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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)

Eating Clean with Tosca Reno on the next FitTalkShow

Tosca Reno

Author, Eat Clean Diet Book Series

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

8:00 PM EDT

Listen Live On Line -
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/sharifitness

Listen via teleseminar 347-215-6385

At age 40, author Tosca Reno found herself miserable, overweight, stuck in an unhappy marriage, and living an unfulfilled life. Her self-esteem was at an all-time low. She barely recognized the woman she had become. 

Tosca re-invented herself becoming super-fit and healthy, entering Bodybuilding contests and started writing articles for Oxygen, a top fitness magazine.  Tosca quickly earned her own monthly feature in the magazine called “Raise the Bar.” The column targets women over 40 looking for motivation, nutrition and training advice.

Tosca wrote the The Eat-Clean Diet  which has turned into a series and is a huge hit throughout North America, with over one million copies sold. Tosca has struck a chord with the diet-weary. In fact the most common response she gets is: “This just makes so much sense! I will never give up eating this way! It’s so easy!”

Tosca celebrated her 50^th birthday May, 2009 and is living proof that eating clean  and living a fit and healthy lifestyle truly is the fountain of youth.

Mark your calendar right now and be sure to tune into FitTalk Wednesday, April 21th, 8:00 PM EDT at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/sharfitness or call 347-215-6385 and listen LIVE on your phone.

Weight Loss and Good Health Doesn't Come in a Pill

When it comes to weight loss and good health, everyone is looking for the quick fixthe magic pill.  If such a thing existed, someone would be incredibly wealthy and obesity would no longer be an issue. 

Want more proof that weight loss and good health doesn’t come in a magic pill? With most drugs, they treat the symptoms, not the cause.  According to scientists, anti-obesity drugs are unlikely to provide long lasting benefit.  Scientists at the University of Liverpool argue that anti-obesity drugs fail to provide lasting benefits for health and wellbeing because they tackle the biological consequences of obesity, and not the important psychological causes of overconsumption and weight gain.

Anti-obesity drug developers focus primarily on weight loss as their end goal, and do not take into consideration the motivational and behavioural factors that most commonly cause obesity. Obesity typically results from eating too much food combined with too sedentary a lifestyle. However, obese people may also have a complicated psychological relationship with food that makes it difficult for them to control their appetite sufficiently to manage their weight.

An anti-obesity drug cannot replace the health benefits of exercise.  An anti-obesity drug cannot teach you how to make better food choices.  An anti-obesity drug isn’t going to help ease the underlying causes of emotional eating. 

Anti-obesity drugs can work in different ways; for example, by suppressing appetite, altering metabolism or inhibiting the absorption of calories. There have, however, been serious concerns over the safety of the most commonly prescribed drugs, leading to the recent withdrawal of the European market leaders Sibutramine (Reductil, Meridia) and Rimonabant (Accomplia).

When patients are prescribed anti-obesity drugs, are the doctors referring them to a nutritionist to become more educated about food and caloric intake?  Probably not.  Are these patients being referred to fitness professionals to get a structured exercise program to help them burn calories and improve their health?  I think not.  Natural Health solutions are probably not discussed with an overweight patient prior to prescribing them an anti-obesity drug. 

In most cases, obesity and weight gain is due to poor diet and a sedentary lifestyle.  Then there are the psychological aspects towards eating such as emotional eating which can be addressed through therapy or hypnosis.  There is also what Dr. Brian Wansink, Ph.D refers to as “Mindless Eating” and talks about this a great length in his book, Mindless Eating.  And lastly, yes, there are some people who suffer from metabolic disorder. 

The key to weight loss and good health is so basic and simple for most people via good nutritional habits and exercise.  Calories in vs. calories out.  End of story.  We all know we need to do this in order to lose weight and become healthier yet, people tend to make this much more complicated than it needs to be.  Yes, weight loss will take time, and no, it’s not going to happen overnight.  Too many people find it difficult to be consistent and committed towards changing lifelong bad habits into lifelong good habits and give up too quickly and easily.  The rest of it lies within the subconscious mind and that’s where therapy or hypnosis can help. I have discussed this aspect in my article Struggling With Weight? You May be Getting In Your Way.  Being more mindful of what you are eating and how much you are eating can help get you more in control of consuming excess calories.

I’m not saying that anti-obesity drugs don’t have their place.  They do, provided the causes of obesity are addressed and not just treating the effect.

Reference: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100316112448.htm

Let The Revolution Begin!

A revolution has begun amongst those of us who are health and fitness advocates, and celebrity chef, Jamie Oliver is leading the way with his new ABC Show called “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution”. 

Admittedly, I don’t watch television.  However, I do feel that this is quality television that is worth my time and everyone else’s time to be watching. For those of you who have been asleep about the obesity epidemic amongst adults and children, this show certainly is a wake up call to our nation.

The premiere episode takes place in Huntington, WV, which is reported to be the unhealthiest city in America.  Jamie is on a mission to help educate the town about how their poor lifestyle choices are affecting the town’s health, and the importance of eating a healthy diet and how to prepare healthy meals.

The Revolution is met with resistance

Jamie is not received very well in the town.  In fact, he is met with a lot of resistance; basically viewing him as if he were their enemy.  It’s so sad to see a town that already knows that their poor lifestyle habits have placed them on the map as “the unhealthiest city in America” have this kind of reaction.  I couldn’t help but ask myself why are these people so reluctant to change and improve their health?  Why do they look at Jamie Oliver as their enemy?  Why are they being so resistant? 

Hate to say this, but Huntington, WV is just like any other city in America.  People are resistant to change.  It’s hard and it takes work.  People know they shouldn’t be eating the junk they eat and yet continue doing so despite any current health problems or health risks.

Jamie, who has an abundance of resources at his disposal, certainly is fighting an uphill battle with the people of Huntington.  Watching the walls and red tape that he encounters and his charge to lead the way to overcome those obstacles is inspiring to someone like me who is trying to help spread the same message.   

The Edwards Family

One subject that the show touches on, but not in much depth is child obesity.  Jamie befriends The Edwards Family and meets their teenage son, Justin.  Justin and Jamie bond immediately as Justin sees Jamie as someone who can help him and wants help.  Justin confides to Jamie that he’s tired of being heavy and bullied by the other kids at school about his weight.  If you watch closely enough to the episode, it is very clear that overweight kids know they are overweight and desperately want help.  They want to learn how to improve their health and lose weight. 

Jamie shows the Edwards family just how unhealthy the foods they eat are.  The mother of the family, Stacie Edwards, becomes tearful and emotional when she becomes aware that what she is feeding her family has no nutritional value and that she is putting their health and their future at risk.  Jamie buys them a week’s worth of healthy groceries, teaches them how to cook and provides them with healthy recipies they can cook.  Unfortunately, when Jamie returns to visit the family a week later, he is suspicious that they went back to their unhealthy eating habits.

School Lunches

The school nutritional regulations are atrocious and make no sense.  The schools feed the kids the most unhealthy, processed foods.  Making the switch over to feeding the children more healthy and nutritious meals shockingly doesn’t meet school nutritional guidelines.  The red tape and regulations are killing our kids.  The sad truth is that for many kids, the only meal they get is their school lunch.  I guess that explains why kids will eat something they know is gross and bad for them, simply because they are hungry.

Getting kids to eat healthier is not impossible, however, as Jamie experienced, you really need to get the parents and schools on the same page about nutrition as ultimately, we are the ones feeding our children and teaching them about foods, nutrition and health.

Visit Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution site and join the revolution! http://www.jamieoliver.com/

To get an idea of what kids are being fed in schools, check out this clip from the show.