Posts Tagged health

… nutrients. The vitamin C that works best in the body is not the ascorbic acid found in most health food supplements. In fact, the ascorbic acid is not vitamin C, rather it is the protective …

What You Will Learn in This Section:

1. The Missing “Activity Secret” for a Raging Metabolism
2. A Special Tool That You Can Use to Keep Your Metabolsim Stoked All Day

Call me an optimist but I am going to assume that if you are considering yourself a seasoned practitioner of the wellness lifestyle, you already workout 4-5 times a week. In this section I am not going to waste time preaching to the choir about the benefits of activity and exercise. Instead, I am going to spend our brief time together teaching you an advanced technique that is designed to supercharge your metabolism all day long. If my assumption is correct then you exercise for 30-60 minutes a day, 4-5 days a week. During this 30-60 minute period, your metabolism elevates as the energy manufacturing engines get firing. What happens after your workout is complete? Well, depending on the intensity of the workout, the metabolism can be elevated for a few minutes or a few hours before it returns to normal. What if we could increase your metabolism all day long instead of just for two to three hours during and after your workout?

So let’s get into this amazing technique, it’s simplicity is going to blow you away! All you have to do to take advantage of this powerful technique is get up and do 2-3 minutes of oxygenating activity every 30-60 minutes or so. By getting up out of your chair and doing thirty jumping jacks, a few minutes of jogging in place, some push ups or chair squats you will boost your metabolism, activate fat burning enzymes, burn up sugar and keep those energy producing engines of your cells firing away. Here is the magical piece of the principle,your metabolism doesn’t immediately return to normal once the activity stops. It takes about 30 minutes for your metabolic engines to get the signal to back to baseline. At that point you kick them back up by doing 2-3 more minutes of activity. More magic happens, metabolism is the key to feeling energetic. By activating your metabolic pathways regularly throughout the day you will energize and oxygenate all of your tissues. The bottom line…you feel much better! You may also sleep better.

Now let me tell you about my greatest obstacle in putting this technique to use. When I first started practicing this technique I would find myself getting caught up in my work and forgetting to do my 3 minutes of movement. I was still much more active, but I was not utilizing this principle to its potential. So, I did some research and found a tool that is so simple and so ingenious that I wished that I had thought of it first. This product got me up and moving every 35 minutes on the dot! The product is called The Invisible Clock II. This tiny pager-sized timer can be set to have a repeatable countdown that either vibrates or beeps to alert you that it is time to move. I set the repeat timer and every 35 minutes it beeps or vibrates to remind me to spark my metabolism with 2-3 minutes of activity. I have felt more energetic and creative throughout the day, probably due to the increased circulation to the brain.

We simply can not separate our thoughts from our physiology. You must make your mind healthy to allow your body to heal. How do you do this? If you are an angry person, learn to smile. If you are a worried person, learn to trust. If you are a dishonest person, learn to tell the truth. Your mind and spirit must be in harmony to achieve optimal health. In a moment, I am going to tell you about my all time favorite book for helping to control worry.

Healthy mind, healthy body. This is as much a law of nature as the law of gravity. It has been my experience that someone who spends one-half their time with a negative mental attitude will experience approximately one-half the health of someone who spends the majority of their life under the blanket of a positive mental attitude. If you follow any of the steps listed here, follow this one. If you live with a positive mental attitude, I guarantee that you will have dramatic improvements in your health! No matter what ailment you may have, a positive mental attitude will provide relief in one way or another.

The great modern day philosopher, Napolean Hill said it best when he said,“Every negative event that happens in one’s life holds with it the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit, simply seek out that seed in every negative experience you have.”

Many people have no idea how their mental state impacts the physical body. There is now an entire science that studies how the mind can impact the immune system, it is called psychoneuroimmunology. It has been known since the early 1900s that the mind impacts the body in many ways. One day I stumbled upon an old book for sale called How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, written by Dale Carnegie. This book is over 65 years old and I believe it to be one of the best books ever written on the subject of worry and mental state. He focuses a number of chapters on the discussion of how the mental state impacts health and gives many examples and techniques for changing your thought process. This book is an absolute must read.

Digestion, the Key to Health

Simply put, your body must be able to take something from the outside world, break it down into its smallest parts, and absorb those parts to be able to build and repair. If digestion can’t get those building blocks to areas in need of repair, then those tissues can become diseased.

Why is Our Digestion So Dysfunctional?

1. Lack of raw fruits and vegetables. In his book, The Enzyme Factor, world renowned physician and inventor of the colonoscopy writes about his experience in exploring the colons of thousands of patients (healthy and sick). During his “explorations”, he discovered that the health of the colon was almost always a good indicator for the health of the body in general. He discovered that fruit and vegetable intake was a strong indicator of colon and overall health. He started placing his sick patients on a diet high in raw fruits and vegetables. Soon his sick patients began to feel better and better. When he re-explored the colons of his previously sick patients, he noticed that their digestive tracts were far healthier as well! He hypothesized that fruits and vegetables contain an enzyme building block, he deemed the Enzyme Factor which improves digestion and catalyzes the regeneration of the body’s 100 trillion cells.
2. Overcooking our food. Processing and heat damage or destroy the fragile enzymes that are naturally found in raw foods. This will ultimately lead to a deficiency of enzymes, vitamins and proteins.
3. Too much fluid intake at meals. By drinking large quantities of fluid with meals, we dilute the digestive juices. This results in a stomach environment that does not permit optimal digestion.
4. Eating on the run or in a stressed state. Stress of any kind can virtually paralyze the digestive tract. When we eat in a stressed state, the body diverts blood flow to the extremities and brain and away from the digestive tract.
5. Excess weight. Being overweight can cause numerous digestive problems from heartburn to gall bladder dysfunction.
6. Lack of exercise. Exercise and activity is a well-known stimulant to the digestive tract. Sedentary people commonly suffer with constipation, gall bladder problems and reflux. Activity is the catalyst of growth and repair in the body, it makes sense that the body will kick up digestion in response to exercise in order to get and deliver building blocks to the cells of the body.
7. Antibiotic use. When we take antibiotics to kill off an infection, the trillions of healthy bacteria in the gut, that are a critical component of digestion and elimination, are also impacted.
8. Chronic use of antacids. Antacid medications are used judiciously in our society. These medications were designed for short-term use while the patient recovered from a digestive event, such as an ulcer or digestive injury. Today, these medications are prescribed as a lifetime treatment for heartburn. In our opinion, this is having a catastrophic effect on the health and vitality of our population due to the fact that it prevents proper digestion and assimilation of the nutrients that we consume.

7 Steps to Good Digestion

There are a number of steps that one can take to improve digestion. So here are my tips for proper digestion:

1. Sit down while you eat.
2. Take 10 long, deep breathes before eating. This will reset the nervous system so that blood flow is diverted from the extremities to the digestive tract where you need it most.
3. Do not “preload” your fork with your next bite of food until you are done with the current mouthful.
4. Limit fluid intake at meal time. Drink fluids in between meals.
5. Concentrate on your food with appreciation while you are eating instead of the television or newspaper.
6. Consider taking a digestive enzyme with each meal. The plant based digestive enzyme that we use with great success is called Tyler Similase. This enzyme works throughout the entire digestive tract to help the body break down and assimilate the nutrients within your food.
7. Eat raw fruits and vegetables with each meal.

There are a few simple rules to follow when choosing the foods that are permitted to enter your mouth. Remember, every year all of the molecules in your body have been replaced with entirely new molecules. Those molecules will be comprised of the molecules that you put in your mouth through your food. So, it would make good sense to fill your body with healthy, living enzymes and nutrients.

This section will introduce you to natural eating, it is not a full course on healthy eating but it should give you plenty of information to get you started.

Rule number one, follow the golden rule: “Eat foods in the package that nature provides!” You don’t see orange juice growing on a tree, you see oranges growing on a tree. Follow this rule and you will be half way to a healthy diet. You see, when you drink a glass of orange juice you are getting the sugar equivalent of 4-6 oranges. This sugar has been liberated from the fiber of the pulp and is thus much more readily absorbed into the blood. Whenever sugar enters into the blood at such a fast rate it reeks havoc regardless of whether that product comes from fruit or not. It is much healthier to eat the whole orange. You will get the fiber and the extra bioflavonoids! This rule goes well beyond OJ, if you apply it to the majority of your diet, you will literally change your health in one swoop. It is THAT powerful. You don’t need to learn complex rules, count calories, or read packages, just eat REAL food from nature as often as possible.

Rule number two, nutrient density decides the quality of food. Nutrient density has to do with how much nutrition there is in a food in comparison to how many calories are present. High levels of nutrition and low calorie count make for an ideal food. Any food with low or average nutrient levels along with high calorie levels is considered unhealthy. If you eat lots of vegetables and fruits while following the Golden Rule, then you can almost never go wrong. Pick the fruits and vegetables that are the most colorful as these will have the most healthful qualities! Although you can not always guarantee the presence of vitamins and minerals, you can always guarantee the presence of healthy phytochemicals such as carotenoids by merely looking at the product. These phytochemicals are what give fruits and vegetables their vivid color.

What About Meat?

There is a lot of controversy regarding how meat impacts your health. On one side of the story you hear the high protein arguments and on the other the vegetarian arguments.
If we look at our Paleolithic ancestors, it is estimated that 45-85% of their calories came from animal sources such as fish, insects, birds, amphibians, mammals, etc. Scientists estimate the daily protein intake of Paleolithic man to be 300-400 grams of protein per day, along with 200 grams of fat.  (Sisson, Mark. Primal Blueprint)

The debate surrounding vegetarian versus omnivores living is ridiculous because it is possible to be very healthy or very unhealthy eating either way. Personally, I choose a omnivore lifestyle that includes large quantities of fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds. I choose lean meats and consume these lean sources of protein with most of my main meals. If you choose to be vegetarian, you must be sure to supplement with sublingual B12 and consume plenty of sources of vegetarian protein. Regardless of whether you choose a vegetarian or omnivore lifestyle, there is one rule that you must follow to enjoy optimal health…

Third, cut out refined carbohydrates such as bread, pasta, white rice, candy and sugar as much as possible. There is nothing good coming out of these foods but taste. We do not need to drop them out of our diet completely, however, we do need to significantly limit their intake. With a little self-discipline we can learn to love healthier foods like we love these nutrient poor, carbohydrate based products. If you can achieve these goals, you will be well on your way to optimal health!

If you would like a great book suggestion to get you started on the path of healthy eating I would highly suggest Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson. This book really helps people understand a healthy diet and provides TONS of great health tips that you can put to use right away.

Finally, drink your water! Few people realize just how important water intake is to your body’s health. I have seen peoples energy skyrocket, blood pressures drop, allergies improve,  and memories return to youthful levels, simply by drinking more water! Here are some tips for working more water into your lifestyle:

1. Keep a 32 oz bottle of water on your desk, sip at it all day long. If you freeze it over night you can sip at it as it melts throughout the day. If you do freeze it please be sure to fill the bottle only two-thirds the way to allow the water to expand.
2. Get a NSF certified filter for home use and USE IT! A good filter is New Wave 10-Stage Filter .

Congratulations on taking the first step towards health and vitality! This guide is designed to provide you with the basic “next steps” in your journey toward optimal health and vitality.

If you are new to natural healing you likely have one or more of the following complaints: Low to “average” energy levels. Trouble sleeping or you don’t feel rested when you wake. You are taking 2 or more medications and you are tired of the side effects. You have recently been diagnosed with some sort of health condition (most commonly heart disease, osteoporosis, high cholesterol, high blood pressure or diabetes).

You can’t explain it fully, but you “just don’t feel well”. You are overweight and want to lose weight. Regardless of how or why you got to us, the likelihood is that you have a healthy degree of skepticism and are interested in unbiased information that will help you make major improvements in your health. Remember, our goal is major improvements in your health! We don’t just want your lab reports to look good, we want you to feel energetic, vibrant and healthy.

We have 5 main goals when starting someone on the path of natural healing, we will provide plenty of scientific data and clinical examples throughout your experience with us. Remember the proof is in YOUR EXPERIENCE.

This section is for people who have been reading, studying and practicing natural health. If you are just getting into natural products, then I suggest starting with our section Beginner’s 5 Steps which is specially designed for your introduction to the natural approach to health. If you are already on a supplement program and have a passion for natural products then this section should help you take the next steps.

Our goal in this section is not to make you an expert in natural health but to help you make meaningful and sustainable improvements to your program. We will teach you some of our advanced techniques for making major improvements in your health. We will focus on five main areas of interest for people who are already naturally oriented. Hopefully, you will continue your path to growth through our online newsletter, articles and health protocols. These areas are the five areas that you will focus on today.

In people who have been taking Fosamax for long periods of time. A spontaneous fracture occurs when the bones break for no apparent reason; an example would be simply walking down the street or standing in a subway. To see the report on ABC NEWS click, Fosamax Scare: Those with Osteopenia Gauge Risk .

In the news story, they interview a doctor who had been taking Fosamax for osteoporosis for many years when the femur, one of the strongest bones of the body, broke in half while standing in a subway train. Another woman they interviewed, broke her femur while simply walking into another room of her house. Imagine just how weak the bone must get in order to break so easily.

This may seem like news to many, however, we reported on this issue a long time ago on our radio show. Fosamax, and any medication in the bisphosphonate class, works by preventing the body from clearing out old brittle bone. Over years, it gives the appearance of strengthening the bone, however, the truth is, it is simply causing the body to retain old, brittle bone. This chaotic bone structure will weaken even if the density appears to be improving or remaining the same. The FDA is stubbornly refusing to alert doctors to this potentially fatal effect of this useless class of medication.

The bottom line is, we must stop looking to the pharmaceutical industry for a solution to a problem that is almost entirely attributed to diet and lifestyle. You can stop osteoporosis in its tracks and even reverse it if you take the proper steps. See ourOsteoporosis Protocol for details.

As this fat builds up it damages the delicate machinery of the cell, ultimately leading to complications and disease. While reading various studies on how this fat gets into places that it shouldn’t, I came across a study that was investigating the impact of high fat versus high carbohydrate intake on the burning of fat. While reading the study I was fascinated and horrified by the method used to block the burning of fat in the healthy subjects who took part in the study. How did they do it? How did they block the healthy participants’ bodies from burning fat?

They gave them a popular blood pressure medication.

That’s right, they gave them a medication called a “beta blocker” that is very commonly prescribed to overweight, obese and diabetic patients with high blood pressure. This class of medication is, more accurately, called a beta adrenergic blocker. This means that the medication blocks certain receptors which bind to adrenaline, a hormone produced by the body which causes the heart to race, the blood vessels to constrict and thus blood pressure to increase. By blocking the beta adrenergic receptors of the body, the heart does not beat as strongly or as fast and the blood vessels relax thus lowering blood pressure. Unfortunately, the beta adrenergic receptors on fat cells get blocked as well and thus a decrease in fat loss occurs as well as an increased propensity to store fat.

Does anyone see a problem with this?

As I mentioned previously, the people who are most prone to high blood pressure are people who already have too much fat in their bodies. These include diabetics, people with pre-diabetes, as well as the overweight and obese. We give these people a medication which further inhibits fat use thus stoking the fire of their metabolic difficulties. Perhaps this is why many studies on these medications have resulted in an increased risk of disease and premature death. That’s right, not only have studies not proven these medications to prolong life, many have even shown them to shorten life.

It never ceases to amaze me how the medical establishment can turn a blind eye to the side effects of their treatments. The use of beta blockers to inhibit fat loss is apparently a standard practice in research studies and yet medicine just brushes it aside and convinces themselves that this class of medication is safe to use in overweight and obese people who are already afflicted with fat-clogged cells.

We need to open our eyes and accept the fact that medications are not nearly as effective as they are made out to be. We need to convince ourselves that the right approach is to take the reins of health into our own hands and although it is not as easy as popping a pill in the morning it is far better than the delusion that there is a medication for every disease…that, ladies and gentlemen, is nothing more than a mirage created by the drug industry.

For those of you who have high blood pressure and may have been prescribed a beta blocker such as propranolol, metoprolol or any other generic medication ending in “olol” I am not recommending that you stop your medication. In fact, to do so may cause a rebound elevation in blood pressure that could put you in the hospital or worse. I am simply saying, perhaps there is a better way to control blood pressure. In our experience, people can start living the right lifestyle can find that the need for the medication decreases or goes away as they get healthier. At this time you can work with your doctor to start weaning yourself from the medication. If you would like to learn more about natural methods for controlling blood pressure, check out our article onHigh Blood Pressure. If you are looking for help developing a healthy lifestyle, learn about First Line Therapy that we offer at our wellness center.



Little did they know that one of these rare mice would radically change the way that we view that glob of fat that hangs out around your midsection, butt or thighs.

In 1902, a French researcher named L. Cuenot began to research a special yellow mouse that was popular among mouse enthusiasts. This mouse, known for its peculiar propensity to gain fat, began a domino effect in the science world that ultimately led to one of the most important discoveries in the study of fat!

As researchers continued to study naturally fat mice, they happened upon a mutant strain of mouse that seemed to suffer many of the same complications attributed to obesity in humans. This mouse, referred to as the “ob” mouse suffered with:

1. High insulin levels
2. High stress hormones
3. Low sex hormones (estrogen & testosterone)
4. Low body temperature
5. Low thyroid
6. Lots of body fat
7. High levels of infertility

The investigation of this strain of mouse led researchers to believe that there was some compound that was lacking in these mice that caused them to gain fat. That labeled this compound a “satiety factor”. Then in the 1970s, a researcher performed some of the most interesting and bizarre research that I have ever heard about. He surgically joined a “normal” mouse to one of his ob mice. The mice were attached in such a way to mimic Siamese twins where the two mice share a blood circulation. When he did this, the normal mouse stayed normal and the fat mouse got skinny. This proved that there was some sort of chemical that the fat, ob mouse was lacking. When the mice were sharing the blood circulation, the “satiety chemical” from the normal mouse entered the ob mouse and thus he became “normal”. That chemical came to be known as “leptin” which is now believed to be the greatest discovery in the bariatric sciences. Scientists were excited because they felt that they could purify this compound and inject it into overweight people to literally “cure” their obesity! They succeeded in purifying it and proceeded to clinical studies.

You can imagine their dismay when they discovered that leptin injections had no effect on overweight subjects. When further study was performed on overweight subjects they discovered that they were not deficient in leptin but instead had far more leptin in their blood than their skinny counterparts.

This just didn’t make sense. If leptin eradicates hunger and stimulates metabolism, why would it not cause weight loss? The only feasible explanination was that the body had somehow lost its ability to register the leptin that was floating through the circulation. This same phenomenon occurs when too much insulin is floating through the system which leads to insulin resistance and ultimately diabetes.

What is leptin and why is it important?

Your body, which is really a community of trillions of smaller individual living cells, must be perfectly orchestrated in order to maintain life. This orchestration is coordinated by certain compounds called “hormones”. Hormones allow the trillions of cells within the body to communicate with each other. Leptin is one such hormone, in fact, leptin appears to be the mother of all hormones. This means that if leptin gets out of balance then other hormones such as insulin, cortisol, thyroid, testosterone and estrogen also follow.

Leptin’s main jobs are to regulate eating, metabolism and reproduction.

If the brain is the President of your body then leptin is her chief of staff. When resistance to leptin occurs, it appears to prevent leptin from getting signals to the brain. The brain then gets a constant signal that the body is starving for food and nutrients. This results in a number of physical manifestations to PERCEIVED starvation:

1. Decreased metabolism – To slow your demise due to starvation
2. Insulin resistance – To enhance fat storage when food is once again available.
3. Thyroid deficiency – Slows metabolism to prevent starvation.
4. Infertility – Reproduction requires lots of energy. If the body feels that you are starving then it does not deem you suitable for reproduction. After all, if you can’t feed yourself how will you feed a little one?
5. Hunger and cravings – This motivates you to find food.

So where does leptin come from?

Scientists use to think that fat cells were nothing more than a depository for fat. The discovery of leptin forever changed fat from an annoying blob of goo to an endocrine organ on par with such big players as the thyroid, testicles, adrenal gland, ovaries and pituitary gland. Now fat is known to produce many hormones that play important roles with everything from fat storage to reproduction. In fact, fat may become known as the most important endocrine organ to ever be discovered!

Leptin, is the fuel gauge of the body. It continuously reports to the brain to tell the brain how much fat we have stored up and thus how likely we are to starve to death should famine rear its ugly head. The more fat we have the higher the leptin levels go and the more leptin signals reach the brain. In an ideal world, as fat builds up the brain gets the signal to stop sending hunger signals and start metabolizing fat.

Having fat stored up protects the body from starvation and thus improves its chances of survival during famine. The body, however, does not want to be “fat” or “obese”. Remember, our body is an outdated model. It is built for Paleolithic days where food was scarce and danger seeming lurked behind very bush. It wants some fat to prevent starvation, however, it doesn’t want you to be the slowest creature in the herd because that would make you more likely to get caught and eaten by a lion. Leptin, therefore, must continuously balance fat stores with being lean and agile. Leptin resistance would never have occurred in Paleolithic days because food was just too scarce.

Now, you can see how important the regulation of leptin is in your fat loss efforts as well as the quest for youth and vitality. Once you understand leptin and what causes leptin resistance to occur you will be better suited to achieve the body and health that you desire!

How do I balance letpin?

1. Cut carbohydrate intake – Carbohydrates cause an increase in insulin levels which can ultimately cause insulin resistance. Anytime insulin resistance occurs, so too does leptin resistance.
2. When you eat carbohydrates choose carb sources that have a very low glycemic load- Low glycemic-load foods decrease the amount of insulin produced.
3. Exercise daily – There is no faster way to improve leptin sensitivity than to start exercising regularly.
4. Try not to eat 3 hours before bedtime – Leptin levels should be highest in the evening and lowest in the morning; thus you should be hungry in the morning and not in the evening. If you are hungry in the evening; this suggests leptin resistance.
5. Sleep at least 7-9 hours a night – Sleep deprivation causes lower leptin and higher ghrelin–the perfect storm for overwhelming hunger.