The 4 Pillar Plan

The 4 Pillar Plan is your guide to the right diet, exercise, relaxation, and sleep decisions that will improve your health dramatically.

I recently read an article about a woman who gave up her vegan diet after many years on it. She had begun to feel groggy and strange. After learning about orthorexia, or the disorder of eating too healthy, she knew she had to change. Once she added a little more meat and other foods to her diet, she began to feel much better.

In the comments, I saw some vegans disagreeing with her decision. But their thoughts reflected something I was thinking also. It’s the truth that we’re all different and foods affect each of us in various ways.

But one thing all doctors can agree on with every diet is that we consume far too much sugar.

You may think you’re good at avoiding sugar. Unfortunately, it’s normalized nature in our lives makes this hard to do. Our breakfast cereals, granola bars, sports drinks, and just about everything you love to eat is riddled with the stuff. To fight back, we each need to de-normalize sugar.

This starts with knowing what’s in the foods you already eat. Check labels before you buy. Be careful to learn and watch out for the many different words that companies use to disguise sugar to get you hooked on their products. Anything ending in -ose is a sugar, so watch out!

Did you know that people who regularly run marathons may develop similar heart conditions as people who don’t move much each day? A problem that many of us have is that we either exercise excessively or not enough. And what’s worse is that we maintain the mentality that it must be an either-or thing with exercise. This leaves most of us stressing out over not enough time to do our workouts. Or worse, giving up entirely because we just can’t fit it in. A better way is to focus on movement each day rather than exercise. According to the author, we should make this a change in how we speak, too. We should remove the word “exercise” and say “movement” in its place. But how can we get more movement in our schedule? The easiest option is to incorporate more walking. I’ve had a Fitbit for nearly five years now and that little reminder it gives me to walk each hour is really helpful. Sticking to my walking habit has helped me lose weight multiple times after regaining it. Thanks to walking I’ve maintained a steady weight over the last five years rather than gaining. Additionally, trying some simple strength-training exercises can help. These don’t have to be strenuous or…