Pure Nature Cures

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. (more…)

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?

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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).

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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.

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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.

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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”! 😛

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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. (more…)

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

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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.

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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.

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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).

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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?

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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.”

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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.

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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.

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