Optimal Health & Wellness

03/01/2026

One of the best barbecue restaurants in Burke county. Part of the optimal healthcare care went there for lunch after our morning meeting.

03/01/2026

I'm not one to explore too much on the menu, but this was a delicious find. Bibimpap.

03/01/2026

Tea Tasting experience this afternoon.
This was a first. Really enjoyed this.

03/01/2026

Had a wonderful experience doing a tea tasting. Never knew the subtle nuances of tea varieties.

02/28/2026

The longer you wait to get started on the journey to healing, the harder and longer the path back will be.

Medications don't heal your body.

The absence of medication didn't cause the disease.

You have to take the steps necessary to support your body to heal, and that involves making changes. The alternatives are not pleasant.

We are here to help you forge this path and assist you in getting things turned around. If you think this is something you'd like to do, give us a call or email us for more information. You don't have to navigate this blindly.

02/28/2026

This is something I need to remind my patients of all the time.

They come in for a follow-up appointment, have made significant changes to their diet, maybe have started exercising, are taking their supplements, and the labs still reflect abnormalities.

Despite there being improvements across many of the laboratory markers, including insulin resistance values, lipids, thyroid function, and nutrients, they can't help but fixate on the fact that things are still abnormal. We have been trained by the medical system to believe that if labs are abnormal, disease is imminent. They must be fixed immediately.

I suspect this is human nature. I am probably guilty of this myself. Actually, we can probably remove the word "probably" and just say that I am guilty of this myself.

I have to point out that it took YEARS for those labs to become abnormal, despite numerous symptoms, feeling terrible, developing conditions that needed treatment, and yet the blood work was "fine" . They were told by their doctor or provider that their labs looked great. This was true until they were not. Suddenly, now there is an urgency to fix the labs. In the same way that it took time for the labs to catch up to the symptoms, it takes time for the labs to catch up with the improvement and the healing.

It is not a failure to still have lab abnormalities, reflecting an underlying metabolic dysfunction, as long as the effort is being put in, symptoms or conditions are improving, you are moving in the right direction.

Be patient with the process. Not all is bad. The labs simply reflect the internal environment of the body, and how things are changing. You do not uncover the pool in the spring and put in a little bit of chlorine and are ready to go cannonballing into the water 30 minutes later. It takes a little while. It does not mean it is not getting better.

We are not your standard medical practice, and we do not look at your labs in the same way as your standard medical practitioner. It is important to understand what they mean, how they got that way, what they reflect, and what needs to be done to change things. We do not treat the lab, we treat the person. They come as a package.

02/27/2026

To all who may not believe, that is some green stuff behind my meat stuff. 😉

02/26/2026

02/26/2026

This is a depiction of something I encounter a lot in my practice.

We are now so inundated with information overload, from social media, podcasts, 24/7 news, infomercials, and so on with information about every possible, imaginable contributory factor to every disease and symptoms. There are so many internet and social media experts. Doctors, health coaches, dietitians, hormone experts, and so much more telling you exactly what's causing your symptoms, and how to fix them.

That is all great. I love information. I love having access to it. It is, however, important to know how to filter this information, and how it applies to the individual. It is very different to read a book written by a doctor or scientist, listen to a podcast, or a Ted talk, or follow someone on a social media platform, and to be evaluated by someone that is providing a direct assessment, reviewing your labs, and communicating recommendations specific to you.

It is so easy for us to get distracted by the periphery, with the little things, that we literally ignore the elephant sitting in the center of the room. The majority of chronic disease, whether it be diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, depression, hormonal imbalances, etc., can be addressed through focusing on key core factors that have contributed to the condition in the first place. It does not require extensive biohacking, countless expensive supplements, weekly IV infusions, or exotic treatments. It simply requires making changes to the lifestyle factors that got you there.

This is not to say there is no value in these other modalities, or the incorporation of supportive supplementation, but they are not always necessary, and they distract from what needs to be done. Caution on placing too much credit or attention to these experts that have not evaluated you, do not know your story, and are not communicating to you.

Some treatment options can be very expensive. Some can be worthless. Some can be dangerous and harmful.

02/25/2026

02/25/2026

02/25/2026

I also love going to the gym and not dying on the treadmill! 🤣