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Building a solid foundation is I think the most important thing for someone who is just starting to focus on. Without it you will never see the results that you want to see.

Since modern bodybuilding emerged as a sport a hundred years ago or so, the basics haven’t changed: lift, eat, rest and grow. It’s about understanding and sticking to the core exercises that are the “center” of our strength and keeping it simple.

The squat is a killer exercise that helps build overall mass because it involves multiple muscle groups. Not only do squats build muscles in the legs, hips and lower back, but they also cause your endocrine system to release a burst of hormones, helping to stimulate muscle growth throughout the body. Yeah, your legs are doing most of the work but the entire rest of the body is working in way or another to stabilize the weight. Basically, it’s an exercise that creates a “mass building” environment that promotes growth throughout the body.

The deadlift is one more core exercise that uses more than one muscle group and should be part of good routine. Like squats, the deadlift is a core power movement that uses nearly every muscle in your body to some degree. The main areas of focus are the back and thighs but you’ll see gains just about everywhere both because of the involvement of other muscle groups and the release of hormones that stimulate overall muscle growth.

The bench press is the other core area where guys need to keep their focus. It is the key exercise that is going to build a strong, powerful chest. To build mass go for heavier weights with fewer reps before using medium weights with higher reps.

Since your goal in doing these and other exercises is to gain mass then you ought to understand the concept of progressive overloads. It refers to gradually increasing the stress placed on the body during weight training. The technique is also used in strength training, high intensity training (HIT) and even physical therapy programs. Why? Because it works. The fact is that our muscles will only grow when they are challenged and called upon to exert a greater magnitude of force-it’s the nature of the human body’s adaptive processes.

Progressive overload forces your body to change because you are continually challenging your muscles to do more work than what they’re used to doing. There are lots of different ways to use progressive overload: increasing weight, increasing the number of sets, increasing the number of reps, decreasing rest time, or just increasing intensity. If your goal is to get big though, you should focus your overloads on higher weights/fewer reps followed by medium weights, increasing the number of reps.

And while it’s a great technique, progressive overload won’t keep working forever. Eventually, you’ll see diminishing returns on your efforts. When bodybuilders repeatedly use the same training method over and over trying to raise their strength level, they eventually stall and hit a plateau. This is completely normal-it happens to everybody now and then. The conjugate method is a technique to avoid that stall or get past the plateau. The conjugate method is a system of weight training developed in the USSR and popularized by the Westside Barbell club in Columbus, Ohio. The word “conjugate” literally means “to join together.” With that bit of knowledge if you’re deducing that the conjugate method is a “joining together” of multiple techniques, then you’d be correct.

Using the conjugate method, individual lifting exercises are linked together, enabling you to increase the amounts of weight you can lift thus gaining more muscle. The key though is that each of the exercises has to be close in nature to each other. In other words, you’re using multiple techniques to directly and indirectly target specific areas. When you stop seeing the results from what you’re doing, then you choose exercises that hit the muscle groups from slightly different angles. This keeps things fresh and enables you to continuously see gains.

The last bit of advice I would have for guys just starting out or getting back into training is that it is absolutely essential to get the form and technique right. Not only is it crucial to getting results but it is equally important to avoiding injury. By cheating, anyone can lift more weight but that doesn’t help increase your strength or build muscle. All it does is waste your time and lead to injuries. You’ve got to make sure that your form and technique are correct before increasing the weight. So get the form right, stick to the basics, focus on the core areas and don’t give up and you’ll get the results you want.

1. January: Continue to exercise or start a new program. Exercise helps maintain your weight and keeps your metabolism working. If you need some support consider hiring a personal trainer. Take Vitamin D capsules as we don’t get enough natural sunshine in the winter, unless you live in Hawaii!

2. February: Watch how much food you’re eating. While it is cold outside and we crave warming foods, the pounds can creep up on you in the winter if you’re not careful. Hire a nutritionist or health coach if you need some guidance.

Lightly cooked vegetables such as kale, collard greens and Swiss chard are great at this time of year. They can be stir fried with a little bit of olive oil and some onions and garlic. These dark leafy greens provide our bodies with the vitamins and minerals that we need.

3. March: Get ready for spring, start moving your exercise routine outside. Go for a walk, a jog or a bike ride. Make sure to add whole grains to your diet every day. Whole grains include oats, millet, barley, brown rice and quinoa. Whole grains can be eaten for breakfast, just add fruit or nuts for a complete meal.

4. April: Consider a spring time cleanse to clear your body of all the heavy foods you’ve eaten during the winter. Cleansing does not have to mean fasting there are a range of options available such as juice & vegetables cleanses and Ayurvedic cleanses that allow you to eat very light meals.

5. May: Add spring vegetables (artichokes, arugula, and peas) to your diet.

6. June: Enjoy the strawberries and other berries that come into season, these are low sugar fruits that are high in antioxidants. Don’t forget your sunscreen and make sure you’re using ones that have only natural ingredients.

The Environmental Working Group publishes a list of the best sunscreens every year; you can find it on their website at: http://www.ewg.org/2010sunscreen/

7. July: Enjoy the bounty: basil, tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers, corn, cherries, blueberries and peaches. Eat lots of raw vegetables, such as salads, which are cooling to your system and easy to digest. Add some avocadoes for a source of health fat.

8. August: Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate…Water is so important during the heat of the summer. Add lemon, lime or orange to your water for a twist. Try coconut water which is high in potassium. Coffee and caffeinated tea does not count as water, as they are dehydrating to your body.

9. September: Peaches, pears, plums are ending and its apple season. Applesauce is very easy to make and can be frozen for the winter, see my recipe below. As the weather starts to cool down it’s time to prepare for the fall.

10. October: This is great hiking weather, get out there and see the fall foliage or consider a long bike ride. Start eating root vegetables such as parsnip, turnips, rutabagas, and sweet potatoes. Root vegetables keep us feeling grounded as we go from autumn into winter.

11. November: Fall squashes are plentiful try one you haven’t had before like delicata or kabocha. Most squashes can be cut into cubes and baked in the oven with a little olive oil for 30-45 minutes. Squash is also great for making soups such as butternut and pumpkin soup.

12. December: You made it through another wonderful year, celebrate your health. Concentrate on you and reducing stress, try a meditation class or yoga. It is easy to gain weight from eating too much at holiday parties. Stick to healthy choices at home and at parties. Healthy snacks include carrots, celery sticks, mixed nuts, fresh or dried fruits, unbuttered popcorn.

Recipe: Home Made Applesauce

Apples are in season but some people have trouble digesting apples due to their acidity levels. Cooking apples may make them easier to digest.

1. 3-5 lbs apples. Mix the variety of apples for the best flavor.
2. Peel and core the apples, cut into quarters.
3. Put the apples in a pot with 1/2 inch of water under a medium flame, cover with lid.
4. When the water starts to boil, remove lid and cook for 30 minutes until apples are tender.
5. Mash apples with a fork.

Add cinnamon to taste.

Here are some interesting information about losing weight and building muscle!

Do you always gain weight when you start training?

Often and without being aware of it, it is common that a person who starts exercising eat more and larger portions, since exercising makes you hungry. This in turn increases your weight. Another thing is that your muscles are made up from about 70% water, which also makes you heavier. However, once you continue exercising, in combination with a balanced diet, you will soon start to lose weight.

If you want to lose weight, should you start of with just eating less and not do any exercise in the beginning, or is it better to combine your diet with exercise?

It’s not just about losing weight, but also about all the additional health benefits that you get from exercising, like being able to live a long and healthy life, reducing the risk of lifestyle diseases as type diabetes, cardiovascular disease or certain forms of cancer. You also get a better mental well-being, better sleep, a stronger immune system, a stronger body, more energy and you become more flexible, and much more. Try to look at it in a broader perspective than simply being thin. Exercise combined with a balanced diet have been shown to produce the best results.

Do you want to exercise, and include some weight training, but without building big muscles?

Don’t worry. Building muscle is hard. It is mainly genetics that determines if you find it easy to build muscle or not. Building muscle requires tremendous work, discipline and a well-planned diet. But adding some strength training into your exercise program will have many benefits. You get stronger, you increase your combustion, fat burning and metabolism. You increase your body control and increase your well-being. You can ask for advice and get some help if you train at a gym. There are ways to do weight training without adding lots muscle mass to your body.

I do some weight training about 4 to 5 times per week and I also don’t want to build really big muscles. For me, working with less weight and doing more repetitions works great.

If you are a woman and want to lose weight and get slimmer legs, what kind of training should you do?

You have to burn fat and to some extent also muscle mass. A great way to do this is by long cardio sessions, for example, running for at least 60 minutes (preferable longer) or by taking long walks. But remember, the shape of your legs are mostly down to genetics. When you exercise for more than one hour, your energy reserves stores in your body runs out. Then, the body create energy by breaking down fat and in the next phase it breaks down the proteins found in our muscles. That is why, for example, distance runners are very slim. But remember, this training must be built up over a long period of time to minimize the risk of injury and for your body to adjust to long workouts.

Are you looking for the best way to get a flat and toned stomach?

The best way to achieve this is by doing cardio. To get a flat stomach, you have to get rid of the fat covering up your muscles there. This is done with any type of exercise that raises your heart rate for a long time. The time of the session is determined from how experienced you are and what kind of activity you do.
Fitness training should be combined with strength training (which also increases your combustion). Train your whole body. As for abdominal exercises, they should be as varied as possible.

Do you want burn fat and build muscle simultaneously?

Burning fat and build muscle simultaneously is a little bit like using the throttle and break at the same time. It depends on how much muscle you want to build and how much fat you want to burn. For example, to build two pounds of muscle and burn three pounds of fat, at the same time, is possible. However, to do this requires meticulous planning of food intake and exercise. However, if you want to build ten pounds of muscle and burn fifteen pounds of fat, you should divide your training into several periods. One period for building muscle and one for combustion.

What is the type of exercise for burning fat? Is it high-intensity exercise, like running, or low intensity exercise, like walking?

The majority of training to burn fat, should be low intensity. This trains the body to use fat as it’s energy source.

Fat is stored in three places in your body. Just under the skin, in your muscles and around the internal organs. High intensity training burns fat in the muscles. During low intensity training you burn more of the fat directly under your skin. However, you have a post-combustion from high intensity training which also burns fat. What determines what type of training you need to do to get the result you want is your training experience. Be sure to build up your training over a long period of time. Think long-term and you get lasting results.

You can find this article and more on http://www.whatmumdidnttellyou.com

One of the most common complaints dieters have is the lack of energy, zest or vitality they feel when on a diet. This is the most classic symptom of a poor nutrition plan and it should be the red flag warning you to halt whatever it is that you’re doing.

In reality, the best way to gauge the effectiveness of your weight loss system is through the energy and motivation you feel while taking it on. If you are not actively engaged, excited and active in your health and fitness goals, you will never achieve weight loss success. This article explains how weight loss and energy, when applied properly, are an essential pairing in the pursuit of your goals.

Think of your body as a battery that recharges every night when you go to sleep. Most people require 6-8 hours of sleep every night to attain the absolute best restorative benefits that sleep offer, but for a lot of us that much time off is out of the question. Our busy lives have made it almost impossible to give our bodies everything it needs in one way; the good news, however, is that this problem is easily solved through the foods you eat.

Most flash diets ‘work’ by isolating and/or eliminating the elements of your meals; we see this most prominently in the low carb, high protein diets that so many have tried and ultimately failed with. These diet food plans inevitably come up short because they leave us exhausted, depressed and therefore liable to return to the poor habits that brought you to the diet in the first place. Further, they deny the fundamental principle that energy and weight loss go hand in hand.

The first indicator that anyone should have to know that they are losing weight properly is not on the scale; rather, it is in their liveliness and energy.

It is absolutely crucial to fill your body with the right mix of complex carbohydrates, protein and fat. A generally good guideline is to make your meals high in carbs (yes, carbs), moderate in protein and low (but not depleted of) fat. Your meals should fall within 100 calories of each other; that means no small breakfasts, no evening feasts and absolutely no skipped meals, in fact you should be eating 5 meals daily.

This is about sustaining a consistent and efficient fat burning machine within your body, it’s not about fancy foods or miracle drinks; it’s real, scientific, systematic weight loss. And it lasts. Fuel your energy and the weight will stay off.

In the West, the term ‘yoga’ is often used to refer to asana classes, doing yoga poses, which are really only part of the path of yoga. Yoga actually means “union” which refers to both the path and the goal, which is the union of the body, mind and spirit, or of the individual soul and universal soul.

Traditional asanas are only one part of the practice of yoga – there are 7 other ‘limbs’ (as in a tree) of yoga, including meditation and pranayama (breathing exercises.) Asana, pranayama and meditation are meant to be woven together. They are interconnected and support each other, and are each necessary for the others and for the entire yoga path.

Asanas
Asanas are the physical poses practiced in yoga. There are thousands of asanas in the practice of yoga, but only about 100 are in active use by yogis all over the world. Asanas stretch and internally massage the entire body, with twisting, bending, and holding accompanied by periods of relaxation. At all times, asana should be a comfortable and steady pose. Asanas fulfill several functions: they promote strength, flexibility, and muscle tone, creating a generally stronger, healthier body. They also enhance the flow of prana, life energy, in the body.

Pranayama
Pranayama is a Sanskrit word which is translated as “control of the breath” or “control of the life force.” It refers to a series of breathing exercises from the simple to the complex which are an integral part of the practice of yoga. You can practice pranayama as an isolated technique, or integrate it into your daily hatha yoga routine. Pranayama is also an important part of meditation. Pranayama practice makes the mind calmer and more focused.

Meditation
While it’s generally agreed that the goal of meditation is to experience enlightenment, there are many different explanations of what meditation actually is, including the simple and exact process of learning to know yourself as you really are and a process of giving your full attention to whatever object you have chosen. Overall, meditation is anything that brings us into the present and keeps us there.

Outside in and inside out
Geshe Michael Roach (Tibetan Book of Yoga, 2004) describes the process of working simultaneously from the outside in and the inside out as similar to plumbing. To unclog a blocked pipe, we have to poke something down the pipe to help open the flow, and also bang on the outside to loosen the blockages. Asana balances and enhances the functioning of the body, breath, mind, and spirit by manipulating our external self (the body) to influence the whole Self from the outside in. Pranayama also works also from the outside in – calm breathing calms the mind and improves the functioning of our entire system. Working from the inside, meditation will make you aware of the reality deep within and lead you to a state of inner joy.

Due to increasing innovation, more machines for body fitness are coming in the market with different features. People are also becoming more dependent on the machines and diverting from the natural fitness methods. These fitness machines cost a lot of money and difficult to maintain. However, the fact is that natural home methods are more effective as they don’t charge money and give you the same outcomes. In this article, you’ll find some effective methods and techniques that will help you achieve your fitness goals.

Body Weight Work Out

If you have a body weight that is easy to lift up, then it is very easy to achieve your fitness goals. Your body can get a good shape if you are aware of the body weight and capable enough to lift it up. There are many work outs types and exercises that can help you turn your body into a good shape effectively.

Push Up

Push up is the most popular exercise type in the fitness program. In push up, all of your body parts get work out such as back, arms, legs, chest, and core to a great level. It is called a total body exercise. If you are healthy and active, you should do 30 push ups at least. If you are not physically activated, then there is a ladies push up for you where you can hold your weight with your knees. In this way, your stamina for push ups will increase slowly and you’ll be able to do it regularly with more repetitions.

Pull Up

Pull up is little complex work out but its outcomes are dramatic. For the upper part of body, it is not possible to implement it by everyone. In order to take a start, you need to do pull up your weight to balance the weight. There are two types of grips, the close grip and the wide grips. You have to select one grip that is suitable for you. Set up a pull up bar in your home but make sure that it is installed in an effective way to hold up your body weight.

Core

Without a core, your entire body work out is never said to be completed. To do this work out, you should lie downward and fold your legs at your knees. Grasp your hands behind your head and raise it slowly. Keep your speed moderate and don’t be so quick.

Building muscles is much easier to do when you are armed with the correct knowledge. Building muscles is every man’s dream, whether it’s for looking good or for strengthening the body. Building muscles is not an effortless task. The best way to keep Father Time or Mother Nature from stealing your skeletal muscles is to work out regularly. Without routinely strength-promoting exercise, the average adult loses about one-half pound of muscle every year after the age of 25, at the same time gaining fat weight. The tricky part about building muscles is that you have to eat in excess when bulking up and then cut back your food intake when trimming the extra unwanted fat and sustaining a sculpted look. The key to building muscles is a good excercise program and well balanced diet. Bodybuilding is a science and building muscles is not an experimental process.

Weight

Weight lifting is much more effective for fat loss than aerobics or dieting alone. Weight training with high repetitions of relatively light weights will stimulate and develop muscle fibers. Weight training with heavy weights will develop these muscle fibers and potentially produce significant gains in muscle mass (think of the huge legs you see on world-class sprinters). Weight workouts should ideally be on the heavier side if building muscles is the goal. Weight training for muscle mass also depends on the frequency of the weight training exercises.

Training

Following are a couple of weight lifting tips that I’ve found to be exceptionally effective in building muscles and adding strength as quickly as possible. Most people, when they begin a rep and get trapped near the bottom, they drop the weight against the safety pins or have their spotter help rack it. Instead, they should prolong pushing against that steady weight for a good twenty seconds. While some people can build muscle mass on almost any training routine or diet, most of us can’t. If you get the other components of your training program put together correctly and then add hard work and dedication, you’ll be absolutely amazed at the progress you can make. In order to design an effective weight training program it’s imperative to understand the nitty-gritty of weight lifting. Stressing the muscles, resting, then increasing the stress level placed on the muscles and the repetition of this process (progressive overload) is the basic philosophy behind weight training designed for building muscles. The beauty of only training with weights every few days is that the days in between full-body workouts can be used to add a few cardio sessions instead of relying on ineffective cardio added on at the end of a workout.

Bodybuilding Basics

A Body builder’s aim is to enhance their muscles to their fullest capability, or at least to the point with which the body builder believes is enough, depending on whether they are training for fitness, general exercise or in pursuit of a sport. There is a need to push that exercise and training in order for the body to grow and to be able to cope with the muscles that will develop as the body builder gains muscles and weight. In weight training specifically, the person needs to continually push themselves in order for the muscles to build. There are many training programs that assure huge muscles in about three weeks. Adding more reps and sets to your regular training program is essential for this to occur. For those individuals who want to increase their muscle size, they’ve got to shock their muscles by introducing drastic variations in their exercise routines, focusing on individual muscle groups and training by introducing multiple sets in their regular routine.

The kernel of truth here is this: Learning about building muscles is a very simple subject. It turns out, building muscles is a lot easier once you begin a muscle building diet and start taking muscle building supplements. Don’t forget that the key to building muscles is to have a proper nutrition plan or else you won’t make motivating gains. Regardless of what the actual percentages are, the point is that building muscles is next to impossible without a good nutrition plan.

3 Keys To Reverse The Aging Process

Regenerative nutrition is essential to living a healthy life but to reverse the aging process we must let thy food be thy medicine and thy medicine be thy food. Food is supposed to be our healer; offering the essential vitamins, minerals & nutrition we so desperately need for proper biological function & over all wellness. Western society is the most overfed and undernourished society on the planet. Our cells are crying out for bio-available nutrition they can use to perform over 3,000 biological functions.

To reverse the aging process we need to address key factors that cause aging, degradation and disease: Inflammation, Cellular Oxidation & Immune System Imbalance.

1. Cellular Oxidation due to free radical damage: Regenerative nutrition can and will repair, as well as activate the youth regenerating genes necessary for longevity & health. We have around 52 “youth genes” that go dormant between the ages of 19-25. As these genes that once helped us grow, build muscle, balance hormones etc become dormant, we start aging & getting older.

To literally turn those youth genes back on we need a very powerful & concentrated formulation of pure trans resveratrol, quercetin, catechins & polyphenols. In the proper ionic solution and concentrated blend, these natural nutrients become an elixir for longevity. Science has found that this synergistic blend of natural ingredients can and will “switch the youth genes back on” and reverse the aging process. How would you like to live well into your 90′s and beyond, healthy & disease free? It is possible. How about reversing diseases with powerful regenerative nutrition like this!? People are having truly miraculous results.

In biology, regeneration is the process of renewal, restoration, and growth that makes genomes, cells, organs, organisms, and ecosystems resilient to natural fluctuations or events that cause disturbance or damage. Every species is capable of regeneration, from bacteria to humans. We just need to give our cells the proper amounts of vitamins, trace minerals & fulvic acid necessary for regeneration & repair.

2. Immune System Stabilization: As our cells are constantly attacked by 1000′s of free radicals every minute our immune system can get out of balance and start attacking our own healthy cells. By boosting our immune system with regenerative nutrition like fucoidan we can better fight aging, degradation & disease.

Fucoidan is a natural nutrient found in brown seaweed. The Chinese refer to it as “Virgin Mothers Milk” because it contains all the same nutrients and antibodies as breast milk. Due to recent events, please be sure your source is contaminant free.

3. Inflammation: To reverse the aging process we also must address inflammation; one of the most damaging of all. Hidden inflammation is the cause for many diseases and accelerated aging. We can use regenerative nutrition like Fucoidan to stop this inflammation. Fucoidan is considered the most powerful natural anti-inflammatory. This one nutrient has over 800 published studies on it’s ability to regenerate healthy stem cells (the hole grail to living healthy), prevent and treat cancer, fight inflammation, etc.

These 3 factors: Inflammation, Immune Imbalance & Cellular Oxidation cause accelerated aging. By addressing these issues with highly effective regeneratve nutrition we can reverse the aging process.

It is not about the years in the life, but the LIFE in the years!

If you’re even remotely interested in improving your overall health and fitness levels through vitamins, supplements and minerals then chances are you’ve heard of Herbal Life. Just in case you haven’t, Herbal Life is a very large, worldwide diet and nutrition company. Since the early nineteen eighties they have been helping people to lose weight and supplying them with health products. Their products are now available in Canada the UK and the US. They supply a wide range of health and diet related products and herbal life vitamins. Although they supply a good range of vitamins they are not medical experts so you should always check with your doctor to find out which are the best vitamins for you to take.

If you are thinking that you need to become a bit healthier, then you should also think about improving your diet and working out regularly. In addition to this you might want to take some herbal life vitamins or supplements to make sure that you are getting the right amount of nutrients. There is no quick and easy way of getting healthy, but if you eat well and get a bit more exercise then you will be well on your way to making some improvements.

A lot of people think that it is just enough to take some herbal life vitamins and that it will make a real difference to their health, but you need to eat well and work out to see the real benefits. Of course most of us don’t really want to change our lifestyles completely, but if you just make a few changes at first and then a few more later on will be surprised at how it all adds up and fairly soon you will begin to see some real benefits.

If you are thinking of changing you diet or starting to do more exercise then it is always a good idea to see your doctor first. If they give you a check up they will be able to give you a better idea of what you need to change in order to improve your levels of health and fitness and if you need to just improve your diet or if it would be good for you to take some herbal life vitamins to maintain your levels of vitamins and minerals.

If you are thinking of increasing your exercise or of changing your diet it is a good idea to begin slowly, if you try to do everything at the same time then you are much more likely to be put off. So start slowly and see your doctor first and you could be on the way to becoming a lot healthier.

The most important contribution to our preventive health program is to read our body signs. To do this we need to understand the different parts of our body system. Health, nutrition and easy diet begin with understanding our digestion system. It will help us realize the critical importance of nutrient deficiencies and why we need to make corrective changes in our food habits and diet intake.

Before undertaking any major alternative health program and adding supplements to your diet, check any matters of concern that you may have within your body. Your doctor or health professional will help to create a beneficial program for your individual need.

One of the main contribution to our food intake is our digestive system. The human digestive tract was designed to process the enzymes delivered by our foods. It was not designed for the unnatural influx of complex varieties of foods to which we have subjected our body today. Most abdominal distress is caused by complex and multiple-course meals, simultaneous varieties, improper foods combination which end up in undigested and putrified foods left in our digestive system.

When we do not digest our foods well, we render the digestive enzymes ineffective which leaves petrified foods and poisons. This causes allergic effects and creates gastric problems that require relief antacids. Indigestion causes chronic abdominal distress, bloating, gas, stomach and colon discomfort, aches and pains, vomiting, diarrhea and headaches.

Digestion consists of basically two different processes. One is mechanical which begins in the mouth and involves the chewing, swallowing and then the churning of our foods. The other is physiological as it passes through the digestive tract which includes the chemical changes undergone by foods.

What are those enzymes you might ask and why are they important? An enzyme is a physiological protein molecule that breaks down and splits up foods into chemicals in preparation for assimilation into the bloodstream. It is then delivered for specific usage by the living cells in our body. The elimination of other foods substances then takes place through the large, the ascending, the transverse and the descending colons, the sigmoid and finally the rectum.

This is not a lesson on enzymes, etc., but it helps to look at their parts played in the digestive system, in order to point out the importance of eating right. There are specific types of enzymes. For example, experts in the field tell us that amylase is an enzyme that acts upon carbohydrates and breaks down starches into sugars. It is present in the saliva where it begins its digestive process.

Another type of enzyme is lipase which acts upon fats. Pepsin acts upon proteins, reducing them to peptides; it can initiate digestion in all kinds of proteins and in different stages of protein digestion; pepsin acts only in an acid medium and is destroyed by alkali, cold drinks and alcohol.

Erepsin, found in the intestinal and pancreatic juices take action only on the peptids (pepsin-reduced proteins) and polypectids. These are then reduced to amino acids. (Amino acids = nitrogen containing acids. Acid = a sour substance water-soluble chemical compound which reacts with a base to form a salt). Ptyalin is found in the mouth saliva (saliva is an alkaline fluid).

Why go into all this sample detail? Simply because it sometimes takes this to make us realize the critical importance of eating the right foods. Since enzymes are found in protein and complex carb foods like fresh fruits, raw vegetables, and legumes, it goes without saying that if we do not eat enough of these foods, we will interfere, obstruct, impede and hinder our digestive system.

Respecting our fearfully and wonderfully made body and changing our eating habits from junk foods to wholesome nutritious foods will heal us from many a disease, illness and ailment. We’re talking about phyto-nutrients that affect every cell in the body; the difference between foods full of chemicals and foods full of natural enzymes do indeed affect the system in a big way./dmh