Connecting to Wellness

What do Coffee, Tea, Alcohol and Soda have in common? Anything you drink with caffeine or alcohol can dehydrate you by turning off antidiuretic hormone in your kidneys. This hormone causes your kidneys to return water back to the body. If it is shut off, you lose water. When you take water out of your body, you dry up causing: fatigue, muscle aches, joint pain, headaches, toxicity, etc. Staying hydrated is one of the most important things you can do to promote health!

I’m amazed with how many people “don’t like water.” This is equivalent to saying, “I don’t like air.” Our bodies are about 65% water by weight. Water is one of the least forgiving of all the nutrients – you can only survive a couple days without it. It is responsible for the transport of nutrients, oxygen, and waste products, as well as regulating your body temperature and serving as the medium in which almost all of your body’s chemical reactions take place. Drinking an adequate amount of clean water is one of the most overlooked but simple ways of keeping healthy.

Most agree that you should have around 8-10 (8 oz) glasses of water each and every day. Others say you should take your weight in pounds and divide that number by ‘2’ and this number is the amount of water in ounces you should drink daily. Regardless, it is my experience that most people could benefit from more water.

If you truly cannot learn to like the taste of water, I recommend mineral water, unsweetened green or black teas, water with lemon added or mixed with fruit juice. You can substitute a couple glasses of unsweetened fruit juice each day. However, you cannot count caffeinated tea, coffee, or soda as the water that is in these is lost through the kidneys as a result of caffeine.

Cleaning Out

Even the American Cancer Association recognizes that around 80% of cancer is related to environmental toxins – from what we eat, drink, and breathe.  According to all sources, despite some futile efforts to control it, the toxic load that we take in only seems to increase.  This is why I always recommend an annual detoxification or cleanse to attempt to flush out all the impurities, toxins, and general unwanted goop that builds up in our system over the year.

In researching different types of cleanses, I discovered that detoxification programs are considered somewhat controversial as there is not a great deal of scientific data to support their significance.  Even though I’m a fan of the data, sometimes common sense must prevail and cleaning out your system once in a while is just that.  There are dozens of methods by which to cleanse, but you must realize that just like with everything in nature, your body will do this naturally if you just give it a chance.  The first step of any detox is to clean up your lifestyle for a few weeks.  This means taking a break from the sugars and artificial sweeteners, the processed grains, the hydrogenated oils, and any other chemicals such as caffeine, nicotine, or alcohol.  For a few weeks, try committing to just fruits, vegetables, and lean meat that has never seen the deep fryer.  This toxic vacation will give your liver, kidneys, colon, and skin to work naturally and clean out.

If you simply cannot commit to this amount of time, you could do an accelerated cleanse by using different herbs such as milk thistle, dandelion root, or burdock.  Unsweetened green tea and diluted cider vinegar have also shown benefit.  Every major vitamin company has their own detox program using their supplements.  Any of these programs should include extra water and fiber to help clean out.  Fresh squeezed lemon water first thing in the morning is effective as are foods such as spinach, kale, red peppers, garlic, cabbage, brussel sprouts, and cilantro.  Check out the Wellness Category:  Nutrition to get your toxicity questionnaire as well as a guide to cleansing and detoxifying!    Check out our Connecting to Wellness Internet Store to check out different cleansing and detoxifying products:
www.connectingtowellness.com

Nearly 25 million Americans suffer with osteoporosis and the related complications of thin, porous bones prone to fracture. Today, I’d like to start a series on the subject of calcium and strong bones.

Everyone believes that strong bones are merely the result of how much calcium you can pour down. In reality, there are numerous factors such as the type of calcium, other vitamins and minerals, physical activity and your own internal chemistry that will undermine your efforts regardless of your calcium intake.  Many researchers believe that your chemistry, specifically your pH, may be one of the most important factors.  pH in your body is the same as in your swimming pool – it’s the balance of acid and base.  By design, we are meant to be slightly basic or “alkaline” and many believe that all disease exists only in an acidic environment.

In terms of strong bones, as we become more acidic (pH less than 7.3) the activity of the cells that break down bone (osteoclasts) is increased and the activity of the cells that build bone (osteoblasts) is decreased. This means in an acidic environment, you will continuously be losing bone strength.  However, the opposite phenomenon seems to happen in an alkaline environment and you gain bone strength.  The question then should be how do we stay alkaline, and what would make our bodies acidic?

The key to staying alkaline is the same as the key to reducing inflammation in the body. You must eat a diet high in alkaline foods such as fruits and vegetables.  The primary things that increase acidity in our bodies are diets high in protein and excessive amounts of emotional stress.