How SAD is Your Diet?

The Standard American Diet (also called the Western Pattern Diet) is getting a lot of flack, especially as of late, since people are starting to pay attention to the consequences of a poor diet.

The SAD has its acronym for a reason. When you’re eating the Standard American Diet you’re probably eating fast food a lot (burgers and hot dogs, for instance), packaged foods, processed foods, not to mention foods and beverages laced with sugar and/or high fructose corn syrup.

When you eat foods of this nature your body reacts to it, causing inflammation, poor mood, decreased quality of sleep, poor complexion, and more.

If your diet largely consists of carbs and processed sugar, it’s time to rethink some things. You might not even be aware of how prevalent sugar is in our society. Go to your grocery store and check sauces, canned foods, even pasta, bread, and other tasty goods — they’re all packed with sugar.

Fast food even comes heavily sugared, which many folks believe increases the likelihood of craving said fast food.

Eating clean whole foods is the only way to achieve a healthy diet. Eat plenty of veggies, fruits, clean protein, and try to get your carbs and sugars from natural sources.

Contact Holmes Chiropractic today to learn about how our treatments go hand in hand with a healthy lifestyle.

Chronic Pain Checklist

If you’re living with pain and discomfort, there’s a point in time where you have to identify if you’re dealing with chronic or acute pain. Acute pain is an isolated experience while chronic pain is an ongoing situation.

Below, Holmes Chiropractic goes over a few ways chronic pain manifests itself.

First, how long has your pain lasted? If your pain and discomfort has been going on for 3 months or longer, then it’s likely that you’re experiencing chronic pain.

Second, think of how the pain came to be. Was it from an injury or is it from continuous strain and overuse? Chronic pain can come as the result of trauma, stress, injury, or even the things we do over and over again each day.

It’s also important to identify if your pain is coming from an ongoing issue, like arthritis, fibromyalgia, inflammation, or other factors.

There’s a lot you can do if you’re experiencing chronic pain and would like to get some help. Contact Holmes Chiropractic today to learn about how our treatments help patients living with chronic pain, not to mention how we help entire families stay healthy and active.

3 Keys to Overall Wellness

Achieving overall wellness is all about achieving balance in your life. There is more than one aspect to take into consideration when you’re thinking about ways to optimize your health. Below, Holmes Chiropractic goes over a few ways to achieve overall wellness while dispelling any mysteries or misconceived notions about health and wellness.

1.) Clean Up Your Diet

Eating clean, whole foods will set the table for a healthy body and mind. At the end of the day, we are what we eat. Eating better food and cutting out sugar and processed carbohydrates will also increase your gut health, which will positively impact your mood and free your body up to spend energy in other ways.

2.) Routine Maintenance

Consider exercise and active recovery part of your routine maintenance plan. Make sure you exercise for an hour or so at least 3-4 times per week to improve your health and mood. Make sure that you stretch and take time to recover your body from the abuse you put it through. Yoga and chiropractic treatment are both viable options when it comes to active recovery.

3.) Get More Sleep

If you’re one of these folks running off 4 hours of sleep per night, we encourage you to stop this immediately. It’s more important to let your body and mind cleanse itself from the day’s events and exposures, and 7-9 hours of sleep nightly will ensure this process occurs without interruption. Getting anything less than 7-9 hours of sleep on a consistent basis can lead to problems like heart disease, obesity, and even Alzheimer’s.

Contact Holmes Chiropractic today to learn more about how our treatments can go along with your new healthy lifestyle.

Why Hydrate?

When it comes to staying hydrated throughout the day, surprisingly few Americans are able to accomplish this on a consistent basis. Below, Holmes Chiropractic goes over the benefits of staying hydrated — which means drinking something close to half your total body weight in ounces of water each 24-hour stretch.

First, drinking the right amount of water throughout the day will help your joints stay lubricated, which will help you at your job and whenever you decide to get active. Dehydration will make your body feel shriveled up like a prune, which will make it more difficult and even more painful to go through your daily motions.

Dehydration can also cause headaches of varying intensity, which can dampen anyone’s mood and lead to sleep problems.

Drinking the requisite amount of water we need each day will help your internal organs function in the best way possible, which will have you feeling better and more positive on a daily basis.

Staying hydrated is one way to create a healthy foundation and so is chiropractic treatment, which will help address most of the problems we’ve mentioned above. Contact Holmes Chiropractic today to learn about how we’re providing our essential treatments while observing COVID-19 guidelines handed down from CDC. 

Setting Feasible Summer Wellness Goals

Since regular everyday life has been put on hold in many communities throughout this great country of ours, it’s totally acceptable that your health and wellness goals for this summer might be in need of a little tweaking. Below, Holmes Chiropractic goes over a few realistic health and wellness goals you can set for yourself over the summer months that you can still get done in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the other obstacles communities are facing right now that might get in the way of keeping a healthy diet and exercise routine.

Running that summer marathon is probably out of the question, but setting a serious running goal for yourself is not. Make yourself run the most miles you’ve ever run in one day — then do it twice over a weekend, just to push yourself. You’ll be surprised at what you can accomplish. And we’ll be here to help you with any body aches and pains.

Eating clean, whole foods is still an achievable goal right now… and so is cutting out fast food, processed carbs, and refined sugars.

Use this time you have to train for something new, whether it’s a new career, a new sport you’ve been wanting to try, or even an exciting new craft. This will help you maximize this time and come out on the other side having accomplished much.

Chiropractic treatment is a great way to help you achieve your goals this summer, not to mention help you stay on track with your health, wellness, and overall well-being. Contact Holmes Chiropractic today to schedule your consultation.

Anxiety Relief Tips

As the world continues to turn amidst turmoil after turmoil, it’s important that we’re right in our own minds, which is one of the ingredients to right action, not to mention living a more peaceful and tranquil life, even during chaotic moments throughout history.

Below, Holmes Chiropractic goes over a few ways to reduce stress and anxiety.

First, make sure you get your exercise. You’ll find that you’ll have less energy to burn on matters that are out of your control. You’ll also be healthier and happier as a result.

Get plenty of restful sleep. 7-9 hours of sleep each day is necessary for the body and mind to regenerate and cleanse itself from daily tension, pressure, and abuse.

Lastly, chiropractic treatment is an amazing tool to help reduce anxiety, promote a peaceful night of sleep, and even help you get more out of yourself in your daily life and during exercise. Contact Holmes Chiropractic today to schedule your consultation. We’re providing our essential treatments as the world opens back up slowly. We’re taking every precaution to keep our staff and patients safe during this time.