Hello, everyone. This is Liz Harvey coming to you from our studios in New York City, where we are dedicated to bringing you top quality advice from many of the leading expert professionals across the US. In today’s episode, we are speaking with chiropractor, Dr. Dennis James of Performance Chiropractic Clinic, a chiropractor in Keller, TX. Dr. James is a nationally recognized chiropractor and member of both the American and Texas Chiropractic Associations. He is also trained in acupuncture and is a fellow of the Acupuncture Society of America. Dr. James specializes in family chiropractic care, treating infants to seniors. Today we’re going to talk about a very important topic, Secrets for Creating Health for Achieving your New Year’s Resolutions. Hi, Dr. James. How are you today?
Dr. Dennis James, Keller Chiropractor: I’m doing great, Liz. Thank you for having me on.
RC: Thanks for joining me. Let’s start. Becoming healthier is a common New Year’s resolution but it is also a very broad one. What aspect of health should people focus on first?
Dr. Dennis James, Keller Chiropractor: I really believe that the most important thing people can do is step back and take a look at health, and take a look at it from an inside out perspective. That’s something that we really focus on with chiropractic. One of the things that happen is people look at it from a broken image. They think health is going to be something that is more of, “I take this medication so I feel good and so because I feel good I’m healthy.” The unfortunate part is they try to set some short-term resolutions that aren’t congruent to a long-term state of health.
The most important thing that I tend to tell people is, “Let’s step back and get a vision of what type of health and who it is that we want to be in 20, 30 years. What type of quality life it is that we’d like to live? Because without a vision, people are going to perish. When we know exactly what it is that we want, who we want to be and what type of health we can have, we can take the proper steps and congruent actions at that point to be able to kind of create health (so to speak) and know that we’re going in the right direction.
RC: Lose weight is another popular resolution. Is there a secret to starting the weight loss process?
Dr. Dennis James, Keller Chiropractor: I really think that sometimes there is and sometimes there’s not. Sometimes the secret is just to do it. On the flip side though, I think sometimes we don’t have a big enough why and a big enough reason. We say, “Hey, I just want to lose five pounds. I want to look a little bit better,” or whatever it is, and you’re always focused on what you don’t like about your body as opposed to what you do like.
What I challenge people to do is say, “Hey, if you’re 180 pounds, or you’re 160 pounds, whatever it is, and you want to weigh 170, let’s take a look at it from a perspective, sit down with a pen and paper before you even get started and say, ‘Looking at my 180 pound body, what habits do I have that have made me to be 180 pounds, that this is who I am?’” Then, we’re able to step back a little bit, and as you do, you go, “Okay, well, if I want to be 170 pounds, what habits do I need to create in order to be 170?” Because the only way to really truly get a lasting type of change, where you’re truly going to change that weight or truly going to be able to stay healthy over that period of time, is going to be able to substitute the bad habits with good habits so that you actually become that person that you want to be.
RC: Get more exercise or get in shape means different things to different people. What is the secret to making a resolution that will stick for anyone?
Dr. Dennis James, Keller Chiropractor: Yeah, Liz, this is one of my favorite ones just because everybody kind of starts that at the beginning of the year, but I believe that it’s such a vague statement that nobody ever has a ‘why’ behind why they’re doing it. If there’s a big enough reason for the change, you’re going to make a big enough change. I’ll give a personal example for that. Until about three or four years ago, I only weighed about 150 pounds and everybody said that I’d never be able to weigh more than that because my life just never changed that way. One year I just decided, “Hey, if I keep doing the same thing over and over and expect a different result, then that’s going to be crazy.” I actually changed everything I was doing and put on about 30 pounds of mass of muscle in about one year. I really enjoyed working out and as I did, I did notice though, I started getting heavier and more into it and I was very one-minded in that type of exercise. Once I did that, I realized I was personally needing more chiropractic care to stay healthy and things of that nature.
Actually, preparing for the new year myself that’s coming up, I had to take a look at my vision for 20, 30 years down the road and say, “This style of exercise that I’m doing, is this going to allow me to be able to have the quality of life that I look forward to?” When I looked at the number of people that I want to help, the energy that I have to have, I actually changed my entire exercise regimen. I added some stretching. I added some core training. I added some more cardio, and I kept some of the weight lifting in there. The truth be told is, within 30 to 40 days, I already had more energy than I had in about two years. Now, as I continue to move through that, I can actually see that my success is building upon success and the image of what I want to accomplish for my patients is actually becoming clearer.
RC: Spend more time with family and friends, is important to a lot of people who might have too much stress at work. Are there ways to reduce stress and carve out time for fun?
Dr. Dennis James, Keller Chiropractor: Absolutely. I actually think it’s the other way around. What happens is, we have to carve out the time for fun in order to reduce our stress. So many people, they get wrapped up into, “I have to accomplish this. I have to do this,” and it’s kind of like that person that is trying to chop down a tree. They keep chopping, they keep chopping, and they can’t stop because then they’re not going to be able to get it. Whereas, the person next to them stops for just a second, and they actually sharpen the blade, and then they’re able to chop it down quicker.
There’s something that’s called the law of recreation, recuperation. When you look at recreation we see that it comes from the word recreate. It’s actually necessary for us to take a break from the stresses that we deal with in life. It’s necessary for us to go do something that we love to do, to spend time with friends and family, to get the endorphin release, to get that mental break, to do something that we love to do so we can get more of that love back. The funny thing is, as we do that, it’s very, very common to see that the creativity of the mind actually starts to work for you, and now what you do actually becomes more effective because you took that break. Everything is starting to move forward and your body is not in that state of stress that’s slowing you down, so to speak.
RC: Lastly, what are the most common obstacles to achieving New Year’s resolutions?
Dr. Dennis James, Keller Chiropractor: I think there’s a lot of obstacles that people can use and that people say, but I really believe there’s only one obstacle, and the obstacle is you. There’s a story behind every, single person. If we were to go find the three or four most successful people that you know, a lot of times we look at them and we say, “Hey, you’re so lucky!” But if you quiz them about what they’ve done, what they’ve gone through, what their life’s story is, you tend to find that people have gone through so much more than we think they’ve gone through. The only difference is their excuse or their reason behind it.
The people that have a huge story tend to say, “I saw this story and I’m going to use this for my good, and I’m going to do whatever it takes to become the person to overcome this story.” On the other side, you’ll have other people that look at it and they go, “This happened to me and this is why I can’t become the person that I need to be to overcome it.” I truly believe the obstacle first is in our mind. You’ve heard the statement before that whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right. I truly believe that. When we take the right steps and we decide that, “Hey, this happened. How do I become the person that I need to be to allow my endurance, my perseverance, to build the character to become who I want to be as I move forward for my future?”
RC: Thank you, Dr. James. We know you’re extremely busy, so I just want to thank you for your time and your help today.
Dr. Dennis James, Keller Chiropractor: Awesome. I appreciate you having me on.
RC: For our listeners across the country, if you are interested in speaking with the chiropractor in Keller, TX, please visit: www.performancechiropractic.clinic, or call 817-337-3636 to schedule an appointment.
On behalf of our team, we want to thank you for listening, and we look forward to bringing you more top quality content from our country’s leading experts.