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In this podcast I’ll be exploring the many sides to Cancer:
- I’ll explain what cancer is and will show how a normal healthy cell functions compared to an abnormal cancer cell
- I’ll talk about how cancer causes death
- I’ll explain the one true cause behind cancer and the many contributing factors to this cause
- I’ll talk about the one true cure to cancer (hmm… interesting)
- Finally I’ll share natural holistic health tips that will help you heal from cancer as well as prevent cancer from growing out of balance
CLICK HERE TO LEARN WHAT ARE THE BEST FOODS TO GET YOU LEAN
This is part 2 of a 3-part series I’m doing on cancer. In the previous episode I spoke about the conventional wisdom of cancer and how it’s all misinformation. The truth about cancer is that you shouldn’t be afraid of it. Like any other lifestyle disease you can cure cancer naturally and I’ll be talking about that in this episode.
So what is cancer? I’m going to give you 3 definitions because cancer is that big of a confused mass of information. Hopefully by giving multiple definitions you’ll be able to see cancer for what it really is from your own perspective.
First definition of cancer comes from orthodox conventional mainstream western medicine which says that cancer is an out-of-control malignant tumour that metastasises or spreads throughout your body. In a word cancer is a tumour. Yeah. Alright, it’s close. But I know there’s way more, a lot more in fact to this cancer story than just a tumour spreading.
I like this second definition of cancer better and it comes from early 20th century Nobel Prize winner, physiologist, and doctor Otto Warburg who defined cancer as any cell that produces less energy through the oxidation of macronutrients in an aerobic environment and instead produces most of its energy by fermenting sugars in an anaerobic environment. I know that’s a lot to take in. To paraphrase Dr Otto’s definition and make it simpler: a cancer cell produces extremely low levels of energy compared to other normal healthy cells. In a few words cancer is low energy production.
Not bad, a much better definition I reckon.
The third and final definition of cancer I have for you is my own. Cancer is a block in cellular communication leading to malnutrition and dysfunction in healthy cells that are still in orderly communication with each other and this blocked communication also creates abnormal function and abnormal growth of chaotic cells. Again a lot to take in so to make my cancer definition simpler: cancer is when there is miscommunication between your cells decreasing healthy cell function and increasing abnormal cell function. In a few words cancer is confusion at the cellular level.
If you think about what I just said my definition it doesn’t focus just on the abnormal cells or cancerous cells, but also includes, what used to be healthy cells, the suppressed cells. So to redefine what I just said:
“Cancer is the presence of both suppressed healthy cells and abnormal cancerous cells.”
Personally I really like this definition (no surprises), but I have to say even this doesn’t tell the whole story about what cancer really is.
Now I believe these 3 definitions together do give us a better picture of what cancer is all about.
Cancer is a tumour that grows out-of-control and spreads. Cancer is a cell that uses sugar to produce low amounts of energy in an environment with hardly any oxygen. Finally, cancer is a miscommunication between cells causing an imbalance of healthy cells to abnormal cells.
To see how these 3 different cancer definitions actually do come together pretty nicely when it comes to explaining exactly what cancer is, I’m going to give a little lesson (actually quite a big lesson) on cell biology and will explain how healthy cells work and how they create energy compared to abnormal cancerous cells.
Remember this is just a general overview of what happens with your cells, although I do get a bit specific at times. There are tens of steps and processes relating to cell function that I’m not including here to keep it simple and sustainable okay.
Your body is made up of a community of cells approximately 100 trillion of them, but only 10 trillion of these cells are actually yours containing your DNA with the rest of the cells belonging to microorganisms. These little guys live in, on, and throughout your body. All of your 10 trillion cells have one direction or goal or purpose or dream, which is to remain, not to attain or to get somewhere externally, but to keep expressing internally their true innate nature which is health.
These healthy cells are always talking and communicating to each other and are completely in rhythm and in harmony with one another. Every cell follows their unique purpose such as being a heart cell, a lung cell, an immune cell, skin cell, etc and this purpose aligns with the overall goal of the community of cells, which is to remain healthy and thrive.
Each of your cells are made up of a cell wall called a membrane and inside this membrane is a massive pool of fluid called the cytosol. Think of the cytosol as a massive swimming pool with the cell membrane the coverings of this pool. Hanging out in the cytosol or floating around in this swimming pool you’ll find many different cell organs called organelles and these organelles have their own function to perform to keep the cell and your entire body healthy and thriving.
One important organelle is the nucleus. In the nucleus you will find your body’s personal genetic code, your genes which are wrapped up in a double-helix structure that looks like a spiral ladder called DNA. Your DNA holds about 24,000 genes that act as blueprints for how your body functions physically, emotionally, and mentally.
One thing about DNA that I’d like to highlight are your telomeres. At the end of each strand of your DNA you have telomere molecules that act like shields and protect your DNA from damage. Once these telomeres run out then your DNA is exposed and this is when a healthy cell knows it’s time to die. The shortening of telomeres is what we call ageing. A healthy cell becomes old due to the shortening of telomeres.
Going back to your cell another very important group of organelles in your cells are called mitochondria. Mitochondria are the power plants of your cell. They are the main provider of units of cellular energy called adenosine triphosphate or ATP. So ATP is the form of energy that your cells use to function and to remain healthy and thrive. Mitochondria are the only other organelle in your cells to have their own genes and DNA. They only have 37 genes and these genes act as blueprints for how your mitochondria function and remain healthy and thrive.
Now all cells starting from birth go through different stages or seasons of growth and development and do so within the organs in which they are a part of. These different cell cycles ensure the continuation of health for your entire community of cells by keeping the creation of new cells in balance with the death of damaged or old cells. Healthy cells are always talking to each other and do what is required of them in that moment.
Healthy cells only have a limited number of times that they are allowed to divide before they die. This number of divisions is controlled by tumour suppressor genes. Cell death is controlled by what I mentioned earlier about aging, the length of your telomere molecules at the end of your DNA. Old cells have their tumour suppressor genes switched on and activated to prevent them from dividing again and without their telomeres these old cells will be asked to initiate a self-destruct sequence called apoptosis also known as programmed cell death.
When your healthy cells are asked to divide and create new cells this is when your DNA replicates itself and this is also the time when most things can go wrong in the form of genetic mutations. Genetic mutations are like someone scribbling all over your blueprints making them unreadable. DNA mutations are prevented, checked, and fixed by enzymes called polymerases. These enzymes make sure that when your DNA makes a copy of itself it does so without error or mutation and if polymerase does find an error it’ll fix it. A healthy cell which is unable to fix any damage to its DNA or has damage in other areas of the cell becomes a dysfunctional or abnormal cell. This damaged cell will be asked to self-destruct.
When a healthy cell divides out of control, grows old, or becomes damaged and does not die by skipping apoptosis then your immune system comes along, sees the out of control cell and then your immune cells release molecules called tumour necrosis factor or TNF for short. TNF will trigger another form of programmed cell death in the multiplying, old, or damaged cell called necroptosis similar to apoptosis.
Let’s now look into cellular respiration or how your cells and mitochondria produce energy, ATP.
There are actually 3 pathways that your cells can use to create ATP. One pathway happens in the cytosol or in the swimming pool of your cells and is anaerobic meaning it does not require oxygen to work. This anaerobic pathway for energy production is called glycolysis. The other two energy producing pathways happen inside your mitochondria and are aerobic meaning they need oxygen to function. These two aerobic pathways are called the Krebs Cycle and Oxidative Phosphorylation. Don’t worry about the technical terms, but stay with me here.
Now the anaerobic pathway of glycolysis that occurs in the cytosol works without oxygen and mainly uses the sugar molecule glucose, but it can also use different parts of proteins and fats, to create 2 units of ATP.
The aerobic pathways of the Krebs cycle and oxidative phosphorylation that occur inside your mitochondria work with oxygen and they use sugars, proteins, but mostly fats to create 30-120 units of ATP. You actually get a majority of your energy or ATPs through the oxidation and processing of fats.
So a short summary of cellular respiration: ATP, energy that is produced inside your mitochondria via the Krebs cycle and oxidative phosphorylation pathways with the help of oxygen using all macronutrients carbohydrates, proteins, and fats creates 15 to 60 times more energy than glycolysis. Remember glycolysis happens outside your mitochondria and without oxygen and uses sugar as its main ingredient to create energy.
Now what does this mini biology course on cell function and cellular respiration mean when it comes to cancer?
Let’s compare everything I just mentioned to an abnormal cancerous cell.
An abnormal cancerous cell is one that does not play well with other healthy cells, meaning it will not communicate with the healthy community of cells in your body. It will not do as it is told. It no longer performs its intended function in the organ it lives in and instead does its own thing and can even separate and move to different areas of your body. This abnormal cancerous cell becomes its own unique entity in your community of cells. It separates itself from the purpose and flow of the rest of your healthy cells and goes rogue and does its own thing. This cell finds its own flow, which disrupts the flow of other healthy cells in your body.
This ties in with the definition that cancer is a tumour that spreads and also that cancer is a miscommunication between cells.
You may be wondering how rebel scum like these abnormal cancerous cells survive if other healthy cells like blood vessels don’t communicate with them, don’t want to work with them, and don’t give them nutrients. Well these abnormal cancerous cells they have this uncanny ability to create new blood vessels. This process is called angiogenesis and provides blood flow to these rogue cells.
When it comes to the cell cycle an abnormal cancerous cell ignores this part and becomes immortal. It never ages and grows old. It shutdowns and deactivates tumour suppressor genes and its telomeres at the end of DNA never get shortened meaning it continues to multiply and it never has to go through apoptosis or programmed cell death. This immortality is due to an enzyme called telomerase. This enzyme produces more telomere molecules increasing their length. In a normal healthy cell this enzyme is switched off to make sure the cell follows its natural cell cycle of birth and death. However, in abnormal cancerous cells this telomerase enzyme is switched on ensuring telomeres stay long enough to protect DNA from being exposed meaning this cell never has to undergo apoptosis. This immortal cell is then allowed to grow and divide and duplicate itself over and over again forever as long as the tumour suppressor gene is switched off and inactive.
This goes back to the definition of cancer being a tumour as your body responds to uncontrolled cell growth by attempting to wall them off from the rest of the body by forming a tumour around them. So a tumour is your body’s way of protecting the rest of your healthy cells.
When it comes to DNA mutations abnormal cancerous cells actually thrive with mutations and do not die off as they should. First of all their polymerase enzymes which are supposed to proof-read and fix any errors in DNA replication are switched off or they function poorly. This increases the number of mutations in the cell. These mutations actually provide many benefits to an abnormal cancerous cell including not having to listen to instructions given to it by other healthy cells and not having to die. Remember a healthy cell with damaged or mutated DNA self-destructs, but an abnormal cell will not.
Going back to my definition you can see how cancer is a miscommunication between cells.
Normally an immune cell will see these out-of-control multiplying, immortal, and damaged abnormal cancerous cells and use TNF to kill them off. However, remember these cells are stubborn and they don’t play well with others.
Abnormal cancerous cells get around the immune system in four ways.
First, damaged DNA. These mutations in the DNA make it impossible for the abnormal cancerous cell to carry out normal cell function including apoptosis or necroptosis so even if they got the message to die they couldn’t. Second, these abnormal cancerous cells they’re really clever little buggers and even if they could carry out normal cell function they will actually produce a protein called survivin. This survivin protein prevents the cell from dying due to programmed cell death and also promotes cell division allowing the cell to multiply and become immortal. Third, abnormal cancerous cells protect themselves with a thick protein coating over their cell wall making them bulletproof and invisible from your immune system. Fourth, these wise guys actually have their own way of suppressing your immune system by secreting specific enzymes to put your immune system to sleep.
Finally let’s look at energy production in these rogue cells.
Let me repeat again about normal healthy cellular respiration because I really want to make sure you get this. A healthy cell creates more energy inside your mitochondria using oxygen and fats than it does from the cytosol of the cell using carbohydrates. So anytime a cell is creating less energy in the mitochondria and instead is making more energy outside the mitochondria than Houston you have a low energy producing cell called an abnormal cancerous cell.
So hopefully you can better understand Otto Warburg’s definition of cancer which is a cell that produces more of its energy through the fermentation of sugars outside the mitochondria than it does through the oxidation of fats inside the mitochondria.
From Dr Otto Warburg’s definition and the knowledge of how healthy cellular respiration is supposed to work we can see that an abnormal cancerous cell ultimately is either lacking in oxygen and is living in an anaerobic environment or that the mitochondria in the cell are damaged and not able to use oxygen to create ATP or both situations could actually be true. This forces the cell to ferment sugars for its main source of energy.
This is also why you’ll see a dramatic increase in insulin receptors on the cell wall of abnormal cancerous cells. Insulin is the hormone your body uses to drive nutrients into your cells and abnormal cancerous cells have a lot more insulin ports or docks or places where insulin can connect and deliver its payload compared to healthy cells. Because abnormal cancerous cells produce such a tiny amount of energy they become very hungry very fast. By having more insulin receptor sites they increase their chances of getting fed and actually get fed a lot more than your healthy community of cells. This starves your healthy cells and they become malnourished which leads them to either waste away and die or to become an abnormal cancerous cell themselves.
My definition of cancer ties in here as healthy cells begin to malfunction in the presence of abnormal cancerous cells.
Okay so that was a lot of cell biology 101 to take in. I hope you know a bit more about what cancer is and how it works. You could say that an abnormal cancerous cell is actually one that has reverted back to a primitive state where it only performs 3 basic functions required to survive. Which are eat, excrete, breed, and then it repeats. Take note of this primal state of cancer cells as it’s relevant to what I’ll be talking about shortly regarding the cause of cancer.
Seeing how cancer works is it any clearer to you how cancer kills and causes death? Cancer actually kills indirectly more than directly.
A tumour for instance may impinge or intrude and bump and grind up against other tissues such as arteries, veins, or nerves in your spinal column. So while these tumours aren’t doing anything but growing and getting in the way what this does is cause stress, pain, and discomfort and this stress creates an inflammatory and immune response. If this stress is left to linger for long periods of time this chronic persistent low-level type of inflammation will lead to more sickness and diseases further down the road.
However, the main way cancer kills is through cachexia. Over 90% of deaths from actual cancer, not from the conventional treatment of cancer, remember medical cancer treatments chemo, radiation, and surgery these kill over 50% of patients. But deaths from cancer itself over 90% of these are due to cachexia or wasting of the body caused by the spreading of cancer. In other words your healthy community of cells waste away and die not because the abnormal cancer cells are attacking them, but because these rogue cells are sucking up all the nutrients leaving hardly any nutrition behind for your healthy cells.
“Cancer kills through malnutrition and by starving your healthy community of cells.”
Alright let’s talk about the one true cause of cancer, but is there such a thing?
According to mainstream western medicine cancer is caused by genetic mutations.
According to Dr Otto Warburg and I’m paraphrasing here cancer is caused by a lack of oxygen and due to malfunctioning mitochondria.
According to Bill Henderson in his book Cancer: The Problem and the Solution he states three causes for cancer: emotional trauma; root canals; and the food you eat.
According to the docuseries Quest For The Cures created by Ty Bollinger cancer is caused by toxicity with the dirty dozen being:
- Vaccines
- GMOs
- Cosmetics
- Pesticides
- Herbicides
- Mercury
- BPAs
- Root Canals
- Dental Amalgams
- Aspartame
- Electromagnetic Fields (EMFs) and
- Fluoridation
According to Webster Kehr founder of the Independent Cancer Research Foundation and cancertutor.com cancer is caused by microbes also known as pathogens or disease causing microorganisms.
Cancer already has many definitions and functions in so many different ways is it possible to find one cause out of this list? I believe so. Follow me now down this cancer-causing rabbit hole as we play a bit of Sherlock Holmes and deduce our way back to the real cause of cancer.
In order to find the cause we need to go back to the 3 definitions and find the answers to what causes: tumours; the lack of oxygen and damaged mitochondria; and the imbalance in healthy cells to abnormal cancerous cells.
Well looking at the previous list of causes to cancer let’s start with the first one – genetic mutations. Yes it has been shown that 5% of all diagnosed cancers are due to inherited genetics. If you have certain inherited genes then there’s no getting around this. But that still doesn’t account for the other 95% of cancers.
Now you can still get damage to your DNA and genetic mutations by:
- Smog and pollution
- Prolonged UV radiation exposure
- Smoking non-organic materials
- Environmental carcinogens or toxins that create cancer
- Reactive oxygen species
- Reactive nitrogen species
- Obesity and
- Magnesium deficiency
The issue I have here is that DNA damage and genetic mutations caused by the environment take 40-60 years before they create an imbalance of healthy cells to abnormal cancerous cells leading to symptoms and doesn’t explain kids with cancer, the majority of other cancers in younger individuals, and cancer patients with minimal DNA damage.
The second cause of cancer was a lack of oxygen in the cell and damaged mitochondria. Now this is a tricky one to track down, but if we look at the next two causes together we might find a pattern. The third and fourth causes all relate to environmental factors.
Now one of these causes is emotional trauma and you might be thinking that can’t affect you physically and it isn’t from your environment? Remember your body and your mind are one being your bodymind and your thoughts and feelings affect your physiology, biochemistry, and physical being and vice versa. A negative thought increases stress hormones. A positive thought reduces the amount of stress hormones in your body and lowers inflammation. Your internal environment of your thoughts, feelings, and emotions are hugely impacted by your external environment.
What I’m getting at here is that external environmental toxic chemicals and foods as well as internal environmental toxic thoughts create stress. Stress leads to inflammation and an immune response. Chronic stress means that your bodymind is always on fire with inflammation and your immune system may become overactive and will get trigger-happy and attack anything in sight including your own bodily tissue. Your immune system may also fizzle out and get tired and just fire off aimlessly again attacking your own body or it won’t fire at all and your immune system will no longer do its job of fighting off infections and helping your body heal.
So your environment, external and internal, creates stress leading to inflammation and an immune response and if this goes on long enough your immune system eventually cracks under pressure. The amount of time it takes for your immune system to buckle depends on your unique biochemistry, physiology, genetics, your own situation, but I would estimate that this can take as little as a month or it can take decades.
We found it right? Cancer which is an imbalance of healthy cells to abnormal cancerous cells is caused by a weakened immune system. Oh wait. We still haven’t explained how a weakened immune system relates to a lack of oxygen and damaged mitochondria in cells.
Well this brings us to the last listed cause of cancer – microbes.
When you have a weakened immune system microbes are no longer killed off, but take hold in your body and infect your cells. When a microbe takes over and infects a healthy cell many changes happen in that cell. Microbes love sugar and they ferment sugar to create energy, but because fermentation creates very little energy compared to oxidation the cell gets hungry really easily so it increases its insulin receptors to absorb more sugar. As a result of fermentation acids are created such as lactic acid. This build up of acids is very toxic and creates havoc in the cell. The increased acidity shoves oxygen out of the cell creating an anaerobic environment. The acids also cause damage to your DNA and the DNA of your mitochondria. Recall that fermentation doesn’t need oxygen so microbes can live happily in this very acidic environment.
So when a microbe infects a healthy cell the cell is left with very little energy, very little oxygen, has damaged mitochondria so it’s unable to create more energy by using fats and it has damaged DNA. This damaged DNA prevents the cell from performing its usual duties, and it becomes immortal, grows out of control non-stop, and stops communicating with other healthy cells.
This is how you get an abnormal cancerous cell.
Remember earlier how I described a rogue cell as one that went back to its primitive roots. You can’t get more primal than a single-celled microorganism which lives inside an abnormal cancerous cell.
When you have a weakened immune system and microbial infections you have tumours, you have cells lacking oxygen and with damaged mitochondria, and you have an imbalance of healthy cells to abnormal cancerous cells.
So to recap from the symptoms of cancer to the actual root cause:
- Healthy cells are infected by microbes turning them into abnormal cancerous cells
- A weakened immune system allows this infection to occur and also damages or suppresses the function of other healthy cells
- Chronic stress and inflammation cause chronic immune activity eventually causing it to be hyperactive and hypoactive
- Both external and internal environmental toxins cause stress in your bodymind
- External toxins come about through industrial, agricultural, and pharmaceutical practices
- Internal toxins come about through difficult relationships, marketing by media, and extreme religious beliefs
- Civilised society is the source of these external and internal toxins
Am I actually saying that civilisation is the root cause of cancer? No. Because the next question you need to ask yourself is well what brought about civilisation?
Civilisation came about when human beings let go of their animal nature and dismissed their connection to Mother Nature and to all other life on this planet.
If I were to sum up the root cause of cancer and every other chronic disease for that matter I would say that the cause of cancer is living against the natural flow of your innate way of being. In other words:
“Cancer is caused by living a lifestyle out of balance with the seasons and rhythm of Mother Nature.”
Well now that we know the cause we can finally, finally, get to the cure… right?
No. There is no cure for cancer, but there is a way to heal from cancer and to prevent it.
Alberto Villoldo is a PhD and trained psychologist, medical anthropologist, and shaman and he describes in his book One Spirit Medicine how a cure is merely the elimination of symptoms, whereas:
“…healing works at a much deeper level, treating the causes of the imbalance that lead to disease.”
So if the cause of cancer is a lifestyle out of balance with Mother Nature than the way to heal and to prevent cancer is to get back in touch with our roots as human beings and to live a lifestyle that follows the flow of Mother Nature.
The best place to start would be by following the 7 Holistic Health Principles that bring together all aspects of life into a simple strategy to living happy and healthy in modern civilised times. I talked about these 7 principles in another podcast episode 30 and here I will give you one tip from each principle that you can use to heal and to prevent cancer.
The first principle is called the Moon principle. This relates to sleep and rest. Melatonin is a hormone that helps you sleep, but has powerful anti-cancer properties too. It suppresses tumour growth, triggers apoptosis, and acts as a powerful antioxidant fighting of free radical damage to your DNA from reactive oxygen species. To get the most out of your melatonin you must get rid of blue light exposure at night from indoor lighting, televisions, computers, and smart devices, and you should aim to sleep between the hours of 10p and 6a. Blue light and sleeping after midnight reduce the amount of melatonin that gets released.
The Ether principle is about how toxic your environmental space is. Most of the toxins you’re exposed to come in the form of clothing, personal and home care products, and the food you eat. If you look for organic natural untainted sources of these you’ll be doing yourself a huge favour by reducing the amount of stress that’s placed on your body.
The Air principle relates to how you breathe and the quality of air that you’re breathing in. Deep belly breathes through your nose with your mouth closed and your tongue resting comfortably on the roof of your mouth is the quickest way to put your body into rest and digest, calm and connect mode. Meaning this type of breathing keeps you out of flight and fight stress mode reducing inflammation throughout your body.
The Water principle relates to the quality and the amount of water you drink. You are 70% water so make sure you’re drinking enough water for your unique activity needs and to drink the best spring or filtered water you can find. Be wary of plastic water bottles and keep them out of the heat, away from sunlight, and don’t reuse them, but recycle them instead as they are full of cancer causing agents.
The Fire principle is all about movement. Whether it be high intensity training or simply walking around the block, movement ensures that nutrition gets moved around your body to where it’s needed and it also helps remove toxic waste products from your body. Long periods of inactivity are associated with higher disease risk and increased chances of dying earlier. Aim to move or change your position every 30 to 60 minutes to keep your blood, oxygen, nutrients, and waste in motion and moving to where they need to go.
The Earth principle relates to food – real food. Stay away from industrial seed oils and processed and packaged foods from Father Industry. Instead focus on real food that’s in season from local organic farmers and producers.
“Fake pretend food-like products are full of cancer causing ingredients, whereas real food is full of cancer fighting nutrients.”
The Sun principle is the 7th Holistic Heath principle and focuses on connecting with others, sharing your gifts, and loving yourself and others for your authentic selves. The best tip I can give here for learning how to connect, share, and love is to have a dream bigger than yourself that you want to see come true. Whether it is to pass a certain exam, change your body composition, climb a mountain, or to be a better lover to your partner, by having a dream you give yourself direction in life and once you begin to move in flow with this direction other aspects of your life eventually fall in alignment with your dream.
Okay this is the longest podcast I’ve ever recorded, but I had to add some science, I had to give cancer its day in court, and I just hope that this information has been useful to you in some way, shape or form.
In the next podcast I’ll be talking about one side of cancer I have yet to mention – the light side. Yes believe it or not there are benefits to cancer that I will be talking about in next week’s episode. See you there.
Links and Resources
- Cancer-Free — Bill Henderson
- Quest For The Cures — Docuseries about cancer
- CancerTutor.com
- One Spirit Medicine — Alberto Villoldo
- WGP 030: Want the Good Life? These 7 Holistic Health Principles Will Guide You There
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In this podcast I’ll be exploring your many different Bodies:
- I’ll explain how your physical body is more your energy body
- I’ll talk about four other bodies that help make the whole entire you
- Finally I’ll share how you can nourish and meet the needs of your 5 different bodies
CLICK HERE TO LEARN WHAT ARE THE BEST FOODS TO GET YOU LEAN
Humans, that’s me and you included, some of us we like to think that we’re different or better than other creatures, that we’re above other animals, plants, and sometimes even other humans.
Truth is on the surface we all look a little bit different. Okay majorly different, but if you were to zoom in, into your cells, into your molecules, into your atoms, and into the quantum particles themselves like quarks and leptons guess what you’d find? The exact same thing you’d find as if you zoomed in on a cat, on an insect, on a fish, on a tree, or even zoomed in on the sun.
Nothing.
Well you’d see nothing, but with devices like the superconducting quantum interference device or SQUID for short with such devices that measure energy you would find that this invisible nothing that you’ve zoomed all the way in on is actually energy swirling around vibrating as a wave of pure energetic potential and you only see this wave become physical reality and realise its potential when you zoom out of the very small quantum space where you see the particles form into atoms and molecules.
All this to say that your physical body, your physical being is really waves of potential energy manifesting and becoming real creating formed particles, molecules, cells, organs, muscle, bone, skin, and everything within.
Now your physical body is just one of the many parts that make up the whole you, one of the many energy bodies that you have and need to look after. I will now explore four other bodies that you may not be aware of.
Imagine looking at yourself standing on the Earth naked, your feet and legs connected to the Earth represent your physical body. This is the first of your 5 bodies.
Moving up from your legs we reach your groin area and here you’ll find your second body, your sexual body or sexual being. This body exists when you’re born, but doesn’t come into full expression until your teenage years when your hormones begin to go into overdrive so this body is concerned with your hormones and keeping them in balance is the key to a healthy sexual body. Your sexual body isn’t just about procreation and making babies. It’s also about creating experiences that take you out of your physical body and into a state of bliss and euphoric orgasmic ecstatic oneness with the universe. Your sexual body also strongly influences how you relate to your physical body and to other people in general. The more you explore your sexual way of being the more you will know thyself and the more confidence you will have being in your own skin in your physical body as well as having the confidence to be yourself when around other people.
If you have issues around sex where you find it difficult to think about sex let alone talk about it this will come down to the culture that you were brought up in and to how you were raised and there’s no right or wrong way to think about sex. There’s no right or wrong way about anything. Maybe this quote by French writer Marquis De Sade (I’ve no idea if that’s how you pronounce it) may help you see sex from a different perspective:
“’Sex’ is as important as eating or drinking and we ought to allow the one appetite to be satisfied with as little restraint or false modesty as the other.”
So sex like food is a nutrient we all need and while food may feed your physical body sex feeds your sexual being.
Moving up your body we come to your chest area where your emotional body or emotional being radiate from. Your emotional body builds upon your sexual body and is about relationships with self and others. Your emotional way of being determines the kinds of energies or emotions you express externally and receive internally into your heart and how you express and receive these energies will determine the kinds of relationships you will find yourself in. This body is focused around perceived stress and about giving and receiving the most powerful stress-busting emotion of them all, love.
Moving up into the head area now we come to your mental body or mental being. Remember though that your mind doesn’t reside or live just in your brain, but lives in your entire being, your bodymind. Your head is merely a symbol for your mental being. Your mental body is all about thought energy and choices. Your mental body communicates with the brain, your heart, and your gut with neurotransmitters and by keeping these neurotransmitters in balance you keep your mind clear and focused which allows you to make better choices. Thought energy along with your emotions and how you feel will influence your choices which will control your actions which will determine the results you get in life.
Going above your head above your crown is the final and fifth body, your soul body or just your soul. Your soul symbolically lives outside your physical body, but it permeates, it runs, it beats through every single cell and every wave of energy of all your bodies physical, sexual, emotional and mental. Your soul joins these bodies to all the other bodies in the Universe. Meaning you are connected to the Universe, to Great Spirit, to Infinite Intelligence, to the Creator, to God, or whatever it is, whatever name you choose to call the thing that created you and everything around you. That connection to something bigger than your self happens through your soul body. Your soul is pure energy and the level and frequency that your soul vibrates at is determined by the health and the functions of your other four bodies as well as your environment. A high vibration and frequency is associated with happiness, health, wholeness, and peace. A low vibration and frequency correlates to sadness, sickness, separation, and stress.
So those are your 5 bodies and all of these bodies, physical, sexual, emotional, mental, and soul they need to be taken care of and I’ll go through now how to nourish and feed each of your 5 bodies.
In terms of your physical body you can really feed this body well and nourish it with all that it needs by following the 7 Holistic Health Principles as laid out in the previous podcast. Two simple tips that I can give now though is eat real food and move often. Simple, right? Well in reality, you know the real world, for a lot of people eating real food and moving often those aren’t easy recommendations to stick to. This is why I believe the best way to nourish your physical body besides the 7 principles is by nourishing your other four bodies. With your sexual, emotional, mental, and soul bodies fulfilled and nourished you will find your physical body feeds itself the right foods and moves itself when it needs to.
Your sexual body needs to express itself freely without it feeling shame. It receives nourishment through physical and mental erotic and sensual pleasures. This can include the obvious sexual goals of orgasm and ejaculation, but also includes something as basic as touch. Being touched or touching someone else can help feed your sexual being without having to get naked and making it an erotic or adult experience. Reading erotic literature may be helpful as well. Make sure though that you’re in a safe space with yourself or with other consenting partners when expressing your sexual way of being. Your sexual body also needs hormones in the right balance and this will come down to how well you follow the 7 Holistic Health Principles.
Your emotional body really loves love. Not just love from another person, but especially love for your self. Because if you can learn how to love yourself you’ll find it easier to love others. The best way to love you is to know you. Know thyself and you will love yourself. There are 3 practises that I use daily to learn more about myself and what it is in life that I really want or don’t want.
First one is meditation. 20 minutes in the morning of Qi-gong helps me train my bodymind to focus on one thought, but I also learn what other thoughts keep trying to creep in and take over. You’ll learn a lot about the way you think through meditation.
Second practise is gratitude. Before bed every night I give gratitude for the experiences I had that day and this keeps me grounded in knowing what’s important in the larger scheme of things, helps me see the bigger picture of life.
Final practise is mindfulness. Being in the now, in the present moment brings a lot of awareness to how I’m being. It doesn’t stop me from being or doing things I’d rather not, but I can observe myself and be fully aware of my actions and so there’s no regret later on for how I was or for what I did as I fully accepted in the moment that if this is what is, then so be it. But mindfulness also gives me the opportunity to choose a different way of being in that moment.
So for example let’s say I’m eating way too many chocolates a lot more than I should, which happens. I will think to myself, ‘okay I’ve almost eaten an entire bar of dark chocolate. Do I continue and enjoy the whole bar with its dark sensual bitter flavours or do I stop and leave the rest for tomorrow?’ Whatever action I take it doesn’t matter. I would have taken it in full awareness and acceptance. Mindfulness allows me to observe my behaviour and to choose acceptance on how I’m being and to choose an alternative action and to do something different if I wanted to. These 3 practises meditation, gratitude, and mindfulness teach me a lot about myself and allows me to love who I am and who I’m not and to love who others are for who they are and for who they are not.
Okay your mental body this needs information. The more information you can give it the better it will serve you. Now I’m not talking about books and logical types of information I’m talking about energetic information or informed thought energy. The more informed thought energy you can feed your bodymind the more nourished and healthy your mental body will be. One way to get informed thought energy is to meditate. Again I just talked about this meditation trains you in focusing your thoughts on one thing. This clears up the chatter, the clutter, the monkey speak in your bodymind and gives you the ability to control what it is you would like to be thinking about. This focus and control of your thoughts gives you the power of choice and in making choices that are life-affirming.
You don’t want scrambled thought energy as this will just mess up your bodymind, create confusion, cause doubt leading to indecision and poor choices and this scrambled energy will cause other imbalances in your other bodies. Organic farm-fresh scrambled eggs are healthy, but a scrambled bodymind is not.
Your mental body also revolves around your brain, heart, and gut and these organs are connected through your vagus nerve. They speak to each other using neurotransmitters and hormones. By following the 7 Holistic Health Principles you will keep these molecules of communication in balanced amounts giving you better focus allowing you to think more clearly and feeding your mental body informed thought energy.
Finally, your soul body. Your soul is connected to everything in the universe because your soul is pure energy, the very essence of the universe. The thing that breathes, that beats, that sleeps, that moves everything in the universe is what makes up 100% of your soul, energy. Now your soul is always giving and receiving energy. If your soul is starved it’ll give off bad energy. If it’s nourished and satisfied it’ll give off good energy. Now there’s a universal principle of like attracting like so if you’re giving bad energy that’s what you’ll receive, if you’re giving good energy that’s what you’ll receive. So how do you nourish your soul so that it gives and receives positive energy? By having a dream.
“A tortured soul is one without a dream. A peaceful soul is one moving towards its dream.”
When you’re following your Dharma or your duty here in this lifetime, when the way you live your life is on purpose and in alignment with your core values and your dream your soul is vibrating at a very high vibrational frequency, good vibes, positive energy, which always leads to happiness and health. However, if you don’t know what you’re doing or why you’re doing it or if you’re making life choices that are not consistent with how you really want to live then your soul, your energetic being begins to fizzle out and you begin to experience more pain than pleasure and more sickness than health.
Your soul is interconnected, integrated, inseparable from not only the universe, but also with your purpose, with your goal, with your vision, with why you’re here. By having a dream you will find your place in the universe and will soon realise the oneness that you, we, all things in the universe truly are.
So I want you to think to yourself before this day is done what’s one thing that you can do to feed your physical body (example eat real food); one thing you can do to feed your sexual body (say a sensual massage); one thing you can do to feed your emotional body (have some gratitude); one thing you can do to feed your mental body (try a 2 minute nasal breathing session); and what’s one thing you can do to feed your soul body (how about getting some clarity on your life purpose or take some action on the next step in reaching your goals).
You are more than your physical body, a lot more, and by nourishing the different parts that make the whole you, you give yourself the best chance at living the good life, an awesome life, a happy healthy holistic life.
Links and Resources
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In this podcast I’ll be exploring Calories and Hormones:
- I’ll explain what calories are and how counting calories won’t do much for your health
- I’ll talk about hormones and how they affect your health a lot more than calories
- Finally I’ll give a few tips on how to balance your hormones naturally to turn you into a fat-burning machine
CLICK HERE TO LEARN WHAT ARE THE BEST FOODS TO GET YOU LEAN
Calories are all people talk about when it comes to dieting and changing body composition. Funny thing is most people have no clue what a calorie actually is.
Well a calorie is a unit of heat energy where 1 calorie equals the amount of energy needed to heat 1 gram of water 1 degree Centigrade.
The way calories are measured is to burn the dry weight of the object you want to find the calorie value of and then measure how much heat is given off. So if you wanted to find out the number of calories in a banana, for example, you would first dehydrate it and then burn it and by measuring the amount of heat it gives off you will be able to work out the amount of calories it contained.
Now this is all fine and dandy when measuring calories using a calorimeter in a stale, stable, stagnant setting like a scientific laboratory, but when you’re talking about measuring the burning of foods in the human body or the metabolic-effect of how food calories are utilised by human physiology then Houston… we have a problem.
You see if you were to ask an aboriginal tribe in a South American jungle or African bushland or Australian outback who are excellent specimens of optimal human health whether they weighed, measured, and counted the amount of calories or energy or foods they ate on a regular basis, they would just look at you sideways, show off their bright-white teeth with a wide grin, and then they’d start laughing their bottoms off. They have a lot more important things to be concerned with than calories like maintaining shelters, hunting and gathering food, and getting back to telling stories and playing around all day. Sounds like the life right?
Your ancestors as far back as 100 years ago were not concerned with counting calories and obesity wasn’t even an issue back then. Today, however, it seems like the more calories we count as a society the more obese we seem to be getting. What’s up with that?
The reason is human beings are not calorimeters. You are not a simple input and output device. Your body is one of the most complex biological machines in the universe. Your body is an interconnected system of trillions of inputs and outputs.
For someone to say that they know exactly what happens to the hundred calories they eat from food or say that they know exactly how much calories they burned during exercise is human hubris at it again, meaning we think we know better than Mother Nature. It is impossible to know the exact amount of fuel energy you get from food and how much energy you burn from movement.
Another thing is that not all calories are created equal. 2000 calories of sugar water, for example, if you were to compare this to 2000 calories of coloured vegetables, yes they are the same amount of energy, exactly the same amount of energy, but when your body begins to digest, absorb, assimilate and metabolise and make use of the macro and micronutrients you will see a totally different effect in how your body looks, in how you think and feel, and how you act in life. A human body made up of sugar water compared to one made up of vegetables would be the same as comparing a house made up of straw and one made up of brick and mortar. One is weak and full of holes (tumours) whereas the other is strong and solid (healthy).
Ask yourself are the calories that you’re currently consuming on a regular basis turning you into a person of straw or into a solid piece of human awesomeness?
There are a number of ways the foods you eat and the movements you perform affect your biology way beyond calories and energy expenditure. You need to stop focusing on calories when it comes to happiness and health because there’s more to your wellbeing than just energy in and energy out.
The foods you eat and the movements you perform will absolutely determine the physical structure and functionality of your organs, they will determine your mood, and food and movement have a huge impact on your hormones.
Speaking of hormones these are molecules that your body uses to communicate between the many different organs, glands, and tissues. Hormones affect your body’s metabolism, immune function, growth and repair, your mood, your stress levels, and your body composition.
The major hormones you need to know about are:
- Insulin
- Cortisol
- Melatonin
- Leptin
- Ghrelin
- Oestrogen and testosterone and
- Thyroid hormones
Insulin is an anabolic or growth hormone released by your pancreas and helps transport nutrients from your bloodstream into your cells. Excessive amounts of glucose (sugar) in your bloodstream leads to the transformation of most of this glucose into fatty acids and high levels of nutrients in your blood causes your pancreas to release large amounts of insulin. Once insulin gets into your bloodstream it then does its job of storing all those nutrients into your cells as well as putting any leftover fatty acids into your fat cells, so insulin plays a major role in fat accumulation.
Cortisol known as the stress hormone is catabolic meaning it breaks things down and it is released by your adrenal glands in response to physical or perceived stress, low blood sugar levels, or low leptin levels. When your blood sugar levels get too low this will cause a cortisol spike. This sudden increase in cortisol then raises your blood sugar levels and when blood glucose gets too high insulin will need to be released to bring it back to a healthy low level and if your blood glucose drops too far then cortisol comes out to play again and this sugar and hormonal rollercoaster continues on and on making for a fatter and heavier you.
Melatonin is your antioxidant, anti-tumour, circadian clock time for bed hormone. Melatonin needs to be low in the morning and high in the evening for the best sleep and recovery as well as for the most growth hormone release during sleep, which helps you burn fat as you dream. This is the opposite rhythm to cortisol. Cortisol needs to be high in the morning and low in the evening. So if you don’t get enough daylight exposure during the day, you’re exposed to too much blue and bright lights after sundown, and if your cortisol rhythm is not normal, this will cause your melatonin levels to be low making it difficult for you to fall asleep and to get a full nights rest.
Leptin is a satiety hormone meaning it signals to your brain when you have enough energy in your body and is released by your fat cells. The more fat you have the more leptin your fat cells release signalling to your brain that you have plenty of energy on board and you don’t need to eat. The less fat you have the less leptin gets released signalling to your brain that you don’t have enough energy on board and that it’s time to eat. The problem for obese individuals is something called leptin resistance where you have so many fat cells releasing a lot of leptin that your brain just can’t take the excessive amounts of communication anymore and just stops listening. So even though your fat cells are signalling non-stop to your brain that your body has more than enough energy on board and that you don’t need to eat, your brain ignores these signals and still thinks you’re low on leptin and therefore low on energy and fat stores. Chronically low leptin levels as perceived by your brain will cause an increased release of the stress hormone cortisol and high cortisol levels keep your leptin levels low.
Ghrelin is a hunger hormone and works opposite to leptin. Low levels of leptin usually mean you are low on energy reserves and this causes a release of ghrelin which then increases your appetite. Once your appetite is satisfied and enough leptin hormone reaches your brain telling it you have enough energy on board then ghrelin hormone reduces which also lowers your appetite. Now if you have high levels of cortisol in your body this will cause leptin levels to be low meaning ghrelin will increase giving you an appetite. So the more stress you have the hungrier you get.
Oestrogen and testosterone are sex hormones used for growth and for reproduction. Women have slightly higher levels of oestrogen hormones compared to men and men have a lot more testosterone than women. Chronically high levels of insulin in your bloodstream (due to a high sugar diet for example) leads to an increase of testosterone in women and a decrease of testosterone in men as well as an increase of oestrogen in men. When cortisol is low testosterone and insulin are high, but when cortisol is high testosterone and insulin are low making cortisol a muscle wasting hormone. Chronically high levels of cortisol interferes with the normal production of your sex hormones, so too much stress overtime leads to low libido or sex drive, infertility, and the end of sexy times in the bedroom.
Last group of major hormones you really need to know about are your thyroid hormones. Your thyroid hormones are responsible for your body’s overall metabolism, meaning your cells ability to process energy. The two main thyroid hormones are T4 and T3. T4 is the inactive thyroid hormone and this is produced by your thyroid gland. The conversion of T4 to the active form T3 takes place primarily in your liver and in your gut. If your thyroid, liver, or gut are unhealthy and unable to do the work that they should then the production of T4 and T3 hormones will be dramatically impacted. Your body will either produce too much thyroid hormones leading to hyperthyroidism or having a very fast metabolic rate where you feel nervous or anxious a lot of the time, have irregular heartbeats, trouble sleeping, dry skin, excessive weight reduction, and excessive bowel movements. Or your body won’t produce enough thyroid hormones leading to hypothyroidism or having a very slow rate of metabolism where you feel depressed and irritable, experience hair loss and memory loss, feel tired and weak a lot of the time, find it difficult to reduce weight or have a dramatic increase in weight, have muscle cramps, feel cold a lot, have brittle nails, and constipation. High levels of perceived stress interferes with the production of T4 and high levels of the stress hormone cortisol interferes with the conversion of T4 to T3 causing abnormal metabolic function throughout your entire body.
Okay so that was a lot of information to take in about your major hormones. Now I’m not sure if you noticed, but there was one constant between them all. There was one hormone that popped up time and again and it has an impact on all the other hormones. Do you know the hormone I’m talking about? Yes, the stress hormone cortisol. That’s the hormone I’m talking about.
High cortisol leads to the increase of glucose in your bloodstream eventually causing a spike in insulin and this high insulin release causes fat storage and an increase in fat cell number and fat cell size.
High cortisol at night prevents melatonin from rising leading to trouble with sleep, less growth hormone release, less fat burning, a weakened immune system, and an increased risk of cancer.
High cortisol levels equal low leptin and high ghrelin levels meaning even if you’re obese or if you’ve eaten a big enough meal that normally would have satisfied you in the past, you will still have an appetite and feel hungry and will want to keep eating and you may never feel satiated.
High production of cortisol equals low production of your growth and sex hormones. More cortisol means less growth and more stress means less sex.
Finally high stress and rich cortisol production equals poor thyroid hormone production causing an abnormal rate of metabolism, either too high or too low. The majority of thyroid issues deal with a very slow rate of metabolism leading to difficulty reducing fat cell number and fat cell size.
So the big takeaway from all this hormone talk is that if you can control your cortisol you can control the rest of your hormones and you can determine the overall health of your body.
Not only that, but by taking control of your cortisol levels and the levels of all your other major hormones you can determine the amount of muscle and fat that your body synthesises and burns… without the need for counting calories.
Imagine that your hormones are an orchestra and that when they play in perfect harmony you get to hear wonderful music a beautiful symphony being played. However, when you have disharmony in the orchestra, when there’s a group or single instrument out of tune, out of sync, out of beat and rhythm then you’re left listening to something that would probably even make the walking dead turn and run in the other direction.
Homeostasis is a term that means a system is in balance and functioning as it should. When your many hormones are in harmony and playing sweet beautiful music together then you can consider your body to be in a homeostatic state. When your body is in homeostasis, where you’ve achieved hormonal harmony, then your body’s ability to burn fat and maintain or build health and muscle will be easy peasy lemon squeezy.
However, if your hormones are not in harmony with each other well then your ability to reduce fat and maintain or build health and muscle go right out the window. It doesn’t matter how many calories you count or restrict and no matter how hard you push yourself in the gym because if your cortisol and other hormone levels are not in healthy ranges then your body has bigger issues to deal with than worrying about energy in and energy out.
What I’m ultimately saying is that when your hormones are in balance with each other you’re a lean, mean, and very keen playful, happy, and healthy human being. But when your hormones are ‘out of whack’ (yes that’s a scientific term where I’m from) when your hormones are out of balance then oops-a-daisy you become flabby, fat, and lazy.
So what causes hormone imbalances?
High levels of stress and inflammation and stress and inflammation are caused by unhealthy relationships, disconnection from Mother Nature, exposure to toxic compounds, improper sleep, too much not enough exercise, eating inflammatory foods, not drinking enough quality water, and incorrect breathing patterns.
To get your hormones in a happy and healthy harmonious state you need to reduce your stress levels and lower the amount of inflammation in your body and you can do this by living a holistic healthy lifestyle. If you listen to episodes 2-15 of the Whole Guidance Podcast I go into detail about how to do this, but I will share a few quick and easy tips here on how to keep cortisol your stress hormone in check which will reduce the amount of stress and inflammation in your body.
First tip is to remove sugars and grains from your diet. Pasteurised dairy too if you’re really serious about keeping your cortisol levels balanced. Sugars and grains and highly treated dairy products are pro-inflammatory causing a lot of fire in your belly and in your body and also cause a lot of insulin to be secreted by your pancreas. By removing these foods from your diet for 21 days you can then try reintroducing them again to see how you feel and I bet you’ll notice a difference. With less insulin in your bloodstream your body’s metabolism will gradually shift from burning sugar and storing fat to not needing sugar and burning fat. Replace the sugars, grains, and dairy with more animal and fruit fats and oils.
Second tip is to get quality sleep. Now I said quality, not quantity and this means consistently going to bed before 11p and getting up around 6 or 7a for at least 21 days. This will reset your circadian clock and help restore your melatonin to its correct levels, low in the morning and high in the evening.
Third tip is to breathe deep diaphragmatic belly breaths through your nose. This helps keep your body in a rest, digest, calm, and connect state and so reduces your cortisol and increases your fat burning potential as well as your growth and sex hormone levels. Listen to episode 4 on how to practise proper breathing technique.
Fourth tip is to sprint more and cardio less. What I mean is that instead of doing 30 minute, 60 minute, or 2 hour long duration cardio sessions, why not try 4 minutes of high intensity interval training. H I I T or HIIT is where you go all out at 80-100% effort for 30 seconds and then rest for 90 seconds and repeat this seven more times. Timing isn’t set in concrete so you can go hard for 60 seconds and rest for 60-240 seconds if you wanted to. There’s no set rules. Find what works for you. You can do HIIT on a spin bike, sprinting up hills, or by performing exercises like burpees. Sprint training burns fewer calories during the exercise than long duration cardio does, but it produces a healthier hormonal profile after the exercise is completed meaning cortisol levels don’t stay elevated for long periods after a sprint session and your metabolism remains higher for longer periods after HIIT as well.
Fifth tip is to support your liver and gut health to ensure optimal conversion of your inactive T4 hormone into the more active T3 hormone making you a metabolism beast. Easiest way to support your liver is to reduce your exposure to toxic chemicals in your environment. You can do this by swapping out commercial home and personal care products for organic plant-based ones. Easiest way to support your digestive system is to eat real food. Real food is from Mother Nature. Anything from Father Industry I consider fake pretend food-like products and these will only create inflammation in your gut.
As Michael Pollan an author who writes about real food says:
“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”
Sixth tip is to manage your self when it comes to stress. I did a whole podcast on how stress affects your health and how to identify and reframe your perspective on the stressors in your life so listen to that for more details. Also meditation and practising mindfulness and awareness is another way to move away from past regrets and future failures and to just be in the present moment. The more you can be ‘in the now man’ then the less you will be stressing about stuff in your head.
My seventh and final tip for reducing stress and inflammation and on how to best balance cortisol and all your other hormones is to get some smart sun exposure. Vitamin D is a powerful hormone that regulates over 1000 genes in your body and today about 70% of people living in western society are deficient in vitamin D and do not have enough of this health building hormone. You need to be exposing your skin to the sun on a regular basis to get the right amount of vitamin D, but of course you don’t want to get too much sun as too much of a good thing will burn you on the outside and cause fire and inflammation on the inside. I’ll talk more about smart sun exposure and vitamin D in the next podcast.
I’ll leave you with this final thought.
Throughout human history calories were never counted or measured in order to be healthy. Building muscle, reducing fat, achieving a happy mindset, all of these were and still are easily accessible to anyone living with balanced hormones without the need for calorie counting.
When you focus on the quantity of calories this will cause an imbalance in the quantity and quality of your hormones. So at the end of the day if you want quality hormones you must focus on quality calories.
To learn more about how calories really don’t matter read The Calorie Myth by Jonathan Bailor. This book lays out the science on how hormones beat out calories time and again for achieving the best health ever.
“Health is not a math equation.”
When your body is healthy, whole, and complete you’ll never have to think about calories ever again because health has always and will always be instinctively and innately and naturally easy.
Links and Resources
- WGP 004: How to Breathe for an Awesome Life
- WGP 003: How Stress is Making You Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead
- The Calorie Myth — Jonathan Bailor
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Change Your Brain, Change Your Life – Daniel G. Amen MD
(Buy from Amazon; Buy from The Book Depository)
In this completely revised and updated edition of the breakthrough bestseller, you’ll see scientific evidence that your anxiety, depression, anger, obsessiveness, or impulsiveness could be related to how specific structures in your brain work. You’re not stuck with the brain you’re born with. Renowned neuropsychiatrist Dr. Daniel Amen includes cutting-edge reseach and the latest surprising, effective “brain prescriptions” that can help heal your brain and change your life:
To quell anxiety and panic:
Use simple breathing techniques to immediately calm inner turmoil
To fight depression:
Learn how to kill ANTs (automatic negative thoughts)
To curb anger:
Follow the Amen anti-anger diet and learn the nutrients that calm rage
To conquer impulsiveness and learn to focus:
Develop total focus with the One-Page Miracle
To stop obsessive worrying:
Follow the “get unstuck” writing exercise and learn other problem-solving exercises
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.
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In this podcast I’ll be exploring Food Cravings:
- I’ll explain what food cravings are
- I’ll talk about three different types of food cravings and what causes them
- Finally I’ll share my top tips on how you can better manage yourself when it comes to food cravings
CLICK HERE TO LEARN WHAT ARE THE BEST FOODS TO GET YOU LEAN
Let’s first make the distinction between hunger and food cravings.
Hunger is a normal physiological response by your body meaning hunger is a normal physical function that your body performs. Hunger happens in response to your cells being low on nutrition and energy and information. You know you’re really hungry when you receive growling sounds and feel physical sensations from your stomach. Hunger leads you to eat any food in general.
A food craving is a physical, emotional, and mental want or need for a specific food.
As I always say life is in flow and always in motion and if you’re not moving then you’re not living, you’re not growing, and you’re not changing.
Food cravings come from the fact that your current way of being, your current lifestyle is stuck in a rut.
“I define food cravings as a craving for change.”
Having a fixed mindset or being stubborn or not being able to go with the flow will lead you to become physically, emotionally, and mentally stagnant. You will find yourself repeating the same actions, expressing the same feelings, and believing the same thoughts over and over and this my friend is the root cause of all food cravings.
A physical food craving is due to your body lacking specific nutrients. If you find yourself eating the same foods day-in-and-day-out for long periods of time you will be getting plenty of nutrients in fact probably in excessive amounts from that one group of foods, but you will be missing out on a lot of other nutrients found in different foods. If you’re also eating a lot of fake pretend food-like products aka processed and packaged foods well these have hardly any nutrients in them. I mean there’s plenty of energy and calories in these foods, but where’s the nutrition?
Movement, either too little or too much causes physical food cravings. Nutrients and energy and information from the foods and beverages that you eat and drink get digested, absorbed, assimilated, and metabolised when your digestive juices, your blood, and your lymph fluids are all in flow. When you don’t move and you stay in the same physical position for long periods of time your lymph fluid doesn’t flow and your heart has to pump harder to keep your blood moving causing nutrient traffic jams. When you’re doing strenuous exercise stress hormones increase and this stops your digestion in its tracks.
Now if your breathing is short and shallow and if you’re drinking tap water then the nutrients in your body will not be transported as effectively as they could be. Proper breathing massages internal organs and keeps your cerebral spinal fluid in flow helping to move nutrients in and waste out of your cells. Quality water has no industrial chemicals and has the right amount of minerals to form healthy blood vessels and other fluids needed to move nutrients around your body.
So to sum up physical food cravings while eating the same real foods all the time and eating fake foods may give your cells certain nutrients and plenty of energy your cells will still be screaming out for other nutrients and different building blocks they need to do their job. Now with no movement or with excessive movement not all the nutrients that you eat will even get to where they are needed most due to the lack of lymph flow, inefficient blood flow, and too much stress shutting down your ability to digest and absorb your food. Also proper breathing technique and quality water are needed for effective transportation of nutrients in your body.
An emotional food craving is due to certain feelings triggering physical hunger signals. When emotional needs are perceived to not be met by self or by others then food is used as a replacement for emotional support. If you experience chronic feelings of fear, resentment, apathy, anger, worthlessness, being lost, or pain (yes pain is an emotion) this usually means you’re missing out on love, connection, being cared for, peace, meaning, inspiration, and pleasure and food can act as a substitute when these are lacking in your life.
In fact deep-seated emotions, positive or negative, that have been repressed or ignored or neglected will show up in your bodymind in a number of ways and not just as food cravings. A bit of a sidetrack here, but while what I’m about to say hasn’t been shown in scientific papers I personally believe that cancer, yep the Big C, is the biggest symptom of unresolved emotional issues today. I say this from personal experience having witnessed family members make it through cancer therapy and having to say goodbye to other family members who have died from cancer.
Anyhoo… back to food cravings.
A mental food craving is due to your thoughts being out of alignment with your feelings and your actions. Remember back in the podcast episode about Dream Building I talked about how your dream must align and be in harmony with your core values in order to live a happy and healthy life and to achieve living your dream. Any time your thoughts, feelings, and actions do not correspond to your values and your dream then stress, pain, and suffering are not that far behind.
Another thing is if you’re constantly ruminating about past events or thinking about what may happen in the future this can cause depression and anxiety leading to food cravings.
A foggy head with stinking thinking stuck in the past or trying to forecast the future will cause you to crave foods that do not serve you or your dream.
Okay so how do you go about managing yourself when it comes to food cravings? First some prevention tips.
With all types of food cravings physical, emotional, and mental you want to nourish your body with nutrient, energy, and information rich real foods from Mother Nature. When you nourish your cells with all natural ingredients and building blocks your feelings and thoughts will also be in alignment with the principles of nature meaning you will feel happier, healthier, and start to think how you can be of service to others as opposed to how others can serve you. You want to eat seasonally and locally as well as. This will ensure your diet is varied and fresh and changes with the seasons.
Something to take note of is that different physical food cravings relate to different nutrient needs by your body. For example if you crave chocolate this may be a sign of magnesium deficiency. If you crave cheese this may be due to not having enough fat and/or calcium in your diet. A craving for sweet foods could be due to a lack of sulphur and the amino acid tryptophan. Craving salty foods is often due to a lack of chloride.
So based on what you are craving have a look at your current diet and see if there may be some room for improvement by including different foods with higher sources of the nutrients that you may be missing out on.
Okay do yourself a favour and do a ‘Kitchen Cleanse’ or ‘Pantry Detox’. This is where you remove all processed fake foods that you crave for. Out of house, out of sight, out of mind.
Do not stay in one position all day long. Sit, stand, walk, squat, lunge, and fidget if you have to. Set a timer to 25 minutes and change positions or go for a one minute walk every time it goes off. The more you can move your body the easier it is for nutrients to be transported to where they’re needed most.
Remember to breathe diaphragmatic breaths. Breathing through your nose with your mouth closed and tongue resting on the roof of your mouth behind your teeth and expanding your belly for the first two thirds of the breath and then allowing your chest to move only in the last third then letting the breath out naturally either through your nose or mouth gives your internal organs a nice massage and expands and contracts your muscles as well as your spine creating movement of fluids and nutrition.
Make sure you keep yourself properly hydrated with quality spring or filtered water. Depending on your body weight, your activity levels, and your environment your H2O needs can range from 2 litres a day to 4 litres a day.
So move often, breathe deeply, and drink real water.
Now when a food craving does hit you what can you do?
First thing to try is deep belly breathing for one minute. Count 4-8 seconds on the in breath and the same amount of seconds on the out breath. Do this for a minute and wait and sense if the craving is still there.
If you still got a craving try drinking a big glass of water and wait 20 minutes.
Still got the craving?
Try a spoonful of extra virgin coconut oil or a shot of extra virgin olive oil. Yep you heard me. Get some real fats into your body. Again wait 20 minutes and see if the craving is gone.
If you still have the craving what I’m about to suggest next may not make sense, but give in to the craving. Now this doesn’t mean to go chomping down on whatever it is you’re craving okay.
I’m about to describe a mindfulness ritual that you can practise that will help you to give in to the craving, but at the same time stay in full control and awareness of how you’re being around that food.
Okay so pick up the food you’re craving and smell it. Take a deep breath in… really sniff that scent in.
Now break up the food and crumble it between your hands and fingers or dip a finger into it and pick up a bit of the food listening to the sounds that are happening as you do this.
Fully be present with the smell, sight, sounds, and feel of the food. Does it have an intense smell or is it mellow? How many colours can you see? Does it sound hard and sharp or soft and quiet between your hands or fingers? Feel its texture and temperature and notice the differences. Is it cold or hot? Does it feel smooth or rough?
Now put a piece of the food in your mouth allowing it to rest on your tongue, but don’t eat it! Just savour the flavour. Can you describe it? Can you describe the taste?
Finally, start chewing. Don’t swallow it. Just notice what your senses are telling you as you eat the food. Does it taste good? Does it feel good?
Alright, choice time. Now you have to choose whether to spit out the food and be done with the craving or swallow it.
If you do swallow it you will have another choice to make. Do you take another bite and continue eating or are you done with the craving?
This mindfulness food cravings ritual doesn’t work for everyone and if it didn’t work for you then what you have on your hands is not a physical food craving, but more an emotional or mental one.
To help with emotional and mental food cravings daily affirmations and daily meditation can help.
Affirmations don’t have to be overly positive and they can be as simple as, ‘I am here in this moment and this moment is all there is’. This type of affirmation removes past and future thinking keeping you in the present.
Meditation helps train you to be aware of your thoughts and to keep yourself focused on one thing. There are many types of meditation. You can do sitting, breathing, movement, walking, even gardening meditation. All of these will help balance your bodymind. You could do two minutes a day, two minutes every hour, two hours a day, whatever works for you just make meditation a daily practise as consistency is king when it comes to changing habits and ways of feeling and thinking.
Again meditation is about focusing the mind and one of the best ways to meditate or focus your mind is through play. Go outside and play tag or hide and seek with family and friends. Climb trees, fall off a tree, play fetch with Fido. Whatever it is you do for play let go of any expected outcome and just have fun. That’s what play is all about.
Another way to manage your emotional and mental food cravings is to keep a Food Mood Diary. This is where you note down date and time, place, people nearby, and how you’re feeling every time a food craving comes up. Over time you will notice a pattern begin to emerge. Emotional and mental food cravings can be triggered by a number of things and you may be able to find out what your personal triggers are by using a food mood diary.
Your ability to manage yourself when it comes to perceived stress plays a huge role in balancing out your thoughts and emotions. Self-management in terms of stress comes down to how much integrity you have with your thoughts, words, and deeds. If you say you’re going to do something then do it. If you write down a date that a task needs to be completed by then when that date comes that task better well be completed. And if you fail to do something that you said you would do apologise to the parties involved and if it’s just you apologise to yourself.
Integrity and harmony are key to having a clear bodymind that includes clarity of thought and a light heart.
Listen to the podcast I did on stress (podcast #3) to learn more on how to manage yourself and the perceived stressors in your life.
Here’s a quote by American philosopher and psychologist William James:
“The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.”
Emotional and mental food cravings fundamentally come down to not feeling appreciated when you expect to be and by not showing appreciation when you should. This includes self appreciation and giving yourself a pat on the back and loving your true authentic self.
So put down that pint of ice cream, that piece of pastry, that sugary cookie, that bar of milk chocolate, those salty chips, that crispy fried chicken, and choose instead to give yourself a hug and I want you to think, feel, and say to yourself, ‘I appreciate my life. I am worth it. I love me’.
If you find that difficult and don’t believe those words (and I know for some of you it is a struggle to show yourself authentic self love) how about thinking and feeling and saying this, ‘I have the potential to appreciate my life. I have the potential to be worthy. I have the potential to love myself’.
If you’re listening to this to my voice right now hear this, what I’m about to say for it is true: I Jason Marinovich appreciate you and your life. You are worthy for you are the reason why I record these podcasts. I thank you and give you all the gratitude I can give for listening and for giving me purpose. I love you my dear beautiful listener.
I’ll leave you with this thought.
Sameness begets staleness creating an unbalanced lifestyle leading to sickness, disease, and food cravings.
So keep moving forward.
Don’t let yourself get stuck in one way of being.
“Be water and keep in flow.”
Links and Resources
- WGP 014: Dream Building – How to Create the Life You Really Really Want
- WGP 003: How Stress is Making You Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead
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In this podcast I’ll be exploring Connecting with Nature:
- I’ll explain the importance of relationships and connecting with others
- I’ll talk about the different types of natural connection that nourishes your bodymind
- Finally, I’ll share some simple and effective relationship and nature rituals you can put into action to grow your natural social network
CLICK HERE TO LEARN WHAT ARE THE BEST FOODS TO GET YOU LEAN
All life came from a single cell billions of years ago. Now this cell wasn’t alone for long as it soon multiplied into a community of cells. Over time this community of cells adapted and evolved and grew and developed into all the different life forms we see today.
Human beings are social creatures. We live and we love and we fight in communities. Wanting to be with other people and feeling a connection with another person is built into your DNA going way back to that very first cell.
Now if you think about it how do we punish someone who’s already in prison? Solitary confinement. This is where people are physically separated from the main population and put into a room by themselves isolated from the rest of the world.
There’s no worse prison than that of a mind of someone who has lost connection to their friends and family.
Whether you experience pleasure or pain as long you’re with other people there’s a hidden sense of safety and security that makes you feel like it’s okay to feel this way. You can call on another person for help or you can blame that other person for causing your problem. A shared experience also tends to feel more alive and vibrant in the moment then if you were to have it by yourself.
But when you are cut off from family and friends this is where feelings of loneliness and solitude begin to creep in. Every time I bite into a delicious piece of dark chocolate or drink a tasty smoothie the first thing that comes to mind is ‘I want to share this experience with someone else’. But if I’m alone at the time there’s a split second where I get a little bit sad at not being able to share what I’m having.
Sadness is an emotion that you can feel and deal with on your own quite easily. Grief on the other hand can hit you pretty hard and it usually comes from a major sad event happening in your life suddenly, out of the blue, and unexpectedly. Dealing with grief alone is never easy. You need support and people around you to help you to see a different perspective of things and to see that this time of grieving is only temporary, eventually things will get better. Without support that grief if left to linger may turn into depression.
To paraphrase a line from The Lord of the Rings:
“Grief must move on, grief cannot linger.”
The saying it takes a village to raise a child is very true if we want that child to grow into a happy and healthy adult. Today many families are having to raise children alone. I’m not talking about single mums or dads, but families that have no extended relations nearby to help them. No grandparents, no aunts or uncles, no-one to act as a babysitter or teacher or guardian. This raising of kids without proper support puts too much stress and strain on the family and eventually on society as a whole.
Obviously us human beings are happier and healthier together than we are apart — up to a point as we do get on each other’s nerves every now and then, but as a society we are all in relationship with each other whether we like it or not. It is this relationship, this togetherness that moves you as an individual and us as a society forward and helps every single one of us to learn and to grow.
“Relationships are the key to experiencing the fullness of life.”
A lack of relationships equal a lack of experience leading to a lack of learning and growth and a lack of living.
Now even if you were the last human on this beautiful planet you still wouldn’t be alone. Animals, trees, and plants you are also in relationship with these guys. You have a relationship with the planet itself and even the sun.
The three key relationships in your life include:
- The relationship you have with your self
- The relationship you have with other people and
- The relationship you have with Mother Nature
The primary relationship you have is with your self or should I say selves. You are not only a physical being, but also an emotional, mental, and spiritual being. Your inability to live an awesome life comes down to the fact that your many different beings are out of sync with each other. For example, if you say to yourself ‘I want to be happy and healthy’ which is an expression from your mental being relating to your emotional and physical being, but then you eat fast food full of rancid plastic vegetable oils, sick drugged animal meats, and processed sugars then your emotional and physical beings are going to express something a lot different to what you were intending.
Another example let’s say you’re a person of faith who follows a creed of ‘love thy neighbour’, but more often than not you gossip about other people behind their back in order to make yourself feel better than them due to a lack of self-esteem. Well here you have a disconnection between your mental, emotional, and spiritual beings.
In order to have a happy and healthy relationship with your self you need to have a clear intention on how you want to be in the world and then you need to live your life in harmony with that intention. If your intention and way of being are incongruent, are not in harmony with each other you will never truly be able to love your self and who you are.
Once you can live a harmonious life and love your self then the relationships you have with other people are a lot easier to be in. You won’t have the need or feel that you have to defend yourself when other people question the way you live because you know that your intention and your way of being are 100% in harmony. So no matter what vile crap other people might spew in your direction to try and rock your boat, you can stand tall and simply agree to disagree because you can only control how you feel. Their feelings are not your responsibility.
As my mentor Paul Chek says you are 50% responsible for every relationship you are in. You are 100% responsible for how you think and feel toward your self, but you can only take half that responsibility when in relation with another person.
You want to nurture the relationships with the closest people in your life. This doesn’t just mean family or friends, but anyone that you interact with on a regular basis. Even the relationship with the local shop owner you buy your lotto ticket from every week needs to be nurtured.
We are social creatures after all and were made to live in communities sharing experiences and ourselves with each other.
“Isolation leads to desolation, whereas integration leads to celebration.”
The final and most vital relationship is the one you have with Mother Nature. This means the Earth, the sun, and all other life forms.
Your body is of this planet, this planet is of a star, and stars are of the universe so you literally have the Universe inside you. You are made up of the Universe. You are made up of stardust. You my dear beautiful [reader] are made up of the Earth and soil.
Our human ancestors before the dawn of air-conditioning, television, malls, and high-rise buildings spent 100% of their time on soil, on grass, on sand, or in the sea. Even huts and shelters were made out of natural organic materials meaning our ancestors were connected to the Earth even while sleeping.
Why is this important?
Your body is a biobattery where your cells hold an electrical charge and positive electrons build up overtime and act as free radicals in your body. These free radicals cause damage to your body like rust damages a car. Now think of the world we live in today with WiFi signals, cell towers, and all these new consumer electronic gadgets our world is full of electromagnetic fields and these EMFs disrupt your battery, your energy signature, your aura. EMFs also cause a buildup of positive electrons in your body leading to more free radical damage, more rust.
Guess what electrical charge the Earth is? It’s not neutral, it’s not Sweden right it’s negative. So every time you ground yourself to the Earth and come into physical contact with it the Earth sucks up those positive electrons, those free radicals and gives you more health affirming negative electrons. This is called grounding or earthing and has many health benefits besides fighting off free radicals. Earthing can also:
- Reduce stress
- Improve sleep
- Speed up healing
- Decrease recovery time
- Increase energy
- Improve the flow of blood normalising blood pressure
- Reduce inflammation
- Boost immune function
You can find out more about earthing and grounding at earthinginstitute.net.
Okay so that’s your connection with the Earth now let’s have a look at why you need to connect more with the sun.
Vitamin D controls the expression of over 1000 genes in your body. Vitamin D actually isn’t a vitamin, but a steroid hormone like oestrogen and testosterone. Vitamin D is a powerful antioxidant combating those damaging free radicals. It also boosts and activates the actions of vitamins and minerals and controls how these micronutrients work with your body benefiting your bones, skin, and blood vessels. Vitamin D is also involved in fighting certain cancers.
Now your main source of Vitamin D comes from your skin when it’s exposed to UVB radiation from the sun. Note I said UVB rays not the cancer causing UVA rays. So slapping on a pile of toxic UVB blocking sunscreen and sunbathing behind glass which filters out the UVB and only allows in the UVA is the exact opposite thing you want to be doing for better health. You can also get some vitamin D from food and supplements, but your best and original source of vitamin D will always come from the sun.
Don’t worry if you don’t have a healthy relationship with the sun right now, I’ll give some tips later on how to rebuild it.
Last point about your relationship with Mother Nature involves being surrounded by her loving embrace and by this I mean being within and with her natural forms. So this means connecting with other life forms other than the human ape.
This could mean having a pet or how about NOT stepping on a snail or killing other small bugs. This could mean having a garden and tending to it regularly or going for a swim in a natural body of water like the ocean or a river.
In Japan they have a natural organic therapy that has been shown to heal many diseases and prevent illness called Shinrin-yoku translated as ‘Forest Bathing’. Another translation would be ‘getting outside and going for a hike in the woods’.
Animals, trees, and plants, all living beings release signalling molecules called pheromones to communicate subconscious intention to other members of their tribe. Now trees and plants also give off other organic compounds called phytoncides that can influence your bodymind and by being in a forest surrounded by nature breathing in these plant chemicals you can experience the following benefits:
- Reduced stress
- Improved sleep
- Faster healing
- Decreased recovery time
- Increased energy
- Improved blood flow normalising blood pressure
- Reduced inflammation and
- A stronger immune system
Have you noticed that these are also the exact same benefits you get from earthing and grounding. Coincidence? Yes! Life begets life and the Earth, the sun, animals and plants all boost your life force energy.
Remember we are all of this one song this Uni-verse. We are single notes of a symphony or individual pieces of a giant puzzle. As this quote from Alan Watts nicely puts it:
“You didn’t come into this world. You came out of it, like a wave from the ocean. You are not a stranger here.”
‘We are the world‘ as they sang for Africa 30 years ago and it’s true. We are all in this together my friend.
Okay so here are a few ways to improve your connection with self, with others, and with Mother Nature.
To have a better relationship with your self meditation is a great option. Meditation isn’t so much about reaching a point of enlightenment, but moreso about being in a focused state of mind where you can keep your mind on a single thought. By practising meditation on a regular basis you can train your mind to stay in the present moment giving your thoughts full attention
Meditation is also a time for quiet and in a world where we are drowning in noise from other people, from the media, from our own thoughts having a daily me time and quiet time ritual will help reduce your stress making you more resilient and better able to handle stress in your life.
Now there’s a 1001 ways to meditate. You don’t have to be sitting in a cave in silence for days on end chanting a mantra although you can if that floats your boat. There are movement meditations like Tai-chi and Qi-gong.
Personally I like walking and cooking meditations.
During walking meditation I time my breaths with my steps and count my steps as I walk counting 1 2 3 4 as I inhale and 1 2 3 4 as I exhale through the nose with my mouth closed.
Cooking meditation involves me being fully in the moment where I may have some music playing in the background and where I may or may not dance while in the kitchen and I time my chops of the knife or stirring of the pot to the beat of the music. I stay away from intense house or dance music as these can be a bit of a health hazard when wielding a knife in the kitchen.
There are some fantastic books out there on finding your self and being true to who you really are in all forms of being. I recommend reading:
- Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman
- Motivation Manifesto by Brendon Burchard
- The Music Lesson by Victor L Wooten which is best listened to as an audiobook
- 10 Secrets For Success and Inner Peace by Wayne Dyer and
- The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra
These five books are a great start on your journey to integrating your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual beings into one harmonious force of awesomeness! You can find all these books in the Book Reading Club on the Whole Guidance website at wholeguidance.com/brc.
To enhance your relationship with others try finding ways to be of service to them. Giving is a fantastic way to serve. You can give your time and attention. You can give money. You can give knowledge or you can give others responsibility.
Receiving is another way to serve where you can receive what other people have created like a beautifully cooked meal and you can receive by letting others authentically express and share with you what’s really on their mind without judging them.
By giving and being open to receive others in their true and honest form you will see your relationships with the people in your life go from artificial and superficial to rich and more intimate.
Tips for getting outdoors in nature… get outside and get into nature!
Go hiking, walk trails, mountain bike riding, swimming, play on the beach, take your dog for a walk — don’t have a dog then get one from an abandoned animal shelter (definitely on my list to do). Get your thumbs green and get into gardening and horticulture or how about climbing a tree like you used to as a kid before getting told off.
Ideally you want to spend 30 to 90 minutes a day earthing your body to the ground, on grass, soil, or sand to reduce the stress of EMFs and boost your immune system.
At the same time why not get some sun exposure to produce some vitamin D.
You want UVB vitamin D producing rays not UVA cancer causing rays. While UVA rays penetrate the atmosphere and reach the Earth’s surface at all times of the day and throughout the year UVB rays only come through the atmosphere when the sun is high enough in the sky and this is usually around 10a to 2p during the summer and warmer months of the year (remember the sun doesn’t run by daylight savings time so keep that mind if you have that where you live). Also if you live in the upper and lower latitudes of the globe during the winter months UVB rays will not reach the surface of the planet even between the hours of 10a and 2p. So be sunsmart and protect yourself when the sun is low in the sky and expose yourself (go on I know you want to) when the sun is way up high.
Your skin colour will determine how much time you should be exposing your skin to the sun. Fare and white skinned people only need as little as five to 20 minutes a day in the sun. Dark skinned individuals may need to spend 30 to 60 minutes. Basically you want to be out long enough where you see the first signs of a tan happening on your skin, but not so long that you get burnt. You can gradually increase your time out in the sun as your skin will get used to being in the sun for longer periods. Keep in mind though that too much of a good thing is no longer a good thing.
Now Shakespeare wrote:
“To be, or not to be: that is the question.”
So you could choose not to be, but that’s no fun at all!
So I’ll leave you with this poem I was inspired to write describing who we are all to be in relation to everything else.
You were designed
To be
Under the sky and
On soil
On sand and
In the sea
You were created
To be
In the bush and
In forests
With plants and
The trees
You were embodied
To be
The same as animals and
Bugs
As well as the birds and
The bees
You were born
To be
Giving
Loving
Happy and
Healthy
You are
To be
A unique
Expression of
The Universe living
Your own reality
Links and Resources
- Earthing and Grounding — EarthingInstitute.net
- ‘We Are The World’ music video
- Way of the Peaceful Warrior — Dan Millman
- Motivation Manifesto — Brendon Burchard
- The Music Lesson — Victor L Wooten
- 10 Secrets For Success and Inner Peace — Wayne Dyer
- The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success — Deepak Chopra
Please leave a 5-star iTunes review for the Whole Guidance Podcast
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In this podcast I’ll be exploring Movement:
- I’ll explain how movement is one of the most essential nutrients for your body
- I’ll talk about how a lack of movement affects your health
- Finally, I’ll talk about the different types of movement that your body expects and how to increase your consumption of real movement nutrition
CLICK HERE TO LEARN WHAT ARE THE BEST FOODS TO GET YOU LEAN
Movement is life. Life is movement. If you’re not moving you’re not living. Movement nourishes your body and mind.
Your body and mind are actually one and the same. Clinical Professor of Psychiatry Dr Dan Siegel defines the mind as the following:
“The mind is an embodied process that regulates the flow of energy and information.”
Your mind is embodied within your entire being, your whole body, cultivating the many different life processes happening within. From your left pinky toe to your right ear lob.
Whenever I refer to your body I’m also referring to your mind and vice versa. So you can think of your body and mind as one entity called the bodymind.
Movement then moves not only the body, but the mind your entire bodymind.
Movement acts as a pump. Every time you move you contract and relax different muscles in your body and this process of restriction and expansion within each muscle acts like a pump. These pumps move water, blood, oxygen, nutrients, energy and information throughout your body. No pumping action means no nutrition for your cells.
Your lymphatic system is your waste management system and does not have a pump of its own as does your circulatory system that has the heart as a pump. Lymph fluid in your lymphatic system only moves when you move. If you don’t move then all that toxic waste just sits around in your lymphatic system and doesn’t get into your bloodstream where it can be processed for detoxification and elimination. Overtime this causes a toxic buildup in your body and when you do decide to move this will eventually overwhelm your detoxification organs such as your liver, skin, lungs, and kidneys.
You must get into the groove and move in order to transport nutrients to where they are needed the most inside of your cells and in order to transport and eliminate waste out of your body.
If you’re not moving and remain in one position for long periods of time and I’m not just talking about sitting, this applies to any long held position standing, kneeling, then your cells begin to starve due to a lack of nutrition and you also create a buildup of waste.
One of the symptoms you will experience due to a lack of movement is tiredness and low energy. When your cells do not receive the nutrients, energy and information that they need to function your metabolism begins to slow down, your bodymind begins to slow down because it’s low on nutrition and energy. Even though the energy is there inside your body your lack of movement is not transporting that energy to where it’s needed the most.
Not only does a lack of movement cause you to feel tired, but because the nutrients aren’t being transported to vital organs in your body such as your gut, heart, and brain your bodymind begins to lose focus and attention and you also begin to experience unstable mood swings and can begin to feel irritable.
Having unstable energy levels isn’t just due to a lack of nutrients reaching your cells, but also due to your inability to handle carbohydrate and sugar. Eating excess carbs and sugar creates many issues in the body including having unstable levels of blood sugar. So while you may experience an energy high at first after a carb-heavy meal or snack as the sugar rushes throughout your bloodstream it’s not too long before your energy comes crashing down as all that sugar gets quickly burnt up for energy and any excess sugar gets put into storage and then you begin to feel hungry again. You may get hungry or you may feel angry after such a sugar crash, but for me I definitely get both hungry and angry after I eat too many carbs. A phenomenon known as HANGRY!
Muscle is one area of your body where excess sugar (glucose) gets stored as glycogen. Now if you do not have enough lean muscle mass then your tolerance for carbs will be lower than someone else who has more lean muscle. One way you can maintain lean muscle is by moving. Move it or lose it right.
Also movement makes muscle cells more sensitive to the carbs you eat. After doing some high-intensity movement your muscle cells begin to scream out for nutrients and they are extremely hungry for carbs. Now your fat cells are always screaming and always hungry for additional fats made from the excess carbs and sugars you eat. But by moving your body you can at least make your muscle cells scream louder for nutrients compared to your fat cells.
So by moving you can maintain lean muscle while at the same time you can tell your muscle cells to take up most of the sugar you’re eating keeping your blood sugar levels from rising and falling too quickly. This allows you to step off and skip the next ride on the energy roller coaster.
Peristalsis is the wave-like contraction of the muscles that make up your digestive system and the more you move the more peristalsis occurs in your body meaning you will have better elimination of faecal matter — that is to say you’ll poo like a champion. Lack of movement reduces peristalsis and can make you constipated. When you’re constipated your poo sits in your colon longer than it should and water and toxins in the poo will be absorbed into your body. This reabsorption of toxins that were meant to be eliminated creates double overtime work for your liver. This extra work for your liver makes it very hungry for energy and this will cause you to feel tired and fatigued as other areas of the bodymind are not getting the energy that they need.
Also chronic constipation and exposure to toxins in your environment (such as chemicals in food and in personal and home care products) will overwhelm your liver and it will not be able to do its job 100% and usually the next organ that takes the hit for an over toxified body is the largest organ — your skin. So crap starts to come out of your skin and you can get rashes and acne all because you’re constipated and all because you are not moving and of course if you’re not well hydrated.
So if you want to move-it move-it down there you’re going to need to move-it move-it up here.
Your heart pumps blood through your circulatory system, however, it’s not a lone ranger. Your heart is part of your bodymind and works together with all other parts of your body. When you’re moving, even if it’s just fidgeting. anytime you use your skeletal muscles you’re providing additional pumps to move blood and nutrients around your body. This supports the heart so the heart no longer has to work as hard. Movement can create less strain and less stress on your heart… unless you’re doing long duration cardio, but I’ll talk more about that later.
Now this is also why sitting has been called the new smoking and why chronic sitting can lead to heart disease because without frequent movement you’re causing your heart to do more work on its own. This can create constriction in your arteries causing high blood pressure and gradually overtime due to the chronic high blood pressure and constant rushing of blood through constricted passageways in your circulatory system this will cause damage to your arteries.
Another issue with a lack of movement is your body can no longer grow and repair itself. Living life causes wear and tear on your body particularly in your muscles and joints. These are the workhorses of your body the slave workers doing hard physical labour. The cells in your muscles and joints are constantly being damaged and are dying off. If these cells are malnourished and not getting enough nutrients and energy they will not be able to repair the damage done by daily activities and the dead cells will not be replaced as quickly as they should be or will not be replaced at all. This will lead to muscle aches and joint pain. This is where slow energy-building movements come in and I’ll talk more about these soon.
So does this all mean you have to be moving 24/7 even in your sleep? No. But you do need to be moving often and change up your physical position throughout the day.
There are many different ways to incorporate movement into your life. There are informal types of movement that include play and random bouts of physical expression where there is no end goal in mind when you’re participating in the activity. So you can play outside, you can walk, run, hop, skip, jump. You can climb trees and literally just hang out and pull yourself up. You can swim, ski, go hiking, or mountain climbing. All this movement counts and yes this even includes sexy times.
Formal types of movement include training and exercise where you have particular disciplined movement patterns that require skill, proper form, and correct technique to perform.
Just as there are nutritious foods with different types of nutrients and fake foods with no nutrition whatsoever, there are also nutritious movement patterns with different types of movement nutrients and fake movement patterns with barely any movement nutrition.
One fake movement pattern that does more harm than good overtime is chronic long duration cardio. Yes joggers, cyclists, and marathon runners alike are all performing an unnatural act as it relates to your bodymind. Long duration cardio has many benefits as most movements do, but unfortunately chronically performing this type of exercise has one massive downside and that is the increase in heart muscle mass and rigidity. Your heart is a muscle and with chronic overuse this turns to abuse as the heart becomes rigid leading to heart conditions as endurance athletes age.
Another fake movement is seen in the competitive sport of bodybuilding. Again another unnatural act that puts too much strain on the bodymind as a whole and couple that with the use of artificial enhancements and drugs and it’ll lead to a lower quality of life as these athletes age.
Now there’s nothing wrong if you participate in these activities to a point. You can run marathons and become a bodybuilder for health reasons, but once you get competitive at these sports health tends to go out the window. Once you realise that you are doing something your body was not designed for and knowing that you may have to do unnatural things in order to participate you will be able to modify other aspects of your lifestyle to compensate.
There are three main types of nutritious movement your body really loves and was designed for in terms of living a happy, healthy, and long quality life.
Now before I get into these three nutritious movement patterns understand that your body doesn’t run off calories alone. Hormones play a huge role in determining the health of your mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing. These three nutritious movement patterns turn on fat-burning and growth hormones, and increase sex hormones. While these three types of movement may not burn as many calories as other forms of exercise they also won’t put your body under massive amounts of stress like other forms of exercise [cough] chronic long duration cardio. Anyhoo…
First nutritious movement is lifting really heavy things aka high intensity training. Strength training can involve weights and machines, but there’s nothing wrong and everything right with using your own body as resistance. If you’re new to lifting heavy things you will want to go through three different stages of body conditioning and preparation work beforehand to reduce your chance of injury: mobilisation, stabilisation, and flexibility. By making sure your joints and muscles are mobile and flexible enough to handle weight and by conditioning your core muscles to share the load evenly you will dramatically reduce your risk of injury. You’ll need to find a skilled exercise coach and personal trainer for this and I suggest looking for CHEK Practitioners in your area. Highly skilled with holistic and functional training CHEKkies are one the best trainers, rehabilitators, and physical therapists in the world. You can find them at chekconnect.com.
Two more great resources for conditioning your body are the books Foundation by Dr Eric Goodman and Peter Park and Becoming A Supple Leopard by Dr Kelly Starrett and Glen Cordoza.
With this strength training you want to be lifting at high intensities. So this doesn’t mean 5 sets and 30 repetitions of the same exercise. High intensity is more like 1-5 sets of 3-5 reps of a single exercise with 3-5 minutes of rest in between each set. You only need to spend about 30-50 minutes in the gym for one of these workouts. Another way to perform at high intensities is by lifting and lowering weights very slowly. This type of slow resistance workout takes less than 20 minutes to complete and can be done by anyone over the age of 16. Check out the book Body By Science by Doug McGuff and John Little for more on this slow resistance training.
Next nutritious movement pattern is sprint intervals or high intensity interval training. If you were to look at a marathon runner’s body compared to a sprinter’s body you’ll notice one isn’t quite as lean and muscle bound as the other. The sprinter’s body looks healthier because of the hormonal effects that sprint training provides.
Sprint interval training involves warming up for a few minutes and then going all out for a certain period of time and then resting for a certain period of time and repeating this pattern a certain number of times. You can use a spin bike, treadmill, or a real bike and sprint for real. You can even use weights. Any movement can be turned into high intensity interval training as it’s based on working at your hardest energy output for a set period then resting. I personally use a spin bike and warm up for three minutes. My first interval starts off with 30 seconds of going all out and then resting for 90 seconds where I go at an extremely slow recovery pace. I repeat this interval seven more times with a five minute cooldown afterwards. So that makes a total of eight sprints and a total of four minutes of actual physical high intensity activity.
I used to do 40 mins on the bike before I learnt about sprint training and it’s made me more time efficient and has been a lot more effective at improving my health.
So right away you can see these first two movement patterns are not exactly long workouts, but they are definitely intense and once done your bodymind bathes in the positive hormonal afterglow that follows.
Final nutritious movement pattern involves moving slowly and moving often aka not being stuck in one position all day every day. These movement patterns you can call working in instead of working out. Workouts drain your body of energy, whereas working in cultivates and builds energy within your bodymind.
The most simplest and easiest work-in of them all is to breathe. You don’t even have to get out of bed for this one. Taking relaxing diaphragmatic belly breaths through the nose as described in a previous episode I did on breathing moves your body in all three dimensions as your belly expands forward, ribcage expands sideways, and your spine expands up and down.
Another easy work-in movement pattern is walking. Very simple, you don’t have to strain yourself, just walk. Maybe start off with 30 minutes a day so get a timer, set it for 15 minutes, start off on your walk and once the timer goes off you walk back.
Next work-ins are Tai-chi and Qi-gong. These are very slow forms of movement and are more meditative in nature. Along these lines of movements are Zone exercises which are a form of Qi-gong where you do the exercise not so much for meditation (but they can be used this way), but more for healing a specific health complaint that you may have. To find out more about these Zone exercises look up the book How to Eat, Move and Be Healthy! by holistic health practitioner Paul Chek.
Yoga is another form of working in. Now I’m not talking hot Bikram melt-in-your-clothes yoga that’s more of a workout, but Hatha and Iyengar yoga. That’s the yoga you want for working in.
One final tip for those stuck in a chair most of the day or stuck being in one set position for long periods of time. No amount of movement can reverse the damage caused to your arteries from being chronically stuck in the same position all day. You need to break up the static pattern with either frequent dynamic movements or by simply changing position. So set a timer to 25 minutes and every time it goes off get up for a few minutes and go for a quick stroll around the building or go outside or simply do air or chair squats, lunges, or march on the spot. If you’re fortunate enough to have a workstation that can be raised and lowered simply change from a sitting to a standing position throughout the day.
Just don’t stay in the one position for longer than an hour.
I’ll leave you with this:
“Life is a dance and Mother Nature only dances with those who dance and move along with her.”
If you ain’t movin’ and you ain’t groovin’ then Mother Nature’s bouncers aka bacteria, fungi, and parasites will gladly show you the door.
Links and Resources
- ChekConnect.com for Holistic and Functional Exercise Coaches and Therapists
- Body By Science — Doug McGuff MD, John Little
- WGP 004: How to Breathe for an Awesome Life
- Foundation — Dr. Eric Goodman, Peter Park
- Becoming a Supple Leopard — Dr. Kelly Starrett, Glen Cordoza
- How to Eat, Move and Be Healthy! — Paul Chek
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Rebounder
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Rebounders are mini trampolines that support your body’s innate detoxification system through the act of rebounding (jumping on a mini trampoline).
Toxins are moved out of cells and transported out of the body through the lymphatic system, which is a circulatory drainage system for anything the body cannot utilise and is a major player in detoxification. The lymphatic system functions only during muscular contraction. This includes any type of movement.
Rebounding is an extremely low impact mobility/detoxification practise with no long-term adverse effects on your joints making it the best way to work your muscles and to move lymph within the body.
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Yoga Mat
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A yoga mat is a versatile piece of mobility equipment that can be used for a variety of exercises, stretching, meditation, and of course yoga.
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.