How to Feel Better in 90 Days (or less)
Restore Energy, Heal Your Body, Reduce Inflammation, Boost Your Immune System & Kick Start Your Metabolism
Are you experiencing any of the following?
- Lack of Energy
- Difficulty Losing Weight
- Digestion Issues
- Poor Concentration & Memory
- Lack of Motivation
- Trouble Falling Asleep or Staying Asleep
- Headaches
- Skin issues, like acne, rosacea, and eczema
- Hormone Imbalances
- Anxiety and/or depression
- High Blood Pressure
- Poor Immunity, Frequently Sick
- Autoimmune Diseases such as Hashimoto’s, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Lupus, Psoriasis, or Multiple Sclerosis
- Daily Aches and Pains
Most of us attribute these problems to fact that we are getting old and our body is just wearing down. This is only partly correct. Our body is wearing down, but not because we are getting old. It’s just that a lifetime of less-than-perfect eating and lifestyle habits are finally catching up to us.
The REAL Culprit behind health problems
If it’s not age that’s causing these problems, what is? Thanks to a growing body of research, scientists are now learning that the majority of our health troubles can be linked to chronic inflammation.
What is Chronic Inflammation?
Most people have a general idea of what inflammation is and what it does. Inflammation, specifically acute inflammation, occurs as a response to injury or infection and is necessary to help us heal. Chronic inflammation, however, can send our body into a constant survival mode. This can result in a slowed metabolism, increased tissue and organ damage, and an overstressed, malfunctioning immune system.
When dealing with inflammation, the earlier you catch it, the better. The longer you let it wait, the heavier the toll it takes on your body and the harder it becomes to eliminate.
What You Can Do to Fight Inflammation
An adjustment in your diet is the most important step you can take, but since chronic inflammation has many factors, to truly stay ahead of it, you also need proper supplementation and lifestyle changes as well. It also helps to understand what things contribute to inflammation so you can avoid or reduce them where ever possible.
Common Causes (and Contributors) of Chronic Inflammation
The Gut
The most common source of inflammation, the health of our gut and its lining are integral to our entire body’s health, including our mental health.
To have a healthy, proper functioning gut – there are two factors that need to be addressed: our microbiome and the integrity of our gut lining.
The Microbiome - Bacteria that populates our body
Our Microbiome is the population of bacteria that populates our body. The friendly bacteria in our microbiome can help boost our immunity, protect us from infection, help us digest our food and absorb vitamins. As the population of friendly bacteria in our body declines through poor diet, exposure to toxins or chemicals, or antibiotics use - it allows openings for bad bacteria and other harmful organisms to grow out of control and prevent good bacteria from reestablishing colonies. The balance and diversity of good bacteria versus bad bacteria can influence:
- Digestion –When the stomach and small intestine are unable to digest certain foods we eat, gut microbes jump in to offer assistance, ensuring we get the nutrients we need. Some argue that the rise in food allergies, gluten intolerance, and sensitivity to carbs is due to declining populations of friendly microbes known to help us digest certain foods.
- Vitamin Absorption and Production - In addition, gut bacteria are known to aid the production of certain vitamins - such as vitamins B and K – essential for energy production as well as blood and bone health. Their ability to help break down foods also helps ensure we actually absorb and use the vitamins we do eat.
- Weight Gain and Obesity *3- Gut microbes play a role in the breaking down and absorption of complex carbohydrates as well as fats. Certain strains of bacteria have been linked to obesity as they can increase your body’s ability to absorb fat and extract calories from carbs. They also play a role in balancing blood sugar and insulin levels (crucial to fighting weight gain and type II Diabetes).
- Cancer - Scientists have discovered specific bacteria in the intestines - Lactobacillus johnsonii - that may play a role in the development of Lymphoma. Stomach cancer and colorectal cancer have also been linked to specific bacteria found in the gut. On the flip side, research has discovered that gut bacteria may be important for improving the effectiveness of cancer treatment.
- Mental Health: Gut bacteria produce a variety of neurochemicals that the brain uses for the regulation of things like memory, learning and mood. In fact, 95% of the body's supply of serotonin (a “feel good” hormone) is produced by gut bacteria. With this in mind, it may not be surprising that unfriendly gut bacteria have been associated with anxiety disorders and depression.
- Candida Overgrowth: Candida albicans is a species of yeast that’s a normal part of our microbiome. In small amounts, it is harmless, but a change in our microbial balance through the use of antibiotics or a high sugar/high carb diet can allow it to grow out control and morph into a more aggressive form. In this stage, it puts down rootlets that penetrate the gut membrane – causing the lining to become porous and inflamed and allowing Candida (and other pathogens) to pass out of the gut and infect other areas of the body.
To promote friendly bacteria populations in your gut - we recommend eating probiotic-rich foods such as kefir, yogurt, sauerkraut, kombucha, kimchi, and other fermented vegetables. You can take a probiotic supplement, but these can be expensive and some of them are not properly formulated - making them unable to make it past the stomach into the intestines where the bacteria population is actually needed.
Another way to improve the population of friendly versus unfriendly bacteria is to avoid sugar - one of the favorite foods of bad bacteria and candida. Sugar promotes inflammation - so eliminating it will not only help heal the gut, but also reduce a direct contributor towards chronic inflammation.
It is important to remember that when going on a round of antibiotics, special care needs to be taken to re-introduce friendly bacteria into our gut since antibiotics kill both friendly and unfriendly species.
The Gut Lining
The gut lining is the first line of defense against pathogens, toxins, yeast, and other undesirable foreign entities. The health of this lining is absolutely critical to proper immune function as well as proper digestion & assimilation of food and nutrients. When this lining becomes damaged, it can become porous – allowing things the body would normally filter out and dispose of to enter the bloodstream. This means that toxins, chemicals, waste products, viruses, and other unfriendlies are able to get through. It also means nutrients and food can escape into the bloodstream before they are fully digested - resulting in them not only being unusable (and result in vitamin deficiencies or malnutrition), but the immune system will tag some of these as foreign irritants and provoke an inflammatory immune response. This can result in food allergies and chronic inflammation – which will not only set off other problems in the body, but will further damage the gut lining. This process prevents the gut from being able to heal and overworks our immune system and liver – making us more susceptible to disease and illness.
Once the gut lining is compromised, it can be difficult to heal. The best way would be to combine a diet free of possible irritants such as grains, nuts, seeds, caffeinated beverages, juice and soda with supplements designed to promote healing of the mucosal barrier.
Stress
You may be surprised to learn that stress isn’t the problem, but the way we stress about stress. A recent, major study found that it didn’t matter how negative a life event was – a death or divorce, for example – it was how the person perceived their life and the circumstance that affected their health. If the person didn’t see their life as stressful, they seemed not be negatively affected by it. On the other hand, thinking the event was stressful increased the chances of that person dying by a whopping 43%.
If you want to reduce the inflammatory effect of stress, then the biggest change you can make is how you react to stress. Instead of focusing on things that are going wrong, focus on the things that are going right. The more you practice this, the easier it gets - and the effect on your health could be huge.
Too much excess weight
For many years, we have known that excess weight contributes or even causes many health problems such as heart disease, bone and joint issues, and diabetes. It is only recently that scientists have discovered the startling reason why - fat actually produces chemicals that cause inflammation. When we gain weight, we store the extra calories in our fat cells – which makes them grow in size. As these cells grow larger - they produce excess cytokines, resulting in increased inflammation. Hidden among the fat cells are other cells called macrophages, which also produce cytokines. As a person gains weight - the proportion of macrophages also grows, and their rate of growth increases the larger the fat supply. In obese and overweight people they have discovered that most of the inflammation promoting cytokines in fat are not coming from the fat cells themselves - but from the macrophages.
Oxidative Stress
Oxidative stress occurs when there are not enough antioxidants in the body to counteract the production of free radicals – leaving the excess free radicals free to damage healthy cells and tissue. This can lead to chronic inflammation as the immune system works to repair the damage caused by the free radicals.
Exposure to pollution, chemicals, and toxins
Air pollution, chemicals or toxins in the air we breathe, water we drink, or food we eat can all trigger an inflammatory immune response.
A Weakened or Overloaded Immune System
Any or all of the issues above can overstress and distract the immune system. With multiple areas in the body sending SOS signals, the immune system is unable to allocate adequate resources to fully address problems it otherwise would be able to fight. The result is that otherwise treatable problems can become persistent, constant sources of inflammation that the immune system is too tired to take care of - draining our energy and contributing to daily feelings or fatigue and tiredness. At this point, the immune system can also start malfunctioning and attacking our own cells - resulting in autoimmune disorders.
The Results
Reducing inflammation and providing support to the Immune System, Liver, and Gut will give our bodies the resources it needs to heal and rejuvenate. This can lead to a reduction in daily aches and pains, allow our metabolisms to reset and finally start burning fat instead of storing it, increase our energy levels and sleep quality, improve digestion and nutrient absorption, boost our ability to concentrate, and reduce the frequency we fall sick.
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“My gut issues lessened and energy increased. I was able to lose 10 pounds and lost 2.3% off my body fat percentage in a month.” — Kara “I have more energy than I ever thought possible. I’m not constantly thinking about food cause I’m not hungry all the time. I feel good! I certainly notice when I don’t take them.” — Suzie “It has boosted my energy and helped me greatly with my stomach and bowel issues. Another plus is that I don’t seem to have as many migraines as I usually have.” — Julie |
“The first thing I noticed was I rarely was in a bad mood. Also while everyone at work and home was getting sick, it passed over me, I was amazed! My favorite benefit though was focus and motivation. While on these products my boss was let go. I picked up a lot of extra work and stress - I know I never would have been able to press through as easy as I did without these products. Now to the weight loss. I lost 10 lbs. and 3.5 total inches.” — Richard |