JUMP-START YOUR HEALTH: Five Steps to Better Living
The holiday season is here, so brace yourself. Here comes the mistletoe, egg nog, and fruitcake—as well as the inevitable calls to write down your New Year’s resolutions. You know the litany: lose weight, exercise, quit bad habits (often smoking), and cut back on alcohol. Unfortunately, most resolutions fall by the wayside because carrying them out takes more than good intentions and willpower. It takes knowledge.
I developed my Jump-Start program to give you the knowledge you need to fulfill your resolutions—and to feel better and be healthier as a result. I’ve divided the program into five steps that can be implemented all at once or built one step at a time. When you put everything in place, you’ll have more energy, take fewer drugs, visit the doctor less, and feel like a million bucks!
Step 1—Drink Less Juice and More Water & Tea
Sure, that morning glass of OJ is a tasty ritual we all enjoy, and fruit juices can be healthy to a point—especially if they’re fresh-squeezed and organic. However, check the labels and eliminate juices that contain high fructose corn syrup. It’s a sweetener that’s rampant in our food supply, and it’s considered a major culprit in our nation’s obesity crisis. (Even an innocuous package of low-fat, fruit-flavored yogurt can have 10 teaspoons of a fructose-based sweetener in one serving.)
You shouldn’t have a sugar-rich drink by itself at any time, but when it’s consumed along with some protein and fat, the negative effects are blunted. So you should avoid having only juice for breakfast since it sends the wrong metabolic messages to your body after a night of fasting. Instead, have juice with a meal that includes such things as eggs or cottage cheese—or even bacon and toast.
Overall, though, you should drink less juice and more purified water. Aim for eight or more 8-ounce glasses a day. You can replace some of that water with quality organic teas. Green tea is delicious combined with lemongrass, lemon verbena, or other tasty, healthful herbs. Red teas and white teas are also healthy options to try. My favorite brand is Q-Leaf—which produces 100 percent organic whole leaf teas. Although bottled waters are expensive, give Ice Age a sip for simply the most satisfying, truly tasty water I’ve tried yet.
Step 2—Get Moving: Exercise Holds the Key to Longevity
Exercising is the single smartest habit you can have. It relieves stress, balances your hormones, shrinks your waist and weight, and helps you keep your wits for a lifetime! It also supports your blood, bones, and brain. It’s even essential for top immune function because your lymphatic system doesn’t have any circulation of its own. Instead, you rely on the contraction of muscles to pump lymphatic fluid and immune cells throughout your body. So, as you’re moving, you’re also naturally detoxifying!
You don’t have to exercise in a conventional way—it’s far more important that you just find an activity you love that involves movement—such as gardening, playing with your grandchildren, ballroom dancing, et cetera.
Another thing to consider, though, is yoga. It’s great for flexibility, core strength, balance, breathing, relaxation, and more. Basic forms of yoga are very good for the elderly. People with joint replacements are also finding yoga to be helpful (after the initial rehab period, of course).
Hatha yoga combines 10 sequential postures with breathing, stretching, and relaxation to unite the body, mind, and spirit. Find a class that is suitable for students at all levels (including beginners), and work at your own pace. Like all new things, it may be awkward at first, but persistence will reward you in a matter of weeks. Another type of yoga, Iyengar yoga, tones the muscles, increases suppleness, stimulates circulation, and improves your overall health. This form is my personal favorite, and the first form I learned. Young or old, yoga quickly results in better health, both mentally and physically.
Additionally, many people enjoy the rhythmic feeling of power walking, swimming, or structured aerobic workouts. Bike riding is the best overall machine-based exercise, inside or out—with an adjustable elliptical trainer a close second. Whatever your choice, find a way to play, move, and laugh every day—and feel the energy surge back into your veins. It’s a matter of showing up regularly for the best health results.
Step 3—Review Your Drugs and Slim Down Your Medicine Chest
Review your medications! Take out all your bottles—prescription drugs, over-the-counter (OTC) drugs, all of them. Make a list of everything you take and why you take it. Toss out everything with expired dates. Beware of the “medication treadmill”—that cycle in which you take one medication for a health condition, a second to address the side effects of the first, a third to address the interaction between the first two, and so on.
Take a list of all your medications (prescription and OTC) to review with your doctor on your next visit. You’re likely to find you can get rid of most of that cabinet full of drugs. At the very least, your doctor should find ways to lower your dosages for some meds or change to a better drug for others.
Step 4—Detox Your Diet: Go Organic!
Open your refrigerator and kitchen cabinets. How much of your food is fresh and wholesome, and how much is convenience food loaded with additives? Our food supply is dangerous to your health. The owners of factory farms and mega-ranches think in terms of quantity and profit rather than quality and nourishment. The result is produce that has less than half the nutrition it had when you were a kid—as well as meat that’s loaded with bad fats instead of the better fat found in animals that graze on grass as Nature intended.
Go organic! Organic food is grown or raised with respect for the Earth, the farmer and family, with nutrition and flavor for the consumer in mind. You can find bountiful spreads of organic produce in your local grocery store—even warehouse stores and chains are starting to stock organic dairy, produce, and canned goods. And the increased demand means the price of organic food is coming down.
Start by adding organic dairy products to your diet. Use organic eggs—they are as tasty as they are healthy for you. Although fully organic meat is expensive and less available right now, organic chickens and turkeys are making inroads and are highly recommended.
Step 5—Snap Up Your Supplements, Know What You Need
Are you taking a quality daily multinutrient? You need to be—it’s just not possible to get all the nutrition you need from your diet. As a natural medicine insider, I examine the research, the claims, the dosages, and recommend products that deliver results.
A multinutrient is more than a multiple vitamin. Vitamins are helpful and necessary, but they are only part of the regimen needed to survive in today’s processed food assault. A quality daily multinutrient should contain vitamins, minerals, green foods, adaptogens, EFAs, enzymes, co-factors, and other nutrient factors.
The idea of taking one tablet once a day makes good advertising, but it doesn’t make healthy people. The best results are achieved when you take a blended multinutrient formula at mealtimes to complement, fortify, and stabilize your health and metabolism.
Avoid supplement formulas with synthetic antioxidants and poorly absorbed forms of nutrients. For example, if a supplement contains ferrous sulfate instead of iron, just put the bottle down and walk away. Buying the least expensive brands is not a smart choice. For the best return on your health dollar, buy only quality products that will still be around when the law for Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs) is finally enforced.
As you can see, my Five-Step Jump-Start Program provides straightforward advice for building healthy habits and creating a lasting foundation for good health now and throughout the year. These simple steps translate into fewer prescriptions, fewer OTC purchases, and fewer trips to the doctor. However, the biggest payoffs will be in how much better you feel each day. I guarantee you’ll be pleased—and you’ll make believers out of the New Year’s resolution naysayers.
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