HEALTH

TOTAL HEALTH
HEALTH ARTICLES
HEALTH GLOSSARY
HEALTH EXPERTS
HEALTH PRODUCTS

TOTAL HEALTH PLAN

Body, mind and soul:

Three inseparable parts of you.
Three steps to Total Health.

Body

Physical BODY Needs 1. Breathe deeply: the cleanest air possible, and get sunshine on your skin every day 2. Eat: the right nutrients: organic vegetables, fruits and grains, and enjoy the abundance of flavours and aromas 3. Exercise: stretch, sweat, lift, climb, punch, kick, balance, swim, and enjoy every movement 4. Detoxify: tea, sauna, fast, mud, massage and enjoy being reborn

Mind

The mind should not be confused with the brain, which is part of the body and part of the mind because it is an organ, and it hs sensation. This organ is responsable for calculating and decision making and should be rested when not in use.

Soul

Step One: Breathe Clean Air and Enjoy the Sunshine

The first step in my total health plan is to breathe the cleanest air possible, and to get at least fifteen to thirty minutes of direct sunlight on your body every day.

Clean air is charged with pure life force energy called prana. This is your number one nutrient, above water and way above food.

Sunlight

You need some unblocked sunlight on your body every day, so don't use any sunscreen for the first 15-30 minutes outside. If you want to stay out longer than your required 30 minutes and you want to avoid getting burned, then you should use coconut oil to reflect the ultraviolet rays. Plus, the coconut oil will provide some wonderful nutrients as well as moisture for your skin.

• Step Two: Eat the right foods

  The second step in my total health plan is to eat the right foods.

  Some of the best foods

  The best foods are those which raise your body's alkalinity and the ones that give you vital nutrients like calcium. Most vegetables, especially dark green vegetables, will provide a high number of nutrients and will produce the desired alkaline reaction. The best ones include:

  Almonds Aloe Vera Apples Apricots Asparagus Avocados Bell Peppers Bananas Brocoli Cabbage Carrots Cashews Chives Cherries Chayote Coconut Water

  Corn (including arepas) Dates Figs Garlic Grapefruits Grapes Honey Kiwis Leeks Laurel Lettuce Lemons Mandarins Onions Melons Oregano

  Papayas Parsley Peaches Plums Potatos Raisins Raspberries Runner Beans Red Radishes Seedless Tomatoes Sprouted Beans Tamarind Thyme Turnips Water Watercress Wheat Bran

  Avoid these dangers

  You should avoid, whenever possible, any food that is acid-forming, or that is otherwise intoxicating. These foods upset the normal equilibrium that is needed for optimal health. Definitely avoid:

  Alcoholic beverages Anchovies Animal fat Baked goods, pastries or candy Beans Beef Beef, pork, seafood, sausages, bacon, hamburgers, meatballs Beers Borojo Breads and refined pastas Brewers yeast, liquid or powder Butter Carbonated soft drinks Cashews Cassava Caviar Cheese Chocolate or products containing (or a bit) Clams Cod Coffee decafinated Coffee or products containing caffeine (not even a drop) Crab Crackers of any type including whole wheat Cucumber Dressing with vinegar Eggs Energy drinks (red bull, cyclone, other brands) Excessive concerns, negative thoughts and feelings, overwork Fish, chicken, turkey Fried food of any kind with any kind of oil except coconut oil Gatorade or similar Gelatin, flans and puddings Grains flakes (corn flakes, all bran, or other komplete) Grains, legumes or menestras of any kind (Beans, lentils, peas, chickpeas, broad beans, black eye beans, other beans) Green Bananas Green Mango Guarana Haddock Herring

  Hot Sauce Ice Cream Ketchup Koolaid or similar Lecithin Liquors (vodka, gin, wiskey, rum, etc.) Lobster Mackerel Malt Mate Mayonnaise Meals scrap (gum, candy, potato chips, cheese meneitos, etc.) Milk (especially store-bought, pasteurized cow milk) Mushrooms Mussels Old corn tortillas Packaged beverages containing chemicals Panela or Brown Sugar Peanuts in any form Peas, fresh or dried Pickled olives (green or black) Pies, cakes, pastries and bakery products of any kind Popcorn Pork Prawns Refined flour or cereal products made with it Sardines Sausages of any type (meat, poultry, seafood, turkey, etc.) Shellfish Shrimp Smoking (cigar or cigarette) Sodas of any kind, including Diet and Light Soups of any animal product Soy milk with hydrogenated fat Spinach Tea (black, English, Chinese green, grass mate or guarana) Trout Unripe banana or plantain Vinegar of any kind Walnuts Wheat Gluten Wines

  Some foods that are considered healthy due to their vitamin and mineral content can in fact cause an acidic reaction in the body, and therefore should only be consumed occasionally, and in small amounts. Examples of these foods:

  • Oranges
  • Pineapples
  • Strawberries
  • Unripe bananas or plantains
  • Mangos
  • Nuts
  • Sugar
  • Bread (even whole wheat)
  • Rice
  • Celery
  • Asparagus
  • Coliflower

  Step Three: Excecise and Stretch your Muscles

  The third step in my total health plan is to excercise and stretch your muscles.

  You can do any type of excercise that you like, because in reality almost every sport and almost any physical activity will give you multiple benefits in your body, mind and soul. You will enjoy benefits like strong muscles, weight control, increased self-esteem, balance and flexibility. Excercising in a manner that creates profuse sweating will eliminate environmental toxins through your skin.

  The best way to ensure that these benefits are long lasting over the course of your life, I recommend choosing a sport that you love to practice. If you do not have a favorite sport, then I recommend yoga, which was designed thousands of years ago to provide all of the aforementioned benefits. With its thousands of positions, yoga is by far the most complete form of excercise, in which you will gain strength, control and flexibility in all of your muscles, including the small stabilizing muscles, and importantly the heart and respiratory muscles.

  Step Four: Detoxification

  The fourth step in my total health plan is to detoxify. Everyone needs to detoxify because environmental toxins are everywhere. Even if we try to eat healthily, we cannot avoid the toxins in the air, and while the kidneys attempt to remove as many toxins as possible from the blood, some inevitably get through the filter, and they accumulate in the tissues all over your body. If left alone, these accumulated toxins eventually lead to a multitude of diseases, including cancer.

  Fortunately, there are many ways to detoxify, some of which won't cost you a cent.

  You can use any combination of the following methods for removing the harmful poisons on a daily basis:

  • saunas and steambaths
  • yoga or stretching
  • shiatsu massage
  • excercise
  • healing clay
  • herbal green tea
  • tantric breathing
  
  
  Saunas and steambaths are your best daily detoxification method because they employ your body's largest organ, the skin, and its billions of sweat glands. The skin is an eliminative organ, meaning that it, along with the kidneys, has the function of eliminating unwanted materials from the body. At least during profuse sweating, the skin is even more effective at removing toxins than the kidneys due to the skin's large surface area.

  As well, the kidneys are normally overburdened with incessant work, since our polluted world constantly bombards them with heavy metals and deadly poisons. The sauna gives your kidneys a much needed rest as blood is shunted away from interior organs towards the skin. This happens during a parasympathetic nervous response, which means that you are relaxed.

  Excercise

  Rigorous excercise promotes detoxification in a similar way to saunas because of perspiration. The main difference is that with excercise, the body is in a sympathetic nervous response, also known as 'fight or flight' mode. This deters slightly from your body's ability to detoxify.

  The best excercise for detoxification is yoga. Toxins tend to settle in sedentiary muscle tissue. Yoga excercises are specifically designed to stretch and squeeze and twist every muscle tissue to forcibly expel those hiding toxins, while allowing your body to stay calm, therefore avoiding the sympathetic nervous response. Even more important is yoga's slow, controlled breathing, which is essential for detoxification.

  Shiatsu Massage

  Getting a shiatsu massage is like practicing yoga, without the effort. The shiatsu practicioner will identify areas of your body with hardened muscle 'knots' as well as areas of restricted motion. These are the areas where a buildup of toxins has caused a blockage in the normal flow of energy through your body. The practicioner will release the blockage by pressing on and stretching your muscles, while you lay on the shiatsu table.

  In Japan, where the shiatsu massage originated, a shiatsu massage can be quite painful. If a patient has some tolerance for 'good pain', the shiatsu massage can release significant energy blockage quickly and efficiently. But not all shiatsu massages have to be painful. If the practicioner is given more time to complete the therapy, she or he can achieve similar results much more gently.

  Tantric Breathing

  Tantra is a form of yoga, and it is sometimes referred to as the highest yoga. Tantra focuses on the control of energy, through specific actions including pranayamas, the awareness and control of your own breath.

  It is helpful to remember that breathing does not only occur in the lungs. Rather, it is a phenomenon in which every cell in your body participates. As you inhale, you draw fresh oxygen, and as well pure energy from the air, into your lungs. But at the same moment, this oxygen and energy also enters every cell in every tissue. As you exhale, the body dumps toxic carbon dioxide into the air and pushes other toxins from your cells into your bloodstream, where they can be filtered by the kidneys.

  Green Tea and Herbal Teas

  Most green teas and herbal teas are alkalizing, and since our bodies are mostly acidic, most of us need to alkalize in order to restore the pH balance that is needed for detoxification.

  As well there are some herbal teas that are specifically designed for detox. In particular, there are two excellent mixtures of medicinal herbs from the Central American rainforests that are blended by Dr. Omar Moreno for the purpose of detoxification.

  Doctor Moreno's Formula 1 medicinal tea is designed to treat kidney problems specifically, while his Formula 4 targets the toxins in the lungs and the heart. Dr. Moreno recommends drinking his Formula 4 tea regularly as a means of preventing the common cold and other common ailments.

  Fasting

  The king of all detoxification methods is fasting, which implies either a drastic reduction or a complete cessation of food intake over a period of time.

  Normally the body expends a great deal of energy in digestion. In fact, digestion is our number one expenditure of energy according to some studies.

  Going without food (yes, no food) for up to 40 days allows your body to switch into detoxification mode. No, you will not die of starvation or faint, or lose energy. (In fact, your energy level will be higher than usual because you will not waste so much energy digesting food. The average human body has enough nutrient reserves to take you through the six week fast without any issues.

  Many of our ancestors knew about the powerful healing effects of fasting. Look no further than the Holy Bible, the Torah, the Buddha Dharma or the Koran. All the masters enjoyed major physical and mental and spiritual benefits from a fast lasting around six weeks. Unfortunately, some modern religions have thrown out the original meaning of the word fast, in favor of a more convenient 'sacrifice' like giving up chocolate for a while. But giving up chocolate while continuing to eat other foods will not cause your body to go into detoxification mode.

  Consider a yearly fast like spring cleaning for your body. Once per year is rather arbitrary, but then we do have the benefit of yearly religious holidays to ensure that we don't go too long without taking out the trash.