Everybody’s Different: The Value of Functional Medicine
I’ve been a practicing physician for 25 years, I’ve treated chronic illness for many of those years as my focus and I’ve realized that people need a plan. People need a clear pathway. They don’t want to just be given a prescription and say take this and I’ll see you in six months.
So in my book, The Blood Sugar Solution, I’ve created a clear action plan. There’s two weeks of preparation and then six weeks of an action plan that helps guide you through each step of the way to getting healthy. So you need to prepare yourself. You need to prepare your kitchen. You need to learn how to shop. You need to learn how to maybe cook some simple things. You need to prepare your motivation. You need to take a measure of yourself, check your weight and your waist size and your blood pressure and also your lab test as best as possible and then figure out where you are on the spectrum of diabesity and ill health. Then the quizzes and other things that I have people sort out to figure out where they can personalize the plan.
Then, there’s a six-week plan, which is nutrition basics for everyone, how do you eat to create good health, how do you upgrade your biological software through food, how do you think of your grocery store as your farmacy, that’s F-A-R-M-A-C-Y. Then I talk about the value and the role for supplements and optimizing your metabolism. Then I talk about the role of exercise and how do we begin to incorporate exercise and movement and fitness. Then I talk about mental resilience and dealing with stress and soothing your mind. And, of course, we talk about how do we reduce our exposure to environmental toxins, living clean and green. And lastly, we talk about how to personalize the program because everybody’s different.
Some people may have influences from allergens or toxins or gut bacteria or may have nutritional deficiencies. Everybody is different. And even though people may have exactly the same disease, they may have very different causes and need different treatments. That’s the value of functional medicine. It helps you figure out what it is that’s needed for you.
In Their Own Words is recorded in Big Think’s studio.
Image courtesy of Shutterstock
