Holiday Wisdom - Keys to Good Nutrition and Eating Healthy with the Feast

I would like to encourage you to watch what you eat over the holidays.

Most people eat poorly all year long and suffer the consequences. However, some people, like myself and maybe you, eat nutritious healthy food all year, except when it comes to the year end holidays. Make a point this year to EAT WISELY during the holiday season.

Wisdom Key #1 - Avoid the unhealthy refined processed holiday foods and treats

There's always an abundance of food, many sweets and desserts, and lots of specialty foods such as cookies, cakes, pies, muffins, etc. If you think about it, most of these holiday foods are not good for you. They're made with a lot of sugar, white processed flour, butter, and other non-nutritious ingredients. These are the foods that will contribute to your gaining weight over the holidays, as well make you sluggish and more vulnerable to sickness and long-term illness.

Plain and simple, it's just not worth it. Your health is valuable, and you must take charge of it and protect it, especially during the holiday season.

Wisdom Key #2 - Avoid processed meats and pork products

Recent research findings have proven over and over again that processed meats, which are often abundant at holiday times, are dangerous for your health and contribute to serious long-term illnesses, including the big-"C". To protect your health, you really need to make a commitment to yourself that you're going to avoid all processed meats and pork products such as sausage, bacon, ham, hot dogs, bologna, salami, etc. When these are offered to you, simply say, "No thank you."

Wisdom Key #3 - Don't overeat during the holidays; exercise moderation

This is one of the worst things you can do for your body. Overeating is one of the major causes of ill health in America. When you overeat, you overload your body and its systems in such a way that puts a tremendous stress on your vital organs and cells. THINK M-O-D-E-R-A-T-I-O-N this holiday season. Enjoy the good and healthy food, but eat it with a sense of moderation.

Wisdom Key #4 - Keep exercising during the holidays

This is very important and shouldn't be neglected just because it's the holidays. If you can't stick to your normal routine because you're at a relative's home or because you have a lot of guests, then at the very least be sure to take a 30-60 minute walk every day. This will provide you with good exercise and give you a break from all the hustle and bustle of the holidays.

Wisdom Key #5 - Take some time to relax during the holidays

Now by that I don't mean to sit around and watch TV and football. What I mean is for you to do some relaxing things that you normally don't get to do during normal busy working life. For example, take a long soothing bath by candle light, read a novel, sit with your spouse and listen to Christmas music, take a long afternoon nap, etc. You get the idea.

Wisdom Key #6 - Remember to continue taking your nutritional supplements

Your body needs the added nutrition of a live whole food based supplement, so be sure to continue to take this during the holidays. I personally take "The Feast," which is a live whole food based InstaFresh powder drink mix (loaded with greens, vegetables, fruits, berries, seeds, nuts, and sprouts) that I mix in with other ingredients to create the most delicious and nutritious smoothie ever. I add a few frozen strawberries or blueberries, some fresh cranberries, some Himalayan Krystal saline solution, fresh ground flax seeds, extra virgin coconut oil, some pure barley grass powder, some cayenne pepper, half a fresh lemon, and a lot of purpose when I create one of these smoothie masterpieces. If you'd like information about the Feast made by Uri International and what's in it, go to: http://www.LiveSuperJuice.com OR click here: The FEAST by Uri International

Well, my friends, there you have it: 6 wisdom keys for the holidays. I trust that these six keys to good nutrition and to eating healthy will help you avoid the pitfalls of unhealthy eating and encourage you to watch what you eat during this holiday season. Remember, good nutrition and healthy eating will lead you down the road to health, vitality, and longevity.

Part II - 12 Secrets to Health and Longevity: Keys to Good Nutrition and to Eating Healthy

Here is Part II of the 12 secrets to health and longevity. In case you missed Part I, I'll repeat the introductory question and comments.

Question: What would I say if someone asked me what they had to do to live a long and healthy life?

Answer: I'd say, "Do you want the short answer or the long answer?"

Here's my short answer...
Listen, know, and understand that there are keys of knowledge that will help you unlock the secrets to a long and healthy life.

These keys to good nutrition and to healthy eating will open a whole new world of health, life, and vitality to you. I believe you were created by God and destined to live a life of health and prosperity.

5. GIVE YOUR BODY THE REST IT NEEDS TO REJUVENATE ITSELF

Get 8 or 9 hours of sleep a night, and make sure to go to bed by 10 pm. Take a short power nap when you can. Learn how to manage stress and to take better care of your body. Give your body the Sabbath day of rest your Creator made for your rejuvenation from Friday sundown to Saturday sundown. The seventh day of the week was created to be a day of rest for mankind. It was made for man to relax and rest, to take a mental and physical break from his work, and to connect with his Creator in a special way. This is a great day to spend more time alone with God, and to spend special time with your family and friends.

6. FAST FROM FOOD ONCE A WEEK

Learn the extremely healthy habit of therapeutic fasting. One day a week fast from all food and just drink natural spring water. This will give your body the time and rest it needs to purge itself of toxins and heal itself. Once or twice a year go on a longer juice fast of 7-21 days for a greater detoxification process and more thorough healing process. Fasting is one of the healthiest things you can do for your body, so make it a regular part of your life and enjoy the health benefits.

7. EXERCISE DAILY

Daily exercise is a very important part of reducing stress in your body and mind. It also helps to keep your muscles strong and flexible. In addition, daily exercise will help keep you regular. One of the best things you can do to exercise is to take a 30-60 minute power walk outside in the fresh air and in the sunlight. Remember to also practice deep breathing exercises to increase the oxygen in your lungs and body. Do vigorous aerobic and anaerobic exercise. Lift weights every other day to increase and maintain your muscles (strength training). Use a "rebounder" (mini-trampoline) for 5-10 minutes a day. And finally, be sure to enjoy the pleasure of vigorous sex (aka - sexercise) with your spouse daily. It's great for your health and your relationship, and it's a gift of God to enjoy.

8. KEEP YOUR INTESTINES CLEAN WITH FIBER & REGULAR BOWEL MOVEMENTS

Constipation is dangerous to your health and can lead to all kinds of health problems. It is a huge problem in America, and it is very much a result of eating the standard American diet of highly processed and refined foods made with things like white flour, white sugar, refined salt, high-fructose corn syrup, processed meats, fast food, junk food, etc. Most Americans don't eat enough vegetables and fruit in their diet, and therefore they do not get enough fiber in their intestinal tract. Some of the most prominent nutritionists and doctors believe that most illnesses can be traced back to the intestines and constipation. Make it a habit to eat plenty of high fiber vegetables, fruits, seeds, grains, and nuts to keep yourself regular. Do plenty of exercise and drink lots of natural water. For more information on fiber, keeping your colon clean, and regular bowel movements, see my blog on September 22, 2007.

Daily Walking Is a Key to Healthy Eating and to Good Nutrition

"Walking is, by far, the best form of exercise." - Dr. Paavo Airola

I strongly encourage you to make walking a daily exercise habit in your life. Walking is simply the best form of exercise known to man. It's also free and can be done almost anywhere. You can use your walking time to also keep mentally fit by reflecting on life, by meditating, and by praying. If at all possible, get out of the city and go for a long walk in the woods or on a mountain trail or on the beach. You need to find a place that has clean air to breathe and beautiful views of nature whenever possible to enhance the experience.

Let me also caution you not to walk or jog in smog or on trafficked streets. If you live in the city, sometimes it's difficult to find places where the air is pure. Look for large parks with lots of green grass and trees where you can walk. Walking on busy streets downtown where there is bumper-to-bumper traffic is unwise and dangerous to your health because there is a ton of lead and carbon monoxide in the air that flows into your lungs and body. If you live in a smoggy city and your only choice is to walk on the smoggy streets, then it's better not to walk at all. Possibly consider getting a treadmill and walking in your house. The best solution is to move to a place where the air is pure and you won't be killing yourself with polluted air.

While you're walking, you can adjust the speed of your walk to your level of energy and comfort. However, if you're able to make it a power walk, it is best to keep up a brisk walk in order to give your body the exercise it needs. If you have the time, stop in the middle of your walk and do some stretching exercises. Stretch, bend, and rotate your body and limbs to increase your flexibility. Also, remember to do deep breathing exercises as you walk. Learn to breathe in deeply from your abdomen instead of from your chest. This will increase the amount of oxygen that your body gets and will feed your body the oxygen it needs to function better.

After you finish your walk, go home and take a shower to wash away the perspiration. If you're really gutsy, take an intermittent cold and hot shower. Try 10 seconds of freezing cold, followed by 30 seconds of hot, and do this repeatedly. Nothing will feel so stimulating to your body as this kind of hot-cold shock treatment.

When you finish your shower, dry yourself with a coarse towel and then give yourself a 7-minute dry brush massage. You will want to use a special natural-bristle brush with a long handle that you can find in a health food store. Brush every part of your body, beginning with your feet and working up towards your heart. Use circular motions and be fairly rough on your skin. As you may know, your skin is your largest eliminative organ of your body. When you use a dry brush massage, you are helping your body eliminate toxins and brushing away dead skin cells, as well as stimulating the blood flow to your entire body.

The key to the door of creating a healthy lifestyle is of course eating healthy whole foods and getting the good nutrition that your body needs. However, it is extremely important to add exercise to your nutrition, as well as other healthy habits such as dry brush massaging. Think of your dry brush massage as your own personal Million Dollar Health and Beauty Treatment!

JUST DO IT - Keys to Good Nutrition and Tips to Eating Healthy

"Life consists of a series of choices. The little choices that we make on a day-to-day basis are the same factors that affect our health tomorrow, next year, or in the next decade." - Ted Broer

One of the major keys to good nutrition and tips to eating healthy is this: JUST DO IT.

Your long-term health is determined by all the things that you do and don't do, as well as by all the things that you put into your body and don't put into your body on a daily basis. This day-to-day chain of small choices will determine the condition of your health in the days ahead. This string of little decisions will create a healthy future for you or an unhealthy future for you.

The simple, undeniable truth is this - YOU, and you alone, determine your health on a daily basis, which determines your long-term health or ill-health. You are the only one who chooses to put healthy foods and drinks into your body every day - or not. You are the only one who chooses to take a daily walk and get the necessary exercise your body needs - or not.

God has given you, and you alone, the solemn responsibility to feed your spirit, soul, and body on a daily basis with good, healthy, life-giving things. What are you doing about this God-given responsibility? Do you take it seriously, or are you careless with it?

I encourage you NOT to wait until you've been diagnosed with some terminal life-threatening illness to learn to value your health and protect it. NOW is the time to be wise and to value your health and to take preventative steps to protect it. Most of the medical industry is focused on the wrong thing; namely, they give all of their attention to the diagnosis and treatment of illness. Instead, they should be focusing much more attention on the PREVENTION of illness. I warn you that it's time to wake up and start taking preventative steps to protect your health, before it's too late.

NOW is the time to start eating right and living right. Don't wait any longer, and don't continue to put it off until later. There will never be a better time than right now to start changing your health and creating for yourself a healthy lifestyle. This blog is dedicated to helping you do just that.

TODAY is the first day of the rest of your life. Therefore, make the necessary changes to start turning your health around by making healthy food and drink choices and by incorporating walking or some other form of exercise into your daily routine.

JUST DO IT! Get on with it already. Stop procrastinating and move forward. You CAN do it!

Healthy Dietary Fiber Is a Key to Good Nutrition and Eating Healthy

Daily Quote: "I believe that no single factor plays a more significant role in the origin of disease - or in its cure or prevention - than obtaining sufficient dietary FIBER." - Ted Broer

One of the most important keys to good nutrition and tips to eating healthy is getting enough dietary fiber in your foods every day. Your digestive system, especially the colon and large intestine, become constipated when too little water and dietary fiber are consumed. The U.S. Public Health Service has stated that approximately 90% of all Americans have a clogged colon to some degree. It is sad but true that Americans are one of the most constipated people in the whole world. We should be eating at least 25-30 grams of fiber a day, but shockingly, many Americans have a hard time consuming 30 grams of fiber a week!

According to licensed nutritionist and exercise physiologist, Ted Broer, "I am also convinced that no other single health condition plays so great a role in the development of disease as does constipation. Constipation has been shown to have a role in the development of hemorrhoids, heart disease, artherosclerosis, cancer (too many types to mention), diabetes, gall bladder disease, kidney stones and ulcers - just to name a few."

WHAT IS FIBER & WHAT DOES IT DO FOR YOUR BODY?

What is fiber? Simply put, fiber is the part of your food that cannot break down or be digested by your digestive system. Dietary fiber, or "roughage," is found abundantly in living plant foods such as vegetables, fruits, and grains. Fiber comes in two forms - soluble and insoluble fiber. Soluble fiber easily dissolves in water, so it can be easily absorbed in the intestine and circulated in the blood stream. Soluble fiber, such as pectin found in most fruits, in the blood can attach itself to blood fats and create a complex that removes these fats from the blood system, which in turn lowers cholesterol.

Insoluble fiber also absorbs water, but it remains in the intestine and forms the majority of the bulk necessary to collect and push bodily wastes through the intestine and out of the body. Food waste and bodily processes more very slowly, if at all, through the colon without the assistance of insoluble fiber. In this unhealthy case, the slow-moving mass can putrefy or rot right in the body causing the body to start poisoning itself. As you can see, insoluble fiber is critical to healthy functioning of the bowels and the whole elimination process.

THREE MAIN CAUSES OF CONSTIPATION

What's causing so much constipation (and all of its related illnesses) in America and the Western world? There are three main causes that need to be addressed and resolved. The first and foremost cause is our unhealthy low-fiber diet. This consists of denatured, bleached, refined, processed foods and flours, as well as a lack of fresh vegetables and fruit. When our wheat flour is refined, they take out over 50 healthy nutrients, and then add 12 synthetic vitamins that are totally indigestible. Then they put it on the supermarket shelves and advertise it as "enriched" wheat flour or bread. The food manufacturers basically throw away the good nutrition and leave Americans with an unhealthy malnutrition processed "food." No wonder almost everyone in America is constipated! And don't forget, most Americans don't even come close to eating the recommended 5-13 servings of vegetables and fruit per day.

The second cause of constipation is not drinking enough water every day. Water is an essential element to the whole digestion, assimilation, and elimination process. Without enough water, food that is digested slows down or comes to a stop. Think of water being like the oil in your car's engine. Without oil, the moving parts would wear each other down and the engine would quickly "freeze" up and break down completely. Likewise, without enough water, your body will become dehydrated and will start to "freeze" up and break down. It won't be able to process food properly or eliminate the waste properly.

The third cause of constipation is a lack of exercise. When your body does not get enough physical activity, food in your intestines and colon starts to slow down. For this reason alone, everyone should go for a 30-60 minute walk every day.

How do you know if you're "regular" enough? The basic guideline to use is this: everyone should have two or three bowel movements a day. This helps all waste matter move quickly through the large intestine and colon. This transit time should ideally be less than eighteen hours, and no more than twenty-four hours.

DO THESE 3 THINGS TO STAY "REGULAR"

1. Drink plenty of natural spring water every day. You should be drinking half your weight in ounces daily. In other words, if you're 160 pounds, you need to drink 80 ounces of water throughout the day.

2. Go for a daily walk to get the regular exercise your body needs.

3. Eat lots of dietary fiber every day and make significant changes to your create a healthy optimum diet. Your body needs at least 25-30 grams of fiber a day. It would also greatly help your system if you eliminated constipation-causing foods such as processed "enriched" wheat flour (white four) and other highly refined, denatured, bleached, processed flour.

GREAT SOURCES OF DIETARY FIBER FOR SUPER HEALTH

1. Fresh, organic vegetables, greens, fruits, and berries - These are all excellent sources of fiber. Aim at eating 75% of your vegetables and greens raw in the form of a healthy vegetable salad every day. Aim at eating 100% of your fruits & berries raw.

2. Beans and legumes. Learn how to soak and cook these yourself, and freeze portions for later use. These are probably the best source of fiber.

3. Brown rice. It has all the fiber and minerals that white rice lacks.

4. 100% whole wheat bread and flour, as well as 100% whole grain breads and flours such as rye, buckwheat, etc. Use these in all of your baking and cooking.

5. Whole grain cereals. These can be hot porridge-type cereals or cold cereal made from 100% whole grains.

6. Eat the skins of potatoes and of other organic fruits & vegetables.

7. Add oat bran, wheat bran, and wheatgerm to your meals.

8. Snack on sun-dried fruit - Enjoy apricots, dates, prunes, raisins, etc., which are all concentrated sources of fiber and nutrients.

9. Instead of drinking fruit juice and vegetable juice, eat the fruit and vegetables themselves so that you get all that healthy dietary fiber.

10. Eat flaxseed and chia seeds. These are a very healthy source of mucilaginous fiber that help relieve constipation and speed up the transit time for elimination.

Here's what Thomas Edison had to say about the future of health.

"The doctor of the future will give no medicine but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease."

Add the Keys of EXERCISE & DEEP BREATHING to Eating Healthy & Good Nutrition

Daily Quote: "Exercise helps you lose and control weight in two ways. First, by elevating your metabolism you burn more calories. Second, by building muscle - which requires more energy to maintain - you use even more calories. Exercising promotes better elimination and circulation that helps body cleansing!" - Paul Bragg

"Breathing deeply, fully and completely energizes the body, calms the nerves, fills you with peace, and helps keep you youthful." - Paul Bragg

A very important part of a healthy lifestyle is to exercise your body consistently and to practice deep breathing. These keys are in addition, of course, to good nutrition and eating healthy. Let me emphasize that the starting point to improving your health and losing unhealthy weight is to start eating healthy live organic whole food and to stop eating denatured, packaged, unhealthy dead processed man-made "foods" which are loaded with toxins, unhealthy fats, sugars, salt, and excit0-toxins. In other words, first focus on creating a healthy nutritious diet that will sustain your body and give it the nutrition it needs to function properly, and then, add healthy daily exercise and deep breathing.

A few years ago when I was trying to improve my health and lose weight, I first completely transformed my diet and eating habits. I quickly started losing weight and enjoying better health. However, my weight loss slowly came to a standstill after losing about 15 pounds. I couldn't figure out why until I realized that I wasn't exercising.

As soon as I started daily exercising, something changed in my body and I began to continue to lose more weight. I believe now that "something" was my metabolism changing from a slowed down metabolism to a higher metabolism. In other words, because I had added regular exercise to my body and routine, my metabolism sped up and adjusted itself in order to burn fat more efficiently and to stop storing fat as it had been. This one change made a huge impact on my weight loss and my personal fitness. I not only lost another 10-12 pounds, but I became more physically fit.

Regular exercise can benefit your body in many ways. First, exercise helps break up stress and tension and helps release it from the body. Stress is negative energy that wears down your body, but exercise allows it to leave the body. Second, exercise increases oxygen to the cells, which is necessary for life and vitality. Third, exercise stimulates every cell in the body in order to help eliminate toxic waste. Every cell produces its own toxic waste, and every cell needs stimulation to eliminate that toxic waste and remain healthy. Fourth, exercise increases the movement of lymph fluid in the body, which is an important factor in the process of elimination of toxins. Most people's lymphatic systems are dangerously sluggish and clogged, and moving the body through exercise helps to start moving the lymph fluid. Fifth, exercise opens the channels in the body to help the electromagnetic energy to flow freely and unhindered. This energy gives life to the body's cells, but it must not be blocked or congested in order for it to flow freely through the body to do its job of energizing the body's cells.

5-STEP EXERCISE ROUTINE FOR FITNESS & WEIGHT LOSS

I would like to share with you the 5-step exercise routine that I used to help me get over the hump and lose even more weight, as well as to become more physically fit. I encourage you to follow my example and start implementing a daily exercise routing including these 5 steps. One of the keys to my exercise routine was to include both aerobic and anaerobic exercise on a consistent daily basis.

One of the main reasons why I had gained weight was that my metabolism had slowed down. When I was younger, I could eat almost anything without gaining weight because I had a fast metabolism. However, once I got into my forties, my metabolism really slowed down and I started gaining quite a bit of weight because I was not eating the right kinds of food and I wasn't exercising. There are certain glands and organs in the body (such as the thyroid, pancreas, liver, stomach, small & large intestines, and colon) that regulate how well the body burns food for fuel and how it also converts food into stored fat. When some of these glands and organs are clogged or sluggish or not functioning properly, a person's metabolism slows down and starts converting more and more food into fat instead of fuel.

What are the two biggest reasons for a slow metabolism?

The first major cause of a slow metabolism is the amount of toxins you are putting into your body. Most of these toxins enter your body through what you eat and drink, in other words, through an unhealthy diet. These toxins include artificial food additives, chemical residues used in growing food that are transfered to your body, artificial sweeteners like aspartame and excito-toxins like MSG, prescription & non-prescription drugs, as well as toxins in the water supply such as fluoride & chlorine. These toxins cause your metabolism to slow down, which in turn causes your body to store your food energy as fat.

The second major cause of a slow metabolism is a low amount of muscle in your body and a lack of regular walking exercise. The more muscle your body has, the higher your metabolism will be. Unfortunately, most Americans have an abnormally low amount of muscles in their bodies, which means that they don't burn calories as efficiently as they could. Also, a lack of walking exercise significantly lowers a person's metabolism. The human body is designed to walk, and when a person stops walking on a daily basis, their metabolism adjusts and begins to slow down.

STEP I - Take a swift "POWER WALK" every day in the sunshine for 30-60 minutes. Your body was designed to walk. Walking every day will help make you thin and keep you thin because it gives your body the kind of exercise it needs, and because it will help to readjust your metabolism by speeding it up to burn fat more efficiently and to stop storing energy fuel as fat. The common denominator of thin, lean people all over the world is that they walk over 5 miles a day, whereas the typical American walks only one tenth of a mile a day. Remember, don't just go for a slow casual "stroll" through the park. A power walk means that you are to walk swiftly with exertion so that your heart and lungs have to work harder. If you want to, you may combine walking with some jogging. I would recommend that you use your 30-60 minutes of walking time to pray, or to meditate, or to listen to inspiring music on your iPod. After you get in the habit of taking your daily power walk, your body will crave this activity and you will look forward to it every day. It won't be a drudgery, but rather a joy and pleasure. Oh, I almost forgot. Don't do your power walk on busy streets that are filled with toxic poisonous gases from cars, buses, and trucks. Find a peaceful, quiet place like a local park where you can breathe in fresh, clean air.

STEP II - Practice DEEP BREATHING EXERCISES to increase the oxygen in your lungs and body. Most people don't breathe deeply enough to stimulate their metabolism and fat burning capabilities. You can do this throughout your day, but make sure to do this especially while you are out taking your power walk. Learn to start breathing in very deeply, from your belly, up through your lungs, filling your lungs with more and more oxygen. I'm normally a very shallow breather; however, by practicing deep breathing exercises, I have been able to increase the amount of oxygen in my lungs, which has had an effect on my whole body. I would recommend that you practice breathing deeply throughout your day. Write on a small index card the words, "Breathe deeply," and tape it in front of your desk or computer and in your car as an hourly reminder.



STEP III - LIFT SMALL WEIGHTS every other day to increase your muscle strength. Get a set of 3 pound or 5 pound weights to start out with. After several months, you can increase the weight from 3 to 5 pounds, or from 5 to 10 pounds. Develop some simple lifting routines to work your various upper body muscles. Keep a record of how many repetitions you do, and then try to increase that every day. When I first started doing this, I actually combined my small weight lifting routine with a small stepper so that I was working my lower body as well. You can find a small stepper machine at your local sporting goods store. It's a small 1 foot by 1 foot machine that you stand on and step up and down on. It has small hydraulic pumps that create resistance so that it gives you the feeling that you're climbing stairs. I recommend that you do this along with your weight lifting routine so that you're exercising both your upper and lower body. Start slowly lifting weights every other day for about 10 minutes, and then increase that time slowly until you're doing this for 20-30 minutes a day. Remember, only lift weights every other day, not every day because your muscles need time to rest and rebuild themselves. You'll be amazed at the difference 20 minutes a day of small weight lifting will do for your body.



STEP IV - Use a "REBOUNDER" for 5-10 minutes a day. A rebounder is a mini-trampoline about 4 feet in diameter, on which you gently bounce up and down. Doing this allows you to stimulate and strengthen every cell in your body simultaneously, stimulate your lymphatic system, and increase your metabolism. It is also very effective for weight loss.

STEP V - SEXERCISE daily. Enjoy the pleasure of vigorous sex with your spouse daily. Incorporate sexercise into your daily romantic workout, but don't let it become routine. Keep it creative and diversified. Various studies have shown that vigorous daily sex burns fat and improves your health. If you don't believe me, try it. It's fun, it's free, and it feels fantastic!