General Guidelines for Healthy Living

Regarding Water

Drink plenty of pure, filtered water during the day -1 liter for every 50 lbs. For example, if you weighed 150 lbs, you would drink 3 liters of water daily. Think of tap water as POISON. Do not drink it if at all possible. Water filtration can be expensive, so you could do a couple of affordable things instead. I have Eldorado Springs deliver water to my office and my home and I just crank that expense into my budget. It's worth it to me and I think it will be to you. I drink and cook with it exclusively. Or you could get a Brita filtration pitcher or a PÜR filter which fits easily over any faucet.

Please note: Water is water is water. Water is not Coke. Water is not iced tea. Water is not any other liquid other than water. If you put juice into your water, it is no longer water. You can, however, put lemon slices into your water without disturbing its water-ness. Mineral water with a slice of lemon is a good before dinner drink. Not only will you be the popular designated driver, but you will be happily alkalinizing yourself.

Suggestion: Buy yourself a couple or three hard plastic Nalgene quart bottles. Fill them a third full with filtered water. Freeze. Fill it up to the top with fresh filtered water when ready and you will then have lovely cold water to drink on a rotating basis. Carry a water bottle with you at all times.

Do not eat anything from a bag, a box, a can, a jar or a wrapper!

Regarding Sugar

Sugar is the worst possible thing for you. (Oh, wait a minute, maybe shooting heroin is a bit worse. . .) Sugar is a poison which has destroyed CIVILIZATIONS! And it will destroy you. STOP IT NOW! Especially white sugar.

Yes, it might difficult to eliminate sugar and you may even experience a detox reaction (fatigue or headache) just like you would from detoxing from any other poison. Good news: Your misery will last - tops - three days, so pick a convenient 3 days and detoxify yourself once and for all from sugar. After this, you will stop craving sugar and carbohydrates and your life will become much more peaceful.

I would also suggest that you don't do honey or turbinado or any other sweetener disguised in a brown outfit. The only acceptable sweeteners for now are stevia and xylitol.

Here's a bit of bad news: Alcohol is sugar. In an ideal world, you would stop drinking alcohol totally. Otherwise, just have a drink on a special occasion. Stick to low glycemic alcohol, which is almost an oxymoron, but here's an example of what I mean: Margaritas are bad. Dry red wine is better. Whiskey Sours are bad. An ounce of vodka is better. Beer is bad. Period.

What about fake sugars like Saccharin or Nutrasweet? No can do. Of course they are bad for you and even- turn into nasty formaldehyde in your body which means that you will be embalmed before it's time. Start now getting rid of your Diet Coke habit. Stop putting honey in your tea and Nutrasweet in your coffee.

Go to your kitchen now and throw away everything that has sugar or corn syrup or dextrose in the first 5 ingredients on the label, plus anything with Nutrasweet in it. Throw away all the pink and blue packs of fake sugar. Eliminate your toxic food environment.

Regarding Carbohydrates

There are two kinds. Refined carbohydrates which are bad; you might as well eat right out of the sugar bowl because they turn into sugar immediately in your body. Refined carbohydrates are cookies, crackers, dry cereal, breads, bagels, pasta, popcorn or any food that is white (other than cauliflower). Do not eat these. I will also put any white potato (baked Idahos, new potatos, Yukon gold potatos) under the category of bad carbs as they are just big balls of white sugar in sneaky disguise as a vegetable. Yams are better, but don't overdo.

Unrefined carbohydrates are just a bit better for you, but will still stimulate your glycemic response and raise your blood sugar so don't eat these very much. Special occasions only. These semi-OK carbohydrates are WHOLE grains like oats, rice, rye, millet and quinoa. I prefer that everyone stay away from wheat as it has been adulterated to such a degree that almost everyone is sensitive to it.

Vegetables and fruits are also carbohydrates, but good ones. Unless otherwise specified, I recommend unlimited portions of veggies and 3 fruits per day. Avoid papayas, mangoes, bananas and green grapes because of their sugar content.

Get used to spending a bit more for food and eat only organic, esp. meats.

Regarding Fats

In general, we don't eat enough of the good fats and too many of the bad fats. We have all been beaten into an Entenmeyers submission by the low fat paradigm of the last 30 years - which, ironically is when the obesity epidemic began. Many of us not only became obese but we developed Type11 diabetes, hypertension and elevated cholesterol levels when all the low-fat foods, margarines and fake sugars became nutritionally de rigeur.

It's now time to fight back! I am now going to recommend that you eat heretofore forbidden fats so brace yourself: I suggest that you cook with extra-virgin olive oil, organic coconut oil or ghee made from organic butter. Use only these three oils in your kitchen for cooking. Start using and loving butter on your vegetables and that occasional piece of good toast or your yam. Throw all other oils out. Even the PAM.

Go through your kitchen now and throw out everything which has "hydrogenated" or "partially hydrogenated" on the label. These are serious poisons to our body and actually CAUSE heart disease.

You should be concerned primarily with two kinds of fats: Omega 3's and Omega 6's. Omega 3's come from fish and flax and are the ones we need the most. We usually don't need to worry about the omega 6's because we seem to get enough of these in our diet. At times, however, we might need to balance the Omega 3's and the Omega 6's in which case I will recommend adding evening primrose, borage or black current seed oil. Two other great oils - Gamma Linolenic Acid (GLA) and Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA) are particularly good for weight loss.

I suggest that everyone take extra Omega 3's in the form of good tasting Nordic Natural's orange flavored cod liver oil or fish oil caps and I also suggest that you eat salmon at least twice weekly if not more. Wildcaught is best, but farmed will do. Please use freshly ground golden flax seeds, too, either sprinkled on salads in a drink. (Flax oil, even if from a good company like Barleans or Spectrum, tends to get rancid rather easily even when refrigerated which is why I recommend the ground seeds.)

Suggestion: For a morning drink, grind 3 T. of golden flax and blend well with 1 cup of non-fat milk or rice milk and a few ice cubes.

Now that you've taken all of the unhealthy food out of your kitchen cabinets, you need to go shopping at Whole Foods or Wild Oats. Think fruits, vegetables, meats, plain yogurt, plain kefir, nuts, eggs, olive oil, butter, ghee, golden flax seeds. All whole foods. All organic. You will be eating lots of salads, steamed vegetables, roast chickens, steak, organic fruits, healthy meal replacement smoothies. Make sure you get enough food. This is not about under eating!

Regarding Exercise

You have to do some, but don't overdo it. If you have been checked out by a doctor and given the all clear, I suggest a brisk walk (or a slog) 4 or 5 times a week for 30 minutes - about 2 miles. And then do some upper body weights for your resistance training. If you can, get a fitness trainer to show you how. You could kill two birds with one stone, by carrying some weights on your walk. Invest in a treadmill for winter if you think you won't be out walking. I also think that Yoga, Pilate's and Tai Chi are great.

Regarding Electromagnetic Balance

There is an electromagnetic field surrounding all matter. Because of the intense electromagnetic smog we all live in today, our physical field is being negatively influenced on a fairly regular basis. Some negative fields are caused by microwave ovens, microwave towers, light poles, radio waves, fluorescent lights, computers, water beds and electric blankets. I recommend that everyone try to reduce their EMF stress. Other than moving to the mountains and turning off your computer, a more realistic way to do this is to purchase and wear a Q-link necklace for protection, to decrease electromagnetic stress and to enhance your healing process. You can purchase these for $129 from their website, healthnstuff.com/Qlink.asp

Regarding Weight

The current opinion is that weighing LESS is better. Dr. Roy Walford M. D. is a gerontologist who - for thirty years - has been studying how to live a long time. So far so good for him - he's 83 and going strong. under eating old guy in the Biosphere) He recommends systematic undereating and fasting one or two days per week.

If this is a bit much for you, if you just follow the good healthy principles above and exercise a bit you will lose weight naturally and over the course of 6 months to a year will get bright-eyed, energetic and slim.

Regarding Supplements

Yes, I certainly believe in supplements. Appropriately given, they are most powerful.

Simply put, we get sick either because of an excess of something that's not good for our body or a deficiency of something that is crucial to our body. The two often go hand in hand. The way we usually treat is this: We find out what's making you unhealthy, we get rid of the bad guys with appropriate supplements and lifestyle changes and then we start building your body up with good supportive nutrition. Very often, a toxic person will be throwing hundreds of dollars worth of supplements at their toxic body in an effort to feel better but they are not absorbing any of the wonderful nutrition - they just end up having very expensive urine. So generally we detox first and build up later: It's the principle of not wanting to put clean water in a dirty glass.

Some supplements are therapeutic in that they are designed to assist an organ or a system that is unable to do it's job properly, or to rid you of yeast, parasites, bacteria or some other dysbiosis (an imbalance) that is compromising your health. It may take a season or two or longer to both rid you of toxins and subsequently rebuild your organs and systems and in some cases, some sort of support will always be necessary.

Regarding Acid/Alkaline Balance

Almost all disease occurs in bodies which are consistently acidic. In order to prevent this unhealthy condition, I suggest that you eat mostly alkalinizing foods. Here's an easy way to do this: Your food plate should be 2/3 vegetables and fruits and 1/3 protein. Another good rule is to have your meat portion about as big as the palm of your hand. You can read books on this or ask me for a chart and develop your own plan for alkalinization. I also suggest that you purchase pH strips for about $10: You will measure your first morning urine and use this as a continuing gauge for alkalinity. When it is in the range of 6.5 to 6.8, you know that you are not losing your alkaline reserves during sleep and that you are eating well.

Regarding the Glycemic Index

This refers to how foods turn into sugar in your body. I suggest that you familiarize yourself with the glycemic index of most foods and eat on the low side. For example, a white potato has a glycemic index of 100, just like white sugar, so you would not want to eat potatoes. Vegetables mostly have a low glycemic index.

Regarding Food Combining

I have found this extremely valuable with my own health. Some of us just don't have the digestive fire that others have and must be more careful in how we combine our foods. To put it very simply, you can't combine proteins and grains and you must eat fruit separately. Or, eat a meal of vegetables and carbohydrates or a meal of vegetables and proteins. Eat any fruit at least 2 hours after or 1/2 hour before a meal of protein or carbohydrate. There are many charts which can tell you how to do this.

Some important tips

Plan, plan and plan some more. You must sit down on Sunday, for example, and decide what you will be eating for the next few days. Go shopping and get your food. The worst thing for your new way of life is to be unprepared and hungry. Your car will, with a mind seemingly of its own, veer off into the MacDonald's Drive Thru and you will be gobbling down a Big Mac and fries before you even know what happened.

You must know what you are going to eat, and have the food either prepared or ready to prepare. Crock pot cooking is wonderful for busy people. You can throw stuff into the pot in the morning or the night before and you will have a fully prepared meal when you come home from work. A good crock pot recipe book is Judith Finlayson's The 150 Best Slow Cooker Recipes. I have also found that Suzanne Somers' cookbooks are good, too, and will teach you more about food combining.

Be kind to yourself. You will slip up occasionally. Don't use this as an excuse to stop entirely. Just forgive yourself and move on.

So you want a treat, huh?

Since you can't nosh on cookies, crackers, popcorn or the like, what do you do? Nuts, nuts and more nuts. First of all, they are filled with wonderful oils. Walnuts are especially good for the heart and almonds are particularly alkalinizing. Don't restrict yourself. And, forget about nuts being fattening.

I also suggest that you have plenty of cleaned, prepared raw vegetables to grab out of the refrigerator. Of course, you have already thrown out all the cookies, chips etc, so you will not have a choice. It is very important that you get rid of the forbidden foods so you won't be tempted. I don't know anyone strong enough to make the correct choice between a few carrot strips and an Oreo cookie.

I also suggest Stoneyfield Low fat Plain yogurt sweetened with Stevia Plus and vanilla extract. This is a yummy after dinner "dessert."

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