Posts Tagged ‘Nutrition’
Heart disease prevention is possible in most people if they are willing to make the effort. There are a few that have genetics working against them but a healthy lifestyle can even minimize those risk factors. Some of the things you can do to prevent heart disease are:
Drink Plenty of Water
Your body is made up of mostly water. Water carries nutrients to your cells, toxins away from your cells, helps regulate your body temperature and is necessary for optimal health. You can judge how well you are hydrated by the color of your urine. The darker your urine is the more dehydrated you are. If the color is almost clear or a very pale yellow, you are probably drinking enough water.
Proper Nutrition
A magnesium deficiency can cause a heart attack so making sure your diet contains all of the minerals it needs to function properly is vital. Most diets do not provide enough of the right kinds of minerals and vitamins but organic diets come closer than most. If your diet doesn’t provide enough nutrition take a liquid minerals and vitamin supplement where the minerals have been ionized. These types of minerals are ready for immediate use by your body. Minerals in pill form and ones that are not ionized cannot conduct electricity so your body cannot readily use them.
Manage Your Blood Pressure
Keep your blood pressure stable and in the normal range. A large part of your blood pressure control should be proper hydration, proper nutrition and stress management.
Cholesterol Control
High cholesterol or a cholesterol level that has the LDL and HDL levels in the wrong proportions is harmful to your health. The right kinds of foods in the right amounts will help you control your cholesterol. As we’ve discussed in other articles on this site, fruits, vegetables and fish can all help.
Avoid Obesity
People that are overweight add stress to their heart, often have high blood pressure and cholesterol levels are frequently not where they should be so eating right and exercising will not only help keep the weight down but you’ll also be helping keep your heart muscles strong.
Exercise Regularly
You should be doing stretches daily, strength training 3 times a week and cardiovascular training 3 times a week on days you aren’t strength training. The strength training helps build muscle strength which helps metabolism, circulation and weight control. Strength training also helps reduce stress.
Cardiovascular training helps strengthen your circulatory system which includes your heart and lungs. Cardio training is also a great way to reduce stress.
Reduce Stress
Stress in your life can help raise blood pressure, medical problems, work and a variety of other sources. Self help programs like the ones at Think Right Now have helped thousands of people reduce stress in many areas of their lives.
Stop Smoking
Smoking is an addictive habit that pumps poison into your body with every cigarette you smoke. Some of your B vitamins are depleted by this habit and it increases your risk of lung disease as well as heart disease and generally having a negative affect on your overall health.
A successful heart surgeon was so serious in his desire to help people he quit his surgical practice and works to teach people How to Prevent or Even Reverse Heart Disease Without Drugs or Surgery. Anyone interested in heart disease prevention needs to read this book.
Disclosure of Material ConnectionPresented by Natural Remedies Products Staff - Natural Remedies Products
Ask Dr. Wayne Garland a specialist in natural remedies and natural products.
Powered By WP Footer
Reuters recently had an article titled ‘Red meat unfriendly to cancer’ which was reporting on a study of colon cancer patients with stage III cancer and how their diets affected their survival and the recurrence of the disease after treatment. The study followed 1,009 colon cancer patients for 5.3 years and they found that those that ate a western diet were 3.3 times more likely to either die or have their colon cancer return.
A western diet was defined as a diet with high intakes of meat, refined grains and desserts. The prudent diet was the other variant and it is defined as a diet with high intakes of fruits, vegetables, fish and poultry.
The prudent diet is high in fiber, nutrients in forms the body can readily use and helps the body flush toxins out of the body. Whereas the western diet provides fewer natural nutrients or fiber and it adds toxins to the body.
Our Opinion
We’ve believed for a long time that your health is determined by your diet and activity level. When our society was mostly agricultural, people did a lot of physical labor and there was much less obesity and home gardens provided foods that were both good and good for you. The industrial age brought many people a more sedentary lifestyle and obesity started to appear in larger numbers. As our cities grew and the food supply was further removed from the consumer, preservatives were added to the food to extend the time it was still good to eat. Population growth has also put more pressure on the farmer to produce large crops on less land which has led to over farming the land. This over farming depletes the natural nutrients, the commercial fertilizers are geared at quantity and not quality.
The change in our lifestyle, added preservatives, fewer nutrients in our food supply because of a combination of factors and added stress have all conspired to make you less healthy than the generation before you.
Switching as much of your diet to locally grown organic fruits, vegetables and meat is best. Your budget, location and schedule may not always make this easy. Read the labels in the store and get foods with the fewest preservatives, whole grains instead of processed, reduce the fatty foods from fast food restaurants, etc. and you can add more nutrition to your life. Did you know most dietitians consider a serving of meat to be about 3 ounces instead of the 8 to 16 ounces many of us eat?
Green tea supplements have been shown to help protect against some cancer causing agents and liquid vitamin and mineral supplements made from whole food sources provide the nutrients your body craves and your diet may not be providing.
MotherNature
Disclosure of Material ConnectionPresented by Natural Remedies Products Staff - Natural Remedies Products
Ask Dr. Wayne Garland a specialist in natural remedies and natural products.
Powered By WP Footer
If you are like most people I know, you grew up eating 3 meals a day. These meals were often large and you still ended up snacking between meals.
Your body is a living machine and the food you eat is its fuel. Only so much of the food you eat at any given time can be used immediately. The rest of that fuel is stored as fat or passed out of your body as waste. If this is true, then part of EVERY large meal you eat is stored as fat and part of the food passes through you without doing anything more than giving you the pleasure of eating it.
If you divided your 3 large meals into 5 smaller meals, you’d be eating every two or three hours but your body wouldn’t get hungry for a snack and you would waste less energy because your body couldn’t handle the input.
A whole grain cereal for breakfast is nutritious and gives your body fuel it needs. Eat some fruit and cheese or another side 2-3 hours later to add protein and a fruit. Add a complex carbohydrate like a baked potato at midday and maybe a vegetable and protein. For a small meal 2-3 hours later you could add more fruit or a vegetable. The evening meal could be a variety of things with another snack 2-3 hours later.
Depending on your activity level and your exercise routine, you may find you will actually eat more and be getting in better shape just by altering what you eat and when.
Calories are fuel that your body burns, stores as fat or wastes. You determine the quality of the fuel you feed your body, when you feed it and how much you feed it.
Think of your frequent mini meals as a pipeline with quality fuel that stokes your engine when it needs it so fuel isn’t wasted.
You can use these mini meals plus plenty of water and an exercise program as your fat loss plan because you will NOT be hungry. Your body will not go into starvation mode if you don’t start out by reducing your calorie intake by more than 20 percent.
Cut your intake back too drastically and your body thinks it is starving regardless of how much you are eating. Reduce the intake by no more than 20 percent and space the meals out to every 2-3 hours and your body never gets hungry. You may reduce the intake again in 2-3 weeks which is what it will take your metabolism to accept the new food level as the norm.
It is up to you to decide whether you think 3 big meals or several smaller meals spaced every few hours makes more sense.
If you liked this article, I suggest you get Eating For Excellent Health Now! and I Love Exercising Now! to put yourself in the proper mindset for a permanent lifestyle change and Tom Venuto’s Burn Fat Gain Muscle book to learn the proper exercises and eating habits to maximize your control of both your nutrition and weight.
Disclosure of Material ConnectionPresented by Natural Remedies Products Staff - Natural Remedies Products
Ask Dr. Wayne Garland a specialist in natural remedies and natural products.
Powered By WP Footer
While many people know calcium is one of the 11 nutrients that are important for bone and tooth formation, many don’t know calcium is also important in muscle growth and contraction, heart rhythm, blood clotting, nerve tranquilization and nerve transmission. This means calcium is part of the nutrients you need for a healthy heart, healthy nails, teeth, bones, skin and soft tissue.
In my article on magnesium, I mention it is important in converting vitamin D into a biologically usable form the body can use to make use of calcium and the article on boron shows it helps postmenopausal women retain more calcium during urination. The interdependency of the minerals in the body is starting to show itself so a deficiency in one mineral will adversely affect many functions within your body. Because the symptom you feel and share with your medical professional may not point directly at a certain mineral, they may miss the root cause of the problem unless they have a very good understanding of nutrition.
It’s true that about 99 percent of the calcium in your body is used in your bones and teeth but that 1 percent used by the rest of your body is just as important because it is used for nerve impulses and muscle contractions that help you stay alive and move about. We are talking about your muscles, heart kidneys and other organs. Your body is constantly making new cells and calcium helps maintain the RNA and DNA structures. Your DNA is your blueprint of who you are so the calcium in you is helping you stay you.
Deficiencies in calcium and magnesium have been linked to high blood pressure through research so maintaining recommended levels of these minerals is vital to your health. Low calcium levels may be indicated by muscle cramps, tooth decay, arm/leg numbness, heart palpitations, nervousness and insomnia too. Proper levels of calcium have also shown to help reduce problems associated with PMS and in protecting against colon cancer.
There are many calcium supplements on the market and some of them aren’t worth the money spent on them. Calcium needs stomach acids to break it down so it can be absorbed before reaching the small intestine so taking an antacid that has calcium is a waste because none of the calcium gets absorbed. The best sources of calcium are derived from plants and are more absorbable but these are more expensive than the carbonate or dolomite derived forms. Calcium derived from carbonate and dolomite are poor sources of calcium and any calcium supplement that is inexpensive and the calcium source isn’t specified is often this cheap source your body cannot readily break down and absorb. (Calcium carbonate and dolomite are rocks.) Your body can absorb the calcium from plants more readily than from rock because the plant based will be more in line with your metabolic needs. The plant based calcium is also more likely to be free of metals such as aluminum and lead that your body cannot use.
You can naturally add calcium to your diet by eating organic dark leafy vegetables, sesame seeds, cheese, salmon and sardines and these are the same foods that also provide boron.
Calcium is so important to your health it is often used to reduce the problems caused by arthritis, bone pain, rheumatism, osteoporosis, backaches, heart palpitations, finger tremors, foot/leg cramps, insomnia, nervousness, menstrual cramps, premenstrual tension, menopause problems and obesity.
Calcium is a major mineral that you need to live a quality life but too much calcium can put stress on the kidneys and you may have kidney stones form as the body tries to flush the excess calcium. Your level of activity will determine where in the recommended guidelines your calcium needs fall and common sense should tell you that taking calcium or any supplement at regular intervals throughout the day is better that a massive dose at one time.
Food or liquid supplements make this easier than pills.
Presented by Natural Remedies Products Staff - Natural Remedies Products
Ask Dr. Wayne Garland a specialist in natural remedies and natural products.
Powered By WP Footer
“The amount of water in the human body, averaging 70%, varies considerably and even from one part of the body to another area. A lean man may hold 70% of his weight in body water, while a woman – because of her larger proportion of water-poor fatty tissues – may be only 52% water. The lowering of the water content in the blood is what triggers the hypothalamus, the brain’s thirst center, to send out its urgent demand.” Quoted from ‘Water – The Shocking Truth’ by Dr. Patricia Bragg N.D., Ph.D.
Your body cannot function properly if it fails to have the proper levels of minerals, vitamins and water. The human brain is mostly fat and fat is mostly water so the bottom line is your brain is about 80% water.
There are many signs of dehydration but one of the most noticeable is a loss of energy. Additional signs of dehydration are dry mouth, thirst, dizziness, lightheadedness, headache and muscle weakness.
Water carries nutrients to your cells and waste away from your cells among other functions. Your body temperature is also regulated by water.
Your brain cannot function properly if you are dehydrated and most of your bodily functions are inefficient at best if you don’t have enough water in your system.
Diseases can gain a foothold in your body when it has been weakened by malnutrition or dehydration. Your body releases histamine when it is dehydrated which can make you more sensitive to allergies. Constipation is a problem that happens more often in dehydrated people. Skin problems happen more frequently in people that don’t have enough water.
Diverticular disease is a medical problem where a pocket forms in the weakened wall of the bowel. It is believed that this disease happens in some people when the body has had to rely on the abdominal muscles too often to push hard stools out. Hard stools can happen when the diet has too little fiber in the diet AND too little water.
You can help prevent this one disease with proper nutrition and hydration.
Eating processed foods, drinking coffee, juices, soda and alcoholic beverages can help leach water out of your system.
Each person has different water requirements so it is impossible to tell you how much you should drink.
Athletes require more water than someone sitting in an office. Breast feeding mothers need more water than mothers that aren’t lactating.
Properly hydrated people have almost clear or light yellow urine unless they are on medication. The darker yellow the urine is the more dehydrated you are.
A common recommendation on fluids consumed is a minimum of 8 glasses of water a day with a maximum of 12 ounces per gulp. Spreading your water intake out at relatively even intervals is usually recommended.
IF you are breast feeding, sweating, or doing any activity where you lose fluids, you’ll need more water. Anyone that intends to exercise should drink extra water 15-20 minutes before you start your exercising. This extra water can help prevent muscle cramps or reduce their severity if they do develop. (Muscle cramps can happen during exercise because of dehydration and a magnesium deficiency.)
You can start rebuilding your health and protecting what you have by making sure you drink plenty of water throughout the day.
Disclosure of Material ConnectionPresented by Natural Remedies Products Staff - Natural Remedies Products
Ask Dr. Wayne Garland a specialist in natural remedies and natural products.
Powered By WP Footer
