What does "Holistic" mean and how does it work?
Holistic - Concerned with wholes rather than analysis or separation into parts.
As such, the holistic approach takes into account a multitude of aspects like nutrition, exercise, mental and spiritual state, and various other lifestyle factors such as stress levels, sleep patterns, and more. The focus of the holistic approach is on the wellbeing of the whole system, in our case the human body, rather than any one singular aspect. The holistic approach is designed to heal the body from the inside out! Remember the word heal, we will come back to it again.
This means that in order to achieve an improvement in health leading to a state of optimal wellbeing we do not tackle a particular weakness or symptom one at a time, but rather strive to give the body all the necessary fuel, be it physical or psychological, to balance itself out and achieve total health.
Whether the goal is to reduce bodyfat, gain muscle mass, strengthen the immune system or deal with other issues like chronic disease or weakness we seek to strengthen and improve the body as a whole. This means that if our goal is to decrease bodyfat and favourably improve body composition, it would not make sense to just change the diet or start exercising and do nothing else. Many factors play a role in the body's metabolism, including eating correctly for your metabolic type, reducing stress, stimulation through proper exercise, getting adequate rest, and more. A holistic approach incorporates all of these factors together into developing a client-specific program that is designed to address the needs of that person's body.
This also means that no two holistic programs are ever the same! Since every individual is different, so then is the path that is taken to achieving optimal health, fitness, vitality, and balance.
This, then, leads us into the differences between the holistic approach and the allopathic approach.
Differences between the Holistic and Allopathic Approach:
First, what is the allopathic approach, you ask? Good question. It is virtually the exact opposite of a holistic approach. Rather than being concerned with the whole, the allopathic approach is concerned with treating symptoms. It is a prescription based system whereby all individuals with a certain symptom get prescribed the exact same treatment. The allopathic approach is concerned with treating. The word treat is another one we need to keep in mind.
The allopathic approach is the predominant approach in all aspects of the medical and fitness fields right now. The medical profession is one example of the allopathic approach. This should not come as a surprise since what medicals doctors practice is called Allopathic Medicine. If you have a symptom, you get prescribed a pill to treat it. So if you have a headache, or a sore knee, or an aching tooth, or a fever you get prescribed an ibuprofen to reduce the symptoms. What might be a surprise however is that most fitness and nutritional protocols currently used are allopathic in nature as well!
If ten seemingly identical, overweight people walk into a dietician's office one after the other, most likely they will leave with the same identical nutritional programs. This, then, doesn't take into account their metabolic type, or any other biochemical or lifestyle imbalances. Or if ten people walk into a gym looking to gain strength, it is likely that they will all be given the same weight training routine. This, then, doesn't address the client's nutritional habits, body composition or muscle fiber ratios, or, indeed, other lifestyle factors.
Allopathic medicine, as we have already described, and as most of us are aware, also prescribes one treatment for the same outward symptoms. This doesn't take into account, however, the biochemical individuality of every single person, which means that every single one of them might have a different underlying reason for the appearance of identical symptoms.
The allopathic approach, then, is designed to treat symptoms. It doesn't look at the underlying root of the problem.
The holistic approach is designed to heal from the inside out! It is used to simultaneously stimulate and balance all of the systems of the body so that they may work properly together to give the person optimal health and help achieve other desired goals.