And how Big Pharma can even crush the benefits of working out.
TERRI CAME TO MY GYM 17 months ago, after I gave a talk on fall prevention at a local theater. She arrived with an all-too-common list of maladies that are grouped under the heading of metabolic syndrome: hypertension, congestive heart failure, diabetes, fatigue, weakness, joint pain. She also has a low resting heart rate, known as bradycardia.
Terri asked me if my fitness program could help her, and I assured her that it could. I told her with absolute certainty that if she showed up consistently and followed the program, I could guarantee positive, measurable results. She had just listened to me preach the fitness gospel for 90 minutes. Now I challenged her to put that gospel into practice. And so she did, in earnest.
Terri was committed to the program. She was diligent, consistent, compliant, and devoted. Days turned to weeks, weeks to months, and months to seasons. Last September, Terri walked into the gym and made her way to my desk. We both knew it was her one-year anniversary, and I was beaming with pride as she approached to give me her victorious progress report.
“Andy, your program—(I was trying to remain humble in anticipation of her praise, at the same time getting ready to jump up and give her a big hug to congratulate her on her success)—is not working. My blood panels have shown NO improvement, I’m in pain, I’m tired all of the time, and I feel weak and depressed.”
This story is from the May/June 2017 edition of Spirituality & Health.
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This story is from the May/June 2017 edition of Spirituality & Health.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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ONE WORD TO BEAT WINTER BLUES: BIOMIMICRY
CREATURELY REFLECTIONS
THINKING ABOUT RESTITUTION
THE HEART OF HAPPINESS
WAITING IN LINE
OUR WALK IN THE WORLD
ENTER THE SAUNA
Journalist Emily O’Kelly shares some uplifting research on the benefits of sweat bathing, a global healing practice not just limited to Northern climes.
the trail of ATONEMENT
One Ashkenazi Jewish family escaped pogroms in Russia and then flourished in South Dakota, but the “free land” of their new homestead had been unfairly taken from the Lakota by the United States. Generations later, a celebrated investigative journalist set out to tell the truth of the Lakota and her family, calculate The Cost of Free Land—and pay it back.
STALKING YOUR Mind
Stalking the Mind is part of an ancient Indigenous American Medicine Way to tame your guilt, fears, and shame. What we’re “stalking” are our thought patterns and beliefs that seem to create the opposite of happiness and wellbeing. It’s a powerful psychotherapeutic journey of healing without the diagnosis or labels.
LEAVING MESA VERDE
After 21 years of service at Mesa Verde National Park, RANGER DAVID FRANKS recently guided his last tour of the pueblos and cliff dwellings. He says he was fortunate to assist the archeologists with a variety of work and never lost his amazement with their ability to figure out how and when things happened. The question he still wrestles with is much deeper: Why they left?
BECOMING YOUR OWN LEAD RESEARCHER IN HEALTHCARE
PEGGY LA CERRA, PHD, downloaded a health app to aggregate her medical records and was stunned to see the phrase \"aortic atherosclerosis.\" What she did next is a helpful model for all of us.
ARCHETYPAL ASTROLOGY
\"Is astrology true?\" is the wrong question, writes RABBI RAMI SHAPIRO. He suggests that the truth is out there, but out there is really in here.
WELLNESS IN THE WILD
Spa aficionado MARY BEMIS takes the [cold] plunge at Mohonk Mountain House.
