Wellness Dietitian

Over the weekend I went to see a very well known dietician. I had had enough of being over-weight and decided that it was time to do something about it. I have tried many different forms of weight loss program, all with a lack of success. I am pleased to report that this dietician has shown me where I am going wrong and has put me on a diet which I am very confident will work. In this article I will describe this diet to you.

The name of the dietician is Linda, one of the first questions was not asking about what or how much I was eating, it was asking me about when I ate my meals. For the last couple of years I have been attempting to cut down on what I have been eating in an effort to lose weight. This is how I answered Linda’s question:

I rarely eat breakfast as I am normally too busy. I also do not feel like eating at this time of the day. At around eleven in the morning I might have a couple of biscuits (normally chocolate, I am aware that this is not good, but they are so nice), alternatively I will have a chocolate bar or some crisps. This is to basically keep me going until lunch.

For lunch I will normally have a sandwich, chicken or ham fillings, with a yoghurt for pudding, normally strawberry flavour. I do not like to eat too much at lunch time as it tends to make me tired in the afternoon. I will tend to have my main meal of the day at around seven in the evening. This could be one of many meals and is often followed by some form of pudding.

Linda explained that I was doing the opposite of what I should be doing. She explained it like a car journey. A car needs a lot of petrol at the start of a long journey (breakfast), it may then need a further big top up half way through the journey (lunch) and then a smaller top up towards the end of the journey (dinner). This is how your daily food intake should work; your main meal should be breakfast and not dinner. This will then enable me to stop the snack food as I will not be so hungry.

I am going to give this new form of living and eating a real go and will let you know what happens. Wish me luck.

Turning forty has become a landmark. Many people celebrate with elaborate parties and enjoy being at the height of life. But even if you are in pretty good shape, your friends who are older will give you warnings: “Just wait”, “You’re going to gain weight”, or “Check your blood pressure!” Whoever said “40 is the new 30″ was not forty-six, and most 40-something bodies are showing some wear and tear. If you have more than a few extra pounds on, the wear and tear will be more significant. Losing some weight while you are in your forties will assure you better health into your fifties and sixties- a time when you may have more free time, and want to spend it doing something fun. Even if you are not overweight, you may find it a challenge to maintain your weight now. A registered dietitian can give you the support you really need.

1. Registered dietitians are food and nutrition experts, translating the science of nutrition into practical solutions for healthy living. Information you may get from others who claim to understand nutrition, pails in comparison to the expertise, training and credentials that back a registered dietitian.

2. RDs not only have degrees in food and nutrition from accredited colleges and universities, but also have been trained to counsel and coach individuals, understanding how to properly promote positive lifestyle choices. RDs can develop personalized nutrition plans for any individual, no matter what age or medical history.

3. RDs are nutrition professionals you can trust. When you need food and nutrition information based on fact or need to know how a healthy diet improves health and fights disease- rely on qualified professionals in the field.

4. Heart disease and cancer are leading causes of death. A healthy weight and diet can help reduce your risk. A registered dietitian can put you on the path to lowering weight, eating healthfully and reducing your risk of chronic disease.

5. Now is the time to find your own RD; your personal nutrition coach! Health care costs are rising and if you want to live a comfortable life, as you grow older, now is the time to take control of your health.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Rosanne_Rust

In this article, Jill Fleming shares on listening to your body and staying healthy. Jill Fleming is a registered dietitian and author of Thin People Don’t Clean Their Plates.

Kevin: Jill I want to thank you so much for being on this call, as we’ve just heard you have this incredible line up of talents and things that you’ve done, so why don’t you just start?

Jill: Okay. Thanks, Kevin. Thanks for having me on today. My story starts back when I was 16 years old and I had food allergies and I started reading labels and just became very fascinated with nutrition. Everything I would pick up I would did, you know, this was in your food and just became very aware of what I was putting in to my body. So I went on to study dietetics and got two degrees in nutrition and during the time that I was studying I gained 40 pounds.

Kevin: Really

Jill: Yeah. So I realized that it wasn’t just knowing what you should do, but also applying that information to your life, so as soon as I finished college and started teaching weight loss classes which I knew was the area I wanted to focus on, I started to lose my weight almost instantly. As I was teaching people how to do it and how to fit the healthy choices into their lives I was doing it as well. During college I had a lot of stress and there were too many other things going on to focus on what I should have been doing for my health.

Kevin: When you said that you gained 40 pounds, what were you thinking as you were going through this information?

Jill: I really wasn’t too aware of the added weight coming on to my body because, you know, when I was in college I was wearing big floppy sweatshirts and little stretch pants that were very flexible and accommodating to my extra weight. What I really did notice though was being short of breath, being more tired, not sleeping well. I noticed my energy just being very low and that was what bothered me the most.

Kevin: You said you had food allergies. Did they continue to manifest as you went from you being 16 years old through college?

Jill: My food allergies now are almost totally gone.

Kevin: Okay

Jill: I think at that point when I had my very unhealthy lifestyle choices while studying nutrition, I was consuming somewhere between 8 and 10 cans of diet coke a day.

Kevin: Wow.

Jill: Definitely not healthy and I think I just overloaded my body on some of the artificial sweeteners and preservatives and a lot of the junk that was in the processed food.

Kevin: Right.

Jill: I think my body just rebelled and said we can’t take this any more and it manifested itself in allergies.

Kevin: So you think the toxicity of the artificial sweeteners caused that?

Jill: I truly do and it’s hard to prove that, but I guess you know your own body better than anyone else. As soon as I started getting the chemicals and the preservatives and the artificial sweeteners out of my diet, it was rough at first because I was pretty much addicted, but I started to feel better. My energy started to return and it was easier to make better choices as I started to feel better.

Kevin: Let’s talk about diet soda real quick. I know that there are some people out there who as healthy as they are they’re still drinking diet soda, I mean it’s amazing, I hear it from some of the people that I would think are so healthy but their still drinking diet soda. What did you do to go from 6-8 diet soda’s a day to zero?

Jill: Well, I was drinking so much and my body reacting in a way that I was so swollen I hardly could open my mouth to even eat.

Kevin: Wow.

Jill: I was using a straw to drink my diet soda’s to get them in, I needed them that bad and after I went to the food allergist he said the sodium benzoate, which wasn’t even a sweetener but just a preservative that was in the soda, is showing a strong reaction with you so you need to stop this immediately. So I just quit cold turkey from that day on. I mean I couldn’t pass a soda machine without getting a soda. It was a really strong habit. I just gave it up from that day forward and started drinking water and it was really tough, tough transition.

Kevin: Okay.

Jill: But I just had to go from all to nothing, because my body was in such stress.

Kevin: Well, it took a doctor.

Jill: Yeah. Exactly to point out what I was doing which I should have known, but being in college at that time 20 years ago they really weren’t talking about how the artificial sweeteners were that bad for you. I had to experience it myself.

Kevin: And 20 years ago your doctor knew that?

Jill: Yes, he did

Kevin: Okay.

Jill: Well, they did all the testing and that was the one that came up the strongest reaction for me.

Kevin: Wow. That’s pretty interesting. You’ve spoken in many places over the time that you’ve become a dietician and now writing as an author. Now, what are some of the important things or the keys that you think are essential to staying healthy?

Jill: I like to really simplify all of the complicated nutrition and exercise and advice that’s out there in to the basic model that I call the Wellness Triangle.

Kevin: Okay.

Jill: And there are three corners obviously to the triangle and they are all equal in importance and one of the corners is nutrition, how you’re fueling the body? Are you staying hydrated? Are you giving your body real food, good food and not too much of it? The second corner is exercise, are you moving your body on a regular basis? And I actually call this move and squeeze.

Kevin: Okay.

Jill: We’ll talk about the squeezies a little bit later.

Kevin: Great.

Jill: In the third corner is R&R, rest and relaxation. How are you sleeping? Do you have a lot of stress? Are you able to keep your stress level low? So between those three corners if you have one area that is out of balance, if you’re not feeding your body well, you’re not giving it the best fuel and staying hydrated, the other two corners will be thrown off as well. So being pretty good in all three corners is the ideal for optimal health.

Kevin: What do you suggest for someone? Is this something that they write down and assess or how does someone go and assess these three corners?

Jill: I think for most of us even just hearing about the Wellness Triangle will instantly say, “Oh. Wow. Yeah, I do not sleep well.” And they’ll know that the sleeping is the place to start, so if they get their sleeping and their stress under control they’re able to make better nutrition choices, its amazing. Then when they are fueling their body better and their sleeping better they’ve got more energy that their able to do their exercise or people say, “Oh, I hate exercise. I’ll never do it.” When they’re not doing the exercise their not sleeping as well at night and their not fueling their body as well because they kind of have the all or nothing mentality. So I think for the most part you could write it down but I think just hearing it mentally you can figure out what corner you probably need to start with.

Kevin: Yeah, I know which one I need to start with.

Jill: It’s different for everyone. It’s really amazing. I’ve had people that all they needed to do is start getting their sleep under control and everything fall into place and they start to lose weight and fell better and have more energy and they said it was just almost too easy.

Kevin: Yeah. That’s good news.

Jill: Yeah, it is. It’s easier than you think.

Kevin: Yeah. The title of your book is Thin People Don’t Clean Their Plates, Simple Lifestyle Choices for Permanent Weight Loss, is cleaning your plate one of the main reasons for weight gain and health issues?

Jill: I think what the title really signifies is that people who are not overweight, who are pretty close to what their ideal body weight should be and where they feel healthy in their body are listening to their body. They’re eating in relation to hunger and stopping at the point of satisfied. So if two people are sitting next to each other, one person was a lean person at their ideal body weight and the other person was heavy and needed to lose weight, I would guess that the person who stops at the point of no longer hungry would be the lean person, even if there’s still food on the plate and with my research studying people who are overweight versus people who were lean and at their ideal body weight, the overweight person typically would clean the plate regardless of if they were full or even if it tasted good. It was just a habit and we all heard those voices growing up, I believe. You know, clean your plate. They are saying to children you need to eat it all and hate to waste food.

Kevin: It’s horrible, isn’t it?

Jill: Yeah, but it’s just interesting that we all hear those voices that come back to still haunt us today and thinking that we stop eating when we’re uncomfortable. That’s how I was bought up. If you’re not uncomfortable then you need to keep eating. You need to be full.

Kevin: Yeah, which is definitely not true at all.

Jill: No and that’s one of the biggest things. Getting in touch with what your body is saying and when overweight people start to listen to their body and stop at the point of satisfied or no longer hungry, it feels very foreign. The first time I did it after my heavy phase at college at Thanksgiving it felt so strange to me. It felt wrong and that night I actually wanted to eat dinner and I thought I’ve never wanted to eat dinner on Thanksgiving evening, because usually it was the big lunch that you stuffed yourself to the point where you felt you were going to get sick and then needed a nap and then just kind of grazed the entire time. When I listened to my body and stopped, that evening four hours later I was ready to eat again.

Kevin: Yeah.

Jill: So it’s really amazing. The fun part is that you can eat what you want and more frequently, so it’s not that you have to stop and never eat again. It’s three hours later when you get hungry you say now you can eat again and I love eating.

1. Eat 5-6 small meals per day.

Your body uses physical, uncomfortable cues to guide you to action based on physiological needs. When you are thirsty, your body is telling you that you are dehydrated and you need to drink. When you have to urinate, there is an uncomfortable feeling of a full bladder, which gets worse if you do not relieve yourself. Upon receiving these cues, would you ignore them simply because you are busy? Most often, thirst and the need to urinate are acted upon immediately, so the stimulus never gets too powerful. Hunger is the body’s way of telling you that you need to eat. Don’t ignore it! If fact, it is best to avoid hunger all together, so you don’t feel the urge to run to the refrigerator the same way you may run to the rest room when pulling over on a long car trip.

Also, since every meal should contain a balance of protein, carbs, and healthy fats, all the different digestion mechanisms will be activated to digest the mini-meals, which burns more calories when digesting your set number of calories.

2. Include lean protein at every meal.

Eating protein at every meal gives your body a constant supply of amino acids. When sugar is made in the body, amino acid carbon skeletons are often utilized. A diet that is higher in protein prevents the body from using your muscle stores to make sugar. Also, many studies show that diets which are moderately high in protein (~30% of calories as protein) allow for greater muscle retention during weight loss. Furthermore, protein is the most important nutrient for satiety– you will not feel hungry as quickly. A 30% protein diet has not caused medical problems in research.

Good examples of lean protein include tilapia, skin-less chicken breast, turkey breast, 95% lean ground beef, some pork loins/chops (check nutritional info on package), 1% cottage cheese, and textured vegetable protein.

3. Eat raw, non-starchy vegetables and fruits frequently.

Always have non-starchy vegetables available for as your new “snack food.” They are good for you, fill you up, and give you something to chew on when you just feel like chewing on something. Also include non-starchy vegetables at most meals; vegetables make a reduced calorie diet far more substantial.

Good examples are broccoli, collard greens, spinach, lettuce, tomatoes, celery, water chestnuts, peppers, onions, and a multitude of others.

Eat 2-3 servings of low-glycemic fruits a day. Fruits are high in antioxidants, fiber, and generally very low in calories. For example a small piece of cheap white bread has 60-80 calories– a cup of strawberries has only 50.

Good examples of fruits that fit in this category are nectarines (~60 calories), plums (~35 calories), peaches (~65 calories), strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and apples. Remember, fresh is usually best. If you buy frozen fruits, make sure there is no added sugar.

4. Choose mostly whole grains.

The best whole grains are still completely intact and have not been processed or are minimally processed. Examples are brown rice, barley, quinoa, bulgur, and old-fashioned oats (which have been minimally processed because of the rolling). The germ (high in B vitamins and healthy fats), endosperm (carbohydrate portion), and bran (makes you regular) are all in their natural, intact forms.

5. Learn to cook and make the majority of your food at home- buy stock in tupperware.

The only way to know a food fits into your diet is if you make it! You needn’t restrict yourself to exclusively broccoli and haddock (though these are both excellent foods).

Fresh herbs can be put on pretty much anything. They are absolutely wonderful and add tons of flavor without calories, fat or salt. As an added benefit, many herbs and spices have health benefits, including garlic, parsley, and turmeric. Use herbs and spices early and often. Have an “herb of the week” and put it on everything you cook. The herb will not work with everything, but you will learn how flavors blend and become a better cook.

Pick up random vegetables and look up how to prepare them online. I’ve discovered the joys of collard greens, fresh water chestnuts, and purple cabbage in this way.

A little salt is okay! It adds flavor without adding calories– try adding dry soup mixes to roasted vegetables and meats.

6. When you eat out, eat a full serving of protein before leaving– order a broth based soup without high fat meat added or a salad with all nuts, cheese, and dressings on the side.

This tip serves a couple of purposes. Firstly, the about of protein in the salad will probably be inadequate to keep you satisfied. Secondly, you will not arrive completely famished and will be able to maintain your eating plan. Request fruit, sorbet, or coffee for an after dinner treat!

7. Hide or eliminate all junk food from your kitchen and house.

It’s a proven fact, if you can see it, you are more likely to eat it. It is optimal to remove these foods altogether; however, if your family will not allow you to be the nutrition police, then hide all distractors in cupboards on the highest shelf.

8. Focus on water based foods with a lot of weight, volume, and fiber.

This tip confirms the important of eating of lean protein, non-starchy vegetables, fruit, broth-based soups, and 1% or fat-free dairy. Research shows that people are likely to eat the same volume of food every day. Water adds volume to food without adding calories; hence, you can eat the same volume of food and reduce your overall calories for the day. This is why regular cheddar cheese has fewer calories per gram than dry fat-free pretzels.

9. Get moving!

Successful weight loss requires both healthy diet and exercise. If you do not exercise already, start off small– take the stairs, park far away from building, go for a walk on a nice day! As you become used to being more active, consider formal exercise. It is most important that you find something you like to do! Try group classes or training for a race!

10. Announce goals and keep supportive company.

Announcing a goal makes it official. A goal is both specific (you are measurable a specific thing inches, weight, number of calories you will take in each day, etc.) and measurable (you give a number to say how much, time limits, etc). An example of a goal: I will take one multivitamin each morning.

Supportive company is key– find someone who is as excited about your health and fitness goals as you are– give them regular, but brief, updates about your progress. Explain to people who may be less supportive why weight loss is important to you. Keep a healthy and positive attitude and unsupportive people may alter their views.

Achieving a state of good health and wellness means living a higher quality of life and experiencing a peace that goes beyond what material wealth and external situations can offer. The state of health and wellness is priceless yet available to rich and poor alike. Health and wellness is the food for a complete life. Only materialistic gains don’t determine peace and consistency in life. A proper health and wellness is attained when you relinquish all your needless qualms and achieve serenity. Wellness cannot be achieved superficially neither can it be tagged. A healthy life helps human to achieve wellness which is the real wealth of life. Good health and wellness inspires you to lead a hale and hearty life and thereby encourages you to leave all your anxiety, tragedy and disease behind you. Health and wellness encourages you to get geared up to accept every altercation sportingly that our prolific life offers. Achieve presence and peace of mind with a good cognitive and mind-body health. Take care of your health with natural diet, exercise, prevention, natural remedies, soothing sleep and other relaxation tools.

The main criterion to accomplish a good health is to have a balanced diet. An alarming survey has shown that in America, obesity is rampant, diabetes is epidemic and chronic disease is sky rocketing. This is caused due to excess intake of calorie consuming food like soft drinks, desserts, sweets, alcoholic beverages and salty snacks. Americans get plenty of calories but less of nutrition. No magic formula will trim away the extra pounds and keep them off. A balanced healthy diet can only do the wonder. Think smart, eat right and move more- these are the three plans of actions to be emulated if you wish to maintain a fitness regime. A healthy diet which means eating right recommends substituting fat-free or low fat milk with whole milk and save about 65 calories for each 8 ounce serving. Sometimes products labeled low fat can be high in calories. For example, low fat yoghurt can be high in calories. You can opt for fat free, low sugar added yoghurt instead for a fraction of calories. Don’t forget including high fiber food in your diet. Eating right will not only keep your health sculpted like a star but will also ingrain oodles of vigor in you. All of us today had to undergo heaps of anxiety in our professional as well as personal life and this inevitable stress eventually trims down our health thereby affecting our mind. To lead a healthy life and acquire wellness, a good health which comes from an impeccable diet is the basic requirement. High fiber foods such as whole grains, fruits and vegetables take some time to digest but this makes you feel fuller for long and will combat you from indulging into any unhealthy junk food. Include plenty of fruits in your diet since they add volumes to your health and also prevents you from taking any other calorie consuming drinks. Cut your favorite candy bar into bite-sized pieces. Buy that candy bar, slice it into pieces and then freeze it for sometime before you eat. This will dilute the surfeit sugar consumed by those candies and will make it a healthy food. While eating out, consider having two low calorie appetizers instead of an entrée. Eating right will help you feel contented and occupied without splurging on calories. Make your own diet chart and keep those palatable items in individual fresh packs. It is a time saving as well as a handy formula to keep up a good health.

Good health determines a balanced mind, body and soul. Foods those are rich in fiber throws in to a good health ardently. It helps your colon work better, reduces the risk of heart disease and cancer and it is associated with low cholesterol levels. Men over 50 years of age should intake 30 grams of fiber per day and women above 50 years should have 21 grams per day. Good health is not always about eating right. It has a wider meaning. To endorse good health, you need to coddle into some healthy physical exercises along with a proper diet. Exercising not only rejuvenates you inside out but also has a cleansing effect both physically and ethereally. All the waste matters and toxins in our body get eliminated through sweating when we do the exercises. Besides, blood circulation and respiratory system are greatly improved by regular exercises. Yoga, dancing, martial arts, sports, jogging, mountaineering or brisk walking if practiced regularly, will add immense value to your health and wellness. Good health also includes combustion of ill addictions such as tobacco, powerful liquor or any other drugs that can be life-taxing. Certain places are known to be superficially grimy like hospitals, funeral parlors, cemeteries, etc and weak persons are advised to take a shower after they pay a visit to such places. Visiting sea beaches confer a sedative effect on mind which is a significant factor in good health as sea water has a natural cleansing effect on the energy body. Emotional and mental hygiene is also a vital stipulation of good health. An emotional and mental hygiene mean having positive feelings like kindness, happiness, joy and enthusiasm which has a beneficiary impact on one’s emotions and thereby contributes a lot to health. Negative thoughts on the other hand lead to some acute health problems like migraine headache, acute sinusitis, hyperthyroidism, cholesterol, infected kidneys, constipation and many more such diseases. Thus, to gain a good health, not only you have to keep up a healthy diet but also a proper health and wellness regime along with good thoughts to keep yourself all geared up to enjoy life freely.

We all are wisely aware of our health and wellness and also how a little vigilance can avert us from getting infected to some malignant diseases like Aids, breast cancer and diabetes. Various health and wellness campaigns are held to make us sentient of the various safety measures to be taken to shun such maladies. Among all these diseases, breast cancer is one of the scariest diseases. It’s a malignant tumor in breast. Several breast cancer awareness campaigns are being set up every year to pass on the note of different prevention procedures of breast cancer to women so that they can combat it on the preliminary stage itself. For more than 20 years, National breast cancer awareness month has educated women about early breast cancer detection, diagnosis and treatment. 1st October to 31st October is the national breast cancer awareness month. Mammography screenings are a women’s best chance to detect breast cancer early. Combined with a few treatment options, mammography can actually help bring down this virus to a great extent, thereby affirming a healthy life and these issues are elucidated clearly and elaborately in the breast cancer awareness campaigns.

AIDS stands for “acquired immune deficiency syndrome”. AIDS destroy the whole immune system in the body of an individual which helps us fight back the ailments that our health endures. But if the immune system is eradicated then it will not kill the individual at the first shot but will make his body nil in resistant power. AIDS usually roots out from physical intimacy if the other person is infected with it, it might get transmitted from sharing similar needles and also any kind of blood transfusion. AIDS awareness campaigns are being set every year to deliver a range of safety measures that should be taken in order to thwart it. All these AIDS awareness campaigns actually notify you as to how you should go about these prevention procedures and claim for a healthy life. Besides, there are many AIDS awareness hotline that help you to fight with all these malignant diseases and save your health and wellness. 1st December is recognized as World’s Aids Day.

Other health awareness issues also include lung cancer awareness, vegetarian awareness, diabetic awareness and hypertension awareness series. Separate awareness programs are held to combat all these malignant diseases and with your little endeavor towards your health and wellness, you can keep yourself far away from these nerve wracking maladies and claim for a healthy life along with wellness.

Health and wellness determines the entity of your life. We offer the maximum part of our life to our job, career, family and other attributes but hardly do we confer a good amount of time to ourselves which includes our health and wellness at the result of which we tend to get into this pool of diseases recklessly. And again, apart from taking care of our health and wellness by eating right and maintaining a balanced diet, it is very essential to take care of all this dreadful diseases and it’s our liability to obtain our prevention measures. Health and wellness is the food for life and we human cannot actually afford to grant negligence on such matters if we aspire to live a healthy and successful life.

It used to be that the global measure for sweetness was pegged in the heaving ounces of raw honey, extracted from the waxen combs of beehives. The popular biblical idiom, “land flowing with milk and honey,” which figuratively portrays immense abundance, provides us with subtle hints on the significance of honey as a food source and commodity throughout history. Prior to the emergence of sugar cane in the nineteenth century, which replaced honey as a prime sweetener in many food preparations, raw honey was already extensively employed as flavoring and as a natural preservative for food and beverages while finding practical use as a sealant for leather products among others. Moreover, honey was already esteemed for its medicinal value early on being administered as a topical application for wounds.

Despite losing its status as a primary sweetener, honey retains much of its utility in commercial food preparations as an ingredient in beverages, gums, and spreads. Honey has a versatile nature to blend well with almost any type of food and drink. Unprocessed honey also finds use as a curing solution for meats, vegetables, and fruits due to its supersaturated state that prevents the outgrowth of microorganisms; raw honey will not spoil. Honeys cunning ability to absorb water reinforces its potential to extend the shelf life of pastries, processed food, and confectionery.

Today, the therapeutic merits of raw honey are finding its way back into the mainstream given the health related hazards confronting the excessive intake of sucrose, or table sugar, such as obesity, diabetes, and tooth decay. Consequently, the health care industry is experiencing a dramatic surge in organic health care products where the healing benefits provided by raw honey fit the pursuit of healthier lifestyles. And while its innate ability to heal wounds, burns, inflammation, infections, and digestive troubles has been well established in line with its antiseptic, antibacterial, and tonic properties, scientific research likewise points out the potential of raw honey to address matters of nutrition and disease prevention.

On the nutrition side, raw honey is enriched with the micronutrients Riboflavin and Niacin, which are vital to energy metabolism. This complements its inherent function as an energy resource. On the aspect of disease prevention, unprocessed honey is likely an ideal heart supplement due to the rich presence of antioxidants that promotes a drop in the risk factors pertinent to cardiovascular diseases.

As you may be aware you are not the only one who has ever hid empty wine or liquor bottles in cupboards you know your spouse doesn’t go in. Maybe you missed a job opportunity because you failed a drug test. In The United States, as far back as 2004, it was estimated that five to ten percent of the population were addicted to alcohol and/or other drugs.

That is also believed to be a conservative figure because of the staggering prescription drug abuse that often goes unreported. That’s 30 million people driving on our roads, working in all kinds of positions, some of them sensitive in nature. It’s a little frightening. I used to be one of them. Perhaps it’s better said “I am one of them, however, I have chosen not to engage in that activity anymore.” I’m in recovery from alcohol and drug addiction (chemical dependency, substance abuse, or whichever synergistic label applies today.)

It is not my intention to fill your mind with endless blather about psycho-babble; but rather to point out the obvious, drugs are bad… OK? One aspect of the detrimental effects of prolonged addiction (yes, this is how I talk and write) is the myriad of physical consequences brought upon the human body by abuse. I won’t lay out the laundry list in its entirety, but just to be reasonably informative, on the off chance there is a reader who has been locked in a closet wearing a blindfold, earplugs, and in a state of absolute delusion, it is extremely likely that your liver is damaged.

Ahh… the liver. What a wonderful organ! Next to my penis it’s my favorite. Come to think of it, I made a career abusing that one also. But that’s a bit off topic. Oh yes the liver, even more than the lungs, it is the organ which has the most ability to repair itself. It also is the one organ in the body that performs more functions than almost any other, except for the brain. The brain, that marvelous computer that is so intelligent it controls the automatic functions of the body, because the conscious mind would screw it up. There’s a dichotomy for you.

Given the premise that drug abuse damages the most important organs in the body, and that while we were doing this permanent harm to ourselves, we were in complete denial of the fact that we were truly killing ourselves, it is safe to assume there is a real mental illness at work here.

Ahh… Mental illness, finally we get to the crux of the matter. Physical wellness begins with mental wellness. Now, I don’t advocate that you run out and get a prescription to combat the mental illness we just pointed out that you have… There are other avenues available. Things you can do on a daily basis to repair the damage to your brain, and liver. Start with a really good nutritious diet. Eat lots of raw food (vegetables and fruit not red meat you animal!) and high protein (cooked lean red meat) low carbohydrate, whole grain dark bread, rice etc. It takes time, but you will feel better, and don’t forget to laugh once in a while. Now take off your Chihuahua’s sweater and act NORMAL!