St. Cloud VA Embracing Whole Health Concept

(KNSI) – Dr. Sean O’Mara joined KNSI’s Bob Hughes Monday morning for Veterans Affairs, discussing the idea of “Whole Health.”

O’Mara says before you can make the appropriate lifestyle changes, you have to understand the benefits from doing so or they won’t stick. He says the concept takes root when it becomes a focus on incremental, everyday behavior modifications.

“It starts with an attitude of mind, and then it helps you make better decisions throughout the day, and throughout the week that start to align your body toward where it should be to meet the goals that are important to you. Your lifestyle…what you want to be able to do better, how you want to enjoy life more.”

He uses a personal example to make his point.

“I put a video out last week. I shared it on social media and I woke up this morning, and lo and behold, it had had 2,000,000 views. What it was was a video of myself and my identical twin brother when we had been apart for five years. I had turned myself around and become healthy, and it’s a remarkable difference between the two [of us.]”

Whole Health is a goal-based approach to care. It is centered around finding out what is important to each veteran. O’Mara says most want to retain physical health as they age to maximize time with family.

O’Mara says cutting out processed foods is one of the biggest steps to becoming healthier. Less bread and more produce, meat, and dairy. He says a good tip is to shop around the edges at the grocery store rather than in the center aisles.

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