You guessed it! It's broccoli! This crunchy green vegetable neutralizes toxins in your liver and helps keep you healthy! Check out this awesome Dr. Mercola article talking about 15 superfoods that boost your immune system, and which healthy foods pack the most nutritional punch for the least price!
We've only got a few more days, and we'll be wrapping up our Perfect Weight America series! Today we'll be talking about component 7, a very important one in our journey of health:
Reduce Toxins For Your Perfect Weight
Toxins are everywhere in our environment. From the food we eat, to the skin care products we use, to the air we breathe, toxins are present, residing in our bodies and causing a whole host of problems. For more on this issue see my former blog post about your body's burden.
Here are some common hiding places for toxins that Jordan Rubin points out in Perfect Weight America on page 178:
Conventionally raised meats, fruits and vegetables
Plastics
Household cleaners
Toothpaste
Skin care and body care products
Indoor air quality
Here are some tips that he recommends for reducing your family's exposure to toxins:
Drinking plenty of water- at least a half-ounce for each pound of body weight- will give the body the fluids it needs to pull those toxins out of the bloodstream.
Install shower filters to remove chlorine and toxins from your water.
Use glass or polycarbonate containers instead of plastic containers whenever possible.
Improve indoor air quality by opening windows, strategically placing natural houseplants, or buying an air filtration system.
Use natural cleaning products for your home.
Try out organic cosmetics and personal care products, which are good for the body and for the environment.
We all know we should exercise, but "knowing" the good we ought to do, and actually doing it are two totally different things! Back in the days of farming and pre-industrialization, exercise wasn't something you needed to plan into your Palm Pilot, because your life centered around physical exertion.
Nowadays, we do need to schedule exercise into our hectic lives, because it is often the first thing to go when things get crazy! (In addition to healthy eating!)
But if you want to reach your perfect weight this year (don't give up on your resolutions yet) or simply extend your lifespan and stay healthy, with less colds & flu, then you'll want to plan on getting some good exercise in.
The good news is that it does not have to take long! In Perfect Weight America, Jordan Rubin advocates a specific type of fat-burning, strength enhancing exercise called Functional Interval Training.
Now, this is one chapter of the book (chapter 9) that you really need to read for yourself, as Rubin confronts some commonly held beliefs about what fitness is truly beneficial, and specifically, which kind causes you to lose weight.
"Engaging in intense workouts designed to deplete oxygen stores will cause the body to switch on the fat-burning cells. In other words, the standard "cardio" exercises- that is, walking on a treadmill like a mind-numbed robot for forty-five minutes- are somewhat helpful; however, intense oxygen-depriving anaerobic exercise does two important things to help you lose weight:
Anaerobic exercise increases the percentage of calories and fat burned as compared to the percentage of carbohydrates burned.Anaerobic exercise raises your metabolic rate, which helps you burn even more calories when you're at rest.
So what is the difference between anaerobic & aerobic exercise? Well, Rubin defines anaerobic exercise on page 158 by saying,
"Anaerobic exercise causes the body to make energy without oxygen because the demand for energy is so fast and huge that the body must create it from numerous body chemicals."
Here are some examples of aerobic exercise:
Aerobic classes
Bicycling
Dancing
Golfing
Soccer
Walking
Basketball
Volleyball
Tennis
Here are some examples of fat-burning anaerobic exercise:
Lifting weights
Using strength-training machines such as Nautilus and Hoist
Jumping rope or jumping on a rebounder
Sprinting
Working the body's core muscles through the use of functional exercises with rubber bands, stability balls, medicine balls, and kettleballs
For more on how to create the perfect fat-burning, FIT workout just for you, read the Perfect Weight America book!
Did you know that in your lifetime, sixty tons of food will pass through your gastrointestinal system?
Neither did I, but Jordan Rubin brings it up in Perfect Weight America on page 129, with a good point- all that food has to go somewhere! Not to be too graphic, but we all accumulate toxins and waste byproducts everyday in our bodies.
The amount we accumulate is largely related to our own choices, but no matter what, everyone needs a good cleanse on a regular basis.
"Habitual intake of a diet high in refined and highly processed foods leads to accumulation of toxins, increased contact time, and damage to the lining of the gut due to constipation and higher pressures developing inside the bowel. In plain language, such foods gunk up the digestive tract like a mass of cookie dough in a garbage disposal.
(Do you still want your candy, white sugary treats and white flour confections after reading that sentence?!) :)
Enough already! That's what the body is saying after years, if not decades, of abuse. If the digestive system isn't given a chance to restore itself- through body therapies known as cleansing and fasting- then digestive-related disorders and diseases can and will occur, affecting the very core of how the body grows, repairs itself, gains energy, and reaches its perfect weight." So how do you cleanse? One truly awesome tool for a great and very simple, non life altering cleanse is Garden of Life's Perfect Cleanse kit.
My husband and I have both used this kit and we love it. It is non disruptive to your daily life, (it doesn't require fasting, although it is beneficial if you decide to) only lasts 10 days, and doesn't give you a stomach ache!
Hope you all had a great weekend! I saw this article today from Dr. Mercola discussing the tragic story of a woman who helped orphans find adopting families- until she was diagnosed with stage 4 cervical cancer. As a single mom, it was now her job to find someone to raise her two daughters after her death.
This story is so tragic and poignant that I had to take a pause in our Perfect Weight America series to share it!
Everyone should read this and share it with loved ones- the advice that he gives at the end could save your life!
Well, we're halfway done! Today we'll discuss component 4 of the Perfect Weight America program:
Supplement For Your Perfect Weight
Personally, I believe supplements are extremely necessary in our nutrient- starved world, even if you are eating, like our family, 100% organic food. Food is simply not what it's supposed to be, or used to be, even when it is organic. See my post about what supplements I take, and why, for more info.
And even supplements are not all created equally.
Here's what Jordan Rubin has to say about supplements in Perfect Weight America, page 111:
"Have you checked the label of your multivitamin lately? If you see ingredients such as sucrose, cornstarch, thiamine mononitrate, pyridoxine hydrochloride, or sodium metasilicate listed, your multivitamin is produced from isolated and synthetic materials.
When you look on the packaging and see the letters dl in front of an ingredient- like 'dl-alpha tocopheryl,' for example- your multivitamin is using a synthetic version of vitamin E. Again, not all vitamin E is created equal.
Synthetic or isolated multivitamins are never going to be as good or potent as the ones produced from natural sources; studies show that synthetically made vitamins are 50 percent less biologically active than vitamins made from natural sources.
So when you introduce nutritional supplements produced from whole foods and other natural sources into your body, you'll double the nutrients available to the body."
In Perfect Weight America, Jordan Rubin recommends taking three awesome Garden of Life supplements as part of the program: The first is this awesome multivitamin from Garden of Life. I took this multivitamin from the time I started the Maker's Diet 5 years ago until they came out with their raw prenatal. Check out the description on their website for more info!
Secondly, he recommends taking a truly awesome fat-burning product, the revolutionary FucoThin. I mentioned this a couple weeks ago, and one lucky reader got a free bottle in our giveaway! Check out www.fucothin.com to find out how this awesome supplement can help you reach your weight loss goals in 2011. And last, but certainly not least, the Vitamin -D and Omega-3 rich cod liver oil. (Don't worry, it comes in capsules too, if drinking it straight is not your style.)
Good for your heart, brain, eyes, immune system, and just about everything else, cod liver oil is a must to add to your supplement regiment! Check out Garden of Life's site for more info on this awesome product! (Even my three year old takes a spoonful every night!) Well, next week we'll be on part 5 of the Perfect Weight America program, showing you how to Cleanse for your Perfect Weight!
