Soda of any kind is just empty calories even beloved DIET sodas. According to a Texas study they found that drinking diet sodas may actually increase your weight. Below are the results:

Fowler's team looked at seven to eight years of data on 1,550 Mexican-American and non-Hispanic white Americans aged 25 to 64. Of the 622 study participants who were of normal weight at the beginning of the study, about a third became overweight or obese.

For regular soft-drink drinkers, the risk of becoming overweight or obese was:

• 26% for up to 1/2 can each day
• 30.4% for 1/2 to one can each day
• 32.8% for 1 to 2 cans each day
• 47.2% for more than 2 cans each day.

For diet soft-drink drinkers, the risk of becoming overweight or obese was:

• 36.5% for up to 1/2 can each day
• 37.5% for 1/2 to one can each day
• 54.5% for 1 to 2 cans each day
• 57.1% for more than 2 cans each day.

For each can of diet soft drink consumed each day, a person's risk of obesity went up 41%.

Why would a drink with no calories increase your weight? The theory behind this is that when your body gets something sweet it is expecting to also receive a bunch of calories. When it does not receive those calories it triggers a response for you to eat more calories. This makes sense, but it is just a theory, but my question is who cares about how this really works. In this study you can clearly see that drinking regular or diet soda will increase your weight. So of course my suggestion is to STOP drinking soda and flavored drinks as soon as possible.

5 tips to quit drinking soda:

1.Get your fizz on elsewhere. It tastes good. With its bubbly fizz and sweet flavor, soda makes for one lip-smacking beverage. But you can trick your mind—and taste buds—into thinking the same thing about a number of different drinks such as sparkling water or naturally carbonated, sugar-free fruit beverages. Drink some seltzer with a splash of juice for a little flavoring. Adding chopped-up fruit such as lime or watermelon to water will also boost flavor in a perfectly healthy way.

2. Find a caffeine substitute. It's late afternoon and you've lost your pep. You're craving caffeine. Your first instinct is to race to the vending machine for a carbonated diet drink. But rather than sip on something laced with hard-to-pronounce artificial sweeteners, explore other energizing options. And creamy, sugary coffee drinks won't cut it. Turn to green tea, fruit smoothies, or a variety of other healthy alternatives to power through the afternoon

3. Change your attitude! It's normal to believe that gulping down a can of diet soda, instead of regular soda, will shave calories off your daily intake, but that kind of mentality will get you in trouble. Simply adding diet soda to the diet does not promote weight gain or weight loss."

4. Hydrate with H20. Do not use diet soda as a replacement for plain old H20. Try to keep a refillable water bottle handy at all times and take a long swig before you drink anything else. It's calorie-free, caffeine-free, inexpensive, and readily available.

5. Don't quit cold turkey! If you're a diet soda lover, it won't be easy to swear off the pop right away. And that's okay! Wean yourself off slowly and be prepared for withdrawal symptoms. It will get easier over time. In fact, you may soon find that you prefer other, healthier drinks.

Week 8 This week focus on taking the right supplements

This week focus on taking the right supplements

There are many different companies out there that all claim to have the best products ever, most potent, etc. The best supplements or vitamins are whole food based. That means the foods such as fruits or vegetables make the supplements. Our body breaks down these the best since our body is used to breaking down food.

Many of the supplements out there are man made or made in a chemical lab. They may have the exact amount of Calcium for example; however, it is in a form that is foreign to our body. These products usually go right through our systems either undigested or minimally digested. These usually tend to be the cheaper products such as Centrum or 1 a day. As a basic rule you should not get your supplements from a drug store, superstore (Wal-Mart), or any other discount source. Usually the cheaper the product the less able your body will be to process it. While these products are cheap- they in reality are expensive since they just pass through your body without being absorbed.

The best places to get good quality supplements are Health food stores such as a Whole Foods or a local store if you do not have a franchise. Also try to avoid stores such as GNC as they have a few good products mixed in with a bunch of bad ones.

What should you take?

A whole food multi-vitamin is a great start.

Others you can add to a multi-vitamin are:

Omega-3 fatty acids

Daily fruit and vegetable supplement

Probiotics such as Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium - species that are known to work together to maintain a balance of "good" bacteria along your digestive tract. This also helps boost the immune system.

Don't hesitate to call or email with questions. We are here to help you sort it out.

Yours in health, Naturally,

Dr. Ben

This one is easy.Watch this short ten minute video. Before you hit play be sure you have ten uninterrupted minutes.

Hits the nail right on the head. This costs nothing but your time.

The only question is will you make time???

Van Halen is one of the Best rock and roll groups ever!!!

Okay I know not quite what you may be thinking in a health and wellness blog, but it is true none the less.

Miranda, my wife for some of you who may not know, called me last week and asked me what my favorite Van Halen song was. I thought the same as you, where did this question come from? Yes left field. She would not tell me why she wanted to know but I told her anyway. There was no thinking involved, no hesitation, DREAMS.

Awesome video and song, I know. When Miranda asked me this question I immediately went to you tube, imagine that me on you tube. As I watched the video it brought back a ton of emotions and memories for me. One is of my older brothers who steered me in the right direction of Van Halen. The other was of dreams as a young child. I would listen to this song, watch this video, read books about the Blue Angels, make models of the FA18 Hornet and so on.

You see my dream was to be a Blue Angel pilot in the Navy. That was my only dream, but as I got older I found out I had a slight astigmatism developing in my eye. I knew form talking with Navy recruiters that I need to have perfect vision without any corrections and I realized my life was not going to move in that direction.

Soon after I realized that I wanted to be a fireman, like my cousin in California. Single, nice house, able to go and do as I please. For those of you who know me, I have three awesome children and have been married for 14 years. Quite a change from my second dream and I would not change it for the world. Then came along about a bad left shoulder. Dislocated at least a dozen times form middle school to high school. That was the end of that dream.

Now my third dream came about after Miranda and I were in a car accident and we visited a local chiropractor who helped us get better and cared for our young daughter also. You can say the rest is history.

So what is the point to all this “dream” nonsense? Well I look at our dreams as our goals in disguise. Sometimes we miss our goals because we see them as dreams and not as goals. If you have a dream, write it down, create a plan to achieve it and by all means read it OUT LOUD every morning and every night.

In order to make realistic goals, we need to know how to write SMART goals. A SMART goal is a goal that is Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-framed. SMART goals can help you to better track your progress, set realistic expectations, and will help get you further along than you could have ever imagined

Believe in your dream/goal. Make it a reality.

Yours in Health, Naturally,

Dr. Ben

Week 7 This week focus on watching less television

The average American watches almost 5 hours of TV every day! Challenge yourself to watch as little as possible, see if you can watch 1 hour or less per night. Let yourself watch you favorite shows, but turn it off after that. It is amazing how the television has an ability to suck you in. Without realizing it you have been watching for hours. In many cases you start with watching a show you enjoy, then it turns into what is the best thing on after that. At the end of the night you: might be able to build a robot or remodel your house (even though you don’t own any tools), you might know everything about all the celebrities (that you will never meet), or you might now know every punch line from you favorite movie (after watching it for the 100th time.)

Television is entertainment and it is designed to keep you attention. Everything we do in life either builds us up or tears us down. Positive things build us up and negative things break us down. If you are watching a show ask yourself is this building me up? If not turn it off. Violence, drama, negativity, poor language. What are we exposing to ourselves, our kids? In addition to what the TV does to your mind, by sitting for that many hours per day and often eating while watching it is no wonder what as a society we are becoming obese so rapidly. If the average American cut that TV time is half and watched 2.5 hours and exercised the other half we would go from one of the most overweight countries to one of the fittest.

You will be amazed at how much you can accomplish by limiting TV hours. You will also start to enjoy life again, instead of getting through it.

What can you do?
• Talk to your spouse
• Play with the kids
• Read a book
• Exercise
• Find a hobby
• Meditate
• Go for a walk
• Play games
• Listen to a motivational or inspirational CD
• Volunteer
• Listen to your favorite songs
• Go to bed early and get the sleep you need

Yours in Health, Naturally,

Dr. Ben

Week 6 This week start eating as many vegetables as possible.

Try to eat at least 3 servings of vegetables every day. The more, different types of vegetables the better since each vegetable gives you different vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, etc.

When ever possible buy Organic vegetables since they do not have chemicals that you are putting into your body, and they have been shown to contain more nutrients than regular vegetables. Fresh or frozen vegetables are much better for your body than vegetables from a can. If you buy fresh vegetables that are not organic make sure to use a fruit and vegetable spray soap to clean them (you can find this at a health food store.)

The best ways to prepare vegetables are raw or steamed. With boiling or other cooking with water some of the nutrients is released to the water. Try to avoid cooking in butter, oil or with other additives.

Here are some of the best vegetables for you to eat:

• Asparagus
• Avocado (actually a fruit)
• Beet greens
• Broccoli
• Brussel sprouts
• Cauliflower
• Celery
• Chinese cabbage
• Chives
• Collard greens
• Dandelion greens
• Green and red cabbage
• Kale
• Kohlrabi
• Lettuce: romaine, red leaf, green leaf
• Mustard greens
• Onions
• Parsley
• Peppers: red, green, yellow and hot
• Tomatoes
• Turnips
• Spinach
• Zucchini

Follow the link and say Thanks to Stanford. Of course don't forget your fruits.

How am I supposed to eat all those fruits and vegetables.

Please keep the comments coming they are very inspiring to me.

As always
Yours in Health, Naturally,

Dr. Ben

Week 5 Invest in Your Health and Wellness

It is the most important asset you have. Investing in your health will help you avoid many health care costs in the future. The investment can be money and/or time.

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”- Henry de Bracton

What are good investments for Health?
• Chiropractic- is the only thing that works directly with the nervous system. In order to be healthy it is essential that the nervous system be functioning at it’s best.
• Exercise/Gym Membership- if you can exercise on your own regularly awesome. If you are like most people having a gym membership will help motivate you to do more, since you are paying whether you use it or not.
• Eating Organic Fruits and Vegetables- while they cost a little more, not having pesticides and other chemicals put in you system is extremely important.
• High quality supplements or vitamins from nature (not man made)- our body only absorbs vitamins that are naturally derived. Even if they are cheaper, man made vitamins do very little for your body.

Taking care of your body will pay for itself in many ways:
• You will miss less work and/or be more productive, which will be more income.
• You will have fewer doctor visits in your lifetime, which is less out of pocket and less wasted time.
• You will take fewer prescriptions, which is less out of pocket.
• You can play with you health insurance plan (we will cover this more later) but if you don’t go to the doctor and don’t take drugs you can have a higher deductible insurance plan, which will cost less per month.
• You will live longer and have a better quality of life.

Follow the link, How much is my body worth? to see what they value your body at. It is very interesting. 

Let me know what what you think, leave a comment.

Yours in Health, Naturally,

Dr. Ben

Just a quick and simple blog today to remind us of how fortunate we are for what we have.

I have decided that each day I will write what I am thankful for and I would suggest that you do the same. Sitting and thinking of what we have in our lives is a great way to bring about clarity, peace and reduce stress.

I was going to start this at the beginning of the year and continue for one year then I remembered a quote,

"I am going to stop putting things off starting tomorrow." - Sam Levenson

Yours in Health, Naturally,

Dr Ben

Week 4 See your Chiropractor as often as they recommend

Life gets busy. Of course, It does, if you are a regular follower you know that I have missed the last two weeks of posting any blogs. We have a lot going on at work, home, etc. It can become very easy to just go to the Chiropractor when you hurt or you have symptoms. While Chiropractic can be very effective at making these symptoms go away, this type of Chiropractic is not allowing your body to heal and be healthy.

Symptoms are often the last thing to show up and the first thing to go away, so they are not a very good gauge of your actual health. By working with your body when it “feels fine” the Chiropractic adjustments are realigning your spine and re-establishing correct muscle and ligament balance in your body. This is working to help your body avoid these flare-ups, by actually correcting the problem, as opposed to working towards short term relief.

The quick version of Chiropractic:
Aches and pains are signs that your body isn’t working right. Your brain, spinal cord and all your nerves control how your body works. Physical, chemical or emotional stresses produce a defensive posture. Muscles contract, locking spinal joints that pinch or irritate nearby nerves. Lack of nervous system integrity sets the stage for disease and ill health. A thorough examination helps chiropractors find these vertebral subluxations. Applying a precise force to stuck spinal joints helps the body right itself. Health usually returns as repeated visits restore nervous system integrity. That’s why Chiropractic care has helped millions get well and stay well.

If you do not have a Chiropractor in your area please email me and I will find one near you.

If you live in Sioux Falls and do not have a Chiropractic home I invite you to use the new patient special located on the left side of the page. Just click the big green button and your on your way.

For more information on Chiropractic and Health just browse around the website or sign up for our bi-weekly newsletter. 

Yours in Health, Naturally, 

Dr. Ben