Giving Your Body a Check-In & Check-Up
We use a Warrant of Fitness (WOF) to keep our cars in good working condition, but what about our own body?
Much like a car, we have so many different parts of our body that must work together. When all those parts are working as they should, we have health. When things are squeaky or there is misalignment, it creates disease.
In modern cars, there are so many sensors and gauges that help us assess how it’s working. For us, those are our senses; our feelings.
A gas light coming on is our stomach rumbling.
Low oil is expressed with joint aches and pains.
And these days, we solve those problems by guzzling fast / comfort food to help us stop the rumble as we deal with our busy, stressful lives and pop pain-killers to dull the aches and pains. But all those things catch up with you. Much like putting the wrong gas or oil in your car will eventually wear your car our faster or make it break down.
If you treat your body like a beat up piece of junk car…that’s what you’ll get.
If you treat your body like a Formula One car, then you’ll get that result too.
It’s quite simple really.
What you put into your body in the way of how you think, live, eat, and move will all influence what kind of car you get to drive every day. And it starts with daily ‘check-in’s and a regular ‘check-ups’.
Why do we care about this?
Because we’re passionate about helping people understand what your incredible mind and body are capable of…which starts with encouraging curiosity about how it’s current running (with a reflection of how you want it to be).
The Taylored Check-In
We’re not always great at ‘reading the gauges’ or checking in with our minds and bodies to see how they’re running. So, the first step is what we call the Taylored Check-In. We have a separate blog post (and worksheet) devoted to this core exercise, but let’s give you a bit of a summary.
This tool is a simple check box worksheet which we encourage to do on a daily basis – for some, they use it multiple times throughout the day to help them work through changing stressors or triggers they experience. This works great for both adults and children, and provides an opportunity to press pause on the hustle and bustle of each day, and see how you’re really doing.
If you struggle to start this habit, you’re not alone. One thing our members have found helpful is set a timer each day, or create a habit during your morning hot drink to spend 3-5 minutes ‘checking in’ using this tool. It’s like having a mini journaling practice, but it takes less time. However, it’s a powerful tool to connect that mind and body together to attain better coherence – a fancy word to describe a connection to your whole self.
We consider this ‘daily maintenance’ like using the windscreen wipers and spray to rinse off the bugs that leave their mark on your windscreen. The more you do it, the clearer you end up seeing yourself, your relationships and the ‘world’ in general.
The Taylored Check-Up i.e. WOF
Every 3, 6, or 12 months we should also “look under the hood” to help understand the inner workings of your system. Think about your car, with its annual WOF or even checking your oil or radiator fluid.
Now we’re not necessarily talking about going to your GP for your regular check-up of some basic bloods, blood pressure, weight and a knock on your knee to check your reflexes (although we still recommend regular blood tests for general checkpoint testing).
We’re actually talking about clinical diagnostics that you can collect in the comfort of your own home. When we collect and test the ‘exhaust’ of your body, in the form of pee, poop and spit, we can start to understand HOW your body is currently running…and make very careful and precise changes to improve it. We do this by using at-home diagnostics or ‘functional testing’. This looks at how your body is actually functioning and it’s used by the best doctors and specialists in the world.
What does this mean in practice?
It means we understand which parts of your engine or body needs to be greased or nurtured. This removes some of the guesswork around the type of foods you eat, supplements you take, how you move and how you live. We can also look at your genetics so you can make different life decisions to get the best out of the instructions that make you, you.
All this will create a clear blueprint of how you can work towards an optimised life full of energy, free from pain and disease. Talk about life by design.
Following this blueprint can help you make simple, easy decisions regarding your body and can give radical clarity around the reasons why it was not working as it should…and how to get it working as it could.
How do we know all of this?
Over the last 3+ years, Luke and Rachel (our very own owners and health gurus) have invested a lot into deeply understanding themselves. They’ve tested the best biotechnologies and diagnostics from all around the world in an effort to create a human instruction manual. Why? Because even a simple toaster comes with a set of instructions yet one of the most complex adaptable systems, that is the human body, is left for each of us to fumble and guess our way through life.
We only get one body and it should thrive…so we can live our best lives.
Plus, if we can help make those daily decisions easier for you, you can focus on the bigger stuff. The higher purpose you were born to pursue. Whether that is more playtime with your loved ones. Completing that race. Traveling the world. Whatever it is…wouldn’t it be nice to think more clearly and have more energy to follow those dreams?
Getting Started
The Daily Check-In
The first step is to start with the daily check-ins. You can read more about this exercise here, which also gives you links to download our Taylored Check-In worksheet. You can do this all by yourself, but if you want an expert to help guide you through then you might like to talk to one of our amazing life coaches. If you’re keen to have a sidekick on this journey, get in touch.
The Annual Check-Up (WOF)
If you feel you’re ready for a Taylored Check-Up (aka. the Taylored WOF), you can learn more here. This involves booking you in for a comprehensive discovery session. Using your answers from our pre-session assessments, you’ll spend 90 mins with one of our specialists to deeply understand YOU.
From there, we can determine what type of at-home tests we start with.
A Note of Caution
It’s important to understand that not all functional testing labs or specialists are created equal. This was one of our biggest learnings across the last two years – you must work with the right labs and specialists otherwise you end up with inaccurate information or unhelpful treatment plans.
Over the last year, we’ve been working with some of the world’s best laboratories to ensure the test results are as accurate as possible and all actionable. We also have some of the best specialists in New Zealand.
At Taylored we’ve done all the hard work for you in regard to assessing which labs and tests are the most powerful and at the best price possible.
The only question that we need to determine during that first 90 min session is which tests will give you the most insight into your body and that really comes down to what you are currently struggling with or looking to optimise, always being mindful of your self-investment budget.
So, what type of at-home testing or clinical diagnostics do we most often use?
- **Genetics (to understand how your body’s core instructions are “read” in context to your environment and lifestyle choices…sort of like the make and model of your car. You only ever need to do this once and it’s an incredibly under-utilised and frequently misunderstood test out there)
- Food intolerance (to help you make better decisions on what you eat i.e. what type of fuel you put in your car)
- Hormone testing (for those struggling with fatigue, low libido, PMS, PMDD…which is like the electronics of your car’s dashboard and how it actually runs) <- this isn’t always required, but is an important option if you have chronic symptoms indicating hormone imbalance.
- **Gut health testing (yes, your poop…to help figure out what else might be eating you…rust or damage to the chassis that could make the car ride really bumpy or make rattling sounds).
- **Organic Acid testing which is essentially looking at the exhaust formed from your body in the form of urine. It’s amazing what we can learn from that exhaust and it tells us about HOW your body is running i.e. how it converts all its raw material into the fuel (and waste) of a functioning body).
The ** above form the Taylored Trifecta testing…our gold standard in preventative medicine diagnostics.
In our next blog post, we’ll double-tap into each of those tests and how they can provide powerful insight into how your body is functioning.
Got questions? Just reach out. We’re here to help you make empowered health decisions.
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