Turn Your Health Inside Out!

November 6, 2015
Ann Louise Gittleman, PhD, CNS

Ann Louise Gittleman, PhD, CNS

Award-winning nutritionist and New York Times bestselling author.

A healing miracle is within all of us…

My good friend Mark William Cochran is a holistic doctor and author of Oby’s Wisdom! A Caveman’s Simple Guide to Holistic Health and Wellness. I know you will find his personal story and wisdom inspiring and enlightening. And, as the holiday season approaches, I highly recommend his book, Oby’s Wisdom!  as a wonderful gift for your friends and family. It is endorsed by another good friend and treasured doctor, Dr. Bernie Siegel and was a finalist at the 2013 Indie Book Awards. This #1 Amazon best-seller is truly one of my favorites!

Dr. Mark’s visionary philosophy and passion for life emerged from his personal experiences with crippling arthritis and life-Dr. Mark Cochranthreatening cancer. He has emerged from both of these challenges healthier and happier than ever before.

Of his many years in pain, Mark remembers, “After spending years looking for an external solution to my problems, I ultimately learned that the simplest and most powerful solution is internal. We were born with the greatest healing gift of all: a Doctor within. Healing, vibrant health and well-being emerge when we reconnect with the life and vitality that are always at our core, ready to be freed.”

The story of Mark’s miraculous healing from arthritis has been chronicled in two notable inspirational books: A Book of Miracles; Inspiring True Stories of Healing, Gratitude and Love by Dr. Bernie S. Siegel and Thank God I…Volume Three; Triumph Through Tragedy created by John Castagnini.

Mark and his lovely wife, Cricket, are lovers of nature and the great outdoors. Along with their fuzzy feline companion, Kitty, they feel blessed to live, love, work and play amid the towering pines, majestic mountains and sparkling lakes of the Idaho panhandle.

Here is what Mark had to say, in his own words about this extraordinary book:

“Wow, I wrote that? That’s pretty cool!” ~A common reaction of authors when they read their own work.

This blog is as much about the deeply rewarding personal growth I have experienced from writing my book, Oby’s Wisdom! A Caveman’s Simple Guide to Holistic Health and Wellness, as about the book itself.

There is a personal evolution that unfolds as you create something new. During the creative process, new thinking emerges and new ideas reveal themselves.  I once heard an interview with Bob Dylan in which the interviewer asked the song writing genius where his ideas came from. Dylan’s response was, “…that wellspring of creativity.” Can we prove this wellspring…can we quantify it…can we formulate a cookbook process to tap into it? Well, no, but it’s as real as “Like a Rolling Stone,” “Gone With the Wind” and The Mona Lisa.

I’ll share a few of the pearls that Oby’s Wisdom drew from the wellspring of creativity, but first, let me share what motivated me to write the book.Oby's Wisdom

You see, for many years I traveled a long and winding healing journey myself. At age 23, I developed severe inflammatory arthritis. At the time, I was a motivated U.S. Marine, an athlete and an avid outdoor enthusiast. Arthritis did not fit into my lifestyle. So I fought it. And the battle raged through years of ups and downs. On that journey, I began to understand that we are all born with the gift of a powerful innate healing wisdom – a life force – that is the source of all true healing, health and well-being. I now call that life force the “Doctor Within.”

At first I didn’t pay much to it because conventional medicine was pretty much all I had ever been exposed to. Over time, once I came to embrace my Doctor Within, my health and life finally took a positive turn. Since then, my health has continued to improve beyond anything I could have ever imagined.

Um…well…except for that cancer thing. Yep, several months ago, my doctor dropped the C-bomb on me. Let me make it clear that, although I see holism as the foundation of health and well-being, I still recognize that conventional medicine can be appropriate sometimes. So I chose to include chemotherapy and radiation as part of my new healing journey with cancer. Let me make it equally clear that although chemo and radiation worked, the holistic principles that I live by, and that I present in Oby’s Wisdom, were also key to my surviving cancer and recovering from the harsh chemicals and radiation.

What exactly do I mean by “holistic?” Of course, “holistic” refers to taking care of a whole person rather than merely addressing symptoms. One of the tidbits you’ll read in Oby’s Wisdom is that the word, “heal” comes from the old English word, “hal” which means “whole.” The way to address a whole person is by staying focused on the Doctor Within. There are two key elements to this: holistic mindset and holistic lifestyle.

Oby’s Wisdom is organized around those two elements. Part One helps you develop the simple, yet foundational holistic mindset of “turning health inside out.” Part Two offers simple, practical holistic lifestyle advice on nutrition, fitness, spiritual awareness, children’s wellness and day-to-day living.

Here are a few fascinating tidbits from the book:

Introduction. Oby is the nickname of Obsidian J. Stone, my lighthearted fictitious depiction of a wise man from a simpler time. Oby didn’t have a healthcare “system,” yet he had access to the most successful doctor in history, his Doctor Within. Despite the enormous challenges of Oby’s time (and ours), the Doctor Within has allowed humans to survive and thrive from the days of stone tools to the space age.

Part One. Life Force is a concept that has been central to healing arts around the world since healing arts first began to emerge. Different cultures use many different words to describe life force, one of which is the ancient Greek concept of Physis. Hippocrates, the Father of Modern Medicine, describes physis as the body’s innate ability to cure itself of disease, and it was the foundation of his teachings. Interestingly, physis is the root of the modern day term, “Physician.”

Part Two, Chapter Seven, “Mother Nature Packed Us a Lunch.” The single most important nutrient—and the one most lacking in the standard American diet of processed foods is Life. Processing robs food of its life essence and often adds unnecessary synthetic ingredients. This can be just as true of many “health” foods as with junk food.  Organic foods are superior to nonorganic ones. Organic foods are free of the toxic fertilizers, pesticides, hormones and other chemicals that non-organic foods contain. Organics grow and develop by maximizing their own life force. Organic foods are more alive.

Part Two, Chapter Eight, “Fun, Fitness and Life.” The First Rule of Fitness is: “Play first!” In other words, you don’t need to follow an exercise program or regimen to be fit. Just go out and have fun. If you enjoy running on a treadmill, go for it. If you’d rather backpack or snowboard, then bypass the gym and head for the hills.  Gardening, triathlon training, dancing, team sports and walking your dog are all wonderful fitness pursuits – if they are fun for you!

Other thought provoking tidbits you’ll find in Oby’s Wisdom:
Increased human life expectancy is not due to modern medical advances. (Preface)
Germs are not the cause of disease. (Chapter Two)
Treating the underlying cause of disease isn’t much different than treating symptoms. (Chapter Five)
Why diets fail. (Chapter Eight)
Keeping kids too clean leads to poorer health. (Chapter Nine)
And lots more…

Both Dr. Mark and I hope you enjoy Oby’s Wisdom! A Caveman’s Simple Guide to Holistic Health and Wellness

Here’s to your health!

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Ann Louise Gittleman, PhD, CNS, is an award-winning New York Times bestselling author of more than thirty books including The Fat Flush Plan series and her latest book, Radical Metabolism. She’s been rewriting the rules of nutrition for more than 40 years and is internationally recognized as a pioneer in the field of diet, detox and women’s health issues. 

For a FREE daily dose of tips and strategies for maintaining healthy weight, conquering insomnia, and much more…check out my Radical Health Tips.

I’d like to meet and greet you on my Facebook groups, so won’t you check us out at the Radical Metabolism RevolutionFat Flush Nation, or my Inner Circle!

2 Comments

  1. Sandra Goldman

    Sounds like a cool book. I just ordered it on Amazon. I just love stories about people who have overcome diversity.

    Reply
  2. Liz

    It does sound like I book I want to read. Thank you Ann Louise for writing about it!

    Reply

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