Thursday, December 21, 2006

The Zone Diet

One change in the information that's been discovered about our bodies and health by medical science is the importance of the correct balance of the major food groups -- fats, proteins and carbohydrates.

I personally really like the Zone Diet by Dr. Barry Sears. Other experts have come up with other versions -- Protein Power, South Beach and others. But the point is to greatly reduce the amount of carbohydrates we injest, especially the low nutrition ones from grains and sweets.

So in a way, traditional weight loss methods of not eating candy, cake etc. can work not because of reducing calories (which are not as important as we've been told), but by reducing excess carbohydrates.

Dr. Atkins went too far in this direction, eating almost only proteins and fats -- too much of those and not enough carbohydrates.

So I personally think the balanced approach of Dr. Barry Sears is a great re-discovery.

Xtend Life now best supplement company

Of course, the alternative health marketplace is much more complicated. Health food stores in general are no longer the cutting edge. The only time I go to GNC when I'm travelling in another country and the local GNC is the only place I know to even look for probiotics or golden seal.

Though, to be fair, there's a health food store near where I live that is still privately owned and still has that tiny little cubby hole feeling.

But there's also a vast array of products available through mail order and network marketing. And yes, much of that is overpriced and simply relabeled, not original products.

However, about 10 years ago I was with a network marketing company called LifeTronix and we sold products of liquid formulas that were unique. And because of their nature, they were absorbed much more easily and efficiently than tablets.

And of course, a ton of stuff you'd never otherwise hear about is available online. These days my preferred provider is a company in Australia -- Xtend Life -- that has very high quality products.

Advances in alternative health

So it's amazing to me how much the field of alternative health has advanced -- both in terms of its popularity and in terms of how much more we know now and the products that're available.

We've gone from cod liver oil as a source of Vitamins D and A to pharmaceutical grade fish oil that's had almost every molecule of PCBs refined out of it as a source of Omega 3. Try to find any reference to Omega 3 oils in an Adele Davis book.

We've gone from getting calcium in smoothed down tablets of limestone rock to highly sophisticated, bio-available liquid vitamins.

We've gone from relying solely on vitamins and minerals to having a vast array of herbs from all over the world at our disposal. I could be wrong, but I doubt if any herbs are mentioned or recommended in any of Adelle Davis' books. Now we know that although certainly vitamins and minerals are important, that complex molecules can perform very useful functions in our bodies.