Why Reduce Grains and Sugars?

I've been following a diet that's low in grain, starch, sugar and processed foods, in varying degrees for the last six years. It has made a tremendous difference in the way my body looks and feels. Before I changed the way I was eating, I was always tired no matter how much sleep I got and it was hard for me to get through the day without needing to lie down and take a nap in the mid-afternoon. At the time I switched my diet, I was eating what was considered a healthy, low fat diet – lots of whole grains, beans and legumes and very little fat and animal protein. I was teaching fitness classes and working out every day but I was still 15 pounds and 4 sizes larger than I am now. A friend told me about Dr. Mercola and I decided to try his diet principles of cutting back on grains, sugars, starchy carbohydrates and processed foods. I felt the difference within the first 24 hours. My energy levels soared and my chronic heartburn disappeared and the extra weight began to easily come off. I went from a size 8 to a size 2 and I've never looked back. I love eating this way so I wanted to share this information written by Dr. Mercola with all of you. You can find out more information at http://www.mercola.com/ Enjoy! Bonnie

For several million years, humans existed on a diet of animals and vegetation. It was only with the advent of agriculture a mere 10,000 years ago - a fraction of a second in evolutionary time - that humans began ingesting large amounts of sugar and starch in the form of grains (and potatoes) into their diets. Indeed, 99.99% of our genes were formed before the advent of agriculture; in biological terms, our bodies are still those of hunter-gatherers.
While the human shift to agriculture produced indisputable gains for man - modern civilization is based on this epoch - societies where the transition from a primarily meat/vegetation diet to one high in cereals show a reduced lifespan and stature, increases in infant mortality and infectious disease, and higher nutritional deficiencies.

Your Genes Have Not Evolved
Contemporary humans have not suddenly evolved mechanisms to incorporate the high carbohydrates from starch- and sugar-rich foods into their diet. In short, we are consuming far too much bread, cereal, pasta, corn (a grain, not a vegetable), rice, potatoes and Little Debbie snack cakes, with very grave consequences to our health. Making matters worse, most of these carbohydrates we consume come in the form of processed food.

Consuming Too Many Carbs Has Consequences
That 65% of Americans are overweight, and 27% clinically obese, in a nation addicted to sesame seed buns for that hamburger, with a side of French fries and a Coke, is no coincidence. It is not the fat in the foods we eat but, far more, the excess carbohydrates from our starch- and sugar-loaded diet that is making people fat and unhealthy, and leading to epidemic levels of a host of diseases such as diabetes. If you are experiencing any of the following symptoms, chances are very good that the excess carbohydrates in your body are, in part or whole, to blame:

• Excess weight
• Fatigue and frequent sleepiness
• Depression
• Brain fogginess
• Bloating
• Low blood sugar
• High blood pressure
• High triglycerides

We all need a certain amount of carbohydrates, of course, but, through our addiction to grains, potatoes, sweets and other starchy and sugary foods, we are consuming far too many. The body's storage capacity for carbohydrates is quite limited, though, so here's what happens to all the excess: they are converted, via insulin, into fat and stored in the adipose, or fatty, tissue.

How Your Body Deals With Excess Carbs
Any meal or snack high in carbohydrates generates a rapid rise in blood glucose. To adjust for this rise, the pancreas secretes the hormone insulin into the bloodstream, which lowers the glucose. Insulin is, though, essentially a storage hormone, evolved over those millions of years of humans prior to the agricultural age, to store the excess calories from carbohydrates in the form of fat in case of famine. Insulin, stimulated by the excess carbohydrates in our overabundant consumption of grains, starches and sweets, is responsible for all those bulging stomachs and fat rolls in thighs and chins.

Even worse, high insulin levels suppress two other important hormones - glucagons and growth hormones - that are responsible for burning fat and sugar and promoting muscle development, respectively. So insulin from excess carbohydrates promotes fat, and then wards off the body's ability to lose that fat.

Excess weight and obesity lead to heart disease and a wide variety of other diseases. But the ill effect of grains and sugars does not end there. They suppress the immune system, contributing to allergies, and they are responsible for a host of digestive disorders. They contribute to depression, and their excess consumption is, in fact, associated with many of the chronic diseases in our nation, such as cancer and diabetes.

Why Eating Raw Foods is Important for Your Body

The information in this article was taken from the book: "The Raw Food Detox Diet" by Natalia Rose
Raw foods contain something that cannot be found in any other food: live enzymes. Enzymes are the catalyst for every human function. We were born with the capacity to produce a great deal of enzymes and started life with a huge enzyme "bank account." However, the standard cooked American fare uses up enzymes during the digestion process without replacing them. Over time we become enzyme impoverished. We perceive this as our metabolism slowing as we age, but it is really because we are becoming enzyme deficient.
Enzymes are your body's workers. They clean up all the garbage and waste that slows your body down, makes you feel sick, tired and sluggish and pack on the extra pounds. The more enzymes you take in through eating raw plant food, the more fuel you will have to complete the chores that your body must do to keep you in a vibrant, healthy and youthful state.
Here's another way to look at the importance of enzymes. We are living beings. Although no one will dispute that, our civilization consumes food that is dead – or cooked. Ask yourself, how can dead food sustain living beings without making those beings less vibrant? Eating living foods makes us more vibrant-literally "full of life."
If you're skeptical about all of this, I invite you to try adding more raw fruits and vegetables to your diet and see for yourself how much better you'll feel. A simple way to start doing this is to eat only raw fruit in the morning till lunch time and then add a large raw vegetable salad to your lunch and dinner. If you want to go one step further and do what I do, you can start your day with a freshly juiced vegetable drink. Below is my favorite recipe.
Veggie Juice
1 small lemon
1 apple
1 carrot
1 celery stick
½ head of large Romain lettuce
6 Kale leaves
Wash everything with "Veggie Wash" (I get it at Stop and Shop in the produce department) and then put it through your juicer. I find this juice deliciously refreshing and invigorating. I can just feel all those wonderful fresh enzymes going to work cleaning all the garbage out of my body!

If you've made a commitment to eat healthier and your best intentions keep going astray because of cravings for your favorite foods, check out my new video - "Tap to Be Free" - EFT for Cravings

Are You Addicted to a Deadly Diet?

This is an article that was written by Dr. Joseph Mercola. Check out his wonderful natural health website: http://www.mercola.com/

Processed foods are typically chemically altered to increase the appeal to your taste buds, so they can override your body's signals that would otherwise tell you it's time to stop eating.

These foods are pumped full of unnatural amounts of sugar, corn syrup, salt, MSG and many others, which radically increases the likelihood of becoming addicted to them.

In one study of rats fed a diet containing 25 percent sugar, they became anxious when the sugar was removed -- displaying symptoms similar to people going through drug withdrawals, such as chattering teeth and the shakes.

The researchers conducting the study found a link between opioids, your brain's 'pleasure chemicals,' and a craving for sweet, salty and fatty foods. It is thought that high-fat foods stimulate the opioids, as when researchers stimulated rats' brains with a synthetic version of the natural opioid enkephalin, the rats ate up to six times their normal intake of fat.

Further, long lasting changes in rats' brain chemistry, similar to those caused by morphine or heroin use, were also noted. According to researchers, this means that even simple exposure to pleasurable foods is enough to change gene expression, which suggests an addiction to the food.

Too Much Processed Foods Can Ruin Your Taste Buds

Meanwhile, refined sugar, which is in nearly every processed food out there, because it is inexpensive and improves the flavor of the food, has been proven to be more addictive than cocaine!

Your body's sweet receptors (two protein receptors located on your tongue), which evolved in ancestral times when the diet was very low in sugar, have not adapted to modern times' high-sugar consumption.

Therefore, the abnormally high stimulation of these receptors by sugar-rich diets generates excessive reward signals in your brain, which have the potential to override normal self-control mechanisms, and thus lead to addiction.

This is why, if you regularly eat a diet of processed foods, whole foods seem to lack flavor. You have become conditioned to think that these chemically altered foods are the norm, when in fact the opposite is true.

The unfortunate reality is that when you eat a processed food diet, it leads to an avalanche of negative changes in your body. One of these is elevated insulin levels, and ultimately insulin resistance.

The positive health impacts of breaking the processed food addiction in the United States would be even greater than if everyone stopped smoking, because elevated insulin levels are the foundation of nearly every chronic disease known to man, from cancer and arthritis to cardiovascular disease.

If You Give Up Processed Foods, What Should You Eat? Raw Food!

Ideally you'll want to eat as many foods as possible in their unprocessed state; typically organic, biodynamic foods that have been grown locally, and are therefore in season.

But the challenge is, even when you choose the best foods available you can destroy most of the nutrition if you cook them.

I believe it's really wise to strive to get as much raw food in your diet as possible. I personally try to eat about 85 percent of my food raw, including raw eggs and humanely raised organic animal products that have not been factory farmed. And there are a number of reasons for this.

For starters, cooking your food, especially at high temperatures, destroys naturally occurring enzymes. Enzymes are proteins; catalysts to speed up and facilitate reactions in your body. In fact, some biochemical reactions will not even occur without these enzymes (you have about 1,300 of them).

So if all of your food is cooked, your body is going to be deficient in the enzymes it needs to function properly.

Your Body Craves Biophotons

Enzymes are very important, but the primary reason for making sure you get plenty of raw food in your diet is due to what's called 'biophotons.' It's a term you may not have heard of before, but in Europe, Germany in particular, there's significant research in this area.

Biophotons are the smallest physical units of light, which are stored in, and used by all biological organisms – including your body. Vital sun energy finds its way into your cells via the food you eat, in the form of these biophotons.

They contain important information, which controls complex vital processes in your body. The biophotons have the power to order and regulate, and, in doing so, to elevate the organism – in this case, your physical body -- to a higher oscillation or order.

This is manifested as a feeling of vitality and well-being.

Every living organism emits biophotons or low-level luminescence (light with a wavelength between 200 and 800 nanometers). It is thought that the higher the level of light energy a cell emits, the greater its vitality and the potential for the transfer of that energy to the individual which consumes it.

The more light a food is able to store, the more nutritious it is. Naturally grown fresh vegetables, for example, and sun-ripened fruits, are rich in light energy. The capacity to store biophotons is therefore a measure of the quality of your food.

Now, the DNA inside each of your body's cells vibrates at a frequency of several billion hertz (which is unfortunately the same range at which modern cell phone communication systems also work). The vibration is created through the coil-like contraction and extension of your DNA -- which occurs several billion times per second -- and each time it contracts, it squeezes out one single biophoton; a light particle.

All the biophotons emitted from your body communicate with each other in a highly structured light field that surrounds your body. This light field also regulates the activity of your metabolic enzymes.

Switch to More Raw Foods Gradually

Many people feel that if they can't eat their favorite junk foods, they are being deprived. In reality, the sooner you switch your eating habits, the sooner you'll enjoy increased energy, normalized weight, a better mood and improved health overall.

Knowing this, many initially succeed at implementing an improved diet, but then fall back into old habits... and therefore, the "old" body.

To avoid this, I recommend you make the changes to your diet gradually, starting with making one meal a day raw, then increasing from there.

I personally try to make at least 60% of my diet raw each day and I've really noticed a positive difference in how I feel since I've been doing this. Give it a try and see what you think!

If you've made a commitment to eat healthier and your best intentions keep going astray because of cravings for your favorite foods, check out my new video - "Tap to Be Free" - EFT for Cravings