Holistic Health Foundation

Holistic Health & Lifestyle Foundation

active prevention... nutritional strategies to support a health lifestyle

..... by Dieter Luske N.D.-D.C.H.-D.M.H.-D.H

"Holistic Therapies” .. the natural way to free yourself from physical and mental decline.

* Health is more than a good diet, everything is inter-connected, if anything is out of balance it will effect everything else.

Your Foundation always comes first, you can't build Health if there is no Foundation.

The foundation is a combination of; knowledge, understanding and application.

It's not enough to know it, one has to apply the knowledge to understand. It's like activating your knowledge, which makes it 'Active Prevention'.

One of the most important factor in keeping or becoming healthy is our nutrition status, meaning the food we eat. At the same time, there is probably nothing more confusing than working out a healthy nutritious eating plan (diet), too many factors come into play before someone can decide on a suitable personal healthy diet.

To find a 'good' Diet will be the main part of this Holistic Health Foundation.

Wherever you struggle in life, there is a need to learn something new, which usually means, changing parts of your lifestyle.

In regard to health, change relates right back to our cells. Our cells are constantly dying and renewing. This is the clue to perfect health!

Our bodies have the capability to totally regenerate.

• Every 90 days a new blood stream is built in the body, by the food you eat, the liquid you drink, and the air you breathe.
  
• Every eleven months we have a new set of billions of body cells.
• Every 7 years we have an entirely new set of bones and connective tissues!
• And ... yes, even our brain can re-build.

If cells are not doing this, and they are reproducing "sick" cells instead, you have to change something within your physical, mental or spiritual being to bring about a state which facilitates healthy cell reproduction. You have to "support" your body with healthy nutrition and positive thoughts.

The medical system instead believes in fighting a disease; either by killing something, cutting something out, or in facilitating changes in your systemic body functions by chemical intervention. Interestingly enough, those are all "war - metaphors", and one has to wonder about co-lateral damage and dying under friendly fire.

I am more interested in peace, being in peace with my body, somehow I believe this is more appropriate, supporting your body and mind rather than fighting it.

Obviously, I am not denying that medical intervention is of the utmost importance, and it can be a life saving experience at times, and I don't think we can do without it. I do think however, that we can do much, much better in supporting our health by natural means, and by choosing a supportive holistic healthy lifestyle, which we call Active Prevention.

Modern drugs are very impressive in suppressing Nature's warning symptoms that something is wrong, but do they cure?

There seems to be hardly ever any cure, it's all 'maintenance', and health is going slowly downhill, only to be propped up with more chemical or surgical intervention.

Why, with such progress being made and medical science claiming to have more and more answers, are hospitals more overcrowded than ever?

Consider this: around the turn of the century, one in 30 people died of cancer, nowadays it can be as high as "one in three or four", scary.
Why this horrific increase? What has changed over the years?

Everything has changed, our environment has changed, marketing has changed, manufactured, processed food has taken over, even our thinking and attitude have changed, and not always for the better.

The addition of food additives, refining and preserving food, pesticides, industrial chemicals and environmental pollutants combined with a hectic and probably un-healthy computer and mobile driven lifestyle are in part to blame.

It is quite hard to buy food not contaminated with chemicals. Many food items available today are toxic and anti-nutritive, destroying or leeching out much needed vitamins and minerals.

The two great physical enemies of life are:

1. Xenobiotics - (foreign chemicals introduced into our systems):
   preservatives, colorings, herbicides, etc., belong to this class and so do medicinal drugs with their side effects.

2. Nutritional Deficiencies, because the wrong food choices, high caloric foods without nutrients.

Holistic Foundation - Summary

Health needs a foundation. Loosing your foundation is like someone pulling out a rug from underneath your feet.

We can't divide our self into parts. Our physical, mental and spiritual body has to be seen as one. Neglecting one, will cause a problem in the other.

Every problem is a problem of the whole body. An upset digestive tract is not a separate entity, the rest of the body, the mind and spirit are attached to it.

The Foundation and therefore backbone for your Health is;

1. Good Nutrition, a well balanced Diet

2. Exercise, physical activity

3. Lifestyle awareness and changes, including healthy attitudes and supporting Brain Plasticity

Why Change the Way I eat, you may ask?

A new epidemic ... 'Lifestyle Diseases'

A national survey stated, (2005) that 75% of people are Overweight and 20% are Obese...
Heart disease, Cholesterol, Diabetes and general chronic diseases are on the rise...
We seem to be nutritionally more aware, but do we act on the correct knowledge?

Our fat consumption has gone down, yet our fat bellies have gone up. What is wrong? We should be getting slimmer.

The answer is that the Standard Diet proposed by most dieticians, heart and diabetic specialists is based on the idea that we should get 65-70% of our daily calories from carbohydrates and some even want to get the fat percentage down to 10%. Indeed, some people have become Fat Phobic ...

The reason low fat diets fail is because the body shifts into carbohydrate burning mode so it needs less and less fat for Energy requirements. Therefore there is no fat burning.

Carbohydrates do not control the hunger, so you eat more than you should. Add to this sugar, salt and processed food craving and you know why that diet can't work.

A good Diet has to be a sound balance of fresh, possible organic protein, carbohydrate and fat, are good mix of saturated, unsaturated and medium chain (coconut oil) fats. Anything else is not a diet for the long term.

Some diets may work short term to achieve a certain result, be it weight loss, detoxification, weight gain, muscle gain or various diets designed to change some specific health problems. However, most of these specific diets are only working within the short term and should be followed by a good sensible balanced diet.

The clue to live with a successful eating plan, is to always learn about the basic balanced diet first. Make sure it works for you, and is sensible for a modern lifestyle. Having mastered that diet, which is now your new lifestyle diet, makes it easy to employ other specific diets, as you would automatically fall back to your lifestyle diet.

Talking about weigh, health and aging, one scientific fact is that under-eating is the only proven way to live longer.

For me, this is very interesting, first it reminds me of my Granddad, who always said; "stop eating just before you a full", and secondly, if people take this on board, the problem of weigh gain would be out of the news.

Brain Plasticity also has been given much media attention and rightly so, it may be one of the most important health modifying principle yet. However, never forget your foundation, and nutrition is particularly important to uphold optimal brain plasticity, preventing such ailments as Dementia, Alzheimer's or Chronic Pain.

Article by ... Dieter Luske

* Disclaimer - Any general advice given in any article should not be relied upon and should not be taken as a substitute for visiting a qualified medical Doctor.