Elwin article from todays Passion magazine:)
15th March 2011
Refined sugar is probably the most dangerous and addictive drug on this planet. There's a brilliant book called Sugar Blues by William Dufty which will forever shatter any illusions you may have about sugar being a harmless indulgence.
I've had many friends and clients who gave up all other drugs, all the stimulants, with relative ease, compared to the struggle of giving up sugar.
With sugar however, most people feel like they just can't manage to quit. It is the real gateway drug, the one that leads to all the other drug addictions. I myself found sugar more difficult to quit than all the other stimulants put together. It made quitting smoking seem easy by comparison. Of course, at the time I didn't have the benefit of the incredible solutions I'm going to share with you in this article.
In fact right now, today, and over the next few weeks, is the perfect time to resolve the sugar issue once and for all. Why is that? Here's an opportunity to find out more about the ancient Taoist perspective on health and healing, and how it can help you right now.
You may be aware that in Chinese medicine, each of the four seasons relates to a particular element and organ system. Spring, which we're about to enter relates to wood and the liver organ system, hence the idea of spring cleaning. Summer relates to fire and the heart organ system, autumn relates to metal and the lung organ system, and winter relates to water and the kidney organ system.
What does this mean in practice? It means that these organ systems tend to get more imbalanced at this time of year, so we should do our best to be aware of this and rebalance them and nurture them as much as we can at this time of year. In the spring it's good to cleanse the liver, in the summer it's important to stop ourselves overheating by drinking plenty of water, in the autumn we need to be aware of getting plenty of fresh air despite the inclination to hide indoors, and in the winter it's important to remember to keep warm. Of course there's a lot more to it than that; these are just examples which you can hopefully easily relate to.
With sugar however, most people feel like they just can't manage to quit. It is the real gateway drug, the one that leads to all the other drug addictions. I myself found sugar more difficult to quit than all the other stimulants put together. It made quitting smoking seem easy by comparison. Of course, at the time I didn't have the benefit of the incredible solutions I'm going to share with you in this article.
In fact right now, today, and over the next few weeks, is the perfect time to resolve the sugar issue once and for all. Why is that? Here's an opportunity to find out more about the ancient Taoist perspective on health and healing, and how it can help you right now.
You may be aware that in Chinese medicine, each of the four seasons relates to a particular element and organ system. Spring, which we're about to enter relates to wood and the liver organ system, hence the idea of spring cleaning. Summer relates to fire and the heart organ system, autumn relates to metal and the lung organ system, and winter relates to water and the kidney organ system.
What does this mean in practice? It means that these organ systems tend to get more imbalanced at this time of year, so we should do our best to be aware of this and rebalance them and nurture them as much as we can at this time of year. In the spring it's good to cleanse the liver, in the summer it's important to stop ourselves overheating by drinking plenty of water, in the autumn we need to be aware of getting plenty of fresh air despite the inclination to hide indoors, and in the winter it's important to remember to keep warm. Of course there's a lot more to it than that; these are just examples which you can hopefully easily relate to.
But isn't there a fifth element?
There is indeed, and while the other four are paired off and balance each other out (water with fire and wood with metal) the fifth element, earth, related to the spleen organ system, is the element of balance itself, having no opposite. The element earth relates to the time between the seasons, when one turns into the other, around the time between the 10th and 30th of March, June, September and December. So we're in one of those times right now, while you're reading this.
Of course, your organ systems can get out of balance for all sorts of reasons, including environmental, what you do, your family history, as well as seasonally. So how can you tell what needs to be prioritised? This is the art of a practitioner of course, to know what to prioritise. It's easy to tell in practice if your organs are out of balance. When the kidneys are out of balance you tend to crave salt and liquids, when the heart is out of balance you tend to crave drama and laugh a lot, when the liver is out of balance you tend to crave alcohol and/or fatty foods, when the lungs are out of balance you tend to crave smoke and/or spicy foods, and when the spleen is out of balance you tend to crave sweet foods.
If you want to find out more about these correspondences, you can download a free chart by clicking here.
Most people tend to crave sweet foods, and most people also have the other symptoms of a weak spleen organ system: digestive problems, lack of muscle mass, excess of body fat and blood sugar problems. Of these, I'd say that blood sugar problems is the most important, leading directly to weight gain, type two diabetes, depression, hypoglycaemia and candida, and indirectly to almost every major disease afflicting us in the 21st Century.
Depression is an interesting one. Most people have been taught that depression is a deficiency in Prozac, and other SSRI's -- this is patently absurd. Although there can be many causes, the root problem is always at least partly a blood sugar imbalance, and looking at this is a great place to start.
If you have these specific issues, you're probably already familiar with the importance of stabilising blood sugar. You probably aren't yet aware however, just how easy it can be if you choose the right approach. For instance, a lot of people on a Candida diet seem to feel they can never eat anything sweet again if they want to be healthy. This is a little like being in AA, where you believe you're doomed to being an alcoholic for life, that it's an incurable disease, and that you're just going to have to suffer without something you love, (and which your imbalanced spleen craves) for the rest of your life, or give up and give in to having serious health problems. Not much of a choice right?
So if that isn't the case, what do you do to heal this blood sugar imbalance?
1. Reduce/remove sugars temporarily
You will need to reduce or preferably remove sugars for a while. Two to three months is a good amount; doing this will be easier than you think if you follow the other steps. What are sugars? Sugar isn't just table sugar, although this is certainly one of the worst forms.
So what is sugar, and what's so bad about it? A sugar under this definition is any simple carbohydrate. Even so-called complex carbohydrates for instance, bread or potato, become simple carbohydrate during the process of cooking. A baked potato actually causes more of a blood sugar spike than table sugar.
The Glycemic Index is a method used by diabetics to measure their blood glucose response to foods. However it can be misleading as it doesn't take into account how much of these foods are actually eaten.
Here is a partial list of sugary foods:
-- Anything containing flour of any kind
-- Cooked potatoes and carrots
-- Anything containing sugar, glucose syrup, high fructose corn syrup, corn starch, starch, maltose, dextrose, sucrose, lactose or maltodextrin should ideally be avoided as if it were contaminated with plague
-- Corn, rice, wheat, rye, barley or anything containing these grains in any form
-- Any form of alcohol
-- Sweet fruits, like banana, pineapple, dates or melons.
Of course, your organ systems can get out of balance for all sorts of reasons, including environmental, what you do, your family history, as well as seasonally. So how can you tell what needs to be prioritised? This is the art of a practitioner of course, to know what to prioritise. It's easy to tell in practice if your organs are out of balance. When the kidneys are out of balance you tend to crave salt and liquids, when the heart is out of balance you tend to crave drama and laugh a lot, when the liver is out of balance you tend to crave alcohol and/or fatty foods, when the lungs are out of balance you tend to crave smoke and/or spicy foods, and when the spleen is out of balance you tend to crave sweet foods.
If you want to find out more about these correspondences, you can download a free chart by clicking here.
Most people tend to crave sweet foods, and most people also have the other symptoms of a weak spleen organ system: digestive problems, lack of muscle mass, excess of body fat and blood sugar problems. Of these, I'd say that blood sugar problems is the most important, leading directly to weight gain, type two diabetes, depression, hypoglycaemia and candida, and indirectly to almost every major disease afflicting us in the 21st Century.
Depression is an interesting one. Most people have been taught that depression is a deficiency in Prozac, and other SSRI's -- this is patently absurd. Although there can be many causes, the root problem is always at least partly a blood sugar imbalance, and looking at this is a great place to start.
If you have these specific issues, you're probably already familiar with the importance of stabilising blood sugar. You probably aren't yet aware however, just how easy it can be if you choose the right approach. For instance, a lot of people on a Candida diet seem to feel they can never eat anything sweet again if they want to be healthy. This is a little like being in AA, where you believe you're doomed to being an alcoholic for life, that it's an incurable disease, and that you're just going to have to suffer without something you love, (and which your imbalanced spleen craves) for the rest of your life, or give up and give in to having serious health problems. Not much of a choice right?
So if that isn't the case, what do you do to heal this blood sugar imbalance?
1. Reduce/remove sugars temporarily
You will need to reduce or preferably remove sugars for a while. Two to three months is a good amount; doing this will be easier than you think if you follow the other steps. What are sugars? Sugar isn't just table sugar, although this is certainly one of the worst forms.
So what is sugar, and what's so bad about it? A sugar under this definition is any simple carbohydrate. Even so-called complex carbohydrates for instance, bread or potato, become simple carbohydrate during the process of cooking. A baked potato actually causes more of a blood sugar spike than table sugar.
The Glycemic Index is a method used by diabetics to measure their blood glucose response to foods. However it can be misleading as it doesn't take into account how much of these foods are actually eaten.
Here is a partial list of sugary foods:
-- Anything containing flour of any kind
-- Cooked potatoes and carrots
-- Anything containing sugar, glucose syrup, high fructose corn syrup, corn starch, starch, maltose, dextrose, sucrose, lactose or maltodextrin should ideally be avoided as if it were contaminated with plague
-- Corn, rice, wheat, rye, barley or anything containing these grains in any form
-- Any form of alcohol
-- Sweet fruits, like banana, pineapple, dates or melons.
How about fruit, and whole grains?
Yes, even these contribute to the problem once you're on the sugar downward spiral. They can simply be reintroduced once the addiction is truly over. Grains have never been optimal foods for humans, though -- we started eating them because they're an easy way to feed large populations in big cities.
Natural fruits, which haven't been hybridised to be excessively sweet, are healthy once the habit is kicked. You can tell if a fruit is hybridised because it will have little or no seeds.
Non-sweet fruits like lemons, limes, avocados and olives are great, they don't spike your blood sugar at all, and are very beneficial to your health and well-being.
The problems with sugars are numerous. It causes our blood glucose levels to spike, which make us temporarily euphoric, (the same as all stimulants do) and then our blood glucose levels crash, causing us to feel really bad. Some people become weak and faint, some turn into Mr Hyde, but everyone suffers, including the people around them, usually.
What's the solution when this happens? It certainly seems like: have more sugar. And so a vicious cycle of dependence and suffering continues that most people never escape during the course of their lifetime. How ironic that the global slave trade was basically built around sugar, and to a lesser degree, its rotten cousin, alcohol (alcohol is rotten sugar). It's as if sugar and slavery go hand in hand, and always have done. Most of us are slaves to sugar addiction.
Natural fruits, which haven't been hybridised to be excessively sweet, are healthy once the habit is kicked. You can tell if a fruit is hybridised because it will have little or no seeds.
Non-sweet fruits like lemons, limes, avocados and olives are great, they don't spike your blood sugar at all, and are very beneficial to your health and well-being.
The problems with sugars are numerous. It causes our blood glucose levels to spike, which make us temporarily euphoric, (the same as all stimulants do) and then our blood glucose levels crash, causing us to feel really bad. Some people become weak and faint, some turn into Mr Hyde, but everyone suffers, including the people around them, usually.
What's the solution when this happens? It certainly seems like: have more sugar. And so a vicious cycle of dependence and suffering continues that most people never escape during the course of their lifetime. How ironic that the global slave trade was basically built around sugar, and to a lesser degree, its rotten cousin, alcohol (alcohol is rotten sugar). It's as if sugar and slavery go hand in hand, and always have done. Most of us are slaves to sugar addiction.
What other problems does it cause? It's when our blood sugar levels crash that drugs become an overwhelming temptation. Why? Because stimulants raise our blood sugar, just like sugar does. Sugar leads to stimulant (drug) addiction for the vast majority of people.
What else? Sugar makes a perfect food for pathogenic micro-organisms, which are organisms which mean us harm, including yeasts, fungi, moulds, bacteria and viruses. A cancer cell consumes four times as much sugar as a normal cell. These organisms, once encouraged with food, like leaving out food for rats, will start to cause havoc to all our bodily systems.
Our liver and pancreas, in charge of managing our sugar levels, may go overboard and make us hypoglycaemic, or collapse entirely causing type 2 diabetes. Metabolising these sugars leaves an acidic residue, which our kidneys struggle to neutralise, and when the kidneys are weak that leaves us feeling anxious, stressed and exhausted. This is only scratching the surface of the potential problems, but let's focus on the solution.
2. Live well
What does this mean? It means exercising moderately, i.e. enough so you feel energised the next day, not exhausted. It also means drinking plenty of fresh spring water and breathing plenty of fresh and as pure as possible air. Enjoy your life and do what you love as much as you can.
3. Supplement smart
You're basically going to crave sugar for two reasons: because you're low on energy in general, or because your blood sugar has crashed.
If you're low in energy in general, then you're probably low on reserve energy, known in Chinese Medicine as Jing,in which case I highly recommend my program, The Easy Exhaustion Cure.
What else? Sugar makes a perfect food for pathogenic micro-organisms, which are organisms which mean us harm, including yeasts, fungi, moulds, bacteria and viruses. A cancer cell consumes four times as much sugar as a normal cell. These organisms, once encouraged with food, like leaving out food for rats, will start to cause havoc to all our bodily systems.
Our liver and pancreas, in charge of managing our sugar levels, may go overboard and make us hypoglycaemic, or collapse entirely causing type 2 diabetes. Metabolising these sugars leaves an acidic residue, which our kidneys struggle to neutralise, and when the kidneys are weak that leaves us feeling anxious, stressed and exhausted. This is only scratching the surface of the potential problems, but let's focus on the solution.
2. Live well
What does this mean? It means exercising moderately, i.e. enough so you feel energised the next day, not exhausted. It also means drinking plenty of fresh spring water and breathing plenty of fresh and as pure as possible air. Enjoy your life and do what you love as much as you can.
3. Supplement smart
You're basically going to crave sugar for two reasons: because you're low on energy in general, or because your blood sugar has crashed.
If you're low in energy in general, then you're probably low on reserve energy, known in Chinese Medicine as Jing,in which case I highly recommend my program, The Easy Exhaustion Cure.
If your energy is more up and down though, it's more likely your particular problem is that your everyday energy, known in Chinese medicine as Chi, is up and down -- and blood sugar imbalance is the main cause of that.
Your body gets its everyday energy from the food you eat, relating to the spleen organ system, and from the air you breathe, relating to the lung organ system. Right now you're learning about the former.
So what supplemental steps can you take that make all the difference?
Magnesium oil
Number one is magnesium oil. Your body requires magnesium to make ATP, cellular energy, the Western way of describing Chi. Around 90% of us are chronically deficient in it. Where can we get it? Food sources aren't enough to reverse a deficiency. Most foods are way too low in it, because modern agricultural methods are based around making money, not healthy human beings. Magnesium oil is by far the most effective way to reverse a deficiency.
You can get some by clicking here and to find out much more about magnesium oil, check out an interview I did with Neil Butterfield, one of the world's foremost experts on minerals, all about this amazing nutrient -- I'm giving it away for free, exclusively for Passion readers only by clickinghere.
Blood sugar support
The name says it all really, doesn't it? What it can't quite convey is just how miraculous this blend can be for balancing blood sugar, and thereby reducing cravings for sweet foods, increasing energy and stabilising it. From this, it is also supporting weight loss, muscle gain, Candida issues and even potentially more serious illnesses like hypoglycaemia and type two diabetes. You can get it by clicking here.
In yet another exclusive free bonus just for you, Neil talks about this blend, and how he's helped countless people using it, even curing his own father of diabetes in approximately two months. You can download this astonishing, 'there's no cure' myth-destroying interview by clicking here.
Strength taoist tonic herbs
Strength works differently; it works by tonifying, or in other wordsstrengthening the spleen organ system. Because of this it also helps to balance blood sugar, increase physical strength, and seems to be especially effective at reducing cravings for sweet foods.
Your body gets its everyday energy from the food you eat, relating to the spleen organ system, and from the air you breathe, relating to the lung organ system. Right now you're learning about the former.
So what supplemental steps can you take that make all the difference?
Magnesium oil
Number one is magnesium oil. Your body requires magnesium to make ATP, cellular energy, the Western way of describing Chi. Around 90% of us are chronically deficient in it. Where can we get it? Food sources aren't enough to reverse a deficiency. Most foods are way too low in it, because modern agricultural methods are based around making money, not healthy human beings. Magnesium oil is by far the most effective way to reverse a deficiency.
You can get some by clicking here and to find out much more about magnesium oil, check out an interview I did with Neil Butterfield, one of the world's foremost experts on minerals, all about this amazing nutrient -- I'm giving it away for free, exclusively for Passion readers only by clickinghere.
Blood sugar support
The name says it all really, doesn't it? What it can't quite convey is just how miraculous this blend can be for balancing blood sugar, and thereby reducing cravings for sweet foods, increasing energy and stabilising it. From this, it is also supporting weight loss, muscle gain, Candida issues and even potentially more serious illnesses like hypoglycaemia and type two diabetes. You can get it by clicking here.
In yet another exclusive free bonus just for you, Neil talks about this blend, and how he's helped countless people using it, even curing his own father of diabetes in approximately two months. You can download this astonishing, 'there's no cure' myth-destroying interview by clicking here.
Strength taoist tonic herbs
Strength works differently; it works by tonifying, or in other wordsstrengthening the spleen organ system. Because of this it also helps to balance blood sugar, increase physical strength, and seems to be especially effective at reducing cravings for sweet foods.
I made this amazing Taoist Tonic Herbal Tea blend available last year, and I know that many of Shazzie's readers have already tried it and felt the benefits. You can find out more by clicking here. Shazzie herself is a big fan of these tonic tea blends.
Even better news is for those who don't like to make or drink herbal teas, or who are away where it's not convenient, there is now another option: Taoist Tonic Herbal Tablets. These tablets are 100% pure and contain no fillers, additives, preservatives, binders etc. The goodness is simply extracted from the herbs by boiling them, bound into a powder with rice flour, as all powder extracts are, then pressed into an easily absorbable tablet. Simplicity itself. Find out more by clicking here.
See how easy that can be? Live well, reduce sugars for a little while, and take a few inexpensive and natural supplements which make reducing sugars a lot easier, and you resolve a problem that many people struggle with for years or decades, without making much progress.
So get going. Spread this amazing news to everyone you feel could benefit, and watch your karma points increase in the karma bank.
One more time, all of the previously mentioned invaluable free information can be downloaded from here.
Even better news is for those who don't like to make or drink herbal teas, or who are away where it's not convenient, there is now another option: Taoist Tonic Herbal Tablets. These tablets are 100% pure and contain no fillers, additives, preservatives, binders etc. The goodness is simply extracted from the herbs by boiling them, bound into a powder with rice flour, as all powder extracts are, then pressed into an easily absorbable tablet. Simplicity itself. Find out more by clicking here.
See how easy that can be? Live well, reduce sugars for a little while, and take a few inexpensive and natural supplements which make reducing sugars a lot easier, and you resolve a problem that many people struggle with for years or decades, without making much progress.
So get going. Spread this amazing news to everyone you feel could benefit, and watch your karma points increase in the karma bank.
One more time, all of the previously mentioned invaluable free information can be downloaded from here.
About Elwin
The founder of Lion Heart Herbs, and Lion Heart Solutions, author of the forthcoming 'Raw Transformation' and creator of 'The Easy Exhaustion Cure for Workaholics and Overachievers'. His mission in life is to assist people to awaken the lion within, to feel passionate about their lives and in charge of their own destiny. www.lionheartherbs.com
The founder of Lion Heart Herbs, and Lion Heart Solutions, author of the forthcoming 'Raw Transformation' and creator of 'The Easy Exhaustion Cure for Workaholics and Overachievers'. His mission in life is to assist people to awaken the lion within, to feel passionate about their lives and in charge of their own destiny. www.lionheartherbs.com
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