The Importance of Nutrition and LifestyleWritten by Dr. Tara Barker ND
The Importance of Nutrition and LifestyleEating healthy and taking care of yourself is essential to obtain optimal wellness. Most people roll their eyes or moan when confronted with these ideas, but, in reality, taking care of yourself is not as hard, time consuming, expensive, or dull as most would have you believe. In fact, once people decide to choose a healthy life, they notice more energy, increased self-confidence, more time to do things that really matter, and they spend less time in doctor’s office or hospital. It is less expensive to buy organic foods and shop for most items at a health food store than it is to buy candy, soda, chips, pizza, alcohol, and cigarettes. Not only do people consume less food on a healthy diet (you really can’t just eat one Pringle), they help their bodies to become stronger and more able to fight disease, which makes their health costs lower as well. The foods are not dull or tasteless either. It does depend on what you like, but, in general, unprocessed and whole foods right from garden (or produce section) are tastiest and most satisfying. If you don’t like fresh snap peas, maybe you’ve not had them done right! In our current society of hustle and bustle, we often go for cheapest and quickest foods to get rid of that nasty hunger sensation. But what does that do to you? Really? Most people don’t know and they don’t care. They will care more when they discover they have heart disease or diabetes or variety of other conditions caused by this type of lifestyle. But patterns get established and it is so difficult to stay away from burgers or sodas for long. Tastes get perverted (yes, that is word for it) to like too much fat, sugar, and salt in our diets. Foods don’t taste as good without additives. In reality, they don’t taste as good because cheap food is cheap food and you wouldn’t eat it if you weren’t fooled by extras added in to either make it look, taste, or smell better. A McDonald’s thin hamburger is grayish to begin with, never mind that it has comparatively loads of fat in its small size. Try just burger without cheese, ketchup, mustard, onions, or pickles. Pretty bland. That cheese (if you could call it that) is what they call ‘cheese food’. They cannot call it ‘cheese’ because of processing. This ‘cheese food’ makes up most of sliced cheeses in supermarkets. Look at labels. The ketchup has corn syrup (sugar) and sugar added. I could go on, but I won’t. The point is, these additives are added to make an inferior product taste good enough to sell at a cheaper price so public will buy. I guarantee in a taste test of a more expensive, yet organic ketchup made with tomatoes that taste good, and regular ketchup without any added sugar to either sample, you would choose organic one over non-organic based solely on freshness of taste. The same goes for burgers, ice cream, breads, and many processed products. The better ingredient quality, better it tastes and healthier it is for you. It is best to limit use of anything processed (processed meaning things were done to it, it is not directly or closely linked to whole, natural food; usually these foods are in boxes or bags), but whole grain rice with spices and herbs in a box with no unnatural additives is much better for you than usual Rice-a-Roni, mac and cheese, and like. Read those labels as well. If you cannot pronounce or understand what an ingredient is, do not consume it. If a product says ‘enriched’, this does not make it a better product. In fact, things are enriched when they have had those enriching items taken away. Processing foods uses heat, cold, light, drying, or crushing which all serve to deplete vitamins and minerals in food. To replace these essentials means food was already compromised. Look for foods that are as close to their natural state and as fresh as possible. The best foods are fresh straight from earth. The next best is fresh from produce or bulk section. Then comes frozen, dried, and canned, respectively.
| | Nothing Seems To Get Rid Of My Nagging Back Pain… What Now?Written by Jesse Cannone CFT, CPRS, CSPN and Steve Hefferon, CMT
I’m just guessing, but here’s what your experience with back pain has probably been like: You probably went to your family doctor first, or a chiropractor. Your visit likely only lasted 15 minutes or so… they poked around and confirmed that you do have back pain and gave you a prescription for pain. Now before we go any further, let me ask you this: how in heck is a prescription drug going to fix a physical problem like back pain? Doctor visits, chiropractic adjustments, physical therapy, pain relievers, anti-inflammatories, new mattress, rub on creams, and list goes on… I’m sure you’ve tried several or maybe even many on that list yet you’re back still hurts…. Why aren’t any of experts helping or treatments working? The answer is simple… It’s all in approach… most, if not all, of treatments people receive for back pain are flawed from start. I’m not going to cover each of them in detail in this article, however, if you would like to learn more about traditional treatments for back pain and why they don’t work, I suggest you read my article on subject here: http://www.losethebackpain.com/backpaintreatments.html You and I already know that those treatments just don’t work, so I want to give you some information that you can use to take control of your own health and well being and find “the” treatment that will finally get rid of your back pain once and for all. It has been my experience that trying to convince somebody of something they are unfamiliar with is just about impossible…. so instead of me telling you what to do, I want to give you tools for you to do it yourself. Step one: First, you must understand that pain is your body’s way of telling you something is wrong… don’t ignore it! And in order to fix it or get rid of it, you must first know what’s causing it. Step two: Be open-minded… in order to find a solution you’ll need to be willing to learn… and please don’t be afraid to look for and/or ask for help. There are thousands of sources of information in world on upper back pain, lower back pain and back pain in general, but if you don’t know how to sort through all that information it will be useless to you. Step three: Take action now… you’re going to do it, and with my help! You do not have to live with low back pain, upper back pain, sciatic pain, or any back pain for that matter and you can feel great again. You have two options: 1. Leave it up to your doctor or chiropractor and hope it gets taken care of… or 2. You can take control of your back care yourself and ensure it gets taken care of I don’t know about you, but it’s a no brainer for me! But, I know you may be feeling like there’s NO solution and maybe you’ve even resigned yourself to fact that you’ll have back pain for rest of your life… I hope that’s not case because you do have power and ability to eliminate it.
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