This Could Be You

If you’ve been eating the Standard American Diet of fast food, boxed food, canned food, convenience meals, and instant anything for most of your life, your entire body chemistry has been altered. I’m always telling people to kick the junk food habit but I know it’s much easier said than done. Even though I preach about waking up and kicking it out of your life for good, it’s not very healthy to go cold turkey.

Junk Food is a Drug

Quitting any type of drug cold turkey can be very damaging for your health. This includes cigarettes, alcohol, prescription drugs, illicit drugs, caffeine, and junk food. For years or even decades, your brain chemistry has been used to one set or sets of chemicals to function and get through the day.

Right now, if you eat the Standard American Diet, you’re literally hooked on a drug. Heavily processed food is loaded with neurotoxins, carcinogens, mutagens, endocrine disruptors, and excitotoxins that alter the way your brain functions and the way your body feels.

Food additives like monosodium glutamate and high fructose corn syrup interfere with your leptin levels; hormones responsible for letting you know when you’re full. When you stop eating foods containing them, you go through withdrawal and become agitated, shaky, and anxious because your blood sugar is all out of whack and your body thinks you’re starving.

Don’t Quit Junk Food Cold Turkey

Since junk food is a drug, giving it up cold turkey will most certainly cause you withdrawal symptoms. Food additives like MSG, high fructose corn syrup, aspartame, food dyes, etc. are all designed to be addictive and physically painful to stop eating.

Food manufacturers have designed these food-like products this way to continue selling their product. When you quit junk food cold turkey, you’ll likely experience fatigue, headache, nausea, irritability, anxiety, shakiness, and extreme food cravings.

Not only will this withdrawal make you feel terrible, it will make you feel as if there is no way you can cut junk food out of your diet. Within a day or two you’ll “cave”, binge out on an entire cake, and feel horribly guilty afterward.

This is no way to quit eating junk food. It’s like torture.

Quit Junk Food the Right Way

Getting rid of the junk food in your diet is one of the absolute best things you can do for your health. To do it the right way, start slowly. Cut one or two processed foods out of your diet each week, trading them in for healthier alternatives. For every snack cake you get rid of, eat an apple. For every instant soup you stop eating, prepare a fresh soup from scratch at home.

When you live a lifetime eating food-like products instead of actual food, you’ll have a lot of vitamin and nutrient deficiencies. One of the primary deficiencies will be healthy fat. The reason you’re hungry all the time and can’t stop craving junk food is because of the taste. Many salty, savory-flavored snacks mimic that flavor of meat and fat; foods your body naturally craves.

To cut down on junk food withdrawal symptoms, get plenty of healthy saturated fat in your diet. Start eating organic butter, coconut oil, olive oil, avocado, and walnuts regularly. Despite what you’ve heard, saturated fat is good for your health. It’s the trans fats in processed foods you should be avoiding.

Anyone who eats more junk food than whole food is likely to have a severe magnesium deficiency. Magnesium is a vital mineral that is responsible for proper neurological function. A magnesium deficiency often causes anxiety, irritability, muscle twitching, and insomnia. A chelated magnesium supplement can help ease these feelings and prevent junk food withdrawal symptoms.

Just because you’re giving up junk food doesn’t mean you can’t ever snack again. Start reading the food labels on all the foods you usually buy. When you see how many foreign-sounding and unpronounceable ingredients are in your food, you’ll understand why putting them into your body could harm your health.

There are healthier alternatives to the bagged and boxed snacks you like in the health food aisle. Potato chips, protein bars, chocolate, candy, and soda found in the natural and organic aisle are made with far less ingredients and the ingredients they do use are much healthier.

While your body detoxifies from all of that junk food, you’ll likely experience a withdrawal symptom here and there. You might feel more tired than usual and a bit cranky. Drink plenty of pure filtered water and de-caffeinated tea to help flush your system of synthetic chemicals. Spend quiet time reading, meditating, and sleeping. Your body is doing a lot of repair work and that kind of thing takes time.

Don’t quit junk food cold turkey. I know what I’ve said in past posts and while some people have done it and been successful, the withdrawal symptoms are no fun and can be harmful to your health. Just being aware of the difference between food and food-like products is a huge step in the right direction. Go slow and go easy on yourself. You’ll get there. One step at a time.

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Sources:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary-science-of-junk-food.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

http://www.banzhaf.net/docs/newsci.html

http://bemeagain.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/how-to-deal-with-junk-food-withdrawal1.pdf

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/09/01/enjoy-saturated-fats-theyre-good-for-you.aspx

1. “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” – Benjamin Franklin

2. “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food” -Hippocrates

3. “The greatest wealth is health.”  – Unknown

4. “If you don’t take care of your body, where are you going to live?” – Unknown

5. “If you can’t pronounce it, don’t eat it.” – Common Sense

6. “Health is like money, we never have a true idea of its value until we lose it.” – Josh Billings

7. “From the bitterness of disease man learns the sweetness of health.”  ~ Catalan Proverb

8. “Mainstream medicine would be way different if they focused on prevention even half as much as they focused on intervention…”  – Anonymous

9. “The best and most efficient pharmacy is within your own system.” – Robert C. Peale

10. “Don’t eat anything your great-great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food. There are a great many food-like items in the supermarket your ancestors wouldn’t recognize as food.. stay away from these.”  – Michael Pollan

11. “The part can never be well unless the whole is well.” – Plato

12. “He who takes medicine and neglects to diet wastes the skill of his doctors.” – Chinese Proverb

13. “Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far.” – Thomas Jefferson

14. “The groundwork of all happiness is health.” – James Leigh Hunt

15. “A healthy body is a guest-chamber for the soul; a sick body is a prison.” – Francis Bacon

16. “Wine is the most healthful and most hygienic of beverages.” – Louis Pasteur

17. “I am not my body. My body is nothing without me.” – Tom Stoppard

18. “It is easier to change a man’s religion than to change his diet.”- Margaret Mead

19. “Eating crappy food isn’t a reward — it’s a punishment.” – Drew Carey

20. “No disease that can be treated by diet should be treated with any other means.” – Maimonides

21. “Each patient carries his own doctor inside him.” – Norman Cousins

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Skin Sensitivity isn’t Just About Genetics

When your skin is sensitive to everything, daily living can be a challenge. I get a kiss on the cheek and I break out. It’s terrible. Can you relate? The good news is you can ease skin sensitivity naturally if you follow these steps.

What Causes Skin Sensitivity?

• Fair Skin

I’m so pale I make a sheet of paper jealous. Sometimes, it’s in your genes. Fair-skinned people have thinner skin, making it more sensitive to chemicals, the sun, and even touch.

• Inflammatory Skin Conditions

Inflammatory skin conditions like acne, rosacea, dermatitis, eczema, and psoriasis can increase skin sensitivity even when you’re not having a flare-up.

• Food Intolerance

Food intolerance is a commonly-overlooked cause of skin sensitivity as it increases your body’s inflammatory response and histamine production. Gluten, food dyes, and aspartame are common culprits.

• Environmental Toxins

The shampoo, soap, and make-up you use every day could be triggering and increase in your skin sensitivity. Be sure to read the labels on your favorite cosmetic products. May commercial products contain harmful parabens, phthalates, and sulfates that dry out and damage your skin.

Ease Skin Sensitivity Naturally

If you’re fair-skinned, you’re likely to have sensitive skin for the rest of your life but there’s still plenty you can do to ease the discomfort.

1. Mild, Preservative-Free Soap

Your first step to treating your sensitive skin is to choose a mild, preservative-free soap. Unscented castile soap is gentle on your skin and cleans thoroughly without drying.

2. Coconut Oil

Virgin coconut oil is liquid gold for sensitive skin because of its strong anti-viral and anti-inflammatory properties. Unlike expensive lotions, it’s completely preservative-free and very healing for your skin. Use it as an all-over body lotion when you step out of the shower for soothing relief.

3. Mineral Make-Up

Conventional cosmetics aren’t the best option for your skin; whether it’s sensitive or not. Most conventional cosmetics are nothing more than a concoction of cancer-causing chemicals, dyes, and fragrances you should avoid anyway. All make-up is originally made from minerals but when you choose organic mineral make-up, you’re not getting all of those dangerous chemicals.

4. Sharp Razors

Sensitive skin often means unsightly razor bumps with every shave. To cut down on reactions due to skin sensitivity, make an investment in a good quality razor with disposable blades. Can’t afford one? Try this trick: Take the razor you already have and sharpen it but running it up the leg of a pair of jeans. Don’t “shave” the jeans or go against the grain. You should only make upward motions for 50-100 strokes. This sharpens the razor so you enjoy a closer shave.

5. Threading

Tweezing and waxing your eyebrows and other facial hair can be enough to make you cringe if you have sensitive skin. Threading is a great alternative option because it uses no chemicals and pulls hair out in larger clumps. This means with threading, you cut down on both grooming and recovery time.

Sensitive skin takes special care. A few dietary and lifestyle changes is all you need to ease your skin sensitivity and feel healthier and more comfortable than you have in years.

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Sources:

http://www.sweetpoison.com/aspartame-side-effects.html

http://doctornalini.com/cancer-causing-cosmetics-poisions-in-your-bathroom/

It’s fitting that the acronym for the Standard American Diet is SAD. With the US Industrial Revolution, our food has changed more in the past 80-100 years than it has over thousands of years. This has left our food supply over- processed and chemically laden with preservatives, antibiotics, herbicides and pesticide residues. This has also left us with digestive systems not evolved or equipped to handle any of it! In addition to this declining quality of our food supply, lifestyle habits in the US foster stress. When stress and poor food choices collide, the outcome may be detrimental.

In the US, we tend to be very outcome oriented, always in a rush and operating on a vicious work-reward cycle, taking little time to notice how our bodies are responding to the foods we consume. Reaching for something to eat that is convenient and quick takes precedence over actual nourishment. A typical Standard American Diet (SAD) consists of high calorie, low nutrient, low fiber, high sugar, refined and processed foods with labels claiming to be healthy or natural. If a food manufacturer claims their food to be healthy or natural it’s probably best to steer clear of those items. These words are not federally-regulated and food manufacturers will jump at any chance to cash in on trending health food claims.

Once bad eating habits are a way of life, the body adjusts and you may no longer know what it feels like to feel good. You crave the bad stuff and this is by design! Addictive qualities in your food are increased in the manufacturing process to keep you buying more. The good news is that you can get addicted to the good stuff too. Once you make changes to healthier more nutritious foods you will feel the effects not only physically but mentally. I promise the simple act of paying your body this respect by fueling it with healthy nutritious foods will empower you on your path to a healthier lifestyle!

It’s time to re-establish our relationship with food. Honor nourishing our bodies as the sacred ritual that it is.  Food fuels our physical bodies allowing us to explore and experience this crazy, wonderful and gorgeous existence of ours. Like our ancestors, we need to start eating what’s available seasonally, without pesticides, herbicides, processing, preservatives or Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs).

Here are some tips to kick-start your path towards healthier eating!

Read labels: Avoid anything you can’t read or understand. If a product is loaded with ingredients, I just set it down and move on. Ingredients should be simple. Peanut butter ingredients should be peanuts, maybe salt. Spaghetti sauce should be tomatoes, basil, oregano, garlic, etc. Oils, preservatives, food coloring, artificial stabilizers, added sugar, additives are NOT necessary.

Eliminate processed foods: A twinkie is not a food! Eat whole foods and very minimally processed foods as much as possible.

Eat Fruits and Vegetables: As the foundation of a healthy diet, consider fruits and vegetables your fountain of youth. Rich in vitamins, nutrients, antioxidants, fiber, and water, it’s hard to understand how so many can resist that gorgeous nutritional profile.

The relationship you have with food is an intimate one. The food that we eat not only satiates our hunger but provides the nourishment that every cell in our body needs to function properly. Contemplate for a moment the experiences your body enables you to have. What will your life be like if you a have strong able body vs. a weak and malnourished or fatigued body? Our bodies are the vehicles that allow us to experience this fabulous human condition we call life–for better or worse! There are not many things you can control in life BUT the food you eat is one of them. It also just happens to be the best medicine and disease-preventative gift you can give yourself.

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Guest Post by: Anita H. is from Syosset, New York and has worked with organizations such as PULSE of New York, North Shore LIJ and Cold Spring Hills Nursing Home. She blogs for Addison Fields, and has a plethora of publications in sources such as Newsday and Our USA Magazine. She is pursuing her PhD in health care/business administration.