Monday, November 14, 2011

The Secret Key to Balanced Weight & Weight Loss ~ Living Foods


Whether you are someone who seems to gain weight by just looking at food, gains weight every time they eat, finds it difficult to loose weight and keep it off are one of the millions who just constantly have to think about every thing you eat to keep your weight in check, there is good news! Loosing weight, keeping it off and keeping your weight balanced shouldn't be rocket science nor should it be a constant struggle. So why do so many of us find ourselves in a never ending battle? Because we have fallen far from the natural laws of eating and health.

The key lies in eating living enzyme rich foods! Foods that are alive, that have not been cooked or processed in any way, and that are still in their natural state hold the answer to the ability to live at your perfect balanced weight without any thought or struggle. Funny how nature always knows best!

Famous model Carol Alt, author of Eating in the Raw, said she used to have to starve herself and exercise constantly to stay thin. Once she transitioned to raw foods she found she could eat whatever she wanted and however much she wanted as long as it was raw. She also found is effortless to maintain her model-like physique and has seen better ab definition without exercising than she did when she exercised and ate cooked foods. Why is this?

Living foods contain active living enzymes. What are enzymes? Enzymes are the power of life. They are living forces that direct and conduct every process and action within the body. Enzymes are needed for every single processes within your body. Without them everything would stop. Digestive enzymes help to quickly convert the food we eat into available nutrients and to utilize and process the food completely, without any  left over for storage. Living foods contain within them all of the enzymes needed to digest that particular food. For example the enzyme needed to digest, metabolize and distribute fat, lipase, is contained within raw fats such as coconut oil, avocados, nuts and seeds. When you eat these foods raw you are eating the enzymes needed to completely break down the fat and your liver is able to immediately convert these fats into energy with nothing being stored. Not only do you get a boost in energy when eating raw fats, none of the fat eaten is stored. When you eat the same fat without the presence of liapse, the fat stagnates, is stored and accumulates. Your body can make lipase but only under the most healthy and balanced conditions. If your body's health is compromised in any way, your digestive system isn't completely healthy and strong or your body is enzyme deficient after long periods of eating enzyme deficient foods, your liapse production may be compromised which leaves you unable to process fat as energy and it is stored.

You can also see this process of natural and complete digestive and the active enzymes contained in living foods at work if you leave an apple out on your counter for a few weeks. The apple will degrade and actually digest itself. This is because within the apple it contains all of the active living enzymes to complete the process of digestion of that apple. Same thing happens when you eat a living apple. The enzymes are contained within that apple to fully digest and use all of the nutrients contained within an apple. When you eat foods that are dead, cooked, processed and refined, your body must make all of the enzymes needed to digest and assimilate the dead foods your just ate. If your diet is predominately cooked dead foods, than over time your body falls into enzyme deficiency. This means you are eating more foods then your body is effectively able to, first make all the needed enzymes for and second to fully digest and process. It is a new phenomenon in our civilization to eat predominately processed and cooked foods. Foods that have been cooked, processed and refined have been changed completely at a molecular level, leaving the body unable to process and utilize fully if at all. Man made chemicals, pesticides, herbicides, white flour pasty concoctions, refined sugars, refined meats and dairy, and on and on are all molecular structures that the body is unable to utilize. In addition to be structurally changed, they are enzyme deficient foods and are unable to be fully digested. All foods not fully digested or utilized are left in the body and stored. Toxins especially are stored in our fatty tissue, the more toxins in the body the greater the volume or weight of fatty tissue. When you begin loosing weight and burning fat all these toxins are released into the body. So in addition to burning fat, when losing weight, your body must be effectively ridding itself of the toxins that are being released. Protease is the enzyme that helps to break down proteins and is essential to the body in eliminating toxins. Protease is found in tact in protein rich plant foods that have not been cooked or refined. Once cooked or refined protease is also destroyed. 





Living foods also help you to loose weight and keep your weight perfectly balanced naturally because they help to reduce hunger and cravings and prevent fat storage. When the body does not get all that it needs, first it will send hunger signals and second it will send signals that the body is starving and to begin storing fat for later use. This can lead to a vicious cycle of perpetual hunger and fat storage. Many people who can't seem to loose weight or continue to gain (store) everything they eat are many times right in the middle of this cycle. Only when the body gets all of the nutrients it needs does it shut down the hunger response. This is not a caloric measure but a nutrient measure. You could eat 2,000 calories at one sitting and still not have received any of the nutrients your body needs which will leave you continuing to feel hungry. As your body's needs increase your hunger response is turned on again. This continues until all of the nutrients it needs are received. Eating foods that are nutrient deficient does not give the body all of the nutrients it needs and thus from a biological perspective, you are starving your body and creating this hunger and fat storage cycle. The way to break this cycle is to give your body all that it needs. Living foods are the answer! They not only have not had any of the nutrients altered, degraded or destroyed by heating or processing they bring vital energy and active living enzymes into your system. Living foods give your body the highest possible level and quality of nutrients so bodily needs are quickly and easily met, hunger and cravings are turned off and fat is utilized instead of stored.

When you eat living enzyme rich foods first, the food is fully digested. Second, all of the nutrients are released and the body is able to use them immediately. Third, because of the high fiber and water content of living foods the remaining portion is easily moved through the digestive track and eliminated, cleansing and cleaning along the way. Nothing is able to get stuck, be stored or left unused. The digestive process is complete. In addition, the body did not have to make any enzymes to digest the food so no energy was diverted or used additionally in the digestive process so you are left feeling refreshed and with heightened levels of energy, just the way you should feel after eating!

At Align Holistic Health & Well Being we offer a 12-week journey into finding and living at Your Perfect Weight through the use of living and whole foods. During this 12-week journey you will learn what your body needs on a bio-individual basis from nutrients to protein, carbohydrate and fat ratios, you will also learn how and what to eat by your body type, eating locally and with the seasons, and how to shop, cook and live a living food lifestyle all resulting in Your Perfect Weight! Contact us today if you are ready to begin your journey to balanced natural health!

Align's Your Perfect Weight!

Monday, November 7, 2011

Why You Should NOT Get the Flu Vaccine


Vaccinations are a controversial topic. For those in the natural living and health fields it is counterintuitive to inject the body with foreign contaminants in an attempt to trick the immune system into doing its job. It goes against the fundamental premise that the body is intelligent enough to heal itself and will heal itself if given the right tools and building blocks. Currently we see these vaccines being dispensed with no medical oversight or caution. You can walk into your local drug store and be injected on the spot by a pharmacy tech with no rhyme or reason other then to sell a vaccine. It has been found without question time and again that there are many adverse side effects, especially for children and their effectiveness is scantly supported. Even on the CDC's web site it states, "How well the flu vaccine works (or its ability to prevent influenza illness) can range widely from season to season and also can vary depending on who is being vaccinated. During years when the viruses in the vaccine and circulating viruses are not well matched, it’s possible that no benefit from vaccination may be observed.However, even during years when the vaccine match is very good, the benefits of vaccination will vary across the population, depending on characteristics of the person being vaccinated and even, potentially, which vaccine was used.


Here are just a few reasons why we recommend not getting your flu vaccine:
  • A new scientific study published inThe Lancetreveals that influenza vaccines only prevent influenza in 1.5 out of every 100 adults who are injected with the flu vaccine (1)
  • Neurological problems due to nerve damage after vaccination are a fairly common adverse event with flu vaccines. In 1976, there were more cases of Guillain-Barre Syndrome reported after vaccination than there were confirmed cases of Swine flu.(2)
  • The Sanofi-Aventis flu vaccine known as "Fluzone" is causingfebrile seizuresin children, said the FDA According to the FDA, 42 cases of seizures have been reported in children receiving the Fluzone vaccine. Most of the children suffering seizures are under the age of two. (3)
  • A new study just published in theCochrane Systematic Reviewconcludes: "Evidence for the safety and efficacy of influenza vaccines in the over 65s is poor, despite the fact that vaccination has been
    recommended for the prevention of influenza in older people for the past 40 years." (4)
  • You may not even get protection against the intended virus. Why? First, because viruses change over time. The piece that was in the vaccine may not 'look' the same (chemically) as the real thing (months
    later, after all!). Second, the vaccine may not have given you enough stimulation to fight off the disease.
  • There is no single virus that causes the flu; there is no one flu vaccine that protects against all of them.
  • The vaccinated population has a much higher rate of infections than the non-vaccinated population. For example, research shows that vaccinated versus unvaccinated children suffer:
  • - five times more asthma - nearly three times more allergies - over three times more ear infections - over four times more apnea and near miss cot death - nearly four times more bouts of recurring tonsillitis - ten times more hyperactivity
  • Vaccinated children also have 317% more ADHD, 185% more neurologic disorders and 146% more autism than non-vaccinated children.

It is a better overall health approach to strength your body and your immune system so that you do not get sick to begin with. Although the flu germ is powerful it will not find ground to take root and grow in within a healthy body. Here are a very great ways to strengthen your immune system. 


Vitamin C
Vitamin C is an immune system power hours. It helps to protect you from getting colds and flus and in large quantities can cure the same cold and flus. For immune system support take 1,000mg for every decade you have been alive. To cure take 1,000mg every 3 hours from the first symptom and for 7 days following your sicnkness.

B-Complex
B-complex vitamins are what help to create energy at the cellular level and help the immune system stay strong and active. Take 2 capsules daily, increasing your intake during stressful times. Take 1 capsule every 3 hours from the first symptom and for 7 days following your sicnkness.

Zinc
Zinc is a helpful mineral for protecting against colds and keeping the immune system strong. Take 25mg daily for maintenance and increase to 60mg per day  from the first symptom and for 7 days following your sicnkness.

Vitamin D3
If you live in a year round warm sunny area, you'll need to make sure you get plenty of sun to skin exposure daily, without sunscreen. If your regional climate restricts sun exposure, as during the winter months, take 5,000-10,000 units of Vitamin D3 daily.

Probiotics
Your body contains ten times more bacteria than cells. Most of them have to be friendly. Friendly bacteria not only attack pathogenic bacteria and fungi, but also they trigger appropriate white cell reactions to invaders and they influence your mental/emotional state. You can get probiotics through yogurt, Greek yogurt, Kefir, Kombucha or through supplementation. 

Exercise
Moderate exercise, even walking a mile or two at least three times a week, helps your lymph system cleanse impurities to boost your immune system. Get and keep moving!

Elderberry for Cures
Elderberry extracts or syrups have been clinically proven to help get over colds and flu. Elderberry is an all natural herb. It's not a drug. Take 1 dropperful of the liquid herbal extract every 3 hours from the first symptom and for 7 days following your sicnkness.

Echinacea
If your cold or flu is viral in natural taking the herb Ecinacea prevents the virus from proliferating once it has invaded your body. This cuts down on the duration of time you will stay sick. 

Eliminate Sugar
Sugar slows down the immune system and prevents it from doing its job. It also contributes to catching a cold or flu bug so switch to natural sweets during the winter months. 

Go Raw
Eating raw foods and drinking raw juices helps to cleanse the body, provides the body with a huge amount of living vitamins, minerals and phytochemcials and gives you active enzymes to help the immune system stay strong and fight off nasty bugs. Drink at least 1 glass of fresh veggie juice a day and eat at least 50% of your daily foods raw. If you do get sick, drink a glass of fresh fruit and veggie juice every hour and eliminate all cooked foods except warm nourishing soups. 

Eat more Garlic and Onion
Besides being rich in antioxidants and selenium, garlic is antibacterial and antiviral. Both garlic and onions are part of the Allium family, which is rich in sulfur-containing compounds responsible for many of their health-promoting effects.

Strengthen your body, strengthen your immunity.