Prevention Better Than Cure?

Most people would say, “Yes! Of course it is.” But, it seems to me  that in the hustle and bustle of life, this is we easily neglect taking care of our bodies. We would rather pop a vitamin pill as it is just so convenient.

But then, how many people do you know that religiously take vitamin pills who are truly healthy? I can’t think of any in my case.

My own experience of taking multi-vitamins, and later phyto-nutrionals did not make me feel more healthy nor energetic. I still felt tired waking up in the mornings and wanted to doze in the afternoons after a big meal.

I believed in prevention. Or I should say, I liked believing in prevention – eating healthy and exercising regularly. Liked the idea. But I was a little lazy when it actually came to doing it. Occasional walks but nothing regular. And when it came to food, as long as it wasn’t meat or fish, down the hatch it went. Potato chips were a particular favourite.

So, is it really so hard to adopt a healthy lifestyle and diet? No – I don’t believe so. But we need to recognize and accept that if we have unhealthy habits, our bodies will be unhealthy as a result and also that we can actually do something about it. And that we want to – that’s the starting point.

Consuming a lot of processed and junk food is like owning a Ferrari and filling the tank with sugar water. Instead of cleaning it out immediately to ensure it’s high performance, we keep driving it until it stops dead and we have to get a tow truck to take it to the garage. We wouldn’t do it to a car but they why do we happily to it to own bodies?


Our body’s cause and effect is very clear. Junk food in – result: junk food body.


I had a few questions from some folk about how I did my juicing and keep to a 50% raw food diet this winter so here’s my experience.

One Way, But Not The Only Way

First off, a Health Warning (like the kind on cigarette packs): The following is a brief summary of what I did and it is my own personal experience. Each person’s body is different so please do not expect to have the same experience or result. However, it is very possible that you find yourself more healthy and energetic from adopting better dietary habits and lifestyle. If that’s so, then congratulations!


In the morning upon awaking, I would drink two glasses of water, followed by a cup of hot English tea (habit acquired over many years in the UK). After about half an hour, I’d have the first juice, usually carrot with something, or fruit juice. That sets me up for the morning’s activities.


For breakfast, another juice, usually some greens like kailan, broccoli, round cabbage with apple. Also, a bowl of hot soup with some nuts thrown in, with spirulina powder or goji berries (two of nature’s superfoods) thrown in. Sometimes, instead of soup, I’d just eat lots of fruit or make a quick salad and add nuts and avocado to it.


Lunch is often eating what the kitchen has cooked but no white rice – mainly the cooked veg. and anything else that’s not been fried too much. Sometimes in the late afternoon, and actually quite often now, I’d make another juice, using one of the recipes in my last post.


Dinner is usually a salad. If I felt hungry at night, I would usually snack on some nuts, seeds, dates or raisins. Quite often during the day, I would have some Rooibos (Red Bush) tea instead of English tea.

I should stress that I was not dieting so the portions I ate were pretty large. But if you eat a lot of fruit and veg., you can fill your stomach and still not have had a lot of calories, unlike meat or oily food (see image).


So, it was not that difficult to achieve a 50% or more raw food diet because the juices are also raw. It takes, what, about 1 kg of to yield about 400 – 500 ml of juice. And that’s pure nutrition that you are putting into your body in a form that it can easily absorb.

Want To Learn More?

There’s a lot of health information on the web – some good and some just out to get your money. The ones that I think have some good advice and information are these:


Juicing for Health – Information and advice on juicing
List of Healthy Foods -  Just ignore the meat and dairy items
Dean Ornish M.D. – His guide to healthy eating that you can stick to and reverse illnesses
Joel Fuhrman M.D. – Similar to Dean Ornish – plant based diets to reverse chronic illnesses
Gerson Institute – If you’re really sick, you may want to consider this.

I Never Thought I Would Say This But . . . .

 
I am healthier and more energetic now in my 50's than ever before - even when compared to when I was sixteen, twenty-one or twenty-eight. I have experienced clearly improved health over the last six months due to changes in my vegetarian diet. 


Over the last fifteen years, even though I was vegetarian, I was an unhealthy vegetarian foodie. As long as it was not animal, fish (or insect), I would eat it - deep fried food (absolutely!), bread, cheese, butter, pasta, white rice and noodles. My weight gradually crept up to 87kg. 


Strangely though, I held on to the idea in my head that I was pretty healthy since I was not eating any meat or fish even though I felt lethargic most days and sometimes felt very fatigued. I would feel tired even after a full night's sleep and would need some caffeine to wake me up to the day.


Not any more - nowadays I am up at 3.30 a.m. and feel refreshed. I sleep much better and my everyday energy levels have increased significantly. I am also a lot more mentally alert and physically active. Walking up the hilly slopes around here is not the breath sapping task it used to be. And most of the time, I don't feel the need to have a post-lunchtime nap.


Needless to say, my spiritual practice has benefited from this - brighter, lighter and happier.


As for my weight - the kilos have also come off over time to stabilize at around 75 kg in about 4 months.


The whole thing started with a 28 day Arise & Shine Cleanse in August 2011. After the benefits of that cleanse, I decided to experiment with my diet and try to drink more fresh vegetable juices and eat more that 50% of my diet raw. Deep fried and fried foods, however delicious, were avoided or reduced to a minimum.


Despite having a cool ('han') body type according to traditional oriental medicine, I've not experienced any negative side effects of raw foods and juice drinking even during the winter. Conversely, I have a better tolerance to cold these days. I found that adding a thumb-sized piece of ginger during juicing helped to offset the coolness of the raw vegetables.


In my research, I found some very helpful and knowledgeable people who have are healthy (in their late 80's) who have been on a predominantly raw vegetarian diet and juicing: Charlotte Gerson (88) and Jay Kordich (88) (cured of bladder cancer).


The discipline of the  28 day Arise & Shine Cleanse is, in my opinion, pretty hard to stick to and do properly if you have a full time job. Our group of six who did it in August were kept pretty occupied by the demands of the cleanse schedule and doing all the shopping, food prep. etc.


In my search for a more practical way of maintaining my new found health, I came upon juicing.


Why juicing? Because it's a terrific way of supercharging the way of giving your body the nutrients it needs to heal itself and stay healthy.


I now try to juice at least twice a day following most of the recipes in the videos below.


Here are some really helpful videos on juicing that can get you started to better health and truly add life to your years. They are from Jay Kordich - also known as the 'Juice Daddy.' :-)


But, don't just take my word for it - just do it and experience it for yourself. Then you'll know exactly what it is be healthy in body and mind.

For Treating Stomach Ulcers

Liver Cleanse

Evening Regulator for Bladder

The Classic Potassium Broth