healthy weight

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.

Millions of people believe that eating masses of carbs is vital for health, for energy and to keep their bodies running properly as well as aiding in their weight loss. This will surprise you: IT JUST AIN’T TRUE! The rising rates of obesity and diabetes worldwide in the past half century attest to this fact. The powers-that-be including most so-called scientists, the lion’s share of the medical profession, and the mainstream media are still churning out the same old advice: “Eat carbs for energy and cut out the fat from your diet.” Ignore it. THE REAL STORY It’s time to wake up to the truth about weight gain and degenerative illness in relation to carbohydrate foods such as grains, cereals, and all that packaged convenience stuff we have been devouring all these years: A lot of carbs deplete your energy when you eat them often. They also make us fat and are major culprits behind the development of virtually all degenerative illnesses—from heart disease to cancer, arthritis and the rest. If you want a lean, strong body, lots of energy, weight loss, and great protection against early aging, forget the carbs. You don’t need them. Instead, eat lots of green vegetables as well as—wait for it... THE RIGHT KIND OF FAT. Read on for a real eye-opener… DITCH THE CARBS When we look back to our evolutionary past, we see that carbs from sugar and grain, which we now eat so much of, did not even exist before the agricultural revolution. Our paleolithic ancestors ate mostly raw vegetable, nuts, and fruits, and thrived on them. Fast forward to today. Most of the carbohydrates we consume come from grains, cereals, and sugars. This is the complete opposite of what we have been genetically programmed to survive on. It’s no wonder that, as a species, we are fatter and sicker than ever. INNER TURMOIL When you eat high-sugar or high-carb foods (which, by the way, turn into sugar the moment you eat them) several chemical reactions get set off inside your body. These reactions interfere with good metabolic function, making it easier for fat stores to be laid down—and harder for them to be shifted. One type of sugar in particular, fructose, found in things like corn syrup (a main ingredient of fizzy drinks) and fruit juices, is especially bad news. It flicks the “fat-switch” in your system, making you feel hungry even when you’ve eaten. It wreaks havoc on your blood pressure and blood sugar levels. The results? Frequent consumption of fructose leads to increased body fat, obesity, and insulin resistance—often resulting in type 2 diabetes and/or heart disease. This, clearly, is something that you do not want to feed your body. So how can we rectify this modern-day dependency on foods that are both making us fat, and worse, killing us? YOUR BEST FUEL If you’re like most people, you’ve heard that weight gain—and the associated health impacts such as low energy levels—has a simple cause. “It’s just a matter of eating too many calories, too much fat and exercising too little!” The truth? It’s not how many calories you eat, but where you get them from, that counts. Here’s the fact: eating the right kind of fats won’t make you fat. Nor will it impact negatively on your energy levels—in fact, quite the opposite is true. Good fats and proteins, plus green vegetables and some fruit, are the fuels that your body is designed to thrive on. Aim for 90% of your food intake to come from these foods. As for your carb intake, you will need to eat more vegetables than you did before. By the way, green vegetables are also carbohydrates, as well as a great source of the best fiber you can get anywhere. But these carbohydrates are great for you...the more, the merrier. It is the grain, cereal, and sugar carbs you want to keep to absolute minimum. Meanwhile experiment with the so-called “safe starches”, such as brown rice and potatoes occasionally, to see how much your body can happily handle. Start eating in this way and watch your energy soar. GREAT FATS FOR HEALTH AND ENERGY Olives and olive oil Raw nuts Coconuts and coconut oil for cooking Organic nut oils Avocados Organic or free-range egg yolks and butter. Not only are these good fats delicious additions to your diet. They will satisfy your appetite much more effectively than sugars and grains can ever do. This increased ratio of good fats being introduced into your body also helps “reset” your genes to their natural, evolutionary setting, gradually turning body into the fat-burning machine it was meant to be. Want more information? Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It An essential book. It is infinitely important that you understand the truth, in the midst of so much distortion in the media and amongst so called medical and scientific "experts". Do read it. It can change your life. In this exciting new book, Gary Taubes, addresses the urgent question of what’s making us fat—and how we can change. He reveals the bad nutritional science of the last century and the good science that has been ignored, answering the most persistent questions along the way: Why are some people thin and others fat? What roles do exercise and genetics play in our weight? What foods should we eat, and what foods should we avoid? Order Why We Get Fat

Eating conventional grains and cereals distorts hormonal regulation and interferes with your body’s ability to maintain its normal functions. These foods also turn into sugars. Then they wreak havoc with insulin and blood sugar levels, produce peaks and troughs of energy, cause cravings, create chronic fatigue, weight gain and a myriad of other problems, including brain fog and depression. Independent studies confirm all this and more. Is there an alternative, so your health and vitality can soar? There sure is. But few people know about it. Grains Cause Degenerative Conditions Most people—including those who believe they are eating a “healthy diet”—are amazed to learn that the common grains and cereals we eat, which form the base of convenience foods, play a major role in the development of diabetes, coronary heart disease and a myriad of other degenerative conditions. And I’m not just talking about wheat and other grains that contain gluten. I mean ALL common grains! For more than half a century, food manufacturers, intent on making profit, have been producing a great variety of palatable “foods” by fragmenting and reducing raw material foodstuffs—grains and fats and sugars—to simple “nuts and bolts” ingredients. Then they whip up these nuts and bolts into the manipulated convenience foods that fill our supermarket shelves—from ready-to-eat meals to candy bars, cakes, breads, and cereals—in short, the stuff that makes up some 75% of what the average person eats. Eating these foods, and the kind of carbohydrate foods that they contain, encourages rapid aging. It also encourages your body to fabricate wrinkles, sags, a puffy face and a lackluster complexion. Then you wonder why you appear to be aging so quickly. The chronic high blood sugar and insulin resistance that develops from eating so many grains and cereals makes you muddle-minded, depressed and lacking in the energy you need to overcome all of this. Eliminate Convenience Foods From Your Life These are only a few reasons to seriously minimize or completely eliminate grains, cereals, and convenience foods from your life. It’s time to explore the false grains. These seeds and grasses are mistakenly labeled grains, but they are completely different. I call them the faux grains. High in protein and fiber but low-glycemic compared to conventional grains, they are full of vitamins and minerals including magnesium, iron and calcium. They are gluten-free, easy to digest and assimilate and alkaline-forming in your body. The false grains are great for making muffins, pancakes, cereals, loaves, pilafs and all sorts of other dishes. You can even sprout many with ease to supply even more vitamins, minerals and important plant factors to your body. Try these in your cooking and baking. You can find them in any good organic food store: Amaranth, Buckwheat, Millet, Quinoa, and Wild Rice. You will be surprised, too, by how much better you will feel using them instead of the conventional stuff most people still eat. Many people even shed excess weight and, in the process, develop a spontaneous desire to increase the quantity of fiber-rich fresh raw vegetables in their diet. They report renewed vitality and wellbeing. The faux grains can help you control your weight, often without having to restrict the quantity of food you eat. To anybody who has conscientiously fought—and too often lost—the battle of the bulge, this can seem like a miracle. In truth, it’s no miracle. It simply comes as a result of the metabolic rebalance which takes place by turning away from convenience foods, sugars and grains, and replacing them with nourishing and delicious seeds and grasses. You see, eliminating wheat, maize, sugars, starches and sweets from your diet, and drastically reducing or cutting out grains and cereals, transforms the biochemistry of your body, restores energy and wipes out cravings for alcohol, drugs and sweets. It helps your body grow leaner and stronger, then supports it to stay that way. Although as yet little known, these delicious grasses and seeds are important for everyone, even young children. They're naturally high in fiber and filling to eat. And, when eaten regularly, they help reduce the risk of heart disease and diabetes—even certain cancers. The gifts they bring are too good to miss. Clear your cupboards of the old stuff and get into the faux grains. You will love them.

It is not only people sensitive to wheat and other glutinous grains who urgently need to get savvy about the damage cereals, grains and packaged convenience foods do to body, health and life. It is each and every one of us. For the past 70 years—since World War II—doctors, governments and the media have been brainwashing us to believe that we have eat plenty of carbs for energy. They have been wrong. Yet we are paying for it—in overweight bodies, food cravings, fuzzy thinking and degenerative disease. MIND BLOWING TRUTHS Except eaten in small quantities, cereals, and grain products—which make up virtually all of those convenience foods that we eat every day—are not good for you. Cutting-edge research shows that more than 75 per cent of the Western World react badly when they eat them often. This discovery is beginning to stir the biggest food revolution in 100 years. Also, sugars, from glucose and sucrose to high-fructose corn syrup, can be monumentally harmful. A diet high in cereals, grains and sugars (the diet of 90 per cent of the Western World) is the fastest way to speed the aging process and to get fat if, you have inherited a genetic tendency to gain weight. These foods, and the foods containing them, turn quickly into glucose, lower energy levels, create cravings and addictive eating, and foster all sorts of long-term health issues. Even if you are one of the lucky few who don’t gain weight easily, grains and sugars can make you susceptible to degenerative diseases such as diabetes, cancer, arthritis and coronary heart disease. Now, this is revolutionary stuff—as yet known to only a few. GLUCOSE—HIDDEN DESTROYER Glucose is meant to be burned in your cells to produce energy. It is derived from the foods you eat and makes its way into the bloodstream where it is supposed to be taken up by your cells. But glucose can only enter your cells and be used as energy in the presence of the hormone insulin, which is released by the pancreas. The hormone insulin evolved as the body’s prime mechanism for storing excess carbohydrate calories, in the form of fat, in order to protect you from famine. When you eat foods that produce high levels of blood sugar instantaneously—like a muffin, bread, pasta, breakfast cereal, ice cream—your blood sugar soars. In response to this, the pancreas shunts more insulin into the blood stream. But when large doses of insulin are circulating, this sends a message to your body to ‘store fat’. When this occurs frequently, your cells become resistant to this important hormone. This means that glucose can’t find its way into your cells to be used for energy. The result? You can find yourself habitually hungry, and constantly tired. What happens? You reach for more grain-based carbs and sugar, and the cycle starts all over again. CLEAR THE CUPBOARDS All sugars, cereals, grains and packaged convenience foods are addictive. The fewer you eat of these foods, the more energy you will have, and the more easily you will keep off excess weight. The fewer grain-based, cereal-based, sugar-based carbohydrates we consume, the leaner and healthier we can remain forever. Although the human body runs on glucose as its principal fuel, it was never designed to deal with a diet high in convenience foods. Most of the calories we eat in the Western World come from high-density carbohydrates which shunt masses of glucose into the bloodstream. Even the so-called ‘good’ carbohydrates, such as whole grain breads and brown rice, can cause insulin resistance if eaten too often. Remember: the more carbohydrate-dense foods you eat—grains, cereals flours and sugars—the more insulin your body secretes. VEGETABLES RULE By contrast, low-carbohydrate vegetables like broccoli, spinach and Chinese leaves have 4 to 10 times less carbohydrate than grain-based foods and sugars. On learning all of the above, the question most often asked is this: “Is a diet that is mostly or completely lacking in cereal-based, grain-based, sugar-based carbohydrates a healthy way of eating?” Little wonder that most of us don’t know this. For more than 50 years, we have been told that we need lots of carbs for health and energy. We do not. Yet the most dramatic alteration to the human diet in the past two million years was the transition from a carbohydrate-poor to a carbohydrate-rich diet that took place during the agricultural revolution. Eating a diet that is low in grain-based, sugar-based, cereal-based carbohydrates but rich in low-carbohydrate-dense fruits and vegetables, along with good quality protein and good fats—coconut oil, butter and extra-virgin olive oil are the best—ensures that you are never going to have a shortage of fuel for your nervous system or the brain. You will also not have to wrestle with insulin resistance, food cravings, blood-sugar-related health problems or weight gain. There is mounting evidence that such a way of eating supplies the perfect fuel for our brains and our bodies, no matter what our age. FOREVER VITAL One of the greatest improvements you can make to health and wellbeing long-term is to minimize grains, cereals and convenience foods, as well as all forms of sugar, from your diet. Many people who do so find they want to increase the number of fiber-rich fresh raw foods in their diet. And most find when they continue to eat this way they can keep their vitality up and their weight down without having to restrict the quantity of food they eat. To anybody who has conscientiously fought—and frequently lost—the battle of the bulge, this can seem almost a miracle. No miracle. It is just a result of the rebalance which takes place when you cut out convenience foods, grains and sugars. Want to learn more? Buyken, A.E., et al., Carbohydrate nutrition and inflammatory disease mortality in older adults. Am J Clin Nutr, 2010. 92(3): p.634-43. Eades, M.R. and M.D. Eades, Protein Power: The High-Protein/Low-Carbohydrate Way to Lose Weight, Feel Fit, and Boost your Health—in Just Weeks! 1999: Bantam Gardner, C.D. et al., Insulin Resistance – An Effect Moderator of Weight Loss Success on High vs. Low Carbohydrate Diets. Obesity, 2008. 16: p. S82. Gardner, C.D., et al., Comparison of the Atkins, Zone, Ornish and LEARN diets for change in weight and related risk factors among overweight premenopausal women: The A to Z Weight Loss Study: a randomized trial. JAMA, 2007. 297(9): p. 969-77. Phinney, S.D., et al., Obesity and weight loss alter serum polyunsaturated lipids in humans. Am J Clin Nutr, 1991. 53(4): p. 831-8. Reaven, G.M., Banting lecture 1988. Role of insulin resistance in human disease. Diabetes, 1988. 37(12): p. 1595-607.

Your skin will not age by accident, or just because time goes by. Skin loses its tone and texture whenever the energy order—the psychological and biological integrity of the living matrix, that whole interconnectedness that is your body—is undermined. All sorts of stuff can cause this to happen. But nothing is more sinister and insidious than chronic high levels of blood sugar and insulin, which threaten most people over the age of 25 or 30. Stop them in your body, and you will not only slow skin aging. You can actually reverse its signs. THE GREAT DESTROYER Sugar actually destroys your skin. And I’m not just talking about the white stuff that sits in bowls. Most of the foods that people eat these days—from pasta and bread to packaged cereals and bagels—flood the bloodstream with glucose, within a very few minutes of entering the body. This carries serious consequences for the skin. CHECK OUT YOUR ANCESTORS The reasons for all of this are genetic, and very simple. Despite this fact, for the last 70 years, they have eluded most so-called scientists, nutritionists and medical doctors. Here’s the truth: Grain-based and sugary foods are recent interventions. For over a million years, humans never ate them. Because genetic adaptation is a slow process—it can take one hundred thousand years, believe it or not, for a significant alteration in a gene to take place—our bodies lack the ability to deal with these foods in large quantities. Yet grains and sugar-rich foods—many riddled with junk fats and chemicals to boot—make up the largest portion of most people’s diets these days. When our bodies are forced to handle them (and most governments, doctors and food-manufacturers are still trying to sell us the idea that low-fat, high-carb diets are good for our health), our skin—in fact our whole body—rebels. CUT THE CARBS What form this insurrection takes depends on just how vulnerable we are genetically. It can show up as adult-onset or type 2 diabetes; obesity; energy swings; raised HDL cholesterol; or chronic fatigue. Eating lots of these kinds of carbs and sugars can also cause—and few people or even doctors are as yet aware of this—all sorts of common degenerative diseases, from cancer to arthritis and coronary heart disease. When it comes to skin, the sugar monster gets busy fabricating wrinkles, sags, puffy faces, lackluster complexions. This creates a situation where, having learned all this, you wonder whether you have the energy to do anything about it. THE WRINKLE MONSTER Sugar—the wrinkle monster—has two faces. To escape his insidious attacks, you need to address both. First, there’s the all-encompassing glucose/insulin battle you need to win. After years of living the way most of us do—on convenience foods, fabricated from grains, cereals, and an infinite number of sugars and syrups—this undermines good genetic health. The other face of the sugar monster focuses on the damage that excess glucose does to the body’s proteins. It attacks skin cells and collagen fibers, producing what is known as advanced glycosylation end products. These nasties, conveniently known as AGEs, are like terrorists that wreak havoc within the living matrix, causing collagen fibers to lose their ability to maintain order. AGEs do this by making collagen fibers to cross link. This results in the formation of wrinkles, sags and bags on your face and elsewhere. WIN THE AGING WAR It’s not just one or two anti-aging battles you need to win to make a significant difference to your skin, regardless of your age. Cutting out the high-carb stuff from your diet needs to reduce your blood sugar and insulin levels. By doing so this counters the formation of AGEs—as well as detoxifying your skin and your body as a whole. Radical though it may sound doing this will set you on the right track both to skin rejuvenation and to whole body health and vitality. Of course, knowing this stuff is not enough. You have to take action. Every skin improvement and de-aging process is inexorably woven together with all of the other within your entire living matrix. If you want powerful anti aging skin care, you need to address the whole shebang. By altering the way you eat, live, and look after your body internally and externally, your skin not only looks younger and more beautiful. It will bring your whole being access to levels of energy, emotional balance and well-being that turn the dream of living a full and creative life into reality. This is how to create a revolution in the look and health of skin. And here’s the great news: This can also bring you beauty at the deepest level, transforming your whole experience of yourself in the process.

Terrific new scientific research has been published regarding Simeons’ protocol. I’m excited about sharing it with you. It was more than half a century ago that the brilliant British doctor ATW Simeons published revolutionary information in the British medical publication The Lancet. [video poster="http://d3oy45cyct8ffi.cloudfront.net/health/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Curaromana-STUNNINGNEWSCIENTIFICRESEARCHONCURAROMANA983.jpg" src="https://asset.artemis.cloud/images/articles/original/Stunning-new-research.mp4"] Since then, despite hundreds of thousands of people who have followed Cura Romana and continue to sing its praises, aggressive attacks from commercial interests still portray Simeons’ work as fraudulent. In fact, so determined have the powers-that-be been to discredit Simeons’ work that they continue to create massive confusion about the protocol, to publish distortions about how it was used, and spread misinformation and disinformation about what it is and how it works. (If you are interested in learning more about all the distortions, do visit www.curaromana.com and check out an article called “The Drama” which you will find in the “BACKGROUND” section.) Nonetheless, here’s the great news: Some recent, well-designed and responsibly carried out research has been published in The International Journal of Medical Sciences. It confirms that Simeons’ protocol is every bit as fast, safe and effective for weightloss as Simeons reported. Even more exciting, researchers carrying out the preliminary study discovered that the program carries significant positive side effects. By now everybody knows that being overweight is associated with an increased risk of developing many serious conditions, from diabetes to cardiovascular disease and the medical parameters associated with them—raised lipid profiles, high blood glucose, elevated triglycerides, poor HDL and LDL ratios, and other functional distortions in the body. In Simeons’ 1971 revision of his revolutionary book, Pounds and Inches, he listed many health-enhancing side effects of Cura Romana. Here are just a few: lowered blood pressure reversal of gout lowered cholesterol levels restoration of good hormonal balance reversal of diabetes The researchers who carried out this new preliminary study measured blood chemistry pre and post the diet and confirm many of Simeons’ own findings. Their positive results even go beyond the benefits Simeons wrote about. They examined such things as the way in which improvements in body composition on the protocol affects the number of stem/progenitor cells in circulation, for instance. They report in the Abstract: During this dieting program, the following parameters were assessed weekly for all participants: fat free mass, body fat, BMI, extracellular/intracellular water, total body water and basal metabolic rate. For part of participants, blood chemistry parameters and circulating CD34-positive cells were determined before and after dieting. The data indicated that the treatments not only reduced body fat mass and total mass but also improved the lipid profile. The changes in body composition correlated with the level of lipoproteins responsible for the increased cardiovascular risk factors. I celebrate researchers having carried out this study. It is highly unlikely that any pharmaceutical company will ever follow suit, since to discover the real power of Cura Romana would seriously undermine the billions in revenue they collect each year in so-called weightloss products. What I find most exciting of all about this study is that, while pharmaceutical companies keep on manufacturing powerful drugs that carry serious side effects, for many following Simeons’ protocol, cardiovascular health improves naturally from inside out as a consequence of following his Cura Romana protocol to the letter. By the way if, like me, you love reading research papers, you can download the full scientific report in PDF format here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3156990/pdf/ijmsv08p0445.pdf

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

Miranda who was on my Cura Romana Inner Circle program lost 53 pounds while she was on the program. She describes in this interview her past failures and inability to lose weight on other programs as well as her fear that being 61 years old there was just no hope to be able to lose the extra weight. Well she did lose the weight with ease and tells her experience of the Inner Circle program and the inner transformation that occurred within her. Hope you enjoy this short interview with Miranda... Leslie Kenton’s Cura Romana Any man or woman wanting to restore the body's natural weight and form while enhancing wellbeing and increasing vitality, protecting themselves against premature aging, and deepening the connection with the core of their being to support transformation on every level in their life. Learn More About Cura Romana

There is so much nonsense taught about obesity not only through the media but even through published findings of trained scientists and doctors who should know better. If ever you decide to take time out and to plough through the voluminous research and declarations about obesity, its cause and its cure — as I have done virtually ad nausea — you will discover that certain conclusions about the cause of weight gain and the difficulties of making weight loss permanent demand to be drawn. Some of them will surprise you I think, because we have been taught to believe so many false ideas by the media, food manufacturers and Big Pharma. Obesity is not a disorder caused by lack of exercise. Obesity is not caused by overeating or lack of will power. It is a state of excess fat accumulation as a result of some, as yet officially unidentified, disequilibrium in the hormonal regulation of fat metabolism. [video poster="http://d3oy45cyct8ffi.cloudfront.net/health/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/What-Causes-Obesity.jpg" src="https://asset.artemis.cloud/images/articles/original/what-causes-obesity.mp4"] This is the major issue which must be addressed to conquer the epidemic of chronic overweight. Taking in excess calories is not why we gain weight, nor does expending a lot of energy in exercise prevent it. Because of the effect they exert on insulin and blood sugar, refined carbohydrates, sugars and starches are undeniably the dietary culprits in the development of diabetes, coronary heart disease and obesity. They are also inevitable contributors to other diseases of civilization, including cancer and Alzheimer's disease. With the exception of chemically distorted oils and fats full of trans-fatty acids, traditional oils and fats such as olive oil, coconut oil and butter do not cause obesity. Cereals, grains, and sugar-based carbohydrates do. They distort hormonal regulation and homeostasis, fostering obesity as a consequence of the way they disturb insulin balance. They engender insulin resistance syndrome, metabolic syndrome or Syndrome X. Because carbohydrate foods such as these stimulate insulin secretion, they also increase hunger and diminish the energy available to the body to fuel good metabolic processes and for use during day-to-day life. I believe it's important that you become aware of these things so do not fall prey to swallowing all the misleading information that's out there.