…While You Still Have Your Health

By: Guest Blogger KC Craichy

I am greatly concerned by newspaper articles and television news reports urging people to get their flu shots early. The articles are almost always one-sided; presenting only the viewpoints of government health officials, pharmaceutical companies that manufacture flu vaccines, and drug stores that sell them. The tone is the same: get your flu shot or you could die.

As we’ve seen in previous years, people see these reports and needlessly run out to get vaccinated without knowing the facts about the flu or vaccines. And if this isn’t bad enough after last year’s fiasco of “the sky is falling” warnings, pharmacists and others who sell vaccines, along with public health departments that are supposed to inform the public about real health issues, are warning more people to get their vaccinations even earlier this year.

The facts are that flu vaccines have a negative impact on the health of people of all ages and the government knows it! Even the CDC’s own website about influenza and flu vaccine includes a section about who should not be vaccinated against season flu: including people who have had a severe reaction to an influenza vaccination in the past, and people who developed Guillian-Barre syndrome (GBS) within 6 weeks of getting an influenza vaccine previously (www.cdc.gov/flu/keyfacts.htm). One of our primary national public health organizations says people can get Guillian-Barre syndrome from flu vaccines!

And what about the fact that other countries have already banned the flu vaccine? Finland’s National Institute for Health and Welfare ordered a stop to using the Pandemrix swine flu vaccine due to the “probable link to narcolepsy in children.” Sweden’s Medical Products Agency is investigating flu vaccine made by GlaxoSmithKline because it’s suspected of provoking narcolepsy. France is also investigating reports of people who experienced narcolepsy with cataplexy after being injected. Seasonal flu vaccinations across Australia for children under five were suspended months ago after 23 children in Western Australia were admitted to hospitals because they experienced convulsions after they were vaccinated.

Do you know what is in a flu vaccine? You may have heard that there is no longer mercury in vaccines, but that is not the case for flu vaccines. Mercury (thimerosal, 49% mercury by weight, is used to disinfect the vaccine – mercury is a neurotoxin with a toxicity level one-thousand times the level of lead), formaldehyde (known cancer-causing agent), aluminum (neurotoxin suspected as playing a role in Alzheimer’s disease), ethylene glycol (antifreeze), carbolic acid, polysorbate 80, Triton X-100 (detergent), and a variety of antibiotics, to name some of the ingredients. Donald Miller, M.D. (Cardiac Surgeon and Professor of Surgery at the University of Washington School of Medicine and the Seattle VA Medical Center) said this about the flu vaccine: “… all are at risk from being harmed by the vaccine, particularly from the mercury, aluminum, and formaldehyde in it.” Dr. Miller is a strong proponent of people taking Vitamin D instead of getting a flu vaccine shot. You can read more about his research and advice at http://www.lewrockwell.com/miller/miller27.html.

Neurosurgeon Russell Blaylock, M.D. recently quoted from a 30-year medical study of adults that showed that flu vaccines did not reduce hospitalizations or death at all. “From all of the other vaccines during flu seasons we’ve found there is virtually little or no protection whatsoever, but many of these vaccines are heavily contaminated.” Dr. Blaylock has written extensively on concerns about the flu vaccine (http://www.russellblaylockmd.com/). Sherri Tenpenny D.O. wrote, “I really can’t recall a single person who has truly investigated vaccine science and examined what is in the vaccines and then has chosen to continue to vaccinate. Vaccines cause harm. The risks are substantial and evidence is growing. The long term risks outweigh the short term benefit of eliminating childhood diseases that were Rights of Passage only a few years ago” (http://drtenpenny.com).

The CDC admits on its own website that the Public Health Service agencies and American Academy of Pediatrics asked vaccine manufacturers to reduce or eliminate thimerosal in vaccines back in 1999. Does that mean thimerosal is no longer used in the manufacture of flu vaccines? This is from the CDC website (http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/qa/thimerosal.htm) – “Today, all routinely recommended licensed pediatric vaccines that are currently being manufactured for the U.S. market, with the exception of influenza vaccine, contain no thimerosal or only trace amounts.” Thimerosal has been removed from all routine vaccines “with the exception of influenza vaccine.” Does that not cause you great concern about children getting the flu vaccine? It should!

Robert Mendelsohn, M.D. wrote, “there is no convincing scientific evidence that mass inoculations can be credited with eliminating any childhood disease.” That explains why thousands of medical doctors in the United States and other nations will not allow their own children to receive the flu vaccine. They know the lack of good science behind vaccinations and want no part of it for their own families. That fact alone should cause parents to question what the government is telling them about the importance and safety of getting their children vaccinated against influenza.

So, what is a parent to do to protect their children from influenza? Did you know that thousands of doctors recommend larger doses of Vitamin D to children and adults during the flu season with great results? Vitamin D, also known as the “sunshine vitamin,” has good science behind it to show how necessary it is to helping the body protect itself against illness, including seasonal colds and flu. You can learn more about Super Immunity at http://www.livingfuel.com/Health_Alert_043009.aspx.

Another excellent resource for parents is the National Vaccine Information Center located near Washington D.C. They have a section on their website called “Before You Vaccinate Ask Eight,” which gives parents eight important questions to ask before they allow their children to receive the flu vaccine. The NVIC website is located at http://www.nvic.org/.

Here’s to your Super Health!

KC Craichy

Author of Super Health 7 Golden Keys to Unlock Lifelong Vitality

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By Guest Blogger: KC Craichy

Are you familiar with The Fat Flush Plan? This innovative approach to weight loss seems to be taking the diet world by storm… and with good reason. Dr. Ann Louise Gittleman takes many positive aspects of high-protein diets and combines them with the benefits of detoxing. This may eliminate some of the negative side effects common to other detox programs that eliminate protein, but does The Fat Flush Plan go far enough to promote total health?

Dr. Gittleman is off to a great start. Especially if you incorporate complete plant protein in the Fat Flush Plan. According to research published in the New England Journal of Medicine, people who filled up on plant protein shed substantially more weight than those who do not. Related research in the journal Nutrition Reviews also suggests that following a plant-protein detox can help women reduce their levels of body fat by an additional three to fifteen percent.

Many of Gittleman’s clients say they lose twenty pounds in just two weeks by drinking two plant-protein smoothies each day followed by a dinner consisting of lean protein paired with steamed green vegetables and salad. But, what happens when the two weeks are over? In order to maintain optimal weight for the long term, a person needs to adopt a lifestyle based on Super Health. Remember that Super Health should be your ultimate goal, not just weight loss. Fortunately, some of the many positive byproducts of Super Health are fitness and optimized weight.

In order to achieve Super Health, it is absolutely imperative to follow the Four Corners of Super food Nutrition.

These are as follows:

1.) eating fewer calories while increasing nutrient density,

2.) minimizing sugar intake and high glycemic response foods,

3.) increasing antioxidants, and

4.) getting the right fats and avoiding the wrong ones.

For more information about the Four Corners of Super food Nutrition, please visit LivingFuel.com/Four-Corners-Of_Superfood_Nutrition.aspx.

If achieving Super Health is your ultimate goal, you’ll need to adopt a style of eating that uses the Four Corners as a foundation. That’s why I suggest you graduate from the Fat Flush to the LivingFuel Fast!

First of all, you won’t have to run all over town to buy ingredients for your smoothies. You’ll be amazed at how nutrient dense our LivingFuel smoothies are for a relatively small number of calories. Not to mention the fact that our LivingFuel LivingProtein powder was recently rated as best of the best plant-based  protein powders on the market by First For Women magazine.

There are many physical, mental, and even spiritual benefits to fasting. Of course, when I refer to fasting, I am not speaking of a total food fast, but rather a juice-type fast that solves the limitations of juicing (including hunger and inadequate amounts of protein, healthy fats, and other vital nutrients).

Extraordinary things can happen to your health when you eliminate the things that you typically eat and drink and exchange them for ideal amounts of foundational nutrients. Such nutrients include: nutrient-dense superfoods, complete plant proteins, non-grain low-glycemic carbohydrates, amino acids, essential fatty acids, pre and probiotics, antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, trace minerals, therapeutic herbs and other healthy nutrients.

When I created LivingFuel Foundational Superfoods, my objective was to provide my family with exceptional nutrition made easy. In the process, I found that I had created a product perfectly suited for short or long-term juice fasting.

I know that for many of you, a daunting part of juice fasting is obtaining all the fresh fruits and vegetables and preparing the juice – it tends to be inconvenient and time-consuming. Most people who juice make mostly fruit or sweet vegetable juices, which contain loads of sugars and are not nearly as healthy as the deep dark greens and colorful vegetables.

That’s why I recommend that you upgrade to the LivingFuel Fast. Preparation is a breeze when you are following the LivingFuel Fast, and the plan is far more nutritious than juicing. You can simply mix LivingFuel SuperGreens and/or SuperBerry with 12-20 ounces of pure spring water in a blender or shaker bottle.

You get an all-natural, nutrient-dense, low-glycemic, high-antioxidant, low-calorie smoothie – everything the body needs! Your smoothie contains more calcium and Vitamin D than milk, more potassium than bananas, more resveratrol than wine, more fiber than oatmeal, more protein than half a dozen egg whites, more friendly bacteria than yogurt, and more phytonutrients and antioxidants than a basket of fruits and vegetables! It is also important to take LivingFuel SuperEssentials Omega 3 EDA daily.

During your LivingFuel Fast, you will most likely be getting the very best nutrition of your life. In fact, you will be receiving more than adequate amounts of nutrition to handle your hunger and cravings. You should also be able to carry on your daily routine, including exercise and athletic activities.

You can continue your LivingFuel Fast for as long as you feel comfortable. Some people fast for a weekend, some for 4-7 days, and others go up to a month and beyond. (In cases of serious health conditions, always conduct fasts under the supervision of your health care practitioner.) We’ve seen people achieve such phenomenal results after completing a LivingFuel Fast that many decide to permanently replace one or two meals a day with LivingFuel. For optimal results, I recommend you do a LivingFuel Fast for 4-7 days at least twice every year.

Easy When You Go Fast

I suggest that you build up slowly to your LivingFuel Fast. Start out by replacing one meal per day with a LivingFuel SuperGreens and/or SuperBerry smoothie, then two meals, and so on. When you have the experience and confidence that you will not be hungry or tired, it’s time to begin your fast. For more information about the LivingFuel Fast, visit LivingFuel.com/Getting-Started_The-Living-Fuel-Fast.aspx.

Take the 7-Day Challenge

If you have never tried LivingFuel before, I encourage you to take our 7-Day Challenge! Just give me seven days, and I guarantee you won’t feel weak! In fact, if you accept the LivingFuel 7 Day Challenge, you’ll find yourself on the threshold of vibrant health and incredible energy. In one week, LivingFuel will put you on a course of optimal nutrition that could change the rest of your life!

Our challenge begins with taking positive action to control your health and achieve a quality of life many only dream about. The 7 Day Challenge is designed to benefit anyone who wants to create a nutritional foundation based on super foods. In just seven days, you will experience many noticeable benefits, including increased energy, strength, endurance, and weight optimization. You will discover the ability to achieve your health goals and to overcome cravings and addictions to sugar, caffeine, and other unhealthy foods and beverages.

Regardless of where you have been, how old you are, or how busy the season, this is a perfect time to begin your personal journey towards Super Health and a renewed sense of vitality. Start today! For more information about the Living Fuel 7-Day Challenge, visit LivingFuel.com/Seven_Day_Challenge.aspx.

Here’s to your Super Health!

KC Craichy

Founder & CEO

Living Fuel, Inc.

StopStressingNow.com - Connecting To Happiness!

By Guest Blogger – K.C. Craichy

To have the health of your dreams, you need to spend more time dreaming. Research shows that one of the best ways to improve your health tomorrow is to get a good night’s sleep tonight – at least 7 – 8.5 hours. That may sound simple enough, but the fact is that Americans have racked up a huge “sleep debt” through the years. On average, people living in the United States get at least one hour less sleep per night than they did 20 years ago. After several days, weeks or months of sleep debt, we have trouble concentrating and making important decisions about everything from our job to homework and paying bills.

The director of the National Center on Sleep Disorders Research in Bethesda, Maryland was recently quoted as saying that sleep is just as important to our overall health as a healthy diet and exercise. Sleep deprivation has been linked to many health-related problems including chronic fatigue and obesity. It’s also blamed for an increased risk of causing an auto accident. You can’t do your best driving on the road without a good night’s sleep!

Sleep is without a doubt one of the most important aspects of our daily routine as far as the maintenance of health and prevention of disease is concerned. After all, sleep is when the body regenerates itself, thereby making it ready for a whole new day of activity. It gives your body a chance to rebalance itself. People who sleep well feel better, look younger, live longer, and are more energized and motivated throughout every physical and mental challenge of every day.

If the body is deprived of sleep, even a little bit, a person’s overall degree of health can easily become compromised without them even knowing it. When you wake up tired, you feel irritated through the day. Combine a lack of sleep with a high level of stress and we start to make mistakes and forget things. You can’t “burn the candle at both ends” and do your best in life.

Sleep is not a luxury. It is crucial, and chronic sleep deprivation is dangerous. Sleep is an essential key to super health. Make it a priority in your life.

Natural Remedies to Help With Sleep
Melatonin helps to make us drowsy and regulate sleep. Sleeping in total darkness aids in the body’s natural production of melatonin, which is released by the pineal gland from within the center of the brain when one is asleep. One way that many people have found to improve their sleep is to take melatonin in supplement form (I buy my melatonin from Life Extension Foundation – www.lef.org).
Another terrific natural remedy for sleep disorders is the calming amino acid l-tryptophan. Tryptophan is now widely available in the U.S. without a prescription (you can buy from Life Extension Foundation). If you have trouble getting tryptophan itself, you can get the next best thing, which is known as 5HTP.

Create a sleep sanctuary. Make your bedroom comfortable and quiet, with beautiful drapes and pleasant, peaceful pictures (such as golf photographs or paintings). Create a place where you feel relaxed and peaceful as soon as you enter. When you sleep, keep your bedroom completely dark or wear a sleep mask to ensure maximum natural melatonin production. Wear ear plugs if you are easily awakened by small noises. Invest in a comfortable bed. If it is too quiet, listen to a recording of nature sounds or soft music. Find a temperature that is most conducive to your sleeping—many people find that cool temperatures help to promote a restful sleep. Don’t allow the room to get stuffy. Keep the air circulating with a fan in your bedroom.
Relax with a bath in Lavender Epsom Salts (which is magnesium that also helps with inflammation and numerous other functions in the body).

Listen to an AMAZING interview with K.C. by CLICKING HERE!

Consider socks: warm feet = deep sleep.
Embarking on the Four Corners Program for Optimal Nutrition is probably the single best step you can do to help improve the quality of your sleep (www.livingfuel.com/Four-Corners-Of_Superfood_Nutrition.aspx).
Get regular exercise
Drink lots of water and minimize alcohol, sweet drinks and empty foods (particularly fast foods).

Getting Started—Sleep
Recommended: 7 to 8.5 hours
Are you preparing properly for sleep with a healthy diet and limiting fluids and caffeine prior to bedtime?
Have you created a “Sleep Sanctuary” for yourself and your family?
___ Comfortable mattress
___ Pleasant interiors (curtains, shades, lamps, pictures, rugs, pillow)
___ Climate control (air conditioning, heating, fan)
___ Lighting
___ Fragrance
___ Music
___ Sleeping mask
___ Ear plugs
Traveling can interrupt your natural sleep schedule. If you’re having trouble sleeping or just want to reset your sleep time when changing time zones, consider taking natural supplements, such as melatonin and/or tryptophan. Melatonin is the best supplement for resetting your sleep time by taking 1.5 times the amount you would take at your home time zone to help you sleep. Take melatonin one hour before the time you want to be your sleep time. The way to tell your optimal dose is to test at home. Some people do well on ½ mg while others do best on 6 mg. You will know if you have taken too much if you feel drowsier than normal when you awaken. Just be sure to set an alarm so you don’t miss getting your day started on time. If you feel a little too drowsy in the morning, decrease your dose the next night.

Here’s to your Super Health!

__________________________________

Listen to an AMAZING interview with K.C. by CLICKING HERE!

K.C. CRAICHY is Founder & CEO of Living Fuel – The Leader in Superfood Nutrition, and the best-selling author of Super Health – 7 Golden Keys to Unlock Lifelong Vitality.  He is a health advocate and expert on natural health and performance nutrition.  His extensive study of leading-edge health research and collaborative work with top medical and nutritional practitioners and researchers to solve his wife’s health problems led him to the founding of Living Fuel, Inc.  KC is committed to changing lives through nutritional and multi-media lifestyle education combined with leading-edge high impact superfoods. He also serves on the Clinical Nutrition Review Board (the certifying body of the International and American Association of Clinical Nutrition).  KC lives in Tampa, Florida with his wife Monica and five children.

StopStressingNow.com - Connecting To Happiness!

By Guest Blogger: K.C. Craichy

How does the human body do all the amazing things it does? How can our mind and body deal with stress effectively? One of the most important answers is nutrition. Science has identified more than 50 essential nutrients needed by the human body to perform at optimal levels.  The body cannot produce any of these nutrients on its own, thus they must be obtained from food sources and dietary supplementation.  If a person is deficient in any of these essential nutrients, the result is dysfunction and disease.

Complete absence results in death.

There are also many well-known nutrients, enzymes, coenzymes, and phytochemicals that are extremely important, but not considered essential, and are found primarily in fruits and vegetables.  For this reason, many nutritionists and dietitians advocate obtaining essential nutrients through whole foods rather than supplements.  It would be fantastic if we could get all essential nutrition just by eating food because there are a lot of junk supplements out there, including vitamin pills, that use the cheapest available nutrients that have been isolated from their natural co-factors.

Unfortunately, getting all essential nutrients from food is virtually impossible.  If it were possible, not only would you have to be extremely knowledgeable about nutrition, but you would also have to eat far too many calories to get sufficient amounts of every essential nutrient.  This, of course, would be extremely unhealthy and defeat the purpose.

In order to get all of the required nutrition from your diet, you would have to eat only the freshest organic foods, a dozen or more daily servings of vegetables (mostly greens and bright colored vegetables), fruits and whole foods along with clean, naturally raised protein sources in addition to taking high-quality dietary supplements.  The majority of our food supply is from over-commercialized farming sources that have been depleted of their nutritional value. Current farming methods do not allow farmland to rest at all and instead use fertilizer that contains only three minerals.

The average time between when produce is harvested (prior to peak nutritional value) and you purchase it in the grocery store is approximately 14 days or more.   This results in further degradation of nutrient value. Canned and frozen foods can be even less nutritious.

Super Health can only be obtained by the regular consumption of every known essential nutrient along with their cofactors and with numerous other vital and beneficial nutrients whose greatest concentrations exist in nutrient dense Superfoods.

Since it is virtually impossible to get all of the required nutrition from food, the key to getting everything your body needs is to combine the most powerful superfoods with the most bioavailable forms of all essential nutrients.  The result is you get every nutrient we know about, plus many nutrients contained in foods that we do not yet even know about.  We call this Superfood Nutrition, which is the basis for Living Fuel’s line of optimized Superfood nutrition products (www.livingfuel.com).

Here’s to your Super Health!

K.C. Craichy

Listen to an AMAZING interview with K.C. by CLICKING HERE!

K.C. CRAICHY is Founder & CEO of Living Fuel – The Leader in Superfood Nutrition, and the best-selling author of Super Health – 7 Golden Keys to Unlock Lifelong Vitality.  He is a health advocate and expert on natural health and performance nutrition.  His extensive study of leading-edge health research and collaborative work with top medical and nutritional practitioners and researchers to solve his wife’s health problems led him to the founding of Living Fuel, Inc.  KC is committed to changing lives through nutritional and multi-media lifestyle education combined with leading-edge high impact superfoods. He also serves on the Clinical Nutrition Review Board (the certifying body of the International and American Association of Clinical Nutrition).  KC lives in Tampa, Florida with his wife Monica and five children.

StopStressingNow.com - Connecting To Happiness!

K.C. CRAICHY is Founder & CEO of Living Fuel – The Leader in Superfood Nutrition, and the best-selling author of Super Health – 7 Golden Keys to Unlock Lifelong Vitality. He is a health advocate and expert on natural health and performance nutrition.

His extensive study of leading-edge health research and collaborative work with top medical and nutritional practitioners and researchers to solve his wife’s health problems led him to the founding of Living Fuel, Inc.

KC is committed to changing lives through nutritional and multi-media lifestyle education combined with leading-edge high impact superfoods.

He also serves on the Clinical Nutrition Review Board (the certifying body of the International and American Association of Clinical Nutrition). KC lives in Tampa, Florida with his wife Monica and five children.

For More Information please visit: http://www.livingfuel.com

StopStressingNow.com - Connecting To Happiness!

Part II

In my last post, we looked at the first half of a powerful way to prepare your body to deal with stress. It’s called The Four Corners of Optimal Nutrition.

The First Corner is called CRON (Calorie Restriction with Optimal Nutrition) and emphasizes eating nutrient-dense foods.

The Second Corner is about Low Glycemic Response and deals with minimizing grains, breads, starches, and sugar in your diet.

Here are the Third and Fourth Corners.

3. High-Antioxidants

Again compelling research has demonstrated that low oxidative stress or the consumption of large amounts of broad spectrum antioxidants is the other most likely reason CRON works.  Less food results in less free radicals as more antioxidants quench more free radicals.   Free radicals and oxidation can harm your body and be a roadblock to optimal health and performance and directly result in disease and speed the rate of aging.  Consuming high-antioxidant superfoods and supplements that contain high-levels and a wide variety of antioxidants that protect every cell in the body and promote excellent health, vitality, recovery and longevity.

4. Eat and supplement with Superfats. Essential fats such as omega-3 fatty acids found in cold water fatty fish, grass-fed beef, eggs, some nuts and chia seeds and flax seeds are absolutely necessary nutrients for the health of your immune system, heart, skin, endocrine glands, brain function, nervous system and energy levels. Other superfats include almonds, coconut, chia seed, macadamia nuts, flax seed, olives and avocados. One of the most important things anyone can take are the omega-3 fatty acids derived from fish and fish oils EPA/DHA (eicosapentaenoic acid/docosahexaenoic acid). The best source for EPA and DHA is cold-water, oily fish including salmon, herring, mackerel, anchovies and sardines (avoid farm raised fish).

Supplementation with fish oil and GLA (gamma-linolenic acid from borage seed or primrose oils) along with fat soluble antioxidants and vitamins A, E (full-spectrum), D and Astaxanthin (from red algae) may be the safest and most potent way of getting the dramatic benefits of delicate essential fats protected by powerful antioxidants.

Why The Four Corners Work

There is a growing body of evidence supporting this approach.  One clinical research study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (June 2002) suggests that the combination of all Four Corners of Superfood Nutrition magnifies the positive results of each corner individually causing them to work better together than separate.

Just as important as it is to eat the right kinds of foods that help fight stress-induced free radicals in our body — is to NOT EAT the wrong kinds of foods. Those include fried foods, junk foods, processed foods, pork, shell fish, sugar, high fructose corn syrup and sugar-filled drinks, caffeinated drinks, and food and drinks containing preservatives.

The combination of eating the right foods and not eating the wrong foods will get the cells of your body in top shape, ready to deal with any stress that comes your way.

It’s also important to exercise your body and have fun doing it! The combination of moving your body in healthy ways every day and enjoying the movement will go a long way toward preparing your body and mind for the stress that life throws at you.

What are your favorite exercises? Are the movements healthy? Good for muscles, bones and joints? Then get out there and do them! You will feel better and grow stronger every time you exercise. And be sure to have some favorite healthy movements you can do inside during winter weather. Stress doesn’t take time off during the winter months, so neither can we. Stay on your toes 12 months of the year and have fun!

I write more about the importance of healthy nutrition and exercise in my best-selling book “Super Health 7 Golden Keys to Unlock Lifelong Vitality.” It’s about how you can improve your body’s ability to handle stress and come out a winner every time.

Here’s to your Super Health!

K.C. Craichy

For More Information Please Visit:  http://www.livingfuel.com

StopStressingNow.com - Connecting To Happiness!

K.C. CRAICHY is Founder & CEO of Living Fuel – The Leader in Superfood Nutrition, and the best-selling author of Super Health – 7 Golden Keys to Unlock Lifelong Vitality. He is a health advocate and expert on natural health and performance nutrition. His extensive study of leading-edge health research and collaborative work with top medical and nutritional practitioners and researchers to solve his wife’s health problems led him to the founding of Living Fuel, Inc. KC is committed to changing lives through nutritional and multi-media lifestyle education combined with leading-edge high impact superfoods. He also serves on the Clinical Nutrition Review Board (the certifying body of the International and American Association of Clinical Nutrition). KC lives in Tampa, Florida with his wife Monica and five children.

K.C. Is also one of our newest guest bloggers here at StopStressingNow.com and we couldn’t be more excited to have him. So with great pleasure I give to you…

Mr. K.C. Craichy.

Stress is all about change. It may be change at home, change at work, change at school, or change in relationships. Change is inevitable and it can be difficult on us physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, and spiritually.

There are essentially two kinds of stress, stress that heals and stress that kills.  There is good stress and bad stress.  The stress of competition can be invigorating while financial stress can kill - if you let it! Meditate on good things and good things will result.  Meditate on negative possibilities and negative realities tend to result.  Fear, doubt and worry are simply meditating on negative possibilities which result in stress that leads to death.  The book of Matthew declares, ‘do not worry because it won’t add an inch to your height or a day to your life.’   So think on things that are good, noble, lovely and pure.

Dr. Hans Selye, the Canadian endocrinologist considered by many to be the “father of the stress field,” wrote this about stress: “A stress-free life is an impossible goal – we need some stress to be alive. After all, we call it blood pressure. Without some pressure, we are dead.”

Okay, we get it. We need some pressure to prove we’re alive, but how much pressure can we stand? We know life has its ups and downs, but how can we get ready for those downs when life feels like its burying us under its pressure? We often feel stress so acutely because we feel powerless to do anything about it. Once we pull our thoughts and wits together, we start to climb out of the “stress hole” that surrounds us. But is there anything we can do to prepare our body and mind before stress hits us?

Absolutely! There is much we can do. We have the power to give our body everything it needs to thrive and be ready for stress. Many physicians tell us that stress and anxiety may be a contributing factor in a high percentage of illnesses. Stress can compromise our body’s immune system and make us more susceptible to colds and flu, infections and inflammation. Medical studies have found that people under chronic stress had above-normal levels of interleukin-6 (IL-6), an immune-system protein that promotes inflammation and has been linked with heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, rheumatoid arthritis, severe infections, and certain cancers.

Our body needs improved nutrition and regular exercise to be ready to deal with good and bad stress. The very stress hormones that our body release when we’re under stress can become oxidized once they’re released by our adrenal glands. That leads to a rise in damaging free radicals within the cells of our body.

Another aspect to consider is cortisol, a hormone the body recruits to regulate blood pressure and the immune system when your body experiences physical or emotional stress. Constant stress can cause your body to overproduce the hormone. That’s when cortisol can become a hindrance instead of a help. Too much cortisol can lead to sleep problems, blood sugar abnormalities, vulnerability to infection, and abdominal weight gain.

Diet and exercise can help us deal directly with the impact of stress on our body and mind. Let’s take a look specifically at how good nutrition can reinforce your body to manage and overcome stress.

Extend Life, Delay Disease, Enhance Performance, Optimize Weight, Increase Mental Clarity

Superfood Nutrition is the best method of avoiding the dire consequences of poor nutrition. The Four Corners of Superfood Nutrition is an integrated approach that combines four of the most clinically validated areas of nutrition science including; eating fewer calories while increasing nutrient density, minimizing sugar intake and high glycemic response foods, increasing antioxidants, and getting the right fats.

Here is the first half of The Four Corners:

1. CRON (calorie restriction with optimal nutrition)

Eat nutrient-dense foods. Eat the most highly nutritious and nutrient-dense foods available while eliminating sugar, processed food and junk foods. This will naturally reduce your overall calorie intake while increasing the nutrient value ingested by the body – maximizing nutrition per calorie. There are more than 2,000 research studies that suggest this approach alone extends life, delays disease, optimizes weight, improves mental clarity and enhances performance.  In addition to eating fewer calories it is critical to avoid processed food and include a daily high-quality multi-vitamin/mineral/nutrient/antioxidant formulation to obtain the optimal nutrition benefits of CRON.

2. Low-Glycemic Response

Compelling research has shown that controlling insulin response may be a primary reason that CRON (calorie restriction) works.  It is a fact that consuming less food results in lower glycemic response (this is true even if you simply eat less of the same bad foods).  The high sugar content and glycemic response in one’s diet is directly related to human disease.   Large doses of sugar provoke blood sugar and insulin spikes and hyper-inflammation leading to numerous health problems and acute energy shortages over time. Help your body manage your glycemic response by minimizing grains, breads, starches, and particularly sugar, which all quickly elevate blood sugar levels setting up the dreaded crash.  This will also minimize excessive body fat, fatigue and blood sugar imbalances.  Maintaining healthy blood sugar levels and avoiding the blood sugar and insulin rollercoaster are keys to sustained energy.

In my next post, we’ll look at the second half of The Four Corners and why it works.

Here’s to your Super Health!

K.C. Craichy

For More Information Please Visit:  http://www.livingfuel.com

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