Healthy Living in Connecticut Blog

A few months ago, I happened to catch a video on the dangers of having amalgam (mercury) fillings in your mouth. I first became aware of the issues with the fillings in a video I saw. Dr. Kelly J. Blodgett, a holistic dentist out of Oregon was talking about some of the health risks associated with having mercury in the mouth. One issue is the fillings are incredibly close to the brain. Another issue is that if you have amalgam fillings, you are most likely breathing in mercury vapors whenever you brush your teeth, eat something hard, etc.

I decided to do a consultation with a dentist here in Connecticut. Dr. Mark Breiner owns “Whole Body Dentistry” and is what you call a biological dentist. He believes the teeth are in the same meridian as certain organs in your body. Basically, everything is connected. If someone has a pain and a doctor can't figure it out, it might be related to a tooth issue. He said one story of someone who was having pain in their tailbone. He figured out it was a tooth causing the issue. Once the tooth was fixed, the patient’s pain went away.

According to Dr. Joel Fuhrman, what is considered too thin for most Americans is actually what’s considered normal weight. Too many overweight Americans make what looks like normal weight look too skinny in comparison.

I never give my weight any thought. After having lost 150+ pounds over 10 years ago, I just maintain. I stay the same consitent weight, I love the plant based foods I eat and I have no interest in going back to my old habits.

Back in August of 2016, I had plateaued. I had already lost 150 pounds eating a mostly plant based diet, but I was left with a lof of loose skin, especially around my belly. I wanted to shift things into high gear, try other methods to build more muscle to hide the excess skin. That’s when I turned to the internet, the same thing I turned to when I initially lost the weight in the first place.

I had been trying for a few years to pack on muscle but it wasn’t working that well for me at the time. My personal trainer told me to up my protein intake to a whopping 200 grams a day. He wanted me to start having whey shakes. Two things happened that caused my personal trainer’s plan to fail: first, the whey protein shake did not agree with me. It didn’t digest well and there’s no way I could continue. Second, my primary doctor told me that I could damage my liver or kidneys with such a high amount of protein. Both of those instances caused me to rethink what my personal trainer was advising.

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Brooke Goldner. I have been following her story for years and thought my podcast followers would want to learn more about her.

Dr. Goldner once had lupus, back when she was just 16 years old. Doctors would tell her it would only get worse and would shorten her life. But Dr. Goldner had a positive attitude and never let the diagnosis slow her down.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Karen Steiner recently. She was recently featured in an article in Forks Over Knives and it was an inspirational story, one that I could definitely relate to.

Karen was a yo-you dieter, something I had to deal with for years as well. I wasn’t yo-yo dieting as long as her, as she was dealing with dieting issues since her teenage years. But I know how frustrating it can be going from one diet to another. That's basically what I did throughout my twenties and part of my thirties. It wasn’t until I was closer to 40 that I woke up and stopped dieting.