Life By Design is first and foremost a philosophy, one that comes from the roots of the philosophy of chiropractic.  Of the 33 beautiful and profound principles that define it, none is more powerful than the principle that states, “There is no process that does not require time.”

This may seem like common sense but, as you well know, common sense is not common practice.

The power of this principle is that it applies EVERYWHERE — in health, nature, relationships, finance, etc.  For example, if you want to be musician, it takes time. If you want to read a book, it takes time. If you want to have a baby, it takes nine months time.  There simply is no health process that does not require time.

Each Life By Design step bucks the trend of conventional wisdom, but none more so than our disapproval of “chronic cardio”.  “That’s blasphemy!” you say.  Everyone knows that in order to lose body fat and get lean you need to do spend a lot of time walking the infinite steps to nowhere on the climber.  Still not buying in?  Go to the gym, take a look at everyone running, walking, cycling and rowing.  Head back a year later and voila, no change.

How can that be? How can someone spend hours sweating it out on the treadmill in the cardio section and not lose body fat?

Nutrition is a field littered with so many experts and opinions that it becomes difficult and ultimately frustrating for people to “figure out” how they should be eating for optimal health.  How do you choose between Atkins, South Beach, Eat Right for Your Blood Type, Low Carb, High Carb, Low Fat, High Fat, Vegetarianism, Veganism, and hundreds of other approaches?

I think the answer may be much more simple.  If we wade through all the hyperbole, the mass marketing done by organizations with billion dollar budgets and the gurus, we find some universal principles  governing the nature of food, its purpose and how to best integrate these healthy practices into our families’ lives.  In those who have been able to do so, the results have been nothing short of miraculous.  But the miracle is not in the food itself; instead it is the amazing potential it unlocks in our incredibly designed bodies.

We are Designed to be active, really active.  In fact, we have clear indicators that our body requires different types of movements and at a higher frequency than is currently “normal” for the average Kanata resident.

For most of human history we had to work for our survival—literally working with our hands, arms, legs, and feet using all of our muscles and energy systems to obtain food, shelter, and security. Physical “fitness” was an absolute necessity for survival. If you couldn’t sprint or climb it often meant going hungry or even early death and the end of the line for your genes. Walking, foraging, crawling, twisting, climbing, squatting, pushing, pressing, lunging, jumping, throwing and carrying were the basic movements that helped shape human evolution for over two million years.