The Enzyme Factor Part III

Here are my final take home points from the great book The Enzyme Factor by Hiromi Shinya, MD

“Most people eat a lot of dead food that contains no enzymes”

The Enzyme Factor Diet and Lifestyle Considerations:

• Maintain a ratio of 85-90% plant-based foods and 10-15% animal-based foods.
• Grains should 50%, vegetables and fruits 35-40% and animal foods 10-15%of the whole
• Eat unrefined grains which on the whole constitute 50% of the diet.
• The animal foods portion should be from animals like fish with a lower body temperature than humans.
• Eat fresh an unrefined foods, if possible, in their natural form.
• Avoid margarine and refined foods
• Chew well (40-70 times each bite) and try to eat small meals.
• Avoid milk and dairy products as much as possible (people who are lactose intolerant, predisposed to allergies, or dislike milk and dairy products should completely avoid them).

There are many people who, when they become middle-aged or elderly, develop the same illness as their parents such as diabetes, hypertension, heart disease and cancer. When that happens, some people say, “It was inevitable I would get cancer because cancer runs in our family”. But that is not so. I will not say there are no genetic factors involved, but a big cause of hereditary disease is inheriting the habits that cause the disease.

“The worst lifestyle habits are alcohol and tobacco”

“If you eat right before going to sleep at night, large amounts of insulin get secreted. But whether you eat carbohydrates, or proteins, insulin changes everything to fat. Thus, it is much easier to gain weight if you eat late at night, even if you aren’t eating anything “fattening.” In other words , you do not develop  sleep apnea syndrome because you are obese, but rather, the habit of eating right before going to bed causes both sleep apnea syndrome and obesity.

“The cause of many people dying at daybreak from a heart attack or myocardial infarction is in fact acid reflux that occurs as a results of eating and drinking late at night, and leads in turn to the closing of the respiratory tract, irregular breathing, decrease in blood oxygen level and finally, oxygen shortage to the heart muscle.”

“When we consume fluids other than water, such as tea, coffee, carbonated drinks and beer, instead of supplementing the fluids in the body, these fluids actually cause dehydration. Sugar, caffeine, alcohol and additives contained in these drinks rob fluids from the body’s cells and blood, making the body’s blood thicker.”

“A healthy person’s normal body temperature is about 98.6 degrees F, but once this falls, the rate of metabolism declines by as much as 50%. Furthermore, the body temperature at which cancer cells can multiply more easily is around 95 degrees F. This is because the activity of enzymes becomes slower, decreasing the body’s immune functions. Enzymes work more actively in higher body temperature.”

” Consistently drinking a little over two cups of water three times a day increases the number of calories burned in the body by approximately 30%. Moreover, about 30 minutes after drinking water, the calorie burn rate reaches its peak.”

” In America, low-carb diets have gained popularity. With this diet, you eat few or no carbohydrates. But experimental results have shown that even if you have a low-carb, high protein diet, if you continue to eat late at night, you will gain weight just as if you ate carbs. This is because a person who eats just before going to bed secrets large amounts of insulin, storing all the food as far. In other words, unless you change your other eating habits, not only are low-carb diets ineffective, but your body will become acidic, increasing the possibility of getting osteoporosis and other diseases.”

” Fresh fruit abundant in enzymes digests well and by eating it before meals, it helps the functions of the gastrointestinal system and raises the blood sugar level, thus preventing you from overeating.”

” Regular 5-30 minute power naps allows the body to balance itself-homeostasis. Rest and sleep return the weakened functions of the entire body, such as blood flow,lymph flow, the nervous system, and internal secretions back to normal.”

“Too much exercise can actually damage your health, because the more you exercise, the more free radicals you produce in your body. This, I believe, is why we often see cases where a person dies suddenly from heart failure while jogging. Many women jog everyday, but young female runners in their twenties who run close to 10km (6 miles) a day become extremely skinny and have flat chests, and buttocks. In some cases their menstrual cycle stops. This is because their bodies are not producing enough female hormones.”

“Modern medicine is based on the idea of treating, or curing diseases, while true medicine should be based on the idea of maintaining one’s health.”

“All of us periodically overlook important relationships by focusing on only one thing. For instance , if we look only at each organ of the body individually, we overlook how the organs interact with and affect each other. Or, if we look at the body , we neglect the vital inseparability of the body,mind, and spirit” (same can be said for bones, joints, and muscles).”

“Poor diet produces large amounts of free radicals in the body, but so do negative feelings like hatred, resentment, and jealousy, which are equally as destructive to health as poor diet . You can stop drinking, stop smoking, and eat a perfect diet, but if your mental diet is one of anger, stress, and fear, you can still make yourself sick. In order to live a healthy life, it is very important to maintain a mentally harmonious and stable condition.”

7 Cheap and Natural Ways to Fight the Cold and Flu

Guest Post From the Wise Bread Newsletter

By Lori Kerrigan

Over-the-counter symptom relief is a normal and common reaction for the millions of people who suffer from the cold and flu each year. However, for my family, limiting how much acidic and unnecessary medicine enters our bodies is top on my priority list. In my research, experience and wisdom gained from others, I have found 7 cheap and natural suggestions for beating the common cold or flu.

Apple Cider Vinegar (ACV)

On Backwoods Home Magazine, Linda Gabris discusses the many valuable uses of ACV. I can personally attest to the MANY benefits of this wondrous creation. (Even when I do not have a cold I drink ACV to aid in detoxifying my body, and to speed up my metabolism.)

To fight a cold, Gabris suggests mixing two tablespoons of ACV with one cup of boiling water. She recommends adding honey if you would like to sweeten the taste (ACV is not pleasant tasting to most people, though after a few months of drinking it, I now enjoy the taste). You can drink this as a tea and is said to be good for relieving a cough and breaking up phlegm. Another benefit to the ACV tea is inhaling the steam which can lead to a relief in the painful congestion that builds up.

It is not recommended to give to children under 2. Cut the dose of ACV in half for kids over two.

Garlic

Cheap and effective…and smelly, but, if you can deal with the smell, you have an inexpensive, way to fight off a cold with a powerful punch. Alicin, which gives garlic its odor, also gives garlic its antioxidant compounds to fight the virus, and shorten the duration of the cold. There are different ways to take garlic: supplements, powder, extract, oil, mixing it with food, or eating a clove whole or mixed with food. Garlic is safe for children (mixing it with apple sauce is said to be a tasty way for kids to eat it), though avoid giving children supplements as there is not enough research to know if anything but fresh garlic with kids is safe.

Ginger

Another little guy with a powerful punch! Research on Catalog, by Rita Hutner, states that ginger is a diaphoretic that contains particles active against rhinoviruses (a common group of cold viruses). Basically, ginger raises your body temperature, forcing your body to perspire and sweat out the cold…nice…sweating without working out! If your child does not like the tea, put about 3-5 tablespoons of ginger, wrapped in a cheese cloth, in a warm bath. This will help them sweat out the cold, in a more enjoyable way.

Ginger is also a blood thinner — talk to a doctor about taking it if you are taking blood thinning medicine.

Green Tea

One of my favorites, even when I do not have a cold. Many “A List” celebrities drink this to keep healthy, speed up their metabolism, and to detoxify their body…not to mention, it tastes great, especially with a little lemon and honey (which are both helpful for soothing a sore throat). When it comes to shortening the length of a schedule disturbing visit from the cold or flu virus, green tea aids in ridding your body of those nasty toxic viruses that causes the many aches and pains keeping you from tending to your to do list.

This is not recommended for children.

Chicken Soup

Your mother’s suggestion of treating your cold with chicken soup was not in vain. Chicken soup contains mucus fighting elements, steam to relieve congestion, carbohydrates to give you energy, and veggies to aid in giving your body the nutrients it needs to stay strong while fighting away the cold. Keep to low sodium though. Some sodium is good for regulating the amount of fluids in your body, but too much will dehydrate you.

Rest

Your body is working overtime to fight this nasty little virus invading your body. Resting gives your body the ability to strengthen itself to fight these toxins, and also gives your body time to repair itself. Even if you are a constant doer like myself, step away from your to do list and rest, it might be painful for a while (believe me, I know), but the recovery for your body will aid in getting you back to your most effective self.

Water

We have all heard that drinking 8 glasses of water a day is imperative to our health. This is even more true when fighting a cold. Water will flush out your system, aid in digestion, and fights fatigue.

Follow these five tips, fight that nasty cold, and get back to the many roles you play in your life. Most of these tips are also helpful for ending the agony you and your kids are in when they get hit with cold or flu bug. Feel better soon!

I am not a doctor and this should not be considered medical advice. Always consult your doctor.

The Truth About Health

Guest Post from Dax Moy

If you’re fatter than you should be, if your skin is poorer, your hair more brittle, your energy is lower, your mood lower, your blood pressure higher, your muscles weaker, your bones more brittle or your immune system poorer then…

…It’s YOUR Fault!

I’m not judging you, I’m merely stating a fact, so don’t overreact and quit reading. If you do, you’ll miss why it’s your fault and, more importantly, what you can do about it.

Look, here’s the truth about health.

The truth that hardly anyone out there seems to want to address or talk about, but the one that can and will make all the difference to both the quality AND quantity of your life… if you act upon it.

The truth is, your health is YOUR responsibility.

It’s not the government’s job to keep you healthy.

The government is merely a large ‘for profit’ company of sorts that does what it can to ensure that the profit and loss accounts of a nation remain balanced.

Even if a government could tell you exactly what, when and how much to eat (which they can’t even agree on), you know you’d cry ‘nanny state’ or whinge, whine and moan about freedom of choice and ignore what you were told anyway, right?

You know you would!

Don’t believe me?

How many of the current government nutrition guidelines are you following right now?

See, what I mean?

It’s not the medical community’s job to keep you healthy.

As much as doctors are widely regarded as health experts, the truth is that most of them know very little at all about health. Doctors are, in fact, experts in illness and disease.

When you’re already sick or badly injured a doctor may well be the best person to go to but in terms of maintaining or improving health they know very little indeed. For example, a recent study paper showed that 75% medical schools surveyed failed to reach their quota of 25 hours of nutrition education during the entire 4 year course.

We’re talking about doctors here!

Most of them have not had a single week of nutrition education during their entire educational and professional careers. And if their nutritional education is lacking, their knowledge exercise and fitness is practically non-existent.

Still think it’s your doctors’ job to keep you healthy?

It’s not the media’s job to keep you healthy.

As obvious as that statement is, there are still far, far too many people who get their ‘health’ advice from magazines, daytime TV shows and celebrity watching through the media.

They reason (I guess) that if it’s on TV or in the papers it must be true yet, if it were then it wouldn’t change from week to week would it?

You wouldn’t follow high protein one week and macrobiotic the next just because some Hollywood celebrity was reported to be following it would you?

Yeah, right!

Look, the media are about one thing and one thing only; selling their stories to magazines, radio or TV. It’s not about what’s the best, what’s the safest or even what’s the fastest.

They’re about one thing above all. News. But news doesn’t make you healthy does it?

Nor does following a dietary regime simply because someone from a movie is doing it (Besides, they neglected to tell you about the 2 hours a day with their trainer, the 1 hour a day of yoga, biking for 45 minutes, their afternoon massage and their sauna and steam that they were doing alongside their ‘miracle’ cookie diet!).

It’s not the food producers’ job to keep you healthy.

The food producers aren’t interested in keeping you healthy. They’re interested in keeping you spending!

Who do you think it was that created all the e-numbers, long worded ingredients you can’t pronounce, additives and addictives to your food in the first place?

Who do you think it was that spent BILLIONS each and every year to practically hypnotize you into eating it?

Who stands to lose out if you stop buying denatured, additive enhanced, nutrient poor foods?

So not only isn’t it their job to ensure you have clean, good, wholesome food, it’s not even in their best interests to do so!

See, that’s what I mean about it being your fault because it’s clearly not theirs!

But maybe the word ‘fault’ is a little to strong. Maybe I should have just said ‘responsibility’.

Yeah, that’s more like it.

YOU are responsible for your health. No-one else.

YOU are the only person who can do anything at all about making and keeping yourself healthy across the course of your life and when you’re not it’s because you’ve handed over responsibility to someone else.

Don’t pretend you didn’t know this…

Let’s not kid ourselves any longer.

When it comes to what you’re eating on a day to day basis, you know exactly what’s right and what’s wrong don’t you?

You know, for instance that including plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables into your diet every day is a step in the right direction, right?

Sure you do, there’s not a single person on the planet, kids included, that doesn’t know this yet for some reason it’s a conveniently forgotten truth when it comes to shopping for groceries.

You know also (even if you’re vegan or vegetarian) that a diet that includes fresh meat, fish and poultry is superior in quality that has been allowed to roam free and graze on grass and grain is healthier than animals that are farmed intensively, injected with antibiotics and steroids and fed on animal remains and ‘slops’, yet you still buy the awful stuff ‘because it’s cheaper’.

You’ve known all along that a bunch of food additives that make your drinks and candies fluorescent blue and ‘taste funny’ aren’t good for you haven’t you?

Yet you still buy them for yourself and your kids ‘because they like them’.

You also know that a diet high in sugar is bad for you don’t you? You’ve both seen ad felt its effects in both yourself and others and have often commented that you ‘really should cut down’ but, for some reason, you never really get around to it.

And you’ve certainly known for some time that there are certain things, certain foods and drinks that when you take them just make you feel YUK!

Yet you, like most other people, continue to eat them and drink them because you say you like them when, in truth, you’re addicted to them… and you know that too!

So, you see, its not that you don’t know what to do. You do, and you have all along.

The trouble is, you don’t do what you know.

Worse, you don’t do what you know and you make all kinds of excuses about why you can’t or why it wouldn’t work for you even if you did.

The truth is, if you did what you know you need to do, what your instincts have told you many times that you need to do then you’d see results.

But you’re not… so you don’t.

Time to stop pretending!

Let me know what you think?

The Enzyme Factor Part II

Here is some more powerful information from The Enzyme Factor by Dr. Hiromi Shinya.

” My first treatment plan for colon cancer consists of first surgically removing the part invaded by cancer, and, once that visible cancer is removed, I then begin to eliminate what I believe may be the cause of cancer in that patient. Needless to say, I first have them abstain from tobacco and alcohol and completely stop eating meat, milk, and dairy products.”

“The old saying “fight fire with fire” probably shapes the way doctors who use anticancer drugs pursue their work.”

“Drugs cannot fundamentally cure diseases. The only fundamental path to a cure for any illness lies in our daily lifestlye”

“In modern medicine, it is thought that unless cancer is surgically removed, the diseased organ will not heal on its own. But that has not been my experience. The immune system and natural healing strength of humans seem to be more powerful that commonly believed. As proof of this, my patients who still have a little cancer left in their lymph nodes but follow my dietary therapy experience no recurrence of cancer.”

“Again, on the most fundamental level, most drugs do not cure diseases. Drugs can be useful when there is severe pain or bleeding or in emergencies to suppress symptoms that must be alleviated.”

“Chewing well is very important, and not just for sick people. In order to carry out the digestion and  absorption process smoothly, I advise people, even those without any gastrointestinal problems, to consciously chew 30-50 times per mouthful at every meal.”

“In fact, I have heard that if you feed milk sold in stores to a calf instead of milk straight from the mother cow, the calf will die in four or five days life cannot be sustained with foods that do do not have enzymes.”

“According to my clinical data, there is a high likelihood of developing a predisposition to allergies by consuming milk and milk products. This correlates with recent allergy studies that report that when pregnant women drink milk, their children are more prone to develop atopic dermatitis.”

“Milk, which contains many oxidized fatty substances, damages the intestinal environment, increasing the amount of bad bacteria and destroying the balance of the intestinal bacterial flora. As a result, toxins such as free radicals, hydrogen sulfides, and ammonia are produced in the intestine. Research about what kind of process these toxins go through and what kinds of illnesses arise is still ongoing, but several research papers have reported that milk not only causes various allergies but is also linked with diabetes among children. These research papers are available on the internet, so I encourage you to read them yourselves.”

” Adults lack enough of the enzyme that breaks down lactose. Lactose is the sugar found in milk products, but lactase, the enzyme that breaks down lactose, begins to decrease in our bodies as we grow older. This is natural in a sense, because milk is something infants drink, not adults. In other words, lactase is an enzyme that is not required by adults.”

“As I stated in the beginning, we have now entered an age where we need to look out for our own health. Instead of just accepting information someone gives you, it is necessary to ascertain the truth by testing the information with your own body.”

“In order to live a ling, healthy life, do not be led astray by voices from the outside, but rather, tilt your head and listen to the voices coming from within your own body.”

“You are what you eat,” as the saying goes. Illness, life and health are the result of what you eat on a daily basis.”

“However, in modern Western medicine, patients are hardly asked about their dietary history, I believe the reason that ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, connective tissue disease, and leukemia are called “incurable diseases of unknown cause” springs from a lack of solid information about people’s dietary choices. If more research is done on the relationship between dietary history and diseases, we should be able to turn “unknown causes” into known.”

“Practice makes perfect, but if you practice bad habits day after day, year after year, you are likely to wind up perfectly ill.”

“Right know, we are surrounded by a wide range of different types of food. If you want to live a long and healthy life, you have to realize that you cannot choose what you eat simply because it tastes good. Knowing this, what are the criteria for choosing the foods you eat every day?”

“The best foods are ones grown in fertile land, rich with minerals, without the use of agricultural chemicals or chemical fertilizers, and eaten immediately after being harvested.”

7 Simple Techniques to Minimize Your Swine Flu Risk

I’m not an alarmist kinda person. Not at all. But the statistics don’t lie:

- Seasonal flu annually sickens 5-20% of the population

But there’s no need for gloom and doom. Just read these 7 simple techniques reduce your Swine Flu risk and you’ll start feeling much better.

http://colbyconditioning.getprograde.com/Swine-Flu-Prevention.html

P.S. – Remember, an ounce of prevention…read these 7 simple things and keep yourself healthy.
http://colbyconditioning.getprograde.com/Swine-Flu-Prevention.html

The Medical Community Doesn’t Get What We Do

This is an entertaining guest post that may ruffle a few feathers from Thomas Plummer an authority on the business of fitness. Thomas usually isn’t afraid to speak his mind.

I must say after reading the post myself,  I am grateful and fortunate to have relationships with some of the best MD’s and alternative practitioners in the Boston medical community.

The last blog on personal responsibility triggered a small debate concerning how we as an industry can induce a tighter bond between the fitness world and the medical community. We all dream of this partnership and the money it can provide, but there are huge barriers that are preventing this with both sides unable to solve the issues that could bring us together.

Paul Grymkowski, one of the legends in this business who was instrumental in building the Gold’s gym brand into an international presence, asked in his response to my last blog how we can get both sides to understand and build a continuum of care that would benefit both the fitness world and the national health of this country.

First of all, the new generation of fitness professional is seeking a wellness solution for their members, which is something the chains have been unable or unwilling to go after in the clubs. This total fitness and wellness solution often contains total body functional training, nutrition guidance and weight management, supplement support, and other keys to a sustainable healthy lifestyle. Our weakness is that few clubs have all these components as part of their normal offering but that is changing, especially in the smaller clubs (3000-12,000 square feet) built upon the premise of providing a complete solution to living a healthier lifestyle.

On the other hand are the clubs that work against almost everything that is right for the client. These membership mills do nothing more than take membership money, turn numbers and rent equipment. Sadly, we are more known for these clubs in the industry instead of the ones trying to move us into this century.

In most clubs, if you actually get in shape walking on a treadmill by yourself a few nights a week after work it is more likely an act of God feeling sorry for your fat ass and lack of social life rather than a solid fitness program. The large majority of people left to their own devices do not understand fitness and simply push a few machines and spend an hour at a very slow pace walking on a tread and watching Oprah. You might feel a little better compared to sitting at home staring at a mind numbing television show but nothing is happening to that forty-pound bag of donuts hanging off your ass and there is definitely nothing happening that would excite a major health insurer enough to pay for you to be there.

But again, we know how to provide fitness today and many clubs are providing a complete solution although it is seldom sold that way to the members. We still do nothing more in most fitness facilities than push low intensity, self-directed activity to lose weight and manage health and don’t offer any type of real health and wellness support. Most clubs shy away from this level of sophistication because they simply don’t have the skilled personnel to provide this help and others fail the consumer because they are too cheap and can’t charge for the service.

What all this means is that while we are weak at offering total support for a healthy lifestyle at many clubs there are a rising number of smaller facilities that would qualify for an insurance boost because they can track attendance, offer weight management, and talk about lifestyle changes that negate fitness in the real world and these clubs would be an ideal blend with the insurance world.

On the other side of the debate, medical people don’t get fitness. I was recently diagnosed with a mild case of atrial fibrillation and then sent into the equivalent of medical purgatory, where I have been tested, probed, received three cardioversions, and put on medicine that was supposed to improve my health but did nothing more than make me want to lay under my desk and sleep. After almost a year of chasing rhythm my doctors have decided that maybe all that wasn’t really necessary and maybe just an aspirin a day is all I really need.

I did, however, learn things along the journey. First of all, some of the fattest people, most out of shape people I have seen work in the largest cardio specialty clinic on Cape Cod. Out of the large number of staff wandering the halls supporting at least 10 doctors only three would qualify as in shape and the rest would fall into the Wal-Mart Saturday morning Little Debbie crowd. There is also a small percentage of the doctors that are in horrible shape, which you might consider ironic considering their specialty. Obviously most live in the world of “do as I say not as I do”.

The second more frightening thing is their willingness to just prescribe drugs to everyone they meet as patients and most of these drugs are things that they casually prescribe for the rest of your life. This shouldn’t surprise me, however, since the calendars in the offices were all furnished by drug companies, the check out person was drinking coffee out of a large cup with the name of a drug on the side and many of the other charts and illustrations on most of the walls were proudly provided by drug companies who splashed their names prominently on each piece.

Lifetime drugs mean lifetime patients and while the doctors may not be thinking that way visiting their offices is sort of like going to a PGA event where the average player has about 7-8 different logos on his shirt. If you are displaying that many logos the perception is that someone must be paying you.

We discussed drugs often but we spent very little time on health and wellness. I was by far one of the youngest patients through their clinic, which is quite amazing at 56, but sadly every solution was a drug to take the rest of your life with a minimal discussion of what those drugs might do to you and the quality of your life.

My experience highlights why we will find it so difficult to build a bond between what we do and what the belief system of a doctor in our country is taught to do. Doctors don’t understand fitness, few proscribe anything beyond walking a little and cutting back on whatever is considered bad food in the press, and lifestyle is vaguely discussed because if the doctor learns too much it might get in the way of presecribing the drugs.

In our world, we want to prevent illness. In their world, they only treat symptoms and most doctors don’t seem to have the time to find out why things are going bad and how to change things further up the line that might be causing those symptoms.

Every insurance company in the country should be paying for a fitness membership, but how do you verify compliance? Every insurance company should be offering weight management help but no one can agree on what we should be eating or which diet we should be on although why we don’t at least go after soft drinks, junk food and high fructose corn syrup is beyond my limited wisdom.

We should also build a new version of BMI and reward people who maintain a lower, healthier weight instead of telling a professional athlete that according to the current system he has an index of 30 and is obese though he is as healthy as he will ever be in his life.

We should be the first thing a doctor prescribes to any patient if we can live up to that responsibility by providing a solid product and support that really works. At this point, too few of us in the industry can provide the verification that fitness as practiced in this specific facility can make a difference in someone’s life.

The good news is while not now then soon. The old dogs are dying and the new owners are rising and may they howl at the moon for the next ten years. Modern fitness works, is verifiable and there are owners who provide total support for a lifestyle change. Our time is coming but we have a little dead weight to get off our shoulders first.