The new year is upon us and it soon will be time for new year resolutions. Sometime in the next few days I will be back and adding new articles. At least one will deal with how to make realistic yet ambitious new year resolutions and what your new year resolutions should include. In the mean time share the new year resolutions you plan to set and why. I look forward to hearing from you!

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By Dr. Mark A. Brudnak

The body has a limited number of cells. If one dies, it’s replaced with an exact copy of itself in the exact location. The whole body works like that. What happens in cancer is that the cells start to grow uncontrollably, which, by itself, is not bad. The problem is that in addition to growing, they do a number of harmful things: release toxins, disrupt the normal functioning of whatever tissues or organs they happen to be in, and consume a lot of energy.

What causes cancer cells to grow uncontrollably is the mutations that occur at the gene level, and those mutations can occur for several reasons. First, the cells may be attacked by something like a virus, which will attach itself to the normal human cell and then inject its DNA (or genetic material) into the DNA of the normal cell. This can (but does not always) disrupt the normal functioning of the otherwise healthy cell, causing mutation.

How does a mutation happen? Well, everything a cell does-everything-is the result of what its DNA says-or to use our example, by how the letters are arranged. Certain compounds can actually come in and change those letters. Those compounds are what are collectively referred to as mutagens or carcinogens. (There is a minor difference between the two, but it isn’t relevant to this discussion.)

When DNA is doing its job, the cell is happy and normal. It divides a limited number of times, and given that, it dies at a predetermined time. All normal cells do this. But as part of this normal functioning - for instance, in replication/duplication - the DNA of the cell has to be “unwrapped,” so to speak. (Most DNA is kept tightly packed for a number of reasons, one of which is that the stuff that does the packing actually protects the DNA from carcinogens.)

This unwrapping increases the chance of a bad compound attacking the DNA. The more often the DNA is unwrapped, the more likely it will be attacked and hurt. How well or how poorly it survives depends directly on the sequence of those four letters, which, in turn, can be affected by toxic, mutagenic, and carcinogenic compounds.

So, where do probiotics come in? They actually function in a number of ways. First, they can make substances that will interact with the offensive materials and detoxify them. Second, probiotics can actually take in the toxic materials and process them by various pathways, making them less toxic. Third, probiotics can physically keep out bad bacteria. This is good not just because bad bacteria, such as the infamous E. coli (which is often the culprit in cases of contaminated meat), can produce substances that make us feel sick and can even kill us but also because those same bad bacteria can take what would otherwise be innocuous materials and turn them into carcinogens.

One solution to this problem is to add more good bacteria, which can be done by supplementing with probiotics. This might not be as simple as it sounds, as there are over 400 species (or types) of probiotics in the normal GI tract. To help sort things out, a number of companies have come up with what they believe are the most predominant bacteria normally found in healthy people. Typically, the list includes 10 to 20 different probiotics.

When the probiotics are weakened or dead, they cannot detoxify the noxious compounds and fend off the bad guys. The result is that the bad guys will eventually win. That’s why you need to continually supplement your diet with new, fresh, viable probiotics. Make sure that fresh troops are constantly on guard, protecting your health.

If you found this article interesting you might also enjoy reading Why Antibiotics are Damaging Your Health and How to Overcome a Candida Yeast Infection. Both articles touch on issues related to probiotics.

If you have found this article useful please consider donating. Your generosity will help me keep Balanced Existence constantly updated with new articles and information. Thank you!

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We have a funny relationship with sugar. On the one hand, we think of sugar as fun: there are sugar fairies, sharing sweets with friends, sweet treats, and a reward for a job well done. But we have other thoughts about sugar: that nagging sensation in the back of our brain that wonders if the sugar we are eating may be harmful.

Let me put your mind at un-ease and let you know that the first image of sugar is an illusion and that sugar is harmful to your health. Sugar is an anti-nutrient that harms our health in a number or ways.

Diabetes, Obesity and Heart Disease
The combined world-wide deaths associated with obesity, diabetes and heart disease is around 38 million each year. These three diseases account for a large amount of suffering in the world and are all interrelated: if you are obese, you are likely to have heart disease and diabetes; if you have diabetes, you are likely to be overweight and have a greater risk for heart disease.

These three diseases have something else in common: they all can be made worse by the amount of sugar that you eat.

Obesity
The standard medical opinion of sugar is that it contains calories, so it may add to our growing obesity epidemic, but only because of the calories it contains. This is true, but sugar is special in its ability to increase our weight. When our blood sugar spikes when we eat sugar (and especially when we drink sugar), our bodies store any extra sugar-energy that it cannot use right away as fat.¹ This is unique to sugar and doesn’t occur, say, when you eat a steak or a bowl of berries.

Heart Disease
While the research supporting a link between sugar and heart disease is not that strong, it is growing. There is evidence linking high blood sugar and poor sugar control (insulin insensitivity) with a greater risk for heart disease.^2,3 There is also evidence that sugar is directly harmful to blood vessels and may be the initiating event in atherosclerosis.⁴

Diabetes
This is perhaps the most harmful of the diseases that are associated with sugar consumption; people who are diabetic have a much larger risk for the following diseases:

• Nephropathy: kidney damage that can eventually lead to kidney failure.
• Retinopathy: eye disease that often leads to blindness.
• Coronary Artery Disease: clogged arteries, can lead to heart attack.
• Neuropathy: loss of sensation in nerves that can eventually lead to muscle weakness. People with neuropathy sometimes feel tingling or numbness.
• Cardiomyopathy: damage to the heart that can lead to heart failure.
• Peripheral vascular disease: clogged arteries in the legs and sometimes arms
• Stroke

While these diseases may seem not related – one occurs in the eye, the other in the heart, and still another attacks the legs – they all have one thing in common: blood vessel damage. The underlying cause of all these diseases is that sugar damages the blood vessels.⁵ It is easy to see this damage in diabetics, who have a high amount of blood sugar most of the time. But sugar also damages blood vessels in people with normal blood sugar levels.⁶

It Gets Worse
As if diabetes, obesity and heart disease weren’t enough, sugar has also been shown to create more havoc in the body:

• Immune suppression: intake of sugar has been shown to reduce the effectiveness of the immune system.^7,8
• Inflammation: sugar consumption has been shown to increase inflammation throughout the body.⁹ Many modern diseases can trace their roots to inflammation, including: asthma, arthritis, heart disease and many others.
• Yeast and Bad Bacteria: The consumption of sugar is responsible for the overgrowth of yeast and bad bacteria in our guts.
• Cancer: Sugar consumption along with refined grains is associated with the increase breast cancer, and cancers of the colon and stomach.^10,11

The Harm that Sugar Does
Sugar is an anti-nutrient that robs the body of essential vitamins and nutrients. It feeds the bad bacteria and yeast in our digestive tracks and is very addictive. While there is not a medical association on the planet that has come out against sugar consumption, the evidence of the harm that sugar does is growing daily.

Removing sugar from your diet is a good step toward better health and a longer life.

Dr. Scott Olson is a Naturopathic doctor, expert in alternative medicine, author and medical researcher. Spurred on by his patients’ struggles with sugar addiction, he was determined to discover just how addictive and harmful sugar can be and ways to overcome that addiction. The result of that study is his book Sugarettes, which describes the addictive qualities of sugar and the harm that sugar does to our bodies.

Dr. Scott also maintains a fantastic blog which highlights the latest in health and healthy living.

¹ Thomas DE, Elliott EJ, Baur L.: Low glycaemic index or low glycaemic load diets for overweight and obesity. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2007 Jul 18;(3):CD005105.
² Barclay AW, Petocz P, McMillan-Price J, et al: Glycemic index, glycemic load, and chronic disease risk–a meta-analysis of observational studies. Am J Clin Nutr. 2008 Mar;87(3):627-37.
³ Dickinson S, Brand-Miller J: Glycemic index, postprandial glycemia and cardiovascular disease. Curr Opin Lipidol. 2005 Feb;16(1):69-75.
⁴ Colaco CA.Sugar and coronary heart disease, a molecular explanation. J R Soc Med. 1993 Apr;86(4):243.
⁵ Goldin A, Beckman JA, Schmidt AM, et al: Advanced glycation end products: sparking the development of diabetic vascular injury. Circulation. 2006 Aug 8;114(6):597-605.
⁶ Misciagna G, De Michele G, Cisternino AM, et al: Dietary carbohydrates and glycated proteins in the blood in non diabetic subjects. J Am Coll Nutr. 2005 Feb;24(1):22-9.
⁷ Sanchez, A., et al. “Role of Sugars in Human Neutrophilic Phagocytosis,” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Nov 1973;261:1180-1184.
⁸ Bernstein, J., et al. “Depression of Lymphocyte Transformation Following Oral Glucose Ingestion.” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.1997;30:613.
⁹ Schulze MB, Hoffmann K, Manson JE, et al: Dietary pattern, inflammation, and incidence of type 2 diabetes in women. Am J Clin Nutr. 2005 Sep;82(3):675-84; quiz 714-5.
¹⁰ Potischman N, Coates RJ, Swanson CA ea al. Increased risk of early-stage breast cancer related to consumption of sweet foods among women less than age 45 in the United States. Cancer Causes Control. 2002 Dec;13(10):937-46.
¹¹ Chatenoud L, La Vecchia C, Franceschi S et al. Refined-cereal intake and risk of selected cancers in italy. Am J Clin Nutr. 1999 Dec;70(6):1107-10.

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“Budgeting? What do I need to budget for?”

These words have come out of nearly everyone’s mouth at one point or another. Some choose the wise route of budgeting and some choose the lazy route of not budgeting. If you don’t have a monthly budget yet then this post is for you.

Why Budget?
Budgeting is simply the act of controlling your money. A budget allows you to control your money by helping you realize what your cash flow situation is. By cash flow I mean where the money comes in and where it goes out.

For most people, their budget will look like one large river flowing in and many streams flowing out. Some bigger than others. Although your income should be a focus, people seem to struggle most with controlling their expenses. Most of us have more streams flowing out then we realize. This is where budgeting comes in.

The Real Financial Crisis
It really hurts to not have enough money to pay for your bills at the end of the month, doesn’t it? Increasing your income could help. In fact, it does seem to help for most people. The effect is short lived however because people have a funny way of increasing their expenses to meet their income no matter what it is.

Today, we live in a credit culture. Many of us have gotten used to paying with credit when we don’t have the cash to back it up. In fact, those of us in the US have had a negative savings rate since 2005. People continue to spend more than they make on a regular basis.

What gives?

Our real financial crisis is that we buy now and pay later. We spend now and save later. We enjoy right now, and leave knuckling down for later. The problem with all those “laters” is that they seem to all come together at once and at the worst possible time. Instead we can choose to do them now and enjoy the benefits of doing so.

How to Budget Part One

1. Get a piece of paper and pencil. (Pencil is important so you can erase)
2. Make two columns
3. At the top of one column write income and on the other write expense.
4. In the income section write your monthly take home pay (pay after taxes, benefits, investments, etc.)
5. In the expense section write all of your installment debt. (Installment debt is something you pay monthly. Examples would be your mortgage, rent, car payments, insurance, cell phone, and anything that does NOT change month to month.) In other words, your fixed expenses.

How to Budget Part 2

1. Now that you have completed the above here is where the real work of budgeting begins. The next step is to find out what you have left over. This can be considered your flexible spending account.
2. Hopefully you have at least 30-40% of your income left over at this point. If not, you may want to consider finding a way of lowering your fixed expenses.
3. If your finances seem under control up to this point you may want to consider adding another “fixed expense” called savings. If you can, you should put as much of your income into savings as possible. A good rule of thumb is 10%. A savings account is a great buffer for any unexpected expenses the have a tendency to occur when they’ll hurt the most. In life the unexpected happens. If you want to come out in good shape be prepared. Bear in mind that this is in addition to any pre-tax investments you may have. I won’t go into investing here, but I do think it is best to invest with pre-tax dollars if you can so they are included in part one of building a budget.
4. Now you can start looking at your variable or non-fixed expenses. These include food, gas, utilities, entertainment, and anything else that DOES change month to month.
5. For each of these you will want to allocate a certain amount each month that seems reasonable for them based on previous months. Don’t worry too much about getting these perfect. The important thing is that your income and expenses (including savings) zero out at the bottom. Meaning your cash inflow (income) is equal to your cash outflow (expenses plus savings).

Congratulations! You just made a budget in the form of a balance sheet. Basically all that means is that you figured out how to balance your income with your expenses and savings.

Now the hard part begins! And you thought taking the time to make a budget was the hardest part!? Well the hardest part is sticking to it and properly adjusting your budget as circumstances change. I’ll cover this part about budgeting right after we all make our New Year’s Resolutions. Until next time.

Jeremy Day writes about personal development, finance, and health @ Insight Writer. Check out his website and subscribe to his RSS feed. You won’t be disappointed!

If you have found this article useful please consider donating. Your generosity will help me keep Balanced Existence constantly updated with new articles and information. Thank you!

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Try to make sudden big leaps and you’ll burn out or worse, get injured. Setting and following a workout program is a practice in and of itself. It develops the quality of persistence and consistent effort. Not only will you achieve your strength and fitness goals but you’ll develop invaluable qualities that will help you achieve all the other things you want in life.

“I do not think there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature.”

- John D. Rockefeller

Often to begin with we tend to follow what others who have been successful have done. Modeling the success of others is a fantastic way to get started. However eventually we all hit a plateau of some sort. Be it in terms of strength gains, improving your health, building a business or some other pursuit.

To break through that plateau demands a courageous step out from under the shadow of “authorities” and those who have gone before to find what works for you according to your own unique situation. To be successful in strength and health you must learn about your own body and learn what works best for it.

So for example, scientific research, my blog and so forth represent the very beginning of the journey. Not the final destination. When it comes to your health, quite simply, anecdotal evidence (your own personal experience of what works best for you) trumps published research and the beliefs of “authorities” every time.

Finally, strength and fitness training is closely connected with mental strength. Self-discipline, being able to motivate yourself, and pure will developed by hard work can be a great source of confidence. Overcoming adversity and achieving goals in one aspect of life has fantastic carryover into many other aspects of life. It develops the confidence to overcome obstacles, whatever they may be.

The Deadlift
I’ve been talking a lot about the deadlift recently as part of The Balanced Existence Challenge. I’m using the workout from Pavel’s Power to the People! which calls for a very short deadlift session of 2 sets of 5 reps, five days a week, Monday to Friday. After the first set of five reps you enjoy a rest of 3 - 5 minutes, drop the weight down by 10% and then complete the second set of five reps at the lower weight.

This week was just the second full week of following this program. I started out on Monday the week before with a light 90kg (198lbs) at a body weight of 80kg (176lbs). It had been a long time since I’d deadlifted. Building a safe lifting grove with proper technique is very important if one wants to enjoy the rewards of persistent strength training. Get injured and all one’s effort can come to nothing.

Today, being the Friday of the second week of following Pavel’s Power to the People! program I deadlifted 115kg (253lbs) for five reps and then 100kg (220lbs) for 5 reps. My short term goal is to hit 120kg (264lbs) x 5 by Friday next week. My longer term goals are to deadlift 140kg (308lbs) x 5 and to lift twice my body weight (160kg or 352lbs) for 1 rep.

For those interested, here is an overview of safe and effective conventional deadlift technique:

1. Stand upright before the barbell and adjust your foot position.
2. Fold over without rounding your back and grip the bar with the alternate grip, one palm facing forward and the other back. Secure your grip, don’t hurry, your grip must be 100%. The bar should be touching your legs now.
3. Now go into your starting position and start to building up tension. Breathe in a slow and concentrated manner.
4. Lock your arms, tense your triceps, contract your shoulder blades, lift your glutes slightly upward, than lower your butt slowly
5. Take a deep breath and hold it. Pull your head back and look up at the ceiling for the duration of the lift.
6. Push your feet into the floor, tense your abs, and start to pull. The bar is always touching your legs.
7. Your back must always held be in an arched position. The lower back works only statically; the pulling strength comes from the hips, glutes, and the legs.
8. Pull hard and with determination. When bar is 4 inches below your knees, your lower back muscles must contract forcefully to pull the bar to the mid thigh.
9. Now shift your pelvis forward, pull your shoulders back, and lock your knees in one smooth movement. The knees and hips must lock out at the same time. This is very important!

Within the next couple of days I’ll be putting up some photos so you can check out my progress so far. I’ve not done any cardio since well before I started this program. I’ve focused completely on lifting heavier and heavier with the aim of becoming much stronger without gaining weight. I think you’ll find the results interesting and a good demonstration of why diet is most important when it comes to maintaining a healthy weight. Make sure you subscribe!

If you have found this article useful please consider donating. Your generosity will help me keep Balanced Existence constantly updated with new articles and information. Thank you!

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By Al Sears, M.D.

For decades, we’ve worked to follow the advice of the American Heart Association for heart health. We’ve sacrificed taste, given up simple pleasures, pounded out the miles jogging and swallowed millions of doses of dangerous heart drugs – but to no avail.

Heart disease continues to rank as both the number one disease and the number one cause of death. This is because the heart health advice we’ve tried to follow for 40 years is just plain wrong.

Cardiovascular disease will kill a record 950,000 Americans this year. Why? Because giving up meat and eggs, jogging, eating low-fat foods and taking cholesterol-lowering drugs will not cure your heart.

The Doctor’s Heart Cure blasts through long-standing myths about heart disease and shows you how to reach the best physical condition of your life.

Myth #1: Fat makes you fat. The American Heart Association links dietary fat to heart disease and recommends that you eat a low-fat diet. But dietary fat isn’t to blame. In fact, low-fat diets only make the problem worse.

Myth #2: You need to exercise an hour every day. The governments Institutes of Medicine tells us we need 60 minutes of exercise every day. But this type of prolonged cardiovascular exercise mimics stress and breaks down vital heart muscle. Long cardio workouts are not only a waste of your time, they actually cause additional health problems.

Myth #3: You need to keep your cholesterol below 200 points. The current strategy of monitoring cholesterol to manage heart health is ineffective. The drugs are dangerous and only distract us from the real path to heart health.

In The Doctor’s Heart Cure, you’ll learn a completely different model for eating and exercising. You’ll discover special nutrients our hearts need that are lacking in our modern diets. And, you’ll have an action plan to put it all into place, and use for life.

Use a New Model for Heart Health
You can reverse serious heart disease and avoid this killer disease at any age – by following advice directly opposite of the standard recommendations. In as little as a few months, the men and women in Dr Sears’s clinic have used an easy-to-follow new strategy to cure their heart disease. This book will show you the simple steps to real heart health. It is much easier than following the unnatural recommendations of the American Heart Association. It’s time to discard the old assumptions that failed us and re-examine the facts.

A Fresh Look Leads to a Startling Conclusion
During the time when the World War II generation feasted on a breakfast of steak and eggs, obesity was relatively constant in America, hovering around 10 percent. Diabetes was relatively uncommon with about one case of adult diabetes for each case of childhood diabetes. All of this was about to change.

In 1957, the American Heart Association linked dietary fat to heart disease, and recommended that Americans cut the fat in their diets. We swapped cereals for the protein-based breakfasts of our grandparents’ generation. This marked the beginning of our struggling with low-fat diets.

Food producers developed a wide variety of low-fat foods. Over the next couple of decades, we gobbled down these “healthy” foods, expecting to lower our risk of heart disease as we lowered our weight. But we didn’t lose weight. In fact, the rate of obesity tripled. The number of Americans either obese or overweight has exploded to 2 out of 3 – levels never seen anywhere in history. Also during this time, adult diabetes has risen 900%. We now see a ratio of nine patients with diet-induced diabetes for every case of genetic.

These recommendations only led us further away from our natural protein-based diet. And, the low-fat approach failed in its primary goal: Heart disease continues to kill more American’s than any other disease.

Discard Failed Beliefs and Use Strategies That Work
The widely accepted theory that the amount of fat we American’s ate causes modern heart disease turns out to be false. The effective way to beat heart disease is to root out the real underlying cause. People of all ages have rebuilt youthful hearts and blood vessels. Instead of sacrifice, denial, and unwanted side effects, a natural heart health plan gives you more energy.

For 16 years, patients at the Center for Health and Wellness are feeling better, aging better, performing better, and living longer. And they do it without worry or time-consuming daily regimens. You don’t have to eat food you don’t like. You don’t have to become a vegetarian. No confusing double-talk, no counting calories or fat and no toxic drugs.

A New Model for Heart Health
The Doctor’s Heart Cure creates a new paradigm for achieving heart health. This book provides a detailed program that flies in the face of conventional guidelines. Extensive scientific research and experience with thousands of patients supports this approach. Patients who have improved their cardiac health and overall physical condition by using strategies that work.

In addition, The Doctor’s Heart Cure Program is much easier to follow than the American Heart Association guidelines. We have an instinct for foods that are naturally fatty, salty or sweet. With a few adaptations to our modern world, these natural preferences can serve you well. The low-fat diet is unnatural. And, the chronic denial of enjoyable food with its constant guilt is unnecessary. The The Doctor’s Heart Cure’s key principles for heart-healthy eating is that you like its taste and it’s part of our natural diet, unmodified, rather than processed.

Similarly, few people enjoy pounding away on a treadmill for thirty minutes to an hour at a time. For many people trying to build this as a habit, their instincts cry out for them to stop. Many have difficulty finding the time to exercise that long. When they do, they unwittingly produce unwanted changes in their bodies such as the loss of muscle, bone density, and internal organ weight. They also often wind up with overuse injuries. Patients don’t complain when they discover that the core of The Doctor’s Heart Cure exercise program is workouts that last no more than 20 minutes and can be completed in as little as six minutes.

Lastly, the popular strategy of monitoring cholesterol is ineffective and the prescribed medications are unnecessary toxic burdens. Most patients who use cholesterol-lowering drugs don’t know that the medications are making them weak and tired and cause their muscles to ache if they try to exercise. They are delighted to enjoy increased energy and well-being with effective natural alternatives.

In addition, compelling evidence indicates that the best blood predictor of heart disease risk is not cholesterol at all but homocysteine. This turns out to be great news: It’s much easier and less toxic to your body to lower homocysteine levels than to lower cholesterol levels.

How to Build the Heart of a Warrior
The Doctor’s Heart Cure leads you through a two-Step process to build heart health. In Step One: “How Medicine Missed the Boat,” you’ll see and come to understand why researchers and physicians went astray in their approach to heart disease.

Chapter 1: Modern Nutrition and the Diet Disaster shows how the ever-increasing adulteration of our food supply has made the problems with cardiovascular health progressively worse. The problem turned into a crisis in the last generation when the so-called “heart healthy diet” became popular.

Chapter 2: Sidestep the Cardio Exercise Myth examines how long-duration cardiovascular exercise robs your heart and lungs of capacity, zaps your body of strength and muscle, and accelerates several unhealthy aspects of aging.

Chapter 3: Cholesterol the Great Red Herring tells why cholesterol testing is all wrong, and what markers doctors should be checking.

Chapter 4: America’s Heart Drug Problem gives you the lowdown on how cholesterol-lowering drugs deplete energy reserves, lower sexual vigor, and interfere with one of your cardiovascular systems most important antioxidant systems. You’ll see how blood pressure medications de-condition your heart and interfere with effective exercise.

Chapter 5: Measure Your Real Heart Health give you effective screening tests – which most doctors don’t do – to assess heart health. Five blood test – levels of coenzyme Q10, homocysteine, C-reactive protein, insulin, and essential fats – can reveal an abundance of useful information about your heart health. You’ll also find several measures you can do yourself.

Step Two - “Take Action to Build Heart Health” - is your plan to prevent or reverse heart disease.

Chapter 6: Enjoy Real Food Again, you’ll learn about a surprising plan that deviates in important ways from both the American Heart Association’s low-fat recommendations and the Atkins-like low-carbohydrate group of diets. You’ll see how easy it is to look beyond counting grams of fat or carbs to return to our natural habits of enjoying quality fat, protein and carbohydrate again.

Chapter 7: Build a Strong Heart; Get More for Less, you’ll discover a new system for exercising less with much better results! You’ll use a clinically proven program to improve your cardiac, pulmonary, and blood vessel response to exertion. Not only will this program improve your cardiovascular health, you will also transform your body, as you burn fat and build muscle and strength.

One nutrient, coenzyme Q10, is so important; it merits a chapter of its own. Find out how to use it to regain vital heart power and efficiency in Chapter 8: Energize Your Heart, The Miracle of CoQ10.

By the time you complete Chapter 9: Give Your Heart Four Nutrients it Needs, you’ll know how to supplement your diet with the heart fuel every heart needs – which most people are not getting in sufficient quantities. Doctors often ignore this crucial area. You will see why these supplements are important, how to get them, and how much to take.

Learn how to reduce inflammation and control oxidation of blood vessels in Chapter 10: Control the Fire in Your Heart. This key component of your heart-healthy program tells you how you can use antioxidants to reduce oxidative damage, and how to lower your homocysteine safely and effectively.

If you suffer from high blood pressure, diabetes, loss of muscle or obesity – problems that often accompany cardiovascular disease – you can customize your own program using Chapter 11: Individualize Your Heart Cure to guide you.

The final Chapter 12: Heart Health Now helps you put it all together with an action plan of how to implement your Doctor’s Heart Cure for life.

If you have found this article useful please consider donating. Your generosity will help me keep Balanced Existence constantly updated with new articles and information. Thank you!

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I might have to consider easing up somewhat on the TGUs next week. I always play things according to the territory not according to the map. The map is not the territory. If there is a difference between the map and the territory the map is wrong. This is an important principle to remember in life.

Friday Meditation
What I did do today was some very enjoyable meditation. I sat down on the floor facing the wall in the bedroom with the window open. Once I’m comfortable and settled I like to close one nostril and take three long deep breaths through the single open nostril. Then I repeat this on the other side. Finally, I take three long slow breaths through both nostrils. I find this really focuses my mind and concentration down on the sensation of the breath at the nostrils. Which is what I use during meditation to develop single pointedness of mind.

I’ve also read that this can have the effect of re-equalizing the left and right side of the brain. I actually read that first and then read of the practice I just described in a Buddhist book on meditation and have used it ever since.

My meditation practice is simple. However, in many ways it’s different each time I sit. I have a general structure but try to be as open as possible to creative inspiration. Sometimes it occurs that I do what I call being the sky. This begins with slowing down. Achieved by centering the mind on one physical sensory input. In this case the feeling of the breath at the rim of the nostrils. Breath and mind gradually merge. The calmer one becomes the more refined the breath. The more refined the breath the more one must focus single-pointedly on the ever slighter sensation.

Eventually the breath is tuned and then perhaps I just sit and identify with consciousness itself. Thoughts, feelings, physical sensations, memories and so forth are like clouds flittering across the sky (consciousness). If one identifies with consciousness and not the clouds (thoughts, etc) then the clouds they come and they go. Each in their own time. However I have noticed the less one identifies with the clouds and the more one just lets go the quicker they move on. Just as quick as they appear.

What’s the Point?
With this sort of practice perhaps next time you’re stressed, sick or tired and become irrationally furious at your partner because of some little thing that is the straw that breaks the camel’s back, if you identify with consciousness you will not identify with the anger. You will experience your anger. No doubt. But you will neither reject it nor fan the flames.

Instead you may for the first time actually really experience your life and because you will have practiced letting go, when it’s time for the anger to subside it will do so of it’s own accord. While this is happening you have not felt the need to act out your anger in the manifest world as you may habitually have done before. Of course you could if you so choose. But importantly the choice is yours. Otherwise what is happening is just the product of conditioning. You are not much more then an animation replaying what has already been played before.

Letting go is the only real way to gain control.

Weight Report
After starting the week at 80kg (176lbs) I ended the working week at 79kg (173lbs), which is normal for me. I tend to gradually drop weight over the working week and then occasionally put a little weight on some weekends when I am a little more flexible with my diet. I like the 80/20 rule. Eat 100% clean for 80% of the time and then let your hair down a little for 20% of the time.

If you’re feeling restricted because eating healthy is a new behavior and still new for your body then this may help. Try for yourself and if it does keep it. If it doesn’t then discard it. For me 20% means maybe a home brewed beer, or a bowl of Japanese Ramen, or hot chips and a few scallops or a real hamburger with lots of salad on it or some pizza. At most it’s one, maybe two, of these things in a week.

The key to remember is that it’s not a license to binge. If weight and health is a critical problem for you at this stage you might want to be more like 90/10. The idea is to transition. Most people can’t handle switching cold when it comes to anything in their life. Particularly if your friends, family and workmates continue to eat what ridiculously passes for “normal”.

While I am (comparatively speaking) extremely health conscious I also wont lie to you and personally don’t believe the hype many puritanical health freaks put out there. I’ve read from several sources over the years regarding such things as studies where hair analysis was carried out on hardcore vegetarians or long term spiritual retreat members that showed they in fact ate animal products recently.

A lack of congruency of this nature and outright lying is not going to be good for anyone. Lying to yourself and others while silently beating yourself up is not going to help you remain positive and persist with long-term improvement. If you slip up (and you will) just admit to yourself that you slipped up and get back on the horse. The past is past. All that matters is what you do next. Be creative, try different strategies and learn from your mistakes. Have a great weekend!

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Deadlift
105kg (231lbs) x 5
95kg (209lbs) x 5

I’ve discovered that this heavy lifting business feels quite different from kettlebells. After doing the two sets of deadlifts I sat outside and ate some breakfast of Tuna, carrot, raw nuts and 15 minutes later some water. After I finished I found myself just sitting there completely still and realized my whole body felt worked. But not in a way I think I’ve experienced before. Not in a worn out sort of way.

Just that everything from my ankles to my abs to my triceps to my forearms had been recruited into the lifts. What a highly efficient way to workout the entire body and develop all around strength!

I feel like my technique has improved considerably. I feel like I’m grinding the weight off the ground with my legs and only at the top using my hips to complete the movement. No shrugging the weight up with my shoulders.

Turkish Get-Ups (TGU) - each arm
20kg (44lbs) x 1
32kg (70lbs) x 2

I had planed to train my abs as part of this Balanced Existence Challenge but that has quickly gone out the window. I simply cannot be motivated by cosmetic exercise alone. So I’ve decided to simplify it right down to just using the ab wheel of death in short sets of 5 reps whenever I think of it throughout the day five days a week.

At least that way I will work my abs but also more importantly I will be improving the strength of my core. Which I’m sure will be important the heavier I deadlift. (Edit: the day after my abs felt worked so I’m going to stick with this idea!)

In closing I’m going to take tomorrow (Friday) off despite not actually feeling physically fatigued or any muscular soreness. It’s very early days and I’ve pushed the weight increases a lot this week. I feel one needs to be flexible and roll with things as opposed to rigidly sticking to protocol. I also think I will cycle the weight back down to something like 95kg (209lbs) on Monday which should see me bypassing what I lifted today by Thursday next week.

At which point I’ll re-evaluate how I’m feeling in my continued journey towards discovering my first 5 rep max deadlift. I hope you’ll continue to join me on this journey. The best way to do that is to subscribe if you haven’t done so already.

Read my thoughts from Day 5.

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The deadlift weight is starting to feel heavy. I’m thinking my current and starting 5 rep maximum (5RM) will be somewhere around 110kg (242lbs). (Edit: I hit 115kg the next week and still going).

Turkish Get-Ups (TUG) - each arm
20kg (44lbs) x 1
32kg (70lbs) x 2

I expect I’m going to be respectively tired come Friday. Was reading about how the fear of over training leads many to under train. I can see how that could happen.

Throughout the day I played with my Captains of Crush No.1 gripper as I do most days for a couple of sets of five on each hand. The Captains of Crush No.1 gripper is a hand gripper that is rated at 140lbs. I’ve gotten a lot stronger on it recently by doing bottoms-up (BU) kettlebell work.

Speaking of which I once again enjoyed an afternoon session of BU cleans with the 20kg kettlebell. Basically cleaning the kettlebell into the BU position and just holding it there as long as I can. Then switching hands. Two long sets of this.

Tomorrow I plan to deadlift 105kg (231lbs) and 95kg (209lbs). If this continues to go well I think next week I’ll drop the weight increases to 2.5kg (5lbs) per day. I want to find my 5RM but I don’t see why I should hurry to do so. In the mean time I’ll actually be extending my 5RM as I move towards it.

Read more in Day 4.

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One half of the Balanced Existence Challenge is the minimalist workout that I hope will lead to massive strength gains over time without adding bulk. The other important half is diet. The word “diet” shouldn’t conjure images of restriction it’s just a symbolic label to describe what you eat. In effect everyone is on a diet and everyone diets because we all eat food.

Dietary Considerations
The below food pyramid by David Getoff describes what I consider healthy eating perfectly. As much of the food as possible should be certified organic. While fruit is great too much of it does not represent what my genetic Irish forefathers and mothers consumed. This might be different for someone who is a descendent of people who lived in a tropical location.

Regardless I’m not aware of anything in fruit that is not in vegetables. With modern conditions there is too much sugar around already. Adding more sugar from fructose (the sugar in fruit) is unlikely to help the situation. I eat a Granny Smith apple every day and try to eat berries as often as I can. Those are two fruits that were available to my Irish ancestors.

A regular day for me starts with a big glass of filtered water, at least 500mls. More like 1ltr. Usually while I get sucked into checking my morning email. A habit I would like to eliminate. Then I go downstairs and take a probiotic and then go outside and do my two sets of deadlifts.

Breakfast
Shortly after I eat breakfast, which consists of some form of protein, usually animal and either some fruit or vegetables. Protein for breakfast may be two organic free-range eggs, or a few handfuls of raw nuts such as almonds, pecans, walnuts, Brazil nuts, Cashews, hazelnuts and so forth. Never peanuts. Never cooked nuts and never salted. Other protein sources for breakfast might be a tin of Tuna or some cold organic steak from last night’s dinner or some organic sausages that I almost always boil in water to cook.

With the protein for breakfast I have either some fruit such as an apple and maybe a banana or some raw veggies such as broccoli, English spinach and carrot. After I finish breakfast I currently take some cod liver oil and some flax seed oil.

Lunch
An example of lunch is often Tuna, carrots and broccoli. I eat English spinach a lot and olives when I have them. I’ll regularly eat small handfuls of nuts throughout the day whenever I feel a little hungry. If I’m not hungry I don’t eat and if I feel like I’ve had enough food I’ll stop and put it away instead of keeping on eating. Once a day I’ll often have two teaspoons of psyllium husks in 100% no sugar added orange juice that has been watered down in half. In a normal day I’ll drink 3 – 4ltrs of filtered water.

Dinner
A normal dinner involves organic chicken, a sweet potato baked in it’s jacket with organic butter and cinnamon, and a pumpkin salad with baked pumpkin, spinach, raw onion, carrot, maybe some cheese, broccoli, other leafy greens, and so forth. Another example of dinner is a lamb stir fry with organic lamb, cabbage, carrot, mushrooms, onion, a whole garlic, celery, zucchini, lots of pepper, chili, maybe some fish sauce and so forth.

Other
Also during the day I regularly eat a tablespoon or half a tablespoon of organic coconut oil and I do enjoy eating small amounts of organic butter. I don’t eat bread or any grain products for that matter so I just slice a little sliver of butter and eat it. When you get over your fear of healthy fat it becomes a very handy source of sustained energy and can be used to reduce the glycemic index of your meals just like fiber does. Avocado also features regularly in my diet.

I also use organic coconut oil as a moisturizer when the chlorine and other chemicals in the shower water dry out my skin. I plan to get water filters for our showers soon. The reasoning being if you’re showing in it you might as well be drinking it. That goes for putting creams on your skin such as chemical laden moisturizers. If you wouldn’t eat it don’t put it on your skin.

The Workout
No thrills no spills. Really enjoying starting my day with deadlifting. It energizes me for the rest of the day without itself using much energy or taking much time.

Deadlift
95kg (209lbs) x 5
85kg (187lbs) x 5

TGU (each arm)
20kg (44lbs) x 1
32kg (70lbs) x 2

At this point I was unsure if increasing the deadlift weight by 5kg was too rapid but as someone who is starting out I expect that I will increase the poundage by large amounts compared to someone who has been doing this a long time. I will go by feel. Still no clue what my 5 rep max is and still not confident enough in my technique to want to try to find out.

I think I will just progressively discover my 5RM probably sometime next week and then back off from that back down to 70% of whatever my 5RM turns out to be. Then take a run back up the hill on a longer cycle. I promise I will write much more on the important topic of cycling very soon.

Later on in the afternoon I had energy and wanted to do something so I did a stack of bottoms-up (BU) cleans and a couple of BU presses with the 20kg kettlebell. Then did one ladder of three rungs of clean and press with the 32kg kettlebell.

In hindsight I wonder if I should have put that energy to better use in a second deadlift session rather then pressing the 32kg kettlebell? I think next time I’ll have a play with the bottoms-up stuff and then at least do a few deadlift singles. Though it is nice to maintain my pressing strength. So many interesting paths to strength so little time.

In case you’re wondering what bottoms-up kettlebell exercises look like, please enjoy the video below.

Read more in Day 3.

If you have found this article useful please consider donating. Your generosity will help me keep Balanced Existence constantly updated with new articles and information. Thank you!

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