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.

It has been determined that a high concentration of sugar in the blood is likely responsible for cross-linking and any foods that have such a high concentration, such as sodas, should be generally avoided.

Inflammation can also be caused when foods high in sugars, known as high glycemic level foods, are ingested. This process will also release a high proportion of free radicals into the body.

Total holistic health solutions suggest a balanced, if not defensive approach to nutrition as we age. Foods which are known to be problematic should naturally be avoided, but we tend to avoid taking an overall view of holistic nutrition and often take shortcuts due to our busy schedules. It is unfortunate that we often put good health far down the list of priorities, until we suffer an unfortunate wake-up call of some kind. We can deduce from this that we do not prioritize our lives correctly and should put good health and longevity right at the top of the list.

There are enough medical and scientific studies around to show us that the ingestion of saturated fats and high levels of cholesterol are significantly bad for our health and cause premature aging. Sugar may be one of the silent killers, as it is not regarded with such anticipation as those foods which are high in fat. The truth is that sugar has zero nutritional value and has been shown to cause a spike in appetites as well.

Further studies by dermatologists suggest that eating sugary foods can significantly contribute to the development of wrinkles. Once again it is found that when glucose enters the bloodstream it attaches to the proteins used by the body to keep our skin supple and affects their ability to perform. In such situations collagen and elastin are no longer able to help us in our battle against a weathered look.

Aging should be a natural process and we should not contribute to its acceleration. If we were to treat our bodies as a temple and take a much more educated look at what we eat or drink on a daily basis, then we would feel more productive and more able to take on the trials and tribulations that life presents to us each day. Many people preach that caloric restriction extends life expectancy by keeping the flow of insulin in check. Sugar addiction can cause insulin levels to become highly elevated and it follows that we will age before our time, unless we’re careful.