Scott first heard about Living Well Balanced when Sam (one of our team members) was shopping where he works. “Sam told me about how this is a good place to keep in shape and help support a healthy lifestyle and I wanted to do that. I was working out on my own and doing a pretty good job, but I wanted support and I got that from you guys.” Scott also did a Dietary Analysis as part of his initial exam. “There were things I was scared to eat, like the complex carbs that Dr. Janet told me to eat more of. I had lost 60 pounds in the past year, and so I was eating just very small meals and was pretty scared of food. I found out that I can eat things that I want to eat as long as I do it in moderation. I’ve also seen a difference in my body; my muscles have gotten a little bigger and I feel healthier. Overall my posture has gotten a lot better. And at work, I’ve learned to engage my core more so I don’t strain any muscles.” Anna came with Scott for his consultation and follow up report. Her reaction? “I was amazed — the way the Living Well Balanced team looked at him as a whole — I thought that was so cool, and I thought, I want to do that too! I had a lot of back and neck issues that I hadn’t been able to get help for. My insurance company kept passing me around to different orthopedists barely even looked at or touched my back. They just kept sending me to get x-rays, MRIs, and bone scans and talking about what might be wrong. After six months no one had done anything to help me with my pain — I had gotten no treatment whatsoever.” “Here the adjustments and massages helped a lot; I feel so much better. I used to have really bad headaches, too — they would last for days and days. Now, I almost never have them, or if I do, it’s just for a few hours. “I just want to say that I think the people here are amazing and it’s great to work with everyone here. They’re so friendly — we feel well taken care of and motivated — we love everyone here.”

Dan first came to Living Well Balanced like a lot of our practice members do — he was referred by co-workers. When asked what they said that drove him to make an appointment, Dan replied, “Our business is very competitive and high stress — long hours, tight deadlines, dealing with clients at a high level, and lots of travel. People talked about how Living Well Balanced helped them to decompress. That’s true, but what I found when I came here was, it’s a way to change my mindset and internalize new behaviors that I could then carry into my daily life.” “I already ate pretty healthy, but Dr. Janet and Kelsey gave me practical tips and tools about eating that turned out to be the biggest and most helpful thing here. Just the protein shakes alone have been a game changer for me. The value proposition at Living Well Balanced is (yes, Dan talks like that — he’s a consultant!) having everything under one roof — eating right, stretching, chiropractic, working out, yoga — all as part of taking care of yourself and being mindful.” “You put all that together with a wealth of institutional knowledge, cemented by positive reinforcement over and over again that creates incremental change in your life. Everyone tries to be somewhat healthy, work out once in a while, and eat right. This is the place where you can take all that to the next level and make real changes that stick in your life.” Lindsay, Dan’s wife, followed Dan through our doors about 6 months later. “He wouldn’t shut up about it! I started feeling a little bit left out — he’d rave about how good he felt, and I want to feel that too. I was already working out, but I wasn’t doing anything like adjustments, stretching, or massage, which have made me feel better in my body.” “Massage has been huge for me — Diego is amazing; I’ve learned so many weird random things from him. Coming here is personal and informal — like a family. You guys want to know us people and about other parts of our lives. If this felt like a doctor’s office, it wouldn’t be as inviting and I wouldn’t want to come every week. I leave feeling like a new person — relaxed, good, healthy, and positive.” As Dan says, “This isn’t the place to be going through the motions — you get out of it what you put into it.”

David first came to Living Well Balanced in 2013 when a friend told he that we were different. David was looking for more than chiropractic —he wanted to get in shape and improve his eating habits too. When David started with us, he had the typical “office workers” issues — neck, upper back and shoulder tension and pain, combined with really lousy posture, and some extra padding around the middle. David was concerned and rightfully so! He was determined to turn these issues around before they seriously damaged his health. David began a regular program of massage, personal training, and chiropractic adjustments that have literally transformed his body and how he feels. He has completed the 21 Day Purification program not one, but two times. He credits this program with helping him incorporate long-term changes in his eating habits, and continues using the shakes and working with Dr. Janet on his nutrition. “I couldn’t believe how much more energy I got from doing the 21 Day; my memory and concentration improved, and muscle fatigue vanished. Not to mention I lost 10 pounds and 1.5 inches off my waist! Take that, belly fat!” His current goals are to continue improving his posture, overall fitness and health, as well as putting on more muscle. Go David! David says that from the very beginning, “I was impressed by how organized everything is as Living Well Balanced — from testing to developing and implementing an integrated plan that focuses on the full person, not just isolated parts. Every member of the LWB team takes the time to listen, answer questions, and they share their own health experiences to help me be healthier. I always feel like I’m part of the family when I walk in there. That’s why I’m still here, and I’ll keep coming until I physically can't for some reason (like if I move away from New York).”

Eve Epstein heard Dr. Prakash speak at a meeting of the Holistic Moms Network over 11 years ago. “My first child, Asher, was probably about nine months old when I first started going to the meetings, and I was always searching for that thing, that modality that would keep my son healthy. So every month some kind of practitioner would speak — homeopathy, essential oils, and I tried some of those things. But when we started the chiropractic, it was the first thing that really worked.” “Now Asher is 11, and I have two more children — Skyler who is 6, and Isla, going on 2. Sky and Isla have been adjusted from the time they were born. There were times in the past when I brought the family in to get adjusted less frequently, but over the past few years I’ve kept them on a regular schedule of two times a week in the winter and once a week in the summer.” “Now my husband Jeff is on board too, so all five of us come. Chiropractic adjustments are what we rely on to keep everyone healthy. When the kids are sick we don’t run to the doctor we run to the chiropractor, and when they’re well we run to the chiropractor too, cause that’s what keeps us well. We rarely get sick and when we do it’s really nothing. We’re so grateful to have Living Well Balanced here for us.”

Ethel was no stranger to chiropractic when she first started coming to Living Well Balanced in 2012. She was introduced to chiropractic by a friend when she lived in California, because she had neck pain and headaches. She was taking lots of Advil because of this, but she knew there had to be a better way. Ethel says, “When I move to New York and was looking for a chiropractor here, I saw good reviews for Living Well Balanced on Yelp.” That and the fact that we have late hours during the week and are open on weekends got her in the door. What keeps her coming? “I see progress, and I know that the massage, adjustments, and stretching are all part of being healthier in general. Also the Living Well Balanced team keeps me accountable. I need a program to keep me on track, and I get that here.” “Not only that, there are such good vibes here, Dr. Ankur joking around, everyone knows what’s going on with me… It’s like Cheers — it makes it easy to come!”

Peggy has always been a survivor. She survived profound trauma and abuse from an early age. For 25 years she smoked, recreationally did drugs, and drank. She was diagnosed with stage III breast cancer in 2007 and survived surgeries, chemotherapy, and radiation. Peggy says that by the time she heard Dr. Janet speak at Gilda’s Club earlier this year, she had realized that "I had been living in a sick world my whole life and could never leave it because I didn’t know how to get to anywhere else.” She was fascinated by Dr. Janet and her conversation about “a wellness world where true healing takes place, instead of just survival.” So she committed herself to getting better, which she successfully did recently. When Peggy saw her Wellness Report grade from her initial exam, she realized that “this was the best I could do on my own — sedentary and depressed.” Peggy took a huge leap of faith, by paying in full for a year-long program encompassing chiropractic, massage therapy, personal training, and nutrition. “I knew that if I didn’t commit to a year I would never come back. But I didn’t know it would be so much fun — that’s the surprise!” Peggy recalls. Peggy lives over and hour away, and her severe PTSD caused her to be scared all the time and have panic attacks on the train. “I couldn’t believe I was actually doing it! From the beginning, everyone here helped me every step of the way, and meeting me at my level.” Peggy’s work with our personal trainers has made a profound difference for her. Her childhood abuse caused her to be terribly disconnected from her body; to the point that she didn’t even feel it was her own. “I didn’t know how to do the most basic things, like how to manage cooking in my kitchen, or organize my furniture so it worked better for me. I literally didn’t know how to move.” “The trainers teach me how to apply exercise and movement to my real life. I’m learning these things that I can go home and put to use and it makes my day better. The Meal Prep seminar that Kelsey gave helped me so much — now I know how much food I need to cook to take care of myself, and how to do it.” “My energy was so blocked in a negative way, but [at the center], the parts of me that are right got recognized and revealed, and my wounded-ness went away. I feel totally different about my body, and I’m amazed — I can’t ever remember feeling this safe in my life. I’ve entered a world where nothing’s the same — everything’s different — I shed something. This place has magic that puts me back together where I felt really broken.”