body care

Skin-brushing is an old and well-proven European technique for getting rid of toxic wastes from the body: both because it stimulates lymphatic drainage and because it increases the quantity of waste which is eliminated directly through the surface of the skin - a staggering one third of our wastes can be eliminated this way. I first learned the technique more than fifteen years ago. It was taught to me by a West Country physician named Phillip Kilsby who used it in conjunction with a high-raw diet as part of a program for healing many kinds of illness - from migraine and arthritis to high blood pressure and depression. When he first told me how effective it was in eliminating wastes and toxins from the body I did not believe him. He suggested a little experiment by which I could prove to myself just how effective it was at eliminating rubbish through the surface of the skin. He said, `Take a washcloth or flannel and wet it then wring it out well. Now brush your skin dry using the directions below. When you have finished rub the flannel over the surface you have brushed all over just once. Then hang the flannel up and don't use it again until tomorrow when you perform exactly the same routine. After three or four days smell the flannel.' That was all the proof needed! I use skin-brushing regularly, year round, several times a week. Many of the natural techniques for detoxifying the body are more effective if your body is not allowed to become accustomed to them by doing them every day. Skin brushing can be done steadily for three weeks with a week's break before resuming it again. After even a week of skin-brushing you will also notice an improvement in the look and feel of your skin. After a few weeks it even seems to improve muscle tone although I have never been able to figure out why this should happen. here's how You will need a natural vegetable-bristle brush (the long-handled kind is best) but a hemp glove will also do. Such brushes and gloves can be found in most health-food shops or good chemists. The brush should be kept dry. It is best to brush first thing in the morning before you shower. Brush the entire skin surface, except for your face. Begin with your feet, including the soles, then move up your legs, front and back, with firm sweeping strokes. Brush from your hands up your arms and across your shoulders, then brush your back and buttocks. On your front, brush a little more gently—your neck, chest and abdomen. In the abdominal area use a clockwise circular motion. To begin with brush fairly gently, increasing the firmness of the strokes as your body becomes more accustomed to it. After brushing take a shower. If you are brave you can alternate with warm and cold water (always beginning with warm and ending with cold). This is an excellent way of getting the circulation going and speeding up elimination.

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.

All over the world, people are getting sicker by the year, while food manufacturers, government bodies, and the mainstream medical profession keep telling us to eat more low-fat-high-carb foods and plenty of unsaturated golden oils. They warn us to stay away from all the “dangerous” saturated fats and oils. So we go on buying convenience foods riddled with carbs and sugars, believing that we are doing the right thing to protect from heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and mounting degenerative diseases that plague the Western World. Well, my friend, such advice from the powers-that-be is not just untrue—it is positively dangerous. To stay healthy, protect yourself from obesity, degenerative conditions, and early aging, it’s important that you avoid starchy carbs, hidden sugars, and all highly processed unsaturated oils. We have been indoctrinated with an irrational fear of fat because of inaccurate research carried out way back in the 1960s when absurd assumptions became turned into quasi-religious non-sense dogma. Since then, instead of protecting us from heart disease, obesity, and other degenerative conditions, what we’ve been told has made us highly susceptible to all these diseases. It’s time to get savvy about the fats—to learn which fats are life-destroying and which are health-enhancing and to change the way you eat. Here’s the truth: Polyunsaturated fats and oils turn rancid when heated. They turn into a health-destroying source of free radicals that do your body great harm. They attack cells and damage DNA. Recent, reliable scientific studies show a definite connection between consumption of these polyunsaturated oils and the development of cancer, as well as heart disease and many other illnesses. Here’s the gen: avoid these oils at all cost: Safflower, Corn, Sunflower, Soybean and Cottonseed. They are badly processed, and are often full of dangerous chemicals. As far as canola oil is concerned—commonly used in the manufacture of convenience foods—it turns rancid quickly and is associated with the development of fibrotic heart lesions. The oils and fats you want to eat to look after your health and to stay lean are these: butter from grass-fed animals, and tropical oils such as coconut oil. Coconut oil is great for cooking. Extra-virgin olive oil is ideal for salad dressings. These are quality fats which, eaten on their own, or together with protein but without an abundance of starchy carbohydrates and sugar alleviate hunger and act as a great source of energy throughout the day. Eating too little of these good fats can lead to an experience of sitting down to a meal and, no matter how much you eat, still craving more food at the end of it. These natural fats let you know when your body is satisfied. They also help balance your hormones while significantly enhancing how you look and feel. Low-fat foods fill our supermarket shelves, attracting ignorant consumers trying to be good and eat what they’ve been told to eat. Manufactured convenience foods have become a roaring financial success story for food manufacturers. So people eat low-fat foods, believing that these are good for them, without realizing that manufacturers, in preparing low-fat menus, have replaced fat with sugar in their wares. We have been told the false notion that all saturated fats are dangerous. Back to the good oils: Olive oil is a monounsaturated fat and one of the safest vegetable oils you can use. It is well suited to dressings and can be heated, but only to moderate temperatures. Make sure that the Extra Virgin Olive Oil you buy is cloudy (not filtered) and a golden-yellow color. Coconut oil is your safest, healthiest choice for cooking since it remains stable, even at high temperatures. It also boasts antiviral and antibacterial properties. The other good, and often forgotten, saturated fat is butter but only from cows who have been grazed on green grass for at least part of their life. Here’s the good news: Natural fats eaten on their own or together with protein, without a lot of carbohydrates and sugar, will not cause the laying down of fat on your body. Neither will they create insulin resistance, as polyunsaturated oils, grain and cereal-based carbohydrates and sugars can. This is the most difficult truth for most people to grasp when we have been schooled for more than half a century in inaccurate and dangerous high-carbs-low-fat approaches to weight loss and protection from illness and obesity. Yet, when it comes to becoming radiantly well and staying that way, you need to grasp this truth and put it into practice. One more thing: Be sure to take a top quality Omega 3 supplement each day. (See below for my recommendation.) And from this moment on, eat GOOD FATS and thrive. You’ll love it. Life Extension, Super Omega-3, EPA/DHA With Sesame Lignans & Olive Fruit Extract, 240 Softgels The body needs fatty acids to survive and is able to make all but two of them: linoleic acid (LA), in the omega-6 family, and alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) in the omega-3 family. These two fatty acids must be supplied by the diet and are therefore considered essential fatty acids (EFAs). Omega-3 fatty acids, found in coldwater fish (and fish oil), perilla and flaxseed oils, are essential elements of a healthy diet. Omega-3 oils contain eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), which are usually lacking in the typical Western diet, which is filled with foods containing high amounts of omega-6 fats. EPA and DHA can be synthesized in the body from ALA, but EPA and DHA synthesis may be insufficient under certain conditions and for most people that consume Western diets. Order Life Extension, Super Omega-3 from iherb Carlson Labs, Super Omega·3 Gems, Fish Oil Concentrate, 1000 mg, 250 Soft Gels Medical Scientists Internationally are encouraging people to eat more fish. Fish body oil is the only major source of the polyunsaturated Omega-3's EPA and DHA. For those individuals who do not eat an oily fish diet, Carlson offers Omega-3's in easy-to-swallow soft gelatin capsules. Carlson Super Omega-3 Gems soft gels contain 1000 mg (1 gram) of a special concentrate of fish body oils from deep, cold water fish which are especially rich in the important Omega-3's EPA and DHA. Order Carlson Labs, Super Omega·3 Gems from iherb

The simplest treatment can sometimes bring the greatest healing to body, mind and spirit. So it is with massage. Yet few have yet discovered this truth. Not only does massage calm the mind, relieve pain and bring better muscle tone. It enhances immunity, clears the toxic wastes we all pick up in day-to-day life, improves athletic performance, and builds greater health all round. There are many different kinds of massage—from deep tissue massage, acupressure and Amma Shiatsu to lymphatic drainage and simple stroking of the body. Each has its benefits. And, while some need the trained hands of a professional to be used well, I think you will be surprised to learn that you can bring exceptional benefits to yourself, a friend or partner by using simple hand movements which require no professional training at all. SIMPLE BASICS Here are the six basic massage movements. Have a play with them on your own body. You will be surprised how easy and rewarding this can be. Begin any massage of yourself or another with effleurage, allowing one hand to follow the other in a rhythmic pattern moving in a direction towards the heart. Effleurage means “skimming over”. This is a light pressure applied to an area of the body with moving hands. It boosts the circulation of blood and lymph in the areas to which it is being applied. This improves the functioning of the glands, increases skin sensitivity and heightens the ability of the skin to feel pleasure. Used on the abdomen, it improves digestive functions and helps eliminate constipation. Effleurage is also great for getting rid of chilling sensations in feet or hands, for eliminating numbness, and decreasing swelling caused by obstructions in the circulatory system. Deep Muscle Massage consists of tiny circular movements with a thumb or finger which is firmly pressed into a muscle and then rotated. The finger doesn't actually move over the surface of the skin. Rather it moves the muscle under its pressure. After you have made several small circles in one place you move on to another nearby, always working in an upwards direction on the body. It is excellent for calming overactive nerves and tense muscles, as it is for treating neuralgia or muscular aches. This kind of pressure on the abdomen improves digestion and elimination. Used in imaginary lines up the limbs it can also significantly improve lymphatic drainage and the elimination of wastes. Single Point Pressure where you press on the surface of the body with the palms, thumbs or fingers is also good for deep muscle aches and tensions. It is used when giving acupressure or shiatsu massage for a specific purpose, such as eliminating a headache or calming nerves. Petrissage is a kneading movement in which a muscle is held firmly but lightly and moved in circular patterns using the palm of your hand or the balls of your fingers. This increases circulation, and is an excellent way of helping muscles recover from fatigue and eliminating lactic acid build-up, which causes muscle ache after a workout. Always keep your fingers relaxed while kneading or you will pinch the skin uncomfortably. Vibration is where you put your fingers or palm against the skin of a part of the body and then shake it gently. This is particularly helpful where there is a feeling of numbness, say in fingers or toes. Tapotement is a tapping with both hands—one after the other—against the skin surface, usually with the palms cupped. It is very invigorating, which is why it is used before sending athletes out on the field, but it is not good if you are using massage as a means of ‘detensing'. GET IT TOGETHER If you are massaging yourself, you will need to be in different positions to work on various areas of your body. The legs are easy—they can be done lying on the floor with your legs propped up against the bed or a wall and your head and shoulders against a cushion or two. Or you can simply sit on the edge of a bath. To do your neck and shoulders, it's best to sit at a table with your head lying forward on a pillow in front of you. Lie on your back to do your abdomen and chest. For your lower back, lie on your stomach with a pillow underneath your waist. Then using some oil (see below), begin with an effleurage of the area you are working on, and go on to any of the other movements which feel right to you. WORK WITH A PARTNER Make sure the room is warm. Usually the floor is best, covered with a blanket and a towel. Let your friend or mate lie on his or her stomach and begin to work on the back. Never pour cold oil directly onto the skin. Instead, put it in your hands and give it a chance to warm before applying it. Let your friend relax as you do an effleurage picking up the back, one hand after another. Always maintain contact with his or her skin, so that as one hand is ready to come off the back, the other is already making contact with the skin. And don't be too light or feathery—it makes people feel uneasy. They need to sense good clear contact with your hands to be able to relax deeply. Let your partner do just that, so that he or she doesn't feel a need to speak. Indeed, the massage will work better if he or she doesn't. After you finish a minute or two of effleurage on the back, try a kneading movement or a deep muscle massage on the areas which seem most stiff or uncomfortable. Then, move on to other parts of the body—the feet, the legs, the arms, using the same sequence of movements. Ask them to turn over and work on the front of the legs and arms, the abdomen and the diaphragm, then finish off with some soothing petrissage on the shoulders, and finally some deeper circular movements to get rid of tension there. End the session with a more gentle effleurage to relax him or her deeply, or do some tapotement to stimulate energy levels, whichever your partner prefers. The whole process is not as difficult as it may seem at first, even if you have never had a go at it. There is an instinct most people have of finding out how to use these movements, so that they feel good not only to the person being massaged but to yourself. Massaging each other can be an excellent way of communicating for a couple feeling somewhat at odds with each other. It eliminates the need for words and seems to restore a sense of unity between people. OIL BLISS The best massage oils are those you mix yourself from a “carrier oil” such as almond, sesame, or coconut, to which you add a small quantity (measured in drops) of specific essential oils. Essential oils are the complex hydrocarbons which give plants and flowers their characteristic odors. Each essential oil has its own spirit as well as its biological characteristics. Each will affect the body in a slightly different way. Depending on what you want from a massage, you can choose what is best to use. For instance four drops each of the essential oils of rosemary, camphor and wintergreen mixed with half a cup of carrier oil makes a superb massage oil for sore muscles after strenuous exercise. Oil of sage mixed with a carrier is good for aches and pains from gardening. A few drops of pure sandalwood or camomile or lavender—or all three—in a carrier is excellent for relaxing you if you feel tense or under stress. (You must make sure that you buy the real essential oils however. The chemical analogues which are often sold in their place don't have a therapeutic effect.) These mixtures are also excellent treatments for both male and female skin. They help keep skin moist and protected from the hazards of environmental stress. ONLY THE BEST Once you fall in love with one or two essential oils, you will probably want to build up a whole collection. Be savvy about what you buy. A natural essential oil is impossible to reproduce artificially. It is something which, in its wholeness and its power to act on the human mind and body, can only be created by life itself. You should only ever use pure essential oils as they alone contain the full range of aromatic compounds from the plant. There are many—probably the majority of—products on the market which call themselves “essential oils” but which are poor quality. Some are synthetic, others diluted. Although they may not smell too bad—actually, most of them smell sickening to me—you will not get the full benefits from them that you will from a pure essential oil. The healing, the beauty, the sanctity and the pleasure you can experience using floral essential oils or their blends in these ways is hard to describe—just try it. It is likely to spark off new ideas for aromatherapy and self-healing that have yet to be tried. Note: Whenever possible buy organic oils. Organic or not, however, they need not cost a lot to be good. The reasons I order the majority of mine from iherb.com is that the prices are fabulous and the oils are great. Here are some essential oils and carrier oils I particularly recommend both for quality and price: Flora, Certified Organic Almond Oil, 8.5 fl oz (250 ml) Flora's Almond Oil is a light, premium quality oil pressed from carefully selected, certified organic almonds. The almonds are pressed using Flora's unique European HydroTherm pressing method under low temperature and then carefully bottled in light-resistant, amber glass. Order Flora, Certified Organic Almond Oil from iherb Eden Foods, Organic Sesame Oil, Unrefined, 16 fl oz (473 ml) It is simply pressed from Eden select seed and lightly filtered retaining sesame's full aroma and flavor. Contains the revered antioxidants sesamol and sesamin. Nitrogen flushed when bottled. Order Eden Foods, Organic Sesame Oil from iherb Now Foods, Organic Essential Oils, Rosemary Aroma: Warm, camphoraceous. Benefits: Purifying, renewing, uplifting. Mixes Well With: Bergamot Oil Lemongrass Oil Peppermint Oil Thyme Oil Extraction Method: Stem distilled from flowering tops. Order Now Foods, Organic Essential Oils, Rosemary from iherb ow Foods, Essential Oils, Camphor Benefits: Purifying, energizing, invigorating Mixes Well With: Cinnamon oil, frankincense oil, rosemary oil Extraction Method: Fractional distillation of crude decamphorized oil Order ow Foods, Essential Oils, Camphor from iherb Now Foods, Essential Oils, Wintergreen Aroma: Warm, sweet. Benefits: Stimulating, refreshing, uplifting. Mixes Well With: eucalyptus oil, lemon oil, peppermint oil, tangerine oil Extraction Method: Steam Distilled from leaves. Order Now Foods, Essential Oils, Wintergreen from iherb Now Foods, Essential Oils, Sandalwood Aroma: Subtle floral, undertones of wood and fruit. Benefits: Grounding, focusing, balancing. Extraction method: Steam distilled from wood/bark/roots. Order Now Foods, Essential Oils, Sandalwood from iherb Now Foods, Essential Oils, Sage Aroma: Warm, camphoraceous. Benefits: Normalizing, balancing, soothing. Extraction Method: Steam Distilled from partially dried leaves. Order Now Foods, Essential Oils, Sage from iherb Now Foods, Essential Oils, Chamomile Aroma: Intense sweet, delightful. Benefits: Relaxing, calming, revitalizing. Extraction Method: Steam Distilled from plant's flowers and stalks. Order Now Foods, Essential Oils, Chamomile from iherb Now Foods, Organic Essential Oils, Lavender Aroma: Floral Benefits: Soothing, normalizing, balancing. Extraction Method: Steam distilled from fresh flowering tops. Order Now Foods, Organic Essential Oils, Lavender from iherb

I want to share with you something I find pretty surprising which so many seem to experience on Cura Romana. To be fully alive you must be who you in essence are. For who you truly are is far more interesting, vital and exciting than anything or anyone you might aspire to be. Sadly, this fact is one most of us forget. Thanks to the diencephalic changes taking place via the autonomic nervous system to body, brain and hormones, the CURA ROMANA JOURNEY is a time in which we seem to be offered the finest opportunity I have ever come across to connect with the true nature of our own being, if, of course, we choose to take it. On a physiological level alone the changes in the appetite and fat control center in the brain seem to invite this kind of transformation. Let me tell you a little bit about this center in the brain. In Simeons’ words: “Buried deep down in the massive human brain there is a part which we have in common with all vertebrate animals, the so-called diencephalon. It is a very primitive part of the brain and has in man been almost smothered by the huge masses of nervous tissue with which we think, reason and voluntarily move our body. The diencephalon is the part from which the central nervous system controls all the automatic animal functions of the body, such as breathing, the heart beat, digestion, sleep, sex, the urinary system, the autonomous or vegetative nervous system and via the pituitary the whole interplay of the endocrine glands.” The Cura Romana transformations no doubt begin as physiological and functional alterations in diencephalic functioning. Yet why they happen so much more easily on the Cura Romana we use now than they did on the original one, I don’t yet understand. Has it to do with the vibrational nature of the Essential Spray which, together with the dietary protocol, may be affecting not only the physicality of the body but also its energetic aspects? These are a few of the questions I keep asking myself. In another of Simeons’ books Man’s Presumptuous Brain, he explores interesting conflicts which often take place in civilized man between the primitive, instinctual diencephalon area of the brain and our highly developed cerebral cortex from which we do our rational thinking. These are conflicts, Simeons points out, which often result in illness. I suspect that Cura Romana helps create a finer balance between our cool, rational conscious mind and our rich, primitive and instinctual animal nature, thereby creating greater harmony between body and mind. For we live in a cerebral, intellectual culture which pays too little attention to the importance of connecting with our essential being—our soul, if you like. Then so many of our potentials for expanded consciousness, tapping higher levels of insight, joy and bliss, too often remain dormant. Whatever is going on with people on their Cura Romana Journeys, it is pretty amazing for many. This is how Mirjana in England describes it. She shed 19.8 pounds on her program: “‘Cura Romana has completely transformed my life.” She says. “I wake up every morning energized and blissful. I am more aware of everything and everyone around me and, most important of all, I am more aware of my own needs and of myself.” It all remains a mystery…but a beautiful one.

Skipping, jumping, running on the spot and arm flinging on a firm mini-trampoline is an amazingly beneficial and fun form of exercise. Rebounding will do all that other forms of aerobic exercise can—strengthening your heart and lungs, firming your muscles and more—because of the unique way in which your body is subjected to the changing force of gravity when it bounces. Rebounding crosses the generation gap too. It can be done as easily and as effectively by a six-year-old as it can by an ailing seventy-year-old whose muscles and joints have long before lost some of their capacity for smooth movement. Believe it or not, there are top athletes who use rebounders as part of their training program. Yet the infirm are given rehabilitation on the same kind of rebound exercise devices. It all depends on how you use the equipment. The units, which look like low coffee-tables, consist of a steel or aluminium frame on six or eight legs, over which is sprung a drum of firm but elastic material on which you bounce. They sit somewhere between six and ten inches off the floor, and come in many different sizes and shapes—oval, round, polygonal, square. They don't seem out of place in the corner of a kitchen, or tucked away in the bedroom. In fact, you can use a bouncer anywhere. If you’re someone who dislikes the rigmarole of changing, running and showering, or you find exercise ‘too boring for words', you can do your bouncing at home—even with small children running around. You can dress any way you like, watch movies, listen to music or carry on a conversation while you are exercising. MANIPULATING GRAVITY From a physiological point of view, what gives rebounding its power for building fitness, improving health and retarding aging is the way it makes use of the force of gravity. Apart from a Power Plate, this is the only form of overall vertical, rather than horizontal, exercise anywhere. The up and downward movement on a bouncer, coupled with acceleration-deceleration, brings about continual changes in the force that gravity exerts on your body. All your organs, the circulatory and lymphatic systems, even individual cells are energized in a way no other form of exercise can accomplish. When running or skipping on a bouncer, the G-force at the top of the bounce is non-existent. For a moment, your body experiences the weightlessness of an astronaut in space. Then when you come down again onto the elastic mat, the pull of gravity is suddenly increased to two or three times the usual G-force on earth. This puts all parts of your body, from the tiniest cell to the longest bone, under rhythmic pressure. GREAT STUFF The cellular stimulation the body receives from continual gravity/non-gravity exposure has remarkable and unique benefits. Waste materials in cells are gently eased out into the interstitial fluid so they can be carried through the lymph system and eliminated from the body. Increased oxygen is brought to the cells enhancing cell metabolism. Cell walls get stronger and healthier. Cells function more efficiently with repeated use of a rebounder. This leads to a gentle but effective detoxification of your whole system. The texture of your skin improves. Energy levels rise. Often even within only a few days, your body begins to look younger and feel better, freer, more alive. And because rebounding is amusing, it is a form of exercise which even resistant lounge-lizards take to. Taking it up one week doesn't usually mean giving it up the next. BOUNCE YOURSELF LEAN James R. White, a researcher in rehabilitation at the University of California at San Diego, designed an interesting study in the long-term effectiveness of weight-loss programs using exercise. He put some people on rebounders. Others rode bicycles; some ran on a treadmill. The control group did nothing except diet. All who exercised lost a significant amount of weight and showed a definite increase in the level of their fitness. But in the follow-up study designed to test long-term effectiveness of regular exercise, only 5 percent of the cyclists and 31 percent of the runners were still exercising, while a sound 58 percent of the bouncers were still bouncing. It helped keep off the pounds they’d shed. The explanation bouncers gave for continuing to exercise was simple. First, it was easy. Second, it was great fun. REBOUNDING FOR REHAB A number of sports medicine specialists report that using a bouncer regularly is a great way of exercising when your body has sustained some kind of injury, such as a twisted knee or Achilles tendonitis. It provides any sports enthusiast a chance to maintain his fitness while helping his injury heal. It also helps you avoid the familiar depression that sets in when you cannot exercise. Indeed, many exercise physiologists insist that, because of all the benefits rebounding brings the body—right down to a cellular level—it is a significant and powerful tool in encouraging healing, both of minor injuries and of degenerative conditions including arthritis. At Elks Hospital, Idaho, Dr Kenneth Smith, former head of the Department of Rehabilitation, reports success in using rebounders when rehabilitating patients with orthopaedic or neuromuscular conditions. In a large study involving 2,300 patients in California, where rebounding was used as the major form of physiotherapy, researchers reported excellent results. Bouncing strengthened muscles, eliminated and prevented pain in the lower back and elsewhere, and was helpful in treating both osteo- and rheumatoid arthritis. Bottom line: Manipulating gravity is not just fun. It’s great for healing and ideal for helping you feel wonderfully alive.

Clay is a pelloid—from the Greek word pellos, meaning mud. The pelloids are a class of earth substances derived from magma deposits. Amongst natural materials, they are unequalled for their therapeutic and health-promoting properties. In Europe they have been used for generations to treat skin, to heal pain and deep cleanse the body by drawing wastes through the skin's surface. Some pelloids are taken internally in small quantities to clear the body of heavy metals and toxic wastes. In short, these substances found in nature are not only some of the most useful tools for bringing great radiance to body, mind and spirit. They can also be some of the most inexpensive yet powerful treats and treatments on the planet. ANCIENT HEALING POWER Pelloids are formed by the earth through biological and geological processes over long periods of time—at least 20,000 years. They are made up of both organic and inorganic elements. The ‘mostly-organic' pelloids include the sapropelic bituminous muds, and the moor or turf pelloids from places like Techirghiol Lake near the Black Sea, or Neydharting Moor in Austria. These pelloids form the basis of some of the best natural treatments in the world for arthritis, rheumatism, and gout. They are also wonderful for athletic aches and pains, as well as for eliminating stiffness from creaky bodies. TRANSDERMAL TREATS & TREATMENTS Moor Bath treatments are ideal for any rejuvenation program. Use them consecutively for 7 to 21 nights just before bed. Here's how: Immerse yourself for 15-30 minutes in a tepid bath to which 2/3 of a teacup of Moor Bath has been added. Top up with hot water when necessary. Afterwards, don't dry yourself as you normally would. Instead, pat yourself down gently and go right to bed. Should you get any of the residue from the bath on your sheets, don't worry; it easily washes out. European scientists at the Institute of Balenology in Bucharest, and at other centers in Europe and Russia, have studied the actions of pelloids using biochemical, histochemical and clinical methods. Examining the properties of the aqueous phase of moor and turf pelloids, they have discovered that these liquids stimulate oxygenation of cells and enzymatic activities in the body. They are able to boost endocrine system functions without interfering with the balance between different glands, and they dramatically improve overall circulation. Used in a bath or directly on the skin, such pelloid extracts penetrate the skin. Adding them to your bath after a hard game of squash or a long work week in which stress levels have been high can both calm you and regenerate your vitality, while they improve the look and feel of skin all over. VOLCANIC DETOXIFICATION The best known pelloids are those which contain mostly inorganic elements—the clays. Therapy using clay, both internally and externally, has a long history. The Egyptians, the Greeks and the Romans used these earth treatments internally to improve health, and externally to treat athletic aches and sprains, and to make skin and hair look and feel more beautiful. Ancient physicians including the Arab Avicena, Galen the Greek anatomist, and Paracelsus all prescribed clay internally to clear their patients' ailments. During the First World War, every Russian soldier was issued 200 grams of clay in his food rations. The French had it added to their mustard knowing that it helps protect the body from amoebic dysentery, which was then so widespread. Great German naturopaths such as Adolph Just used clay to make poultices for wound healing. The practice of using specific clays internally as a means of detoxifying the body and increasing natural energy levels is very much alive amongst doctors who shun drugs in favor of more effective natural treatments. Clay comes in many varieties—from kaolin, the pure white powdery stuff that goes into cosmetic products—to the heavy black clay used in the Middle East to treat wounds and bruises. Each has specific qualities and is best for particular purposes. Together they have a number of remarkable things in common. All clays contain a wide range of minerals and trace elements such as silica, magnesium, titanium, iron, calcium, potassium, manganese, and chromium. These minerals and trace elements are important in the dynamic healing and cleansing actions clays can exert on the body. Clays carry a negative electrical attraction for particles which are positively charged. This is one of the main reasons why it is so good at cleansing both the skin's surface as well as the digestive tract. MEET BENTONITE Bentonite, the medicinal powdered clay also known as montmorillonite, comes from deposits of ancient volcanic ash. Used internally, it absorbs heavy metals, pesticides, and other poisons, carrying them out of the body like a sponge. It is the electrical aspect to bentonite that gives it the ability to bind and absorb toxins. The clay’s minerals are negatively charged while toxins are primarily positively charged. Bentonite is made up of an enormous number of tiny platelets, with negative electrical charges on their flat surfaces and positive charges at the edges. So, when combined with water, the clay works on waste products the way a magnet, does when exposed to metal shavings. Bentonite has an enormous surface area to volume ratio. A single liter bottle offers a total surface area of an amazing 960 square meters. Clays which the Europeans and Americans use for internal cleansing are mixed with water, often the night before, then taken by mouth on an empty stomach—usually one teaspoonful in half a glass of water—once to three times a day. These clays are very fine. They are able to pick up many times their weight in positively-charged particles. In Europe, fine green clay is most often used internally in this way. In America and Britain, it is usually bentonite. The greater the surface area, the higher a clay's capacity for picking up positively-charged wastes. Ramond Dextreit, a French expert in the use of clay, claims that the purifying capacities of the green clay he uses are not limited to its actions on the digestive system. He insists that, used in this way, the clay is even able to absorb impurities suspended in the body’s fluids, like blood and lymph as well, and eliminate them. EXPLORING CLAY HEALING If you have not before used these internal clays, it’s best to start with one rounded teaspoon daily, mixed with a small amount of pure water. Observe the results for a few days, then gradually increase the dosage to no more than three teaspoons a day, in divided doses. Drinking clay can be an annual spring cleaning of your gastrointestinal tract or it can be a symptom-focused, self-care method. It’s a real boost to radiance on just about every level. Here are some of the best and purest products: Yerba Prima, Great Plains, Bentonite, Detox Great Plains Bentonite is specially formulated to provide the maximum benefits of bentonite. Great Plains is a mineral source dietary supplement that traps and binds unwanted, non-nutritive substances such as herbicides and other potentially harmful substances so that they do not remain in the body. Buy Yerba Prima, Great Plains, Bentonite, Detox Now Foods, Solutions, European Clay Powder For oily skin, mix 1 tablespoon of NOW European Clay with one teaspoon of water. For dry skin, add a few drops of NOW Jojoba Oil and/or NOW Lavender Essential Oil to the mix prior to applying. Thoroughly cover the face and neck avoiding sensitive areas and the eyes, allow to set for 15-20 minutes, rinse off and apply moisturizer. Buy Now Foods, Solutions, European Clay Powder Neydharting Moor Body Bath This can be hard to come by in Britain at the moment but it is well worth the search. In the US you can order it from Amazon.com: Neydharting Moor Nature's Code, Skin. Health. Life. Body Bath, 32 Oz Buy Neydharting Moor Body Bath

A search for intermittent fasting on Google turns up more than 4 million results. PubMed lists almost 500 research articles on the subject. Great stuff. And, in the midst of all the kerfuffle, websites and books keep popping up riddled with conflicting information and advice. Some of it is useful. Too much of it is just plain confusing for someone seriously wanting to put this eating style into practice. As a result, many people dive into this way of eating with great enthusiasm only to discover that it turns out to be very tough for them to sustain it for more than a week or two, no matter how much they grit their teeth and keep trying. Whether you call this much talked about eating style meal spacing, intermittent fasting or some other name, it is by no means new having been practiced in one form or another for a century or more by those in the know about the gifts it can bring. A T W Simeons, the original creator of Cura Romana, wove it skilfully into meal planning during the rapid weight loss portion of his protocol. On Leslie Kenton’s Cura Romana, meal spacing/intermittent fasting is incorporated both into the Essential Spray+Food Plan part of the experience and Consolidation. Participants learn as a matter of course how, if they wish, they can structure this food style into their way of eating for a lifetime of lasting weight control, high level health, and protection from the degenerative diseases now plaguing our planet. BACK TO THE FUTURE Since Cura Romana is a holistic, science-based no-hunger protocol which brings balance to the control centers of the brain, eliminating food cravings and unnatural hunger, the process of integrating meal spacing into a participant’s life is simple. In fact, it takes place almost automatically thanks to the profound shifts in biochemistry which the program brings about quite naturally. Sadly, this is not case with a lot of people who, on their own and without the benefits of Essential Spray+Food Plan want to initiate meal spacing/intermittent fasting into their life. Many write to me saying that they struggle hard when trying to eat two meals a day without snacks. Some make the mistake of attempting to do this while continuing to eat all the wrong kind of foods. Others report that they fail, no matter what they do. Then, full of disappointment and self-criticism they revert to the ways they were eating before. I passionately believe that the benefits of this eating style need to be available to everyone. What is missing in so much written and talked about is practical information about how to approach meal spacing/intermittent fasting so you can gently ease yourself into it and become familiar by experimenting with an introductory plan. This will make you free to make a choice as to whether or not you want to make it a permanent part of your life. LET’S GET PRACTICAL There are some important questions which need to be answered before you even begin: What’s the best way to approach meal spacing/intermittent fasting? What kind of foods do you need to eat to reap its benefits and which foods should you avoid? What benefits can it bring? And, most important of all, how do you go about gracefully easing yourself into such a dramatically different way of eating than what you have been used to? First here are some important things to get straight: Dieting with calorie restriction—eating less and exercising more—is forever doomed to fail. It just doesn’t work at all for lasting weight loss. The success of meal spacing/intermittent fasting in no way demands that you count calories. The notion of calories-in-calories out is nonsense. So is the belief that you need to eat three meals a day. This has been foisted upon us for generations. It is wrong as is the idea that we need to eat regular snacks. The truth is that your body needs regular periods free of meals and snacks for health and lasting leanness. This need is implicit in our genetic inheritance. As such it is to be honored. Eating too often, which most people do, forces the body to keep up with on-going levels of glucose that are continually shunted into the blood. This creates a relentless inflammatory load which in turn leads to degenerative conditions including obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, metabolic syndrome, and destructive distortions to blood lipids. It also forces your body to age rapidly. Even short periods of fasting daily—from 12 to 18 hours—help keep insulin spikes down, while increasing insulin sensitivity. Metabolic processes gradually begin to normalize, reducing dangerously high blood glucose levels at the same time. For meal spacing/intermittent fasting to work for you—for them to help keep you healthy and lean for life—you must completely avoid convenience foods. They are filled with artificial sweeteners, colorings, flavoring, and hidden GMO components. Eat only real food—fresh green vegetables, wholesome proteins such as eggs, fish, and meat, plenty of good fats such as organic coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil and butter from cows that have been pasture grazed. WHEN TO EAT When it comes to exploring meal spacing/intermittent fasting, success on every level depends on your creating an eating lifestyle that works for you. By the way, when you begin to space your meals wisely day after day this directs the protein hormone insulin—which plays a central role in healthy metabolism by removing potentially toxic excess glucose from the blood—to direct the blood glucose into the liver and muscles where it can be turned into energy, rather than laying it down as fat deposits. Most people leave out breakfast altogether. They choose to eat two meals a day, spacing them so that they allow at least 5 to 6 hours after their first meal, say brunch or lunch, before eating their second. No snacks are allowed. Doing this enables the body to increase its levels of an important peptide hormone—Human Growth Hormone (HGH)—produced by the pituitary gland. Bit by bit it brings gifts such as helping to reduce body fat, increasing muscle mass and enhancing bone density. Of course, this takes time to develop so be patient. The second meal of the day becomes an early dinner, after which they begin their longest period of fasting which lasts through the night. It needs to be a minimum of 12 hours but many people find that once they have got used to their new eating lifestyle, they want to extend their night fast to as long as 17 hours. No snacking, of course. Provided they are eating the right kind of foods, once they establish for themselves the best pattern of meal spacing to suit their lifestyle, they find themselves feeling vital and not hungry between meals. They are also delighted to be looking and feeling better than they would ever have thought possible before starting to eat this way. WHAT FOODS TO EAT Here are foods to choose any meal spacing/intermittent fasting eating style: 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 if you like to make smoothies. Plenty of fresh green vegetables—preferably organic— both to eat raw and to cook. Some low-sugar fresh fruit such as berries. For vegetarians, Tempeh, miso and other fermented soya products are excellent. If you decide to use tofu, make sure it is organic. More than 95% of soy beans today have been genetically modified. You do not want to put GMO foods into your body ever. For a complete list of foods to eat—as well as those you want to shun forever—download a free copy of my Healthy and Lean for Life. The first part of this book is available free to download from www.curaromana.com You’ll find it at the bottom right hand corner of the home page FOODS TO SHUN The most significant change to human diets in two million years began with the Agricultural Revolution where man went from a carbohydrate-poor to a carbohydrate-rich diet as cereals and starchy vegetables began to enter our food chain. The more these carbohydrates have been refined and processed, the more problems they have caused us. During the 20th century, an overwhelming increase in cereals, grains, sugars and high-fructose corn syrup used in convenience foods have become the major triggers for obesity and chronic illness. In the nineteenth century, we ate between 10 and 20 pounds of sugar per person per year. Today per capita we consume between 150 pounds and 200 pounds a year. So this is little wonder. For more than half a century food manufacturers, intent on making profit, have been producing a great variety of so-called foods by fragmenting and reducing raw material foodstuffs—grains and seeds, fats and sugars, vegetables and legumes—to simple “nuts and bolts” ingredients. Then they whip up these nuts and bolts into the manipulated “convenience foods” which fill our supermarket shelves—from ready-to-eat meals to candy bars, cakes, breads, and cereals. This tuff now makes up 75% of what the average person eats. Because such foods have been whipped up using grains, flours and sugars, junk fats and chemical additives—all of which you want to avoid when creating your own meal spacing/intermittent fasting food style—you will want to steer clear of them altogether to reap the benefits of your new eating style. BEWARE THE PERILS OF CONVENIENCE White flour and sugar-based convenience foods have an ultra-long shelf life. This suits food purveyors intent on making a profit. Yet such packaged foods are little better than junk foods—often devoid of any nutritional value other than calories. Even the fats used to concoct them are not the natural fats that we thrive on. The highly processed fats most of them contain, together with the masses of chemicals used as flavorings, colorings and preservatives, are far removed from the foods your body needs for health. It is little wonder that human beings who eat them year after year—even those in economically privileged countries—do little more than survive. You will never succeed in creating a meal spacing/intermittent fasting food style for yourself unless you get rid of convenience foods from your life. EASE YOUR WAY FORWARD Anyone new to meal spacing needs to experiment before diving headlong into making dramatic changes in how, when and what you eat. So, next week, I’ll give you a simple and easy-to-begin way to help you experiment with creating condensed eating windows in your own life which that suit your appetite and ability to cook. I’ll suggest meal structures and provide you some of my own recipes. It is high time that the many gifts of meal spacing/intermittent fasting to be available to anyone and everyone genuinely wanting to make use of them.

Cellulite makes everybody uneasy - from the woman who worries about her orange peel thighs to the British or American 'obesity expert' intent on proving that fat is fat, cellulite is nothing more than a figment of foolish women's imagination, and what any woman with lumpy thighs should do is get down to a good old calorie-controlled diet to shed it. Even staunch feminists who write hard-hitting polemics about the coercion of women by the beauty industry get het up about cellulite. It is, they insist, something invented by fashion magazines to make women feel bad about themselves. Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of women with the problem bemoan their fate at having contracted a "nonexistent" condition and hope that if only they spend a little more money or endure a little more discomfort from one of the high-tech treatments - being pricked with multi-injector syringes or subjected to brutal pummeling for instance - it will make her legs smooth, sleek and svelte. banishing disbelief I've seen medical papers from all over Europe and America on cellulite, its cause and its development as well as proposed solutions to this lumpy bumpy flesh which can mar the thighs of even the leanest women. As of this moment literally hundreds of medical references to cellulite exist, some of them going back a hundred and fifty years. Next time someone tries to tell you you are imagining pea d'orange thighs smile knowingly and ignore them. None of the theories, analyses and descriptions of elaborate chemical treatments for cellulite have the full answer. In part this is because cellulite is a difficult condition to study in vivo - within the body of a woman who has it - since this means performing a biopsy of the tissue which is a painful medical process. In part it is because cellulite is a many-facetted syndrome with no single cause and no single effective treatment. what is cellulite? A misnomer catchall word used to describe the orange peel syndrome, cellulite is a cosmetic defect which results in jodhpur thighs and what is known as the 'mattress phenomenon' - that is pitting, bulging, and deformation of the skin on the thighs, hips, and abdomen (sometimes even arms and shoulders too) when subjected to a 'pinch test'. In the medical literature, cellulite has been called a variety of things from mesenchymal disease to cellulitic dermo-hypodermosis, edemato-fibrosclerotic panniculopathy and, most recently, panniculosis and liposclerosis. A condition which by any name smells as odious, cellulite is a syndrome with well defined clinical, histological and histochemical characteristics. What this means in ordinary language is that cellulite not only looks a certain way when you examine it objectively with your eyes and fingers. Where it is present in a body, you will also find that certain measurable biochemical and physical changes have taken place in skin, connective tissues and at the deeper layers of the body. By the way, one thing the disbelievers say is true: Cellulite does often occur in an overweight body. If you are overweight, shedding excess ordinary fat will be essential to shedding your cellulite. But cellulite occurs on the thighs and bottoms of very slim women as well. For it is quite different in many ways than ordinary fat. a checkered history Cellulite has a shady past full of contradiction and confusion. Far from being some newfangled notion created by glossy women's magazines, cellulite was first described in depth by European physicians at the beginning of the 19th Century. It is now believed to affect 80 out of every 100 women in Europe and America. In 1816, Balfour first commented on the cutaneous nodule formations which were later named cellulite. In 1929, P. Lageze, a French physician, discovered that cellulite comes in stages: First tissues in thighs, buttocks, knees, abdomen and upper arms become traps for free serum outside the capillaries. Then fibrous formations develop, which in time turn into the retracted sclerotic connective fibers which create a dimpled orange peel effect. After Lageze, many researchers proposed numerous theories about the causes of cellulite but none of them could fully agree. Then in 1966, two Spanish dermatologists named Bassas-Grau confirmed that, while no inflammation of the tissues is present in cellulite, watery fluid does indeed accumulate in the tissue. They also reported that the molecules of subcutaneous connective tissue in cellulite seem to be larger than molecules in the normal connective tissue, for they undergo what is called a hyperpolymerization. In the 1970s, a few researchers such as Braun-Falco and Ribuffo came out in favor of the view that cellulite is simple fat. In later years they were to modify their beliefs considerably. Most European researchers grew increasingly convinced that cellulite is a well-defined clinical condition and a physiological entity. 'A defect of the mesenchyme' said Pisani. 'No, a disturbance in the vasomotor reflex and an irritation of the sympathetic nerve fibers leading to a disturbance of normal fat deposits and water logged tissues' argued Merlin. Binazzi insisted that 'cellulite' should rightly be renamed dermatpanniculopathy oedmato-fibro-sclerosis. In 1972, Muller and Nurnberger showed that where cellulite occurs, there is also a decrease in the quantity of elastin fibers in the dermis and a rearrangement of the collagen bundles. Then in 1977, Braun-Falco and Scherwitz demonstrated that a dilation of the lymph vessels takes place in cellulite, as well as an enlargement of the adipocytes or fat cells. But it was not until the well-respected Italian anatomo-pathologist and molecular biologist, Professor Sergio Curri, took up the study of cellulite tissue that the whole of the European medical world began to stand up and take notice. Now considered the leading scientific authority on cellulite in the world, Curri carried out in-depth studies comparing cellulite to normal fat, and established quite conclusively that cellulite is indeed a specific syndrome.