body care

Hydrotherapy is a powerful external tool for rejuvenation. The Germans are masters at it. Thanks to the electrical properties of water, using alternate hot and cold water on the body can alter the electrical charges of molecules in the body—particularly the low-level voltages which regulate lymphatic drainage—by alternately increasing and decreasing them. In physiological terms this opens up the capillaries increasing blood flow and helping to stimulate the elimination of wastes through the blood and lymph systems. It also relaxes and tones muscles and helps you feel energetic. Here's how: After standing under a hot shower for 3 to 5 minutes so that your body is warm and comfortable, alternate hot and cold water—2 minutes of hot followed by 30 seconds of cold—three times, finishing off with cold. Once you get used to the Blitz Guss protocol you are likely to find that you want to increase the time your body is exposed to cold water just because it makes you feel so good and so alive. Don't do this just before bed or you may feel so energetic that you can’t sleep. And, of course, if you have a pacemaker or any sort of heart condition it is essential that you check with your medical practitioner and get his or her OK before you try it. Be sure to check out the video below: [video src=http://d1vg7rm5xhtxe9.cloudfront.net/video/sd/blitz-guss.mp4 poster=http://d3oy45cyct8ffi.cloudfront.net/health/into-the-bliss/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2012/02/lk-video-blitz-guss.jpg ]

Epsom salts baths are one of the world’s most potent yet underrated natural treatments. Don’t take them lightly. They can improve your health and they cost almost nothing. They can be useful if you have been having a stressful day because they deep cleanse the body, both physiologically and energetically. They are great for encouraging deep, restful sleep and relaxation. Epsom salts also carry a magic that goes way beyond this. Lying in an Epsom salts bath is a superb way to enter your inner world and make you aware of dreams and longings you may not even have discovered yet. Use them to help forge deep connections with your essential being. Use them often and just allow yourself to BE instead of having to DO all the time. Named after a compound of minerals discovered in 17th century England, Epsom salts were first discovered by Nehemiah Grew in Epsom, a small town not far from London. He discovered that Epsom salts could relieve pain in muscles, calm headaches, and quell inflammation. Early on, drinking Epsom water was used as a purgative. The salts themselves were produced by boiling Epsom water until it turned into hydrated magnesium sulfate—which is where the name Epsom salts comes from. This hydrated magnesium sulfate brings important minerals your body, and they are absorbed through the skin when you take an Epsom salts bath. Both the magnesium and the sulfate molecules have the ability to leach excess sodium, phosphorous, and nitrogenous wastes from the body. As they reduce toxicity, more of your body’s energetic potential gets freed up for use. Magnesium and sulfur also happen to be among the most alkalinizing of earth minerals. In practical terms, what this means is that they have the ability to create more physical space between the atoms and molecules of your body. This is important since the greater the acidity in the body and the more compressed this molecular space becomes, the greater the physical and emotional pressure you feel. There’s more good news. When you step into an Epsom salts bath, magnesium sulfate immerses your body in a unified electrical field. This takes excess electrical discharge from one area of the body and sends it to areas that are undercharged, which creates energetic balance and flow. There is nothing quite as good as an Epsom salts bath; for instance, taking an Epsom salts bath after you have been on a long flight or if you are suffering from jet lag, emotional tension, or fatigue. Magnesium deficiencies are rampant in the Western world as industrial agriculture has removed massive quantities of magnesium from our soils and also because most people choose to feed themselves on packaged convenience foods. More than 80 percent of people in the United States are deficient in magnesium. Very few have any idea just how important magnesium is to their health. Magnesium is the second-most abundant element in your cells. It is also the fourth most positively charged ion in your body and essential to more than 300 specific enzymes in the body. Magnesium helps activate your muscles and nerves. It’s a catalyst for vital neurotransmitters like serotonin. It helps create ATP, which are energy molecules for your body. And it must be present for optimization of the mitochondria in cells, which are crucial for vitality, health, and athletic performance. What about sulfur—the other half of the Epsom salts equation? Sulfur is a natural detoxifier. It is a powerful antioxidant, pain reliever, and anti-inflammatory. Inviting sulfur into your body through the surface of your skin while lying in an Epsom salts bath is a superb way to strengthen your system as a whole. The electrical charge between magnesium with its positive charge and sulfur with its negative charge helps these two minerals blend together in a superb way. There is a very specific way of taking an Epsom salts bath. Let me share it with you: Pour two large cups of industrial grade Epsom salts into the bathtub. You can find them in small amounts at the chemist and in supermarkets. Far better is this: order in bulk a 25 kg bag over the Internet. This way Epsom salts are inexpensive. One more tip: I like to add a pound of sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) to every Epsom salts bath because it blends well with magnesium sulfate and is wonderful for skin. But you must make sure that any baking soda you use contains no aluminum since this is the last thing you should ever put into your bath water or anywhere else. Fill the bath with blood-heat tepid water, just above body temperature. Immerse yourself in it for at least 20 to 30 minutes. If your body gets too cool, add some more hot water. If your body becomes too warm, add some cold water. You need to be able to sustain being in this bath in a very relaxed state for 20 to 30 minutes. Then get out of the bath and wrap yourself in a towel. If you are doing this just before bed, now climb into bed, cover yourself up, keep warm, and you can easily drift into blissful sleep. If it’s during the day or if you are trying to restore yourself to be able to go out in the evening, then when you get out of the Epsom salts bath wrap yourself up in a towel and lie down for 10 minutes. Then get up, get dressed, and go about doing whatever you are intending to do. In our home we are completely addicted to the joys and the benefits of daily Epsom salts baths. I predict that you too may become the addicts we have become. Try it and see.

Last week we looked at intermittent fasting for clearing cellulite deposits and keeping them away. It’s an enormously valuable tool. But the important first step for creating a cellulite-free body is to clear as much of the tissue sludge that creates it as quickly as possible. How? By using the most powerful natural detox protocol I have ever found, for 2 or 3 days. Then, in CELLULITE PART 3 next week, I’m keen to share with you how to go about creating in your own life an on-going intermittent fasting food style which helps make peau d’orange a thing of the past while rejuvenating you—mentally, emotionally and spiritually. IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER Cellulite is always a manifestation of the wrong kind of lifestyle for health and beauty: eating wrongly (or too much), living under prolonged stress, hormonal imbalances, being exposed to too many pollutants, and all the other things that we often assume we can get away with, but never really do. Also, cellulite exists—whether or not one wishes to call it cellulite or something else—despite the fact that the majority of adamant medical voices loudly deny its existence. It is real enough for the woman who, in spite of being lean and well, reaches down and pinches her thigh only to find it puckers, ripples, and looks like the skin of an orange. Cellulite differs from normal fat in three ways: It doesn't disappear just because you slim down and exercise regularly as ordinary fat does. Cellulite areas hold different kinds of fat than ordinary fat tissue. Radioisotopic examinations show that, while the components of ordinary fatty tissue change every eight days, gel-like cellulite remains almost stagnant. CLEAR THE SLUDGE Quite simply, cellulite is a pollution problem. It is the result of a build-up of wastes settle in specific areas of a woman’s body. Where distortions in female hormones are present, we tend to collect cellulite deposits as part of our secondary sex characteristics—on our thighs, hips, buttocks and so forth. Cellulite areas not only contain fat. When you examine a layer of cellulite under a microscope, you find that the fat imbued with water and wastes is held there by a fine network of hard fibrous adhesions. Settling in the subcutaneous (subsurface) layer just beneath the skin, cellulite areas have been surrounded by a cushion-like network of connective tissue known as septa. When the septa tighten down on fat cells present in the area or when fat cells push upwards this forms adhesions—a kind of sclerosis of the connective tissues, which get worse with the passage of time. You can liken it to an overstuffed cushion which, with wear and tear, bursts out above the structural support, tightening down even more on the support. All of this leads back to an impaired lymphatic system. When blood and lymph flow in the body becomes restricted as a result of sludge stored in the body, septa fibers continue to thicken while cellulite deposits in the subcutaneous layers of the skin get worse. It’s time to begin the process of clearing this sludge. It’s time to activate the body’s ability to deliver fresh nutrient-rich blood to skin, and restore good lymph flow so it carries away wastes and toxins from the tissues. THE AMAZING ROHSÄFTE-KUR In my opinion, the best contribution German nature-cure experts ever devised for this is called Rohsäfte-Kur. It’s a protocol you can also use when you find yourself feeling "dead" because of too much stress, too little sleep, or fatigue. It is also the best way to begin clearing cellulite. What is it? It’s a raw juice fast, in many ways superior to a water fast. On it you drink plenty of freshly made raw fruit and vegetable juices. These raw juice meals have remarkable properties, in no small part thanks to the living enzymes they contain in high concentration. The program can make you feel super-alive—mentally clear and sparklingly aware of the world around you. A Rohsäfte-Kur as short as two or three days can make a woman look years younger. It is the best way I have ever found to begin eliminating tissue sludge quickly. Of course you must consult a professional practitioner before beginning—especially if you are on any pharmaceutical drugs. You should not stay on it for more than two or three days unless you are under proper supervision. All that being said, we’re ready to get the ball rolling. In addition to their enzyme content, raw juices made from organic fruits and vegetables are rich in vitamins, minerals, and trace elements to help bring biochemical balance to the cells of skin and muscles, since on your Rohsäfte-Kur the assimilation of these nutrients becomes almost total. To do a Rohsäfte-Kur properly, you need a juice extractor—an excellent investment for long-lasting health and beauty. Some juicers have attachments so they can be used as a blender and shredder for vegetables, although I prefer dedicated juice extractors—either centrifugal or masticating juicers—which are slower speed but reduce oxidation. HERE’S HOW The day before you begin, eat lightly. Have some low glycemic fruit such as berries for breakfast and a salad for lunch and dinner, perhaps with a little cottage cheese or some yoghurt. This helps prepare your body for the juice fast. You can also take a mild laxative the night before if you wish. FIRST THING IN THE MORNING: A tisane: take a cup of herb or flower tea such as Maté, peppermint, camomile, nettle, rose-hip or solidago— goldenrod—which is particularly good, but often hard to come by, for eliminating excess water from the tissues if you tend to retain it. BREAKFAST Prepare a 250ml glass of organic fresh fruit juice chosen from berries such as strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, apples or pears. Dilute this with enough clean filtered water to make two glasses. Sip slowly until you've drunk both glasses. MID-MORNING Drink a glass of herb tea or homemade vegetable broth if desired. Here is my favorite recipe: Leslie’s Home-made organic vegetable bouillon or vegetable broth. You can use green vegetables to make your own, such as broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, bean sprouts, asparagus, mustard greens, spinach, watercress, ginger, garlic. Bring to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes. Season with herbs and sea salt as desired then store in the fridge, reheating as needed. This is a good drink if you're feeling weak or headachy when your body begins the natural process of cleansing itself after years of following the inaccurate advice we have all been given. LUNCH A 250ml of fresh vegetable juice made from organic vegetables such as carrot, celery, spinach, kale or cucumber, or a mixture of these. Again dilute with half clean water to make two glasses and drunk slowly. MID-AFTERNOON Another herb tea or homemade organic vegetable bouillon as desired. DINNER Same as lunch. BEFORE BED If you are hungry, take a few raisins (not more than a dozen) chew each one slowly, and another tisane, or glass of spring water if you prefer. OVERVIEW In other words, throughout the day you will be drinking between one and a half and three pints of juice, teas or homemade vegetable broth, depending on how much you feel you want. The reason that half of the juices are vegetable and half of them fruit is that fruits are the natural cleansers of the system and the vegetables are the revitalizers. As with any true fast, if you experience feelings of discomfort such as headache (a sign that you are quickly eliminating wastes), take whatever pain killers you feel you need and tuck yourself away in a dark room to rest until it passes. If you take a lukewarm bath (not hot) in the evening; this will help you to sleep well. It is important that all the juices you drink be freshly made and drunk right away. If they are allowed to stand in a room for a few minutes they oxidize and lose much of their therapeutic and nutritional value. When you choose your vegetables and fruit, make sure they are fresh and carefully washed in running water. You can mix juices in delightful ways, and as a final addition, try a teaspoonful of fresh lemon juice or fresh cream added to each glass. Fresh finely minced herbs such as basil or chives sprinkled in also add something special. GREAT HERB TEAS Here are a few herb teas that are particularly good for helping to clear cellulite, either because of their blood purifying capabilities or because they are natural diuretics and encourage the elimination of excess water from the tissues. Maté Tea is a tonic for the kidneys, a tension soother, and is so satisfying to drink that you feel less inclined to eat. It is nice taken plain or with a squeeze of lemon in it. Solidago Tea (wild goldenrod) is an excellent natural diuretic and a mild stimulant. It is a favorite for spring-cleaning the system at the Bircher-Benner Clinic in Zurich but it can be hard to find these days. Nettle Tea is another diuretic and tonic, excellent for the lymphatic system. It doesn't taste as nice as solidago, so needs to be sweetened with a little stevia. COMING NEXT WEEK Next week, we will not only look specifically at how, after carrying out a Rohsäfte-Kur, you can create for yourself a simple, doable way of spacing meals that can help clearing cellulite long-term and keep it away. We will also expose as yet little-known nutritional mistakes most everybody makes which need to be corrected—not only for keeping cellulite at bay, but for protecting you from early aging and all those degenerative diseases which now plague the Western world. See you then... I have also included some great tea's to try below: The Tao of Tea, 100% Organic Famous South American Herb, Roasted Maté Maté (Ilex Paraguariensis) is an evergreen plant of the holly family (Aquifoliaceae). Although the plant does produce small flowers and fruit, only the distinctive oval shaped leaves and stems are plucked for processing. Toasty, smooth and full-bodied with light cacao taste. Will provide at least 3-4 infusions. Maté contains vitamins (A, B1, B2, C and E), mineral salts, 15 amino acids and high levels of antioxidants. Its chemical constituents also include alkaloids (such as caffeine). Maté is known to help cope with stress and is beneficial for the nervous and immune systems. Order The Tao of Tea: Roasted Maté from iherb Traditional Medicinals, Organic Nettle Leaf Herbal Tea, Caffeine Free Nettle plants grow in the wild throughout much of Europe and North America and are now also grown on farms. Fresh pressed juice of the herb, and tinctures or tea infusions of the dried leaves are commonly used in Europe. Organic Nettle Leaf has a pleasantly refreshing and slightly bitter taste. For maximum benefit, herbal tea must be properly prepared. Pour 8 oz. freshly boiled water over 1-2 tea bags in a cup. Cover cup and steep 10 minutes. These steps directly influence the amount of beneficial components that will end up in your teacup! Gently squeeze the tea bag to release the remaining extract. Drink 3-4 cups daily. Order Organic Nettle Leaf Herbal Tea from iherb BEST LIQUID STEVIA Wisdom Natural, SweetLeaf, Liquid Stevia, English Toffee Sweet Leaf liquid stevia with all natural flavors is convenient and easy to use. As a supplement, add this nutritious stevia to water, tea, coffee, milk, sparkling water, protein shakes, plain yogurt or anything else you can imagine. It comes in many different flavors including lemon but English Toffee flavor is the best by far. Order SweetLeaf Liquid Stevia from iherb ORDERING FROM IHERB.COM: If you decide to order any products from Iherb.com, you will automatically receive $5 or $10 off your first order. Their products are the cheapest and best in the world…I use them for everything no matter where I am. Get it sent to you via DHL. It will be with you in three to four working days… iHerb.com ship all over the world very cheaply. IMPORTANT - Do not be fooled by the artificially made Stevia products such as Truvia and Purevia. These products are not the natural Stevia plant. To learn more read my post here called beware of Truvia. Click here To View Part 3 – Cellulite: How To Live Cellulite Free

To understand cellulite it is important to understand how your flesh is structured. Let's look at the deeper layers first. They are known as subcutaneous tissues. In your thighs, these are made up of three layers of fat with two planes of connective tissue and ground substance in between. This brings us to one of the interesting things about cellulite: It is almost always a female complaint. With a very few remarkable exceptions, men simply do not get it. In part this is hormonal. A woman's body is rich in female hormones such as oestrogen, which encourage the laying down of fat. (For years farmers injected oestrogen-like substances in cattle and chickens to fatten them rapidly for market.) This is also why cellulite tends first to appear during times of intense hormonal change such as puberty, pregnancy or when she goes onto a birth control pill. In part, however, cellulite is a woman's condition because the basic construction of subcutaneous tissue of the thigh differs in men and women. In women, the topmost subcutaneous layer is made up of what are termed large 'standing fat-cell chambers', which are separated by radial and arching dividing walls of connective tissue attached to the overlying tissue of the dermis or true skin. The uppermost part of the subcutaneous tissue of men is different. It is thinner, and there is a network of crisscrossing connective tissue walls which makes it harder for a man's body to lay down large fat cells and to trap stored wastes and water in the tissues. Also the corium - the connective tissue structure between the true skin and the deeper layers or hypodermis - is thicker in men than in women. You can check on these differences yourself by carrying out a 'pinch test'. It is only pinching the thighs of women that results in the 'mattress phenomenon' with its pitting, bulging and deformation of skin. Pinch the thighs of most men and you will get gentle skin folds or furrows, completely without bulges or pits. beware the ravages of time Age-related changes in women also encourage the build up of cellulite. For instance, as women get older, their skin gets progressively looser and thinner. This encourages the migration of fat cells into this layer. The connective tissue walls between the chambers of fat cells also get thinner allowing the fat-cell chambers to enlarge - a condition known as hypertrophy. This progressive thinning of connective tissue structures is another major factor in the development of cellulite and creates the granular texture and buckshot feel of much cellulite-riddled flesh. An examination of cellulite tissue under the microscope also reveals that a number of histological changes have taken place. They include a distension of the lymphatic vessels of the upper skin, for instance, and a decrease in the number of elastic fibers. The circulation of blood, too, has been slowed, and the connective fibers have undergone a sclerotic hardening, so that the fluids and the wastes they contain become trapped in an unpleasant network which pinches nerve endings (hence the pain in well developed cellulite) and create stasis in the tissue - rather like a polluted swamp - where energy exchange is reduced. The whole area takes on a deadened quality - a sure sign of poor body ecology.

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

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.

Corrupt information about sugar from advertisers, multinational food corporations and mainstream media abounds. Meanwhile, an unsuspecting public often swallows what they’re told, hook line and sinker. For the sake of your health, you need to become ever more savvy about which products you can feel good about buying and which to avoid completely. Bear with me. I’ll lay out the bare bones of what you need to be aware of as you wend your way around the continually expanding selection of sugar-related products deceptively disguised as “good for you.” SWEET TRUTHS Sugar purveyors have got away with murder. Along with governments who have been supposed to guide us on what to eat to stay healthy, they have for decades wrongly told us that eating fats is dangerous for our health. Multinational food and drink manufacturers cunningly decided to replace fats in the convenience foods they sell with sugar to make their wares more palatable. The vast majority of shoppers, consciously attempting to follow “official” advice, wholeheartedly embraced all the sugar-filled packaged foods they were offered. Many shoppers are now waking up to how dangerous sugar is to their health and their life. But we have a long way to go. Sugar is the most damaging of all the carbohydrates. Ordinary table sugar consists of 50% glucose and 50% fructose. The glucose part gets digested in your stomach. Then it enters your bloodstream, where it makes your blood sugar rise. This triggers insulin release—a major cause of the development of insulin resistance. The other 50% component of table sugar—fructose—acts differently in your body. It does not affect your blood sugar, and we do not yet know for sure what part fructose may play in the release of insulin. So we are still being taught that eating and drinking fructose fine. This makes fructose healthy, right? Wrong! WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW When you eat a piece of fruit—say, an apple—the fruit sugar it contains comes wrapped up in natural fiber including pectin, a soluble fiber which helps your body eliminate heavy metals from your system. It can take you 10 minutes or so to munch your way through an apple. It takes even more time for your body to break down the fiber and absorb it. This means that the fructose in the apple you eat is released relatively slowly. As a consequence, its fructose can be processed a little at a time by the liver, which is the organ that handles fructose. However, when you drink a nice big glass of apple juice or a soda (which contains 10 times more fructose than an apple) it can take as few as 10 seconds for you to swallow it all. Then your liver gets bombarded with a very dangerous form of fructose known as high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). An excellent article published in the prestigious journal Nature, “The Toxic Truth About Sugar,” points out that the consumption of the fructose in high-fructose corn syrup has increased one hundred fold since 1970. “We’re being poisoned to death,” says Robert Lustig, MD. “That’s a very strong statement, but I think we can back it up with very clear scientific evidence.” Lustig and his colleagues suggest that sugar be regulated in the same way alcohol is regulated. The human body, especially the liver, never evolved to handle the kind of fructose load that it is now getting. What does it do? It responds by turning much of the fructose you take in into fat deposits. It also makes you highly prone to cancer, Alzheimer's disease, heart disease, hypertension, dementia and type 2 diabetes. SUGAR INFESTATION In the 19th century, we ate between 10 and 20 pounds of sugar per person per year. Today, each of us consumes between 150 and 200 pounds of it a year—much of it hidden in convenience foods, fruit juices and sodas. Because sugar, added to so many processed foods, is everywhere, it is virtually unavoidable. Millions of poorly informed people continue to consume 500 calories or more every day in added sugar alone. What few people yet know is that sugar acts upon the same areas of your brain as alcohol, cocaine and cigarettes do, creating cravings, unnatural hunger and an addiction for yet more sugar. The excessive amount of “stealth” sugar in processed foods has become the backbone that supports the profitable disease care business worth billions. Chronic high blood sugar and insulin don’t just make you fat and predispose you to chronic diseases, they age you. Sugar also undermines the integrity of your skin. When you eat a diet full of non-vegetable carbohydrates—grains, cereals and sugars of any kind—your body gets busy fabricating wrinkles, sags, a puffy face and a lackluster complexion. And, as a result of the chronic high blood sugar and insulin resistance which develops over time, you can end up without the energy to do anything to change it. HEALTH DESTROYERS High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is something food and drink manufacturers have used in ever-increasing quantities since 1978. It was originally a worthless by-product of the corn industry. That is, until someone had the bright idea of turning it into syrup and pouring it into sodas, cakes, breads, cookies, ready meals, even smoked meats and fish—you name it. Nowadays you can find HFCS just about everywhere in packaged foods and drinks—juices, sodas and fruity yoghurts, luncheon meats, even in smoked fish. Foods that most people still believe to be “healthy” are now riddled with this cheap, dangerous stuff. Not surprisingly, HFCS is ultra-sweet—55% fructose and 45% glucose. Because nothing raises blood sugar levels and triggers insulin release more quickly than sugar in its many forms, eating anything full of sugar gives you an immediate ‘high’. Then, it can just as quickly bring you down, leaving you craving something else sweet to keep going. Want to do one thing which can dramatically improve your health, your weight and your good looks? Just stop eating sugar, including fructose, in any form, as well as any foods or drinks that contain it. Beware of what you buy because it is often not even listed as an ingredient on labels. HOW TO CUT YOUR SUGAR INTAKE It’s easy. Change your way of eating from a diet of packaged convenience foods to pesticide-free, whole organic foods that are unprocessed. Never use canned fruits in recipes that need sweetening. Instead go for fresh, low glycemic fruits or top quality stevias. Use organic seasonings to create great flavors for your dishes. Most often, the sugar content of a food has been deliberately hidden by food manufacturers by giving it a name that shoppers will not recognize. Given the dangers implicit in using sweeteners, it’s equally important to be cautious when looking for alternatives to sugar itself. These fall into three main categories: Artificial sweeteners—which you want to avoid like the plague. Sugar alcohols. Natural sweeteners. All artificial sweeteners are harmful, each in its own way. These include aspartame—the worst of the lot. You’ll find it in Equal and NutriSweet; sucralose, which you’ll find in in Splenda; saccharine, which you’ll find in Sweet and Low, as well as many other artificial sweeteners by different names. There is much evidence to back up how dangerous these are. Avoid all of them if you care about your health. Sugar Alcohols with “ol” in their name such as xylitol, sorbitol, maltitol, mannitol, glycerol and lactitol can spike blood sugar but beware. Just because some product label says “sugar-free” this is not necessarily the truth, nor can you be sure it is calorie-free or low-sugar. Probably safest of them is xylitol, but only if you use it occasionally and very sparingly. (By the way, it is deadly for cats and dogs.) “Natural Sweetener” does not necessarily mean natural. Agave Syrup and Agave Nectar can be even worse than HFCS. It’s a misnomer to refer to them as “natural”, despite the advertising hype that has most of the world still believing they are. Higher than any other sweetener on the market, Agave has virtually no nutritional value. As for honey, which has become seriously distorted as a result of the hideous damage being done to bee colonies, it too is to be avoided unless you happen to gather it from your own hives. The Safest Choices: Stevia is an exotic herb which grows in subtropical areas of South America. This plant has been used to sweeten herbal drinks since pre-Columbian times. It’s a godsend for enhancing health and reducing your sugar intake. It’s great for sweetening drinks and baking dishes. But make sure you use only the best. All sorts of so-called stevias such as Truvia and Purevia continue to be promoted by multinational corporations. They call themselves “all-natural sweeteners”. In reality, they have been manufactured only from “certain active ingredients” in the stevia plant, not from the whole plant. As a result, they are distortions of the real thing. Don’t use them. Another good natural sweetener is Lo Han Guo, which comes from a Chinese fruit. It too is good, but more expensive than stevia. Spoonable Stevia By Stevita: Spoonable Stevia by Stevita uses only stevia extract with at least 95% pure glycosides (extremely sweet tasting ingredients of the Stevia herb leaves), and a little erythritol, a crystal granulated naturally produced filler found in fruits, vegetables and grains. It is best for baking and sprinkling. Order Spoonable Stevia By Stevita from iherb ENGLISH TOFFEE STEVIA: Wisdom Natural, SweetLeaf, Liquid Stevia, English Toffee Sweet Leaf liquid stevia with all natural flavors is convenient and easy to use. As a supplement, add this nutritious stevia to water, tea, coffee, milk, sparkling water, protein shakes, plain yogurt or anything else you can imagine. It comes in many different flavors including lemon but English Toffee flavor is the best by far. Order English Toffee Stevia from iherb

I learned the secret of agelessness when, many years ago, I came upon a quotation from someone I much admire. Let me share it with you: “All men dream; but not equally.” he said. “Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find it was vanity: but dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible.” The quotation comes from T.E. Lawrence. I adore it. It transformed my own vision of aging. It reminded me of the imaginative power each of us has to create our unique path. It taught me that there is no need to fear growing older. Each one of us can live a rich and fulfilling life at any age. Yet too few of us make use of our powerful abilities to envision, then bring into being, what we long for. If, like me, you’d prefer to die young late in life, there are two things for you to do: First, get savvy about how to care for yourself naturally. Second, start to practice Lawrence of Arabia’s dictate. Decide to become a “dreamer of the day”. Then “act with open eyes to make it possible.” The growing understanding of natural medicine, together with reputable research into high-tech biochemistry, has made this transformation possible. Once little more than a pipe-dream, agelessness is becoming a reality. Savvy gerontologists have challenged the assumed maximum lifespans of human beings. They show us that people in the know can make intelligent use of antioxidant nutrients, electromagnetic treatments, and a myriad of other safe, natural anti-aging tools—including an organic, high-raw diet—to prevent physical degeneration and restore a healthy balance to their bodies and their lives. It is never too late to begin. Instead of prescribing dangerous drugs, this new wave of visionary scientists and practitioners show that the foods we eat exert powerful effects on control centers in the brain. These powerful loci direct metabolic processes on which your health depends—from hormonal behavior, weight and appetite, to emotional and mental states—even, believe it or not, the way we perceive the nature of reality. What few people yet know—and what I have been studying and teaching for decades—is that these control centers in the brain are also filters through which we experience profound spiritual growth. Choose to live on a diet of convenience foods, sugars, and carbohydrates, as more than 90% of people now do, and your brain’s control centers become crippled. You begin to age rapidly. Then, should you be urged to buy into relying on pharmaceutical drugs, eventually your body becomes poisoned by them. Become aware of this. Fresh foods grown on healthy soils foods and top quality nutrients do not poison the body’s crucial enzymes, nor do they block vital cell receptors, on which your health depends. Taking drugs long-term does both, bringing about not only ill-health and rapid aging, but unbalanced emotions, mental fog, and a strong sense that—in ways you cannot even articulate—you have lost trust and connections with yourself, although you may have no idea how this has happened. Changing the way you eat and care for your body can begin, within a few weeks, not only to transform your health. It can expand your consciousness and help you change your life for the better on virtually every level. Forget your chronological age. It’s a very limited indication of your biological and functional age. These are the measurements that really matter. Older people are capable of far more than society would have us believe. At any age, people can learn how to live by the principles of natural wellbeing and become highly resistant to the ravages of degeneration and chronic illness. They come to know their bodies. They face each morning in fresh anticipation about what the day can bring. They’ve learned to dismiss the negative brainwashing continually bombarding us from mainstream media, the medical profession and government directives. They know, for instance that, as George M. Mann MD says, “The diet-heart hypothesis which suggests that high intake of saturated fat and cholesterol causes heart disease has been repeatedly shown to be wrong. The public is being deceived by the greatest health scam of the century.” Those in the know refuse to allow themselves to be deceived any longer. Savvy, independent people have every right to boast of their increased longevity and high resistance to degeneration. They’ve earned it. These people seek truths and continue to uncover them. They choose to shun unnecessary drugs, to banish convenience foods, to make at least 50 to 75% of the foods they eat organic. They reject negative beliefs about growing older. They become not old, but ageless. Agelessness makes available to you a steadily maturing wisdom which is one of the greatest blessings as years go by. You become someone whose experience and awareness has not been distorted by an ill-functioning mind or waning vitality. Our sense of time expands and helps us come alive to the present moment. In a powerful, real, and positive way, this draws it towards the future. And when we are able to project ourselves into the future, that future becomes not an abstract consideration, but an experience of great rewards. The future of the planet is our future. We are responsible for it. If we wish, we can start to see ourselves as caretakers of our earth instead of tenants in a rented property. At last, the freedom from mental and physical degeneration which agelessness brings is no longer an empty dream. It is happening to many who are awakening. Who cares if, at the age of 85, you are still capable of running a marathon, or if you look 20 years older or younger than you are chronologically? Such things matter little by themselves. But high-level health, mental clarity and well-being which are the rewards of agelessness—no matter how old one is chronologically—are of urgent concern to all of us as residents of the earth. They form the foundation on which we human beings can build if we are to make use of our creative potentials. In the full use of such creativity lies the future of ourselves, our children and our planet. Have I become one of Lawrence’s “dreamers of the day”? I certainly have. It’s dreams that create the true mythologies by which we live our lives. I believe each and every one of us urgently needs solid dreams to give our lives direction—dreams which, tempered by the wisdom of age, are large enough and rich enough to carry us forward. Such dreams not only have power. They can help us bring forth exciting new realities.

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.