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February 7th, 2010 | in Health and Fitness | Leave a comment

We all need food to survive and one of our greatest pleasures is the variety of foods available to us to satisfy this need. We’re able to differentiate between so many different tastes and aromas and have developed the chore of eating into such a fine art that we are constantly surrounded with such a huge variety foods. We are often tempted to eat far more than we should or to take part in a completely poor diet. Our relationship to food can become completely out of phase, should we be suffering through particular emotional changes or issues. As we are attuned to eating several times each day, unless we are very careful a poor and unbalanced diet may arise, leading to serious health problems.

Only by looking at our general population as an entirety can we truly begin to understand the scope of the problem. The wide-spread problem of obesity in society – and many other problems as well, can be closely linked to what is commonly known as “emotional eating.” When people are suffering from the worst form of this “hunger,” they’re eating to deal with personal issues or to satisfy their never-ending emotional hunger. The cute phrase we often hear is “comfort food” which is a way of describing the process of eating to try and replace, repair or help you forget something else. Unfortunately, our “instant” society provides us with constant access to all kinds of “quick and easy” foods, processed products with almost no real nutritional value, which often have a very high sugar content as well.

When it comes to your own eating habits, it’s crucial that you recognize whether or not you’re an emotional eater. If you find yourself turning to ice creams, pastas and fast foods during times of upheaval, then you are just feeding your addiction. You are not thinking about holistic health solutions or holistic nutrition, but rather going for what you believe to be a quick fix, which in effect is just aggravating the problem. You might feel a short-term comfort or “high” but the consequent low will just make you focus even more on the issues which were there in the first place and have not gone away.

Realize that it may not be easy to overcome your food addiction and your emotional eating habits. The first step is certainly recognizing that you have a problem, but you may need the help of a trained health professional or a support group to intervene to break the cycle permanently. One thing is for sure, we will face challenges and emotional difficulties throughout our lives, but we should try and maintain a physically healthy life as much as possible to enable us to ride this roller coaster best.

Dr. Elson Haas of the Preventative Medical Center tells us that we will need “greater attentiveness and a willingness to deal openly with emotions and other adversities that may block our way to healing.” Analyze your diet very carefully and start planning to kick your sugar addiction, which may well be at the core of the issue. Chances are that whatever is holding you back and helping to create your challenges can be diet related, and if you are an emotional eater, the kind of fuel that you put in your body will not be able to provide you with the mental and physical tools to help you do battle.

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December 28th, 2009 | in Health and Fitness | Leave a comment

As part of a sugar addiction, some people refer to a sugar rush or a sugar high as if it were a psychological reaction to a drug and one linked to exhibited feelings of euphoria and pleasure. The actual sensation is less like a chemical reaction, but more like a reaction to elevated levels of energy provided by the ingredient. However, the initial burst of energy might fade fairly quickly, and will invariably lead to a “crash,” leaving behind headaches and a variety of other unwelcome side effects, which we disregard at our own peril.

When people turn to sugar, they may well be anticipating that additional burst of energy and the ability to “get it together” and face the tasks ahead. What most people just don’t seem to realize is that the consumption of sugar triggers a complex series of events within our bodies. The bloodstream becomes flooded with glucose from the sugars, which our body then realizes it must regulate. At this point, insulin flows out from your pancreas which then works on converting all of this surplus energy into fat reserves. In all likelihood, this probably comes from a time long ago when our bodies didn’t have consistent forms of energy available, and therefore fats are now – just as then, reserved for times of scarcity.

You certainly don’t need to have a degree in medicine to understand that an illness like diabetes should be avoided at all costs. Most nutrition professionals say that hypoglycemia is a precursor to diabetes, and it’s caused – at least partially, due to an ongoing cycle of intense sugar intake and insulin release, causing your body to establish a resistance to insulin, which is absolutely crucial for such regulation.

With sensible holistic health solutions, it’s essential for all of us to carefully watch the amount of simple sugars that we regularly consume. Most of us genuinely believe that we’re eating a fairly balanced diet, but in order to ensure that sugars aren’t masquerading within what may otherwise be thought of as a “healthy” approach, we should always be reading the food labels carefully. It is recommended that you only absorb a maximum of 40g of simple sugar per day. This can be found within one can of soda!

Few seem to follow a holistic nutrition approach to their diets, constrained as we are by our hectic lifestyles, schedules and what appears to be an inability to prepare wholesome meals creatively. We are constantly opting for the easy solution and loading our bodies up with excess fats, too many calories and those ever so sweet sugars. We know that the sugar rush will be followed by a sugar crash, but we do it anyway.

Many of us are proud of the fact that we do not resort to alcohol, drug abuse or cigarettes to get us through life and consider that our diets are sensible and realistic. However, while we may not have any of the more traditional addictions or vices, we may well have a sugar addiction without really realizing it.

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December 20th, 2009 | in Health and Fitness | Leave a comment

A large number of scientists from around the world suggest that sugar addiction can greatly contribute to our bodies changing – and aging, much faster than they otherwise would. It has been suggested that “cross-linking” takes place when sugar molecules attach to protein molecules, causing the linked molecules to alter their function. Some of these molecules accumulate in specific soft tissues which then stiffen over time and become less functional. This can occur in arteries, tendons, cartilage and can result in failure or deterioration.

It has been determined that a high concentration of sugar in the blood is likely responsible for cross-linking and any foods that have such a high concentration, such as sodas, should be generally avoided.

When foods which are high in sugars – commonly known as high glycemic level foods, are consumed, inflammation can occur. This process also invariably releases a very high proportion of free radicals throughout the body.

Comprehensive holistic health solutions direct us towards a balanced, even perhaps defensive approach to nutrition as we get older. Foods which are known to be problematic should naturally be avoided, but we tend to avoid taking an overall view of holistic nutrition and often take shortcuts due to our busy schedules. It is unfortunate that we often put good health far down the list of priorities, until we suffer an unfortunate wake-up call of some kind. We can deduce from this that we do not prioritize our lives correctly and should put good health and longevity right at the top of the list.

When it comes to medical and scientific studies, there are far more than enough of them around to clearly show us that consuming saturated fats and high levels of cholesterol are quite bad for our health, and cause significant symptoms of premature aging too. Sugar may be one of the silent killers, as it is not regarded with such anticipation as those foods which are high in fat. The truth is that sugar has zero nutritional value and has been shown to cause a spike in appetites as well.

Further studies by dermatologists suggest that eating sugary foods can significantly contribute to the development of wrinkles. Once again it is found that when glucose enters the bloodstream it attaches to the proteins used by the body to keep our skin supple and affects their ability to perform. In such situations collagen and elastin are no longer able to help us in our battle against a weathered look.

Aging should be a natural process and we should not contribute to its acceleration. If we were to treat our bodies as a temple and take a much more educated look at what we eat or drink on a daily basis, then we would feel more productive and more able to take on the trials and tribulations that life presents to us each day. Many people preach that caloric restriction extends life expectancy by keeping the flow of insulin in check. Sugar addiction can cause insulin levels to become highly elevated and it follows that we will age far before our time, unless we’re careful.

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December 9th, 2009 | in Health and Fitness | Leave a comment

It is a shame that, as human beings, we seem so vulnerable to excesses, and from a holistic nutrition perspective, sugar addiction ranks toward the top of the list. It is easy to set our bodies off-balance if we do not eat or drink correctly, yet generally we do not realize the consequences of doing so and tend to plow on with our muddled lives regardless. If we paid more attention to our daily eating habits, a vast number of illnesses and diseases could be avoided by most people, and psychologically speaking, we could also lead far more fulfilling lives and have a much more positive outlook on the future as well.

It seems that when we get stressed (and it is very easy to do that these days) our balanced diet becomes a distant memory and we load up on convenience foods and the very inappropriately named “comfort” foods. Processed, simple sugars flood into our diets as we get the quick fix and we believe that we feel better, although fundamentally nothing could be further from the truth.

To function ideally and to really understand the incredible importance of holistic health solutions, it’s essential that all of us adopt an 80/20 approach to our diets and to our bodies. The 80/20 rule will allow you to restore balance to your life, if you apply it prior to each meal.

To understand what the 80/20 rule is all about we need to understand that our body is made up of both acid and alkaline and when these two become out of balance, chaos reigns! All foods need to be alkaline, acidic or neutral, with by far the largest amounts being made up of alkaline forming foods. In this instance, 80% should be alkaline, and the remaining 20% should represent the acid forming foods. This is a long way from the average American diet, unfortunately.

Alkaline-based foods are largely vegetables and fruits and some nuts & seeds, while acid-based foods include animal protein, starch, sugar, alcohol, dairy and some grains. For some reason it has become traditional to serve vegetables as “a side” and in very much smaller portions, whereas according to the 80/20 rule it should be the other way around. Give it a try: 80% alkaline forming food and 20 % acid food on your plate at each serving.

The 80/20 rule also tells us that we should train our bodies to become satisfied before we feel “full.” In other words, when you get to 80%, stop eating. Over a period of time you’ll be amazed how this approach will really make you feel better.

Almost everything that we do, our careers, our personal lives, our aspirations, depend on how we maintain our health. This in turn has a great deal to do with how we eat, and if we apply the 80/20 approach to our diets we can expect to be far more productive, and have longer, happier lives as a result of our holistic nutrition approach.

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November 28th, 2009 | in Health and Fitness | Leave a comment

At present, sugar addiction is responsible for one of the scourges of modern society and a significant problem in the United States among other countries. While a general predisposition toward “fast food culture” and a collective psyche that suggests adequate food preparation time to be inefficient may be a big part of the problem, many experts point towards sugared beverages and sodas.

Over the previous thirty years, the average caloric intake has increased by somewhere between 150 and 300 per day for most Americans. It’s also accurate to say that the average American doesn’t make up for those extra calories with any kind of cardiovascular exercise, and therefore those calories don’t serve any useful purpose other than rapidly increasing the national obesity problem.

Rather than take a holistic nutrition approach, we often opt to take the shortcut and go for foods that we know will give us a little “buzz” of activity, thus assuring ourselves that these particular types of food must be good for us. Unfortunately, very little could be further from being true, and therefore it certainly shouldn’t come as any surprise that the American Heart Association has recently set specific limits on the maximum volume of sugar that they say people should consume each day.

The amount of fructose in our diet, which is widely used in processed foods, has more than doubled since the 1970s. It has been estimated that most people are consuming – on average, more than 22 teaspoons of sugar each and every day, with adolescents consuming a great deal more, most likely due to their inclination for those satisfying soda drinks. It has become widely apparent that in most people sugar is often a precursor to excessive over eating, as one of its primary effects on the brain can make the body feel that it’s undernourished and needs to consume more food.

A limited sugar diet should be an essential aspect of all holistic health solutions. It’s truly unfortunate that the problem has gone so far that politicians have had to suggest additional legislation to discourage the population, as is now being considered by the city of San Francisco for instance, in the form of a fairly significant “soda tax.”

Being overweight can contribute to many different health conditions and can place considerable strain on your heart and most of the major organs. Obesity is a national epidemic in the US, probably more so than in any other country in the world. It is also linked to a lack of productivity, depression and other illnesses.

The number one thing consumers should do to create a path toward a healthier existence is to start reading food labels. Be particularly careful when it comes to the amount of sugar added to processed foods and always pay attention to portion size. This can be very misleading and almost invariably, the size of the portion of food that ends up on your plate is much larger than the referenced portion size on the label!

Take an individual stance and cut back, as the national sugar addiction appears to be getting worse as each year goes by.

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November 23rd, 2009 | in Health and Fitness | Leave a comment

1. If you’re thinking about trying some holistic health solutions, you may want to stay at home (or go on a relaxing getaway) and enjoy a juice diet. A juice fast is basically a restricted diet or a partial fast which relieves your body of the necessary work of normal digestion, so that a great deal of healing can take place. The best juices for these reinvigorating diets are greens with somewhat mild veggies mixed with some of your favorite fruits to make them tasty. In most situations, individuals who are in excellent health shouldn’t have any problem going on a juice diet for six to nine days, but if you’re under a doctor’s supervision – for whatever reason, it’s critical that you consult your doctor first. It’s also extremely important to keep in mind that there are a variety of conditions – such as anorexia, diabetes, hypoglycemia, breastfeeding and pregnancy which make any kind of unsupervised fast or juice-fasting a dangerous proposition.

2. Do some really intense sweating. Spend 30 to 45 minutes in a sauna or steam room (avoid steam rooms that have too much chlorine in the steam), or go to an intense yoga class, or enjoy a really hot bath – just let yourself really sweat. Really deep sweating helps your skin breath – so it can do its job properly, and you can detox naturally.

3. Take up bouncing! Find a mini-trampoline and start bouncing regularly. The exercise alone will be great for your health, but a mini-tram also supposedly targets specific locations in the lymphatic system, helping to improve its overall functioning. The body’s lymphatic system doesn’t have a pump like the heart does, so it can use a bit of assistance. Most gyms usually have mini-trams, so when you go to work out, do your 5-minute warm-up while bouncing!

4. As soon as you wake up in the morning, scrape your tongue before doing anything else. Everyone’s body does a great deal of detoxing while sleeping, and that unpleasant coating on your tongue when you get out of bed (It’s called ama (metabolic debris) in Ayurveda) should be cleaned off before you even have a drink of water. Most dental care aisles at health food outlets – and many drugstores, sell inexpensive tongue scrapers.

5. Make regular use of a Neti pot. For quite some time, the yogis have been recommending “sinus bathing” as a crucial aspect of truly enlightened hygiene, and if you’d like to experience this sensation yourself, you can usually buy a Neti pot (exquisite ceramic ones and inexpensive plastic models) at most major health food outlets. You fill it with a warm saline solution and, following the instructions to the letter, allow the water to flow deeply into one nostril and then directly out the other; then repeat the process with the other side. For most people, this isn’t really a very pleasant sensation, but it certainly clears your head right up.

6. Buy a “dry body brush.” Right before you take a bath or shower, use this extraordinary dry body brush (ask someone at your local health food outlet; it’s a brush that has a removable handle, and it’s specifically intended to be used only on dry skin) to buff your skin, always beginning with the feet first. Then slowly work your way up, making upward strokes on the thighs and calves, strokes from your fingertips to your shoulders on your arms, and fairly gentle circular motions all around your chest, abdomen, and hips; this brush isn’t to be used on your face. By removing dead skin cells through gentle massaging, your skin will be warmed and energized, helping your skin to detox easily.

7. Colonics and Enemas. These are included because they’re commonly considered to be standard detox practices – and many, many people believe in them. Individuals in these circles generally say that people have some kind of toxic build-up – a toxic residue if you will, in the recesses of the colon which needs to be cleaned out.

8. Take a trip to someplace quite and clean. By “quite and clean,” I mean a spot where the air is untainted by civilization (in the mountains perhaps), and where electro-magnetic radiation is almost non-existent. There might be some people who will get frustrated that they can’t get any cell phone service, but it’s really wonderful to get away from it all. If you can take a trip for even just one weekend each season, it’ll make all the difference in the world for your sense of wellbeing.

9. Eat raw foods and make an effort to think loving thoughts. Okay, it’s two recommendations, but just by eating a diet high in raw foods, which is plant-based, even without any kind of fasting or juice dieting, you’ll make incredible headway in your detoxification efforts and quickly eliminate your sugar addiction. If at any time you find yourself experiencing a “detox crisis” – headaches, fatigue – just rest, eat sparingly, and allow it to slowly pass, or if you want to slow down the detox process to a more comfortable rate, then rest and start eating a lot more cooked food. Your thoughts during this process are of the utmost importance: make them loving, to everyone in the world, your body and yourself. This way, you detox not only your body, but the built-up negativity from the deepest recesses of your being.

10. Follow the 80/20 rule. To understand what the 80/20 rule is all about we need to understand that our body is made up of both acid and alkaline and when these two become out of balance, chaos reigns! All foods need to be alkaline, acidic or neutral, with by far the largest amounts being made up of alkaline forming foods. In this case 80% should be alkaline and the acid forming foods should represent 20%. This is a long way from the average North American diet, unfortunately.

Alkaline-based foods are largely vegetables and fruits and some nuts, while acid-based foods include animal protein, starch, sugar, alcohol, dairy and some grains. For some reason it has become traditional to serve vegetables as “a side” and in very much smaller portions, whereas according to the 80/20 rule it should be the other way around. Give it a try: 80% alkaline forming food and 20 % acid food, and experience what holistic nutrition can do for you!

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November 21st, 2009 | in Health and Fitness | Leave a comment

It can be really difficult to focus on holistic nutrition when you suffer from cravings for those sweet, sugary products. When we actually see those temptations around us, it can be even more difficult to stay in control. We only have to travel to the gas station or the corner store for something totally unrelated and right before our eyes we see those enticing donuts in the checkout line or candy bars right next to the cash register. Cravings can be incredibly challenging to handle, particularly if you haven’t eaten anything for a few hours. The combination of feeling really hungry and that intense desire for something sweet can be hard to resist, and most of the time – before you know it, you’ve given in to your sugar addiction once again.

There are a variety of factors within the body that can be responsible for making sugar cravings happen, particularly when it comes to insulin production and long term habits. If, for instance, you’ve accustomed yourself to drinking sugary drinks regularly throughout the day, your body might have become accustomed to large spikes in glucose – and the resulting insulin production, which thereby leads to a continuous level of anticipation in your system.

It’s important to take a really balanced look at holistic health solutions in your life if you find that you are constantly having to fight off those sugar cravings. At this point, an essential area for you to give your attention to should be the balance of your overall diet. Sometimes you may not be getting as much protein as you should and you may need to realize that what your body is really asking you for is protein and not sugar.

As we’ve said before, temptations are virtually everywhere, and most of the time you can’t do much about their location. However, you can certainly clean your house of these temptations, where you have overall control and this means not stocking up on those tempting “after dinner” treats, or that carton of “Ben and Jerry’s,” sitting in its special place in your freezer!

You should know that there is a difference between simple processed sugar and sugar that is already contained within foods. Processed foods and candy bars, processed juices and soda drinks all contain sugars that contain zero calories or nutritional value and these are responsible for that “high” and subsequent low. Fruits, on the other hand, contain naturally occurring sugars which interact with your body in an entirely different way. We know that nutritional experts are always preaching at us to eat more fruits and vegetables and if you can get into the habit of eating an item of fruit every day, you will get beneficial fibers, vitamins and minerals as well.

Do not underestimate the power that this sugar addiction can have over you. You will need to make significant dietary changes and have a lot of willpower to be able to get through the early stages. Pay attention to everything that you buy in the grocery store from now on and read the labels to reveal your best buying choices. A sensible approach to holistic nutrition along with a few other holistic health solutions will soon help you to overcome your sugar addiction.

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November 17th, 2009 | in Health and Fitness | Leave a comment

Food has to be one of life’s most extraordinary pleasures, yet for some reason or another, most of us have a tendency to ignore holistic nutrition, failing to realize its incredible importance as we satisfy our desires for unhealthy foods on a daily basis. We focus on imbalance, allowing sugar addiction and other food cravings to adversely affect our lives. Fundamentally, food is a source of energy, enrichment and nutrition and dietary plans should be designed accordingly. We are eating certain types and quantities of food and drinks to enable our bodies, being the machines that they are, to function correctly.

The human body is extremely complex, and it takes an astounding interaction between all of its organs to function correctly. This amazing miracle of nature can be rather hardy, but just like any other reliable machine – over time, it’ll start to fail if it’s not taken care of regularly.

Due to our ingenuity and thirst for knowledge, our scientists have been able to determine how our body works with optimum efficiency and how we can live our lives with the goal of productivity, enjoyment and longevity in mind. If we pay attention we know that we should be ingesting certain types and quantities of food and drink, but the problem is that we rarely listen!

Most holistic health solutions require us to lead a truly balanced dietary approach, with a fundamental condition being moderation. As a species, we are lucky to have such a huge variety of foods available and once again our creativity has given us very many different ways of preparing and eating. Despite having all these options, and understanding all too well that we have to eat a balanced diet if we would like to live a long and healthy life, we still choose the easy, satisfying choices, and eat and drink all kinds of foods and beverages that are terrible for us.

Holistic nutrition clearly shows us that we need to avoid eating convenience foods, even though we often say we don’t have enough time to prepare a balanced meal. We now know that without a balanced diet and good health, nothing else matters and we should go out of our way to rectify the situation, before it is too late.

A wide variety of foods should be consumed, high in nutrients, with whole grains, organic fruits, vegetables, raw organic dairy, organic poultry, wild fish, lean organic meat and an assortment of beans and seeds. Processed sugar and highly flavored artificial foods and drinks should be avoided.

To start planning a healthy diet, take a good look at what you eat for at least a week. Write down everything and if you can, add nutritional values as found on labels, alongside. Remember to be honest about your portions, as this can make a significant difference. When you look back and analyze your diet, you will likely see that you are eating way too much fat and an inordinate amount of sugar. You must consolidate in both of these areas, as you are leaving yourself open to a variety of health problems and a general lack of productivity in your daily life. Don’t forget to add in all your snacks as well and you will surely see how you need to zero in on the benefits of holistic nutrition!

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July 24th, 2009 | in Health and Fitness | Leave a comment

No matter what, your wrinkles aren’t going anywhere. True, wearing jewelry can distract people from seeing them as the late Norwegian Olympic figure skater Sonja Henie once said. The appearance of wrinkles will always be about aging and lost years since many women can not purchase jewelry to take the focus off them. probiotic bacteria

First, the bad news: wrinkles are inherited and a natural part of the aging process and there’s no way you can escape them. You will be able to keep them from appearing so quickly. As a demonstration, the following are recommendations from MightyMicrobes.com.com, home of Probiotic health solutions like Proherb EM Wrinkle Gel, the secret to beautiful skin:

Avoid the sun. You may want to take some guidance from vampires who really don’t like the sun. There is an excellent reason behind this. Ultraviolet rays from the sun can wreak havoc on your skin’s condition, including wrinkles, age spots, and an overall old look. Stay inside between 10 am and 4 pm to be best protected from the sun. Between 10 am and 4 pm the rays of the sun are stronger than at other times. If you can’t stay home, protect yourself with the right clothes and a wide-brimmed hat. You don’t have to sleep in a coffin though. probiotic formula

Choose the right sunscreen. Labels should be read for most effective protection. The higher number the SPF is the better the sun protection provided. You should be careful of UVA and UVB rays, and ensure that you’re covered against both. On all parts of the body that are exposed, use liberally. After swimming or perspiring heavily you should reapply. Also reapply after two to three hours.

Be sure to hydrate the skin. This is able to extend the time before wrinkles appear. Highly priced products aren’t always better so pick one that works for you and will not bother your skin.
One easy way to moisturize the skin is to drink plenty of water. Do not overdo it or drown!

Give up your smoking habit. Smoking not only makes your lungs look ugly, but it makes your skin look bad, too. Stop at this moment or it might be too late. If you’re not smoking, don’t start. probiotic products

You should not mimic Jim Carrey. When he makes his silly facial expressions, children as well as grown-ups laugh. But having a rubber face can take its toll on the skin. Experts say that repeated facial movements like smiling frowning, squinting, and other facial expressions can lead to wrinkles. Any time you use a muscle to frown or smile, a groove forms under the skin. As the skin ages, it loses its elasticity and can’t spring back into shape. This leads to age-telling lines on your face.

If you use the correct probiotic supplements, you can have skin without wrinkles and it is easy to do. MightyMicrobes.com uses effective micro-organism-EM technology to produce products that make a difference in human health. This unique technology was discovered by Dr. For over twenty years, Teruo Higa has been utilized around the world. For more information, visit MightyMicrobes.com.

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