Let’s review our current health care model. What happens when we go and see a physician in the Western world? The typical scenario goes like this. The patient presents with a symptom, the doctor takes a history, examines the patient, possibly runs some lab tests and then offers a diagnosis. The next step is intervention. Most often that involves the prescription of medications. A good question to ask is what is the goal of the meds? What are they aimed at addressing? Reducing or relieving the symptom is the goal. We will refer to this as a linear health care model: Symptom, diagnosis, and then intervention. This sounds good on the surface but as we look a little deeper we will begin to see that symptoms are often only the tip of the iceberg. Certainly we want patients to feel better but fixating on symptoms often neglects the underlying mechanism of the problem. When I was growing up, as the son of a traditional medical doctor, the goal in our house was to be symptom free. If I had a cough I took cough syrup to suppress the cough. If I had a fever I took a fever reducer. If I had any symptom, the goal was to get rid of it, because health was defined as the absence of symptoms. That sounded reasonable and after all I didn’t like coughing, running a temperature and so on. My body felt broke and I needed some fixing, right? Well a lot has changed in my understanding of health and life since I was a young child. I define health a little differently today.
Most people associate health with a lack of symptoms. No cough, no fever, no symptoms = healthy or so they believe. Unfortunately, that is not true, no symptoms only equals no symptoms. Most people who have a stroke or heart attack never have any symptoms until the moment of great alarm. True health is much more than no symptoms. When a “bug” comes through the office or school, does everyone get sick? Chances are no. So why do some stay well while others succumb to infections more readily. I would suggest it is because their bodies were operating on a higher plane of health.
What if we could eavesdrop in on the body’s communication channels and hear what it was saying. What if there was a way to understand not only where the body was stressed but what was stressing it as well. Skinny Seattle’s breakthrough program does just that.* If any area of the body is compromised, it can affect the other areas and create a web of poor health. A stressed body does not release fat (stored energy) very well. A “symptoms” focused model does not look at the interplay between the body’s physiology and fails to address the complex interdependent web of health. This leads to less than desirable long term outcomes despite the short-term decrease in symptoms. Please don’t hesitate to re-read this section several times so you can really appreciate the difference between the linear health care model of today and looking at the person as a whole. Every one of us is at a different level of understanding and for some this may seem to be a very logical thought process. For most it is a stark contrast to their belief systems, which are rooted in their past programming. We advocate that your body is a self-healing, self-repairing organism that always responds appropriately to its environment and your weight gain is directly linked to your overall health.
