Sit back and relax

There are two main aspects of you – the superficial construct you mistake for ‘you’, the habits of thought, reference and identity you’ve woven into a most remarkable disguise ever since you were born, so clever it’s even fooled you, and the background presence within you, the Tao, of which you’re a manifestation and expression.

The superficial aspect, the construct or ego as Freud called it, is necessarily enthralled by the external world, by all the shapes and colours and swirling lights, by all the drama of the coming and going of others going on in front of you. This pulls your consciousness into the front of your body and the front of your head, leaving you fairly unaware of the back part of you. The front of you also happens to be where you process the feelings and thoughts associated with what your constructed self perceives or experiences happening to you – the feelings get processed in the solar plexus region, the thoughts comprising an ongoing internal conversation with yourself go on in the forebrain.

This causes you to get so enmeshed in the conflict of feelings and thoughts you actually mistake yourself for them – you become the drama. And your only way out of it seems to be by making the external world conform to some fantastical notion of how life should be. This naturally proves ineffective and leaves you constantly wanting.

However, if instead you train yourself to start occupying the back of you, you’ll find something remarkable and radical happens. Start training yourself to lean up against your shoulder blades, the frontal aspect of your spine, your hip bones and your sacrum, and you find yourself in command of the experience of being you, from moment to moment, rather than vice versa. You now have the feelings being processed in the solar plexus along with all the inevitable friction that causes, but now this is going in in front of you, in the solar plexus, You’re now able to accommodate the process comfortably – you’re able to preside over your experience rather than it preside over you.

Then if you also allow your mind to slide backwards inside your skull, so rather than being enmeshed in the noisy conversation going on in the forebrain, it’s now nestling up against the rear wall of the skull, like a little Buddha leaning back and taking a view, you’ll notice all that noise in the front has quietened down. Then, as thoughts arise in the front, you’re able to simply watch them pass by in the sky of your mind like clouds, with no need to jump on any of them and see where they go – you just sit and watch the clouds go by.

Learn to do this at first by sitting still with eyes closed, body relaxed, breathing slowly, and tilting the torso backwards just a millimetre or so, to give you the impression of leaning back inside, then tilting back the head likewise and feeling the mind slide backwards along the ‘floor’ of your skull. This is meditating Taoist style, interpreted Barefoot style. And it’s a most important practice. But equally important is training yourself to remember it as you’re out and about doing your daily rounds, dealing with people and situations. Because by remembering to sink back and occupy your own rear while engaging with the external world, you become the Tao, the Buddha, the Christ consciousness, or however you want to name it, while in the midst of action.

And like this you not only transform your own reality; you elicit a contagion of enlightenment for everyone in your orbit.

In practice you’ll find yourself swinging between the two states – the externally referenced superficial construct of self in the front and the background presence (in the back). But in time, the more you remember to keep sinking backwards, the more that becomes your default mode, until eventually you’re pretty much the background presence or Tao all the time.

Barefoot Doctor is a seminal figure in the global consciousness movement, originator of spoken word metaphysics set to beats and sound healing tones on the dance floor and conscious clubbing, author of 16 books, including HANDBOOK FOR THE URBAN WARRIOR, travels the world encouraging the awakening and runs online trainings in the above along with live online satsangs and provides a plethora of useful information.

www.barefootdoctorglobal.com

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Chaga: King of the medicinal mushrooms

David Wolfe often says, ‘why take medicinal mushroom or herb number 100 or thousand when you can have number one?’ And that number one is chaga.

Chaga is something amazing given to us from nature. It is also the most fascinating. Once you discover it you really get hooked on finding out more about this amazing creature of the forest.

David Wolfe is so obsessed with chaga he has written an entire book on it! Here with David’s personal permission I have extracted only a few sentences, just to give you slight idea of the amazing health benefits of chaga. I would of course hugely recommend you to read David’s book; Chaga, King of the medicinal mushrooms.

‘We are nearing a critical mass of people who are shifting their energy and financial power away from a bankrupt, misdirected, environmentally destructive pharmaceutical model of ‘disease care’ to a sustainable, preventive, health-building, self-responsible model of wellness. Superherbs are likely our best allies in the global healing movement.

The king of medicinal mushrooms is chaga. This royal moniker comes to us from traditional Siberian shamans, who crown chaga the most powerful member of mycelium kingdom. Chaga constitutes perhaps the greatest storehouse of medicinal healing properties of any single mushroom, or any herb for that matter.

Chaga is a remarkable medicinal mushroom that grows on living trees. It grows most abundantly in nearly all species of birch found in the circumpolar temperate forests of earth’s northern hemisphere. As a food-herb and nutrient, chaga is a premier herbal adaptogen (a metabolic regulator that increases an organism’s ability to adapt to environmental factors and resist stress), cancer fighter, immune-system modulator, antitumor agent, gastrointestinal (digestive) tonifier, longevity tonic and DNA-shielding agent.

Various substances found in chaga possess powerful anticancer and antitumor properties. Anecdotal evidence from Russia associates consistent chaga intake with resistance to all cancers, all of which make chaga an excellent adjunctive superherb to support any cancer-fighting protocol. It is particularly recommended for the following cancers; bone, brain, breast, carcinoma, cervical, colon, hepatoma, leukemia, liver, lung, medulloblastoma, melanoma, neuroblastoma, ovarian, sarcoma, squamous cell cancers of the head and neck, stomach and uterine.

The myriad benefits of this alkaline, medicinal tree mushroom can be gained in various forms. One can dry wild chaga and make tea with it; eat it fresh, or dry it and eat it; and make special alcohol and alchemical extracts from it.

Chaga tea and chaga mycelium are safe and important health-food products for all ages (1 to 101+ years of age) and all stages of life, including pregnancy. Barring rare tree-mushroom allergies, pregnant women can take chaga tea and chaga mycelium daily during their entire pregnancy.

To date, no side effects or toxicity of chaga have been reported.

Luckily for all of us, chaga has already been classified by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as ‘food’.

It is legal for distribution in the European Union, and it is classified as a medicinal mushroom by the World Trade Organization.

Chaga is impressive in appearance and effect. It is a mysterious denizen of this earth and one of the strangest creatures of the forest. Its burnt-charcoal, lightning-struck appearance is unmistakable.

A resident of temperate forests in the northern hemisphere, chaga prefers growing in living birch trees near springs, riparian areas of streams, wetlands and marshy regions.

Chaga seems to favour yellow birch and white birch above all host trees. Chaga loves the cold. As long as birch can grow, then the colder the weather, the better.

Chaga was most notably introduced to the West by Russian writer Alexandr Solzhenitsyn’s somewhat autobiographical novel The Cancer Ward.

As Solzhenitsyn describes in his novel, the ideal of chaga gives you the single-pointed focus to heal yourself, to wonder the forest like a wounded animal after one goal: to get well.

Having worked in the alternative-health field for twenty years, I find this to be profound’

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What lies in the label?

So, you thought it’s time to turn organic. You start with the obvious changes – groceries. You drive that extra distance to the only health food store in the area, replacing all the regular products you usually buy, with organic counterparts. Goodbye Maple All Nut Crunch, hello Organic Coconut Muesli.

You now start your mornings the organic way. Munching away, you stare aimlessly at the box, reading all the little bits of goodness. Wait, what’s this? The ingredients list hums a different tune to the ‘organic’ label. In fact, it’s not entirely organic at all. Except the coconut. Everything else is as conventional as the Maple Crunch. At a premium price tag!

Angry, embarrassed, cheated – you ask yourself, how can the manufacturers get away with such deceitful labeling?

The system of organic labeling is not as black and white as we would assume it to be. Products can technically get away with being labeled organic, when really only a few ingredients adhere to the true meaning.

Down to Basics

Organic means that food has been produced and processed naturally, without chemicals or pesticides, without synthetic aid.

Somewhere along the road, ‘organic’ has lost its holistic definition. The organic food industry became a big, green money machine and the very corporations we are trying to avoid moved in and used their power to push for a more federal definition of ‘organic’. A sneaky way of taking more of our cash, for virtually the same products available in commercial supermarkets.

Most countries have their own boards, overseen by the government, that determine whether a product is organic or conventional. Depending on where the product has been produced, it is subject to that country’s ‘organic’ guidelines. Imported organic products are then again regulated by the receiving countries organizations.

Each country has their own symbol to mark a certified organic food product. The most widely recognizable are the green and black USDA Organic labels, a seal of approval designed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

TABLE

The Wording Game

Clever wording on packages and labels can sway our judgment. Terms such as ‘free range’, ‘hormone free’ or ‘natural’ are not to be confused with ‘organic’. For example, ‘free range chickens’ simply means the birds have access to outdoor areas. Yet there is no law that regulates their feed, how they are cared for and third-party certification is not necessary. Organic chickens have all these four points policed by law.

Other terms and symbols to beware of include; earth friendly, farm friendly and eco friendly, among others. Some are alternates to the government certifying organisations that do not carry the same standards. They are also often subsidized with grants from large corporations looking to expand their conventional food lines and infiltrate the organic food industry.

Somewhere along the road, ‘organic’ has lost its holistic definition.

The Loopholes

Before you start buying every product with the certified seal, there are a few things to know. More than 240 non-organic ingredients exist on an approved list of ingredients that can be used in products stamped with the coveted ‘certified organic’ label. This has grown from 77 items since 2002, just as the organic food industry started to grow. These ingredients are synthetic, derived from not so organic things such as fossil fuels and most have been proven to not be necessary in the production, but simply used for cost cutting or to facilitate the manufacturing process.

Products labeled as ‘organic’ or ‘made with organic ingredients’ still leave room for 5-30% of the ingredients being subject to non-organic practices. This means pesticides, hormones, antibiotics…everything ‘organic’ is originally running away from.

Stay Smart

Don’t let a label decide for you. Read the ingredients list using common sense. If you don’t know what an ingredient is, why put it in your body? Whilst certification organisations act as our organic police, they are not there to mother our knowledge. Use organic certification to guide you in choosing products and initiate further personal research. The only person responsible for your health and wellbeing, is you.

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Tips for healthy living

There is so much we can do to improve our overall health and wellbeing. But sometimes it can sound like a lot of effort to apply certain healthy habits in our busy everyday life. Over the years of my inter- est in health and wellbeing I have accumulated a number of tips that can be done on a regular basis without feeling like you are on a major cleanse or detox.

Here are a few tips that you may or may not know and some of them may sound easy and appealing to do. It is little things that we do every day that help us create healthy habits so pick out your favourites and commit to them for a while and then include a few more when you feel like it!

  1. Drink a large glass of room temperature water upon waking up. Squeeze a little lemon or lime juice in it for a more alkaline effect. This works like an ‘inside’ shower! It helps flush toxins accumulated overnight and wake up digestion.
  2. Brush your tongue after brushing your teeth in the morning. In this way you scrap any extra toxins accumulated.
  3. If you can stomach it (I can’t!) try oil pulling. This means before brushing your teeth in the morning swirling cold pressed sesame or cold pressed organic sunflower oil for 20 min around your mouth and then spitting it out. Do not swallow it! This is super hard to do in my own opinion but health benefits with this technique of pulling toxins out of the body have been part of Ayurveda for centuries.
  4. Eat your breakfast at least an hour after waking up allowing your digestion to start moving.
  5. Do not eat fruit after meals. Fruit is easily digestible and moves through the track faster but if you eat it after meal it will ‘sit’ on the top of the foods you have eaten and will ferment in your stomach slowing your digestion and give you acid.
  6. Try dry body brushing before showering. It helps remove dead cells and stimulates circulation. Body brushes with natural bristle are widely available. Always brush in movements toward the heart and clockwise on your stomach. Ladies, go gently around your breasts.
  7. While we are at the breasts go braless as much as possible or totally braless! Stay away from underwired bras as metal underneath your breasts is a transmitter for all electro-magnetic frequencies and this is not something we women want passing close to our lymph nodes. Also tight bras pressing on the area below your breasts is proven to cause breast cancers more than smoking does!
  8. Eat as much alkaline foods as you can. An alkaline body is healthy body- an acidic body is prone to ill- nesses and inflammation. Alkaline means plenty of greens, less meat, grains, coffee, alcohol and other acidic stuff. Find out about your blood group and see which foods your blood group is highly intolerant too. Blood group diets work wonders for some.
  9. Include as much raw foods in your diet, especially green juices, salads, fruits and vegetables. Just try to eat an extra bowl of leaves on the top of what- ever is included in your diet that day. Hemp and Spirulina are a wonderful vegan source of protein so even if you are a meat eater try to sometimes substitute your meat protein with vegan options as they are not acidic on your body.
  10. They say any exercise even if it’s going for a long walk is good, but try to do some movements that will make you sweat and increase your heart rate. Only after starting to exercise in this way have I noticed that stubborn weight was shifting off.
  11. Use an infrared sauna if you can find one in your spa or if you are lucky to have space in your house and buy one is one of the best health investments you can do.
  12. Buy a trampoline or rebounder or just join your kids in a playground. The health benefits are numerous!
  13. Go barefoot as much as you can. Our shoes keep us isolated from the earth energy and we need to reconnect anytime possible.
  14. Get some sun and stock up on vitamin D. Try not to shower for at least two hours after sun exposure to get maximum benefits.
  15. Listen to your body. It will tell you which food and drinks agree with it. It will also tell you if it’s really hungry or just thirsty. Very often we are hungry because on a nutritional level we are starving so make sure you give your body nutrition it needs and not just what you find yummy to eat!
  16. Last but not least say no to plastic, especially water in plastic and tap water. This is something we simply must move away from. Plastic substances leaking in our ‘drinkable’ bottled water are so harmful. If you can source your water from a spring it is the best you can do. Purchasing your water in glass bottles is the second best.

Wishing you all health & happiness!

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Hemp will save the world

by Victoria Jensen

Cannabis Sativa, also known in its many varieties as: Hemp, Weed, Pot, Marijuana, Reefer, Grass, Ganja, Bhang, Mary Jane, Dagga, Herb etc…. is the number one food, fuel, fibre, paper and medicine out of any plant found on Earth.

It is an annual herbaceous plant, which, due to its multitude of properties, has been cultivated for over 10,000 years, since the start of recorded history. Canna- bis is, overall, the strongest, most durable, longest-lasting natural fibre on the planet. Hemp has multitude of uses and proper- ties and can provide beneficial benefits to humanity and Earth.

FOOD

By itself, the global consumption of hemp- seed food protein could save millions of people now dying of starvation. This is un- acceptable and there is a solution – HEMP! Approximately 44% of the weight of hempseed is edible oils – nature’s most perfectly balanced oil. It is rich in Omega 3&6 essential fatty acids in an ideal ratio for the human body. In addition, the oil contains the antioxidants: – Vitamin E, carotene, and strong alkaline-forming Chlorophyll.

Proteins are the other major component (33%) of the Hemp seed. Hempprotein contains all the amino acids, including the 8essentialaminos, which human bodies require to function. Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins. They band together in chains to form protein. Proteins are considered complete when they con- tain all the essential amino acids, those which the human body cannot synthesize. Hemp seed, in its raw natural state, con- tains 28- 33 % protein. The protein in Hemp is the most easily digestible on the planet. This is because Hemp contains globular proteins, which have structures very similar to proteins made by the human blood. This is unique to hemp seed protein and is the highest amount provided by any food source.

The by-product of pressing hempseed for its nutritious oil is a high protein seed cake, which is dried into a 50% Hemp protein powder. Consider that animal protein sources are never higher than 30% protein. They are also generally heated prior to consumption. Heating protein destroys amino acids, thus denaturing the protein molecules, and reducing the amount of digestible protein.

“Why use the forests which were centuries in the making and the mines which required ages to lay down, if we can get the equivalent of forest and mineral products in the annual growth of the fields?” – Henry Ford

Much scientific evidence indicates that a raw vegan diet rich in plant protein de- creases toxicity in the colon and bacterial enzymes throughout the body. This vast reduction of dangerous microbes and de natured proteins reduces and eliminates diseases such as; all cancers, diabetes, cardio-vascular disease, and many more. Furthermore, due to its high nutritional content, Hemp is very resilient and grows organically without the use of pesticides or fertilizers. Hemp is alkaline forming in the body as opposed to acid forming animal protein; this means the production of mycosis forming pathogens in the body is almost nothing, as opposed to the high amounts that come from consumption of animal protein.

Another huge benefit achieved by con- suming Hemp as a main source of protein would be the reduction in the appalling factory farming and killing of animals for food, and the wasteful use of land, energy & water for the cultivation of animal feed. This will greatly benefit humanity, Earth and all its inhabitants.

CLEAN ENERGY

Current fossil energy sources supply about 80% of the solid and airborne pollution which is quickly poisoning the environment of the planet. The best, safest and cheap- est substitute for these expensive and dangerous energy methods is the evenly distributed energy from the sun, obtained from the growing of biomass.

On a global scale, the plant that pro- duces the most net biomass is hemp. It’s the only annually renewable plant on Earth able to replace all fossil fuels.“Each acre of hemp could yield 1,000 gallons of methanol, or 500 gallons of gasoline. Fuels from hemp would be enough to run America without oil.” Jack Herer

Unlike fossil fuels, biomass comes from living (not extinct) plants that continue to remove carbon dioxide pollution from our atmosphere as they grow, through pho- tosynthesis. Furthermore, biomass fuels do not contain sulphur or carbon-monoxide. They are not poisonous.

PAPER

Trees are the lungs of our planet, the forests support life on Earth. The destruc- tion of forests for paper must be replaced immediately with an alternative source. Some cannabis plant strains regularly reach tree-like heights of 20 feet or more in one growing season, whereas a tree takes over 7 years to grow to this height.

Paper made from Hemp is stronger and more flexible than paper made from wood pulp. Hemp paper does not need chlorine bleach in its manufacturing.

Making paper from wood pulp damages the environment. Hemp papermaking does not damage the environment, in fact it is beneficial. After harvest, Hemp roots remain in the soil, providing strength and support. The nutrient rich leaves and mulch make fertile humus, able to assist with cultivation of future crops.

“Throughout human history hemp has always been known as the most medicinal plant in the world” – Rick Simpson

MEDICINE

In the 20th century, cannabis research has demonstrated therapeutic value and complete safety in treating many health problems including cancer, cardio- vascular disease, asthma, glaucoma, nausea, tumors, epilepsy, infection, stress, migraines, anorexia, depression, rheuma- tism, arthritis, Alzheimer’s disease, HIV ( to name a few).

Cannabis medicine has distinct advan- tages. CBD, as well as THC, can be given in massive doses with no side effects. CBD selectively targets and destroys diseased cells while leaving normal healthy cells unharmed. On the other hand, chemo- therapy and radiation are highly toxic and harm healthy cells in the brain and the body. Industrial hemp is often high in heal- ing CBD and low in THC. Hemp CBD is a waste product which couldbe harvested for medicine.

“If all fossil fuels, the use of trees for paper and construction were banned in order to save the planet, reverse the Greenhouse Effect and stop deforestation, then there is only one known annually renewable natural resource that is capable of pro- viding the majority of the world’s paper and textiles; meeting all of the world’s transportation, industrial, food and home energy needs; simultaneously reducing pollution, rebuilding the soil, cleaning the atmosphere, and curing disease all at the same time. That substance is Cannabis, Hemp…..Marijuana!” Jack Herer

And no, you cannot get high by drinking hemp smoothie or smoking your hemp t-shirt! This is the only bad news.

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Breaking the cycle of emotional eating

Philip McCluskey is a sought-after motivational speaker, author, and weight loss expert who inspires and educates thousands worldwide about plant based lifestyle. After thirty failed diet attempts and the looming prospect of gastric bypass surgery, raw food saved Philip’s life, transforming him from a morbidly obese 400 pounds to a fit, energized, and glowing 185 pounds.

Passionate about the vibrant health and energy he gained when he lost his poor eating habits and emotional hang-ups, Philip has made it his mission to spread hope and health to others. He has inspired over a million viewers who have followed his journey on YouTube. He is the author of six books including Get Juicy Program, Healthy Hot & Energized Coaching Program, and co-founder of Vimergy.com

Emotional eating is a major cause for weight gain, depression that follows weight gain and just in general a cause for us not feeling healthy, happy and energised, So what can we do about it? Here Philip share with us few tips on how to take those first steps in dealing with topic that we are all very well familiar with.

Create or find a space where you can go to be quiet, think, cry, laugh, journal, talk, meditate, hug yourself or whatever feels helpful to you

Have you ever felt compelled to keep stuffing yourself to the point of discomfort? Maybe you’ve found yourself reaching for a bag of cookies when you’re home alone, tired and lonely? Perhaps it’s even healthy foods you’ve overeaten, such as a pound of cashews. If so, you are one of many who have eaten for emotional reasons. I’ve found it to be the number one sabotaging factor for my clients in discovering their perfect weight.

Emotional and disordered eating can wreak havoc on your mental, emotional and physical health if left unaddressed, let alone the massive amount of time and energy it takes up, leaving you much less able to focus on what really matters in your life – your dreams, relationships, contributing, having fun.

Yet despite what your reason and intelligence tells you to do (i.e. give up the emotional eating), you are unable to stop yourself from doing it yet again.

Emotional eating can be a very challenging habit to release. In fact, it is typically the sin- gle biggest reason that people fail to lose the weight they’d like to. 95-98% of diets fail, and emotional eating is a key contributor to this discouraging statistic.

Here’s why it has such a hold:

  • It can be a deeply ingrained behavior in you
  • You have been doing it for a very long time both consciously and unconsciously
  • It can be frightening to consider your life where you don’t numb yourself with food, even if it is a conscious choice you are making for your own wellbeing
  • Processed foods and junk foods are highly addictive so even without the emotional component they can be extremely hard to give up
  • You are overwhelmed at how to start identifying and serving your emotional needs • You haven’t cemented effective ways of addressing your emotions.

What is needed to break the cycle of emotion- al eating and its consequences for your health, happiness and energy, is support, compassion, guidance, kindness and a safe space of no judgment where you can release your fears, identify your emotions, triggers and what your real needs are, and then put in place a toolbox of strategies and methods to satisfy your emotional needs in a way that doesn’t require reaching for a chocolate bar.

With consistent application of these tools plus a supportive environment where you are guided gently but purposefully to heal and empower yourself, you can move from a damaged, painful relationship with food and your body to a joyful, liberated one. When you have been living in a heavy, toxic body with unaddressed, toxic emotions, achieving freedom and lightness in mind and body is truly priceless.

Below are a few suggestions from my healthy, hot & energized program you can use to start creating your toolbox of strategies to overcome emotional eating.

1. Identify what’s really going on

If you eat without being truly hungry, you are emotionally eating. Yet most people don’t stop for long enough to really see what emotion they are actually feeling before they stuff it down with food. Train yourself to stop when you have the urge to eat and ask yourself “am I really hungry?” If the answer is no, ask yourself “what emotion am I really feeling?” This alone can bring so much awareness that it can start to make small shifts as you recognize that there is much more going on that just an uncontrollable urge to eat and that you will not actually be meeting that emotional need with food. This is not easy to do initially but it becomes much easier with practice, dedication and support from people who have been through this process before.

2. Find a safe place or person to release to

To heal your relationship with food you need to safely express yourself and release the emotion you feel. A safe place or person will allow you to do this. Online communities of like-minded people going through the same issues can help. There can be a lot of shame and embarrassment around overeating so a safe space to release becomes even more important.

Get into a journaling practice where you can write about whatever you are feeling with no talk back, criticism or judgment. Find a person, ideally a professional, who you can speak to about your behavior and about what’s really going on for you. Working with a coach and mentor can be the key to assisting in expediting this release.

Create or find a space where you can go to be quiet, think, cry, laugh, journal, talk, meditate; hug yourself or whatever feels help- ful to you. Having a space for yourself that you can always go to will give you a sense of comfort, nourishment, and familiarity; a haven as you heal.

3. Created a sacred ritual

One of the best ways to nourish yourself every day is to create a sacred ritual that makes you feel centered, strong and harmonious. When you include this ritual in your routine you will find that over time you are better able to iden- tify and deal with thoughts, feelings and stress that contribute to emotional eating. What you include in your ritual is entirely up to you. For most people, one or a combination of the fol- lowing works well:

  • Meditation
  • Deep breathing
  • Affirmations
  • Setting intentions
  • Nourishing movement
  • Yoga and stretching
  • Journaling
  • Drinking water or herbal tea mindfully
  • Reading inspirational material
  • Listening to music
  • Speaking to a loved one
  • Playing with your pets
  • Having a hot bath or shower
  • Resting

4. Understand and appreciate what food gives you

For many people who suffer from disordered eating patterns food is the enemy. It is the thing you stuff yourself with and make yourself feel sick with. It is the thing that traps you into eating copious quantities until you feel heavy, tired, unwell and miserable. It is what adds the pounds to your body that you despise. It is what you have to avoid at all costs to stay painfully thin because that’s what you see as beautiful or worthy or your way of maintaining a sense of control in your life.

For many of the women I work with, an important step in their healing is helping them to understand what food really is – how it gives life, nourishment, beauty, joy, pleasure, energy, healing and yes, comfort. Nourishing yourself with real, high quality whole foods that are not filled with chemicals, refined sugar, salts and fats, and learning how they act in your body to produce beauty, health and energy so you can do the things you wish to, can change your view of food as the enemy. Respect builds for the role food plays and in turn a respect for what it does within your body (and therefore your body itself) grows.

5. Unleash your creativity and do some- thing you love every single day

You have endless creativity and passion with you, although it may be suppressed right now. When you don’t allow yourself to authentically express, create and be, you end up repressing yourself. Repression leads to out of control binges on food as a temporary way to numb that undirected energy. Find a way to build in some time every day to do something you love, that gives you a creative outlet for self expression, and that allows you to be exactly who you are or takes you a step closer to where you want to go. Before you start using the no time or energy excuse, know that you only need five minutes to start doing this. If you have more, that’s even better. If you are honoring your needs and desires by actually acting on them every day, you will be far less likely to look for the answer in a cake. Self-satisfaction and happiness comes with nourishing your whole being – physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually – consist- ently Fortunately there’s an out for you… a way to be free from diets, failed resolutions to improve your body, and unrealistic pressure on yourself to be or do what you feel you should.

It’s not just recipes and menu pans you need to succeed, but a total change of mindset, strategies to overcome emotional eating, consistent and long term guidance and accountability from experts, and like-minded others to share and connect with.

www.philipmccluskey.com

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Awake the love within

by Anthony Lowether

We all know deep down. I believe its time to stop turning a blind eye and all take our responsibility as part of the human family living on this magnificent planet who loves us with all her creation.

Whether people realise it or not, we all have access to a massive power, a power which has the potential to change our lives. This powers potential is infinite, it is available to us in every second of every day and we all control this power 100 per cent of the time. It is known as ‘choice’ or ‘free will’.

Again, whether we realise it or not, we are all influenced massively in the society we live in, from a vast array of external sources bombarding us all every single day. But, always remember, when it comes down to it, you’re the God in your world. You control your biomechanical machine, your body, no one else. No one is ruling your life; you’re ruling your life. You can do what you want, when you want, at all times. The absolute realisation of this fact empowers.

I believe we, as humans, are on this planet to love life to the absolute max, whilst learning as much about our true reality as possible. I actually believe these two go hand in hand. I also believe true learning comes from experience. Reading books, conversating and other forms of learning are very important

and effective, but nothing comes close to experiencing something first hand, being there in that moment, in a specific environment or situation and feeling the very specific emotions and thoughts that are born, adding to your overall human emotional experience of life.

There are a lot of huge problems on the planet, turn on the news and you get bombarded with the terrible reality of the world. Away from news on a global level, from the conversations I have in general with people, it’s obvious that happiness is scarce. It’s a constant chore and battle just to get by for most people. Having to pay to live on a planet we are all born on, not only confuses me, but it puts massive instant pressure on every single human living in this world. The current systems of the world make it very hard to be happy.

Every single person that is walking this earth, or has ever walked the earth, comes across challenges, some bigger than others, but we all face some massive hurdles at some time in our life. Don’t let them beat you. It’s a choice, one that you control. Don’t let them, or anything stop you from becoming something incredible. View any challenge as a lesson or an opportunity for growth through experience. The harder the lesson, the more the soul grows. If you can do this, you will become very powerful. It’s easy to use the things that have happened in your life as excuses, but excuses are an illusion. They don’t exist. You have made them up yourself, nobody else so power through any challenge with the best of your ability. When you get through it, I guarantee you will have learnt something about life, or about yourself, or something valuable that will lead to the evolution of your understanding of the reality we live in, thus every challenge, no matter how hard, can be viewed as positive, if you chose to do so.

I have learnt the best way to be truly happy, and this sounds obvious, but not many people have the courage to do it, is to follow your heart, listen to your inner signals; the super advanced bit of technology that resides within us all. Take direction from an internal source, not any external source. Do things that you know will lead to happiness for you (as long as you are not directly taking away this same right for anyone else). Do things that you’re enthusiastic about. The word enthusiasm has

Greek origins; it breaks down to “en-theo-siasm” which means “the god within”.

If you simply constantly make decisions that lead to happiness, then you are making yourself happier and happier every single day. This is the ultimate path to be on and I class
it as true success and believe it’s why we are really on this planet. Not to partake in the competition of hording man made objects. This is a race we all seem to be running a race that simply can’t be won, by anyone, not people, governments, industry… We need to start creating a world that is based on cooperation and not competition. It makes sense.

Be the best, most loving, positive, happy person you can be, every single day, in every single situation. Love yourself, love everyone and love mother earth. Live up to your true human potential. Become a super human that inspires every person you meet. Love your life. Spread as much love as you can. Imagine a world where everyone lived to this simple and obvious ideal. There would automatically be no war, no debt, no homelessness, no famine, no poverty. Surely the thought of this potential is at least worth trying for. It will lead to only positive things for you and for all others you meet, I guarantee. It’s all simply a choice.

I believe it’s time to wake up, to realise we were all born into a mad and confused world. Love is the key, the power that can overcome any problem on this planet, and we all have the choice to love in every single second. If you learn how to harness this ultimate universal power on an individual level, your life will change instantly in the most beautiful way. If we learn on a global level, we will change the world, literally creating heaven on earth. It’s at least worth a try…… right?

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The future of fitness nutrition

by Wade T. Lightheart

3 Time All Natural National Bodybuilding Champion, Founder of the Institute of Advanced Natural Health Sciences and advisor to the American Anti-Cancer Institute explains how cultured enzymes and plant proteins are the new standard for high performance health

Strength athletes have placed a high importance on the consumption of large quantities of meat, eggs, fish, and poultry for many decades. However, today’s meat products provide a number of challenges; expense, environmental costs of production, the use of chemicals, hormones, and preservatives that may have detrimental side effects when consumed by humans.

In an effort to increase protein intake over many athletes, bodybuilders, and fitness enthusiasts began using protein powders developed from milk, eggs, soy and eventually whey protein. Today protein powders are standard in most nutrition programs and for vegetarian athletes they are essential.

Protein powders offer convenience of preparation yet many athletes have found that consumption of these products lead to digestive problems, bloating, and gas and have sought out other options. The challenge with a high protein diet is the increased potential for undigested proteins to serve as food for bacteria in the body which produce a variety of toxic substances that lead to disease.

All proteins have different combination of amino acids (the building blocks that your body uses to build muscle, repair tissue and run countless functions).

Whether the protein you consume is from meat, eggs, or a protein powder each protein has a certain level of bioavailability. Biovailability is the ability of your body to break down the protein into utilizable amino acids.

How a protein is prepared has a dramatic effect on its ability to be digested in your body. For example raw eggs have a high bioavailability but genetically modified soy proteins contain 13 different enzyme inhibitors which prevent the absorption of the amino acids which are contained within the protein. Chemical fertilizers, hormones, preservatives, and high heat all affect the structure of the proteins and thus their value.

In order for your body to break down protein it must use enzymes to break down the tissue. Enzymes are naturally occurring in all live food including raw meat. When an animal kills another animal for food it also gains the valu- able enzymes that prey contains. All plants contain the natural enzymes to break down the plants when consumed by animals or humans in order to digest provided the plants are consumed live.

Humans are the only species on the planet that cook their food and as a result they lose the benefits of the enzymes contained within raw food which are critical to digestion and absorption of food. As a result humans have to manufacture their own digestive enzymes in order to break down food. This may increase the incident of disease. (See Enzyme Nutrition by Dr. Edward Howell)

Recently many individuals have turned to raw food diets in an effort to preserve precious enzyme reserves in the body. Many preach the benefits of raw food diets but very few raw food enthusiasts are strength athletes a fact pointed out by many main stream nutritionists and sports scientists.

Typically, raw food diets have low protein content due to the degradation of protein content in plants from commercialized growing practices over the last several centuries.

Recently, there has been a developing trend of supplementing the diet with high concentration levels of cultured enzymes in an effort to improve the digestion and absorption of protein in the body.

Vegetarian bodybuilders’ such as myself have experimented with mega-dosing massive quantities of cultured enzymes with raw hemp based plant protein in an effort to increase protein digestion and utilization of amino acids. The results are impressive.

Cultured enzymes are enzymes that are range from 10 -1000x more powerful than at typical enzyme found in a plant or manufactured by the body. By consuming enzymes before and during eating the body is not required to utilize its precious enzyme reserves in order to digest food.

Hemp protein is one of the few plant proteins that contain all 22 amino acids used by humans including the 8 essential amino acids that the must come from the diet. Hemp also contains a perfect ratio of essential fatty acids along with massive quantities of insoluble fiber which is essential for digestive health.

By combining hemp protein with cultured enzymes there is an increased absorption of the muscle building proteins and improved utilization of the amino acids present in the food consumed. This is a major breakthrough in plant based sports performance.

It is now possible for vegetarian athletes to consume, digest and absorb enough protein to aid in the rapid recovery from intense workouts. Most strength athletes consume 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight (an almost impossible figure to achieve on a plant based diet). Vegetarians who wish to build muscle need only to consume 0.5 grams of plant protein per pound of bodyweight in con junction with a cultured plant based enzyme formulation.

The result is a reduction in undigested proteins, increased utilization of protein that hasn’t been denatured by cooking, and decreased likelihood of undigested proteins remaining in the digestive system.

This breakthrough into a Healthy High Performance model of nutrition will be the next great trend in sports performance. Many athletes who have “burned out” on high protein animal and protein powder diets are now adding hemp protein and enzymes to the mix with excellent results.

As the cost of meat production rises and the strain on the environment increases from the 7 billion people on the planet, plant based proteins combined with cultured will likely be the coming solution to our needs as a species.

www.wadelightheart.com

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Hummus love affair

When I’m asked what is my favourite cuisine the answer for many years has been: Lebanese.

My hummus love story began many years ago when I had just moved to London.

I became vegetarian because the family where I was an au pair, were vegetarian. I thought it was cool. I had just arrived from Croatia where for tea we eat pork fat spread over a giant piece of white bread and sprinkled it with paprika and salt!

Times since then in Croatia have changed and good old pork fat has been widely replaced with Choco pops.

Above the club where I worked after my au pair job was a kebab shop that belonged to the same owner, so our staff meals were taken there. To their shock and horror I was vegetarian but the chefs loved me and were making me colourful plates of everything meat free that was available.

I mean everything! Even though I had just come out of the war I wasn’t really looking like I was starved to death, but people from that kebab part of the world are real feeders. If you don’t eat to a stupid level they get offended!

Make hummus not war!

I remember on the first day the chef asking me; ‘so what would you like to eat?’ smiling at me. Looking baffled, at all very foreign food to me, spread behind the counter. ‘No idea!’ I said. ‘Have you ever tried hummus?’ he asked. To me it sounded like the stuff you use to impregnate the earth and not very appetising. He also said ‘if you have never tried hummus and this is the first time you taste it, be warned, you will get addicted and it will stay with you forever’. Um…o.k.

Boy, he was right! Love at the first taste! I have been a sucker for hummus since then until to my shock horror last summer when I discovered that I’m highly intolerable to chickpeas and sesame (Tahini!)! Noooooo….! But let’s not spoil the hummus story with my food intolerances.

The affair continued over the years in London with late night visits to Maroush in Beauchamp Place with my work colleagues from Paparazzi café in Fulham road after we finished the late night shift. That place was always open and chicken sandwiches with garlic sauce, falafels and fruit cocktail finished off with baklava was just what you needed before going to bed. But then I was in my twenties, so was my digestion, which was faster in those days!

And then came an offer of six months work in Dubai. I went and completely loved the whole Arabic food culture. While I was there I bagged myself a rather hot fiancé in the shape of a Palestinian/Jordanian God’s gift and imported him back to London upon my return. With him came ‘the ring’, Middle Eastern food culture; hummus, Babaganoush, Tabouleh, fatoush, lentil soups, baklava, mint tea drinking, occasional sisha smoking, and the habit of calling each other ‘habibi’. God’s gift’s mum used to send us ring shaped cookies all the way from Jordan which were filled with date paste and anise. Bless her heart, she’s not with us anymore but I will always remember her for her kindness and her wonderful cookies.

At the end he went crazy for my oven roasted vegetables! We parted after five years of ‘engagement’, which really meant that we were just boyfriend and girlfriend. But when your other half is from that part of the world, you gotta wear a ring, so that everyone knows, you’re ‘his’.

It was easier for me after we split up, I could find good hummus on every corner in London but he couldn’t find my oven roasted vegetables anywhere…Ah, story of my life said too many times.

So, I know good hummus when I see it that is for sure. I can also proudly say that Passion was probably the first place to serve hummus in Ibiza. When I arrived here in 2001 it was nowhere to be found. It was an instant success in Passion, along with falafel and fresh mint tea. And it still is.

I was delighted when Paloma Café opened a few years after serving delicious hummus. It is quite different from the Lebanese hummus I’m so used to as their hummus is prepared the Israeli way, more runny and easier on tahini and lemon, but devilishly good too.

We are now able to offer you a beautiful, colourful, healthy Lebanese meze. After this meze there is no need for a main course.

You just sit and forever savour small dishes of absolute delight, sipping on mint tea and finishing it all with rosewater, Lebanese milk pudding or baklava. Yummy!!!

I’m very enthusiastic about this cuisine as it is so natural and abundant in fresh ingredients, unprocessed food, fresh herbs, lovely spices and lots of vegetables!

I don’t know about any cuisine that pays so much attention to the combination of dishes on the table. A vegetable dish has to be present, colourful pickles, black and green olives, fresh warm flat breads, lots of herbs and wonderful spices. Dishes are decorated with chopped parsley, pomegranate seeds, zaatar, sumac, pickled cucumber, paprika, pine nuts, swirls of good olive oil…yet they are very simple and elegant in their presentation.

Lebanese meze is ridiculously tasty, light, healthy, natural and beautiful to share. Ideal for a light lunch, ideal for a light late night dinner before hitting the dance floor or just simply ideal to really indulge and lay down afterwards with a good probiotic handy!

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Know your water

by Mike Nash

Water! It’s just H20 right? Does it matter where you get it from – a bottle, your tap, a spring, it’s just water right? Not so!

In the same way pollution is impacting the air that we are breathing, water is another source of pollution. If you don’t have an efficient way to treat it you’ll become the filter for thousands of toxins that could potentially stockpile in your body.

Tap water may prevent you from dying of dehydration, but if you want to experience incredible health and vitality, unfortunately tap water isn’t on the menu!

So how can you take control today? In my opinion there are 3 master keys you need to unlock the secret of effective hydration. The first is learning about toxicity. The second is appreciating the perils of dehydration. Finally, there’s optimal hydration.

Toxicity – The study of toxicity can be quite painful and never ending. Here we will focus on the solution. The fact remains, when you study toxicity and its relationship to disease and death you become either depressed or highly motivated. Choose highly motivated. Learn just enough to propel you to take action. As you limit your toxic load your health will begin to flourish.

Dehydration –When you research what happens to your body when it becomes chronically dehydrated, you’ll increase your motivation further. Drinking more water is one thing, eliminating the dehydrators is just as important. Mass produced tea, coffee, alcohol, fizzy drinks, and sodium chloride rich junk foods all play their part in dragging vital water from your body. When you stop consuming the dehydrators you begin plugging the leaks.

Optimal hydration –As you clean your water of heavy metals, tampon residue, toilet paper residue, chlorine, fluoride and the 1000s of other cancer causing chemicals that can show up in municipal tap water, you take a giant leap towards optimal health. As you learn about structured water, energised water, and how emotions and blessings affect water, you move into a realm that will cause a quantum shift in your energy and experience of health. The work of Masaru Emoto (author of The Hidden Messages In Water, and many others) has proven without a shadow of a doubt that there is more to water than meets the eye. Only when you reach this level of intellectual understanding and practical application can you really expect to experience the very best of health.

A MAJOR SHIFT NEEDS TO HAPPEN IN PEOPLES RELATIONSHIP TO WATER

The best way to begin is to drink fresh, clean, pure, energised, structured spring water. You can simply go to www.findaspring.com and see if you can locate a fresh spring in your area.

Your body is made of 70-80% water and as you change your source, you restructure your body. All the fluids in your body (your blood, lymph, water in and around your cells, digestive fluids, sexual fluids etc.) are made from the water you consume and food that you eat. Where else would it come from? If you want to go the extra mile for health insurance you could add Adya Clarity to your spring water.

You may not be so lucky to have a spring close to home so here are the few steps to ensure you drink the very best hydrating water each and every day.

Part 1 – Distillation

Distillation gets almost everything out of the water that could harm your health (Pesticides, herbicides, heavy metals etc.) For extra insurance, before the water goes through the distillation process you can add Adya Clarity which will remove any viruses and bacteria pre-distillation and can also be added again to the water after distillation.

Did you know there are over 2100 known toxins that cause cancer in regular tap water? Obviously this will vary from country to country and city to city. Considering that thousands of manufacturers dump billions of pounds of toxic chemicals into rivers and lakes each year, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that many people are struggling with their health.

Part 2

Restructuring part 1

If you just distil your water that will be enough to support your hydration on many levels. But you can go few steps further. Inside the container that collects the water place a number of quartz crystals. Quartz has a vibration that will imprint onto the water. I also have the words ‘love’ and ‘gratitude’ written on a post-it note stuck to that outside of the container. It has been proven that these words alone will restructure the water back to its original living crystal form. At this point you might be sceptical, however if you read the work of Masaru Emoto, author and water researcher you’ll begin to learn that water has a consciousness that can be influenced (like plants and people) by thought, vibration, language, music and intent.

Re-structuring part 2

In the next phase take your water and pour it into a Vitalizer Plus device which moves the water in a vortex action and does a number of things:

Structures the water – magnetic and infrared forces reduce the size of the individual water clusters, creating hexagonal water, increasing hydration potential.

Increases Oxygenation – The vortex action can increase oxygenation of the water up to 30%

Mineral Addition – Structure making minerals from a mineral base increase alkalinity and help maintain hexagonal structure (many of the elements in municipal water actually decrease structure)

Lastly to reduce the surface tension of the water to increase its hydrat- ing potential you can add a substance created by pioneering researcher Dr Patrick Flanagan. For over 30 years, Dr Flanagan has made intense studies of regions where there is a high proclivity of centenarians. Even though diets in each of these regions varied dramatically he found that the water in these regions was virtually identical to that which came from frozen glaciers (glacial milk). This research led him to develop a powerful product to add to water to help simulate glacial Milk. His product Crystal Energy® uses his patented silica Microcluster® minerals (also called colloids), which change the wetting angle of water to levels that are similar to levels found in biological fluids.

The way I see it you have two choices. You find a local spring or you follow these three steps and develop your own personal routine based on your own research. If you really want to buy bottled water make sure is in a glass bottle and stay clear from any plastic bottled water.

It may seem like a lot to distill your tap water, use crystals, music, language, images, intent and the latest technology. You don’t have to do everything, but you do have to do something. One question remains: Is your health worth it?

www.aggressivehealthshop.com

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