SLEEP...Whats so important about it?

BEcome the WHOLE healthy YOU.

 We believe as one of the three critical  elements of BEcoming Whole, sleep is a far too often overlooked facet of WHOLE HEALTH.  Our research has located a quality article done through the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute,(NIH), WHY IS SLEEP IMPORTANT?
 Because  it is so well done and comprehensive we want to share highlights of the article with our readers.  We will do this in several parts and share links of the study so that you may do your own additional reading. The following are some of the topics covered.

Sleep Deprivation and Deficiency affects on health.

What systems of the body are affected by sleep deficiency?

How much sleep is enough ?

How do I know I have a sleep deficiency?

What should I do about getting better sleep?

What makes me sleep?

Who is at risk for sleep Deprivation and Deficiency?

Why do  all living creatures sleep?

Can you make up on lost sleep?

for more information go to: http//www.nihbi.nih.gov/book/export/html/4979

Eat right AND move!

Let's take a look at just one hormone in your body – insulin – and how it affects so many other things.

 

First, let's define two important words – insulin and glucose.

• Insulin is a hormone produced naturally by your pancreas. Insulin regulates carbohydrate and fat metabolism in your body.
• Glucose is produced when you eat food. Chronic, elevated blood glucose levels create a haphazard process within your body. It upsets the process that your body naturally undergoes in creating insulin.  The healthier the food you eat, the less blood glucose levels will elevate.  Eating vegetables does not raise blood glucose levels as much as processed/sugary foods will.

Insulin’s job is to allow the liver, muscle, and fat cells to use glucose from the blood. Those cells then use that glucose to make fuel for the body, and finally that fuel is stored as glycogen and tryglceride in the liver, muscle and fat tissue.

Insulin opens the gate to transport glucose. However, if you are inactive that gate cannot work properly. When this happens, glucose remains in the blood. The good news is that movement can re-open the gate to take more glucose out of the blood and allow the muscle to use glucose as energy.  Extra glucose is stored in the liver and fat cells.

When there is not enough insulin, sugar stays in the blood stream, which raises blood sugar levels, causing hyperglycemia.  Hyperglycemia damages nerves, eyesight and kidneys. You probably know this as diabetes.

When a person is diabetic, either he or she does not have enough insulin in the body to control blood sugar level, or there is more glucose in the blood than what the body’s natural production of insulin can handle.

When there is too much insulin in the body because of sudden spike in blood sugar level (poor food choice) and muscles are not being worked well (lack of movement), this is also a problem.

Chronic increase of insulin levels affect the chemicals that run the heart. Increased insulin also results in the kidneys retaining water, which in turn produces greater blood volume and higher blood pressure.

WE DO NOT WANT GLUCOSE TO STAY IN THE BLOOD.  At the risk of being redundant… when muscle cells are active glucose does not stay in the blood, it instead converts into energy.

In conclusion, to keep insulin in check – not too little or too much – you can eat healthy foods and participate in regular movement to allow your body to produce enough insulin naturally, and move glucose out of the blood, to BEcome the WHOLE healthy YOU!

An apple a day keeps the doctor away...but why?

What happens when you eat an APPLE? 

We know they are good for us.

We know they have lots of vitamin C.

We know they have these things called ANTIOXIDANTS.

But what really is so great about them?

You may be surprised to learn that not only do they have one or two vitamins and antioxidants, but according to T. Colin Campbell, author of the China Study and his newest book, Whole, the humble apple has over one thousand (1,000) phyto chemicals.  

 His research has supported other studies on how the genes are effected by what has been identified as ‘epigenes’.  The epigenes work on top of the gene to effect the gene either positively or negatively depending on what nutrients or toxins are acting upon the gene at any particular moment.

Therefore, when the gene at the cellular level has the many food nutrients available in these minute phytochemical* amounts the cell is in an environment to repair itself. Thousands of different metabolic activities occur at the cellular level.  

Consider this fact: 300,000,000 million cells are dying and being replaced every minute in a cellular repair or healing function.  When they do not have the nourishing foods needed for repair (phytochemicals) but instead have a deficiency of nutrients and or worse are exposed to toxins (another topic) they mutate.

If this is true of the humble apple it follows that all WHOLE foods eaten in their simplest state have the same miraculous actions in our body. We can see the various world wide variations in food types (ethnic foods) and can be assured that they all have what the body needs to be healthy.

The take away message is as Drs. Colin T Campbell, Joel Fuhrman, and Adiel Teloren advise to eat your foods in their WHOLE fresh state, locally grown if possible, and seasonally with a minimum amount  of processing.  And try not to get too hung up on 'organic'. According to Dr Fuhrman studies done connecting pesticide effects in humans were done when DDT was commonly used in agriculture and prior to 1972 and though it is no longer used on foods it is found in the environment as it is taken up by fish and shellfish and other animal flesh that we consume. It better to eat the fresh vegetables and fruits after proper washing and know you are benefiting from all the good chemicals they contain whether organic or not. By limiting the foods that may have levels of DDT you are choosing wisely. Keep in mind that it makes little sense to worry about contaminated foods and then have pesticidal sprays used abundantly around us. 

*phyto-chemical = micro-nutrients found in fresh vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds. These chemicals are much smaller than the macro-nutrients, carbohydrates, fats, proteins and all the vitamins we get in our daily vitamin pill.  Recent research has discovered at least 12,000 of these nutrients in natural unprocessed Whole plant foods. These compounds work synergistically at the cellular level in ways we are still learning about. 

Startling Facts About Fats

Startling facts about fats that may just save your life.

Do you know which fats and or oils are good for you?

Do you know which fats and or oils are bad for you?

 

Take a look at the ingredient label on any dressing bottle you purchase, at least 99.9% of them and you will find a type of vegetable oil such as: Soy bean, canola, flaxseed, peanut, corn, cottonseed, safflower, grapeseed.
 
All of these have been highly refined at high temperatures and high pressures with industrial solvents (such as hexane).
 
Yet we believe because we have been told that these vegetable oils are good for us that they really are. The real truth about them is that in our body they become pro-inflammatory agents due to their unstable fat chains.  They are composed of polyunsaturated fats which are the most highly reactive type of oil i.e. unstable and because of this they are highly oxidative meaning they make free radicals.  If you have more free radical from their metabolism than your body has antioxidants the inflammatory process is the result.  Over time inflammation unchecked is the basis of the most of the common diseases we are plagued with today.
 
How can this be so?  This lack of understanding about how the body biochemistry is affected by the biochemistry of food and “food products” is a growing body of knowledge.  We are just beginning to tap the miraculous nature of our body and the equally miraculous nature or WHOLE nutritious foods.
 

What are the best fats /oils to consume?

You may be surprised by this…

Extra Virgin olive oil

Virgin coconut oil

Acocado oil

 

And even butter (that from grass fed animal contain Vk2, omega 3s. and CLA conjugated linoleic acid) is better than vegetable oil.

Why?  Because these saturated fats are stable chained oils in the body and do not cause free radical metabolism.

So is this turning your world upside down?  Is it blasphemy?

Is it so contrary to what we have been led to believe?

Take a look at our world and what we see is a very unhealthy society of malnourished individuals.

It is unpleasant to think about how to begin to make change.. overwhelming to say the least. 

You can begin with you .. one bite of the apple at a time.. the WHOLE  apple and nothing but the WHOLE apple.

If you would like more of the nitty gritty on this controversial subject you may hear the 2 hours lecture “THE TRUTH ABOUT FAT” by Dr.T.Oren.  

Nutrition?...It's elementary!

A ….. is for APPLE

B …..is for BROCCOLI

C…. is for CAULIFLOWER

AN APPLE A DAY KEEPS THE DOCTOR AWAY!.... BUT WHY? 

Every apple contains thousands of antioxidants and phytochemicals ,  all of which work together to interact in thousands upon thousands of  metabolic reactions.  And that’s just the apple.  Cutting edge nutritional science is finding the gold in these simple common vegetables and fruits, the true essence of vital life at the cellular level. 

Nutrients, as we all know are what comes from food.  We also know that toxins are bad things and we sure don’t want any of them.  The problem is we don’t always know what is truly nutrient and we don’t always, and most often, don’t recognize the toxins.

This lack of knowledge of the vital essence of WHOLE foods is the root problem in a society of malnourished individuals where obesity is epidemic.

Epigenetics is another growing area of science which describes cellular activity.  The word epigenetic means on top of the gene.  These epigenes work to effect the gene in either a positive way or negative way.  The positive action is cellular repair, or what we can call healing.  Negative actions, called mutations, can be any of the precursors to disease development. The most recognized initial negative action is called “inflammation”, or the inflammatory process. 

 Dr. Walter Willet of the Harvard school of nutrition and public health has stated that 90% of diseases are nutrition related.  It follows then that changes in the foundations of nutrition can lead to elimination of many diseases by putting the body in an environment that allow it to heal itself  as it was created to do given half a chance.  Hippocrates stated over two thousand years ago, “Body”, heal thyself”.  Hippocrates, is accepted by today’s medical profession as the father of medicine. This does not seem evident in the current practice of medicine where the three modalities used are drugs, surgery or chemo-radiation therapies.  The statement made by Hippocrates “Let medicine be thy food and let food be thy medicine” is not a current day treatment modality.  

Let it be understood that nutrition is the true determinant of health.