Balanced Exercise is MORE Beneficial than Vigorous Exercise

While consistent exercise is one of the keys to long term health and wellbeing, and fundamental principals taught in Raw Vitality, recent studies have shown that conventional cardio, especially endurance exercises such as marathon running, can pose significant risks to your health. It can result in acute volume overload of the heart, inflammation, thickening and stiffening of the heart muscle and arteries, arterial calcification, arrhythmias, and potentially sudden cardiac arrest, stroke (Dr. Mercola) and increased oxidative stress which has been found to be at the root of most all health conditions. Conventional exercise follows the same mantra as conventional living, fast and hard is always best. But studies prove fast and hard is not always best for your health and this is because always being in fast and hard mode throws your body totally out of balance. Ideally, to get the most benefits from exercise, you want to push your body hard enough for a challenge while allowing adequate time for recovery and repair to take place. This coincides with the natural rhythms of life and balanced living, activity and rest. Studies have consistently shown that walking, especially walking outdoors gives one of the best overall benefits to health, not only physical but mental and emotional health as well. Combing balanced exercise, like walking, with fresh air and sunshine is the perfect combination for increasing your vitality, wellbeing and longevity naturally. Walking can also become a family activity done together to release stress, bond and increase physical activity. Walks right after dinner help children digest well and get their body ready to relax fully for sleep. Whatever exercise you choose, be conscious of ensuring it is balanced, something you truly enjoy and that you get an “all over”, body, mind and spirit, work out from!

Raw Vitality Total Health Transformation is a 30 day holistic health program that helps you to heal and become your healthiest in a natural, balanced and sustainable way. Raw Vitality provides you with the tools, education, support & motivation you need to get and stay healthy naturally! You will learn natural and sustainable ways of eating including daily juicing for preventative health with lots of fun, and delicious recipes; consistent movement and exercise; healthy stress management practices to reduce the stress impact on your life and health; holistic living strategies to create greater balance in your life and reduce your exposure to harmful toxins and ways of living; and ongoing wellness coaching to support and encourage you in your journey to a more healthy you!

The 30-day Total Health Transformation Program helps you to successfully reach your health goals and intentions, reverse chronic health conditions, find your naturally balanced weight, create more energy and radiant natural beauty while bringing your total being - body, mind and spirit - into perfect balance.

Get a free taste of Raw Vitality with 10 Fresh, Fast & Healthy Raw Vitality Recipes at www.rawvitalitytotalhealth.com

5 Natural Alternatives to the Flu Shot

It is that time of year...every grocery store, pharmacy and school is heavily marketing and promoting getting a flu shot. Vaccinations are a controversial topic. For those in the natural health and medicine fields, it is counterintuitive to inject the body with foreign contaminants and known harmful toxins in an attempt to trick the immune system into doing its job. It goes against the fundamental premise that the body is intelligent enough to heal itself and will heal itself if given the right tools and building blocks. 

Currently we see vaccines being dispensed with no medical oversight or caution. You can walk into your local drug store and be injected on the spot by a pharmacy tech with no rhyme or reason other then to sell a vaccine. It has been found without question time and again that there are many adverse side effects, especially for children and their effectiveness is scantly supported. Even on the CDC's web site it states, "How well the flu vaccine works (or its ability to prevent influenza illness) can range widely from season to season and also can vary depending on who is being vaccinated. During years when the viruses in the vaccine and circulating viruses are not well matched, it’s possible that no benefit from vaccination may be observed. However, even during years when the vaccine match is very good, the benefits of vaccination will vary across the population, depending on characteristics of the person being vaccinated and even, potentially, which vaccine was used."

Things to consider before you get the flu shot....

• A scientific study published in The Lancet reveals that influenza vaccines only prevent influenza in 1.5 out of every 100 adults who are injected with the flu vaccine (1)
• Neurological problems due to nerve damage after vaccination are a fairly common adverse event with flu vaccines. In 1976, there were more cases of Guillain-Barre Syndrome reported after vaccination than there were confirmed cases of Swine flu. (2)
• You may not even get protection against the intended virus. Why? First, because viruses change over time. The piece that was in the vaccine may not 'look' the same (chemically) as the real thing (months later, after all!). Second, the vaccine may not have given you enough stimulation to fight off the disease.
• There is no single virus that causes the flu; there is no one flu vaccine that protects against all of them.
• The vaccinated population has a much higher rate of infections than the non-vaccinated population. For example, research shows that vaccinated versus unvaccinated children suffer:- five times more asthma - nearly three times more allergies - over three times more ear infections - over four times more apnea and near miss cot death - nearly four times more bouts of recurring tonsillitis - ten times more hyperactivity
• Vaccinated children also have 317% more ADHD, 185% more neurologic disorders and 146% more autism than non-vaccinated children. (5)

Natural is always better! The body was meant to self heal and self regulate. Natural remedies not only do not contain any harmful toxins, they also do not cause imbalance in the body's systems rather they strengthen the body's own natural healing defenses and activate the body's own healing response, which is millions of times more powerful then any vaccination or drug that can be made in a laboratory. 

Here are 5 Natural Alternative to the Flu Shot....

1. Vitamin D

Robert Edgar Hope-Simpson was one of the first to discover the link between a deficiency in solar radiation and seasonal influenza. Then, in 2006, the journal Epidemiology and Infection5 published Dr. John Cannell’s paper "Epidemic Influenza and Vitamin D,"6 which presents the hypothesis that influenza is little more than a symptom of vitamin D deficiency.

The fact of the matter is that if your immune system is operating optimally, your chances of contracting a cold or flu-like illness or influenza are very slim. Vitamin D is an important player in overall healthy immune function, but it’s also an effective antimicrobial agent in its own right, producing 200 to 300 different antimicrobial peptides in your body that kill bacteria, viruses and fungi. So optimizing your vitamin D levels will help combat viruses in more ways than one. (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/10/22/flu-vaccine-effectiveness.aspx)

The sun is your most significant natural source of Vitamin D, although it is present in small amounts in certain foods. The best plant based source of vitamin D available is shiitake mushrooms.

If you decide to take supplements to boost your vitamin D levels, based on the latest investigations by Carole Baggerly, director of GrassrootsHealth, the average adult dose required to reach healthy vitamin D levels is around 8,000 IUs of vitamin D per day. For children, many experts agree they need about 35 IUs of vitamin D per pound of body weight

2. Protandim

Protandim is a proprietary blend of 5 traditional herbs that came out of the University of Colorado after 40 years of research. Research shows that this specific combination of herbs in this specific ratio activates the body's own antioxidant enzymes. Our own internal antioxidant enzymes are 1 million times more powerful then antioxidants from foods or supplements. BY increasing the body's own antioxidants enzymes the body is better able to protect against invading germs, viruses and bacteria's and keep the body in balance, which equates to better health. 

Protandim can be purchased directly through Raw Vitality at www.rawvitalitytotalhealth.com

3. Fresh, Organic Foods

Eating fresh, organic foods helps to continually cleanse your body or germs and bacteria. Fresh foods provide your body with the highest quality and quantity of vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals like antioxidants and active enzymes all of which help the immune system stay strong and fight off germs. During flu season increase your fresh or raw food ratio to 80% and eliminate all processed and refined foods which reduce the effectiveness of the immune system. Also avoid all sugars and stimulants which increase the likelihood of getting sick and staying sick longer. 

4. Green Juices

Green juices are high in all the nutrients previously mentioned for fresh, organic foods, but taking in these nutrients in the form of juice flushes and cleanses cells, allows you to take in way more nutrients then you would ever be able to eat and requires no digestion so there is a much higher absorption and assimilation rate of nutrients. Drink 2 glasses of green juice daily, and every hour on the hour if you happen to get the flu. 

Green Flu-Free Juice
Serves 1 (makes about one cup)

2 cups spinach
1 large kale leaf

1 large rainbow chard leaf

1/2 a beet

1/2 of the beet greens
1 medium carrot
1 medium celery stalk
1/2 medium cucumber
1/2 medium apple, such as Gala or Fuji
1 (1/2-inch) piece fresh ginger root

Put all ingredients through juicer. Stir well and serve right away.

5. Garlic & Onion

Besides being rich in antioxidants and selenium, garlic has powerful antibacterial and antiviral properties. Both garlic and onions are part of the Allium family, which is rich in sulfur-containing compounds responsible for many of health-promoting effects, most especially killing off pathogens. Both should be consumed raw and within 15 minutes of cutting, because that is when their oils are the strongest and will have the most powerful effect on your body. Keep both fresh and organic on hand and add chopped to your recipes. 

By focusing on strengthening your immune system you will reduce your number of sick days and fly through cold and flu season unscathed!

Raw Vitality Total Health Transformation is a 30 day holistic health program that helps you to become your healthiest in a natural, balanced and sustainable way. Raw Vitality provides you with the tools, education, support & motivation you need to get and stay healthy naturally! You will learn natural and sustainable ways of eating including daily juicing for preventative health with lots of fun, and delicious recipes; consistent movement and exercise; healthy stress management practices to reduce the stress impact on your life and health; holistic living strategies to create greater balance in your life and reduce your exposure to harmful toxins and ways of living; and ongoing wellness coaching to support and encourage you in your journey to a more healthy you!

The 30-day Total Health Transformation Program helps you to successfully reach your health goals and intentions, reverse chronic health conditions, find your naturally balanced weight, create more energy and radiant natural beauty while bringing your total being - body, mind and spirit - into perfect balance.

Get a free taste of Raw Vitality with 10 Fresh, Fast & Healthy Raw Vitality Recipes at www.rawvitalitytotalhealth.com

5 Tips for Staying Healthy Over The Holidays

The holiday rush is on! Shopping madness, dinners, holiday parties, holiday treats and busy-ness wreck havoc on our bodies, minds and emotions. If we stop and really take a look at the whole cycle it is not difficult to see why most of us end up sick and burned out either during the holidays or not long after. While the holidays always bring lots of smiles and love they also tend to bring us many other things we don't want, like extra pounds, sicknesses, low energy levels and too much stress! In fact the incidence of flu and colds doubles in incidence in December and January. All the things that lower our immune resistance, stress, sugar, unhealthy fats, too much food and not enough exercise, are in full effect during this time of year. Too many treats, too much wine and not enough of everything healthy drives us to set healthy goals and resolutions for the New Year. Why wait until the New Year? With a few easy tips you can stay healthy and balanced and sail into January looking and feeling your best!

1. Stay Active

This is an important one and no running around and shopping does not count. When our schedules get busy one of the first things most of us squeeze out of our lives is a consistent exercise routine. It's important to stay active during the holiday season most especially because exercise addresses exactly what we need to stay in balance during this time: releasing stress, increasing energy and increasing metabolism. The Holidays can be stressful and exercise is one of the best ways to release this built up stress and prevent it from doing any damage to our health. Even taking just a 30 minute walk each day will do wonders for your health and well being. 

2. Eat Healthy Outside of Parties & Holiday Functions

We all know it will be next to impossible to say no to pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes and gravy and all the great treats the Holidays naturally invite. It's not so bad to indulge every once and awhile in fact it creates a healthy balance in your life, what is important is not to allow indulging to turn into an all day, every day thing. Fatty and sugary foods are naturally addicting because the heighten neurotransmitters in our brain, the feel good mood chemicals. So once we have a taste of this stuff, we want more! If you watch yourself, you'll notice the times you fall off the "healthy eating wagon" are times that start with a wonderfully indulging meal or dessert. That one meal turns into days of eating in unhealthy ways. Knowing this ahead of time will give you some awareness. If you know you will be attending a Holiday function, be mindful to eat healthy the day of and the day after. Allow yourself to indulge, but know the next day you will be back to your fresh, healthy diet. Following this tip will ensure you keep yourself balanced throughout the Holidays.

3. Start Your Day Fresh

I talk alot about the importance of fresh, raw foods in the diet and that is because it not only keep your health at the highest levels, but also your outward beauty radiant, your emotions balanced, and your energy levels high. This can be a challenge in the colder months because cold, raw foods can throw our bodies out of balance. So what to do? Starting the day with a fresh green smoothie is the best approach to getting a healthy dose of fresh foods while allowing the rest of the day to be more balanced to the external weather with warm soups, grains and veggies. Green smoothies naturally cleanse your body, which is best done first thing in the body, increase the amount of oxygen supply in your body, which is a great way to jump start your day, hydrate and alkalize your body and infuse your cells with living nutrients and enzymes. Starting with a smoothie also keeps your digestive energy exertion to a minimum freeing up energy first thing in the morning, when we all need it most.  Adding a green smoothie during the Holidays gives your body the nutrients it needs while flushing toxins (think wine, sugary desserts and fatty meals) each and every day. This one tip will immediately increase your energy, vitality and overall health almost immediately. 

4. Healthy Stress Management Practices

Stress! There's that word again. Stress is talked about so frequently in a truly holistic approach to health because it has such a negative and profound effect of every area of your life and all of us have way too much of it! In fact during stressful times your biological age, the age of the inside of your body, can be as much as 32 years older than your calendar age! That's how negative stress is on the inside of your body. The Holidays become a very stressful time for alot of people. Spending, shopping and pressure are all words that can be synonymous with the Holidays if we allow these things to have an impact on us, and for many it will have an impact on us. It's important to your health and well being to have healthy stress management practices in place and to practice them consistently especially throughout the most stressful times of year. Healthy stress management practices such as deep breathing, yoga, meditation, exercise,and taking ample down time will help you stay in balance and keep your health vibrant even during the most stressful times. As little as 5 minutes a day of deep breathing can go a long way to help reduce your stress and the stress impact on your body and health. You can contact us directly to receive a free 5-minute deep breathing exercise. Make sure going into the Holidays you have a plan in place for the days and times you will dedicate time to releasing stress. I find meditation exercise and yoga to be the most beneficial for me. What stress management practices are most beneficial for you? Make sure they are in your weekly schedule. 

5. Don't Get Lost in the Hustle and Bustle

The Holidays should be a time of family, love and thankfulness. The rest like parties and presents are just ways of expressing those things. For years I was caught up in the hustle and bustle of the Holidays, most especially making sure my kids had bigger, better presents. Then I became more conscious and watched. I watched as my kids opened present after present, and as present after present was literally thrown to the side to open the next. There was no appreciation or gratefulness and I knew this was my fault. In the last couple years I have began to take the approach of offering gifts as a representation of love and appreciation for my children. This has translated into less presents with more meaning and more meaning has translated into less of all the other stuff. It's so easy to get lost in the marketing, advertising and pressure of the Holidays but it's important to take time to decide what the Holidays truly mean for you. Once you have that understanding, your actions can align and your focus will remain clear. Coincidentally enough, this results in less stress and a better sense of peace during the season. Don't get lost in everything the Holidays aren't, instead stay grounded in what the Holidays are. This will minimize your stress and other negative emotions and increase all the positive and peaceful feelings the Holidays innately generate. 
By implementing these 5 simple steps you will take a big step forward to staying balanced and healthy this Holiday season. We realize however, that many times more attention is needed to get to that place of desired health and well being. For those we offer our 30-day Holistic Health program, Raw Vitality. 

Raw Vitality Total Health Transformation is a 30 day holistic health journey that helps you to become your healthiest you in a natural, balanced and sustainable way. Raw Vitality provides you with the tools, education, support & motivation you need to get and stay healthy naturally! You will learn natural and sustainable ways of eating including daily juicing for preventative health with lots of fun, and delicious recipes; consistent movement and exercise; healthy stress management practices to reduce the stress impact on your life and health; holistic living strategies to create greater balance in your life and reduce your exposure to harmful toxins and ways of living; and ongoing wellness coaching to support and encourage you in your journey to a more healthy you!

The 30-day Total Health Transformation Program helps you to successfully reach your health goals and intentions, reverse chronic health conditions, find your naturally balanced weight, create more energy and radiant natural beauty while bringing your total being - body, mind and spirit - into perfect balance.

Get a free taste of Raw Vitality with 10 Fresh, Fast & Healthy Raw Vitality Recipes at www.rawvitalitytotalhealth.com

Reset & Revitalize After the Holidays - Reset Digestion

It's no secret that comfort foods, sweets and over indulging often go hand in hand with the holidays. While it may feel great while doing, days later you are left feeling bloated, heavier, sluggish and not very energized. Most of this comes from an over worked and over burdened digestion. Digestion utilizes more then 80% of our energy. It has a healthy daily cycle and when it is functioning optimally it was what energizes us and keeps us feeling our best. When we over eat, eat at strange times or eat constantly our digestion gets all out of whack and the first and most pronounced areas to suffer is our energy levels. When digestion is not functionally optimally we also do not process the food we eat well which leaves food to stagnate and be stored, leaving us feeling and looking bloated and sluggish. 

Digestion has its own energy and daily rhythms which rise and fall, making you slightly hungry in the morning, very hungry midday and moderately hungry at the end of your day. In between these times, digestion shuts down your appetite so it can digest what has been eaten. When the digestive process is complete, your appetite renews. If this process is interrupted or thrown off, like often happens during the holidays, your body becomes confused and appetite and digestion start to overlap which decreases your digestive power and your body’s overall vitality.  

You can easily get your digestion back on track to revitalize and energize yourself by following this simple 3 day Digestion Reset Process. 

Day 1

• Eat a normal breakfast and lunch

• Breakfast should be eaten 1-2 hours after rising

• Lunch should be your biggest meal of the day

• Do not have an afternoon snack or any alcohol after noon

• Eat a light nourishing dinner, satisfying but not heavy, at least 2 hours before you go to bed

• Follow dinner with two glasses of tepid water

Day 2

Before digestion can be reset it must be lowered which is done by not eating meals and only drinking liquids. 

• Take a short walk in the morning or afternoon

• Juice in the morning, afternoon and evening

• 3-4 more glasses can be drank throughout the day between meals, as you feel hungry or as desired

• Drink water freely, especially water with fresh lemon

• Spend the day relaxing, performing light activities and taking it easy

Day 3

Now you want to restart your digestion and allow it to return to its normal cycles.

• Eat a light breakfast 1-2 hours after rising

• Do not eat again until midday. Midday have a good lunch, satisfying but not heavy

• Do not eat again until dinner. Eat dinner 2-3 hours before bed. Dinner should be smaller than lunch.

Looking Forward

Now that your digestion is reset your hunger cycle will make you naturally want:

• A light breakfast eaten 1-2 hours after rising

• Substantial lunch, eaten at about the same time every day, midday

• A light dinner, eaten early and at the same time every day.

Digestion can be thrown off by the following:

• Eating between meals other than light snacks

• Strong stimulants

• Skipping meals

• Eating too large of meals

• Eating right when you wake up or right before you go to bed

You can engage in this 3 day process any time you feel your digestion has been suffering or thrown off its natural cycle. This is a good practice to engage in if you find yourself suffering from any type of digestive disturbance such as heart burn, indigestion, constipation or a myriad of other digestive complaints. Engaging in this practice after the holidays ensures your digestion is optimized at all times.

Raw Vitality Total Health Transformation is a 30 day holistic health journey that helps you to become your healthiest you in a natural, balanced and sustainable way. Raw Vitality provides you with the tools, education, support & motivation you need to get and stay healthy naturally! You will learn natural and sustainable ways of eating including daily juicing for preventative health with lots of fun, and delicious recipes; consistent movement and exercise; healthy stress management practices to reduce the stress impact on your life and health; holistic living strategies to create greater balance in your life and reduce your exposure to harmful toxins and ways of living; and ongoing wellness coaching to support and encourage you in your journey to a more healthy you!

The 30-day Total Health Transformation Program helps you to successfully reach your health goals and intentions, reverse chronic health conditions, find your naturally balanced weight, create more energy and radiant natural beauty while bringing your total being - body, mind and spirit - into perfect balance.

Get a free taste of Raw Vitality with 10 Fresh, Fast & Healthy Raw Vitality Recipes at www.rawvitalitytotalhealth.com

Daily Juicing for Preventative Health

Chronic degenerative sickness and disease in our society has far superseded an epidemic. Today, you have about a 75% chance of getting and dying from a chronic degenerative disease but only about a 25% chance of living healthy and dying from old age and natural causes. According to former U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. C. Everett Koop, of the 2.4 million deaths that happen each year, 75% are the result of avoidable nutritional factor diseases, or diseases caused by nutritional problems. The good news is than that you have almost 100% control over your health by taking the right nutritional approaches. Your body needs lots of vitamins, minerals and micronutrients like antioxidants and enzymes to be healthy and vibrant and most especially to prevent sickness and disease. If you are living on a mostly Westernized diet chances are you are not getting the nutrients you need and you are also getting a lot of things your body doesn’t need, like a whole lot of toxins! This is a recipe for a health disaster especially as you age. Chronic degenerative type sicknesses and diseases begin very early in life. We begin being exposed to toxins at a very early age and we don’t always get the best nutrition as we grow. Kids are notorious gluttons for junk and sugary foods. Parents get busy and often aren’t able to make nutritious home-made meals each day. As we move into our teenage years, our nutrition usually continues to get worse. Pizza, tacos, hamburgers, soda pop and candy are the main stay in most teenagers’ diets. This sets the stage for the slow deterioration of our bodies and health. One solution to this problem has been to use multi-vitamins, to “fill in the gap.” But as we continue to learn, we understand vitamins are not necessarily the best approach. They are difficult for many people to digest, they don’t assimilate well and overall they are just not the way the body was designed to get nutrients. Multi-vitamins also do not solve the problem of an overload of toxins. Fresh living juices each and every day help to solve both the problems of toxicity and deficiency. Fresh juices are filled with lots of fresh and living nutrients including vitamins, minerals and enzymes. They also help to hydrate and alkalize your body while flushing or continuously cleansings your cells of toxins. Fresh daily juicing is one of the best forms of natural preventative medicine.

Hydrating

If most of the foods you eat are already prepared or are coming out of a package, can or box, you are eating a diet that is highly dehydrating, very acidic and very low in nutrients. Every step in the processing process, from a fresh whole food to a boxed or canned food, removes valuable nutrients, like vitamins and water, and adds many anti-nutrients, like salt and preservatives. Fresh foods are filled with lots of clean pure water which will hydrate your body and are also very alkalizing so help to bring your body back into balance.

Alkalizing

The pH balance of the body is so important to preventative health. Sickness and disease cannot live in an alkaline environment, but thrives in an acidic environment. Acidity causes cellular and even DNA damage which in turns starts the process of disease. Most people are far too acidic, which mostly comes from the foods you are eating but can also come from stress and too many toxins from water, air and products. Juicing helps to restore your pH balance. Natural and organic produce is highly alkalizing. Alkalizing your body is one of the best ways to prevent disease and juicing is one of the best ways to alkalize!

Nutrient Dense & Easily Assimilated

Daily juicing allows you to take in a large amount of vitamins, minerals and micronutrients like antioxidants and enzymes, an amount you could never get by just eating alone. While it is important to be eating a diet made up lots of fresh organic foods, juicing allows you to take in a much larger amount of nutrients than just eating alone. This allows you to restore any deficiencies you may have that can lead to health problems in the future.

One of the greatest benefits of fresh daily juicing is that it requires little digestive energy on the part of your body so all of these nutrients are immediately available for your body to put to good use! This is a much better approach then taking a muti-vitamin that is hard to digest and not well assimilated. Juicing removes the fiber from the plant. While fiber is important and necessary for strong digestive health and cleansing it also inhibits your body from absorbing all of the nutrients found in fresh foods. Juicing removes the fiber from the plant and the body is then able to easily absorb all the nutrients immediately without any digestive energy spent or loss of any nutrients. Mixing up your juicing ingredients periodically so you are taking in a wide variety of nutrients is the key to keeping your health and vitality at its highest levels and preventing. Changing up your juicing ingredients with the seasons is so very important! Your body is in tune with the environment around it and in-seasons foods not only have the highest nutrient content but help to keep the body balanced and most healthy. 

Daily Cleansing

Fresh juicing each and every day also helps to cleanse your body of toxins daily. Your liver has hundreds of functions but most notably it functions to clean your blood of toxins and wastes. All of the toxins you are exposed to throughout your life are filtered through your liver. Over time this can cause your liver to become overrun and its ability to rid your body of toxins is greatly reduced. When this happens, toxins remain in your body which then re-enter your blood stream and eventually end up in other vital organs and deep within your body’s tissues. This  also means your body is unable to keep you properly detoxified which leads to the process of sickness and disease. Antioxidants found in fresh juices including beta-carotene, vitamin C, vitamin E, and N-acetyl cysteine are potent liver cleansers. Other vitamins found in juices like B-vitamins riboflavin and niacin also help to keep your liver cleansed. Juicing helps to flush all of your cells, not just your liver cells and restore the all important sodium-potassium balance at the cellular level. Daily juicing is a great way to cleanse your body each day and help prevent sickness and disease from developing as you age.

Juicing is a powerful and effective way of restoring balance within the body and correcting the problems of deficiency and toxicity both of which are the main causes of disease and sickness. Fresh juicing gives the body the abundance of nutrients it needs to stay balanced and continually repair and heal. Unlike multi-vitamin fresh juices provide a wide array of nutrients including pure water and living enzymes while being much more easily digested and bio-available. Raw Vitality Total Health Transformation includes lots of new and exciting juicing recipes to make daily juicing fun and most healthy!

Raw Vitality Total Health Transformation is a 30 day holistic health journey that helps you to become your healthiest you in a natural, balanced and sustainable way. Raw Vitality provides you with the tools, education, support & motivation you need to get and stay healthy naturally! You will learn natural and sustainable ways of eating including daily juicing for preventative health with lots of fun, and delicious recipes; consistent movement and exercise; healthy stress management practices to reduce the stress impact on your life and health; holistic living strategies to create greater balance in your life and reduce your exposure to harmful toxins and ways of living; and ongoing wellness coaching to support and encourage you in your journey to a more healthy you!

The 30-day Total Health Transformation Program helps you to successfully reach your health goals and intentions, reverse chronic health conditions, find your naturally balanced weight, create more energy and radiant natural beauty while bringing your total being - body, mind and spirit - into perfect balance.

Get a free taste of Raw Vitality with 10 Fresh, Fast & Healthy Raw Vitality Recipes at www.rawvitalitytotalhealth.com

Oxidative Stress - What You Need to Know to Protect Your Health

Although we need oxygen to live, high concentrations of it are toxic and damage our cells. Our normal metabolic processes, toxins in the air we breathe, water we drink, foods we eat and stress we are subjected to all create toxic byproducts called free radicals. Free radicals are unstable molecules that do a lot of damage to the cells of the body. Free radicals cause oxidative stress which damages all the vital parts of our cells, including the proteins, lipids and even our DNA. Mutations in DNA is what we now know causes a variety of diseases and sicknesses.

Our body has a natural built in response system to deal with free radicals and oxidative stress called our Antioxidant Response Element (ARE). Our body creates its own antioxidants through this system, which are far more powerful then antioxidants we get through the foods we eat. Antioxidants from foods are called indirect antioxidants and they neutralize free radicals at a ratio of 1:1 every second; each one antioxidant is capable of neutralizing one free radical. However, our own antioxidants, direct antioxidants which are produced by our ARE, are able to neutralize free radicals at a 1:1 million ratio every second! This response system works highly effectively, but begins to naturally decline around the age of 20. This in part, is due to the sheer number of free radicals our body is exposed to on a daily basis. Free radicals are everywhere, they are in the air, our water, the foods we eat, in the products we use, they are literally everywhere, so you can begin to understand the burden they place on our body.

Oxidative stress is caused when there is an imbalance between the damage being done by free radicals and our body’s ability to neutralize and repair the resulting damage from these harmful molecules. In humans, oxidative stress is involved in over 200 diseases, such as atherosclerosis, MS, Parkinson’s disease, heart failure, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, chronic fatigue and just about every other nasty health condition under the sun. Oxidative stress is also responsible for the process of aging. Aging and age-related diseases are simply a reflection of our body’s inability to cope effectively with oxidative stress over time and the imbalance between our own antioxidant defenses and number of free radicals in our body. Oxidative stress also increases as our body begins to deal with sickness and disease. This increase in oxidative stress increases inflammation and exasperates symptoms. By reducing oxidative stress disease and sickness symptoms can lessen and even reverse.

 

 

The good news is that by activating the body’s own antioxidants in combination with eating a diet high in natural antioxidants while reducing our exposure to toxins through holistic living strategies, we can prevent many of these age related diseases and slow the process of cellular aging. One such way to activate our own internal Antioxidant Response Element (ARE) is through the activation of a little messenger protein called Nrf2, which is housed within each of our cells. Nrf2 is a messenger that communicates directly with our DNA and tells it to activate our ARE and produce more antioxidants such as glutathione and SOD. Increasing our own antioxidants is especially important as we age, because as we learned, our own internal antioxidant system naturally declines after age 20. By activating Nrf2 and allowing it to activate our own ARE, our ability to neutralize free radicals can be restored and cellular damage can be prevented and even reversed.

 

 

Combating oxidative stress naturally is extremely important in the natural prevention and reversal of sickness and disease as well as increasing energy and vitality!  

 

To learn more about natural Nrf2 activation and the reversal and prevention of oxidative stress please visit: www.mylifevantage.com/rawvitalitytotalhealth

GLUTATHIONE: Mother of all Antioxidants, Master Detoxifier & Maestro of the Immune System

Today we are republishing a blog post by Sheree Dye. We are reposting because this topic is of such great importance to detoxification, the natural prevention and treatment of chronic illness and reaching levels of optimum health and vitality....

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE SURVIVAL GENE: GLUTATHIONE

FROM SHEREE DYE

It's the most important molecule you need to stay healthy and prevent disease -- yet you've probably never heard of it. It's the secret to prevent aging, cancer, heart disease, dementia and more, and necessary to treat everything from autism to Alzheimer's disease. There are more than 89,000 medical articles about it -- but your doctor doesn't know how address the epidemic deficiency of this critical life-giving molecule .

What is it? I'm talking about the mother of all antioxidants, the master detoxifier and maestro of the immune system: GLUTATHIONE (pronounced "gloota-thigh-own").

The good news is that your body produces its own glutathione. The bad news is that poor diet, pollution, toxins, medications, stress, trauma, aging, infections and radiation all deplete your glutathione.

This leaves you susceptible to unrestrained cell disintegration from oxidative stress, free radicals, infections and cancer. And your liver gets Overloaded and damaged, making it unable to do its job of detoxification. In treating chronically ill patients with Functional Medicine for more than 10 years, I have discovered that glutathione deficiency is found in nearly all very ill patients. These include people with chronic fatigue syndrome, heart disease, cancer, chronic infections, autoimmune disease, diabetes, autism, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, arthritis, asthma, kidney problems, liver disease and more.

At first I thought that this was just a coincidental finding, but over the years I have come to realize that our ability to produce and maintain a high level of glutathione is critical to recovery from nearly all chronic illness -- and to preventing disease and maintaining optimal health and performance. The authors of those 76,000 medical articles on glutathione I mentioned earlier have found the same thing!

What is Glutathione? Glutathione is a very simple molecule that is produced naturally all the time in your body. It is a combination of three simple building blocks of protein or amino acids -- cysteine, glycine and glutamine. The secret of its power is the sulfur (SH) chemical groups it contains. Sulfur is a sticky, smelly molecule. It acts like fly paper and all the bad things in the body stick onto it, including free radicals and toxins like mercury and other heavy metals. Normally glutathione is recycled in the body -- except when the toxic load becomes too great. And that explains why we are in such trouble ... Who knew we would be poisoning ourselves and eating a processed, nutrient-depleted diet at the rate that we are?

Almost of half of the population now has a limited capacity to get rid of toxins. These people are missing GSTM1 function -- one of the most important genes needed in the process of creating and recycling glutathione in the body. Nearly all very sick patients are missing this function. The one-third of our population that suffers from chronic disease is missing this essential gene.

The Importance of Glutathione in Protecting Against Chronic Illness

Glutathione is critical for one simple reason: It recycles antioxidants. You see, dealing with free radicals is like handing off a hot potato. They get passed around from vitamin C to vitamin E to lipoic acid and then finally to glutathione which cools off the free radicals and recycles other antioxidants. After this happens, the body can "reduce" or regenerate another protective glutathione molecule and we are back in business.

However, problems occur when we are overwhelmed with too much oxidative stress or too many toxins. Then the glutathione becomes depleted and we can no longer protect ourselves against free radicals, infections, or cancer and we can't get rid of toxins. This leads to further sickness and soon we are in the downward spiral of chronic illness.

But that's not all. Glutathione is also critical in helping your immune system do its job of fighting infections and preventing cancer. That's why studies show that it can help in the treatment of AIDS.(i) Glutathione is also the most critical and integral part of your detoxification system. All the toxins stick onto glutathione, which then carries them into the bile and the stool -- and out of your body.

And lastly, it also helps us reach peak mental and physical function. Research has shown that raised glutathione levels decrease muscle damage, reduce recovery time, increase strength and endurance and shift metabolism from fat production to muscle development. If you are sick or old or are just not in peak shape, you likely have glutathione deficiency.

In fact, the top British medical journal, the Lancet, found the highest glutathione levels in healthy young people, lower levels in healthy elderly, lower still in sick elderly and the lowest of all in the hospitalized elderly. (ii)

Keeping yourself healthy, boosting your performance, preventing disease and aging well depends on keeping your glutathione levels high. Glutathione is so important because it is responsible for keeping so many of us HEALTHIER. It is critical for immune function and controlling inflammation. It is the master detoxifier and the body's main antioxidant, protecting our cells and making our energy metabolism run well. And the good news is that you can do many things to increase this natural and critical molecule in your body. 

So how do you get it? Studies have shown glutathione supplementation is ineffective because it is not able to be absorbed by the body. A better way is to boost the body's own production of Glutathione. Protandim is an all natural plant based supplement that has been shown to increase the body's own production of Glutathione through Nrf2 activation within the body's cells. In fact, Protandim has been shown to boost the body's production of Glutathione by as much as 300%. 

To learn more about Protandim and how to increase the production of your Glutathione go to http://www.rawvitalitytotalhealth.com/ and click on the "Natural Aging" tab.