By Margaret Floyd, NTP HHC CHFS

If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time, you’ve probably picked up on the fact that I’m kinda down on sugar. Yes, it’s true. The “devil in white” isn’t doing us any favors mentally, emotionally, or physically.

And you also may know that I’m a big believer in everything in moderation. I practice the 80:20 rule: 80% of the time you want to be clean in your eating; enjoy yourself the other 20%. There is no such thing as “perfect” and heck, I enjoy a sweet treat just as much as the next guy.

So is there a way to have your cake and eat it too? Natural sweeteners to the rescue!! Cue the raw honey, grade C maple syrup, coconut sugar, and raw dates…

It seems like we’ve found the perfect solution! We can have our honey-sweetened treat and feel good about it, too.

Well, yes and no. Here’s the thing: it’s still sugar. I don’t care what the source is – I don’t care how raw, natural, unprocessed it is – it’s STILL SUGAR.

Before you name me Debbie Downer of the year, it’s time for me to get naked about life in the Floyd-Barry household. One of our absolute favorite treats is ice cream. Both my husband and I love it and it’s a top pick for a sweet treat.

For Chef James’ birthday last year, I coordinated the purchase of a super swanky deluxe pro ice cream maker. This ain’t no Bed, Bath & Beyond special. This was high-end efficient refrigeration-included technology. It makes 2 quarts of ice cream in 20 minutes. Yeah, it’s that good.

And so we made ice cream. Lots of it. Raw milk, raw cream, pastured eggs, raw honey… A little mint extract and shaved dark chocolate and we’re talking some seriously good ice cream. And with a rock-star list of ingredients like that, you could almost justify that it’s GOOD for you, right?

Here’s the catch: it’s still sugar! Sure it’s raw honey. Sure it’s dark chocolate. Sure the ingredients are as natural and clean as you can get, and if you’re going to have ice cream, then yeah, this is a great option. AND, it’s still sugar.

As the ice cream machine churned out dessert and our pants grew tighter (and you think we lead the Sugar Control Detox just for you!), we were reminded that YES, you really can have too much of a good thing.

Moral of the story? If you’re going to have a treat, then natural sweeteners are a great option because of their added nutritional value and purity. But they’re no “get out of jail free” pass and they still need to be consumed in moderation, as the exception, in balance with a healthy, whole foods, unprocessed diet.

Looking for help in cutting the sweet stuff? Join us for the Spring group Sugar Control Detox registering NOW!

Related posts:

• The MYTH of the Calorie. And why I don’t count them
• The Fat Question: Why fat doesn’t make you fat
• It’s not you. You’re wired that way

By Margaret Floyd, NTP HHC CHFS

“I have no willpower.”

“I’m my own worst enemy.”

“I was so good all day, & then I gave in.”

“If it’s me versus the cookie, the cookie always wins.”

When it comes to conversations about sugar, these are the kind of statements I hear all the time. Our relationship to the sweet stuff is problematic, to say the least. It’s a battle, and often a losing one.

As you’ll know if you’ve been reading this blog for a while, I’m a big believer in listening to the body’s intuition and messages. The body knows, and so often we’re just not listening to it or we don’t know how to interpret what it’s asking for.

One big exception to this rule is with sugar. Our relationship to sugar is anything but blasé. Rarely is it a “take it or leave it” kind of thing. More often it’s a ravenous “OH MY GOD I NEED THAT COOKIE AND I NEED IT NOW!!!”

How can our bodies crave something so powerfully that is SO harmful to us? What kind of body betrayal is this?

Well, if you look at our biology and how our bodies are designed to operate given the environment we have lived in for millions of years, a strong urge and preference for the sweet stuff actually makes perfect sense.

Historically, we experienced famine. Sometimes food was plentiful, sometimes it was scarce. That was the norm.

We crave sweet foods because they are fattening – a beautiful survival mechanism in a time where you never knew where your next meal would come from.

Eating sweet and storing fat helped us get through the lean times.

Our bodies’ mechanism is the same, but of course there is no such thing as famine or food shortage anymore. It’s a rare person who truly knows what it feels like to be hungry. And of course, not only is there an overabundance of food, most of the “food” (if you can call it that) on offer is highly processed with added sugar that is specifically designed to increase cravings and inspire binging.

Historically, the sugar we would have consumed would be in whole form with all the fiber and nutrients that went with it – whole fruit, whole sugar cane, raw honey. Its availability was extremely limited and usually seasonal. We ate it in abundance when it was there, upping our fat stores in preparation for the shortage that was right around the corner.

In short: your body is not betraying you. It simply hasn’t adjusted to the new food landscape.

The good news is that you don’t have to live in the clutches of sugar.

Not too long ago I couldn’t fathom a day without chocolate, let alone a day where I didn’t even think about chocolate. And now that is my normal. A day where I am craving sweets is happily a rarity and a cue that there’s something going on emotionally that I want to run away from (and that’s a whole other topic…).

If you’d like to change your relationship to the sweet stuff and loosen the grip it has on you, join us for the next Sugar Control Detox. Registration is now open! Join us and say goodbye to those overwhelming sugar cravings.

Related posts:

• Sweet Misery: How our sweet tooth is killing us
• The Fat Question: Why fat doesn’t make you fat
• The MYTH of the calorie. And why I don’t count them

By Margaret Floyd, NTP HHC CHFS

There’s a big ol’ myth out there that stubbornly refuses to die. It goes something like this: eating fat makes you fat.

From a basic caloric standpoint, this appears to make sense. Fat contains 9 calories per gram, whereas carbohydrates and proteins contain 4 calories per gram. If calories were the only thing to consider, it would stand to reason that if you eat fat, you’re going to gain weight because of the higher caloric load.

Well, first off – let’s clear up the calorie myth. If you haven’t done so already, please read last week’s post on why calorie counting is such a small part of the health and weight puzzle.

So let’s look at exactly what your body is DOING with fat. Is it just about energy storage in the form of chunky thighs and a big belly?

Many are surprised to learn of the vitally important roles of fat in the diet:

• For one, fat is a structurally integral part of every single cell membrane in our bodies. Read that again. It is structurally essential in EVERY SINGLE CELL in our bodies. That’s a pretty darned important role. We’re not talking just “fat cells”, we’re talking every single cell for every single function in the body.
• Fats are required in order to properly digest and assimilate those all-important fat-soluble vitamins: A, D, E and K. Conveniently, many foods containing these vitamins also come with the fat required to digest them. For example, the fat in egg yolks allows the body to access the vitamins A and D it’s so abundant in. So maybe Mother Nature had it right after all? This is another reason why pasteurized skim milk fortified with synthetic vitamin D is such a silly idea.
• Fats are required for the adequate use of protein. So all the egg whites in the world won’t help you out if you’re not eating them with the fats in the yolk to access that protein properly.
• Fats are a source of energy, and a nice consistent, smooth burning energy at that. In other words, the kind of sustained, even-keeled, constant energy we all long for is right in front of us – in fats. They also slow food absorption, which helps with energy regulation as well.
• Fats are key players in managing inflammation in your body. Some fats help your body inflame when necessary, other fats help your body anti-inflame. Unfortunately, low-quality fats are in themselves highly inflammatory, but that’s about the processing, not the fat in and of itself.

So we’ve established that fat is an absolutely essential part of our diets and shouldn’t be feared. It’s a big bummer (sorry, couldn’t resist) that we use the same label  – “fat” – for this vitally important macro-nutrient as the bodily condition we’re all trying to avoid.

But what about the weight issue? Isn’t dietary fat what resides on my inner thighs?

Here’s something really important to know about fat: it does not trigger the hormonal dance that creates fat storage the way that sugar and other starchy carbohydrates do.

When you eat something sweet, your blood sugar levels increase too quickly, and your pancreas secretes the hormone insulin to take the excess sugar out of your blood. Insulin is a fat storage hormone. It stores that extra sugar first as glycogen, and then as triglycerides (fat) once glycogen stores are full.

When insulin is activated, its partner hormone, glucagon, can’t operate. Glucagon’s job is to mobilize stored sugar back into the blood for energy use. These two hormones are constantly in a dance with each other and cannot be present in the blood at the same time. So either your body is in an energy-burning/mobilizing state (glucagon) or your body is in an energy storage state (insulin).

Sugar mobilizes insulin; fat does not.

It’s that simple. In fact, the fat in a sweet treat will actually help to slow down that sugar spike, and thus reduce the insulin surge, mitigating some of the ill-effects of the sweet. This is why the whole fat-free dessert thing is such a bad idea. Not only are you mobilizing a ton of insulin, you’re also removing the one thing in there that could slow that process down.

Another piece to this puzzle is satiation. The digestion of fats triggers your satiation mechanism. This is why low-fat diets are doomed to fail and such an exercise in fierce willpower. Your body is never satisfied without fat, despite the number of calories (one more reason why calories aren’t the be all and end all).

It’s quite the opposite with sugar or foods converting to sugar quickly in the blood (starchy carbs like bread, pastas, cereal, potatoes, etc…). These foods inspire overeating and binging in part because they don’t satiate and in part because of the insulin reaction we explained above. After insulin has done its job of storing that extra sugar as fat, guess what happens? Your blood sugar takes a big hit and you now are in a low-blood sugar space. What do you crave now? You got it… more sugar.

This means: eating fat makes you fuller sooner and longer. Eating sugar leads to a sugar crash which makes you hungrier sooner and in a position to crave more sugar. A vicious cycle indeed.

Now, are all fats created equal? Not by any stretch. In fact, industrially processed oils and rancid fats are ubiquitous in the diet and extremely harmful to both our health and our waistlines. But real, unadulterated fat from quality sources used appropriately is a key component of any healthy diet.

Here’s the bottom line: Eating fat doesn’t make you fat. Eating sugar makes you fat.

Want to switch up your diet so that your body is in fat-burning mode rather than fat-storage mode? Join us for the next group Sugar Control Detox! Details released this Friday, May 10^th. Get on the list to be the first to find out.

Related posts:

• The MYTH of the calorie. And why I don’t count them
• The Skinny on Saturated Fat: Six Important Roles for this Maligned Nutrient
• Smokin’ Hot or Unsafe? Is cooking with grape seed oil a good idea?

By Margaret Floyd, NTP HHC CHFS

If I told you that you could choose between a handful of carrot sticks and two non-fat chocolate chip cookies, that each has the same number of calories and would have the exact same impact on your waistline, which would you choose?

C’mon, be honest. We’d all pick the cookies.

And if we listened to a lot of the messages out there about weight, then that would be the logical choice. After all, isn’t it all about calories-in calories-out, regardless of where those calories came from?

The problem is, calories are just one itty bitty part of the story.

Here’s the deal. A calorie is not just a calorie. It’s what your body does with that calorie that counts, and what determines this factor is the quality of the food.

Consider your afternoon snack. You have two options: a carrot, or a bag of potato chips.

Let’s say you pick the carrot. When you’ve finished with it – a lower calorie, higher quality snack – you’re probably done with carrot. Unless you’ve got a “thing” for carrots you likely won’t want to eat another, and another, and another. You’re satisfied and go on with your afternoon.

Now let’s say you pick the potato chips. When you’ve finished a single serving (and who eats just a single serving?) of this higher calorie, lower quality snack, are you done? Probably not. My guess is you blow through several servings, and then with your salt fix satisfied you start craving something sweet to balance it out.

But wait a second…

If it’s about the amount of calories and not the quality of the food, shouldn’t you be stuffed full after the higher calorie chips? Shouldn’t you be hungry and craving more after the carrot? It doesn’t work that way. The carrot – whole, unrefined – is giving your body real nutrients.

The potato chips – refined and highly processed – are just teasing your taste buds without any real nutrition.

Do they have calories? Heck yeah. But do they actually feed and nourish you? Not at all. In fact, they’re often loaded with chemicals called excitotoxins that can further stimulate your appetite.

Don’t just take my word for it. A recent study published in The New England Journal of Medicine showed that “focusing on overall dietary quality—such as eating less refined sugars and refined grains and more minimally processed foods—is probably more important to long-term health than monitoring total calorie or fat intake or other nutritional markers.” (Daniel Fromson, The Atlantic, 10 Foods That Drive Weight Gain and Loss Identified by Harvard)

Quality is top of my list of reasons for not paying attention to calories, but here are some other important pieces to the puzzle:

• We all know that our bodies use some calories as energy and stores others as fat. But here’s the important thing – it’s not JUST about the volume of those calories. A lot of it is about how the body is using them. Lower-calorie foods that spike blood sugar levels and cause a surge in insulin store more fat than higher-calorie foods that allow for a slower energy release and do not spike insulin.
• High-quality, nutrient dense foods that are higher-calorie actually satisfy you for longer, so you eat less overall. Lower-calorie foods that spike blood sugar levels create blood sugar crashes, which cause powerful cravings and inspire binging.
• The digestion of fat triggers our satiation mechanism. This is why fat-free foods are so unsatisfying and we tend to eat more and more of them, looking for that feeling of fullness. We’ll talk more about the benefits of including fat in our diet in next week’s post.
• Our state of mind affects how our bodies use the food we eat. Regardless of how many calories you consume, being in a stress-state (sympathetic nervous system dominance) compromises digestion and inspires our body to store fat; being in a relaxed state (parasympathetic nervous system dominance) allows our body to digest fully and mobilize stored weight.

As we saw in the example of the carrot vs. potato chips, food is about more than just energy potential (or, calories). It’s also about nourishment, building and healing the body, and providing nutrients for all the vital functions that keep us alive and thriving. When we reduce our food to calories, we are discrediting all of its other critically important roles.

If this sounds intriguing but complicated, and you’re ready to let go of calories in favor of a nutrient-dense real foods diet that will shed the pounds without going hungry, join us for the upcoming spring group-coaching Sugar Control Detox.  Details will be posted next Friday, May 10^th when registration opens. Sign up to be the first to learn the details!

Related posts:

• The Fat Question: Why fat doesn’t make you fat
• The Naked Numbers: My adventures in calorie counting
• Sweet Misery: How our collective sweet tooth is killing us

We have come to believe that along with our increase in years comes an inevitable physical and mental decline, ill health, and general degradation. If we were to chart it on a graph, it would look something like this:

With very few exceptions, every modern disease from heart disease and diabetes to auto-immune disease and cancer is on the rise. A hundred years ago, many of these diseases were so rare that they didn’t exist or hadn’t yet been named. Today, it’s rare to find someone who isn’t struggling with some chronic health complaint.

But what if it could be another way? What if the inevitability of decline is simply what we’ve grown accustomed to, but isn’t actually our fate?

There’s a whole school of thought that proposes that one’s physical strength and mental acuity, and, by extension, quality of life don’t have to decline with time. It’s a field called “age management” and practitioners believe that we can shift that graph to looking something like this:

Here are four simple strategies you can implement today to keep you strong, healthy, and vibrant even as you increase in years.

1)   Cut out the sweet stuff. There’s nothing that ages us faster than sugar. It messes with our hormones and hormone receptors, it depletes vital nutrients (including those that create collagen…), and it increases the creation of appropriately-named AGEs (advanced glycation end products) which promote inflammation and speed aging.

2)   Eat real food. Our bodies can’t make what we don’t give them. The building blocks for a healthy body – aka the nutrients we eat – come from real, whole foods. It’s that simple. Do you want your cells to be made of chemical-laden, over-processed, denatured “edible food products”? Didn’t think so.

3)   Develop a parasympathetic program. Stress ages us. It’s that simple. And in our modern lifestyles, stress is rampant to the point of being cliché. When we’re in chronic stress state, our bodies are in sympathetic nervous system dominance. In other words fight or flight is activated constantly. This is highly taxing on the body and shuts down its critical maintenance and healing mechanisms.

4)   Move daily. What was it that Newton said? An object at rest stays at rest; in object in motion stays in motion… I think you get where I’m going with this.

Age is optional. Decline is optional.
What do you choose?

Pssst…

Need some help with #s 1 and 2 above?

We’ve got some great news for you! The next group Sugar Control Detox is coming up! Registration opens in just a little over two weeks! Get on the list and be the first to hear all the juicy details.

Written by Margaret Floyd, NTP, HHC, CHFS, GAPS Practitioner

Related posts:

• Sweet misery: How our sweet tooth is killing us
• The stress factor. Or: How to create your own parasympathetic program
• Radical self care: are you truly prioritizing YOU?

By Margaret Floyd, NTP HHC CHFS

Last night something unusual happened in the Floyd-Barry household. Unusual for 2013, I should say. We watched a movie.

Now before you accuse Chef James of breaking his media fast, we agreed at the beginning of this year that he would make the very rare exception to watch a film that was specifically and directly related to our line of work. In Search of the Perfect Human Diet was one such exception.

A lot of movies explore the politics and economics of food, diet and health: SuperSize Me, Food Inc., and Forks over Knives being some of the more widely seen, not to leave out those such as King Corn, Farmageddon, and Food Matters.

What’s new about In Search of the Perfect Diet is its focus on anthropology and what we, as humans, have been eating for literally hundreds of thousands of years. It’s hard to argue with evolution.

The movie follows filmmaker CJ Hunt’s 10-year search for the “perfect human diet” after the raw vegan diet he adopted following a near-death experience failed to sustain him. Stepping outside politically- and emotionally-charged and highly confusing nutrition science, he goes to our ancestors – not just our grandparents and great-grandparents, but those from tens and hundreds of thousands of years ago.

Here are a few of the interesting points:

- Over 70% of the foods we eat today did not exist before the industrial revolution. From an evolutionary perspective, there is simply no way for our bodies to know what to do with these “foods” (which, as we all know, aren’t real food at all).

- Broken down by nutrient ratios, what we feed cattle to “fatten them up” is almost identical to the government-sanctioned food pyramid for a “healthy” diet. Is it any wonder we are in the middle of an obesity epidemic?

- It was only when we started eating animal foods that our brains doubled in size, allowing for the modern human and all our advances. Interesting irony that the very capacity for making an argument for a plant-based diet comes from our ancestors’ move away from a plant-based diet.

- An Australian study was done with a group of aborigine who had grown up in a traditional hunter gatherer environments, and then moved into urban environments where they adopted modern diets, lifestyles and (unsurprisingly) health concerns such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease. They returned to the outback and their hunter gatherer ways for a seven week period.

In just seven weeks (!!), they lost weight and all their health markers (insulin resistance, blood pressure, cholesterol levels) normalized.

Interestingly, they were less active than in their urban environments, so exercise was NOT a factor.

- Very simply, as Prof. Mike Richards, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology says, “What we are adapted to [evolutionarily] is not what we are living [or eating] right now.”

I do wish the film spent a little more time diving into the issue of quality. Clearly our Paleolithic ancestors were eating exclusively wild game, and wild fruits and vegetables grown in nutrient-rich soil. There was no such thing as a feedlot or chemical pesticide.

Ultimately, what we choose to eat is a very personal decision. But what we are designed to eat is evolutionarily and genetically wired. I highly encourage you to take the time to watch this thought-provoking film.

Related Posts:

• Farmageddon: The unseen war on American family farms
• Plant vs. Animal: A Case for the Omnivore

Written by Chef James Barry

You would think as I enter the fourth month of my self-imposed media detox the temptations would be next to null. Not so. If anything, the stakes are continuing to increase as I see early advertisements for the Summer Blockbuster Movies. I’ll fully admit, I’m kinda over the whole no media thing. 

I have a friend who is doing a media detox as well. Although inspired by mine, her detox is slightly different:  no TV or movies, and she allows for a few cheat days for a movie each month. Man, I wouldn’t mind a cheat day right about now as I see the ads for Iron Man 3.

Cheat days aren’t a bad concept. Heck, we have them built into the 80/20 rule of eating. Without cheat days, eating healthy 80% of the time wouldn’t be as rewarding.

Yet, I wonder if we provide an out for ourselves before we’ve even begun, then isn’t the point of the detox lost?

Setting an intention and providing an out is, in my judgment, a way of playing it safe and not daring to fail. Pretty hard to fail if you have an out when the going gets tough, right? As Scott Adams of “Dilbert” fame pointed out in the Wall Street Journal (April 2011),

“Failure is a process, not an obstacle.”

That isn’t to say you can’t reward yourself for accomplishing your goal. In the example of the Sugar Control Detox, first you’ve got to do the 14 days to earn the 80/20 rule. The accomplishment of the goal allows for distance from that which you are trying to change. Without that distance, old habits prevail.

Now if you falter from your commitment then by all means, exercise kindness and don’t beat yourself up. Some of the most successful people in the world will tell you they failed multiple times prior to finding success. Failure is that beautiful quality that informs our next move. That’s where learned tools that help you stay on the path are needed. One of my tools: I tell others of my intentions so I’m held accountable for my choices. If I fall, I share the bruise and then set more realistic intentions that better fit my current state.

I remember running my first marathon, The Marine Corp Marathon in Washington D.C.  I was in some serious pain (from IT Band issues) and yet I didn’t stop. What kept me running? I had fundraised for a cause, people donated on my behalf saying in so many words that they believed in my ability to finish the 26.2 miles. Their belief in me, their holding me accountable for my choice, got me through that marathon. Had I started my training with already planned cheat days or outs, I never would experienced the thrill of finishing my first marathon.

How do you dare to fail in your life?

Related posts:

• Live Naked: The launch of my media-free year
• Clean City, Clean Mind
• Say hello to your most naked self: Lessons learned over 26.2 miles

Say what? That makes no sense.

How is diabetes the cure for diabetes? How is cancer the cure for cancer? I couldn’t wrap my mind around it.

He went deeper.

What is the disease asking of you? Rest? A change in lifestyle, perhaps dramatic? To step back and regroup? Realign priorities? He explained:

“I have never seen a situation in which what the disease is asking of you – at core – is not exactly what you need.”

That’s something to think about.

This week the Novo virus made its way through our house. First the baby (who recovered the fastest and easiest of all of us), then me, and then even the indomitable Chef James was out for a day or two.

No matter how much I counsel others to put self-care first, to fill that cup so they can be of better service to others, I am often loathe to take my own advice. It’s no wonder I’m in this field… we teach what we most need to learn.

So this week, the Norovirus was my cure. It was the rest, the retreat, the permission I needed to put myself first and start filling my cup again.

In this vein I am going to let others do the work for me this week. In the last couple of weeks, we’ve done three interviews, which I think you’ll find interesting and fun:

1)   Chef James and I appeared on LA Live’s Here’s to your health! radio with Joshua Lane. Chef James interviewed me about one of our favorite topics – sugar – and we demonstrate some fun techniques for substituting veggies for pasta. This show is a 3-hr show and we start one hour in. You’ll need to scrub forward on the viewer and give it a moment or two to buffer and catch up.

2)   I was interviewed by the wonderful Michelle Skeen of Relationships 2.0 for a full hour. We talked about everything from raw milk to the politics of eating animal foods. You can find the link to the podcast on her site, here.

3)   Jill Howerton has started a wonderful new blog called The Daily Tonic. It’s a daily dose of healthy living and inspiration. She recently interviewed me on my journey to nutrition, what’s missing from the American diet, and my thoughts on food and babies. Check it out here.

If you’re like me and need support when it comes to prioritizing self care, we’ve got your back.

Contact us to learn more about how we can support you to achieve total, thriving health.

Be well, eat naked, and thrive!

~Margaret

Related posts:

• Radical self-care: Are you truly prioritizing YOU?
• Stress = Fat: Is your lifestyle hijacking your best efforts?
• What would you like to stop doing?

Written by Chef James Barry

Life in Los Angeles doesn’t make for an easy media fast. There are advertisements EVERYWHERE! Shopping cart handles and beach trash cans; the plate of the car you’re driving behind. For all you ladies out there, the only reason your guy knows about the 2-for-1 special at the local restaurant is because it was advertised to him as he stood there peeing in the bathroom. The worst offenses are the television-like digital billboards that flash multiple ads within seconds. Pretty challenging being on a media fast when there is a 60 foot TV slightly off to your right as you wait at a stop light.

Prior to my media fast, I didn’t think twice about all the advertisements. You might say I was desensitized to all of it. Heck, marketing is a perk of being in a free society. It’s a privilege to have Coca-Cola telling me what polar bears are drinking in the Arctic. Yet, why am I getting so frustrated that I can’t avoid the bombardment? Reminds me of being in Las Vegas and not being able to escape the smell of cigarette smoke.

Not unlike second-hand smoke, I don’t want to be forced to “inhale” what they are selling.

Maybe I should be more compassionate? It’s tough out there for a marketer. They have to stay one step ahead of us. We, their audience, are constantly becoming more and more sophisticated to marketing ploys. Anyone noticed the changes that took place on facebook after the company went public? Now, if you, as a subscriber to facebook, “like” a company that just happens to be paying for advertisement, it shows up very prominently in the main feed of your friends as YOU advertising for that company. You’re the new spokesperson for Allstate Insurance and you’re not even getting paid for it!

Many cities have ordinances against billboards and the locations businesses can market their goods.  In 2006, the mayor of San Paulo, Brazil passed a “Clean City Law” banning all outdoor advertisements. Can you imagine if that happened in Los Angeles or in your city? What would life be like without all the visual pollution?

My cure for the advertisement blues? As much nature as possible. From the beach to the mountains, Los Angeles has a lot to offer in terms of nature.

Although it isn’t realistic to go truly media free living in modern society, I do dream of a time I can walk to my local restaurant without knowing which movie is the #1 comedy of the year. That would be amazing!

How do you decompress from the marketing machine in your city?

Related Posts

• Live Naked: The launch of my media free year
• Live Naked: Is it really free?

By Margaret Floyd, NTP HHC CHFS

Indulge me for a moment:

Look at your hand. The skin, nails, maybe you can see some tendons and veins, freckles, a little bit of hair. Now make a fist, and then shake out your hand. Think of the muscles engaging to contract and relax. The bones to which they attach, keeping form intact.

Now think of where your hand came from. A weird question, I know, but stay with me. Where did it come from?
What was it before it was a hand?

Food.

Yup, every single cell in that magnificent hand, from the tip of your longest fingernail to the core of your bones, was once food.

You are what you eat.

It’s a simple concept. Cliché almost. And yet, it’s so basic we take it for granted.

When you stop to really think about it, it’s utterly amazing. Every bite of food we take gets broken down – both mechanically (chewing) and chemically (enzyme actions) – into its smallest components: nutrients. These nutrients get absorbed into the body at a cellular level as fuel, as building and repair material, as hormones to tell the body what to do and when to do it, as both form and function. Anything not needed or used to its fullest extent gets eliminated. And the process repeats.

Have you ever built anything from scratch? Any craftsman will tell you that the quality of the final product is determined by the quality of the materials, the tools, and the skill of the craftsman himself. And, he can’t build something out of nothing. If you’re building a car and you’re missing the tires, you can’t take the fabric for the seats and fashion tires out of it. Well, you could, but they wouldn’t work very well. You get my point.

It’s no different for our bodies. We need the proper materials, the proper tools, and the proper skills. And we need all the materials and tools, not just some of them. Our bodies are amazingly skilled at taking the materials intended for one function and using them for something else, but this is taxing over time. Fabric tires might work in the short term, but they’re a dangerous ride in the long haul and they certainly won’t take you far.

And so:

If you are what you eat (and you are),

And if your body’s form (appearance, structure) and function (performance, how you feel) matter to you (which they do – they affect everything you do, every day),

Then the quality of your food is paramount.

Every single condition in the body can either be helped or hindered by what you eat.

There is no neutral reaction, and there is nothing that isn’t affected. From the minor (headaches, skin rash, digestive complaints, low energy levels, mood…) to the major (full-blown disease) your diet is a factor.

As one of my teachers, Joshua Rosenthal, liked to say, “We are, at our most basic level, walking food.”

What will you be?

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• Find your perfect match: FarmMatch.com
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