by Danielle LeBaron and Stephanie Anderson 

Every January, something familiar happens at Selene River Press.

While the world rushes headlong into resolutions, resets, and bold new promises, Mark Anderson does something quieter. Slower. More deliberate.

He goes back to fundamentals.

Not because he’s out of new material. Not because there’s nothing else to talk about. But because, year after year, he reminds us that without a strong foundation, nothing else holds for very long.

If you’ve been part of Mark Anderson Webinar Wednesday for any length of time, you may have noticed this rhythm too. January is not about chasing the next trend. It’s about returning to what matters most: structure, regulation, and adaptation. These are the basic conditions that allow the body to preserve itself over time.

This post serves as a contemplative reflection on several January webinar teachings across different years that, when viewed together, reveal something important about how Mark thinks and teaches his foundational nutrition principles.

Four webinars in particular illustrate this pattern beautifully:

• The Three Triads of Physical Preservation (January 3, 2024)
• Ionized Calcium and Immunity (January 17, 2024)
• Trace Minerals: Life and Death – Part One (January 1, 2025)
• Winter Ills (January 2020)

Taken together, they point to a truth that’s easy to forget in modern health culture: Health is not built by accumulation, endlessly adding more biohacks and fixes. It is preserved through the foundational principles, by natural laws that maintain order.

Mark has never treated January as a clean slate. Instead, he treats it as a moment to re-orient our thinking before the year fills up with noise. Noise from a corrupt Big Pharma that cares only for the dollar, or a medical world that enables illness with drugs rather than healing. Mark is here to combat that noise.

The Three Triads of Physical Preservation

Mark opens the first webinar of 2024 without a rush into detail. Instead, he establishes intention.

“It’s always good to start the year with some of the very basic tenets.”

At first glance, the phrase “basic tenets” might sound simple. Mark is quick to clarify that simplicity is not the point. Health is complex, and there are countless factors that influence how the body functions. What matters, he explains, is identifying what must come first.

As the session unfolds, it becomes clear that this webinar is less about information and more about orientation. The triads are introduced as a way of organizing thinking rather than reducing the body to a checklist.

“What we’re really talking about are the things that allow the body to hold itself together over time. Physical preservation depends on structure, regulation, and the ability to adapt. If those are not in place, it doesn’t matter what else you try to do.”

This statement reframes what “the basics” actually mean. Mark is not referring to beginner concepts or entry-level nutrition. He is talking about the conditions that allow the body to remain intact and functional over time. Structure provides stability. Regulation allows coordination. Adaptation makes resilience possible.

Without these three basics, even well-intended efforts become reactive.

Mark reinforces this point by explaining why prioritization matters so deeply.

“There are many important things you could focus on, but if the body does not have the basic requirements for structure and regulation, then everything else becomes compensatory. You’re no longer preserving health; you’re trying to manage loss.”

This is one of the clearest expressions of Mark’s philosophy. Preservation and compensation are not the same thing. One supports function. The other manages decline. The triads are meant to help listeners recognize that difference and adjust their thinking accordingly.

By beginning the year with this framework, Mark establishes a lens through which everything else can be understood. That lens carries forward into each of the January teachings that follow.

Trace Minerals: Life and Death, Part One

On New Year’s Day 2025, Mark once again chooses fundamentals as his starting point. This time, he turns his attention to trace minerals.

The topic may seem narrow at first, but Mark quickly makes it clear that the implications are anything but small.

“Trace minerals are required for life. They are not optional. They are involved in enzyme systems, and without those enzyme systems functioning properly, the body cannot regulate itself the way it’s designed to.”

Rather than framing trace minerals as supportive nutrients, Mark presents them as regulators. Enzymes drive nearly every physiological process, and trace minerals allow those enzymes to function. When they are missing, the body does not simply slow down. It loses its ability to coordinate.

One of the challenges with trace minerals, Mark explains, is that their importance is easy to underestimate precisely because they are needed in such small amounts.

“One of the reasons trace minerals get overlooked is because they’re needed in such small amounts. But the absence of something small can create very big problems. When trace minerals are missing, systems begin to break down quietly, long before obvious symptoms appear.”

This insight aligns closely with the triads discussed earlier. Regulation depends on presence, not quantity alone. Trace minerals may not draw attention to themselves, but their absence undermines the body’s capacity to adapt.

By placing this webinar at the very beginning of the year, Mark reinforces a familiar message. Before asking the body to perform, defend, or recover, its regulatory foundations must be intact.

Ionized Calcium and Immunity

Two weeks later, Mark continues building on the same foundation, this time through a mineral many people believe they already understand: Calcium.

From the outset, Mark signals that this is a continuation of earlier teaching, not a departure from it.

“Earlier in this year, I gave a review course on the importance of ionizable calcium, because ionizable calcium is what allows cells to communicate. It’s what allows muscles to contract, nerves to fire, and systems to coordinate with each other.”

By focusing on ionized calcium, Mark shifts the conversation from static bone storage to dynamic cellular function. Communication, movement, and coordination all depend on calcium being available in its active (ionized) form. Without it, systems lose coherence.

This has direct implications for immunity; a topic Mark approaches with characteristic restraint. Rather than framing calcium as a treatment, he highlights a consistent physiological observation.

“When you look at infectious conditions, one of the consistent findings is low serum calcium. That doesn’t mean calcium is a treatment. It means that without adequate ionizable calcium, the body does not have the resources it needs to respond appropriately.”

He goes on to clarify that calcium is the first domino to fall in triggering the phagocytic process that engulfs and destroys all pathogens in the body. Calcium, therefore, does not kill the bug; it enables the process.

Once again, the theme of structure emerges. Immune responses require coordination. Coordination requires mineral sufficiency. Calcium, in this context, becomes another example of how foundational elements support higher-order function.

Placed in January, this teaching reinforces the same principle seen in the trace mineral discussion. Defense is only as effective as the structure supporting it.

Winter Ills

The earliest of the four webinars, Winter Ills from January 2020, shows that this January approach has been consistent for years.

Rather than focusing on specific illnesses or seasonal threats, Mark reframes winter as a test of preparation.

“It’s not exposure that determines whether someone gets sick. Exposure happens all the time. What determines the outcome is the condition of the body, and that condition is built long before the winter season arrives.”

This perspective shifts cause away from external threats and toward internal readiness. Winter does not create weakness, Mark explains. It reveals it.

Later in the webinar, he summarizes this idea with striking clarity.

“Health is not something you react to once symptoms show up. Health is something you prepare for. Winter simply reveals whether that preparation has been sufficient or not.”

This teaching ties seamlessly back to the triads, trace minerals, and calcium. Preparation depends on structure. Structure depends on regulation. Regulation depends on foundational inputs.

Winter, then, becomes a mirror. It reflects the work done months or even years earlier.

Why This Pattern Matters

When you step back and look at these January teachings together, a clear pattern emerges. Mark returns to fundamentals not because they’re easy, but because they’re essential.

He teaches minerals not as isolated fixes, but as parts of an organized system. He talks about health not as something to chase, but something to preserve, just as he is preserving the teachings of Dr. Royal Lee.

And now, it is your duty and privilege to preserve those teachings in your homes and practices.

An Invitation to Go Deeper

The webinars mentioned here are only a small glimpse into the depth of Mark Anderson’s teaching. Webinar Wednesday is where this thinking unfolds month by month, layer by layer, patiently building understanding over time.

If this way of thinking resonates with you, the invitation is simple.

Keep learning. Keep refining. Keep returning to the fundamentals that allow the body to hold itself together.

When you subscribe to Webinar Wednesday, you’re not just gaining access to past and future webinars. You’re stepping into a long-form education that values clarity over noise and foundations over trends.

Because when the basics are truly in place, everything else finally has room to work.

Images from iStock/Yellow duck (tree), Ljupco (two men). Main image from SRP.