WE LOVE EVERY NEW FAD.  IT’S LIKE THE PROVERBIAL “EATING AN ELEPHANT?”

How do you eat an elephant?

“One bite at a time,” as they say.

LATEST NEW TREND, DETOXING, IS LIKE THE PROVERBIAL EATING AN ELEPHANT

Grab the newest fad.   If it’s a new thing it looks exciting.  Not one bite at a time.  Let’s just do it!

We get excited about a new trend and go to it, no piecemeal for us.   If it’s a new fad we jump on the bandwagon NOW!

NEW PROJECT SOUNDS EXCITING, MAKE A TEAM

Empty the schedule, make calendar/Day Timer note, “Elephant eating,” get supply box with big knife, forks, water bottle…  Get a team.

First of the week.  Gather the team, and supplies.  Begin, one bite at a time.

Going great at first:  “It’s great to have a goal.  Finally got up courage to do this.” “Glad you guys are with me, part of something big!”

EXCITEMENT WANES AS WE SEE THE SIZE OF THE PROJECT

But…after 4-5 days, half of the team doesn’t show.  Excuses,  last-minute appointments, car breaks down, lost the big knife, mother-in-law getting married….

Elephant eating is a big job.  “It’s not as though I don’t have a million other things that take my time,”  “How big is an elephant?” “How many days…”

It’s not easy sticking with a project, especially one that will take a long, loong time.

WE ALL LOVE EXCITING NEW TRENDS AND FADS

We love fads as long as they don’t last too long.

In that way a fast/cleanse/detox is like eating an elephant.   The proverbial “40 days and 40 nights,” of lemon, water, and juices.

Master cleanses are like that.  BIG ELEPHANTS.  Fads everywhere.  T.V. advertising, the World Wide Web  Master  Cleanses,  Detox Programs.

We jump on the latest great idea, the magic health cure without taking our stressful schedules into account.   It’s just life, but every minute of every day is packed with activity.   We think it’s no big deal to add a detox.   We have little respect for what our body is required to do.

Problem is, we start and because we’re not educated about what is involved we don’t stick with the program.  Healthy living is about little changes to the daily routine, changes that, over time, support true health.  Habits that remain part of everyday life.

TOXIN BUILDUP SLOWS BODY SYSTEMS

Don’t get me wrong. I’m in favor of regular cleanse/detox.  John and I do a cleanse on a regular basis.

Toxins slow normal actions of our organs.  Cleanse systems (liver, kidneys, colon, skin, and lungs) don’t function 100% when sludge keeps them from working smoothly.   We gain weight, especially around the middle,  when our bodies can’t clean out toxins.  So, yes, do a detox/cleanse.

But pick a detox you can fit into your already busy, stressful life.  Begin slowly if you intend to take this regular habit into your healthy routine.

INCLUDE PROTEIN TO RETAIN LEAN MUSCLE

A few tips for your journey:

• Always include protein when you’re cleansing.  During a detox you’re restricting calories, so your body might interpret that restriction as famine and lower your metabolism.  Without protein along with your detox drink, your body may take calories from lean muscle, not from stored fat.  Snacks can include boiled egg and a small green salad with lemon juice dressing, a handful of raw almonds, or celery sticks. This should go without saying, but avoid all processed foods which are mostly carbohydrate-based, and have no essential nutrients.

• When you’re not eating normal meals, you’re allowing your body to switch from digesting food to cleansing.  Respect and support your internal wisdom. Don’t ask your body to support heavy exercise.  You won’t profit from your detox.

• Cut back on exercise. An extended cleanse/detox can, if you allow your inner wisdom to guide, bring you to a “different” reality.  You might want to let that happen.  Some have noticed a more introspective, a more “spiritual” mood.  Respect that and take time to assess your life.  Instead of vigorous exercise, take a walk outside, in the fresh air noticing the natural world.

• Keep a journal.  If you’re serious about a healthy lifestyle, and if you believe your body has internal wisdom, you want to learn from yourself, and you’ll want a record of that learning, during this experience.

• Do not do any detox or cleanse if you have health problems, such as diabetes, unless you’re under the direct care of a physician.   This is very important.  Check with your doctor first.

John and I have what I think is a great routine.  We take 1/4 cup of Isagenix “Cleanse for Life” drink every night just before bed (2 hours without food between dinner and bedtime).

That way we’re cleansing all night as we sleep!   Regular cleansing routine is easy, and over time we’ve lost a lot of that bulge around the middle.

SHARE YOUR PRODUCTS AND IDEAS WITH US BELOW

Whatever product you use and either love/hate share your thoughts in the “Comments” section below and let’s learn from each other.   It’s much easier to find a routine and stick to it when you’re talking to others and sharing ideas.

Hope to “see” you below soon!

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“What foods go along with the Acai Berry diet?”

Melissa asked that question on the blog.  I think she’s trying to loose weight and wants to know what would be helpful to eat while she’s on an Acai Berry diet.

WEIGHT LOSS: WILL POWER NOT THE ANSWER

One thing I know for sure: “If you’ve ever tried to lose weight, you know that will power isn’t enough: Crash dieting never works against deeply primal instincts…Our hunter-gatherer ancestors survived by…” eating whatever was available.  Those genes still operate in us.  Crash dieting/lowering calories signals to our bodies that we’re dangerously close to starvation.  Survival kicks in and the body lowers metabolism. 

Back then, what was available was just food: real food, natural off the tree, from the bush, out of the ground.   Raw, minimally cooked, unprocessed, no chemicals added.

Our bodies are designed to function on such a diet.  Natural Whole foods.

Little shift here. 

One of my favorite columnists is Martha Beck.  She writes a regular column in “Oprah.”   I’m quoting and paraphrasing extensively from her most recent, “The Buying Diet,” “Oprah,  March, 2011, pg 47-50.  Her advice applies to her topic, overconsumption, but also equally well to our topic weight loss.

EATING FLIPS PRIMAL INSTINCT SWITCH

“Thousands of years later…eating still flips the switch that tells our primitive lizard brains we’re well supplied for hard times…” relax, there’s abundant food; we’re not starving. 

To remain healthy, overweight, we want to flip that switch that lets our body know we’re not going into starvation mode.  We don’t want the body mind to try to “save” us by lowering metabolism.  It’s wise to not limit calories so drastically the body will interpret this as starvation.  It will, then, lower metabolism and not burn stored fat.

We want to eat abundantly, but without eating foods that don’t really nourish.  When processed foods without real nutrition are the bulk of our diet, our bodies crave more to fill that lack.

SUCCESSFUL “DIET” IS MOSTLY WHOLE FOODS

Give your body food as close to its natural state as possible, still containing essential nutrients.  Cook minimally, eat some raw, mostly vegetables, healthy meat, some fruit.

Avoid processed food in containers with labels.  Food with labels (except for labeled produce) is processed.  Avoid it.  It’s not nourishing your body, and will cause cravings.  It contains sugar to make it taste good.  Gradually cut down on sugar consumption.

Unprocessed food is the food your body must have for best operation.  When your body is supplied with essential nutrients, cravings are minimized.  (Minimized over time.  Be patient.)

FLIP THE SWITCH TO ABUNDANCE

Beck recommends three steps break an unhealthy pattern:  “There are three steps to accomplishing this:

“First, avoid deprivation.  Focus on abundance.”

Eat more food.  Love those berries.  With them eat raw, whole foods.  Eat lots of it.  High quality protein: check on organic meats from family farms and farmer’s markets.  Whole grains, vegetables.  Get enough high-quality protein. Drink lots of water. 

Think abundance in your food choices. Abundance of good nutrition. Prepare vegetables you like and enjoy them.  Baked sweet potatoes with real butter.  

In my morning shake (undenatured whey protein), I add couple of spoonfuls of canned organic coconut, maybe a tsp. of organic cocoa powder or a tsp. of cinnamon, perhaps berries.  Don’t avoid good, natural fats such as olive oil, organic butter, avocado, coconut, and grape seed oil for cooking.    I avoid manmade fats because some are unstable, breaking down to products difficult for the body to digest.  As far as I’m concerned margarine is off the list.

PROTECT YOURSELF FROM TEMPTATIONS

“Second, shield your brain from temptations that trigger unconscious overeating,” Beck. 

Just say, “No,” to buying it. Don’t bring processed food home. Nutrients that will spoil have been removed from processed foods for a long shelf life.  Your body, however, needs those nutrients, so it will crave more food.  How many bananas can you eat in a sitting?  Two or three and you’re full?  How about potato chips…   

SPLURGE TO FLIP THE SWITCH TO ABUNDANCE

“Third, learn to splurge moderately to keep yourself feeling well-supplied without being deprived,” Beck.

Maybe it’s time for a dish of favorite ice cream for dessert.  Buy the good stuff.  I know it costs more.  You do, however, get what you pay for. 

Look for brands that use milk from dairies that don’t feed hormones.   Check labels. You might see something like, ”Without antibiotics, synthetic hormones and persistent pesticides…”  on the carton.

Did I answer Melissa’s question?  In a roundabout way, I guess. 

Build habit patterns for good eating in natural, whole foods that you prepare yourself. 

Don’t drastically limit calories. 

Give yourself a treat on a regular basis. 

You’re not just trying to loose weight, are you?  Aren’t you in this game for the long-haul?  Building health that will carry you for many years into the future? 

Good luck with it, and let me know how you’re doing!

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What’s the hardest part of healthy eating?  Fixing the food!  That’s what.

1. Do you know what’s healthy? 
2. If you’re eating whole food, real food, someone is fixing it.

Maybe YOU do know what’s healthy, but it’s obvious that many Americans are not eating healthy.  Diabetes, and obesity in the U.S, so someone out there is not eating healthy whole food.

Before we get going you should know that many of my ideas about healthy eating come from Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma, et al) and Dr. Mercola’s newsletter (www.drmercola.com). 

We’ve heard this same old advice so many times we no longer take it seriously. So, for the purpose of this article we’ll zero in on just a few ideas that seem to me, pivotal points for eating well in today’s fast-food culture.

• Eat vegetables and whole foods
• Not too much sugar, and really watch the fructose
• Eat breakfast, but be careful of what you’re eating.

Michael Pollan is famous for the “eat real food” phrase.  He doesn’t consider anything in a package, especially if it has a label with “health claims,” ”real food.”  (This doesn’t count produce with those little sticky labels on their sides.)

Real food is close to how it grows in nature.  Part of your diet should include raw foods, fruits and vegetables in hand or in salads.  You don’t have to make a big deal over this.  I’m not saying we should eat everythng raw, although there are those who recommend raw for a healing diet.  Carrot and celery sticks for lunches and dinner.  Cucumber slices, radishes.  When I grew up we had carrot and celery sticks every night with dinner.  My mother’s habit food.

It does mean, though, that most of what we eat for dinner/lunch will have to be cooked by someone. 

This is America’s soft underbelly–why we’re vulnerable and unhealthy.  We’ve gotten out of the habit of preparing meals.  Noone’s cooking.  Meals are something we throw, already processed, into the microwave to heat. This is our problem.

There has to be someone in the family willing to prepare meals.  Without that person you’ll eat processed food from which most of the nutrition has been leached and to which preservatives and sugar have been added for palatability.  Much food value has been removed.  Is that why processed foods have nutrition labels…

That’s the family discussion you’ll have to have.  Who will be major domo food-preparer/organizer?   

Get a crock pot.  I use mine several times a week.  Weekly grocery shopping centers around one meal I prepare in quanity on the weekend.  It’s enough food to go for a few meals so get a big crock pot.  They’re around $20-30.  Make soups, stews, spaghetti.  Teach the kids to make soup.  Cook a chicken and vegetables in the crock.  Serve as is one meal, add canned tomatoes and Italian seasoning and serve over pasta for a second meal, and then make soup with what’s left.  That’s the idea. 

You’ll save money on groceries.  With commodity prices rising you’ll want to buy in bulk anyway, whenever you can.

Share some of your ideas with the group here.  We’re a creative bunch, but we often don’t plan ahead. If you’re not looking ahead you’re going to get caught when food prices really rise…

P.S. Don’t tell me you don’t have time to prepare food. When food prices rise high enough, you’ll begin to notice, and you’ll have to start fixing your food.  Start thinking about it now.

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We’re making Christmas cookies!    These are Peanut blossoms.

I suppose most families have traditional foods this time of year.  John’s family was famous for Christmas cookies: green spritz wreaths decorated with tiny red berries–real works of art, powdered-sugar snowy Mexican wedding cakes, red-sprinkled shortbread, peanut blossoms, and tangy lemon bars. 

Mexican Wedding Cakes

Made with butter!

I don’t bake as much as I used to, but when I take time to make holiday cookies I use butter.  None of the chemical concoctions manipulated to taste like butter.  I use the real thing or I don’t bother. 

Since this is a blog devoted to healthy living, (Healthylivingbeyondfifty.com/) why, you might ask, am I devoting an article to baking Christmas cookies with butter?  Actually butter is something we should talk about.

A couple of Michael Pollan’s rules for healthy eating, “In Defense of Food,” are

• Eat Food.  ”Avoid food products containing ingredients that are unfamiliar, unpronounceable, more than five in number…”
• “Avoid food products that make health claims.”

(You know Michael Pollan…”The Botany of Desire,” “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” and “In Defense of Food.”)

Pollan means you should eat things your body recognizes as food, not chemical concoctions stirred up in a lab by white-coats who have never touched a cow, let alone milked one.  Processed foods make your liver work overtime trying to break up and excrete the toxins they contain.

Your body recognizes butter.  It knows what to do with it.  It’s just butter, and, hopefully, it’s organic without antibiotics or hormones which very often are part of the cow’s food and which are, once again, toxic to our bodies.

What about Pollan’s second point: health claims?  What’s wrong with health claims? 

Whole foods don’t come with written health claims. There’s no list of health benefits on the side of an orange or apple, ribe eye steak,  or an onion.

If it’s packaged with health claims on the side of the box it’s probably processed.  If it’s processed most nutritional value has been removed because nutrients are the part of food that spoils and shortens “shelf-life.”  Shorter shelf life means lower corporate profits.

Look at a package of breakfast cereal.  Natural, essential-for-good-health nutrients are removed so the cereal can sit forever on the shelf.  To sell you on buying it, though, the sides of the box will be plastered with health claims for the few chemical vitamins that have been added back to replace lost nutrients.

Some mis-guided advice tells us to avoid butter because it’s a saturated fat that will raise “bad” blood cholesterol and also cause weight gain. According to Dr. Mercola butter slashes heart attack risk in  half.

Gaining weight?  You’re more likely to gain weight on simple carbohydrate foods, processed foods containing simple carbs, and toxins your liver can’t break down for excretion. 

Natural saturated fats such as coconut and butter are stable.  Some vegetable oils, on the other hand, turn into unstable compounds that aren’t good for your body. 

Butter is especially good when it comes from cows eating green grass because it contains a compound that helps build muscle rather than store fat, and it has an excellent ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acids.  It contains many fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, K) and essential minerals difficult to get in our depleted western diet.  I always buy organic butter (Organic Valley brand) because it doesn’t contain those antibiotics and hormones.

Holiday baking is one of the fun things we do.  John is in the kitchen right now perpetuating the family tradition.  I think it’s lemon bars today.  Our two grandsons will be here next week, and they check out the cookie area where we stack the tins.  Father Daniel parses out the cookies or they’d finish them all in one fell swoop, I’m sure.

Have fun baking and sharing with friends and family. 

P.S.  Oh.  If you want to check out Dr. Mercola’s article on butter here’s the link.  More nutritional information that I quoted here.  http://bit.ly/hC84kQ

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The World’s Toxic.  Is Your Body Toxic, Too?

All of us are aware of poisons and toxins in our environment.  We hear about factory waste, car exhaust, polluted water, polluted oceans.  Not just T.V. and Radio.  It’s common knowledge for us who live in the 21st century.  It’s one of those ubiquitous facts of our lives.  Unavoidable.  Even children know.

What Exists in Our Environment Exists in Our Bodies

Many see the environment as separate, “out there.”  They don’t realize that what’s “out there” is also “in here,” inside our bodies, a part of every cell.

No matter how much we exercise, wash, shower, eat organic fruits and vegetables, our bodies absorb pollution because toxins are everywhere. 

In the bathroom, showering, fixing breakfast in the kitchen, driving to the grocery in the car, mopping, vacuuming, dusting the house. Every activity takes place in our toxic 21st century environment.  Poisons that surround us are also within us. 

Possible 116 Chemical Toxins in the Human Body

We’re walking, talking toxin carriers.  Toxins. We’ve got lots of them.  Some estimates put the toxic load in each one of us at over 116 chemical compounds. 

Toxins Are Present in Every Activity 

We wake in the morning wash face, shower, apply makeup and shave, brush teeth, drink water, and brush hair.

Unless you carefully read labels of personal products before you buy you’re exposing your body to toxins proven to increase cancer:

Parabens, PTH, pthalates, chlorine, mercury, aluminum, and fluoride in water, toothpaste, shaving cream, cleansing products, cosmetics, fingernail polish, and hair spray. 

Processed Food, Cleaning Compounds Dangerous to Health

Preparing breakfast you’ll encounter PaH PCBS, and nitrates in bacon and sausage, and antibiotics and hormones in meat and milk.

Cleaning the kitchen you’re using manmade chemicals DECA, BDE, PBDES, Phenols, Chlorine, Ammonia, and Formaldehyde which make up common cleaning solutions.  Many chemicals are impossible for the liver to break down and send to kidneys, skin, lungs, and colon for excretion.  They accumulate in the body in fat and water deposits

Products containing flame retardants, lead, heavy metals, Disphenols, Pthalates, PDBE, and BDE, all of which increase cancer risk, can be found throughout the house in furniture, paint, bedding, pajamas.

Driving the car, you’ll run into Triclocarbans, bisphenols, phthalates, phenol, and more chlorine, ammonia, and formaldehyde.

Fruits, vegetables, meat, soda, desserts add pesticides, herbicides, Dioxins, BHA, BHT, Phosphoric Acid, Bisphenol A (BPA), Preservatives, and Coloring Agents toxins to the load.

                   l

That’s you and your children.

Share with me and others in the comments below what YOU do to avoid toxic compounds.  What products do you buy? I have a few suggestions which I’ll share in a future post.

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All this talk about eggs laced with toxins makes some of us avoid an excellent whole food, eggs.

Eggs from a family farm are healthy food, whole food. What we need to avoid is eggs and chickens from factory farms, CAFOs where crowded, unsanitary conditions can breed dangerous bacteria.

Dr Mercola recommends eggs as healthy food. Buy eggs from someone you know, maybe someone in your neighborhood. His rather lengthy article is below.  The article is a little long, but interesting, especially if you’re playing with the idea of having a few chickens in your back yard…

http://tinyurl.com/3yf88e5

Janice

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Grow your own organic food

Organic food.  Not processed food.  Whole food at your fingertips.

PIcture big city (New York).  It’s summer and it’s hot. Farmers markets, fresh organic produce, and neighborhood gardens bursting with tasty, read-to-eat veggies, picnic in the park.  

Six months from now: Hunker down in cold, snowy, icy, blustery, sleety winter.  No-Fresh-Food.  Vegetables from the truck at the store.

Does that stop some of these people from enjoying fresh organic food?  No.  Not on your life.  I laughed with delight at this video, the inventiveness and creativity of my fellow humans.  There’s hope for any problem we face when individuals tackle the problem with this sort of creativity.  Watch this video.  You’ll love it.

Might give you some ideas…

Here’s the link http://www.windowfarms.org/

Blessing on all of you.  May good food and sunshine fill your days,

Janice

hmmm…I have a kitchen window that faces direct east in the winter… They have a kit…Want to try this for winter?  Let me know.  We’ll share ideas.

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TOXINS MAKE YOUR STOMACH FAT

Your body stores toxins in fat cells. If your liver can’t break poisons down, it keeps them away from important organs by hiding them in fat and water, and that’s usually around the stomach. 

We’ve all known people, and perhaps we ourselves, who have lost weight, but who even with weight lost still have fat stomachs. 

That’s roughly where the liver is. When toxins overwhelm that organ, so it can’t do its job, it does the next best thing. It surrounds toxins in fat and water and “sequesters” impurities. Fat doesn’t have much blood circulation so toxins stay out of touch with the rest of the body.

Brilliant mechanism, but a fat stomach is annoying and not healthy. Fat bellies, if they stick around too long, are risk factors for metabolic syndrome, which includes diabetes, heart, and blood pressure problems.

So, it’s not just that we don’t like the look of fat bellies, they really are a sign our health is out of whack.

LIVER, MYSTERIOUS DETOX LAB

At the source of the problem is toxin overload. If I could encourage my body to get rid of poisons–help the liver detoxify–then maybe the fat would release naturally because it wouldn’t be needed any longer.

See, when the body recognizes a substance that can’t be used for fuel, mechanisms kick in to break it down to get rid of it through the skin, lungs, colon, and kidneys. 

To my mind those mechanisms are miraculous and mysterious, and most of the time they’re effective at keeping our bodies free from poisons.

DIETS DO NOT TAKE CARE OF TOXINS 

Restricting calories (diets) does not help the body handle toxins.  Nutritional cleansing is different from dieting and counting calories.

Traditional cultures have used certain natural ingredients for centuries to encourage toxin release. 

Aloe Vera is one of the best known.  And Licorice root, Burdock, and Yellow Dock.  Burdock has been used for centuries to clear the blood stream of impurities.  Yellow dock is a spring tonic to improve general health.  Licorice root is an over-all body tonic, and Aloe Vera is known for its healing properties.  Peppermint, and Fennel, too.

But, I’m not ready to start taking any of these without some advice on how to use them.  How would I go about putting them all together?  All herbs have effects in the body.  I don’t know enough about them to jump right in and start medicating myself.

Our youngest son Daniel is an herbalist.

The “Berry Boy”

He could help me identify cleansing herbs.  He’s loved plants since a little boy.  On family hikes his nickname was the “berry boy.”  He stuck by that early interest and studied in New Mexico, Alaska, and now California.  He understands it can be difficult to use healing herbs in proper combinations to gently encourage the body to release toxins.  Practitioners can help, but it does take patience and knowledge.

YOUR BODY IS EQUIPPED TO DETOXIFY

I’m probably not going to put my own herbal concoction together. 

But I know I need to consciously take steps beyond just eating good food.  My body needs a little more than that.

HELP THE BODY DETOXIFY AND LOOSE YOUR FAT STOMACH

Healing herbs and whole, natural foods used to be viewed as medicine.  That is not the case today in America for a couple of reasons.

• Corporate food production today has become a money-making industry.  More money can be made processing natural foods than selling those foods unprocessed.  Processed foods with low nutritional value and long shelf life, are what most Americans eat today.  The bottom line is profit, not good health.

• Foods grown in soil depleted by chemical fertilizers, devoid of minerals and living organisms, do not contain the full complement of vitamins and minerals that were present in food tested only twenty years ago.

• Personal products, cleansing products, exhaust from vehicles and factories, manmade chemicals in water and air, and pesticides and herbicides on our fruits and vegetables surround us and threaten health daily.

The knowledge of what is healthy food is largely gone from our culture.  The preparation of healthy meals from “scratch” is a lost art in many homes.

Most Americans have no idea what food is healthy and what food is nothing more than empty calories.  Our culture is no longer the repository of that knowledge.  Our bellies are satisfied temporarily by bulky processed grains and our taste buds by high fructose corn syrup.

So, what to do today?  Today you can make a difference in your health.

• Begin carrying around a water bottle with filtered water everywhere you go, Drink from it all day. Water is the great purifier. Your kidneys, lungs, colon, and skin will begin throwing off poisons almost immediately when you furnish your body with plenty of pure water.

• Become aware of processed food. Anything in a package is processed. Become aware of how much food is processed, not “real,” food.

Check the Blog for articles.  Do you know what happens to food animals in America? http://cleanse-for-better-health.com/blog/factory-farm-or-family-farm/

 We’ll talk more about that issue in future issues, for right now get into the kitchen and fill your water bottle… 

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YOU, a person.  You’re one bundle of lots of things.  Everything that is YOU is in one package.

One package with your beliefs about the future.  Viewpoints of the world and of yourself. Habits.  Behaviors.  Patterns of thinking.  These are YOU.

When we cleanse we think of what we’re eating.  It doesn’t occur to us that we’re beginning to affect every part of who we are.

Nutritional cleansing changes everything.  Because those changes are foundational every part of you is affected. 

Your thoughts, your beliefs, the friends you attract, your view of the world.  These are transformed when you cleanse at the cellular level. 

Yes, even your friends change and how you see the world.

A circle around the triangle will represent the SOCIAL CONTEXT. Everything that is YOU (the triangle) lives within a social context (the circle).

None of us lives in a vacuum; humans are social animals. To discover what makes a person tick, for example, study the five people with whom he spends most of his time. 

We’re influenced by the consciousness of the people with whom we spend most of our time. We’re part of a culture with ideas, philosophy, and a viewpoint of the world.

WE’RE ACCEPT THE BELIEFS OF OUR CULTURE

Cultures rise and fall, of course.  The familiar example is the Roman Empire which climbed to its zenith before crumbling apart when attacked by marauding tribes.

Every tribe has its golden years followed by decline.

Most of us stick to old beliefs from the dying culture, even when no longer true, justifying why they no longer work instead of admitting they simply are no longer true.

“Go to college, get a degree, get a job, stick with it, and everything will be fine,” doesn’t work anymore.  People haven’t admitted that yet.

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Part I

Cleansing has a different face today.  Different from even a few years ago.

Cleansing must be paired with nutrition today to support cellular health in an environment that is drastically different from that of even a few years ago.  

THE UNIVERSE, A LIVING SYSTEM, CONTINUALLY CHANGING

Change is the rule because the Universe is a living system, not a machine. 

Cultures rise and fall. Beliefs we lived with yesterday may not still be true today.  If we do not question our culture’s beliefs we continue to operate as though yesterday’s beliefs are still true.  Yesterday’s beliefs are impotent today. Living in yesterday’s paradigm will not bring health we’re looking for today.

TRADITIONAL CLEANSING METHODS DON’T FIT TODAY’S WORLD

As we cleanse to bring our bodies to a higher form of health we must operate from beliefs that we have tested personally, beliefs that are valid today, not beliefs from the past.

Cleansing today cannot take the same form as it did years ago in long-standing traditions.  We operate under beliefs different from those held by traditional cultures.

PAST CLEANSORS DIDN’T WORRY ABOUT POLLUTION

When tradional cultures cleansed (allowed the body to get rid of that which was not useful) it was unthinkable that food they ate might not be providing proper nutrition.  It didn’t occur to them that they might not be getting necessary nutrients.

In ages past there was no thought of pesticides, manmade chemicals, or toxins in/on produce.

No thought fruits and vegetables might not be nutrionally adequate because of depleted soil. 

People did not wonder whether water was pure and healthy.  They didn’t wonder about chlorine.  And they didn’t worry about stress. In ages past, those were unthinkable thoughts. 

 Navajos preparing ritual celebration

OUR BELIEFS ARE OUT-OF-DATE

We live in a different time.  We must adopt beliefs that serve today.

Today our soil is depleted.  People are under tremendous stress. Our water is polluted. 

Meat animals, in confined units, eat unnatural diets with added hormones and anti-biotics.  

Processed food has been robbed of nutrients. 

Drastic changes, so it’s no wonder many of us think cleansing is a good idea.  But the idea of cleansing must be paired with new beliefs about a polluted environment, not the same as in the past.

“IF WE JUST EAT GOOD FOOD WE’LL BE FINE,”

TODAY, AN OBSOLETE BELIEF

Many operate with the old belief that if we just eat good food we’ll be fine.  That belief is obsolete because our environment has changed.  It’s polluted. 

Many of us hold beliefs about CLEANSING that sound really good.

And many of us hold onto beliefs about FOOD that sound really good.

FOOD and CLEANSING must be seen as a package.  They must be seen together.  Refusing to accept a true view of the world today will keep us from discovering how food and cleansing work together.

Cleansing is a good idea, but it takes resources, and energy.  What if we don’t have those resources?  What if our bodies aren’t playing with a “full” nutritional deck?” What if organs aren’t healthy enough to process and digest food? 

What if cells, overloaded with toxins, are unable to deal with food? 

What if food is nutritionally depleted, lacking essential minerals and protein for healthy cells?

 CLEANSING AND HEALTHY FOOD IN THE PAST WENT TOGETHER NATURALLY

If you’ve tried cleansing perhaps that one reason it didn’t work as you expected.

Cleansing and replenishing with nutrients, produce results beyond what each can bring alone. To bring health today we need both. 

MISSING PIECE IN THE WELLNESS PUZZLE, NUTRITIONAL CLEANSING

Today’s missing piece in the wellness puzzle is nutritional cleansing: Cleansing paired with super nutrition to build health.  Cleansing at the cellular level in a matrix of complete nutrition.  Cleansing is not stand-alone; it must be paired with complete nutrition or results will not be optimum.

Part II next Blog entry!

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