Resolution #1

January will be gone in a few short hours...wow...it sure went fast!

So, how are you doing with your New Year's Resolutions?

According to the experts the #1 Resolution made each year is to "Lose Weight" and it's the one that most people can't seem to keep. In fact by February 1st most people have thrown in the towel. Are you ever going to be fit again as long as you live? The answer is unless you make a resolution to get fit-you're never going to be fit-ever. The choice is yours.

I'd love to say that I'm off to a great start with my Resolutions for 2010...not so...but NOT giving up!

Even though I've managed to keep my weight level, I have not managed to work out consistently so the FIT part of the equation is missing...which I am choosing to deal with starting tomorrow! I realized over the weekend that it boils down to; how important of a goal is it? Am I going to keep making excuses about how busy I am or am I going to schedule time to do it and make it a priority.

I'm blessed to be part of a group who will meet monthly starting tomorrow, 2/1, called "Fit Happens." Our goal is to keep each other accountable, encouraged, and take the steps necessary to eat right, stay healthy, and fit for life. The more the merrier so feel free to contact me if you know of someone who would like to join us!

Need some motivation? Check this out...it's a 3 minute video clip showing the results of the Burn product that we use to jump start our metabolism and start our fat burning furnace!
http://www.waifit.com/

Cheers to an awesome 2010!

Let Thy Food Be Thy Medicine

I found this link online today and thought I would pass it along. Probably my shortest blog entry to date!

Off to listen to a webinar titled:
Dynamic Eating Psychology and Mind Body Nutrition, with Marc David

Why did Hippocrates, the founding father of modern medicine say "Let thy Food be thy Medicine and thy Medicine be thy Food." ?

Check out this short video clip - http://ow.ly/ZNDo

Wishing you a great night!

Why Genes Aren't Your Destiny

Ahh, it's finally Saturday…the one day of the week to sleep a little longer, linger over my coffee, and spend a little extra time reading the stacks of things on my to read list.

Sure wish I knew the fine art of condensing information down into bite size pieces...I'm working on it...guess its a process just like everything else!

I’ve had the January 18, 2010 issue of Time Magazine sitting near the top of my pile for over a week and finally got to it this morning. I highly recommend finding a copy if you are at all interested in more information on how the choices we make today will have an impact on future generations. I’m continually amazed at how complex our mind, body & spirits are…fascinating information.

The article Titled “Why Genes Aren’t Destiny” by John Cloud, tells how the new field of epigenetics is showing how your environment and your choices can influence your genetic code-and that of your kids.

In the late 1980’s Dr. Lars Olov Bygren, a preventive-health specialist who is now at the prestigious Karolinska Insttitute in Stockholm, began to wonder what long term effects that feast and famine years might have had on children growing up in Norrbotten in the 19th century…they lived in a environment of literal feast or famine.

Around the time he started collecting the data, Bygren had become fascinated with research showing that conditions in the womb could affect your health not only when you are a fetus but well into adulthood. In 1986, for example, the Lancet published the first of two groundbreaking papers showing that if a pregnant woman ate poorly, her child would be at significantly higher than average risk for cardiovascular disease as an adult. Bygren wondered whether that effect could start even before pregnancy: Could parents’ experiences early in their lives somehow change the traits they passed to their offspring?

It was a heretical idea. After all, we have had a long standing deal with biology: whatever choices we make during our lives might ruin our short-term memory or make us fat or hasten death, but they won’t change our genes-our actual DNA.

What’s more, any such effects of nurture (environment) on a species’ nature (genes) were not supposed to happen so quickly...according to Charles Darwin. But Bygren and other scientists have now amassed historical evidence suggesting that powerful environmental conditions (near death from starvation, for instance) can somehow leave an imprint on the genetic material in eggs and sperm. These genetic imprints can short-circuit evolution and pass along new traits in a single generation.

For instance, Bygren’s research showed that in Overkalix, boys who enjoyed those rare overabundant winters-kids who went from normal eating to gluttony in a single season-produced sons and grandsons who lived shorter lives. To put it simply, the data suggested that a single winter of overeating as a youngster could initiate a biological chain of events that would lead one’s grandchildren to die decades earlier than their peers did. How could this be possible?

Meet the Epigenome
At its most basic, epigenetics is the study of changes in gene activity that do not involve alterations to the genetic code but still get passed down to at least one successive generation. These patterns of gene expression are governed by the cellular material-the epigenome-that sits on top of the genome, just outside it. It is these epigenetic “marks” that tell your genes to switch on or off, to speak loudly or whisper. It is through epigenetic marks that environmental factors like diet, stress, and prenatal nutrition can make an imprint on genes that are passed from one generation to the next.

There is evidence that lifestyle choices like smoking and eating too much can change the epigenetic marks atop your DNA in ways that cause the genes for obesity to express themselves too strongly and the genes for longevity to express themselves too weakly. We all know that you can shorten your own life if you smoke or overeat, but it’s becoming clear that those same bad behaviors can also predispose your kids-before they are even conceived-to disease and early death. WOW!

Pembrey, Bygren, and Golding-now all working together-used data to produce a more groundbreaking paper, the most compelling epigenetic study yet written. Published in 2006 in the European Journal of Human Genetics, it noted that of the 14,024 fathers in the study, 166 said they had started smoking before age 11-just as their bodies were preparing to enter puberty. Boys are genetically isolated before puberty because they cannot form sperm. (Girls by contrast, have their eggs from birth) That makes the period around puberty fertile ground for epigenetic changes: If the environment is going to imprint epigenetic marks on the genes in the Y chromosome, what better time to do it than when sperm is first starting for form?

When Pembry, Bygren and Golding looked at the sons of those 166 early smokers, it turned out that the boys had significantly higher body mass indexes than other boys by age 9. That means the sons of men who smoke in prepuberty will be at higher risk for obesity and other health problems well into adulthood. In other words, you can change your epigenetics even when you make a dumb decision at 10 years old. If you start smoking then, you may have made not only a medical mistake but a catastrophic genetic mistake.

All this explains why the scientific community is so nervously excited about epigenetics. In his forthcoming book isThe Genius in All of Us: Why Everything You’ve Been Told About Genetics, Talent and IQ is Wrong, science writer David Shenk says epigenetics is helping user in a “new paradigm” that “reveals how bankrupt the phrase ‘nature versus nurture really is.” He calls epigenetics “perhaps the most important discovery in the science of heredity since the gene.”
Looking forward to reading his book!

90% or 10% - Which are you?

American's don’t have vitamin deficiencies – they have a whole food deficiencies.

It’s estimated that only 10% of adults and 5% of children consume the recommended 7 -13 daily servings of fruits and vegetables. I must confess, I was one of the 90% who didn’t even come close to that amount until I learned how important it is in the big scheme of preventing disease and aging well…both issues are very important to me.:)

Why not just take a multiple vitamin?
The research is complete and compelling that isolated vitamins and multiple vitamins have NOT been shown to prevent disease and in many situations have been shown to increase disease and cause harm.

Whole foods are really the answer to disease prevention. Why is that?
Because the nutrients in fruits and vegetables work synergistically together in perfect combination. Foods in their natural source are packed with 1000’s of vitamins and nutrients, not that 10 or 20 vitamins in a mega dose – its about small amounts of 1000’s of nutrients working together synergistically.

Take an apple for example; there are some 400 ingredients that are phyto-nutrients. There is a mere 5.7 milligrams of vitamin C in an apple…guess what…that 5.7 milligrams in synergy with all the other nutrients in that apple are as effective at fighting free radical damage as 1500 milligrams of vitamin C. That’s the POWER of synergy!

The minerals in fruit and vegetables are colloidal; i.e. they are in a state of such extremely fine suspension that they can be assimilated by the human system.

Good nutrition is a matter of pay now or pay later! I'm paying now because you don't have to look very far to see that prevention in the long run is more ecconomical than a cure...and a lot less painful.

Here are some things that you can do to educate yourself:

www.wendy-dejong-juiceplus.com - there is a video on the home page and 2 more under the button Related Info at the top of the home page. The research on whole food in the prevention of disease is quite amazing.

http:/healthenlightenment.com/document264.shtml - amazing information regarding the mineral deficiency of our soil and how its impacting our health...starving us in general. The sadest part is it appears to be an easy, inexpensive fix.

Rent - Food Inc. - this was a real eye opener for me and has changed my outlook on food...I now look at my purchases as casting a vote for good food or bad!

In closing the notes from the end of document 264 {We choose chemotherapy, amputations, pacemakers, surgery, and wheelchairs. One fourth of our Gross National Product(1.4 trillion dollars) is now spent on medical care, affectionately referred to (by doctors and drug reps) as "health care"}

The public can help; it can hasten change. How? By demanding quality food. You vote with your dollars every time you go to the store and purchase junk!

Do Calcium Deficiencies = Nasty Disposition - Low Intelligence - Poor Health?

Ok…let’s see just what’s involved in “mineral deficiencies,” what it may mean to our health, and how it may affect the growth and development, both mental and physical, of our children. We know that rats, guinea pigs and other animals can be fed into a diseased condition and out again by controlling only the minerals in their food.

A 10-year test with rats proved that by withholding calcium they can be bred down to a third the size of those fed with an adequate amount of that mineral. Their intelligence, too, can be controlled by mineral feeding as readily as can their size, their bony structure, and their general health. (hmmm, perhaps we know some calcium deficient people!)

Place a number of these little animals inside a maze after starving some of them in a certain mineral element. The starved ones will be unable to find their way out. Their dispositions can be altered by mineral feeding. They can be made quarrelsome and belligerent; they can even be turned into cannibals and be made to devour each other.

A cage full of normal rats will live in amity. Restrict their calcium and they will become irritable and draw apart from one another. Then they will begin to fight. Restore their calcium balance and they will grow more friendly; and in time they will begin to sleep in a pile as before. Many children are “slow to learn” merely because they are deficient in magnesia. (Magnesium) We punish them for our failures to feed them properly.

Calcium is the most dominant nerve controller; it powerfully affects the cell formation of all living things and regulates nerve action. It governs contractility of the muscles and the rhythmic beat of the heart. It also coordinates the other mineral elements and corrects disturbances made by them. Vitamin D is its buddy.

What does a deficiency mean? How would it affect your health or mine? So many morbid conditions and actual diseases may result that it is almost hopeless to catalog them. Included in the list are bad teeth, nervous disorders, reduced resistance to other diseases, fatigue, behavior disturbances, cancer, heart disease, and more.

Wow, I'm off to take my calcium, magnesium & vitamin D

Get some sunlight on the inside and see what positive changes happen in your life!

Is a Carrot a Carrot?

You'd think, wouldn't you, that a carrot is a carrot-that one is about as good as another as far as nourishment is concerned? But it isn't; one carrot may look and taste like another and yet be lacking in the particular mineral element which our system requires and which carrots are supposed to contain.

Laboratory tests prove that the fruits, the vegetables, the grains, the eggs, and even the milk and the meats of today are not what they were a few generations ago (which doubtless explains why our forefathers thrived on a selection of foods that would starve us!)

The alarming fact is that foods, fruits, vegetables and grains, now being raised on millions of acres of land that no longer contain enough of certain needed minerals, are starving us - no matter how much of them we eat!

No longer does a balanced and fully nourishing diet consist merely of so many calories or certain vitamins or a fixed proportion of starches, proteins and carbohydrates. We know that our diets must contain in addition a score of mineral salts.

It is bad news to learn from our leading authorities that 99% of the American people are deficient in these minerals, and that a marked deficiency in any one of the more important minerals actually results in disease. Any upset of the balance, and considerable lack of one or another element, however microscopic the body requirement may be, and we sicken, suffer, and shorten our lives.

Disorder and disease result from any vitamin deficiency. It is not commonly realized, however that vitamins control the body's appropriation of minerals, and in the absence of mineral's they have no function to perform. Lacking vitamins, the system can make some use of minerals, but lacking minerals, vitamins are useless. Vitamins & minerals from whole foods is what our body requires.

Information taken from United States Senate Document #264 "Modern Miracle Men" Presented by Rex Beach, June 1936

Senate Document 264 was written in 1936, and submitted as part of a Congressional investigation into U.S. farming practices. The leading authorities of the day had been sounding the alarm that depleted soils were causing a significant decline in the nation's health, evidenced by a steady increase in degenerative diseases. But when Congress saw the price tag on repairing the nation's farm and range soils, they swept their own investigation under the carpet.

Dr. Charles Northen a pioneer and genius in the field of nutrition demonstrated that countless human ills stem from the fact that impoverished soil of America no longer provides plant foods with the mineral elements essential to human nourishment and health.

The subject so interested Dr. Northen that he retired from active medical practice and devoted himself to proving that by putting back into foods the stuff that foods are made of, would open up the shortest and most rational route to better health.

He showed first that it should be done, and then that it could be done. He doubled and redoubled the natural mineral content of fruits and vegetables. He improved the quality of milk by increasing the iron and the iodine in it. He caused hens to lay eggs richer in the vital elements. By scientific soil feeding, he raised better seed poatoes in Maine, better grapes in California, better oranges in Florida and better field crops in other states. (By "better" is meant not only improvement in food value but also in increase in quality and quantity.)

He stated "We must rebuild our soils: Put back the minerals we have taken out. That sounds difficult but it isn't. Neither is it expensive. Therein lies the short cut to better health and longer life."

Why did Congress think it too expensive?

The information that will follow in the next few days will cover what "mineral deficiencies" are costing us and our children in terms of our health...both mental and physical.

Why Is Wellness So Late To The Party?

When I decided to blog daily, and share some of the information that I’ve been collecting over the past couple of years I didn’t realize how hard it was going to be! As you can see from my previous entries I haven’t figured out how to condense it down…suggestions would be appreciated!

Before digging into possible reasons & solutions for many of the health issues people face today, I feel that its necessary to look at where the wellness industry has been and “why” the wellness industry has come so late to our food and medical industries. Why is it taking so long for people to catch on?

Our wellness industry today exists in large part thanks to a historic battle won in the 1970’s by the one of the greatest wellness revolutionaries of our time: the late J.I. Rodale, founder of Prevention Magazine and Rodale Press (Men’s Health, Runners World).

How Rodale Paved the Way for the Wellness Revolution

In 1954, entrepreneur and author J.I. Rodale had a lot to lose. His company, Rodale Press, was just getting his fledgling Prevention Magazine off the ground. Prevention was dedicated to teaching readers how to prevent disease versus just treating the symptoms of disease.

Rodale had concluded that eating large quantities of red meat and dairy products dramatically increased the risk of heart disease and that physical activity actually decreased the risk of having a heart attack. This was at a time when the U.S. government was spending millions encouraging Americans to eat more red meat and dairy products at every meal, three times a day. Doctors were telling patients with heart disease to reduce or eliminate physical activity entirely.

Rodale wrote about his new findings in two books: How to Eat For a Healthy Heart and This Pace is Not Killing Us. He was convinced that this information could save millions of lives. But, like many writers in the 1950’ he was not on an approved list drawn up by Senator Joseph McCarthy’s House Un-American Activities Committee, so his publisher refused to publish his new books.

Long story short, he published his own books, was ordered by the FTC to cease and desist from claiming, directly or indirectly, that readers of any of his publications would improve their health. His legal battles with the federal government raged for almost two decades, at times putting his entire personal net worth at risk. In later years some of the same leading medical experts that the government had originally used at the initial FTC hearings almost 20 years earlier, one by one refuted their original testimony, claiming they “didn’t know back then,” and admitted that many of Rodale’s original claims had since become established medical facts.

Despite the hardship, Rodale refused to back down unless the FTC agreed to acknowledge that the First Amendment prohibited them from regulating books and printed material. Soon after Rodale passed away, the U.S. government reversed its position, stating that the FTC would no longer require advertisers of information-based products to establish the efficacy of their claims.

One of the greatest challenges facing Rodale, and facing many wellness advocates today, is human rejection of the new or unknown, especially when the new ideas and technology forces people to rethink established beliefs.

**FTC commissioner Elman wrote in his dissenting opinion: “It is the glory of a free society that a man can write a book contending that the earth is flat, or that the moon is made of green cheese, or that God is dead, without having to ‘substantiate’ or ‘prove’ his claims to the satisfaction of some public official or agency. It is arrogance to presume that in any field of knowledge, whether dealing with health or otherwise, all the answers are now in.”

Bravo, Mr. Elman!

Information taken from the New Wellness Revolution by Paul Zane Pilzer

I too, believe that information available today, not only could, but would, save the lives of millions of people, if they would simply look at statistics and see that doing what you have always done, will give you the current results...2/3 or more of the population dying of a disease that could have been prevented.