Fresh Fruits and vegetables can be quite expensive, especially out of season. But doctor bills are expensive every day. Do you find yourself running to the doctor on a regular basis for colds, congestion, flu symptoms, sinusitis, etc.... Have you ever thought about how what you eat might be contributing to your poor health? I'm not talking about good eating habits just to stay thin and trim. I'm talking about good eating habits to stay out of the doctors office.
The old saying, "An apple a day keeps the doctor away," has tremendous merit.
This is what I have learned from monitoring my own body. When I have a high intake on a regular basis of fresh fruits and vegetables, not cooked, not frozen, not canned, or even from home canning - but FRESH like off the tree or out of the ground (from the grocery store silly), I feel better, have more energy, look better, and do not get sick.
If I go days without fresh stuff, or have too many sweets or other things - too much cooked food or high calorie, low nutrition food - (because I am NOT a purist at all - been there burned the T-shirt), I start feeling lousy and realize I have to increase the fresh stuff, get rid of the crud still sitting in my body - cause it takes a few days to get rid of the not so good foods - so I can feel better. IT WORKS EVERY TIME!!!
This is my day in day out practice. Eat a balanced diet by eating several times a day and only when I am hungry. Stick to as much fresh fruit and vegetables as possible, and keep everything else very simple. The more simple your food, the easier it is to digest. Keeping things easy to digest is the key. YOUR DIGESTION IS THE KEY TO KEEPING THE INSIDE OF YOU HEALTHY - but that is another blog. Keeping things simple is also easier on MOM or DAD - whoever does the food prep at home.
Juicing for me is simply a way to maintain optimal health. For instance, my doctor doesn't know who I am or even have records on me any more. The last time I went to the family practice was because I had gotten a severe case of food poisoning and was dehydrating. They hadn't seen me in eight years - since I was in with my son for a check up after he was born. They hadn't seen me in so long, they didn't have my records. They didn't even start a new file. They gave me a shot, sent me home and never even billed me. That was in 2000. Other than a female physical about every two years, which so far has been good, I don't go.
What do I do? Well, I pay attention to how I feel. If I have too many sweets too many days in a row (I do have a terrible sweet tooth!), my first symptoms are congestion. As soon as I start feeling congested, I cut out the sweets and dairy (also causes mucous and congestion), juice if I can with fresh fruits and vegetables, or increase my intake of fruits and vegetables, drink lots of water, and take an herbal fiber cleanse (more on that later). Within a day or two, I am back to normal: no congestion, no cold, no antibiotics, no bills. I would rather spend my money on lots of fresh fruits and vegetables rather than on doctor bills anyway.
What about when I feel sick to my stomach? Again, I can usually tie it back to something that I ate that my body does not particularly appreciate.
What about when I am exposed to people who are sick? Generally speaking, because of my health, my immune system is healthy and I do not tend to get sick from others very easily. I take care of my body on a regular basis; it takes care not to get sick when the epidemics come through. Believe me; they come through the school system on a regular basis. My fellow teachers are out on a regular basis when this happens. I haven't been out sick because of this stuff since my first or second year of teaching - when my stress levels were excessive, and I was in graduate school living on "find what you can on the way to class after work"...NOT GOOD!! NOT GOOD!!
If that is where you are, you have to make up your mind to start making changes even if they are little ones - especially if you feel like your doctor gets more of your money than you do. I do appreciate doctors and believe they are needed - in an emergency. I don't think we need to run to them every time we get the sniffles - especially if it can be helped by changing our diets. Like I said, it has worked for me and my family. We don't pay the doctor, and I don't pay excessive rates for insurance either. Think about it....
Friday, January 16, 2009
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Info Links
I added the Google Search Engine to make it easier to search for topics from this site. For instance, if I mention a book I am particularly fond of, you can search amazon.com straight from this site and it will pop up in a new window.
Hope you enjoy the feature.
Hope you enjoy the feature.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
In the Beginning...was juicing to combat the effects of hepatitis
Seriously! My mom got hepatitis on her honeymoon eating bad shellfish. She came home and spent the next 6 weeks in the hospital. I had to get shots and everything! A kids worst night mare.
My next memories are of her in the kitchen using this large contraption to make fresh juice. I don't remember drinking it at the time, but know at some point I learned to use the juicer myself. It was fun to explore the juice options - what combinations of vegatables, OR - my favorite - what combinations of fruits. I was a fruitaholic - but that is another story.
To this day, my mother does not have any current health issues related to her liver - the organ usually stressed or destroyed by hepatitis.
Juicing became a natural part of our household...I didn't really think anything of it.
Well, then I moved away from home and went to college, got married, and started having children. I must have been having some health concerns because a friend reintroduced me to juicing. She let me borrow her juicer for a while and I started investigating juicing all over again.
I found several great books about juicing - one I still use today: Juicing for Life by Cherie Calbom ad Maureen Keane. It was first published in 1992. It contains all kinds of juice recipes based on symptoms or physical conditions. That was the next step in my comprehending that natural foods had the ingredients to help our bodies heal themselves. If I had an issue, I would drink a certain kind of juice. It always seemed to help.
Juice Fasting:
The next big step of course was juice fasting. Juice fasting can be a day, 2 day, 3 day, 10 day....you pick the number of days....in which you drink nothing but fresh fruit and/or vegetable juices. Now I had never done that as a kid. However, after starting to have kids, I noticed I needed something more to help my body heal than just eating healthy. After all, I was a relatively healthy eater - light on fast food, cooked at home, few if any sodas, etc...
Lots of opinions circulate about juicing. Some claim they get too hungry on a juice fast, or are at least too worried about getting hungry. Understand this: IF YOU HAVE A BIG PHYSICAL ISSUE GOING ON IN YOUR BODY, your body needs and deserves the opportunity to heal. Do what your doctor says, and feed your body the fuel it needs to recover. It is amazing to me, how well the body can heal itself if you give it the right ingredients. It's like putting gasoline in your gas tank instead of water. Water will kill your engine, like junk food and dead food will kill your body - just a little slower than water in an engine.
Juicing was the beginning to my healthy habits. From there, I began to be inquisitive about the science of health and nutrition. In college I studied Biology and Chemistry, with Human Physiology and Immunology being my favorite subjects. I have simply made it a way of life, have been sharing my stories for a life time, and by request am making them more widely available.
So this is the beginning ...new beginning for me and you. Enjoy:)
My next memories are of her in the kitchen using this large contraption to make fresh juice. I don't remember drinking it at the time, but know at some point I learned to use the juicer myself. It was fun to explore the juice options - what combinations of vegatables, OR - my favorite - what combinations of fruits. I was a fruitaholic - but that is another story.
To this day, my mother does not have any current health issues related to her liver - the organ usually stressed or destroyed by hepatitis.
Juicing became a natural part of our household...I didn't really think anything of it.
Well, then I moved away from home and went to college, got married, and started having children. I must have been having some health concerns because a friend reintroduced me to juicing. She let me borrow her juicer for a while and I started investigating juicing all over again.
I found several great books about juicing - one I still use today: Juicing for Life by Cherie Calbom ad Maureen Keane. It was first published in 1992. It contains all kinds of juice recipes based on symptoms or physical conditions. That was the next step in my comprehending that natural foods had the ingredients to help our bodies heal themselves. If I had an issue, I would drink a certain kind of juice. It always seemed to help.
Juice Fasting:
The next big step of course was juice fasting. Juice fasting can be a day, 2 day, 3 day, 10 day....you pick the number of days....in which you drink nothing but fresh fruit and/or vegetable juices. Now I had never done that as a kid. However, after starting to have kids, I noticed I needed something more to help my body heal than just eating healthy. After all, I was a relatively healthy eater - light on fast food, cooked at home, few if any sodas, etc...
Lots of opinions circulate about juicing. Some claim they get too hungry on a juice fast, or are at least too worried about getting hungry. Understand this: IF YOU HAVE A BIG PHYSICAL ISSUE GOING ON IN YOUR BODY, your body needs and deserves the opportunity to heal. Do what your doctor says, and feed your body the fuel it needs to recover. It is amazing to me, how well the body can heal itself if you give it the right ingredients. It's like putting gasoline in your gas tank instead of water. Water will kill your engine, like junk food and dead food will kill your body - just a little slower than water in an engine.
Juicing was the beginning to my healthy habits. From there, I began to be inquisitive about the science of health and nutrition. In college I studied Biology and Chemistry, with Human Physiology and Immunology being my favorite subjects. I have simply made it a way of life, have been sharing my stories for a life time, and by request am making them more widely available.
So this is the beginning ...new beginning for me and you. Enjoy:)
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