Dr. Al Danenberg ● Nutritional Periodontist
January 8, 2023
It’s another New Year! Are you ready to make changes in your life? Are you ready to declare your New Year’s Resolutions just like you’ve done in past years?
New Year’s resolutions are made with good intent. But most New Year’s resolutions never get fulfilled. Why is that?
- Many are not specific enough.
- And many don’t include a game plan to succeed.
- Then there are those people who lose interest in their pursuit.
- While others come up with unreasonable goals.
- And then there are some resolutions that are lists of material “wants” and “needs”, which really mean nothing in the end.
What is reasonable, achievable, and specific?
As I see it, it might be the improvement in health. When you are healthy or at least healthier than when you started your journey, you are moving in the right direction. It’s also the best and least expensive health insurance you can have.
I think you should cherish your body. Your body is your castle. Keep it clean, neat, and simple. And you’ll reap the benefits for the rest of your life.
So, what are these resolutions I recommend as New Year’s Resolutions?
I’ve written many Blogs about wellness with an emphasis on various elements to wellness. I’ll link to a few of my blogs that you can read in more detail for each of the lifestyle changes listed below. As you read them, be sure to click on the cited, peer-reviewed medical articles, which I have included in those posts to support my positions.
Back in October 2021, I wrote a Blog about the 15 Tactics for Wellness. They are still as good today as they were back then. See if they resonate with you.
But my recommendations for specific lifestyle changes which I discuss in this article are more specific. If you make these essential lifestyle changes, they will produce lifelong benefits.
- Are you up for the challenge?
- Are you ready to make your 2023 New Year’s Resolutions have staying power?
- Are you ready to take the plunge and make the biggest commitment to your life and well-being?
I say, “Let’s go for it!”
Essential Lifestyle Changes
Mouth Health
Your mouth could be a source for infection and inflammation coursing through your body without you knowing it. It’s like a splinter in your big toe that never gets removed. Although there may be no swelling or pain, any irritant in your mouth could be a causative factor for severe consequences in other areas in your body.
Blog Links:
- Oral Health & Diet
- Leaky Gut, Leaky Mouth – Both Must be Treated
- Sore, Inflamed, Sensitive Gums?
- What’s Really Behind Periodontal Disease?
- Bleeding Gums?
Diet
What you eat and absorb, and what you avoid, make all the difference in your overall health. Include animal-based foods in your way of eating. The volume of a typical plate of food should consist of at least 70% animal products nose-to-tail and less than 30% healthy plants.
Start avoiding all vegetable and seed oils, which are liquid at room temperature but may be hidden in most processed foods. These oils contain unhealthy levels of linoleic acid and are highly inflammatory.
Exclude processed grains and any gluten products. Remove all processed sugars from your food choices. Eliminate any plants that have moderate to high levels of antinutrients which can damage your gut and prevent nutrients from being absorbed. (Many of these antinutrients are Phytates, Lectins, and Oxalates.) And keep your consumption of carbohydrates to low levels.
Blog Links:
- The Case for Meat
- OXLAMS – the Elephant in the Room
- Meat – Glorious Meat
- Animal-Based Foods & Snacks
- Fiber – Critical for Health? or Mainstream Myth?
Gut
Learn how to improve the garden of microbes in your gut and repair any damage that may exist in your gut lining (i.e., Leaky Gut). Also, know your Alpha Diversity, which is a biomarker of the number of diverse microbes in your gut. The greater the “diversity”, the better your gut microbiome can crowd out unhealthy pathogenic bugs. An overgrowth of unhealthy microbes in the gut can damage your gut lining, create a leaky gut, and ultimately cause many chronic diseases.
Blog Links:
Stress
Chronic emotional stress is the most understated and misunderstood cause of many diseases – and that includes periodontal disease as well as cancer. Know the emotional stresses in your life and learn to reduce or remove those that you have control over. You already know that it is not as simple as turning “on” or “off” an electric switch. However, those stresses which are out of your control need to be understood but not allowed to overwhelm you – once again, not so easy to do!
Blog Links:
- Stress! Game Plan for Success – 30 Ideas
- Stress Destroys the Gut
- Stress – the Quiet Destroyer
- Stress! Damage to Your Body, Havoc in Your Mouth
- A Unique Way to Understand Stress
Spiritual
Believe in a power that is greater than you. I am not suggesting that you become a religious zealot or subscribe to a specific religion. I am suggesting that there is an energy source that may hold dominion over the universe and that you should investigate what that means to you.
Blog Links:
Exercise
Exercise efficiently – don’t overexercise and don’t become a “couch potato”. You’ll read that the science clearly shows that high intensity exercise that lasts a very short time but allows you to enter an anerobic state briefly will produce superior health results compared to most other exercise programs – many of which are longer in duration and frequency. This type of training is called High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) and can be performed with little to no “fancy” equipment.
Blog Links:
Sleep
Sleep restoratively so that your body can repair and refresh itself.
The regulation of sleep is processed by the sleep/wake cycle, which is called the circadian rhythm. This is the 24-hour internal clock in our brain that regulates cycles of alertness and sleepiness by responding to light changes in our environment. Changes in the earth’s environmental light are the result of earth’s rotation around its axis. This has helped humans internally adapt to changes in our environment.
Sleep is critical for life. The lack of sleep or poor-quality sleep can produce damaging effects on a variety of essential day to day functions. Memory consolidation, body healing, and metabolic regulation occur during the sleep cycle. This sleep-wake cycle can influence eating habits, digestion, body temperature, hormone release, and other bodily functions. The lack of sleep or poor-quality sleep can negatively affect a person’s ability to properly function and can result in many chronic disorders such as diabetes, obesity, depression, bipolar disorder, seasonal affective disorder, and many other chronic diseases.
Blog Links:
Let’s Get Started
Making changes is hard; there’s no doubt about it. Many of us start out with the best intentions but tend to lose steam as life gets in the way. If that sounds familiar, I invite you to book a free, no obligation consultation with me. I’ll help you figure out a plan around what matters most to your health and structure it to fit within your busy schedule.
Give it a try. What do you have to lose? Worst case, we’ll have a good conversation, and you’ll walk away with some tasty new recipes to try. I’m only working with a limited number of clients for January; so, please reserve your spot ASAP.
Buy My Book
If you don’t want to miss out on new posts, sign up for my Free “Belly Bites” Newsletter and receive your free copy of Dr Al’s “5 Things That Could Be Impacting Your Health Right Now” HERE.
