body care

One of the oldest systems of natural healing in the world uses hot and cold baths and showers to increase your vitality, balance hormones, beautify skin, tone muscles, clear your mind, and vitalize your nervous system, lymphatic system, and circulation. It quickly brings you a sense of wonderful aliveness, and all the while it is dissolving, transporting, and clearing rubbish from your body and psyche. Father Sebastian Kneipp The father of all water therapies was Father Sebastian Kneipp, the Bavarian priest who first made us aware of water’s healing power. “When used appropriately,” he said, “water and herbs can cure almost every disease.” He established Bad Worishofen in Germany in 1897, a center where people all over the world came to be healed by special ice cold baths, walking barefoot in the snow, and other simple but powerful methodologies that are celebrated to this day. I first learned the secrets of water healing in my early twenties after spending many years in a state of ill health thanks to my being raised on a terrible diet. It had been based on huge bowels of breakfast cereals piled high with white sugar, horrid fast foods eaten at 5 am in truck drivers’ cafes throughout America, and a lot of other junk. No wonder I was unhealthy. However, what I learned from the generosity of some brilliant British and European doctors who practiced natural medicine turned my entire life around. This was how I came to work in, write about, and teach natural methods of healing. It is also how I came to visit Kneipp’s centers for hydrotherapy, which still continue to thrive, especially in Germany. In many ways the most important of all I learned was how powerful healing with simple water techniques can be for improving your life at any time. Let me share with you one of these techniques. Do try it and let me know how you get on. There are many more, but let’s begin with this one. Thanks to water's chemical and bioelectrical properties, and to your body's physiological and energetic responses to them, water therapy is a superb method for cleansing, energizing, and restoring great functioning to any tired or aging body. The technique of using alternating applications of hot and cold water is called “Contrast Hydros.” If you have not yet experienced the turn-on it offers, you have a real treat ahead. After a workout, athletes use hydroelectrics in the form of contrast baths and showers to strengthen the body, prevent muscular damage, and eliminate aches. Contrast hydros not only help clear wastes and vitalize but also bring nutrients and oxygen to areas of your body that need them and balance your energies, helping to protect you from stress-induced damage. Here is how Apply hot water to your whole body for three or four minutes in the form of a hot bath or shower. Follow with 30 to 60 seconds of cold water. Repeat the procedure three times. The application of cold water needs to be just long enough to make blood vessels constrict. This can take place in as little as 20 seconds. Cold water triggers your sympathetic nervous system to energize while hot water intensifies parasympathetic activity for relaxation. The combination of the two makes you feel great. It’s important that you start slowly, increasing the length of your exposure to hot and cold water gradually. If you have a separate bath and shower you can use the bath for one temperature application, the shower for the other, moving back and forth. During the summer, make your bath cold and your showers hot. During the winter, reverse this. Like any natural treatment, contrast hydros need to be followed carefully and wisely to get all the benefits they offer and to make sure no harm is done. You will probably find at first that a plunge into cold water or a cold shower is a shock to your body. Soon this will turn into an experience of total pleasure. It is always the first cold application that is the hardest. The biggest barrier to getting into cold water is a psychological one. Once you leap this hurdle you’ll find yourself eagerly looking forward to your daily treatment. Here are a few cautions: Always check with your doctor before beginning any natural treatment to make sure that it is appropriate for you. He or she may advise you not to use contrast hydros if you have any kind of heart condition, nervous disorder, high blood pressure, if you are an insulin-dependent diabetic, or suffer from hardening of the arteries. Make sure your body is warm before beginning. The room should be well heated. Don’t let your body become chilled during the treatment. If you feel yourself becoming too cold, immediately stop and get into a hot bath or shower until you warm up fully. Always begin with a hot application and end with cold. Start slowly with 2-3 minutes of hot application followed by 20 seconds of cold. As your body gets used to contrast hydros, increase the time of the cold applications up to 1 minute (even up to 2-3 minutes if you are extremely fit or an athlete). When you finish, dry your body well and dress warmly. I’d love to hear how you get on so I can share with you other hydroelectric treatments that cost virtually nothing but can be wonderfully life enhancing.

None of the body’s systems of elimination is less generally recognized or more important than your lymphatic system. Your lymphatic system is not only a major route for the absorption of nutrients and an important carrier of immune cells, it is also your body’s metabolic waste-disposal system. So essential are the waste-eliminating functions of the lymphatic system that without them you would die within 24 hours. Your lymphatics are a highly organized and elaborate system of ducts and channels which flow all over your body. The opalescent liquid carries wastes and toxic products from these minute channels into larger lymphatic vessels, and on through the lymph nodes, which are located in the groin and under the arm and the neck. After being purified by the lymph nodes, the fluid is returned to the blood. In this way the lymphatic system works ceaselessly to clear toxicity. In many ways the lymph system resembles the blood system. Except in one major respect. Whereas the blood system is powered by the action of the heart, the lymphatic system has no such prime mover. Instead it is almost entirely dependent upon gravity and the natural pressure of muscles when you move your body. These muscle contractions and body movements keep the lymph flowing. For good lymphatic functioning – to keep your body free of the build up of wastes and toxicity – you need to move your muscles vigorously and often. That is why regular brisk exercise, such as taking long walks, is so important not only to firm your muscles and strengthen your heart and lungs, but also to encourage the steady and effective elimination of wastes from your cells and tissues. If you tend to be sedentary and live on the average Western fare high in fat, protein and processed foods, your lymph system will tend to function poorly and permit the build up of toxic waste products. This can result in so many problems for good looks that it would be difficult to list them all – water retention, stiff muscles and joints, cellulite, premature aging, poor skin tone, even degenerative illness. lymphatic help A particularly pleasant way of helping lymphatic drainage during a two-day apple fast is to lie with your feet higher than your head for a few minutes a couple of times each day. Raise the bottom of your bed a foot off the floor or lie in a hammock with your feet high for a few minutes a couple of times a day. Lying with your feet higher than your head reverses the flow of lymph temporarily, and helps improve lymphatic drainage.

What is Nature’s most powerful healer? The answer will surprise you: WATER applied to your skin’s surface. Would you consider pouring a stream of cold water over your face to banish fatigue and prevent skin from wrinkling and sagging? Would you walk in ice-cold water up to your knees every morning to increase your vitality and ward off aging? Have jets of cold water directed against your back and legs to help you shed fat? Extraordinary as these practices sound, they are natural methods of treatment with over a century and a half of clinical validation behind them. They are part of one of the most elaborate, effective and well-researched European methods of healing, health enhancement and age-retardation in the world: Kneipp therapy. KNEIPP’S GENIUS Applications of hot and cold water have long been standard treatment for regenerating energy, curing headaches, improving lymphatic function, and even eliminating hangovers after a night of partying. In no small part is this thanks to the pioneering work of Father Sebastian Kneipp, a Bavarian parish priest who strengthened his own less-than-hearty health with water treatments. In 1855, Kneipp was sent to the tiny Bavarian village of Worishofen to supervise a Dominican nunnery. Many of his friends insisted that the church had only sent him there to get him away from his fascination with water-healing, in the belief that it was interfering with his clerical life. There he acted as father-confessor to the nuns, revived the village's stagnant economy, and advised farmers on how to improve their agriculture. But Kneipp’s fascination with health and healing prevailed when later he was made parson of the village. Despite the fact that his days were filled with ecclesiastical duties, he found his time increasingly taken up by a growing number of ailing people who had heard of his ‘miracle cures’, and either didn’t have enough money to pay for medical care, or had been given up as ‘hopeless’ by their physicians. Kneipp treated them with his water techniques. He then taught them to treat themselves, gradually developing a complete system for prevention, cure and rehabilitation based on the theory that a human being is a unity of body and soul, and that whenever this unity is threatened, or whenever the harmony of nature is disturbed, illness ensues. As far back as 1900, Kneipp's water therapy was being practiced all over Europe. Since then, his methods have been researched, applied, refined and adapted to contemporary needs by medical scientists—most of them German—who have established the basis of Kneipp’s water techniques worldwide. AMAZING BENEFITS Still little known in English-speaking countries, Kneipp therapy is practiced in some seventy spas and thousands of hospitals in Europe. Treatments are supervised by physicians highly trained in the various methods it involves, the most important of which is a complex set of water applications which have profound regenerative and protective effects on the body. Far from being some kind of far-out alternative therapy used only by nature freaks and old women, Kneipp hydrotherapy is supported by government health-insurance schemes in Europe, and even subsidized by the state both as a preventative treatment against aging as well as a means of curing and rehabilitating the seriously ill. Kneipp therapy is used in many applications—from affusions, where water in a steady stream is poured over specific parts of your body, to hot and cold compresses—as a treatment for conditions from arthritis, abscesses and heart disease to asthma, diabetes and allergic eczema. All of Kneipp’s methods greatly increase your vitality, can enhance athletic prowess, help you handle stress better, banish insomnia, and counteract a myriad of negative effects connected with the aging process. SECRETS OF HYDROTHERAPY This is the secret of using cold water applications on your body. You need to be warm to begin with, and you must keep warm and dry afterwards. Contact with cold water in these circumstances first causes constriction of the blood vessels, momentarily driving the blood inwards. Then, the moment it is stopped, blood rushes to the surface of the skin, warming it. THE PRINCIPLES Not every water treatment has to be administered by a professional in a clinic or a spa. One of Kneipp's most important principles was that hydrotherapy should be simple enough that any healthy person can benefit from it—as a prophylactic treatment against aging, to improve the condition of the skin, to eliminate stress and to treat minor ailments from a headache to a cold without professional help. Simple at-home water treatments fortify your body against sickness in general, improve circulation and calm frayed nerves. FOR GREAT SKIN An affusion is literally a pouring of running water over a particular area of the body. Affusions stimulate blood supply to the skin, restoring lost tautness and freshness to sagging or faded skin. It is a popular natural treatment in Europe amongst men and women who want to retain (or reform) their youthful good looks. It helps prevent premature aging of the skin, eliminate feelings of fatigue and can even cure a migraine. Here's How Make sure your body is in a well-warmed state to begin with. Then, using a hose with an opening of about ½ inch (it can be a bathroom hand shower with the head removed) turn on the cold water so that a sheet of water is delivered to the skin when the hose is held 2-4 inches from it. (There should be no great pressure of water.) When an affusion is done right, the water flows smoothly and evenly and with no `splashback'. Now, resting your neck on a towel and bending over a sink or the bath, begin by circling your face with the water from just below the temple. Then go back and forth from one side of the face to the other. Guide the stream several times from up to down starting at the left side and working towards the right. End by circling the whole face again. The entire process is done with cold water and should take only a couple of minutes. Pat your face gently to remove excess water and then let it dry completely in the air. TO BOOST VITALITY AND STRENGTHEN IMMUNITY There are several techniques designed to increase vitality and bring protection against illness and age-degeneration. Which you choose depends on your current state of stamina and health. They range from the body wash, which is gentle enough for almost anyone, to the cold Blitzguss, which top athletes and other very fit people favor. The Body Wash This is quite different from the usual cleansing wash you carry out in the bath or shower using a flannel. It involves the uniform spreading of water over your skin with a rough linen cloth. Afterwards you do not dry yourself. Instead get into a warm bed for a few minutes. It helps relax the body while bracing and strengthening it. It also activates natural warmth, eliminating and protecting you from the build-up of toxic substances in the blood and tissues which can cause cellular damage and age-related problems. Here's How Having dipped the linen cloth into cold water, begin on the back of the right hand and sweep upwards over the shoulder then down again on the inside to the thumb. Now turn the cloth over and wash the inside of the hand and arm to the armpit, and finally the back of the palm. Dip the cloth in water again quickly and carry out the same movements on the other arm. Then, quickly dipping the cloth in water again, with half a dozen vertical movements wash over the chest, abdomen and the fronts of legs. Another dip and do the back (or have a friend help here since it is easier). Finish your body wash by quickly rubbing the soles of the feet. The whole procedure (which must be carried out in a warm room) needs to be very quick (only thirty to forty seconds). Then remove excess water from your body's surface, dress warmly and move about, or get into a warm bed for a few minutes. This is a superb way of refreshing yourself after a long day before going out for the evening. WATER TREADING This takes a couple of minutes. In Bad Worishofen there are beautiful pools at the clinics and hotels and even in the woods, where you can take off your shoes and socks and walk barefoot in water every morning, summer and winter, even when there is snow on the ground. If you are lucky enough to live near the sea or by a brook, both are ideal. But you can get the same results at home using a bath filled with cold water. Here's How Dressed warmly, but with your legs and feet naked from the knee down, step into the water and `walk on the spot', lifting first one foot and then another up out of the water. The reaction will be either a pleasant warm feeling flooding the feet or a sharp cold ache, followed by warmth. Begin by treading water for only thirty seconds or so, then work up to a couple of minutes as your system gets stronger and more resilient. Immediately afterwards put on dry warm socks and shoes and move about. (By the way, this is also an excellent treatment for insomniacs when done just before going to bed.) BLITZGUSS A real Blitzguss has to be done by a professional in a special shower using a powerful water-force. But you can get many of its beneficial effects in the shower, particularly if you happen to have a hand-held shower which you can direct on to different parts of your body. This is something I do every morning after exercising. Here's How Take a warm shower until your skin is glowing with the warmth. Turn off the hot water and use only cold, directing it over your face, down your arms and legs, over your trunk and abdomen and down your back. This process should take no more than thirty seconds. Get out of the shower, pat off the excess water and dress warmly. This will leave your skin glowing with warmth, thanks to the reaction against the cold water. Practiced every day or so, it will also strengthen your immune system, not only against age-degeneration but also against colds, flu and other illnesses. Blitzguss greatly increases vitality. This is a favorite of top athletes in Germany. It is also my favorite of all the prophylactic treatments with water—and I am a long way from being a top athlete. But I had to work up to it in the beginning by starting with the body wash and with water treading (which I still do when I feel tired but unable to sleep). It’s best not to use Blitzguss until you are already quite strong. DE-STRESS FOR BETTER SLEEP The next two techniques are particularly good if you feel stressed or you tend to wrestle with insomnia at the end of the day. Wet Socks A favourite of Kneipp himself, this is an easy way to apply a foot compress. It is extraordinarily relaxing. Here's How Wet a pair of cotton socks in cold water and wring them out so that they are no longer dripping. Put them on and then cover them with a pair of dry woolen socks, then get into bed. Leave the socks on for at least half an hour, although it doesn't matter if they stay on all night should you fall asleep. Once you begin to experience some of the extraordinary benefits from these simple treatments, you may find you want to explore some of the other natural therapies which are also carriers of vital information for health and ageless aging. They include air baths, saunas and Turkish baths, herbal treatments using the adaptogens and dry skin-brushing. Not only can each one of them leave you feeling vibrantly well and looking good, together with good nutrition, exercise and relaxation, they are some of the means by which your body/mind/spirit can restore balance and help keep you well, youthful and vital, long after those around you have succumbed to the ravages of time.

For generations European experts in natural medicine and top athletes have been masters at using hydrotherapy to vitalise, restore strength, regenerate and rejuvenate the body. Yet few of us anglo-saxons have been privy to their secrets. It’s time you learned about them. You’ll it once you do. Hydrotherapy is a powerful external tool for rejuvenation. The Germans are masters of it. Thanks to the electrical properties of water, using alternate hot and cold water on your body can alter the electrical charges of its 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 your capillaries increasing blood flow and helping to stimulate the elimination of wastes through your blood and lymph systems. It also relaxes and tones muscles and heightens your overall vitality. Hydrotherapy - Blitz guss Hydrotherapy in one form or another is a must both for helping to prevent cellulite and for restoring cellulite-riddled tissues to normal. It enhances circulation, eliminates stored wastes, increases energy exchange on a cellular level and even heightens immunity. The best water treatment for cellulite is the traditional German Blitzguss. The classic Blitz Guss needs to be done by a professional but you can get much of the same effecta and benefits in the shower yourself at home—especially if you have a hand held shower which you can direct on different parts of your body. Here’s what to do Take a three minute hot shower so you skin is really glowing. Then turn off the hot and immediately turn on the cold water so it flows on you face and down your shoulders and arms, your chest and belly and back then down your legs but for no more than 30 seconds. Now go back to 2 to 3 minutes of hot shower followed by 30 seconds of a cold then back to hot again and so on. You repeat this process three times, always finishing off with 30 seconds of cold water. If 30 seconds seems a daunting length of time in cold water at the beginning only do 15 seconds of cold followed by 2 to 3 minutes of hot three times finishing off with cold. You’ll be surprised at how quickly you want to adapt to the full 30 seconds I suspect. When you get out of the shower, dry yourself briskly with a thick soft towel. The main reason you always finish your Blitz Guss with cold is that this stimulates warmth in your skin and whole body. It will surprise you just how warm and enlivening this experience can be. which leaves you glowing with life. How Good You Feel Once you get used to your Blitz Guss protocol you are you’re going to be surprised at how good you feel and how vital. Never do a Blitz Guss just before bed or you more likely to feel so energetic that you can’t sleep. And, of course, if you have a pacemaker or any sort of heart issue or other condition it is essential that you check with your health practitioner and get his or her OK before you try it. Be brave and give it a go. I thik you’re going to love the experience.

Most cellulite begins with a stiffening of the septa locked into the surrounding network of connective tissue. Lymph circulation to and from this subcutaneous layer gets blocked by wastes we accumulate from a sedentary lifestyle and from eating foods which, unbeknown to most women, are anathema to their bodies. This causes the septa to become more fibrous, and to squeeze down on fat cells. It also deprives the area of oxygen and vital nutrients, preventing both fat and toxins from being cleared. Toxic build-up is not only a main cause of cellulite build-up. It is the reason that many women retain water, experience heavy leg syndrome, and find their feet and calves swelling on an airplane. One of the great gifts of the Rohsäfte-Kur which I wrote about last week is that, even when followed for only a few days, your body begins to eliminate toxic build-up that has become trapped in the connective tissues. Now, if you’re ready to banish cellulite forever, improve your health and life for the better, where do you begin?Start with this three step process—making changes in what you eat, in when you eat, and in what kind of exercise you do. It’s important to remember the following things if you want to become cellulite-free while growing healthier and leaner: Important Truths 1. Cellulite build-up is the result of hormone disregulation, toxic build-up and a sedentary lifestyle. 2. Insulin is your body’s primary regulator of fat storage and waste build up in the tissues.  When insulin levels are high—either long-term or simply after eating a meal—fat deposits accumulate and produce cellullite. When insulin levels are low, your body becomes able to release cellulite from septa-bound connective tissue, turning it into energy. 3. Grain-based and cereal-based carbohydrates are the major culprit behind cellulite as well as obesity, fatigue and chronic degenerative conditions. They negatively affect insulin secretion seriously disrupting the symphony of hormonal balance in the human body. 4. Sugars—from glucose and sucrose to high-fructose corn syrup—are monumentally harmful. To clear cellulite and remain free of it, you must eliminate sugars from your diet. It is also essential that you use no artificial sweeteners. They are dangerous contributers to body pollution and therefore to cellulite itself. Use only real stevia (see my recommendations below). 5. Because of the negative effects that grains, cereals, starchy vegetables and sugars exert on insulin, they not only lay down cellulite deposits; they lead to the development of diabetes and coronary heart disease. Grains are also major contributors to cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and other diseases of civilization, as well as early aging. 6. Cellulite and an inability to shed it are the result of an imbalance—a disequilibrium—in the hormonal regulation of fat tissue and fat metabolism. When hormonal regulation and hypothalamic balance are restored by making vital changes in how you eat, this reverses the process. Step One—Clear The Decks Start right now by getting rid of all the low-fat and high-carb foods in your kitchen. These include jams and jellies, rice cakes, popcorn, flour, grains, pasta, pretzels, low-fat salad dressings, raisins, fruit-flavored yoghurts and sugars. (You might want to hang on to a little sugar so you can offer it to visiting friends who are not yet as savvy about how dangerous it is as you are. You might also want to hold on to some brown rice, buckwheat flour or chickpea flour—things you can use to thicken a soup.) Most women find that the process of clearing their fridge and pantry is a salutary experience. It brings with it a sense that they’re starting a whole new life—as indeed they are. The most important foods you will be buying to replace them are these: A good supply of wholesome natural fats like coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil and butter—preferably from grass-fed cows. Top quality protein foods including meat, seafood, eggs and the very best micro-filtered whey you can find (see recommendations below) if you like to make smoothies. Plenty of fresh green vegetables—preferably organic— both to eat raw and to cook. The best fiber in the world comes from these vegetables. Try eating half of your vegetables raw. Some low-sugar fresh fruit such as strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries. Say No To Packaged Foods What surprises most people when they go to a supermarket in search of genuinely healthy foods is that most of the stuff they find there is not worth eating. A good general rule when choosing foods is this: Foods with a long shelf life don’t belong in your body. Processed high-carb foods often have a very long shelf life. This makes them great sales material for food manufacturers and retailers, since these packaged foods can sit on the shelves for months—sometimes even years. But 90% of them have been whipped up out of flours and sugars, junk fats and chemical additives—all of which you will want to avoid. You’ll usually find the healthiest, freshest, most natural foods around the outside edges of any supermarket. These include crunchy fresh vegetables, fresh game and meats, seafood, eggs and cheeses. Fresh, wholesome foods are perishable and therefore have to be replaced often, unlike the ready-in-a-minute, pre-made stuff that populates the inner aisles. Organic Is Your Goal Whenever possible, go organic. Not only do organic vegetables, fruits and meats taste better, the organic matter in healthy soil is nature’s factory for biological activity. Organic foods supply us with an excellent balance of minerals, trace elements and vitamins which we cannot get any other way. Organic methods of farming also help protect against distortions in mineral balance. Good mineral balance is important, since an increase in one or more minerals can alter your body’s ability to absorb as much of another mineral that it needs. Conventionally grown fruits and vegetables have been sprayed with pesticides—petrochemical-derived compounds which behave like low-dose synthetic estrogens in the body. Many fruits and veg are also treated with fungicides or wax. Each one of these chemicals the body takes in contributes to its toxic load, putting pressure on your liver, stressing the entire body and causing free radical damage. When it comes to maintaining good blood sugar and insulin balance—all of which are essential to becoming cellulite-free—you do not want these things to happen. A stressed liver has trouble managing glucose levels and controls insulin poorly. Read Labels Carefully A word of warning: Just because you buy something in a health food store or natural food emporium does not mean that it will be helpful in reversing insulin resistance, clearing cellulite, and promoting fat loss. In addition to the good fresh foods they sell, these stores are also chock-a-block with high-carb treats full of sugar. And by the way, just because a food is labeled “organic” doesn’t necessarily mean you want to eat it. Organic sugar and organic flour can upset the insulin/blood sugar apple cart just as easily as their non-organic counterparts do. Although organic treats may look great in their packages, most of them are best avoided. Read labels as carefully here as in you do in a supermarket. Make sure that foods you buy contain no hidden sugars such as honey, corn syrup, fructose or other sweeteners. Step Two: Decide When To Eat Here’s where the power of meal spacing comes in. Its power can be monumental. You can call this intermittent fasting if you like, although I prefer to look upon it more as a way of developing your own schedule for eating as well as for resting from eating. Spacing your meals is an effective way of continuing to clear away cellulite as you cleanse the whole body creating new sleek muscles, heightening vitality and eliminating food cravings permanently. The ideal strategy for taking advantage of the gifts intelligent meal spacing has to offer is simple. Eat well at a meal, then wait 4 to 6 hours before your next meal. Here’s what happens metabolically each time you eat something. During the first couple of hours after a meal, your blood sugar rises and insulin spikes. After these first two hours—from the start of hour 3 after a meal for the next two hours—both insulin and blood sugar levels drop. Finally, from hours 4 to 6 after a meal, insulin gets so low that it almost disappears, while human growth hormone (HGH) rises directing metabolism to clear the body of more waste and metabolize fats from the body’s tissues including cellulite deposits by turning them into energy. Two Meals A Day To make the very best use of meal spacing you will need to eat only two good meals a day, made up out of the “good guy foods” listed above. Eat your fill of these health-giving foods and enjoy them. Be sure to include plenty of the good fats—coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil and butter from pasture-grazed cows—in each meal. Be sure to create your meal spacing in a way that works for your lifestyle. I eat my first meal between 11am and 12:30, depending on what I am doing. My second meal is usually about 6:30 or 7 in the evening. This means that I have a long period during the night while I sleep for my body to work its magic, both for detoxing and anabolic rebuilding. Make sure your first meal of the day is full of good quality protein. Don’t just through yourself in at the deep end when you begin your meal spacing. Ease your way into it by having a good quality snack between meals if you feel you need to for the first few days until you get used to the lengthy periods between meals. It won’t be long before you sense the beneficial changes that are taking place. After the first week or two you’re likely to find you no longer have any need for snacks, and that you are beginning to look and feel so good. Step Three: Move For Joy I love this definition of real fitness: When you’re not sitting or resting, your body is physiologically able to deal with whatever challenges it is asked to handle. Forget forever that you need to exercise to lose weight and all that nonsense. You don’t. The major reason why exercise is so important for shedding cellulite and improving health is that it heightens insulin sensitivity and quite naturally causes your body to replace belly fat and liver fat with beautiful sleek muscles. What kind of exercise is best? The kind that delights you. I would never exercise because the powers-that-be tell me I ‘should’, or out of a sense of duty, or for fear of putting on weight. To do that would not only imprison my body, it would kill my spirit. It would be like taking a thoroughbred and binding it so that it can’t get out of the starting gate. Experiment and discover what physical activities you love doing, then do them for the sheer pleasure of it. You could swim or jog or dance just because it feels good and makes your body sing. Try rebounding on a mini-trampoline—something that is particularly good for improving lymphatic drainage and clearing cellulite. Swimming can be great because it feels so sensuous. But don’t make yourself swim laps in some driven way. Instead, move deliciously through the water. Play as a child would. Notice the bliss your body feels. If you have no idea what kind of movement you enjoy, start with a simple walk each day, while paying attention to how your body moves with each step you take. Once you discover just how vast your body’s potential for joy is, and begin to delight in movement, your experience of exercise can change forever. Far from being something you once did because you’re told you should (how I hate that word), exercise can become one of the most enjoyable experiences in your life. American enthusiast, the late George Sheehan, whose legacy continues to inspire people about the true nature of exercise, describes this experience well: “Exercise that is not play accentuates rather than closes the split between body and spirit. Exercise that is drudgery, labor, something done only for the final result is a waste of time.” I couldn’t agree more. 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Banishing cellulite requires a long-term approach. It took a long term to establish itself, and it will take time for your body to remove it and rebuild the structure of the skin. Detoxification helps enormously. Helping your tissues rebuild themselves in a healthier, sleeker form is the second part of any anti-cellulite approach. What you put into your body after a detox is as big a part of this process as any. Avoid at all costs artificial sweeteners, pre-packaged foods, sugar and grain-based foods. You will find after a detox that you will prefer to put lovely fresh, raw fruits and vegetables, complete with good quality proteins, into your body anyway. Banishing cellulite and rebuilding your body in firm, sleek contours takes time. And it can’t be done without good protein. In creating a new, cellulite-free body it is essential that you rebuild new skin, connective tissue and muscles from protein foods which are high in bio-available amino acids. You need a good amount of the highest quality protein. Watch out for hidden fat in your meat, and always buy organic if you can. Fish is an excellent form of protein, as are shellfish and eggs. But probably the best form of protein I know is nature’s little green miracle… Nature’s Green Miracle A near-microscopic form of blue-green fresh-water algae, spirulina is made up of translucent bubble-thin cells stacked end to end to form an incredibly beautiful deep green helix. It is unique and remarkable in so many ways that it is hard to list them all, but it is probably the single most important nutritional supplement you can use to support good body ecology. It is a superb form of protein, easier to digest than any other kind, lower in fat, and alkaline. This is particularly important when detoxifying, as most of the wastes you want to get rid of are acidic in nature. Spirulina also contains some wonderful nutrients in highly bio-available form, such as vitamin B12, iron, vitamin E and beta-carotene, plus vitamins C, B1, B5, B6, zinc, manganese and copper. Like sea plants, spirulina contains many rare and unique substances not found in other foods. A teaspoon to a tablespoon of powdered spirulina in a glass of juice or a cup of vegetable broth is just about the most energy-supporting thing that you can do while on an anti-cellulite program. You can also take it in tablet form, but where in powder form it is absorbed almost on contact with the stomach, the tablets take around 45 minutes to get their goodness into your bloodstream. What I like to do is to make up a big thermos of vegetable broth with powdered spirulina to drink throughout the day whenever I need an energy boost. Start with a teaspoon in a glass of juice or broth, and work up to a heaped tablespoon. Spirulina is unquestionably one of the planet’s finest natural complexes for supporting body ecology and the energy-enhancing health it creates at the highest levels.

Allow an hour for the whole process of taking a delicious treat of a bath from beginning to end. Make sure you have everything you need - towel, loofa or hemp glove, and another towel to use as a headrest. Add essential oils to the water as the bath is filling, using about ten to fifteen drops total of either a single essence or of a mixture for a large bath. Each essence has a different effect on the mind and body (see below).  When you get into the bath, gently scrub yourself all over with a hemp glove or a loofa. Then just relax and soak for a few minutes, letting the heat penetrate your muscles.  Keep a cool cloth nearby to smooth over your face when needed. Let the essential oils work their wonders while you carry out a relaxing and waste-eliminating self-massage.  Water is the perfect medium for self-massage. The heat (remember not to have your bath too hot and stimulating) of the water works silent wonders, and it supports your body so that you have easy access to feet, legs, arms and torso while still remaining relaxed. When your bath is finished, lie down for ten minutes with an eye mask or a piece of dark fabric across your eyes and keep warm. the massage message Self-massage is nothing more than stroking, kneading, pushing and pressing your skin and muscles. Start with your feet. Grasp one foot between thumb and fingers and press in between the tendons, gently at first, then harder and harder, moving from the toes up towards the ankle. Then, using your fingertips and knuckles, go over the soles of your feet. Wherever you find a sore spot, work harder until you feel the discomfort melt beneath your hand. Now do your heel, grasping it between thumb and fingers and working around the area of the Achilles tendon. This is also a good time to make circles with your foot to loosen the ankle joint. Repeat this with the other foot, and then go on to your legs. Lift each leg in turn and deeply stroke the flesh on the back, from the ankle up to the knee. Then go back to the ankle again and repeat the same motions on the side and front of the calf. Keep working and, as you massage a little deeper with each stroke, you will gradually find that any tautness softens. Now go over your thighs with the same movement, and afterwards knead and squeeze around the knee area wherever there are trouble spots, just as you did on the feet. Now knead each thigh and hip. Then go on to your arms. Knead and squeeze every spot you can reach on your shoulders and neck, looking for sore spots and focusing on the areas between joints and muscles. Pay particular attention to the tops of shoulders, where most of us lock away our tension. Grasp this area in your thumb and fingers and insistently ease away any hardness you find there. Finally, go over your ribs, doing each side with its opposite hand. essence alchemy As part of the benevolent bath, choose essential oils not so much for what they can do for your skin as what they can do to expand your consciousness and lift your spirit. Whatever your mental state may be, it has an enchanting antidote from the world of flowers: Negative State Essential Oil Remedy anger: ylang ylang, rose, chamomile resentment: rose sadness: hyssop, marjoram, sandalwood mental fatigue: basil, peppermint, cypress, patchouli worry: lavender feeling jaded: neroli, melissa, camphor feelings of weakness: chamomile, jasmine, melissa irritability: frankincense, marjoram, lavender, chamomile physical exhaustion: jasmine, rosemary, juniper, patchouli anxiety: sage, juniper, basil, jasmine

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

There are five main channels for detoxifying your body: the skin, the lungs, the kidneys, the bowels and the lymphatic system. None is less less recognized, nor more important in spring-cleaning the body, than your lymphatic system. Yet the state of its health and functioning is still almost completely ignored. Your lymphatics are not only a major route for absorbing vital nutrients from the digestive system into the tissues to keep skin healthy, youthful and glowing—they are important carriers of immune cells. These protect your body from damage and illness and help prevent degenerative aging. Lymphatics are also your body's metabolic-waste-disposal system. They take away unwanted proteins and large particles of toxic debris which cannot be removed by any other means. This includes toxins—the by-products of fatigue and of stress—dead cells, fatty globules, pathogenic bacteria, heavy metals, infectious viruses and other assorted rubbish cast off by your cells. WASTE DISPOSAL So essential are the waste-eliminating functions of the lymphatic system that without them you would die within 24 hours. Doctors working with natural methods of healing insist that a primary cause of fatigue, disease and cell degeneration, with its accompanying premature aging, is poor circulation of lymph to and from the cells and tissues of the body. The same tradition of natural medicine uses a number of effective techniques designed to stimulate lymphatic functions as a means of healing even quite serious illnesses— ranging from rheumatism or cardiovascular disease to chronic fatigue. These techniques include exercise (done for the joy of it, not as a chore), skin-brushing, special breathing techniques, and infra red saunas. All of these things improve the purity and quality of the lymph—the clear fluid which flows through the lymphatics (lymph vessels). They are little short of revolutionary in what they can do for your good looks and your good health. They have even been known to clear long-standing skin troubles such as acne, improve the look of puffy or aging skin, heighten vitality, banish muscle and joint pain, and aid in the regeneration of the body as a whole. Making use of these techniques is simple. But first you need to know a little about how the lymphatic system functions, and just how important a role its mysterious mechanisms play in promoting health and beauty. WHITE BLOOD MAGIC Your body is more than 75 per cent water. So important is water to the processes of life itself that, according to Nobel Laureate Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, “Life is water dancing to the tune of solids”. A French biologist rather poetically emphasized Szent-Gyorgyi's observation by saying: 'Man is an amphibian. Even the most beautiful woman's body is no more than an aquarium with 50 liters of lukewarm seawater in which trillions of cells live and fight for survival.' Five liters of this 'seawater' are to be found in your blood, five in digestive and other secretions, and almost all the rest is in your lymphatic fluid or lymph—sometimes called 'white blood'. Thanks to the lymph, a ceaseless interchange goes on between your body's trillions of cells and their surrounding interstitial fluids, so that food and oxygen are exchanged and waste products are eliminated from the cells—all through the medium of water. For cells and tissues to be nourished, for them to remain vital, and for your skin and muscles to remain smooth and healthy and firm, this interchange needs to occur without impedance, and the water itself needs to be relatively uncontaminated. BEAUTIFUL FLUID In your body, nutrients and oxygen are transported to the tissues and cells via the bloodstream. Arterial pressure forces the blood through tiny capillaries and out into the cells' interstitial spaces to enable the nutrients and oxygen to be exchanged for the wastes which the cells have produced. Here the water or interstitial fluid, now filled with toxic waste, is gathered by tiny lymphatic tubules and then sent back through the lymph vessels to be detoxified. These lymphatics are a highly organized and elaborate system of ducts and channels which flow all over your body. In fact, almost all the tissues of the body are equipped with lymph channels which drain excess fluid, and the wastes which it contains, from the interstitial spaces. This opalescent liquid carries the wastes and toxic products from these minute channels into larger lymphatic vessels, and on through the lymph nodes, which are located in the groin and under the arm and the neck. The lymph nodes filter the fluid to remove impurities and dead cells; they are also a place where antibodies, which fight infection or toxins, are made. After purification at the nodes, the fluid is returned to the blood. In this way, the lymphatic system works ceaselessly to clear toxicity and to reduce excess mucus and waste. GRAVITY IS YOUR FRIEND The microscopic network of these lymph channels resembles the blood capillaries, except that it is finer. And the lymph system in many ways is rather like the blood system except that, while the blood system is powered by the action of the heart muscles, the lymphatic system has no such prime mover. Instead, its nourishing, water-balancing and eliminative functions are almost entirely dependent upon gravity and the natural pressure of muscles which occurs when you move your body. These muscle contractions and body movements—together with biochemical factors, such as whether or not excessive quantities of protein are present in the fluid—keep the lymph flowing and make it possible for the lymphatics to carry out their important task of bodily cleansing. For good lymphatic functioning—to keep your body free of the buildup of wastes and toxicity—you need to move your muscles vigorously and often. That is why regular brisk exercise, such as taking long walks in comfortable shoes, is so important not only to firm your muscles and strengthen your heart and lungs, but also to encourage the steady and effective elimination of wastes from your cells and tissues.