Today we want to talk about how to re-enforce and strengthen our Chi or life force. When our life force weakens or becomes restricted in flow it results in sickness. The stronger your life force the larger your field of influence is and the more service you are able to perform.

I also want to point out that the stronger your life force or Chi, the more you live your life in love and peace. Your Chi connects with and is a part of source energy, which is love. This is why strengthening your Chi leads to spiritual and personal growth.

The basis of maintaining a strong Chi is right living. Taking care of yourself, physically, mentally and emotionally.  Eating a healthy diet, exercise and maintaining a calm and peaceful life.

A healthy diet and exercise speak for themselves. Maintaining a calm and peaceful life may take some explanation. Meditation is probably the best way to reach and maintain peace and calm in everyday living.

I am not going to go into a lot of detail on diet, exercise, and meditation because information on these subjects is readily available. I do encourage you to take time to research the topics and make them a part of your daily living.

Learning and practicing a discipline strengthens your Chi. The disciplines I am talking about are QiGong, which I practice, yoga, Pilate’s, or any of the martial arts. Choose the one that best suits you and make it a daily practice. You will feel your life force as it becomes stronger.

Breathing is one very simple way of strengthening your Chi. By breathing I mean abdominal and deep breathing.

In order to do deep breathing correctly it must start with abdominal breathing. We have become a society of shallow breathers. We breathe with our chests. If you watch a newborn baby you will notice that the baby will breathe with their abdomen.

In abdominal breathing the abdomen expands and retracts and not the chest. To determine how you breathe place one hand on your chest and the other hand on your abdomen. Breathe normally and notice which hand moves. If the hand on your chest moves you are a shallow breather.

If you are a shallow breather practice abdominal breathing until it becomes habit. To practice deep breathing stand with your spine straight, knees slightly bent and arms at your side.

As you inhale start abdominal breathing taking in as much air as possible. Then without hesitating start to open the chest as you continue bringing in air. When you have taken in as much air as possible at this point raise your shoulders slightly and gently force in much air as possible.

Hold your breath for a moment then start to exhale. Reverse the process. Lower your shoulders, then deflate you chest and finally collapse the abdomen.

Establish a rhythm of breathing so that your inhale takes the same time as your exhale. you will also feel energized by deep breathing.

TODAY’S TIP: Make a habit of 4 or 5 minutes of deep breathing when you first get out of bed in the morning. This will raise you energy level and get your day off to a good start.

How do you feel in the morning?

To continue where we left off yesterday.

The auto manufacturers recommend periodic maintenance for your auto. How many follow those recommendations? How many of you perform periodic maintenance on your body? Why not? Don’t you think that you should at least take as good of care of your body as you do your automobile? After all if your auto breaks down and can not be repaired, you simply go buy another car. If you body breaks down there is no other.

Well the good news is that it is never too late to start taking care of your body. Where do you start? I suggest that if you have never done an internal cleanse or have not done one in the last three years that you start there. When John Wayne died they did an autopsy and found that he had 50 pounds of fecal matter in his intestines. In other words if he had done a cleanse before he died he would have lost 50 pounds. When you do a cleanse you want to also cleanse the parasites that live in our bodies. Parasites can rob us of nutrients and cause all kinds of problems. We can pick them up from the food we eat, our pets, and the water we drink. .

Another thing you can do is lessen the stress in your life. Stress has been shown to be the #1 cause of disease. It lowers our immune system and makes us more susceptible to disease. You can do this with a combination of deep breathing and meditation.

First let’s briefly discuss deep breathing. Most people breath with their chest, this is called shallow breathing. The problem with shallow breathing is that you never get air to the bottom of your lungs.

Learn and practice abdominal breathing which fills the lungs from the bottom up. To tell if you are a shallow breather simply place one hand on your chest and the other on your abdomen. Breathe normally and the hand that moves will tell you how you breathe. Practice deep abdominal breathing first thing in the morning and during the day. It will help to keep you calmer and you will get more oxygen into your system.

If you do not already, start to meditate regularly. Meditation helps to relieve stress and give you more control over your thoughts. You can think the thoughts you want instead of whatever comes into your head. Being able to control your thoughts gives you much more control over your life.

It feels good to feel good and by being proactive with your health and life you will have a more productive and joyful life.

TODAY’S TIP: Develop a plan to take care of your body. I do one yearly and devote certain times for different tasks designed to enhance my health and well being. I devote time each year to work on strengthening different parts of my body, such as heart, prostrate, liver, etc.

Do you have a plan?

Wednesday we talked about the health of our society. Here are some of the reasons.

The environment is becoming more and more polluted. Our water is becoming more and more polluted. Our food has become more polluted in the last 50 years. Did you know that there are more than 3000 chemicals in our food chain?

Our foods are becoming less nutritious. The vitamins and minerals that are supposed to be in our food have been either destroyed during processing or absent because of the depleted soil they are grown in.

Irradiation kills all the germs and bacteria that are harmful, but in doing so it kills everything.. The result is dead food with little or no nutrients.

Whenever you see the words “fortified” or “Enriched” it means that the nutrients have been removed during processing and the chemical equivalent are added.

Many of us drink bottled water because we are told that it is safer than tap water. By law bottled water has to be filtered with a process called reverse osmosis so that the harmful substances are removed, but the natural minerals, which the body needs, are also removed. Bottled water is dead water. The results of consuming foods and water lacking in nutrients is a lowered immune system which make us more susceptible to disease.

We need to become proactive with our health. We need to practice true preventative medicine. It seems that when the Medical profession talks about prevention they mean “if you get sick we will try to make sure you don’t get sicker.

True preventive health means adjusting one’s lifestyle to maximize healthy habits and choices. I encourage you to educate yourself in ways to maintain health and wellness. Open your mind to alternative health practices. The medical profession will tell you that these methods have not been proven with modern testing. Most alternative methods have been working for thousands of years. If they didn’t work they would not still be used.

Let me end by offering a few simple things you can do to improve your health. First and probably the most important is rid your life of stress. Stress is the number one cause of disease. Practice stress reduction techniques such as meditation regularly.

Take a daily vitamin and mineral supplement from whole foods. Substitute red or cayenne pepper for black pepper. Black pepper is abrasive to the inner membranes; red pepper soothes and is a blood cleaner.

Start your day with two tall glasses of water before eating or having coffee. This gets a head start on you daily water consumption and helps to flush the digestive system of yesterday’s leftovers.

Be more active, the best exercise is simply walking. A lot of people say well I don’t have time to exercise. You don’t need a lot of time to exercise. Studies have shown that exercising in segments of 10 minutes will satisfy the body’s need. In future posts we will discuss each of these topics in more detail. Stay tuned.

TODAY’S TIP: Start doing little things that help to make you healthier. Park some distance away from where you are going and walk, take the stairs instead of the elevator and practice deep breathing.

Will your health improve tomorrow?

We are a society in crisis. There are several but the one I want to talk about is health. Because of advances in science and medicine we have been continually increasing our lifespan. In the year 1900 it was 46 years, today it is over 70 years and continues to increase. However according to various health organizations, including the US Dept of Health, we as a people are sicker now than at any time in our history. In the last several decades cancer, diabetes, arthritis, asthma, and hearth disease have increased to near epidemic levels.

To illustrate here are some statistics from the US Dept of Health and The Center for Disease Control.

•  In 2006 there were 1,399,790 new cases of cancer, resulting in 564,830 deaths. The fastest growing cancer of men is prostrate cancer and for women, breast cancer.
• 15.7 million People in the US, 6% of the population, have diabetes, 1 in 3 don’t even know they have it.
• In 1997 it’s estimated that 59.7 million Americans have one or more forms of cardiovascular disease. 41.2% of all deaths in 1997 were due to cardiovascular disease (1 in 6 were younger than 65.
• Nearly 40 million Americans (1 in 7) have arthritis. This figure is projected to increase to 60 million by 2020(20% of the population)
• Asthma has become a major public health problem, especially among children, where it is the third-ranking cause of hospitalization of children under 15 years of age. Pediatric Asthma rate jumped 72% among children 5 to 16 years old from 1980 to 1994.
• In 1938, 0.5% of males were functionally sterile vs. 8% to 12% today. A study done about 10 years ago by an independent health organization showed that men’s sperm counts were drastically reduced around the world except in one region in Norway. The difference was their lifestyles. They were rather isolated and ate mostly fish and other seafood. They also grew their own produce which was grown organically.
• The 1999-2002 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey indicate that about 16% of children and adolescents ages 6 to 19 are overweight. This is a 45% increase from estimates of 11% in the 1988 to 94 study. The 1999 – 2002 study also showed that 65% of adults are either overweight or obese, 16% higher than the previous study.

What does this mean? Why is our health becoming so poor? Is it really true that this is a part of aging as we are led to believe? Or is this just an excuse? We are told that the increase is due to environmental factors and a more sedentary lifestyle. We are not eating right and not getting enough exercise. These are contributing factors.

Friday we will talk more about the causes and what we can do to not become one of those statistics. We do not have to except the misconception that aging brings with it diminished capacities and sickness.

TODAY’S TIP: Do not buy into the notion that aging means sickness. Look around you and see those seniors that are in excellent health and emulate them.

What are are you doing to stay healthy?

We are a sick society. According to the Center for Disease Control we, as a society, are sicker now than at anytime in man’s history.

How do you feel about that fact? It sickens me. With all the miracles of modern medicine and science we are sicker now than at anytime in our history. That just doesn’t make sense. There is no legitimate reason why this should be.

We have been conditioned to do many things that are not in our best interest. We eat junk food, drink beverages that are not good for the body. We pollute the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the land where we grow our food. I just read that each year over 300,000 people die from side effects of prescription drugs.

Many of the buildings we work in have been labeled sick because of the air pollution inside them. Many of our homes are so toxic our children spend their growth years with one illness after another.

I sometimes feel like screaming in the street that it doe not have to be this way. We need to remember who we are and take proactive control over our health and our lives.

We are Divine beings and as such we create our reality. We make ourselves sick and we can cure ourselves. I know it is not that simple, but we have the power to live healthy productive lives.

We are conditioned that sickness is a part of life. That as we grow older we can expect to have illnesses.  Well let me tell you that this is not true.

How healthy you are starts with your attitude. How do you feel about yourself? Dig deep and be honest. What emotions are you holding on to from the past, even as far back as childhood? What do you believe about health and wellness?

All of that affects your health. I will not tell you that it is easy to be healthy but if you are not proactive about your health you will more often than not experience sickness and dis-ease. You health has to be a priority to maintain your health.

Many people have the mistaken idea that to be healthy they only have to work on their physical bodies. They only have to eat healthy and exercise. But, as we mentioned yesterday, health means the total you; mind, body, and soul.

Everything must be in balance. We must use the tools available to us, that work for us. What works for one may not work for another.

There is a revolution taking place in personal health. Each day more and more people are waking up and realizing that to ruin their health is not worth all the money and power in the world.

A few week ago I came across a new tool in the quest to maintain and improve personal health. This week I want to share that tool with my readers. It has to do with using Zero field energy to help facilitate healing. Here is the link for you to see for yourself what I am talking about: Zero Field Energy

TODAY’S TIP: If you have an illness take the time to research and find out what will help you return to a healthy state.

What have you done today to improve your health?

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Fasting can be used to improve health, however one should be careful and know what they are doing before attempting to fast for the purpose of healing. Here is information about healing fasts.

Can Fasting Cure Your Illness? By Jane Aslett

Fasting is an ancient practice that has cured hundreds of debilitating diseases and conditions. Could it be the answer you are looking for to cure your cancer, diabetes, lower back pain, irritable bowel syndrome, high blood pressure, sinusitis or any other condition that plagues you? When you think about it – what is the first instinct when you don’t feel well? What was it your Mother told you to do when you didn’t feel well? Go to bed, rest and don’t eat.

According to many more knowledgeable people than me, fasting should be your first treatment when you discover a medical problem. The healing process will be much faster and more effective when you abstain from solid food… Make it easy for your digestive tract. With the growing interest in natural healing and health care, the technique of fasting, as a safe and effective method of detoxifying the body, is being rediscovered.

Fasting has existed since the beginning of life on earth and has been used as a religious ritual as well as for preventing and curing diseases. Fasting is a way of purifying the body of a wide variety of pollutants, pollutants that are so rife in our atmosphere today that we can’t avoid them. Regular fasting will improve the capacity and ability of the body to make full use of the food eaten.

Because of the overload on the body from processing food day after day, with the environmental pollutants contributing to this workload, the body is not always able to cleanse itself efficiently. With the digestive and cleansing systems on full throttle with never a rest, it may be unable to rid itself of all the stored toxins, waste products, body acids, excess proteins and fat deposits that have accumulated. This, over time, can lead to cancer and other innumerable diseases.

Fasting will enable the digestive system to rest, detoxify and heal.

How and When should I Fast?

An Extended Fast? An extended fast would normally be for somewhere between 3 and 40 days in length. This could be something you do only once in your life, or a few times. An extended fast would be used to heal an illness or disease, for weight loss, spiritual awakening or to improve your overall health and wellbeing.

Intermittent fasting? This is something you would do just for a day, once a week for a given period, or it could mean just skipping a meal.

There are several methods that can be used for successful fasting, but whatever method you use, just be sure to have a clear intention of why you are doing it. Read up all you can about fasting so you can determine if it is the right thing for you.

When you embark on a fasting program, it is a good idea to have a ‘fasting buddy’ – someone who can support you and share the process. It won’t be easy, so don’t be too hard on yourself. Don’t do it alone, seek help.

Read how others have done it – you will find some helpful stories here.

Jane Aslett has a down to earth, commonsense understanding of the importance of good nutrition and sensible lifestyle decisions to allow us to experience wellness. She believes that although it takes a constant and deliberate effort to stay healthy and to achieve total well-being, by making some life-style changes where necessary, it is possible to experience ‘true wellness’. A desire to help people make the right decisions in taking control of their own health and wellbeing inspired her to set up her website http://www.wellness-decisions.com which addresses many of the issues that we have to cope with, particularly as we age. She’d love you to subscribe to her FREE monthly Newsletter Choose Wellness.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jane_Aslett

TODAY’S TIP: consider incorporating a fasting program into your lifestyle. It will help to maintain your health and well-being.

Are you learning something new about fasting?

I hope you have gained more awareness about some of the foods you have been eating. Healthy eating not only means eating healthy foods, but also not eating unhealthy foods.

Many aspects of our society have become ruled by greed. Some corporations are more concerned with their bottom line than with public safety. The FDA and other branches of government, which are supposed to be safeguarding our foods, have basically sold out to industry.

We have fallen behind in the regulation of some areas of our society. We allow things that have been outlawed in some European countries. We permit some things to be sold in the mainstream of our society that have not been properly tested because it is more profitable.

When we have incidents where certain processes and medicines have caused harm they are covered up. The courts are full of lawsuits against corporations that have marketed products that have cause harm to the public, some even though they knew of the dangers before hand.

When we take the time to educate ourselves about what is going on in our food industry we realize that there is only one thing for us to do. We must become proactive in deciding what foods we will consume.

We realize that our government agencies and our industries will not necessarily do all they can to protect us. Many out of ignorance, but some deliberate.

We can no longer ignore what is happening around us. We as a society are sicker now than at any time in man’s history. One of the biggest contributing factor is our diet. Not only are there things in our food that is killing us but we also overeat.

If you are not eating as you know you should, stop making excuses and start to make the changes that will improve your health and well-being. You don’t have to make major changes right away. Start with small incremental changes.

Start reading labels and regularly read materials that will further your education about nutrition and healthy eating habits.

Plan your meals weekly. This will help to keep the discipline necessary to ensure you are eating a healthy diet. Have you ever come home with no plans for dinner and just throw something together? This is a part of the problem. You are less likely to have a balanced meal when you cook whatever is available.

TODAY’S TIP: The best diet plan is to eat 4 or 5 meals a day at 3 or 4 hour intervals. Eat small portions; 3 meals and 1 or two snacks, healthy snacks.

Have you learned anything?

Today I offer more information about food additives which may be harmful. The article is a little longer than usual, but worth the read.

What Everybody Ought to Know About Food Additives By Christine Farlow

Every day we are bombarded with information about food products that are healthy, all natural, have no artificial ingredients, no preservatives, low fat, no fat, no cholesterol, sugar free, vitamin fortified and provide 100% of your daily vitamin requirements. Are these foods as healthy as the advertising tries to make us believe they are?

Let’s look at the facts. There are more than 3000 different chemicals added to our food. The company that wants to produce the chemicals or use the chemicals in the foods they produce usually does the testing for safety. Safety testing has only been done for individual additives, not for combinations of additives. Nobody knows the effects of the many different additives used in the thousands of different combinations. To make matters worse, because of political pressure, the FDA allows manufacturers to add small amounts of cancer-causing substances to our food. So, not only are many of our foods not healthy, they’re unsafe.

The FDA has even approved, as safe, additives it has known to be unsafe. Take, for example, Olestra, the fat substitute which was approved by the FDA over the objections of many leading food scientists. Olestra can cause diarrhea, abdominal cramping and may even contribute to cancer, heart disease and blindness. Foods containing Olestra must have a warning label on the package.

Then there’s the artificial sweetener aspartame, also known as Nutrasweet. Aspartame was approved and claimed safe by a specially appointed FDA Commissioner after his own Board of Inquiry that investigated aspartame claimed it unsafe. Aspartame can cause birth defects, central nervous system disturbances, menstrual difficulties, brain damage in phenylketonurics, seizures, death and a long list of other reactions too numerous to mention. It may cause irreversible health damage over the long term.

Fats are another story. A certain amount of the right kind of fat is necessary for your nervous system, your immune system, the formation of cell membranes, and the absorption of the fat-soluble vitamins. The problem is that over 90% of the food produced today contain hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oil, which contributes to heart disease, elevated cholesterol and triglycerides, non-insulin dependent diabetes and cancer. Research even shows an association between attention deficit disorder and hydrogenated oils.

The next time you grocery shop, look at the label of every item before you buy. Unless you already buy all organic and natural foods, almost every item you pick up will contain hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils. Instead, choose products that say no hydrogenated oils. Use raw organic butter instead of margarine, and extra virgin olive oil, coconut oil or flaxseed oil (flaxseed oil should never be heated).

If you’re eating more chicken, turkey and fish, because it’s healthier, you may be surprised to learn that sliced chicken and turkey from the deli contains nitrites. And nitrites cause cancer. Nitrites are found in almost all processed meats, including luncheon meats, hot dogs, sausages and bacon. Then there’s tuna, a healthy choice if it only contains tuna and water and is only eaten occasionally. But, most tuna contains broth or hydrolyzed vegetable protein, which contain MSG. And MSG is not required to be listed on the label because it is an ingredient in the broth, not directly added to the tuna. This is the way food manufacturers hide MSG in the food they produce. And hidden MSG can be a very serious problem to those who are sensitive to it. MSG can cause a wide variety of symptoms including migraines, numbness and tingling, asthma, seizures, diarrhea, panic attacks and heart problems.

Other sources of hidden MSG include autolyzed yeast, boullion, stock, malt extract, malt flavoring, barley malt, maltodextrin, natural flavors, pectin, seasonings, carrageenan, soy sauce, soy protein, whey protein, anything enzyme modified, fermented, protein fortified, or ultrapasteurized, fast foods, chips, condiments, salad dressings, lunch meats, sausages and soups. In fact, most processed foods contain MSG according to Kathleen Schwartz of the nonprofit group NoMSG.

So, buyer beware! Even if the label says “all natural ingredients” and “no preservatives,” the product could contain harmful additives. So, how do you know which foods are really safe to eat? You need to read the labels and know how to interpret the information on the label.

Here’s a few hints on what to eat and what to avoid: Eat fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, good quality protein and healthy fats. Avoid these additives:
Aspartame or Nutrasweet
Saccharin
MSG and Free Glutamates
Artificial colorings
Nitrites and Nitrates
Caffeine
BHA and BHT
Brominated vegetable oil or BVO
Olestra or Olean
Sulfites

Here’s a general rule of thumb: If the list of ingredients is long, there are probably a lot of chemical additives in the product, and you’re risking your health by eating it. If the list of ingredients is short, it may or may not have harmful additives in it, so you need to read the label carefully before you purchase it.

Dr. Christine Farlow has made it easy for you to identify which additives are harmful and which are not. In her handy pocket-sized book, FOOD ADDITIVES: A Shopper’s Guide To What’s Safe & What’s Not, now in its 2004 revised edition, she classifies 800 commonly used food additives according to safety, whether they may cause allergic reactions and if they are Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS) by the FDA. In just seconds, you can find out if an additive in the food you’re buying is harmful to your health. It’s clear, concise and easy to use. Make this book your constant grocery shopping companion and you’ll never again wonder about the safety of the ingredients listed on the package. You’ll know.

Dr. Christine H. Farlow, D.C. is a chiropractor, nutritionist and author. She has helped thousands improve their health through nutrition. For more information on food additives and healthy eating, visit http://www.healthyeatingadvisor.com. Contact Dr. Farlow at dr.cfarlow@healthyeatingadvisor.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Christine_Farlow

TODAY’S TIP: Read the labels on the food you buy. If you don’t know what an ingredient is, put it back on the shelve.

When is the last time you read the labels?

Many people think that drinking diet drinks will help them lose weight. Often while drinking these diet drinks they gain weight. Here is an article on the possible dangers of sugarless diet drink.

Lose Weight Naturally – The Untold Dangers of Nutrasweet By Dr. William Berkowitz

If you knew of an FDA approved and natural product, wouldn’t you assume it was safe to eat? Maybe not, if that product was NutraSweet. How about its ability to help you lose weight naturally? Wouldn’t you think that if it were an artificial sweetener that it would help you lose weight? Not really, some experts are saying. Yet there are millions of us who use aspartame, also known as NutraSweet, on a daily basis.

NutraSweet is found in a number of products, including sugar-free gum, cereal, instant breakfast, ice creams, juices, laxatives, yoghurt, tea, whipped topping, shake mixes, some milk products and a variety of tabletop sweeteners. NutraSweet is everywhere, especially in that low calorie soda you’re drinking.

Whether or not you can lose weight naturally consuming NutraSweet, you need to know that its FDA approval was tainted and that there are likely toxic components to the sweetener that are harmful to you. In addition, it is believed to actually increase the appetite. What you may not know is that 85 percent of complaints received by the FDA are related to problems incurred with the use of this sweetener.

Some of the risks associated with using NutraSweet include birth defects in infants, including mental retardation. It appears to be associated with brain cancer as well with research on rats supporting this statement. In fact, in the middle of the 1970s, it was found that those who manufactured aspartame falsified their data by cutting out brain tumors from rates and putting them, cancer free, back into the mix. They apparently didn’t include those animals that died in the study.

NutraSweet has been related to those who are developing diabetes. Rather than lose weight naturally, the individual who consume the artificial sweetener are getting fatter and are developing diabetes as a result. In addition, NutraSweet interferes with a diabetic’s ability to respond to oral anti-diabetic agents. It also seems to contribute to diabetic complications, like diabetic retinopathy, neuropathy and cataracts.

In one study on NutraSweet, those with mood disorders developed more serious symptoms on aspartame or NutraSweet. The study needed to be stopped early because of the seriousness of the findings. It was concluded that aspartame should not be used by those with mood disorders like bipolar disorder or depression. Some patients indicated that they felt “poisoned” by aspartame. Other studies link aspartame to low serotonin levels, a common cause of mood disorders.

Seizures seem to be triggered by aspartame or NutraSweet. There was a study out of MIT that looked at eighty people who ate NutraSweet and then got seizures. Many magazines related to aviation have published stories on the dangers of drinking or eating aspartame and the dangers of seizures in pilots. There have been pilots who have reported having grand mal seizures while flying-all due to consuming NutraSweet.

There is a general lack of awareness by US persons, trying to lose weight naturally but consuming this hazardous product instead. Unless you read a specific article, you assume that aspartame is safe and believe it will help you lose weight. You don’t realize how easily a pharmaceutical company can get a product approved by the FDA through the use of bad studies and bribes.

Several have looked at how aspartame got approved and have found many irregularities. Even today, the FDA is doing nothing to protect us from the dangers of this product. NutraSweet is currently being sold in more than seventy countries.

In order to learn how to lose weight naturally and begin your own natural weight loss program, download your very own free copy of “An Experts Guide to Weight Loss – 7 Red Hot Secrets to Turbo Charge Your Metabolism and Boost Your Weight Loss” by clicking the link below.

Get access to Dr. Berkowitz’s FREE “Experts Guide to Weight Loss – 7 Red Hot Secrets To TurboCharge Your Metabolism And Boost Your Weight Loss”. Learn the 7 secrets to boost your weight loss.
Click here to download your FREE copy of the “Experts Guide to Weight Loss” at [http://RapidNaturalWeightLoss.com/]

Frustrated by the confusion in the Weight Loss marketplace, through his research Dr. Bill developed a Weight Loss program founded on the Laws of Human Physiology.

He has also developed a companion Exercise Program that turns up the metabolism in just minutes a day. Click on this link to download your FREE copy of the “Experts Guide to Weight Loss – 7 Red Hot Secrets to Weight Loss” [http://RapidNaturalWeightLoss.com/]

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dr._William_Berkowitz

TODAY’S TIP: For more information on NutraSweet and Aspartame visit the websites: http://www.dorway.com and http://www.dorway.org.

When is the last time you drank a diet soda?

As I mentioned yesterday some of the things in our food is believed to be harmful. Here is an article which talks about some of those things.

4 Food Additives to Avoid By Ruthan Brodsky

If you have ever purchased a bag of low calorie candy you will be dumbfounded after looking at the list of ingredients. We all want to keep our calories down, we want our food to taste good, but we have no idea about all those chemicals we are putting in our digestive system.

Sodium Nitrate and Nitrate.

If you become distended when you eat hotdogs or baloney it is a very good indication that there are nitrates in the product. Nitrates are preservatives added to processed meat products such as ham, and lunch meats. They prevent the growth of bacteria and give the meat a healthy looking pink hue which can be deceptive at times. These compounds become cancer causing agents called nitrosamines in the stomach. Nitrosamines are among the most powerful carcinogens known and even small amounts can cause cancer. Nitrates are considered dangerous by the FDA but they are not banned because they do prevent botulism. Side effects include headaches, nausea, vomiting, dizziness and for me, a distended stomach. Health food stores offer a variety of nitrate/nitrate free meats.

BHA and BHT

The longer names for these preservatives are butylated hydroxyanisole and butylated hydrozyttoluene preserve many foods. They also increase the risk of cancer and accumulate in body tissue causing liver enlargement. Animal studies link BHA with cancer. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services considers BHA to be considered as a carcinogen but they do not block its use. The additives are important to the food industry because they block the process of oil going rancid which can happen when oil is exposed to light. These additives are associated with changing moods, and they affect sleep and appetite. They have also been associated with liver and kidney damage, behavioral problems, and fetal abnormalities.

MSG

MSG is associated with Asian cooking but food companies and restaurant cooks use the additive in everything. Monosodium glutamate, or MSG, is an amino acid used as a flavor enhance in soups, salad dressings, chips, frozen entrees, and restaurant food. Using MSG allows cooks or companies in processed foods, to reduce the amount of real ingredients in their foods such as the chicken in chicken soup. MSG reduces costs.

Since 1960 the use of MSG has caused some concern when it was discovered that large amounts of MSG fed to infant mice destroyed nerve cells in the brain. This research forced baby food companies to stop adding MSG to their products. Even so, MSG may be hidden in infant formula, low fat milk, candy, drinks, over the counter medications, as a finder, as filler for nutritional supplements, and in prescription drugs.

Children are more sensitive to MSG than adults. Neonatal exposure to MSG can cause a permanent reduction in the secretion of growth hormone. Other reactions, by both children and adults, include headaches, nausea, weakness, wheezing, changes in heart rate, and difficulty breathing.

The following ingredients on a label also indicated MSG:
•    Hydrolyzed protein, soy or any type;
•    utolyzed yeast;
•    Monosodium glutamate;
•    Free glutamate;
•    Yeast extract;
•    Caseinate.

Artificial Sweeteners

Artificial sweeteners are a combination of chemicals that make foods tast2 sweeter without the sugar calorie. Most of these have side effects and their chemical breakdown in the body may be harmful. If this were not enough, when artificial sweeteners are combined with other food additives, like artificial colors, they can have a more potent effect on your nerve cells. For instance, in a research project a few years ago, the application of a specific additive alone stopped mouse nerve cells from growing and also interfered with proper signaling systems. When the artificial color yellow and aspartame were combined, the effect on the nerve cells was seven times greater,

Interestingly, there is an increasing number of products that are low in calories but more people are getting fatter. How can this be? It happens that when you eat something sweet but do not take in the calories, your body will crave more calories than if you had eaten real sugar. That means the more artificially sweetened anything you eat the more weight you are likely to gain because you will crave more sweet foods. Besides, most of the foods that contain artificial sweeteners are of poor nutritional value causing your body to starve itself if that is all you are eating. You are still hungry all the time because your body is not getting the nutrients it needs.

Aspartame, also known by the brand names Nutrasweet and Equal, is one of the sweeteners frequently researched. It is found in low-calorie desserts, gelatins, drink mixes and soft drinks. It comes in individual packages used in place of sugar and has been the focus of hundreds of studies. Conclusions by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the World Health Organization, say the additive is safe. However, the Center for Science in the Public Interest gave it a very low ranking in a review of food additives suggesting there may be a link with aspartame and cancer but more research needs to be done.

If you define food additives as a substance not normally consumed as a food itself and not an ingredient of the food, then we humans have been adding additives to our food for centuries just by adding salt. Most of us tolerate these food additives and many of the artificial additives. However, some are considered toxic and may even be carcinogenic. To be on the safe side, consider reducing the amount of food additives and artificial sweeteners you include in your diet.

Ruthan Brodsky specializes in health and business topics targeted to the baby boomer population. As an author, copywriter, speaker and coach she is highly regarded for her ability to take a complicated subject and make it understood by the non medical and non technical reader. I invite you to claim her short report, 15 Steps to Challenge Your Brain at http://www.secretstohealthandaging.com/welcome

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