The Mindset of Immunity

By Dr. Ben Lerner

We don’t use the word “sick” in our ML homes or offices. It is a bad label. You’re not a victim. If you’re not feeling well, don’t call yourself the victim of disease. Take responsibility for whatever caused you to get into that state, make the necessary changes, and allow your body to heal itself.

We had a patient who came to us absolutely certain she was stuck with all of her health problems. She felt powerless against her host of diagnoses. There was lupus, migraines, fibromyalgia, and related hormonal issues. Yet there was a clear connection between her lack of commitment to being well and the symptoms she was experiencing.

I encouraged her that she could heal. But, she really believed in her medical diagnosis. She really believed she was “sick.” Finally I said, “If I put my head on your body and as a result started treating your body like it should be treated, what would happen?” She got it. She immediately said, “I would get well.” She took responsibility, dropped the victim mentality, and no longer considered herself damaged goods. The discipline she needed quickly followed.

As you look at our weekly lifestyle recommendations, consider the need to renew your mind daily.  You’re valuable. Why would you treat yourself any differently than you would a valuable race horse, sports car, or professional athlete?  How would you feed something that complex with that much worth?  Would you maintain them?  Manage them well?  Do all you can to make sure they perform at their peak?  Of course you would!  You wouldn’t want to ruin something so valuable in this market!

By giving you 5 critical “Essentials” for living, we’re showing you a path that makes your body a winner.  We don’t say “sick” – we say, “expressing symptoms.”  This makes you ask the question, “What can I do to get better?” or “How can I boost my immunity to guard myself from illness in the future?”  A much more powerful position to take than, “My darn four year old keeps bringing bacteria back from pre-school,” or “We’re playing pass the virus at our house.”

Our families of committed patients rarely struggle with illness.  If they do, they get back to the 5 Essentials:

#1 – Get your mind right about restoring health instead of ‘treating” symptoms with     even more hazardous drugs
#2 – Get adjusted – extra if necessary
#3 – Get back to quality foods that heal instead of man made foods that cause congestion
#4 – Get moving
#5 – Consider what toxins – sugars, caffeine, alcohol, cleaners, medications, etc., may have helped to lower immunity and create too heavy a toxic burden

Your body is the actual most valuable item you have in challenging, chaotic times like these.  Invest in it, honor it, value it, and it will give you the return you’re looking for.  Fight for your health so you don’t end up fighting for your life!

Source

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3 Steps to Overcome Adversity

A Gold Metal Moment

by Dr. Ben Lerner

After watching our videos, reading our blogs, or going to one of our doctors you may view your situation to be different or too tough to get out of.  You might say, “Great Dr. Ben, this might work for some people, but you don’t understand my situation. Mine is hopeless!”

Put your hand on your chest.  Feel your heart beating.  Your faith might be shaky right now, but that beating heart is a sign that you still have something special you can do. I personally also feel it means that God still has you here for a reason.

As someone who wrestled competitively for nineteen years, I understand completely what it’s like to be caught in a dangerous, painful condition from which it appears impossible to wriggle free. If you’re tired enough, hurting enough, behind by enough points, and have been working hard to no avail for a long enough time, the thought of success can all but completely diminish. Winning can even cease to be a dream. In an exhausted, unmotivated, painful state, all that may seem reasonable at that point are antidepressants, alcohol, or a whole lot of sugar—but there is a much better, less harmful way.

In wrestling there are certain positions or “holds” that you never want to find yourself in. Getting caught in a “cradle,” a “guillotine,” a “double chicken wing,” or thrown on your back in a “headlock” are all potentially dangerous, match-ending states of affairs. In fact, if your opponent is really good, it can seem like there’s no way out and a feeling of discouragement, despair, and that “all is lost” can come over you pretty quickly. On the contrary, the truth is there’s always a way out. That’s why many people have gotten out of these holds, fought off their back and come back to win the match. These winners knew something very important: they knew how to counter.

As boxed in as you may feel now, as much as you may feel it’s over, and that you’re at the end of your rope, don’t quit! Instead, counter. The counter is how you escape and come back from a compromising position not only in a wrestling match, but in life’s wrestling matches.

Three Steps to Counter:

1. Change Your Position

You have to be capable of seeing outside of your box of frustration and become aware of your blind spots. Death is in the blind spots. You can fit an invisible 18-wheel truck in one. In the world of success, the illiterate are not people who can’t read or write, they are those who cannot think, unlearn, and relearn. The things you think are true often aren’t true at all.

The Number One way to failure and to completely stop any forward progress is the illusion and delusion that you already know. For example, families in the United States have the worst health of any other families in the world. What I’ve found is that Maximized Living families have the best health of anyone in the world. Yet people keep being scared or hypnotized into following the medical model of the United States. Think, unlearn, relearn, and ask yourself: “If both children and adults continue to suffer with so much disease and we constantly keep facing new ones, then is what you believe and have been told to believe about lifestyle and healthcare up to this point true?” The answer is, “Obviously not!”

2. Pray for Strength

A famous quote from the depression said, “Whenever I prayed to God to get me a chicken, I never got a chicken. But, when I prayed for God to give me the strength to catch a chicken, I always got me a chicken.”
To hit a counter, you have to get mad instead of sad. Turn failure and frustration into tackling fuel. Many who have done this and were previously saying, “It’s over” have found out that they had more strength then they believed they had. Never forget: your mind always quits before the body, and God’s power is in endless supply.

3. Purpose You Would Die For

When you first start wrestling, you stink at it and need to know a lot of counters. When I asked my coach how to get out of some of the more difficult positions, he said, “If you want to get out, it’s got to be like you’re a drowning man trying to come up for air.” You’ve got to want it that bad!
How bad do you want to win for God, your family, and to preserve your own life?

Our Maximized Living doctors are here to help coach you to victory, but you’ve got to want it bad enough. I think this is what Martin Luther King meant when he said, “… you develop the inner conviction that some things are so precious, that there are some things so dear, some things so eternally worthwhile, that they are worth dying for. If an individual has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.”¹
And that’s why I believe Albert Einstein said, “A person starts to live when he can live outside himself.”²

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¹ http://www.wmich.edu/library/archives/mlk/excerpts.html

² http://hubpages.com/hub/Free-Quotes

Source: Maximized Living

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10 Worst Drinks in America

This weeks blog is thanks to the Maximized Living Newsletter!  Sign up at our Maximized Living Website!

10. Worst Lemonade

Auntie Anne’s Wild Cherry Lemonade Mixer (32 fl oz)

470 calories

0 g fat

110 g sugars

Sugar Equivalent: 11 bowls of Cookie Crisp cereal

There is no such thing as healthy lemonade, but Auntie’s line of

Lemonade Mixers takes the concept of hyper-sweetened juice and

stretches it to dangerous new levels. See, sugar digests faster

than good-for-you nutrients like protein and fiber, which means it’s

in your blood almost immediately after you swallow it. Drinking the

3 or 4 days’ worth of added sugar found here jacks your blood

sugar and results in strain to your kidneys, the creation of new fat

molecules, and the desire to eat more. Ouch.

9. Worst Hot Chocolate

Starbucks White Hot Chocolate with Whipped Cream

(venti, 20 fl oz)

520 calories

16 g fat (11 g saturated)

75 g sugars

Sugar Equivalent: 9 Strawberry Rice Krispie Treats

See that stack of Rice Krispie Treats? It’s just three treats shy of

two full boxes. Unless you were a contestant on Fear Factor—

and there was a sizeable monetary prize on the line—you’d

never even consider noshing down that much sugar at once. But

here’s what’s interesting: While that stack is the sugar

counterpart to this atrocity from Starbucks, it still has 40 percent

less saturated fat. Makes us wonder what’s going on in the hot

chocolate. Stick to beverages with single-flavor profiles instead of

pile-on recipes like this and you’ll fare better every time.

8. Worst Frozen Coffee Drink

Dairy Queen Caramel MooLatte (24 fl oz)

870 calories

24 g fat (19 g saturated, 1 g trans)

112 g sugars

Sugar Equivalent: 12 Dunkin’ Donuts Bavarian Kreme Doughnuts

Coffee-dessert hybrids are among the worst breed of beverages.

This one delivers 1 gram of fat and 4.6 grams of sugar in every

ounce, making even Starbucks’ over-the-top line of Frappuccinos

look like decent options. Maybe that’s why DQ decided to give it a

name that alludes to the animal it promises to turn you into. If you

can bring yourself to skip DQ and head to a coffee shop instead,

order a large iced latte with a couple shots of flavored syrup and

save some 600 calories. But if you’re stuck where you are, you’re

better off pairing a small treat with a regular cup of joe.

7. Worst Margarita

Traditional Red Lobster Lobsterita (24 fl oz)

890 calories

0 g fat

183 g carbohydrates

Carbohydrate Equivalent: 7 Almond Joy candy bars

Of all the egregious beverages we’ve analyzed, the Lobsterita

surprised us the most. The nation’s biggest fish purveyor is one

of the few big players in the restaurant biz to provide its

customers with a wide selection of truly healthy food options. We

would hope they’d do the same with the beverages, but obviously

not. Drink one of these every Friday night and you’ll put on more

than a pound of flab each month. Downgrade to a regular

margarita on the rocks and pocket the remaining 640 calories.

6. Worst Float

Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream Soda (vanilla ice cream and cola)

(large, 28.6 fl oz)

960 calories

40 g fat (25 g saturated, 1.5 g trans)

136 g sugars

Sugar Equivalent: 9.7 Fudgsicle fudge bars

Done right, an ice cream float can be a decent route to indulgence.

Go to A&W and you’ll land a medium for fewer than 400 calories.

Order it with diet soda and you’ve dropped below 200 calories. So

why can’t Baskin-Robbins make even a small float with fewer than

470 calories? Because apparently the chain approaches the art of

beverage-crafting as a challenge to squeeze in as much fat and sugar

as possible. Whatever you order, plan on splitting it with a friend.

5. Worst Frozen Fruit Drink

Krispy Kreme Lemon Sherbet Chiller (20 fl oz)

980 calories

40 g fat (36 g saturated)

115 g sugars

Sugar Equivalent: 16 medium-size chocolate eclairs

Imagine taking a regular can of soda, pouring in 18 extra

teaspoons of sugar, and then swirling in half a cup of heavy

cream. Nutritionally speaking, that’s exactly what this is, which is

how it manages to marry nearly 2 days’ worth of saturated fat

with enough sugar to leave you with a serious sucrose hangover.

Do your heart a favor and avoid any of Krispy Kreme’s “Kremey”

beverages. The basic Chillers aren’t the safest of sippables

either, but they’ll save you up to 880 calories.

4. Worst Frozen Mocha

Così Double Oh! Arctic Mocha (gigante, 23 fl oz)

1,210 calories

19 g fat (10 g saturated)

240 g sugars

Sugar Equivalent: 41 Oreo Cookies

A frozen mocha will never be a stellar option, but we’ve still never

come across anything that competes with this cookie-coffeemilkshake

hybrid from Così. Essentially it’s a mocha Blizzard

made with Oreo cookies and topped with whipped cream and an

oversize Oreo. The result is a beverage with more calories than

two Big Macs and more sugar than any other drink in America.

3. Worst Drive-Thru Shake

McDonald’s Triple Thick Chocolate Shake (large, 32 fl oz)

1,160 calories

27 g fat (16 g saturated, 2 g trans)

168 g sugars

Sugar Equivalent: 13 McDonald’s Baked Hot Apple Pies

There are very few milk shakes in America worthy of your

hard-earned calories, but few will punish you as thoroughly as

this Mickey D’s drive-thru disaster. Not only does it have more

than half your day’s caloric and saturated fat allotment and

more sugar than you’d find in Willy Wonka’s candy lab, but

Ronald even finds a way to sneak in a full day of cholesterolspiking

trans fat. The scariest part about this drink is that it’s

most likely America’s most popular milk shake.

2. Worst Smoothie

Smoothie King Peanut Power Plus Grape (large, 40 fl oz)

1,498 calories

44 g fat (8 g saturated)

214 g sugars

Sugar Equivalent: 20 Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups

If Smoothie King wants someone to blame for landing this high on our

worst beverages roundup (and truth be told, its entire menu is riddled

with contenders), the chain should point the smoothie straw at

whichever executive came up with the cup-sizing structure. Sending

someone out the door with a 40-ounce cup should be a criminal offense.

Who really needs a third of a gallon of sweetened peanut butter blended

with grape juice, milk, and bananas? Sugar-and-fat-loaded smoothies

like this should be served from 12-ounce cups, not mini kegs.

1. Worst Beverage in America

Cold Stone PB&C (Gotta Have It size, 24 fl oz)

2,010 calories

131 g fat (68 g saturated)

153 g sugars

Sugar Equivalent: 30 Chewy Chips Ahoy Cookies

In terms of saturated fat, drinking this Cold Stone catastrophe is like

slurping up 68 strips of bacon. Health experts recommend capping

your saturated fat intake at about 20 grams per day, yet this

beverage packs more than three times that into a cup the size of a

Chipotle burrito. But here’s what’s worse: No regular shake at Cold

Stone, no matter what the size, has fewer than 1,000 calories. If

you must drink your ice cream, make it one of the creamery’s

“Sinless” options. Otherwise you’d better plan on buying some

bigger pants on the way home.

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What is health?

You’ve been lied to about the definition of the word Health. watch and learn as this video describes the true definition of the word health that 99% of Americans don’t know. Understand what it takes to be the 1 % that lives the life of your dreams on the Cruise Ship!

The definition of health is much different than what the media often presents to us.  Check out the Maximized Video below to learn a bit more about what real health is.

There’s a lot more, but we can’t share it all at once!  Check out our Maximized Living Website!

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Kaila’s Testimonial

Every now and then we hear an amazing story of how Maximized Living and Chiropractic have changed peoples’ lives.  We felt like we should share one of those stories this week.  Below is the story of Kaila.  To learn more, visit our Maximized Living Website.

For any mother reading this, you might understand the feeling of gaining the extra forty to fifty pounds with pregnancy, then working hard to lose it, only to gain it back again. I found myself cycling my weight gain and weight loss for six years as I went through four pregnancies. I used to be a slender 135 pounds, but found myself at 250 pounds, ugh! Not being able to ride bikes or go sledding with my children made me realize I had to change.

I sat in my first Maximized Living Makeover with my eyes wide open. It was the most life-changing information I ever heard. I have radically transformed my diet, and I even manage to make it to the gym four to five days a week as well. The most important transformation was not just for me but my children. Having to raise four kids sometimes leaves them with the easiest meals. Hot dogs, Kraft dinners, and Eggo waffles were popular in my household. Making “adult” meals only meant leftovers that I would eventually pick away at. However, we made the transition and, slowly but surely, the kids got used to the green things adults call “cucumbers.” The most important thing is that I am a role model for my children and thrive on watching them live a healthier lifestyle. Believe it or not, for all the skeptical mothers out there who dread the food fights they know they will have to endure with their own children during the changes that need to be made, they will come around a lot faster than you think!

I have lost over one hundred pounds and plan on never going back. Thank you Maximized Living for helping us transform into a maximized family.

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