Small Steps You Can Take to Living a Healthier Life

You may have heard the expression “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” Or How do you take a long journey? One step at a time. So how can we change our lifestyles to live healthier? Same way, one little step at a time. The first thing we need is awareness. Hence I am writing this blog to help educate folks on the bad things we do and eat without even thinking about it. But old habits die hard. We automatically reach for the salt shaker or that coke. It is pretty well known that it takes 21 days to break or create a new habit.

I suggest we do new things one habit at a time instead of a complete across the board clean sweep of old habits. For example, I gave up Breakfast sausage about 10 years ago. It was just one step toward eating less fat. It took a while to quit missing it but now I have no desire for such an unhealthy product. I’ll admit, I am having a hard time entirely quitting coffee. What I do is drink green tea five days a week and then the coffee becomes a Saturday, Sunday treat.

Some things have been easier to do. I have not eaten at McDonalds for quite a while. All it took was watching the movie “Supersize Me”. CLICK HERE to see this movie for free. Maybe you will see fast food in a new light.

High Fructose Corn Syrup is in just about everything these days. I have been working hard on eliminating it from my diet. But this has proven difficult. All restaurant chains serve it up in some fashion or another. Fruit juice which seems healthy on the surface is loaded with processed sugars. So I try to make almost all the food I eat. This way I can control the amount of processed sugars my family and I are eating. If you can’t eliminate it completely, how about moderation.

How about you take one step starting right now. Commit to eliminating one bad food from your diet. Maybe Coke or Diet Coke. Maybe donuts or candy. Just quit. You will miss it for a while. But your resolve will make it easier to take the next step. If you want to exercise more, start by going on a walk with a special person in your life. You get exercise and quality time with a loved one. Don’t delay – Start Today!!

What is pH in our body and Why is it important?

“pH” actually stands for potential-Hydrogen. Did you know that? We might be familiar with the pool guy measuring the pH of our pool, looking for yellow in his test bottle. We may know about Acid and Base (Alkaline) from some chemistry or biology class. Well I am here to tell you that pH is a big deal. Maintaining a neutral body chemistry (neither acid nor alkaline) is very very important.

We measure pH on a logarithmic scale like this:

0=Acid and 14=Base. Our bodies are in optimum pH at 7.4. And it is not bad to be in the high 7's

In America we tend to collectively be too acid. It is from the foods we eat. Fast food and processed food all tend to be very acid in their make-up. Are you surprised? If you have been reading my articles you should not be. “You are what you eat” has never been more true.

When our body is acidic it tends to make more fat cells to ward off the acids. This combined with excess calories from eating too much processed food is dangerous because the body also produces fat from those foods. Eating too much out of balance food means storage of FAT.

People who have acidic make-up tend to be overweight, shorter tempered, arthritic, or sickly. When you measure the pH of cancer patients they are 100% acid pH.

How do we know what our pH is? We can easily measure it. A pH test kit is easy to use. You can get the test paper at any health food store. Just put some saliva on a piece of test paper and compare it to this chart ( Some doctors say you should test your urine but enough sources say saliva is OK) :

Yellow and blue are bad. A greenish blue is ideal.

How do we Balance Our pH? Alkalinity can be increased by eating less meat, processed foods and sweets and eating more vegetables and fruits. Although eating fruit to increase alkalinity may seem to be a contradiction because some fruits (especially citrus) are acidic outside the body, digestion uses up their acidic components, leaving an alkaline residue (ash). Thus the net effect is alkaline-producing in the system.

These foods rank among the best for neutral pH:
Melons
Asparagus
Pineapple
Fresh Fruit Juices
Avocados
Citrus Fruits
Most Vegetables
Potatoes with Skin
Almonds

Plain old baking soda can be taken as a supplement to help balance your pH.  Just a couple of tea spoons a day will help increase alkalinity.

Hippocrates, the worlds most famous doctor said: “Let food by your medicine. Let medicine be your food.  CLICK HERE for a look at food supplements that have very good pH balance and will help you balance yours. 

What the Heck is an Antioxidant Anyway?

We are hearing a lot about antioxidants these days. The latest craze is pomegranates, very high in antioxidants. Now I have touted green tea, lemons and bananas, all vey high in antioxidants. So just what is an antioxidant?

Not to bore you with too much science but there is an irony about oxygen. We need it to survive but that molecule likes to hang out in twos. Oxygen in the air is actually O2 because there is a free electron in the molecule and it attaches itself easily to other molecules. This O2 molecule corrodes (actually oxidizes) metals and the fruits you cut open turn brown due to this molecule.

In our bodies that oxidation causes aging and is linked to a score of diseases like heart disease, macular degeneration and cancer. So as the name implies an antioxidant is the opposite. It keeps the damage from oxidants away and can actually repair damaged cells. In a very simple sense, antioxidants are anti-aging.

You’ll hear about “Free-radicals” which are damage causing and antioxidants as free radical killers or absorbers. Free-radicals come from all those processed foods that I have been talking about, as well as processed oils, smoking, and excessive sun exposure.

Back to that fruit turning brown. A little lemon or lime juice on an apple or avocado will prevent the fruit from turning brown. That is antioxidants at work.

So where do we get these antioxidants? They are found in many foods. A variety of fruits and vegetables have them as well as red meat, fish , eggs.

There are more than one kind of antioxidant because our bodies are very complex and an overabundance of one kind or another of antioxidants can actually be harmful to the body. So we need a variety of them to meet up with the complexity of our bodies. Common types are Vitamins A, C and E. Selenium, Phytochemicals, Flavonoids, polypherols and lycopene to name a few more. CLICK HERE  for a very nice link to a page from Healthcastle.com with all the antioxidants listed with lots of examples and pictures of the various foods in each category.

The simplest way to get antioxidants is to eat a variety of fruits and vegetables. Experts agree that we need a minimum of 5 servings a day. Most people do not meet the minimum, either through laziness or lack of knowledge. Supplements can be dangerous if large doses are taken. So downing lots of pills to make up for proper eating is probably not so good. CLICK HERE to learn about a liquid supplement that has been proven to be quite high in antioxidants. So everyone, eats lots of fruits and vegetables and let’s all stay young together.