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In this podcast I’ll be exploring Inflammation:
- I’ll explain how inflammation can be both beneficial and harmful to your health and wellbeing
- I’ll talk about some of the different causes of chronic low-level inflammation
- Finally, I’ll review the best ways to reduce inflammation in your body
CLICK HERE TO LEARN WHAT ARE THE BEST FOODS TO GET YOU LEAN
Inflammation is your immune system in action and what a beautiful natural act of Mother Nature it is. Your body has the innate intelligence to heal itself and works best when you feed it real food, water, sleep, movement, breath, and healthy relationships.
You have seen inflammation in action when you’ve had a cut or a bruise or had an infection. That part of your body gets red, it swells up, heats up, and sometimes there’s pain. If you can support your body’s innate healing process with natural healing therapies and then get out of its way and not interfere too much then overtime the injured area gets better and heals.
Inflammation is key to healing. Without it your immune system would never be called into action and you would never heal. However, there is a dark side to inflammation.
Acute inflammation is obvious to spot and simple to manage. With acute inflammation the inflammatory reaction is massive like a Hollywood movie explosion. Chronic ongoing inflammation on the other hand is hidden and difficult to deal with. With chronic inflammation the inflammatory response is more like a small match lighting up. No big ‘hey look at me!’ as with acute inflammation, but still a calling card for your immune system to wake up and to get into action. So your immune system reacts the exact same way whether you have acute or chronic inflammation.
Now there’s nothing wrong with your immune system doing it’s job, but there is an issue with the amount of work your immune system has to do. Acute inflammation comes and goes — job done. Chronic inflammation comes over like an unwanted family member who overstays their welcome and your immune system does everything it can to heal and so reduce and remove the inflammation, but that stubborn chronic guy just won’t leave. The more your immune system is active the more energy and nutrition it will use leaving you tired and without the proper building blocks to support other areas of your body.
Now as a result of your immune system being overworked and frustrated another more serious problem arises. The quality of the work that your immune system does starts to go down. Meaning your immune system that includes white blood cells, T cells, and B cells starts to confuse your own body tissue with foreign and infectious objects. So now your immune system begins to attack you causing damage to whatever part of the body is being mistakenly attacked. This is what an autoimmune disease is. The body reacting to and attacking itself. Examples of autoimmune diseases include:
- Multiple sclerosis
- Crohn’s disease
- Hashimoto’s thyroiditis
- Type 1 diabetes
- Vasculitis
- Rheumatoid arthritis
- Psoriasis
- Systemic lupus erythematosus
- Coeliac disease
By the way if you are dealing with an autoimmune condition I highly recommend the book The Wahls Protocol by Dr Terry Wahls. Dr Wahls has MS multiple sclerosis, but by following an ancestral evolutionary diet and lifestyle was able to get herself out of a wheelchair and onto a bicycle. A truly inspiring story and individual.
Anyhoo… Not only does chronic inflammation send inflammatory signals throughout your body causing the breakdown of bone, nervous tissue, and organs, but it also sends out fat-storing signals and interferes with normal hormone communication.
It is this chronic low-level inflammation that is barely detectable by you and your health practitioner that is at the root of almost every single disease not just autoimmunity.
Another thing with chronic inflammation is because it acts on such a low level throughout your entire body and remember that inflammation causes redness, swelling, hotness, and pain so if you are dealing with skin issues, are holding onto extra weight that just won’t leave, have areas of your body that are hotter than they should be or you’re dealing with pain realise that all of these are huge symptoms of being inflamed.
Okay so what causes chronic inflammation?
Well a pro-inflammatory diet made up of fake pretend food-like products would be number one on the list. Remember 80% of your immune system lives in your gut because it has to deal to all the foreign stuff that comes through your gastrointestinal tract. So if you’re eating highly inflammatory foods your immune system will go into overdrive. Hello inflammation and hello disease.
The biggest fake food culprit of them all is industrial seed oils aka vegetable oils. These oils are full of trans fats as well as oxidised rancid damaged fats. When your fat-burning enzymes attach to a trans fat to metabolise it they can’t. It’s not a real fat. But now they’re stuck to this trans fat molecule stopping them from burning other fats. This can lead to an increase in your waistline.
Your cell membranes are made up of fat. If these trans fats get integrated into your cell walls then their integrity and stability begins to weaken leading to a damaged dysfunctional cell. Also, the cell receptors on the surface of the cell will be morphed into unnatural shapes preventing them from receiving nutrition and eliminating waste in and out of the cell. Trans fats are deadly to the cell and deadly to your body.
These seed oils are mostly made up of fragile omega-6 fats that get easily damaged when exposed to heat, light, and will go rancid after very short periods of time. When eaten these fats create damaging free radicals in your body and without enough antioxidants these free radicals will cause a whole host of diseases.
Second biggest baddie when it comes to chronic inflammation and food is processed and refined sugar and grains like flour and products made with them. When you eat any processed grain like bread, doughnuts, cooked corn even these metabolise in the body and turn in an instant into sugar. So there’s literally no difference between eating a piece of wholemeal bread or a cookie and eating a few teaspoons of sugar. Same goes with fizzy drinks and fruit juices. These are all sugar when they hit your mouth, your gut, and your liver.
A diet high in sugar leads to too much sugar being left in the blood causing the sugar molecules to stick to cells in the bloodstream. This process is called glycation and the new molecule that forms is called an Advanced Glycation Endproduct or AGE. AGEs block immune cells from getting into damaged tissues in need of repair stopping the reduction of inflammation.
Excess sugar consumption also raises insulin levels. Insulin is a fat-storing hormone and when this is high fat-burning is switched off. Insulin also triggers the release of interleukin-6 or IL-6 which is an inflammatory and anti-inflammatory molecule, but tends to create more inflammation in your body.
Wheat, pasteurised milk, table salt, instant coffee and any other processed and packaged industrialised fake food-like product are pro-inflammatory to your body. So if you love fast food, cheap food, and don’t know the difference between a spinach leaf and a cabbage leaf you my friend are probably full of inflammation.
Another cause of chronic inflammation is having the omega-6 and omega-3 ratio of fats in your diet out of balance. These two fats are essential to health and essential here literally means your body cannot make these fats therefore you must eat them. Now omega-6 is a pro-inflammatory fat, whereas omega-3 is anti-inflammatory. Our ancestors had the perfect 1:1 ratio of omega-6s to omega-3s in their diet. Today western societies have been estimated to be eating a ratio of omega-6s to omega-3s of 20:1 or more!
Going back to the seed oils and grains these are mostly omega-6 fats. Any wonder now why we live in an inflammation nation!
Stress of all types physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual cause the release of stress hormones in the body that can have an anti-inflammatory effect by suppressing your immune system. However, chronic stress with stress hormones left to linger in the body for long periods of time makes for a weakened immune system and creates more inflammation. Stress can cause damage to the mucosal barriers in your body making them more permeable and porous than they should be. So stress can cause your skin as well as your gut to become leaky leading to skin and gut inflammation and disease.
Sleep deprivation can make you as insulin resistant as a diabetic. Insulin resistance means your cells no longer pay attention to insulin leaving a lot of insulin and sugar in your bloodstream. So with insulin resistance comes more inflammation due to high levels of insulin and sugar.
Being overweight and obese is also inflammatory. Fat isn’t just a grouping of cells sitting around waiting for you to burn it as energy. Fat is actually an endocrine organ meaning it produces hormones. Adiponectin is a fat hormone used to control the metabolism of fats and sugars. It also makes you more insulin sensitive.
Another hormone that fat produces is called leptin. Leptin has been called the master hormone because not only does it tell you when you’re full it also looks controls other glands and hormones in your body. Problem with leptin is if you have too much leptin you will have a lot of inflammation to go with it. This is because leptin is also an inflammatory signalling molecule. So the more fat you are holding onto the more leptin you will have and the more inflammation you will get.
One last thing about food. Even if you’re eating organic and naturally raised real food you still may be causing yourself more harm than good if you’re eating foods you are allergic or have a sensitivity to. A food allergy is an immediate reaction to a food that you’ve eaten. A food sensitivity or intolerance could take hours, days or even up to a week before you get a reaction from that particular food. Food allergies and sensitivities are serious business when it comes to causing stress and inflammation in your body. These foods can cause inflammation in the gut making it leaky. If these foods were to get into your bloodstream further inflammation would go on in your body.
Being exposed to toxins industrial or natural makes for more inflammation in your body in more ways than one. The toxins alone cause inflammation and an immune response. Along with this though any toxins that are not metabolised properly by your liver get stored in your fat cells. The more toxins your body cannot eliminate the fatter you get (it’s not just about the calories people, in fact it hardly ever is). Anyhoo, remember with more fat there’s more leptin and more inflammation.
Electromagnetic fields (EMFs) cause a buildup of positive electrons in your body that act as free radicals damaging you from the inside out creating more inflammation.
All this fake food, stress, and toxin exposure also creates an imbalance of the microorganisms in your gut. A healthy gut will have a ratio of 85% probiotics (the good guys) to 15% pathogens (the bad guys). People with unhealthy diets and lifestyles have been shown to have a ratio of 15% good to 85% bad microorganisms. This imbalance is called dysbiosis. Dysbiosis causes many issues in your gut including malnutrition, leaky gut syndrome, and inflammation. Pathogens create endotoxins in your gut that will create inflammation and if these endotoxins get through a leaky gut into your bloodstream then inflammation will occur in other areas of your body.
Alrighty then let’s get into how you can reduce the heat in your life and be more cool like a cucumber, i.e. reduce your inflammation.
Eat an anti-inflammatory diet.
As an old English proverb says:
“Don’t dig your grave with your own knife and fork.”
By eating foods that are less pro and more anti-inflammatory you will dramatically reduce the immune response in your system. Stick to real foods organically and naturally raised that give more life force than they take. My free e-book describing the top superfoods in the world is a good guide for this. You can get it for free simply by signing up to the Whole Guidance newsletter at wholeguidance.com.
If you have some excess weight you’d like to let go of maybe a lower carbohydrate diet would be a path you can try walking down just for a month or two. By reducing your sugar intake not only will you reduce the inflammation and your risk of disease by reducing your insulin production, you may just find your body composition begin to normalise back into a healthy range reducing your leptin production.
Eat for a better omega-6 to omega-3 ratio. A healthy ratio of these essential fats would be 4:1 omega-6s to omega-3s with 1:1 being the ideal. Now this doesn’t necessarily mean get more omega-3 and drop the omega-6 because you don’t want to go to the opposite extreme as well. Take a good hard look at your diet and try and calculate how much more omega-6 fat foods are you eating compared to omega-3 fat foods. Are you eating a lot of seed oils or foods made and cooked with them?Are you eating too many baked food products made with flours? Cut back on these high omega-6 pro-inflammatory foods. Instead focus on omega-3 sources of food the best being cold water oily fish like wild-caught salmon, sardines, mackerel, and herring. Even chia seeds and flax seeds can provide a little omega-3 nutrition and by little I do mean very little, but I tells ya’ I love me some chia cacao vanilla cinnamon pudding way better compared to a gooey glop of porridge.
Eat for gut health. So don’t just eat for you, but also eat for your gut microbiome. Your probiotics need to eat just as much as you do and they love soluble fibre and resistant starch. So basically eat plenty of fibrous vegetables. Grains have too high of a fibre to nutrition ratio so even if you did go with some whole grains you’d want to limit them. If you’re wondering about fruit sure eat plenty of fruit as long as you don’t have any weight and metabolic issues such as diabetes or heart disease.
Taking a probiotic with many different strains of bacteria and with high potency meaning it has a high number of them per serving is also a great way to support your gut health.
Obviously the best way to support your gut health is by eating fermented foods. Sauerkraut and kefir are my favourite. You can learn more about fermented foods in my free e-book.
Drink quality natural spring and artesian water or water that has been filtered. The best solution for pollution is dilution and seeing as inflammation is your body on fire some nice cooling water will be exactly what the holistic doctor ordered.
Get quality restorative sleep. Your body runs on a circadian cycle that follows the cycles of the sun and the moon. As a general guideline you want to be in bed by 10p and up around 6a. Listen to episode 5 on sleep for more info.
Manage your ability to handle stress. There are many different ways to improve your stress resiliency including meditation and mindfulness practises. I explained how I personally reduce my perception of stress back in episode 3 so you might want to listen to that.
Finally, reduce your toxic and EMF exposure. You will never ever be able to live a toxic and EMF free life, but you can dramatically reduce how much exposure you get to these pro-inflammatory materials everyday. Check out the previous Whole Guidance podcast episode I did on how to detox your life for more information.
Links and Resources
- The Wahls Protocol — Terry Wahls MD and Eve Adamson
- WGP 005: Are You Getting Enough Sleep?
- WGP 003: How Stress is Making You Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead
- WGP 012: How to Love Your Liver and Detox Your Life
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In this podcast I’ll be exploring the topic of Detoxification:
- I’ll talk about the health impacts of having excess toxins in your body and explain how your innate detoxification system works
- I’ll talk about the hidden toxins that could be lurking in your environment
- Finally, I’ll share some tips on how to support your innate detoxification system
CLICK HERE TO LEARN WHAT ARE THE BEST FOODS TO GET YOU LEAN
Today there are over 85,000 industrial chemicals in the environment. Globally this equates to 310 kg (685 lbs) of toxic chemicals being released into the air, on land, and in waterways every second.
Toxic industrial chemicals are all around us and are the price we pay for civilisation and advanced technology.
Even newborn babies have been shown to have on average over 250 toxic chemicals in their umbilical cord blood. 180 of these chemicals were carcinogenic meaning cancer causing compounds.
The health impacts of toxic exposure include:
- Neurological disorders
- Endocrine disruption causing hormonal imbalances
- Unstable blood sugar
- Accelerated aging
- Digestive disorders causing malnutrition
- Fatigue and low energy
- Reduced bone integrity and muscle mass
- Increased fat gain
- Autoimmune diseases
- Weakened immune system
- Increased inflammation and of course again
- Promote tumour growth aka cancer
Now our ancestors never had to deal with such an overload of toxins. They would only have been exposed to a foreign toxic chemical if they lived by an active volcano, were exploring underground caves, or came across an unknown species of plant or venomous animal.
Your body has an innate intelligence that breathes you, that beats your heart, that helps you grow, that heals and repairs you, and also detoxifies you.
Fortunately for our ancestors their innate detoxification system could function without much strain or stress. Unfortunately for us that’s just not the world we live in today. Industrial chemicals, heavy metals, naturally occurring biotoxins, electromagnetic fields and radiation, high levels of perceived stress these all create a toxic load on the body and your body’s innate ability to detox is near breaking point every day.
There are two types of toxicity or toxic exposure.
Acute or sudden toxicity means your body has been exposed to a high dose of a single toxin creating an immediate reaction in your body also known as being poisoned.
Chronic or gradual toxicity means your body has been exposed to extremely low doses of many different toxins creating a slow and steady response over time.
This doesn’t mean chronic toxicity is not as bad as acute. Far from it. Both acute and chronic toxicity are equal in how they affect your life. While one will kill you in the moment the other will kill you slowly, but surely over time.
In order to explain how chronic toxicity makes for a slow and painful death I need to talk about mitochondria. These are the parts of a cell that convert fatty acids, lactic acid, and glucose a sugar molecule into physical energy. So these guys are the power-plants, the energy centres of the cell and your entire body.
A quick side note it is believed that mitochondria were one of the first single-celled organisms to have evolved billions of years ago and the fact that they have their own DNA separate to the cell and to you supports this idea. So mitochondria are bacteria that use the human body as a vehicle to feed themselves. Trippy huh? Now if you also think about the fact that there are 10 times more microorganism cells than human cells and 100 times more microorganism DNA than human DNA in your body it kind of makes you wonder… who’s running what now? I mean that’s a bit of a mind cluster right there. Definitely makes me come back to that age old question, ‘Who am I?’.
Anyhoo back to chronic toxicity… any excess toxins that your body cannot detoxify and process gets stored in your fat cells. Now why I bring up mitochondria is that these guys metabolise fat for energy and it is believed that low levels of fat-soluble toxins can poison the mitochondria. So these poisoned mitochondria are unable to metabolise these fat-soluble toxins leaving your body no choice but to store them in your fat cells increasing your waistline.
Also poisoned mitochondria are unable to metabolise glucose which leaves more sugar in the blood. Sugar in your blood begins to stick to other cells and proteins damaging them leading to accelerated aging, tumour growth aka cancer, and diabetes.
Finally with less mitochondria creating energy in your body you become fatigued and tired all the time.
So the next time you hear some authoritative figure say that your exposure to environmental toxins, to toxins in your food, at home and at work is too small to have an affect on your health realise that they’re right. But at the same time they’re wrong because these very small toxins will affect the very small energy centres in your body called mitochondria and one day you’ll wake up fat, sick, and nearly dead.
Your liver is the main detoxifying organ of the body, but it also plays many other roles that help keep you alive.
Your liver:
- Filters blood containing food nutrition from your gut
- Produces protein and cholesterol
- Stores energy as glycogen
- Turns excess sugar into fats
- Produces bile needed to digest fats
- Stores iron and vitamins and
- Detoxifies toxins and breaks down medications and drugs
As you can see your liver is a busy bee. Remember liver stands for life, for living, and the more you can support it the better your life will be. No doubt about it.
There are two phases that toxins, leftover hormones, medications and drugs, and other waste products go through when being processed by your liver.
Phase 1 neutralises the toxin setting it up for phase 2 which prepares the toxin for elimination via your bowels or your kidneys. If you find yourself constipated due to dehydration, poor nutrition, lack of movement, improper breathing, or high stress levels then the waste products in your poo will be reabsorbed back into your body and will either cause harm or have to go through a second round of detoxing causing extra strain and stress on your liver.
Phase 1 mainly uses vitamins and phytonutrients (plant nutrients), whereas phase 2 uses sulfur and amino acids. So you want to be eating plenty of vegetables and some animal and fruit fats to support phase 1 and plenty of sulfur-rich veggies as well as some animal meat to support phase 2.
I’ll put a link to the different micronutrients your liver uses in each phase in the show notes for this episode up on the Whole Guidance blog.
Your liver has a family of detoxification enzymes used to process external foreign toxins as well as internal natural toxins. There are different pathways in your liver a toxin can take in order for it to be processed for detoxification and elimination. If your liver enzymes or detox pathways get overloaded with a particular toxin then that enzyme and pathway will no longer be available to process other toxins that need them. Not only that, but if a toxin has to use an alternative pathway additional toxins, waste products, and damaging free radicals get produced causing more strain and stress on your liver.
For example, pain killers and alcohol these use the exact same detox enzymes and pathways in the liver. If you take these two toxins (yes alcohol is a low dose toxin), if you take them together then one or the other is going to last longer in your body causing side-effects. Now your liver will usually begin detoxing the alcohol first leaving the pain killer to have to use a different detox route. The problem with the pain killer having to go down this other detox pathway is that it creates a new waste product. This new waste product can only be taken care of by your body’s own innate antioxidant called glutathione. So now your body is having to produce more glutathione to neutralise this new waste product and your liver is having to do double-duty in having to process this new waste product again creating extra energy and nutrient demands on your body.
Bottom line is your liver requires a lot of energy and resources to function properly and if there’s an overload of toxins in your system then your liver is going to have to do more work draining energy and nutrients from other parts of your body. The less work your liver has to do the more energy and the more vitality you will feel and the better you will perform in life.
Toxins are hiding in everyday consumer products. You would think that if something was bad for you that your national government and local authorities wouldn’t allow it to be displayed on a store shelf and sold. But unfortunately we live in a world where dollars talk louder than cents. Literally money is more important in current society than common sense and well-being.
When it comes to food there are organophosphate chemicals used to poison life sprayed on crops and produce. Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are sold as healthy. Growth hormones and antibiotics are used to increase sales of cattle, pork, and chickens. Naturally occurring metals like lead and mercury and other industrial chemicals bioaccumulate in seafood with the larger fish biomagnifying the effects. You are what you eat and your liver detoxifies what you eat and if you think your poor liver doesn’t have to deal with the chemicals, foreign genes, hormones, and drugs you get from the food you eat — you’re living in a dream world my friend.
Your kitchen is a potential toxic bomb. Are you still using teflon and non-stick cookware because it’s easier to cook with and to clean. Uh-oh. Perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs) including perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) are what makes things non-sticky and are bad news for your liver and for your life if you wish to live it cancer free.
How about food containers? Do you use plastic food containers made with polyethylene, polypropylene, phthalates, bisphenol A (BPA) and bisphenol S (BPS)? These are all endocrine disruptors causing you to have unbalanced hormones and interferes with proper child growth and development, e.g. girls maturing earlier and boys developing more physical female attributes.
Don’t forget tap water is laced, yes I said laced with bleach aka chlorine and an industrial waste product that makes you and your children stupider than a single-celled amoeba called fluoride.
Home cleaning, air freshening, and laundry products are definitely a mass of toxic sludge.
- Ammonia
- Chloramine gas
- 1,4-dioxane
- Chloroform
- Bleach
- Phthalates
- Toluene
These are but a few of the chemical ingredients lurking in your living and working habitats.
Shower curtains! Most of these are made out of polyvinyl chloride aka PVC plastic and outgas, they release volatile organic compounds (VOCs) such as dioxins, xylene, and toluene that have no business anywhere near your liver. Every time you’re having a hot shower the increase in temperature only makes the PVC outgas even more.
Personal care products. Oh man talk about a toxic soup of epic proportions. Hair, skin, mouth products, deodorants and antiperspirants, cosmetics, antibacterial sanitisers (I used to love those things), soaps, sunscreens, baby wipes, diapers, tampons, pads etc these all have the following toxic crap. It’s a bit of a long list, but let’s do this.
- Aluminium or aluminum
- Chlorine
- Dioxins
- Furans
- Phthalates
- BPA and BPS
- Benzyl acetate
- Parabens
- Sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS)
- Sodium laureth sulfate or sodium lauryl ether sulfate (SLES)
- Ammonium lauryl sulfate (ALS)
- Sodium pareth sulfate
- Triclosan
- Cocamide diethanolamine (cocamide DEA)
- Diethanolamine (DEA)
- Monoethanolamine (MEA)
- Triethanolamine (TEA)
- Monoisopropanolamine (MIPA)
- Ethoxylated alkyl amine (PEG)
- Oxybenzone
- Avobenzone
- Octisalate
- Octocrylene
- Homosalate
- Octinoxate
- Sodium polyacrylate
Phew!
Finally synthetic fragrance. Whenever you see fragrance on a product remember that this one single word will have 10s of ingredients hidden behind it. It’s a loophole that businesses use to hide what they don’t want consumers or their competitors to see.
The clothing you wear also affects your health. If your clothes contain synthetic plastics and metals than these will interfere with your hormones and energy signature. This includes stain-resistant clothing.
Your furniture and carpets will be outgassing toxic chemicals including flame retardants. Baby’s new crib, could be a cesspool of poison. That new car smell, that ain’t sunshine and roses my friend. That’s a burden on your liver.
Also electromagnetic fields (EMFs) and toxic relationships create additional stress for your liver. Wifi signals, cell towers, electronic gadgets, stress, and stinkin’ thinkin’ all create an imbalance in your energetic being, your aura, your energy vortices known as chakras. Chakras that are out of sync create havoc with your physical, emotional, and mental bodies. This is due to the EMFs and perceived stress in your life causing a buildup of positive electrons in your cells that act as free radicals that damage your body from the inside out.
Okay I know that was a lot to take in, but if you want a happy and healthy life you need to know what could be causing your liver to be weak and tired and in turn making you feel weak and tired.
So right now you need to ask yourself one question:
“Do I have toxins in my body?”
The answer is a brutal yet life-changing YES!
Brutal because industrial chemicals have been found in Antarctic ice and at the tops of mountain ranges around the world. We live in a toxic world and there’s no running or hiding from it.
Life-changing because now that you know better you can do better.
So your goal isn’t to go fleeing into the woods or some cave high up in the Himalayas. You cannot escape being exposed to toxins.
What you can do though is dramatically reduce that toxic load.
The following is a list of the top 10 things you can do to love your liver and detox your life:
1. Eat organic naturally raised produce and animals that aren’t genetically modified and haven’t been treated with chemicals. You can grow and raise your own food or buy local from farmers markets.
Eat large fish like tuna on rare occasions and focus more on small fish like wild-caught sardines and salmon as well as seafood.
Remember to eat a variety of different coloured vegetables to support your liver’s first phase of detoxification and eat plenty of sulfur-rich vegetables and some animal protein to support the second phase.
According to the 5 Element theory in traditional Chinese medicine sour foods are great for supporting the liver. So a tea made with freshly squeezed lemon juice and freshly grated ginger would be ideal for loving your liver.
Drinking fresh vegetable juices (not fruit juices) with some lemon or lime and ginger is another liver tonic.
2. Drink spring, artesian, and filtered water.
3. Take liver supporting supplements that contain milk thistle extract silymarin and dandelion root.
4. Use cast iron, ceramic, stainless steel, or glass cookware and food containers.
5. Swap out standard home care and personal care products for ones with organic natural plant-based ingredients or make your own. There are plenty of recipes online on how to make natural all-purpose cleaners, toothpaste, and deodorants.
6. Wear clothes made of natural fibres. Hemp and wool are awesome choices as even some cotton today is genetically modified.
7. Buy furniture that is made without volatile organic compounds and fire retardants. Air out any new furniture, a new car, or a newly renovated house for a few days to a week before using.
8. Turn off wifi and any electronics that aren’t in use. Ground yourself to the Earth every day by spending at least 30 minutes with bare skin to soil, grass, and sand.
9. Let go of resentment. See everyone as another version of you living in another set of clothing in a different pair of shoes. Just as you had no control on the body you were given and the parents that you were born with neither did anyone else. Realise we are all finding our unique way through life and we all have our own personal ways to express love. Doesn’t mean we will understand each other’s expression, but at least we can understand we are all trying to express that One Love that drives us all.
10. Manage yourself when it comes to handling stress through proper breathing, meditation, sleeping, hydration, nutrition, exercise and play, and by being out in nature.
Links and Resources
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The Big Fat Surprise – Nina Teicholz
(Buy from Amazon; Buy from The Book Depository)
A New York Times bestseller
Named one of The Economist’s Books of the Year 2014
Named one of The Wall Street Journal’s Top Ten Best Nonfiction Books of 2014
Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Books of 2014
Forbes’s Most Memorable Healthcare Book of 2014
Named a Best Food Book of 2014 by Mother Jones
Named one of Library Journal‘s Best Books of 2014
In The Big Fat Surprise, investigative journalist Nina Teicholz reveals the unthinkable: that everything we thought we knew about dietary fat is wrong. She documents how the low-fat nutrition advice of the past sixty years has amounted to a vast uncontrolled experiment on the entire population, with disastrous consequences for our health.
For decades, we have been told that the best possible diet involves cutting back on fat, especially saturated fat, and that if we are not getting healthier or thinner it must be because we are not trying hard enough. But what if the low-fat diet is itself the problem? What if the very foods we’ve been denying ourselves—the creamy cheeses, the sizzling steaks—are themselves the key to reversing the epidemics of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease?
In this captivating, vibrant, and convincing narrative, based on a nine-year-long investigation, Teicholz shows how the misinformation about saturated fats took hold in the scientific community and the public imagination, and how recent findings have overturned these beliefs. She explains why the Mediterranean Diet is not the healthiest, and how we might be replacing trans fats with something even worse. This startling history demonstrates how nutrition science has gotten it so wrong: how overzealous researchers, through a combination of ego, bias, and premature institutional consensus, have allowed dangerous misrepresentations to become dietary dogma.
With eye-opening scientific rigor, The Big Fat Surprise upends the conventional wisdom about all fats with the groundbreaking claim that more, not less, dietary fat—including saturated fat—is what leads to better health and wellness. Science shows that we have been needlessly avoiding meat, cheese, whole milk, and eggs for decades and that we can now, guilt-free, welcome these delicious foods back into our lives.
Disclaimer: This page contains affiliate links that may provide monetary compensation to help support the Whole Guidance Vision of Creating a Happy and Healthy Planet should you make a purchase. We very much appreciate and thank you for your support.
Holistic and Functional Health Practitioners such as myself do not treat symptoms or disease. We treat you, the person.
Symptoms and disease are the last expression of an underlying problem happening in your body.
As health detectives we dig deeper and investigate further to uncover the root cause of dysfunction in your body. Once we find the real issue, the root cause and restore function back to those weakened areas of your body the symptoms and disease will eventually heal.
Besides working with me you can locate other like-minded Holistic and Functional Health Practitioners at the following websites.
Picture: Stuart Miles | freedigitalphotos.net
Podcasts are digital audio programmes similar to a radio show.
You can download a majority of podcasts for free to your computer or smart mobile device using applications such as iTunes, Stitcher, and Pocket Casts.
Below you will find a premium selection of wellness podcasts that will assist you in improving many different areas of your life including health, wealth, love, and happiness.
- Wise Traditions – Weston A. Price Foundation, Hilda Labrada Gore (download from iTunes)
- The Model Health Show – Shawn Stevenson (download from iTunes)
- Love-Life – Jane Donovan (download from iTunes)
- Soul Doctor – Rebecca Dettman (download from iTunes)
- The One You Feed – Eric Zimmer (download from iTunes)
- Happier with Gretchen Rubin – Gretchen Rubin and Elizabeth Craft (download from iTunes)
- The Quote of the Day Show – Sean Croxton (download from iTunes)
- Bruce Lee Podcast – Shannon Lee (download from iTunes)
- The Cognitive Rampage – Adam Lowery (download from iTunes)
- Tangentially Speaking – Dr Christopher Ryan (download from iTunes)
- The Tim Ferriss Show – Tim Ferriss (download from iTunes)
- Up For A Chat – Carren Smith, Cyndi O’Meara, Kim Morrison (download from iTunes)
- Balanced Bites – Diane Sanfilippo and Liz Wolfe (download from iTunes)
- Rewild Yourself! Podcast – Daniel Vitalis (download from iTunes)
- Katy Says with Katy Bowman – Katy Bowman (download from iTunes)
- Ben Greenfield Fitness – Ben Greenfield (download from iTunes)
- Fitness Confidential with Vinnie Tortorich – Vinnie Tortorich (download from iTunes)
- The Fat-Burning Man Show – Abel James (download from iTunes)
- Jocko Podcast – Jocko Willink and Echo Charles (download from iTunes)
- The Joe Rogan Experience – Joe Rogan (download from iTunes)
- Bulletproof Radio – Dave Asprey (download from iTunes)
- Revolution Health Radio – Chris Kresser (download from iTunes)
- The Sean Croxton Sessions – Sean Croxton (download from iTunes)
- Body IO FM – John Kiefer and Dr Rocky Patel (download from iTunes)
- Underground Wellness Radio – Sean Croxton (download from iTunes)
Picture: digitalart | freedigitalphotos.net
There are over four billion websites online dedicated to health, dieting, and weight loss.
With mainstream advice not working for a lot of people and the fact that most of it often contradicts itself where does one go for consistent practical wellness information that works for 99% of individuals when applied in the real world?
Below you will find 20 websites that are the pick of the wellness bunch that are backed by human history and factual non-political, non-financed science. These websites also have real world evidence as reported by real people who have healed and cured themselves following the lifestyle recommendations and whole food recipes that are detailed within.
Click through to a better, stronger, healthier, and happier you.
- WestonAPrice.org
- PaulCheksBlog.com
- UndergroundWellness.com
- ChrisKresser.com
- MarksDailyApple.com
- PerfectHealthDiet.com
- Body.io
- FatBurningMan.com
- BenGreenfieldFitness.com
- RobbWolf.com
- BalancedBites.com
- BulletproofExec.com
- GlutenFreeAnna.com
- WellnessMama.com
- NomNomPaleo.com
- CivilizedCavemanCooking.com
- EatDrinkPaleo.com.au
- NourishedKitchen.com
- AgainstAllGrain.com
- ZenbellyCatering.com
Have you ever attended a conference, seminar, or workshop and wished to yourself that you had a video or audio recording? What about having a full transcription of the entire event that you can read at your own leisure?
The online seminar or summit scene is very popular at the moment. You get options for video, audio, and transcripts that you can purchase for lifetime access.
The following health summits are the most cost-effective way to educate and upskill yourself in your own time and improve you and your family’s health and well-being along the way.
- The Gluten Summit – from theDr.com
(visit product page) - Real Food Con – from UndergroundWellness.com
(visit product page) - Detox Summit – from FoodandSpirit.com
(visit product page) - Digestion Sessions – from UndergroundWellness.com
(visit product page) - Thyroid Sessions – from UndergroundWellness.com
(visit product page) - Evolution of Medicine Summit – from FunctionalForum.com
(visit product page) - Paleo Summit – from UndergroundWellness.com
(visit product page)
Picture: Stuart Miles | freedigitalphotos.net
Disclaimer: This page contains affiliate links that may provide monetary compensation to help support the Whole Guidance Vision of Creating a Happy and Healthy Planet should you make a purchase. We very much appreciate and thank you for your support.
The Diet Cure – Julia Ross
(Buy from Amazon; Buy from The Book Depository)
Combining your body’s Paleolithic needs with modern nutritional and medical research for complete mind-body wellness.
For the more than 160 million overweight Americans, dieting is a failure. Based on more than twenty years of proven clinical results, The Diet Cure‘s revolutionary approach curbs food cravings and restores the brain’s mood and appetite chemistry in twenty-four hours. Beginning with her 8-Step Quick Symptom Questionnaire, celebrated nutritional psychotherapist Julia Ross helps readers identify their unique underlying biochemical imbalances and provides targeted strategies to correct those imbalances using nutritional supplements to jump-start the dietary overhaul. Readers then create their own safe, easy-to-follow plan to end low-calorie dieting and food obsessions for good.
Disclaimer: This page contains affiliate links that may provide monetary compensation to help support the Whole Guidance Vision of Creating a Happy and Healthy Planet should you make a purchase. We very much appreciate and thank you for your support.
The Primal Blueprint – Mark Sisson
(Buy from Amazon; Buy from The Book Depository)
Being healthy and fit has gone mainstream–millions sweat the calories away on the roads or in health clubs and scrutinize labels and menus trying to do the right thing to control weight, delay aging, and feel healthy, fit, and energetic. And it’s simply not working. Rates of obesity, diabetes, arthritis, heart disease, and cancer continue to climb, and even the most committed fitness enthusiasts often carry 10 or 20 extra pounds of body fat.In this updated and expanded edition of the 2009 hardcover release from Mark Sisson, MarksDailyApple.com publisher and de-facto leader of the burgeoning primal/paleo/evolutionary health movement presents the compelling premise that you can reprogram your genes in the direction of weight loss, health, and longevity by following 10 immutable Primal laws validated by two million years of human evolution. This 2012 paperback release contains extensive, never-before-published bonus material, including an incredible full-color, 16-page insert of seven Primal Blueprint reader success stories and their stunning before/after photos, pictorials, detailed descriptions and workout log pages for the Primal Essential Movements and Primal sprint workouts, hacks for each of the 10 Primal Blueprint lifestyle laws (to promote quick results in body composition, fitness, athletic performance, daily energy levels, and reduce disease risk factors and reliance on medication, solutions to common questions and stumbling blocks)– pulled from Primal Blueprint reader submissions, and commentary on diets and dieting, including compare/contrast of Primal Blueprint with other popular programs.
Disclaimer: This page contains affiliate links that may provide monetary compensation to help support the Whole Guidance Vision of Creating a Happy and Healthy Planet should you make a purchase. We very much appreciate and thank you for your support.
The Paleo Solution – Robb Wolf
(Buy from Amazon; Buy from The Book Depository)
Do you want to lose fat and stay young, all while avoiding cancer, diabetes, heart disease, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and a host of other illnesses? The Paleo Solution incorporates the latest, cutting edge research from genetics, biochemistry and anthropology to help you look, feel and perform your best. Written by Robb Wolf, a research biochemist who traded in his lab coat and pocket protector for a whistle and a stopwatch to become one of the most sought after strength and conditioning coaches in the world. With Robb’s unique perspective as both scientist and coach you will learn how simple nutrition, exercise and lifestyle changes can radically change your appearance and health for the better.
Disclaimer: This page contains affiliate links that may provide monetary compensation to help support the Whole Guidance Vision of Creating a Happy and Healthy Planet should you make a purchase. We very much appreciate and thank you for your support.