Issue 14 – True Health

Fitness vs. Health – Letter from the Editor

Lance Armstrong, seven time winner of the Tour de France, is a great example of physical fitness. But at one point in his life, this world-class athlete was so unhealthy he was ravaged by cancer. Is he healthy today? It’s hard to say. I would bet he’s healthier than the average person, but I would guess he’s not as healthy as he could be. Men who exercise regularly and consume large quantities of bodybuilding supplements and energy drinks are not healthy. Have you ever read the ingredients on some of those protein powders, muscle gain formulas, and weight loss pills? Filled with everything from artificial colors to sugar, these concoctions do not benefit the body.

Steroids are another example of how health and fitness are not necessarily synonymous. With a proper fitness program, steroids can elevate one’s fitness to a level that is tough, if not impossible, for one to achieve by natural means. But, as we all know, steroids are not healthy. Like many perfectly legal performance enhancement supplements and bodybuilding supplements, steroids are dangerous. You may have seen yoga practitioners with acne, runners with seasonal allergies, or ironman competitors popping Excedrin for their headaches. These are not healthy individuals.

Fitness and health can certainly complement each other. And you cannot be healthy without some degree of fitness. But health is about living life without the need for prescription drugs. Being healthy is living without allergies. Living healthy means you don’t get diagnosed with Type II diabetes or arthritis in your forties or fifties and blame your age or genetics. Living healthy is living without aches and pains. Living healthy is taking responsibility for your own health and not blindly putting it in the hands of doctors.

Being both physically fit and healthy is an amazing feeling. Imagine waking up after a great night’s sleep full of energy with no aches and pains, at any age, clear headed, and ready to take on the day. For some people this isn’t possible. But for most people, including a great many who think they have no choice, health is a viable option.

Michael Edwards

Editor in Chief

Natural Herbal Remedies for Insomnia

Eliminate stimulants from your diet. Coffee, tea, chocolate, soft drinks, energy drinks… If you won’t give these up, be sure to limit them to the early hours of the day. Thyroid and adrenal fatigue can lead to insomnia and poor quality sleep, so address those glands if needed. B vitamins are essential to the nervous system and deficiencies can result in disruption of sleep cycles. Take a high-quality B complex vitamin each day. If you do not get daily exposure to sunlight or you live north of Atlanta, Georgia or Los Angeles, California, supplement with vitamin D. If you suffer from regular insomnia please check out How To Heal Your Gut and Holistic Guide to Healing the Endocrine System and Balancing Our Hormones.

Herbal Remedies and Supplements for Insomnia

To fix the biological clock long term, diet is key; B vitamins, thyroid health, and exercise are paramount. But the right combination of the following herbal remedies will knock almost anyone out at least for the first few nights they’re used, without the pharmaceutical side effects.

Tryptophan

Our bodies require tryptophan, an amino acid, to make serotonin and melatonin. It can help you fall asleep and improve your quality of sleep by lengthening the time you spend in deep sleep. In addition, studies have shown an increase in alertness upon waking.

Valerian Root

Valerian root also aids in sleep onset as well as quality of sleep. The best results are found when combining valerian root with melatonin or hops. Take 400-500 mg at bedtime.

Melatonin

Melatonin is a hormone secreted by the pineal gland. It does not help with the length of sleep or sleep quality, but it does help with sleep onset. Side effects may include nightmares and daytime drowsiness. Dosage ranges from 1-10 mg.

Hops

Hops extract is another sleep aid that improves sleep and aids in sleep onset. It works well with valerian extract and the combination may help increase alpha brain waves.

Black Cohosh

Black cohosh minimizes sleep disturbances and reduces irritability and mood swings

Passion Flower

Passion flower clears anxiety and restores the body to a more peaceful state

Ashwagandha

Ashwagandha is known as an adaptogen that block stress messages in the body, promoting relaxation and peacefulness.

Chamomile flower

Chamomile flower and leaf soothes anxiety and has sedative properties

Skullcap

Skullcap promotes calmness and increases the body’s ability to adapt to stress. It also acts as a sedative for aches and pain

My Own Protocol for Insomnia

Exercise. Anytime I need to get to sleep on time no matter what, I make sure I exercised that day. I set the right sleep environment. If thoughts are swirling in my mind, I write them down. A bedside journal can be a great sleep aid.

Before going to sleep, all the lights should be turned off or covered (those little blue, red, flashing lights on electronics inhibit proper sleep rhythms). Absolute darkness aids in melatonin production. It also helps to have a set bedtime. Make sure your bedtime allows for eight hours of sleep. Get up at the same time every morning no matter what. Even if you can’t go to sleep at the right time, going to bed at the right time and staying up eventually fixes one’s sleep schedule.

Get grounded, and take that time to do some peaceful meditation. This can be especially beneficial to our internal clock if done early morning and just before bedtime.

L-Tryptophan, Shillington’s Nerve Sedative Formula, and some B vitamins will knock me out within a half an hour every time. I like L-Tryptophan better than a melatonin supplement because it increases production of melatonin and serotonin.

Take 1,000 to 3,000 (some need 3k but many people only need 1) mgs of L-Tryptophan with two droppers full of Shillington’s Nerve Sedative.

Shillington’s Nerve Sedative Recipe (or click here to purchase):

2 – parts Valerian Root
2 – parts Lobelia Seed Pods
2 – parts Passion Flower
1 – part Hops Flowers
1 – part Black Cohosh
1 – part Blue Cohosh
1 – part Skullcap
1 – part Wild Yam

A “part” is a measurement by volume. Blend all ingredients together and make into a tincture using a 50 – 50 Blend of Alcohol and distilled water. For more, see How to Make a Tincture.

A dropperful is considered to be about 1/2 way up the dropper from a two ounce bottle.

Be sure to shake well before each use.

Conclusion

Once you get your biological clock reset, your new sleep habits require discipline, but you will reap the benefits of healthy, restful sleep. The trick to having a set sleep schedule (besides health) is all in the wakeup time. If 7a.m. is when you want to wake up, then that’s when you wake up, no matter what for the next 6 weeks.

Recommended Supplements:

Sources:

The Body’s Temperature Tolerance

A Sign of Health

A few days ago I turned off the A.C. and opened the windows. The temperature dived as we move into the fall. Last night, the temperature dropped to 43°. Inside I woke up to a house at 48°. But I wasn’t uncomfortable. My hands and feet were as warm as the rest of my body. I went outside with a t-shirt and shorts and was still comfortable.

I wasn’t always like this, but I am comfortable with temperatures from 40° to 103° F. I used to hate the heat. Back when I was out of shape, I hated to sweat. It felt toxic, and it was. I was unhealthy and my sweat smelled bad and felt “icky”. I was overweight. Just about anything temperature under 80° was fine with me. At over 350 pounds I had plenty of insulation for the cold weather.

When I lost weight this changed. Hot weather was a bit easier to deal with, as I did not sweat as easily, but cold weather was much more difficult for me. My feet and hands would get cold easily. If it did get over 85° I would be uncomfortable.

The healthier I became the less temperature extremes bothered me. I noticed that a little bit of sweat, even a lot of sweat, feels good. And the colder weather is more comfortable because my blood is healthier, and I have much better circulation now.

Chemical Dumbing Down Of Society

Whether you ascribe to conspiracy theories or plain cause and effect, there is no doubt the chemical cocktail we breathe, ingest, and absorb each day is dumbing down America.

CNN reports Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-New Jersey, told a hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Superfund, Toxics and Environmental Health that of the 84,000 chemicals on the market today, only about one percent has been studied for safety and that our children are “guinea pigs in an uncontrolled experiment.” He has introduced legislation to require chemical manufacturers to prove product safety before products are marketed to the public.

The Environmental Working Group has conducted studies—body burden testing—since the early 2000s. They measure toxic chemicals in the blood of adults, children, and newborns. Testing for 550 chemicals, they have found 486 in their test subjects. Notable chemicals of concern include:

BPA
Lead, mercury, methymercury
PFCs – “teflon” chemical
PCBs – banned in the US in 76, still found in cord blood
Musks from fragrances
Pesticides
Perchlorate (rocket fuel)

Cord blood studies show an average of 232 chemicals in the blood of newborn babies, chemicals found in plastics, cosmetics, shampoos, conditioners, mattresses and electronics. The Environmental Working Group is following these children from birth through early childhood and discovering a definite correlation between the number of chemicals found in their blood at birth and later development.

In addition to the chemicals we are exposed to through contamination of our food, water, and environment, our government purposefully forces us to ingest toxins through mandatory vaccinations and fluoridization of our water. Fluoride is more toxic than lead and accumulates in our bodies, yet we drink it every day.

Dr. Russell Blaylock, a retired neurosurgeon, released a you-tubevideo titled Chemical Dumbing Down of Society. It is his belief that the government allows or encourages the use of mercury in vaccinations and fluoride in water to purposefully dumb down our citizens to maintain a malleable society. Whether our government promotes a toxic environment as a means to control society, chooses to ignore toxicity due to pressure from big business, or is simply not doing its job protecting its citizens, it is time we recognize the fact that our government does not protect us. Our government knowingly allows toxins that can affect our health and development to be included in medications, vaccines, food, water, soaps, shampoos, conditioners, beauty products and household items. It is imperative that we raise awareness on these issues and demand new protections.

Is Caffeine Making You Fat?

An Excerpt from the book The Decaf Diet, Is Caffeine Making You Fat?

by Eugene Wells

As Americans, we are on the verge of a national health crisis. Not only are we fatter than ever before, but we are getting fatter faster than ever before. The obesity epidemic is spiraling out of control and if we don’t come up with some effective nationwide solutions soon, researchers believe that the United States may experience its first modern decline in life expectancy, as a result of obesity’s associated health problems. Obesity and the diseases that come with it – type 2 diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, and many more – are the largest threats to our national health. We need solutions, and we need them fast.

One dietary factor that we seldom consider in our weight loss efforts is caffeine, which most of us regularly consume in the form of coffee, tea, soft drinks, and chocolate. How do these caffeinated beverages and foods affect our weight loss efforts? For years, the discussion of caffeine’s impact on weight gain has been confined to the dark corners of internet chat rooms and forums, where some coffee drinkers were beginning to make connections between their caffeine habits and weight gain. Now, we have access to a wealth of new research that proves their suspicions correct. Caffeine does make us fat, by contributing to overeating and by slowing metabolism.

Caffeine contributes to overeating and slows metabolism in a number of different ways. In this article, I will focus on caffeine’s impact on our stress levels, which causes an increase in hunger, muscle breakdown, and a relocation of fat stores to the body’s center. More precisely, caffeine raises our cortisol levels, and cortisol is one of the body’s chief stress hormones. With regular caffeine use, our cortisol levels become chronically elevated, making weight loss and the maintenance of a lean physique difficult.

First, elevated cortisol levels promote appetite, contributing to overeating. Second, elevated cortisol levels also lead to muscle breakdown, reducing our fat-burning muscle mass. Finally, elevated cortisol levels make our bodies prefer to store central and visceral fat, contributing to the “pot belly” look. By stimulating cortisol and its fat-promoting effects, caffeine contributes to positive energy balance and makes weight loss more difficult.

Since caffeine has these fattening effects, cutting back on our caffeine intake is helpful in maintaining a lean physique. While decreasing caffeine is advisable, given the difficulty in reducing caffeine intake and the centrality of daily caffeine use at the workplace, mitigating caffeine’s fat-promoting effects while continuing to drink coffee, tea, and soda may be a more practical strategy than eliminating our caffeine use altogether.

So what can we do to counteract caffeine’s effect on our stress levels without quitting caffeine altogether? The best way to keep your cortisol levels in check is by adopting and maintaining a diet that is high in vitamin C, which is effective in lowering cortisol and keeping this stress hormone under control. To maintain healthy levels of vitamin C in your body, you can eat fresh fruits and vegetables, including citrus fruits, fresh greens, and berries. If you are under a lot of pressure at work and find yourself increasing your caffeine intake, then you can add an additional green salad or some citrus fruit to your diet in order to help blunt caffeine’s cortisol-raising effect. By making fresh fruits and vegetables a regular part of your diet, you will be reducing at least some of caffeine’s fat-promoting effects.

Eugene Wells discusses other ways in which caffeine causes us to overeat while slowing metabolism in his book, The Decaf Diet: Is Caffeine Making You Fat? available at Amazon.com. Wells also describes what we can do to blunt caffeine’s fattening effects when we choose to use it, and how we can reduce our overall level of caffeine consumption to achieve and maintain a lean physique.

Ingredients to Avoid

How to Read and Understand Food Labels

My roommate, who makes a concerted effort to eat well, brought home a pecan pie the other day. I looked at the label and wondered why in the world she bought it. The first ingredient was sugar, the second brown sugar—not cane juice, or even organic sugar—just sugar.

So I asked her how something so unhealthy ended up in our fridge. “It’s organic!” she said.
Processed foods are not required to identify GMO ingredients.

I didn’t bother to argue. I just looked closely at the label the next time I opened the fridge. It was made with organic eggs and organic wheat flour, but out of ten or twelve ingredients, those two were the only organic ones. And this supposedly organic pie was made with partially hydrogenated oils!

The first thing to remember when it comes to reading labels is to read the whole thing. Ignore labels on the front of the packaging that say natural or organic. Read the actual ingredients. When it comes to processed foods, if it says it’s natural, ignore the claim. It means nothing. If it says it’s organic, it doesn’t have to be 100% organic unless it says it is. Remember processed foods can be labeled organic if only 80% of the ingredients are organic. And organic junk food is still junk food.

There are plenty of people who will argue about how you should limit calories, fats, sodium, and more. Our stance is a little different. We think you should eliminate processed foods altogether. Why? Because they are dead foods, void of natural nutrition. Oh, they may be enriched with artificial vitamins and minerals, but what are you really eating?

Most of our processed foods include high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils (trans fats) and MSG. Avoid them all—always. And learn the multiple names they use for MSG to try and sneak it past you.

Big business has been able to shove their agenda through the FDA—genetically modified foods are not labeled. If you want to avoid GMOs, and we hope you do, don’t eat any processed food unless it is labeled 100% organic. And remember—make processed foods the exception, not the rule. Fresh food is better for you and better for the environment. You’ll make your body happy if your diet consists of 80% or more fresh, raw, organic fruits and vegetables and you’ll find you aren’t throwing a ton of packaging into the landfill each year.

High fructose corn syrup and soy are very likely to be GMO foods.

So yeah—our best advice is to avoid the label issue altogether by avoiding that processed food. But if you are going to eat it, read the label carefully and choose wisely. Don’t pay too much attention to anything but the ingredients list. It’s not so important how many grams of saturated fat it has, it matters where the fat comes from (for instance, some saturated fats are very good for you, others are very bad). If you don’t understand any of the ingredients—pass. Buy something better. Go organic!

Here is a short list of Ingredients and Phrases to Avoid:

Artificial Colors
Artificial Flavorings
Artificial Sweeteners (Acesulfame-K, Aspartame, Equal®, NutraSweet®, Saccharin, Sweet’n Low®, Sucralose, Splenda® & Sorbitol)
Benzoate Preservatives
(BHT, BHA, TBHQ)
Brominated Vegetable Oil(BVO)
High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS)
MSG (Monosodium Glutamate)
Partially Hydrogenated Oil
Propyl Galate
Sodium Nitrate or Sodium Nitrite
Sugar
Enriched or bleached flour

Feel free to add to the list in the comment section below!