health

Some people have an addiction to alcohol, others to cocaine or shopping or television. Aaron and I are addicted to animals. No joke. We adore them, are besotted by them and long to spend a lot of our life connecting and communing with them be they household pets or wild creatures. We once spent 5 days in Canada sleeping with an Arctic Wolf. At other times, in Africa, we romped with baby lions in the bush. There is no question that our addiction will never be cured. When it comes to any animals we adore them...yes even rats and sharks although we don’t allow either of these amazing species to live in our home. We have always our homes with some of the best domestic creatures—cats and dogs. CREATURES RULE Dogs have long been the great protectors of the home. Cats bring us a sense of mystery and enchantment. They never forget that they were worshipped in Ancient Egypt and that they honour your home with their sacred presence. Introduce herbs into the lives of your pets and well-chosen plants share in the cleansing, enhancing and blessing of your beloved animal friends. For many years we had two Bearded Collies called Sunshine and Moonbeam. Now we live with and two Burmese cats called Gus Winterbear and Grizabella Starfire who grace our lives with love and affection, warmth—and the odd flea or two. INTO THE BATH Our dogs were long-haired. We found we had to bathe them regularly to discourage fleas. I always used a mild, tea tree shampoo and tried to keep each dog in the water for ten minutes to drown the fleas (not easy with Moonbeam!). Finally I gave each dog a rinse with eucalyptus tea. Fleas can’t stand the smell. How To Make Eucalyptus Tea Put 4 tablespoons of dried eucalyptus leaves into a teapot and cover with 2 cups of boiling water. Leave to steep until cool and strain. Alternatively you can add 20 drops of tea tree oil or eucalyptus oil to a pint of water in a spray bottle then mist your dog being sure to protect their eyes and noses. I even make my own flea powder and dust the dogs and their favourite sleeping places with it regularly. Leslie’s Homemade Flea Powder Mix 1 cup of diatomaceous earth with 2 tablespoons of citronella oil, 4 tablespoons of eucalyptus oil and 4 tablespoons of orange oil. Store in an airtight container. Shake over each animal and rub into their fur. DOGGIE PILLOWS For all the talk about how tough dogs are supposed to be. When you get down to it every dog, big and small, is a comfort-loving animal who hates fleas. I make flea repelling herb pillows for my dogs’ beds. I stuff an old pillow case with herbs and sew it up. I then slip this pillow inside another old pillow case as they get dirty quite quickly and I like to change them often. I always include pennyroyal in my doggy mix. Its Latin name is Mentha pulegium, pulegium coming from pulex (flea) in Latin. The name for the main chemical constituent in pennyroyal is pulegone. All of which proves that chemists do sometimes have a sense of humour. When choosing herbs for your dog’s pillow remember that their noses are much more sensitive than ours. You don’t want to overwhelm them. There are times when this can be put to good use, however. Rubbing a little clove oil on the legs of furniture will discourage puppies from chewing them – but check somewhere inconspicuous that the clove oil won’t damage your furniture or you will be back to square one. What To Use In A Herb Pillow Liberally stuff an old pillow case with one of the following herbs, whole and dried, or a mix of equal parts of two or all three of them. As dogs lie on them and crush the herbs it releases more of the flea-repelling scent. Try a mixture of: pennyroyal camomile flowers dried rue CATS NAP It’s not quite so easy with cats. Their saintly heritage makes them sensitive to strong smells, or anything that might dent their superior composure. Herbs like rue and pennyroyal which repel fleas also repel cats. I have found that some cats don’t mind camomile so I put a little in my cats’ pillows and mix in some catmint or valerian. Just about every cat I have ever met goes mad for valerian. To my nose it smells like the wet socks of soldiers who have been marching through swamps for a week. But, out of love for Winter Bear and Starfire, I make a few extra herb sachets with this mixture and scatter them in my linen cupboard where they love to while the day away. A note about catmint. There is an old saying that cats take little notice of the plants that grow from seeds sown straight into the garden. But when you raise the seed indoors, or buy some plants, and them transplant them into the garden the cats will literally love it to death. I have never tested this theory scientifically. I find that my cats chew the plant no matter how I grow it. Herb Pillows for Cats As these pillows are smaller than dog pillows I suggest crumbling up the dried herbs. Use a mixture of: camomile and catmint, or camomile and valerian TROUBLED EARS Ear mites are a common problem in cats. They are irritating for them and for you. Dribbling a few drops of garlic oil (peel a whole bulb of garlic, steep it for a week in 2 pints of olive oil, strain, bottle the oil and keep it in the fridge) into the ear twice a day will help enormously. Stop if your cat is made unhappy by the smell. If, however, you have a young female being courted by the local tom cat and you don’t want kittens, try putting a few drops of essential oil of garlic on the back of the female’s neck. Her suitor is likely to be put right off his stride.

I’m stunned by the extremes to which a pharmaceutical company will go when attempting to get FDA approval for some new drug. Take a look at the latest offering from privately-held Sprout Pharmaceuticals, who claim they now have a “female Viagra.” Yes, really. It is called Addyi. This drug is potentially dangerous, with some frightening side effects. They include an increased risk of syncope—temporary loss of consciousness—as well as severe low blood sugar, insomnia, dry mouth, fatigue, dizziness, sedation, and anxiety. Manufacturers warn if you decide to use it, not to drink alcohol. I wouldn’t touch Addyi with a ten foot pole. a failed antidepressant Addyi is actually Flibanserin—a failed antidepressant. Unlike Viagra, which is designed to bring more blood flow to male genitals if a man chooses to use it temporarily, Addyi is supposed to be used every day—long-term by women. It claims to enhance a woman’s sexual impulses by targeting, not your genitals but your brain. Flibanserin is similar to other selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) like Prozac. Ironically these drugs are notorious not for increasing libido, but for blunting it. Some time ago, Big Pharma invented a whole new “illness” known as Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder, defined as “persistently or recurrently deficient (or absent) sexual fantasies and desire for sexual activity.” Addyi is supposed to treat this. a mediocre aphrodisiac with scary side-effects Originally developed by family-owned Boehringer Ingelheim in Germany Flibanserin, after lengthy trails was judged to be ineffective as an antidepressant. Boehringer had submitted this drug to the FDA for approval in 2011. It was refused. Out of 1300 women who took part in trials, 15% dropped out due to unpleasant side effects. The FDA rejected the appeal, saying that whatever the drugs drug’s minor benefits might be they could not justify its nasty side effects. So Boehringer sold their invention to Sprout Pharmaceuticals in 2011. Who tried their luck with the FDA in 2013 and also got nowhere. However, Sprout’s persistence, massive lobbying and and financial investments amassed more than 60,000 supporting signatures so finally won FDA’s approval for the drug in August of 2015. This FDA approval stands next to many other applications which have won FDA approval in the past, showing that, when companies spend enough money, they can, in effect, force the FDA to approve many useless or dangerous drugs. Adriane Fugh-Berman MD, Pharmacology Professor at Georgetown University, describes Addyi as "a mediocre aphrodisiac with scary side-effects.” She adds, “The only thing that’s different is a clever, aggressive public relations campaign that Sprout Pharmaceuticals waged successfully.” FDA - a medical Gestapo Meanwhile, the outspoken Dr Mark Sircus makes his own assessment of the situation, which is well worth listening to. Sircus says, “Most doctors and medical associations just do not get that women are different from men sexually. They do not have genitals that function independent of their hearts and minds. The feminine principle is pretty much dead in modern civilization and especially at the FDA, which runs like the SS, a medical Gestapo. The FDA again proves what type of organization it is exposing women in America to the dangers and horrors of pharmaceutical drugs. They are the most unnatural organization in the world poisoning people instead of helping.” Need I say more? If you want to learn about safe natural aphrodisiacs that not only work but are a delight to use, I’ll be covering some of my favorites on our next two videocasts. Look forward to seeing you then.

In the next few minutes, I want to share with you white hot secrets about two natural plants that you can use to alleviate menstrual, peri-menopausal and menopausal issues gently, safely and effectively. Not once in the last 20 years have they failed to do their job. Both plants have been used to help women for centuries and their therapeutic actions have been scientifically validated. Motherwort The first, and one of the most remarkable natural healing plants on the planet is Motherwort—Leonurus cardiaca—commonly known as Lion’s tail. It gets its name from its ancient reputation for reducing anxiety. Motherwort has all the feel of a loving, caring mother when you take it. It can calm your nervous system while acting as a tonic to your whole body. This lovely blessing from nature is full of mind-altering natural biochemicals which studies in China have shown to have a regulating effect on the womb and the heart, bringing calm all round. It’s effective for easing hot flushes, banishing insomnia, and restoring elasticity to the walls of the vagina. It’s also an excellent natural treatment for many heart conditions in both men and women. Let me tell you how it’s used: Motherwort is rich in alkaloids and is bitter when drunk as an infusion. It’s easiest to take as a store-bought tincture, but you can also grow the plant yourself and turn it into a homemade herbal vinegar. Take 10 to 25 drops of the tincture made from the fresh plant every 2 to 6 hours, or 1 to 2 teaspoons of the herb vinegar as you need it. How To Use There is something so calming and balancing about motherwort that it is hard to imagine if you’ve never used it. It’s a blessing during any stressful time. For best results with hot flushes, use it regularly for 12 weeks or more. That being said, just 10 drops of the tincture in a little spring water will often ease a hot flush while it is happening. Motherwort is also a great help when you awaken in the night in sweat and have trouble dropping off again. Use 10 to 20 drops of the tincture (keep it at the side of your bed with a glass of spring water) and swallow some each time you wake up. Sometimes, it even helps banish bad dreams. Want to know more? Motherwort improves circulation and strengthens tissues that have lost elasticity. You can use it to rejuvenate the tissues of bladder, womb and vagina, for instance, when you take it a couple of times a day for as little as 2 to 4 weeks. Finally, it’s great for clearing cramps when the menstrual flow is light to moderate or even completely absent. Use 5 to 10 drops of tincture or ½ to 1 teaspoon of the homemade vinegar every few minutes until the cramps have gone. Then repeat whenever you need to. There’s one important caution you need to be aware of, however. Motherwort is not an herb to use when a woman is experiencing menstrual flooding, since it can aggravate this tendency. Chaste Tree The other amazing natural plant I love is Chaste Tree. Its proper name is Vitex agnus castus or Monk’s Pepper. Chaste Tree originally gained its name from its ability to calm the lascivious desires of men. On women, however, it exerts the exact opposite effect. It can stimulate your libido while balancing your emotions and energizing your whole body. Chaste Tree is one of the most helpful plants in the world for peri-menopausal, menopausal and postmenopausal women. It does the job, whether your hormones are deficient or in excess, thanks to its actions on the pituitary that harmonizes any imbalances. Chaste Tree is better known in Europe and the Orient than in Britain and the United States. There, its berries have been used for centuries to help protect from and even cure cancers of the breast and womb, as well as to reduce breast lumps and tenderness. It can banish edema, clear skin problems, moisten vaginal tissues that have dried, and clear hot flushes. Unlike many healing plants, Chaste Tree is not rich in phyto-hormones. It relies for healing on the glycosides, micronutrients and flavonoids it contains to work its wonders. This humble plant goes deep in its effects on your body and psyche but, like most natural treatments, will take time, so be consistent with its use. Expect results after using it daily for 8 to 12 weeks. In a year to 18 months you can stop using it completely as improvements are likely to have become permanent. Here’s how Here’s how to use it. As a homemade infusion, drink one cup of tea made from its freshly ground berries a day. In capsule form, take 1 capsule 3 to 4 times a day. Or use 15 drops to 1 teaspoon of a tincture 1 to 3 times a day. German researchers discovered that Chasteberry stimulates progesterone synthesis, and this in turn balances excess estrogen which can trigger hot flushes. Chaste Tree’s anti-inflammatory capacities have been known to shrink fibroids when used regularly for 12 to 36 months. Sluggish digestion and constipation are no match for the Chasteberry, which can restore digestion easily and permanently, provided you take it for long enough. It can even clear skin troubles that develop as a result of hormonal change, and banish fluid retention. To top it all off, this amazing plant is known for its ability to clear depression and balance mood: Typical PMS problems, from migraines and depression to ordinary headaches and anxiety, yield slowly but often permanently to Chaste Tree. This usually takes about 6 months, but it is wise to continue with the plant for another 6 months afterward to make benefits permanent. Make sure you choose only the best products. There are too many poor wannabes on the shelves. Here are the ones I recommend. Use them. I think you’ll love them as much as I do. Here are the ones I recommend Eclectic Institute, Motherwort Organic, 2 fl oz Fresh, ORGANIC Motherwort (Leonurus cardiaca) flower top. ORGANIC grape alcohol content: 45%. Filtered water. Fresh Herb Strength: 1:2. Order Motherwort Organi from iherb Gaia Herbs, Vitex Berry, 60 Veggie Liquid Phyto-Caps Healthy hormone levels are necessary for a woman's physical and emotional wellbeing. Chaste Tree Berry, also known as Vitex, has long been used to support hormone production and balance. Gaia Herbs uses certified organic Chaste Tree berry to provide a full spectrum herbal extract for women's health. Order Gaia Herbs, Vitex Berry from iherb

Over the years I’ve amassed so many useful tools for dealing naturally with unnatural states of mind and body—even, god forbid, hangovers. The most obvious way to avoid a hangover is don’t drink. If you do drink then choose only the best—be it wine, whiskey, or whatever, and never overdo it. The best always has fewer unpleasant chemicals—known as congeners— to upset the system. King of all the alcohols when it comes to purity and low levels of congeners is tequila. However, if you make yourself a margarita, make it from real tequila. So much of the stuff they sell as tequila is filled with a lot of insidious junk you don’t want to put into your body. SUCCULENT LILY Agave, which is called cactus, is actually a succulent that belongs to the lily family. The finest blue agave comes from the highlands of Jalisco, Mexico. It must be harvested at the peak of its sweetness. My brother, whom I adoringly call Toto, is a connoisseur of Tequilas. He insists—I have checked out his recommendations and come to trust them implicitly—that the finest tequila is made by Patron. Anejo Patron is his favorite. Silver Patron is mine. My son Aaron has developed a fabulous recipe for Margaritas. It’s very simple: To a handful of ice in our Vita Mix he adds four jiggers of freshly squeezed lemon or lime juice, 4 jiggers of Silver Patron, 2 jiggers of Cointreau or Grand Marnier, a couple of jiggers of water and the crème de la crème, a dropper or two of the most delicious stevia in the world: English Toffee Sweet Leaf Liquid stevia from iherb,com (so much more delicious than the usual sugar or syrup, which is really rather revolting). He turns on the Vita Mix for 30 seconds while he rubs the rim of each glass with one of the lemon or lime skins, then plunges it into a saucer of Maldon salt to coat the rim. This makes Margaritas for 4 people. A perfect hangover-free treat to share with friends. Hangover Cure - WORST CASE SCENARIOS Now let’s get back to hangovers, should they happen from drinking stuff that’s not so pure or far too much of even a good thing. Drinking lots of fluids along with alcohol helps to prevent the dehydration that comes with an over-indulgent evening. There are also a couple of things you can do the morning after to help feel better. First thing, make yourself a cup of peppermint tea. Put 2 teaspoons of the dried leaves (or 4 teaspoons of fresh) into a tea pot and pour a cup of boiling water over it. Steep for 5-10 minutes and sip it gently. The peppermint will settle your stomach. Breathing in the steam from your tea will also help to ease your headache. When your stomach is settled enough to handle more, take a couple of grams of vitamin C and 2-3 grams of evening primrose oil, or star flower or borage oil. The vitamin C’s antioxidant properties help the liver clear the toxic wastes from too much alcohol. The GLA in these oils is turned into prostaglandin E1—an important regulator of mood which alcohol depletes. When it is low you can feel depressed and very tired. Hangover Cure - SAINT MARY’S THISTLE Also known as milk thistle is a wonderful liver cleanser and supporter. Take 2 capsules or 1 teaspoon of tincture in a little water every 3-4 hours until you are feeling better. If you can remember where you last saw it in your current state, reach for some dried borage as well. Open the jar, or put it in a paper bag, hold your nose over the bag and take a deep breath. No one has ever explained to me how it does it, but this clears your head wonderfully. I have heard that taking ginkgo before you go out for the evening can also help to prevent hangovers by enhancing your body’s ability to metabolize alcohol swiftly. However, I’ve never heard anyone say how much you should take, or how long before drinking alcohol you should take it. If you are taking ginkgo for other reasons, pay attention to how you feel after a glass or two of wine and see if this makes a difference.

Denham Harmon is an extraordinary researcher. Like most of the great scientists what he writes is easy to understand, even to a non-technical person. He writes about free radicals very much as a philosopher might explore life and death - yet at a molecular level. Harmon's work makes clear that free radical reactions are indeed essential to life. So much is this the case that it is likely to be redox reactions that produced life on earth and which largely engineered evolution through their effect on DNA. Harmon is also quite clear that for high level health and the prevention of premature aging most of us need to use antioxidants in some form from the age of 27 onwards. And does he take antioxidants himself? You bet he does. Yet not in excess as some anti-aging enthusiasts urge us to do. He takes them in moderate doses - 400 iu vitamin E and 2 grams vitamin C, 30mg coenzyme Q-10, plus 25,000 iu beta carotene every other day. He would take more, he says, but he can't afford to be fatigued. forget magic bullets What does this mean when just about every book and article on aging these days urges us to take more and more? It means that in all our enthusiasm to get on the free radical band wagon many of us have fallen into the same trap of mechanistic thinking that limits much of orthodox medicine. In an attempt to slow aging we tend to treat antioxidants as "magic bullets" losing all awareness of the importance of interrelationships between them and synergy in the body. More and more antioxidants does not necessarily mean better and better. Taking too many antioxidant supplements can eventually leave you chronically tired with weak muscles. Harmon and his colleagues have discovered through animal experiments that very large quantities of antioxidants such as BHT - a synthetic commonly used as a food preservative - will actually suppresses the proper functioning of the mitochondria (the little energy factories in the cells), as well as the production of ATP (the body's own energy currency). There is no question that we need antioxidants, yet there is no simple answer as to exactly how much of vitamin E, selenium, vitamin C, and the carotenoids, we optimally take. go for balance 20 years ago I became aware of the importance of taking antioxidants to protect the body as a result of my having interviewed some of the top anti-aging experts in the world. Later, when I was writing Ageless Aging, I put into practice what they taught me. To put it simply: that the more antioxidants you take the healthier and the better protected from premature aging you would be. Yet as the years passed, certain things began to bother me. I wanted to know, for instance, how much of the various antioxidants are enough? And can you take too many? I couldn't understand how free radicals could be so bad since they were also necessary for life. Finally I was curious about my own body's reaction to taking high doses of antioxidants - 1600 iu vitamin E and 150,000 iu of mixed carotinoids, and 10 grams of vitamin C a day. Doing all this, I figured, should have had me feeling full of energy. Yet as the years passed I found myself more and more fatigued despite being perfectly well. None of it made sense. I figured if you want the straight story you had better get it from the horse's mouth. So I went back to the work done by Denham Harmon, MD, PhD, the man who conceived the free radical theory of aging in the first place, way back in 1954 and one of the most celebrated experts on aging in the world. I had been taking too many antioxidant supplements. Don't get me wrong. These free radical scavengers did work. I looked around me to find that my skin was not falling apart as was that of many friends of the same age, yet I still had this problem with energy. After learning what I should have known all along I cut down my intake of antioxidant nutrients only to find that within a couple of weeks my energy increased dramatically. Recently The Alliance for Aging Research, a nonprofit organization based in Washington DC recommended that people who are generally healthy need somewhere between 100-400 iu of vitamin E, 17,500-50,000 iu beta-carotene, and 200-1000 mg of vitamin C a day. Exactly how much is right for you depends on a lot of things: Do you smoke? Do you live at high altitudes? Do you drink more than a glass of alcohol a day? Do you eat convenience foods rich in junk fats? Do you eat sugar? Doing any of these things increases your need for antioxidants. Eating a high raw diet of fresh unprocessed foods dramatically decreases it.

Within each one of us lies an essence, a core of self, with one and only one intention—that it may be fully expressed while we live on this earth. With each passing year I become more and more aware that illness, lack of energy, a sense of confusion or lack of meaning in someone’s life stems from a basic frustration of the expression of their unique essential being. So often these experiences are calls from the soul. They ask us to become more aware of who we are at the deepest level of our being. They try to awaken us to our unique soul nature. All real healing is a transformation. Energy, power and authentic freedom grow as we engage in the process of connecting with our essence and begin to discover our values and our soul’s purposes and to express them in our lives. To do this we can call on all sorts of tools and techniques, from detoxifying body and mind to herbs and natural treatments to exercises for expanding awareness. Take energy. Being able to live out your energy potential depends on how well you nourish yourself—physically, emotionally and spiritually—day by day. It helps to develop a lifestyle that incorporates pleasurable exercise, good food, restorative sleep and other helpful practices—from hydrotherapy to taking super nutrients—that support vitality. But more than anything else, energy depends on living from your core, not by other people’s rules. It depends on living what you love most in some way, what feeds you most at the deepest levels. Live your soul’s passion and you call on virtually endless energy. For health not only depends on how you eat and what exercise you get and how you deal with stress. All of these things are important. Each of us needs to develop a way of living unique to our needs. But real health doesn’t stop here. For ultimately health is nothing less than the process of unfolding which each one of us goes through to become more fully who we really are. Once you begin to align your life with your own truth, the universe supports you in ways you may never have dreamed possible. Working with people through their own health process, helping them discover whatever is most appropriate to their needs on both a physical and spiritual level and teaching them how to work with these things has always been the most exciting thing in my life. Each of us carries a divine spark of soul which we are here to live out to the full, bringing our own individual brand of spirit into material form as we walk the earth. The beauty of watching this happen those I work with is like walking in a garden and witnessing unique flowers and plants, trees and rocks that I have never seen before. I am forever dazzled by their beauty.

In the so-called civilized world, the population continues to grow sicker by the year, while food manufacturers, government bodies and the mainstream medical profession keep telling us that we need to eat more low-fat-high-carb foods as well as lots of unsaturated oils and stay away from saturated fats and oils if we want to stay healthy. So people go on buying convenience foods chock full of carbs and sugars, the golden oils and products containing them all the while believing that they are doing the right thing if want to protect themselves from heart disease, cancer, diabetes and all the other degenerative diseases that plague the Western World. Well, my friends, all such advice is not only untrue. It is positively dangerous. To stay healthy, protect yourself from obesity, degenerative conditions and early aging, you must dump the starchy carbs and hidden sugars, all those highly processed unsaturated oils and the packaged convenience foods which contains them. It’s time to get savvy about the right kind of fats and introduce them to your meals. They can bring energy, beautiful skin, and real protection from early aging and chronic illnesses. By the way, they can also make your meals taste great. STOP BLAMING YOURSELF In case you think it’s your fault that you happen to be suffering with a chronic condition or you are overweight, think again. Like most conscientious human beings, you have only been trying to follow the guidelines that doctors, governments and the media tells us will keep us well, slim and protected from heart disease. Here’s the truth: The guidelines we have been given ever since World War II have not only been all wrong, they have been truly dangerous to our health. The powers-that-be have instilled in us irrational fear of fat, largely as a result of the poor research and conclusions drawn back in the 1960s—when Ancel Keys and others were trying to figure out how to prevent heart disease. One group of so-called experts jumped to the conclusion that dietary fat was the culprit. Before long, their rash assumptions were turned into a quasi-religious dogma that has stuck. The low-fat, high-carb-and-sugar eating propounded by them, instead of protecting us from heart disease, obesity and other degenerative conditions, has made us highly susceptible to all of them. LIES CONTINUE Here’s another common fat fallacy: “The Western diet has increased in saturated fat over the last century.” Just the opposite is true. At the turn of the last century, most of the population still got their fatty acids from saturated animal-based sources, such as lard, butter, and tallow. They were better off for it. Then, from 1910 to 1970 in the United States, the proportion of animal fats eaten declined from 83% of all fats eaten to 62%, and butter consumption went from 18 to 4 pounds per person per year—all because of the invention and promotion of margarines. Meanwhile, what did increase exponentially was the quantity of fats we began to take in, in the form of chemically refined unsaturated vegetable oils, margarines, trans-fatty acids and junk fats. The results of all this? Our health has continued to decline. By the way, it’s worthwhile taking a look at how well we’ve fared in combating heart disease and obesity since we began shunning animal fats and eating the masses of the carbs they recommended. The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey shows that, since 1980, obesity alone has grown to epic proportions, right from the very year the government’s guidelines were published. THE SKINNY ON FATS From the 1960s onwards, governments worldwide have been telling us to eat less fat and more carbohydrate which they figured would make up for the fat we no longer ate. Low-fat foods began to appear on our supermarket shelves for keen and hungry consumers; they quickly became a major financial success story for food manufacturers. We ate baked potatoes instead of fries with our meals, and thought that we were taking the healthy option. We ate low-fat foods thinking that these were good for us, without realizing that food manufacturers, in preparing their low-fat menus, had replaced the fat with sugar. Meanwhile, we were warned against all saturated fats, told that they are dangerous, and urged to eat more polyunsaturated oils such as sunflower oil, safflower oil, peanut oil—all those golden oils that still fill our supermarket shelves. These oils and margarines were held up as beneficial for protecting us from heart disease. Both of these directives turned out to be big fat lies. BEWARE PROCESSED OILS Polyunsaturated fats and oils—which we have long been urged to eat—turn rancid quickly when heated. All the golden oils most people still believe are good for them turn into health-destroying sources of free-radicals that can do the body a great deal of harm. They attack our cells and damage our DNA. Recent, reliable scientific studies show a link between consumption of these processed polyunsaturates and cancer as well as heart disease. DUMP THE GOLDEN OILS Safflower, Corn, Sunflower, Soybean and Cottonseed Oils all tend to be badly processed, using all sorts of unpleasant chemicals. Avoid them. Canola oil, which fills many of our ready-made food products, has been associated with fibrotic heart lesions. It is high in sulfur and turns rancid easily. Margarines are full of trans-fatty acids. Shun them. There’s something else we now know about these oils that will probably surprise you. Analysis of the fat in clogged arteries reveals that only about 26% is saturated fat. The rest is made up of polyunsaturates. So here’s the bottom line: The heart’s preferred source of food when under stress is good old “unhealthy” saturated fat. OMEGA 3 BENEFITS Omega-6 and omega 3 fatty acids, when in the right balance, help your body in all sorts of ways. They increase your cells’ sensitivity to insulin, helping your body regulate its blood sugar. They increase metabolic rate and fat metabolism, so more of your stored fat can be burnt as energy. Natural foods rich in the omega-6 oils include avocados, nuts, flax seeds, and spirulina. Paleontologists have discovered that our ancestors consumed them in the ratio of 1:1 or 2:1 (omega-6 to omega 3 fatty acids). However today, in our Western diets, the balance between these two fatty acids has become all screwed up. Modern diets contain a ratio of about 22:1—far too high for optimal health. This excess can cause all sorts of problems, from weight gain to cancer. What can we do about it? For a start, you never have to worry about getting enough omega-6s. They’re everywhere. What you do need to do is increase your intake of omega 3 fatty acids]. A great way of doing this is to start taking a good-quality fish oil supplement. EAT IN ABUNDANCE Have no fear of the saturated fats found in meat and butter from grass-fed animals, and tropical oils like coconut oil. Coconut oil is great for cooking. Extra-virgin olive oil is great for salad dressings. Eaten on their own, or together with protein, but without an abundance of starchy carbohydrates, good quality natural fats alleviate hunger and act as an excellent source of energy throughout the day. Eating too little good fat cab lead to the experience of sitting down to a meal and, no matter how much you eat, still craving food at the end of it. Good natural fats let you know when your body is satisfied. Introducing the right kind of fats to your meals also helps balance hormones while significantly enhancing how you look and feel. MEET THE GOOD OILS Cold-pressed extra-virgin olive oil, cold-pressed walnut oil, cold-pressed fax-seed oil, avocado oil, sesame oil and coconut oil are all excellent for salad dressings. Eat them and thrive. Olive oil is monounsaturated rather than polyunsaturated—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 the Extra Virgin Olive Oil you buy is cloudy (not filtered) and a golden-yellow color. Sesame oil is reasonably stable and can also be used on salads as can cold-pressed walnut oil and avocado oil. Coconut oil is a highly saturated oil/fat and is the safest, healthiest choice for cooking, because it remains stable even at high temperatures. It also boasts antiviral and antibacterial properties. DON’T FORGET BUTTER Millions of shoppers buy margarine in the belief that it’s “better for you than butter.” This is another baseless opinion, forced upon us by bad science and multinational food manufacturers. The process used to turn out margarine, known as hydrogenation, does horrendous things to the already-rancid vegetable oils it is made from. Margarines also contain all sorts of additives you wouldn’t want in your body. It is not surprising that they have now become associated with the development of both cancer and heart disease. Butter on the other hand contains many essential nutrients. Look for butter made from the milk of grass-fed animals if you can find it. Experiments comparing the health of margarine eaters with butter eaters continually find in butter’s favor. In one study, the risk of developing heart disease for butter users was half that of eaters of margarine. Infants and children especially benefit from butter, which fosters normal growth and development. Use this delicious stuff liberally—and without guilt—in the knowledge that your body will thank you for it. THE LAST WORD OF ADVICE Fats and starchy carbs like pasta, bread, and pizza do not mix. Eating them together bring about what is known as the Randle Effect: When lots of fat and carbohydrates are eaten together, as they often are in the standard Western diet, the fats get burnt as fuel, while the carbohydrates are converted to glucose. The glucose in turn is converted into more body fat, throwing any overweight, insulin-resistant person into a terrible vicious circle, where hunger and carbohydrate cravings lead to overeating, followed by an inevitable increase in blood sugar and insulin levels as well as body fat deposits and yet more cravings. The irony is that, for a long time, we have been blaming dietary fat for this, when this phenomenon is actually caused by a high starchy carbohydrate intake, especially in the presence of the junk fats found in margarines, golden oils, and convenience foods. Natural fats eaten on their own or together with protein, but without an abundance of carbohydrates, do not cause the laying down of fat in the body. Nor do they cause insulin resistance. This is perhaps the most difficult thing to grasp for those of us who have been highly schooled in the high-carbs-low-fat approach to weight loss and age protection. Yet, when it comes to staying well it is essential to understand.

Summer is on its way—at least for those of you who live in the Northern Hemisphere. The rest of us have some weeks to wait for it. Doesn’t matter. If you start now, even in winter, by the time summer arrives you will be far ahead of the game in every way. Vitality is the secret to successful summer living when so much of your body is revealed—skin, hair, hands and feet. It is now that holistic health and beauty come into their own. It’s time to leave self-neglect behind, charge your batteries, get savvy about what to eat and drink, what supplements to take for radiant wellbeing and energy, and what to use both internally and externally for great hair, skin and nails. It’s easier than you think once you know the ropes. BUILD YOUR ENERGY Few of us cash in on optimum energy levels. Our lives are too full of personal ‘energy thieves’, from excess toxicity to negative attitudes. Both drain away natural vitality, and undermine potentials for looking and feeling great. Decide now to create for yourself a vitality-centered way of living that makes room for delicious exercise, good food, restorative sleep and effective self-care. Step One—Claim Your Right to Energy Energy levels depend a lot on our self-perceptions—how you think about yourself. There are important physical changes you can make through exercise, diet, and relaxation, but attitude is just as crucial. Now is the time to just stop doing everything yourself and start delegating at work and at home. Don’t say yes to everything. Guard your time jealously, and limit the hours you spend on inessential things such as people you don’t really care about just because you feel it is expected of you. Decide today that you matter. Put yourself first for once. Make time at least twice a week for doing whatever brings you bliss. It can be walking in the park, watching a good movie, or even taking a deeply relaxing bath filled with Pure Magnesium Flakes—highly-concentrated crystals of magnesium chloride sourced from the ancient Zechstein seabed in the Netherlands—nothing added and nothing removed. These magnesium flakes are extremely pure because the seabed lies 1,600 to 2,000 meters beneath the surface of the earth where it has been protected. Take one of these baths three times a week, before bed. Not only are they relaxing, they are deeply healing and cleansing for both body and mind. Here’s how: Pour 1-2 cups (400 grams) of Life Flo Health Pure Magnesium Flakes in the bathtub and then soak for 20 to 30 minutes. The temperature of the magnesium bath should be warm (101°F to 105°F) rather than hot. If the water in the bath starts to feel cold, add some hot to it. If it starts to feel too warm, add some cold. It’s just that, when you add the flakes to warm bath water, your body experiences the healing results faster. Then crawl into a warm bed and sleep blissfully. Step Two—Clear Out The Junk Eating packaged foods, as 95% of people in the Western world do, drains your body of essential vitamins and minerals. It also causes wastes to build up in the tissues. Any manufactured food squanders your vitality because your body has to wrestle with the health destroyers they carry instead, so it is unable to maintain your cells in peak condition. Drink lots of clean water—2 litres a day is ideal—to flush out your system. Cut out sugary snacks, which are terrible energy robbers. It is time to clear the junk from your shelves and drawers too. Step Three—Bite Into Beauty Take advantage of the warmer weather and the spirit of the great outdoors to try out some delicious and nutritious new recipes, designed to detoxify your body in an on-going way while you’re developing a new high level of wholesome nutrition. For instance, start the day with a super-quick fruit and protein breakfast. It will help keep you cellulite free and brimming with energy. You can use one of the new powdered, micro-filtered whey protein products athletes so love for the most easily assimilated low-fat protein in the world, or simply an organic or free-range egg: Summer Smoothie: Place a dozen raspberries, strawberries or blueberries in a blender or food processor with ½ apple. Add 1 cup of unsweetened coconut water, 1 organic/free range raw egg or 2 tablespoons of Vita Whey Vanilla whey protein, and several drops of English Toffee Stevia. Blend well, sprinkle with a little cinnamon and serve. A great summer resolution for health and good looks is to make one meal a day a delightful meal-in-one raw salad plus protein. It supplies everything you need in one bowl and takes only 10 minutes to prepare for 4 people. Forget the old limp lettuce leaf and slice of tomato and cucumber and go for splendor. When you shop for vegetables, bring them home, wash them and put them in bins in the fridge so they are ready in a moment. Summer Festival Salad: Chop and/or grate a selection of raw vegetables (include 1 grated apple for sweetness): carrots, celery, rocket, radicchio, raw beetroot, spinach, red or yellow pepper, or any others you happen to have. Place them in a salad bowl. Add 2-3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil and either the juice of 1 lemon or 2 tablespoons of cider vinegar. Sprinkle with sea salt and ground black pepper, add a dash of Worcestershire sauce, toss and serve with slices of cooked chicken breast, tuna, sliced organic tofu or grated hard boiled eggs. If you use tofu, make sure it is organic... 95% of all soy products are GMO and very dangerous to your health. Check out some of the great recipes in my New 10 Day Clean-Up Plan e-book for soups, salad dressings, stir fries and main courses. Step Four—Charge Your Batteries There are two kinds of fatigue. One comes from doing a lot of hard physical work, like chopping wood or chasing after several young kids. That kind needs physical rest—sleep, relaxation by lying in a warm scented bath or learning a simple meditation technique. The other fatigue (which most of us suffer from these days) comes from stress. It depletes our energy reserves and undermines vitality. To counter this sort of tiredness, you need to exercise. Your body thrives on movement—even the simplest kind. Go for pleasant unhurried walks. Climb stairs instead of taking the lift whenever you can. Take your children with you if you need to; it is good for them too. Swim at your local sports center or even consider taking up weight training, which I love. There is no age barrier to beginning. If you are over forty, fifty, or even sixty—great news: New research shows it is actually easier for you to build lean body mass (good firm, sleek muscles instead of flab) than your younger brothers and sisters. Another way to charge your batteries and develop great-looking skin, nails and hair at the same time is to make some of the best food-state nutritional supplements part of your summer vitality program. Vitamin C is important for good firm skin. Make sure you get plenty throughout the day—even more when you are under stress. So are the bioflavonoids which are essential for your body to build new collagen on which youthful-looking skin depends. Green supplements can be the way to go for minerals and nature-made vitamins that beautify hair and nails. They are based on algae like spirulina—rich in Vitamins E, B1, B6, B5, C and B12—and on young cereal grasses rich in fatty acids which bolster skin moisturization. Why not try one of the new vitality-enhancing herbals too—they come in capsule form—such as guarana from Brazil, Korean Ginseng, or the root of the wild Suma plant. Step Five—Grin And Bear It Laughter is a great energy maker. Three minutes of laughter a day is every bit as good for you as a ten minute aerobic workout. It increases oxygen consumption, reduces muscle tension and even lowers blood pressure. It also makes you look and feel years younger than your chronological age. Go to a funny film whenever you can. Get together with friend and throw a ‘laughter afternoon’ where everybody brings jokes and crunchy summer vegetables. This way you get two bites into vitality energy at one go. Laughter works because it is one of the faces of joy. Self-care is another. Psychologists confirm that men and women who look after their appearance experience far less depression that the general population. Take pride in yourself. Hair longs to glow in the summer sun, but it needs protection from UV light which can do as much damage to your crowning glory as it can to your skin. Use a shampoo that is gentle enough for daily washing plus a conditioner containing a UV protector to nourish your hair while keeping out harmful rays that destroy elasticity and split ends. If you color or perm your hair, leave at least a month before going into the sun and make sure you pile on the protein-based deep conditioners and treatment products in the meantime. Forget complicated styles for the holidays, keep blow drying to a minimum and use a low setting. The mineral element silicon or silica is also a great strengthener for hair taken as a nutritional supplement. Make use of it daily. The benefits will last all the way through next winter. It will make nails and skin stronger and more radiant too. Step Six—Dare To Be You The best way of all to get lasting vitality and glowing good looks into your life this summer (forever after, for that matter) is to discover what gives you your greatest satisfaction and make space for it in your life. Each of us is totally unique. True beauty—like lasting energy—depends on our living out that uniqueness. This is not only the secret of charisma—that mysterious quality that seems to draw every good thing to you no matter what your age. When we love what we do, we bring love to others too—fulfilling our own goals and offering the very best of our unique gifts to our families, our communities and the world at large. Begin today to do some little thing that brings you joy. Plant seeds of joy and they will bear rich fruit for you and those around you. Have a great summer! Below is a list of some of my own Get Ready for Summer Favorites. As you probably know by now, I order almost everything from iHerb.com wherever I am in the world. Take a look at those which interest you. You may well be able to find them online in whatever country you live. If not, do use iHerb.com. Their prices are the best anywhere and if you get things shipped with DHL they arrive within 3 to 5 days. Even the shipping is the cheapest I’ve found anywhere in the world. Here are a few products you might find useful: The New 10 Day Clean Up Plan I created the original 10 Day Clean-Up Plan as a step-by-step guide for regenerating energy, transforming the way you look and feel and enhancing wellbeing all round—in a mere 10 days. The book was, and is, a complete home-spa program, spring cleaning your body, firming skin and muscles, trimming a few excess pounds, clearing your mind and brightening your spirits. Order My Book - The New 10 Day Clean Up Plan Life Flo Health, Pure Magnesium Flakes, Magnesium Chloride Brine Pure Magnesium Flakes are highly-concentrated crystals of magnesium chloride sourced from the ancient Zechstein seabed in the Netherlands—nothing added and nothing removed. The magnesium flakes are extremely pure because the seabed lies 1,600 to 2,000 meters beneath the surface of the earth where it has been protected. Refresh your body and mind by using Pure Magnesium Flakes in a full bath or foot soak. For relaxing your body and mind, we recommend you put 1-2 cups (8-16 ounces) or more in the bathtub or footbath, and then soak for a minimum of 20 minutes. Note: The temperature of the magnesium bath should be warm (101 F to 105 F) rather than hot. When you add the flakes to warm (i.e., not hot) bath water, your skin will feel the results more effectively. 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The milk for this product is derived from cows that are grass-fed and graze year-round on natural pastures. Our whey does not contain genetically engineered materials. It is hormone-treatment-free, pesticide-free, chemical-free and undergoes minimal processing. Grass-Fed Year-Round Hormone-Treatment-Free The Finest Biologically-Active Non-Denatured Whey Protein Dietary Supplement Comes in Natural. Vanilla and Cocoa Order Well Wisdom, Vital Whey, Natural Vanilla, 21 oz (600 g) 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 The Best Liquid Stevia from iherb 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. Carlson Labs, MedOmega Fish Oil 2800 From Norway: The finest fish oil from deep, cold ocean-water fish. Concentrated to supply 2800 mg. (2.8 grams) of total Omega 3's per teaspoonful. Bottled in Norway to ensure maximum freshness. Refreshing natural lemon-lime taste. Balanced Concentrate DHA 1200 mg & EPA 1200 mg Professional Strength Promotes Heart, Brain & Joint Health Order MedOmega Fish Oil 2800 from iherb Great Fiber Nature's Way, EfaGold, Hemp Protein & Fiber, Cold Milled Powder Nature's Way EFA Gold is the highest quality hemp seed powder, and one of nature's richest sources of protein, fiber & essential fatty acids. 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A detox can work miracles after a spate of too much work and too little sleep, after the over-indulgences of Christmas, in spring when all life is renewing itself, before you hit the beach in summer, or whenever you need a lift. Detoxification is just a long word for clearing out your system. A process which stimulates your body’s natural ability to get rid of the toxic waste products that build up in your cells, tissues and organs over months and years of living on the Western fare of convenience foods and polluted air. You can spend hundreds of hours and thousands of pounds on lotions, potions and treatments to improve the look of your skin, to firm your flesh and to renew your body. But none of these things is likely to bring you the same benefits as simple, natural methods for periodic internal spring-cleaning. You might think of spring cleaning in terms of carting out boxes of junk from the attic. In a way, an internal spring clean does the same thing. The human body is magnificently designed to cleanse itself automatically without ever giving thought to the process. The trouble is that the kind of food and drink most people in the West put into their bodies, the tendency we have to lead stressful but sedentary lives, and the increasing number of pollutants to which we are exposed through the air we breathe and the water we drink, have created a situation in which often far more toxins are taken into the body, and far more metabolic wastes produced in it, than we can effectively get rid of. In other words, your body is continually having to cope with more poisons than it can eliminate in the normal day-to-day course of events. Instead they are stored in the tissues where they lower vitality, encourage the development of degenerative diseases and early aging and rob the system of nutrients necessary to keep your whole body looking its best. garbage gathering Dr Dwight McKee, Medical Director of the International Health Institute in America, put it rather bluntly when he said: "anybody who has lived the mainstream American lifestyle for ten or more years has 70 trillion garbage cans for cells." McKee believes, as do a growing number of physicians, that the cells of anyone living in the West are literally chock full of metabolic and environmental wastes gathered over a lifetime. To live at a high level of health and vitality, not to mention being able to make the most of your potential for good looks and prolonged youth, we need to get rid of them. Beautiful skin, a firm and healthy body, and a clear mind are all dependent on your system being able to efficiently and effectively get rid of bodily wastes and toxins before they have a chance to do any damage. This principle forms the foundation of the long European tradition of natural medicine. Remove some of the burden of what is creating excess toxicity in your system by laying aside coffee, alcohol, and over-processed foods complete with chemical additives for a time, and you’re halfway there. Add to that a very simple and temporary regime designed to trigger rapid detoxification and quite naturally you trigger your body’s own mechanisms for clearing out the junk in the attic. good looks from within So what do you get out of it? Giving your body the chance to clear out the rubbish it has been carrying around, sometimes for years, will encourage weight loss if there is weight to be shed, will start you on the road to getting rid of cellulite, will improve the look and texture of your skin, minimize lines on your face, improve overall muscle tone, and increase your sense of vitality and well-being. It cleanses the digestive system, restores a good acid/alkaline balance to the body and generally stimulates the proper functioning of organs and tissues. In short, it puts you through the kind of transformation which leaves you sparkling with vitality. Regimes like this keep world-famous health-spas making money hand over foot as they take in worn, tired, stressed people and transform them using healthy foods and natural treatments into more energetic, younger looking, better functioning versions of themselves. Yet you, too, can get that health-spa lift by doing a simple detox in a weekend at home for – believe it or not – the price of a few pounds of apples. Following such a regime two or three times a year can be enormously helpful in transforming the way you look and feel, reducing excess weight, increasing your energy, and generally getting you back on track. It is particularly useful when you have been under a lot of stress, when you have overindulged, or to get you looking and feeling your best before exposing your body on holiday. Detoxification can bring you a new sense of vitality and regenerate all your systems for maximum good looks and energy. The theory is simple. Stop putting into your body as much as possible those foods which encourage the production of toxic wastes which clog the system. Take two days – a weekend - to relax, spoil yourself, and get your natural elimination processes going with an apple fast. Follow with a few days of taking in lots of delicious living foods to really put you on top form. It’s a cheap, effective program which fits perfectly into a normal working week.  Too good to be true?  Check out Apple Magic and find out for yourself. To Find Out more About The Apple Detox Click Here