Exercise can help

you sleep at night

Julian Georgiou, Healingtalks Contributing Writer

(Healingtalks)  Dramatic statistics tell us that more than one-third of U.S. adults have trouble falling asleep at night or staying alert during the day.

Inadequate sleep has been linked to many ills, including depression, cardiovascular disease and other health problems. Getting a good night’s sleep regulates moods, aids memory functions, plus concentration, learning, and focus. It is a critical factor in health, weight and energy levels (Davila, 2009).

So what to do?

Let’s explore combining a healthy diet and a regular exercise program.

Real links between exercise and sleep

Scientists at Northwestern University conducted a study which showed that those who exercised reported their sleep quality improved immensely. They also reported fewer depression symptoms, more vitality, and less sleepiness during the daytime. ‘By improving sleep, they were able to improve physical and mental health as well as the ability to fight diseases

Exercise timing

The type and timing of your exercise makes a difference.

A light morning exercise, like running or walking outside,  can relieve stress, improve mood and impact sleep at the end of the day. Exposure to natural light in the morning reinforces your body’s sleep-wake cycle. Waking up earlier and walking or bicycling to work could help your overall vitality and quality of sleep (Virdil, 2011).

To affect your sleeping habits even more, vigorous late afternoon or early evening exercise is recommended. Exercise too close to bedtime and you can have a negative impact because your body’s temperature needs time to cool down. The exact time it takes can vary from person to person so a trial and error approach could be taken. The decrease in body temperature appears to be a trigger that helps ease you into sleep (Virdil, 2011).

Exercise types

The type of exercise is also important. Virdil recommends a 20 minute cardiovascular workout to get the heart pumping. It will make a difference to the depth of sleep. Also it’s best to choose an activity you love to do for your routine. It shouldn’t be  burden.  Having fun greatly betters the chance that the exercise is maintained.

Exercise for life

Healthy eating and regular exercise are essential for a good life. To recap, the benefits of exercising includes; better sleep, greater weight control, improved immunity, less mood swings, higher levels of energy, and even a better sex life. Lastly it can be fun. So let get with it! Exercise regularly for better sleeping and which then leads to better living.

Related Articles

Secrets To Sleeping Soundly

Tips for a good night’s sleep

Few Simple Tips to Help Fall Asleep Faster

Video

References

Virdil, D, 2011, How to Fall Asleep,

Hendrick, B,  09/17/10, Exercise Helps You Sleep, Regular Aerobic Exercise May Help Insomniacs

Davila, D, December, 2009, Diet, Exercise and Sleep

Dotinga, R, 12/1/11, Study: More exercise could make for better sleep

Keywords

What to do to sleep at night, how to sleep well, sleep at night, sleep better, sleep last night, problems sleeping, sleep all night, how to sleep all night, sleeping disorders, how can I sleep through the night, how to sleep with insomnia, nights sleep, how to cure insomnia, natural sleep, to help you sleep, sleeping help, problem sleeping, sleep habits, baby sleep at night, good night sleep, sleeping habits, sleep health, sleeping tips, sleep aides natural, what to take to sleep at night. nights sleep, effects of exercise

Groundbreaking News:

Forced vs. Voluntary

Exercise -

Which Is Better?

100 Year-Old Runner

Completes Marathon

Healingtalks’ Complete Coverage of the Story

Nathan Batalion, Global Health Activist, Healtingtalks Editor

(Healingtalks) Fauja Singh, a 100-year-old runner who lives in Britain earned a spot in the Guiness World Book of Records at the Toronto Marathon. Running along Toronto’s picturesque waterfront, Fauja Singh became the first man on the planet to finish a 42K, 26.2 mile run at age 100. Family, friends and supporters greeted Singh when he finished the race.

Video of Fauja Singh coming across the finish line:

Putting Fauja to the Test at 100

People might doubt Fauja age, but he travels with a passport and with the telegram from The Queen which marked his 100th birthday. “He doesn’t think of himself as old and dresses to the ‘T’ in Boss and Armani,” said trainer Harmander Singh

People ask him why he still runs, and he answers that he’d heard in San Francisco woman wanted to have a baby at 75, “and if a woman can have a baby at 75, then a man can have a dream to run a marathon at 100.” He cited the legend of the persistence and devotion of Sikh martyr Baba Deep Singh, whose head was almost severed in a battle, yet still found the strength to put the head on his shoulders and scare off attackers before reaching his goal and finally succumbing. “That is the heritage that we are made of,” Fauja said.

Fauja had blood tests and a bone density test when runner was 99. Doctors, kept blind to the identity of their subjects, felt they were dealing with a 40-year-old in the blood tests. On bone density, Singh’s left leg was found to be comparable to that of a 35-year-old; his right leg had that of a 25-year-old.

More than six hours into the race, however, and at a distance of about 35K  or 22 miles it appeared as if Singh would be forced to stop. But he continued on, eventually finishing at a time of about eight hours and 25 minutes, more than six hours after Kenya’s Kenneth Mungara won the event. He finished in 3,850th place, ahead of five other competitors.

Singh who only speaks Punjabi stated in his native tongue, “Beating his original prediction, he’s absolutely overjoyed…having achieved his lifelong wish,” according to Harmander Singh.

Earlier, just before we came around the (final) corner, Singh said, ‘Achieving this will be like getting married again.’ ”

Fauja Singh’s Life Story

Singh is a pensioner in England who was a farmer in Punjab, India. He took up running in 10- when he moved to the UK and after his son and wife died. Originally he wanted to overcome depression after his tragic loss. He began to competitively run in 1989. Currently Singh practices by running 16k daily or about 10 miles a day. The centenarian was born on a farm in India in on April 1, 1911. The run marked the eighth marathon for Singh and he stands five foot eight inches tall and weighed in about 115 pounds at the marathon.

Fauja’s Demolishing of Running Records

The week before Singh demolished the records for 100-year-old men in eight sprinting distances at Scarborough’s Birchmount Stadium track.[i] This included running distances as short as 100 meters and as long as 5,000 meters.  He already owns a world record for fastest marathon run in the 90-year-old plus category after finishing in five hours, 40 minutes and one second in 2003 at the age of 92, also at the Toronto Marathon. He also set a record for runners over 90 in the half-marathon in 2004 (2 hours 29 minutes 59 seconds).

Another Marathon Planned

Earlier in September, Singh also signed up for the 2012 Edinburgh marathon and as part of a four man relay team with an average age of 86. The 5-foot-8 Singh said he hopes to participate in the torch relay for the 2012 London Olympics. He carried the torch during the relay for the 2004 Athens Games.

Fauja Singh’s Secrets

Among his “secrets” for staying fit, Fauja Singh is a vegetarian who eats ginger curry and toast daily and drinks ample cups of tea to prepare for his daily training runs.

“I am not a learned person in any shape or form. To me, the secret is being happy, doing charity work, staying healthy and being positive.   ”Be grateful for everything you have, stay away from people who are negative, stay smiling and keep running.”

Alan Brookes, race director for the Toronto marathon, said Fauja Singh is an inspiration to all athletes, young and old.

Through his running, Fauja Singh aims to raise money for local charities including, the Guru Gobind Singh Children’s Foundation, which has a mandate to help children meet basic needs.

Fauja added, ”I won’t stop running until I die.” Focused on finishing and not setting records, Fauja also stated that “getting records is God’s will. Part of it is I have no expectations, only a wish to do it and God made it possible.”

Turbaned Tornado

Fauja (whose name means “soldier”) has an authorized biography entitled The Turbaned Tornado, an apt nickname.

“He’s a remarkable human being,” added Brookes the race director, to the accolades.

“He’s having a great impact around the world on our sport but also much broader than that … to show what you can do with dedication, determination and a good dose of courage.”

Keywords: oldest marathon runner, oldest runner, 100 year old runner, 100 year old marathon runner, Fauja Singh sets world record,

Related Articles:

• World’s Oldest Marathon Runner Is a Simple Vegetarian
• At Age 100 Running a Marathon
• 4 Steps to a Perfect Running Pace
• Forget the Treadmill Get a Dog!
• Supreme Heart Health

7 Highly Effective

Fitness Habits

By Nathan Batalion, Global Health Activist, Editor Healingtalks

(Healingtalks) In the popular book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey points out seven effective habits that will change your life. It’s a popular book in the business world but why stop there? Let’s apply his habits to health and fitness.

Habit 1:

Be Proactive

Everything that you do, from sleep, to food, dealing with stress, and exercise, affects the health of your body and involves choices.Choose to go back for a second helping of Thanksgiving dinner, and there is a consequence. Take a month off of exercise – consequence. Being proactive means simply that you understanding ALL your choices impact your goals.

Habit 2:

Begin with the End Goal in Mind

Setting goals is the only way to get to where you’re going. Have you ever just gotten in your car, and started driving without a goal or destination? Did you end up where you wanted to go? Try this exercise. Get a piece of paper and a pen. Turn the paper long ways, and put a dot on either end of the paper. Now, put the point of the pen on one of the dots. While looking only at the point of the pen, draw a line to the other dot. Now, draw two new dots, and do the exercise again, only this time only look at the dot on the other side of the paper. When done, look at which line is straighter, and has fewer squiggles.

Habit 3:

Put First Things First or Prioritize

In all aspects of life, we must prioritize. You should take a weekly and even daily inventory of what those things are.
After completing Habit #2, your health and fitness should be included somewhere on this list. Depending on just how important your health and fitness is to you will determine its place on said list. Good idea to number your priorities on a short scale say 1-4. Then rearrange the list with all 1’s together, etc. Each day, those 1’s have to get done. When those are done, go to the 2′s, etc. If you get to any of the 4’s that’s, awesome. If not, they will wait.

Habit 4:

Think Win-Win

Including others into your goals in a win-win way. Get together with friends, workers, and family to run, take hikes, have healthy meals, go to the gym, etc.

Habit 5:

Seek to Understand, Rather Than to Be Understood

Don’t preach or try to look superior.  When exercising with other people; everybody has different skills and abilities. Some may not be able to keep up with you, or you with them.  Understand what you know,  while being thoughtful and respectful to others – and later this may lead to others wanting to know what you know.

Habit 6:

Synergize

Find strengths in others and put them to use for the benefit of the team. If you did habit 4 and 5, you probably already have some people in mind that can help you out. Look for unique skills in others that can be brought together. Now you run with the neighbor on Tuesday, lift weights with the receptionist’s husband on Thursday, and play b-ball with your cousin on Saturday.

Habit 7:

Sharpen

If you use a saw it will go dull over time. If you sharpen it, it will again cut wood. Constantly change things around, the way you exercise, detox, meditate, and eat. keep things alive. Don’t fall into a dead, mechanical routine.  Change training partners and settings.
Keep things fresh. If you do this your body, mind and spirit will be challenged to adapt and to reach new heights.

Also here is the author’s audio on the 8th Habit!

Keywords: seven habits of successful people, 7 habits of effective people,  7 successful habits, habits of highly successful people, 7 habits of highly effective people.

Based on an article by Todd Boyer at PhitZone.com

Keywords: Effective fitness habits, fitness habits, life style fitness, live for fitness, habits for health, fitness routines, ways to exercise, ways to build muscles, simple fitness

Four Ways to

Shed Belly Fat

Based on article by Deborah Kotz  http://health.usnews.com

Studies on Belly Fat and Waist Size

(Healingtalks) A study published  in the journal Circulation: Heart Failure indicates that having a large waist siZe ups your risk of heart failure, a condition that’s often fatal. A second study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that exercise doesn’t harm those with heart failure and could actually provide some benefits.

The analysis of the belly fat research, based on data from two Swedish population studies, showed that being overweight or obese increased the risk of heart failure in men but didn’t in women—unless they had a large waist size.

A woman with a normal body mass index of 25 whose waist size increased by 4 inches over the years wound up with a 15 percent greater risk of heart failure than those whose waist sizes remained the same. (A 5-foot, 4-inch woman who weighs 146 pounds has a BMI of 25.) Medical experts recommend that women maintain a waist size of less than 35 inches to reduce their risk of chronic diseases. How to measure your waist size.

Where you carry your fat is largely determined by your genes.  But there are certain things you can do to help redistribute fat away from your belly. Remember excess belly fat is so dangerous

Here are the four ways to keep a fit belly:

1. Exercise to shed that belly fat

You can’t exercise to spot reduce, but it will help you shed excess pounds — and often, the fat your body sheds first comes from your belly. Abdominal crunches can help tone muscles to make your stomach look flatter, but to truly get rid of fat, you have to burn off abdominal fat through aerobic activity.

2. Be a mindful eater

Researchers are currently investigating whether really paying attention to what you eat can help redistribute body fat from your waist to your hips. Plenty of studies, though, have shown that mindful eating can help with weight loss efforts in general. We recommend.moving in the direction of eating mostly fruits and vegetables, thus a vegetarian/vegan diet with mostly whole, raw, living foods.

3. Get adequate amounts of sleep

Too little sleep (less than six hours) or too much (more than eight hours) results in an excess production of the stress hormone cortisol. Cortisol promotes the storage of fat in the belly.

4. Reduce stress

Penciling in 15 minutes a day for relaxation can also lower your cortisol levels, helping you shed belly fat. Deep breathing, a stroll outdoors under the blossoming trees, or a bubble bath can help you leave the world behind.

____________________________________

The following is based on comment on weight loss from Dr. Mercola’s Website

Number One Way to Lose Body Fat – Exercise

If you’re looking for that six-pack physique, you need to expose the abdominal muscles underneath the fat. But can you really lose fat in just one specific area – the abdominals? It’s unlikely, although some strategies may be able to do so a little.

• Exercise is your number one ally in shedding unwanted body fat.
• It helps normalizing your insulin levels.
• It  also helps you sleep better – another important factor not only for optimal overall health but also, as it turns out, for avoiding packing pounds around your midsection.
• I alleviates stress, so that you have less of the hormone cortisol that is connected to producing stomach fat.

Best Exercises For Weightloss

When you’re exercising to achieve weight loss, you’ll want to focus on weight bearing exercises, as muscle burns calories quite efficiently. It has been my experience that non-weight bearing exercises, like swimming and bicycling, are not as efficient or effective for weight loss. You will typically need to exercise four times as long in these activities to receive the same benefit of running, using elliptical machine, or using weights.

Additionally, to really maximize your weight loss efforts, make sure you include high-intensity interval exercises and strength training in your program.

One recent study showed that interval training can significantly enhance your body’s ability to burn fat. In this study, eight women in their early 20s were told to cycle for 10 sets of four minutes of hard riding, followed by two minutes of rest. After two weeks, the amount of fat burned in an hour of continuous moderate cycling increased by 36 percent!

An added boon of interval exercises is that it can radically decrease the amount of time you need to spend exercising.

As far as individual exercises to target your tummy are concerned, sit-ups and abdominal exercises that are associated with breath control mechanisms, such as yoga exercises, can help tighten your abdominal muscles.

However, it’s important to keep in mind that there is no single abdominal exercise that challenges all your abdominal muscles. So you need to perform a variety of exercises that involve the full range of muscles.

Another factor that is often overlooked is your back muscles. Your back helps you hold yourself up and your stomach in, from behind. So having strong back muscles, as well as abs, is essential for a flatter stomach.

Exercise and Diet Go Hand in Hand

The other, equally important, factor in helping you shed excess weight is to consume the most appropriate foods for your specific genetic and biochemistry. Remember, the foods that may be healthy for others are not necessarily healthy for you, and vice-versa. Determining your specific nutritional type is the proven way to ascertain which foods work best for you.

It’s also important to realize that controlling your insulin levels is as important to optimizing your weight as it is to protecting you against diseases like diabetes.

Why?

Because when your insulin levels increase, you are telling your body to store carbohydrates as fat and to not release any of the stored fat. This makes it impossible for you to use your own stored body fat for energy.

So excess refined and processed carbohydrates in your diet (such as breads and pasta) not only make you gain weight, they make sure you keep that weight on. By cutting grains and sugars from your diet, you can significantly improve your chances of successful weight loss.

As far as nutrition to target belly fat specifically, certain dietary fats have actually been found to be helpful in reducing the accumulation of subcutaneous and visceral abdominal fat.

A study published in the journal Diabetes Care in July 2007 found that diets rich in monounsaturated fats prevented the accumulation of both types of belly fat, without additional exercise.

Foods high in monounsaturated fats include:

• Nuts, especially pecans
• Seeds
• Avocados

Dangerous Weightloss Options

Unfortunately, many people simply opt for what appears to be the easiest solution, and when it comes to excess weight around your middle, surgical options like liposuction or treatments such as Lipodissolve are popular alternatives.

However, you need to be aware that there are many risks involved in procedures like these, and they may not give you permanent results.

During a Lipodissolve treatment, a chemical found in lecithin (phosphatidylcholine deoxycholate) is injected into fatty areas such as “love handles” and “bra rolls,” where it dissolves fat cells. But the injectable compound is not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and no long-term studies have been conducted on Lipodissolve’s safety.

Among the chief questions about the procedure is where the fat cells go once they are dissolved. Lipodissolve practitioners say the cells are excreted by your body naturally, but no one really knows for sure. According to the FDA, Lipodissolve is a “buyer-beware situation.”

And when it comes to liposuction, a survey of plastic surgeons found that more people die during liposuction than during most other kinds of operations: 19 deaths per 100,000 procedures. Meanwhile the generally accepted death rate for any kind of elective surgery is 1 in 100,000. The most common reported cause of death was pulmonary thromboembolism, or blood clots.

There simply are no better alternatives to a healthy lifestyle if you want a strong and shapely body.

Can You Wake Up to a Flatter Belly?

So, what does proper sleep have to do with a flatter stomach? Researchers have found that all body fat is not created equal, and that holds especially true for belly fat. Abdominal fat has a very rich blood supply and has four times more cortisol receptors than other body fat.

Cortisol is a stress hormone, produced by your adrenal glands in response to stress, but sleeping too little (less than six hours) or too much (more than eight hours) also results in an excess production of cortisol.

The cortisol belly fat connection comes into play when you are under chronic stress, as cortisol tends to store unused fat that has been released by your body in the stress response. Since your belly fat contains large amounts of cortisol receptors, you may tend to gain fat in the abdominal region when you’re chronically stressed or have trouble sleeping properly.

For helpful tips to help you sleep well, please review my 33 secrets to a good night’s sleep. And, to help combat stress — and address any underlying emotional issues that may cause you to lose precious sleep — I highly recommend the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). It’s a simple psychological acupressure technique that is routinely used in my practice that can help you optimize your emotional health.

Keyword tags: living foods, studies of belly fat and waist size, shed belly fat, lose weight, shed pounds, exercise and eat for weight loss, how to lose weight and fat, interval training

Guidelines For

Optimal Aerobic

Exercise

By Dr. Mercola

Research has shown that replacing long cardio sessions with shorter, high-intensity burst-type exercises, such as Peak 8, actually produces GREATER results and in far less time!

Four years ago, the American College of Sports Medicine issued new guidelines on exercise, stating it must be “tough” in order for you to reap physiological benefits. This may seem confusing to some of you, so let’s reiterate a couple of key points you should always keep in mind, namely moderation, and individualization.

That said, their updated guidelines falls in line with other research showing the superior health benefits of high-intensity exercise.

In essence, it’s the intensity, not the duration, that is critical for producing optimal results. But again, the optimal intensity will vary from person to person.

As described in my Peak 8 program, after a three minute warm up, you want to raise your heart rate up to your anaerobic threshold for 20 to 30 seconds, followed by a 90 second recovery period. Then repeat that cycle for a total of eight repetitions.

To perform the sprint portion properly, you will want to get very close to, if not exceed, your maximum heart rate by the last interval. Your maximum heart rate is calculated as 220 minus your age. (Keep in mind you’ll need a heart rate monitor to measure this as it is nearly impossible to accurately measure your heart rate manually when it is above 150.)

These cycles are preceded by a three minute warm up and one and a half minute cool down so the total time investment is about 40 minutes, but the actual sprinting totals only four minutes!

But how is it possible to get better results with less exercise?

The “Magic” Factor of High-Intensity Exercise

The reason for this is because high-intensity exercises engage a certain group of muscle fibers that you cannot engage through aerobic cardio, and these engaging these muscle fibers cause a cascade of positive health benefits.

First, you need to understand that you have three different types of heart muscle fibers:

1. Slow
2. Fast
3. Super-fast

We now know that in order to naturally increase your body’s production of human growth hormone (HGH), you must engage your super-fast heart muscle fibers.

HGH is a vital hormone that is KEY for physical strength, health and longevity.

Neither traditionally performed aerobic cardio nor conventional strength training will work anything but your slow muscle fibers, and hence has no impact on production of HGH. On the contrary, it can unfortunately cause the super fast fibers to decrease or atrophy, further impeding natural HGH production.

Power training or plyometrics burst types of exercises will engage your fast muscle fibers, but only high-intensity burst cardio, such as Peak 8 exercises, will engage your super fast fibers and promote HGH, and that is the “magic” factor that explains why it’s so much more beneficial for you than traditional aerobic cardio.

Benefits of Peak Fitness Exercises

Once you regularly participate in these 20 minute exercises about twice a week, most people notice that it allows you to:

• Lower your body fat
• improve muscle tone
• Firm your skin and reduce wrinkles
• Boost energy and sexual desire
• Improve athletic speed and performance
• Achieve your fitness goals faster

“Bullet-Proof” Your Heart with the Right Type of Exercise

The take-home message here is that one of the best forms of exercise to protect your heart is short bursts of exertion, followed by periods of rest.

By exercising in short bursts, followed by periods of recovery, you recreate exactly what your body needs for optimum health. Heart attacks don’t happen because your heart lacks endurance. Heat attacks happen during times of stress, when your heart needs more energy and pumping capacity, but doesn’t have it.

If you have a history of heart disease or any concern, please get clearance from your health care professional before you start doing Peak 8 exercises. However, most people of average fitness will be able to do them—it is only a matter of how much time it will take you to build up to the full 8 reps.

The beautiful thing about this approach is that if you are out of shape you simply will be unable to train very hard as the lactic acid will quickly build up in your muscles and prevent you from over stressing your heart.

 Related Articles

Groundbreaking News: Forced vs. Voluntary Exercise

Exercise Mistake That’s Proven to Damage Your Heart

Symptoms You Can’t Ignore – Exercise for improving superficial circulation and other remedies

Supreme Heart Health

This past weekend I ran and won in my age group a local road race sponsored by the American Heart Association and held annual.

Age 61 or 29?

As part of the event’s draw, there was a heart-health expo that offers some heart health testing. With the testing it showed my blood pressure to be 109/68. More typically it is 110/70. With such a healthy blood steam in my body, I again came in first in my age group, as I usually do in these local races. This also may remind our readers of the other and similar blog post on “Sproutman, What the Tests Show – 60 or 29?.”

Thus for supreme heart and cardiovascular health, especially to avoid stokes, you should have a blood pressure in and around the lower bracket of the normal blood pressure range or 115/75. See the chart below. Pressure while the heart is beating is systolic blood pressure.  Pressure while the heart is relaxes is diastolic blood pressure.

Low, Average and High Blood Pressure Ranges

Normal Blood Pressure Range

Low Blood Pressure Range

See the chart below for age related blood pressure. Again mine was 109/68 and usually 110/70. Also my heart rate was 85, and this was after actively walking around (rather than a pure resting heart beat). My oxygen uptake was also in the 98 percentile, while what’s considered healthy is above 92%.

All of this is comparable to the health of a 25-29 year old though my biological age is 61. So here is the additional chart below of age-related rates:

Also to calculate your predicted maximum heart rate for exercise purposes use the calculation: 220 – (age) = Age Predicted Maximum Heart Rate, or see our Target Heart Rate Calculator and Chart
______________________________________________________________________________

For our overall natural health prescription for SUPREME HEART HEALTH we recommend the following. For let’s look at our diets.

A DIET THAT AVOIDS ALL CHRONIC  ILLS

The above results of mine are not accidental or genetically derived. They were consciously created.

They indicate a near total lack of plaque in the arteries, a major contributor to strokes and heart disease.  This is the result of my making major and serious lifestyle changes. You have to consider what is more important, to live to eat (to satisfy the palate) or to eat to live. With the latter you can learn delicious and masterful recipes, thereby having the best of both worlds.

Thus my prescription for supreme heart health includes the following:

DIETARY “YES-Es”
The best are dietary YES-es are:

• BABY GREENS – Home made sprouts and other baby greens as a staple.
• OTHER LIVING FOODS – Probiotic foods like sauerkraut and kimchee and fermented foods like non-GMO soy.
• RAW FOODS – All of the non-cooked plant-based foods, a variety of whole, organic fruits and vegetables, including nuts, beans, and seeds
• LIVING DRINKS - Probiotic drinks like kombucha tea
• LIVING JUICES – Fresh raw organic green and fruit juices and blends.
• BLENDED FOODS – Do you like sweet potatoes but don’t want to cook them to make these yummies digestible. Try blending.
• DEHYDRATED FOODS - Like crackers, cakes and cookies. Try dehydrating rather than baking to keep the life force in your foods
• LIVING SOUPS – Heat water to boiling, turn off the fire, and let it cool a bit before throwing in your favorite spices, fermented soy sauce, sprouts, veggies and so on.
• OMEGA-3 FATS – Preferably plant based like flax oil. Krill oil is an alternative as these tiny fish live on green plankton.

THE WHY’S

Why should you consider the above dietary choice in a major life-style, counter-cultural and inner consciousness change?

I will not give you the typical chemical explanation. This is because I know the chemical view, based on the mathematical philosophy introduced in the 17^th century by Sir Issac Newton, lacks real wisdom about what is at the core of nature and ourselves. It doesn’t get to the heart of the matter but actually takes us away. The chemical view, derivative of the mathematical,  is not based on a deep consciousness understanding – why we are polluting our bodies and our  environment so radically with artificial chemicals. Mathematics points to what is separate in nature, which in turn is the death principle in nature – why machines designed mathematically are not alive. They are made of separate interchangeable parts.

LIFE WORKS DIFFERENTLY

Life works differently. And that life and its consciousness is what is really at the core of nature, including our own nature and well being. Also only life begets life. So eating living foods is what will most keeps our bodies young, and healthy supreme. For health reasons, I even prefer a living animal-based diet, with uncooked fish or krill oil and the like, to one that is cooked. For compassion reasons rather I am a more pure vegan.

And the life force in nature shares a “universal consciousness.” This is shared even and especially by plants, touched by what we can metaphorically call the angels of sunlight, water and air. Now it is critically important to know that this consciousness forms a universal relationship of connection.

Therefore when you cut a living thing apart, it immediately begins to loose that consciousness, that life force (we say it “oxygenates” in the chemical model). We cry out in pain when our own bodies are cut in any way. This the reason why freshly squeezed juices which hold that connective life force must be drunk right away, within the first 20 minutes of squeezing (because the rest of the surrounding universe wants to reclaim that connective force once liberated from  protective inner membranes. We want that liberation to happen inside our bodies, so drink the juices immediately.

We also should avoid foods that are totally dry, have no fluid or water-rich content, or worse are both dry and systematically cut apart – namely milled, floured or any highly processed foods.

So this brings us to the No’s or not to eat foods.

DIETARY NO’s OR RESTRICTIONS

• No processed junk foods – Almost no refined sugars or flour products. No canned products. No soft drinks filled with sugars. Only a once in a while taste-satisfying cookie, bit of pasta, chips, or slice of bread or wrap. Of all cooked foods, those made of flour products  have the least vitality.
• No Saturated Animal Fats – Using plant-based nutrition or a vegetarian diet.
• No Fried foods, whether animal or plant based.
• Minimal Cooked Foods – Make sure your diet consists of at least 75% uncooked foods, mine is more typically 95-100% because when the food you take in is dead or devitalized, the quality of the cells it builds is the same.
• Minimal Vegetarian Oils (corn, soy, olive, etc), even if cold processed! This may come as a shocker but think about it. Oils are highly processed food artificially extracted and not whole foods prepared in our kitchen and eating within a few hours of making them while the vitality is still in tact. I learned the insight (avoiding even cold-pressed vegetable oils) from leading heart experts like Dr. Esselstyne. He routinely turns around cardiovascular disease, and within just three months,  by eliminating most oils, irrespective of whether they are vegetarian or meat-based. Fats are primarily our bodies meant to build very small, thin cell membranes, and not vitality.  So we just need a little bit of fats in our diet, about 5% of the diet. When extracted commercially, and then left to sit on supermarket shelves, oils oxidize. They become rancid and start to more harm than help our health. Again we don’t need much of them and when we do,  why not use the very best, such as omega-3 rich flax (mist be only a couple weeks old and stored in a dark refrigerated container), plus whole-food derived coconut fat and the fats that our body extracts from avocados and chia seeds.
• Minimal Sweets – High levels of sugar in the blood stream begin to deteriorate your blood vessels, even and especially fructose. Thus I shun any refined sugar products, rarely having honey or maple syrup and preferring the non-sweet citric fruits lemons, limes, and grapefruits as well as pineapples as my fruit stapes.  Avoid most dried fruits, except for as an occasional holiday treat or splurge for the week.

FOUR CORNERSTONES OF HEALING 

Diet, exercise, detoxification and mind/body work form the four cornerstones of  all of natural healing. They are the most vital and important things to recommend for supreme heart health as well:

• DIET – get the best of living, whole, organic nutrition into your body

• EXERCISE – at least one day a week, more typically 2-3. Do weight exercise to help bone density and short bursts of intense cardiovascular exercises to maintain heart health.

• DETOX - juice fast one day a week to clear out cellular debris that accumulates, and no matter how good the diet may appear. Also a seasonal one-week juice fast takes our health to another level. Consider other forms of detox, including colonic, liver cleanses, and saunas.

• MIND/BODY – Take care of your inner spirit. Consider \meditation, a spiritual discipline, or other ways to de-stress in life.

NATURAL HEALING WORKS

The above prescription for supreme health is really very simple and it works!  It just requires a major shift in consciousness, a mind and lifestyle change that goes against the core direction of our modern “polluted streams” – and toward a vital, heart-disease free and rich life.