Adding to Your Level of Health is the Key

Here is a continuation of the light and darkness metaphor: a bucket of water. The bucket represents you. The water represents your level of health. What happens is that we all come into life with unique buckets. Written on the inside of your bucket is a list of all the symptoms and diseases that you are predisposed to.

When you were born you had a certain level of water in your bucket. Any symptoms or diseases that are written on the inside of your bucket above your water level, are the symptoms and disease you express.

Almost every one has symptoms that are above the water level of health: like fatigue, bad eyesight, low energy, allergies, headaches, and other minor symptoms. Many of these symptoms that you express are symptoms that you ignore because you think they are just part of life.

What you and most other people have done up until now is to take a symptom that is written above the water-line in the bucket and move it down below the water-line. And magic, no more symptom. The symptom was treated and now it is gone. What happened to the water level in the bucket when you treated the symptom and moved it lower in the bucket? That's right, nothing. Nothing happened to your level of health.

After a while the symptoms get all crowded and nudge around to make more room, and end up pushing some other symptom or disease above the water level on top because all the symptoms below need more space. This is why people who treat their symptoms are constantly having new symptoms they need to treat. Whether they treat their symptoms naturally, or with drugs and surgery, they are constantly treating their symptoms, and more keep coming.

What happens in life is that we also put holes in our bucket. As the water leaks out, more and more symptoms and diseases come up above the water level. We express more and more symptoms.

Some common examples of "holes in the bucket" are drinking alcohol, eating sugar, taking drugs (both prescription and over-the-counter), taking street drugs, experiencing stress, putting poisonous chemicals like pesticides, herbicides, and other things into our body from the food we eat, smoking, mis-perceptions from faulty belief systems, etc.

Many people in the natural health care field got smart, and figured out that if you get someone to quit putting holes in their bucket, the water level in the bucket will go up. Because the body is always striving to be healthy.

But most people are either treating the symptoms or plugging the holes.

Up until this point, most people have not even considered anything outside of this paradigm of treating symptoms. They believed that treating symptoms was what you did to help people heal. Whether you treated symptoms naturally, or with drugs and surgery, all there really was to do was to treat symptoms. I mean, what else is there?

How about putting a hose in the bucket and turning it on? Turn the hose on full force. This will increase the water level in the bucket dramatically.

Adding water to the bucket is what no one has even considered as an option, let alone figured out how to do it. Well, I have done both, and that is what I will share with you, how to add to your health in a later lesson

Again, symptoms and disease are what is written on the inside of your bucket. When your health gets low, you begin to express symptoms and disease. If you add health to your bucket, your body will heal, and you will express fewer symptoms and disease.

You can treat the symptoms and you can plug the holes in your bucket. And you can put a hose in your bucket, and turn it on, thus increasing the level of your health.

When you treat or fix some symptom or disease in your body, although the symptoms or disease may be gone, you have done nothing to improve your health. Health is the thing to be added to. Health is the physical existence. And when you add to the bucket of health, the body naturally heals symptoms and disease.

Learn how the "cause" of symptoms and disease is completely and totally irrelevant. How you do not need to know the "cause" in order to heal and be healthy. This and this article are Part of a Free e-Course on Dieting and Eating Healthy. Go to http://www.bazuji.com/ecourse to sign up for the free e-course. Do you want to be Sexy, Slim, Slender and Healthy for Life. Dr. Jamie wants to help give you this with his "non-diet." He is also giving you dozens of valuable free gifts to "ethically bribe" you into helping him make his new book, "The Ultimate Non-Diet" a #1 best seller. For details go to: http://www.TheUltimateNonDiet.com/free

The 9 Most Common Mistakes to Avoid When Reading a Food Label

Nutrients

Fat, Sugar, Sodium and Carbohydrate

The sections on a food label shows the name of a nutrient and the amount of that nutrient provided by one serving of food. You may need to know this information, especially if you have high blood pressure, diabetes or are eating a diet that restricts certain nutrients such as sodium or carbohydrates.

Food labels also include information about how much sugar and protein is in the food. If you are following a low-sugar diet or you're monitoring your protein intake, it's easy to spot how much of those nutrients are contained in one serving.

Vitamins, Minerals and Other Information

The light purple part of the label lists nutrients, vitamins and minerals in the food and their percent daily values. Try to average 100% DV every day for vitamins A and C, calcium, iron and fiber. Do the opposite with fat, saturated fat, sodium and cholesterol. Try to eat less than 100% DV of these.

Common Mistakes to Avoid When Reading a Food Label

Until you become accustomed to reading food labels, it's easy to become confused. Avoid these common mistakes when reading labels:

-A label may say that the food is reduced fat or reduced sodium. That means that the amount of fat or sodium has been reduced by 25% from the original product. It doesn't mean, however, that the food is low in fat or sodium. For example, if a can of soup originally had 1,000 milligrams of sodium, the reduced sodium product would still be a high-sodium food.

-Don't confuse the % DV for fat with the percentage of calories from fat. If the % DV is 15% that doesn't mean that 15% of the calories comes from fat. Rather, it means that you're using up 15% of all the fat you need for a day with one serving (based on a meal plan of 2,000 calories per day).

-Don't make the mistake of assuming that the amount of sugar on a label means that the sugar has been added. For example, milk naturally has sugar, which is called lactose. But that doesn't mean you should stop drinking milk because milk is full of other important nutrients including calcium.

Reading Label Lingo

In addition to requiring that packaged foods contain a Nutrition Facts label, the FDA also regulates the use of phrases and terms used on the product packaging. Here's a list of common phrases you may see on your food packaging and what they actually mean.

No fat or fat free - Contains less than 1/2 gram of fat per serving Lower or reduced fat: Contains at least 25 percent less per serving than the reference food. (An example might be reduced fat cream cheese, which would have at least 25 percent less fat than original cream cheese.)

Low fat - Contains less than 3 grams of fat per serving.

Lite - Contains 1/3 the calories or 1/2 the fat per serving of the original version or a similar product.

No calories or calorie free - Contains less than 5 calories per serving.

Low calories - Contains 1/3 the calories of the original version or a similar product.

Sugar free - Contains less than 1/2 gram of sugar per serving.

Reduced sugar - at least 25% less sugar per serving than the reference food.

No preservatives - Contains no preservatives (chemical or natural).

No preservatives added - Contains no added chemicals to preserve the product. Some of these products may contain natural preservatives.

Low sodium - Contains less than 140 mgs of sodium per serving.

No salt or salt free - Contains less than 5 mgs of sodium per serving.

High fiber - 5 g or more per serving (Foods making high-fiber claims must meet the definition for low fat, or the level of total fat must appear next to the high-fiber claim).

Good source of fiber - 2.5 g to 4.9 g. per serving.

More or added fiber - Contains at least 2.5 g more per serving than the reference food.

With a little practice, you will be able to put your new found knowledge about food labeling to work. Reassess your diet and decide what needs to be changed. Start by eliminating the foods that don't measure-up to your nutritional wants and needs, and replacing them with more nutritional substitutes.

And while you're at it, visit the FDA website and learn about the new labeling requirements, including those for "trans" fat. Like saturated fats, trans fats can raise levels of low-density lipoproteins (LDL) and increase your risk of heart disease. The "Nutrition Facts" panel on food packaging must provide this information beginning January 1, 2006, but most manufacturers will start providing it sooner.

The information contained in this article is for educational purposes only and is not intended to medically diagnose, treat or cure any disease. Consult a health care practitioner before beginning any health care program.

Emily Clark is editor at Lifestyle Health News and Medical Health News where you can find the most up-to-date advice and information on many medical, health and lifestyle topics.

WLS Patients Feeling Gassy & Bloated? Sugar Alcohol May Be To Blame

Sugar intake is a real concern for people who've had gastric bypass, in fact most patients fear sugar. The foremost fear isn't weight gain, it's dumping. Foods containing sugar pass too quickly through the small pouch, they are rapidly absorbed and cause insulin levels to drop resulting in dumping.

Very unpleasant. Instead of taking chances with sugar many of us reach for "sugar free" sweets or diabetic candy to satisfy our sweet tooth. Many of these products contain sugar alcohol, a natural sweetener derived from fruits and berries. Unlike artificial sweeteners that contain no calories, sugar alcohol has about half the calories of sugar. Diabetics are able to have food with sugar alcohol because it's converted more slowly to glucose and require very little insulin to be metabolized.

While sugar alcohols are low in calories and slow to convert to glucose, the down side is they can cause gas, bloating and diarrhea. I learned this the hard way. One day that devil we call temptation seduced me into buying a bag of sugar-free jelly beans. Jelly beans are dangerous because they are little bites of soft food which means a gastric bypass patient can eat too much volume. I ate the entire bag in about an hour (true confessions of the closet snacker). I soon became uncomfortable with a small tummy ache. The tummy ache turned to bloating, cramping and gas. Extreme cases of all three symptoms. Painful "take me to the hospital I think I'm gonna explode" symptoms. It took a couple of days for my body to return to normal, a couple of stressful and uncomfortable days.

The jelly beans I ate contained Mannitol, a common sugar alcohol extracted from seaweed. I know they contained Mannitol because I read the package mid-way through the crisis. The package contained this warning, "Warning: excessive consumption can cause a laxative effect" Fine time to be reading labels I told myself! Mannitol is found naturally in pineapples, olives, asparagus, sweet potatoes and carrots. It's about 60% as sweet as sugar, so more product is needed to replicate the sweetness of sugar. "Mannitol lingers in the intestines for a long time and therefore causes bloating and diarrhea." Yup! That's exactly what happens all right.

What other names are sugar alcohols called?

Sorbitol is found naturally in fruits and vegetables. It is manufactured from corn syrup. Sorbitol has only 50 percent of the relative sweetness of sugar which means twice as much must be used to deliver a similar amount of sweetness to a product. It has less of a tendency to cause diarrhea compared to mannitol. It is often an ingredient in sugar-free gums and candies.

Xylitol is also called "wood sugar" and occurs naturally in straw, corncobs, fruit, vegetables, cereals, mushrooms and some cereals. Xylitol has the same relative sweetness as sugar. It is found in chewing gums.

Lactitol has about 30-40 percent of sugar's sweetening power, but its taste and solubility profile resembles sugar so it is often found in sugar-free ice cream, chocolate, hard and soft candies, baked goods, sugar-reduced preserves and chewing gums.

Isomalt is 45 - 65 percent as sweet as sugar and does not tend to lose its sweetness or break down during the heating process. Isomalt absorbs little water, so it is often used in hard candies, toffee, cough drops and lollipops.

Maltitol is 75 percent as sweet as sugar. It is used in sugar-free hard candies, chewing gum, chocolate-flavored desserts, baked goods and ice cream because it gives a creamy texture to foods.

Hydrogenated starch hydrolysates (HSH) are produced by the partial hydrolysis of corn. HSH are nutritive sweeteners that provide 40 - 90 percent of the sweetness of sugar. HSH do not crystallize and are used extensively in confections, baked goods and mouthwashes.

Should Gastric Bypass Patients indulge their sweet tooth with sugar alcohol?

The American Diabetes Association claims that sugar alcohols are acceptable in a moderate amount but should not be eaten in excess. In addition, weight gain has been seen when these products are overeaten. Personally, I'm not dipping my sticky fingers into sugar-free candy again. For gastric bypass patients generally the key, as in all eating, must be moderation, not a full bag of jelly beans. And of course, we can always rely on the old advice of conventional dieters, "Hungry for something sweet? Reach for a piece of fruit."

Kaye Bailey is a weight loss surgery success story having maintained her health and goal weight for 5+ years. An award winning journalist, she is the author and webmaster of http://www.livingafterwls.com and http://www.livingafterwls.blogspot.com

LivingAfterWLS is a no-nonsense resource for people Living After Weight Loss Surgery. Our community is growing in numbers even as we are shrinking in pounds. Together we support one another in this lifestyle, that it turns out, is NOT the easy way out.

Fresh & insightful content is added daily, check in often. To subscribe to the LivingAfterWLS monthly newsletter "You Have Arrived" click on http://www.livingafterwls.com and enter your details in the subscription box.

Beans - The Perfect Food?

Beans. Legumes. Pulses. Whatever you call this plant group, they are all edible seeds in a pod. The majority of them are packed with complete plant protein and contain almost no fat. They are also a good source of healthy complex carbs.

Beans helped me turn the corner with my illness, the worst part of which was actually when I was on the mend - though it certainly didn't feel like I was mending at the time.

I was following Robert Young's program. Since I had an urgent need, I skipped the Transition period and went straight to Step 2 - the Cleanse - which should only last a week and should be supervised. In my wisdom (ahem), I decided this wasn't really necessary and got on with it on my own, but when the end of the week came I was having such a strong 'healing crisis' that I was unable to move on to the next part of the program. I was eating a quarter of a tomato a day and stuggling to keep that down. The smell of cucumber turned my stomach. I was eating nothing when I should have been eating dark green veg, sprouts, seeds, grains, nuts and EFAs. But it all made me feel sick - I was desperately weak. I pulled out all my health related books looking for an answer and then I read the following paragraph from Gillian McKeith's You Are What You Eat:

"If you don't eat enough good carbohydrates, you will feel ill. All my patients who stopped eating carbohydrates became weak, constipated, gaunt, irritable and depressed. It's like playing Russian Roulette with your body. I agree that it's a good idea to cut out the bad refined carbohydrates such as cakes, cookies, biscuits and sweets. But the message here needs to be very clear: complex carbohydrates, such as beans, are essential for good health! Eat them regularly."

Other than constipation, I had all the other symptoms. I had lost over a stone in 2 weeks. I knew I had to eat. I could only stand for a couple of minutes at a time, but that was long enough to put a pan of brown rice on the hob, with some cream of coconut, some herbs and a can of kidney beans. Within 30 mins of eating a portion of Jamaican 'Rice n Peas', the nausea had gone, the headache was lifting and I felt nourished and in an altogether better mood. That batch lasted me a couple of days and gave me the strength I needed to start fixing myself more balanced meals.

I continue to eat beans on a regular basis and I promise you that if the rest of your diet is healthy, bottom burps are not an issue!!

Beans can lower cholesterol, prevent heart disease and are great for weight loss. I am eating more now than ever before and yet the excess weight is still coming off - but in a much more gradual and therefore safe and healthy way. Aduki beans are reportedly the best of weight loss. The Japanese use them to treat kidney and bladder infections. They contain very high levels of fibre, vitamin B Complex, iron, manganese and zinc. Their diuretic properties relieve the body of excess fluids and rid it of undesirable toxins and mucus. They burn fat and help balance metabolism.

And so to Haricot beans. There's a lot of talk around at the moment about the Glycemic Index or GI of foods. The GI is a measurement of the quality of carbohydrate in a particular food. It represents how quickly 50g of a given carb will raise blood glucose levels as it's digested. The slower the better basically and the carbs in Haricot Beans have a GI of 38, rated low. So besides being great for metabolism and regulation of your blood sugar levels, they also support kidney-adrenal function, provide an excellent source of protein and fibre and contain those vital B vitamins - great for your nervous system and more help with weight management.

Haricot beans are the beans you find in a can of Heinz Baked Beans. You'll also find a load of sugar, salt and modified cornflour. But there is no reason why you should stop eating Beans on Toast and once you've tried my recipe, there'll be no going back, I'm sure. You'll find the recipe on my blog at http://claireraikes.blogs.com/claires_blog/2005/07/healthy_beans_o.html

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Claire Raikes is a Wellbeing Coach, Speaker and Writer who 'cured' herself of a chronic, disabling and potentially life-threatening bowel condition without the use of steroids, surgery or any other traditional medical intervention. She now shares her passion for natural and vibrant health through coaching, speaking and writing about the importance and power of a truly healthy diet.

She publishes a free weekly eZine, In Essence and is compiling an eBook of Healthy Fast Food with 25% of the proceeds going to The Cancer Project, a charity set up by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) and nutritionists to educate the public on the benefits of a healthy diet for cancer prevention and survival. If you have a recipe you would like to submit, visit http://www.LiveInEssence.com for further details. To book Claire to speak at your event, email her at Claire@LiveInEssence.com.

The History of the Acai Berry

The acai (ah-sigh-ee) berry has been around for thousands of years and not until the 1990's was it introduced to the western world. The acai berry was found to possess tremendous health properties. The acai berry was first used by the tribes of the Amazon jungle as a cure for various ailments. It is estimated that the indigenous tribes people routinely use up to 2,000 of the 3,000 known rainforest fruits for medicinal purposes.

The Amazon borders eight different countries and has the world's largest river basin. Not only does the Amazon supply one fifth of the worlds freshwater, it has the highest diversity of birds and freshwater fish. The Amazon is the largest rainforest in the world where one third of all animal and plant species live. The acai berry is just one of these fruits that has been discovered in this vast region. The Shuar tribes are one of these Amazonian tribes that have for centuries, through tradition, kept the use of plants (acai berry) for medicinal purposes.

Shuar medicine men or women are called uwishin (oo-wee- sheen') a healer that works with medicinal plants, somebody who knows all the secrets of the rainforests. Uwishin, have a great deal of knowledge of medicinal plants and their cures, they learn from others, and through experiments from the plants themselves. One plant removes snakes venom from the body. It is the work of the uwishin to research and find solutions to illness.

The acai berry was discovered to have natural antioxidant properties, as well as being a natural cholesterol controller. When eaten it helps reduce the bad cholesterol in our blood and increases the good cholesterol. The tribes of the Amazon knew of these properties and found out that it helped build the immune system, fight infection, protect the heart, and control prostate enlargement (nature's viagra). It was a great energy food for the tribes-people. The acai berry, which is a palm fruit, was traditionally pulped to make wine that was rich in minerals. The acai berry was also discovered to fight schistosomosis, which is transmitted by snails. Schistosomosis affecting more than 10 million Brazilians. The aca¨ª berry is also used to produce an antibiotic that helps to fight against 'Staphylococcus aureus,' a common infection contracted mainly in hospitals. A berry so useful but only known to the traditional tribes men and woman of the Amazon, a lost secret.

The aca¨ª berry comes from a palm that has a long thin trunk up to 25m high with a group of branches at the top from which hangs ribbon-like leaves. Aca¨ª berries hang from these branches in clusters that look like groups of bluebottles. Traditionally the acai berries would be picked by hand and the tribe's men would shimmy up the tree and cut the branches from the top of the palm tree rich in acai berries. Now that the acai berry has been discovered as a highly sort after crop by the population of Brazil it is mass produced, as it only has a 24 hour life span in which the properties of the juice are still active. The acai berries must be loaded into baskets and onto boats soon after picking. To get it to the markets in Belem's they would have to transport the acai berries over night.

Each acai palm tree produces round about 20 kg of fruit per year and the wine produced by this fruit has become the most important product in terms of finance after wood forest products. Belem in Brazil now employs over 30,000 people on a daily basis to keep up with its enormous demand.

So we know where it comes from, what about it's recent history? After being introduced into the western world it was realised by the modern beach going Brazilian surfer as a natural way to regain energy. The acai berry was pulped and frozen to keep it fresh and became a natural additive to the smoothies drunk along the beaches of Brazil. It was known to help your prostate and was seen as a natural viagra for the boys of the beach. It soon became a drink for the trendy, for the sand and surf brigade.

The researches soon got hold of this magic acai berry and realised that it would be of great importance in the well-being and health of the western world, our diets are often over filled with fat and fast food, acai is naturally full with energy, it has a vibrant taste of berries with a hint of chocolate, is rich in proteins, fibre, vitamin E, minerals and essential Omega oils to reduce our bad cholesterol caused by our western diets. The acai berries fatty acid ratio resembles that of olive oil this is thought to be a contributing factor to low incidence of heart disease in Mediterranean populations. The acai berry contains similar properties as red wine in controlling fats in the blood and is a fair contributor to go up against the wine diets of the Mediterranean people.

Known as the miracle fruit, acai berries also helps in preventing cancer due to it's antioxidant properties that are five times more potent than gingko biloba, a commonly used herbal therapy product.

Acai berry juice has been introduced into other products like bars and health snacks to be sold at gyms and health spars. It's history is important as by studying the effects that the berry has had on the tribesmen in the Amazon we have discovered that it's traditional use as an energy booster for hunting and good libido has lead to acai berry juice to being a very commercially viable product.

It's most recent history is that it has been endorsed by such talk show hosts as Oprah Winfrey and has been seen as a feature on her show, a berry with star success. So lets say good bye to guranum and hello to the acai berry.

Todd Levering is a raw organic health food advocate and owner of several health clubs around Seattle, WA. He's mostly known for promoting the health benefits of the Acai berry for it's natural antioxidant properties and the powerful beverage Xocai, which contains Acai. To learn more from Todd about this amazing new beverage, please visit: http://acaipro.com