What is the best diet ever?  Is it “Eat Right for your Blood Type” or Atkins?  Is it Dukkan, Paleo, Raw, Vegetarian or Vegan?  Or is it the diet that hasn’t yet been invented?  Maybe it’s the Food Pyramid after all?!

The best diet is none of these.  But it is all of these.

We have some basic food groups, they are: Animal (meat, fish, eggs), Dairy, Grains, Legumes/Beans, Nuts/Seeds, Fruit, Vegetables.  We are taught, that so long as we are eating these and minimising processed foods high in sugars and transfats then we will be more likely to maintain a healthy body weight and optimal health.

But then Mr Blood type comes along and tells us that if you are an A type, that grains are your friend and meat, not so much.  Mr Dukkan and fellow Paleo writers tells us that it’s meat all the way.  Raw Foodists tell us that nothing should be cooked and Vegetarians tell us that meat rots in our intestine.

So what these diets are telling us is that not all healthy food is healthy.  Wait, what?

They are half right.  Not all healthy food is healthy – but the only person who can determine that is you.  Not some diet writer and not someone who has only found data to support their particular diet regime.

Let me explain with some easy examples.  Grains are supposed to be good for us, but in someone with Colitis, grains can cause inflammation and gut issues which fires up the immune system leading to all sorts of other health conditions.

Dairy is supposed to be good for us.  But for those without the enzyme DPP-IV the metabolised casein molecule can swim around the brain as Casomorphine and cause psychological disturbance.

Onions are good for us, but if you bloat and fart, then just maybe your stomach isn’t happy with it.

The best diet ever is the one that keeps your body in balance.  The one that provides the foods for optimal function from head to toe.  Such things to consider are:

• Energy levels
• Sleep patterns
• Brain fog
• Weight maintenance
• Bloating and other digestive issues
• Elimination function
• Migranes and headaches
• Absence of food cravings
• Healthy functioning immune response
• Good hair, skin & nails
• Good cognition and lowered anxiety, depression or stress response

Food provides the building blocks to our entire body.  We all know this, but we struggle to listen to our body when finding out what it really needs, instead we listen to our brains or egos and diet writers.

It takes time to work out what the best diet is for you, and it will also change as the years pass.

There is a best diet, and it is the one that brings your body into balance.  A great place to start is to see what foods you’re intolerant to and to take time out and listen to your body.

The best diet for me is Paleo (meat, nuts, seeds, fruit, veges).  Eat right for my blood type tells me to eat lots of grains, but guess what – I don’t digest them well, so who is right?  Some book…or my body?

Start playing around with your food groups and write your own perfect and best diet while the diet writers and scientists battle it out amongst themselves.

With lower back pain many people will also experience limited use of limbs and other co-conditions such as depression, neck tension, and headaches. Changes in posture or gait will also create compensatory patterns in the body, and you can even find that things like ankle, knee and shoulder pain can occur through imbalances in posture by trying to avoid aggravating your sore lower back.

It’s a big minefield. This pain can lead us to anti-depressants, overuse of pain medication and for some people as sad as it sounds, will even resort to taking their own life.

Back pain is not nice.  As a chronic back pain sufferer for 13 years I have been through the complete lows of where this debilitating condition can take us. Over time and through experience, education, research, trial, error and success and talking to every professional I could get my hands on I have become a bit of expert in this area and I’m going to share with you this holistic guide to lower back pain.

Your back pain is not the same as your friends back pain.

This is the first thing to know. The pathology of lower back pain (LBP) is complex due to its central position in  the body and the nerve supply to and from the back and surrounding organs and muscles. You may have a bulging disc…your friend may be constipated, yet you can both have LBP.

A quick note about discs

Discs don’t “slip”, so the terminology of a slipped disc is incorrect. Think of your disc  like a starburst lolly. Jellified on the outside (this is called the annulus)  and soft and gooey in the centre (the nucleus).  When we have disc problems, the interior of the solid jelly begins to rupture and the acidic goo starts to seep towards the outside of the outside. As this partial rupture happens it presses on the nerves of the spine, causing pain around the spine, but also referred pain to any thing else that shares that nerve pathway. When the jelly ruptures completely the goo seeps right out and the acidity irritates the nerve supply in quite a big way, this is very very painful.

The outer casing of the disc is connected to the vertebrae, so if by some chance you actually did “slip” the entire disc, chances are you’ve broken your back – This article is not about broken spines.

There are a few conditions that can affect the discs, this article doesn’t go into them – we are looking largely at idiopathic back pain.

Back pain and your lower digestive tract

You don’t have to be completely not going number 2′s to be constipated. If you have incomplete elimination, pellets, every second or third day or anything that isn’t daily and well formed and healthy, then you could be constipated. Constipation puts a huge strain on the large intestine, and anything that affects an organ will most certainly affect it’s nerve supply. You may be feeling your constipation in your lower back.

TIP: Eat a meal containing either corn or beetroot to assess your transit time. Beetroot will make your #2 red and corn will come out as undigested bits. See how long it takes for that meal to pass through you, and take note whether the same meal is still popping out the next time you go #2′s. You may also like to try a natural laxative remedy for no longer than a week to see if complete elimination improves your back pain. DO NOT use laxatives long term, this technique is simply to see if a clear colon makes your back feel better. If you are suffering from poor elimination function, then you need to seek sensible assistance with it.

Poor abdominal function and back pain.

The Inner Unit is made up of 4 key muscles; transverse abdominis, pelvic floor, diaphragm, multifidus and assisted by fibres of the internal obliques. This “box” of muscles tightens under load and acts as a natural weight belt. If any of these muscles aren’t firing well then other muscles have to compensate. This can pull the spine out of neutral alignment and cause…. you guessed it, pain.

This pain can come from a number of places: an over worked, over compensating muscle or it can come from torsion or shearing on the spine itself encouraging nerve compression and referred pain to muscles.

The best thing to do here is to get a proper postural assessment along with core function testing.

Poor Glute function

Squatting is man’s best friend when it comes to a healthy spine. But only if you can do it properly. A good primal squat (ass to grass) AND the ability to fire the glutes and abs to get you back up again is a great sign that you may not have too much in the way of back issues related to muscle control.

When we fail to use our glutes properly, just like our abdominals, other muscles have to compensate for the load and to quote a very old ad campaign here in NZ – “Don’t use your back like a crane”. Now, there’s nothing wrong with bending at the spine, after all, it’s quite capable of doing so, but if you lift entire loads with your back and absolutely no glutes then more than likely you are going to have back strain and pain. And you seriously increase your chances of actually damaging your discs.

I’m not going to get into the mechanics of lifting here, as it can get pretty complex looking at things like ankle mobility, lordosis vs kyphosis in lifting etc. But basically, if your back aches when you are doing something that should be using your glutes, then that’s a pretty good sign your glutes are weak. Try a pilates class.  Some lifters may think this is girly stuff, but trust me, there are a lot of lifters out there who are ruining their backs thanks to a large ego that won’t let them lower the weight and go back to remedial Glute training 101.

Food Intolerences

In some cases a food intolerance will affect the lower back and it does this through a couple of ways. Firstly, an inflamed intestine caused by a not so happy food will affect the nerve pathways to the spine, just like in the case of constipation. Secondly, an inflamed digestive tract has the ability to shut down full function of the abdominal wall, and will affect the back as per the information on abdominal weakness.

Emotional stress and your spine

Stress is a physiological state that affects the nervous system amongst other things. When we become stressed, we get tense (whether we’re aware of it or not) and these tensions cause muscle tightness and also tightness in the brain and along the spinal cord. You may feel this tension in the lower back directly, or it can start somewhere like the neck or jaw and as your body compensates to stay in balanced alignment, the information feeds down the spine and can end up in the lower back…not to mention the hips, knees, ankles…anywhere! That lower back pain you have, may have originated a few years ago from a stressful situation and you may not know it.

Organ Health

It’s not just the organs that share the nerve supply with the lower back that can cause us back pain. Just like stress can start in the head, neck or jaw similarly organs higher up in the spine can cause imbalances and throw the posture or balance of the spine out.

Scarring, tight fascia and old injuries

An old acute injury can later present as chronic pain as part of the healing process. Let’s say we have an accident and fall on our tailbone 10 years ago, the initial injury causes inflammation which is the first stage in the healing process. As things heal they can develop scar tissue and thickening of the fascia. This tissue becomes rigid and has the ability to cause pain through many different mechanisms. This pain may not present for 12 months, and by that time we’ve completely forgotten about the original injury. It’s good to look at fascial release techniques, massage and spinal mobility exercises.

Your posture

Excessive curvature in the lower back (lordosis), excessive curvature in the thoracic (kyphosis), forward head posture, sway back, spinal twists or side bends, valgus or varus knees internal shoulder rotations, scoliosis, crooked jaws, elevated or depressed scapulas…etc are all postural deficits (and these are only some of them) and can create further postural issues. Just like a game of Jenga, if its not balanced or stable, then it’s not going to hold itself straight.

Postural deficits create unequal loading on the spine, organs and muscles. I don’t think I need to explain any further that if a muscle, organ or spine is under stress then there is going to be pain. If you missed it, read the entire blog again.

Don’t isolate yourself

It is possible to have all of these things going on, or some of them. Very rarely will it be a simple case of one thing. Lower back pain is not a deficiency in painkillers or anti-inflammatories, so using these as a long term solution is counter productive to your health.

If you have chronic lower back pain, there is usually a way through it – if you’re prepared to think holistically and embark on the journey.

My top 3 recommended action steps to take are:

• Postural assessment, with glute and core function assessed
• Nervous system assessment (chiropractor or osteopath) and a good hard look at yourself and your stress
• Gut and digestive health

And from there, it’s up to you whether you will apply the key recommendations made to you.  Your back pain is now in your control.

I like that definition, as it strongly tells us that the general pains or illness we have come to accept as “normal” are anything but.

As hard as it may be to swallow, most of us are not operating at optimal health, our niggles and sniffles, weight and digestive issues, mental and circadian disturbances are all part of a body that is not, by definition, healthy.

You can eat a so-called healthy diet and still be unhealthy by measure of this definition.

Let’s assume you have accepted that those “normal” niggles aren’t normal at all and you’d like to get to the bottom of them after all.  Who do you turn to?  There are hundreds of different options to choose from and you could spend a small fortune using the trial and error method.  Frustration will meet you at many turns and you may be inclined to slump back and again say “I just have to put up with it”.

This is where your timeline becomes important.  I’ll bet no one has sat down with you and asked about your timeline from birth.  If they have, then they are worth their weight in gold.  Your personal timeline helps to unravel the “source code” so to speak, the origins of where your health issue has come from.

Health conditions morph through time.  A stressful event 5 years ago may have brought on depression and then lower back pain along with constipation within the 5 year period.  A food intolerance that you knew about (but ignored) may have exacerbated the situation.  By the time you hit the Doctors office you’ll probably end up with a laxative and maybe some anti-inflammatory for your back, when really you may just need a little bodywork, corrective exercise and nutrition and stress management.

If you can start to trace your timeline, then you can start to see the origins of events.

So how do we trace our timeline?

• You will need a piece of paper and pen
• Handy to have, will also be medical records from birth along with any diaries, journals or blogs you may have kept.  In fact anything at all that helps to remind you about your life up until this point will be useful
• The knowledge of friends, family and colleagues about you as a person – which is very important when deciding whether stress is a factor in your health

One you have all this you start plotting backwards from the current health concern, list all other things that don’t fit the definition of what a healthy body should represent.  So let’s say your unknown ailment is chronic lower back pain that you are trying to timeline, you may also want to consider painful menstrual cycles or abdominal bloating etc.  The last two things you may have thought were “normal”, but they’re not part of the definition of “health”, therefore they need to go on the timeline.

What do we do with our completed timeline?  My personal advice is to discuss it with a Naturopath or Integerated Doctor (nutritional medicine).   You could also take it to a chiropractor, osteopath or nutritionist who specialises in holistic health.

Or option B.  You could start to work through it yourself.  If you can clearly see that you had zero health issues prior to the death of a loved one, and then after that you ended up with compounding health issues, you may want to ask yourself if you have completely healed from the grief, or if you still have an underlying stress or burnout state that is creating these issues.

A special note.  There is nothing wrong with our medical doctors, you MAY just have a serious condition that needs medical treatment.  This health detective and timeline tool is for you to track a clear path through your health forest so you can help your chosen professional unravel your mystery.  There’s no point rocking up to your doctors office complaining of a sore back when you’ve forgotten to mention that you also have a bloated stomach (they share the same nerve pathways).

Remember folks, it’s a timeline.  That means it’s year by year or month by month – not a higgledy-piggledy brainstorm of symptoms.  Lots of things may overlap, but that’s ok.  Don’t make any judgements or diagnoses, just plot a timeline of suboptimal health for now – and let nature take its course as you journey back to health.

Best of luck and happy time lining!

I’m really pleased to be a guest blogger here and I thought I would make my first post just a little rundown on who I am and what I believe in when it comes to health and fitness.

I spent the greater part of my life in pain and discomfort. The range was huge: depression, anxiety, stomach issues, elimination problems, weight issues, energy, lower back pain, painful menstrual issues, binge eating disorder,  sinus and gland problems…. Just to name a few.

“Health and fitness” in the traditional sense only got me so far. The so-called “healthy diets” designed to alleviate these problems weren’t working and the “go hard or go home” approach to training only provided results for a short time. The traditional model of food and exercise had helped me, only to a certain extent but had let me down overall. The bodybuilding “model” of training and nutrition that I also undertook depleted my cells so far that the good ol’ healthy food and multivitamin couldn’t even bring me back from the deep damage that had been done.

Even my education in fitness and nutrition didn’t have the answers. I felt totally stuck.

I then discovered Paul Chek and his concept of “sometimes to work out, you need to work in”. I found an Integrated Dr and learned about adrenal fatigue, toxicity and thyroid issues. I started reading material from Weston A Price and learning about the GAP’s diet by Dr Natasha Campbell McBride. I started reading Charles’ Poliquin blogs and got involved in reading information by Personal Trainers who also followed these methods.

The message became perfectly clear. If I didn’t balance out my nervous and endocrine systems then those systems would continue to work against me as they fought for homeostasis. I had to accept that I was going to have to “go soft…or go home”

And I did. I followed the non-conventional concepts of diet and exercise, replacing my lean chicken breast for chicken thighs cooked in coconut oil, including fatty gelatinous broths and enjoying my soaked oatsfried instead of boiled, and added tasty condiments like Rapadura sugar, cocoa and coconut. I switched my gym sessions for complete rest, tai chi, walking and just recently pilates. I began listening to what my body needed, guided by the teachings of Paul Chek and Sally Fallon Morrell. 100% of the time I kept away from the foods I was intolerant too, I took all the supplements I was told to and I was given instructions that detoxing my overburdened body is not over…until it’s over.

I am now at a stage where I can start putting gym workouts back in (May/June 2012) , and those workouts will be dictated by the teachings of Charles Poliquin, Paul Chek and Bret Contreras (The Glute Guy). I refuse to hire another personal trainer in my town unless they are CHEK trained, and currently I’m the only one.

I am a CHEK Exercise Coach, Weston A Price Foundation member, CHEK Holistic Lifestyle Coach and a traditionally trained Personal Trainer and Nutritionist. I operate my practice in Hamilton New Zealand.

So I intend to guest blog on this site about health and fitness based on the teachings of the aforementioned people. Together we will take a trip back in time before things like heart disease, obesity, cancer and mental illness were so commonplace. I will not be singing the praises of the Food Pyramid, nor will I be touting the benefits of polyunsaturated oils. I certainly won’t be looking for the next best “health food” or the most amazing diet.

I look forward to sharing with you how to become your own Health Detective and how to make objective decisions over the heath and fitness techniques you select.

Peace,