DEBRAKAHNEN.COM

The Blessing of Challenges

2012-04-26T18:02:10Z

Do you wake up every day excited about life, looking forward to your day? Or, do you dread getting up every day and can’t wait until Friday?

I want you to look at that as a continuum with the positive side, excited about the day, being a 10 and the negative side, dreading the day, being a 1. Where would you rate yourself on that continuum from 1-10?

The closer you are to 10, excited about life, the closer you in alignment with who you truly are. The closer you are to one, dreading the day the more you are out of alignment with who you truly are?

If you are at the negative end you don’t be discouraged because you may have an advantage. Your desire to change your condition may be higher than someone whose life is “Okay”. You may be more willing to do the work. Many people are in what I call a comfort zone. They may not have everything they want in their life but they are not unhappy.

You have to have a strong desire or internal motivation to push past the things that are uncomfortable to grow yourself. It takes passion for someone to get out of bed early to work on a goal or stay up late after everyone else is in bed. It takes desire to spend time studying or working on you instead of watching TV or spending time with friends. Many people change their lives or work on their personal growth after a major catastrophic event such as divorce, death of a loved one, loss of a job or career, or major health challenge because the desire is stronger. Or they do it out of necessity.

So if you are in a challenging position right now, know you are moving towards greater things if you just keep moving forward.

Find things right now to be grateful for no matter how small and build yourself up every day.

As long as we are comfortable we are complacent. When we hit challenges that is when we grow and new ideas are born. We are headed for greatness!

Lengthen Your Life

2012-04-26T17:49:48Z

The foods you eat can change the quality of your life.

Have you noticed foods you cannot enjoy or tolerate like you did before?

Do you ever suffer with heartburn, gas, constipation, bloating, allergies, or lack of energy? Are you catching colds and flu more often? Do you have a feeling of less stamina?

Then you may be lacking in enzymes.

No worries! You can fix that?

Food provides us with necessary enzymes. The key is to remember that food enzymes are destroyed at temperatures above 118 °F. This means that cooked and processed foods contain few, if any, enzymes.

When we eat mainly cooked and processed foods, we could well be setting ourselves up for a shorter and less healthy life.

Enzymes are essential to life. They help us digest our food, repair our tissues, organs, and cells, provide us with cellular energy, and stimulate our brains. When we do not get enough enzymes in our diet we can deplete other enzyme stores.

Dr. Edward Howell, an expert on enzymes, theorizes that humans are given a limited supply of enzyme energy at birth. Howell tells us, "The length of life is inversely proportional to the rate of exhaustion of the enzyme potential of an organism. The increased use of food enzymes promotes a decreased rate of exhaustion of the enzyme potential."

In other words, the more enzymes you have available, the longer and healthier you can live.

This points to the importance of eating “live foods”, raw fruits and vegetables, because they contain enzymes that are still active. The more enzymes you get, the healthier you are.

Food enzymes help us "predigest" foods. In fact, the enzymes found in raw foods can digest 5 to 75 percent of the foods themselves without the help of other enzymes, saving many of the body’s own enzyme stores.

The importance of digestive enzymes resides in the fact that the human body cannot absorb nutrients in food unless digestive enzymes break them down. They ensure that we get the greatest possible nutritional value from foods.

When foods are not well-digested, they remain in the stomach and begin to rot. This waste then builds up in the colon and continues to decay, producing bacteria and toxins. The toxins can eventually seep through the bowel wall, where there can be picked up by the blood capillaries and distributed throughout the body. This can result in health problems such as allergies, fatigue, achiness, headaches and immune suppression.

Conversely, when you eat enzyme rich foods and chew your food properly, the food enters your stomach coated with digestive enzymes. Over the next hour, these enzymes predigest up to 75% of your food.

After this period of pre-digestion, hydrochloric acid and pepsin enter the stomach. The acid inactivates the food-based enzymes, except for the acid stable enzymes. Now the HCL and pepsin finish breaking down the food in the stomach and pass it on to the small intestine. Once in the small intestine, the acid is neutralized and the pancreas reintroduces digestive enzyme to complete the digestive process. The nutrients now can be absorbed into the blood stream.

Unfortunately, for many of us, the food entering our stomach is severely enzyme deficient. This can cause the food to just sit there for an hour, with very little pre-digestion taking place. Even after the stomach acid has done its work, the meal can enter the small intestine largely undigested.

In an attempt to compensate for the lack of pre-digestion, our body will respond with increasing amounts of stomach acid earlier and earlier.

This can lead to acid reflux.

High levels of stomach acid cannot make up for the lack of pre-digestion. We can still end up with incomplete digestion which can lead to the illnesses we discussed earlier. Improper digestion and absorption can even lead to malnutrition.

NOTE: Use of prescription and over the counter acid reflux drugs may help alleviate the symptoms of acid reflux; however they can further interfere with proper digestion and absorption of your food.

To solve this, when eating enzyme deficient food, you can use digestive enzymes to ensure that your foods are more completely digested.

Digestive enzymes include protease, which digests protein; amylase, which digests carbohydrates; lipase, which digests fats and oils; and maltase, which digests malt sugars and grains.

How to Choose and Take Your Digestive Enzymes

There are hundreds of digestive enzyme formulas on the market. Look for an enzyme formula that lists the activity level of each enzyme in the formula. Two batches of the same enzyme of equal weight can have very different activity levels. This is usually expressed in different activity units for each type of enzyme. For example: HUTs for protease, SKB or DU for Amylase and LU for Lipase.

World-leading nutraceutical researcher, Jon Barron, recommends looking for these numbers when choosing a digestive enzyme supplement.

Protease: A minimum of 33,000 HUT should be adequate for most meals. (Remember, you can always take a second or third capsule for meals that require it.)

Acid stable protease: 1,000 SAPU would be great. Most formulas have none at all.

Lipase: 5,000 LU is adequate

Amylase: Look for 12,000 SKB

Lactase: 1,500 LACU is the minimum with 2,000 or even 2,500 being better

Look for a variety of other enzymes such as Malt diastase, Invertase, Glucoamylase, Cellulase, and Hemicellulase

You can also look for Alpha galactosidase to help control gas

It is best not to enteric coat enzymes. If the enzymes are enteric coated, they won't begin working until they reach the intestinal tract. The primary role of digestive enzymes is to work in pre-digestion. If the enzymes are enteric coated, that is an impossibility.

The best time to take digestive enzymes is just before you start eating. This sends a signal to your body that enzymes are present and begins to train your body to hold back on the stomach acid for the 40-60 minutes that nature intended. However, if you forget to take your enzymes before you start eating, they can still be of use after you eat.

A significant percentage of people progressing in age may need supplemental hydrochloric acid. To prevent the inactivation of the digestive enzymes, it should be taken as a separate supplement 40-60 minutes after you finish eating. Symptoms of low acid include bloating, belching, and flatulence immediately after meals. Other symptoms would be indigestion, diarrhea, constipation and heartburn. If these symptoms do not improve with the digestive enzymes alone you can try adding HCL from the health food store or taking apple cider vinegar with your meal. You can mix one teaspoon of apple cider vinegar with water and a little honey and drink this with each meal. You may gradually increase the vinegar up to 3-4 tablespoons in water if needed.

About the Author

2011-02-03T16:36:49Z

Ever since I was a little girl I always knew I was here to help people make a difference in their lives in some way. Driven by my passion to help people, I have continuously grown and expanded my knowledge and abilities.

I started out as a nurse thinking this would be a great way to help people. After realizing prevention is much smarter and valuable than cure, I studied to be a naturopathic doctor. Even in natural medicine, which supports the body's own healing process, you cannot bring about optimum health without addressing the spiritual and mental state of the person. Optimum health cannot be just about health because a person is so much more than a body. A person has to be in a positive state of mind and living a life in alignment with who they are at the core of their being.

I have spent 20 years in the personal development field counseling with and training people. I have helped people like you connect to their core self and true desires. In addition, I have helped them remove unconscious blocks and develop new abilities necessary for success. Since each person's dreams and goals are so different, I would have to say the common result is each person living a happier and more fulfilled life.

I can't say I use any one field of work because I have continued to study many modalities over the years and continue to glean the best from all of them. It all comes down to one thing - what works, what produces results. I wish I could say there was an easy-to-follow formula to help an individual achieve their dreams and aspirations.

What I have discovered is when I expanded my scope to include the spiritual nature of our existance miracles became possible.

Sincerely,
Debra Kahnen, R.N., N.D.
Author, Speaker, Life/Health Coach