Finemore's Five for Friday (8)

Hi folks,

Here's todays Finemore's Five For Friday for you. I hope you enjoy it and have a great weekend.

This week I have been mostly ... 

Drinking

My version of 'Bulletproof' coffee. Very simply, the point of this recipe is to encourage your body to run on Ketones and not Glucose for energy (like clean burning wood as opposed to petrol).

Have this coffee in the morning and nothing else but water. The MCT oil will encourage the production of Ketones as fuel. First I use Bulletproof coffee beans, optional but there are less mould toxins which may be a factor in the crash or jitters that some people get from drinking coffee. So make your coffee as you normally would then add to a blender: 

- 1 teaspoon of grass fed butter (organic or kerrygold) 
- 1 tablespoon of MCT Oil (I use Bulletproof Brain Octane Oil - better for producing ketones) 
- 1/4 teaspoon of Maca powder
- Cinnamon and/or a tiny pinch of Cornish Sea Salt to taste

(I also add some Bulletproof collagen powder - good for promoting cartilage repair) 

Pour in your coffee and blend for 20 seconds

The result is a frothy, creamy coffee that will keep you going until lunch that helps you switch to fat burning. 

Exercising

Dead Bugs on a long foam roller. Great for spinal stability and abdominal strength. 

Lay on your back on top of the roller, your spine running the length of the roller so that you are balancing on the roller. Put your arms out as stabilisers. 

Bring both legs up and bend at right angles as if you were in a chair (hips and knees flexed at 90 degrees).

Keeping your spine pressed against the roller bring 1 heel down to lightly touch the floor and back up with your leg in exactly the same position (only moving your hip joint), then repeat with the other leg. 

Repeat 20-40 times. Feel the strength in your tummy. 

Listening

Album IV by BadBadNotGood - collaborative jazzy album with great vocal tracks like ‘Time Moves Slow’ with the lead singer of Future Islands. Summer sounds. 

Eating

Big Tony’s Pesto. Made by one of my friends who lives near me. Tony uses all the fresh wild garlic that is abundant at the moment in Cornwall. Adds basil, pine nuts, parmesan and olive oil. Great for a cheat day (carb day) pasta with organic spinach and cherry tomatoes. Not hard to make, healthy and uses local wild ingredients. Yum. 

Appreciating

The concept or wholeness, that we are already whole and that we have everything we need. Practising ‘enoughness’. 

Being grateful for ‘what is’ and not focusing constantly on ‘what isn’t’ (thanks to Stew Bittman DC for these concepts).

Until next time,

Simon

What is Sciatica? How can Chiropractic help?

Sciatica often originates in the Spine

As you can see from the diagram above true sciatica more often than not originates in the spine. Your sciatic nerve is made up of a number of spinal nerves that descend together down the leg. Irritation of any of these spinal nerves can cause irritation and symptoms in the sciatic nerve.  

Your spinal joints lie just behind your main nerves that exit through the spine. If your joints are unhappy they can become inflamed and irritate the nerve, this can affect the ability of your brain to receive vital messages from your leg and to send vital messages down the nerve to your leg. Nerve irritation can also give you sciatic pain which can go along the length of the sciatic nerve all the way to your foot. 

If you spinal joints have been dysfunctional for some time this can lead to stress on your spinal discs which can in turn can make a disc injury more likely. Your spinal disc sits directly in front of the major nerve that exits from the spine. So just like joint inflammation, disc inflammation can cause irritation to your spinal nerves and then your sciatic nerve. Disc injuries can be very small (annular tear) or more significant (full prolapse) but either way they can irritate the spinal nerves depending on how much inflammation occurs. 

Therefore in order to help you with your sciatic nerve pain we often need to reduce the irritation and inflammation in and around the spinal nerves that go on to make up the Sciatic nerve. This means we have to address any dysfunction in the joints and discs of the spine. If the spine is happier, the nerves that exit the spine will be happier, inflammation will decrease and so will your nerve pain. The key is finding the cause of the irritation (often the spinal joints) and not just attempting to treat the symptoms.  

As Chiropractors we aim to improve the function of the unhappy spinal joints by the application gentle and specific hands on techniques called Chiropractic Adjustments which stimulate normal nerve reflexes local to the spinal joints and allow the joints to function better and to begin healing. 

Happy joints = happy nerves = happy body = happy brain