Here at Upward Slopes, our intention is to embrace each day by making the healthiest decisions possible – whatever that means for each of us at any point in time.
To do this, we call upon a holistic (or in engineering terms, systems-based) approach – one that addresses the health of the entire body while also being capable of zooming in on specific sub-systems to target specific health challenges.
But this isn’t enough – to be capable of making truly healthy decisions, we each must be capable of putting our own human bodies into context in the lives we live, the histories we come from, and the places we want to be heading. This means that the approach must be individualized and dynamic, meeting each of us where we are at this point in time.
This idea consists of three key pieces:
- Understanding what the next healthy decision could be (based on information from science, other individuals, our own selves, and anywhere else that we could find help)
- Taking action aligned with this information
- Learning from our decisions and using this to make even better decisions as we go!
Understanding & action, repeated over and over again as we move forward to better health.
In this post, let’s take a deeper look at the method behind this goal and process.
Recall that the mission is to help you, as an individual human being, learn how to make healthier decisions for your full self, mind & body, so that you can actually become the healthier individual whom you are seeking to be.
This includes:
- Physical health
- Day-to-day feelings that impact your well-being and ability to take on the day: pain, energy levels, physical capabilities (e.g., strength, mobility)
- Risk of developing a disease (or multiple diseases) down the road
- Mental health
- Motivation, anxiety, energy levels, mental clarity
- Cognitive stress balance
Given the mission, how can I help you achieve it?
First, understand that there are two pieces that define your state of health at any point in time:
- that which is outside of your control (your genes, the past epigentic expression of those genes, other past events that impacted your health, some of your current life circumstances, and any outright good/bad luck involved in any event)
- that which is inside of your control (pretty much everything else, including what you eat each day, how you exercise, and other lifestyle choices)
As you begin to make healthier decisions, the first step is to understand that which is in your control and that which is outside of your control. Once you’ve completed this step, you are ready to move forward taking charge of that which you do have control over.
How do you do this? That is, how do you move forward taking charge of your health outcomes?
Learn to make healthier decisions
At the core of this platform, I am here to help you understand how to make healthier decisions.
A decision – repeated consistently over time, is what defines your state of health.
What goes into a decision?
- Understand what you could do
- Take aligned action
Once again, understanding and action – that’s what will define your future health.
The challenge is, when it comes to making health-related decisions – the kind that truly lead to beneficial outcomes for your own self – there are always a large number of factors at play.
This makes the first piece – understanding what you could do to be healthier – a seriously challenging task on its own.
Given the disastrous state of health of the population, it is clear that the world’s common methods do a poor job.
My goal, as a Biomedical Engineer, Health Coach, and Yoga Therapist is to help you understand this first piece (understanding what a healthy behavior actually is) using an approach that balances:
- Science and hard data
- Your body’s own intelligence
Down the page I will break down what that means, including why I offer a unique combination of experience to help you perform this task. Before getting into that, I want to be crystal clear about our work here helping you become a healthier individual.
First, it is important to understand what my approach DOES NOT involve. While I have extensive experience in the medical device industry and with nutrition science, my job is NEVER to diagnose nor treat a disease. My job is also NEVER to prescribe a specific diet nor any other lifestyle intervention.
Instead, my job is to help you better understand the factors that tend to impact human health based on my own understanding of the science and analysis of data. Furthermore, I can help you understand what it may mean for your own health, along with providing guidance on practices that could help you improve.
From here, it is your task to make what you believe to be the best decisions possible for your own self.
The bottom line is this: my intention is not to provide you with shortcuts to quick solutions that I have been trained to tell you based on a specific framework. Instead, my intention is to help you gain a greater understanding of what it means to make healthy decisions for your own self and to help you take action aligned with your own understanding.
One important note on this topic: while I would like to be able to just give you the solutions you need to simply create the ideal health outcomes you are seeking – so that you can just take my input, take action, experience results, and get on your way – the reality is that this is not how health solutions work at this point in time.
The reason is two-fold:
- Health information is noisy and messy – there is just so much mixed information out there and much of it is loaded with b.s.
- While I am confident that there are many experts out there that do the hard work to validate their methods and ensure their advice and interventions are truly healthy, the reality is that not everyone does this and much of the health advice out there can be quite harmful
- I don’t want you walking away from here with the same outdated mindset that you should be able to just get health-based information from anyone, apply it to your own self, and fully experience the results you expect
- On a more technical note, health information is complex
- In complex systems, there are so many variables at play interacting as dynamic networks that it is impossible to break apart these individual pieces to understand how they each contribute to a whole outcome
- “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”
- By definition, it is impossible to be able to piece apart all of the factors that could be impacting your health and to use these pieces of information to prescribe perfect solutions
- In complex systems, there are so many variables at play interacting as dynamic networks that it is impossible to break apart these individual pieces to understand how they each contribute to a whole outcome
Given the type of problems we are working with (complex systems defining a large set of health outcomes), we are faced with two options:
- Look to experts to provide us with the best solutions possible, even though we can never expect these options to perfectly solve all of our health challenges
- Become the experts of our own health, learning to make healthier decisions that best support our own health
Now, let me be crystal clear (so pay attention). To be the healthiest individuals we can be (while also being able to still carry out all of our other day-to-day tasks), I believe that both options have value. That is, in some cases, a certain expert may be able to provide you with a particular solution based on his/her own knowledge and experience. When this is the case, it would be wise to listen to that expert and embrace that intervention.
However, given the messy & chaotic state of our healthcare system (blended with the greater mess that is the diet & wellness industry), I wish to help you understand that relying entirely on outside advice will likely not lead to the positive health outcomes that you are seeking.
This is when #2 comes into play, and it is this item that I wish to help you take on.
This to say, it is my intention is to work with you to understand how complex factors combine to create various health states, and to help you lead yourself to the healthiest decisions possible, whether that means:
- trusting another “expert” individual to prescribe you a particular health-focused intervention (e.g., should you fully embrace that diet or exercise plan that you were told would benefit you)
- trusting your own self to make a healthy decision (deciding for yourself which foods or other lifestyle choices best serve your own health)
Coming full circle, to do this I am here to help you make healthier decisions based on:
- The science, including valid scientific principles and the ability to critically assess data
- Your body’s own intelligence as you learn to tune into your own self for information about what is best serving the uniqur self – body & mind – that is you
To do all of this, I come to you with my own knowledge and experience given a unique background. Let’s dive into what each piece has to offer to help you learn to make healthier decisions.
- As a Biomedical Engineer, I am focused on making calculated decisions based on the critical analysis of data and understanding of scientific principles
- As a researcher, I learned how to study scientific principles (from physiology, biochemistry, neuroscience, psychology, and other human health-focused disciplines) and to critically analyze data as I worked to test and develop biological-based interventions
- As a Quality Engineer in Medical Device Industry, I am focused on making tough decisions based on complex and mixed data – because when it comes to human health and health interventions, there is never a perfect solution that completely solves the problem with no possibility of harm
2. As a Health Coach I am focused on taking complex health topics and applying them to individualized lifestyle interventions. Of course, as I explained above, my job is never to prescribe interventions but instead to help guide you to your own answers based on the science and series of practices.
3. As a Yoga Therapist, I am focused on helping you work with your own self, mind & body, given a set of practices that have been passed along to me given a long lineage of teachers.
One last note on where all of the information on this platform derives from
As a Health Coach, all of the information I provide arises from The Reprogrammed Systems Approach to Healthy Living, which I designed based on my decade (and counting) of experience studying human health sciences, along with my skills as a biomedical engineer trained to understand complex health challenges and develop safe & effective solutions.
Over at Your Health, Reprogrammed I dive deeper into the approach, including the complex biology underlying human health with links to references. If you want to see for yourself the analysis and other logic that goes into the information provided on this platform, I encourage you to take a look.
Where do the models that support The Reprogrammed Systems Approach come from?
As a health coach and yoga therapist, I think it’s important that you know exactly where my knowledge, experience, and training come from.
As a health coach, all of my experience comes from my formal education as a biomedical engineer (B.S.E., M.S.), combined with several years of independent study of diverse material I bring forth to this topic (including biochemistry, nutrition, exercise physiology, metabolic health, behavioral psychology, etc.).
This is to say, none of the models I call upon have been taken from any formal training as a health coach, and instead, have been independently developed by my own self based on:
- a constant thirst to read anything related to health, disease, or behavior
- my understanding of research and engineering principles
- my formal education in neuroscience, psychology, physiology, pathophyiology, and disease
- my extensive (and continuous) research of the peer-reviewed published scientific literature
It’s worth noting why have made the conscious decision to stay away from a health coach certification. While I am sure I could gain some benefit from some of the great programs out there, I pride myself in my ability to analyze health information using my skills as a researcher and engineer and believe that time and money are better spent directly improving this platform or training myself in other areas (see below)
As a yoga therapist, my training has been more structured and formal. My 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training comes from my My Vinyasa Practice, and my Yoga Therapy training program is in the works over at Breathing Deeply.
When working as a yoga therapist, I call upon the models taught to me through my teachers along with my own experience in my own yoga practice.
Combined, I bring you an approach to understanding and overcoming your own health challenges, with knowledge that continues to stand up to my own rigorous assessment of data (shoutout to the scientists hard at work doing the tedious work to continue to unearth important truths), while also having been supported and guided by teachers and other experienced individuals that have passed their wisdom onto me.
Work with me as we uncover greater truths
Science is, by definition, a work in progress. It is a process for uncovering truths – one that relies upon continuous observation, testing, and critical assessment of the data.
When it comes to health sciences, the fact of the matter is that the theories that are called upon and voiced to the public are, for lack of a better phrase, a chaotic mess.
This is to say that there are far too many untruths that are regularly voiced to the public, and these can cause serious harm to individuals who rely upon them to make health-conscious decisions.
I make it a priority to ensure that I am not teaching any outdated or otherwise invalid models. This means continuously updating my models to ensure that they are supported by the best data possible.
Unfortunately, this becomes an impossible task for one individual, so I ask that if you ever come across some information that you find to be lacking in validity, please let me know! It helps if you can provide me with peer-reviewed studies to support why an update is needed.
Myself and all who interact on this platform appreciate the team effort 🙂