COMPLIVING: Program plan and modular workbook guide to complete living

By Marybeth Sniadowski-Cole

Compliving is a compelling compressed seven principal programs of complete living which complements any lifestyle. It brings together the seven necessary functions of the human experience in this adventure called life. This program is not another textbook. I am not here to lecture or scold. You opened this book because you are looking for change. You are looking to feel better. You are looking be the healthiest person you can be. Do I expect everyone to agree with my program? Of course not. But what I am hoping is that by you working the program you will find a better insight in to mapping out a long, happy, healthy journey. This workbook is designed to help you ask the questions and reach out for the resources you may need as you identify those principal parts in your life that may be out of balance. If balance is achieved, so can a healthy state of being. That is why I choose the workbook form. This is about you actively participating in your health and your life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 22, 2019
• ISBN: 9781643004587

Book preview

Acknowledgments

Thank you to God for his gifts that have allowed me to share all that I have learned to help others. And to my parents, Tony and Bernadette; my children, Taylor, Madison, Ally; and Jackson, you are my inspiration every day.

To all those family and friends who challenged, encouraged, supported, and loved the person I am.

Introduction

People have always been searching for answers to health, happiness, and healing, and I am no exception. Over thirty years, being knee-deep in the healthcare industry exposed me to more questions regarding attaining health and less answers then the day I started pharmacy school. Enslaved by the tunnel vision of the publicly accepted prescribed medical practice standards, I had become numb to the investigative research of the true purpose of medicine. My open freethinking quest for knowledge had been reduced to the daily questions of a retail pharmacist: Can I drink alcohol with this? Do I really need to take this every day? Why is my co-pay different? I had become a scholarly robot for my patients, learning about each new agent introduced into the market, knowing the mechanism of action, drug interactions, and side effects, to be recapitulated at a moment’s notice. My patients thought I was a fantastic textbook of pharmaceutical knowledge. But was I truly offering all the right information to my patients? Was I just playing a part in a prescripted process, when I wanted to be part of a resolution solution?

My patients were mostly compliant, and their overall health appeared to be maintained with support. But if they were healthy, why were they needing to see me monthly for refills of medications? Why were the majority of the patients with chronic conditions only being maintained and not improving? What defined healthy if the goal was not to improve the situation? And moreover why were these patients tied to me, prescriptions, doctors, and routine testing as the only means to insure health? It didn’t add up. I believed there was more to the concept of complete health, so I started researching my concerns.

As I began to study various chronic disease states, I noticed many varied formulas, plans, and programs for what could be termed improvement or success. Stories of states of remissions, and disease reversals that were achieved through Western medicine, Chinese medicine, herbal therapy, Native American practices, acupuncture, homeopathy, nutrition, and Big Pharma to mention a few. Each with their own varied approach yet all with the same end goal of health and healing. The problem was no one method independently was the perfect answer. This seemed to be due to the lack of included variables that needed to be addressed. For an approach or method to be given the credit of healing with the current standards of acceptable medical review, the studied method or treatment must exclude as many variables as possible. But that begs the question: Is the ultimate purpose of treatment about giving credit or getting healthy? Patients spend billions of dollars each year trying to get healthy. For them it is not who gets the credit, but in the end they are in a better state of health than when they were first diagnosed.

When I started my diabetic education clinic several years ago, it was based off the recommendation to offer group classes. That was the prescribed model to reach the masses. It wasn’t long before I came to the simple conclusion that group programs were not that effective. If you wanted to see real measurable change, participants need an individualized plan of care for measurable success. The majority of the current health methods researched only seemed to focus on one or two health components, and they were generalized for the majority of the population and not the individual patient needs. What was clear was that there are too many potential cofactors that could negatively alter a potential positive outcome. For example, you can tell a patient to eat a healthy diet but that can mean five different diets influenced by five different variables. A high-protein, low-carbohydrate plan is a healthy diet for weight loss, but what about the patient with kidney disease? These patients have a lower protein limit. There are those families who want to provide a vegan diet (also a healthy diet option) to children who hate vegetables; then they are looking for supplementation. Then there is the patient who wants to be gluten-free except for the daily donut with his morning coffee, which can also be