If Monsanto Were a Person

If Monsanto Were a Person

Workout 3/21/12

Repeat for 10 min -

High Knees - x10

Box Jumps - x10

Froggers - x10

Repeat for 20min (try and get 5 rounds in) -

Seated Bicep curl, shoulder press, standing bicep curl, shoulder press - 12 reps

Row, Fly - 12 reps

Lung(alternate legs), bicep curl - 12 reps

Walk for 30+ min at a moderate pace, this should be fairly relaxing, not aerobic. :)

Thoughts on "Juicing"

Juice diets are all the craze right now! Squeeze some fruits and veggies into a drink, drink it a few times a day and whala! You have decreased calories, lost weight and you are now clean and healthy! At first glance, sounds pretty great.... But is it really true and is it good for you? Well lets take a look at it....

First of all, juicing your own fruit or veggie juice is going to be far better for you than buying it in the store. Store bought juice has been processed and heated to eliminated pathogens and bacteria, but good nutrients has been killed through this process too. This creates a juice that is high in sugar and low in nutrients and enzymes needed to process that sugar in your body. Juicing can be a great cleanse, giving your body a break from digesting fats and proteins as well as give you a boots of vitamins and minerals because they are now so concentrated in one glass of delicious juice. You could never eat 2 apples, 5 carrots, a bunch of kale, and a chunk of ginger in a sitting, but if juiced, that is an easy cup to drink.

We must not be too enamored by these amazing benefits though and take this in moderation. If you are cutting out all solid food and consuming only juice, this is initially a basic detox or cleanse. While these cleanses can be great, if your body is not used to it or is highly toxic, you can have some severe reactions including, fatigue, dizziness, diarrhea, hunger, and kidney problems, among other things. So take it slow and watch closely how you feel. By juicing fruits and veggies we are eliminating most of the fiber found in these foods, this can cause us to consume more sugar than we need. This is in NO way conducive for permanent weight loss. Buy drinking all this sugar and having nothing else to help digest it, we can cause ourselves a host of problems. Usually drinking this juice with some protein or fat is a good idea. This will help to reduce your glycemic load which helps control the impact on blood sugar. Now if you trying to do a cleanse, a few days of a juice "diet" could be helpful and may not cause you any problems if you only do this for a short while, a few days - 1 week. In my opinion, longer is going to cause some issues in digestion and energy. 1 week may even be too long. If you are thinking about doing this for longer and want to eliminate your protein for now, which I highly recommend you don't do for long, but adding whole fat coconut milk and coconut oil to your diet, make a smoothie out of the juice, or eat a spoonful of coconut oil. (coconut oil is truly a "miracle" food and deserves a post of its own, someday, I will do this). Watch out for copper/zinc deficiencies, a common occurrence in plant based diets. You may notice that you begin to fatigue easier, although some notice an immediate increase in energy, but then slowly slide into fatigue as the diet goes on. In high plant based diets zinc is sharply reduced, which in turn keeps copper from binding to it and being eliminated from the body. The copper builds up to form low levels of toxicity in the body, which cause symptoms like fatigue, crankiness, hunger, etc.... Copper and Zinc build up can and eventually will cause digestive issues in regards to fat and protein, which are broken down differently than the sugars in juice. So by juicing you can be quite successful in detoxing your body, but keep it short and return to a clean eating plan that is full of REAL food.

In my research, I am a huge proponent for eating REAL food right from the start. Yes, you may need to do a "detox" at some point, which there are many that are good, including some short juicing cleanses, GAPS intro, heavy metal detoxes, etc.... But the biggest hurdle is to change your way of eating to a regularly healthy and well balanced regime. Now REAL food is good! :) Diet foods suck! lol! Our goal here is to find REAL whole food to eat.

Many people, including so much of our western medical community, think that we can become healthy by going through a "Diet" and then just "eating healthy", but if you don't make a habit of eating healthy, it will not last. If you start out super strict in your eating plan, such as a specific mainstream "diet"like weightwatchers, atkins, southbeach, hardcore cleanses, Jenny Craig, etc.... you most likely will feel deprived of real food, you may feel sluggish, tired, cranky, or all of the above. Although, these can be signs of your body detoxing, most of these "Diet plans" are not detoxes and thus they are symptoms of your body trying to tell you that you are not getting enough nutrients. Many "Diets" initially allow us to "loose" weight, but when they are done, or when we have to stop from increased stress of having to work so hard at it, we fall down harder than we did before, we gain all the weight back and then some. By eating a well rounded diet of REAL food, these "pendulum swings" of On again/Off again dieting are eliminated. Our body is able to stabilize and use these nutrient dense foods to heal itself.

Now because many of us have eaten poorly for so long, all our lives, there will be some adjusting in the beginning, some tweaking of what we eat, when and how we eat it. Take me for example, because of "dieting" through high school and college and then going on birth control, I have Royally messed up my hormones and my body's metabolism. So I have had to do a lot of tweaking and searching for how to heal my body fully, but its happening, slowly but surely. We can not recover in one night, from a lack of good nights sleep for the last month...... Just so, we can not recover in a few weeks or even months time, from a lifetime of poor eating habits. The hard thing to determine here is what really is healthy and what really is REAL food, which is why I spend so much time researching this, in hopes that others may be able to use what I have found and save themselves some time:) Our western medical community and large government agencies such as USDA, AHA, and FDA have pounded their "food pyramid" into us for so long, we are brainwashed, unfortunately these people do not have our best interest in mind, but the interest of their pocket books, the pocket books of their friends, and political gain. Unfortunately these folks have a lot of money because of this and money can buy a lot of things when it comes to swaying a political figure, laws, regulations, promotions, and advertisements. Anyways... off my soap box! haha!

Not saying, not to do a juice diet, but I really dislike "diets" because they cause us to put our bodies into overtime, its a get rich quick scheme, and we all know that doesn't work. Now, you may see some results and that is fantastic, but the biggest thing here it to keep a diet that is well rounded in fat, protein, and complex carbs. Eliminating processed food,including grains initially, increasing our consumption of healthy meat, and consuming whole fats.

This must be done in small steps, each person is going to be able to "bite off" a different size chunk..... but the key here is to choose something that is doable for you.... something you can do and stick to, without feeling overwhelmed. A good first thing to do is eliminate ALL sugars, and most processed foods from your home..... this is a big step and can take some doing.:) But if this is not done, those foods will "call" to you when you are most vulnerable and feeling like you "need" them. This is an addiction.... I know because I am an addict... yes, I am a sugar addict and I had to come to that realization and be real with myself.... most of us are, in this culture, unfortunately. This is a subject that could take a whole post of its own, so I will save you any further rambling from me about it right now and save it for a later post.

So back to some juicing info... when doing a juice cleanse, I would not do it for too long.... be aware that if you don't remove all sugars and most processed foods from the home, it may be extremely difficult to come off the cleanse and not binge eat on these foods. Focus on eating clean and wholesome foods, not necessarily low fat, but good clean meats, veggies, keeping fruit at a minimum(this is because we tend to over eat on fruit if we are craving sugar from the decrease in processed foods) so keeping fruits to a minimum is good, using them for dessert, snacks etc.... and sticking mainly to apples, pears, and berries.

Eating nuts, REAL butter, and whole eggs. Now dairy is a whole new subject that deserves a post of its own so I wont say much about that, other than I don't have a whole lot good to say about any dairy found in the stores. If you can find a source of raw milk, this is your best choice hands down, the money you spend on whole raw milk will be recouped in the money you save from eliminating doctor bills, medication, sick time, etc.... Here is a great short article on milk and fats Eat Fat Burn Fat. Your body needs fat and protein to function. Contrary to popular belief you can not create the proper nutrients for keeping your body strong and healthy on a plant based diet. There are nutrients found in meat, eggs, and dairy, including what we call "complete" proteins. We will not find those in plant foods, your body is unable to gain all the complete nutrients it needs to function through eating plants alone. You must have meat and protein in your eating to keep your body strong and immune system.

So as far as juicing goes, I think it can be a great supplement to Clean eating and make a good cleanse, but watch how long you do it for and make sure you continue Clean eating at the same time or have a REAL food diet to go back to. If you are not used to eating REAL food, you may want to start here and get familiar with cooking and eating this way before you move on to cleanses.

More Food Pyramid Stuff

Here is a great post on Kelly the Kitchen Kop's site! Take a look around her site while you are there. She has great info.
The Messed Up USDA Food Pyramid (Guest Post for Nourished Kitchen)

The Food Pyramid

Recently I have been doing some research on the "Food Pyramid" and what a healthy diet truly consists of. I know so many people who are going on "diets" that require them to completely eliminate some type of food group and yet they are still not eating nutritionally denses foods. Unfortunately this will only allow their weight loss/gain to be on a merry-go-round for years to come. I wanted to find out what our diets should really consist of and why. I will hopfully have some more posts in the near future with more info and statistics, but I wanted to post these as food for thought!

http://www.nourishingourchildren.org/Pyramid.html

There are a handful of important "elements of daily wellness". As the winter progresses and the flu season comes full force, we must remember to keep our immune systems strong and efficient. With out a strong immune system, every little stressor, including a hard workout, can cause your body to become overloaded and become sick. This is why we must be careful to apply all elements of daily wellness and keep a well rounded routine for our day.
Important elements of daily wellness
well·ness
n.
The condition of good physical and mental health, especially when maintained by proper diet, exercise, and habits.

Nutrition - eating a properly balanced diet that includes large amounts of vegetables and lean protien,  
       minimal processed foods, and little to no sugar
Exercise - push yourself to do something different, mix it up, this keep you more interested.
Sleep - IMPORTANT! We tend to neglect this regularly. You must get good rest.


The 5 Elements of a Good Fitness Routine -
-Aerobic Fitness
-Muscular fitness
-Stretching
-Core Exercise
-Balance Training
Whether you create your own fitness training program or enlist the help of a personal trainer, make aerobic fitness, muscular fitness, stretching, core exercise and balance training part of your overall exercise plan. It isn't necessary to fit each of the five elements into every fitness session, but factoring them into your regular routine can help you promote fitness for life.

What We Are Not Told.......

So, I get people asking, how do I know if a food item is truly natural and unprocessed?
We find it hard to determine whether "natural" really means natural. Just because the bread is whole wheat doesn't make it good for you.  Just because it is "all natural" or "organic" doesn't mean it's good for you. As you begin your journey of eating for wellness you must re-train your way of thinking and how you shop and prepare food. We have been trained by society to just take our food for outward appearance
Because of the media, big corporations, goverment regulations (or lack there of), the loss of integrity in packaging and labeling, we can't always trust what it says on the package. Take the time to dig deep, read ingredients (not just the first 5, but all of them:) and remember they don't have to list anything that is less than %1, which seems small, but when it's in multiple items that you eat all the time..... that becomes a large amount)

I want to address the issue of our eating habits here in America and the tie to our heath issues. Throughout my reseach and journey in the fitness and whole foods realm, I have come to realize the lies we have been told, even in regards to our "natural food" and "diet programs". All of us are affected by some type of major health problem, in one way or another, we either suffer ourselves or know of someone who does. You name it.... cancer, heart disease, asthma, allergies, autism, birth defects, PCOS, diabeties, MS, ADD, infertility, obesity (which itself leads to most of these othere diseases, and more).... the list goes on and on. It seems that we have hundreds of organizations that are "doing research" to "cure" these diseases... to name a few....American Cancer Society, Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, American Diabetes Association, American Heart Association, Autism Society of America, this list goes on and on as well. (I do not want to dis-credit any of the organizations, as far as I know they are all doing wonderful work and trying to help find a true cure for these diseases). My question is where have we got off the track, where have we lost our way? I want to know why we haven't come up with a cure for so many of these diseases. I admit, we have come up with some pretty good "bandaids" but we have been unsucessful in finding a true cure and stopping the spread of these horrible, life altering and eventually life ending diseases. (many of these "band-aids" or drugs, are causing our bodies to be further damaged because they only mask symptoms). In-fact, these diseases are becoming more and more wide-spread and are occuring in people at younger ages..... how is that possible? We spend Billions of dollars a year on finding cures. What are we missing?
What about our "diets"..... weight watchers, Jenny Craig, South Beach Diet, Atkins Diet, The Zone, vegiarian, Mediterranean Diet, Nutrisystem, and a Millon other diets out there to choose from. (Again, don't get me wrong, many people do find results, but can they keep the results for years to come and have they really created a healthy body or are they just loosing weight so they look good on the outside.) You can't enter a book store without being bombarded by a hundred different "diet" books on the front shelves..... Many of them best sellers.... So, we have to ask again.... what are we missing?
We spend Billions of dollars on health care and research.... come up with thousands of diet plans and self help books, which are best sellers and are all over the media, so obviously people are using the "help" and/or "ideas", but we continue to become more and more sick and obese as a nation. ????
So we have figured out that fast food makes us fat, why? why does it make us fat? Is is just the cholesterol and fat, if so, everyone of us who is on a "low fat diet" should be super healthy.....
What is it that is holding us back from Optimum Health. I truly believe that we were created to be healthy and whole individuals, that are bodies can heal and take care of themselves, most of the time, if given the right environment. We have to create that environment inside... we are slowing killing ourselves from the inside out.....
I have a lot of people tell me that it is just too expensive.... too time consuming.... and yes, it "can" be more expensive and it is definitely more time consuming to eat and live for optimum health, but what would you choose..... convenience or health for you and your loved ones? If you knew that the genetically modified foods, like corn & soybeans and chemicals like pesticides & fertilizer ( which are in and on most everything you eat) cause cancer, which is now the #1 disease in children under 15. Would you take the time to find a truly whole and natural food? Well, it's true.... these chemicals and pesticides are being linked to cancer, obesity, allergies, PCOS, you name it.... they are all linked. Take soybeans for example, the food industry has glorified them and we are told to eat them in anyway possible. Did you know that because they have to be so highly processed they act as estrogen imitators in the body, throwing off the natural hormone leves of estrogen in women and causing men to have more feminine attrubutes and lower their testosterone levels. Soybean have been eaten for hundreds of years, but not in the amount we eat them, they were not grown from genetically modified seeds, and were not highly processed. They were fermented, which changes the structure and allows the body the ability to digest them properly.
Why did our ancestors live longer than we do, and yet we have so much more technology now?
I think we are missing the boat folks.... Our bodies were never created to deal with the chemicals that we unknowingly throw at them everyday. They can't detox fast enough and on top of that we then throw in a low carb this, low fat that, sugar coated this, and sugar substitute that(Straight Chemicals!!!) a little fake butter here (HORRIBLE!), etc..... We have succefully deprived our bodies of any good vitamins and minerals (And no, the ones they add back in do NOT count. Your body can't absorb them like it can those in their natural state). So, now that we have thrown a load of chemicals at our bodies, everything from splenda and veggies that have pesticides, to outside environmental chemicals (which is an entire blog post in itself), what is our body to do. We have no way of detoxing fast enough.  I am getting off into a new subject that is in every way linked to our food, but definitely needs its own blog post. I will write about detoxification in the near future.

For this post, I want to stick with food. I want to raise peoples awareness of what they are really eating. PLEASE don't assume the food is good for you because they say it is.... This is why we are fat and sick. We have a responsibility to take care of our bodies and I believe we are failing in many ways. We can't live forever, but we can have a high quality of life and be less plagued with diseases like cancer, allergies, ADD, infertility, diabeties, etc....
I can't tell you how to eat or live, but I can tell you about what we don't hear from our doctors, the media, and the food industry.
A great book to read is: "Real Food" by Nina Planck
It may take more time and effort to eat well, grow your own garden, shop at farmers markets, find a local farmer who sells meat without antibiotics and has no fertilized grazing areas and are not grain fed. But it's your health and your families health.... is that more important to you?