Research concluded decades ago we create our level of health, (or lack of it), with our diet, nutrition and lifestyle choices.  In other words, when you make better choices, odds are better health will be your reward. 

With this in mind, and borrowing from 5 Steps To Optimal Health, I hope you enjoy… 10 Ways To Improve Your Health Starting Now. 

1) Make Great Health A Conscious Goal – Deciding what you want is the most important step  towards getting it.  Make excellent health your goal and learning more and doing what it takes to have great health will seem easier than ever.  

2) Eat For Blood Sugar Control – Perhaps the #1 thing you can do to improve your health is learn to eat for blood sugar control.  If everyone in America did this, the hospitals would be mostly empty, doctors wouldn’t have much to do and there would be no health care crisis.  Eating for blood sugar control may be the most important health tip ever.  For more information; Eating For Blood Sugar Control May Be Your Best Health Tip Ever

3) Lose Weight – Being overweight is a symptom of hormones out of balance and nutrient deficiencies.  Correct this by reaching a lean-healthy body weight and you’ll feel better, healthier and stronger.  Resources for you;  10 Free Weight Loss Videos      5 Steps To Optimal Health Book   5 Steps To Optimal Health Audio Program   Best Way To Lose Weight Part One: Success Principles

4) Lower Cholesterol Naturally – The key to having a naturally healthy ldl and hdl cholesterol is understanding what causes high cholesterol.  This will help clear up the mystery of cholesterol.  Understanding Cholesterol, HDL, LDL, Ratios, Lowering Cholesterol Naturally & More

5) Understand And Overcome Food Cravings – If you suffer with food cravings, you are being held hostage by a nutrient deficiency.  Overcoming food cravings is easy when you know how.  Everything is explained detail in 5 Steps To Optimal Health and you will find this article most informative; Food Cravings Sugar Cravings and Salt Cravings – What They Mean And How To Stop Cravings In Their Tracks

6) Healthy Eating Plan – Forget about dieting and forget about the low calorie diet, low fat diet, and FOR SURE forget about the no-taste, fun-restricted diet.  The key to great health is a Lifetime Healthy Eating Plan, which is explained in detail in 5 Steps To Optimal Health.  Here are some diet reviews for you in case you’re interested: Weight Loss Diet Plans – Four Diet Plans Reviewed

7) Say No To Soft Drinks – Of all the things that can damage your health the quickest, other than drinking toilet bowl cleaner, regularly consuming soft drinks may deserve the top spot.  Find out the facts and then decide for yourself.  Soft Drinks Friend Or Foe How Soft Drinks Effect Your Health

Avoid Hydrogenated Oil – Hydrogenated oil is in a hundreds of products and hydrogenated oil is BAD, BAD, BAD for you.  Truth in labeling would require a skull and crossbones on any product containing hydrogenated oil.  Learn more Hydrogenated Oils And Your Health – What Is Hydrogenation

9) Diet And Nutrition – Nutrition plays a major role in building good health.  More than any other factor, the food that crosses your lips determines your level of health and vitality.  Good nutrition and good health are different sides of the same coin, it is impossible to have one without having the other.  Learn more: 5 Steps To Optimal Health

10) Read Food Labels – Putting something in your mouth, chewing and swallowing is one of the most intimate activities you can engage in.  Since what crosses your lips determines your level of health, reading and understanding food labels is more important than ever.  Learn more: Don’t Let Food Labels Make A Fool Out Of You! Now You Can Read Food Labels Like A Nutritional Pro

Bonus Health Tip #1

Stay Current On Important News On Health -  Staying current on health news helps you stay focused on your health, learn more and be more likely to act on what you learn.  Subscribe to Health News You Can Use – it’s free, and if you’re serious about getting into Excellent Health, I know you’ll enjoy it.

Bonus Health Tip #2

Watch The Weight Loss Videos: Even if you don’t need to lose weight, my 10 Free Weight Loss Videos are loaded with excellent diet, nutrition and healthy lifestyle information you can use every day to make healthy choices for yourself and your family.  Enjoy! 

More health tips are coming soon.

If you want true beauty, the kind of real, undeniable, natural, glowing gorgeousness that both men and women find irresistibly attractive, you can have it.  But this kind of beauty is not available in jars or bottles, it is only available to you if you are willing to go beyond surface-level cosmetics and potions and do the things that produce the natural glow of health that flows from the inside out.   

Your diet, nutrition and lifestyle have the strongest influence on determining the natural beauty of your complexion, skin, hair and nails, and each of these factors are almost entirely within your control. 

Is Your Diet Enhancing Your Complexion… Or Destroying It

A fast-food, junk-food, high-sugar, high-carbohydrate diet that spikes your blood sugar throughout the day and loads you up with unhealthy fats, erases the natural glow of radiant health and replaces it with a shallow, pale complexion, tired eyes, lack-luster hair and weak nails.

On the other hand, a diet rich in protein, fresh green and brightly colored vegetables, fresh seasonal fruit and other health and delicious foods, give you at least some of the nutritional support you need to look and feel your very best… and while this is just the tip of the iceberg regarding diet and beauty, these guidelines alone are an EXCELLENT first step.

Do You Get The Essential Nutrients You Need To Let Your Natural Beauty And Healthy Complexion Shine Through?

Like a car needs oil and transmission fluid to run properly, your body needs essential nutrients to function properly.  An essential nutrient is a nutrient; 1) your body doesn’t make, and; 2) a nutrient you cannot be healthy without. 

Because your body is not capable of making essential nutrients, the only way to get them is through diet and supplementation.

Essential nutrients include vitamins, (A,B,C,D, etc.), minerals like potassium, magnesium, zinc and others, 9 essential amino acids, which are the building blocks of protein, and essential fatty acids. 

If you run short on any of the essential nutrients, your body simply is not capable of functioning at peak efficiency, and one of the most visible signs of that lack of efficiency is to replace a naturally beuatiful complexion with a pale or pasty complexion, no sparkle in the eyes, dull and listless hair, poor skin tone, lack of energy and so on. 

But of course it never has to be that way.  With a healthy diet and a few well-chosen supplements, you will unleash your natural beauty, in fact, you couldn’t hold it back if you tried.

Your Lifestyle Is Reflected In Your Natural Complexion

Of all the things that can ruin your complexion, steal your smile and suck the joy right out of your life, a high stress lifestyle, unresolved negative emotions, or anything that may cause you to be worried or upset is at the top of the list. 

The stress of negative emotions burns essential nutrients like a blow torch burns tissue paper… and without a bountiful supply of essential nutrients, wrinkles, sagging skin and a lack-luster complexion is guaranteed.

Rest, relaxation and being free of killer-stress and negative emotions is an essential part of being healthy,  and being healthy is an essential part of letting your natural beauty shine through.

In the final analysis, your diet, nutrition and lifestyle determine practically everything about the quality of your health, the quality of your natural complexion and the quality of your life.

To learn more about how diet, nutrition and lifestyle affect your health, you may want to check out my book, 5 Steps To Optimal Health.

If your blood sugar is consistently elevated, you are at risk for most of what many doctors call the “deadly diseases of civilization”.

Insulin resistance, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, type two diabetes, heart disease and many of the worst forms or cancer are all DIRECTLY LINKED in research to having consistently elevated insulin levels, which are DIRECTLY LINKED to having elevated blood sugar.  

Eating in a way that keeps your blood sugar in a normal, healthy range makes establishing a healthy body weight and becoming vibrantly healthy much more probable and much easier.

Spiking Your Blood Sugar Repeatedly Throughout The Day Will Destroy Your Health And Here Is How

Any food or drink high in sugar or carbohydrates causes your blood sugar to rise rapidly.

To stop rapidly rising blood sugar, your pancreas secretes the hormone insulin, which is like the “blood sugar police”. Insulin stops rising blood sugar in its tracks and brings it back down into a normal blood sugar range.

Your pancreas making insulin to lower rising blood sugar is normal and healthy, but if you eat in a way that keeps your blood sugar elevated throughout the day…

1) your pancreas has to make insulin repeatedly throughout the day, which means;

2) your blood-insulin level remains high throughout the day, and because of this;

3) over time you develop a resistance to the blood-sugar-lowering affect of insulin, which means your pancreas has to work harder and pump even more of that powerful hormone into your blood to lower your blood sugar… and this is where the problems really begin.

Insulin lowers blood sugar by converting the sugar in your blood into fat, so instead of having high blood sugar, you have high blood fat. To get rid of the fat, the insulin causes your body to stop burning stored body fat for energy and causes you to start burning new fat that started out a few minutes prior as a soft drink, candy or chips, a piece of bread, or anything high in sugar or carbohydrates.

Your body makes substantially more fat from any food or drink high in sugar or carbohydrates than you will ever burn sitting at a desk or puttering around the house.  And all the fat not immediately burned for energy, is shoved into your fat cells, which grow, and expand, and get bigger and bigger, which means you gain weight.

Besides being the ROOT CAUSE of pracrtically ALL weight gain, elevated insulin caused by not eating for blood sugar control, is the DIRECT and PRIMARY cause of most high blood pressure, most high cholesterol, practically all type-two diabetes, and so on.

Perhaps the best health tip and the best weight loss tip ever is simply to learn to eat for blood sugar control… because when you do this, you naturally burn stored body fat for energy, you do not make and store new fat, and, in all probability, your blood pressure, cholesterol, triglycerides and other important health indicators will remain in a normal healthy range, without any special effort on your part.

On one level, being healthy, vital and strong requires only two simple steps;

1) Do things that help your body create health and vitality, like eating for blood sugar control, and;

2) Avoid things that interfere with your body’s ability to function at it’s natural, healthiest best, like eating anything that spikes your blood sugar repeatedly throughout the day, like soft drinks, candy, bread, rice. potatoes, pasta, chips, and so on. 

Please share this information with your friends and loved ones. The information in this video is extremely powerful and accurate. Put it to work in your life and I guarantee you will benefit.

Click To Listen

Food Cravings Video – Click Here To See It

In part two, the discussion turns to  negative calorie foods, including  tips on how to lose weight and naturally lower blood pressure by enjoying healthy, delicious foods, plus a quick review of several popular diet plans. 

 Negative Calorie Food Video – Click Here To See It

You probably know that most people who try to lose weight either fail completely, or regain every pound plus more in a single year or less.  In part, this happens because there is so much conflicting, confusing and downright bad diet and weight loss advice out there, that it’s easy to get caught up sincerely following bad advice. 

The other reason sincere people find it so difficult to lose weight and keep it off is that even if the diet plan they choose is good, nearly all weight loss plans and diet programs focus almost entirely on only one or two of the 5 non-negotiable things you MUST master before you, or anyone, can ever lose weight AND KEEP IT OFF for life.  

I’ve been helping people successfully lose weight and keep it off for over ten years. 

During this time, I’ve helped thousands of people overcome every kind of obstacle, problem and weight-loss delima you can imagine… and then some.  During that time I wrote and taught the diet, nutrition and the psychology of weigth loss programs at what was then one of the most exclusive doctor-run weight loss spas in the US. 

If one of your important goals is to lose weight, and reach a healthy, attractive body weight you enjoy, and easily maintain that weight for the long term, without struggle and without ever feeling hungry or deprived, I believe you may benfit greatly from information and the health and weight loss insights waiting for you in my book 5 Steps To Optimal Health.

Click Here For More Information On 5 Steps To Optimal Health

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More On Negative Calorie Foods

A healthy weight loss diet plan is always the best diet plan

Weight Loss Diet Plan #1 – Adkins Diet: Considered a high protien diet, the Adkins Diet is the most famous of all diets ever.  Created by cardiologist Dr. Robert Adkins, initially intended as a fast-weight loss diet for his patients who needed heart surgery but were too over weight to survive the operation… so Dr. Adkins designed a diet to help them lose a lot of weight fast so they could survive the surgery.

The diet was so effective at producing a fast drop in weight, it gained nationwide recognition and Dr. Adkins became known more for his weight loss plan than for his life-work of being a cardiologist helping people with heart problems.

The Adkins Diet is a 3 phase program

• Phase 1 of Adkins excludes ALL carbohydrates… no bread, rice, pasta, fruit, beer, beans, potatoes… NO carbohydrates, but all the protein and fat foods you want, including steak, chicken, ribs, sausage, eggs, fish, pork, etc.  
• Phase 2 of Adkins lets you begin to include just a few carbohydrate-containing foods like vegetables,  beans, and whole grains, but in VERY restricted amounts.
• Phase 3 of Adkins, which begins AFTER you’ve lost all the weight you need to lose, is intended to last for life, and in phase 3 you can occasionally include other carbohydrates in small amounts.

The diet is popular because it produces impressive initial weight loss, however the Adkins diet has become perhaps the most highly criticized diet ever for a variety of reasons, most of which have little to no basis in fact.

Long term studies show a large percentage of people who lose weight on the Adkins Diet, maintain weight loss as long as they stay on the diet, but many have trouble staying on the diet and immediately regain weight when they go off the diet. 

Biggest Problem with the Adkins Diet: 1) it is generally misunderstood and therefore not followed correctly; 2) There is too much emphasis on weight loss and not enough explanation or emphasis on keeping the weight off once you lose it.  .

Bottom Line: It takes 5 things to lose weight and keep it off for life without feeling hungry or deprived.  Though somewhat controversial, the Adkins plan offers metabolically sound diet advice, however, the program falls short in at least three of the five things it takes for lasting weight loss success. 

Weight Loss Diet Plan # 2 – South Beach Diet – created by Dr. Arthur Agatston, also a respected cardiologist, this popular diet is very similar to the Adkins 3 Phase Diet.  Like the Adkins Diet, phase 1 restricts all carbohydrates; like Adkins, phase 2 reintroduces certain healthy carbohydrate foods like vegetables, salad and so on, and like Adkins, phase 3, after you lose the weight, you go on a restricted carbohydrate eating plan you stay on for life.  There’s more to it, but that’s it in a nutshell.

This diet is strikingly similar to the Adkins Diet, but with more emphasis on all the food you can eat, and with less discussion of the metabolism involved. The South Beach Diet Involves no calorie counting or weighing of portions, which is a big positive.

The South Beach diet is very popular and most people maintain weight loss as long as they follow the diet.  However, while there is nothing incorrect about the diet, the plan is incomplete in explaining each of the 5 factors that must be in place before you can reach a healthy body weight and easily maintain that weight for life.  As such, it is common for people to lose weight, on the South Beach Diet, then drift off the diet and quickly regain the weight and then feel like they failed.

There is nothing wrong with this diet other than the program focuses too much on food and too little on other vitally important diet, nuitrition and lifestyle factors involved in losing weight, keeping it off, and becoming healthy and strong. 

Weight Loss Diet Plan # 3- The Zone Diet: Created by microbiologist Barry Sears, the Zone diet, like Adkins and South Beach, was formulated around an accurate understanding of what causes the body to make and store fat, and what causes the body to burn stored fat for fuel. 

The Zone book was originally intended as a refresher course in human bio-chemistry for medical doctors who were making the tragic mistake of recommending low-fat diets for weight loss and for controlling diabetes. 

The Zone Diet boils down to getting about a third of your calories from lean protein foods, and two-thirds from fruits and vegetables with only very minor amounts of other carbohydrate-rich foods. 

Biggest Problem With The Zone: The Zone offers sound diet and supplementation advice, however, like most other diet plans, the program provides no frame of reference or step-by-step strategy to make the kind of overall diet, nutrition and lifestyle changes it takes to lose weight and keep it off for life. 

If losing weight and keeping it off was easy everyone would do it and no one would be overweight.  But quite the opposite is true.

Whether you lose weight the right way or the wrong way, losing weight is much easier than keeping it off, which is why the experts tell us that 9 of every 10 people who lose weight, regain it all back, plus more within one year or less. 

The key to success with your weight and your health, is not just to lose weight, but to keep it off. 

Even though some popular, doctor-endorsed weight loss programs offer good advice on how to lose weight,  practically all the emphasis is on weight loss, with barely a mention of what’s actually involved in keeping the weight off and becoming a powerhouse of health and vitality.

Best Deit Plan # 4 – 5 Steps To Optimal Health Permanent Weight Loss and Health Improvement Program – The 5 Steps Program is not a quick weight loss plan.  The 5 Steps Program puts equal emphasis on EACH of the 5 Steps it takes to lose weight, keep it off, and dramatically improve your health.  

Like Adkins, The South Beach Diet Plan and the Zone Diet, 5 Steps To Optimal Health offers metabolically sound eating advice, but 5 Steps is the only program that explains in simple, straight forward language the science of weight loss AND the diet, nutrition and lifestyle steps that allow you to reach an attractive, healthy body weight, easily maintain that weight and never feel hungry or deprived. 

The 5 Steps Program is not specifically about losing weight, it is about understanding and making the diet, nutrition and lifestyle changes that naturally lead to a lean, healthy body weight, higher energy, and overall better health. 

Biggest Problem With 5 Steps To Optimal Health Plan – This is not a quick fix diet plan.  The program teaches you how to lose weight safely, keep it off permanently, with the commonly reported side affects of healthier blood pressure, lower cholesterol, healthier blood sugar, and naturally higher energy.  If you’re looking for a magic pill, this is not what you’re looking for.  

More Information On 5 Steps To Optimal Health – Click Here

Summary of All Diets

Low Fat Diets: Low fat diets are by definition high in carbohydrates and relatively low in protein.  Common low fat diet foods include pasta salad; rice; potatoes; bread, cereal; beans; low-fat dairy products, fruit, vegetables; and only the leanest cuts of meat.  Any of the above would be good props to point to while discussing this diet.

Problem With Low Fat Diets: Low fat diets are based on the mistake idea that eating fat makes you fat, which is false.  Eating fat does not make you fat anymore than eating sweets make you sweet or eating spicy food makes you spicy.  The idea is absurd.

Bread, rice, pasta, etc, are very HIGH in carbohydrates and eating carbohydrates will make you fat… because carbohydrates are nothing but sugar molecules hooked together, see attachment.

A low fat, high carbohydrate diet causes a rise in blood sugar and causes your body to begin making and storing fat almost immediately.   Bottom line – low fat diets make you fat.

Low Sugar Diet:  The GOLDEN KEY to a healthy body weight and good health is to learn to eat for blood sugar control… and eliminating anything obviously high in sugar from your diet is an excellent first step. 

Just 2 soft drinks a day can add a pound of fat every 10 days. 

Get the candy and soft drinks out of your diet and you will effortlessly drop a few pounds.  Typically, people who consume sweets throughout the day are driven by raging nutrient deficiency and they will NOT be able to beat the deficiency with will power… they MUST get the nutrition they need.  This topic is discussed in detail in the book, 5 Steps To Optimal Health.

Low Carb Diet:  Carbohydrates ARE sugar and too much sugar will make you fat and sick.  With this in mind a low-carb diet is a step in the right direction, but that does not mean cut out all the carbs.  You should get your carbohydrates primarily, if not exclusively, from fresh green and brightly colored vegetables and fresh non-tropical seasonal fruit.

Important Points About Losing Weight

Weight loss is about the science of metabolism; get the science right and you lose weight and keep it off, get it wrong and you may struggle for years and never reach your goal and it doesn’t matter one bit how many weight loss pills you take, how many diet books you read, or how faithfully you follow the latest celebrity diet. 

Losing weight and keeping it off is EASY… but it is NOT SIMPLE.  To succeed, you need a good basic understanding of what causes your body to make and store fat, what causes you to burn stored body fat, and what kind of diet, nutrition and lifestyle it takes to lose weight and keep it off WITHOUT DIETING and without ever feeling hungry or deprived.

The Bottom Line On Weight Loss

Diets don’t work… The ONLY way to lose weight and keep it off long-term is learn how to eat in a way that gives you the essential nutrients you MUST have to avoid hunger and food cravings, and that stimulates your metabolism to burn stored body fat for energy and not constantly make and store new fat.

All this is explained in my book,5 Steps To Optimal Health.  Knowledge is power!

Your questions and comments are welcome.  Please join in, take part, and add your voice to the conversation.

A food craving is your body’s cry for nutrients… not a cry for pizza, candy, soda or any nutrient deficient food. 

Your body needs vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids, essential amino acids, and so on to function properly.  Your brain constantly monitors your blood sugar and your supply of essential nutrients.  Excessive hunger and food cravings, including sugar cravings, are caused primarily by a deficiency or an imbalance in some essential nutrient. 

When an essential nutrient is in short supply, the brain sends a message that we interpret as a strong desire to eat something,, maybe a particular food like ice cream or sweets, chips, cookies, salty foods or no telling what.

Cravings that are caused and driven by a need for nutrients are EASILY overcome when the nutrients are supplied.  For example, two tablespoons of flax seed oil a day supply enough of the essential omega 3 fatty acids to wipe out a sweet craving in 2 or 3 days. 

Best Way To Stop Cravings

The only way to effectively stop a food craving is to supply the missing nutrients in the form of healthy food and/or proper supplementation. Do this and cravings will be gone forever.

A craving for salty foods suggests a need for sodium… eat celery or cucumber instead of chips;  sweet cravings almost always respond to essential fatty acids, take flax seed oil or coconut oil instead of eating the junk;  craving chocolate may suggest a need for magnesium; and craving meat of any kind suggests a need for B vitamins, carnitine and minerals.

Instead of sweet drinks and candy, cookies, chips, etc, supplement with flax seed oil  and/or coconut oil and snack on things like cheese sticks and apple slices, almonds and pistachios, plain yogurt with fresh or frozen blueberries, or celery ribs with almond butter, or a hard boiled egg, all of which are loaded with nutrients and will curb appetite and stop food craving practically overnight. 

For More Information On How To Stop Cravings

In 5 Steps To Optimal Health, food cravings and hunger are explained in detail and you receive complete instructions to eliminate excessive hunger, stop food cravings and put an end to sugar cravings in  just a few days with simple diet and nutrition adjustments that are easy to make.

Your comments and questions are always welcome.  Please join the conversation and let everyone benefit.

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What It Means To Be Hungry – How to defeat hunger with negative calorie foods.