Toxins

Hello everyone,
Toxins: What are they, how do I avoid them, how bad are they, and how do I get rid of them are some basic questions everyone would have by the name. Now to start off not all "Toxins" kill you but they do have some bad side effects and long term effects on your body. Toxins may kill you later in life but the primary concern with body toxins is that they cause harm to your body and are not needed to function. There a lot of different varieties of toxins found in the food we eat, the water we drink, and even in the air. The ones we can control are the ones in our foods and water.
So toxins in your food can range from pesticides to preservatives and many others. I figure pesticides are pretty simple as to why there bad for you so I won't go into detail. So how do I make my fruits and veggies healthier? Well on top of the normal wash your fruits and veggies before cooking your can "detoxify" them when your purchase them from the store. This process is simple and easy to do and as a bonus helps your fruits to stay fresher longer. You simply take one part vinegar and ten parts water in a bowl and let the fruits or veggies sit for 10 minutes. This cleans all extra unneeded stuff from the food and doesn't make them taste weird of vinegar. Then you wash them off with cold water thoroughly to clean off any extra dirt or other things that may be on them. The next step then is to properly store your food so it doesn't go bad quickly or absorb chemicals in the air surrounding it. See a simple and easy process without taking a lot of time out of your day.
Another easy thing to do to prevent any extra intake of these unneeded toxins is trying to buy fresh fruits, vegetables, and meats. By buying fresh foods you eliminate your body from ingesting preservatives and excess sugars. You may also want to try buying organic foods since there usually grown without pesticides. There a many different things that you can do to flush your body of toxins that have a range of benefits. By flushing out these toxins you can have healthier skin, a healthy colon, and help keep your blood healthy delivering nutrients your body needs quickly and efficiently. The easiest way to help flush out toxins is simply drinking water. Now I know many people are use to having flavored drinks and like the way they taste but when drinking your water don't add flavored packets of stuff into your bottle of water. This will defeat the purpose of what your trying to accomplish. What I do is add some fruit to my water bottle. The night before I'll cut up strawberries, oranges, or even and apple and freeze them. Then before work I take the fruit from the freezer and put them in my water bottle adding a splash of flavor.
So now onto saunas. Saunas will help your body sweat and get rid of toxins without taking a lot of time out of your day. Now you don't want to stay in a sauna for to long as not to push your body. Simply staying in a sauna 20-40 minutes is good. As we know there are wet saunas and dry saunas and many people wonder what the difference between the 2 are. I've read articles from mayo clinic, harvard.edu, mens health, and many other places and will summarize my interpretation. There really is no difference between the 2 types. The difference come down to wet saunas being a steam room at a lower temperature and dry saunas being at a higher temperature. In the dry sauna it's hotter but evaporates the sweat from your skin and wet saunas still make you sweat but it doesn't evaporate as quickly. But other than that I haven't found an article saying any more on the differences but will update if I discover more.
One other way to get rid of toxins that I will cover is with the aid of dietary flushes. These little drugs help your body dispose of toxins quickly and clean your colon to help aide in proper digestive health. Now these are the claims of the companies that make them and will say that I have used some in previous years. From my experience with these they do help. The have helped me feel more energetic and make me more conscious of other things I put in my body. With the feeling more energetic I can not successfully say if this was from these "magic pills" or if it was only a "placebo" effect. What I can tell you is they did help me lose weight in the past but you have to stick with a proper diet and exercise routine or you threw $20-$60 away. As with any drug you need to be cautious and do research on these before using any of them.
So this wraps up this blog and I will be updating my blogs more frequently as I am pushing harder to reach my goal.
Jeffrey 

A little goes a long ways

I'm sure you've all heard a little goes a long ways for many things and the same applies here. Little changes in eating or drinking habits can have a big impact on your body and mind. Those little changes add up quickly when it comes to losing weight and living healthier. I use to put a lot of creamer and sugar in my coffee but in the past 2 weeks have stopped adding anything to my coffee. It took a while to get use to but now that I'm past the taste its great. I also drank a lot of soda and energy drinks so I could stay awake at work. I sit at a desk and talk on the phone all day at work so being inactive helped me gain a lot of weight. Now,I don't go to the vending machine at work get a fancy flavored coffee, soda, or an energy drink, I have 1 mug of coffee in the morning and feel alert and energetic all day. What I have replaced those sugary drinks with? Ice water,  it helps you stay awake and alert. Some of the other changes I came across came on Pinterest. I found a Detox recipe on pinterest but it has acted like a natural energy drink and requires very little to make and enjoy. You just need a pitcher, apples, cinnamon stick, ice and water. You slice the apples into thin slices and combine them with 1 cinnamon stick at the bottom of the pitcher. Then fill the pitcher to the  halfway mark with ice and then fill with water. Sit 10-20 minutes and enjoy! Its quick, simple, cheap, and gives you a great natural  energy boost. So by  doing this I have cut about 700-1300 calories from my daily diet and that leads to weight lose. 

Some other things to try instead of soda is taking tea bags to work and making tea. It's all natural when not adding sugar and is great for your health. The even bigger plus is the money you're saving on all those calories, can converted to a gym membership if you don't have one, or home exercise equipment. 

Another little thing you can do is little exercises. We all live busy hectic lives and don't always have time to dedicate 30 minutes to 1 hour for a good workout session, but we all get 5 minutes here and there that can be great opportunities to burn some extra calories. The one that I'm starting is on my 15 minute break at work is take that time to walk around the building outside. This is a great opportunity for those that work in the office. You are getting fresh air, some sun, the heart rate moving a little, and burning some extra calories. Some other good times to sneak an an exercise it on those commercial breaks. During commercials don't channel surf, get up walk around, do some sit ups, push ups or even some jumping jacks. Just think of all those 5 minutes here and there that can add up though out the day to help become a healthier you. I hope this blog has allowed you to see how a little goes a long way and how all those little things in a day can very easily change you.

Jeffrey

Food shopping part I

So the journey started last month and so far I have lost 12 pounds. The beginning was a very easy part.   I knew that to start I had to change my lifestyle and that meant less fast food and take out nights. So my wife and I began cooking at home more but making healthy food.

Now the biggest thing to know about shopping in a grocery store to eat healthy is knowing what to stay away from. After seeing how grocery stores are set up, I realized that the healthiest way to shop is by shopping on the outer walls of the grocery store. All the good, healthy, and nutritious food to live a healthy life style is all on the outer walls of the store (plus these areas are less crowded and easy to get in and out of). The stuff in the aisles is full of preservatives and fillers but don't get me wrong you will still have to venture into these aisles but you need to be wary. One big thing we shop for is pasta since my wife LOVES pasta but to be healthier we pick up whole grain pasta and not the bleached pasta. We also pick up tomato sauce but try as much as possible to stay away from Prego and Ragu type of sauces  We pick up cans of sauce and season them ourselves with most times fresh vegetables to maintain healthiness and put the extra in tub a ware and freeze them until the next time making pasta. The other aisle is the baking aisle so we can pick up items to make our own breakfast bar items and healthier desserts than those already made.

Now to list some of the amazing benefits of shopping this way. The major thing I have noticed is that I feel more energetic than before and that's with cutting out a lot of caffeine such as soda and energy drinks. The other much appreciated benefit is how well I have been sleeping. Without all the extra sugar and caffeine I am able to get to bed easier and sleep more soundly. I bring up sleep because if getting the proper amount of sleep can help lose weight because it will align your metabolism with your daily routine. So my idea of losing weight is not by doing some crash diet to fail shortly after stopping or giving up part way through because I'm miserable with what I'm putting in my body. With this shopping, you can still eat good tasting food and work towards your goal.