Energise Blog: Natural Health & Alkaline Diet

Hey everyone.

Over the years of writing and building Team Energise we’ve amassed quite a few resources but they’re a bit scattered about the site now. Sorry about that. I am working on making the blog and website a lot more integrated and easy to find everything, but for the meantime here is everything in one big list:

• The Ultimate Team Energise Post-UPW Workbook - you have to sign up for Team Energise to get this, but it is free and superb. We only use the Team Energise database to let you know about the next UPW and when we are able to offer deals on tickets and hotel accommodation etc. Here is a little preview for you to check out…
• A guide to the Tony Robbins 10-Day Challenge
• Guide to UPW - in case you haven’t been yet or think you could organise yourself better next time!
• Music from UPW - gets updated yearly, and there are some great contributions in the comments
• Tony Robbins’ Breathing Techniques
• Tony’s Multimedia products (such as Personal Power II and Get the Edge
• Alkalising Resources - more info on the topics covered on Monday

Before I go - a MASSIVE thanks to everyone who came along as a Team Energise member - we love you!!!

See you next time!

Hey guys

Just a quick post. Lots of people are looking for one single place to find all of the information they need. I’ve tried to do this as much as possible (see our health resources page, or check the links in the sidebar of this blog) - but Squidoo is a great way to do this too.

So I’ve quickly knocked together an alkaline diet Squidoo lens which lists all of my starter resources alongside a few youtube clips about alkalising, links to some great books on the subject (all profits go to Cancer Research and Prevention Foundation) and links to our newest resources and other great blogs.

Check it out and let me know if there is anything missing!

Ta, Ross

p.s. have you done something nice for someone today?

A recent study has found that a chemical that is found in chocolate, tea, grapes and blueberries can help to improve memory.

Hilariously tested on mice with Mars choccy, the study has found that epicatechin improves their memory and may well work on humans. Pleasingly the study didn’t only focus on chocolate, thus fuelling more and more chocolate is good for you stories. Without digressing too much that really is one of my pet hates. I just can no longer abide the whole ‘red wine and chocolate is good for your health, don’t you know’ claim. Isn’t it more that there is are particular nutrients within red wine and chocolate that are good for you? Don’t you think these chemicals might be found elsewhere? Don’t you think you might be able to find them in a form that isn’t wrapped in alcohol or saturated milky fuelled fat?

Sorry, I digress. And ‘the rage’ is very acid-forming so I’ll move back to the mice and their memory boosting Mars bars.

So anyway, the research (published in the Journal of Neuroscience) has shown that epicatechin (also one of the active calorie burning ingredients in Coca-Cola’s Enviga drink) is very useful. I’m keeping my superlatives quite low key until this has been tested on humans too, but the early signs are good. As you can probably guess I am buoyed by the research also pointing out that epicatechin from grapes and teas is also as effective on the memory-mice and the researchers also even nutritionists highlight that chocolate is high in fat and sugar, which may undo any benefits.

Heh, its just struck me that you might be wondering what it was that the mice were remembering. Well, they weren’t being asked to remember the usual stuff like where their car keys were or what the name of the other mouse was they met last night. It was a bit more James Bond than that. The BBC put the summary better than I could:

‘Half the mice in each group were allowed to run on a wheel for two hours each day and then, a month later, were trained to find a platform hidden in a pool of water.
Those that both exercised and ate the epicatechin diet remembered the location of the platform longer than the other mice. ‘

I like the fact that the results were better when coupled with exercise because exercise is often seen as just a means to make you look better/sexy, but in reality that’s the last reason for doing it. I also like the fact that running on a wheel is suggested to be a kind of treat for the mice i.e. they were ‘allowed’. Heh, I always sort of saw the mouse on wheel thing as a human spectator treat.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to the further studies being conducted but in the meantime I’m off to eat a couple of blueberries and have a cup of green tea.

I just can’t get enough! Its getting a bit more chilly here in Sydney now as winter kicks in so I’m turning back to warming drinks and this is definitely my favourite:

Redbush (Rooibos) tea with lemon.

So simple, but so lovely too.

Just thought I’d share!

Every day we slap a load of chemicals on our skin…

…but do we ever think about it like that - or do we just want to look clean and smell nice?

I’ve gotta be honest, I’ve never really given it that much thought. When it comes to my health, I thought more about what I put in my mouth rather than what I put on my skin. But having just read a short article about the new Lynx (Axe if you’re in the States or mainland Europe) antiperspirant in Wired I started thinking a lot more seriously about the potentially harmful effects of some of the products I use on a daily basis. Which is funny really, ‘cos the article had nothing to do with that.

But what it did highlight to me was that this anti-perspirant contained a fair old whack of aluminium that dissolves into the skin, causing underarm pores to swell shut. That sounds wrong to me. Also in the same product is PPG-14BE, which is an antistatic agent which is more often used as an insecticide.

Now, this could all be totally harmless. I’m just sayin’ what I’m seein’! But it seems a bit wrong doesn’t it?

So I’ve started trying to learn a bit more about this and being the helpful fella that I am, I decided it might be worth blogging my findings.

The very first article I have found on this subject (unsurprisingly from the excellent BBC) certainly highlights some potential problems. They highlight a study which showed that some of the chemicals, particularly parabens were found to be accumulating in the tissues of the subjects. The issue with parabens seems to be related to their potential to cause cancer. But then the same article has equally compelling arguments against this claim.

Newstarget (another cracking site) discusses the link between methylisothiazolinone (found in loads of personal care and homecare products) causeing nerve damage.

Next up I found a forum discussion which made the quite important point that there could be more important things to worry about - such as the polluted air we breathe all day every day! Fair play, that could be a good point.

Another site (Aubrey Organics) suggests that
the aluminium content could be of concern in terms of a link between aluminium exposure and Alzheimers.

They reference a number of academic research articles and come to a similar conclusion that I am coming to - that there seems to be some evidence against using aluminium rich antiperspirants and suchlike - but that this evidence is not yet conclusive. Personally, I am going to look into this some more, while investigating the ease of switching to a less chemical-intense life! Something quick and easy to do that is obviously a good choice is to steer clear of aerosoles. The potential for breathing in aerosole products is pretty high meaning that fine, toxic particles can find their way straight to our lungs and respiratory tract.

Does anyone here, reading this, use chemical free body care products? I think I’m going to try and cut out the potentially harmful products that are in my life - but I think it’s going to be tricky! There is enough evidence there to convince me that I should give it a try while I do some more researching. But what do you think? Are there more important things to worry about?

Picture the scenario: you’ve been thinking about this moment for weeks (possibly months, possibly years) and now it has actually arrived. You can’t believe it is happening! The most perfect thing in the world is about to kiss you…but just as your lips are about to touch there is a pause….and then a flinch.

And then a grimace.

And then you realise…

…you stink.

OK, so there are no literary awards up for grabs and even if there were, I ain’t winning any for that little foray into the world of romantic prose. But you catch my minty fresh drift. Every now and then your breath will stink. That’s a fact.

So if you’ve got a date tonight, tomorrow or maybe only in your head - in the future - with a girl or guy you haven’t even had the guts to talk to yet, you’re going to want to make sure your breath is as fresh as snow when it matters.

Top 5 Foods for Fresh Breath / Home Remedy for Bad Breath!

If you’ve been here before you’ll no doubt know that this is, in fact, not a dating or relationship site - it’s a health site. Soooo, here come the top 5 bad breath banishers ranked with the following equasion:

Pleasant Breath = (freshy goodness x naturalness)/health

Got that?

So here we go, in reverse order:

• Iiiiiiiinnn 5: Water. That’s right - water! Not even a food! Heh, bear with me because this is probably the most simple and accessible tip of them all. If you become dehydrated your body attempts to conserve moisture by producing far less saliva. ‘Why is this important?’ I hear you ask. It is important because saliva is incredibly effective at cleansing and diluting the bacteria and its stinking products that make your breath smell bad! And here’s an extra tip for you - giving your mouth a rinse out with water is actually a very effective short term, quick response breath freshener because it removes the bacteria’s waste. The reason it is only short term, though, is because most of the bacteria remains…
• Iiiiiiiiinnn 4: Vitamin C - oranges, Kiwis, Grapefruits, Asparagus, Kale, Broccoli and any other high vitamin C fruit or vegetable are a great home remedy for bad breath. The reason why vitamin C is effective at keeping your breath as fresh as a glacier is two-fold. Firstly, it is great at reducing mucus and toxin levels in the body which are a major cause of bad breath, and secondly it is another great bacteria fighter. Smokers should pay special attention here because smoking actually destroys vitamin c.
• Iiiiiiiin 3: Fibre - fibre is absolutely wonderous in so many ways and yet so few of us actually get our required amount each day (supposedly 30-40g). Getting enough fibre is so essential for so many other important reasons but it is also great for keeping your breath fresh. The principle reason being that a lot of breath issues actually stem from the gut rather than the mouth - and fibre helps to keep your digestive tract in perfect, clean working order. And back to saliva - crunchy, fibre rich foods encourage your mouth to produce more of that beautiful bacteria battling saliva!
• Iiiiiiiiiin 2: Probiotics - they’ve been the darlings of the wellness movement ever since Yakult got wise, but you rarely hear about probiotics in terms of their kiss-increasing powers!

  If your breath is making flowers wilt the reason could easily be due to the presence of hydrogen sulfide in your mouth. Probiotics kick hydrogen sulfide’s butt. Especially Lactobacillus salivarius which is also known to help bleeding gums, tooth decay, thrush and canker sores whilst also encouraging the production of vitamin B, enzymes and lactic acid. Bonza!

• And Bully’s Special Prize: Herbs - nicks in at number one because sooo many herbs are brilliant at fighting bad breath and promoting a nice healthy, fresh mouth. Parsley, coriander, spearmint, tarragon, eucalyptus, rosemary and cardamom all come top of the class in breath freshness.

  But out of all of the herbs - here are my top three:

  1. Cardamom, (Elettaria cardamomum) is a great source of the antiseptic cineole, which is extremely effective at destroying that pesky bad breath bacteria.
  2. Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus globulus) is found in many breath fresheners and mouthwashes because it also contains high levels of cineole.
  3. Parsley (Petroselinum crispum) - along many other green leafy herbs - is great at destroying odour because it contains expecptionally high levels of chlorophyll. Chlorophyll is great at ridding the body of toxins and is a potent alkaliser which also helps to cleanse and purify the body. Chlorophyll also has a strong deoderising effect which is great for a quick fix in emergency situations!

So there you go. Never will you have bad breath again! And especially not right before a hot date!

As a big hat tip the inspiration behind this post comes from another of Darren’s excellent group writing projects. I strongly urge you to head on over to problogger.net and check out all of the other Top 5’s!

And if you have stopped by here as a result of the project - do say hi in the comments and have a browse around!

Hi all. Just a quick post because I really want to share this with you all. This is extremely cool and is something I have wanted for YEARS!

Have you ever wondered how far your run/walk is? Do you have a route that you love to run, but never knew how far it actually was? Well, thanks to this incredible Google Maps mashup you finally can!

The All Incredible GMap Pedometer!

And best of all - it is free! Absolutely FREE!

All you do is:

• Find where you want to start with the ‘Jump To’ search box
• Zoom appropriately as you would normally with gmaps
• Click ‘Start Recording’
• Then double click each point on the route

It gives you Total Distance, Mile Markers and Calories Burned!

This is just great, and I have already been playing around with it for hours finding out how far it is from my house to my ferry wharf, from my office to my favourite salad bar, from my house to my favourite cafe, from my house to my friends house…oh and of course how long my favourite running routes are!!!

Now I always knew that something good would come out of reading Matt Cutts’ blog…

Don’t be freaked out. I’m just playing with a few different looks and feels…

Well…when I say ‘playing’ I actually mean ’spending hours getting frustrated and angry and shouting ‘WHY’ every ten minutes. Coding has never been my strong point…

So anyway, it may all change again by the time you next come back, so don’t be alarmed. Just tell me when/where anything is broken.

Cheers - Ross

I’ve just read yet another article telling me that diets don’t work. This troubles me.

Hundreds of millions of people have the desire to change their body, or change the way they feel about their body every year. And hundreds of millions of people do something about it. Often they do something about it more than once.

So what exactly is it that troubles me?

The false situation of helplessness that this creates

When I read headline after headline telling the world that ‘Diets do not lead to sustained weight loss or health benefits’ I cringe. I cringe in the same way that I do when I read that ‘detoxing is bad for you’. The same way as when I read that ‘red wine and chocolate are good for you’.

For the majority of us - our health and the way we look and feel about our body occupies our thoughts and goals and ambitions more than most other subjects. And so accordingly, when an article hits our newspaper/magazine/rss feed/website etc with a headline such as ‘Dieting Does Not Work’ we tend to take note and have a look. The ease of information spread in the technological age can be such a damaging thing at times!

So, Ross, You’re Telling Me That Diets DO Work?

No, well not exactly. But let’s have a look at the article.

“You can initially lose 5 to 10 percent of your weight on any number of diets, but then the weight comes back,”

We decided to dig up and analyze every study that followed people on diets for two to five years. We concluded most of them would have been better off not going on the diet at all.

“Several studies indicate that dieting is actually a consistent predictor of future weight gain,”

one of the best predictors of weight gain over the four years was having lost weight on a diet at some point during the years before the study started

This creates a pretty negative and powerless situation. And one which I think does not exist like this.

Now, lets not get carried away here because my message is not that diets ALWAYS DO work but I think that studies and articles such as this are riddled with shortcomings and they actually can do more harm than good. I mean, if I were someone who was looking to change my body and was looking for solutions then this article would leave me feeling rather helpless and wondering where I should turn next.

So what are my concerns with the article?

• There is no definition of what a diet actually is
• There is no consistency (admitted by them) in terms of how the diet was measured and scored
• There is no evidence of how consistent and hardworking/committed the ‘dieters’ were
• There is no mention of a spread of ages, weights, sex, nationality, goals etc
• There is no mention of timeframes consistent across the study
• There is no mention of those who DID succeed and what they did differently
• There is no mention of the quality of the journals/publications that the separate studies were published within
• And on and on…

But - don’t get me wrong. I know that this kind of research is just an amalgamation of other papers (and so some of the points above are inherent to all papers of this type), but nowhere are any of these point alluded to in the article. And given the shortcomings – WHY ARE SUCH DAMNING CLAIMS BEING MADE?

In my opinion some diets do work and some diets don’t. I usually tend to steer clear of the term ‘diet’ when it relates to weight loss or gain due to the negative (and often unhealthy) connotations it has. But in this case I’m sticking with it.

So If Some Diets DO Work – What Makes A Diet Successful?

In my opinion – these are the KEY common factors to successful dieting:

1. Long-termism: most diets become unstuck (and see results found in that study) when they are short-term. Short-term strategies include: making changes that are so dramatic that you know they are unsustainable; dieting for a specific event; simply eating less; not incorporating exercise.
2. Exercise: you simply cannot have a sustainable, long-term successful diet without exercise. If you just eat less calories you will not be able to achieve long-term success. Exercise increases your metabolism and increases the healthy of your organs which gives your body the tools it needs to cleanse and rid your body of fat. In the absence of exercise you will likely just lose water and muscle weight and your body fat will stay the same – and your weight will plateau.
3. Transitioning: nothing is more likely to kill a diet than the cold turkey method. You simply have to build things up slowly. Start with breakfast. Once you have nailed that and you are having a nice healthy breakfast every day with ease, move on to lunch.
4. Allowing ‘vices’: you know you can’t, and you know it’s a slippery slope. So swap your vice for a healthier alternative. If you know that once you open a slab of chocolate you can’t put it down til it is finished then just don’t allow yourself to get into that situation. An alternative is absolutely key though – as with transitioning, if you don’t do things slowly and become too restrictive then you are going to find it extremely tough.
5. Changing Perception of Food: the one thing that kills more diets more often than not is not being able to disassociate the positive feelings we have towards certain foods. This is very closely related to the above point on vices. When we associate such strong pleasurable feelings to certain foods we are always going to be coming from the position of deprivation and restriction. If we change our perception of food to that of FUEL rather than something we do for pleasure then we will start to view things like chocolate a lot more differently. Tony Robbins also suggests asking the question ‘will this cleanse me or clog me’ and I have found that to be incredibly useful.
6. Being kind to yourself: this is one that stops diets in their tracks more than others. So you’ve had a bad day. What do you do? Give up? Thing f*** it, I’m going to the pub? Well DON’T! People who are dieting are often FAR too hard on themselves. If you have a bad day, don’t beat yourself up – just look at what went wrong and put it behind you. One bad day does not undo three weeks hard work. Don’t throw it all away!
7. Setting Goals: I know I sometimes sound like a broken record when it comes to goalsetting, but it is SOOO effective. All you have to do is write them down, make them measurable, set short, medium and long term goals and (write under each one) why they are important, what life will be like if you succeed and what life will be like if you don’t. Now, keep that master goal sheet safe and every morning when you get up and every evening before you go to sleep WRITE OUT YOUR MOST IMPORTANT GOALS. Every day. The power this has is unbelievable. Seriously.

So. Here is hope for you. Of course, not every diet for every person will work. But the world is full of success stories. Just look around the blogosphere. People can do it and people DO do it. And if you follow my seven success traits above then you might just find yourself with the body you dream of quicker than you thought!

So, in the absence of blog posts lately - here is an update on everything that has been happening at Energise…

• We’ve been busy developing Energise Success! For those of you who don’t know, this is our specialist Personal Development site which we (soft) launched last year. Keep your ears close to the ground on this one because we’re going to be doing quite a bit with it over the next 12 months!
• Fixing the Energise Forum. It was a long, slow and frustrating mission trying to get rid of and stop the tidal wave of spam which had all but killed the forum. Now we are spam free everything is up and running again and the old regulars are back posting as normal! Head on over and say hi!
• Blog Redesign. The design of this blog has been giving me headaches for months now. So I have been busily customising a lovely new design ready (fingers crossed) to be launched in the next couple of weeks.
• UPW 2007! Can you believe it is coming around again so quickly? This year Team Energise is going to be bigger and better than ever before with easily more than DOUBLE the amount of people heading down with Energise for Life this year than last. We’ve also got some very special tickets (VERY special) for the following event too, so another one to look out for.
• Giles is now a father! Wooohoo. Congratulations mate!
• We’ve also been working on a specific site for all of our distributors, resellers and affiliates - so if that is you or you think that is something that sounds interesting then do get in touch…!

And obviously plenty, plenty more (but we’re keeping some stuff under wraps!).

So, the blogging will be building back up to full steam again over the next few weeks! Thanks for being patient!

Ross

MSG, or monosodium glutamate, is probably one of the singlemost blamed ingredients of all time. Alongside yeast, dairy and gluten it is often the reason we give for our feelings of illness and lethargy after eating a meal (*cough* takeaway) and many of us now actively seek to avoid it at all costs.

Technically speaking, MSG is the sodium salt of the amino acid L-glutamic. In practice it is used as a potent flavour enhancer which was first used in Japan over a thousand years ago. While it is generally seen as an additive (and therefore unnatural), glutamate is also found in the proteins of meat, vegetables, poultry and milk.

There are two different forms of glutamate, bound and free. Bound glutamate is linked to other amino acids and forms a protein molecule whereas and free glutamate is not linked to protein - and hence is ‘free’. It is free glutamate that is used in enhancing the flavours of food and it is abundant in foods such as tomatoes and mushrooms.

While we tend to largely think of Asian foods when we are on the lookout for MSG, it is also used in foods like canned soups, stocks, junk foods such crisps (chips) and other snacks, most frozen meals and instant meals. As such I would speculate that in each of these types of foods there are likely to be other things to look out for alongside the MSG content!

But is MSG actually BAD for me?

The answer to that is yes and no. While the FDA consider it to generally be safe and the Expert Committee on Food Additives of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization placed decided that MSG should be put into one of the safest categories of ingredients in 1987.

So while that suggests that, yes, MSG is OK - the FDA do make some strange decisions and I would wonder what else is on the safe list, and what factors constitute ’safe’.

On the, ‘no, it’s actually pretty bad’ side of the fence the FDA have also noted that there is evidence to suggest that some people may actually react negatively to MSG and exhibit the following symptoms:

• burning sensation in the back of the neck, forearms and chest
• numbness in the back of the neck, radiating to the arms and back
• tingling, warmth and weakness in the face, temples, upper back, neck and arms
• facial pressure or tightness
• chest pain
• headache
• nausea
• rapid heartbeat
• bronchospasm (difficulty breathing) in MSG-intolerant people with asthma
• drowsiness
• weakness

There is also masses of anecdotal evidence and a number of research articles appearing which draw a link between MSG and negative reactions such as migranes, obesity and fibromyalgia.

There is also the concern about MSG spiking blood plasma levels of glutamate. Glutamic acid is an excitotoxin and studies have shown this to cause damage to the brain and can cause the onset of chronic disease. It doesn’t sounds so good…

But in my mind, you just have to look at the type of foods it is used in and make an assessment from there. Thats the easiest way to decide whether to exclude it from your diet or not. Are you going to be eating takeaways and processed foods as part of a healthy diet? Is there MSG in fresh foods?

I can’t say I’m going to be able to avoid it 100% - so how much is safe?

Well, if you feel like you’re not one of the people who react badly to MSG there are ’safe’ levels that you should try and stick to. These levels have not been defined by the FDA or the UK Govt. so there is no RDA amount, but you can probably say that as a rule of thumb you should eat no more than one meal containing added MSG per day. There is ‘free’ glutamate in all sorts of foods as mentioned, and as such the ‘average person’ (whatever that means) will consume somewhere between 10k and 20k milligrams of naturally occuring free glutamate from normal foods (i.e. where MSG has not been purposefully added).

Having said that, I personally try to avoid which is not too difficult as I avoid the foods it is found in anyway for their extremely high levels of trans-fats, salts, sugars and other crap!

I generally save my ’shout out’ posts for specific, excellent stuff and this is certainly one of them.

These Come From Trees is a really simple, but incredibly effective ‘ guerrilla public service announcement’ which is doing great things for our environment.

The concept is simple: when people are reminded about their ability to act responsibly, they usually do. So tapping into this, These Come From Trees sell packs of the sticker (over there to your right) which you can then use to stick in the right place (see their flickr for examples).

So how can this help? Well, if you look at the stats on their site you can see the magnitude of the problem and the TCFT crew believe that ‘each sticker deployed saves about a tree’s worth of paper (~100 lbs.) a year’.

Quick Facts about “These Come From Trees”

• Testing shows a “These Come From Trees” sticker on a paper towel dispenser reduces paper towel consumption by ~15%
• A typical fast food restaurant with two bathrooms can use up to 2000 pounds of paper towels a year
• The average coffee shop uses 1000 pounds of paper towels a year
• A single tree produces around 100 pounds of paper
• A single “These Come From Trees” sticker can save around a tree’s worth of paper, every year
  Roughly 50,000 fast food restaurants in the US
• 200,00 gas stations in the US
• 14,000 McDonalds’ in the US
• There are 10,000 Starbucks in the US

So why not buy some and/or talk to your bosses about buying some for the building you work in?