How to Reach Your Ideal Weight Part 2

    Today we eat for mere gratification, something previous generations were not able to do.  Our eating habits are formed at infancy and are cultivated throughout childhood and youth.  Many are lured to their doom by their appetites.   Don't be fooled by the grumblings of your stomach.  Real hunger comes without notice and with a craving for a specific wholesome food that is need by the body.   Do not eat if not hungry!  Hunger is the voice of nature telling us that food is required.  There is no true guide as when to eat.  So the next time your stomach growls think about are you truly hungry, does my body need something or is my appetite trying to sabotage my weight loss.

  High fiber foods promote weight loss in many ways.  First they require much more chewing and therefore discourages overeating by normalizing the hypothalamus or "appetite center."  They are bulk foods that literally fill you up.  They are much lower in calories and do not contain empty calories.  Not only are they high in vitamins and minerals the nutrition is in its proper balance.  The fiber rich foods on the Ideal Diet are not served with fattening condiments.  Fiber absorbs large quantities of water as it passes through the intestines prolonging the feeling of fullness.  It inhibits the absorption of dietary fats.  Increased digestive time reduces amount of calories consumed.  They do not strain the digestive system.  Lastly they promote emotional balance as the consumer knows they have eaten the best possible foods for their health.

     If you are one of those people that as soon as you finish a meal you start thinking about the next meal the mono meal concept may help you to divert your thoughts to other things other than food and help you to lose weight.  What is meant by the mono meal is when you eat pick one item and eat a meal of just that item for all your meals that day.  This way when you wake up you know what you are going to eat that day and you can then think of everything else throughout the day.  This helps you to not overeat and and no longer be a slave to the food fix.

     Nutrition is the sum of all the processes whereby the body is supplied with all its needs.  Food nutrients are the micro elements from food that result from digestion and that are assimilated into the cells and used by the body at the cellular level.  It is not what we eat, but what we appropriate at the cellular level that determines our level of nutrition.  Once you have achieved your ideal weight and nutrition you will have developed new eating habits that will keep you from returning to the destructive habits you had before.  Continue to seek energy enhancers and avoid energy robbers.  Keep stretching, aerobic exercising and weight training.  Be careful to follow the Ideal Diet.  Don't let yourself start back on the SAD diet that got you overweight, unhealthy and toxic.  Go easy on sweet fruits,  nuts, seeds and avocados until your weight has truly stabilized at your ideal weight.  Remember weight can be regained easily.  Take care to stay well!

     This ends my blog on how to reach your ideal weight.  I will be not be blogging for a few days as I will be testing on the information I have shared with you in these lasts few blogs.  When I return we will be talking about setting up "The Victory Kitchen."  Get ready to clean out your kitchen of all the SAD diet products and fill it up with good healthy living foods.  Say goodbye to "SAD Food Land"  and hello to "The Victory Kitchen" and "Garden" if you can plant one and grow some of your own food.  Of the 1100 meals we eat, approx 900 are made right in our own kitchens.  In order to claim victory over our weight and health we have to set up an "Ideal Food Fortress."  So get ready to make a clean sweep of all the SAD vestiges and turn your kitchen into a "Victory Kitchen!"  As always I hope you have learned something new and are enjoying the blogs.

Yours in health, happiness and freedom,

Cherise

 

How to Reach Your Ideal Weight Part 1

     Approximately 75% of Americans are overweight by at least 10 pounds.  An estimated 30% are clinically obese which means they weigh 20% more than their ideal weight.  Many of these are children.  This is a major contributing factor to many chronic diseases.  Statistically only 5% of the people who lose weight will keep it off for more than 3 years.  Most studies show this figure to be more like 1% to 1/2%.  To me that is a sad commentary on weight loss.  Who wants to be healthy or skinny for a short period of time?  I don't think anyone would want that.  However as bleak as it ma be that is what happens.  So how do we change the statistics to our favor?  By the natural weight loss system not by dieting!  I will give it to you in a nutshell and then expand on certain talking points.  I am going to break this down into 2 parts as well so I can give you detailed information and not get to lengthy on the blog as this is a topic of interest to many.

Nutshell:

1. Change to the Ideal Diet, ideally avoiding all cooked foods.
2.  Minimize sweet fruits and dried fruits.
3.  Emphasize vegetables.
4.  Minimize nuts and seeds and eat them early in the day.
5.  Minimize avocados or eliminate them all together.
6.  Eat only 2 meals a day and if eating 3 meals a day make breakfast fruit and vegetables and salads for lunch and dinner.
7.  Eat on a schedule.
8.  Avoid all snacking between meals.
9.  Eat no later than 6pm
10.  Eat mono-meals occasionally.
11.  Fast for one 24 hour period a week.
12.  Fast for a 3 day period once a month on the weekend when you can rest.
13.  Follow the Ideal Juice Diet for 1-10 days on lower calorie fruit and veggie juice sparingly and made fresh.
14.  Dine only if you are in emotional balance.
15.  Practice "Get well slow down behaviors" at each meal.
16.  Keep a food journal and a personal thoughts dairy to become more aware of your eating habits and motivations for overeating.
17.  Exercise regularly including stretching, aerobics, weight training to the extent that you are capable.  Emphasize aerobics to increase caloric output.
18.  Exercise instead of lunch or dinner.
19.  When your tired rest!
20.  Join a support group like Over-eaters Anonymous or church support group that wont base its program on the SAD diet.
21.  Create a support system of family and friends.
22.  Practice energy enhancers not energy robbers.

     The chicken feed factor refers to the equally inordinate weight gain of both chickens and humans through their food consumption of a poisoned food supply that precipitates fatty tissue formation.  In the early 50's it took 14-16 weeks to bring a chicken to slaughter weight and required 3.4 pounds of feed to yield a pound of chicken meat.  Today it takes just 7 weeks and 1.9 pounds of feed to yield that same pound of meat.  This has been achieved by great cruelty to to the birds and health risk to the consumer.  Chickens are fed arsenic, aspirin, antibiotics, tranquilizers and growth hormones all of which we consume when we eat these tainted birds.  To get the fat off the hips and out of the arteries simply get the fat out of your diet.  The SAD diet is 37% fat the Ideal Diet is 5% fat.  We are the most overfed and yet undernourished country in the history of the world.  The average American consumes 3,393 calories a day, the highest in the world.  It has been noted overweight people underestimate their caloric intake by 833 calories a day.  We are overfed in the sense that we are consuming vast amounts of highly caloric foods and undernourished because they are nutrient devoid calories.  For each 3,500 excess calories we ingest we gain 1 pound of fat.  So if you are 10 pounds overweight you have consumed 35,000 extra calories!  High fat foods have 3 times the calories of a high carbohydrate food such as fruits, veggies and nuts including avocado who get such a bad wrap.

     For the vast majority of people food is the drug of choice.  The television shows 10-15 food commercials an hour.  We connect food to love, friendship and happiness. And with the supermarkets filled with food like substances and restaurants with entrees that exceed our daily allotment of all categories it is no wonder we are a nation rampant with eating disorders, unconnected, misdirected people taking in more food than needed.     Everyone is familiar with Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia but we don't always think of overeating as an eating disorder.  Compulsive over-eaters are Bulimics without purging.  Then there is those of us who just can't determine the difference between cravings and hunger.  To put it simply true hunger is a genuine demand for food based on actual physiological needs of the body.  Cravings are counterfeit hunger based on emotional needs food cannot fulfill and is stimulated by external cues:  arrival of mealtime, sight/smell, thought/mention of food, certain places or people....almost anything!  

     The hypothalamus or "The Appestat" is located deep in the brain.  This spot in the brain is about the size and shape of a small clam shell.  It has two functions one of which is to trigger an awareness of hunger and the other to sense satiety.  If it works properly and the individual has a healthy relationship with food he lives a life at normal weight.  Scientist believe the most important stimulus for triggering hunger is blood sugar.  When blood sugar drops you will develop true hunger sensations.  If you were to exercise aerobically for 20 minutes your blood sugar will rise to the level equivalent to eating a meal and hunger will disappear.  So in reality exercise nourishes the body by releasing blood glucose from our fat storage.  Regular exercise over a period of months causes people to eat less, to lose weight and feel better.  On a side not the appetite thermostat works on a 20 minute time lag.  The hypothalamus does not call for a halt to eating until insulin reaches a certain level in your spinal fluid.   So what this means is that from the onset of eating it takes about 20 minutes for fullness to begin.  The point is we can do a lot of damage if we over eat in that 20 minute time period.  The frightening thing here is that many of the foods on the SAD diet require little or no chewing and a compulsive eater can consume 5,000 calories in 18 minutes! 

     Now that we know about hunger and how we get hungry how do we short circuit overeating?  Because the very act of eating has assumed such importance and been so perverted by the mass media, commercial interest, and social customs that many of us must literally be taught how to eat well.  What we have to do is to determine the behavior that is causing our weight problems and address it by behavior modification.  So for 21 days if you modify your destructive behaviors you will plant a new constructive behavior and be on your way to conquering your bad eating habits and ultimately your weight problems.  Now I want to give you some get well slow down behaviors as the antidote to over eating.  These will help you to slow down, enjoy your meals, restore controlled awareness and allow your appestat to function normally.  Two critical things I want to note here:  always eat in a designated eating area only (dining room), secondly eat as a pure activity, meaning except pleasant conversation, no distractions period!  Now for the 10 simple antidotes.

1.  Take 10 minutes to relax before you start eating.
2.  Take at least 20 minutes to eat.
3.  Put your utensil or food if no utensil is being used down between bites.
4.  Take smaller bites.
5.  Use a napkin between bites.
6.  Stop for 5 minutes during the meal.
7.  Keep second helpings at a distance.
8.  Leave a little on the plate.
9.  Leave the table when finished.
10.  If possible rest after each meal even if it's just sitting down for 5 minutes to aide in digestion.

     The Ideal Diet and these antidotes will give you the nutrition you need and discipline you need to lose weight safely and healthfully.  We do have a choice as to how much body fat we want to carry.  It may not be easy but there is hope even if you have tried everything!  Check back tomorrow for part 2 of this blog where I will go into more detail on food, nutrition , appetite and weight loss and maintenance.  I hope you have gained new knowledge and are enjoying this series.   Tell your friends to check it out.

Yours in health, happiness and freedom,

Cherise

The Ideal VS the SAD diet Part 2

     We are going to start this part with the dis-service of the dead food disease industrialist food giants and how their products effect our health.  There is three main things they do to our food supply.  First they process our food, meaning they alter it from its original state by overcooking it.  They refine it by breaking down food into various parts, resulting in fragmentation of the whole food into an unbalanced source of nutrition.  And lastly they preserve it by the addition of chemicals (non-nutritive substances) which are poisons.  The problem with food processing boils down to because the food is so far from its normal state of being an ideal food the body can't get enough even when the caloric intake is exceedingly high.  It also breaks down fiber during the heating process.  Case in point.....A fresh ear of corn has 1 mg of natural sodium and 85 calories.  Canned corn has 250 mg of sodium chloride per 1/2 cup as well as added chemicals.  Corn chips have 1000 mg of salt for 4 oz along with many chemicals.  Sugar frosted corn flakes have 250 mg of salt per cup and 155 calories as well as preservatives.  Or in the case of an apple, fresh it has 12 mg of sodium and 100 calories.  It is perfect for weight loss if eaten in its natural state.  Applesauce is low in salt but loaded with sugar at 230 calories a cup.  Apple pie has 250 mg of salt per slice and 345 calories.  An apple danish has 360 mg of salt and 400 calories and an apple cinnamon cream cake has 150 mg of salt and 360 calories a slice.  As you can see there is great benefits to eating foods in their natural state.  This is why you don't have to count calories and worry about your food intake when eating the ideal diet.    Refining is a process where the water and fiber has been removed along with certain vitamins, minerals and all enzymes.  What was once an ideal food is now a fattening, disease promoting, irresistible, modern counterfeit food like product.  These foods are empty calorie foods or naked calorie foods that are cooked into addicting, fattening and toxic products.

     High fiber foods are essential to total health.  Fiber come in two forms:  stiff (cellulose, hemi-cellulose and lignin) soft (pectins and gums).  Vegetables are rich in the stiff fibers and fruits in the soft fibers.  Fiber is measured according to 2 standards, crude and dietary.  Fiber helps your system clean itself out.  The average American gets less than half of the 25 grams of fiber a day recommended by the National Cancer Institute.  This is wreaking havoc on our health and we have to change this dietary mistake immediately.  Ideal foods as compared to refined foods have 4-5 times the amount of fiber in them and when eaten as a steady diet contain 2-3 oz. or more of fiber daily (60-90 grams).  Because of this the ideal foods pass through your system in 24-36 hours whereas refined foods take 48-96 hours.  They keep you regular and from being constipated and don't cause the many health conditions that refined foods do such as coronary heart disease, gallstones, diverticulitis, appendicitis, hiatus hernia, varicose  veins, hemorrhoids, colon cancer, breast cancer, obesity, constipation (Stated bluntly, anyone who is not having at least 2 bowel movements a day is constipated. Yes, at least 2 (optimally 3) bowel movements a day are vital for optimal health!)diabetes and others.

     Now we are going to talk about the corruption of our food supply through preserving.  Processing and refining of our food supply wreak nutritional havoc and contribute to the vast amount of illness and disease we suffer today.   The food giants can pump chemicals into our food which have no nutritional value and are toxic to us with impunity.  When we buy these foods we are paying for the very stuff that that will trigger these aliments.  These chemicals come in the form of preservatives, buffers, neutralizers, moisture content controls, coloring agents, flavorings, physiologic activity controls, bleaching and maturing agents, stabilizers, processing aids, nutrition supplements and many others.  A word of caution if you can't pronounce it and a 5 year old can't read it DON'T but it!  The easiest way to avoid these toxic food like substances is to not buy food with labels.

    Salt is considered a toxin because it is not the natural occurring salt that is found in food.  Added salt is sodium chloride the substance that is the cause of all the sodium sickness such as high blood pressure and edema and a long list of other illnesses I won't go into at this time.  Salt  acts upon the body in several ways which I will discuss  in detail.  We can refer to salt in terms of water attracting, water holding and water retention.  When salt is added to food and ingested the body reacts by diluting the salt as it sees it as a poison to protect itself from the sodium chloride.  For information sake 1 ounce of ingested salt holds 3 quarts of water or 6 pounds of excess bodily water and fluids.  That means salt holds 70 times its weight in water!  Sodium chloride causes us to lose our potassium which is not healthy.  It is recommended that we consume no more than 280milligrams of naturally occurring salt a day.  The SAD diet contains a whopping 4000 to 6000 mg of sodium chloride (20-30 times more than the body needs), the toxic form, and heavy salt users can consume up to 10,000 mg a day.   Sodium that is natural occurring is needed, sodium chloride the toxin is not, for our bodies to be healthy.

     The last thing I want to cover is the poisoning of our baby food and food hangovers.  Mothers milk is best for babies to consume.   It is recommended that an infant should take primarily mothers milk and fresh fruit juices from birth to age 2.  From the age 2 on the child should eat of the ideal diet.    Due to the mother eating the SAD diet the poisoning begins before birth.  When we feed our babies formula we are feeding them toxic chemical additives, lead, refined sugar (leads to obesity), high sodium content, not enough of the components in the correct balance to ensure healthy, normal development.  Formulas with cow's milk contains too much fat and calcium and not enough tryptophan and lecithine for the child and they have been heated and processed being difficult for babies to digest and contribute to allergies/rashes/colds/nausea and other problems.  The obvious drawbacks are that they are expensive, time consuming, bottles can become contaminated easily and for many moms it's the physical love bonding that only breastfeeding can provide.

     This final topic I want to discuss I have personally experienced anytime I cheat and eat anything from the SAD diet as I have detoxed my body and it is in a clean, healthy state now.  It is the food hangover.  This is what happens when you reintroduce the SAD foods back into your body, you retoxify your body.   Your body can no longer handle these toxins and when you "fall off the wagon" you pay the price just as I have on several occasions and as recently as today from eating vegetables with dairy in them.  Your body goes into revolt as if it had truly been poisoned and it has!  This aftermath can last hours to days depending on how much has been ingested and how clean your system is.  It also will affect the degree to which you experience symptoms.  The symptoms range from nausea, cramps, pain, rumblings in the stomach and intestines, gas, bloating, belching, vomiting and diarrhea, inordinate thirst, as much as 5-10 pounds weight gain virtually overnight, sleeplessness, trembling, chills, fever, weakness, headache, cold symptoms, itching and many more.  The more strong the reaction the healthier you are and have become.  For me I have had the mucus buildup from the dairy and numbing of my mouth from something in the peanut M&M's I ate for Easter.  I have now gotten over those side effects of cheating for Easter and believe me they were not pleasant. As with any toxin/poison we ingest from foods/beverages our body adapts to them the more we partake of them.  We adapt to the continual poisoning in our diet through a process known as disease.  You will experience this until your body is free of the toxins that caused the retoxification.  So the best way to avoid this is to detoxify your body and not retoxify it.

     I hope you have enjoyed this 2 part blog and have learned new useful information.  Just in case you still don't believe in the Ideal Diet I highly recommend watching this video:  http://www.wptv.com/dpp/news/ageless-woman.  My next blog will be on how to reach your ideal weight.  It is going to be interesting and I am going to be putting in to practice the things I learn from this chapter myself.  I am trying to get that last 10 stubborn pounds off.  So be watching for that blog to be posted.  Sign up to get my blogs sent right to your in box so you don't miss anything.

Yours in health, happiness and freedom,

Cherise

The Ideal VS the SAD diet Part 1

     Diseases such as coronary heart disease, stroke, cancer, and diabetes
remain leading causes of death and disability in the United States. Research

indicates that diet can play an important role in prevention of such conditions.

Its findings indicate the great importance of diet to health. They demonstrate
that changes in present dietary practices of Americans could produce
substantial gains in the health of the population.  The Surgeon General's Report 

on Nutrition and Health 1998

     The evidence strongly suggests that a dietary pattern that contains 
excessive intake of foods high in calories, fat (especially saturated fat), 

cholesterol, and sodium, but that is low in complex carbohydrates and fiber, 

is one that contributes significantly to the high rates of major chronic diseases

among Americans. It also suggests that reversing such dietary patterns should lead 

to a reduced incidence of these chronic diseases.     The Surgeon General's Report 
on Nutrition and Health 1998 

     The Basic Four Food Groups of The Standard American Diet along with the not 

mentioned 5th food group consisting of pure junk food are the primary toxic source 

of poisoning responsible for the rampant disease among the suffering people in 

America today.  A little history here...the US Dept. of Agriculture created this diet 

in 1956.  This government department was a strong supporter of the cattle-raising along

with milk and egg production and was staffed by top people of these industries. 

So with the fact that so many Americans are so unhealthy why don't we make the 

connection with the SAD diet and disease. 

      The main objections to the SAD diet are the use of low quality food which is 

unnatural and toxic to humans.  The destruction of food's nutritional value through 

the cooking  process and processing and refining.  The use of chemical poisons in the

preparation, preserving, and garnishing of food.  The SAD diet is high in fat 90% of 

which is saturated fats and is mostly of refined carbohydrates and sugar all of which 

is a dangerous cocktail for our health. There is little wonder we are a Nation of sick

and suffering people.  The little known side effects are that the SAD diet encourages 

overeating and eating disorders.  It requires maximal energy to digest, causes the "food 

hangover", contributes to emotional unbalance, drains energy, strength and endurance.  It 

precipitates and/or aggravates acute and chronic disease, ages the body and spirit 

prematurely and makes the pursuit of happiness difficult and promotes suffering and early

death.   

     We all know what is on our SAD diet pyramid but we don't know what is on the Ideal 

Diets.  There are still 4 basic food groups but they are much different. First is fresh 

and dried fruits, next is raw, wholesome and nontoxic vegetables, then fully sprouted

grains and legumes and finally raw unroasted nuts and seeds.  This is the food pyramid I

have been eating for over a year now with only 10% of my food coming from an animal (free 

range eggs, free range cattle and chickens, Greek yogurt, probiotics smoothies, fresh fish 

w/o mercury or other toxins).  A few things I wanted to share with you on why the SAD diet 

is less than ideal one of which heated animal fats are linked to cancer and when cooked the 

fats in the bloodstream reduce oxygen up to a third and causes a condition known as the

Rouleaux Effect and has been linked to strokes due to the reduced availability of oxygen 

to the brain.  The fact that animal foods contain approximately 3 times the calories of

carbohydrates and twice the calories of proteins ounce for ounce is pale in comparison to

the abundance of man made poisons they contain.  Animals contain pesticides, herbicides, 

artificial fertilizers, growth producing hormones and a dozen other chemicals that are 

added to their feed and are passed on to those who eat them.  Because they are toxic at 

the cellular level they cause a stimulation to overeat or eat compulsively.  They contain 

no fiber and cancerous cells feed off protein and are characterized by "runaway" protein 

synthesis and rapid cellular division.  This is why the 10% of animal products I allow

myself has to come from a clean, organic, toxic free environment. 

     A note on the dairy industry for information sake.  For most Americans milk is 

indigestible after childhood.  We are the only species that still drinks milk after being

weened.  After the age 3 the body produces little if any rennin and lactase.  These are 

the enzymes that break down casein, a calcium/protein component of milk, and lactose, the

milk sugar.  When milk products are consumed our bacterial flora decomposes it, fermenting

part and putrefying part and toxic waste by products result.  Milk also causes mucosal 

detoxification in the form of respiratory elimination:  common colds, asthma, sinusitis 

and bronchitis.  Another problem is the pasteurizing, heating of the milk, which causes the 

calcium that we are supposed to be drinking molecular structure to be altered making 

it toxic and the casein to become coagulated and toughened making it less available.  The

inorganic and unabsorbed calcium is then deposited in the soft tissues and calcify leading

to a number of diseases.

     So as you can see eating animal product come with many negative effects that can be 

minimized and avoided completely allowing you to become much healthier.  I know that many 

will sternly object to giving up their animal products.  I was one of them.  If you read 

my book I discuss this in detail.  The point I want to make was until I gave it up for the

most part I was not able to rid myself of my diabetes.  Because of my addiction to animal

products I could not be disease free.  This is why I am writing these blogs and going into

such detail trying to impart to you the knowledge I have gained over the last 3 years that

has allowed me to live a disease free life.  I want to briefly touch on breads and cereal.

The average American consumes 3/4 of a pound of toxic chemicals from eating 100 pounds of

bread.  Grains cause blood sugar levels to go up quickly, they are addicting and fattening.

All refined grains are highly starchy, devoid of natural fiber and moisture,must be cooked,

altered and processed before eating and are prepared with toxic chemical additives and they

acidify the body upon digestion and assimilation.  They also cause excessive mucus

formation and like animal products and refined sugar they cause the body to leach alkaline

minerals from the bones and teeth to correct the altered phosphorous calcium balance. 

     The only objection to fruits and vegetables on the SAD diet is that there are too few

many in comparison to the other foods on the diet.  They are greatly altered from their 

ideal state of whole and raw.  The vegetables are loaded with salt and are laced with 

refined sugar and have many chemicals used as preservatives and flavor/color enhancers

whether dried, frozen or canned.  When consuming fruits and vegetables this way they are 

no longer in their natural state and have lost their nutritional value.  On the topic of 

junk beverages which is a vast array of drinks all of which are empty calories and toxic.

If your going to drink something other than fresh, filtered,nontoxic water drink fresh 

100% juice that you juice or buy organically.  I think a good green, black or white tea is 

fine but make sure it is toxin free. I do drink the occasional cup of coffee but I drink

organic decaf.  Synthetic foods are those foods that come with a label.  These foods often

only have 2-3 food items listed and the rest are chemicals.  This is because they are food

like substances, man made concoctions, "plastic" foods and are highly toxic. The Unites 

States Department of Agriculture has declared a Fifth Food Group by giving "Junk Food" a 

formal definition:  "food of minimal nutritional value....A 100 calorie portion contains 

less than 5% of the RDA of any one of the 8 basic nutrients."  By eating junk foods, 

comfort foods, fun foods as they are so called you are eating foods that are high in 

refined sugar, high in fat, high in salt, high in chemicals, high in calories and highly

toxic and NO nutritional value.  These foods from the food giants are highly addicting, 

fattening and toxic.  By consuming these junk foods you are consuming 130 pounds of refined

sugar minimum a year.  Refined sugar is beginning to be classified as a drug due to its 

highly addictive nature.  Refined sugar contributes to diabetes/hypoglycemia. It promotes 

emotional instability, heart disease, weight gain and has no nutritional value. 

     Dr.David Reuben states..."People of America!  The greatest threat to the survival of 

you and your children is what you are going to eat from your dinner plate tonight!"  Don't 

cast your vote with the food giants! Don't support the SAD food industry with your dollars! 

You will be sorry and live a life of disease if you do.  In order to give you a complete 

look at the SAD diet and the effects it has on our health I want to cover this topic

completely so I am breaking it up into two parts so it wont be so long.  We have so much 

more to cover so we can move on to how to reach our ideal weight, the "Victory Kitchen", The

year in live food menus/recipes and holiday menus and to wrap up this course and blog series

I will end it with 1-3 blogs on the medicine men yesterday and today with some interesting 

tidbits on the good old days they didn't teach us in school.  Then when I start my next 

course on the 80/10/10 diet we will go over that in detail which is the diet I primarily 

follow and to wrap it up with my final course "Your Natural Diet:  Alive Raw Foods" which 

after completion I will send off for my certifications and start my counseling practice and

prepare for my next step in my schooling while putting what I have learned to work for all 

those who are seeking a healthy new life free of disease.  So join me for part 2 of the 

Ideal VS the SAD Diet tomorrow and keep coming back for more information and tell your 

friends to join in on the blogs.

Yours in health, happiness and freedom,

Cherise

The Ideal Diet: Whole, Raw, Plant!

     This blog and the following 5 will clearly provide you with the information you will need to make the change from the SAD (Standard American Diet) to the Ideal Diet one of whole raw plant foods that will bring you to a new healthy skinny self dis-ease free!  Bare with me as these blogs are longer than normal but I want to impart to you as much information as possible.  I want you to reap the benefits of this information and to see the results that I personally have experienced and now my husband, Michael, is experiencing since he started to abandon the SAD diet.  I hope you have enjoyed the blogs so far and enjoy the rest in the series while I study for my certifications. So lets get into the meat of things metaphorically speaking and start learning about our food, digestion, how to set up a "Victory Kitchen", some menus to help you get started on this new diet, recipes and holiday menus.  All this and more to come in the following blogs.

     So here is the million dollar question everyone asks and wants to know......Will the ideal diet give me everything my body needs?  And the answer is YES!  You will get enough protein, calcium, vitamins and minerals, and everything your body needs and nothing it doesn't need.  What is the criteria that separates the ideal foods from the less than ideal foods?  First the food must be non toxic.  Ideally the foods must be edible in the whole raw natural state.  The foods must have sensory appeal.  The food must be easily digested when eaten alone or properly combined.  The foods must be efficiently digested.  They must have protein adequacy.  They must be adequate in vitamin content.  They must be adequate in mineral salts.  They must supply needs for essential fatty acids.  They must supply our caloric needs.  They must be water sufficient.  Ideal foods are alkaline in  metabolic reaction (7.4 pH).  They are fiber rich.  Does this describe anything you have bought at the store that is processed, packaged and sold to you as food?  I would have to say NO.  Those pretty packages that advertisers seduce you with are nothing more than food like substances with the a fore mentioned criteria stripped out of them and replaced with disease causing chemicals to make the food like substances look better, taste better and last longer.  I don't know about you but I don't want to eat food that will outlast me!

     So lets look at food shall we.  What exactly is a fruit?  Websters Dictionary says:  "A fruit is the reproductive product of a tree or other plant...the edible, succulent product, generally covering and including the seed...or mature ovary."  From this definition nuts and seeds fall into the fruit category as well as many foods we commonly call vegetables such as tomatoes, squash, eggplant, cucumbers, pumpkins and others.  What exactly is a vegetable?  Vegetables are those plant forms that grow as stalks or leaf clusters or flowering plants that do not develop into a succulent portion of edible mesocarp surrounding a seed portion.  Vegetables are classified into 4 main categories:  Fruit bearing vegetables (tomatoes, squashes, peppers, cucumbers, eggplant and pumpkin), Green vegetables (including all leafy greens, non-starchy vegetables, sprouts and all vegetables from the cruciferous family:  kohlrabi, cabbage, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, and broccoli), Tubers, bulbs and roots (are underground vegetables:  carrots, beets, potatoes, rutabagas, turnips, parsnips and so on and also includes the somewhat toxic, non ideal foods such as radishes, onions, garlic, scallions, and leeks), Fungi (not considered ideal foods including mushrooms, algae, and some seaweed varieties)

     Dr. Alan Walker, an anthropologist of Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, reported findings in May 15, 1979 in an issue of the New York Times that up to a point in relatively recent history we were fruitarians/vegetarians.  He states that though we undertook omnivorous practices our anatomy and physiology have not changed:  we remain biologically a species of vegetarians.  A diet of any animal in its natural state is always found to agree with both its anatomical structure and with its physiological functions.  This is where we get our classification system for animals:  carnivores (meat eaters), herbivores (grass eaters), frugivores (fruit eaters), and omnivores (a combination thereof).  So with that said when living organisms live in accord with the physiological laws of their own kind, they do not develop disease.  They live out their life spans with high levels of energy and well being.  We as a culture in America today have traded our natural dietary in on processed food.  The corrupt food supply and our energy robbing lifestyles are doing us in!  It doesn't have to be this way.  Just a note I thought was fascinating:  Humans absorb rather than eliminate uric acid when meat is eaten.  The body reacts to neutralize this poison by drawing upon its alkaline reserves.  In the absence of such reserves, the body draws upon calcium and other base minerals from the bones and teeth.  Osteoporosis and dental cavities result.  Furthermore, calcium urate crystals are formed and as a result of this neutralization.  If the body can't excrete these crystals they are usually deposited throughout the body and lead to arthritis, bursitis, back pain, gout, edema, rheumatism, and hard arteries.  This alone proves we are not equipped to handle flesh.  Also I wanted to make clear is when we eat flesh problems result because our intestine is developed to retain its contents four times longer than that of a carnivore.  In humans the putrefying meat lays in the gastrointestinal tract interminably, giving rise to numerous toxic products all the while.  Uric acid is absorbed through intestinal convolutions and toxic retention follows.  Other poisons are hydrogen sulfide, indols, skatols, purines, xanthins, mercaptans, methane gas and ammonia.  So how is that steak sounding about now?

     I wont go into protein too deep here as I posted a blog on this subject prior to this.  However I will hit upon a few tidbits for those of you that did not get to read that blog yet.  Protein is easy to get enough of and we eat far too much and damage our health because of it.  Most of the hype about protein is from the advertisements of the meat, dairy and egg industry.  They have convinced us that it is so important that a life without meat, dairy and eggs is frightening.  The RDA is 50 grams a day and Americans are consuming around 100 grams a day or more.  Scientist have found that a more realistic amount is 25 grams a day.  Patients with kidney failure, heart failure, coronary artery disease, and high blood pressure have eaten a diet of 20-25 grams of protein and their health improved.  The only way to become protein deficient is to starve or eat exclusively foods that contain no protein (sugars and oils).  All whole foods contain protein.  For example, a banana and a pear have a gram; a stalk of broccoli has six grams; an avocado 4 grams; a carrot has one.  Nuts, seeds and beans are loaded.  a half a cup of almonds has 13 grams, 1/2 cup of beans has 7-8 grams.  So as you can see there is no magic to protein and you will get plenty with this diet.

     I spoke briefly on food combining in a previous blog as well so I will touch upon this subject as well.  Food combining is a term that refers to those combinations of foods which are compatible with each other in digestive chemistry and the goal is to aid in the digestive process.  By doing this we avoid the poisonous byproducts of indigestion and its unpleasant symptoms.  Food for thought is that the amount of energy expended to digest three conventional meals has been estimated to be the equivalent of eight hours of "working" energy!  When your not using that energy for food digestion you have it for other activities.  The fact that two billion dollars a year are spent on antiacids in this country testifies to the need for such information.  The rise in digestive tract disease is increasing at an alarming rate.  Rather than to take another drug for the symptoms why don't we look at the cause and remove it.  Also on a side note as long as we continue to feed our children the SAD diet they will continue to suffer from colds, tonsillar troubles, gastritis, diarrhea, constipation, feverishness, various children's diseases, poliomyelitis, etc.  The subject of food combining is too lengthy to go into here but I highly recommend looking into it if your suffering from any form of gastrointestinal disease.

     When you change from the SAD diet to the ideal diet your body will go through a detoxification phase due to the poisoning of the food that you had been consuming.  During the period of dietary transition and healing this is to be expected but it will pass and you will feel better soon.  Persevere in improving your diet and living practices until all bodily detoxification is complete and your highest potential is a living reality!  You are then the epitome of "Living Health"!  Your body was designed to thrive in vibrant health and be free of all pain and illness.  Your body is continually detoxifying and repairing itself.  All you have to do is allow it to do so by turning to healthful living practices.  Don't rely on drugs of any kind to fix what ails you.  Go to the root cause of your symptoms and start there, don't treat the symptoms.  Remember a return to good health takes time and good health is not immediate.  It took time for you to become unhealthy and overweight and it will take time to reverse the course.  Don't let your life become your disease.  Look at children with their endless supply of energy and who are oblivious to physical discomforts and then look at our older citizens some of which are so crippled with arthritis they can barely move.  At that point in your life you are a full fledged member of the suffering class and every action carried out, every future plan plotted out, every dollar spent, every feeling felt, revolves around your disease.  This is no way of life.  Take the things you have learned and go do your own research and apply them to your life.  I promise you that you will be glad you did.

Yours in health, happiness and freedom,

Cherise

Emotional balance, freedom from addictions, high self esteem and a purposeful life with meaningful goals

     When we talk about health and weight loss we have to realize that health takes place on all levels.  To be healthy you have to take care of your physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual self.  I am going to assume that everyone reading this blog has some place in their life where things could be better.  Our emotional health is key to our health and weight loss.  For this blog I will be talking about the "killing emotions" and "loving emotions".  Many of us suffer from depression, addiction, stress, burnout, low self esteem, self worth issues, we struggle with forgiveness, denial, or procrastination.  All of these are killing emotions that we need to deal with so we can begin our road to health and weight loss.  We need to concentrate on love, faith, gratitude, exercise, visualizing our new healthy skinny selves, positive addictions/alternatives, and becoming a peak performer.  I will try to expound on these things without going into lengthy detail so that you understand how they are and can affect you positively or negatively.  So lets get started.

     When we look at the killing emotions we see the very things that are at the core of all disease in our society.  I like to look at the word disease as dis-ease.  When we are ill, overweight or struggling in our daily lives we are at dis-ease with our healthy self.  Think about that every time you hear that word and try to apply the thought of dis-ease to it.  That has helped me tremendously on my journey.  What we want to do is to leave our old self with the killing emotions behind and to embrace our new self with the loving emotions.  Remember a person who is loving, forgiving, positive, joyful, and healthy is in a better place than the person who is not.  We have learned killing emotions and the good news is we can unlearn them and put into practice the loving emotions that will take us to better health.   

     The medical profession believes that the 3 main causes of disease are wrong nutrition, under exercise and over stress.  We have discussed the first 2 in my last blogs so now we will look at stress.  We suffer from stress in all aspects of our lives and this is something we do have control over.  We can learn to deal with stress by applying healthy habits of exercise, meditation, visualization and other coping mechanisms that will help us be less stressed.    Stress leads to disease, overeating, weight gain and is a killing emotion that will wreak  havoc on your health.  This is certainly something we have to deal with in order to have emotional balance in our lives.

     Nathaniel Branden points out that nothing is more important to man in his psychological stance and in the success he finds in life than the judgements he passes on himself!  I don't know about you but this is a biggie for me.  So what does Branden mean by this?  Self esteem is THE single most important factor that decides one's quality of life and that most people are totally unaware of its existence!  A strong self esteem is a basic human need and it is unconsciously set during the early years of life.  We have developed our low self esteem and weak personal efficacy from the people who raised us and were in our networks growing up.  Worth and efficacy is what we want as a strong self esteemed person.  Worthiness is the belief that you have value, in and of yourself.  Personal efficacy is the belief in your own thought processes, dependency on yourself to make the right decisions and correct the wrong ones.  That my friends is the loving emotions we are striving for in our quest for health and our new self.

     I wanted to share a couple of thoughts here to show you how we can be the destruction of our own selves.  "Thus, the things a man seeks for pleasure or enjoyment are profoundly revealing:  they are the index of his character and soul."  "If a man's values are such that he desires things which (in reality) lead to his destruction, his emotional mechanism will not save him-instead, it will urge him on toward destruction." This is how we cultivate unhealthy living practices, addictions, sickness and emotional torment (killing emotions) and how it brings destruction to ourselves.  So how do we get high self esteem?  Through emotional balance and nurturing relationships.  "He who is hostile lives in a hostile world.  He who is loving lives in a loving world."  This is where our loving emotions come into play.

     Gerald Jampolsky states:  "The only reality in life is love."  "Our attitudes determine whether we experience peace or fear, whether we are well or sick, free or imprisoned."  The other component is faith or "The Faith Factor".  The regular practice of faith and quieting the body through meditation helps you to achieve a restful, healing state which leaves you more relaxed, peaceful, positive, better able to cope with stress and less likely to behave compulsively.  Dr. Hans Selye states if we operate from peace, goodwill, and gratitude, we enhance the quality of our own lives and that of others. In living this way we achieve a state of functioning that is totally conducive to ideal health, a state he calls"altruistic egoism."  Now isn't that what we all want?

     It is no secret how the mind can effect awesome changes in the body.  It is perceived that the body gets sick on the mental/emotional side before it gets sick on the physical side.  Negativity of all kinds and especially the killing emotions of anger, fear,  resentment, hatred, jealousy, revenge, and self pity create a physiological, endocrinological, biochemical, nervous disorder throughout the body that poisons and unbalances a person until he succumbs to disease.  Visualization helps because our mental/emotional states can either drag us into disease or boost us into health.  Studies have shown that terminally ill patients have survived by using visualization techniques.  Let this be a reminder of the old saying "mind over matter" as your mind truly is an amazing thing and controls your body in all matters.

     Love:  To love thy neighbor as thyself.  If you are able to surrender to love, peace, gratitude, goodness, and your faith then you have realized your highest potential and live your true essence as love and in service to others.  That is some powerful stuff there.  If you can't love yourself or your neighbor you won't have true health.  The other side of this coin is affirmations.  Affirmations are much like visualizations but instead of seeing it in your mind you are speaking it to yourself.  The power of the conscious and subconscious are directly employed to reprogram our thinking/feeling habits.  We have to be able to turn off the self talk we have been listening to our whole lives and talk to ourselves with kind, healthy, loving words.  It is time for joy, beauty and sweetness to replace the old self and embrace all that is good and wholesome.

     As the last blog was on exercise I won't go into to that here but I do want to mention a few things as it pertains to positive addictions in this blog.  Exercise is a way to also strengthen the person who is too weak.  Positive addictions like exercise will help release the new self.   Dr. Glasser states that what makes strong people strong is the ability to find love and worth in life and their belief that they deserve both.  To me those are powerful words and puts exercise in a new light.  Dr. Glasser  states the P A State of Mind (Positive Addiction/Alternative) opens up more pathways in the brain, which lead you to experience more positive alternatives in day to day living.  A positive addiction can be anything that a person chooses to do that does not harm others or himself!  They often fall into two categories:  Physically demanding or physically non-taxing activity  and total passive activity.  When exercise has become a positive addiction you will know because you will crave it and feel withdrawal symptoms when you miss a session. These types of addictions have helped people get control over their lives, give up bad eating and living habits effortlessly.  These same people have reported sharpened mental alertness, increased self awareness, and an improved physical sense of well being and confidence.  They also report they are more tolerant and less angry, in better physical shape with more energy and less need for sleep and increased mental strength and self esteem.  I can attest to that fact in my own life since I have developed a PA for exercise.

     Everyone at some point suffers from denial and I don't  think I have to go into this but do know that denial is a robber of your nerve energy and is a killing emotion that we need to learn to control.  When we are overweight, denial is a form of self destruction that will ultimately keep us from realizing our goals.  Keep that in mind and remember it too is a dis-ease.  Now, to wrap this up on a positive note.  Don't be a procrastinator!  One who puts off action until a further time.  Become a Peak Performer!  A peak performer is one who is motivated to be and do his best in all areas of his life.  This is having the big picture in your mind, having a mission, a passionate commitment to something that matters, doesn't live just for today and has a commitment to an ideal that takes him to his long rang goals.  This is where I am at today with my studies, my book, my blog, my future practice and life in general.  I do hope you have been enjoying this series of blogs and continue to tune in for future blogs in this series.  I hope you have learned a new thing or two and have taken away nuggets of information to help you in your journey.  Please feel free to post comments and let me know if this has touched you in some way.  Let your mission in life be seeking health!

Yours in health, happiness and freedom,

Cherise 



   

Exercise and the ideal diet build great health.....Try it!

     The benefits of exercise have been known to us forever but yet the average American leads a sedentary lifestyle.  When was the last time you worked out a good half hour to an hour and broke a sweat?  It is important to know that sustained aerobic exercise of 1/2 hour to 1 hour causes blood volume pumped from the heart to the aorta to increase several times over normal resting conditions.  Blood transports nutrients and oxygen to the interstitial tissue fluid (The fluid found in the intercellular spaces composed of water, amino acids, sugars, fatty acids, coenzymes, hormones, neurotransmitters, salts, and cellular products. It bathes and surrounds the cells of the body, and provides a means of delivering materials to the cells, intercellular communication, and removal of metabolic waste.).  The blood and lymph transport metabolic waste and toxins to the eliminating channels.  During exercise the accelerated oxygenation improves cellular metabolism.  The higher the body temperature mobilizes waste by-products for the accelerated elimination.  Because both blood and lymph circulation are greatly increased during exercise toxic build up is reversed.  So to put it simply the best thing you can do for yourself is to break a sweat exercising daily for at least 20 minutes, eat the ideal diet of live nutritious food to rid your body of fat, toxins and cellulite.

     Something to keep in mind is that without sustained, strenuous sweating, subcutaneous fat of the dermis and epidermis are bathed so poorly that elimination of toxins is nil.  Only aerobics will increase the blood volume enough to keep these cells free from toxic build up.  This is evident by the unhealthy appearance of fat, cellulite and various skin symptoms such as acne and psoriasis.  Exercise is work but it is worth it.  Eating fresh fruits and vegetables are not enough.  If we really want to be healthy and lose weight we must earn it by working for it!    We must get enough rest to avoid weakening our bodies and get enough exercise to avoid toxins building up in our blood.  You will have to experiment and discover the types of exercise you can really enjoy and do daily and then make a commitment.  Exercise does so much for for our bodies than removing toxins and aiding us to lose unwanted pounds.  It also  helps when we are over stressed.  When we don't exercise all our muscles, organs, glands, circulatory and respiratory systems weaken and suffer physiological impairment.  Our nerve energy runs low, we have trouble with elimination of waste, toxins build up and disease sets in.

     The good news is all this can be avoided simply by adopting an exercise routine with stretching, aerobics and weight training at least three times a week for an 1/2 hour to an hour.  All three forms of exercise I mentioned above  build agility, coordination, muscle tone, poise and a healthy glow called "Exercise High".  Make sure when doing aerobics you get the "training effects" by reaching your target heart rate.  You must stimulate your heart not to its maximum but  between 65 and 85 percent of its maximum.  For example for me at age 46 my maximum heart rate would be 175, my target heart rate at 75% would be 131 with a goal of 70% to 80% which would translate to 123-149 beats per minute.  As you get older this number drops.

     The problem with most exercise programs is that people do not stick with them.  We join health clubs, purchase lifetime memberships and quit after going only a few weeks or months.  This is unfortunate because exercise only works if it is done for the long haul.  I believe the reason we quit is because we don't know what to do exactly so we don't see results and we get board quickly and we quit.  This is why "New Years Resolutions" never stick.  It has to be a choice for a lifetime not for a short time.  What does it take to make a lifetime commitment to exercise?  It takes a program that is natural, pleasant, safe, convenient, practical, economical and easy to do anytime and anywhere.   What would that be?  Walking!  Jogging is hard on your body and is the cause of many injuries.  Aerobic walking if done correctly can give you a cardiovascular conditioning rated higher than many professional athletes.

     We discussed our set points in the last blog so now we're going to learn how to lower them through exercise.  For aerobic activity you must use large muscle rhythmic activity such as swimming, brisk walking, bicycling and so on.  The key is getting your heart rate to your target heart rate and keeping it there for at least  min.  As with any exercise always do a warm up and a cool down so you do injure yourself.  To lower your set point you will have to exercise at least three times a week for at least  minutes.  Note it may take an hour a day every day for a month to make a sticky set point budge.  Start at  minutes and work up to the ideal one hour for the best results.  If you have been living a sedentary lifestyle this could take some time to attain but make it your goal.  You don't want to jump right in at an hour a workout or more and exhaust yourself and cause burn out.  That is not the goal here.  We want something we can do for a lifetime.  The other factor in lowering your set point is the intensity that you exercise.  this may be done at a moderate level.  It is said that moderate exercise, practiced regularly, produces the best results for most people.  This will first use up the blood sugar in the blood system and then to fuel the body fat is pulled out of fat storage and that is exactly what we want.  Don't over do it!

     Do your best to enjoy your workouts, make it fun!  Do a variety of exercises, mix it up, keep it fun.  Always warm up and cool down, rest when you need to but for only about a minute.  Drink plenty of water and keep hydrated. Vary the pace and intensity as needed so that you can increase  your time to an hour.  Do several sets of reps instead of one set.  Do supersets which is 2 or 3 different exercises in a row without a rest.  Visualize a new thinner, healthier you while you exercise.  Exercise with a friend or family member to keep you motivated, on track and challenged.  Keep a record of your starting weight, measurements and  take pride in your accomplishments.  Remember pick a day to stay in bed and do nothing but rest.

     Also when exercising you have to know and understand the lymphatic system and the role it plays in health.  Your lymph vessels are similar to a tree.  The trunk is the chest and the branches go into the arms and up into the neck and head the roots go down into the legs and feet.  So what does the lymphatic system do and how does it differ from our circulatory system?  Our circulatory system is a  closed circuit that blood travels carrying nutrients and  oxygen to the 75 trillion cells throughout the body and waste including carbon dioxide is carried away from the cells for elimination.  The lymph system picks up the waste that the circulatory system was not designed to handle.  The lymph system is not a closed system like the circulatory system.  It originates in the countless spaces between the cells.  The lymphatic system ends by dumping its contents into 2 major veins:  the Thoracic Duct and the Subclavian Vein.  Even though both systems are continually circulating fluids throughout the body they are independent of each other.  This is also a reason to have an lymphatic massage. The fluid in the circulatory system is blood and the fluid in the lymphatic system is lymph.  It is important to have a strong circulation of the lymph so that toxins wont build up causing disease. 

     In conclusion the wonderful psychology of regular exercise is vast.  It provides a strengthened respiratory and cardiovascular system, improved elimination of toxins from the body, blood vessels and muscles strengthen, it develops a more positive attitude and enhances the overall quality of life, it improves mental clarity and intellectual capabilities, it improves your will power to stick with your new lifestyle, it is a powerful rejuvenator, it improves your inner functioning on a cellular level and your looks which brings about better self esteem, it improves your mobility, it adds to your emotional calm and stability allowing you to handle stressful situations better, you are less likely to have to spend money on doctors visits for health and mental reasons as you will be healthier and not depressed, you will have high energy that can be used to fulfill your most meaningful, altruistic goals in life, your sex life will improve and last but not least taking time each day to exercise is an empowering message to yourself that you are in control of your own life!  You will know when your program is working when you fall asleep deeply and quickly each night and wake ready to go each morning and maintain high energy throughout the day and become pleasantly fatigued at its end.

     I hope you enjoyed this blog and will join me for the continuation in the next blog on emotional balance/nurturing relationships and the ideal diet.  I hope this was not to technical and you were able to grasp the information I have laid out and that it helps you with your weight and health problems.

Yours in health, happiness and freedom,

Cherise

A look at the diet trap and how to lose weight successfully

     I know what you're going to say when I tell you I am here today to help you learn about the dieting trap and how to successfully lose weight.  You're going to say "I know all about how to diet I have been doing it for years."  I am here to tell you you're right you do but how has that worked for you?  I will try to explain the diet trap to you in a manner in which you can understand by borrowing terms I have learned in my studies the last few days.  I feel this information is vital to anyone with health issues not just diabetics.  Also with that being said with the newest diet, the HCG diet, that is so harmful to your health I think this is a perfect time to lay it all out on the line for you.  This will be a lengthy blog so hang on and follow me and learn a few new tricks to permanent, healthy weight loss through simple lifestyle changes that anyone can do for the rest of their lives.

     The first thing I want to teach you is about your "Set Point".  Body fat is actually regulated by a control center in the brain referred to as the "weight regulating mechanism" which chooses the amount of body fat that it considers ideal for our needs and then works tirelessly to defend that level.  So here in lies your "set point", the point at which your body at any given time and age is set to stay at a certain weight.  Now in order to move that set point you have to do something to change it.  You can raise it by over eating or you can lower it by healthy eating and exercise.  You notice I did NOT say DIET.    So lets look at what a set point is and does.  Think of your set point as a "Fat-O-Stat".  Just like your hallway thermostat in your home regulates the temperature throughout the house your "Fat-O-Stat" is fixed in the internal hallway of your body and it regulates how much fat is put on at any given time.  Just like the thermostat in your home can be turned up to burn fuel, your "Fat-O-Stat" can be turned up to burn fat day and night.  You do this not by dieting but a healthy change in your lifestyle.

     Burning off fat isn't quite that simple.  It depends on the foods you eat, amount of rest and fasting you do, other lifestyle practices you have that combine to affect the fatty disposition on each individual person. So lets look at how the set point works in two important ways.  Based on your nutritional needs you get a message to eat.  At this point you don't have control over your eating drive but you do have control over what you will eat and how much.  Diets don't work because when you consistently restrict your set point demands the drive to eat becomes so strong that you no longer have control causing you to eat quantities and kinds of foods that push the set point higher resulting in weight gain.  The second way is the "weight regulating mechanism" also directs the system in your body to either conserve or waste energy (gain or lose weight) and is regulated by the amount of food you eat.

     The problem with diets is that all diets are restrictive in nature.  They restrict calories, fat, carbohydrates or any combination of these.  When you restrict your diet and activity it will lead to three other problems.  First the restriction of diet and activity leads to a rise in your set point which starts a vicious cycle of hunger and energy conservation.  Second it causes a loss in muscle tissue and less fat will be burned.  Third it affects your response to insulin which causes an increase in fat storage.  The last two are especially not healthy for a diabetic.  It is no wonder overweight people are frustrated and retain their weight despite diets of 500-1000 calories a day and on other restrictions.  As you can now see this is why diets have failure built in them.  You train your body to run on less and less food at the same elevated weight.  Trying to lose weight with restrictive diets is like bailing water out of a leaking boat.  Water keeps pouring in no matter how hard you bail.  Repeated bailings can make the holes bigger due to more rapid water flow in which makes the problem worse.  In order to stop the boat from sinking the holes must be found and repaired!  Successful treatment to weight problems require the same approach:  Find the basic problem and fix it!

     So now I am sure your asking what do I do?  Where do I start?  First you have to get out of the diet mindset of "I want this but I can't" and change to " I need this and I can" attitude of a healthy lifestyle.  Here are some tips to keep in mind.  Exercising within 20 min after eating adds fuel to the flames of digestion to burn more calories.  Aerobic exercise on a regular basis regardless the time of day increases your metabolism all day long.  Aerobics also increases your muscle mass at the same time it burns fat and since muscle has a higher metabolic rate than does fat you will burn more fat.  Also keep in mind there are other systems at work in weight loss.

     The second system that directs your body to conserve or waste energy (gain or lose) is your "brown fat".  Brown fat can burn part of the food you eat and waste the excess energy as heat so it doesn't have to be stored as fat.  People who can eat large amounts of food and not gain weight have more brown fat through genetic inheritance and therefore use brown fat activity to waste some of this extra energy.  People who have weight problems have inherited less brown fat and therefore have less brown fat activity.  Another system that naturally thin people have that overweight people don't is higher levels of sodium-potassium ATP-ase and can therefore waste excess energy much more.  When you recognize the important role of these energy conserving and energy wasting systems in weight control you will then understand why restrictive diets don't work.  When you decrease the amount you eat in an effort to lose weight your body slows down its metabolism to protect its fat stores.  Think of it this way.....we were designed to be hunters and gatherers going sometimes great lengths of time in a famine situation and designed to store fat just for those times.  In our world today we have no famine we have feasts and yet we are still designed to store fat for the famine that never comes.  With that said we are a culture of starving people not because of lack of food but due to lack of proper nutrition.  So as we eat our food like substances, or overeat, we store up for the famine and raise our set point higher and higher with each diet we go on and continue to starve at a cellular level while continually gaining weight.  We are on a roller coaster to poor health, chronic illness and death.

     The good news is you can change your set point!  You do this by lifestyle choices you make everyday.  Exercise is the most crucial factor in weight control.  Inactivity is always detrimental to your body.  When you exercise and increase your activity level, the weight regulating mechanism senses the need for high mobility, the set point is then lowered, fat stores are willingly given up to produce a smaller, healthier, mobile body.  As important as exercise is there is another critical factor in weight control and your set point and that is the type of foods you eat.  High fat foods especially refined carbohydrate (sugar) increase hunger and if eaten regularly will raise your set point.  When you understand these factors you can then begin a lifestyle that will promote the lowering of your set point and be able to eat more than you ever have before and still lose weight by simply adapting a basic, vigorous exercise program and nutritious way of eating.  You will lower your set point, burn fat, build muscle and lose weight and be healthy and happy.  This is what it take to get weight problems under control.  A simple plan that is easy enough to do for the rest of your life with out restricting yourself.   

     Join me for my next blog that is part two of this blog on exercising.  We will finish up our new plan for weight control and learn a few more things as we go.  I hope you have enjoyed this blog and that I laid it out in a way that you could understand and apply to your life.  Get yourself out of the diet trap today.  No more resolutions to start a diet on Monday and gorge all weekend in preparation of restricting yourself next week.  You are smarter than that so don't fall for the diet trap one more day.  Now you know why diets don't work and you can now avoid the vicious cycle of losing 30 and gaining 40-50.  If you stay on that roller coaster you can diet your way to 300-400 pounds over a lifetime.  We have all watched as Oprah did this on national television.  Don't make that mistake one more day.

Yours in health, happiness and freedom!

Cherise


    

Thoughts on what I have learned in school so far

 First I want to apologize for the time since my last blog.  I have been so busy with school and life in general.  After thinking long and hard on what to blog about I have decided to talk about my first course in my certifications.  I have been studying food combining by the hygienic leader Dr. Shelton  (http://www.getwellstaywellamerica.com/Shelton/SheltonTimelinePg1.htm). I have been reading about the reasons behind food combining and how our digestive track works.  Here is a brief rundown on food combining made easy.  

                      THE BASIC RULES OF FOOD COMBINING

1. Do not eat proteins and starches together. Your body requires an acid base to digest proteins and an alkaline base to digest starches. Proteins and starches combine well with green, leafy vegetables and non-starchy vegetables, but they do not combine well with each other.

2. Generally fruits should be eaten alone or with other fruits. If fruits seem too sweet, then eat a handful of nuts (80% fruit, 20% nuts). Fruits digest so quickly that by the time they reach your stomach, they are already partially digested. If they arc combined with other foods, they will rot and ferment.

3. Melons digest faster than any other food. Therefore, you should never eat melons with any other food including other fruits. Always eat melons on their own.

4. Do not mix acid and/or sub-acid fruits with sweet fruits at the same meal. Acid fruits, such as grapefruits, pineapple, and strawberries, can be mixed with sub-acid fruits, such as apples, grapes, and peaches, but neither of these categories can be mixed with sweet fruits, such as bananas, dates, or raisins.

5. Eat only four to six different fruits or vegetables at one meal as a fruit meal.

6. Fats and oils combine with everything (except fruits) but should be used in limited amounts because while they won’t inhibit digestion, they will slow it down.

7. Wait the following lengths of time between meals that don’t combine:
a. Two hours after eating fruit.
b. Three hours after eating starches.
c. Four hours after eating proteins.

                     “FIX IT” FOR FOOD COMBINING

· If you eat PROTEIN and STARCH during the same meal, eat some legumes.
· If you eat NUTS, eat an acid fruit with them.
· If you still eat DAIRY, make sure to eat an acid fruit.
· If you've overloaded on PASTA, eat an apple the next morning.
· If you’ve eaten too much PROTEIN, eat papaya the next morning.
· If you’ve, eaten too much SUGAR, eat grapes the next morning.
· If you’ve eaten too much SALT, eat watermelon the next morning.

You can find the beginners guide here:  http://www.trustedhands.com/content/fcbeg.pdf

     As with anything I have found that there are people that don't support this method.  I am still on the fence as to the importance of this but having an open mind I am continuing my studies and putting food combining to practice in my own life.  My whole journey to reverse my diabetes was an eclectic combination of all the information I learned.  I don't believe there is a one size fits all plan.    I have studied so many different people, information and diets that I have taken the best from each one and made it my own.  I myself am a Veganish, raw food, plant based,whole foods, juicing kind of gal.  This is what I hope to bring to my clients/patients if you will when I start counseling this summer.  With that being said I am considering when I receive my certifications, before becoming a doctor, going to the Integrative Nutrition school (http://www.integrativenutrition.com/lp/health-and-nutrition-school-2/what-is-integrative-nutrition) so that I can bring to the table a wealth of healing principles while I study to become a doctor. This is a book I highly recommend reading!  (http://issuu.com/integrativenutrition/docs/rosenthal_complete_pdf?mode=embed)

     I hope you have found this information helpful and will check back for my next blog on weight loss and the diet traps and to follow a blog on exercise.  I have so much information I want to share with you and I hope you learn from it and enjoy it.  

      To borrow a closing from a health pioneer....

"Yours for Health, Truth and Medical Liberty",

Cherise