A Nutrition Revolution Is Sweeping America!

It's true. A nutrition revolution is sweeping America! People are hearing the facts, finally. They are changing their diets and reaping the benefits of superior health. They are dropping pounds effortlessly. They are reversing their type II diabetes and their heart disease. They are getting off their high blood pressure pills and their high cholesterol pills. Clogged arteries are getting cleaned out. Miracles are happening all over the place. The funny thing is, they're not miracles. These health improvements are the natural result of eating well. Eating what we're supposed to eat, and not what we've been told to eat over the past 60 years or so.

So, just what is this nutrition revolution? Finally, we - the people on the streets - are starting to get the message. Gone is the day of the USDA food pyramid. You can pretty much forget everything you've been told about human nutrition - about what we need to be healthy. Most of that old advice is simply wrong, and it was based on corporate greed and conflicts of interest.

So, what have we been doing wrong? Well, basically, we've been eating the wrong things. We've been eating things that are making us sick, making our bodies toxic and fat. We've been malnourished for decades now, and we keep getting fatter and fatter because of it. Just look around you. Go to the mall, or a baseball game, or to your child's school play. Look around you at all of the obese people. Entire families of obese people, from grandparents to young children. I speak from experience, mind you. For 30 years, I was one of those obese people. Fortunately, after just three months of eating right, I'm no longer obese! The weight literally melted off, with no effort on my part. The only thing I did differently was to start eating what I should be eating, and eliminating those things from my diet that were making me fat and sick. That's a huge miracle for me, trust me! I had long ago given up on ever being a healthy weight again. I have tried every diet known to man, from Atkins to South Beach to Weight Watchers, and some others in between. And no matter what I tried, and no matter how much weight I lost (sometimes as much as 60 pounds), it always came back with a vengeance, and then some! While I still have 20 pounds to go, I know that I'll get to my perfect weight now, and probably before the summer is over. I know it. I don't have to wonder or guess anymore. It's a certainty. But now I'm getting off track....

So what do we Americans eat that is making us so fat and sick? Well, it's a rather long list, I'm afraid, but here goes. I'm also afraid that many of your faves are on this list; I know that mine were. Based on evidence from credible nutritional studies conducted around the world (studies that I will gladly share with you throughout this blog), here are the things we eat that are making us sick and fat:

• soda pop, or any sweetened beverage (regular or diet, it doesn't matter)
• fast food
• processed food
• sugar
• artificial colors, flavors, and sweeteners
• any and all chemicals, poisons, and pesticides that don't belong in our food
• MSG (which is always known by dozens of sneaky names)
• hydrogenated or partially-hydrogenated oils
• meat - beef, poultry, fish
• dairy - low-fat/high-fat, it doesn't matter
• eggs

These are the things we are eating, when we shouldn't be eating? I know I was guilty of eating ALL of these things. I was hooked on colas. I was hooked on fast foods and processed foods. I was hooked on sugar. I was hooked on meat, and seriously addicted to dairy! For 30 years I tried to lose weight, always unsuccessfully, because you can't keep eating what you've been eating and expect anything to change. That bears repeating: You can keep eating what you've been eating and expect anything to change!

So, if you're addicted to the things in that list above, as I certainly was, what can you do? Well, there are a lot of things you can do.

Embarking on an unlikely journey

On January 19th, I decided enough was enough, and that I had to get healthy. After having been diagnosed with early stage breast cancer in 2009, and coming through that well, health and longevity has been on my mind, a lot. As a single parent of an elementary-school aged daughter, I don't have time to be sick. This all came to a head on January 19th, when I faced a returning cancer scare, which Thank GOD turned out to be a false alarm. However, this event put me on the road to finding health and vitality, which are things that had eluded me for most of my 30 years of adult life.

For my entire life adult life of 30 years, I have been obese. At 5' 2", my typical weight was 188 pounds. That's a lot of weight for someone 5' 2" to carry around, day in and day out. Besides obesity, I also suffered from anxiety, mild depression, poor sleep, Rosacea, sleep apnea, snoring, chronic sinus infections, chronic headaches, sensitive teeth, general inflammation, chronic fatigue, blurry vision, and just-all-around apathy. Today, just a few months after changing my diet, all of those conditions are gone. Even the obesity! In just a few months, I was no longer obese. I could hold my head up high walking down the street, knowing I was no longer one of those awful American obesity statistics. Poof!  Like magic.

So, how did all these miraculous improvements happen? And so quickly? And with such little effort? It started with a book.

A friend at work recommended that I read Beating Cancer with Nutrition by Patrick Quillin, Ph.D., who is a registered dietitian and certified nutrition specialist. My friend knew about my history with breast cancer, and she knew that I had experienced a recent health scare that had shaken me quite a bit. At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, Patrick Quillin's book changed my life - instantly. In an instant, he gave me the key to good health and vitality - nutrition.

From Quillin, I learned some really shocking things. I learned that we humans have cancer in our bodies all the time. It's a natural state. With billions of cells dividing continuously, it's not surprising that there are mistakes, mutations, which over time, if left unchecked, can grow into cancer. When our immune systems are strong and well nourished, they fend off the cancer cells, destroying them, and protecting our bodies from disease. We have special immune cells in our bodies -- called "natural killer cells" -- whose job is to scour our bodies looking for abnormal cells and destroying them. Our immune systems have a whole toolbox full of tools for vanquishing tumor cells. However, if our immune systems are weakened through poor nourishment and toxicity, the cancer tumors can overwhelm our immune systems and flourish, resulting in cancer and possibly death. But it doesn't have to be that way. With proper nutrients -- micronutrients, to be exact -- which are found only in plants, we can supercharge our immune systems, giving them the ability to keep cancer at bay. This knowledge empowered me, and for the first time in my life, I realized that I could have some say over the state of my own health.

I read a few more books, and then life-changing event #2 took place: I saw Dr. Joel Fuhrman's hour-long PBS special 3 Steps to Incredible Health - available on YouTube, go see it! Dr. Fuhrman's televised special on superior health through nutrition clinched the deal for me - I was determined to get healthy, and now thanks to Dr. Fuhrman, I now knew how to go about it.

Dr. Joel Fuhrman, who is now one of my personal heroes, is a family physician in New Jersey. He has published a number of books on nutrition, which you can easily find in your local bookstores or on Amazon.com. All of his books are excellent, but one of my favorites of his books is Eat to Live, which is my bible for healthy eating and superior nutrition.  It was by following the health eating plan in Eat to Live that I shed my obesity in just a matter of a few months. I'm still about 20 pounds overweight, but in another few months, I'll be down to my healthy weight. I know that. It's not a hope, or a wish, or a dream. It's a certainty. Because what Dr. Fuhrman teaches is not a gimmick or a diet plan. It's not a scheme. He teaches how humans need to eat to be healthy. And the wonder of it is, when you eat right to be healthy, a lot of the bad stuff that affects our lives -- obesity, diseases -- it just melts away. And that's the what blog is all about. It's about exploring what healthy eating is for humans. It's about exploring what we've been doing wrong for decades, and what we need to change about our diets and lifestyles, so that we can take advantage of incredible health. The natural state of the human being is to be lean, strong, happy and healthy, full of vigor and vitality. The general ill health that surrounds us -- obesity, heart disease, cancer, type II diabetes, fatigue, depression, anxiety, dementia, Alzheimer's, and lots more -- is often caused by our poor diets. We're a nation of malnourished, sick people. But the great news is that this disaster is easy to fix. It all boils down to what you "fix" for your next meal.

In this blog, I will explore, examine, and report the findings of nutritional studies over the past 30 years. I'll point you to resources, books, documentaries, and websites that contain credible, expert advice on health and nutrition -- advice that you can use and count on to make a huge difference in your own life. It's not too late to turn your life around and take back your body and your health! I hope you'll join me. -- April