Flatten Your Belly with Simple and effective summer cleansing smoothie strategies

Written by Ritamarie Loscalzo

---

---

As I get ready for my quarterly Green Smoothie Cleanse, I’ve been pondering the concept of time.

Somehow it seems there is never quite enough time to complete all I would like to do.One way I buy back some time is by doing cleanses.  That may seem like a strange comment.

Let me explain

Have you ever calculated how much time it takes you to plan meals, make meals, eat meals and clean up after meals?  There is a bit of a time investment.  Even if you’re eating out a lot, thinking you don’t have the time to prepare your own meals, the time savings is not that as great as you think, considering you have to drive to a restaurant, order the food, wait for it to arrive, eat it, pay for it and drive home.  Even the fast food drive through concept takes time, and unless you eat while driving, there’s still the time it takes to chew your meal.

Some cleanses save time, some require additional time.

Water fasts require the least amount of time at all.  No prep, no cleanup.  The problem with water fasts is that your metabolism slows down and you can’t quite accomplish all that you might when you’re eating.  The good news about fasting is that your appetite goes away after about four days.

Juice cleanses are the most time consuming, especially if you’re dedicated to drinking the 3-4 quarts a day of juice generally recommended to cleanse effectively.  It takes me the better part of an hour per quart to prepare the foods for juicing, juice and cleanup.  Juicing is similar to water fasting in that your metabolism slows down and different in that you feel hungry all the time.  My experience is that my appetite doesn’t go away after four days as with fasting.  The lower energy makes me less productive.

Cleanses that require potions and powders, enemas and other cleansing rituals are very effective but it’s very time consuming to make all the potions, do the enemas and cleansing rituals, meditate  and rest in between as suggested.  I once read about a cleanse that sounded great, and I was all ready to begin.  Unfortunately it required several enemas a day, cleansing baths, skin brushing and other rituals, in addition to special teas, drinks and foods.  The only way I could have done it was to take time off.

Of course, the most effective cleansing occurs when you take a break from your day to day and dedicate your time to the cleansing process.  I did 28 day supervised water fast once. I was at a health center and all I did was drink water, rest, walk a bit and read.  It changed my life.  I highly recommend that everyone take a month to cleanse sometime.  It’s the best.

Unfortunately, not everyone has that opportunity, so we fit periodic cleansing into our day to day routine.

That’s why my current cleanse of choice is a green smoothie cleanse.  It may not be as deep a cleanse as a water or juice fast, but it certainly has amazing results.

Every 3 months, I take a 7 day break from chewing and fats and I drink green smoothies
morning, noon and night.  I have plenty of energy to work, exercise and enjoy my family.  I save precious hours of food prep, chewing and cleanup.  Smoothies are easy to make, quick to clean up after and take a lot less time to consume than the equivalent quantity of fresh produce would take to eat.

 

When you make them as I suggest, between 40 and 60% green and 40 – 60% fruit, they provide an abundance of minerals, amino acids and anti-oxidants.  Leaving out the fat gives you’re a liver a break and allows it to devote more cycles to cleansing.

I lead my very first online green smoothie cleanse about 4 years ago, informally with about 25 people.  It was so successful I created an official program with recipes, menu plans, shopping lists and lots of bonuses.

It’s evolved now to a full website with videos, audios, a support forum, bonuses, and daily journals and coaching questions.

I’m getting ready to lead another cleanse starting Monday, and I am so ready.

This cleanse will be a bit different for me in that I’ll be in Tucson, staying at my sister’s house.  She’s done my Green Cleanse before, and she’s excited that she’ll get to do it with me in person.

We kick off on Monday evening, with a teleseminar called:

“The Art of Cleansing with Greens- Putting Your Best Food First to Get Started “

Later in the week we’ll have a teleseminar called “Gut Healing Secrets” and I’ll do some Spotlight Coaching and answer your questions.

Our last teleseminar of the cleanse is “Eating Healthy in The Real World: Tips and Tricks for Taming Emotional and Social Eating and Living in a Body You Love”

The cleanse includes full access the calls and all the materials, coaching, recipes and guidance of for a full  7 days.

For a limited time, we’re including these extra bonuses:

Early Bonus 1: Eliminate the Gluten and Accelerate Your Health – a special report containing information and inspiration packed articles, recipes and foods to avoid lists for gluten free diets.

Early Bonus 2: Balancing Your Hormones Recording -  A 90 minute audio class in mp3 format containing diet and lifestyle tips for optimal weight, vibrant energy, strength, stamina, and joyful longevity.

Early Bonus 3: Balancing Your Hormones Power Point Presentation – A pdf file containing the slides that accompany the 90 minute audio class.

Early Bonus 4: Balancing Your Hormones e-book – Complete written transcripts of the entire 90 minute Balancing Your Hormones audio, as an e-book in PDF format.

Please comment below and answer these questions:

Have you ever cleansed?  If so, what’s your favorite way?

Love, Health and Joy,

Dr. Ritamarie

Tags: cleansing, cleansing strategies, detoxification, DrRitamarie, green smoothie, green smoothie cleanse, loscalzo, Raw Foods, raw foods cleanse
Posted in Cleansing Programs, Green Smoothies, Raw Foods

---

---

Reduce Belly Fat and Brain Fog Strategy2: The Magic of Burst Training Exercise

Written by Ritamarie Loscalzo

---

---

In a previous post I discussed  7 of my favorite strategies for reducing brain fog and reducing excess belly fat.  These are:

1. Get a handle on stress.
2. Burst exercise
3. Regulate your Blood Sugar
4. Eat a Nutrient dense diet rich in whole, raw plant foods and test nutrient levels and function regularly
5. Balance  Your Immune system, avoid allergens and eat a Gluten Free Diet
6. Get sufficient high quality  Sleep
7. Incorporate regular Cleansing and Detoxification, like a 7 day green cleanse every quarter.

As you know, I am a big fan of exercise. Not only do I LOVE to move my body and work up a sweat, I recognize just how important it is as a  vibrant health solution.

I all too often see people who are struggling with their health, in spite of eating a pretty clean and nutritious diet.

When I ask them about their exercise, they often reply,”Exercise? I don’t have time for exercise!”

Let me ask you this. If you were building a house would you follow standard protocols for housebuilding and include all the parts needed to create a sturdy house, like foundation, sub-flooring, floor, studs, wall boards, sheet-rock, roof…etc?

Or would you decide you didn’t have time to put in the wall beams and go right to sheet-rock? Unlikely! The house would lose some of it’s integrity if you did. In fact, it would most likely fall down with a huff and a puff just like the first two houses in the 3 little pigs story.

When you are working on building or rebuilding a strong and healthy body, you CAN’T omit any of the important ingredients.

Exercise, unfortunately, is the one that falls by the wayside most quickly.

BUSY PERSON’S GUIDE TO EXERCISE

One of the best ways to get started is what’s called burst training.

Burst training has become one of my absolute favorite methods of exercise.  What this entails is short bursts, between 30 and 60 seconds, of extremely intense exercise.  It needs to be at intensity that you cannot continue past 60 seconds.  I prefer 30 second bursts.

Research shows that 30 seconds of full out exercise to the point of panting induces the equivalent amount of growth hormone as does 30 minutes of aerobic exercise.  The good news is that the growth hormone surge lasts up to 90 minutes.  Growth hormone, in a nutshell, it stimulates growth, cell reproduction and regeneration.  It stimulates the building of muscle and the burning of fat.  Burst training is also good at regulating blood sugar and insulin levels

In a nutshell, research has shown that 30 seconds of maximum intensity exercise increases growth hormone and decreases insulin as effectively as 30 minutes of aerobics. An added benefit is that growth hormone stays elevated for 90 minutes.

The TIMER SYSTEM FOR EXERCISE

I set a timer to go off every hour to remind me to do 1 minute of exercise. The first 15 seconds is warm up, the next 30-40 seconds are all out full intensity that leaves me panting and then a cool down of 10 – 15 seconds.

My favorite bursts are my small stair climber and running up and down the stairs with a 10 pound medicine ball. My video will show you how I do it.

The other day I also decided I would like to be able to do 100 push-ups without stopping. Right now I can get to 29.

SO what I do is as many push-ups as I can several times throughout the day. For the past three days, while on a green cleanse, I’ve done between 100 and 110 push-ups each day.

Start with doing as many as you can. Decide what your goal is and do that many throughout the day. Your strength will increase the more you keep it up. Each exercise session is short and sweet. You can fit it into even the busiest schedule.

Another resource for getting started on an exercise program is a new virtual event called  “Women Getting Fit”

I’ve been invited to be part of this unique series, organized by my friend Michelle Melendez, a personal trainer and fitness instructor.

I met Michelle at a holistic practitioners seminar and was impressed by how fit she looks as well as her passion to get people moving.

The event is free and runs from March 8 through April 14. There are 2 calls a week, so you can easily fit it into your busy schedule.  My talk is scheduled for March 17.

Michelle Melendez, the founder of  the “Women Getting Fit” Wellness Teleseries, starts off the event with “Three Big MistakesYou Make When Starting An Exercise Program.

Love, health and Joy,

 

Dr. Ritamarie

 

P.S. The best way to start an exercise program is to just DO IT.

Start with 5 minutes a day and increase at your own pace.

Get motivated, educated and inspired so you can start an exercise program you love!

Today’s Question:

What’s your favorite form of movement?

Tags: allergens, belly fat, blood sugar, brain fog, burst exercise, detoxification, Gluten Free Diet, how to exercise, push-ups, Vibrant Health
Posted in Adrenal Fatigue, Articles, Brain Fog, Fitness and Exercise, Reduce Belly Fat

---

---

Reduce Belly Fat and Brain Fog: Adrenal Gland and Stress Connection

Written by Ritamarie Loscalzo

---

---

7 of my favorite strategies for reducing brain fog and reducing excess belly fat were outlined in a previous post .

1. Get a handle on stress.
2. Burst exercise
3. Regulate your Blood Sugar
4. Eat a Nutrient dense diet rich in whole, raw plant foods and test nutrient levels and function regularly
5. Balance  Your Immune system, avoid allergens and eat a Gluten Free Diet
6. Get sufficient high quality  Sleep
7. Incorporate regular Cleansing and Detoxification, like a 7 day green cleanse every quarter.

Today’s post discusses getting a handle on stress to reduce belly fat and brain fog.

It should be no surprise that managing stress tops my list of brain fog and belly fat reducing strategies.

Face it.  Stress happens.  You can’t necessarily control the external circumstances.  You can control your response to them.

When you’re stressed, your adrenal glands produce adrenaline and cortisol.  Adrenaline is responsible for helping you to perform heroically, like in the story of the mom who lifts a car off her child.

Cortisol rises more slowly than adrenaline and lasts longer.

One of it’s jobs is to cause fat to be released from storage and turned into sugar…which is a very good thing if you’re running away from a tiger.   It also causes you to become more efficient at burning fat for energy – you’re not going to be able to refuel while in pursuit by a hungry animal.

Since most modern day stressors don’t require physical exertion, like getting stuck in traffic, financial concerns, an over demanding boss, or  juggling children’s activities cortisol can work to your disadvantage.   When your fat stores are released and turned into sugar, the lack of physical exertion causes your blood sugar levels to rise, which causes extra insulin to be released.  Insulin triggers the extra sugar to be converted back into fat because you don’t need it in your sedentary life.

Most of the fat is stored on your waist.

Then there’s the effect of  cortisol on your brain, explained in detail in the 7 Strategies to reduce belly fat and brain fog.

Managing your stress levels, and reducing the amount of time you spend in fight flight mode, also known as sympathetic nervous system dominance, is mandatory if you would like to reduce belly fat and brain fog.

It takes some retraining, yet I know from both personal and clinical experience that it can happen.  One of the easiest practices you can start is breathing and appreciation.

With an investment of as little as 3 minutes a day, you can create a breathing and appreciation practice that can transform the negative effects of stress to highly beneficial ones.

The best description of this is on the Heart Math website.  I’ve been employing these methods for years and have taught them to thousands of patients and clients.  The results are miraculous.

I’ve taught this technique to many patients and students with great success and even have a recorded teleseminar and work book available to guide you through it.

Other practices that can help you dissipate the negative effects of stress are yoga, meditation, massage, Reiki and tapping, also known as EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) .

It’s important that you find a method that works for YOU.  My personality and lifestyle is such that Heart Math works better for me than meditation and yoga because I need only invest small amounts of time throughout the day and I can do it while I do other things.  It’s the best technique for all of us chronic multitaskers!

The next article in this sequence is Reduce Belly Fat and Brain Fog:  Blood Sugar Level Regulation

Tags: adrenal exhaustion, Adrenal Fatigue, adrenal glands, belly fat, blood sugar levels, brain fog, cortisol, detoxification, DrRitamarie, Gluten Free Diet, immune system, insulin, loscalzo, managing stress
Posted in Adrenal Fatigue, Brain Fog, Chronic Stress, Reduce Belly Fat

---

---

Adrenal Fatigue: 3 Tips to Make Your Weekend Count

Written by Ritamarie Loscalzo

---

---

Adrenal fatigue is estimated to affect 80% of women at some point in their lives.  That’s 4 out of 5 women who’ll experience exhaustion of a key gland pair – the adrenals.

You’re not alone if you feel frazzled and exhausted by the end of the work week.  While our fast paced age of technology has done wonders for keeping us connected like never before, it comes with a price.

Used to be you only got your adrenals fired up when tigers and lions were chasing you.  As soon as the threat was handled, your adrenals would settle down and you’d return to a calmer and more steady pace.

When you’re at work, managing the tigers of deadlines, unhappy customers, unruly students and the abundance of stressors that frequent your day to day life, your nervous system operates from a state called sympathetic dominance. When you meditate, rest, do yoga and take time to “smell the roses”  you operate from parasympathetic dominance.

Who cares?

You need to if you desire to be focused instead of foggy, energetic instead of exhausted and  fit instead of fat.

You see, in sympathetic dominant mode, your digestion slows down, the valves between the various parts of your digestive tract tighten (leading to constipation and abdominal discomfort), and the high level thinking part of your brain, the prefrontal cortex, is inhibited, your hippocampus, gate keeper of your short term memory,  gets damaged and DHEA, sometimes called the anti-aging hormone, decreases.  The end result is you feel bloated, foggy headed and worn down.

In parasympethic dominant mode, the opposite happens.  Your digestion becomes more efficient,  your prefrontal cortex is enhanced, your hippocampus repairs and DHEA increases. As a result you feel calm, clear headed and focused and young.

By you may be wondering how to lengthen your stay in parasympathetic dominance.

Start by using my 3 tips to make your weekend count.  They will put you into parasympathetic dominance and enable you to rejuvenate before starting the hectic pace all over again on Monday.

Make the weekend count by using it to regroup and give yourself the gift of self care.

1- Set aside 30 minutes for you! Go ahead and look at your calendar and schedule it in.  And KEEP the appointment with yourself.  Do something you love to do.  Take a bath, lay in the sun, read a book…just do something that’s strictly for you.  You’ll feel rejuvenated as a result.

2- Take time several times a day to express appreciation to someone, to yourself or to the universe for the blessings in your life.  Studies have shown that 30 seconds of appreciation is the most effective means of restoring balance to your system.  The Institute of Heartmath has performed dozens of studies on the benefits of appreciation.

3- Take some extra time to sweat. Yes, sweat.  When researchers analyzed the sweat of participants after exercise,  they found it loaded with toxins.  Exerting to the point of a good sweat has many benefits with regards to cardiovascular health, hormone balance and detoxification.  And surprisingly they found that the sweat after running for 30 minutes was more full of toxins than the sweat produced in a sauna. If you use your weekend to sweat away toxins, you’ll feel more focused and peaceful when you start the week again.

If you find yourself thinking, “I already know that”  in response to the simplicity of these tips, ask yourself this:  “Am I taking action?”

Many of the people I work with in group programs and individually are looking for the more glamorous solutions to their health challenges and fail to handle the underlying sympathetic dominance.

Sympathetic dominance is a real problem. No matter what herbs, supplements and foods you eat to support your tired adrenals, if you just keep forcing them to work hard, you won’t be able to restore them.  And burned out adrenals can lead to thyroid issues, hormone imbalances, insulin resistance –which contributes to excess belly fat— and chronic fatigue.

I urge you to slow down and use the weekend to restore balance.  Once you get that piece wired, we can talk about how to increase your parasympathetic dominance during the week.

To find out the impact of sympathetic dominance on your health, you can answer a set of questions, check physical signs, look at a few markers in routine blood work and even order specialized hormone tests.

In my new course, Assess Your Own Body Chemistry I teach how to evaluate for signs of nutritional deficiency and hormonal imbalance.

Love, Health and Gratitude,

Dr. Ritamarie

Tags: Adrenal Fatigue, appreciation, chronic fatigue, detox, detoxification, digestion, digestive tract, Dr. Ritamarie, DrRitamarie, health challenges, heart math, HeartMath, hormonal imbalance, nutrition, self care, supplements, thyroid, tired
Posted in Adrenal Fatigue, Chronic Fatigue, Chronic Stress, Detox Program, Exhaustion, Fatigue Treatment

---

---

39 Quick and Easy Ways to Reduce Your Risk of Getting Cancer

Written by Ritamarie Loscalzo

---

---

Cancer is often referred to as a modern day disease, as if it was barely recognized as a disease back at the turn of the 20^th century.

Yet I recently found a book called “Cancer…Its Causes, Symptoms and Treatment”, by Eli G. Jones, MD.  It was recommended by my herbal medicine mentor David Winston.  It sat on my shelf for almost 2 years and I just happened to come upon it during my recent reorganization frenzy.  What I read blew me away.

The cover looks modern enough, since it was reprinted in 2004, yet the inside has many tell-tale signs of age.  The book was written in 1921!  What shocked me were the cancer statistics presented in the very first chapter.  Before reading this, I had thought that cancer was practically unheard of in the early part of the 1900’s.

In the US in 1890, there were 18,536 deaths from cancer.  In 1900 there were 29,222 and in 1921 there were over 50,000. In 1921, it was estimated that one man in 32 and one woman in 11 die of cancer.

Cancer Statistics: Are We Really Making Progress?

Conventional medicine would like us to believe that great strides have been made in the eradication of cancer.  Yet the statistics say quite the opposite.  Today, in the US alone, there are over 562,000 deaths per year from cancer and it’s estimated that 1 in 2 or 1 in 3 people will get cancer.  And if do you get cancer, the odds are bleak if you rely on modern medicine to bail you out.

The Journal of Clinical Oncology in 2004 (16:549) published a study done by two Australian oncologists who looked at every randomized controlled clinical trial between 1990 and 2004.  On average, the 5 year survival rate for 22 types of cancer treated with chemotherapy and radiation was 2.1 percent.  Admittedly, the survival rates tend to be higher in the general population than in studies.  Michael Boyer, head of oncology at the Sydney Cancer Center estimated the 5 year survival rate to be closer to 5 or 6 %.   It should be noted that in drug trials, anything with less than 30% effectiveness is considered placebo.

The cancers with the best 5 year survival were:

• Hodgkin’s lymphoma – 40.3%
• Testicular cancer – 37.7%
• Cervical Cancer – 12%
• Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma 10.5%

What About Nutritional Cancer Interventions?

Are the statistics much better for non-conventional treatments?  Hard to say because we really don’t have good statistical analysis for non conventional treatment approaches.  And to further complicate things, most people who undergo alternative cancer protocols do so AFTER conventional treatment has failed.  At this point their bodies are so ravaged from the chemotherapy, radiation and surgery that it would take a miracle for them to recover.

Still, there are so many case reports of people who have been given up as dead who turned to nutrition and natural therapies and went on to live for decades.

The Hippocrates Institute in Florida was originally founded by Ann Wigmore who at the age of 56 was given 6 months to live.  She turned to the natural medicine wisdom of her grandmother, completely reversed her disease and went on to use her approach to do the same for thousands of others with cancer and other serious illness.

The Gerson Institute in San Diego California, uses a program of organic foods, juicing, coffee enemas, detoxification and natural supplements developed by Dr. Max Gerson in the 1920’s and has helped thousands of cancer patients recover their health.

The Oasis of Healing in Tempe, Arizona, is a comprehensive and integrative medical and healing facility that helps cancer patients and their families learn to re-establish health.  It’s run by Dr. Thomas Lodi, whose 3 pillared approach has restored health to thousands of people.  Dr. Lodi combines juicing, living foods and emotional healing with elements of modern medicine to guide the patients to stop making cancer, target and eliminate the cancer without harm to healthy cells and enhance the immune system.

There are many other healing centers that utilize natural methods, mainly diet and nutritional balance, movement and attitude in helping hundreds of thousands of cancer patients regain their health.  Others include Optimal Health Institute in Austin and San Diego, Creative Health Institute in Michigan, and an Oasis of Hope Hospital near Los Angeles, California.

Strengthening Cancer Defenses vs Killing Cancer Cells

The approach of natural cancer interventions is to increase the body’s ability to get rid of cancer cells or to cause the cancer cells to self-destruct.  Contrast that to chemo therapy which initiates machine gun fire on all cells, hoping the cancer cells die before the good ones.  Statistics tell us that’s not what usually happens.  Many cancer deaths are a result of the treatment, not the illness

According to Mike Anderson, author of “Healing Cancer from the Inside Out”, when caught during the initiation or promotion stage, a true anti-cancer diet has 100 percent chance of reversing the disease.  When it’s progressed beyond that, nutritional treatment extends patients lives form months to years, or at minimum, reduced pain and suffering.

Seems to me the best approach is to adopt a diet and lifestyle to PREVENT cancer long before it strikes.   Prevention programs target what you eat, how you think, the quality of your relationships, with others and yourself and a long list of lifestyle choices over which you have day to day choice.

There are many books and many natural cancer prevention and management programs.  The one thing that almost all have in common is that the diet is primarily or exclusively plant based, fresh, whole living foods.

Your body makes cancer cells every day.  Your body also has the ability to destroy the cancer cells before they multiply and create a problem.  Your daily choices determine how effectively your immune system checks the growth of cancer cells keeps you safe and healthy.  If you wait until cancer is detectable, you’ll have to work a whole lot harder to get rid of it that you would have to prevent it in the first place.

It’s your choice.  You can choose health or you can make choices that increase your risk of  cancer.  What will it be?

39 Quick and Easy Ways to Reduce Your Risk of Getting Cancer

1. Eat plenty of sulforaphane.  Say what?  Sounds like the name of a chemotherapy drug.  It, in fact, is a compound found in the cruciferous family of vegetables.  These are broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, kale and all their relatives.  Sulphorophane blocks cancer cells.  Broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower also contain a compound called indole-3-carbinol that can combat breast cancer by converting a cancer-promoting estrogen into a more protective variety. If that’s not enough to have you packing in the crucifers, they also contain lutein and zeaxanthin, antioxidants that help decrease prostate and other cancers.
2. Try a daily dose of ellagic acid.  It’s found in about 46 different foods. The highest concentrations are in berries, particularly raspberries, and pomegranates, grapes and walnuts. Ellagic acid stops cancer cells from mitosis, the process they use to replicate themselves, prevents destruction of the p53 tumor suppressor gene, and causes cancer cells to commit suicide.
3. Eat an alkalizing diet. Your blood maintains its pH slightly alkaline at 7.35.  Life presents acid residue at every turn – when you exercise, get stressed, and in the foods and chemicals you take into your body. Foods that create an alkaline residue help balance life’s acids.  Cancer thrives in an acid environment.  Additional information on acid/alkaline balance is found at http://drritamarie.com/Articles.htm
4. Exercise daily and vigorously.  Cancer cells thrive in an environment deprived of oxygen.
5. Take a break from the news.  Studies show that the biochemical changes that occur when you’re stressed worried or feeling powerless affect tumor growth and spread by effecting DNA repair and the regulation of cell growth.
6. Give your body an oil change.  Heated oils oxidize, causing cancer-producing free radicals to form.  Switch them out for raw omega 3 fats like flax seeds, chia seeds and hemp seeds.  Minimize the use of oils.  Instead choose whole food fats.
7. Tame your sweet tooth.  Cancer cells thrive on sugar.  It’s best to eliminate all forms of refined sugar, and if you already have cancer, its best to eliminate all sweet foods, including fruit, with the exception perhaps of those fruits mentioned below,  used therapeutically for their cancer fighting properties.
8. Avoid animal foods.  Study after study has reported on the cancer protective effects of a diet free of meat and dairy products.  One of the most renowned is the “China Study”, conducted by T. Colin Campbell, and published in a book with the same name.  Animal foods are devoid of fiber and travel slowly through your digestive track, producing toxic metabolic wastes en route.   One mechanism proposed for the increased cancer rates in meat eaters is that the digestion of meat requires large quantities of the pancreatic enzymes trypsin and chymotrypsin, which leaves less of these enzymes available to dissolve the protein coat on cancer cells.
9. Get plenty of sunshine.  Vitamin D is made in your skin from exposure to sunlight. Maintaining appropriate blood levels of vitamin D has been shown to protect against many forms of cancer.  If you can’t be out in the sun, take a vitamin D supplement and test your vitamin D blood levels regularly.
10. Eat organic foods as much as possible.   Pesticides affect your immune system and detoxification systems and put you at higher risk of cancer.
11. Use “Green” cleaning products.  Products using natural substance reduce the toxic load.  Many of the chemicals used in commercial cleaning products are carcinogenic.
12. Keep cholesterol levels in a safe range.  Excess cholesterol can trigger cancer proliferative estrogens.
13. Keep your colon clean.  You need to be having at least 2 good sized bowel movements each day to keep the waste flowing out.  Sluggish bowels predispose you to toxic recirculation and increased risk of cancer.
14. Breathe deeply and fully to increase oxygenation of your tissues and minimize cancer risk.  Cancer can’t thrive in well oxygenated environment.
15. Avoid refined foods.  These are devoid of cancer protective phytochemicals and nutrients and usually contain preservatives and chemicals that can increase your risk of cancer
16. Chew your food thoroughly.  When you eat under stress and on the run, your digestion becomes inefficient.  Toxic residues accumulate from unchewed and undigested food, leaving you more prone to immune stress and cancer formation.
17. Avoid food allergens. Anything you are allergic to creates an immune system response, which distracts your system from the more important work of cancer surveillance and destruction.
18. Drink plenty of pure water. Insufficient hydration decreases your kidney’s ability to excrete water soluble toxins.  Recirculation of these poisons increases your cancer risk.  Rule of thumb is ½ your body weight in fluid ounces each day.
19. Eat lots of green leafy vegetables every day.  They are loaded with cancer protective phytochemicals,  minerals and nutrients that protect from cancer and disrupt the functioning of cancer cells.
20. Load up on Vitamin C.  It’s a powerful anti-cancer nutrient that’s frequently given in IV form to treat cancer.  Foods like fresh greens, bell peppers, berries, citrus, and sweet potatoes are rich sources.  Supplementary vitamin C can be taken in the form of buffered ascorbic acid or whole food concentrates, like camu camu, amla, goji, acerola cherry and pomegranate powder.
21. Eat laetrile containing foods, like apricot and peach kernels,  buckwheat, berry seeds,  grape seeds,  chick peas, lentils, lima beans, mung sprouts, cashews, alfalfa brown rice,  millet, bitter almond and  macadamia nuts.  Laetrile has very powerful anti-cancer properties.  It works by killing cancer cells and building the immune system to fend off future outbreaks.  For the treatment of cancer, many experts recommend a daily dose of 24 – 40 apricot, spread throughout the day.
22. Eat carrots, which contain thousands, of phytonutrients, many of which have already been identified for their cancer-fighting abilities.
23. Eat flax seeds, which contain antioxidant lignans that block or suppress cancerous growth.
24. Season with Garlic.  Its immune-enhancing allium compounds .increase the activity of immune cells that fight cancer, help block carcinogens from entering cells, and indirectly help break down and slow tumor development. Diallyl sulfide, a compound found in the oil of garlic, has been shown to deactivate carcinogens in the liver.
25. Enjoy Citrus fruits. Grapefruit and oranges contain monoterpenes, which appear by clear carcinogens from the body.  Tangerine peels contain cancer destroying Salvestrol 40, a type of phytoalexin produced to repel insects or fungi. Oranges and lemons contain Iimonene which stimulates cancer-killing immune cells
26. Eat red grapes, especially concord grapes with the seeds.  They contain cancer protective compounds such as ellagic acid, catechin, quercetin, oligomeric proanthocyanidins (OPC), resveratrol, pterostilbene, selenium, lycopene, lutein, laetrile, beta-carotene, caffeic acid and/or ferulic acid and gallic acid!  There are several books written about a cancer treatment called the grape cure, during which a water fast is followed by a diet of blended grapes.  The idea is that the cancer cells love the grapes because of their high sugar content and while eating the sugar, they are poisoned by the chemo therapy that grapes naturally contain.
27. Make friends with mushrooms. There are a number of them that have been shown to have cancer protective effective and immune building effects, including shiitake, maitake, and reishi.   The mushrooms contain lentinan, beta glucan and  lectin –powerful substances  that help build immunity.
28. Eat 2 Brazil nits every day.  They provide cancer protective selenium, an essential mineral.  Other nuts contain the antioxidants quercetin and campferol that may suppress the growth of cancers.
29. Season your food with cancer protective herbs and spices.  Turmeric is extremely powerful as an antioxidant and anti-cancer agent. It inhibits production of cyclo-oxygenase 2 (COX-2), which reduces inflammation and cancer cell growth, especially bowel and colon cancer. Rosemary contains carnosol, which inhibits breast and skin tumors in animals. Rosemary may help increase the activity of detoxification enzymes.
30. Indulge in asparagus when in season.  It contains cancer reducing saponins.  Blend 1 or 2 stalks into a green soup or salad dressing.
31. Add beets to your salads.  They contain anti-cancer proanthocyanidins (OPC’s).
32. Get tropical. Enjoy raw pineapple and papaya.  In addition to lots of vitamin C, they contain the enzymes bromelain, papain and pexoxidase that have been shown to have anti-cancer properties.
33. Eat from the sea. In addition to being an excellent source of minerals that support your immune system, sea vegetables contain substances which bind to heavy metals and toxins and eliminate them from your body.  Powdered sea vegetables like kelp and dulse can be added to salads, soups and smoothies.
34. Switch from coffee to green tea. Green tea contains polyphenols , one in particular called particularly epigallocatechin gallate, or EGCG , that inhibit an enzyme required for cancer cell growth and  kills cancer cells without harming healthy cells.
35. Eat tomatoes.  They contain lycopene, an antioxidant that attacks cancer promoting free radicals.  Blend them into a sauce with rosemary, basil, thyme and oregano for extra immune support.
36. Prioritize fresh foods. Adopt a diet that contains 75% or more fresh raw foods, including lots of sprouts and greens.
37. Drink a green smoothie every day to provide lots of fresh raw cancer fighting plants.
38. Learn to love your lawn.  There is a cancer protecting effect of several of the cereal grasses.  There have been several prominent rat studies which showed a definite reduction in cell mutation in rats fed wheat grass juice along with a highly carcinogenic substance called benzopyrene compared to when they were fed the benzopyrene alone.  Barley grass extract was demonstrated to inhibit growth of human prostate, breast and melanoma cancer cells in a study done at George Washington University Medical Centre.  While wheat grass juice may not be the tastiest juice you can drink, it sure does appear to be one of the most health promoting ones.
39. Practice the Art of Appreciation.   There is no better way of getting your stress hormones settled down and your immune system fired up than taking time to deeply appreciate your blessings.  Do it daily, morning and evening.  Find 3 things to appreciate and experience how good it feels.

So there you have it.  Creating cancer protective habits is not difficult.  There are lots to choose from.  While you don’t need to master all 39 tips all at once, the more you do, the better your odds of protecting yourself from clenches of cancer.

To hear more, visit www.drritamarie.com/cancertalk.

Love, Health and Joy ..and lots of Fun!

Dr. Ritamarie

Tags: alkalize, Ann Wigmore, Cancer, cancer prevention, cruciferous, detoxification, emotional health, green juice, green leafy vegetables, green smoothie, immune system, Living Foods, natural medicine, sugar and cancer, sulphorophane, sunshine, wheat grass juice
Posted in Cancer Nutrition, Green Smoothies, Holistic Nutrition, Raw and Living Foods, Vibrant Health

---

---