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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Valley&State Backpage O&E Sports Archives Classifieds Faith&Beliefs Obituaries Revels April 23, 2004 Doctor opens door to wellness By John Darling Tidings Correspondent It's a familiar bind: We don't want to be sick, we don't have to be sick and we know how to be well. But most of us have - to use the vernacular - health problems up the wazoo, eat lots of junk food and are taking some kind of medicines. What's wrong with this picture? In his newly published book, "Steamed Greens for the Spirit," Dr. John Kalb, longtime Ashland chiropractor and self-described health coach spells it out: We're getting some kind of "secondary gain" from our poor health - something we'd have to confront if crossed into true wellness. "The big question is - what am I getting out of being sick?" said Kalb, whose psychological-physical approach has its roots in his degrees in psychology and biochemistry before he left his pre-med schooling for chiropractic. Kalb's book, seminars and private practice walk patients through "seven transformational questions," forcing them to look at what wellness would be like, what can't they do, how their lives would change if had they to "give up" their unwellness (this is usually the key) - until they hit the "a ha" moment that he calls the truth response. "The truth response is that flash of release and healing that leads to release and going beyond sabotage." An example would be, "If I eat better, I will have more energy, so what will I do with that energy? I might end up like my dad who was a genius with lots of energy but became a drunk because he couldn't make a success out of it." Common among overweight people, he added, is the fear that they (or their partners) will become more sexually attractive when thinner and will go have an affair, resulting in abandonment. Insight into this subconscious fear usually allows efficient workouts and steady loss of weight. "The Wellness Process allowed me to compare the present path with the path of positive change," said Roz Schrodt of Ashland. "I was afraid of 'losing freedom' to eat what and when I wanted - which was mainly dairy products I was allergic to - but I realized I was facing opportunities that would clearly improve my health." Denise Byron of Ashland used the Wellness Process to confront her "baggage" around an absent father, whose health problems she was repeating. "It helped me work through to emotional well-being, which always is connected to the physical well-being. It balances mind, body and spirit and that balance is vital to health." Kalb helps patients and students set up healthy lifestyles through "baby steps" - manageable intermediate goals that are attainable - rather than the sweeping "I will get thin" type of pronouncements that usually lead to failure and poor health. "A baby step is about eating sugar once a day, instead of three times," he said, "so you can get the experience of winning and building that into your psychology." Kalb uses the term "Steamed Greens" in his book title in the same way "Chicken Soup for the Soul" is used - as a collection of habits around exercise, posture, sleep, power napping, breathing, massage, pleasure, bathing, drinking lots of water, eating vegetables, internal cleanses, scaling down meds, forgiving, meditating, positive thinking, personal power, values, emotions and facing death. At the core of Kalb's teachings is a broad reliance on oneself, nature, exercise and good, natural food - and training people to eschew artificial mainstays of modern life, he said, especially junk food and synthetic drugs. "The pharmaceutical industry, in cahoots with insurance companies, hospitals, food processors, the media and the government, is trying to keep us sick and dependent on these very expensive drugs, which, even when properly prescribed, are the leading cause of death, through ulcers, heart and kidney failure, infection and other means. "We're conditioned to be sick and ignorant, to believe we should take a different pill for every symptom, then go eat whatever junk we want," Kalb said. "This is not health care, but a disease-care system - the biggest business in the world - and it's killing us. To get out of this and create a healthy lifestyle is to swim upstream, but I've worked to help people do that all my career, and now I've got a good tool (the book) to help me." Contact info: John M. Kalb MS DC, The Wellness Chiropractor and Health Coach, www.DrKalb.com, 488-3001 or (888) 488-3001. Book available at local bookstores and on Amazon.com. DailyTidings.com Home Page Valley&State | Backpage | O&E | Sports | Archives | Weather | Classifieds Columnists | Faith&Beliefs | Obituaries | Revels | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2004 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Click Here Site Search: .:Advertisements:. RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams