Phil Kaplan Discusses Dis-ease and a Fitness Based Cure

By the time they made it through the doors of my office, separately, but oddly similar in their histories, Jeremy and Louisa were each committed to half a dozen meds.

It took only minutes for Jeremy and for Louisa to reveal their labels. Before I knew how many children they had, what they did in the course of a typical day, or what their exercise history had been, I was presented “the labels.”

Jeremy wore the label of a diabetic. When I encouraged him to expand a bit he told me that at the age of 42 he “got” type II diabetes. Each month the pharmacy would ask him for a trivial co-pay as he refilled his Actos prescription. Although he self-monitored his glucose, his energy was erratic, he seemed to be gaining more and more abdominal fat, and he could no longer deny that he was experiencing some radical mood swings.

Louisa wore the label of a perimenopausal woman with hypothyroidism. With that diagnosis, her insurance would cover her Synthroid prescription. Oddly, even with the medication she “couldn’t” lose weight.

I won’t bore you with further details, nor will I relay to list of meds that in both cases included NSAIDs and SSRIs, but I’ll simply share their outcomes.

Jeremy “cured” his condition and dropped from a 37-inch waist to a 32, and Louisa lost 33 pounds of fat. Today both Jeremy and Louisa rely on food, exercise, stress management, and supplements in order to “manage” the conditions that seemingly vanished. Today both will attest boldly to the power they had all along, the power that prior to our first meeting nobody had taught them to release.

These are two stories of hundreds I could share. While I can’t promise every ill can be cured through shifts in activity and nutrition, I can promise that some diagnosed conditions are unintentionally self-induced and with strategic natural intervention can be reversed and ultimately eliminated.

I’m sure, being that this piece is going to be perused by consumers and professionals alike, that some readers are already wondering if I’ve flipped my lid using “cure” and “personal trainer” in the same context. There are others who are likely thinking, “what’s so great about this news? We know fitness helps improve health.”

Fitness is a concept, not an action. Fitness isn’t an act that improves health, but the application of eating and exercising in line with a fitness lifestyle has a wonderful overflow effect into virtually every bodily system. A lifestyle connected with healthful eating, emotional calm, and positive motion is clearly a lifestyle that supports living well.

So why can’t we all be “well?”

Perhaps we all can, and if we can’t all be “well,” we can all strive for betterment.

The word wellness has been in circulation for decades, but is hasn’t caught on with any sense of electric enthusiasm. It’s an impotent word for an exciting but ill-defined concept. Nobody runs home to tell their loved ones, “I’m well” unless they were first considered unwell, ill, or diseased. If, in fact, an ecstatic spouse entered the household jubilant about being well, the family would likely consider if in fact this euphoric state indicated a few loose screws between the temples.

While I applaud the concept of wellness, despite its poor interpretation, I want to place new emphasis on the word, "cure." I’m not only talking about improving health. I’m talking about picking up lost lives. I’m talking about giving new hope to individuals who had locked up their sense of potential with the most recent diagnosis. I’m suggesting that with the assistance of experts who understand the link between thought, action, and nutrition, our population can move toward a new understanding of aging, a new paradigm for curing disease, and a new perspective on the control we as individuals have over our own well being.

Allow me to present a perspective on the word disease, one that incorporates chronic and acute conditions but does not limit itself to medical diagnosis.

Consider the word disease as the expression of “absence of ease.” When you move toward a state of disease, life gets tougher. If you have muscle pain, often diagnosed as fibromyalgia, the sense of ease that once came with lifting items, rolling out of bed, or closing the trunk of your car diminishes as the perceived ailment worsens. That’s obvious. If muscle hurts, ease is diminished. If your waist grows 4 – 6 inches in the course of a decade, walking up steps is more challenging, as is tying your shoes. We may not consider a growing waistline disease, but I believe we should. There is enough data to cement the links between abdominal adiposity and heart ailments to comfortably theorize that as a waist grows, dis-ease worsens.

I’ll take it a step further. Thanks to pharmaceutical research, political lobbying and the deep pockets of the drug companies, doctors prescribe anti-depressants much like cotton candy vendors part with their wares. No longer do women have PMS. Now they can be diagnosed with Pre-Menstrual Dysphoric Disorder, and the HMO’s can approve prescription coverage for Sarafem. Is Sarafem a new drug that can cure this oh-so-distressing disorder? Nope. It’s simply an established drug given a new name for an expanded application. Sarafem is fluoxetine, otherwise named Prozac. Same drug, new name, tens of millions of new prescriptions.

As our population experiences dis-ease, the drug companies present medicines that are intended to restore comfort, but a population convinced that dis-ease requires medication if a population doomed to malcontent.

Do conditions for which doctors prescribe anti-depressants limit ease? Absolutely. Does that mean depression is a condition that requires medication? I’d suggest there are many variables that would have to be considered before a responsible physician can answer the question ethically and honestly. Just as there exists an avalanche of evidence linking exercise to reduced coronary risk, there is a body of evidence that is rarely considered linking exercise and supportive eating to optimization of serotonin.

The public is caught up in the information overwhelm and the doctors they look toward have learned to operate within a system that requires diagnosis and prescription more than examination and cure.

That’s where fitness professionals have an immense advantage. We are not equipped to diagnose, but we are equipped to work within our scope of practice to help our clients improve.

I’ve established my definition of disease. It’s appropriate that I also convey my definition of the word “cure.”

Cure comes from the Latin cura, meaning care, or responsive concern or attention. Mirriam-Webster defines cure as “to restore to good health; to restore to soundness or normality.”

If someone is in a state of disease, and we can implement strategies to restore ease, aren’t we then initiating a shift back toward health? The question deserves to be pondered. I’ve pondered and have landed on the side of yes. Competent Personal Trainers can “cure” “dis-ease.”

There are questions I’ll explore and address in the months to come. I’ll delve into the myth of genetics being a limiting factor in the quest for fitness. I’ll reveal why conventional exercise with a limited understanding of nutrition will fail people as much as diet, and I’ll emphasize and re-emphasize the need for a synergistic approach.

I’ll provide evidence to support the theory that many diagnosed cases of hypothyroidism and type-II diabetes are self-induced and naturally reversible.

Most of all, I hope to set an entirely new paradigm for how fitness professionals integrate into the allied health care system, not as additional cogs in a flawed system, but as pioneers ready to empower people to redefine aging, to offset and reverse disease, and to contribute to a healthy society protected from the all-too-common victimization of those seeking betterment.

This article is not intended to initiate an avalanche of re-directed fitness professionals battling dis-ease, but it is intended to give people a sense of control.

· A synergistic combination of muscular challenge, aerobic challenge, and the frequent ingestion of natural proteins, natural carbohydrates, fiber, essential fats, and vital micronutrients can play an important role in:

· Optimizing endocrine function including production of thyroid hormones and pancreating hormones (insulin included).

· Increasing production of serotonin

· Minimizing the negative impact of “stress hormones”

· Reducing body fat including abdominal adiposity

· Improving circulation and improving blood pressure

There is significant research to begin compiling a body of evidence validating exercise’s role in offsetting “dis-ease” resultant from Parkinson’s, Alzheimers, MS, Lupus, and other diagnoses that previously might have come with an impending sense of helplessness.

I welcome thoughts, questions, and comments related to the platform I’ve outlined here, as it’s a platform I’ll be aggressively stepping onto as I share future information giving people a greater power to gain control over their bodies inside and out.

OK, I’ve avoided this long enough

Fitness is THE CURE!

First, Jeremy . . .

Next, Louisa . . .

So why can’t we all be “well?”

Perhaps we all can, and if we can’t all be “well,” we can all strive for betterment.