Have you ever heard the phrase, "life is a balancing act?" It’s the idea of achieving a healthy mental-physical state with a good blend of work, play and other activities. The health of your body at the biochemical level is also a balancing act involving many metabolic pathways communicating and interacting with each other within the cells of our organs and tissues – in other words, metabolic balance. When your body chemistry is out of balance, your mind, body and life are out of balance. If you’re wondering how to get a healthy body, your best bet is to address whole body balance with the help of a holistic medical doctor.

Holistic Approach to Whole Body Balance

Do you suffer from unexplained weight gain, anxiety, high blood pressure or other unwanted conditions? Numerous seemingly unrelated symptoms may chronically plague you because of metabolic imbalances. Unfortunately too many well intentioned doctors and healers may try to treat your symptoms without finding what is causing your afflictions in the first place.

To facilitate your journey to long-lasting health and wellbeing, it’s important to maintain metabolic balance with a holistic approach. A metabolically directed functional medicine test by a holistic medical doctor can help you get to the bottom of a variety of health problems caused by a metabolic disorder. This approach will help you take the important first step of identifying factors in your internal and external environments that are the underlying cause of your health problems. Genetic predispositions combined with over-exposure to certain external factors, such as toxins, carcinogens (smoking, etc.) and unhealthy foods, can cause you to have a metabolic imbalance.

Achieving Metabolic Balance

A wholesome diet and a healthy lifestyle are the most important factors in improving and restoring your health. But sometimes, underlying imbalances are hard at work preventing you from achieving whole body balance despite your best efforts. Some of the most common metabolic imbalances that you may be suffering from include:

• Electrolyte Stress

If your electrolytes (minerals that carry electrical charges) are imbalanced in your body fluids (like blood and lymph), all your other systems will be compromised because your transport system won’t work properly. Electrolyte stress leads to elevated blood pressure, cardiovascular disease and problems with the transportation of nutrients and waste products throughout your circulation and tissues.

• Electrolyte Insufficiency

Your mineral intake may be too low or abnormal adrenal and kidney functions can prevent your body from retaining the adequate amounts of healthy minerals. This imbalance can cause you to have low blood pressure, fatigue, depression, dizziness and other symptoms.

• Anabolic (Anaerobic) Imbalance

Instead of using oxygen to produce energy, glucose is fermented by your metabolically active cells into lactic acid. This imbalance can lead to excess acid levels in your tissues and simultaneously excess alkalinity in your systemic circulation. Symptoms manifesting from an Anabolic (Anaerobic) imbalance can include constipation, dizziness, depression, fatigue, low energy, muscle spasms, kidney stones, joint and muscle pains, high blood pressure and many other maladies.

• Catabolic (Dysaerobic) Imbalance

Instead of combining glucose with oxygen to produce energy, glucose "burns" excessively producing free radical damage and excess oxidative stress. This imbalance can lead to excess alkalinity in your tissues and simultaneously excessive acidity within your systemic circulation. Symptoms manifesting from a Catabolic (Dysaerobic) imbalance can include diarrhea, fatigue, dizziness, migraine headaches, joint pains, insomnia, elevated cholesterol and various other problems.

• Glucogenic Imbalance

You may have trouble burning fat in the production of metabolic energy (decreased utilization of beta-oxidation). Therefore, the Glucogenic imbalance leads you to be overly reliant on burning carbohydrates to produce energy. This will lead to low blood sugar with all of the ramifications of hypoglycemia including excessive hunger, weight gain, emotional problems, inability to concentrate, anxiety and fatigue.

• Ketogenic Imbalance

You may have trouble burning carbohydrates in the production of metabolic energy (decreased utilization of Krebs cycle). This ketogenic imbalance will lead to elevated blood sugar levels, excessive insulin levels and eventually insulin resistance, diabetes, heart disease, and obesity. Additionally this imbalance in which you are overly reliant on burning fat to produce energy, can lead to fatigue, emotional disturbances and many other symptoms.

• Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) Imbalance

Many people have very sensitive autonomic nervous systems and can overreact to external and internal stimuli. This can lead to overstimulation of both the Parasympathetic (PNS) and Sympathetic (SNS) nervous systems. This condition is also known as Dysautonomia. Since the ANS controls all bodily functions, Dysautonomia can contribute to virtually any symptom you could possibly imagine, high or low blood pressure, palpitations, anxiety, depression, irritable bowel syndrome, headaches, restless legs, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, dry eyes, watery eyes, dry mouth, excess saliva, constipation, ulcers, insomnia, high blood sugars, dry mouth, immune system problems and erectile dysfunction. The list of possible symptoms is endless.

Now do you understand why trying to treat a symptom is so futile? Any and all symptoms that you suffer from are to some degree the result of one or more metabolic imbalances.

A holistic medical doctor can perform a thorough evaluation and run tests on your stool, urine, saliva and blood to give you more details about your metabolic balance. With the help of nutritional and supplement programs to balance and restore your body’s functioning, your symptoms will diminish, and you’ll be well on your way to whole body balance.