Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Heal yourself in 15 days (part seven)

(NaturalNews) This article continues with part seven of our 15-day "Heal Yourself" series. It begins with the idea of observing the poor health of the mainstream crowd: Do you want to be as diseased as they are? If so, simply do what they do!

Let's face it: The "mainstream consumer" isn't very healthy. People who follow mainstream health information from the mainstream media are the most diseased people of all. They eat processed junk foods, they take lots of dangerous pharmaceuticals, they routinely get vaccinated and they completely fail to protect their health with nutritional supplements, superfoods or fresh living foods.

These are the people supporting the pharmaceutical industry, the cancer industry, the diabetes industry and the heart disease industry. Through their suffering and death, they keep the medical system alive and profitable. And if you want to be healthy, these are precisely the people you need to reject in order to be safe and healthy yourself.

Don't follow the crowd off the edge of the cliff

The mainstream crowd, you see, isn't very well informed when it comes to health. Crowd psychology tells us that people tend to follow whatever the crowd is doing for no reason other than the fact the crowd is doing it. The human mind figures, "Well, if the crowd is doing that, there must be a good reason for it," and so people just go along with practically anything as long the crowd supports it.

This is how people end up drinking sugary sodas, eating at fast food restaurants, drinking pasteurized milk and living on processed junk foods. This is how they end up eating microwaveable popcorn, or drinking diet sodas or consuming "processed cheese food."

This is what causes people to get vaccines that they don't need or take dangerous prescription medications that might harm them (or kill them). Crowds as a whole aren't very intelligent -- even when individual members of the crowd might be highly intelligent on their own! And if you follow the mainstream consumer crowd without thinking for yourself, you can only expect the same outcome the crowd is experiencing: Degenerative disease, pharmaceutical dependency and medical bankruptcy.

That's why achieving lasting health means distancing yourself from the mainstream crowd and in many cases doing the opposite of what they do.

You'll be healthier by doing the opposite of the mainstream

When the mainstream crowd rushes to get vaccinated against a hyped-up, non-emergency "pandemic", just do the opposite and don't get vaccinated.

When the mainstream crowd rushes to get free chicken at KFC because Oprah announced it on her show, do the opposite and go drink a smoothie or something.

When the mainstream crowd rushes to be subjected to mammography radiation (which actually promotes breast cancer), do the opposite and get a far safer thermograph (or just take a healthy dose of anti-cancer vitamin D and stop living your life in fear of cancer).

When the mainstream crowd pops pills for depression, cholesterol and high blood pressure, do the opposite and take nutritional supplements that nourish the body instead of poisoning it.

Basically, watch what the mainstream consumers do and make a conscious effort to do the opposite (in most cases, anyway).

Don't leap from one mindless crowd to another

While you're doing all this, be careful not to leap from one mindless crowd to another. In rejecting the mainstream crowd, in other words, don't fall blindly into following another crowd, even if it's a "healthy" crowd.

In my view, you should never follow any crowd just because it's a crowd. That includes the raw food crowd, the yoga crowd, the vegetarian crowd, etc. Instead, think for yourself about what makes sense to you. And then, if your conclusions match their conclusions, it's okay to join that group (or hang out with that crowd) as long as you continue to invoke a reality check from time to time. Make sure that what the crowd is doing always makes good sense to you and you won't be blindsided by crowd stupidity.

Crowds usually aren't very smart. But YOU are! You have the ability to think for yourself, to change your mind at any time, to improve your decisions, to upgrade or downgrade your lifestyle, etc. Exercise these gifts where appropriate, and don't be afraid to try out new eating habits, new exercise schedules and new approaches to self care. Find out what works best for you, regardless of whether a "crowd" exists that practices the same thing.

Don't be a mindless health nut, in other words. Be mindfully health conscious and go with what works best for you rather than what's popular or cool.

Check in with yourself from time to time

Most of all, if you ever find yourself going along with the mainstream crowd -- like waiting in line at a crowded vaccine clinic -- it might be a good idea to pinch yourself and engage in a little lucid thinking by asking questions like, "Should I really be here? Does this really make sense? Is there a safer, more natural alternative that I could explore instead?"

Think about this the next time you're about to get your breast pancaked at the mammography clinic. "Does irradiating my breasts really make good sense?" Of course it doesn't. People only do it because they are going along with the mainstream crowd. And the crowd is clueless about breast health, ionizing radiation, vitamin D or cancer prevention.

So be smart. Be an individual. And be brave enough to reject the crowd and do something different that's probably a whole lot safer and healthier.

Getting sunlight on your skin to generate vitamin D is rejecting the crowd. And yet it's the very best way to prevent cancer for FREE!

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Heal yourself in 15 days (part six)

(NaturalNews) Continuing our 15-part article series called Heal Yourself in 15 Days, today we focus on not doing something. In particular, I'm talking about not eating for 24 hours.

It sounds simple in theory, of course: Refrain from eating anything (or drinking any beverages other than water) for 24 hours. Your body has plenty of calories stored to carry you through those 24 hours, and the pause from digestion will give your body a chance to focus its healing energies on other parts of your body.

Note: Be sure to check with your naturopathic physician about the safety of fasting. While fasting is safe for most people, it's not for everyone. People in a weak state of health or those suffering from diabetes should take special precautions to make sure fasting is safe for them.

Why fasting?

Fasting has been used from Biblical times through the modern world to help purify and heal the body. It can help detox your liver, kidneys and digestive tract. It also encourages you to rethink your eating habits. When you fast for just 24 hours, and you're really committed to it, you'll be shocked to discover how many times you habitually reach for food.

People habitually reach for food in all sorts of circumstances that have nothing to do with actual hunger:

• When they're bored...
• When they feel emotionally stressed...
• When they watch television or movies...
• When they're traveling in their car...
• When other people are eating around them...
• At social events, parties or gatherings...

Try fasting for 24 hours and you'll see for yourself just how many times you habitually reach for food.

This will teach you many important things about your own eating habits, and that's the point of this exercise. Just pick a day -- preferably a weekend when nothing big is going on -- and fast for 24 hours, drinking nothing but water.

In accomplishing this, you will realize three very important things:

1) You didn't die from starvation in 24 hours. In fact, most people have enough spare calories to go 30 days or more without eating.

2) You found the self-discipline to achieve 24 hours without eating. This is a milestone accomplishment in self control.

3) You learned to observe yourself and recognize the numerous situations in which you habitually reach for food. This can be extremely educational in helping you reform your eating habits in the future.

On top of all that, of course, you gave your digestive system a break and encouraged more rapid healing throughout your body. You may notice some detox effects (like bad breath) or a difference in your energy levels. This is all a normal part of the fasting process, and it indicates your fasting is working!

My own fasting experience

I recently fasted for 90 hours, then I had food for 24 hours followed by another 48-hour fast. The experience was quite enlightening. I had virtually no negative side effects, most likely due to the fact that I consume a very cleansing, healthy diet on a day-to-day basis. Typically, the worse your diet, the more detox side effects you may experience when fasting.

If you want to make your fasting more tolerable and more cleansing, you also have the option of drinking an 8-oz. glass of fresh vegetable juice in the middle of your fast. I did this during my fast, and it not only gave me more energy to make it through the fast; it also greatly enhanced the cleansing effects of my fast. I further enhance my own fasts with products from Ed Group's company, Global Healing Center (www.GHChealth.com). I especially like the Oxy Powder and Paratrex products. I take them with every fast.

Naturally, the choice is yours on how to approach this. You also have complete freedom to decide WHEN you want to do this. It doesn't have to happen on Superbowl Weekend. Pick a nice, easy Saturday or Sunday when you don't have anything big going on, and make that day your 24-hour fast. You'll feel better for it, and you will have achieved an important new milestone in your journey toward improved health.

Once you fast for just 24 hours, you'll then know that you can choose to avoid food at any particular time you want. You will discover new flexibility in your food consumption. You'll realize that you can say no to food any time you choose, and you won't die from lack of calories. You'll eliminate that fear and gain a new level of maturity in your relationship to food.

What to do if your fast fails

If you can't make it 24 hours without feeling like you're going to pass out and die, you probably have some rather serious blood sugar imbalances. These can be caused by poor food choice on a day-to-day basis, or even by prescription drugs such as antipsychotics or SSRIs (which imbalance blood sugar metabolism).

So if your fast fails, don't fret. Simply take the next 30 days to improve your eating habits, making them healthier and supported with more fresh food rather than processed food. Work to get safely off all prescription drugs (with the help of your naturopathic physician, of course). Drink more superfoods and fresh juices. Then 30 days later, try the 24-hour fast again and see if you can make it through the entire thing.

If you ever feel extremely weak, ill or you think you might pass out, that's a sign to stop the fast and get some calories. This isn't some sort of "no pain no gain" situation. Fasting should be tolerable and not dangerous. Again, the healthier your diet to start with, the easier your fast will typically be.

I have a friend who fasts for 24 hours each week, every week. He's extremely healthy and looks fit and trim well into his 50's. Other people I know (like David Rainoshek) go on 90-day juice fasts / feasts where they drink nothing but fresh living vegetable juice for 90 days.

Personally, I feel really good on a 72-hour fast, and a 48-hour fast is relatively straightforward because I can do it over the weekend. A 24-hour fast is now a no-brainer.

A few years ago, I never could have even entertained the idea of not eating for 24 hours. The thought would have terrified me. If you're in that camp right now, stop to consider what this means: You are a slave to food, just as I was!

Fasting helps free your mind from the enslavement of thinking you have to eat every few hours. It gives you new options, new freedoms and new self discipline. It's about much more than simply not eating food for 24 hours; it's also about self observation and spiritual mindfulness. Why do you think nearly all the great spiritual figures throughout world history fasted as part of their spiritual practice? They did that because too much food messes with your head while fasting clears your head.

Fasting gives you the opportunity to clear the food-induced cobwebs and see things with improved clarity. Now, just as a disclaimer here, please know that you're not going to see God after just a 24-hour fast. When spiritual leaders fast, they often fast for weeks at a time. Some go as far as 40 days. Some "breatharians" claim not to eat food at all, ever! But those are more advanced topics for another day.

For today, just focus on picking a day where you fast for 24 hours and observe the changes in your own mind and body. You'll be a wiser, healthier and more enlightened person for doing so.

Sugary soft drinks linked to pancreatic cancer

(NaturalNews) A 14-year study of 60,000 people in Singapore found that those who consume two or more sweetened soft drinks per week have an 87 percent higher risk of pancreatic cancer.

Published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, the study was led by Mark Pereira of the University of Minnesota who said, "The high levels of sugar in soft drinks may be increasing the level of insulin in the body, which we think contributes to pancreatic cancer cell growth."

Nearly 38,000 people are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in the United States each year, and over 34,000 die from the disease each year. This research points to what may be the common culprit of all those preventable deaths: Sugary soft drink consumption.

Poison in a can

NaturalNews has warned readers for years about the dangers of consuming soft drinks. The sweetener used in most beverages -- high-fructose corn syrup -- is linked to both diabetes and obesity. The phosphoric acid found in soft drinks is highly acidic, stripping minerals from bones and promoting osteoporosis. At the same time, soft drinks can cause kidney stones, too.

For those who consume diet sodas, the health risks may be even worse: Aspartame causes neurological side effects that include blindness, headaches and impaired cognitive function.

The beverage industry, of course, denies any links between soda consumption and negative health effects. It wants consumers to naively believe that liquid sugar, phosphoric acid and pressurized carbon dioxide are all good for you!

But experience tells us otherwise: Look at the people you know who consume the most soft drinks and ask yourself this simple question: Are they the healthiest people I know? Probably not.

Most likely, if they've been drinking sodas for many years, they're suffering from obesity, diabetes, kidney stones and perhaps even pancreatic cancer.

Monday, February 8, 2010

Fat furnace: four keys to slimmy body

If you're struggling to lose a large amount of weight or maintain loss, pumping up the protein at certain meals could be key to your success, finds a new study in Nutrition & Dietetics. "It's an unfortunate fact that overweight adults, as well as those who've already shed several pounds, don't burn fat after eating a meal as effectively as most slim people do," says study author Marijka Batterham. She found that to even the score--by stoking your fat-burning furnace to run faster--you need to up the amount of lean protein you eat at breakfast and lunch. Eating more protein can also help you feel fuller, making it easier to avoid overeating later in the day. Aim to get about 30 percent of your calories from the nutrient.

The right pre-workout nosh may help you reach your slim-down goal. A new study in the Journal of Nutrition found that women who ate muesli, yogurt, and fruit before an hour-long workout burned 50 percent more fat than those who had an equally caloric meal of cornflakes, white toast and jam, and milk. That's because the muesli meal falls lower on the glycemic index (GI). "A meal high on the GI causes a spike in blood sugar, which your body must then use to fuel your workout," says study author Emma Stevenson, Ph.D. "But a meal low on the GI is digested more slowly, so your body has to pull energy from its fat stores." To stoke your fat-burning furnace, log on to glycemicindex.com for smart meal and snack ideas.

Ever wonder why most diets you've tried have failed to get you that ultralean, supercut-abs look? For most of you, the simple answer has to do with your approach to dieting plateaus - that is, what you do when your weight loss stalls.

At first, any sensible diet will have you losing weight steadily, but at some point your rapid progress will slow and then almost seem to stop altogether. And what's the typical remedy by dieters at this stage? Your instinct is probably to drop caloric intake and increase aerobic activity. While this approach may get you through a sticking point, in the long run you will feel like crop and rarely achieve the lean, cut, muscular look you're after. Moreover, cutting calories at such a stage will leave you vulnerable to rebound weight gain.

To look full and cut - i.e., to display nice detail throughout your physique without having your muscles look stringy and depleted - forget about stepping up the cardio intensity while decreasing calories. Instead, follow our four keys to weight loss, and you'll be shocked by how quickly you reach your goal. To make your effort truly successful, think of your body not as a temple, but as a machine that needs fuel. Trust us: We ain't selling the Brooklyn Bridge, just giving you the Inside track to freedom from fat.

Key No. 1 Eat small meals often throughout the day

You can lose fat on a reduced-calorie, three-meals-a-day program; for many with complicated schedules, that's the only way to go. But such an approach will not turn your body into a fat-burning furnace, especially when you need to lose that last inch or two around the gut. To get truly lean, even ripped, in a minimal amount of time, eating smaller meals more often throughout your day is a much more effective method.

Spacing your meals every 2 1/2 to three hours provides a number of metabolism-enhancing benefits:

* Stable blood-sugar levels throughout the day. On a three-meals-a-day program, you risk fluctuating blood-sugar levels more than is ideal. The multiple-meal approach maintains steady blood-sugar levels and insulin release, leading to stable insulin levels. Elevated insulin levels inhibit fat-burning.

* Improved appetite control. Since blood sugar remains relatively constant, you do not suffer from pangs of hunger, which often lead to bouts of overeating on a three-meals-a-day approach.

* Better glycogen storage in the liver and muscle tissues. Improved glycogen storage prevents the body from cannibalizing muscle tissue as an energy source during training and helps to maximize recovery after training.

* Adequate nutrient stores to meet the body's momentary nutritional demands. Whether you're busy solving problems at work or pushing hard during a training session, optimal performance requires that your body have sufficient nutrients available to perform the task at hand effectively.

* Improved gastrointestinal transit time. Carbs and proteins are the first two macronutrients processed by the body. Fat takes the longest to break down. When you follow the five- or six-a-day meal plan, your body processes macronutrients more efficiently and more quickly. One of the benefits of this improved efficiency is that fat has less time to stay in your system, so less of it is absorbed and stored, while the remainder is expelled (to put it politely).

If you're worried that eating often is a hassle, consider the following: A small meal can consist of four ounces of water-packed white-meat tuna or chicken, a small baked potato and salad, none of which requires much preparation time the night before. And such small meals can be consumed almost anywhere.

The other thing to remember is that you should eat whether you feel hungry or not. Hunger signals a deficit of nutrients, and you always want to stay ahead of the curve.

Key No. 2 Get enough protein each day

While eating anything raises your metabolic rate, protein boosts it the most. Another reason for ingesting enough protein has to do with muscle loss resulting from a diet. As you probably know, the more muscle you carry, the more efficiently your body will burn fat. It follows that what you don't want from your weight-loss program is loss of muscle tissue. One way to minimize this loss is to get enough protein delivered in relatively precise doses throughout the course of each day.

How much protein is enough? For the guy whose idea of physical effort requires an extension of his elbow toward the television set, followed by slight pressure of the index finger on the TV remote, three balanced squares a day will do it. But if your definition of activity equates to a Men's Fitness lifestyle - basketball, tennis, resistance training, skiing, snowboarding, cycling - then eating like a couch caterpillar cannot possibly fulfill your needs. Your protein requirements become especially crucial if you're on a weight-loss program.

To maintain your training and performance at peak efficiency while continuing to get lean, assess your protein requirements beyond those suggested by the RDA. The 0.8 grams per 2.2 pounds of lean body mass recommended by the RDA may be fine if you lay around in a bubble like a blob of protoplasm, but the active Men's Fitness reader requires significantly more protein, period. And if you're shedding fat, you absolutely need to eat adequate protein if you want to turn your body into a fat-burning machine.

Highly competitive elite athletes, for example, eat between 1.5 and two grams of protein per kilogram of body weight (according to research, no benefits accrue beyond 1.5 grams). You probably don't have such needs; your safest bet is to ingest between 0.8 and 1.0 grams of protein per pound of lean mass.

Use the weight at which you think you would look good if you were lean (be realistic!), then multiply that number by 0.8 grams. If that number is, say, 170 pounds, your daily requirement is 136 grams of protein, which translates to 27 grams of protein per meal. That's slightly more than a skinless chicken breast or small can of water-packed tuna.

This is just a guideline, which means adjustments will be called for after you've monitored your intake for a month or so. If your training or fat loss has plateaued and you're positive you aren't suffering from overtraining syndrome, bump up your protein intake slightly. If you're gaining a little fat, cut your protein intake back. (There should be little need to go beyond one gram of protein per pound of lean mass.)

Here's an insider tip: Get in the habit of eating fish during your last meal of the day. Fish protein seems to be lighter for an evening meal and is a good way to replenish essential aminos while getting essential fatty acids.

Key No. 3 Juggle your carbohydrate intake

If you apply any formula for macronutrient intake too rigidly or consistently, your progress can stall, especially with regard to carb intake. Once you've established your daily carb requirement, the tendency is to ingest precisely equal amounts of carbs spread across five meals per day. In the early phase of a weight-loss plan, this approach works quite welL, training the body to expect a certain amount of essential nutrients on a regular schedule for maximum benefit.

But all good things have their downsides. The body is lazy: Once it has adapted to a pattern (achieved homeostasis), it will work just enough, no more, no less, to maintain that balance. To continue getting leaner, the body must not be allowed to become complacent. It has to be gently shocked into continued adaptation. That's why an efficient training program is altered ever so slightly on a regular basis. Your diet should likewise be altered, most notably with the primary energy source - carbs. Here a few ways to juggle your intake and keep your body adapting consistently.

* Go lower. Once every two or three weeks, lower your total carb intake (assuming you're not diabetic or prone to hypoglycemic episodes) to approximately 125 grams per day for two days. During this low-carb phase, your body launches into a search for alternate energy sources, hyping the metabolic process and shocking the body out of its homeostatic rhythm. In its hyped state, your body immediately starts to utilize the newly arrived sugar when you return to normal levels of carb ingestion, flushing your system's depleted stores. Because it has been glycogen-depleted, your body will quickly utilize sugar carbs for energy.

Don't go low-carb for more than a couple of days or take in fewer than 125 grams of carbohydrates per day. Carbs are essential for maintaining crucial heart and brain functions. Dropping below your suggested carb quota may not be safe. Depleting sugar stores can make you lethargic and irritable and slow your thinking, so go low-carb only on weekends, not during the work week.

* Do not limit carb sources to a few foods. Don't rely strictly on baked potatoes or white rice. Eat yams and sweet potatoes, brown rice and assorted grains (they burn longer); pack down tons of salads and vegetables (they require more energy to process than they contain). To keep your system working optimally - that is, to keep it guessing - don't get caught in a carb rut.

* Finish strong. Your last meal (even your last two) of the day should contain minimal amounts of slow-burning carbs, like potatoes and pasta, and should instead emphasize protein, especially fish. The carbs you do ingest at this time of day should be of the "wet" kind, those contained in cucumbers, leafy green salads, tomatoes and steamed asparagus, as each has a high water and medium-fiber content. High-fiber foods absorb a tremendous amount of water, leaching it out of your system, and since you can't drink while you sleep, wet carbs allow you to maintain relatively adequate levels of water during the night.

* Start right. Your first meal of the day and your first post-training meal should contain your largest carb intakes of the day. Your body's glycogen stores are depleted when you wake up; replenishing them ASAP is crucial to physical and mental functioning, and for starting up the metabolic furnace. A serious training session also depletes glycogen stores. Replace them within 60 minutes after a workout for immediate energy restoration and to ensure long-term muscle mending.

* Shock yourself. Since the body prefers homeostasis, it quickly adapts to processing the same number of carb calories each day. Remember, shock is the name of the game, whether you're training or dieting. To keep the body working and guessing, take in the usual amount of carbs your diet calls for on day one; on the next day, drop carb intake by 250 calories (62.5 grams); on day three, increase carbs over your daily level by 250 calories; return to your standard intake on day four. For an additional surprise to your metabolism, drop your carb intake by 500 calories every now and then.

Key No. 4 Drink more water

Muscle tissue is 70 percent water. So if you want to get lean and hard, drink plenty of [H.sub.2]O. Water is essential for protein conversion and carbohydrate uptake; the chemical conversion of carbs to energy cannot take place efficiently without ample water. You can't load muscle cells with glycogen or deliver amino acids to muscle tissue without adequate water. For starters, your training efforts will suck. More important, fat, the vast majority of which is stored under the skin, is mobilized through a process called hydrolysis. As the word suggests, hydrolysis requires plenty of water - meaning that insufficient amounts of [H.sub.2]O in your body will hinder effective breakdown of fat.

Thirst signals the first stage of dehydration. You must stay hydrated and avoid thirst. If you become even slightly dehydrated, you're already behind the curve in your weight-loss efforts. Rehydrate immediately. Better yet, stay ahead of the curve, particularly before a training session. Consume a lot more water than you think you'll need before each workout, then drink water while you're training.
Since you'll likely continue training while shedding fat, drink additional water to offset what you lose during a workout. One hour of intense training can lead to the loss of as much as three liters of fluid, the daily amount recommended for a sedentary guy. Between your training and dieting efforts, consider hydrating with a minimum of six liters per day just to maintain adequate levels.

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Heal yourself in 15 days (part five)

(NaturalNews) Continuing our 15-part article series called Heal Yourself in 15 Days, today we focus on cleansing your digestive tract and energizing your cellular energy with the help of some living foods. This is in preparation for part six in the series, which we'll get to tomorrow.

Here's the cool part about this: You don't need a juicer to do this step. All you really need is a blender and a nut milk bag (a fine mesh bag used to squeeze out the juice). Of course, a proper juicer really helps, but it's not required. Below, I'm going to give you an absolutely delicious live foods juicing recipe that I think you'll really enjoy. I'm using special ingredients in this juice that help mask the more bland tastes of the green ingredients, so even if you've tried fresh living juices in the past and didn't like them, check out what you'll read below...

Raw living foods offer one of the greatest secrets to disease reversal and lasting health, and nothing beats fresh living foods right out of the garden. So if you can grow any of your own ingredients for this when Spring comes around, definitely make an effort to do so. Otherwise, buy them at a store or farmer's market.

Here's what you'll need (always choose organic):

• 1 container of Blackberries (use all the blackberries)
• 1 bunch of Parsley (use all the parsley)
• 1 bunch of Kale (only use 2-3 large leaves in this recipe)
• 1 bag of Carrots (only use 3 large carrots for this recipe)
• 1 bunch of Celery (use 2-3 stalks for this recipe)
• 2 Pears (use both pears)

If you can't find these ingredients, substitute something close. It's crucial to have some berries in the mix, however. They are part of the recipe for making it all taste good.

After proper preparation (washing, etc.), push all these ingredients through a juicer to generate the fresh juice. If you only have a blender, then blend all these ingredients with water, then pour the juice into a nut milk bag and squeeze out the juice from that. With either method, you'll end up with a container of fresh juice.

This juice will be extremely potent, so mix this with water (add an equal amount of water to the juice). You may also wish to add some stevia if you'd like to sweeten up the taste a bit.

Health benefits of the fresh living juice

• The blackberries will mask the bitter tastes of the other ingredients with their acidity. This acidity greatly improves the overall taste of the recipe. It also improves digestion of the minerals in the vegetables (you need an acidic digestive environment to absorb minerals).

• Blackberries also have a powerful anti-cancer effect through your entire digestive tract, from your mouth and gums down through your colon.

• Parsley is a super digestive cleanser. It will help eliminate toxins while providing your body with a burst of chlorophyll that will help cleanse your blood and liver.

• Kale contains potent anti-cancer phytonutrients. It also contains healthy plant-based proteins and lots of chlorophyll.

• The carrots are used primarily as a sweetener here (they really do sweeten up the juice), and they also contain a wide assortment of beneficial nutrients, most notably beta carotene (from which carrots get their name).

• The pears are the sweeteners here. I find that pear juice tastes much better than apple juice in these raw living juices, but of course it's your choice of what's best for you. If you're diabetic or want to reduce the sugars in this recipe, reduce the numbers of pears to just one or eliminate them altogether (when I juice here in Ecuador, I don't use pears at all. I just use carrots.) Some people prefer to use oranges instead of pears. The tart taste of the oranges in some ways provides a better overall taste. Try the recipe both ways and see what you like best.

In addition to all the benefits listed above, these foods are alive with nutrients and energies. They are live foods, not dead processed foods, and they provide both the nutrients and the energies of life! It's a simple concept, really: If you want to stay alive, eat more living foods. If you want to be dead, eat more dead foods.

Your body will thank you

The point of today's living foods juice is to both introduce you to the joy of juicing (if you don't already know about it), and to prepare your digestive tract for tomorrow's action item.

How much juice should you drink? Just drink whatever amount you feel comfortable with. I recommend an 8 oz. glass of this juice at minimum, but if you only feel like drinking half that much, that's fine, too. Some people will drink as much as 64 ounces of fresh juice in a day! (Juice Feasting)

For the purposes of this 15-day experience you can still eat all your other normal food during the day. This isn't about eliminating everything else, it's about adding some fresh, living juice to your day. Ideally, you'll make this a regular part of your diet because whatever your diet consists of -- whether it's pure vegan or based on McDonald's cheeseburgers -- it will be helped by adding several ounces of fresh juice.

Pointers and shortcuts

Don't have time to make your own fresh juice? There are shortcuts, but none of them are as good as actual living fresh juice.

You can, if you wish, consume juice from a superfood powder such as EnerFood, VitaMineral Green, Boku Superfood, Delicious Greens or others. These are all reasonable alternatives to fresh juice, but by their very nature they are not as fresh as living foods would be.

Do NOT reach for a Naked Juice, or Odwalla juice and make the mistake of thinking they are fresh living juices. All of those juices are DEAD, pasteurized juices made by the big soft drink companies (Coke and Pepsi). None of them are fresh, raw and alive. They still have nutritional benefits, so I'm not saying they're worthless, but they pale in comparison to fresh, raw juices that you make at home.

You can drink this juice between meals, or during a meal, or any time you want. Just drink it quickly after making it, because fresh juice oxidizes in mere minutes. The nutritional quality of the fresh juice you make literally starts to degrade with each passing second. Ideally, start to consume it within two minutes of juicing it, and finish it in no more than five.

You may feel some "detox" side effects from this juice, especially if you currently pursue a relatively unhealthful diet. But they should be mild. After all, this is just simple juice from simple foods. These aren't drugs or extracts. They are the foods your body was meant to consume.

By the way, I'm not here to push a vegan diet or a vegetarian diet on you. Decide to eat whatever you wish to eat, for your own reasons. Just add this fresh juice to your day and see what happens for yourself. Even if you gobble down pepperoni pizza and diet soda, these fresh juices will improve your health results in a noticeable way.

In case you're curious, I drink about 16 ounces of this fresh juice each day, right from my own garden. Except I don't use the pears, and I add in fresh aloe vera gel from fresh leaves that I grow myself here in Ecuador. I grow all my own fresh berries, kale, carrots, parsley, broccoli, cucumbers and more, and these go right into my juice.

Just so you know how powerful this is, I just finished a 90-hour fast. Aside from a raw coconut food bar a friend gave me, I didn't eat any solid food for 90 hours. I did, however, drink one glass of fresh, living vegetable juice each day.

If I had been consuming a junk food diet, my energy would have collapsed within the first 24 hours. I would have been dead tired, detoxing in bed and probably suffering through it all. But because my daily diet is so clean, I was able to eat virtually nothing for nearly four days and still have the energy to write these articles, to go hiking up the mountains behind my house and generally get along with a normal day. (Yes, it got difficult on the fourth day, which is why I ended the fast at 90 hours.)

Fresh living juice is such a powerhouse of nutrition and energy that even when you eat virtually nothing for several days in a row, the juice you had before the fast keeps you alive, healthy and energetic. That's been my experience, at least.

What about the pulp?

I've added this section to the article because people are asking why they shouldn't drink the pulp and fibers of the fruits and veggies instead of juicing them.

Here's my take on it:

First off, I don't want vegetable fibers, and I don't need 'em. The fruit fibers, on the other hand, are very good for your digestive health. Fruit pectin even helps prevent cancer according to many naturopaths. So if you want more pulp in your juice, then do this:

#1) JUICE the vegetables to get pure juice while tossing out the fibers.
#2) BLEND the fruits to keep the fruit pulp. Then pour in the veggie juice and add water.

To me, this is the best "pulpy" juice. It's easy to remember, too: KEEP the fruit fiber, TOSS the vegetable fiber.

But for those who are using juice therapeutically to treat disease under the care of a naturopathic physician, for example, they will probably want no fiber at all. That's because the fiber makes it more difficult for your body to absorb the juice. So for people who are fasting, or treating cancer, or detoxing or whatever, it's often recommended that they discard all the fiber and go for the pure juice.

There's no absolute right or wrong about this. What's important is what works for you! Try it both ways and do what makes you feel healthier and happier.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

30 Reasons to Drink Mangosteen Every Day

1. Strengthens the Immune System~ The flavonoids & flavones boost other antioxidants,
including vitamins C & E, to a more protective level.

2. Combats Inflammation ~Helps prevent tissue swelling which can lead to many debilitating diseases & conditions.

3. Improves cell communication ~The xanthones in mangosteen improve the body’s cell to cell communication to fight disease from attacking & spreading. It also speeds up repair.

4. Thwarts DNA damage ~ Xanthones have been shown to thwart DNA damage, lowering risks from carcinogens & mutagens.

5. Aids the lymphatic system ~ Helps the lymphatic system.

6. Keeps thyroid functioning optimally ~ Mangosteen’s energy boosting ability helps overcome low thyroid conditions.

7. Reduces insulin resistance ~ Xanthones can help normalize blood sugar levels.

8. Helps lower body fat ~ Balances corisol which can stimulate fat deposits in various parts of the body.

9. Heals nerve damage ~ The anti-neuralgic & anti-inflammatory properties help repair cellular damage that causes neurological pain & discomfort, including diabetic neuropathy.

10. Balances the endocrine system ~ Favorably affects the balance of hormones & other neurochemicals produced by the endocrine system.

11. Aids body synergy ~ Mangosteen’s disease, microbial-fighting abilities & immune system-strengthening qualities empower the entire body!

12. Reduces hemorrhoids ~ alleviates the pain & swelling caused by inflammation.

13. Helps alleviate hypoglycemia ~ Counters fatigue brought on by low blood-sugar levels.

14. Relieves Psoriasis ~ Xanthones can help detoxify the liver, which can cause psoriasis.

15. Helps heal lesions ~ Promotes rapid healing of topical wounds.

16. Reduces pain of carpal tunnel syndrome ~ Stops hand and wrist pain by reducing inflammation.

17. Relieves neurodermatitis ~ Mangosteen anti-inflammatory properties counteract this scaly & itching skin disorder.

18. Helps prevent heart disease ~ Xanthones neutralize free radical damage which may play a role in the inflammatory process.

19. Lowers LDL cholesterol ~ Since mangosteen inhibits free radical damage, it may help reduce LDL oxidation in the blood.

20. Strengthens blood vessels ~ Improves the flow of nutrients to the body’s cells.

21. Reduces high blood pressure ~ Mangosteen’s ability to strengthen heart muscles & help you lose weight may lead to lower blood pressure.

22. Helps prevent atherosclerosis ~ Mangosteen’s anti-inflammatory effect may reduce plaque buildup in artery walls.

23. Helps overcome acid reflux disease (GERD) ~ helps to protect and repair the lower esophagus damaged by gastro-esophageal reflux disease (GERD).

24. Helps heal ulcers ~ Xanthones kill bad bacteria, fungi & parasites, including H-pylori, the ulcer causing bacteria.

25. Relief for irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) ~ Blocks IBS-causing serotonin in the digestive system.

26. Helps lessen migraines ~ corrects abnormal serotonin functions in blood vessels that lead to migraines.

27. Helps relieve asthma ~ anti-viral, anti bacterial & anti-fungal effect can reduce the frequency of lung infections & other pulmonary diseases.

28. May thwart cancer ~ xanthones have demonstrated anti-tumor properties in leukemia, liver, stomach & lung cancer, breast cancer & colon neoplasms.

29. Prevents lupus-related symptoms ~ anti-inflammatory & autoimmune strengthening qualities can help lupus symptoms.

30. Slows the aging process ~ Mangosteen’s regenerative nutrients & strong antioxidants keep cells operating optimally.

Heal yourself in 15 days (part four)

(NaturalNews) This article continues part four of the 15-part article series called Heal Yourself in 15 Days. In part three, we explored how you are what you absorb, not merely what you eat (http://www.naturalnews.com/028067_s...). Today, in part four, we take a closer look at how to transform your health by changing your blood.

Your blood is a useful focal point for exploring your health. Whatever health outcome you are experiencing today, it is largely a result of what's in your blood.

Think about it: Your blood bathes your cells in nutrients 24 hours a day. Blood not only brings vital nutrients to your cells; it also carries away metabolic waste products. It is the superhighway of nutrition and detoxification that reaches into (virtually) every organ and cell in your entire body.

It stands to reason, therefore, that altering your health outcome depends largely upon altering the composition of your blood. If you want to make someone really healthy for a short time, for example, you can give them blood from a healthy person. Research has already documented that when you take blood from people whose bodies prevent cancer and then inject that blood into people who are suffering from cancer, the anti-cancer benefits of the blood are immediately reflected in the cancer patient (through tumor shrinkage, for example). There is such a thing as anti-cancer blood. And if you eat an anti-cancer diet, you're making anti-cancer blood every single day.

I eat a very strong anti-cancer diet. Most vegans do, too. They could theoretically help heal cancer patients by simply giving them some of their blood. The anti-cancer effects would be immediate and powerful. The FDA, not surprisingly, prohibits you from selling your own blood as "medicine," so don't think you can make money by eating a healthy diet and then selling your blood for $1,000 / pint (although it might very well be worth that much in a truly free market).

The other limitation with this idea is that the benefits from receiving donated blood are short-lived. If the blood recipient does not alter his or her lifestyle in some meaningful way, the anti-cancer properties of the "healthy" blood will, within just a few days, be erased and overpowered by the blood that person is manufacturing on their own.

And this leads me to the important question: How is your blood made?

How your body makes your blood

A typical human red blood cell only survives about 4-5 months. Your body is constantly producing new blood and releasing it into the bloodstream to do important work -- the work of carrying nutrients, hormones, water, chemical messages and even information throughout your body.

Blood is primarily made of three things: Red blood cells (oxygen carriers), white blood cells (immune function) and blood plasma (a liquid solution that carries everything else).

When more red blood cells are needed, your body (with its infinite healing wisdom) automatically generates new ones. Naturally, it must create those red blood cells using the materials that are available: Materials that are circulating in your blood at the time.

Got that? So the blood cells you make TODAY, which circulate throughout your body for the next four months, are made out of the materials being carried in your blood right now.

So what's in your blood right now?

Your blood is largely comprised of the things you ate, drank and absorbed over the last several months.

So if you ate a McDonald's cheeseburger today and chased it with a large Coke, the blood cells your body generates today are going to be made, in part, of materials from that cheeseburger and Coke. If you think about where cheeseburgers really come from -- with all the cruelly slaughtered, hormone-injected animals, the ammonia-injected beef parts, the refined white flour in the bun, the processed cheese "food" substances, and so on, it's not exactly the kind of thing you probably want coursing through your veins for the next few months.

If, on the other hand, you spent the last several days consuming fresh living juices, superfoods and clean, energized water, then guess what your new blood is going to be made of? It will be super blood that's energized with the elements and vibes of all the good stuff you've been consuming!

Bad blood leads to bad health results. It leads to angry, moody mental function and chronic disease. But good blood results in happy, healthy outcomes. Good blood improves your sleep, your sex, your moods and cognitive function. Good blood keeps your body free from cancer, youthful, energized and actively healing itself at multiple levels.

Once you understand all this, it only seems natural to work consciously towards creating good blood every single day.

Amazing facts about your red blood cells

• A whopping one-quarter of the human cells in your body are red blood cells. But most cells in your body are actually non-human cells (bacteria).

• A red blood cell circulates around your body in about 20 seconds. The same red blood cell makes tens of thousands of trips around your body, transporting oxygen to cells, before it is recycled by your own immune system.

• Red blood cells in humans are molecularly quite similar to chlorophyll cells in plants.

• Your red blood cells are made partially of cholesterol. Although the drug industry has tried to label cholesterol a villain, in truth you couldn't survive without it!

Check out this amazing real-time animation of a red blood cell in a human body:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:E...

Cleaning your blood

Having good blood means keeping it clean! Your blood is cleaned primarily by your kidneys and liver, but some additional "cleaning" functions are also accomplished by your lungs (through respiration) and even through your skin.

Ask anyone on a dialysis machine and they'll tell you what a huge difference it makes to keep your blood clean. Your kidneys normally do this for you, but in many people, kidney function is impaired and kidney cells don't work as well as they should to remove waste products from the blood. (Drinking sodas can impair kidney function, by the way...)

Hence the thinking behind an occasional kidney cleanse or liver cleanse. Keeping these organs functioning smoothly and efficiently helps keep your blood clean, and that translates into improved health for both body and mind. The two best cleansing product lines I know of are offered by Ed Group's Global Healing Center (www.GlobalHealingCenter.com) and Baseline Nutritionals (www.BaselineNutritionals.com).

How to create good blood

You are your own blood bank. You manufacture and distribute all your own blood. Given that your life depends on your own blood, doesn't it make sense to manufacture the healthiest, most life-giving blood possible?

In fact, you can! You have conscious control over the qualities of the blood you manufacture. Because your blood is made of what you eat, drink, breathe and absorb, you can alter the composition of your blood by consciously choosing healthier things to eat, drink, breathe and absorb.

Here are some of the most powerful pointers for making healthy blood:

Healthy blood needs healthy fats

You must consume healthy fats in order to create healthy red blood cells. This means consuming healthful omega-3 fatty acids. From the world of plants, healthful fats come from coconuts, avocados, flaxseed, Chia seeds and other similar sources. From the animal world, the best source for omega-3 fatty acids is, in my opinion, the green-lipped mussels oils in Moxxor, which come from a pristine marine environment. To learn more about Moxxor, check out Jonathan Landsman's Moxxor page at: http://moxxbiz.com/clients/getVideo...

There are other quality sources, too, including fish oil supplements from companies like Nordic Naturals or Carlson Labs. Some people take krill oil to get their omega-3s, and companies like Living Fuel (www.LivingFuel.com) offer high-end fish oil supplements. This isn't a complete list of good sources for omega-3s. Do your research and use what works best for you. The more healthful omega-3 fatty acids you take, the healthier your blood will be (to a point, of course).

Consuming damaging fats will harm the health of your blood. Damaging fats include trans-fatty acids and fried fats (such as those used in fried foods).

Making healthy blood also requires the right minerals. Red blood cells themselves need iron, but you'll want all the trace minerals, too, so they can be delivered by your blood to your cells. When you lack sufficient quantities of minerals like calcium, magnesium, zinc and selenium, biological functions start to go awry.

Healthy blood also needs plenty of water, of course. Water is the primary fluid of your blood plasma -- it's a solvent that can dissolve and transport all sorts of crucial building blocks for health including water-soluble vitamins like Vitamin C. Without adequate water, your blood turns to sludge blood -- sticky, gooey blood that your heart can't easily pump through your circulatory system. The forceful pumping required to push this blood through your system is frequently diagnosed as high blood pressure.

Human blood also needs many other elements, all of which can be found in a plant-based diet (including the proteins needed for blood).

You can make what modern science can't

When thinking about the health-enhancing qualities of your blood, remember this astonishing fact:

Modern science cannot make human blood. But YOU can.

Sure, they can try to make artificial blood. But clinical trials have shown that artificial blood doesn't work very well. It carries only a fraction of the oxygen of real blood, and it's no long-term replacement. YOU can manufacture blood that's more technologically advanced than anything ever invented by modern medicine. The only question you need to ask yourself is: What kind of blood will I make today? (And tomorrow...)

Will you manufacture blood out of trans fats, Gatorade, pharmaceuticals and junk food proteins? Or will you make your blood out of living fruits and vegetables, healthful omega-3s and positive energies from Mother Nature?

It's your choice, each and every day. You can have good blood or bad blood, and the health results you get will directly reflect the quality of your blood.

Want to transform your health? Transform your blood and your health results will automatically follow.

Aspirin is Dangerous and Should Not Be Used

(NaturalNews) Most people have heard that an aspirin a day is good for the heart and health. However, according to the British Medical Journal, aspirin "should not be routinely initiated," especially for the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease, and for patients already taking aspirin, its use should be reviewed.(1) This publication confirms the negative effects that medication has on the human body, including aspirin.

The conventional medical system has unfortunately supported taking aspirin for improving the cardiovascular system along with recommending aspirin for pain relief and other symptoms. Aspirin was originally patented in 1900 to originally treat arthritis symptoms.(2)

Research in the last decade however has shown that taking an aspirin a day in those without a history of heart disease increased the risk of heart disease by 60%. Those with a history of heart disease had a 10-fold increase in the risk of congestive heart failure.(3) If that's not enough, taking an aspirin a day also increases the risk of pancreatic cancer by 86 percent.(4) The risk of breast cancer is increased by 50% for those taking an aspirin a day.(5)

According to the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), an aspirin a day increases the risk for a hemorrhagic stroke by 84%!(6)

A common question asked after reading that research is who told us that taking aspirin was safe? Most would answer their doctor did. Let's take this to the next level. Who told your doctor? The pharmaceutical industry! The pharmaceutical companies have a massive influence on the medical community and the medical schools in America to dictate conventional medical treatments.

Aspirin penetrated the medical community for its published benefits of helping the heart and relieving pain. Many people make the mistake assuming aspirin is a supplement rather than a medication! For more than a decade people have swallowed the pills every day in the misguided belief that they were safeguarding their cardiac health.(6) Aspirin is a toxic substance and has negative effects on the body.

Some may want to argue the physiological response that aspirin thins the blood! There is no argument; it does thin the blood, yet the issue is that the body needs to maintain what is called homeostasis. Homeostasis is the body's ability to maintain internal equilibrium by adjusting its physiological processes. If the blood is thinned artificially with an aspirin, guess how the body maintains homeostasis? Yes, it THICKENS it!! The body does not improve health through over-the-counter medications or prescription drugs!

(1)Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin 2009;47: 122-125
(2)http://inventors.about.com/library/...
(3)Archives of Internal Medicine June 2000; 160: 777-784.
(4)Yahoo News October 27, 2003.
(5)Journal of the National Cancer Institute June 1, 2005, Vol. 97, No. 11: 805-812.
(6)The Journal of the American Medical Association, Dec. 9, 1998.

Monday, February 1, 2010

Heal yourself in 15 days (part three)

Here in part three, we look at a powerful principle of nutrition: You aren't what you eat; you are what you ABSORB.

Many people suffer from poor digestion. In fact, you might say that most people aren't able to absorb the nutrients they swallow, so they remain in a state of nutritional starvation even though they're taking supplements that would otherwise be quite helpful.

These people tend to scratch their heads, wondering why all the nutrients they're swallowing aren't having the positive effects they had hoped for. The answer to this conundrum is found in enhancing the absorption of those nutrients.

Strong stomach acid is good for you

Pharmaceutical pill pushers have convinced many people that stomach acid is bad for your health. By promoting diseases like "acid reflux" or GERD, they misinform consumers into believing that heartburn and stomach pain are caused by too much stomach acid. But the truth is that in most (but not all) cases people actually suffer from weak stomach acid and they need stronger stomach acid to properly digest foods.

It's easy to test this by swallowing a teaspoon (or so) of vinegar with your meal and asking yourself whether it feels better or worse. For a surprisingly large percentage of people, the extra vinegar halts the pain they might normally feel after such a meal. This is a strong indication that they lack proper stomach acid production and could benefit from stronger acid. Vinegar is acidic, you see. Not as acidic as stomach acid, but far more acidic than most foods or beverages.

Consumers have been persuaded by drug advertising to swallow over-the-counter antacid tablets -- products that are actually very alkaline and therefore lower the acidity (i.e. raise the pH) of the liquids in your stomach.

What most people don't realize is that minerals require an acidic digestive environment to be properly digested and absorbed. If you lack proper stomach acid, you won't be able to properly absorb minerals even if you swallow them! And this can lead to mineral deficiencies that promote the development of diabetes, cancer, chronic pain, arthritis and even heart problems (among other things).

So how do you encourage the production of healthy stomach acid? In my experience, drinking fresh vegetable juices each day -- especially celery and cabbage juices -- greatly boosts stomach health, ultimately supporting healthy stomach acid production.

Digestive enzymes from living foods

Digestion is a complex process. It requires biochemical and physical processes to break down ingested substances into their nutritional components. This process is significantly aided by digestive enzymes which exist naturally in living foods (fresh, raw vegetable and fruit juices, for example).

Heating foods (cooking them) destroys all digestive enzymes. This is one reason why cooked foods steal life away from people while raw, living foods impart life. Living foods usually come with their own digestive enzymes, aiding your digestive processes in breaking down and absorbing nutrients.

Dead foods -- which include anything pasteurized -- stress your liver, pancreas and gallbladder by requiring these organs to produce extra digestive enzymes that are missing from the foods themselves. Because many people suffer from poor digestive organ function, they have difficulties absorbing the nutrients they've swallowed.

Probiotics

Many people suffer from serious intestinal flora imbalances. Western medicine, for the most part, remains astonishingly ignorant about the importance of intestinal flora to overall health, but those who study more holistic medicine understand the important role that these "inner bacteria" play in your health: The bacteria in your gut actually digest and transform nutrients you eat into other nutrients.

They are, in essence, nutrient transformers that operate inside your body, producing nutrients needed for your health. That's why people who take antibiotics often suffer serious digestive side effects in the days that follow: They've wiped out all the friendly intestinal bacteria that were providing essential nutrients!

It's easy to remedy this imbalance: Take probiotic supplements on a regular basis. This will feed your digestive tract the friendly bacteria you need.

And don't fall for the marketing sham of eating yogurt, thinking it's loaded with probiotics. Virtually all store-bought yogurt is pasteurized, and pasteurization kills the friendly bacteria. This makes most "probiotic yogurt" products nothing more than a dishonest marketing gimmick.

By the way, if you want healthy intestinal flora, it's also important to reduce your consumption of dietary sugars. When you consume more sugars, you alter the bacterial population in your gut, causing a shift toward bacteria that feed on sugars. As you alter your diet to exclude refined sugars, the population of bacteria in your gut follows suit, shifting towards a non-sugar bacterial population.

Heal yourself in 15 days (part two)

In part two, we look at why your healing potential is so powerful that you can't even turn it off!

When you scrape your elbow, a bit of blood oozes out to clean the wound and wash away bacteria. It then forms a protective scab that keeps out invading microorganisms while your skin has a chance to heal underneath. There, some real magic takes place: Your skin cells innately recognize the need to divide and grow to fill the wound. A cancer-like process is unleashed at the cellular level, activating nearby cells to divide and grow. Your DNA is replicated in the nucleus of each cell with the help of some of the most astounding nanotechnology every witnessed in human civilization. (The best scientists in the world can't even come close to recreating it.)

As your cells multiply, nutrients and building blocks are carried to them through a blood supply that adapts to the particular size and shape of the wound. If a blood vessel was destroyed in your accident, the growth of new blood vessels is spontaneously initiated to take their place, and they grow into the tissues within mere hours.

As your skin cells fill in the previous wound, the replication effort is delicately turned off, one by one, so that replicating skin cells don't keep replicating beyond what they need to -- a process that would cause the creation of a skin tumor. Your body's cells know exactly when to grow and exactly when to turn off, and when it's all said and done, you're left with a perfect replacement for the skin you previously lost.

Completely automatic healing

The truly amazing part of all this is not the cancer-like processes that are delicately controlled by your body wisdom; it's not even the fact that your body has the ability to re-grow lost cells -- it's the fact that all this takes place without any conscious involvement on your part.

Healing yourself is automatic, in other words. You don't have to direct blood to the wound, direct the cells to start replicating, direct the molecular waste products to be carried away and decide when cell replication should be stopped. All this happens without your involvement -- even without your awareness! Much of it happens while you sleep, in fact. While your conscious mind is dreaming, your innate body wisdom is working the biochemistry and energetic transformations necessary to repair your tissues.

You can't stop this process even if you wanted to. You could try to focus all your mental power on your skin not healing, and yet your skin would heal itself anyway.

That's because your body is a powerful self-healing organism. It heals itself automatically, innately, without your conscious awareness or involvement. Your ability to heal yourself is so powerful that you can't stop yourself from healing!

Why we don't always heal

If this is true, then why aren't you healing everything else? Why aren't you always in perfect health? The answer, as you've seen throughout this article series, is because we tend to erect barriers to our own healing. And we often misread the symptoms of sickness that are asking for help, "treating" them in a way that makes the situation worse.

Fact: Many "symptoms of disease" are actually the result of your body's attempt to heal itself.

For example, most people are chronically dehydrated. They don't consume enough high-quality water. Because water is so vital for proper blood composition, when your body lacks sufficient quantities of water intake, it begins to take action to reduce water loss.

A significant portion of the water loss experienced by the body each day is lost through respiration -- a bit of water vapor is exhaled with each breath. So to conserve water, your body attempts to reduce water loss during respiration by constricting your bronchial tubes through the creation of histamines.

These histamines constrict breathing, making it more physically difficult. Modern (western) medicine misdiagnoses this as a disease called "asthma" rather than the true underlying cause which is often simply dehydration. So instead of prescribing water, which would solve the underlying water shortage and end the body's creation of histamines, western doctors prescribe anti-histamine drugs that force the bronchial tubes to relax and ease air flow. This, of course, promotes further dehydration, leaving the patient in a more severe state of water loss.

So you see, the body is attempting to heal itself, and the symptom of histamine production is a mechanism by which the body is attempting to heal, but it is misinterpreted by western medicine and then made worse by misguided interventions.

Blood pressure

Another good example of this is high blood pressure. High blood pressure is often caused by something I refer to as "sludge blood" -- blood that's too thick and viscous to flow freely through the body's small capillaries. So in order to make sure good circulation is taking place, the heart has to pump harder, thereby raising blood pressure. This is the body's way of making sure this thick blood reaches all the cells throughout the body (cells that don't receive blood will die, and that's bad).

But healthy blood shouldn't be so viscous. It should flow more freely, with less friction. When blood is properly hydrated and nourished with the right fatty acids (more omega-3s in particular), the heart does not need to work as hard to pump it throughout the body, so blood pressure automatically drops. (It's like the difference between sucking water through a straw versus sucking honey through a straw... the more sticky and thick the honey, the more pressure it takes to move it.)

Western medicine completely misdiagnoses this situation and says that "high blood pressure" is itself a disease. And this high blood pressure is attacked with drugs that artificially lower blood pressure by forcing artery walls to relax.

As you might have guessed, this then immediately causes circulation problems because the thick sludge blood is no longer reaching all the cells it needs to reach. That's why people who take high blood pressure medications very often end up with circulation problems. Their underlying problem of "sludge blood" remains unresolved.

Symptoms such as high blood pressure as your body's way of communicating with you to address the underlying causes. In the majority of cases, patients with high blood pressure simply need more water, more living nutrients (such as raw living plant juices), more omega-3 fatty acids and a sharp reduction in the consumption of animal products. Within as little as five days after embracing such changes, blood pressure normalizes as the blood itself becomes more hydrated and free to flow throughout the circulatory system.

Your body knows all this. Western doctors know none of it. High Blood Pressure is treated as a disease unto itself with virtually no thought given to what underlying causes might be creating this measurable symptom.

Your body is trying to heal itself all the time

Both "asthma" and "high blood pressure" are fictional diseases. In other words, they don't really exist as self-contained, standalone diseases. They are merely symptoms of something else that your body is attempting to balance.

In order to activate your body's innate healing potential, you must learn to listen to what your body is really asking for and give it those things instead of intervening with chemical medications, surgeries and toxic therapies like chemotherapy.

Western medicine misinterprets virtually all expressions of physiology. If you wish to be healthy, you must learn to reinterpret your body's messages in alignment with the true principles of health. Difficulty in breathing, for example, may simply be a sign of dehydration. High blood pressure may be a sign of dehydration or poor diet.

Cancer is a sign of cellular miscommunication. A tumor is a sign that cells in your body aren't getting the right message of when to stop dividing. (A tumor is merely a wayward cell that keeps dividing.) Cellular communication can be reestablished through changes in diet, environment, mental state and proper exposure to sunlight (among other things).

So keep in mind that your body is always trying to heal itself. "Symptoms" of disease are often just cries for help from your own biology. The wise patient listens to those cries for help, attempts to understand what they mean, and addresses them through self-care. The unwise patient attempts to silence symptoms through chemical intervention: Pain killers, chemical pharmaceuticals, surgery and other interventions. Western doctors are not trained in proper symptom interpretation and rebalancing. They are only trained in symptom "management" which means reducing symptoms through artificial intervention.

Why you are such a self-healing miracle

Your body is one of Mother Nature's most miraculous accomplishments. You possess unbelievably complex nanotechnology in your immune system. Your neurology exceeds the capabilities of the most advanced supercomputers in the world. Your sensory systems contain technology so advanced that even the most well-funded laboratories in the world don't have machines that can match what you have right in your nose.

Your reproductive system is a miracle of life; your bones are astounding structural engineering feats (or feets!); and your internal organs such as your heart and liver actually store their own memories and emotions. We know this because organ donor recipients often take on the memories and experiences of those from which the organs were originally harvested.

In other words, you are a miracle of nature, and your body has such powerful healing potential available to itself right now that the only way you can even stop the healing is to interfere with it (with pharmaceuticals, for example).

And yet, sadly, that's what most people do: They numb their bodies with painkiller medications. They shut down their immune systems with chemotherapy. They shock their neurology with vaccines containing inflammatory chemicals. They interfere, override and interject all sorts of artificial chemicals, procedures and unnatural therapies. This is what shuts off healing. This is what leaves patients unable to heal in the way they are capable of healing -- automatically, unconsciously and with zero effort.

So if you really want to heal yourself, first recognize that you are a miraculous self-healing organism. And secondly, recognize that if healing is not happening, it may very well be because you have inadvertently interfered with the healing process by introducing artificial chemicals or other elements that hold your healing potential prisoner.

Attaining health requires allowing healing to take place

Healthy people aren't healthy just because they eat superfoods and drink living juices all day long. They are healthy because they avoid poisoning their bodies with pharmaceuticals, artificial sweeteners, MSG and other processed food ingredients. They avoid the chemicals in cosmetics, personal care products, household cleaning products and lawn care products. They avoid consuming meat from animals who have been pumped full of hormones and antibiotics. They keep their bodies as free from pollution as possible, and as a result, their innate healing powers are always working for them!

You have exactly the same healing potential as I do. Your body can heal itself from cancer, from diabetes, from heart disease and from other "made-up" disease names like asthma and high blood pressure. All that's really required is for you to embrace the healing potential you already possess, and then avoid all those things that interfere with it.

If you believe in God and Creation, then take comfort in the idea that your body is created in God's image, meaning that you are a perfect healing being as is He.

If you believe in evolution and Darwinism, then take comfort in the idea that your body is the result of millions of years of evolution that have given you a successful, proven DNA blueprint for preventing sickness and disease -- long before vaccines and western medicine ever came along.

No matter what your philosophical approach, either way you still believe that your body is an amazing self-healing organism. And that's good news because it means you already have the blueprint for powerful healing.

Now simply activate it!