. Very little investigative reporting is being adjuvants and preservatives that are causing all the controversy, although as many neurological conditions occurred after the flu shot was administered in 1976.

Many are lining up for the shots because the media tells us that someone in authority has said they will save them from the swine flu. Are individuals lining up for the shots doing it because they are frightened people or duly-scared sheeple?

The death toll is in the thousands, we are told. Beware of inflated figures. Many deaths attributed to the swine flu occurred with individuals who had weakened immune systems. These individuals could have been felled by pneumonia or something similar like the regular flu bug, so let’s get a sense of proportion about this.

Is anyone in North America aware that large numbers of people in Western Europe are refusing the vaccine? And not only because of the notion some governments are making it mandatory. We need to educate ourselves.

No flu can be taken lightly, whether swine, human or bird in origin. But if you just go on the internet and see the number of deaths compared to the number infected, we are not looking at stats too different from those of the regular annual flu.

The really pressing problem in North America, and indeed worldwide, is diabesity. People with this disease are more likely to catch the latest bug of the week than people who don’t smoke, who eat right and exercise.

In the U.S. alone 1 out of 5 people have diabesity, and of those who have diabetes 80% are overweight. I don’t hear too many people screaming “epidemic!!!” when it comes to diabesity. This in spite of the fact that supermarkets are supplying patrons with carts so they can wheel themselves up and down the aisles, filling their carts with “fat-free” processed foods.

I just saw a video on my Facebook page about a doctor, a Professor at New York Medical School, who is doing a study on diabetics with no feeling in their feet. They are using magnetic soles; the Doctor is studying 1000+ of these patients to see if the dramatic improvements they report can be scientifically validated. One diabetic had feet that hadn’t been able to feel pinpricks or sweat for 3 years. 6 weeks into the magnetic sole regimen and he regained sensation in his feet. Had this not occurred he would have been a candidate for amputation.

Type 2 Diabetics roll out the red carpet for a host of other medical problems, including the flu, swine or otherwise. It is a lifestyle disease that can be treated with lifestyle changes such as the tired phrase “diet and exercise”. But what diet and what exercise? And what about other conditions they might have? How to factor all that into the bid for better health—indeed the reversing of the disease?

Your doctor is busy. You might get 10-15 minutes per consultation, but when did your doctor last talk to you on the phone, follow up with you on a weekly basis, analyse your diet, custom-design an exercise program for you? This is what a professional health coach does for you, and much more.

Suppose you start by downloading my free report from the form on your right. You will find 10 proven reasons why 10 pounds off in the next few weeks could improve your odds of avoiding amputation. Are you overweight? Diabetes is coming! Are you diabetic? Swine flu is coming! Let me know what you think when you’ve read the report, OK?

Happy reading.

Jacquelyn

Jacquelyn Johnston M.Ed.
Professional Health Coach and Educator,
Solutions and Support for Optimal Health
Richmond, B.C. Canada
http://www.LifestyleForLongevity.com
http://www.LoseTwentyPoundsNow.com
mail to:jj@lifestyleforlongevity.com
Tel. 604.276.8673 Fax. 604.276.8675