Your Digestive Health – What is your body doing with the foods you eat?

I just returned from a week long visit with family. I got to spend some time with my brother who is only 1 year older than me.  My brother works hard running his business and has a wife and two children and doesn’t really take time for himself.  Although my brother is not overweight or obese, he complained that he’s starting to develop a “gut”.  He also told me that he pops TUMS like they’re candy from having heartburn and indigestition, and his energy levels are low.

The first thing I told my brother is that he needs to stop using over the counter Anti-acids as they will do more harm than good for his digestive system and immediately asked him what his diet was like.  Turns out my brother’s diet consists of simple carbohydrates from mostly white flour products and was lacking in many of the nutrients his body needs.  His main diet staples are, takeout/fast food, pizza, bagels, pasta, break and cereal.  Apples, berries, oats, brown rice, greens, healthy fats from nuts and fish, good sources of lean proteins were absent from his diet.  It was no wonder my brother was having digestive issues and lacking energy.

I realized that my brother was like most people who didn’t know what a simple carbohydrate was from a complex carbohydrate and didn’t really put much thought into what he was feeding his body with.  It’s not what you eat, it’s what your body does with the foods you eat.

All this white flour my brother was consuming was causing the yeast in these products to produce gas and bloating, indigestion..  Hence, acid reflux.

I then asked my brother if he was taking a multi-vitamin, to which his answer was no.  With that, I told my brother to put down the anti-acids and introduced him to digestive enzymes, probiotics and whole food vitamins. 

Digestive Enzymes

Digestive enzymes are naturally produced within your body. But sadly, there are far too many people whose enzyme stores become depleted for one reason or another. Then you can't digest your food optimally. The cycle of occasional bloating, indigestion, and other minor digestive issues begins.

To help introduce my brother to the world of natural health, I referred him to someone I reference a lot in my articles and research, Dr. Joseph Mercola.  I sat with him at his computer and showed him Dr. Mercola’s article on Digestive Enzymes to give him a better understanding of how his diet was affecting his digestive system. In the article, Dr. Mercola gives a quick quiz of symptoms and my brother answered yes to all.  

Check out the article about Dr. Mercola’s article about digestive enzymes and yes, I use them and have found them to be very beneficial for my high protein diet.  Benefits of Digesive Enzymes 

Whole Food Vitamin Supplements

I also recommended for my brother what I use and what I recommend for all my clients, a good quality Whole Food Multivitamin which will help him get the nutrients his body has been missing and help provide him with the energy he’s been lacking.

A Whole Food vitamin is very different from the synthetic vitamins you see in the stores.  Whole-food vitamin supplements are what their name suggests: Supplements made from concentrated whole foods.  Whole-food supplements supply our bodies with nutrients we are not getting from our diets—all the vitamins, minerals, trace minerals and phytonutrients that foods possess in a way that nature intended—in a whole-food form. 

These whole-food vitamins contain the synergists—cofactors—that exist within the whole-food complex. Without which, the body continues to be starved of micronutrients needed for healing, repair and prevention of illness.  Vitamin supplements (which are only PARTS of foods) contain only vitamins, leaving out these natural, life-supporting nutrients.

Basically, your body more easily absorbs whole-food vitamins and supplements over synthetic.  Whole-food supplements offer a concentrated source of nutrition, which includes vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids, phytonutrients and enzymes to aid digestion and the list goes on and on. Whole-food supplements, in my opinion, are clearly the superior choice for supplemental nutrition.

Again, I referred my brother to Dr. Mercola’s site about Whole Food Vitamin Supplements for more information.  Here is the article about Whole Food Vitamin Supplements I referred my brother to. What are Whole Food Multivitamins and Minerals

After educating my brother about his diet, how it’s been affecting his health, helping him order the products I take and recommend from Dr. Mercola, he asked if I can do a supermarket tour with him so he would know exactly what foods he needed to buy in order to get on the right track.  Aahhh… nothing like some quality, Brother-Sister bonding all in the name of good health.

By the way, I checked in with my brother and he said he's starting to feel better :)

Click here to check out Dr. Mercola's Products. 

(note: the above links are sponsored links however, I do use these products, trust them and recommend them)


(disclaimer: Please note that I am not a doctor and not prescribing anything.  This is for informational purposes only.  You should always speak to a doctor to rule out any serious medical issues)

Another Reason to STOP drinking Soda

Although I am a Fitness Professional, I am also a Natural Health Advocate. Fitness and health go hand in hand. To have a fit body, you need to also have a healthy body. I can show you some great workouts, but if you’re consuming foods and beverages that prevent you from obtaining optimal health, you’re not going to have a fit, healthy body.

I have reported on several reports about why soda is so bad for you. If you or your children are still drinking soda, here’s another reason why you may want to think about flushing that can of soda down the toilet and never buy another can of soda again.

I recently came across an article by Dr. Joseph Mercola explaining what happens to your body within an hour of drinking a soda. This is just one good example of the old saying “You Are What You Eat”, however, it’s more about what our bodies do with what we eat.

Before I do that, I’d like to share with you a video that was put out a few months ago by the New York Department of Health that should get your attention.



It’s no secret that soda is bad for your health in many ways. Per Dr. Mercola, here’s what happens inside your body when you assault it with a soda.

Within the first 10 minutes, 10 teaspoons of sugar hit your system. This is 100 percent of your recommended daily intake, and the only reason you don’t vomit as a result of the overwhelming sweetness is because phosphoric acid cuts the flavor.


Within 20 minutes, your blood sugar spikes, and your liver responds to the resulting insulin burst by turning massive amounts of sugar into fat.


Within 40 minutes, caffeine absorption is complete; your pupils dilate, your blood pressure rises, and your livers dumps more sugar into your bloodstream.


Around 45 minutes, your body increases dopamine production, which stimulates the pleasure centers of your brain – a physically identical response to that of heroin, by the way.


After 60 minutes, you’ll start to have a sugar crash.


More Soda Facts


One can of soda has about 10 teaspoons of sugar, 150 calories, 30 to 55 mg of caffeine, and is loaded with artificial food colors and sulphites. Not to mention the fact that it’s also your largest source of high-fructose modified corn syrup.


Here’s another sobering fact if you’re struggling with weight issues: Just one extra can of soda per day can add as much as 15 pounds to your weight over the course of a single year!


Other statistics on the health dangers of soft drinks include:

• One soda per day increases your risk of diabetes by 85 percent

• Soda drinkers have higher cancer risk. While the federal limit for benzene in drinking water is 5 parts per billion (ppb), researchers have found benzene levels as high as 79 ppb in some soft drinks, and of the 100 brands tested, most had at least some detectable level of benzene present

• Soda has been shown to cause DNA damage – courtesy of sodium benzoate, a common preservative found in many soft drinks, which has the ability to switch off vital parts of your DNA. This could eventually lead to diseases such as cirrhosis of the liver and Parkinson's


If you are still drinking soda, stopping the habit is an easy way to improve your health. Pure water is a much better choice, or if you must drink a carbonated beverage, try sparkling mineral water with a squirt of lime or lemon juice.


There is absolutely NO REASON your kids should ever drink soda. None, nada, zip, zero. No excuses. The elimination of soft drinks is one of the most crucial factors to deal with many of the health problems you or your children suffer.


If you are struggling with a soda addiction, I would recommend that you gradually cut back on your soda consumption. For example, if you are drinking 2 sodas per day, cut back to 1 ½ per day for a week, then the next week cut back to 1 soda per day, the following week cut back to ½ can of soda per day and then the following week stop.

Source:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/1/19/what-happens-to-your-body-within-an-hour-of-drinking-a-coke.aspx

New York City Dept of Health - Are You Pouring on the Pounds