Do you consider yourself to be a healthy person?

If you could score your overall health on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being really bad and 10 being I-am-a-perfect-human-being-with-no-need-for-any-improvement-whatsoever, how would you rank?

Now break it down into the following categories, and rank yourself on the same scale:

Physical Activity

Food/Nutrition

Relationships

Career

Finances

Happiness

Spirituality

Creativity

Education

Home environment

Social life

You might not think the things on this list are related to health, but you would be entirely incorrect. And I’m not sorry to be the one to break it to you, because you need to know this if you want to live your life to the fullest! And since you’re reading this blog, I’m going to go ahead and assume that you’re on the I-want-my-life-to-be-awesome train. It’s a good train. Some might even call it great. Spectacular even.

At your very core, I know that you know that everything in life is connected. Sometimes you are tapped into this notion, like when you find yourself thinking about somebody and then the phone rings and it’s them on the other end. But oftentimes, we are so busy “living our lives” that we aren’t as aware of life’s infinite connectivity.

Need another example? Have you ever hated a job? Or gotten into a fight with someone? When that happens, the negativity of the situation spills over into other areas of your life. You know it does. Besides the fact that it can (and almost always does) put you in a terrible mood, causing your children, roommates, or significant others to dodge the wrath that you have suddenly unleashed upon them, it can also negatively affect your body’s ability to cope with stress, digest food, and fight infection! Study upon study has detailed the scientific intricacies of how stress can actually cause chronic diseases like cancer, heart disease, and many other seemingly unpreventable ailments.

So it would seem, then, that your primary care physician may be just as important (and I’m arguing that it is, in case you’re wondering) as your yoga instructor, personal trainer, massage therapist, acupuncturist, manicurist, and even your nights on the couch, kicking back with your favorite beer (or, for me, a cosmopolitan with a twist of orange), watching football or chatting and laughing with friends.

Bottom line?

There is a place for every kind of health care practitioner in your life. And for optimal health, you need to care for not only your body, but also your mind and soul. So just because you’re eating broccoli and working out like the Hulk, if other areas of your life are out of whack, you are still putting stress on your system, which can cause a decline in your overall health.

I promise this is not a doomsday post! Because as always in life, where there is need for improvement, there is always a way to get it.

The first step is awareness. You can’t fix something if you don’t know it’s broken. But then, you already know that.

As some of you may know, I’ve been studying to become a holistic health counselor. Armed with a heck of a lot more information on nutrition, health and wellness, I am fired up! The time has come for me to spread my wings and start my health counseling practice!

I have been invited to join my incredibly talented friend and mentor, Dr. Dawn DeSylvia, in her medical practice here in LA. Dawn is a UCLA trained, family medicine MD with a focus on and passion for Functional Medicine and integrative health. For those of you who don’t know about the Institute for Functional Medicine, I encourage you to visit their website at your leisure. But for the purpose of saving you some time, essentially, the goal of Functional medicine is to treat the cause of disease, and not just the symptom. It is preventive medicine at its finest.

Because as one of my teachers, David Katz MD, once reminded me, diseases are not causes. Diseases are effects of causes. So we need to start at the root.

Western medicine has its place, to be sure, and sometimes it may in fact be the only answer. But in many cases, alternative practices are needed. Sometimes a yoga class a week can take the place of a bottle of valium simply because the nervous system needed some TLC!

Among the list of alternative health care practitioners is a holistic health counselor.

What is that, you ask?

Well, first of all, a health counselor is not meant to take the place of a physician. We do not diagnose or treat – that is what your MD is for. Instead, our job is to work with clients to guide and inspire a shift from potentially unhealthy habits to ones that support a healthy lifestyle. What is needed differs from one person to the next. Where some people need help defining their life goals, others may need help cooking easy, quick and healthy meals. The possibilities are endless, and they relate directly to the extensive list you ranked yourself on at the beginning of this post.

I, personally, will be specializing in digestive issues and healthy cooking. As the former pastry chef for the amazing and talented, Duff Goldman, I know how to make food – all food – taste good. Trust me.

As you can imagine, I am humbled to be able to work with Dr. DeSylvia, and look forward to helping her make the world a healthier one.

And I’m taking you along for the ride! You can count on me for nutritional advice on everything having to do with food, nutrition, life goals, relationships, finances, career, and anything that needs to shift in order for you to live your best life.

If you are interested in a free health consultation, no matter where you are in the world, send me an e-mail to delectableyou@gmail.com. I would love to help you out!

In the meantime, take some time each day to get real with your scores in the areas of health listed at the beginning of this post. How did you score? What would you like to work on first? Do you have any ideas on how you can improve your score in the immediate future? Start to make a plan. And, of course, if you need help with that plan, you know who to call.

I used to love the quote that knowledge is power. But I’ve since come to realize that that quote isn’t quite complete. Knowledge isn’t power. Applied knowledge is power. So get to know the areas you are weak in, get the right information to fix them, and apply it to your life so you can live it to the fullest.

Boom.

Your crazy friend,
Lauren
xxx