Archive for September, 2008

Blogging Advice - Give Your Readers What They Want

Monday, September 29th, 2008

Web gives a lot of exposure; weblog stabilizes the exposure with a profound purpose. The purpose of a Weblog is to complement e-newsletters, serving readers in a way that extends a blogger’s expertise and leadership in the market.

So, what is it that is expected from a blog? A blog is considered to be a place to inform and to be informed. Straight talk is what readers consider to be an ideal blog message. Straight talk is a four or five sentence of direct, informative content about a specific issue or bit of news.

Blogs consists of human expressions and is expected to have a soulful purpose. Blog posts are expected to be a personal post, as it can convey blogger’s emotions. So, these messages are mostly written in first person singular and are rich in emotions. Blogs are also expected to provide details from the writer’s life: missed flights, break-ups, rodents under the stove, computer breakdowns, muggings, and tamale recipes and more.

A blogger should always remember that if there are doubts that readers will discount the article entirely based on its context; they shouldn’t consider linking it at all.

Authentication of the message is one important aspect that a blog post is expected to adhere to. Blogs are expected to be clear about its source. This avoids chances where readers may cease to trust the bloggers. These chances may take shape if discovered that the information source has been disguised or the blogger didn’t make the source of an article clear. The readers might have evaluated these sources differently had they been given all the facts. Into every aspect of the practice of weblogging, transparency is one of the weblog’s distinguishing characteristics and greatest strengths.

A writer’s goal and priority should always be clarity.

It is a bloggers responsibility to focus exclusively on producing content that attracts the reader. What determines the right kind of content? This can be determined by reading other blogs and hitting whatever is hot in discussion or high in trend.

The most compelling bloggers are necessarily the ones with the most insightful analyses and the best links; besides this the most successful are those who get the reader interested in their own ongoing story. Because bloggers on similar subjects link to each other, the reader finds it easier to understand opposing points of view. For bloggers, not linking to others is a death sentence for their ratings.

Chris Hickman owns a full info site about Weblog blogging. Check Out his site at http://www.ez-weblog-blogging.com

Caregiver Burnout: Ten Coping Tips

Monday, September 29th, 2008

Whether you are an unpaid family caregiver or a professional in-home health care provider, you are most likely willing to admit you have on occasion been near the breaking point. The demands placed on a caregiver can be all at once physically exhausting and emotionally overwhelming. Unrealistic expectations piled on you from case managers, agency supervisors, your client’s family or the client him or herself can lead to workplace fatigue. When you become aware of your own feelings of anger, depression, or unresolved job frustration, this can mean something more serious. Workplace burnout is a type of stress that is potentially dangerous. Here are ten tips that will help you to identify coping strategies to alleviate caregiver burnout.

Do not ignore your own physical symptoms. A nagging headache, backache or upset stomach could become debilitating if left unchecked.

Participate in a professional network. Newsletters, peer groups, chats and online forums can be great sources of information, as well as places to vent frustration.

Consult with medical professionals about burnout issues. While stress is normal, burnout can be dangerous both for you and those for whom you provide care.

Attend a support group to receive feedback and to learn coping skills. Others in your situation are often a wonderful resource for information, inspiration and strength.

Do not allow yourself to become isolated from your own life. You are not what you do for a living. Stay involved with your own activities and interests.

Find ways to share the focus of your responsibilities. Consult with family members or co-workers on rotating duties to keep your work fresh and interesting.

Establish “quiet time” each day for rest, reading, catching up on your email, or even yoga or meditation.

Get a weekly massage. This may seem frivolous; however, even a short neck and shoulder massage can relieve physical tension and be rejuvenating.

Assess how often you can help. Learn your limits. If you have trouble saying “no,” create a written contract for services upon which you and your client can agree. This contract can act as a safeguard against others who might be tempted to take advantage of you.

Evaluate your expertise. Stay current. Enhance your education. Seek instruction, training, and advice from the physician, nurses and home care agencies Involved in your client’s care.

Locate local resources for respite care, also called adult day care. This is a service that allows for a family member or care provider to get a break for a few hours during the day.

Finally, learn to identify the various ways in which stress affects you. Insomnia, irritability, recurring colds or other illnesses, negativity, hopelessness or feeling out of control can all be warning signs. These burnout signals can lead to a disassociation from your work, which can become the cause of accident or injury to yourself or your client. Take care of yourself, so that you are better able to be the source of strength and inspiration for your own family and friends, in addition to being better able to meet the needs of your client.

Copyright 2005. All rights reserved.

Laura Gillson is a speaker, author and educator specializing in disability awareness, advocacy, accessibility and assistive technology. For corporate, community or caregiver training, visit Eloquent Insights at http://www.eloquentinsights.com If you need help with in-home care, you’ll find it at In-Home Insights at http://www.inhomeinsights.com Finally, you’ll discover a site for sore eyes at Accessible Insights at http://www.accessibleinsights.com The author’s email address is lgillson@eloquentinsights.com

Get the Best Quality Pills like CIALIS - Offshore Online Pharmacy

Saturday, September 27th, 2008

Best Quality Pills - (Cialis)

Cialis is the best drug after Viagra and Levitra, Cialispills are manufactured by the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, for treating erectile dysfunction. Cialis has quickly gained a reputation as one of the leading impotence treatment drugs on the market today.

Several people feel like to know if it is alright to take a permutation of ED drugs at the same time. The respond is basically, no. , at last the big subject, how long does Viagra take to work? Give it about an hour and it is good for about 4-5 hours afterwards.

The major query worn to be what Cialis is, but now everybody knows what it is. Now they want to be familiar with how they can get a little! To get Viagra you do require a preparation. You do have preference though, you can go see your physician and discuss it with him.

An erection is achieved by an increase in blood flow to the penis. Cialis mechanism by allowing the chemicals that the body releases into the penis when there is sexual arousal. The result is an increase of blood flow into the penis.

Men’s feel like to identify what the side effects of taking Cialis are. Every person reacts differently but the most common side effects are headache, flushing, stomach ache, and mild and temporary visual changes.

Health in the Self

Sunday, September 21st, 2008

What is health?

Is health the absence of disease? Is health a birth right or simply luck? According to Ayuveda, India’s ancient art of healing, the meaning of health is a single word: Swastha. Swa = self + Stha = established. Thus a person is healthy when ‘”established in the self.” Immunity is much more than T-cells, B-cells and antibodies. Health depends upon a well-integrated core of identity. Thus, health is a birth right.

The Self as defined by Ayuveda is not identical to the western concept of ego. It is the power of individual identity that fosters one to have an existence apparently separate from all other beings. In Sanskrit this is called Ahamkara - literally, the “I-former.” You are you and not he, she, we or they because of Ahamkara. It is the creative power that gives you your sense of “I am.” Ahamkara consistently identifies with an individual body, mind, and spirit enabling them to exist together as a living being. It is the center of your awareness and from it come feelings of my: my body, my emotions, my thoughts, my personality, etc. Where there is my, there is I.

Each of the millions and millions of cells that make up you has a center of awareness. Ahamkara is that center. How well your self identifies with these cells determines your resistance to disease. Just as a strong central government protects its citizens, so too a strong central identity protects the body. Because the body and mind are intimately connected, (contrary to western thought) your self-esteem is your cells’ self-esteem. Without sufficient self-esteem and self-love the cells become more vulnerable to the harmful effects of stress.

Stress

Stress is an insidious precursor to disease. In simple terms, stress occurs every time you adapt to a new situation. Consequently, every time your environment changes you must create a new equilibrium with it to stay healthy. ‘Environment’ includes not only your physical space, but also your mental, emotional, social, and spiritual surroundings. Only by being centered and stable in your self can you have the adaptability to roll with life’s punches and face the innumerable challenges to your well-being.

It can be said, you have a body self, mind self, and spirit self. Health requires establishment in each of these selves. You need to have a sound mind, in a sound body and a healthy relationship with Universal Spirit. Vertically body, mind and spirit needs to flow in dynamic interplay. Horizontally you need to have a harmonious relationship with your family and society and your self needs to remember its debt to the one who created it.

Our Being

Health as defined by Ayurveda is not the mere absence of disease. Swastha is a positive state of multi-layered well-being. Each level of our being affects and reflects the others. A happy, contented mind projects health into the body. Love, trust, and compassion needs to be developed if you are to be healthy. Modern neuropsychiatry has discovered specific neuropeptides associated with joy and happiness that communicate with the body’s trillions of cells. Likewise, the health of mind and emotions depend upon bodily health. Physical toxins and poor digestion impair mental digestion creating mental toxins like fear, anger, greed, attachment, envy, and judgment. The old saying ‘the body is a temple of the spirit’ is a factual reality. A firm (as in healthy) body ‘firms-up’ ahamkara and she reciprocated by projecting health into it.

Establishing one self into one’s self is not an egotistical attempt to become bigger, better, or more important. Over investment in self is as dangerous as its opposite. Selfishness can only lead us further away from each other and our source in Spirit. Without empathy and compassion for all other living beings, we become destructive to them and ourselves. Invest in your self so that your health and harmony act as a harmonizing influence on those around you and contributes to the health of your environment. This is Swastha.

Dorothy M. Neddermeyer, PhD - EzineArticles Expert Author

Dorothy M. Neddermeyer, PhD specializes in: Mind, Body, Spirit healing for Individuals, Special Issues and Professional Coaching. As an inspirational leader, Dr. Neddermeyer empowers people to view life’s challenges as an opportunity for Personal/Professional Growth and Spiritual Awakening. http://www.gen-assist.com

A Closer Look at Testosterone Deficiency

Sunday, September 21st, 2008

Testosterone deficiency, also known as hypogonadism, is a condition in which the testes are unable to produce enough testosterone to fulfill the body’s needs. Testosterone deficiency has many possible causes, including genetic abnormalities, injury to the testes, and being on certain medications. Normal aging also may play a role in the decline of male testosterone levels. It is also known as low testosterone.

The testes produce testosterone regulated by a complex chain of signals that begins in the brain. This chain is called the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis. The hypothalamus secretes gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) to the pituitary gland in spurts, which trigger the secretion of leutenizing hormone (LH) from the pituitary gland. This hormone stimulates the Leydig cells of the testes to produce testosterone. Normally, the testes produce 4-7 milligrams (mg) of testosterone each and every day.

After puberty, testosterone production increases rapidly, and will decrease rapidly after age 50. Recent estimates show that approximately 13 million men in the United States experience testosterone deficiency and less than 10-percent receive treatment for the condition, which is growing in cultural acceptability.

Studies also have shown that some men with obesity, diabetes, or hypertension may be twice as likely to have low testosterone levels, though as stated, low testosterone and testosterone deficiency can be caused by taking certain medications, chemotherapy, infections and other basic causes.

Signs of testosterone deficiency depend on the age of onset and the duration of hormonal deficiency. Congenital testosterone deficiency is usually characterized by underdeveloped genitalia, and sometimes even undeterminable genitalia. Acquired testosterone deficiency that develops near puberty can result in enlargement of breast tissue (gynecomastia), sparse or absent pubic and body hair, and underdeveloped penis, testes, and muscle. Adults may experience diminished libido, erectile dysfunction, muscle weakness, hair loss, depression, and other common mood disorders.

In Emergencies Save Your Own Life!

Saturday, September 13th, 2008

Dr. Barbara Starfield of the Johns Hopkins School of
Hygiene and Public Health says that 250,000 deaths are
caused each year by “Iatrogenic” causes - Iatrogenic
is defined as induced in a patient by a physician’s
activity, manner or therapy. Dr. Starfield cautions
that these estimates are for deaths only and do not
include negative effects that are associated with
disability or discomfort. These numbers do not reflect non-fatal injures. Those figures must be
staggering. And what is the cost to the health care
delivery system? Millions to billions of dollars per
year.

If you are not able to tell an emergency room physician about your medical conditions, your medications, allergies and past surgeries, you may become one of the statistics.

Get a copy of your medical records. Have them
available in case of an emergency. Know what medications you are taking along with the dosage.
Always ask for copies of your test results. It’s always a good idea to keep your records on you so get something like MyMedicalCD (www.mymedicalCD). Especially if you travel a lot. Update it frequently, for it could very well save your life.

Remember - You are in charge of your life. Help doctors give you the best treatments possible. Take
charge today!

Jim Hogan

Why Everyone Over 50 Should be Training for the Senior Games

Tuesday, September 9th, 2008

by Phil Campbell, M.S., M.A., FACHE

Senior Games participant and author of

Ready, Set, GO! Synergy Fitness - 2nd Edition

New biomedical research proves why everyone over age 50 should be training for the Senior Games.

Research discoveries in 2002 show that we can unleash the most powerful body fat-cutting, muscle-toning, anti-aging substance known to science, naturally, with specific types of exercise, and the workouts necessary in training for many of the Senior Games events do the job.

The American Heart Association recently cited research showing that high-intensity exercise can significantly lower the risk of heart disease. Simply, as exercise intensity goes up, the risk of heart disease goes down.

The researchers compared the impact of different levels of exercise intensity on men with an average age of 66. The subjects in the high-intensity exercise group produced a 31 percent risk reduction for heart disease, which was 14 percent better than those who performed less intense exercise.

“The harder one exercises … the lower the risk of heart disease,” says lead researcher Dr. I-Min Lee, associate professor Harvard Medical School.

Anti-aging exercise

Anaerobic exercise (as contrasted with aerobic exercise) involves short, high-intensity sprint training, rather than endurance training.

Researchers show that high-intensity anaerobic workouts that include the short-burst get-you-out-of-breath sprinting types of exercise make your body release significant amounts of growth hormone (Impact of acute exercise intensity on pulsatile growth hormone release in men, 2000, Pritzlaff).

As children, growth hormone (HGH) makes us grow taller, but when we reach our full height, this hormone actually changes roles. When we’re adults, increasing HGH reduces body fat and trims inches. Growth hormone actually becomes the “fitness hormone” for middle-aged and older adults.

New studies show that HGH can be increased by as much as 530 percent with the anaerobic exercise of sprinting, (The time course of the human growth hormone response to a 6s and a 30s cycle ergometer sprint, 2002, Stokes).

Anaerobic sprint workouts can be involve many sports, including running, swimming, cycling, cross-country skiing, and all these are Senior Games events.

Whatever you do, don’t do this!

Don’t jump in, ease in to anaerobic exercise. Anaerobic fitness training is clearly the most productive, but it’s also the most dangerous. Hamstring pulls are a painful potential injury, so flexibility training is essential to every fitness plan.

Everyone, especially those with heart conditions or medical problems, should get physician clearance before performing anaerobic exercise. Even young athletes should progressively ease into high-intensity anaerobic workouts.

Older adults get results with less effort

When you see an 80-year-old participant running a 10-K or working out in the gym, don’t think that it’s unfortunate that she can’t run as fast or lift as much as her 60-year-old counterparts. It’s easier for her to reach higher intensities.

The American Heart Association study proves that exercise intensity is relative to a person’s age and fitness level. In other words, an older person can reach high-intensity levels with an effort level that might be considered low-intensity for a young athlete.

The new study confirms the need for higher intensities, but it also shows that beginners and older adults reach the more productive levels of exercise intensity with less effort than a triathlete, for example.

Newcomers to high-intensity exercise may initially get great results by performing the anaerobic training with power walking, but a fine-tuned triathlete may need more work for the same results.

If you’re over age 50, get physician clearance first, select a Senior Games event or two and get started with a gradual buildup training program.

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Free Newsletter on this topic at www.readysetgofitness.com

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RESEARCH SUMMARIES CITED:

The American Heart Association Release
http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=3008814

National Library of Medicine:

“the GH secretory response to exercise is related to exercise intensity in a linear dose-response pattern.”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11960957&dopt=Abstract

“It would appear that the duration of a bout of maximal sprint exercise determines the magnitude of the HGH” response…” http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12137178&dopt=Abstract

“GH secretory response to exercise is related to exercise intensity” http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=10444604&dopt=Abstract

Additional support studies:

“We conclude that a positive relationship exists between exercise intensity and both CHO(carbohydrates) expenditure during exercise and fat expenditure during recovery and that the increase in fat expenditure during recovery with higher exercise intensities is related to GH release.” http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=10956336&dopt=Abstract

“GH accelerates body fat loss, exerts anabolic effects and improves GH secretion.” http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11706505&dopt=Abstrac

“exercise is a robust stimulus of GH secretion” http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12457419&dopt=Abstract

“Total carbohydrate oxidation (exercise plus post exercise period) was significantly higher for HIE (high intensity)”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9100214&dopt=Abstract

“. A minimum duration of 10 min, high intensity exercise consistently increased circulating GH in adult males.”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=1619005&dopt=Abstract

If you’ve seen a fitness magazine lately like Physical Magazine, Fitness RX for Women, Great Life, Muscle Mag, Experience Life, and others, you may have seen Phil Campbell quoted as a fitness expert and an authority on exercise-induced growth hormone. You may have seen him on the cover of Personal Fitness Professional.

Phil Campbell, age 51, holds two advanced degrees, and he is board certified by ACHE. He applies his training in Health Services and his experience in the development of Ready, Set, Go! Synergy Fitness. He spent 20 years in hospital administration where it was his responsibility to take the medical disciplines of surgery, pathology, radiology, pediatrics, physical rehabilitation, physical therapy, pharmacology, and other health disciplines and operationalize diverse medical services into a comprehensive healthcare delivery system that improved the lives of others. And he has taken that same approach in the presentation of information to readers.

Guided by mainstream research

Phil Campbell uses 300 photo-illustrations and cites over 200 mainstream research studies in the biomedical disciplines of endocrinology, exercise science, medicine and fitness training for specific age groups to present a research-supported system that will help improve the lives of others.

He is an expert at taking complex medical subjects and making them understandable and practical. And he shows readers step-by-step how to improve fitness, increase energy, and lose, cut, and tone.

Phil Campbell has a gift for taking complex medical subjects and making them understandable and practical. He shows readers step-by-step how to improve fitness, increase energy, lose, cut, and tone in the most efficient way possible. Phil Campbell wrote his first fitness training manual over 30 years ago. While in college, he managed health clubs and performed personal training … 20 years before it was called personal training.

His inspiration to help improve the health status of large populations was sparked by his Health Services advanced degree advisor, Dr. Ed Cavanaugh, a former division administrator with the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. Mainstream biomedical research is the basis for all of Phil Campbell’s writing, and over 160 research studies are cited in his book.

As a masters athlete, Phil Campbell holds several USA Track and Field Masters titles including first place in the 100-meter sprint, Southeastern US Championships for his age group in 2000. In 2003, he won the 200-meter sprint and the discus throw, placed second in the 100 meters, and he set the meet record in the javelin during the USA Masters Track & Field Tennessee Championships. Nationally, he has placed third in USA Track and Field Masters Nationals in his age group in the javelin, and fifth in discus. In his late 40s, he won a 40-yard dash competition in 4.69 seconds. He teaches athletes how to improve speed, agility and quickness during his Speed Camps - www.readysetgofitness.com/speed.shtml. He holds a black belt in Isshinryu Karate and has competed and won first place in martial arts and weightlifting competitions.

Thousands of people across the US have been inspired by Phil Campbell’s motivational presentation “Fitness for a Lifetime.” If you’ll let him, Phil Campbell will show you how to have the most successful and lasting fitness improvement experience of your life.

Pristine Publishers Inc.

Misconceptions of People with Huntingtons Disease

Monday, September 8th, 2008

The thing my mother regretted the most was that no one understood what she suffered from. Either they had never heard of it, or they had their own misinformed view, or they didn’t believe it existed. Some people she met when she would go out would speak to her as if she was a child. Huntington’s does not damage your intelligence per se, but indirectly. The part of your brain that we would consider having the IQ, the frontal lobe, isn’t damaged itself but affected by damage to other parts, mainly the basal ganglia.

The best way to explain the behavioral and cognitive changes is to picture a company. The boss is the frontal lobe, part of the brain that controls high intellect. Part of the basal ganglia called the caudate, which suffers the most damage, is the secretary because it delivers messages from the senses and the rest of the basal ganglia and organizes them The rest of the basal ganglia is like a foreman for a work crew, as it controls a lot of the muscle movements and receives some signals from the senses, muscles and nerves. The muscles, nerves, and the rest of the body can be considered your work crew.

With the basal ganglia, especially the caudate within it, being the most affected, you have a company with a damaged foreman and secretary. The work crew is sending messages about depth perception, sight and sound, and things like the expression on a person’s face when they are teasing you. The secretary is either not sending these signals the way they were received or is disorganizing them. The boss cannot decide on an appropriate response to the person talking to you that is teasing if the secretary merely sends the exact words, but not the joking tone or the smile it was said with. The boss might have no other way to see it but that this person is verbally attacking them and then decide to become angry. And in cases the boss decides to stay angry for awhile because the secretary does not give the message that the responses have worked and it is okay to stop being angry. The boss assumes that the person they are angry with hasn’t got the message yet, so it is not time to stop being angry.

Also, people with Huntington’s do not have exactly the same memory problems as those with Alzheimer’s. With Alzheimer’s , both recognition and recall can be damaged. Not so with Huntington’s. Recognition is still there, recall is what is damaged. This means that the information is still in the filing cabinet, but the boss has a hard time finding it because the secretary has no organization system. But as soon as you hand the boss the information, in this case jog a person’s memory by giving cues, the boss immediately recognizes it, knows what it is and understands it. It was just hard to pull up. This is why if you ask a person with Huntington’s what they had for breakfast they may not be able to tell you, but give them choices and they will. Without choices, the boss can’t rely on the secretary’s filing cabinet to help find the right answer. The boss has to run down the entire list of everything possible to have for breakfast to find the right one. With choices, many of the possibilities have been eliminated. This is also why it is hard to make decisions when you have Huntington’s. The boss isn’t getting enough information to make an informed choice quickly.

People with Huntington’s are characterized as being stubborn or mean. The problems discussed in the previous paragraphs can shed some light on this stigma. One, it is hard enough to make a decision without giving up or being distracted. This is why it seems a Huntington’s patient has a one track mind. They have to stick to one subject, decision, problem, etc at a time, otherwise nothing will get done. As for being mean, that can be explained by the example given above that relates the person staying angry because they could not tell if the intended target had noticed they were angry.

So, to sum it up, if someone asks me if Huntington’s damages a person’s intelligence, the answer is yes and no. It doesn’t damage your IQ, or the frontal lobe, so no. But it makes it to where you cannot make the full use of your intellect, so yes.

If you wish to donate to help work toward’s a cure, contact the Huntington’s Disease Society of America. This explanation was inspired by much research, a great deal of which came from the HOPES group at Stanford University. They came up with the frontal lobe=boss and caudate=secretary metaphor, and I ran with it, added a bit to the metaphor and added my own experiences and examples. If you wish to contact me, reach me through my father’s store at, http://www.bargainbedding4u.com.

I am a new author interested in health issues.
http://www.bargainbedding4u.com

Detoxing Ion Foot Baths For Better Health!

Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008

Technology has played a role in our health. We are surrounded by wireless phones and computers and while they play a tremendous role in increased productivity, they also create an imbalance in positive and negative ions in your bodies system. When you sit in front of a computer all day you are bombarded with positive ions coming at you from your monitor and wireless phones anywhere in your vicinity. This makes you feel tired and sluggish and you can lose some of your concentration. It can be difficult to sit there for long periods of time. To undo this phenomenon, you need a boost of negative ions to put you back in balance

Have you noticed that when you are in the mountains near trees and a waterfall, or paddling down a river or just walking on the beach with the water lapping around your feet how much better you feel? This is because you are bombarded with an abundance of negative ions. This gives you that comfortable peaceful feeling we all seem to crave these days. No wonder people flock to these crisp clean air destinations to get some much needed down time.

Being that most of us are bound most of the year to our jobs and home, we tend not to experience enough of natures natural balance. And to make things worse, we are living in an environment that is far more toxic today than our fore fathers. Everything we eat, drink and breathe is more toxic than it was even 20 years ago.

An ionic foot bath is a great way to restore that feeling of well being and detox at the same time.

It works by filling a plastic tub of clean water, add sea salt, which is high in minerals, place the array and your feet in the water and the array will put out positive and negative ions. This travels through your body attaching itself like a magnet to oppositely charged toxins and mucus and excretes it through the pores in your feet. If you’ve never seen the results of a foot bath then you will be amazed at what you see. What started out as clean water will become very dirty indeed. The color of the water determines what area of the body is detoxing.

How to read your water:

Black or brown water is the liver.
Orange; means the joints.
Dark green; the gallbladder
Yellowy green; kidneys, urinary tract,
White foam; Lymph nodes draining
Red flecks; blood clot material
Black flecks; heavy metals

With the liver and kidneys taking a heavy load of toxins it is not unusual to see a lot of people with brown and black water for several foot baths. But don’t be surprised one day if you develop a urinary tract infection and your water turns green. People with arthritis will often have orangey water.

If you leave the array in the water for the allotted time you will see some color change because it will react with the minerals in the water, but placing your feet in the water changes the consistency and you will have mucus, foam and or flecks in the water, sometimes so heavy that you cannot even see your feet. Just the array in the water may be colored, but will remain clear.

Some of the benefits of ion footbaths are;

1) An enhanced the immune system
2) Assists in recovery time from injuries and surgery
3) Can relieve pain and joint stiffness due to arthritis
4) Improves sleep pattern
5) Remove heavy metals
6) Removes blood clot material
7) Improve liver and kidney function
8) Increase your energy

Detoxing is a normal function of the body but when it gets overwhelmed and pain or disease sets in, then we must do what we can to help the body unburden itself and ion foot baths help you do that.

Anything you can do to relieve your body of toxic build up will be beneficial to your health.

I hope this helps!

Willie is a freelance writer and researcher and is dedicated in bringing information on health related issues and other topics. www.cleanbodydetox.com

Weight Loss - The pH Diet Program

Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008

Whether you’re simply looking to firm-up before summertime or want to lose some serious weight - this plan will produce results for you - if you stick with it that is. Hopefully, you’ll transform from a “diet” mentality to a “lifestyle” mentality. I’m convinced that after seeing the incredible results from this program, you’ll become addicted to the way you look and feel.

I’m not going to promise you pie-in-the-sky results. However, this program will cause you to lose weight quickly and safely. You’ll be properly nourished throughout the entire program… and that’s the reason the weight will come off.

Let me also assure you… this program is not a hard program to follow. You won’t go through periods of hunger. As a matter of fact, you’ll be eating much more frequently than normal - just in smaller portions.

The pH Diet For Weight Loss will turn your body into a furnace… constantly and efficiently burning everything you feed it.

Why Getting Your pH Back In Balance Will Help Shed Pounds

As your body becomes more and more acidic, it becomes less efficient. Acidification negatively impacts your ability to digest food and absorb nutrients. It slows your metabolism down, and taxes every system in your body. Here are a few ways that acidity contributes to weight gain:

Stomach: Acidification is related to mineral deficiency. When you become deficient in a macro mineral called chloride, your ability to digest food in your stomach becomes inhibited. In order to digest food with protein, for example, your body will use chloride in order to make hydrochloric acid (HCL). If you’re deficient in chloride, the HCL that your stomach produces will not be acidic enough (the stomach is the one organ that you want to be very acidic). This leads to improperly digested food, causing the rest of the digestive organs to have to work harder in order to compensate.

Intestines: When food is passed on from the stomach into the small intestines, it’s mixed with bile from the liver, and pancreatic juice from the pancreas. These fluids must be alkaline in order to function properly. If your body lacks the proper mineral balance, it will lead to and acidic environment in the intestines. In this environment, proper digestion does not take place, food ferments, and it putrefies. This environment becomes a breeding ground for all sorts of bad organisms to grow. As these bacteria and yeasts proliferate, they can literally bore holes through intestinal walls, causing leaky gut. Now, all of that pollution starts to create toxicity throughout your entire body. At the same time, the lack of proper digestion leads to poor assimilation of vital nutrients.

Liver: The liver is your primary detoxification organ. As your body becomes more acidic and polluted, you place so much stress on your liver that it simply can’t keep up with the load. This stress in turn leads to more stress on every other body system.

This all helps to contribute to the excessive storage of…FAT.

Fat is a binder of toxins. This is truth is well documented. As a matter of fact, the United States Environmental Protection Agency studied fat biopsies on over 400 individuals; the results were alarming. Every one of them contained toxins (more than 100 different toxins were identified). So, imagine the scenario: Because of an acidic body, microforms grow (bad bacteria, yeasts & fungi), producing all sorts of toxins (mycotoxins and exotoxins). Your liver, which is already overly stressed with it’s every day duties, simply can’t process these toxins. Also, the acidity and lack of minerals needed to process toxins are lacking - so not only is your liver too busy and burdened, it’s not even being supplied with the necessary elements (minerals) in order to do a very effective job.

Your body has a wonderful way of dealing with this problem… store the toxins in your fat! However… because this fat is in essence “saving your life” from toxins, you will have a tough time burning it - even if you went on a crash diet - your body won’t allow it to happen. In addition to this, because your whole body is literally stressed out, your metabolism slows down greatly, causing you to store any extra calories you don’t need as fat. At the end of the day, fat is a toxin problem, and toxins are an acid problem. When you get your entire biochemistry and pH back in order, you’ll see the excess weight literally melt away!

The Program

I will now outline a very practical way to alkalize your body, which will lead to a natural reduction in excess weight. If you stick to the protocol, you’ll see incredible results. I will discuss diet and supplementation in this section.

The purpose of eating the recommended foods is, of course, to get the recommended nutrients. If you are acidic, the types of nutrients that you lack are different than if your pH is balanced. Proper pH balance occurs in your body when there is a proper synergy and abundance of all nutrients. These are the essential nutrients that you’ll derive from the alkaline foods or supplements that will help you to balance your pH and lose weight:

Water: This is the most important element that your body needs. Of course you’ve heard this your whole life, but it’s important that you actually do what you’ve heard. While some “experts” say to drink eight 8 oz. glasses per day, it is my professional opinion that this is only half the amount that you actually need. On top of that, since you want to cleanse your whole system out, I recommend that you drink one liter for every 30 lbs of body weight. So, if you weigh 150 lbs, you need to drink 5 liters of water per day during this program. Not only will it serve to flush acids and toxins out of your body, it will also help to keep your hunger in check.

It’s just as important to consider the quality of the water that you’re drinking as it is the quantity. During this program (and thereafter), you’ll want to drink highly mineralized, alkaline water. This will supply vital trace elements, and act as a buffer to acids in your system. This type of water is also better absorbed by the cells in your body because of its structure. Adding pH Booster drops to water will increase the pH of it by as much as 500 times. It’s a good idea to make a gallon or more at a time, so it’s always readily available when you want it. Also, get in a habit of carrying a bottle of water with you everywhere you go. Besides drinking water, you’ll get water from eating plenty of fresh vegetables.

Alkaline Minerals: These include potassium, sodium, calcium, magnesium, as well as manganese and iron. Maintaining proper mineral balance is foundational for pH balance. When you have abundant reserves of these minerals, your body will have the buffering capacity to neutralize excess acids in your bodily tissues and fluids.

Trace Minerals: These are the forgotten minerals… numbering 70 plus. They serve very specific “niche” roles in the body. Unfortunately, because of the agricultural trends over the last century, much of the soil that your food is grown in is devoid of these vital trace minerals. This program will help to replenish depleted reserves of these minerals.

Enzymes: Enzymes are the spark-plug of life. Without them, life would not exist. They occur naturally in living foods… those that are not cooked or processed. They are required not only in digestion, but in literally millions of different chemical transactions that occur within your body every day. Acidification is synonymous with enzyme deficiency. Every time you eat a food that is cooked, microwaved, processed or packaged, you’re eating a food that is essentially “dead”. The enzymes that were present in them that are required for digestion and nutrient assimilation are now gone. The constant ingestion of these types of foods severely taxes every organ in your body. This program, which is high in fresh, raw food, will help to replenish these vital proteins in your body.

Even as you begin to use fat stores as a fuel source, you’ll need enzymes (lipase) to bread down the solid fats into fatty acids. This process is what will eventually result in those excess pounds coming off.

Fiber: Fiber plays a critical role in weight management. Studies suggest that people who add an extra 14 grams per day to their diet could expect to lose 4 pounds in a matter of weeks and decrease food intake by as much as 10%. Your current diet probably does not contain enough fiber. The average American consumes 15 grams of fiber daily — 10 grams less than the minimum recommended amount of 25 mg. This program will boost your fiber intake well beyond the daily minimum RDA. This will help the digestive process, as well as give you a “full” feeling… which will cause you to eat less.

The pH Balancing Diet

During this program, your diet will consist primarily of the following raw foods: Vegetables, Nuts, Seeds, Beans, Fresh cold pressed oils, and protein powder. These foods are alkalizing, where as foods like meat, eggs, processed grains, sugar, packaged foods, cooked foods, and most condiments are moderately to extremely acidifying.

The diet is quite simple. Eat at least six times per day, and keep portion sizes small. Some call this type of eating “grazing”. Most of these foods (with the exception of oils) are low in calories. However, calorie count is not the key to this diet… acid count is. By eating these types of alkalizing foods, you’ll introduce nutritional elements that will help to neutralize and purge out excess acids and toxins that are causing your over weight state. You’ll also be refraining from acidifying foods at the same time, so you’ll be giving your body a break at the same time.

A complete list of alkalizing and acidifying foods along with recipes can be found on The Phion Nutrition web site (see below).

Move Your Body

You don’t have to kill yourself in the gym in order to experience the benefits of healthy movement. The key is to move… to breathe and sweat. Get your heart rate up, and your blood circulating. By exercising regularly, you’ll greatly amplify the benefits of this alkalizing diet and supplement program. Not all exercise is the same, though.

It’s much better to keep your heart rate low for longer periods of time, vs. keeping it high for a shorter period of time. As a general rule, you should not have to catch your breath when exercising… if you do, you’re heart rate is too high. This will result in the burning of sugar as your fuel source, vs. the burning of fat (which is what you want). When you burn sugar, it produces lactic acid in your body - which, of course is not a very good thing if you can’t effectively neutralize it.
It’s important to make this program a lifestyle over time. Once you get to your ideal weight, you’re going to want to keep it off…correct? Do the same things that brought you success during this program every day thereafter. The longer you remain in a state of optimal health, and have the body that makes you feel great inside, the more you’ll be likely to keep it up.

One last thing… give yourself a pat on the back. You should be proud of yourself for taking the steps to improve the quality of your health, and the quality of your life. Keep a smile on your face, don’t make this program a “chore” - have fun with it. Nothing - I mean nothing - feels as good as a healthy, vibrant, energetic, and lean body. Nothing feels as good as radiant health! So… go get it.

Christopher Vasey N.D., author of the best
selling title “The Acid-Alkaline Diet for Optimum Health”, has practiced
Naturopathy in Chamby-Montreux, Switzerland for 25 years. He has authored 20
books written in five languages. Dr. Vasey’s specialization is pH balance,
detoxification and rejuvenation. For more information on
acid - alkaline balance, the pH of foods, or alkaline supplements, visit
Phion Nutrition.