Renegade Water Secrets with Jonny Bowden, is a board certified nutritionist, personal trainer, motivational speaker, and author of: Living the Low-Carb Life: Choosing the Diet that’s Right for You, The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth: The Surprisingly Unbiased Truth about What You Should Eat and Why and his most recent book is The Most Effective Natural Cures on Earth: The Surprising Unbiased Truth about What Treatments Work and Why.

Kevin: We’re talking about protein and amino acids right now. So I had one question about a plant-based source of protein. A lot of people who are on this call may or may not be vegan and a lot of them don’t necessarily want to eat meat or have that sort of protein. What are your thoughts on plant-based proteins? What do you think are some of the better ones?

Jonny: Well, let me give full disclosure. I’m not a vegan or vegetarian. I find that a very difficult way to live and I am not convinced that that is necessarily the best way for our species to exist. I have all the concerns that many of the people on the call have about the quality of the protein that we eat and about factory farming for animals and the cruelty and not to mention the steroids and antibiotics and growth hormones and all of that other stuff in the milk that I’m eating. I certainly don’t recommend not to anyone, but I do think that in the long run the human species does a little bit with some animal products in our diet. Maybe it’s once a week. Maybe for some metabolic types or some genetic types it’s three times a day. The human species has adapted to many different types of diets, but one diet it has not adapted to is the high processed food, high sugar diet. That’s across the board, so you’ll see the Bantu of South Africa, who do very well on an 80% carbohydrate diet and you’ll see the Inuit, that used to be called the Eskimo in Greenland and in Alaska who eat virtually nothing but whale blubber and seal meat, because vegetables don’t even grow up there and they do very, very well. None of them eat sugar and none of them eat stuff with a barcode, so I think that there is a wide range of diets that we can adapt to, but I do think that even the longest lived people the world may eat very little meat, but they eat a little bit of it. It’s certainly not the supermarket meat we’re talking about. It’s usually grass fed or free range or pasture fed and healthy cows and happy cows that live on pasture.

So I’m not someone who has a lot of personal experience with a vegan diet. My metabolic type is not suited for that. I do think we’d all benefit by having more raw foods in our diet. 20% or 50% the exact number, I don’t know. It’s going to vary for different people, but we all want some raw fruits and vegetables in our diet. No question about it, these kinds of things. I think that even people who are on a high- protein diet, even people who are following Atkins should eat more vegetables. I think across the board we all would benefit from more vegetables in our diet. This is not contradictory to a higher protein, higher fat diet. We need more vegetables in our diet across the board. I would say that that’s true.

Now that said, how do we get best quality protein if we don’t want to eat any animal or fish-based food and the answer is I don’t know. The inconvenient truth, if you will, is that vegetable protein and plant-based protein is not the same quality. It just isn’t. You can’t get your B12 from plant-based diets. I understand that the vegan and the raw food people believe differently, but that’s not just my opinion. It’s pretty much been documented. It’s in the Encyclopedia of Dietary Supplementation that’s put out by a blue ribbon committee. B12 is just not there. It’s not absorbable. It’s not available, but the iron that’s and plant food is not the same quality as in animal foods. Can we manage with a plant-based diet or with an exclusively plant-based diet? We can and sometimes it’s a very healthy thing to do as a detox or as a temporary strategy to balance the acid diet that many of us have been on to help cure some diseases. It think it can be very valuable, but in the long range year in year out without any fish in the diet, without any eggs, without any whey protein I think it’s very, very tough. Beans have protein in them. Many of the vegetable sources are just lacking in an amino acid or two. Their amino acid profile is just not quite as good. Can we manage? Sure we can.

My recommendation to people who want to follow that kind of diet is you maybe just bend the rules a little bit and have some fish. You’re just not going to get omega threes from plant foods and that includes flaxseed and I’m a big supporter of flaxseed. It’s not the same. There are two omega threes that are found in fish. The body doesn’t convert them very well. You need that EPA and DHA. They’re essential for health. They’re essential for the brain, for the cardiovascular system. So I think that if there was a way that you could live with some small amount of fish in the diet or some amount of eggs from happy chickens, free range chickens or a little bit of whey protein I think that that would be a very good balance to a vegan diet or to a diet that is largely vegan, if not 100% vegan.

Kevin: Yeah and the omega-3 question was my next one. What is happening with flax oil and why is it not assimilated?

Jonny: Assimilated is fine. Here’s the problem. There are three Omega three fatty acids in the world. Three. I’m not going to try to spell them, but they’re alpha-linolenic acid, ALA is one. The other two are eicosapentaenoic acid, EPA and the other one is docosahexaenoic acid, DHA. So to call them by their nicknames, it’s ALA, DHA and EPA. ALA is found in flaxseed. The other two are found in fish. The body technically can take the ALA found in flaxseed and out of that make the two that are found in fish, the complete form to come out of the box in the fish, but it doesn’t do a good job. In fact, it does a lousy job. The most you’re going to get is about 10% conversion.

Now, why do we care? Because the real health benefits come from those two that are found pre-made in fish, the EPA and DHA. That’s where the real action is. Those are the ones that are found in the developing fetus’s brain is DHA. Those are the ones that have been found to improve mood. Those are the ones that are found to lower blood pressure. These are important omega threes. Now, it doesn’t mean that the ALA in flaxseed isn’t important. It has a lot of anti-inflammatory properties of its own. There are lignins in flax. There are phytochemicals and flax and flax as a food is a fabulous food, not just because of the omega threes, but because it has fiber and it has all kinds of other stuff in it, but if you’re hoping to get your EPA and DHA, those other two omega threes, the ones that come out of the box in salmon or sardines, if you’re hoping to get that from flax you’re going to have to take an awful lot of flaxseed oil, because all you can really count on converting to the EPA and DHA is about 5% to 10% of the amount of flax. Now, if you’re having two big tablespoons of flaxseed oil a day, or three, that might be enough. Even 5% or 10% of that converting is going to be fine, but most people aren’t doing that, so I really strongly feel that the real action, the real health benefits are in the EPA and DHA and most people would be better off just taking them preformed out of the box either with fish oil, fish oil supplements or fish itself. You just can’t count on the body to make them out of the flaxseed will.

To read the rest of this transcript as well as access The Renegade Roundtable experts just like Jonny Bowden please click here! Kevin Gianni is an internationally recognized health advocate, author & film consultant. He has helped thousands of people take control of their own health naturally. For more information visit raw food diets and holistic nutrition.

Goji berries have been known to have a positive impact on everything from your liver to your circulation to your immune system. As more becomes understood about the positive health benefits provided by the Goji berry, more and more people are deciding to make them a part of their overall diet and nutrition. The question that plagues most people, though, is “Which form of Goji berries is best for me – dried Goji berries or Goji juice?” It may be confusing trying to figure out how to maximize the health benefits of Goji berries if you have just decided to make them a part of your lifestyle.

One of the main things that you might first notice is that Goji berries are more than not available in one of two forms – either dried Goji berries or Goji juice. And really, there is no reason to worry about which will benefit you most health wise, as both forms of Goji berries pack a powerfully healthy punch and are an excellent addition to a healthy diet. In the end, your choice will mainly be a matter of which form you prefer.

So, knowing this, how do you go about selecting the best form of Goji berries for yourself? Well, the easiest way to accomplish this is by considering the different aspects of each. If you like to travel or if you spend a lot of time away from home, then you might find that dried Goji berries are the perfect fit for your lifestyle. Just put a couple handfuls in a snack bag and you will always have this healthy snack on hand. If you get tired of eating the berries plain, try being a little innovative. Mix some in with your cereal, your yogurt, or even make your own trail mix. It is extremely easy to tuck away your dried Goji berries in a knapsack or purse. Plus, with dried Goji berries, you do not have to be concerned about consuming unwanted chemicals, such as preservatives, dyes or other additives that some brands of Goji juice contain.

On the other hand, maybe you do not like the slightly bitter taste of dried Goji berries. In this case, you may prefer to obtain your healthy benefits in the form of Goji juice. For some people, it is just easier to grab a glass of Goji juice in the morning with breakfast or as afternoon refreshment. Just as with dried Goji berries, Goji juice allows you to explore your creative side. Feel free to mix it with other fruit juices and make your own juice cocktails. With this method, you not only get the health benefits of Goji berries, but of other fruits as well.

In the end, your personal preferences will dictate which form of Goji berries is best for you. You may even decide to alternate between the two forms to ensure that boredom is never a problem. Just remember, the main thing is to be sure to make Goji berries a part of your diet and lifestyle.

Ray Subs works with GojiBerries.us as a public relations consultant, more information about Ray Subs can be found at http://www.GojiBerries.us

Today’s sedentary lifestyle leads to weight gain. No one can argue with that. Everyone differs, however, on how to shed the weight.

The conversion of energy from stored fat is one of the main functions of the liver. Therefore, it is important that your liver is always at peak performance. Another function of the liver is to help the kidneys do their job if they’re dehydrated. The solution to keeping your liver converting fat to energy is to drink more water! The consumption of water is vital in order to maintain a healthy body. To summarize, cut down on the dehydrating beverages and fill up with more water.

Just existing burns calories. Energy is required every hour of the day, regardless of what we do. Who doesn’t know that? What is not as commonly known is that the amount of muscle on your body determines your resting metabolic rate. Even a small increase in your muscle mass will increase your resting metabolic rate, with the result being more calories expended throughout the day.

To benefit from increasing your metabolism, you don’t need to lift weights two or three hours a day. You probably don’t have that kind of time to invest – nor do I.

If you’re overweight and would like to add to your muscle mass, start slowly, and do simple things like squats or push-ups. Every day do five of each exercise. Those can both be done from the home and it won’t cost you a dime. If you want more workout than just push-ups and squats, do you need to buy a set of weights? No matter how silly it sounds, you can always use a pair of rocks weighing three or four pounds each.

Increase your muscle mass as fast as possible by making your body constantly rebuild and repair muscle. Every part of your body needs exercising: chest, shouldres, back, biceps, triceps, quads, forearms, and glutes, calves and hamstrings, and abdominals. To accomplish this, do you need to kill yourself every day at the gym? Not if you’re creative. Just remember, push-ups and squats. Those two exercises will work every muscle in your body (it’s even better if time allows you to concentrate on individual muscles).

However, don’t overlook the last but very important factor of losing or gaining weight: your diet. If three times a day you consume a double cheeseburger and a large fries, and drink a soda that’s not calorie-free, it’s going to be hard for you to lose weight no matter what you do.

While there is no limit to the number of diets claiming to be the best (all fruit, no meat, low carbs, low fat, etc.), different types of food create different reactions in people. On the most fundamental level, everyone’s body metabolizes food differently. What rejuvenates one person is just as likely to make someone else lethargic.

Which diet produces the best results for your body? To start, analyze how many calories you eat every day. Make sure it is the proper amount for your current body weight. Second, pay attention to how you feel emotionally and physically thirty minutes after you’ve eaten. Do you feel sluggish and want to nap? Or are you re-energized? Feeling like you could run a marathon? Most likely you’ve already concluded the answer because your body will tell you exactly how it feels after consuming a meal.

Light exercising, adequate water consumption, and a diet that makes you alive and full of energy are the fundamentals of losing weight. Be sure you include all three of the above factors, your lifestyle will be healthier and you’ll lose weight without even trying!

For more great weight loss information join a Weight Loss Community

Renegade Water Secrets with Jonny Bowden, is a board certified nutritionist, personal trainer, motivational speaker, and author of: Living the Low-Carb Life: Choosing the Diet that’s Right for You, The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth: The Surprisingly Unbiased Truth about What You Should Eat and Why and his most recent book is The Most Effective Natural Cures on Earth: The Surprising Unbiased Truth about What Treatments Work and Why.

Kevin: Thank you. Well, for those of you who have never heard of Jonny Bowden, why don’t you just give us a quick little summary and then we’ll get right into the meat of this call and the questions.

Jonny: Well, I’m a board certified nutritionist. I have a Masters degree in psychology. I was a personal trainer for 10 years and I have six certifications in personal training and I try to combine motivational speaking with clinical nutrition and fitness and health for just transformation of the world and the planet and people’s health and personal power.

Kevin: Wow. So let’s get right into it. I sense a theme of the questions that we got and I got a chance to take a look at them, kind of revolve around to very specific things. One is emotional eating and the other is a sugar cravings and I have a feeling that they’re a little bit connected, but I’m going to let you talk about that. So let’s talk first about emotional eating. How can someone overcome emotional type grabbing for food no matter what it is?

Jonny: Well, it’s certainly something that we can spend an entire hour on, but let me just give you a tiny piece of the way I approach it. I did a program a while ago, which has been doing really well on my website called the Diet Boot Camp Program. It’s four CDs and a manual and it’s the text that we use in our private coaching program. It’s kind of a textbook, but this is an at-home version that you can do without the coaching program and everyone talks about using a food journal to keep a record of what you eat, so that you can kind of monitor food reactions and calories and be accountable to yourself. In the Diet Boot Camp Program, I particularly added to that food journal questions about what you just asked. What am I feeling when I’m eating this? Am I really hungry or is something else going on? How do I connect the dots between the triggers for eating and my eating behavior? Because I think the answer to your question is really about how we connect the dots? How do we identify what triggers happen often subconsciously, and often without us even noticing them. They happen so quickly.

What cues do we respond to that trigger eating behaviors, because until we can make that connection we can’t to break the link. So what we’re looking for is a circuit breaker. We’re looking for a way — if you know those Christmas lights that you have that you put on a Christmas tree. When they’re all kind of chained together and there’s one little circuit that’s broken in there then all the rest of the lights beyond that don’t light up. That’s what we need to do with some of our more addictive behaviors, whether it be food behaviors or drug behaviors, whatever we’re addicted to and here were talking about sugar and cravings and emotional eating.

So what we tend to and I was a cigarette smoker, for example. Certain subjects would come up. Certain anxiety producing subjects would come up in conversation. You automatically reach for the pack. So what I talk about on Diet Book Camp is making a chink in the link. You’re looking at that link of behaviors that starts with an emotion of feeling of fear or anger. In the 12 step program they talk about don’t get too angry or too tired or too thirsty or too hungry or too lonely. There are these triggers and what we’re looking for is what is the link of behaviors that ends with us eating something that doesn’t support our health and how to we break that link. How do we put a little circuit breaker in that link of lights and I think that’s the key to getting mastery over emotional eating.

Kevin: When someone is craving something is it too late? Does this groundwork have to laid before?

Jonny: That is a great question and let me give you the short answer. Obviously, if you can nip it before it happens, it’s the same thing with cigarettes and everything else. If you can stop cravings before they overcome you and there are things you can do. There are things you can do to modulate, for example, blood sugar, because dropping blood sugar is a big cue for cravings. There are things you can do to not get too angry or too hungry and there are things you can do to start molecules going up to your brain, saying this dude’s not that hungry. We can manage. So there’s a lot of things that you can do in advance of cravings. Once you understand what the triggers are, there are things you can do.

My ex-girlfriend was a big smoker and she knew that there were certain routes in the car, driving home from rehearsal, certain times that were triggers for her, so she learned to not do this particular things and to find alternative a ways to go home, to find different times to go, different people to travel with, so there are ways that you can kind of anticipate before the craving happens. You can do it be it with modulating blood sugar or taking some of the supplements that I talk about in The Most Effective Natural Cures on Earth, like glutamine and things like that, but once a craving hits there are still things you can do to interrupt the circuit. It’s a little harder than not having a craving in the first place, but sometimes cravings just hit us. So what we have to do is find some alternative behaviors or just find a way to get, as I said, a chink in the link, maybe put one behavior in between the craving and the action.

A lot of us feel a craving and immediately gratify it and sometimes if you can just train your brain to put a five minutes in between, like maybe make a deal with yourself and you say okay, I’m going to delete this food or have the cigarette or whatever it is that you’d like to not be able to do. I’m going to be able to do it and make a deal with myself, but I’m going to wait five minutes. I’m going to just walk around the block first. It’s kind of like when you’re really angry and you take 10 deep breaths. You just make that deal with yourself to put that little bit of distance and when you know some of the tricks of what you can do in that little bit of distance you’d be amazed. The cravings pass within 15 minutes. It’s been documented. There’s no question about it. If you can outlast it, you can beat it.

So there are things that you can do and it isn’t always too late once the craving starts, but obviously the best solution is to try to anticipate what might trigger those cravings in the first place and maybe head them off at the pass before you are victimized by them.

Kevin: Right, because it’s challenging when you have a piece of cake or there’s a whole variety of people in this call. People who are into raw foods to people who just want to lose weight. It’s a challenge when you have that thing in your hand and it’s in your reach. Is it a different kind of trigger for each person, like a different kind of stop technique? Why don’t you give us an example of what you use for smoking? What was your stop technique?

Jonny: I wrapped the cigarettes and paper and put a rubber band around the pack. I would have to unwrap the cigarettes. I would have to write down on the paper the time of day. I’d rank it from one to 10 and I would have to wait five minutes and actually go out of the room and do it someplace else.

Kevin: Wow.

Jonny: After a while, if you put enough of these little stop gap measures, five minutes, 10 minutes, you have to wrap it up, you have to write it down and have to go out of the room. If you make it inconvenient enough, as you begin to break the habit it becomes easier and easier. For some people I’m going to have dessert, I’ll have a warm bath first. I’ll read 10 pages of the Wall Street Journal or of my favorite novel. I’ll wait and watch 15 minutes of the news and then I’ll have it. You can make them up. They can be different for different people. I’ll walk around the block. I’ll do 10 push-ups. You’d be amazed at the number of things you can put in there to just jam up the works. What you’re trying to do is deconstruct that automaticness, that knee-jerk reaction and once you can do that, once you can get a wedge in it’s like a wedge issue. Once you get a wedge in, it’s sort of like undoing a knot on your shoe lace when it’s really tight. Once you can loosen it a little bit, the rest of it sort of unravels a lot more easily.

Kevin: What a great 10 minute explanation on food cravings and sugar and everything. I think that kind of covers it. That is some incredible advice.

To read the rest of this transcript as well as access The Renegade Roundtable experts just like Jonny Bowden please click here! Kevin Gianni is an internationally recognized health advocate, author & film consultant. He has helped thousands of people take control of their own health naturally. For more information visit raw food diets and holistic nutrition.

This interview is an excerpt from Kevin Gianni’s Renegade Roundtable, which can be found at http://www.RenegadeRoundtable.com. In this excerpt, Jonny Bowden shares on nutritional supplements.

Renegade Water Secrets with Jonny Bowden, is a board certified nutritionist, personal trainer, motivational speaker, and author of: Living the Low-Carb Life: Choosing the Diet that’s Right for You, The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth: The Surprisingly Unbiased Truth about What You Should Eat and Why and his most recent book is The Most Effective Natural Cures on Earth: The Surprising Unbiased Truth about What Treatments Work and Why.

Kevin: There are so many supplements today to choose from. The costs can be high and I don’t know if they work. If you’re on a budget, what are the bare-bones supplements that you think that people should really be concerned about or should be using?

Jonny: If I had to pick one, if you put a gun to my head and I had to pick one supplement that would have the broadest-based shotgun approach to health that does the most things for the most people and that most people are lacking in it would have to be fish oil. Even a multiple vitamin, a lot of people on this call are eating really great. They’re eating a lot of raw foods. They’re getting enzymes and they’re eating yogurt or other naturally fermented foods and they’re getting some probiotics. Let’s assume they’re getting a ton of vitamins from their vegetables and fruits, although most people are lacking in some of them, but if you could only take one the omega threes just have the widest range of health benefits and are most needed by most people. So that would be my number one with a bullet.

There are others down the list. Certainly, multivitamins, magnesium. 75% of magnesium is getting a less than optimal level of magnesium. Probiotics are a good one. Digestive enzymes. There are a lot of different things and then of course, you get into the different health conditions and the different things and different challenges that different people have. If there are some heart issues or anything to do with — if anybody’s on a staten medication to lower cholesterol and that’s a whole other discussion, but if you are on one of there’s not even a doubt, you should be on co- enzyme Q10 supplementation. Absolutely 100% and if your doctor tells you otherwise change doctors. Staten drugs seriously deplete co-enzyme Q10. It’s a vital nutrient for the heart. If you’re on a Staten medication co-enzyme Q10 is at the top of the list.

For energy depletion there’s all sorts of different things. If people have blood sugar issues and I talk about all of this in The Most Effective Natural Cures on Earth. Different natural prescriptions for supporting your health with different kinds of conditions and not necessarily curing a condition, but supporting your health and maybe being able to reduce medication or maybe being able to put something into remission or reduce the number of outbreaks of asthma attacks or acne or any of these different things. That can be helped by different dietary supplement strategies, but again, go back to what is the one thing that people on a budget, one thing that they can take. That said, I would

have to say fish oil.

Kevin: Any specific supplements for women?

Jonny: Well, certainly fish oil again, because that’s something both sexes need. If someone is pregnant, I think that’s number one with a bullet, because the developing fetus again, the brain is 60% by weight fat and most of that fat is DHA. So again, this is vitally important. I think folic acid is particularly important. It’s important for men and for women. I’m not one of those people who think that there’s a vast difference in what men and women need. There are some things like iron that men just shouldn’t be taking, but folic acid, if you’re of pregnancy age or whether you’re intending to get pregnant or not of pregnancy age you should be taking folic acid absolutely every day. If you drink, you should be taking folic acid every day. So this is another supplement that just has wonderful benefits in a myriad of ways, but certainly any one of pregnancy age should be taking that.

Then beyond that I think calcium, magnesium. I think we been oversold about how much calcium we need to take. I think that’s a whole different discussion, but I don’t think we need nearly as much calcium as we’ve been told. What we need to do is stop eating things that remove calcium from our system and then we wouldn’t need to take so much of it.

I’m more concerned that people aren’t getting enough magnesium. I think vitamin D is going to be the unsung nutrient hero of this decade. We’re just now seeing how low the recommendation has been compared to the value that this vitamin has and how much of the vitamin D deficiency epidemic we have in this country and how vitally important that is for health on many different levels. It has anti-cancer activity.

I was just interviewing for my radio show yesterday, the author of the book called The Blue Zones, which is what he did for National Geographic Explorer and he found four areas in the world: Sardinia, Okinawa, a remote peninsula in Costa Rica and the Loma Linda area of California, where the Seventh-day Adventists live. He found these four areas in the world that they called the blue zones, where people live to be a hundred they live in fantastic health. They have energy. There are people that are over a hundred years old that are tilling the fields. These pockets of long-lived healthy existence and they went and he investigated to see with the people might have in common. All of them live in sunny climates. All of them were getting a lot of vitamin D. Now there are a lot of things that they have in common, as well; very high plant-based diets, for example, a lot of activity and a lot of connections to other people. All of that stuff, but one of the central things was the vitamin D connection. So I think that’s a vitamin that almost everyone can benefit from, from taking more. We don’t do nearly enough with that. We get this ridiculous low RDA of 400 IUs a day is waste. It’s laughably low. That would be another one that we could benefit by.

Kevin: Why did you say men shouldn’t be taking iron supplements?

Jonny: Because we have no way of getting rid of iron. Menstruating women have a monthly cycle in which they lose blood and therefore, can get rid of some of the iron that accumulates in their bodies. Iron is very toxic to the body when it accumulates. So if you’re menstruating you have a way of getting rid of it. If you’re not menstruating, if you’re a postmenopausal woman or a man you shouldn’t be taking iron, because it gets into the system and it absolutely can oxidize. It can be a component of — there’s just a lot of connections to heart disease and all kinds of other things. You don’t want accumulated iron in the body. So I would say that for any man, a multivitamin without iron and for any postmenopausal woman a multivitamin without iron.

To read the rest of this transcript for free as well as access a full archive of information by health experts on abundance, optimum health, and longevity just like Jonny Bowden, please visit http://www.renegadehealth.com/inner-circle.php for a free 30 day trial.

To read the rest of this transcript as well as access The Renegade Roundtable experts just like Jonny Bowden please click here! Kevin Gianni is an internationally recognized health advocate, author & film consultant. He has helped thousands of people take control of their own health naturally. For more information visit raw food diets and holistic nutrition.