ThinkFood is about well-being, nutrition and human function. How do you perform at optimal levels whilst being drowned in your dose of daily stress and anxiety? Have cornflakes with added iron and folic acid always been part of the human diet? How do you recreate an image of yourself that smiles back at you when looking into the mirror?
We’ve found a lot of answers for you
Sorry, no universal quick fix here, but individuality counts for something, right?
We deal with people as uniquely functional organisms, not Type A or B, not Apple or Pear shaped, not depressed or bipolar, but how much what and when? Why the sleepless nights and the always ripe pimples on the back? By now we have a fair idea of why certain bodily functions provisionally shut down and others are completely overworked – all owing to individual particularity. As complicated as this sounds – it’s not. You stand a good chance of improving AND fitting into your favourite pants. But who said looking good is everything? Laugh again. Mess around. Tinker and play. Without feeling self-conscious.
Blogs and philosophy
Since Dr Google is the most consulted Doctor on Earth, we would never discount the value thereof. Being a trained and certified pharmacist myself however, i’ve had my share of selling and researching drugs – utilising my knowledge to dissipate Dr Googles overload of info, myths, suppositions, speculations, facts, studies, and countless wandering souls reports. This Blog is the result of never-ending research, updates, open source collections, comparisons and news, worthy spreading, critically compiled by scientists. All contributions, corrections and suggestions are very welcome. Since most sufferers know more about their ailments than their doctors do, we never discount patients reports, instincts, or questions. Without detailed case research, no client can be individually assessed, much less helped or treated.
This blog in no way attempts to substitute the advice of a medical professional or discounts any opinions voiced by such. It aims to offer alternatives following the principles of Think Food: individual assessment starting with understanding the person and her situation, nutritional correction, the individual optimisation of metabolic state. Pharma-Reps would impoverish dealing with us and the new bestseller-book on diets doesn’t fit onto our shelf.
Functional Nutrition Standards
Functional medicine emphasises a definable and teachable process of integrating multiple knowledge bases within a pragmatic intellectual matrix that focuses on functionality at many levels, rather than a single treatment for a single diagnosis. Functional medicine uses the patient’s story as a key tool for integrating diagnosis, signs and symptoms, and evidence of clinical imbalances into a comprehensive approach to improve both the patient’s environmental inputs and his or her physiological function.
The Institute for Functional Medicine teaches health care professional’s how to apply these principles in practice through an intensive 5 day training course called Applying Functional Medicine in Clinical Practice™.
I attended and completed the inaugural AFMCP™-SA training in Cape Town in 2012.
A Whole Person Approach
Although his main focus, nutrition is not the only variable in achieving an optimal health and maximum well-being with a client. Chris studied Integrative Medicine at the University of Stellenbosch.
Integrative Medicine is a healing-oriented medicine that takes account of the whole person (body, mind and spirit), including all aspects of lifestyle. It emphasises the therapeutic relationship and makes use of all appropriate therapies, healthcare professionals and disciplines, in an evidence-based approach. In essence, Integrative Medicine seeks to combine the very best of conventional, complementary, alternative and traditional medicine in a new paradigm of healthcare. This new paradigm not only incorporates existing practices, but transcends each of them to define an entirely new system of healing.
The Who of Think Food
Christoph Lenz (that’s me) is a pharmacist as well as nutritional coach, specialised in nutrition and drug information. After having studied in Düsseldorf as well as Cape Town, Chris graduated in Germany and entered the big world of pharmaceuticals: Doc Morris and Grey Healthcare Advertising in Cologne. In 2004 his diagnosis was clear: multiple sclerosis. Life had to change. Not just a bit. A lot. The research started.
Since his relocation to Cape Town Chris has predominantly focused on ‘problem cases’ (auto-immune diseases, diabetes, rheuma, MS, Hashimotos, cancer, etc) and families up in arms about if the lunchbar goes into the lunchbox.
“I am choosing to meditate rather than medicate”, Christoph Lenz is OFF his ‘disease modifying’ drugs (interferon since adopting the Paleo Lifestyle in 2012.
