The Academy is our 12-module program focused on food, sleep, stress and exercise
We use it to accomplish our corporate goals and mission.
This entire program was developed by Dr. Brian Sekula, a former NASA research scientist, college professor, speaker and author.
There are a lot of issues regarding medical care for chronic conditions. Foremost is our treatment paradigm. We prescribe medication to “control” a number (blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, etc…) without addressing why the number is elevated.
Additionally, our food policy program leaves a lot to be desired. We focus too much on “quantity” of food and not enough on “quality” of food. We worry about fitting a 100 calorie cookie after lunch, when lunch was crappy to begin with. If you think it’s crazy, consider this: Our food policy prevents eggs from being labeled as healthy but not Pop Tarts!
Finally, there isn’t a good, strong and consistent message about how important proper sleep and stress management are to our health. There is a mindset that we can diet and exercise our way out of any and everything.
Making sense of Nonsense
In The Academy, the focus is on Food, Sleep, Stress and Exercise.
When it comes to food, our calorie obsession creates a lot problems – metabolic problems, cravings, mood issues, hunger, etc… In The Academy, we talk about how and why these issues happen and how the foods we eat can eliminate them over time. Standard diets focused on calories don’t do this – as I’m sure you know. There is nothing more enjoyable than a “diet” that keeps you hungry and cranky all the time. With our focus on hunger, we avoid that.
As for sleep, we cover step-by-step guidelines on improving the quality of your sleep. The problem is, most of us do things (unknowingly) that keep us from falling asleep properly. This means we have to play “catch-up” all night long. Because we’re playing catch-up, we don’t go through all the necessary sleep cycles and we wake up tired. We fix those unknowingly things in the Sleep Module and most of our participants start sleeping better right away.
As for stress, it’s amazing what a good night’s sleep can do to your stress levels! You’ve probably experienced it. But we also cover additional stress-reducing techniques people can do, most of which have never been considered.
And finally, when it comes to exercise, it’s not about burning calories. Sure, burning calories is important. But there are other and more important benefits to exercise. For example, let’s say you take a 3-mile walk. For the average person, this will burn 225-300 calories. Not much when you consider 3 Oreo Double Stuff Cookies have 220 calories! What’s really great about the 3-mile walk is that you are improving your support system – bones, connective tissue, and importantly, your vascular system, which helps your metabolism and circulation. Helping your metabolism means your body gets better and more efficient at burning calories – a very good thing. A better circulatory system means you get better at delivering oxygen and other nutrients throughout your body. If you have hypertension or type 2 diabetes, this is EXTREMELY important to maintaining the health of your nervous system, kidneys, eyes and more. So there is much more to exercise than burning calories. But you have to do it correctly, and that’s what we cover.
This philosophy is how we help you make sense of the nonsense.
This approach works because it gets to the root of the problem – why your blood sugar or blood pressure is high – and fixes it. This leads to a much healthier and happier you. A you that is likely to get off some (or most or all) of your medications.
And by comparison, it’s relatively easy.
Content, Recommendations and Delivery
That was our philosophy above, here are some details…
For most “health” and/or “wellness” programs, the focus is twofold: 1) Eat Less Food and 2) Do More Exercise.
This approach belies the complexity of our metabolism. Further, when people are unable to follow this simple set of rules, we place the blame on them. They don’t have the mental willpower to stick with it. Hunger, for the most part, is not about willpower. Hunger is about access to energy and nutritional state. In other words, if you have a metabolism that struggles to burn fat, coupled with a diet low in nutritional value, you are going to be hungry. Conversely, if you have a metabolism that doesn’t struggle to burn fat, coupled with a diet that feeds the body, you won’t be as hungry. We cover these topics in the first two modules of The Academy – How and Why the Body Gets Hungry. In the “How” module we cover the physical aspects of hunger – how our food choices influence hunger. In the “Why” module we cover the mental aspect – how food choices influence our brain, which influences our behavior.
Here are the 12 Modules in The Academy
Each of these modules includes the following:
- A main article for reading
- A Module Guide (pdf) with step-by-step instructions telling you exactly what to do
- A video covering the main article and Module Guide
- An “Additional Resources” section which contains more helpful material, including audio, helpful articles and more
Additionally, we have a recipes section that contains items to prepare that meet all of our guidelines and recommendations. Currently, our two most popular recipes are: Home made Mexican Coke Ice Cream and Greek Vinaigrette Salad Dressing.
Delivering our Content
This is the exciting part because we can explain the research and discuss our recommendations. It allows us to have a real impact on helping those enrolled in The Academy.
We deliver the content in several different ways:
- 1-on-1 Coaching: This is a 1-year program, with experts in Nutrition, Health, Mindset and more helping you along the way. This option also includes a monthly group coaching call, where you are connected with others in the 1-on-1 Coaching Program.
- Presentations: This is for our corporate clients and involves us going on-site and delivering the presentations listed above to the employees enrolled.
- Online: This is completely on your time. You log in and follow the program per our recommendations.
Most of our corporate clients choose some combination of the above, depending on what they need and want.
All members also receive our Module Email service, which includes two emails per module with additional information, help, support and guidance.
The last important thing to mention is our regularly scheduled online meetings and private Facebook Group. These are available to all of our members and serve as additional coaching, guidance, support and a place to get all kinds of questions answered. We vary the days and start times of these so that all members will have the opportunity to participate.
So what do people experience?
We are going to look at this in a couple of different ways: 1) the Corporate experience and 2) the Individual experience.
For the Corporate Experience:
Significant reductions in targeted medications on a pre- and post-basis. This leads to lower costs for those on self-insured plans. Overall, we see about a 40% reduction in targeted medications. Further, we are especially good at type 2 diabetes. For example, we have a 100% success rate at helping type 2 diabetics get off or change their insulin requirements. Similarly, it’s about 50% for some of the name-brand (and more expensive) type 2 diabetes medications – Januvia, Invokana, etc… We also recently published a case-study for a type 2 diabetes focused program. The employer was spending nearly $700k per year on three different insulin drugs, and within 15 months we were able to reduce that by over $450k. (We give you a copy of this case study when you sign up for our email newsletter, which you can do at the bottom of this page).
Beyond these tangible results, we help bring some level of comfort to company leadership. The constant worry of budgeting for healthcare is lower when the number of transactions decreases.
For our Individual Experience
There are two, overarching and important outcomes for individuals that go through The Academy:
- Less worry. We all want to look and feel better. Regardless of what most of us would say, deep down, we don’t like being a guinea pig for the pharmaceutical industry. So if there is a way to provide hope for people to get off their medications, we offer it.
- More confidence. These go hand-in-hand, but just knowing how the decisions you make impact your health brings confidence. Prior to The Academy, many people put very little thought into food or exercise choices. After The Academy, their understanding has increased and they know what to do.
The level of importance for these two outcomes cannot be overstated.
To finish up, this shows typical outcomes within the first month of being in The Academy.
So 84% of the people that enroll in The Academy experience less hunger and eat less food during the first month of the program, yet they have more energy. This may seem paradoxical but it’s not.
So who should enroll in The Academy
First, any company that provides insurance to its employees should consider it, particularly if self-funded. All employers, and by extension, employees, pay too much of their premiums to cover chronic conditions. This is where we have the biggest impact.
The Academy was designed for two groups of people: 1) Those diagnosed with any combination of high cholesterol, high blood pressure or type 2 diabetes; and 2) Those at risk for any of this conditions. Those at risk are defined as “pre-” any of these conditions, having a number of risk factors or a family history.
Unfortunately, this means about 75% of the adult population in the US is a candidate for The Academy.
Second, any individual that meets one of the above criteria should enroll in the 1-on-1 Coaching Program or the Online option.
Now you need to make some decisions
You can enroll in one of these options below
