One Degree Functional Health

Why One Degree Functional Health?

My name is Doctor Weinman and I’d like to share my story with you. I have always been a very healthy person and have competed in triathalons. While watching the Hawaiian triathalon in Kona on TV, I saw a man whose son had cerebral palsy and this man was literally pulling his son in a boat while swimming, he was riding a bike with his son on the front, and then he was pushing his son in a fancy, souped-up stroller. I thought to myself “if this guy can do that with his son and I’ve been given this body, I should be able to do at least an Iron Man and have no excuses.” Being a healthy person and playing sports is really what triggered this thought process. I thought if he can do that, I can surely do this…because he is doing something for a reason. Getting into awesome shape was my main reason for participating in triathalons. I admit, I’m a skinny person and lose weight easily. Preparing for the Iron Man consisted of very intense training…and then when I completed the Iron Man, I finished in just under 13 hours. It sounds crazy to me now, but at that time, even though I finished an Iron Man competition, I really wasn’t healthy and was eating sugar like crazy. I was eating cookies all of the time and my excuse for it was that I was constantly working out so I would burn those calories off and not gain weight. I am 6’ 2” and at that time I did the triathalon I weighed around 176. At present, I weigh 190. When I weighed less, there was belly fat around my waist and I thought that was weird since I worked out all the time. How could this be? My wife and I went to Ethiopia to adopt our son and I got extremely sick while we were there. We came back home and I just never felt right…my stomach was bloated, I was tired all the time, I had no energy, my joints, my shoulders, my wrists and even my head were hurting really bad. I’m quite stubborn and have a high pain tolerance so I just kept working out thinking everything would eventually start feeling better…it just had to. I tried to stay away from triathalons because I was feeling so poorly. I was super skinny so what I started doing was weight lifting to try to gain muscle weight. Weight lifting was very hard on my joints and I ended up hurting all the time and I knew something wasn’t right. I went to my doctor and he ran a blood test and it came back normal. Even though that was the case, I kept telling him something wasn’t right. He ordered a stress test of my heart. Since I’m a runner, my numbers maxed out the machine and he was wondering why I was there. Surprisingly, I wasn’t feeling well at the time I did the test and I still maxed the machine out. The doctor kept saying everything was normal because my heart rate was in the normal range but I kept telling them it just can’t be normal for me since I come from a triathalon background. My resting heart rate should be around 60 or lower…and it was registering around 80…and just because the numbers fit in the “normal” box doesn’t mean everything is right. The doctor proceeded to order MRI after MRI to figure out why my head and back were hurting. As with the other tests, everything came back “normal”. By then, I was hoping I would just pass out and someone would run a ton of tests to figure out what was wrong with me. I ended up travelling to Chicago and visited with a natural path to give me an idea of why I was in so much pain all the time. The natural path said these issues were from the Anthrax vaccine I received while in the military. Doing anything to try to feel better, I followed their guidelines…went vegan, ate no sugar, drank no coffee and caffeine, etc. etc. etc. …and felt a little better; however the moment I cheated on those guidelines, I hurt all over so I knew it wasn’t sustainable…there has to be another way to feel good. That’s when I started learning about functional medicine. I started going to seminars and learned about toxicities and deficiencies in the body and how your body will strip minerals and amino acid from your bones in order to keep you alive…which is why people feel bad. Seratonin is made in your gut…thus your gut health affects your emotions. Once I understood this, I started following functional medicine and gut protocols in my everyday life and that is when I saw a change in my bloating and pain. I knew it was sustainable and there was healing going on in my body because when I cheated on my diet and eating habits, as any human does, I had no pain. An actual healing process was going on! That is the entire reason I got into helping patients that didn’t know they could be helped with their issues. People don’t know what they don’t know…just like me.

One of my favorite verses comes from 2 Corinthians 3:18 – And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.

This verse talks about changing things in your life one degree at a time. People sometimes freak out when you tell them that they need to make changes in their life because they feel like they have to change everything all at once. In reality, you only have to change one thing at a time. By changing one thing at a time, even something very small, your entire trajectory has been revised. When I talk to individuals, I always use the analogy of airplanes. If there are two airplanes flying from the same location to the same destination and one changes its direction by ONE DEGREE…that plane’s direction has totally been revised. As far as an individual’s health, I can help them change one thing and that can end up changing their health.

If you are ready to make some health lifestyle changes and would like our assistance in outlining a solution, call 309-698-2500 to schedule a consultation.