Top 10 Healthy places to visit or live!

Today’s Re-Powering Information – Your environment has a great influence on your physical, spiritual and mental health. Who you are surrounded by and the environment you are in influence your mood, habits, attitude and ultimately your actions. If the first thing you do when you rise and the last thing you do before you fall asleep is listen to the local news, you will be filled with thoughts of worry, fear and negativity. If you read an enlightening book, start or finish your day in a meditative state giving thanks, you will be in a different mood.

As I have told you, I have not watched the news in about 20 years with a few exceptions like when I am by myself in a hotel room and I surf the channels as I am getting ready for my day or winding down. This past week I was in Long Beach California and in quickly surfing past the news channels, the reports were horrific, from gang killings and drive by shootings to even more very graphic violence. It was disturbing.

Last fall I was in Colorado Springs and could not help but notice the news. The talks were about the weather for hiking, the water temps for kayaking, the sunrise and sun set for the nature trails to open, the outdoor festival going on in town and so on. It was so refreshing. I was just reading a copy of Outside Magazine and saw their latest report on America’s Best Cities. It’s no wonder that Colorado Springs is listed as one of their favorites. If you are planning your next vacation or maybe your retirement or investment home, you might consider these picks. Also click on the link for the top 10 favorite small best cities. I’ve visited 5 of the 10 cities. So I have a lot to aspire to travel to.

Outside Magazine, August 2009

Best Towns 2009

America's Best Cities

Healthy. That's the word we kept coming back to. And we don’t mean a fit or skinny population; we’re talking about a city’s cultural vibrancy, economic well-being, and overall quality of life. Presenting our picks for the 10 best cities in America.

Seattle

Seattle (courtesy of Seattle's Convention and Visitors Bureau)

How We Ranked Them

First, we started with the 100 most populated cities in America, using public data to rank them on factors like cost of living, unemployment,

Where to Vent

Still think we screwed up by not picking your town? Let us know in our forum.

nightlife, commute time, and access to green spaces. Then we took the 28 candidates with the highest overall averages and put them through a second round of number crunching, comparing things like the percentage of the population with college degrees, income level in relation to home prices, and weather. The wild card? Our own multisport factor, which rated each of our finalists on a scale of 1 to 5 for quality and proximity to biking, running, paddling, hiking, and skiing. After adding it all up, we had our top ten.

10. Charlotte, North Carolina

9. Cincinnati, Ohio

8. Minneapolis, Minnesota

7. Portland, Oregon

6. Albuquerque, New Mexico

5. Boston, Massachusetts

4. Austin, Texas

3. Atlanta, Georgia

2. Seattle, Washington

1. Colorado Springs, Colorado

PLUS: Our 10 favorite small towns

Have an extraordinary day!

Hormones in fat loss, fitness and health!!

Today’s Re-Powering Information - My friend Nicole wrote some great information about hormones and how they play a role in fat loss, fitness and health. So much of how we feel is hormonally related. They control many of the symptoms we experience and we can influence them to be regulated naturally by how we sleep, what and when we eat, how we manage stress and so on. I’m passing it along to you as she wrote it.

As promised, I want to write about sugar/ insulin/hormones how they relate to fat loss or lack of fat loss. While I am not an expert in this area, I certainly can shed some light onto the topic as I best understand it. There is a lot more to the hormone story than I will present here, so these are just some basics:

Insulin- this is the number 1 hormone that needs to be controlled carefully in order to lose body fat. The better you control insulin , the leaner you will be. The very best way to control this hormone is by consuming low grams of carbohydrates at each meal and those carbs should only be of the highest quality and have a lower glycemic rating. When carbs are consumed beyond the moderate level, insulin is triggered and this happens rapidly. The fat storing, anabolic acting hormone goes right to work at reducing the sugar in the blood. If calories are high (and possibly even if they are not, fat storage is likely to result). Once in a while is not a big deal, but day after day this will cause weight gain and create the HABIT of over-consuming carbs. It is the refined carbs that you need to avoid, not the wholesome nutrient rich vegetables, fruits, and whole grains.

To control weight gain and increase fat loss- control carb consumption.

Leptin- hormone responsible for regulating appetite and metabolism. Do not fast and get plenty of sleep. Skipping meals as well as sleep deprivation lowers leptin level. Leptin is helpful in controlling appetite.

Side note from the web:

Fructose and leptin resistance- A study published recently suggests that the consumption of high amounts of fructose causes leptin resistance and elevated triglycerides in rats. The high fructose diet rats subsequently ate more and gained more weight than controls when fed a high fat, high calorie diet

Ghrelin- hormone that increases appetite. It is also affected by lack of sleep, which increases the levels of this hormone.

Growth Hormone- This hormone can be stimulated easily with resistance training as well as plyometric or some types of intensity training such as sprints and plyometrics.It is very important to simultaneously has adequate nutrient intake in order for the growth hormone to be effective in muscle building and fat loss. This is an anabolic hormone and creates muscle growth. If there is an over abundance of refined carb consumption this hormone gets shut down.

Cortisol- stress hormone that flows through the body and is caused by many types of stressors. Life stress, emotions, feelings and even high duration cardio or over training. It is a catobolic hormone that weakens the body, breaks down muscle tissue and decreases immunity.Since you can not control so many factors in life that cause stress, you are best able to CONTROL YOUR REACTIONS to them. I know , easier said than done. Reading books about happiness, how to re-evaluate situations, and quotes are all helpful in reacting with a more positive attitude.

Glucagon this hormone is involved in carbohydrate metabolism. It is when carb consumption is low. I is a hormone that helps to release stored bodyfat.

This is the reason I emphasize the importance of keeping your overall glycemic load of each meal in check when fat loss is your primary goal. Hope it helped.

End

The standard of success in life isn't the things. It isn't the money or the stuff -- it is absolutely the amount of joy you feel.

--- Abraham

Have a restful weekend!

12 Compelling Reasons to Ditch Stress from Your Life

Today’s Re-Powering Information – Yesterday I shared breathing techniques for health and de-stress. Today Dr. Mercola shares more reasons and ways to relieve stress. I know the stress many of you are under, but we are made to be at peace. Read on to see all of the reasons why you don’t want to be in a chronic state of stress. I think you will be interested to read what happens to your body when you eat under stress. It gives a whole new meaning to stress eaters.





12 Compelling Reasons to Ditch Stress from Your Life





Dr. Mercola''s Comments


Dr. Mercola's Comments:



What is “Stress”?

The classic definition of stress is “any real or imagined threat, and your body’s response to it.” Celebrations and tragedies alike can cause a stress response in your body.

Some stress is unavoidable. Some mild forms of stress can even be helpful in some situations. But a stressor becomes a problem when:

* Your response to it is negative.
* Your feelings and emotions are inappropriate for the circumstances.
* Your response lasts an excessively long time.
* You’re feeling continuously overwhelmed, overpowered or overworked.

It’s important to realize that all your feelings create physiological changes. Your skin, heart rate, digestion, joints, muscle energy levels, the hair on your head, and countless cells and systems you don't even know about change with every emotion.

Marc notes that Americans, in general, tend to eat under a state of stress and anxiety.

While under stress, your heart rate goes up, your blood pressure rises, and blood is shunted away from your midsection, going to your arms, legs, and head for quick thinking, fighting, or fleeing.

All of these changes are referred to as the physiological stress response.

Under those circumstances, your digestion completely shuts down. So a major problem with eating while your body is under the stress response is that you could be eating the healthiest food in the world, yet you won’t be able to fully digest and assimilate that food, and your body will not be able to burn calories effectively.

How the Stress Response Affects Your Digestion and Health

The stress response causes a number of detrimental events in your body, including:

* Decreased nutrient absorption
* Decreased oxygenation to your gut
* As much as four times less blood flow to your digestive system, which leads to decreased metabolism
* Decreased enzymatic output in your gut – as much as 20,000-fold!

Many nutrients are also excreted during stress, particularly:

* Water-soluble vitamins
* Macrominerals
* Microminerals
* Calcium (calcium excretion can increase as much as 60 to 75 mg within an hour of a stressful event)

As if that’s not enough, your cholesterol and triglycerides also go up, while gut flora populations decrease. You’re also more likely to experience increased sensitivity to food and gastroesophageal reflux, or heartburn.

But perhaps most importantly, when your body is under the stress response, your cortisol and insulin levels rise.

These two hormones tend to track each other, and when your cortisol is consistently elevated under a chronic low-level stress response, you’ll likely notice that you have difficulty losing weight or building muscle.

Additionally, if your cortisol is chronically elevated, you’ll tend to gain weight around your midsection. We’ve known for some time that body fat, and especially visceral fat (the fat that gathers around your internal organs, around your midsection) is a major contributing factor to developing diabetes and metabolic syndrome.

The bottom line?

When you eat under stress, your body is in the opposite state of where you need to be in order to digest, assimilate nutrients, and burn calories.

Everyday Stress Relief

There’s no doubt that finding ways to relieve your everyday stress is an important, if not essential, aspect of optimizing your health. All the organics in the world can’t help you if your body can’t assimilate the nutrients you put into it.

Stress is a serious factor in the illness of nearly all of the patients seen at my clinic. Because in addition to everything mentioned above, stress also plays a major role in your immune system, and can impact your:

* Blood pressure
* Cholesterol
* Brain chemistry
* Blood sugar levels
* Hormonal balance

You cannot eliminate stress entirely, but you can work to provide your body with tools to compensate for the bioelectrical short-circuiting that can cause serious disruption in many of your body's important systems. By using techniques such as meridian tapping, you can reprogram your body’s reactions to the unavoidable stressors of everyday life.

But there are many other strategies you can employ to help you deal with stress and unwind each day, including:

* Exercise. Studies have shown that during exercise, tranquilizing chemicals (endorphins) are released in your brain. Exercise is a natural way to bring your body pleasurable relaxation and rejuvenation.
* Proper sleep
* Meditation (with or without the additional aid of brain wave synchronization technology)

I also highly recommend you read the book Feelings Buried Alive Never Die. If you’re experiencing any type of physical or emotional challenge in any aspect of your life, this book does a great job of explaining feelings: what they are, how you experience them, how they are integral to your physical health, and, most importantly, how to work with and overcome those that are pulling you down.

Have a fabulous weekend!

Stress – its every where

Today’s Re-Powering Information – Stress – its every where. We have physical stress, mental, emotional, environmental, chemical and mechanical stressors all around us. We have moved so far away from what is natural regarding sleeping and eating and recovering that our bodies many times are under chronic stress. Since stress is everywhere, we have no choice but to manage it as best we can. You should have an arsenal of stress relievers. Boot camp is a great one. Everyone always compliments about how fast the hour goes (most of the time) and that they leave feeling wonderful! Another wonderful and easy to apply stress reliever is breathing exercises. I have taken classes in breath therapy and can tell you first hand that your breath can make you feel very heavy, very light and completely invigorated. Read on to see some stress relieving breathing exercises. You may feel silly doing them, but they work!





Dr. Mercola''s Comments


Dr. Mercola's Comments:



As many of you already know, I am passionate about finding simple, inexpensive resources that can have profound impact on your health. And breathing is one strategy that can make a tremendous difference in how you feel and age, yet it receives little attention. After all, you breathe in and out without conscious thought. As soon as you stop, you die. Surely everyone’s got this one all figured out already?

Not really. In fact, improper breathing is more the norm than the exception these days.

So implementing a breathing technique may actually be one of the most beneficial things you can do to elevate your physical health and soothe your mind.

Actually, one of my first journeys into natural health was in the early 90’s, when I attended several week-long seminars in Southern California to learn different breathing practices. They were all very useful, but a bit complicated to perform without proper instructions and practice.

There are many different breathing practices that you can try, but here I’m going to share with you one that is both powerful and very easy to perform.

I like to do it before each meal as that ensures that I will do it at least three times a day. I also like to combine it with gratitude for my meal, so for the two minutes it actually takes to do the technique, I seek to focus on gratitude for not only the food, but all the blessings in my life.

I recently learned this one when I attended a presentation by Dr. Weil at Expo West in California.

In the presentation summary he outlined some of the best resources he’s learned over his clinical career for improving health, and topping the list, interestingly, was a breathing exercise called the 4-7-8, or Relaxing Breath Exercise.

On his site, he states:

"Practicing regular, mindful breathing can be calming and energizing and can even help with stress-related health problems ranging from panic attacks to digestive disorders."

The 4-7-8 Breathing Exercise

The key to this exercise is to remember the numbers 4, 7 and 8. It’s not important to focus on how much time you spend in each phase of the breathing activity, but rather that you get the ratio correct.

Here’s how it’s done:

1. Sit up straight
2. Place the tip of your tongue up against the back of your front teeth. Keep it there through the entire breathing process
3. Breathe in silently through your nose to the count of four
4. Hold your breath to the count of seven
5. Exhale through your mouth to the count of eight, making an audible “woosh” sound
6. That completes one full breath. Repeat the cycle another three times, for a total of four breaths

You can do this exercise as frequently as you want throughout the day, but it’s recommended you don’t do more than four full breaths during the first month or so of practice. Later you may work your way up to eight full breath cycles at a time.

The benefits of this simple practice are enormous and work as a natural tranquilizer for your nervous system.

Personally, I think one of its greatest values may be gained when you combine it with your meals. Most of us eat three meals a day, so it makes remembering to do it easier. Also, I believe that combining it with the attitude of gratitude for the healthy meal you just ate, or are about to eat, can have a powerful, beneficial influence on your health.

The Health Benefits of Breathing Exercises

Self-applied health enhancement methods like the 4-7-8 breathing technique are particularly remarkable because of the broad array of real health benefits that are triggered.

Learning to breathe mindfully can modify and accelerate your body's inherent self-regulating physiological and bioenergetic mechanisms.

These changes are in large part due to the fact that you’re oxygenating your body properly as well as correcting your internal and energetic balance, and it has a direct impact your nervous system.

This in turn affects your entire body and its countless cellular functions, including all of your subtle energy systems.

The web site breathing.com offers a list of clinical studies into the health benefits of optimal breathing. One such study, which spanned a 30-year period, concluded that the most significant factor in your health and longevity is how well you breathe.

It focused on the long-term predictive power of forced exhalation volume as the primary marker for life span. According to the researchers,

"This pulmonary function measurement appears to be an indicator of general health and vigor and literally a measure of living capacity."

It’s also important to realize that much of hypertension is controlled by the way you breathe, so breathing exercises are an excellent adjunct to your other healthy lifestyle strategies to control high blood pressure.

Breathing exercises such as the one I showed you above have a positive impact on your:

* Respiratory system, which can reduce mental and physical fatigue, as well as relieve symptoms of asthma and bronchitis
* Circulatory system; improving blood circulation and cell oxygenation throughout your body
* Nervous system
* Digestive system, by acting as a pump to massage internal organs
* Endocrine system. The action of your diaphragm helps push lymph throughout your body, which helps eliminate toxic waste and strengthen your immune system
* Urinary system, by helping to eliminate fluids and massaging your kidneys
* Skin. Toxic CO2 waste is eliminated more directly through your breath, and your skin can also be positively affected by improved blood flow and oxygenation

Breathing Your Way to Optimal Health

Another obvious use for the 4-7-8 breathing technique is to use it whenever you feel stressed or anxious. It’s a powerful way to help relax your system without drugs.

Best of all, it doesn’t cost you anything but a couple of minutes of your time! And, if you commit to it, I believe you’ll be absolutely shocked, and pleasantly surprised, by how quickly and easily it can center and relax you and allow you to achieve high levels of health.

For even more breathing practices, I recommend you read the article Breathing Exercises and Self Healing, written by Roger Jahnke, O.M.D., or see Dr. Weil’s website for additional exercises.

Do something special for yourself today!

Unhealthy Foods Hijack Your Brain

Today’ Re-Powering information. I know I tend to keep coming back to the topic of sugar, however it’s one that a lot of people struggle with. Sugar fatigues you, keeps you fat and breaks your body down. I have not tried either of the suggestions that Dr. Mercola recommend, but they both stand to reason as options. If sugar is something you battle, you may consider one of these two options. Read the article and Dr. Mercola’s comments.



When Unhealthy Foods Hijack Your Brain



junk foodsIn a book being published next week, former FDA chief Dr. David Kessler brings to consumers the disturbing conclusion of numerous brain studies -- some people really do have a harder time resisting bad foods.

At issue is how the brain becomes primed by different stimuli. Neuroscientists increasingly report that fat-and-sugar combinations in particular light up the brain's dopamine pathway -- its pleasure-sensing spot. This is the same pathway that conditions people to alcohol or drugs.

The culprits foods are "layered and loaded" with combinations of fat, sugar and salt, and they are often so processed that you don't even have to chew much.

Overeaters must take responsibility, too, and basically retrain their brains to resist the lure, says Kessler.


Sources:


Washington Post April 23, 2009





Dr. Mercola''s Comments


Dr. Mercola's Comments:



Many people can relate to what David Kessler, the former FDA chief, calls “conditioned hypereating” -- a drive to eat sugary, greasy processed foods that has nothing to do with hunger.

It can happen when you walk by a vending machine, drive by one of your favorite restaurants or bakeries, or even when you’re sitting at home watching TV. Suddenly you get a craving for something you know isn’t good for you -- cookies, French fries, ice cream, potato chips, that sort of thing -- and your willpower seems to crumble.

This is an epidemic problem, as in the United States 90 percent of the money Americans spend on food is for processed food, and junk food is available just about everywhere, including in hospitals and schools.

It’s clear that something about these foods is able to wield an incredibly strong force over many of us, to the point that obesity has been named the fastest growing health threat in the United States, and two-thirds of adults are already overweight or obese.

So what is going on here? What about these foods compel people to overeat them at the expense of their waistline, and more importantly their health?

Why It’s So Easy to Be Addicted to Junk Food and Fast Food

Taste, convenience and cost certainly play a role in making junk foods appealing, but there’s more to it than that. The large amounts of sugar, salt and grease in junk foods are clearly addictive.

In one study, rats fed a diet containing 25 percent sugar became anxious when the sugar was removed -- displaying symptoms similar to people going through drug withdrawals, such as chattering teeth and the shakes.

A link was found between opioids, or your brain’s 'pleasure chemicals,' and a craving for sweet, salty and fatty foods. It is thought that high-fat foods stimulate the opioids, as when researchers stimulated rats’ brains with a synthetic version of the natural opioid enkephalin, the rats ate up to six times their normal intake of fat.

Further, long-lasting changes in rats' brain chemistry, similar to those caused by morphine or heroin use, were also noted. According to researchers, this means that even simple exposure to pleasurable foods is enough to change gene expression, which suggests an addiction to the food.

Your Genes Remember When You Eat Sugar

When you eat sugar, not only do your genes turn off controls designed to protect you from heart disease and diabetes, but the impact lasts for two weeks!

Even more concerning, if you eat poorly for a long time your DNA may become permanently altered and the effects could be passed on to your children and grandchildren.

In other words, you are born with a set of genes, but the expression of those genes is not set in stone. Your genes can be either activated or silenced by various factors including your diet and even your mind. It is not your genes that dictate your future health, but rather the expression of those genes that matter.

So in the case of eating sugar, it’s now known that this switches off good genes that protect your body from disease. This is just one of many reasons why you may want to seriously limit or eliminate sugar from your diet.

Sugar is Incredibly Addictive

Another reason we know that people’s love for sugar goes far beyond taste is because of its addictive properties.

Refined sugar is far more addictive than cocaine -- it is one of the most addictive and harmful substances currently known. In fact, an astonishing 94 percent of rats who were allowed to choose between sugar, water and cocaine, chose sugar.

Even rats who were addicted to cocaine quickly switched their preference to sugar, once it was offered as a choice.

The researchers speculate that the sweet receptors (two protein receptors located on your tongue), which evolved in ancestral times when diets were very low in sugar, have not adapted to modern times’ high sugar consumption.

Therefore, the abnormally high stimulation of these receptors by our sugar-rich diets generates excessive reward signals in your brain, which have the potential to override normal self-control mechanisms, and thus lead to addiction.

Your Emotions Play a Major Role, Too

As Kessler said, "Once you know what's driving your behavior, you can put steps into place" to change it.

What this means is whenever you feel the desire to binge on junk foods, it’s necessary that you have a system in place to help curb those cravings.

The system that I personally use and most highly recommend is called the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). EFT is a form of psychological acupressure, based on the same energy meridians used in traditional acupuncture to treat physical and emotional ailments for over 5,000 years, but without the invasiveness of needles.

When your body's energy system is disrupted, you are more likely to experience distractions and discomforts related to food, and more likely to engage in emotional eating. Instead, if you engage your body's subtle energy system with EFT, the distracting discomforts like food cravings often subside.

The other major factor that will help you to break an addiction to junk food is tailoring your diet to your nutritional type. Nutritional Typing will teach you which foods you are designed to eat and the ideal proportions of the types of nutrients you require, whether you are a 'Carb', a 'Protein', or a 'Mixed' type.

When you eat the foods that are right for your biochemistry, it will push your body toward its ideal weight and you’ll notice that food cravings largely subside. This is because you’re giving your body the fuel it needs, so you’ll feel satiated throughout the day and be far less tempted by the sugary and greasy foods that once had a hold over you.

End.



Have an uncomfortable day!

25 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Your Body and Health

Today’s Re-Powering Information. First read an article with the 25 Things about Your Body and Health and then Read Dr. Mercola’s take on them below it including his list of top ways to optimize health.. The list will look familiar!





25 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Your Body and Health



1. Rinsing your nose with salt water can help keep you healthy and ward off allergy symptoms.

2. Dogs can smell cancer and low blood sugar. A study showed that it is possible to train dogs to identify, based on breath samples, which patients had lung and breast cancer. For diabetics, the dogs can smell ketones in urine and on the breath when blood sugars are high. Dogs can pick up on other smells that humans can’t when glucose levels drop.

3. Researchers found that people who pass through an entryway near the kitchen tend to eat 15 percent more than those who use the front door.

4. You're more likely to have a heart attack on a Monday, or up to three days after you've been diagnosed with the flu or a respiratory tract infection.

5. You can't get a tan from your computer screen. The Computer Tan Web site was created as a hoax to raise awareness about skin cancer.

6. Obese people spend approximately $485 more on clothing, $828 on extra plane seats, and $36 more on gas each year than their thinner counterparts. An overweight driver burns about 18 additional gallons of gas a year.

7. Smokers are four times as likely to report feeling unrested after a night's sleep than nonsmokers. Smokers often experience withdrawal symptoms at night, thus causing periods of restlessness and waking.

8. Eating fruits and vegetables may help your body make its own aspirin. Benzoic acid, a natural substance in fruits and vegetables, causes people to produce their own salicylic acid, the key component that gives aspirin its anti-inflammatory and pain-relieving properties.

9. A 20-minute nap can improve your overall alertness, boost your mood, and increase productivity. In addition, your heart may reap benefits from napping -- a six-year study found that that men who took naps at least three times a week had a 37 percent lower risk of heart-related death.

10. Your kitchen sink is dirtier than your bathroom. There are typically more than 500,000 bacteria per square inch in its drain, and the faucet, basin, and sponge are crawling with germs as well.

11. Four out of five doctors in the UK don't work out enough. Heavy workloads, lack of time and poor motivation contributed to the lack of exercise.

12. Baking soda can whiten teeth, garlic can help treat athlete's foot, and honey can soothe a hangover.

13. Using a food diary can double your weight-loss efforts. Your food diary makes you accountable to yourself and provides you with clues on where the extra calories are sneaking in.

14. Regular exercise can lower a woman's cancer risk -- but only if she's getting enough sleep. The National Cancer Institute followed nearly 6,000 women for almost 10 years. Women in the top half of physical activity levels showed an approximate 20 percent reduction in cancer risk, but sleeping less than seven hours per night resulted in a decreased benefit.

15. Watching yourself run in a mirror can make a treadmill workout go by faster and feel easier.

16. Third-hand smoke -- the particles that cling to smokers' hair and clothing and linger in a room long after they've left -- is a cancer risk to young children and pets.

17. Walking against the wind, in the water, or while wearing a backpack burns about 50 more calories per hour than walking with no resistance. People who wear pedometers also tend to burn more calories and lose more weight.

18. Trained sexologists can infer a woman's orgasm history by observing the way she walks. In other news, men find women who wear red sexier than those who wear "cool" colors such as blue and green.

19. Foreign accent syndrome and exploding head syndrome are real (but very rare) medical conditions. A person with exploding head syndrome experiences a loud, indecipherable noise that seems to originate from inside their head.

20. Vitamins don't seem to help older women guard against cancer or heart disease.

21. Some men experience pain, headaches, or sneezing as a result of ejaculation. The increased activity in the nervous system during orgasm may be the culprit.

22. Germ-killing wipes can spread bacteria from one spot to another if you reuse them.

23. Oatmeal, citrus fruits, and honey can boost your sex drive and improve fertility. Oats produce a chemical that releases testosterone into the blood supply, vitamin C improves sperm count and motility, and vitamin B from honey helps your body use estrogen, a key factor in blood flow and arousal.

24. Twenty-nine percent of Americans say they have skipped filling a prescription due to the cost, and 23 percent use pill splitting as a way to save money.

25. Facebook may be good for your health; studies show that staying in touch with family and friends can ward off memory loss and help you live longer.


Sources:


MSN Health & Fitness April 21, 2009





Dr. Mercola''s Comments


Dr. Mercola's Comments:



The 25 items covered in the article above are not necessarily critical knowledge to help you live a healthier and longer life, but it’s clear there is much confusion over what’s truly necessary for optimal health. And as the examples listed below will show you, the shortcuts to health and beauty are many, but the potential hazards are just as numerous.

When it comes to the intricate workings of your body and your health it’s clear most people (including health professionals and scientists) know less than we’d like to believe. Just take a look at some of the most common health myths I covered in a previous article and you’ll get a sense of what I mean.

Not only that, but people do all sorts of things to their bodies, thinking it will make them happier, healthier, or more beautiful, or at the very least that it will not harm them.

Here are a few examples you may not know could be harmful to your body and health:

Laser Hair Removal: The treatment disables hair follicles and can lead to scarring if not properly done. In addition, it doesn’t remove all the hair, and it might only last for a couple of years.

Body Piercing: Piercing delicate places like nipples, genitals or your tongue can interfere with breastfeeding; increase the risk of spreading STDs; increase your risk of allergies; and chip your teeth, respectively. Less obvious problems may result from disruption of your body’s subtle energy fields. Inserting pieces of metal into your body can disrupt vital energy flow. If you are healthy you probably won’t notice any difference, but piercings can be a problem if you have a more serious health challenge.

Bariatric Surgery: Over 40 percent of these surgeries result in major complications within six months, such as diarrhea or hernia.

Skin Whitening: Some topical whiteners contain mercury, which causes nerve and kidney damage. Others contain hydroquinone, a carcinogen banned in Europe that blotches your skin.

Botox: Botox, which paralyzes your facial muscles to rid you of wrinkles, can cause respiratory failure and death.

Liposuction: Liposuction removes only about 10 pounds of fat after four hours of dangerous surgery. Recovery is long and painful, and the fatality rate is the highest of any elective surgery.

Do You Know What Your Body Needs for Optimal Health?

It’s important to realize that optimal health and beauty are side effects of an overall healthy lifestyle. There are no shortcuts; no magic pills.

However, there are certain basic tenets of optimal health -- which includes maintaining a healthy weight and radiating true inner beauty – that are permanent truths. These strategies won’t change, regardless of what modern science and conventional medicine comes up with next:

1. Eat a healthy diet that’s right for your nutritional type (paying very careful attention to keeping your insulin levels down)

2. Drink plenty of clean water

3. Manage your stress

4. Exercise

5. Sunlight

6. Limit toxin exposure

7. Consume healthy fat

8. Eat plenty of raw food

9. Optimize insulin and leptin levels

10. Get plenty of sleep

If you memorize these ten items and incorporate them into your lifestyle, you’ll be way ahead of the rest of the pack toward optimal health and longevity.

Breakfast Foods & Eat Your Food Uncooked? Here’s the Really Raw Truth

While we are on recipes, here are some new twists on breakfast. I find people tend to eat the same one or two breakfasts. Here are some simple, tasty and delicious options from the usual. These are from the integrative school of nutrition in NYC. My friend just graduated from there.



You’ve all heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but why? Breakfast, literally means “breaking the fast”. During the 6-8 hours that we are sleeping our bodies are fasting. This means when we wake up we are starving for fuel to survive the day. If you don’t eat breakfast in the morning you may feel fine for a few hours but come 3pm or dinner time you are most likely going to be ravenous. Because you end up eating so much at dinner you can’t possibly think of eating breakfast in the morning and so the cycle starts all over again. Eating breakfast first thing in the morning has been shown to boost your metabolism, increase energy and concentration and keep food cravings to a minimum.

So if your excuse for not having breakfast is that you don’t have enough time, try these 7 quick, healthy delicious breakfast solutions.

1. Almond Butter + Banana + Raw Honey + Sprouted Grain Sandwich

peanutbutterbanana



2. Super Smoothie: Fruit (kiwi, banana, mango) + Leafy Greens (kale, swiss chard) + Nut Milk + Hemp Protein + Flax Seed

green



3. Muesli + berries + Nut Milk

muesli



4. On The Go Egg Cups - Make these on a Sunday and have for the week!

dsc00913



5. Steel Cut Oatmeal + Blueberries + Almonds + Flax + Agave
Put this on the stove the night before and will be ready to go in the am

oatmeal



6. Natural Waffles + Apple + Raw Honey

waffle



7. Open Faced Goat Cheese + Vegetable (tomato, avocado, pepper, anything!) + Sprouted Grain Sandwich

gaotcheese





Today’s Re-Powering information – While we are on the subject of healthy foods, I wanted to share with you taking healthy eating to a new level. Eating raw. I read some information on Paleolithic eating and vegetarian eating over the break. Some may consider it strict, but the health benefits are priceless. Here is a video from Dr. Mercola on eating Raw and then some notes to follow.





Eat Your Food Uncooked? Here’s the Really Raw Truth





You already know that you should eat fresh, unprocessed, natural whole foods. But the importance of raw foods often goes unnoticed. Here’s what you should know about raw foods, cooked foods and enzymes.





Dr. Mercola''s Comments


Dr. Mercola's Comments:



One of the most important aspects of a healthy diet that is most frequently overlooked is the issue of eating your food uncooked, in its natural raw state.

Unfortunately, as you may be aware, over 90 percent of the food purchased by Americans are processed foods. And when you’re consuming these kinds of denatured and chemically altered foods, it’s no surprise we have an epidemic of chronic and degenerative diseases.

It is no mystery that you are what you eat.

Ideally you’ll want to eat as many foods as possible in their unprocessed state; typically organic, biodynamic foods that have been grown locally, and are therefore in season.

But the challenge is, even when you chose the best foods available you can destroy most of the nutrition if you cook them.

I believe it’s really wise to strive to get as much raw food in your diet as possible. I personally try to eat about 85 percent of my food raw, including raw eggs and meats. And there are a number of reasons for this.

Raw Food is Alive!

The primary reason for making sure you get plenty of raw food in your diet is due to what’s called ‘biophotons.’ It’s a term you may not have heard of before, but in Europe, Germany in particular, there’s a lot of research in this area. Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt has also discussed it in some detail in one of his expert interviews for my Inner Circle program.

Biophotons are the smallest physical units of light, which are stored in, and used by all biological organisms – including your body. Vital sun energy finds its way into your cells via the food you eat, in the form of these biophotons.

They contain important bio-information, which controls complex vital processes in your body. The biophotons have the power to order and regulate, and, in doing so, to elevate the organism – in this case, your physical body -- to a higher oscillation or order.

This is manifested as a feeling of vitality and well-being.

Every living organism emits biophotons or low-level luminescence (light with a wavelength between 200 and 800 nanometers). It is thought that the higher the level of light energy a cell emits, the greater its vitality and the potential for the transfer of that energy to the individual which consumes it.

The more light a food is able to store, the more nutritious it is. Naturally grown fresh vegetables, for example, and sun-ripened fruits, are rich in light energy. The capacity to store biophotons is therefore a measure of the quality of your food.

Now, the DNA inside each of your body’s cells vibrates at a frequency of several billion hertz (which is unfortunately the same range at which modern cell phone communication systems also work). The vibration is created through the coil-like contraction and extension of your DNA -- which occurs several billion times per second -- and each time it contracts, it squeezes out one single biophoton; a light particle.

All the biophotons emitted from your body communicate with each other in a highly structured light field that surrounds your body. This light field also regulates the activity of your metabolic enzymes. For more in-depth information about how this works, I recommend you view the video clip of my interview with Dr. Klinghardt.

But that brings me to my second point for eating raw.

Cooking Destroys Valuable Enzymes

Enzymes are proteins; catalysts to speed up and facilitate reactions in your body. In fact, some biochemical reactions will not even occur without these enzymes (you have about 1,300 of them).

Cooking your food, especially at high temperatures, destroys these naturally occurring enzymes.

In addition to getting enzymes from fresh, raw food, you can also help stimulate the production of enzymes in your body simply by chewing. When you chew your food, a signal is transmitted from your brain to your stomach that tells your stomach to increase the production of enzymes.

Interestingly, as a side note, that’s why you don’t want to chew gum that much. When you chew gum, you’re actually sending a false signal to your body to create enzymes when you don’t need them. You’re essentially wasting your enzyme production. This is a challenge because as you age -- especially in a culture that focuses on processed foods -- about one-third of your body’s ability to produce enzymes is lost by the age of 40!

This is why many people find they benefit from enzyme supplementation as they get older, and we’ve found this to be true for a large number of patients in my clinic as well.

You May Need an Enzyme Supplement as You Get Older

There are many different options to choose from when selecting an enzyme supplement, so I decided to produce what I believe to be one of the highest quality enzyme products on the market today. My formula contains a number of combinations of enzymes that are just not present in most other products, including:

* Papain and bromelain (from papaya and pineapple) to help digest proteins
* Amylase, to aid in digestion of carbohydrates like starches and sugars
* Alpha galactosidase, to help digest beans and prevent gas
* Ox bile, which is particularly useful for digesting fats. It’s especially helpful if you have problems with your gallbladder, or had your gallbladder removed

The Bottom Line

Ideally, your best bet is to consume raw foods as much as possible. If you aren’t doing that already, you’ll want to gradually increase the amount of raw food in your diet as it will help your body produce more enzymes, and supply you with vital, live nutrients. Then, if still necessary, take a high quality enzyme supplement.

Lastly, make sure you’re chewing your food – take your time; savor it! (But avoid chewing gum.)

These are some very simple strategies that you and your family can adopt to help yourselves take control of your health!



Related Links:


Find Out Which Raw Food Diet is Right for You


Raw Food--One of Your Keys to Outstanding Health

Optimists live longer and healthier lives

I was telling the ladies this morning that I RARELY watch TV and if I do, it’s always surfing while I am on a cardio machine. Last night I was at the gym and the TV in front of me had the news on and jeez if it just horrible. They don’t even show robberies any more unless they involved a group of people getting shot. There were murder suicides, drive by shootings, arson, and so on. So this morning I was determined to find something positive. And it didn’t take long for me to find an article about how positive thoughts lead to positive living and longer living.



A few times a year I get interviewed by Good News Radio. You probably never heard of them b/c people look for the bad news and the sensationalism of it all. I stopped watching TV in college and I don’t believe I am deprived in any way. If you removed every TV from my house I would not notice or be effected in the least. Occasionally I will surf when I travel, but there is not one single show I have to watch.



Today I found the article below. In a season where our time is in high demand and people seem to have little time to communicate without technology or find time for their well being, I urge you to keep thinking positive and taking time for yourself. There are many people who are thriving today ad living the dream. It’s possible. Don’t buy into everything you read on the news. You determine your reality and state of mind every day. Every moment is new and you can create it.


Optimists live longer and healthier lives: study

Thu Mar 5, 2009 4:56pm EST

[-]Photo

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Optimists live longer, healthier lives than pessimists, U.S. researchers said on Thursday in a study that may give pessimists one more reason to grumble.

Researchers at University of Pittsburgh looked at rates of death and chronic health conditions among participants of the Women's Health Initiative study, which has followed more than 100,000 women ages 50 and over since 1994.

Women who were optimistic -- those who expect good rather than bad things to happen -- were 14 percent less likely to die from any cause than pessimists and 30 percent less likely to die from heart disease after eight years of follow up in the study.

Optimists also were also less likely to have high blood pressure, diabetes or smoke cigarettes.

The team, led Dr. Hilary Tindle, also looked at women who were highly mistrustful of other people -- a group they called "cynically hostile" -- and compared them with women who were more trusting.

Women in the cynically hostile group tended to agree with questions such as: "I've often had to take orders from someone who didn't know as much as I did" or "It's safest to trust nobody," Tindle said in a telephone interview.

"These questions prove a general mistrust of people," said Tindle, who presented her study Thursday at the American Psychosomatic Society's annual meeting in Chicago.

That kind of thinking takes a toll.

"Cynically hostile women were 16 percent more likely to die (during the study period) compared to women who were the least cynically hostile," Tindle said.

They were also 23 percent more likely to die from cancer.

Tindle said the study does not prove negative attitudes cause negative health effects, but she said the findings do appear to be linked in some way.

"I think we really need more research to design therapies that will target people's attitudes to see if they can be modified and if that modification is beneficial to health," she said.

And she said while a pessimist might think, "'I'm doomed. There is nothing I can do,' I'm not sure that's true," Tindle said. "We just don't know."



Today, be better than yesterday!

Cutting calories 'boosts memory'

Today’s Re-Powering information – It’s obvious that at the end of the day calories matter. I have been preaching about the quality of the calories more than the quantity. If you are going to over eat, I would rather you over eat organic chicken vegetable soup than chicken wings and fried mozzarella sticks. They have a different effect on your body – even if the calories are the same. The natural food is easier to digest, metabolize and does not leave foreign toxins behind. Studies have shown that those who consume fewer calories live longer and have less disease. That stands to reason as over feeding causes inflammation and obesity. It’s also rare that people are over feeding on salad. They are more likely to overfeed on pastries, fried foods and other fast foods which are artery clogging and lead to other diseases such as heart disease and diabetes.



Cutting calories not only leads to fast loss and improved health, a new study shows it also boosts memory so strive to eat for your physiology rather than your emotions or out of habit.


Cutting calories 'boosts memory'

Healthy food

The volunteers had to limit their calorie intake

Reducing what you eat by nearly a third may improve memory, according to German researchers.

They introduced the diet to 50 elderly volunteers, then gave them a memory test three months later.

The study, reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, found significant improvements.

However, a dietician said the reduction could harm health unless care was taken.



To our knowledge, the current results provide first experimental evidence in humans that caloric restriction improves memory in the elderly

Munster University researchers

There is growing interest in the potential benefits of calorie restricted diets, after research in animals suggested they might be able to improve lifespan and delay the onset of age-related disease.

However, it is still not certain whether this would be the case in humans - and the levels of "caloric restriction" involved are severe.

The precise mechanism which may deliver these benefits is still being investigated, with theories ranging from a reduction in the production of "free radical" chemicals which can cause damage, to a fall in inflammation which can have the same result.

The researchers from the University of Munster carried out the human study after results in rats suggested that memory could be boosted by a diet containing 30% fewer calories than normal.

The study volunteers, who had an average age of 60, were split into three groups - the first had a balanced diet containing the normal number of calories, the second had a similar diet but with a higher proportion of unsaturated fatty acids, such as those found in olive oil and fish.

The final group were given the calorie restricted diet.

After three months, there was no difference in memory scores in the first two groups, but the 50 in the third group performed better.

Diet warning

They also showed other signs of physical improvement, with decreased levels of insulin and fewer signs of inflammation.

The researchers said that these changes could explain the better memory scores, by keeping brain cells in better health.

They wrote: "To our knowledge, the current results provide first experimental evidence in humans that caloric restriction improves memory in the elderly.

"The present findings may help to develop new prevention and treatment strategies for maintaining cognitive health into old age."

However, care was taken to make sure that the volunteers, despite eating a restricted diet in terms of calories, carried on eating the right amount of vitamins and other nutrients.

Dr Leigh Gibson, from Roehampton University, said that the drop in insulin levels were one plausible reason why mental performance might improve.

The hormone was known to act on parts of the brain related to memory, he said, and the higher levels found in people with poorly controlled type II diabetes had been directly linked to worse memory and cognitive function.

A spokesman for the British Dietetic Association said that people, particularly those already at normal or low weight, should be "extremely careful" about attempting such a diet.

She said: "There is other evidence that, far from enhancing memory, dieting or removing meals can interfere with memory and brain function.

"A drop of 30% in calories is a significant one for someone who is not overweight, and should not be undertaken lightly.

"It could even be dangerous if the person is already underweight."

End



Remember if you want to re-read an article or show a friend, it’s available on the boot camp blog 24 / 7 for your reference. http://argylebootcamp.blogspot.com/



Be a Victor and not a Victim!

Have a glorious day!

Running Improves Longevity and health

Today’s Re-Powering Information – I know running is at times your least favorite activity in camp, however there are many benefits including improving cardiovascular endurance, improving performance, burning calories (fat), reducing the risk of disease and now a new study shows improves life span. With running, time and intensity are inversely proportionate so the faster you run, the less time you need to spend running. Some of you will never run and that’s okay too. You can still achieve similar benefits with out the pounding. Read on to see the benefits of running on your longevity.

Study: Runners live longer, stay healthier
Members of a running club were half as likely to die over 20 years
Updated 3:57 p.m. CT, Mon., Aug. 11, 2008
WASHINGTON - People who want to live a long and healthy life might want to take up running.
A study published on Monday shows middle-aged members of a runner's club were half as likely to die over a 20-year period as people who did not run.
Running reduced the risk not only of heart disease, but of cancer and neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's, researchers at Stanford University in California found.
"At 19 years, 15 percent of runners had died compared with 34 percent of controls," Dr. Eliza Chakravarty and colleagues wrote in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
Any type of vigorous exercise will likely do the trick, said Stanford's Dr. James Fries, who worked on the study.
"Both common sense and background science support the idea that there is nothing magical about running per se," Fries said in a telephone interview. "It is the regular physical vigorous activity that is important."
The team surveyed 284 members of a nationwide running club and 156 similar, healthy people as controls. They all came from the university's faculty and staff and had similar social and economic backgrounds, and all were 50 or older.
Starting in 1984, each volunteer filled out an annual survey on exercise frequency, weight and disability for eight activities — rising, dressing and grooming, hygiene, eating, walking, reach, hand grip and routine physical activities.
Everyone exercised, but runners did more
Most of the volunteers did some exercise, but runners exercised as much as 200 minutes a week, compared to 20 minutes for the non-runners.
At the beginning, the runners were leaner and less likely to smoke compared with the controls. And they exercised more over the whole study period in general.
"Over time, all groups decreased running activity, but the runners groups continued to accumulate more minutes per week of vigorous activity of all kinds," the researchers wrote.
"Members of the running groups had significantly lower mean disability levels at all time points," they added.
The team also set out to answer whether taking up running late in life would benefit, and whether people who stopped exercising began to pay a price as they aged.Most of the runners have stopped running as they reached their 70s, Fries said. But it was difficult to find people who totally stopped exercising. "Almost all of them did something else. They continued their vigorous exercise," he said.
People who took up exercise when they were older also improved their health, he said.
The study also showed that people cannot use the risk of injury as an excuse not to run — the runners had fewer injuries of all kinds, including to their knees.
Copyright 2008 Reuters. Click for restrictions.