Trust your gut instinct- By Blake Worrall-Thompson

Have you ever noticed those people who look super lean from head to toe, but have a weird little pot belly? You’ve been told in the past that it’s a beer gut right? So what if they don’t drink beer? Chances are it could be to do with their digestive health.

EVERY WEEK MORE and more magic pills are turning up on our shelves. There will be at least 25 new protein drinks out this year. What about the new vitamin waters? Will I be able to walk on water if I drink one of those a day?

People have forgotten about focusing on a healthy nutrition and lifestyle regime. Do you know what it’s like to feel 100 per cent healthy? For many of us the answer is ‘no’ because we probably haven’t been 100 per cent for years!These days, being healthy is misunderstood. People think it consists of splashing out on a truckload of vitamins and pills, trying the latest exercise tool that will come and go within six months and drinking protein shakes.

Health is all about taking responsibility for all areas of your life. So what does eating healthy mean to you? Here’s my opinion on what being healthy means:

1. If it is white, don’t eat it! The four white devils are white flour, white sugar, white salt and pasteurized and homogenized milk products. If dairy is a necessity and you can’t get hold of raw dairy, choose Certified Organic as your second choice. For those who are lactose sensitive, use full fat cream, which is very low in lactose and high in fat.
2. If you can’t pronounce a word on a label, do not eat it. Your liver will thank you for not doing so!
3. Fruit juice is sugar water! Don’t drink it. Small quantities of freshly squeezed juice may be ok as an occasional treat.
4. The longer the shelf life, the more harmful it is likely to be to your body!
5. Choose products and meats in this order:
   • Certified Organic produce and free range meats
   • Organic Produce and organic meat
   • Locally Farmed produce and locally farmed free range meat
   • Commercial produce and commercial hormone-free meat
   • Commercial meat.
6. Always season foods and water with 100 per cent unprocessed sea salt. The best is Celtic, followed by sea salt from New Zealand because there are less heavy metal toxicity there.
7. Use this formula to calculate the correct daily water consumption for you:
   Your body weight (in kilograms) x .033 = the amount of water (in liters) you should be drinking each day.
   For example an 80kg man should drink at least 2.64 liters per day (calculated: 80 x 0.033= 2.6). Keep in mind there are no substitutes for water; not tea, not juice, not beer, nothing! And always buy top selling brands such as Evian, Fiji, Trinity and Volvic because they sell the fastest and, therefore, have the least exposure to plastic bottles. The most health-giving waters will have a hardness factor of 170 mg/L or greater and a Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) of 300 or greater. Adding a pinch of sea salt to water is recommended to replace electrolytes. Additionally, it will harden otherwise good but soft waters, and will significantly increase the TDS.
8. Follow the 80/20 rule. If you live right 80 per cent of the time, you can absorb the other 20 per cent of not so perfect living.
9. Get to bed by 10pm and sleep until 6am minimum, every day. This is because:
   • the body (physical) repairs itself from 10pm to 2pm.
   • the mind (mental) repairs itself from 2am to 6am.

It may take a bit of time to repair the damage that has been done over the years, so you need to be patient and realize that this is a long term project, not something that will be fixed overnight.

Depending on how toxic your body is you might experience a number of reactions to changing your diet; this could include some weight gain, weight loss, enhanced mood, increased energy and /or greater vitality. The thing to remember is that even if we eat all the right foods and take high-end supplements, if we have a gut dysfunction (e.g., low SIgA, parasites, fungus, bacteria, Dysbiosis), then what we consume will not produce the benefits we seek.

HEAL YOUR GUT

For optimal gut health, heed the guidelines and follow a Gut Healing Program like the one below. This program should be followed for a minimum of four weeks.

• Eliminate caffeine, alcohol, refined sugars and processed foods and bad fats from your diet, as they all irritate and create inflammation in the gut.
• Remove foods that you know you are sensitive to; it’s worth getting a food intolerance test to find out for sure.
• Restore probiotics daily, by using a lactobacillus acidophilus/bifidus supplement.
• Repair your system with healthy fats, such as fish oils and nut oils.
• Eat whole foods that are unprocessed, lightly cooked and organic wherever possible.
• Avoid antibiotics and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, such as ibuprofen, aspirin and Tylenol.
• Be aware that many other medications affect the GI tract (i.e. osteoporosis  medications, anti-depressants, acid reduction medications).
• Repair your system with herbs such as garlic, aloe vera, oil of oregano, turmeric and fish oils.

You now have the healthy, natural tools to help rekindle your health.

Moving away from those allergies- By Luke Walsh

What are food allergies?

Food allergy occurs when the immune system mistakenly attacks a food protein. Ingestion of the offending food may trigger the sudden release of chemicals, including histamine, resulting in symptoms of an allergic reaction. The symptoms may be mild (rashes, hives, itching, swelling, etc.) or severe (trouble breathing, wheezing, loss of consciousness, etc.). A food allergy can be potentially fatal.

Diagnosis:

A skin prick test or a blood test (such as the Immulite or ImmunoCap test) for IgE antibodies is commonly used to begin to determine if an allergy exists. A skin prick test is usually less expensive and can be done in the doctor’s office.
Positive skin prick tests or immunoassay test results will show that IgE is present in the body, but cannot alone predict that a reaction will occur if the patient were to eat a suspected allergy-causing food.

The results of the tests are combined with other information, such as a history of symptoms and the result of a food challenge to determine whether a food allergy exists.

Treatment:

Strict avoidance of the allergy-causing food is the only way to avoid a reaction. Reading ingredient labels for all foods is the key to avoiding a reaction. If a product doesn’t have a label, individuals with a food allergy should not eat that food. If you have any doubt whether a food is safe, call the manufacturer for more information. There is no cure for food allergies. Studies are inconclusive about whether food allergies can be prevented.

Epinephrine, also called adrenaline, is the medication of choice for controlling a severe reaction.

Symptoms:

Symptoms may include one or more of the following: a tingling sensation in the mouth, swelling of the tongue and the throat, difficulty breathing, hives, vomiting, abdominal cramps, diarrhoea, drop in blood pressure, loss of consciousness, and even death. Symptoms typically appear within minutes to two hours after the person has eaten the food to which he or she is allergic.

Prevention:

Studies are inconclusive about whether food allergies can be prevented. Parents should become familiar with the early signs of allergic disease such as eczema, hives, repeated diarrhea and/or vomiting in reaction to formulas, wheezing, and talk to a doctor about those symptoms.

At this time, no medication can be taken to prevent food allergies. Strict avoidance of the allergy-causing food is the only way to prevent a reaction. Medications are administered to control symptoms after a reaction occurs.