Wellness Alaska
An Introduction
For time immemorial, nature has provided whole and nutritious food for human-kind. Foods hunted, foraged and farmed of every description nurtured our ancestors, tribes, and societies and Homo sapiens now thrive across the globe. But today one — or more — food-related chronic diseases impact about half of all Americans. Health-science experts suggest that around 80-percent of our chronic illness is preventable or reversible with lifestyle modification, including better nutrition.
And health is not the only challenge. In 2024, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control showed that 90-percent of all U.S. health care spending is not to treat broken bones or communicable disease — but the symptoms of chronic disease. Yet we don’t resolve those diseases! Instead, people never get off the pharmaceuticals. Clearly, families staying active, successfully navigating our many modern stressors, and acquiring proper nutrition has never been more important, or more challenging.
This website seeks to make accessible and (hopefully) understandable, some of the relevant health-related research about this modern “pandemic.” Let’ s start with a pocket summary. The body fights disease and lives longer when we:
Reduce chronic stressors,
Get daily exercise and goodly sleep,
Enjoy ample quality relationships,
And consume whole, Real foods
Limit our daily eating time to roughly 12 hours, or less (timed eating)
Now for a terrifying caveat. By far, the greatest crisis of addiction in the U.S. is not alcohol, opioids, or pot. Rather, it’s our “craving” or outright addiction to the unhealthy, ultra-palitable “food” we find at the deli, the gas station, and the grocery store. A crucial starting-point is to understand the meaning of: The Standard American Diet (SAD). This amazing colossus — a dietary pattern with vast economic and cultural power — is referenced throughout the website and discussed in detail under the menu The “SAD” vs. Real Food.
Obesity, type-2 diabetes, vascular diseases, kidney problems, and even cancer risk-factors are frequently associated with problems of food energy management and conversion (metabolism). This includes a cellular problem that causes persistently excessive insulin, described clinically as insulin resistance or insulin insensitivity. That means there is a foundational problem with how cells convert food-energy into Life Energy. For one outward, and easily measured, symptom of this problem — about one-third of U.S. adults (some of whom are diabetic) have a problem managing blood sugar. Insulin resistance is covered several places on this website, but specifically under Insulin and Metabolic Disease.
Tragically, our Disease-Care, Inc. systems aren’t much focused on “reversal.” Perhaps that should be expected because the personal change required for reversal is revolutionary, dramatic and uncommon. Our amazing, high-tech, pharmaceuticals-first health system may, indeed, save lives short term. But will the prescriptions and “treatment” ever end? Too frequently the answer is when you die and that’s not the doctor’s fault.
Truly and with all sincerity, our hard-working and deeply compassionate health professions work within a system that simply is not engineered for reversal and remission. For instance, until very recently, medical personnel were poorly educated in human nutrition, stress-management, and physical-fitness training. For a century or more, medical schools and the American Medical Association, apparently, viewed these as subservient specialties and unrelated to resolving disease. Through our modern eyes, we can now see this as a jaw-dropping and even perverse omission.
For a short primer on how carefully controlled diet and lifestyle modification may REVERSE deadly conditions, like coronary artery disease and type-2 diabetes, look for “Reversal” under the jump-links on the page Fats, Oils and Health (under the Food and Health menu).
The website is also structured to apprise readers of the field of health and wellness coaching. You can learn about a few Alaska-based health coaches — under the menu Alaska Health Coaches. It’s a diverse, professional, and growing field. One that can supplement and may replace some of our “traditional” therapies. More people getting the coaching they need means more people making the permanent lifestyle change they need to achieve their goals, heal, and accomplish their dreams!
Like eating Real food, going for a walk, or pushing away from the computer for a stretch and some deep breaths — coaching can be viewed as an ancient health service. A trained, active listener holds space, gains understanding through inquiry, and supports the other (the client) as they assemble and slowly embody their own path to greater wisdom and wellness. Coaching is rooted in empathy, listening, questioning, new knowledge, creating action-steps — and making steady progress towards the client’s own wellness values and dreams, one step at a time.
The three-pillar’s graphic on the left illustrates interdependence. Physical, Mental and Social factors are all critical to “health,” but numerous factors in our modern environment can (and do) weaken these pillars! Some common themes that often improve human health and wellness are listed below:
Cultivating social/community connections
Acquiring daily habits to lower stressors (breathe!)
Boosting daily physical activity
Sound and sufficient sleep: 7 – 9 hours
Replacing the highly-processed, refined calories with whole Real food.
Like the “pillars” above, health coaches can have different strengths, so you have to be sure the coach is a good fit for you. For example, my health coaching certification is with Food Revolution Network (foodrevolution.org) an organization promoting the wide-ranging benefits of whole-plant menus and “plant-forward” eating. I personally have received highly professional coaching from Darsie Ziel and her entire program, backed-up by several decades as a Registered Nurse, is entirely different than mine.
I recently provided a short video TESTIMONIAL for Darsie, which you can enjoy HERE.
Each coach will possess unique training and life/work experience — differences that inform their style. This website promotes this important field as a way to strengthen mental, physical and social health, reduce disease-risk, and boost our life-fulfillment and joy!