Being Diagnosed With Multiple Sclerosis and Refusing To Live With It

I thought I was healthy; I was forty-one years old and in the prime of my life. I worked out regularly, often with my new husband and at times with a trainer. On the weekend, my husband and I would ride 30-40 miles through the vineyards of Germany on our bicycles. I would have classified myself as healthy, maybe even very healthy.

I ate relatively well most of the time, at least compared to other people. I was always conscious of what I ate and usually chose the low sugar, low-fat option if there was one. I didn’t drink regular soda and only drank diet soda when water wasn’t available. As I said, I thought I was healthy.

The first sign that something was wrong came when my husband and I were on vacation in Greece on Valentines Day, 2014. As we walked back to the hotel after a long day of sightseeing, I noticed a slight limp on my right side. I also kept tripping on the sidewalk, and it was hard for me to keep up with my husband. The fourth time I tripped, my husband looked at me and said, “What is wrong with you?” I shrugged my shoulders and laughed. I chalked it up to the uneven sidewalks in Athens and maybe the wine.

I thought I was healthy…

That next week I noticed that with each day my limp got noticeably worse. I thought it must be the long-standing hip problem I’d had since my high school cheerleading days. I saw two different orthopedic doctors and got an MRI of my hip. They told me that eventually I would need a right hip replacement, but I needed to wait longer because I was too young. One orthopedic surgeon even watched as I walked down the hall and commented, “You do have a limp, don’t you?” but he didn’t offer any suggestions or advice.

About a week after the last orthopedic appointment, I realized that my worsening limp was not due to my bad hips. I was getting up an hour earlier than usual because I had become so slow at getting ready for work. I tried to dry my hair, something I’ve done a million times before, but the brush was so heavy in my right hand, I literally couldn’t keep it above my head. When I held the brush up, it would drop onto my head.

That same day, I was trying to sign documents at work. Again, it was something I’ve done a million times, but when my brain told my hand to sign, my hand wasn’t responding. I watched my hand move in slow motion.

If I tried to pick up something with my right hand, it would fall

During that same week, I started bumping into walls. I lost all sense of where my body was in space. I lost my balance while walking around a corner or while walking down the sidewalk. I would have to reach out and grab something to stabilize myself or use my forearms against the wall to prevent myself from falling. I also had to hold onto a dresser or nightstand to brace myself when I got out of bed and when I put my clothes on, or I would fall. By the end of the week, I had bruises up and down my forearms. I worked as a Domestic Violence Victim Advocate, and I was covered with bruises. I kept getting strange looks, and a few people even questioned me about the bruises.

Once I realized that my hand was involved, I immediately suspected MS. Ten years earlier, I was diagnosed with optic neuritis, inflammation of the optic nerve, which is often a precursor to MS. One morning, ten years ago, I noticed the lower left quadrant of my left eye was completely black. I saw a couple doctors and was diagnosed with optic neuritis. After three days of IV steroids, it went away. I followed up with a neurologist who gave me an MRI and told me that I did have brain lesions, but they were small and were not in the right location of the brain to justify an MS diagnosis. He didn’t seem to be worried about it. He told me to watch it. I followed up with him for a few years, and then I stopped. I had actually forgotten about it, until now.

I am right handed but, because of my progressively worsening paralysis, I found myself compensating with my left. This was only three weeks after the first symptoms. I would try to pick up something with my right hand; it would fall. Soon I was brushing my teeth, maneuvering the mouse, and even signing my name with my left hand. My handwriting looked like a third grader’s, no matter which hand I used.

It took me twice as long to do anything: to shower, get dressed, walk to the bathroom, walk to the car. Every time I would lie down, my legs would go into action. Relentless leg spasticity disturbed my sleep all night long. About every 30 seconds my right leg, and sometimes my left as well, would contract intensely, then release. I was exhausted before I even got out of bed in the morning. I didn’t want to go on. I didn’t know who I was anymore. My body had betrayed me.

Immediately after I suspected MS, I went to see my doctor and begged for a neurology consult. I knew that what I was experiencing was neurological, and I was pretty confident it was MS due to my history. I asked for IV steroids immediately. My doctor laughed at me. She didn’t believe me. She said no one was going to give me IV steroids. She called me hysterical and gave me a prescription for Valium, which I willingly took at the time. I responded to this by doing what I had started doing so often; I burst into tears. Finally, I was referred to a neurologist: my appointment was scheduled two weeks from that day.

During the fifth week, I continued to research conventional treatment for MS.  I felt scared and hopeless as I became more and more disabled. I couldn’t walk up or down stairs without using a cane and holding onto the rail. I had already fallen three times. I couldn’t raise my toes on my right foot. This made driving difficult and frankly dangerous. I had to lift my whole foot and put it on the pedals. I was rapidly losing control over my body.

I couldn’t wait two weeks for the appointment. I walked into the neurologist’s office a week before my scheduled appointment, and surprisingly, the doctor agreed to see me. I just couldn’t take it anymore –not knowing what my body was doing, getting worse each day. I was a mess. Through my tears, I explained my history to doctor number four. I pressed for IV steroids because I knew in my heart that this was MS. He scheduled me for two MRI’s for the following week, one of the brain and one of the spine, both with contrast.

During this first appointment with the neurologist, I mentioned that I had been researching MS on the Internet and that I kept seeing stories of women who’s MS symptoms had improved simply by making dietary changes. I asked him what he thought about cutting out meat, processed food, sugar, dairy, and gluten. My doctor told me that there was no evidence that diet had any impact on the course of the disease or the severity of symptoms.

During the next week, I got the two MRI’s and kept the initial appointment with my neurologist, which was now our followup appointment. I was officially diagnosed with MS on March 20, 2014. This was six weeks after the onset of symptoms. MS had hit me fast and hard. I was still working, but I couldn’t concentrate. I couldn’t write. It was hard to type. I could barely walk. Some co-workers were questioning whether I should continue to work. My future was bleak.

When I read about natural remedies for MS I started to regain hope.

I had training for work that had been pre-planned six months previously, and I was scheduled to go to the States in two days. My neurologist told me that we would talk about preventative medication when I returned from my trip in two weeks. I received 1000 mg of IV prednisone that day, 2000 mg the next morning, and oral prednisone to take with me on my trip.

My head was spinning. I didn’t know how I was going to make it through a 12-hour flight let alone concentrate on spouse abuse training. During my trip, an airline escort had to meet me at the gate with a wheelchair and wheel me to the connecting flight. All I could think of was how I was going to continue to deteriorate, and I wondered what my future would look like. I spent the majority of the next two weeks reading about MS.

I returned to Germany two weeks later and started taking Tecfidera, a preventative MS medication, twice daily. I was also taking a muscle relaxer, an anti-anxiety medication, and a pain killer for the severe leg cramps. In addition, I had been taking a twice-daily steroid inhalant for asthma for more than ten years, and I kept a rescue inhaler with me at all times to use as needed. I also suffered from severe migraines since childhood, and I took Imitrex for this as needed.

In my research of conventional treatment for MS, all I read about was how the disease was “incurable” and about how I would need to set up a plan for “progressive disability” and “wheelchairs, home health aides, and Social Security Disability.” For about three days, I was consumed with dark thoughts. I didn’t want my new husband to have to care for me like that. For those three days, I wanted to die. Then I continued my research.

When I read about natural remedies for MS, I started to regain hope. I realized that the conventional medical community didn’t know what caused MS and didn’t believe there was a cure. I kept finding examples of how diet changes not only improved MS symptoms, but also cured it. As I read, I started to believe that I could get healthy, truly healthy. I also started to take action. I maintained the diet changes I had started and learned more about real health every day. I chose to continue to improve my diet; because it was the one thing I had control over in this whole situation.

I then remembered my old friend, Michael Edwards, had a real interest in alternative health care. He asked me to read several articles in his magazine, Organic Lifestyle Magazine. I began to learn more and more about health, real health, and how it is intimately connected to what we put in our mouth. Together Michael and I developed a nutritional and detoxification plan for me.

I noticed improvements right away. Just as I had declined a little bit every day, I noticed that I got a little bit stronger and more stable every day. I soon noticed that my other health ailments were improving, too. I no longer wheezed or suffered from migraines. I learned how to heal my gut from 20 years of Tylenol and Advil abuse. I learned how to feed my body nutrient-dense, anti-inflammatory foods that would aid in my healing. Many people looked at my salads and smoothies and said “You are so disciplined!” I typically replied, “My mobility is a good motivator.”

I stayed on Tecfidera from April until November 2014 and then made the decision to stop it. At first I was scared to make this decision. I had to get past the brainwashing; the belief that I had to take what the doctor prescribed. I had been able to wean myself off all of the other pharmaceuticals I had been taking, including the asthma medicine and migraine pills, which I had taken for more than 30 years. I was able to do this simply by adding organic, raw produce-more vegetables than fruit- to my diet.

I got confirmation that this was what was helping me whenever I would veer off the diet in any way. Once, about 45 days into eating only raw produce (organic when possible) I went to a going away luncheon for a close friend. The menu was abbreviated, so there wasn’t anything on it I could eat. I chose to eat a cheese pizza with whatever raw veggies they could put on top. Even though I only ate the top of the pizza (cheese, onion, and mushrooms), before I left the restaurant my forehead was pounding. I had an immediate, physical reaction to either the  dairy or the gluten.

More recently, I ate couscous for several days, not knowing that it was wheat. This time I didn’t get a headache; I had a full relapse of my MS symptoms. I noticed that my right foot had dropped, and I was tripping. I also had to stabilize myself when I rounded corners like before. I noticed a significant decrease in my energy and decreased ability to go up or down stairs. When I mentioned this to Michael, the first thing he said was, “Tell me exactly what you’ve eaten for the last four days.” When I stopped and thought about it, I realized couscous had been the only change in my diet.

There was another time, right after I finished the first two phases of my detox program (about 30 days of eating raw, organic produce) that I went out to eat with some girlfriends. I did this every Friday, so I knew how to stick to my program at a restaurant. On that day, however, we got to talking about how well I was doing. I shared with them how I was able to get off all of the medications simply by changing what I ate. I told them I was better – walking better, feeling better, and having more energy. I thought, “I’ve been good. I’ve stuck to my program so well I deserve some baklava.” It was delicious, but I couldn’t sleep that night because my stomach was turning in knots, and my legs, which had been peaceful for three weeks,started to spasm again. I told myself, “Baklava doesn’t taste this good. Nothing does.”

The radiologist looked at me and said, “You’re better!”

Four months after being diagnosed, it was time for a repeat MRI. My neurologist had said that the most I could hope for was no new lesions on my brain. Not only were there no new lesions, it showed no evidence of inflammation and the lesions I had previously were significantly reduced. The radiologist looked at me and said, “You’re better!”

Recently, I had a blood test that confirmed that the two indicators that show inflammation in the body were completely normal. These indicators were extremely elevated in March but normal in November. I have no doubt that it is due to the lifestyle changes I’ve made that have contributed to my healing.

It’s now been ten months since my initial diagnosis, and for the first time in my life, I am no longer an asthmatic. I don’t take asthma or migraine medicine or any pharmaceuticals for that matter. I only take natural supplements when needed to supplement my diet.

I use a good, whole food, nutrition supplement (Total Nutrition Formula) in my smoothie every morning and munch on a big salad all throughout the day and into the evening. My salad is full of 10 or more different organic vegetables and 3-4 different types of leafy greens with lots of garlic, onions, and turmeric. After all of that, if I am still hungry (and often I’m not) I’ll have some cooked quinoa mixed with raw garlic and any other raw vegetables. I drink a gallon of pure, living water every day (I also make this cranberry lemonade). To my water, I add either organic apple cider vinegar and organic strap molasses or organic lemon and cranberry juice sweetened with stevia and spiced with cayenne pepper.

As I continue on this healing journey, I continue to learn and make improved health choices. I learned that couscous is wheat, and it will imitate an MS flare up. I learned that nothing is as good as true health, not even baklava.

Note: I owe so much of my success in healing to the following article in Organic Lifestyle Magazine and the following supplements from Green Lifestyle Market. Much love to Michael Edwards, Chief Editor. Thank you!

Further Reading:
Recommended Supplements:


Unsafe Arsenic Levels in Rice and Poultry (especially brown rice)

Lately, there has been a lot of publicity about unsafe arsenic levels in rice and poultry due to a report from Consumer Reports. This is very disconcerting to hear, especially if you have only heard of arsenic as a poison. It actually is a metal, frequently found in our food and our water in both inorganic and organic forms. But arsenic, especially inorganic arsenic, is a carcinogen that increases the risk of bladder, lung and skin cancer. It also has been linked to heart disease and type 2 diabetes. In utero exposure may damage the baby’s immune system.

Arsenic is found in dirt and water, but of course mankind has added to the problem through arsenic-based insecticides and factory farming methods. Factory farms have been feeding arsenic-based food additives to poultry through the FDA recently revoked three of these. They warn, however, that the supplies on hand for many of these operations will last a year, giving us another reason to eat organic chicken.

High arsenic levels in rice are attributed to the irrigation water and the dirt in which it is grown. Consumer Reports’ 2012 investigation, combined with the FDA study in 2013, and the latest 2014 investigation by Consumer Reports covers the level of arsenic in 697 rice samples and 114 samples of other grains.

Consumer Reports states, “White basmati rice from California, India, and Pakistan, and sushi rice from the U.S. on average has half of the inorganic-arsenic amount of most other types of rice.”

But other states in the U.S. did not fare as well. “All types of rice (except sushi and quick cooking) with a label indicating that it’s from Arkansas, Louisiana, or Texas or just from the U.S. had the highest levels of inorganic arsenic in our tests.”

Arsenic levels are higher in brown rice (80% on average) because the arsenic accumulates in the outer layers (the bran and the germ), which are removed when rice is milled to make white rice.

Consumer Reports recommends the following: “Brown basmati from California, India, or Pakistan is the best choice; it has about a third less inorganic arsenic than other brown rices.”

Due to these findings, Consumer Reports and the FDA recommend eating a wide variety of grains rather than designing a diet with rice as a main staple. High levels of arsenic were found in processed rice products such as rice cakes, cracker, pasta, and dairy alternative products. They suggest small children should not be fed rice milk. Consumer Reports recommends limiting rice intake using a point system. See the link below for details.

You can reduce the amount of arsenic in your rice by thoroughly rinsing it before cooking it and by cooking it in large amounts of water (6 cups of water to one cup of rice) – the traditional Asian way of cooking rice. This method does, however, decrease the nutritional value as it loses vitamins and other nutrients in the water. These two practices are said to reduce the arsenic content by 30%

While arsenic in food is a concern, it gives us one more reason to focus on the best possible diet, which is 80% raw produce, eaten with naturally chelating foods such as garlic and cilantro. Eating this way helps us remove heavy metals from our bodies on a daily basis through the foods we eat.

Other likely sources of metal toxicity include poultry, beer, wine,  fish, brussels sprouts, and  Mercury Fillings. See Mercury Fillings, Root Canals, Cavitations – What You Need to Know. To remove heavy metals from your body, check out the recommended supplements, and the articles, How To Detoxify From Vaccinations & Heavy Metals & Top 5 foods that detox heavy metals and toxins.

Recommended Supplements (natural chelators):

Further Reading:
Sources:


Avoid These Common Mistakes To Optimize Your Health Quickly

For most people, learning about natural health (which, incidentally is the only kind of health there is) includes many of these common pitfalls that impede healing. The average person, especially those under 50, can achieve a high level of health very quickly, but it’s rare. The reason for this is brainwashing. Health is not nearly as complicated as we’re led to believe. Deprograming our brains, getting rid of all of the nonsense, is the challenge that takes people weeks, months, or usually years to achieve in order to restore health.

If you’ve had enough of the aches and pains, disease, doctors pilling on medications, or you just feel it’s time to avoid the fate you see your friends and family fall into, here’s what you can do to radically accelerate your learning curve and achieve a truly wonderful state of natural health and vitality, quickly.

No More Diet Foods

Diet soda, lean microwave dinners, healthy this and low fat that… are almost always garbage! If they reduce the fat, they increase the sugar. When they reduce the sugar, they increase the MSG. If the processed food does not have any fat or sugar, it almost always has artificial chemicals.

Stop Reading Labels

That’s right, I said stop reading labels, for a little while. Now that I’ve got your attention, I mean stop buying packaged foods. It’s important to learn how to read labels, but it’s much more important to shop in a manner that doesn’t require a lot of reading.

Typical self-proclaimed health-nuts love their junk food just as much as the conventional, sugar and caffeine addicted, soda drinking, GMO eating, processed food-buying consumer. The difference is that the health-nut generally buys foods labeled organic, or all natural, or something similar. Under many circumstances these words mean next to nothing. All natural is practically an industry joke played on gullible consumers. The phrase “Made with organic ingredients” is often simply a way to mark up the price. There are exceptions, and there is some junk food that I personally purchase from time to time, but organic junk food is still junk food!

Know What Health Food Really Is

Look at it this way, food has three levels: healthy, neutral, and not healthy. Healthy food heals. Neutral food has lots of benefits, especially when eaten with healthy foods, but it doesn’t really heal the body on its own.

Healthy food is produce. – raw, fresh produce. Foods that are alive are foods that heal and help rebuild the body. The fresher, the better. Enzymes are the key to assimilating nutrition, the key to vitality, the key to health. Very few people get enough enzymes. Enzymes are in raw foods, not in cooked foods. Cooking kills enzymes.

It’s important to understand that every time we eat foods void of enzymes, we’re taxing our bodies and reducing our lifespans, even when those food choices are of the healthier variety like rice and beans.

Brown rice, beans, quinoa, and lentils are examples of good foods to eat that should be considered neutral foods. These foods are wonderful sources of protein, bulk calories, minerals, and some vitamins. While raw food is best, it can be difficult for most, and impossible for some, to get enough minerals, protein, and calories from raw foods alone (for instance, I know plenty of people who have very poor access to fresh produce, or cannot afford it). Obviously, when cooked right, these foods have lots of benefits, but they don’t come close to the amazing health benefits of a salad. On the other hand, brown rice and beans with some raw produce such as avocados, diced tomatoes, chopped onions, crushed garlic, and ground turmeric is an incredibly healing, very beneficial, warm, and truly healthy meal. But, it still doesn’t even compare a big, diverse salad.

Cut Out the Sugar (this includes juicing)

Brown rice syrup, agave nectar, honey, coconut sugar, maple syrup, apple juice, beet juice, and sugar cane juice are much healthier choices than conventional sugar and high fructose corn syrup. They are “healthier” choices, but they are not “healthy” choices. To rid the body of disease and other ailments, cut it all out. Even allergies are a sign of too much sugar; that includes seasonal, pet, dust, and food allergies. Cut out the excess sugar completely for a while.

For a treat every now and then, wait until the body’s health is where it needs to be, and then eat some of those foods occasionally, while paying careful attention to the body. As soon as an allergy, an ache, or some other ailment starts creeping back, cut back your sugar intake.

Sugar is sugar, which is to say sugar weakens the immune system and deteriorates the body in many ways, unless it is within whole foods.

Nutrition Trumps Toxins

Avoid GMOs at all costs. Choose organic first, but when you can’t, avoid the “dirty dozen,” the foods most heavily contaminated with pesticides, especially if your health is in a poor state (see the last source below the article). Otherwise, fresh is best! When choosing between conventional, fresh produce, and organic frozen, canned, or otherwise processed, prepackaged foods, choose fresh. Get the enzymes. Unless someone is extremely sick, when the diet is balanced, the body can detoxify the chemicals and use the nutrients. More often than not, a person with a lack of nutrition and very low toxic load is typically less healthy than a person with a considerable toxic load and an abundance of nutrition. There are exceptions and a lot to learn, but doing research while eating lots of raw fresh produce is better than putting off dietary changes.

No More Vaccines, Prescription Medicines, or Over the Counter Drugs

There are some cases where prescription drugs are absolutely necessary. Most of those cases are for a limited period of time. It’s impossible to be truly healthy when the body is bombarded with chemicals. There is no drug that is healthy. Some drugs can help in some ways, but that doesn’t make them beneficial to your health. It’s not possible to reach the highest state of health and vitality while taking prescription drugs.

This is a question everyone taking drugs should ask themselves if they want to be healthy: “If I were stranded on an island, surrounded by the healthiest food imaginable, would I die without my drugs and/or vaccines?” If the answer is yes, then health will continue to elude you. If the answer is no, it’s time to do research and take control of your health.

There is the hard truth about vaccines that so many are unwilling to hear or understand. Regardless of a vaccine’s efficacy to prevent disease, there are two key problems with them:

  1. Vaccines are toxic – just read the ingredients. It doesn’t take an MD to know that injecting those ingredients into the body can, and will, damage health.
  2. Parasites, infectious disease, all the little critters that harm us go after weakened immune systems. The best defense against anything, from cancer to Ebola, is an incredibly strong immune system!

There’s no excuse for the flu shot. Even if they worked, which they don’t, it will still degrade your health. The real flu fighters are in the foods we eat.

Buy Whole Foods

Unadulterated, unpackaged, unprocessed, unmolested foods are what counts. This includes herbs and spices. The most benefit you can get from turmeric, or ginger, or garlic, or pepper for instance, is from the whole form that you crush, grate, crack, etc. Turmeric is an incredibly beneficial spice, and should be included in any healthy diet, but if the unprocessed root in unavailable, go ahead and get the packaged pre-ground version. But try for the whole food version whenever possible.

Drink Clean Water

Tap water is not good for us. Soda is extremely toxic to us. Milk feeds infection. Fruit, carrot, and beet juice has its place, but they have too much sugar to drink regularly for most people. Drink lots of clean drinking water. Spring water from a good, clean spring, or distilled water are the best choices. Check out the recipe for cranberry stevia lemonade, and try drinking a gallon a day for a powerful detox.

Stop Taking Cheap Supplements

Cheap supplements are ineffective and toxic. Supplements are so much safer than medications, but most of the time they are still a hindrance to good health. Be careful with supplement purchases, and don’t use supplements to replace a good diet. Supplements should “supplement” a healthy diet instead.

Where To Start?

Salads and lots of good water. Try this for two weeks: make a salad every single day with lots of fresh, raw produce. Check out the recipe from the first source below. Only eat salads, huge, diverse, nutrient rich salads, every day. Make the kind of salads that get finished in three sittings, not one. And make a gallon of cranberry lemonade sweetened with stevia. Eat fruits for snacks. Spend these two weeks researching and listening to the body, and slowly add more foods into the diet after ailments subside.

Recommended Supplements:
Further Reading:


8 Easy Steps to Health

We are quickly approaching New Year’s Day and the annual accounting that accompanies it. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions last year? The year before?

Most of the time, resolutions focus on health issues.

  • I will lose weight.
  • I will get healthy.
  • I will completely change the way I eat.

Within weeks we give up, defeated.

If you’re not healthy, if you continue to say to yourself, “I wish I could eat like that, take care of myself that well,” then do it. If the change is radical, approach it with a project plan – one step at a time.

Step One

One of the reasons change is hard is because it usually starts with taking away something. Instead, start the other way around. Every day, drink a smoothie. It doesn’t matter if you have it for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or a snack. Just drink a nutrient-dense smoothie. There are two important ingredients: a high quality nutrition powder and, depending on the diet, a balanced oil supplement. In a blender, start with fresh or frozen fruit, cover with juice (not always necessary when using fresh fruit), add two tablespoons of nutrition powder, a tablespoon of flaxseed oil or an omega oil blend, and as much kale or spinach or other greens you can handle. See the Powerfully Healing Raspberry Cream Smoothie Recipe.

Step Two

Your enthusiasm for this project will grow as each step makes a significant difference in the way you feel. Step two is to eat a large salad every day. No, I am not talking about a bowl of lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers. I am talking about an incredibly nutritious salad filled with lots of raw veggies. Make it with at least 12 different vegetables, and throw in some herbs and seeds as well. Be sure to add fresh garlic, turmeric, and pepper for synergistic health benefits. Make it big and munch on it all day if you can’t finish it in one sitting. You might find it easier to make a bunch of this salad twice a week. See 80% Raw Food Diet (amazing salad and dressing recipe).

Step Three

It’s time to learn how to breathe properly. Breathing should be done deeply, in a manner that expands the abdomen as you inhale. Proper breathing dramatically increases stamina and mental clarity, elevates your mood, and helps the body detoxify more efficiently (more toxins are released through breathing than through the pores, urination, and defecation combined). For more information, check out How To Breathe.

Step Four

Between your daily smoothie and your daily salad, you are going to be feeling so much better. Your body is getting the nutrition it needs to repair damage and to thrive on a cellular level. Now that you are feeling better, are you ready to feel a whole lot better? If it’s time, move on to step four. Clean out your kitchen. Get rid of all the crappy processed food filled with artificial colors, flavors, preservatives, MSG, high fructose corn syrup, GMOs, trans fats, and other disgusting chemicals.

You want to eat whole foods, real foods, organic foods. But while we’re taking something away, let’s add something. One of the most amazing things you can do for your body is to take up drinking a gallon of cranberry stevia lemonade a day. Drink it throughout the day. Check out this recipe.

Step Five

Increase the amount of raw foods you eat. Aim for 80% raw – more vegetables than fruit. Produce heals. Munch on produce all day, and eat the aforementioned big salads.

Step Six

It’s time to detox, and balance the gut’s eco-system (though the aforementioned salads have made a huge difference already). True health is achieved by providing the body with the nutrition it needs and ridding it of the parasites, yeast, heavy metals, chemicals, and other garbage that doesn’t belong.

You have the choice to take each of these steps fast or slow. The point is, be sure each step is ingrained before moving on. Check out Kill Candida and Balance The Gut Quickly. See the previous link for a cheap and easy detox.

Step Seven

Do squats. Start with a few, and do a few more every day. Get up to 100 every day. Take your time, and work your way up.

Be sure to see the first link for more on diet and a great salad recipe.

Can you imagine making such a radical change and how it will impact your life? If you can imagine it, you can do it. Just start with step one.

Step Eight

It’s time to take up running! We are made by nature to run, just like we are made to do squats. Running seriously detoxifies the body, flushes the lymphs glands, produces lots of great hormones, and is incredibly good for you. For optimum health, work up to being able to run long distances but also mix it up, do sprints (sprints are great to jump start a thyroid that’s beginning to heal), do slow jogs, and anything in between. Running long distances with an unhealthy body (or with the wrong shoes) can be very bad for your health and lead to injury and many other issues. On the other hand, when you’re in excellent health, running long distances a couple of times a week is one of the best things you can do for yourself.

If running is too much for you right now, start with speed walking, rebounding, and jumping rope (other great exercises).

This would also be a great time to take up yoga. The more well rounded your fitness regimen is, the better it is for your health. Try not to get stuck on one thing. Check out Yoga, A Beginner’s Guide. Also see, Running Without Knee Pain.

Check out and bookmark this list of “Foundational Articles.” See the top one for a Cheap and Easy Detox recipe for the lemonade recipe and a good detox protocol. For a recipe to make your own nutrition powder filled with vitamins and minerals check Make Your Own Homemade Nutrition Formula.

Recommended Supplements:
Further Reading:


If You’re Sick, Chances Are, Candida Is the Foundation of Your Illness

The most common fungus to negatively affect humans, Candida albicans, primarily colonizes the skin and the mucosal membranes of the mouth, genitals, and digestive tract. There are also a few other types of Candida that can impact our health as well; all strains respond well to naturopathic treatment.

Conventional medical experts say that from 30-70% of the present population have a benign colonization of this yeast. I would bet any well trained naturopath will tell you that more than 90% of the population host a Candida colonization and most of them are not benign, not in our modern, processed, easy-food society. In addition, I am yet to meet anyone suffering from any illness, who is not dealing with an overabundance of Candida.

When Candida leads to disease, conventional medical belief states that the infection can be localized, invasive, or systemic. Alternative medical belief would argue that a local infection such as a skin infection, vaginitis, or thrush is an indication that the gut, and likely the whole rest of the body, is already overwhelmed. Lending credence to this belief is the fact that the fastest way to kill any type of Candida infection, and insure it does not come right back, revolves around balancing the gut microbes.

The Candida connection with allergies, asthma, and dermatitis has long been accepted. Current research suggests Candida antigens may trigger celiac and Crohn’s disease. Even though these links of Candida to disease are acknowledged, the conventional medical community is hesitant to understand and accept the role of Candida in patients with multiple complaints often labeled as either non-specific autoimmune disease or more often as psychosomatic illness. These symptoms include fatigue, muscle pain, joint pain, rashes, dysuria, urinary frequency, vaginitis, and more. Nor do they realize Candida is so often the underlying cause for chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, environmental exposure syndrome, and central sensitization syndrome. Candida even effects the brain, and can be the precursor to many different mental illnesses from depression to schizophrenia. In other words, when the immune system goes belly up, Candida is almost always a major factor, if not, one of the few basic causes, though this connection is often overlooked or ignored.

There are more than 200 species of Candida, but less than a dozen affect humans. Candida alternate in form from budding yeast cells called blastospores to hyphae, thread-like filaments that bore through tissue and individual cells. The fact that it can alternate back and forth in form makes it harder for the immune system to respond to it. We are now discovering that it can produce slightly differing hyphae in different parts of the body, again creating a different immune response.

Candida is controlled or eliminated through diet and supplements, but studies have shown it often reoccurs. Since the same studies showed diet was the most important factor in eliminating the overgrowth, it only stands to reason that dietary changes need to be a lifelong commitment. A return to a standard American diet is a return to disease. A healthy diet, though not as restrictive as a diet designed to kill Candida, will help prevent a recurrence.

Candida overgrowth is certainly linked to antibiotic use, but it is also clearly a by-product of our sugar laden, processed, frankenscience American diet. If you are experiencing allergies, depression, slow healing, a weak immune system, dizzy spells, brain fog, insomnia, migraines, or any autoimmune problems such as chemical sensitivities, unexplained fatigue, muscle aches, joint pain, or similar symptoms, get the Candida that is in your body under control and know that eating well, eating a truly healthy diet is essential in keeping Candida at bay.

Believe it or not, chances are you eat too much sugar. Even most of us health nuts do. Sugar from fruit is fine when the fruit is whole, but sweet fruit and vegetable juices, agave, honey, brown rice syrup, and any refined sugar feeds Candida. To learn more about Candida and how to fight it, check out How To Kill Candida and Balance Your Inner Ecosystem.

Recommended Supplements:
Further Reading:
Sources:
  •  Stephen Olmstead, MD; Dennis Meiss, PhD; and Janet Ralston,BS, Candida, Fungal-Type Dysbiosis, and Chronic Disease: Exploring the Nature of theYeast Connection, Townsend Letter, June 2012


A Salad a Day – New Year’s Resolution Will Do More For Your Health

We are quickly approaching the New Year, the time when we all take stock of the year before and vow to change or improve. For the vast majority of us, New Year’s resolutions include some version of eating healthier or eating less. For a week or two, we just might give it a try. But old habits die hard, and soon we slip back into the usual routine. I believe there are good reasons new eating habits don’t stick. We don’t feel better; we just feel deprived. And new routines are usually too time consuming.

Make It Quick, Easy, and Life Changing

If you were to make one dietary change this year–just one—this one could change your life. Make a resolution to eat raw, fresh, organic produce each day. Your goal is to make raw produce 80% of your diet. For the majority, this will be a radical change, but it doesn’t have to be a difficult one.

Once a week, buy all the necessary veggies to make an incredible salad. Make one big batch every few days, and eat a big salad at least once a day (but know that the health benefits are greater if you make each and every salad fresh).

This is not the usual, wimpy salad. This salad is an adventure and the most nutritious salad you will ever eat. It is so good, you’ll never get tired of it. That said, you can always change it up. Just be sure you have a very large variety of veggies in your salad.

The Perfect Salad

This is your base:

  • Spinach
  • Field greens
  • Red cabbage
  • Collard greens (cut in fine strips)
  • Kale
  • Swiss chard
  • Collard greens
  • Beet Greens (they spoil fast, so eat these within a few days)

Forget iceberg lettuce. From now on, your “lettuce” should consist of at least five of the aforementioned leafy vegetables. Then you top it with shredded root vegetables.

These are your shreds:

  • Beet root
  • Carrots
  • Daikon radish
  • Artichoke root
  • Zucchini
  • Yellow squash

Zucchini and squash don’t last as long as the root veggies once they’re shredded, so take that into consideration when making them in advance.

Toppings:

  • Cilantro
  • Red onions
  • Leeks or green onions
  • Cucumber
  • Garlic
  • Turmeric
  • Pepper (or dried, ground up, non GMO papaya seeds)
  • Sunflower seeds (and/or chia seeds, walnuts, whatever you like)
  • Pomegranate seeds
  • Cranberries

I also like to add soft-boiled eggs and raisins and then top it off with a mix of balsamic vinaigrette, apple cider vinegar, and either flax seed oil or an omega 3 oil blend. Mix it up well to get the seasonings and dressing over all of the vegetables. I also used to add sheep feta cheese and chicken or steak, too. If you’ve got a meat eating friend who’s health you’re trying to turn around, and they balk at the idea of salads, then throw in a nice sheep feta and some meat, and they’ll love it.

Eating one salad a day plus several servings of raw fruit each day is a habit that is easy to include in your daily life if you prepare one or two big batches of salad a week. You will feel so much better, so quickly, you will not want to go back to your old habit of eating a sandwich and chips, fast food, or a frozen entree for lunch. If you are detoxifying, or dealing with illness and wish to incorporate these salads, be sure to make them fresh each time.

Of course, whenever possible, buy organic produce. Get to know your farmer’s markets if you have any near. And from now on, always have a salad in the fridge waiting for you. You’ll start to crave them in no time, as other habits, the not so healthy ones, begin to lessen their hold on you. The transformation is amazing. More than anything else, in my experience, these salads have been the precursor to a much healthier and disease free life for so many people. Seriously. These salads are that powerful. Put your health in your own hands.

Check out 80% Raw Food Diet for a salad dressing recipe that is to die for! And if you’re ready for step two, drink a gallon of cranberry, stevia lemonade a day (recipe here). And let us know if you’ve got some salad recipes or tips that you can share with us.

Further Reading:


How To Use a Neti Pot For Sinus Infections

A neti pot is a device to aid in nasal irrigation, a practice of using salt water to flush out the nose and sinus tissues along with excessive mucous, dust, debris, and pathogens. This practice can also reduce swelling of the sinuses and nasal passages.

While you can put water in your hands and sniff it up your nose, use a spoon, or use a bulb syringe, a net pot gives you more control and does not force water into sinuses – it merely flushes them.

To make your own saline solution, use 1 teaspoon of salt and 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda to 16 ounces (2 cups) of warm water.

Be sure that you use the following:

  • Distilled water or boiled water.
  • Real salt. Sea salt is not a good choice because it might contain traces of algae. Make sure the salt is fine and has no additives (no iodine or flavorings).
  • Baking soda without aluminum.

Heat the water until it is close to body temperature – around 98 degrees.

Irrigating the sinuses is a very old tradition of Ayurvedic medicine (2,000 – 3,000 years old), a daily practice for yogis. Though we do not recommend daily irrigation, the practice is very helpful at the onset of illness (along with gargling to reduce the number of pathogens in the throat) and throughout an illness if mucus is thick and is making breathing difficult.

To use the neti pot, simply lean over a sink, turn your face toward the hand holding the neti pot, place the spout in your upper nostril, and tilt the pot until the water runs in your nose. The water will run up your nostril and come out the lower nostril. You can direct the stream of water towards sinuses by how you tilt your head. Do both sides gently blowing your nose after each side is completed.

To purchase a neti pot, salt, solutions, etc. see Green Lifestyle Market.

Recommended Supplements:

Further Reading: