GEAR1- Foundation
“Today I let go of the way I think things should be, and open my eyes to the empowered possibilities of all that can be.” ~ Author Unknown
Welcome to your GEARED2bewell Instructional! Let’s build the foundation for your new lifestyle, right now!
Congratulations ! You have decided to experience this lifestyle in order to live healthier. In so doing, you are choosing to live your optimal life and not slow decline! This is all about YOU making a decision to change your life forever! We applaud you for having drawn a “line in the sand” by deciding to change your lifestyle and to improve the health and wellness of YOU! You’re the only YOU there is in this whole world! Why not be the best YOU possible?
During your instructional, you will be introduced to various articles and a few “hand-outs,” to supplement the information found on these program pages. Any articles, forms, videos or the like will be presented with an “active link,” so you have the ability to click and open them, print them or both!
Toward the end of the “Table of Contents” you will see a listing for an “Appendix.” This is another way you can locate any of the articles, forms, videos, etc., that are referred to during your program.
We have a website, which you may be familiar with, at www.drlaurakorman.com. At that site you will find articles, recorded webinars, videos, my store, and resources for living a healthy lifestyle. We will be linking you to that site for different reasons throughout your instructional, so we wanted you to be familiar with that!
Along the course of this instructional we’re going to “build a healthier you!” We’re going to start from the ground up, lay the foundation and build a healthier you by working through the 5 GEARS laid out by Dr. Korman.
The acronym G.E.A.R.E.D. represents:
Grateful | Eliminate | Add | Rest | Exert | Discover. During the course of this instructional and throughout every GEAR, you will be “under construction” on each of these areas of your life. These are the various aspects of your life which, when combined in a positive and healthy way, will contribute to optimized health and wellness! We will be using the metabolic state of “Ketosis", but not necessarily a “keto diet”, to reset our bodies in both the "Eliminate" and "Add" sections of your instructional.
Each "GEAR" in the instructional builds upon the previous Gear(s). While Gear 2 might be easy for some, allowing them advancement to the next Gear relatively quickly, others may need to take a bit longer to complete a Gear. We suggest taking a minimum of a week to work through each of the Gears.
How quickly you move through your GEARS depends on your starting point! Moving along more quickly is fine, as long as you are practicing all the elements, and not neglecting anything. Conversely, moving along more slowly may result in a delay of the health benefits, and actually prove more difficult then just "jumping in".
In short, take the time you need to efficiently and effectively move through the instructional. The sooner you get there, the sooner you will achieve the health benefits of being there!
If you would take the time to read our article, “Dr. Korman’s 5 R’s of Daily Habits” you can use the information there to start TODAY to establish the habits of change, and utilize those new habits right away as you begin your program! Just click on the title of the article above to access it!
These first 5 GEARS in "Geared2bewell" are the fundamentals for health.
GEAR 1- Setting the foundation for a healthier YOU
Gear 2 - Working on you and the importance of hydration
Gear 3 - Dealing with others around you then looking at inflammation
Gear 4 - Learning about quantity and how to begin restoration
Gear 5 - Getting clean...and going through detoxification
Let's Talk a Little About Ketosis
Our bodies have only a few ways to obtain the energy necessary to perform their many, varied processes. The body can burn either glucose from carbohydrates (sugars), or ketone bodies from lipids (fats) to accomplish its tasks. At different times, the body utilizes both of these sources . When the body is using ketone-based energy, that body is in a state of ketosis.
Living, growing and thriving from ketone-based energy is very natural. As a matter of fact, when we are first born, we may already be in a state of ketosis, if our mothers are healthy! Breastfeeding allows infants to burn ketones for energy in the form of breast milk. Once carbohydrate-based food becomes part of our diets, we become primarily glucose-burners.
Not good! Not good at all!
The 1950’s brought about changes in our eating habits, with the introduction of convenience foods, fast food, and prepackaged, prepared food (TV dinners, anyone?), all which brought more and more carbohydrates into our daily diets than ever before.
In the early 70's, Dr. Robert Atkins published the Atkins Diet, which promoted a ketogenic diet, however, it was not necessarily “clean”, or with the correct percentages of macronutrients (fats, proteins, carbohydrates). Granted, it was low in carbs, but, unfortunately, it was too high in protein with not enough emphasis on “high quality fats” as a good food energy.
The current food pyramid tells us to eat high-carbs, moderate lean meat, and low fat for a healthy diet. Those carbs will be converted to glucose, which is our body's easiest way to get energy. For ketosis to happen, however, we need higher fat, moderate organic fatty proteins and much lower carbohydrates. Lacking the carbohydrates to make enough glucose, our bodies will convert the fats to ketone bodies, which will be burned for energy.
On a ketogenic lifestyle you will get a much higher percentage of your calories from fat and a much lower percentage from carbohydrates. That’s how you enter ketosis and stay there. You feed your body fat to burn (or use your body’s own fat stores) instead of the glucose that it would be getting from carbohydrates.
The government’s "food pyramid", together with the food and agri-business industries, and the medical professions, have advocated a low fat, high so-called "healthy" carb diet since the 1980's. Interestingly, during that same time, there has been a dramatic rise in obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and other lifestyle health issues, particularly in kids.
Changing from a primary glucose-burner to a ketone-burner can do wonders for weight loss and, more importantly, improved health and longevity.
Once we get back to being able to burn fat or glucose, we can then use food as medicine and cycle in and out with each fuel source. This is when we will be using body fat for a stored fuel source, as it was designed to be used. That's when we can live up to our full, healthy potential!
Don’t wait!
If you're beginning this new lifestyle in order to lose some excess body fat, we really encourage you to take some pictures of yourself, now, as you begin your program. These serve as your personal and private comparison pictures as you work, successfully, through your program!
Also, please measure around your waist, at your belly button, so you have a consistent reference point from which to measure again later. Keep in mind these pictures and measurements are for your private use, only, and serve as a tool with which you can experience the positive differences in your body as you work through your program.
Another popular idea is to “tune in” to the way your favorite pants fit! That, too, will change, as you progress through your program!
What Should I EAT?
Use Dr. Korman’s Personal Grocery List!
As we eliminate the excessive carbohydrates and sugars in our diets, and add healthier choices, we have some tools we think will give you insight into a new, different way to approach grocery shopping and eating! This would be a great time to get familiar with Dr. Korman’s take on shopping, menu preparing, and overall eating!
We tend to be creatures of habit, and so many of us make a grocery list in anticipation of meals we are going to fix, go to the store, purchase the list items, and come home with the best of intentions to cook the promised foods.
Dr. Korman has a slightly different approach, which makes the whole experience more fun...an adventure...and is money saving, health beneficial, and adds more variety to your life! Print the article “Opportunistic Shopping,” to follow Dr. Korman’s train-of-thought. Once you understand where she’s coming from, print several copies of Dr. Korman’s “GEARED2bewell Grocery List.”
Dr. Korman has also designed a GEARED2bewell Food & Mood Journal where you can track what you eat and when you eat it, by following the guidelines provided. This will help you become aware of what you’re eating and when you’re eating it, and will steer you onto the healthy track. Whenever you want to, just print more blank food logs and keep them in a folder or somewhere that is convenient for accessing them as you need to.
If it’s on Dr.’s grocery list, you can bring it home! If it’s not on the list, leave it alone! At least for now.
Then, incorporate what you learn from the article “Opportunistic Shopping” and make this a satisfying experience! Try new things! Eat new things! All the while knowing YOU have made changes! YOU are developing different habits! YOU are on your way to becoming a healthier YOU!
It’s now time for you to proceed to GEAR 2 - Hydration, in the next section!