Overall Wellness

Functional Medicine Lab Testing Explained

While a personalized nutritional plan, restorative sleep and supportive supplementation are three core foundations that go a long way to support our health, there is something even more powerful at your disposal: Functional Medicine Testing. This is a tool that gives you the deepest insight into your individual health data. Real-time, accurate information about what is going on inside your body holds the key to helping identify the underlying root cause behind any symptoms or health conditions you may be experiencing.

There is Always a Reason

When you experience any sign or symptom, it is not your body faltering, but rather a sign it needs additional support. Functional Medicine testing helps to identify nutritional deficiencies and accumulated toxicities in your body that are the reason you might not be feeling well. Once you understand these imbalances, you can then replenish any deficiencies and reduce toxicities through personalized diet and lifestyle adjustments to restore balance and embark on your path to wellness.

The Consideration With Most Laboratory Work

Anyone who has visited a doctor's office has probably been subject to lab tests at one time or another. Running your annual blood work is recommended, or other one-off tests may have been completed based on your current health concerns. But once the results were in, there's a good chance you didn't get to look at the raw data. Instead, your doctor probably gave you their interpretation of the data, with proposed treatment options – often in the form of pharmaceutical medication. There may not be anything inherently wrong with this, especially in the short term. Still, if you continue to experience symptoms after the prescribed recommendations, or where medication is often used to mask symptoms given to your diagnosis, you could be missing out on the invaluable piece you need on what the root cause of your symptoms are and how you can get well -- and that is possible through Functional Medicine lab testing.

Blood testing only looks at the blood at a specific time, and while there are certain blood markers that do hold valuable information about your health, and do form part of functional medicine testing – it is only one small part. Functional medicine testing also includes testing the urine, saliva, and hair samples that take your health data to a whole new level. Blood is a homeostatic fluid that always tries to maintain balance in the body and the range that may suggest "dis-ease" can be far off the optimal range you should try to maintain for your body to function at its best, so you feel your best.

The "Don't Guess, Test" Approach

Functional medicine testing enables you to take an in-depth look at any deficiencies in vitamins and minerals levels, hormone imbalances, gut and digestive function, how your body is coping (or not coping) with stress, overall metabolism and mood. It also identifies accumulated toxicities and when you have all of this information at your disposal, it can clearly outline the underlying reason why you may be suffering from brain fog and low mood, have difficulty losing weight, experience extreme tiredness, headaches, skin issues, digestive upset, reproductive imbalances like menstrual irregularity or low libido and any other health issue.

Take Control of Your Health

Disease is defined as a collection of symptoms and based on a diagnosis you are often given a treatment plan to mask the symptoms instead of identifying the root cause of why this has happened to begin with. At EquiLife, we have seen over and over again how quickly our clients' lives can turn around once they have completed the appropriate Functional Medicine lab testing. When you understand how your body has become imbalanced in the first place, you can then learn what you need to do to restore balance and get well. This is why Functional Medicine lab testing is one of the most popular and effective services we offer – right from the comfort of your own home.

Every test comes with a one-on-one coaching call with one of our certified health practitioners so that you can fully understand your lab results and armed with this data, begin to implement a comprehensive individualized wellness plan that best supports you. After following the recommendations, you have your initial base point and can do follow-up tests that assess your progress and any further adjustments that may be needed.

And if you aren't sure where to start, we have you covered and offer a Free Lab Selection call where you can explain your primary health issue and have the expertise of one of our certified coaches to guide you in the right direction. After your call, you will get the total value back as a credit toward the purchase of any lab or protocol recommended because our aim is for you to take back the control of your health, with the information you need to rebalance your body and live longer, stronger for life.

If you are ready to take your health to the next level – running the Big 5 lab tests will give you the most comprehensive look at your overall health and wellness. You can learn more about why using at-home lab tests to uncover your hidden health issues is so powerful from Dr. Cabral in this podcast. (Blog source)

Ready to learn more? Schedule a complimentary consultation here and we can discuss which lab is right for you!

How To Finally Get Well

How To Finally Get Well

By the time many of my clients come to me they’ve reached the old adage that goes, “I’m just sick and tired of being sick and tired…”

I’ve heard this hundreds of times over my coaching career and I’ve experienced it myself as well. The problem is that you have most likely never been shown how to finally figure out how to get well, lose the weight, or grow younger. The reason I say this is that before I discovered this myself more than 10 years ago I just thought I was going to have to live with my genetics, current ailments, and the fact that I may never have the energy, ambition, or life I truly desire.

What You’re Missing

What changed my life and what I think may be missing for you as well is the fact that everything we suffer from comes down to one or more underlying root causes that are creating imbalances in your body. You see, underlying imbalances caused by certain vitamin, mineral, or other deficiencies do not enable your body to have the raw material it needs as you age in order to slow the inflammation and repair as quickly as you once did when you were younger.

When you combine these deficiencies along with all of the environmental toxins we are exposed to and hormonal and balances that can come as a result you are dealing with a two-front battle that is causing you to feel the outward symptoms of poor health, fatigue, weight gain, or rapid aging.

Although none of this sounds like good news, there is hope. The reason why I say this is that for myself and the thousands of others I’ve worked with, once we discover your unique underlying root cause imbalances (which are your specific deficiencies and toxicities) we can go about rebalancing those. Because remember, when you bring up your deficiencies your body now has the raw material it needs in order to be able to provide energy for your system. And when you remove a lot of the toxicities, the blockages that were once holding you back have now gotten out of the way.

How to Figure It Out

So now that you know how to go about getting well once and for all, the next step is figuring out what your specific deficiencies and toxicities are that lead to a dis-ease of the body in the first place. What I did, and what I now share with my clients is using simple to complete, at home health tests that show you what your current levels are of all of these biomarkers in your body:

●      Digestive imbalances

●      Hormone levels

●      Stress levels

●      Neurotransmitter mood levels

●      Vitamin levels

●      Mineral levels

●      Omega-3 inflammatory levels

●      Heavy-metal toxicities

●      Food sensitivities

●      And so much more

This Makes All the Difference

To be honest any program you begin that doesn’t look at you as an individual is going to be hit or miss in terms of being able to promise results. The difference with what myself and other Integrative Health Practitioners do is that we take the guesswork out of the equation and instead figure out what it is that’s holding your body back from becoming well again.

Once you have knowledge of your individual deficiencies and toxicities, a personalized plan can then be developed in order to go about rebalancing your body and mind. When an Integrative Health Practitioner works with the client they don’t just provide you with your testing results, but they empower you with a knowledge of what your numbers actually mean. After that, you can then easily see for yourself what needs to be done in order to bring life and vitality back to your body.

It Will Work for You Too

All of this is truly an amazing process and with the help of the right IHP Certified Health Coach to guide you along the way you will learn more about yourself in the next 12 weeks than you may possibly ever have. This exact process has worked for me and my clients and that is why I can’t wait to share those same results with you.

For more information on this exact process simply book a complimentary consultation!