beauty

Your skin doesn’t age by accident or just because time passes. It loses tone and texture when the order, energy, physiological and biological integrity of your body’s living matrix becomes undermined. Many factors can cause this to happen. But none is more insidious or sinister than chronic high levels of blood sugar and insulin which now threaten the majority of the population of the developed world. Stop this from happening to your own body, and you can not only slow skin aging. You can reverse its signs. You will also help yourself avoid degenerative illnesses and prevent weight gain. WHISPERS FROM THE DEAD Sugar destroys your skin. And I don’t just mean the white stuff that sits in bowls. Most of the foods we eat these days—from pasta and bread to packaged cereals and bagels—within a few minutes of entering the body flood the bloodstream with glucose. The reasons for this are simple and genetic. Yet for almost four generations, they have continued to elude most scientists, nutritionists, government bodies such as the FDA, and doctors. Grain-based foods and sugary foods are a recent invention. For over a million years of evolution, the human body never encountered them. Because genetic adaptation is a slow process—it can take one hundred thousand years for a significant alteration in even one gene to take place—our bodies do not have the ability to deal with sugars and starches in quantity for long periods. Yet such foods form the majority of stuff that people buy and eat. Our packaged convenience foods are based on them. Most are also riddled with junk fats and chemicals. These days, even smoked salmon and luncheon meats have sugars added to them. These manufactured products make up the largest portion of most people’s diets. When the body is forced to handle them (and most governments are still trying to sell us the false notion that a high-carb diet is good for health), it rebels. What form this insurrection takes depends on our genetic vulnerabilities. For some, it can show up as adult onset Type II diabetes. Others get fat and experience energy swings, high blood pressure, distorted cholesterol issues, and/or chronic fatigue. When it comes to skin, these carbs and sugar itself fabricate wrinkles, sags, puffy faces and lackluster complexions. This produces a situation where, even when you know all of this, you can find yourself with so little energy that you wonder if you are able to do anything about it. THE WRINKLE MONSTER When it comes to carbs and sugars, the wrinkle monster is two faced. To escape his insidious attacks, you need to understand and conquer both. First there is the all-encompassing glucose-insulin battle you need to win, probably after years of living and eating the way that, for the past 60 years, we have been urged to do by the powers-that-be. The monster’s second face focuses on the way excess glucose damages the body’s proteins. It attacks skin cells and collagen fibers leading to what are known as advanced glycosylation end products or AGEs. These nasties act like terrorists, wreaking havoc within your living matrix. AGEs cause the skin’s collagen proteins to cross-link, producing wrinkles, sags and bags on your face. Defeat the first face of the wrinkle monster and the second loses a lot of its power. Your skin will respond by literally rejuvenating itself. So will your whole body, and in medically measurable ways too. ALL POWERFUL HORMONE Insulin is the most important hormone in determining how quickly or slowly your body ages. This was one of the most important discoveries made during the past half-century. It began with the work of a brilliant American endocrinologist named Gerald Reaven. In the 1980s, Reaven identified a collection of abnormalities—high blood pressure, distorted cholesterol levels, and others which physicians commonly worry about, as they are viewed as biomarkers of illness and aging. These abnormalities, which generally occur together, have now reached epidemic proportions. They are major triggers in the development of degenerative diseases from heart disease and diabetes to including the dreaded skin-wrinkling and rapid aging. Professor Reaven named this collection of abnormalities Syndrome X—insulin resistance syndrome—which is now more widely known as Metabolic Syndrome. Although this condition often remains hidden to the person who falls prey to it, Metabolic Syndrome is a life-threatening, rapidly aging, perversion of body metabolism which we bring on ourselves—in small part by a sedentary lifestyle, but, most important of all, by having lived for decades on a carbohydrate and sugar-intensive diet. What is scary is that 95 percent of the population of English speaking countries still do. WORTHY OPPONENTS In your body, insulin and sugar are antagonists. In other words, they are meant to balance each other metabolically. All carbohydrate foods—from muffins to breads, cereals and packaged convenience foods—turn into glucose when you eat them. Insulin has two jobs to perform: First, when glucose from these foods enters the bloodstream, it is supposed to control blood sugar levels. Second, it is meant to see that glucose gets turned into the energy your body needs for health. In a healthy body, where blood sugar is balanced and in control, you have a good supply of ongoing energy. You don’t suffer from energy or mood swings during the day or at certain times of the month. It is insulin secreted from the pancreas which manages this. It responds to the level of glucose present in the blood from moment to moment. The more glucose there is, the more insulin it secretes to balance it. The less glucose present, the less insulin gets shunted into your blood. MASTER OF ENERGY Insulin’s second job is equally important. It has to do with getting all this circulating sugar into your body’s cells, where little energy factories there known as mitochondria can turn it into ATP—the currency your body uses to run metabolic processes, to make hormones, to repair damage to DNA and keep the body functioning well. The way it does this is interesting. On the surface of each cell there are receptor sites specifically for insulin. They are like locks that only the “key”, namely insulin, can open, so that this important pancreatic hormone can carry out its second major task: Escorting glucose inside the cell so its mitochondria can get on with their energy-producing. It’s a great system. But it was never designed to handle the onslaught of carbs and sugar which, for three or four generations, we’ve been forcing it to handle. After years of breakfast cereals and toast, sugary sweets and treats, the pancreas is forced to produce so much insulin in an attempt to limit high levels of sugar in the blood that it becomes trigger-happy. Day after day, month after month, it secretes so much of the hormone. This continually forces blood sugar to drop too low, which causes those awful 11 AM and 3 PM blues. We get hungry, eat more carbs—trying to get back our energy—and wonder why we suffer. The pancreas can also grow weary of the task after a while and give out. HERE’S WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE When high levels of unused glucose circulate in your body, they seriously disrupt the functions of the living matrix and cause rapid aging of skin and the whole body. For when glucose cannot be turned into energy in your body, it poisons it. Habitual eating of high-carb meals and snacks shunts massive doses of glucose into your bloodstream. In an effort to maintain balance, the pancreas produces more insulin, keeping insulin levels too high for too long. This creates insulin resistance, interfering with your body’s ability to turn glucose into energy. You feel fatigued, may gain weight easily, become prone to cellulite and develop the medical abnormalities associated with Metabolic Syndrome. This also stimulates your liver to produce more triglycerides and pour them into your bloodstream. All this can produce mood swings and hormonal distortions. This distorts cholesterol levels and balance, increasing your risk of heart disease. It also bombards fat cells with extra calories they need to find a place for. If you are genetically prone to weight gain, you not only grow fat. You find it more and more difficult to shed weight. This in turn creates yet more insulin resistance, and can even start destroying the insulin-secreting cells of the pancreas. The energy, chemistry and physiology of the living matrix become disrupted. Cells no longer receive clear communications in this polluted medium. They become unable to effectively do the jobs they are meant to do. Skin shows the effects of all of this. It loses radiance, thins, sags, wrinkles and ages rapidly. Blotches appear. Spots, too, if you are genetically prone to them. You start to look tired, old beyond your years and, before long, you start to feel as bad as you look. Sorry for this long list of bad news. But it is important that you get a handle on how all this happens. The good news is you can actually reverse all of this by altering the kinds of foods you eat. DO WE NEED CARBS? A diet high in cereals, grains and sugars (the diet of 90% of the Western world) is the fastest way to ruin skin, get ill, age rapidly and get fat. Grains and sugars can undermine your immune system and make you susceptible not just to colds, but to degenerative diseases such as diabetes, cancer, arthritis, and coronary heart disease. Now, this is revolutionary stuff—as yet it’s known only to an elite few. On learning all of the above, the question most often asked is this: “Is a diet that is mostly or completely lacking in cereal-based, grain-based, sugar-based carbohydrates a healthy way of eating?” It’s little wonder that most of us don’t know this. For more than half a century, we’ve been told that we need lots of carbs for health and energy. WE DO NOT! Eating a diet that is low in convenience foods and grain-based, sugar-based, cereal-based carbohydrates but rich in low-sugar fruits and green vegetables, plus good quality proteins and good fats—coconut oil, butter from grass-fed cows and extra-virgin olive oil—ensures that you are never going to have a shortage of fuel for your body, nervous system or brain. You will not have to wrestle with insulin resistance, food cravings, blood-sugar-related health problems, weight gain or a poorly functioning immune system. What such a way of eating can do to regenerate and rejuvenate skin and slow skin wrinkling, sagging and spotting is little short of fabulous—no matter what your age.

The shine of your hair depends on the condition of the cuticle. Made up of transparent keratin, the cells of your hair's cuticle should form a clear, flat surface that refracts light, making your hair look shiny. But in order for these fish-scale-like plates to lie flat, the cuticle has to be healthy and contracted. This means that the imbrications - the natural shingles of the cuticle - need to be closed. When they are closed, your hair is protected from much physical and chemical damage and light catches it beautifully. Many things can disrupt the cuticle and lead to the opening of the imbrications: very alkaline shampoos, for instance, which make the hair shaft swell. The swelling pushes out the scaly cells, making them stand away from the shaft. Very strong alkaline substances such as perm solutions and bleaching agents can even dissolve some of the cuticle, leaving holes and tears in it, which makes your hair look permanently dull. Damage to the cuticle can come from physical causes too. For instance, too much heat on the hair from careless blow drying, teasing, or back-combing, and overexposure to the sun. To have shiny hair, you have to be particularly careful not to damage it from the outside. There are some things, however, that help restore a smooth cuticle to hair: mildly acidic substances, for instance, such as vinegar and lemon rinse or one of the proprietary conditioning treatments, all of which shrink the hair shaft and encourage the imbrications to close and the cells to lie flat. For most women they are far better than conditioners you can buy since they don't build up on the hair surface or weaken the hair over a long period of time. Simple rinses will also strengthen the keratin.  The natural oils secreted from the follicle which coat the outside shaft also help the hair look shiny. Provided, that is, that you wash your hair often enough. Oil left on hair for too long tends to accumulate dust and dirt on the shaft which quickly destroys shine. How much flexibility and bounce your hair has is also something that can be determined by how you look after it from the outside. It depends on the water content of each shaft. Healthy hair has enough water in it to keep the keratin in the hair shaft supple and firm, so that your hair will stretch without breaking, keep a style well, and feel silky. If the hair's water content becomes depleted from exposure to too much heat or the sun or a very alkaline shampoo, then it will become brittle, break easily, and refuse to hold a style. Another dehydrator is chlorine in swimming pools. Conditioners containing silicone can help coat the outside of each hair shaft to keep it from drying excessively. But the best insurance of all is simply keeping your hair away from too much heat and from chemical desiccators. the craft of hair care To be beautiful your hair has to be kept clean, well cut, brushed, and protected from external damage. It also needs the benefit of regular massage to ensure that circulation to the follicles in the scalp is good. Fullness, body, and the overall look of a head of hair are greatly determined by a good cut and by the kind of products and treatments you use on it. shampooing There are two types of shampoos: those containing soap and those that are artificial detergents. Most, these days, are detergent-based. The reason for this is that while soap is good for cleansing away old hair spray, dull oil, and epidermal debris, it tends to leave scum, particularly in hard water. Also, modern detergent shampoos do more than just clean. They contain other chemical ingredients, which impart cosmetic properties such as shine and manageability to hair. If your hair is short and you live in a soft-water area, you can probably get away with using soap, provided you use a conditioner afterwards. These days they come in many forms: pastes, clear liquids, cloudy lotions, and gels, and also with special ingredients such as herbs, protein, balsam, eggs, and lemon. But whatever their form, most shampoos are put together from the same basic chemicals. First there is the detergent itself to do the cleansing. Then there is a sequestering agent, which is a chemical that traps the minerals in hard water (such as lime) so that the shampoo lathers well and rinses away easily. Most shampoos also contain foam builders to increase their lathering abilities, plus either clarifying or opacifying agents, which do nothing for your hair but render the product either clear, cloudy or creamy depending on what manufacturers think will best appeal to the market. And, of course, all shampoos contain preservatives to keep their ingredients from spoiling. Conditioners are added to most shampoos nowadays. They vary from one formula to the next, but they include ingredients to eliminate static electricity from the hair when it dries, to coat the hair shaft with protein and thereby enlarge it making your hair look thicker, and to render the hair shafts slippery so that your hair doesn't tangle when you comb it out. Shampoos become more and more sophisticated every few years in their formulations - a sophistication that is certainly to the benefit of your hair, provided you can find the right one for you. And provided you change the shampoo you use every few weeks. Apart from certain guidelines that depend on your hair type, finding the right one is mostly a matter of trial and error. the question of PH There is one more additive - not exactly an additive, rather a group of them - which is important; chemicals are added to shampoos to make them pH-balanced. Your hair, like your skin, has an acid mantle, with a pH from 4.5 to 5.5, made out of the natural oils from the follicle. This acid mantle plays an important protective role keeping the imbrications of the cuticle from opening and the hair from becoming hard to manage, dull-looking, and vulnerable to damage. A shampoo that is pH-balanced, that is which is slightly acidic so that its pH is about the same as your hair's, helps to maintain the hair's strength and health. If it does not say "pH-balanced" on the label, you can check it with litmus paper. Alkaline shampoos disturb and disrupt the acid mantle, causing the tiny scales of the cuticle to open and the hair shaft to swell. Using a pH-balanced shampoo is particularly important if your hair is fragile, permed or colored. If your hair is strong and in good condition, then it does not really matter what kind of shampoo you use on it, provided you put a cream rinse or a homemade vinegar-and-water or lemon-and-water rinse on it afterwards. Since conditioners and rinses such as these are acidic, they will close up the imbrications opened by the shampoo, shrink the hair shaft back to its normal size and leave it looking shiny. what kind of shampoo for you? Lemon: These shampoos are especially good for oily hair, because they help remove the oil without leaving the hair lackluster and lank. Balsam: This is a good ingredient to choose if your hair is very fine or lacks body. Balsam is a resinous substance from the bark of certain trees. In a shampoo it coats the hair shafts, lending them thickness and strength. Chamomile: This is an excellent ingredient for blonde or light brown hair, since this flower has mild bleaching properties. If you use a chamomile shampoo regularly it helps keep light hair bright and shiny. Herbs: "Herbs" added to a shampoo doesn't mean a great deal, for many herb formulas (unlike chamomile) have no real action on the hair and are created only to appeal to women's back-to-nature feelings. Some, however, such as white nettle, can be useful for dandruff. Protein: Protein shampoos come in two types; both can be useful for hair. The first type contains a simple protein made from eggs, milk, soya, gelatin, beef, or an exotic vegetable called tong bean, which helps to coat the outer layers of the hair making the hair look thicker. Most protein shampoos are of this type. The second type does far more. Called substantive protein, the protein it contains is hydrolyzed and of the correct molecular weight and size to be absorbed into the cuticle, strengthening it at the same time as aligning its scales and thickening the shaft. This kind of protein shampoo is particularly good for use on treated, damaged, or fine hair. It is not so valuable on strong and healthy hair, for hydrolyzed polypeptide proteins are absorbed more rapidly by damaged hair than by a relatively compact keratin structure which does not really need them. When buying a shampoo don't worry if it does not give much lather since this is more a measure of the sequestering agent it contains than of its cleaning ability. It should have a good conditioning action to leave your hair soft and gleaming, and your hair should be easy to comb out afterwards. It should also rinse out easily. How often you shampoo depends on you and on the type of hair you have. If it is dry, not more than a couple of times a week is best. If it is normal or oily you can shampoo every day if you like, provided you use a pH-balanced shampoo. However often you do, you need only lather once, unless your hair is really grimy. More than once strips away too much of the hair's natural oils from the cuticle. getting hair into condition All cream rinses, conditioners, and treatments are on the acidic side of the pH scale. They are intended to close up the imbrications of the cuticle after shampooing and to shrink it back to normal size. In addition, a cream rinse should contain ingredients such as quaternary aluminum salts to separate the individual hairs and make them easy to comb out and to protect against static electricity. Finally, they coat hairs with an ingredient such as protein or balsam, which is supposed to give more body and protect the cuticle from moisture loss. Some conditioners contain a large quantity of oil. They are fine for dry hair but will make normal and oily hair into a lank mop that needs to be washed again the next day or so. If you ever have this trouble with a conditioner or cream rinse then try one of the oil-free ones. They do a better job in adding body and protecting hair without causing lankness. Protein packs or concentrated treatments left on the hair for from five to twenty minutes (the hair will take up all of a substance it is going to in twenty minutes, so there is never any reason to leave it any longer) are excellent as an occasional treatment for hair of all types (say once a month or every six weeks) and exceptionally good for colored, permed, or damaged hair used once a week. They will strengthen and protect the hair and leave it soft and shiny. But beware of over-conditioning. It is one of the worst and most commonly unrecognized causes of dull, limp hair. It also shortens the life of any perm significantly. Many women dissatisfied with the state of their hair keep using more and more conditioners in an attempt to make things better. Instead these products penetrate deep into the cortex undermining the strength of the hair shaft and causing hairs to split and fracture. If this is happening to you, use a gentle shampoo with no conditioners and rinse with lemon juice and water instead for a few shampoos. style and setting Because the keratin that makes up hair is a protein, like all proteins it can be treated with heat to change its shape. This makes it possible to curl, uncurl, shape, and mold your hair into a particular style by blow-drying it, by setting it wet and allowing it to dry, or by using heated rollers, straighteners  or curling tongs on dry hair. The protein of hair consists of molecules arranged in organized patterns held together by two kinds of chemical bonds: hydrogen and sulfur. The hydrogen bonds are the weaker of the two. When you set your hair on rollers, or blow it dry while easing it into a particular shape, you break, then re-form, these hydrogen bonds to create a temporary new structure. But it is a tenuous one for water, heat, lots of brushing and time can break the hydrogen bonds again so that your hair returns to its former structure and you lose the new shape. Sulfur bonds are strong. They can be broken only by strong alkaline solutions such as those of perms, straightening or coloring products. Sulfur bonds are broken and then re-formed when you have your hair permed, and the new structure formed through these changes lasts far longer. The problem with breaking either hydrogen or sulfur bonds and then re-forming them is that most of the things used to style a head of hair, such as heat and alkaline solutions, are potentially damaging to it. They have to be used with care. Blow drying is an excellent way to style straight or curly hair, provided you have patience and strong arms. If you have dry or brittle hair don't blow dry it every day. Hot air can cause progressive, cumulative damage to the cuticle and, finally, to the cortex and medulla, too. If your hair is delicate, choose a dryer that is not too high in watts (1,000 is enough), as a high wattage may do the job faster but your hair will suffer if you are not extremely careful to keep the dryer far enough from the hair or to use the lowest setting. If your hair is heated above 150 degrees Fahrenheit (66 C), you can do irreversible damage to it, making it brittle, dry, and scorched. There are some protein-based lotions that you can spray on your hair to help protect it from the intense heat - these are specifically designed for blow dryers, and most of them are very good. But you still need to be careful. Do your hair in two stages: First use the dryer on its own to get the hair almost dry all over, then begin styling with the dryer in one hand and your curved or round brush (made specially for blow drying) in the other. Keep the dryer six inches from your hair - which should be raised off the head at a 90 degree angle - and constantly moving. Section your hair into the sides, the back, the side back, and the top front, clipping each section and then letting it down as you need it. Begin on the underneath of one side and then work around the whole head, drying the hair section by section. Do the back first, the front always last, brushing and drying the hair against the direction in which it grows. This creates volume. Do the underneath layers first. When they are dry, bring down another layer from above to work on, constantly twirling the brush in the hair to get the curve and the shape you are after. Last of all, do the front or the fringe, brushing it back and then curving it over the forehead and finally brushing it into place. The art of blow-drying your hair yourself is something that takes time and a great deal of practice to learn, and it is important before you begin styling that your hair is almost dry or you will exhaust yourself in the process. Setting your hair can be done wet on rollers or dry on heated rollers or the hair can be curled dry using curling tongs or a heated brush. A wet set will last you longest, provided you dry it thoroughly under a dryer or in the air. Heated rollers, if you have dry or brittle hair, are something you should not use every day for they tend to damage the ends of the hair. This can he avoided somewhat by wrapping each roller with a piece of tissue paper or toilet paper before putting it into your hair. Never use heated rollers on wet hair - they won't work. And never use a curling iron on wet hair or you may damage it badly. Always section your hair carefully when you are putting rollers in - the more rollers you use and the less hair on each the better and longer-lasting will be the style you get. A useful technique is to blow-dry the hair and then put in a couple of heated rollers at the front to give it extra swing and shape. However you style your hair, always let it cool before brushing out, or you will ruin the new structure of it. brushing and combing Brushing is good for hair, provided you have a good brush and you do not overdo it. It stimulates circulation of the scalp, removes loose scales from the skin on the head, and distributes your hair's natural oils well, which means it helps protect the cuticles and creates shine. The brush you choose should have evenly spaced bristles with rounded ends. The best brushes for your hair are still made from animal bristles. Nylon bristles have blunt ends, which can cause splits and cracks to the hair. Some brushes have bristles set in rubber. They are particularly good, for they give a massage to the scalp while you brush. About thirty to fifty strokes a day is good - more than that is too much, and with less you are not really doing anything. When you brush, you need to bend at the waist and brush your hair from underneath as well as back from the crown. The more positions you can brush from (leaning to the side, with head hanging down, etc.) the better job you will do. Lowering your head while you brush back the side does something else, too. It brings circulation to the scalp in the way that the yoga headstand does. If your hair is long, don't pull the brush through the full length of it. Instead, brush to the shoulder and then, taking hold of the rest of the hair with your other hand, pull the brush down the rest of the way to the ends. You should always brush firmly, but never drag. And you should never brush wet hair, for the disruption of the hydrogen bonds that comes with wetting makes your hair a great deal more susceptible to breakage and damage than when it is dry. Some women fear that brushing is going to take out too much hair. This is unfounded. You will only lose the telogen hairs, which are ready to be lost anyway, and their loss will simply stimulate new growth. When choosing a comb, pick one with the largest teeth you can find that are blunt at the ends so they don't scratch the scalp. Hard rubber, nylon, or bone are the best. Always comb your hair gently, never yanking or pulling at a tangle. massage can be wonderful Anything that increases circulation to the scalp and activates the papillae and follicles tends to make for sturdier hair shafts and to improve hair growth. Besides daily brushing, the best thing you can do for the hair is to massage the scalp. Many people have a genetic tendency to restricted circulation in the scalp, which shows itself in slow hair growth and poor-quality hair. Each hair root is fed by the complex vascular network in the scalp that brings nutrients and oxygen through the blood and carries away carbon dioxide and other metabolic wastes. When circulation there is poor, the hair root suffers. Waste products build up in the tissues so that the hair cells grow only slowly and may even die, resulting in thinning hair. This can be avoided (and often corrected, too) by scalp massage. People with a tendency to oily hair can also benefit from massage. A healthy scalp is loose, rich in vascularity, and thick. The scalp of someone who produces excessive oil is usually just the opposite of this: tight, with poor circulation, and thin. Daily massage can do a great deal to correct this. The idea that massaging your head will make an oily condition even worse because it stimulates the follicles to produce even more oil is just not true. It is far more likely to help normalize trigger-happy oil glands than to stimulate them to further production. Many a too oily head of hair is put right by massage. here's how to massage Using your finger tips and the palm of your hand just below the thumb, push them firmly into your scalp at the sides and, keeping them in the same place, rotate them in small circles. You will be moving the scalp, not your fingers, it is important that fingers stay in the same place to stimulate circulation well and so that you never pull your hair. After you have worked in one position for about thirty seconds, remove both hands from your head and take up a new position, rotating fingertips again firmly for thirty seconds there and so on until you have done your whole scalp. The massage shouldn't take more than three minutes, and it will leave you feeling fresher as well as doing something good for your hair. An electric vibrator is also a good investment for hair: Use it both on your scalp and on your neck and shoulders.

For most people, the face is the focus of attention and the most immediate expression of a woman's beauty. It is certainly the area of the body women most worry about. They spend a great deal of money looking after it with creams and lotions, cleansers and toners and masks, and of course the traditional facials, special treatments, and face-lifts. Everything seems to depend on the face. And all of this is done in an attempt to make sure skin stays smooth and young-looking, well colored, and free from blemishes. Skin is one of the most important criteria for sexual attraction between men and women. Perhaps this is the main reason the face seems so important. the craft of skin care A living, breathing thing, skin is far more than just a superficial covering for your body. It is your largest organ. It covers a surface area of about 17 square feet and weighs between six and eight pounds. So complex is this stuff called skin that a piece of it with the surface area of your thumbnail boasts a yard of blood vessels, twenty-five nerve endings, one hundred sweat glands, and over three million cells. Lasting skin beauty is a question of lasting care, just not spending lavishly on fancy creams and treatments. It is the everyday way you treat skin that matters year after year. But to know how to look after your skin you must first know something about it - what it is and isn't, what it's meant to do, and the many things that affect it for better or worse. For then you can see that its needs are met from day to day. In return it will give you what you desire: beauty that at the very least is skin deep. how your skin works Your skin is a world all its own: living tissue composed of billions of cells bathed in a lake of liquid with the same salt content as seawater. Each skin cell is separated from its neighbor by a membrane through which nutrients and respiratory gases pass, and all skin tissue is nourished by the myriad of tiny capillaries which bring fresh oxygen and nutrients to the cell. Cell growth and reproduction go on unceasingly in each of these microcosms. Life is sustained, wastes eliminated to be carried away via the lymph and blood, so that all of these cells can work together to perform the many vital functions that your skin carries out: It protects your body from invasion by bacteria, virus, or fungus. It helps eliminate the waste products of the metabolism directly through its surface. It conveys information about the outside world by way of a vast network of complex sensory nerve endings. It helps guard the inside of your body from the destructive ultraviolet rays of the sun. And it registers pleasure and pain from your environment. Your skin both depends on the rest of your body for its healthy existence and also offers help to it. And like all live things, in order to function well and look beautiful, it has to be free to carry out all its duties unimpaired by lack of proper nutrients or oxygen, poor circulation, illness, internal pollution, or prolonged stress, all of which threaten its integrity. Real skin care is not just skin deep. skin comes in layers Skin is made up of three layers: the stratified cellular epidermis (the part you see when you look into the mirror); an underlying dermis, made up of connective tissue, nerves, blood, and lymph systems, which also contain the sebaceous, or oil, glands, and sweat glands with ducts leading to its surface; and finally a fatty layer of subcutaneous tissue. The outermost layer, the epidermis, consists of two parts: an inner part of living cells called the stratum Malpighii, and an outer part of anucleated (meaning they have lost their nucleus) horny cells, the stratum corneum. The inner part is in direct contact with the dermis, beneath it. the outer skin Here, at the base of the epidermis, is the stratum Malpighii.  A single layer of cells known as the basal layer forms new cells for the rest of the epidermis by continuous cell reproduction. As they are formed, these new cells constantly push outward and upward towards its surface. In the process, they synthesize an insoluble protein called keratin, lose their cell nuclei, die, and dry out, becoming mere shells on the skin's surface. Once there, they are forever being sloughed off and replaced by new arrivals from below. Most skin care products concern themselves only with the treatment of this stratum corneum, making sure it does not dry out excessively (moisturizer); that the dead cells are periodically sloughed off (exfoliater, which stimulates the basal layer to produce more fresh cells and leaves the skin looking more translucent); and finally, that it is covered with a chemical or physical sunscreen to guard the deeper layers of the skin from damage as a result of exposure to sunlight. When the layers of dead cells in the stratum corneum lie flat and smooth against each other, the skin refracts light well, making your skin look beautifully smooth and silky. If, instead, they are turned up at the edges, then the skin looks dry and lacks smoothness. For they are the outermost manifestation of skin beauty and health. On the stratum corneum, that is on the surface of your skin, there is also a hydrolipidic film composed of water from the sweat glands and oil from the sebaceous glands in a kind of oil-in-water emulsion. This film acts as a natural moisturizer, maintaining acidity (referred to as the pH of skin) to help guard the body against invasion of any kind, and to protect it from chemical onslaught. The natural pH of your skin is between 4.5 and 5.5, which means that it is slightly acid. It is important to maintain this acid mantle. It can be disturbed by the use of soaps, most of which are strongly alkaline, and cosmetics which are not acid-balanced. This is particularly true if your skin is sensitive by nature, tends to be either excessively dry or excessively oily, or if it often breaks out in acne. the living skin Beneath the epidermis, in the dermis, or true skin (which unlike the epidermis is entirely a living thing), are found the nerves. They register pleasure, pain, touch, heat and cold. Here, too, is a rich supply of blood vessels and lymphatics plus all the various skin appendages: the hair follicles, with their sebaceous glands, and the sweat glands. Also important in the dermis is an elaborate network of fibers, made by special cells called fibroblasts. These fibers look like the warp and weft of fine cloth. They are collectively known as connective tissues, and are made up mostly of protein called collagen together with about 2 percent elastin. This network gives your skin its form and resilience. So long as it remains smooth and ordered, your skin stays young-looking and firm. When its fibers start to bunch up and harden or to cross-link and become disorganized, your skin rapidly begins to sag, to wrinkle, and to age. This aging process has many causes. It can occur as a result of exposure to the sun, internal wear and tear from illness, or an insufficiency of certain vitamins and minerals (particularly vitamin C and the trace element zinc), or exposure to cigarette smoke and pollution. It also appears to be part of your genetic programming. Much of the beauty and health of your skin depends on the dermal layer. The things it needs to stay strong and healthy come as much - if not more - from the inside than from what you apply to skin. This internal aspect of skin care is what is most ignored. Few women even consider it, and yet without ensuring that the dermis gets all it needs through optimum nutrition and regular exercise (not only for the face but also for the body as a whole), there is no way you can prevent or correct the disorganization of connective tissue, its consequent loss of tone, and the resulting deep line formation on the face. the subskin Underneath the dermis, in the subcutaneous tissue, are layers of muscle and fatty tissue which act as insulation to the body and which also give young female skin its characteristic (and very attractive) padding. When this padding starts to go, either because of hormonal changes that come with age or because of simple neglect, your skin loses tone and firmness. Looking after this layer of skin is a whole body challenge. Particularly important to it is the health of your endocrine system, in which constant regular exercise plays a vital part. Truly effective skin care has to ensure the continuous health and proper functioning of all three layers, to preserve beauty. This means treatment and protection from the outside of the epidermis. It also means treatment of the dermis through first-rate nutrition, vitamins and minerals, rest and exercise, and perhaps, too, the application of specific essential oils, fatty acids such as gamma linolenic acid (GLA), certain vitamins such as vitamin E, and/or other active substances which can be absorbed through the skin's outer layers into the dermis to stimulate cell metabolism, encourage waste elimination from cells, and help protect and preserve the collagen and elastin fibers. Finally, the subcutaneous layer has to be kept intact by maintaining a firm and well-used, healthy body. In other words, really good skin care for lasting beauty has to tackle the challenge simultaneously from within and without. And there are no shortcuts.

When your body is in homeostasis (that is, all is functioning well) and it is receiving the nutrients it needs and making good use of them, then your hair is strong and beautiful. When something goes wrong inside, your hair is one of the first things to show it. This is one of the many mysteries about hair. In fact, it should not be so. For hair, like fingernails, is dead. Only the follicle from which each hair grows is a living thing. And while it is understandable that hair loss can result from a systemic condition since the follicles would naturally be affected by illness as would any other part of the body, there is no apparent reason why dead hair should look so different from one day to the next, depending on how you feel. Yet it is so. Each hair on your head is 97 percent protein in the form of keratin and 3 percent moisture. It also contains traces of metals and mineral substances in about the same proportions as the rest of you. Although there is still a great deal that is not understood about hair, there is a lot more that we do know. In fact, when it comes to external hair care, cosmetic technology is at its very best. In the past fifteen years, excellent products have been developed to deal successfully with hair that is too frizzy, too thin, too greasy, too dry, or damaged. There are also things to protect your hair from the ravages of the sun's ultraviolet rays and some excellent coloring products. what's it all about? Each hair on your head is made beneath the surface of your skin in a little bulbous structure called a follicle. There, a clump of cells called the papilla at the base of the follicle produces the keratinous cells that become a strand of hair. The papillae get good supplies of food and oxygen since they are well furnished with blood vessels, on which the growth and health of every hair depends. When, for any reason, circulation to your scalp is decreased or interfered with, the papillae get fewer nutrients and less oxygen than they need and your hair suffers. The function of a follicle is to produce keratin, just as your pancreas produces insulin or your stomach hydrochloric acid. The follicle also contains an oil gland, which produces oil to coat each hair and to protect it from water loss. How efficient and how well it does this depends on a number of things such as the level of androgenic and oestrogenic hormones in your system, your genetic inheritance, and your general health. You are born with more than 90,000 follicles. This number doesn't change. If the amount of hair on your head changes, it is because some or most of these follicles are not working properly or have shut down, not because they disappear or because you don't have enough. the three layers of a hair Each strand of hair, or hair shaft, can be divided into three basic layers: the outside, which is called the cuticle; the medulla at the center; and the cortex, made up of complicated amino-acid chains, in between. The cuticle serves as your hair's protective coating: It guards against excessive evaporation of water (just as the stratum corneum does for your skin). It is made up of a transparent, hard keratin formation that is itself layered. These layers overlap, like the tiles on a roof or fish scales. When they lie flat and smooth against the hair shaft, the hair shaft refracts light beautifully and your hair looks shiny. When they are peeling or damaged or raised, each hair doesn't catch the light, so your hair lacks sheen and looks flat and dull. The cuticle provides 35 percent of your hair's elastic strength. The threadlike cortex, just beneath the cuticle, contains the pigment granules, which give your hair its color. The cortex is softer than the cuticle, yet it provides 65 percent of the hair's elastic strength. It is also the thickest part of the hair. If the amino acid chains that make up the cortex break up as a result of too harsh treatment from hair dyes, dryers, highly alkaline shampoos, or over processing, then you end up with weak and brittle hair that splits easily and breaks off. The most common manifestation of poor cortex condition is the familiar split ends. The hair shaft's innermost layer, the medulla, is made up of very soft keratin, and in many people there is even a hollow center. It appears to transport nutrients and gases to the other layers of the hair and may be the means by which your hair is so rapidly affected by changes in your body's condition. But as yet not a great deal is understood about the biological functions of the medulla. the three-stage cycle of growth Hair follicles are the most efficient metabolizers of any organs in the body. This is what makes hair growth possible. They and the hairs they produce function on a three-part growth cycle that lasts from two to seven years. It is important to understand this growth cycle, because understanding it can dispel many of the fears women have that something is wrong when they look at their hairbrush and discover a number of hairs in it. Hair loss is continuous and is a normal part of the cycle. Without it there would be no new hair growth. During the first part of a hair's growth cycle - called the anagen phase - the papilla proliferates keratin at a rapid rate as the follicle expands and imbeds itself deeply in the vascular scalp to provide the oxygen and nourishment needed for growth. During this anagen phase, which lasts between two and six years (depending on your genetic makeup, general health, and the hormone balance in your body), your hair continues to grow from the follicle very much as toothpaste is squeezed out of a tube. The anagen phase is longer when you are young than at the age of fifty or sixty, but no matter what your age, eventually it has to come to an end to make ready for the next phase: the transitional catagen stage, which lasts only a few weeks. During catagen, the follicle's metabolism slows down, the follicle contracts, and the papilla's production of keratin stops. This is not a sign that something has gone wrong but, rather, that the growth of that particular hair has run its course. It is ready to be shed, so soon it enters the last, or telogen, phase of the cycle. Now the follicle rests in its contracted state - rather like an animal hibernating - until, in about three months, the hair it contains is physically dislodged from it by normal activity such as combing or washing. The loss of this hair triggers the follicle to enlarge again, and it heads back into the anagen phase, where it produces yet another hair. And so the cycle continues throughout your life. At any one time, about 85 percent of your hairs will be in the anagen phase and the rest in either telogen or catagen. Luckily, each hair begins life separately, at a different time from the others, or one could end up bald for three months every two to six years. As it is, your hair tends to be shed relatively rapidly in the autumn as more of the follicles head into the telogen stage, and to grow rapidly in the summer.

Lymphatic drainage is vitally important to making sure metabolic processes run cleanly and efficiently. Your body's lymph system is, amongst other things, a kind of metabolic rubbish dump. It helps the body rid itself of dead cells, toxins, metabolic wastes, pathogenic bacteria, foreign substances and other assorted junk the cells cast off. Lymphatic drainage Unlike the circulatory system, in which the circulation of blood is controlled by the pumping of the heart, the lymphatic system has no such pump. The plasma which has seeped through capillary walls gathers in the tissues and then slowly enters the lymphatic channels. These are tiny vessels with one-way valves in them for carrying lymph, along with whatever small bits of foreign matter, wastes and bacteria it has gathered, through the lymph nodes and eventually back into the bloodstream. The normal contractions and relaxation of your muscles and the force of gravity on the body keep the lymph flowing. They act to pump the lymph back through its channels and eliminate these wastes. Regular vigorous exercise encourages this elimination. It brings about a general flushing of the wastes from interstitial fluid and then helps them be carried away through the lymphatic tree of vessels until eventually they empty into the subclavian veins and are eliminated from the body through the actions of all the excretory organs - the skin, lungs, kidneys and colon. In Europe some of the finest natural treatments for healing involve a kind of massage dubbed `lymphatic drainage' which helps the body do this. It is not only used to treat serious chronic illness and fatigue but even as a beauty treatment for women on the face. Skin-brushing stimulates the tissues beneath the skin, encouraging efficient lymphatic drainage. It is an extraordinarily efficient technique for cleansing the lymphatic system and for clearing away waste materials from the cells all over the body as well as those which, as in the case of cellulite in women, have become trapped in interstitial spaces where they are held by hardened connective tissue and where they build up to create pockets of water, toxins and fat that make the skin look like peau d'orange. Skin-brushing is something any woman with cellulite should do twice a day.

Cellulite is a sign that internal pollution is present in parts of your body which can not only reduce your energy levels but mar physical beauty as well. Whether or not you care passionately about having smooth sleek thighs, if you see cellulite developing you can be sure your body is telling you that something within needs attention. I have little patience with nonsense written about cellulite. The silly debates about whether or not it exists and the trivial yet often painful treatments designed to banish it usually miss the point. Cellulite is no simple cosmetic problem of concern only to vain women who have been sold a bill of goods by the beauty industry. Just as the appearance of slime in a river bed indicates that the ecology of the earth is disturbed, a peau d'orange thigh tells a woman that the ecology of her body is out of whack and if you want to shed your cellulite nothing short of a revolution in body ecology is called for. meet the ecology of the planet Ecology is that branch of biology which deals with the relations of living organisms to other organisms and non living things. It deals with extremely complex interactions, relationships, rhythms, chemical alterations, seasons and processes. Scientists who study the ecology of our planet are also interested in energetics. They examine energy pathways and outputs. They explore how the presence of certain chemicals in the environment or alterations in temperature, or the proliferation of specific life forms either supports or interferes with the life processes of other organisms. What we have come to realize in the past twenty years is that the health - indeed the survival - of our planet depends very much on our doing everything we can to reestablish and maintain good ecology whether or not we are dealing in a small way with, say a farm, or woods, or in a large way with a whole continent. The destruction of the ozone layer in recent years, increasing pollution in the air and water, the depletion of organic matter in the soils and widespread deforestation have now disrupted planetary ecology to a degree that was once unthinkable. They have also set scientists frantically searching for keys for helping to reestablish ecological balance. The necessity of good planetary ecology has been further highlighted recently by a growing acceptance of scientist James Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis. Lovelock suggests that the earth, far from being a mass of dead minerals hurling through space at great speed, appears to be an almost infinitely complex organic living system - a system of which we ourselves are a part. what is body ecology? Just as the planet has an ecology on which its health depends, so does your body. Its every cell, every vessel, every tissue interacts in highly complex ways either directly or obliquely with every other part. All of your organs and glands and systems not only speak to each other chemically via the metabolic processes which break down nutrients to make them available for cells to use, produce energy for movement and eliminate wastes. They also communicate via subtle energetic pathways. Some of these were long ago charted by Oriental medicine in the treatment of acupuncture and are still used in the application of pressure at specific areas which form the basis of oriental medicine as well as techniques like shiatsu and reflexology. The vastly complex living system which is your body has a magnificent ability to regulate itself taking into account the food you eat, the air you breathe, the stresses you are under, the physical demands made upon you, your age and all the other factors that come into play in your life - provided of course it is not overburdened by excess fatigue, stress or pollution and provided its metabolic processes have at their disposal a full complement of the essential nutrients on which they run. This ability of the living body to take in and break down nutrients, to channel them into the specific metabolic processes which maintain life and to eliminate wastes is all part of maintaining its ecology. The problem is that pollution in our air, water and food continues to increase placing real burdens on the immune system. At the same time the availability of a good balance of essential nutrients in our over-processed foods continues to decline. One of the many obvious consequences of this decline is the production of cellulite in women's flesh. When the body's ecology is good then your whole body works well and you have plenty of energy. You don't develop cellulite; neither do you show signs of premature aging. And, what is most frequently forgotten, you also experience a high level of awareness and autonomy - you find it easier to be your own person and to make your own decisions from a position of mental clarity and physical power. a 'living revolution' The name 'Cellulite Revolution' (title of one of my books) is no idle hyperbole. For if you are serious about ridding your body of cellulite and keeping it away nothing short of a revolution is called for - a revolution involving how you care for yourself, eat, deal with stress and move - a revolution which leads step by step to a whole new body ecology. When you support and rebalance your body's ecology at the most profound levels through diet, the use of specific complexes from nature, movement, massage and reestablishing connections with the deepest layers of sexuality you can not only banish cellulite. You also empower yourself and make it easier to maximize all your potentials and you will experience for yourself just how potent the life force working through your body is - you will really come to know it from within (something which I think women have a particular ability to do) and, most important, I hope you will come to trust it. You will discover for yourself that, used wisely, all of the techniques and tools for keeping your flesh cellulite free are nothing more than ways of aligning yourself to the deepest needs of your body and supporting its own ecology in the best possible way. The process of getting from here to there is rather like taking a journey - a journey that brings you deeper in touch with the miracle of your living body. It is a journey which offers greater physical beauty, more energy and the expanded awareness which leads to being able to make ever more effective use of your own quite individual brand of creativity. All of these things can be fruits of improved body ecology. In recent years I have come to believe that it is just this kind of energy and creativity that is needed if each of us as women is effectively to make our fullest contribution to the process of caring for the ecology of the living planet.

Pain is what many of us fear most. We all know the misery that can come from a sore back, a throbbing headache or toothache, not to mention children’s earaches. All too many also know the immobilizing pain of migraine. Herbs and essential oils can reach out and help when pain strikes, and without the upset stomach and muzzy heads that over-the-counter treatments can bring in their wake. We’ve all done it—picked up something too heavy or twisted awkwardly—and suffered the pain of an indignant back. Essential oils really come into their own with back pain; use them to relieve muscle spasm and ease your mind. Essential oils of sage, thyme and rosemary all contain thymol and carvacrol, which are excellent muscle relaxants. Rosemary has the added advantage of being anti-spasmodic. Clary sage is also used traditionally to ease the pain of a pulled back. You can mix a few drops of one of these essential oils with a couple of tablespoons of almond oil, coconut oil, or walnut oil. Either massage it into the sore spot yourself, or allow someone you trust to do this gently for you. A warm bath will also help ease the tightness out of strained back muscles. Put a few drops of essential oil of rosemary or clary sage in the bath, plus 2 cups of industrial grade Epsom salts—simple magnesium sulfate—which you can find at a pharmacy in kilo packages or order much more cheaply over the net in big 25kg bags. Allow the essential oils to vaporize on the steam to help you relax all over. Stay in the bath for half an hour, topping up with warm water, to let the Epsom salts do their muscle-relaxing work. Then get out of the bath, dry yourself gently, and crawl into bed or lie down for 30 minutes with a good book. For my family, Epsom salts in huge bags are always in good supply. Aaron and I take an Epsom salts bath daily. It’s a practice which is not only health enhancing but deliciously pleasant.

Ask Any Cat Talk to a vet about the poor condition of your pet's coat and you will get the same answer - change his diet or give him supplemental vitamins and minerals, or both. They know well that the strength, gloss and beauty of an animal's coat depend on how close his diet comes to providing, not just adequate, but optimal quantities of essential nutrients. It has taken until quite recently for trichologists and doctors to realize that a similar approach to the treatment of human hair can yield the same remarkable improvements. They've started asking, for instance, `What might be done to stop the kind of changes that happen to hair as the body ages?' And they have begun to formulate nutritional approaches to a lot of other annoying hair problems such as dry brittle hair and dandruff. The Magic Foods for Hair Two foods are of enormous help to hair in protecting it from age-related changes: liver and sea vegetables. Liver is rich in vitamin A - essential for healthy skin and for the proper functioning of the scalp's sebaceous glands. It also contains a good quantity of many of the B-complex vitamins which help guard your hair from premature loss of color and preserve its sheen and strength plus many of the essential minerals which are needed to maintain a full shining head of hair. Sea vegetables - seaweed of all varieties - are the single most potent strengthener of hair (and incidentally nails) you can find in nature. They are veritable treasure houses of essential minerals, including organic iodine as well as the B vitamins, and vitamins D, E and K. You can buy many kinds of dried seaweed to use in vegetable dishes, soups and curries. You can't find a better helper for hair anywhere. Alternatively you can buy kelp tablets to take with each meal. If you opt for the tablets it is important to take enough, since they are not drugs or even concentrated pills, but simply a dried vegetable product. Most people find that 4-6 300 mg tablets with each meal brings enormous benefits to the look and strength of hair within six to twelve weeks. Like all nutritionally based approaches to good looks, kelp tablets take time to work their wonders. Remember it may have taken years for a body to become depleted in essential minerals which shows itself in poor hair condition, a few weeks to restore it to a healthy balance is not long to wait. Cysteine for Hair Protein Hair is 97 percent protein which your body makes out of amino acids, eight of which are essential - they must come from the foods you eat. One of these amino-acids - cysteine - is of particular importance to hair. It can be made in the body from another amino acid - methionine. But this conversion takes two vitamins - folic acid and B12 - both of which are not always in good supply, particularly among people who have lived on the typical western fare. Some dermatologists and nutritionists find that giving the single amino-acid cysteine in its free form (that is not part of a long chain protein molecule) to people that have thin hair or hair in poor condition can make it strong and thicker and more lustrous within a few weeks. Cysteine occurs naturally in good supply in eggs. In supplementary form it should always be taken with vitamin C in a ratio of one part cysteine to at least three times as much vitamin C. Stress and Hair Loss Alopecia areata marked by circular bald or thinning spots on the head of women and men can be the result of acute extreme stress. It is said to be particularly common in women who have trouble expressing anger and who have a tendency to depression. It can be treated internally by a diet high in the anti-stress vitamins, vitamin C and the B-complex vitamins, and by learning a technique for deep relaxation and practicing it regularly. Externally it is treated by rubbing phenol, minoxidil or dinitrechlorobenzene (DTB) on the scalp. Other causes of hair loss include a hyperactive or sluggish thyroid, infection with a high fever, surgery, anemia, iron deficiency, crash dieting and excessive massive doses of vitamin A.

Most cellulite begins with a stiffening of the septa locked into the surrounding network of connective tissue. Lymph circulation to and from this subcutaneous layer gets blocked by wastes we accumulate from a sedentary lifestyle and from eating foods which, unbeknown to most women, are anathema to their bodies. This causes the septa to become more fibrous, and to squeeze down on fat cells. It also deprives the area of oxygen and vital nutrients, preventing both fat and toxins from being cleared. Toxic build-up is not only a main cause of cellulite build-up. It is the reason that many women retain water, experience heavy leg syndrome, and find their feet and calves swelling on an airplane. One of the great gifts of the Rohsäfte-Kur which I wrote about last week is that, even when followed for only a few days, your body begins to eliminate toxic build-up that has become trapped in the connective tissues. Now, if you’re ready to banish cellulite forever, improve your health and life for the better, where do you begin?Start with this three step process—making changes in what you eat, in when you eat, and in what kind of exercise you do. It’s important to remember the following things if you want to become cellulite-free while growing healthier and leaner: Important Truths 1. Cellulite build-up is the result of hormone disregulation, toxic build-up and a sedentary lifestyle. 2. Insulin is your body’s primary regulator of fat storage and waste build up in the tissues.  When insulin levels are high—either long-term or simply after eating a meal—fat deposits accumulate and produce cellullite. When insulin levels are low, your body becomes able to release cellulite from septa-bound connective tissue, turning it into energy. 3. Grain-based and cereal-based carbohydrates are the major culprit behind cellulite as well as obesity, fatigue and chronic degenerative conditions. They negatively affect insulin secretion seriously disrupting the symphony of hormonal balance in the human body. 4. Sugars—from glucose and sucrose to high-fructose corn syrup—are monumentally harmful. To clear cellulite and remain free of it, you must eliminate sugars from your diet. It is also essential that you use no artificial sweeteners. They are dangerous contributers to body pollution and therefore to cellulite itself. Use only real stevia (see my recommendations below). 5. Because of the negative effects that grains, cereals, starchy vegetables and sugars exert on insulin, they not only lay down cellulite deposits; they lead to the development of diabetes and coronary heart disease. Grains are also major contributors to cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and other diseases of civilization, as well as early aging. 6. Cellulite and an inability to shed it are the result of an imbalance—a disequilibrium—in the hormonal regulation of fat tissue and fat metabolism. When hormonal regulation and hypothalamic balance are restored by making vital changes in how you eat, this reverses the process. Step One—Clear The Decks Start right now by getting rid of all the low-fat and high-carb foods in your kitchen. These include jams and jellies, rice cakes, popcorn, flour, grains, pasta, pretzels, low-fat salad dressings, raisins, fruit-flavored yoghurts and sugars. (You might want to hang on to a little sugar so you can offer it to visiting friends who are not yet as savvy about how dangerous it is as you are. You might also want to hold on to some brown rice, buckwheat flour or chickpea flour—things you can use to thicken a soup.) Most women find that the process of clearing their fridge and pantry is a salutary experience. It brings with it a sense that they’re starting a whole new life—as indeed they are. The most important foods you will be buying to replace them are these: A good supply of wholesome natural fats like coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil and butter—preferably from grass-fed cows. Top quality protein foods including meat, seafood, eggs and the very best micro-filtered whey you can find (see recommendations below) if you like to make smoothies. Plenty of fresh green vegetables—preferably organic— both to eat raw and to cook. The best fiber in the world comes from these vegetables. Try eating half of your vegetables raw. Some low-sugar fresh fruit such as strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries. Say No To Packaged Foods What surprises most people when they go to a supermarket in search of genuinely healthy foods is that most of the stuff they find there is not worth eating. A good general rule when choosing foods is this: Foods with a long shelf life don’t belong in your body. Processed high-carb foods often have a very long shelf life. This makes them great sales material for food manufacturers and retailers, since these packaged foods can sit on the shelves for months—sometimes even years. But 90% of them have been whipped up out of flours and sugars, junk fats and chemical additives—all of which you will want to avoid. You’ll usually find the healthiest, freshest, most natural foods around the outside edges of any supermarket. These include crunchy fresh vegetables, fresh game and meats, seafood, eggs and cheeses. Fresh, wholesome foods are perishable and therefore have to be replaced often, unlike the ready-in-a-minute, pre-made stuff that populates the inner aisles. Organic Is Your Goal Whenever possible, go organic. Not only do organic vegetables, fruits and meats taste better, the organic matter in healthy soil is nature’s factory for biological activity. Organic foods supply us with an excellent balance of minerals, trace elements and vitamins which we cannot get any other way. Organic methods of farming also help protect against distortions in mineral balance. Good mineral balance is important, since an increase in one or more minerals can alter your body’s ability to absorb as much of another mineral that it needs. Conventionally grown fruits and vegetables have been sprayed with pesticides—petrochemical-derived compounds which behave like low-dose synthetic estrogens in the body. Many fruits and veg are also treated with fungicides or wax. Each one of these chemicals the body takes in contributes to its toxic load, putting pressure on your liver, stressing the entire body and causing free radical damage. When it comes to maintaining good blood sugar and insulin balance—all of which are essential to becoming cellulite-free—you do not want these things to happen. A stressed liver has trouble managing glucose levels and controls insulin poorly. Read Labels Carefully A word of warning: Just because you buy something in a health food store or natural food emporium does not mean that it will be helpful in reversing insulin resistance, clearing cellulite, and promoting fat loss. In addition to the good fresh foods they sell, these stores are also chock-a-block with high-carb treats full of sugar. And by the way, just because a food is labeled “organic” doesn’t necessarily mean you want to eat it. Organic sugar and organic flour can upset the insulin/blood sugar apple cart just as easily as their non-organic counterparts do. Although organic treats may look great in their packages, most of them are best avoided. Read labels as carefully here as in you do in a supermarket. Make sure that foods you buy contain no hidden sugars such as honey, corn syrup, fructose or other sweeteners. Step Two: Decide When To Eat Here’s where the power of meal spacing comes in. Its power can be monumental. You can call this intermittent fasting if you like, although I prefer to look upon it more as a way of developing your own schedule for eating as well as for resting from eating. Spacing your meals is an effective way of continuing to clear away cellulite as you cleanse the whole body creating new sleek muscles, heightening vitality and eliminating food cravings permanently. The ideal strategy for taking advantage of the gifts intelligent meal spacing has to offer is simple. Eat well at a meal, then wait 4 to 6 hours before your next meal. Here’s what happens metabolically each time you eat something. During the first couple of hours after a meal, your blood sugar rises and insulin spikes. After these first two hours—from the start of hour 3 after a meal for the next two hours—both insulin and blood sugar levels drop. Finally, from hours 4 to 6 after a meal, insulin gets so low that it almost disappears, while human growth hormone (HGH) rises directing metabolism to clear the body of more waste and metabolize fats from the body’s tissues including cellulite deposits by turning them into energy. Two Meals A Day To make the very best use of meal spacing you will need to eat only two good meals a day, made up out of the “good guy foods” listed above. Eat your fill of these health-giving foods and enjoy them. Be sure to include plenty of the good fats—coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil and butter from pasture-grazed cows—in each meal. Be sure to create your meal spacing in a way that works for your lifestyle. I eat my first meal between 11am and 12:30, depending on what I am doing. My second meal is usually about 6:30 or 7 in the evening. This means that I have a long period during the night while I sleep for my body to work its magic, both for detoxing and anabolic rebuilding. Make sure your first meal of the day is full of good quality protein. Don’t just through yourself in at the deep end when you begin your meal spacing. Ease your way into it by having a good quality snack between meals if you feel you need to for the first few days until you get used to the lengthy periods between meals. It won’t be long before you sense the beneficial changes that are taking place. After the first week or two you’re likely to find you no longer have any need for snacks, and that you are beginning to look and feel so good. Step Three: Move For Joy I love this definition of real fitness: When you’re not sitting or resting, your body is physiologically able to deal with whatever challenges it is asked to handle. Forget forever that you need to exercise to lose weight and all that nonsense. You don’t. The major reason why exercise is so important for shedding cellulite and improving health is that it heightens insulin sensitivity and quite naturally causes your body to replace belly fat and liver fat with beautiful sleek muscles. What kind of exercise is best? The kind that delights you. I would never exercise because the powers-that-be tell me I ‘should’, or out of a sense of duty, or for fear of putting on weight. To do that would not only imprison my body, it would kill my spirit. It would be like taking a thoroughbred and binding it so that it can’t get out of the starting gate. Experiment and discover what physical activities you love doing, then do them for the sheer pleasure of it. You could swim or jog or dance just because it feels good and makes your body sing. Try rebounding on a mini-trampoline—something that is particularly good for improving lymphatic drainage and clearing cellulite. Swimming can be great because it feels so sensuous. But don’t make yourself swim laps in some driven way. Instead, move deliciously through the water. Play as a child would. Notice the bliss your body feels. If you have no idea what kind of movement you enjoy, start with a simple walk each day, while paying attention to how your body moves with each step you take. Once you discover just how vast your body’s potential for joy is, and begin to delight in movement, your experience of exercise can change forever. Far from being something you once did because you’re told you should (how I hate that word), exercise can become one of the most enjoyable experiences in your life. American enthusiast, the late George Sheehan, whose legacy continues to inspire people about the true nature of exercise, describes this experience well: “Exercise that is not play accentuates rather than closes the split between body and spirit. Exercise that is drudgery, labor, something done only for the final result is a waste of time.” I couldn’t agree more. 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