“How Clays Work – Science & Applications of Clays in Health & Beauty” is my second book in the Mineral Healing books series published on Amazon. The book is available both on Kindle and as a hard copy.
How Clays Work – Science & Applications of Clays in Health & Beauty
Target Weight Loss – 11 Weeks to Go
I started the 90-day Low Carb Challenge a week ago. Losing 3kg has inspired me, but I haven’t met my weekly target weight loss goal yet. There are tweaks I need to make. One of them is being disciplined. I need to plan and record my food intake every day, not once aweek as I am doing now. I know I can do it. After all, I am now firmly off sugar and carbs like bread, pasta and other starchy foods. I don’t even crave them anymore, which helps a lot.
My target weight loss for the next 10 weeks
My target weight loss is 10kg (about 22 lbs). I have about 10 weeks to achieve it (I am deliberately not counting 2 weeks – to make allowances for when I don’t meet the target). It means that I need to lose 1kg a week (2.2 lbs) on average. This is achievable I think, but I will have to see. Judging by the results of the past 3 weeks, I am not sure, since my weight loss has slowed down. In fact, I haven’t lost any weight since the initial loss of 3kg. …Continue Reading
“Surviving in a Toxic World” – Book Coming Out Soon
I have been quietly working on my new book – “Surviving in a Toxic World”. I thought I should keep it to myself until the book was published, but then decided to share it with you – both to keep myself on track and also to let you know what was coming. The subject is too important to my heart and too urgent to procrastinate with it. I will explain why it is urgent shortly.
What is the book about?
90-day Low Carb Challenge & My Keto Bread Basket
Low carb toasted tortilla chips with chilli dip
Today I got a reminder that the 90-Day Low Carb Challenge hosted by Lynn Terry starts on 5 September (see details below). I signed up for it some time ago, and have been looking forward to it, so feeling excited!
I believe that it’s a good idea to run the Low Carb Challenge for 90 days, since habits take time to acquire. Plus, 90 days is long enough to see considerable results. And what better time to find yourself lighter and healthier than before Christmas? 😉
My own “Low Carb Challenge” – update
My Low Carb Nutrition – Gains & Losses So Far
In one of my previous posts about low carb nutrition, I shared concerns about not losing weight. Having read Dr Mercola’s articles, I had come to a conclusion that I was eating too much protein. This would have been replacing the energy my body was not getting from the missing carbs – and interfering with ketosis. This would have been stalling my weight loss. Plus – eating too much protein is almost always bad for the kidneys!
Back to tracking nutrients
I started recording every day what had been going into my mouth using MyFitnessPal, and yes – I had indeed been eating too much protein. I had to make changes fast if I were to get on track with my weight loss! So I continued recording and adjusting the carb/fat/protein ratio. I discovered that I was eating twice the daily recommended amount of protein, half the amount of recommeded fat and a bit too many carbs (my goal was 16 grams, and I was eating about 23 grams every day).
My Low Carb Journey – Macronutrients & Calories
My low carb cheese cake with almond flour, cream cheese, coconut flour, eggs & stevia.
I have been analysing my nutrient intake since I started tracking my macronutrients with MyFitnessPal, and have made a few discoveries which I believe have been affecting my weight loss.
My protein intake has been too high!
Apart from learning from Lynn Terry’s TravelingLowCarb.com blog, I have also been doing research online about eating low carb and science behind it. I love science and always try to learn how things work in our body and why. This is what made me do some more search and learning.
One of my favourite authors is Dr Mercola. He writes a lot about low carb nutrition, from the point of view of science. So he says that when we start eating low carb we should strictly monitor our protein intake, since excess protein can do irreversible damage to kidneys. This is what Lynn keeps saying too.
25 Health Benefits of Transdermal Magnesium Therapy
Transdermal Magnesium Therapy is not a new thing. It has been around for quite some time. Dr Mark Sircus wrote an excellent book on the subject – named “Transdermal Magnesium Therapy”.Dr Carolyn Dean and many other authors have also described in detail benefits and applications of magnesium salts for health and vitality.
Magnesium is the 4th most abundant mineral in the body. Without it:
- 300+ body processes would be impossible.
- Our cells could not produce energy without magnesium.
- Toxins would not get eliminated. Bones and teeth could not be formed.
- Our heart and muscles would simply go into spasm.
- The food we eat could not get converted into energy.
Quick & Easy Home Remedies for Constipation
Are you constipated? Read on…
We all get occasional problems with constipation. Most of us keep it to ourselves, being so embarrassed that we don’t even ask for help when it is needed. Let me address the “embarrassment” factor first though. If we look at our stool movements as a natural process which happens in our body in order to keep us alive, we will be able to see that there is nothing embarrassing about it at all.
This is not to say that we should broadcast it to the world, but taking the “embarrassment” out of the subject means that we can discuss it without going red in the face, at least with health professionals. It is a lot easier to treat constipation when at an early stage – by simply adjusting our water intake and nutrition, than using prescription medicines.
Why Am I Still Not Losing Weight Eating Low Carb Food?
Egg muffins with spinach, bacon and cheese
It has been two weeks into my low carb journey. Although I am not losing weight eating low carb food yet (more about it later), I can report several positive shifts in the way I feel:
1. The “brain fog” has now gone. Are you familiar with what it feels like? In case you are not, it is a heavy, muddy and sticky feeling. I used to get so frustrated with it that if I could “vaccum” my brain of the “fog”, I would. It’s the most unpleasant feeling where a mild headache is combined with inabilty to think clearly. I guess there is a reason it is called “brain fog”! 😛
Why Am I Not Losing Weight Eating Low Carb?
Low carb almond flour and plum tart
It’s been 9 days since I started my low carb journey. I have been warned by Lynn Terry at her Low Carb classes not to get obsessed with the weight and forget about the scales for a while, but… You know – I just coulnt’s help it! I did stand on the scales 2 days ago (7 days into my new routine) and was horrified to see that I actually gained about half a pound in weight. 🙁
Of course, it’s not a big deal, considering body water fluctuations etc, but I was expecting at least a small shift! I got pretty upset. 🙁 So upset that I went hungry for much of the day yesterday, and then ate a box of sushi and a whole punnet of strawberries! And then I calmed down and started thinking. …Continue Reading
My Low Carb Journey – Slow Transformation
It has been eight days since the beginning of my low carb journey into a lighter, healthier me. I have decided not to use the scales for now – at least not until I see substantial changes. So I cannot update you on how many kilos I have lost (if any). I guess I have lost a few pounds, since the ring on my ring finger which used to sit pretty tightly can be easily taken off. Is it fat or water? I don’t know and to be honest don’t care. Although little gains cheer me on, they won’t distract me from the main goal – to see massive results from my low carb journey!
Having to do without my favourites
Eating Low Carb – Five Days On…
It has been five days since I started eating low carb, so I thought I’d post an update about what I have been eating and how it made me feel. I must admit that it has been a bit of a rollercoaster, both physically and emotionally! Here is how it all started…
Feeling sick
Two days into eating low carb I started feeling sick. It was a nagging feeling of nausea. I did read about the “keto flu”, so considered it too. But I feel that I felt sick because of such a drastic change to what I had been eating, plus mistakes made in my first days of eating low carb.
Low Carb Diet – Why I Have Decided to Give it a Try
I have known about the Low Carb diet – also known as the Atkins or Ketogenic diet – for many years. Having read about it mostly from the sources critical of it, I decided some time ago that it was probably not for me. I had read some scare stories about how dangerous the low carb diet can be to health, and it was enough to make me forget about it for a while.
The scares in such stories are mostly linked to kidney damage which can indeed happen when we eat too much meat and other proteins. This leads to a formation of large quantities of substances which kidneys have a problem expelling out of the body. This in turn results in their failure. More about it later, since I realise now that low carb is not about replacing carbohydrates with protein! …Continue Reading
What I Used to Help My Painful Knee
A painful knee is not only uncomfortable – it can literally stop us in our tracks – from doing everyday tasks to being unable to walk and exercise. Besides, it can last for weeks, and sometimes much longer.
Having relied on magnesium salts for well over a decade, I am a huge fan of this simple but powerful remedy. Don’t get me wrong – I am not trying to say that magnesium salt is a cure-all miracle. But it’s pretty close I’d say! 🙂
The more I learn about magnesium, the more I am convinced that many problems would not exist if we were all bathing in magnesium baths or even applying magnesium oil on ourselves at least twice a week.
…Continue Reading
Magnesium Salts for Chronic and Acute Back Pain
Using magnesium salts for chronic and acute back pain has been a subject of discussions and research for a long time. There is no arguing that replacing medications with natural treatments and remedies could save many people from sometimes horrible side-effects which come with taking pain-killers, sometimes very strong.
Back pain affects most people at some point in their lives. In many cases, it has simpe reasons, such as a muscle strain (commonly known as a pulled muscle), ligament or tendon injury, or a herniated intervertebral (“slipped”) disk which may press on nearby nerves causing acute pain.
Back pain that lasts for more than 2 or 3 months is considered chronic. Chronic back pain may have a number of causes, most common of which could be an old injury or degenerative disease (e.g. rheumatoid arthritis, osteoporosis etc).
Heavy Metal Toxicity – What We Can Do to Prevent It
Heavy metal toxicity has been a subject of extensive research for many decades. The industrial progress has brought with itself extensive use of chemicals in all areas of life. It has also intensified the extraction and production of ores, fuel, chemicals, ammunition and many other substances and materials which contain heavy metals. This has in turn created a fertile ground for heavy metal toxicity in all areas of our life.
What is a heavy metal?
Radiation Protection with Minerals
The subject of radiation protection is fast becoming ever more pressing since the Fukushima disaster. The nuclear fallout from the earthquake in Japan is going to be on top of the list for health-conscious people and health professionals for an indefinite period of time. I believe it is important to spread the message of the importance of minerals in protecting us all from radiation, as well as general heavy metal toxicity of the environment we now live in.
It is no secret that the economic progress has led to alarming rises in the number, as well as levels, of heavy metals in the air we breath in, the food we eat, the water we drink. Under normal, healthy environment with nutritionally abundant uncontaminated soil and clean air and water, the body would receive all the nutrients it needs to perform all the cleaning and detoxification procedures efficiently. However, we do not live in an ideal environment, and unfortunately things are not getting any better.
Heart Disease, Stroke & Insomnia – UK Research Findings
Heart disease, stroke and insomnia are directly connected with each other according to the latest reaserch conducted in the UK. Burning the candle at both ends increases your risk of suffering from a stroke or heart disease and dying prematurely, new research suggests.
“If you sleep less than six hours per night and have disturbed sleep you stand a 48 per cent greater chance of developing or dying from heart disease and a 15 per cent greater chance of developing or dying of a stroke,” said Professor Francesco Cappuccio from the University of Warwick Medical School. He also warned: “The trend for late nights and early mornings is actually a ticking time bomb for our health so you need to act now to reduce your risk of developing these life-threatening conditions.”
Which Magnesium Supplement Is Best?
With so much choice available both online and in shops, people often ask themselves a question: which magnesium supplement supplement is best? Shall I use salts or tablets? Which salt shall I use for baths and other skin applications? It is impossible to give the answer which suits everyone, for a simple reason that everyone’s situation is different. So we can take a look at various forms of magnesium, and decision will have to be taken in each particular case based on individual circumstances.
Stress, Magnesium Deficiency & Obesity
The relationship between stress, magnesium deficiency and obesity is quite complex. To understand it, we need to look at the nature of 3 different types of stress, and how they affect us.
Reasons to Use Far Infrared at Least Once a Week
There are many reasons to use far infrared for better health. First of all, far infrared is not some recent technological invention. It is part of nature. The sun emits far infrared, and so do humans and animals. Far infrared is an invisible spectre of sunlight of between 4-1000 microns – the longest of the infrared range. Only the smallest range is useful to us though – 6-14 microns. 80% of far infrared is produced by the sun.
It is not only the sun that produces far infrared – our body does too. When we are ill, the production of far infrared is diminished, which makes the metabolic rate slow down. We start to feel cold and lack energy as a result. Far infrared supports all the life processes in the cell.
How to Lose Weight Using Magnesium Oil
Magnesium is one of the most important minerals in the body, taking part in over 350 body reactions. Without magnesium a cell wouldn’t be able to produce energy, the body wouldn’t be able to make hormones we need to function. Magnesium is one of the most important minerals in metabolising sugars.
Magnesium deficiency leads to stiffness in the muscles and joints, build up of cholesterol plaques in the blood vessels, anxiety, lethargy, depression, poor sleep, water retention, weight gain. If you want to start your weight loss program, make sure that you take ample amounts of magnesium, because without sufficient magnesium levels your body will not be able to produce enough energy to start shedding the pounds.
Natural Zeolite Detox from Heavy Metals & Radiation
With radiation leaking into the environment and the ocean, we need to think about ways to remove heavy and radioactive metals out of the body, and prevent their accumulation in our cells and organs. Natural zeolite detox is one of the best and most effective ways to clear the body from heavy and radioactive metals.
What is zeolite?
Zeolite clinoptilolite has been used for decades in various areas of industry and agriculture due to a number of properties: its ability to absorb toxins and poisons, odours, enrich soils and change their chemical structure, as well as a filtration agent.
Beating the Blues – Natural Alternatives to Antidepressants
Have you noticed how on onset of autumn and winter affects our mood? I notice every year. With rare sunshine, longer nights and clouds dominating the sky, the mood definitely nosedives. Seasonal changes in the way we feel and think are inevitable in most of us. For some people they are not so noticeable, while others dread the end of summer.
The way our body responds to seasonal changes is quite natural both for humans and animals. The word “hibernation” is being used by us regularly – as a joke. But to many animals it is a reality. This is the way the body and mind are naturally designed to respond to an onset of cold, and it hasn’t changed since pre-historic times. Most of us adapt to these changes, and just carry on. Some suffer from low moods when winter comes. There is even a recognised condition called SAD -Seasonal Affective Disorder. …Continue Reading
17 Tips on How to Survive Monday & Enjoy It
I often hear it from my friends, and read it on social media – people complaining about Monday being the worst day of the week. So what is it about Monday that turns us into grumpy unsociable moaners? Is it that the weekend is not long enough, and we don’t have the time to unwind? Or do Mondays have this special bad energy about them? Why do we feel so weary of them? How can we survive Monday?
The problem is that although we take time to relax on our weekends, we fail to prepare ourselves for the week ahead mentally or physically. What can we do to make our Monday more enjoyable, productive and fun? How can we survive Monday?
…Continue Reading
Dehydration – Why It Can Be Fatal. Water for Detox.
Water is a basic and most important nutrient for all living organisms and is critical to life. The human body contains 70% of water. Losing even an insignificant percentage of water results in severe dehydration which can be fatal.
Water supports the digestion of food, absorption, transportation and use of nutrients and the elimination of toxic waste from the body. Water inside us is the ocean which is needed to keep us alive. We can live without food much longer than we can without water.
An average human body contains about 70% of water by body weight. A newborn’s body is about 75%, while some elderly and/ or obese people may have as little as 45% of water. Water content in the body is determined by gender, age, fitness and general health. For example, a male body would normally contain less water than a body of a female. Older people lose water from tissues as they age, so they would have less water in their body than a younger person.
12 Reasons You Need To Start Using Magnesium Oil
We hear a lot about magnesium, and advice from natural health practitioners about the importance of magnesium supplementation. There are loads of articles about it on the web. However, do we really know why it plays such an important role in maintaining our health – and life? What is it about magnesium that singles it out from other minerals?
In this article I will try to summarise why it is that we need is so much – what it does for us and what happens when we don’t get enough of it. For those of you who don’t know what magnesium oil is – it is in fact a highly saturated magnesium chloride solution, which is a salt, and not an oil, but which feels like an oil when applied on the skin – hence the name.
Old Age – Can We Stop the Clock?
The question about the possibility of stopping the clock of ageing is being asked by many scientists all over the world, and the research is ongoing. There are those who believe that it is possible to extend life indefinitely, even though they are still to provide solid proof of it.
At present, we are nowhere near finding a solution to stopping the clock of ageing – not yet anyway. Nevertheless, we can all take steps to extending our own life, and improving its quality, by following these simple common sense rules:
Radioactive Legacy of Fukushima – How to Protect Ourselves from Radiation
Current Situation
The earthquake and the Tsunami in Japan in March 2011 has brought a ticking bomb with it, which I am afraid keeps ticking. It is not widely reported in the news, and I am in two minds about it. On the one hand, the situation will not be helped by many people going into a panic mode, knowing that they cannot do anything about it but rely on their government to put pressure on Japan to make sure that it takes every measure to contain the situation, and let update their own nation and international community about the true state of affairs.
Pain and Inflammation – Natural Alternatives to Ibuprofen
This post was inspired by my daughter developing a very painful condition called coccydynia – a pain in the tailbone (coccyx) which normally results from a fall or sitting down too abruptly. She doesn’t remember sitting down abruptly or falling. Sometimes it happens without any apparent reason actually. But the fact of the matter is that for the past few weeks she has been complaining about sharp pain in the tailbone, when she was sitting and even walking.
This prompted us both to look for solutions. The GP was the first port of call. She went to see the GP twice, and only on the second visit was told what was the cause of her pain, and advised to “sit properly”. Nothing about what “properly” meant. On the third visit, when the pain became absolutely agonising she was prescribed Ibuprofen and another medicine to protect the stomach. …Continue Reading
History of Clay Use in Health & Beauty
Clays have been used by all living creatures since the beginning of life on Earth. Animals and birds eat clays when sick, roll in them to clean their bodies, as well as to free themselves of parasites, heal wounds & ulcers. Ancient Egyptians have been using clays for mummification. Cleopatra used clay from the Nile river and the Arabian desert in her beauty treatments.
There is plentiful evidence of clay use by ancient spas built 3-4000 years ago. Many of these spas still exist and continue using clay. The doctors in the ancient civilisations (Dioscortes, Avicenna, Galen) used clay to treat their patients for many health problems. And they did have very advanced treatments and remedies available to them. ” . . . a hill in the island of Lemnos . . . in the northern Aegean Sea has produced this `earth` . . . reddish-yellow clay . . . from before Theophrastus’ time (372-287 B.C.) down to the present day. According to Dana (System of Mineralogy 689), it is cimolite, a hydrous silicate of aluminum.
20 Common Sense Tips on How to Maintain Healthy Weight
There are a lot of books and articles written about weight maintenance. Many of them contradict each other and common sense itself. As with all the information we get, it needs to go through our own conscious filter which is basically common sense. So here are some tips which I believe in, and which have gone through my own common sense filter.
20 common sense tips on how to maintain healthy weight:
1. Eat healthily – lots of vegetables, fruit, pulses, herbs, salads, raw food, nuts, sprouted grains, fish (if you eat fish of course). Healthy eating is a habit, so give it time. Don’t quit just because you’ve lapsed, and had a cake. Cakes and other treats are ok occasionally. Just not as part of your daily plan. A treat is a treat.
2. Shop for health. Buy the foods which nourish you, not satisfy your cravings.
Causes and Effects of Magnesium Deficiency, and Why It Can Be Dangerous
Magnesium deficiency is commonly caused by and associated with the following factors:
- Stress – physical and mental.
- Certain medications (e.g. insulin, diuretics, some asthma medications, birth control pills, corticosteroids, blood pressure control medicines, etc).
- Extreme physical training.
- Chemical toxins getting into the body from the environment.
How I Cured My Tooth Infection in 3 Days – Without Antibiotics
A few days ago I developed a rather nasty infection – with nagging pain. And it was spreading too… The infection started where I had a root canal treatment 4 years ago. I wasn’t lucky, since the treatment was done really badly, and an infection which developed as a result made me suffer for quite some time. The gum flared up, and became swollen. I had to take antibiotics for it twice.
Since then it has been touch and go. I was advised to have the root canal treatment re-done, but have been too scared to do so, having read that such treatments are rarely successful. So I am still in the thinking mode about it. Maybe the tooth will have to go, since apart from the chronic inflammation, there is also a cosmetic problem – the tooth has become discoloured.
Excess Weight – Facts, Causes, Risks & Some Useful Tips
“Obesity is the heavy accumulation of fat in your body to such a degree that it significantly increases your risk of diseases that can damage your health and knock years off your life, such as heart disease and diabetes. The fat may be equally distributed around the body or concentrated around the abdomen or midriff (apple-shaped) or the hips and thighs (pear-shaped).” http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/health_advice/facts/obesity.htm
BMI, which stands for Body Mass Index, is the weight in kilograms divided by the square of the height in meters (kg/m2). It is a commonly used index to classify excessive weight and obesity in adults. World Health Organisation defines being overweight as a BMI equal to or more than 25, and being obese when a BMI goes over 30.
Chronic Back Pain – Can Magnesium Help?
Chronic back pain can be caused by a number of factors, such as an old injury, arthritis or osteoporosis. There can also be more serious reasons for it (for example, tumours). This means that any back pain which lasts longer than a month needs to be diagnosed.
Relaxing properties of magnesium are used to treat both acute and chronic back pain. Being a powerful natural relaxant, magnesium plays an important role in reducing inflammations, relaxing muscles and joints while at the same time healing tissues. Magnesium chloride is the most widely available and easily absorbable form of magnesium. While many people use it internally, it is transdermal applications of magnesium chloride that have come to light recently. …Continue Reading
10 Most Effective Home Remedies for Cold and Flu
In my previous article I was writing about why some people never got sick and how you could be one of them. But what if you are not part of this fortunate group and your immune system has not got strong yet? How do you cope if you do catch a flu or a cold? As we all know, there are no medicines to fight viral infections, only to relieve the discomfort – paracetamol is one of them.
Even most doctors abstain from prescribing medications when a patient is down with a cold or a flu. An effective anti-viral remedy hasn’t been invented yet, and may take a long time to come – if indeed it ever does. So what can we do to help ourselves when we do come down with a seasonal infection?
Flu & Cold: Why Some People Never Get Sick, and How You Can Become One of Them
Are You on Good Terms with Winter and Cold?
I am asking this because I am not. There hasn’t been a single winter in the past 5 years or so without someone in our family (or all of us) “catching” something – like a cold, or worse – a flu. I am using the word “catching”, since it is a common perception that someone has to sneeze at us, and we get sick. But it is far away from truth.
Why is it that the flu epidemic affects only some of us, while others seem to “dodge” it year after year? Is it simply because they protect themselves better, by wearing warm clothes, and avoiding gatherings of others in times of the epidemic? The answer is yes and no. While doing it protects us in many ways, some of us seem to avoid it despite being regularly exposed to cold and infection. What is the reason for their resilience? The answer is in the immune system, its strength and adaptability.
Lead Toxicity in Children
The subject of lead toxicity came up when I switched on the news channel a few days ago. I only caught the last words of it – that as a result of a scientific research, removing lead from petrol significantly reduced crime in several USA cities (where the research was conducted).
Since the subject of heavy metal toxicity was something I had always been interested in due to my long-term work with clays and magnesium salts, I decided to do some more research into lead toxicity, especially in children and teenagers, since their developing body – especially the brain – gets affected most by this toxic element. Following are the results of my own research.
“Lead poisoning is one of the most common and best-recognized childhood diseases of toxic environmental origin. Children around the world today are at risk of exposure to lead from multiple sources. Lead poisoning accounts for about 0.6% of the global burden of disease” (WHO, 2009).
Five Reasons Most Diets Fail & How to Succeed
Would you agree that few people can say that they haven’t tried to diet at least once in their life? And in so many cases success is so short-lived… It has happened to me more than once, which made me ask myself – why do most diets fail to bring long-term results?
What normally happens is that we see a friend who has managed to lose some weight, ask her how she did it. She shares the latest diet tips with us. We read more about it online.
We find more raving fans of the diet on media websites. We get excited about it, and decide to give it a try. Eventually we commit to doing it, especially if a special event or a summer holiday are on the cards.
We starve ourselves for a few weeks (like I did with Weight Watchers), eat cabbage soup until we want to puke, or whatever the diet in question tells us to do. If we are really tough on ourselves and stick to it, we manage to achieve a desired weight and the look we have made so much sacrifice for. What happens next? We relax, decide that we have suffered long enough, and deserve a reward. That biscuit is not going to do much harm… And maybe one more… …Continue Reading
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