Embracing My Health

Paul, my husband, sent an email to a work colleague who is battling cancer.  Here’s that email.  I’ll expound on each of his points below in posts to follow over the next few days, but this is a great introduction on how and why nutrition makes all the difference in our health – whether it be improved general well-being to battling disease.  So without further ado…   I present guest blogger: Paul Moment.

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DON’T let the final word on this cancer come from the doctors. Seriously. I strongly encourage you to, along with the doctors advice, take matters into your own hands and educate yourselves on alternatives and supportive regimes.

Specifically, raw food. Janece has been getting us into raw food and the anecdotal results are pretty startling. She just read me some stories tonight about raw food’s effect on cancer – specifically gynecological cancer and advanced leukemia in the stories we read. (Editorial note: These case studies can be found in Carol Alt’s The Raw 50: 10 Amazing Breakfasts, Lunches, Dinners, Snacks, and Drinks for Your Raw Food Lifestyle.)  In both cases the cancer was neutralized to the point of completely disappearing, while the body’s critical nutritional indexes skyrockets. We personally had a friend with a very aggressive brain tumor who extended her life expectancy from months to almost two years just with nutritional changes, even though she didn’t know about raw food. Again, these are all people with very very serious health issues and the scariest kinds of cancers.

Here’s why Donna (Editorial note: name changed) should strongly consider trying raw food:

1) Nutrition is literally who we are. The only thing our body has to build itself, maintain a internal environment conducive to energetic life, and battle disease is what we take in — food and vitamins. When food is cooked, the important enzymes, fats, and chemical makeup of the food are altered and depleted, leaving our body bereft of the vital compounds it needs for cell building and disease prevention. Cancers exploit damaged and weakened immune systems. An important way to hold back cancer is to build an unfriendly environment for it by increasing the body’s overall vitality. In addition to cancer-fighting, raw food also contributes to healthy hair and skin, reduction or elimination of allergic symptoms and even serious conditions like irritable bowel syndrome etc.

2) Doctors know shockingly little about nutrition and its medicinal importance. I heard a stat once that most doctors only take one nutrition course in their almost decade-long medical training, and most of their ongoing training is in drug therapies – chemicals that can further disable the body’s natural disease fighting abilities. I strongly believe (and I believe the evidence is clear) that food is medicine, and it’s a much more pleasurable medicine than the chemo that Donna is potentially facing. At the very least, I hope she will take it on as a vital part of supporting her return to health, and no doctor is going to tell her to not try and eat healthy during the next months.

3) Raw food contributes to a non-acidic internal composition. In the early 1900s a scientist (Dr. Otto Warburg) won a Nobel prize for his work on how cancer is starved off and rendered much less potent in alkaline blood environments. Meat, sugars, dairy and other foods contribute to highly acidic blood environments (which additionally contributes to systemic inflammation, also problematic) whereas plant-based foods are highly alkalized. This accounts for the startling results that cancer patients have experienced switching to raw food.

4) Raw food is more energy-generating. Raw food is not only rich in all of the vital nutritional compounds, but it also frees the body from taking its own resources to try and milk some nutrition from the food. Having strong nutritional support mitigates stress and anxiety, which I’m sure Jim and Linda are feeling in abundance.

5) Raw food is delicious. It’s pie, lasagna & raviolis, smoothies, juice, sashimi, raw cheese, and tons of other delicious food. I am/have been a meat and potatoes kinda guy, preferring that even to sweet stuff. When I first heard raw food, I imagined bitter skinny people chewing nuts, but it’s really delicious and deeply satisfying – way more than I would have imagined.

Janece and I have been seeing fundamental body results. The anecdotal and study evidence is very compelling. The resources to take on a raw food lifestyle are abundant and well-developed. It’s easy, delicious, quick-acting, and cheaper than drugs. If Donna introduced just raw juice cocktail and greens-based smoothies into her diet, that would be enormously beneficial.

I’m copying Janece on this. She is researching this pretty thoroughly and has a ton of important resources. We’d love to give you any support in this that we can. You have our email.  Janece also has a health blog called “Embracing My Health” – http://www.embracingmyhealth.com. A couple of books we’ve found helpful – “Green for Life” by Victoria Boutenko and ““Eating in the Raw” and “The Raw 50″ by Carol Alt.

Are you a sugar addict?

Do you eat a lot of bread, pasta, noodles, pastries, soda, fruit drinks, or candy on most days? Can you imagine not eating those foods for even a day? Does food help you feel better when you are down? If you are stressed or tired, what do you reach for? Cut vegetables and dip, or a box of cookies, a slice of cake, a thick piece of toasted sourdough bread? Do you promise yourself that you won’t eat any of “those” foods today and at the end of the day you realize you didn’t make it to lunchtime without breaking your promise? Do you get annoyed if someone suggests you are addicted to sugar? What foods do you obsess over? What do you crave? Do you feel crappy after eating sugary foods, but eat them anyway? Do you wake up in the middle of night on a regular basis – or are you able to sleep solidly through the night? Do you have energy crashes? Do you want to eat nutritious meals but haven’t found that it’s “worth it” to give up your favorite foods?

Historically, the medical industry has asserted that sugar is not addictive. More recent research however, is beginning to show otherwise. In fact there is a study showing that sugar is more addictive than cocaine! And we know anecdotally… sugar addiction definitely has legs. Next time, before you leave your next get together with friends and family, check out the buffet table. Chances are that the veggie tray is still at least half full, but the plates of cookies, cake pans, ice cream buckets and pie tins have been wiped out.

Why Does This Matter?

If you are overweight, we know sugar doesn’t help our cause. Sugar adds empty, nutritionless calories and more inches around our waste. Sugar comsumption increases insulin levels in our bodies. Increased insulin means that you can count on living with one or more conditions like premature aging, type-2 diabetes, high blood pressure and cholesterol , heart disease and cancer. Being overweight, our risks are already high, but we are adding another couple bullets into the chamber in our game Russian Roulette by having a lifestyle filled with sugary foods.

Now, say you are right-weighted, pretty active and eat, in general, pretty good. Feeling a little more blase about avoiding sugar? Here are just a few things that sugar does to our bodies, overweight or not:

1. Suppresses the immune system, making us open to bacterial infections
2. Increases inflammation
3. Throws off the body’s ability to both absorb and maintain proper balance of essential minerals (i.e. calcium, magnesium, chromium, copper)
4. Creates hormonal imbalances
5. Creates mood, mental and behavior shifts such as depression, hyperactivity, anxiety, aggression, inability to concentrate or think clearly, drowsiness, etc.

Remember, this is only a partial list!

Inflammation

The impact of sugar on our bodies is pervasive. Let’s focus on one in particular, inflammation. Inflammation is a catch word flying through the medical research community. We are finding that inflammation in our bodies is the source of virtually all of our physical ails. Sugar feeds inflammation and inflammation is the catalyst and cause of nearly all degenerative diseases including allergies, asthma, Alzheimer’s cancer, diabetes, digestive disorders, hormonal imbalances, and osteoporosis. Degenerative disease are what most of us chalk up to “aging”… so yes, you are correct to associate sugar with premature aging on your health and your appearance.

Remove Excess Sugar and You Will Be Doing The Single-Most Important Thing to Improve Your Health

According to the World Health Organization, no more than 10% of our diet should come from added sweeteners. The USDA recommends 9% or less. If you use a formula that the USDA provides, take the example of a 2,000 calorie diet. That would amount to no more than 200 calories from sugar a day. That translates to about 50 grams. Many yogurts have 25-35 grams of sugar per serving, so you can see how easy it would be to hit that 50 gram mark pretty darn quickly. Removing excess sugar from your diet requires a lifestyle change. It’s not going to happen without choosing it and planning it.

Is It Worth It?

That’s a question you can only answer for yourself. I’ve been discovering that for me, it is. And, when I read the stories of those who’ve chosen to embrace their health, they are happy. Very happy. They are ecstatic that their bodies support them in accomplishing and doing what they want to do in life… in play, in relationships, in work, and in their dreams. Our physical health reaches beyond our bodies. It influences and impacts everything about who we are and how we spend our days. It’s that important.