Does it really make you feel better to down that pint of ice cream? What is it that compels some of us to try to eat our miseries away? After all, nine times out of ten, we end up feeling guilty later.

While many of us eat, not because we’re especially hungry, but because we’re out with friends, or like the looks of that big, juicy steak, or we just can’t resist Mom’s cheesecake, many of us also lose control over our willpower and our ability to say ‘No’. So whether you’re eating when you’re not hungry because you want the companionship, or because you’re unhappy, anxious or afraid, the first step toward overcoming emotional eating is to determine its source.

Many people go beyond the occasional “comfort food” binges and become addicted to certain types of food. Gotta have a pizza with the works after a particularly bad day at work, or gobble down that package of cookies after an argument with your husband or wife? Ever wonder why the foods we ultimately reach for are bad for us? They’re the ones loaded with sugar, carbs, and fat.

When we’re upset, how many of us jump in the car and zoom off to a fast food restaurant to drown our woes in greasy burgers and fries, topped off with a milkshake no less?

Most of us don’t eat only when we’re hungry anymore. We eat because the clock tells us to, or because food is ever present in our society. When we’re upset, it’s easy to find a place that’s open, willing and able to cater to our food desires.

So how do you put a stop to emotional eating? The next time you’re upset, and before you reach for the pint of ice cream or super-size those fries, think about the guilt you’re going to feel later on.

Don’t give in to the craving, or to the emotion that drove you to food in the first place. If you’re angry with your husband, don’t punish yourself. If you’re frustrated with your boss, don’t take it out on your body. Find a healthier outlet for anger and frustration.

Here are a few things you can do the next time you get upset.

Wait five minutes. That’s easy enough, isn’t it? Many times, just the act of waiting is enough to overcome our desire to binge on sugars, carbs and fat.

Think about your long-term health. After all, when you succumb to binge eating, you’re only punishing yourself.

Find different foods to reach for when you’re upset. You can get  pleasure out of chomping a carrot in two (and it sounds very satisfying as well).

Break the cycle by finding something to substitute your particular comfort food. It sounds boring, but try shadow boxing, or punching your pillow instead of reaching for that chocolate bar. Do ten jumping jacks or take a quick walk.

Get your mind off food. It’s not the answer to what ails you.

Emotional eating is a bad habit, no doubt about it. It’s also a very powerful habit. Many of us think that if we can’t indulge when we’re upset, we’re somehow sacrificing pleasure and comfort. However, the long-term results of such attitudes leave most of us overweight, miserable and quite discontent.

Find positive, healthy ways to fight your emotions and learn new habits. Sure, it’s going to be difficult and oftentimes frustrating, but you’ll soon begin to feel much better.

Take it one day at a time. Expect to fail once in a while and when you do, don’t beat yourself up over it. Just get back on track. Pretty soon, you’ll be amazed at the changes you feel inside and see outside.

On top of all that there are external elements contributing to your health: your emotions, sleep patterns and stress levels – all playing as much of an integral part of your health as the function of your liver, colon and lungs. Things affecting your spirit, or “chi,” your energy levels and your health have to be addressed along with the disease in your body.

If you correct the problems, the symptoms, such as being overweight, will disappear.

Why are enzymes important

Enzymes are responsible for every single chemical reaction in every single cell of your body. All of the minerals, herbs, vitamins and hormones in your body cannot do their job without enzymes. Enzymes are, biologically speaking, the source of life.

A diet without live enzymes is removed from the source of life, and things removed from their source of life slowly begin to die. For us, that leads to disease, excessive weight gain, depression – and many other health conditions that plague us today.

Where do you get enzymes

The enzymes found naturally in whole, live, raw foods not only help with proper digestion, they provide our bodies with the tools they need to do all those jobs that are so important to good health. Enzymes also help with obesity at the “whole being” level.

Foods that are treated with preservatives, over-cooked and processed are virtually devoid of the enzymes we need. The action of enzymes in the body burns fat and provides a magic bullet for easy weight loss.

For example, lipase, a fat-splitting enzyme, is found abundantly in raw, live foods. However, few of us eat enough raw foods to get enough lipase to burn even a normal amount of fat, not to mention any excess.

Lipase helps your body in digestion, fat distribution, and fat burning for energy. Lipase breaks down and dissolves fat throughout the body. Without lipase, fat stagnates and accumulates. You can see it on your hips, thighs, buttocks and stomach.

What happens when you don’t get the nutrients and enzymes you need

Eating only cooked and processed foods deprives you of needed nutrients and enzymes. In turn, your body receives a signal that it needs to store fat to prevent starvation; thus your body holds on to more and more fat.

Not what the doctor ordered. It will also send a signal that you are hungry, resulting in a vicious cycle of eating continuously while still feeling hungry. These physical and mental effects of poor nutrition and weight gain can lead to eating disorders, depression and anxiety.

Cooked and processed foods are “dead foods” that have NO enzymes.

Your body must scavenge enzymes for digestion from other metabolic processes in your body, wasting energy and resources. Plus, our modern lifestyle kills enzymes in more ways than just cooking food. Stress can damage enzymes.

Food additives can kill them. Frequent air travel, workouts, coffee breaks, air pollution, food irradiation and poor sleep all kill enzymes. No wonder we are enzyme deficient! So eating raw, live, enzyme-rich foods is more than just a weight loss or digestion issue – it affects your whole life, your whole being.

That’s why we call junk foods “empty calories”-there’s nothing in them to help your body keep its organs, tissues, and cells humming along the way they should.

Here’s what happens when you open wide and shovel sugary foods into your mouth:

First, your body screams, “Oh, no! I’ve just been fed pure, refined carbohydrates. Doesn’t she know I  can’t process that unless vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients are present? Doesn’t she or he knows I can only metabolize the ‘good’ carbs found in nature’s plants?”

After your body recovers from “sugar shock,” its balancing defenses go into action.

There are several  ways your body deals with a sugar rush.

Tapping Mineral Reserves: The body taps our reserves of minerals, like sodium, potassium, and  magnesium, to replace the empty calories.

If your reserves are already low from a diet high in empty carbs and low in vegetables, stripping away what little life forces you have left is bad news.

Doing so will zap your energy and weaken the defenses that work to keep disease away, which means your organs can’t stay in tip-top shape.

Calcium Stripping: Daily high sugar intake can lead to an overly acidic body. To combat that, your  body will try to balance your acid/alkaline factor by stripping calcium from your bones and teeth, which can lead to osteoporosis and arthritis.

Obesity: One of the organs most affected by your sugar intake is your liver. That’s because the liver is where excess sugar in the form of glucose is initially stored.

When you eat refined sugar everyday, your liver will eventually be filled to the brim with glucose. When that happens, the excess glucose is sent back into the bloodstream in the form of fatty acids.

Guess where those end up-on your buttocks, belly, breasts, and hips! Now, combine too much sugar with too many starchy, refined carbohydrates pasta, rice, chips, pretzels, etc. and you’ve got a recipe for obesity-and heart
disease.

Impaired Organ Function: After your liver has filled up your inactive body parts (belly, hips, buttocks, and breasts), those fatty acids have to go somewhere else, so your body divvies them up between your heart and kidneys.

Eventually your heart and kidneys slow down and the tissues degenerate and turn to fat. Now your body is in real trouble! You’ll have trouble with high blood pressure, a compromised immune system, and even impaired brain function.

Toxic Metabolite: Because your body can’t metabolize bad carbs, something called “toxic metabolite” results. That’s when pyruvic acid accumulates in the brain and nervous system, and sugars that have been transformed into alien carbon atoms settle in your red blood cells.

Now your red blood cells can’t breathe properly, causing some of them to die off and eventually leading to degenerative
diseases, such as Alzheimer’s.

Dull Brain: Even in the short term, your brain is affected by sugar. In fact, you’ll feel the effects right away. Sugar dulls your brain, so you’ll feel sleepy. You’ll probably also find yourself forgetting things or having trouble making simple calculations. That’s because the brain needs glutamic acid to function properly.

B vitamins help glutamatic acid, a vital compound found in many vegetables, divide the brain’s stop-go responses. Unfortunately, eating refined sugar daily kills off the symbiotic, or “good,” bacteria living in your intestines, and those bacteria are responsible for producing extra B vitamins.

Scared yet? I know I was!

Like many of you, I’m very saddened by the lives stolen through drug addiction. Not only the lives of addicts themselves, but of their friends and families as well. Drug addiction affects everyone.

Well imagine my surprise when I discovered that refined sugar is very similar to heroin… one of the most addictive and deadly narcotics out there.

Yes, you read that right. Sugar and heroin have more in common than not.

But there’s one key area where sugar and heroine are different…

…sugar is legal.

And it’s consumed to the tune of 160 pounds per year per adult. So, I think it’s very important that you know the facts. You need to know just how dangerous refined sugar really is to your body. Don’t worry, I’ll keep the scientific mumbo jumbo to a minimum because I want you to be sure to “get” what I’m telling you.

You’ll never look at refined sugar the same way again…

3 Ways Sugar and Heroin Are Similar

#1 Similar Refining Process

The first way sugar and heroin are similar is in how they are manufactured. Heroin starts out as opium extracted from the poppy plant. Then, it’s refined into morphine and further refined into heroin. Originally it was touted as a new “non-addictive” painkiller. Now it’s simply the most addictive drug in the world… besides sugar.

Sugar, similarly, begins as juice pressed from the sugar cane and is refined into molasses. Then, it’s further refined into brown sugar and then white sugar. The resultant white sugar crystals we’re all familiar with are completely stripped of any of their original nutrients (just like heroin).

Because of this, our bodies don’t know how to react to the constant deluge of sugar. It throws our systems out of whack. Which leads to why they’re both…

#2 Addictive in Similar Ways

Both substances create an immediate rush (though heroin is much stronger initially). Heroin particles attach themselves rapidly to endorphin receptors, creating a rush of euphoria.

Sugar creates a smaller high and lands in the liver until it’s redistributed through the body as fat. Sugar, like a drug, is incredibly addictive and habit-forming. In fact, it’s estimated that as many as 95% of people are addicted to some degree or another.

#3 Organ Damage

Heroin does most of its damage in the brain before moving to the heart and lungs. Most people never break the addiction and wind up over-dosing.

Sugar-related damage in the body is much slower, but no less destructive. In fact, there’s a case to be made that since sugar is ingested in such large quantities, the damage it does to the body is more pronounced and widespread.

The thought that sugar and a drug like heroin have anything in common horrifies me. It horrifies me because I look around and I see people I know, people I love and care about struggling with an addiction they don’t even know they have.

And what’s especially painful is that breaking your addiction to sugar is infinitely easier than breaking an addiction to heroin.

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In 1957, Dr. William Coda Martin published a study on the chemical effects of sugar on the body. In a nutshell, here’s what’s going on…  The process of refining sugar completely drains the sugar of vitamins and minerals. That is why sugar is said to have nothing but empty calories. When the body tries to digest the refined sugar, it can’t break it down nutritionally. This creates a toxic acid called pyruvic acid. This acid has a lethal effect on our cells.  Basically, it blocks oxygen from getting through… resulting in cellular death. And, according to Dr. Martin, this “is the beginning of degenerative disease.”

Toxic reason #2 – Sugar Drains the Body of Vitamins and Minerals.

Since sugar is so difficult to break down, our bodies have to use a lot of vitamins and minerals just to make use of this toxin.  A sudden influx of sugar creates an incredible strain on the body.

It takes everything it has (such as sodium, magnesium and potassium) just to bring the body back into balance.  In other words, sugar creates a chaotic mess in our bodies that takes much of our healthy resources to bring it back under control.

Oh, and do you know why tooth decay comes from eating too many “sweets”?  Because calcium is taken from bones and teeth to help protect the blood from the acid imbalance brought on by sugar.  This leads to tooth decay and weakening of the bones.

Fun stuff, huh?

Toxic reason # 3 – Sugar Leads to An All-Out Assault on the Vital Organs.

At first, sugar is stored in the liver in the form of glycogen.  But soon, after a daily diet of refined sugar, the liver…  …swells like a balloon.  This causes a backup of sugar (now in fatty acid form) into the blood.  Next stop… inactive areas such as the waist, buttocks, belly, and thighs.

Then another backup!  Only this time, the fatty acid settles in the heart, kidneys and other organs.  Slowly their contaminated cells begin to turn into fat too.

The organs begin to slow down, leading to high blood pressure, small brain paralysis, and diabetes.  And, believe it or not, that’s just for starters.  Refined sugar affects digestion, body chemicals, and even the nervous system.

See why this drives me crazy?

Sugar is one of the most dangerous substances you can put in your body. It over-takes every area.  It affects everything.  And our society is overrun with it.

But, you don’t have to live like a slave to the effects of sugar any longer. You can begin to make healthy food choices and start living life with more energy, excitement, and zest.

Think disease, depression, and weight gain are just a fact of life?

Think again. Your body is being sabotaged by “dead foods.” Discover how a “magic ingredient” in live whole foods helps balance hormones, adds mojo to all aspects of your life and obliterates weight gain.

The 3 Most Common Causes of Stomach Gas:

#1 – Lack of Stomach Acid:

A lot of people are low in stomach acid. You do need a certain acid pH to change what they call the valance of a mineral to change its confirmation to make it more absorbed. Many people with heartburn and indigestion are told they have too much acid. They’re given antacids which kill their stomach acid production.

That’s leading to a lot more problems where food is pushing through the stomach incompletely digested. It can’t be absorbed if it’s not broken down to the right size for the body to absorb.

Actually, intestinal organisms—what we call the bad bacteria and yeast—will start feeding off this undigested food and causing gas, bloating, and even symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome.

Your stomach will stop processing, it will fill up with food and it will go paralyzed if you don’t have enough stomach acid. The way the stomach works is that food will stay in the stomach until it’s liquefied.

Then it will squirt out into the small intestine. If you’re not breaking down your food, if you don’t have enough stomach acid, then the food’s just going to sit there. Then you’re told to take a drug to push the food out of your stomach.

#2 – Chronic Constipation: If you’re not eliminating waste 2 times daily, you’re constipated. Food that sits in your intestines too long begins to ferment and putrefy and expels gas and odors.

This can create an excessive amount of gas which will travel back up the digestive tract into the stomach or the extra gas applies pressure to the stomach and creates tremendous bloating. If you track your bowel movements and find that you are not eliminating after meals, you may need to assess your diet.

#3 – Too Much Yeast: Candida, or yeast, is a natural component of your body’s chemistry. But when too much yeast exists, it can create havoc. Over 90% of people in North America experience health problems due to an overgrowth of yeast.

If a yeast problem is not identified or addressed, it can be the #1 cause of excessive gas. When you don’t eat the proper foods or expel waste, yeast can grow inside your intestines and ferment.

Seeking out the sugar and undigested processed foods, lack of proper nutrition and moderation give it exactly what it needs to flourish. Gas is just one of the many problems Candida creates. If untreated, it can also cause anxiety, difficulty concentrating, allergies, and Irritated Bowel Syndrome.

If you want to break free of the embarrassment of excessive gas for good, try my Sugar-Free lifestyle. By laying the program out for you in an easy to use food planner, my program gives you the ultimate tools to stop the sugar and food cravings and start you on the path to better health.

I’ve helped hundreds of people eliminate sugar and processed foods from their diets. They understand that our nation is plagued with more illnesses than ever before, like Cancer, Diabetes, Irritated Bowel Syndrome and Arthritis, and they don’t want to be on the statistic list.

Reasonable levels of the yeast aren’t harmful, but a bad diet can elevate levels to the point where it interferes with your sleep and creates other problems, such as digestion issues, mental/emotional impairment such as brain fog & mood swings and chronic fatigue.

Most people are entirely unaware of Candida and its effects and will continue to suffer until they take measures to eliminate the foods that cause it to grow out of control.

With a proper healthy diet including a meal plan that focuses on eliminating excess yeast and starches, you will regain your youthful energy levels and feel more refreshed when you wake up.

In a minute, I’ll provide you with a simple and immediate solution to your candid problem. First, let’s look at some simple ways to improve your sleep.

3 Simple Solutions for a More Restful Night’s Sleep:

#1 – Keep a 10:00pm Bedtime: Your body has an internal clock. There is a reason humans start o feel sleepy when the sun goes down. We’re not nocturnal animals and our body prefers a premium sleep time. If you’re going to bed late every night you’re body and mind are missing out on the rest they need to recover from the day’s events.

Sleep eight hours per night, Ideally, between 10:00 p.m to 6:00 a.m. This is the time when melatonin, the great antioxidant which is also know as the sleep hormones, make it’s rounds around the body, scooping up free radicals and repairing damage. Our body was design to sync with the cycles of nature.

#2 People with chronic fatigue could take magnesium and also treat their yeast. Everybody with chronique Fatique is deficient in magnesium. In the general population, 70% of those are deficient in magnesium.

#3 – Stop Eating 3 hours Before Bedtime: If you eat within 3 hours of bedtime, the food in your stomach and intestines stirs up your digestive energy and cuts your deep sleep time in half. An active digestive system makes anxious which means you toss and turn more than you usually would. Think of your body as a coal furnace.

If you want the furnace to stop giving off heat and feeding the engine, you need to stop stoking the first hours before the engine needs to stop. Don’t think it’s true? Just stop eating before bed for a few nights and you’ll be amazed at the difference. So, What’s the Natural Solution to Your Candid Problem? Eliminating sugar and processed foods from your diet.

It will not only help you sleep better, but it will prevent you from illnesses and diseases such as cancer, diabetes and arthritis, just to name a few. I’ve helped hundreds of people eliminate Candida and feel younger by providing them with the ultimate tools to stop the sugar and food cravings that they’ve struggled with for years.

While there is no shortage of diet books and new fitness equipment on the market, the problems of being overweight and obese continue to grow with the number of people being affected by these serious but preventable conditions. There must be something else going on here.

All of us have our own special relationship with food. We don’t just use food to satisfy our physical hunger; we sometimes use it to quell our emotional hunger as well.

What is  Emotional Eating? 
As we learn more and more about why we eat and why we choose the foods we eat, we begin to understand how our emotions play such an instrumental role in our health. roger gould, MD, Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at UCLA and author of Shrink Yourself: Break Free from Emotional Eating Forever, defines emotional eating as eating to satisfy emotional hunger.

In this fashion, you use food for comfort or as a way to cope with life. That means you eat for reasons other than what your body needs. We all indulge in emotional eating at one point or another. Reaching for chocolate after a disagreement with your spouse or comforting yourself after a grueling meeting at work with an entire pizza are prime examples of emotional eating.

But when this condition goes too far, it crosses the line into food addiction, where you actually lose control over what and how you eat.

Why do We do It?

Dr. Gould points out that all of us have emotional hunger. The difference between an emotional eater and a non-emotional eater is how they respond to this hunger. When presented with a challenge, an emotional eater has a knee-jerk reaction to reach for whatever food will offer him or her a moment of comfort.

Our comfort foods are usually not the healthiest choices, including ice cream, refined carbohydrates, heavy pastas and fast food. Emotional eating happens without much regard to health, nutrition or even real hunger. In fact, eating is usually hurried, with very little awareness of what is being consumed and, therefore, emotional eaters are more prone to overeating.

Food offers relief from stress or emotional discomfort and provides a refuge and safety net that we can quickly turn to for solace and security. Food becomes the drug that distracts us from whatever discomfort we are feeling.

The more we emotionally eat, the less likely we are to focus on the real cause of our unrest. But food is just a temporary bandage. The feeling that drove you to emotionally eat in the first place is still there, and will quickly return.

And worst of all, now there are usually new feelings of guilt, remorse, anger and isolation once you realize you’ve been giving in to emotional eating.

Sure, we all know that smoking and drinking is bad for us, but when it comes to eating, most of us don’t equate too much caffeine or sugar as the worst things we can do to our bodies.

Think again. Today, more people are being diagnosed with preventable illnesses and disease processes because of the foods we eat. High cholesterol, high sugar and high fat foods are slowly killing us. Inform yourself. Research the bad effects poor nutritious diets have on our vital organs.

Read official reports penned by the CDC or the American Medical Association and you’ll see what kind of havoc such diets can have on short-term as well as long-term health. We’re not trying to scare you, but actually, you should be. Many forms of heart disease, as well as obesity and diabetes are preventable.

Many of us are addicted to such substances as caffeine and sugar. What, head off to work without that latte or Super-Gulp soda with enough caffeine and sugar to jump-start an engine? Don’t eat those Girl Scout cookies that you look forward to every year? Worse yet, avoid anything with refined white sugar? Am I nuts? No, just concerned about your health.

I could go into dozens of reasons why sugar is bad for you, but since you’re reading this, I’ll assume that you already know that. Let’s concentrate on helping you stop your sugar cravings in their tracks and help you find alternative ways to satisfy your sweet tooth or sugar cravings. Let’s start with the basics.

First, in order to be successful with any change in habit or lifestyle, the decision to change has to be made by you, for yourself. Your husband, wife, siblings, or even your doctor can’t make it for you.

YOU have to want the change, and accept it. It’s going to be hard – perhaps one of the hardest things you’ve ever attempted (and yes, it’s right up there with quitting smoking, drinking or drugs) because to be honest, sugar addiction acts much like these other bad and potentially bad habits in your blood stream.

Sugar is a toxin; a poisonous toxin that can do as much long-term damage to your body as smoking and yes, even some drugs. Excessive sugar consumption can lead to all kinds of medical issues, so remember that the next time you feel like reaching for that candy bar.

Sugar in its refined form is not a natural product. Before you put anything in your mouth, ask yourself if it’s a natural product, created by nature and unadulterated by chemicals and pesticides. If it isn’t, don’t put it in your mouth.

Sure, it tastes good. Sugar titillates our pleasure centers in the brain and leaves us with that happy, feel-good sensation – for a while. Just like drugs or smoking. Unfortunately, not long afterward, we start feeling lethargic and tired. Sound familiar?

One of the best methods to beat these sugar cravings is practice, practice and more practice. The next time you crave something artificial and sweet, wait five minutes. Distract yourself; continue working or whatever it is you’re doing.

Chances are, you’ll forget about that sugar craving. Continue using your will power and the power of your mind to squash those sugar cravings. It may seem like a constant battle at first, but take it one sugar craving at a time. Five minutes at a time if necessary. You can do it!

Create goals in small steps. For example, if you’re addicted to your 10-ounce coffee with 4 sugar packets every morning (or any food craving: McD’s, donuts, French fries), wait an extra hour or two before you indulge.

Do this every day. In a week, skip that coffee every day and wean yourself to every other morning, then twice a week, and then once a week until you’ve gotten past the rough spot.

You can do this with anything you crave. It just takes determination and the desire to change. Make a commitment to feel and look better. Don’t let your sugar cravings control your life. Control your sugar cravings – let them know who’s the boss!

We convince ourselves that a little sweet now and then won’t kill us.

Actually sweets don’t really do anything for us except excite our taste buds. Sugar is considered to be an “empty-calorie” food. Nevertheless, sugar has long been used to help make certain foods more palatable, which should make us wonder why we eat them in the first place.

If they don’t taste good without sugar disguising their taste, what good are they? Most of us don’t even know that sugar is addictive. Yes, you read that right. Sugar is not a natural product. It’s a refined product.

Sugar cane in its raw form contains various vitamins and minerals, but then we process it, refine it to its pristine and white form, which eventually makes into most of the foods we eat and drink without realizing it’s even in there.

Refined white sugar, sucrose, is a nearly indigestible product that cannot be broken down by the body without added help from stored vitamins and minerals in our bodies. What happens when we run low on those? We run out of energy.

After the body works overtime to break down and digest refined sugars found in breakfast cereals, canned or bottled fruit juices, sodas and even our favorite diet shakes, it then enters the bloodstream. There, sugar sets off a chain reaction that starts with our body creating insulin.

So what’s the big deal? Think about this: because the pancreas is working overtime to create that insulin to counteract the effect of that sugar in our bloodstream, it’s not creating glucagon – after all, you can only do so many things at once – a very important hormone that tells our body when to release stores of fat for energy. The end result? Fat!

But wait! There’s more… on top of the confusion in our pancreas, and the inability of our body to burn fat for energy, sugar also wreaks havoc on the body’s ability to regulate its pH balance and create an acidic environment, which leads to feelings of sluggishness and inability to lose weight.

In order to prevent the body from becoming too acidic, the body will pull reserves of calcium from bones and teeth to help maintain a balance, which leaves bones unprotected against conditions such as arthritis and osteoporosis.

In addition, the breakdown of sugar in the body produces pyruvic acid, which has an extremely detrimental affect on cellular structures. Remember that every organ, bone and muscle (including the brain and heart) is made up of cells.

Can you imagine what happens when the capacity of cells to receive vital oxygen is decreased due to such cellular changes?

Well, you might say, then just switch to artificial sweeteners. Unfortunately, these aren’t good for you either. Products like Aspartame, Sucralose and Splenda have long been the topic of controversial positive-negative studies, but the bottom line is that such products aren’t natural and have been linked to a multitude of health issues for those who consume them.

Sugar does more than just rot your teeth. It does more than cause you to loosen a button or two. Sugar ingestion leads to fatty acid formation in the blood, and to settle in vital organs like the kidneys, liver, and heart.

Sugar is an insidious ingredient that causes far more damage to the human body than many people realize. Lack of energy, mood swings, cravings, and weight gain, inability to lose weight… the list goes on.

Reducing or eliminating sugar completely from your diet is the best way to take care of your body and avoid a multitude of medical and health issues.

Sugar has long been considered the most popular sweetener for just about every kind of food or dessert you can imagine, and that’s where the problem lies. We’ve become accustomed to its taste and presence in just about everything from breakfast cereals to canned vegetables.

The truth is that sugar can literally make you sick – it leeches vital minerals and vitamins from the body to help the intestines digest it (no, sugar is not highly digestible in refined form), which leads to compromised bones, teeth, and health of many of our vital organs, including the liver and pancreas. It doesn’t stop there. Excess sugar in our system also throws our body system out of whack.

Too much sugar can create an acidic environment in our body, throwing the pH balance off. As a matter of fact, sugar ingestion has long been linked with a multitude of illnesses and disease processes, including but not limited to diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and tooth decay.

However, that’s not all. Diets high in sugar can lead to excessive amounts of nutrients that may be stored as fat if not burned off in a relatively short period of time.

Remember however, that there’s a difference between the sugar found in a candy bar and the sugars found in fruits. Table sugar is a dense and concentrated sweet that’s loaded with empty calories. Natural sugars found in fruits are simple sugars like fructose and glucose.

The sugar found in table sugar is called sucrose. Compare the amount of carbohydrates found in an orange (26 grams) with those found in 2 Tbsp. of refined white sugar (24 grams).

It must be noted however, that the orange also offers nutritious vitamins and minerals, while the table sugar doesn’t – which is why it’s called an “empty calorie” food.

Excess sugar in the diet leads to the development of kidney stones and hardening of the arteries.

Excess sugar forces vital minerals from places where they’re needed to help digest the sugar, which means they can’t do the job they were originally designed to do.

Because your immune system doesn’t have a back-up system in place while it’s busy breaking down sugary foods, you’re left wide open for attack and infection.

Sure, you might think that a mere 2 tablespoons of sugar every day isn’t going to harm you, but did you know that a mere 2 teaspoons of sugar are enough to throw your body into a quandary?

Sugar also makes you feel slow and sluggish. That’s why most of us feel like taking a quick nap after we’ve eaten a large meal or an especially sugary dessert.

You may not intend to eat so much sugar, but it’s found in so many foods, it’s hard to escape its presence!

For example, did you know that just a small bottle of orange juice contains over 10 teaspoons of sugar, or that a can of tomato soup contains about 8 teaspoons of sugar?

You didn’t? What about that container of yogurt that you ate for lunch, thinking it’s a good diet food? Guess what? A 2/3-cup serving of yogurt contains about 7 teaspoons of sugar.

Sugar consumption should be limited to about 15 grams or less a day, but check out the stats of these food items and see how much sugar they contain:

Fat free yogurt – 17 grams of sugar
Sports drinks - 35 grams of sugar
Energy bar - 20 grams of sugar
Grilled chicken breast with Teriyaki sauce – 30 grams of sugar

Are you starting to see the dangers of a daily food habit where you don’t really know what you’re consuming? And you wonder why you’re always fighting the Battle of the Bulge? It’s no surprise, if you just stop and take a look at the list of ingredients in the common foods you buy and consume every day.

Do yourself, and your body a favor. Read the labels.

We’ve all been there. And I’m sure we can all agree that there’s nothing much worse than the feeling you get when you’re holding your guts in pain because nothing is moving in there, even though you keep running to the bathroom trying for at least a little relief! But all this bloating and cramps and flatulence is more than irritating.

It’s a symptom of a bigger problem with your digestive system. And it all goes back to the colon.

The colon – another topic most people are too embarrassed to talk about, or only mention in whispered tones – is a breeding ground for both good and bad bacteria.

When too much fermentation and putrefaction is produced in the colon by neglecting to keep it in good condition, it is necessary for the waste to be expelled from the body. And that’s exactly why your colon is well-equipped with a very efficient system of elimination.

But there’s a big “if” here – the colon only does what it needs to do if it is in good working order. In a healthy colon environment, the good bacteria will control the bad. But in an unhealthy environment, the bad bacteria rule.

Chronic constipation is unhealthy because toxins are formed and absorbed when waste remains in the intestines. If you consistently find yourself constipated, there are a few things you should and should not do in order to alleviate your discomfort.

Here are the do’s:
•    Eat your main meal early in the day;
•    Drink lots of filtered water – 8 to 10 glasses a day;
•    Chew your food 20-30 times per mouthful and follow food-combining rules;
•    Make a habit of moving your bowels at a certain time each day;
•    While having a bowel movement, use a footstool to elevate your feet;
•    Take hot and cold sitz baths to stimulate abdominal organs;
•    Make sure you get enough sleep;
•    Set time aside each day to relax quietly;
•    Banish those negative thoughts – think positive!

Here are the don’ts:
•    Never eat when you are upset – it’s not good for your digestion;
•    Never overeat;
•    Don’t drink liquids with meals;
•    Don’t take pharmaceutical laxatives;
•    Never put off going to the bathroom;
•    Don’t give in to stress and worry;
•    Don’t suppress your feelings – see above!

The first step in combating constipation is to understand your body cycles. While our bodies consist of complex systems that seem to enjoy throwing us for a loop, there are many constants that we can use to our advantage when working to create a smooth, flowing rhythm in how things work.

So if you want to move things along in the bathroom, there are three cycles you need to be aware of:

Cycle 1: This occurs from the early morning hours through lunchtime (4 a.m. to 12 p.m.). Considering all of the toxins that we come in contact with every day, this cycle should be considered extremely important, because it works to detoxify our bodies and restore the delicate internal balance.

Ideally, cleansing foods should be eaten during this cycle to avoid introducing more toxins into the mix. A good rule of thumb is to keep breakfast light every day, consuming fresh fruits, vegetables and squeezed fruit juices, herbal teas, sprout drinks, nut milk, or seed milk in place of heavy starches and proteins.

Cycle 2: This important cycle hits around lunchtime and lasts until 8 p.m. If you’re feeling low on energy, protein is an excellent way to give yourself a boost at lunch. Combine your protein with vegetables, or eat vegetables plus a starch. Ideally, lunch should be eaten before 2 p.m., with four-hour intervals between meals.

But if you find yourself hungry in the afternoon, spirulina, and high-quality green powder and chlorella are excellent for curbing appetite and increasing energy.

Cycle 3: This is your body’s time for resting and repairing itself, getting ready for another hard day’s work. To help your body out, it’s a good idea if you refrain from eating within three hours of your bedtime. Light snacks are fine if you find yourself hungry, especially things such as seeds, fruits, broths, herb teas and whole food supplements.

While understanding your body cycles is extremely helpful in planning your meals etc. to maintain optimal body functions, performing an occasional cleanse can jump-start your body and keep it running smoothly.

That’s why I’m high on chlorophyll. Found in green foods such as alfalfa, wheatgrass, barley grass, spirulina and blue-green algae, chlorophyll cleanses and heals the digestive tract. Also important are fermented foods such as yogurt, kefir and miso, because they replenish the friendly bacteria needed for a healthy colon.

Also helpful:

•    A glass of lemon and hot water in the morning helps promote normal bowel function;
•    Sauerkraut contains choline, which activates peristaltic movement;
•    Foods rich in magnesium, such as dark green leafy vegetables and figs, draw water into the stools, increasing their volume and softness.