Enzymes: The Fountain of Youth? Part 2 - How to stop the degeneration of the body?
So how does one stop this degeneration?
1. Replace Enzymes that have been lost through years of eating ‘dead’ food, by eating germinating, sprouted and raw foods in sufficient quantities. Don’t forget to include papayas (which are rich in the enzyme “papain”) and pineapples (rich in the enzyme “bromelain”). Juicing (fruits, vegetables and cereal grasses) is an excellent way to consume nutritionally dense foods.
For healthy digestion, optimal absorption and efficient elimination, here are some guidelines for proper food combining:
Fruit:
Do not combine with other foods. Eat only on an empty stomach and wait 30 minutes before eating other foods.
Fats:
(Nuts, seeds and their sprouts; avocado and coconut): Avoid mixing these foods. Combine only with non-starchy vegetables. The one exception is avocado, which can be combined with any vegetable.
Starches:
(Potato, squash, corn, carrots, grains): It is okay to mix these foods. You can combine them with any type of vegetable, except tomatoes.
Bean Sprouts and Grain Sprouts:
Avoid mixing these foods. It is okay to combine these with any type of vegetable, except tomatoes.
Supplements containing combinations of amylase, lipase and protease (along with other enzymes) can also be helpful. These come in the form of digestive, pancreatic or proteolytic enzymes. Another class of enzyme supplements called Super Oxide Dismutase and Catalase, can reduce oxidative stress (cellular damage), in the body.
2. Oxygenate the body through healthy breathing practices (such as pranayama). All disease states are either caused by or complicated by a lack of oxygen. Oxygen feeds tissue, kills viruses, singes bacteria, destroys yeast and dissolves cancer. All bugs hate oxygen. Cancer cells feed on glycogen (anaerobic respiration) and die in the strong presence of oxygen. Part of a healthy immune system is to have good circulation, rich red blood cells and clean thin blood needed to carry oxygen throughout the body to kill anything that may be festering due to the lack of sufficient oxygen. Good breathing habits can accomplish all of this.
3. Strength Training builds lean muscle, mineralizes bones and restores hormonal balance. To achieve all this, aerobics, cardio, walking or other such exercises will not do. A physiological law states: "Mineralization is laid into bone along axial lines of stress". What that means is that unless we compress hard and tug hard on a bone, it will not absorb minerals well or maintain its mineral mass. Some doctors think this law can be fulfilled by simple weight bearing exercise such as walking, but research has proved them wrong. For one thing, while walking, the arms, shoulders and mid-back bear no weight. How can they benefit from walking? For another, the first principle of exercise is that a muscle prefers to get its exercise in its primary range of motion. It also prefers as great a range of motion as it can safely handle. This will stress the bones sufficiently to produce the adaptive response needed for mineralizing. Walking has a mere 13 degrees range of motion at the hip and knee. The hip is capable of a range of 160 degrees and the knee, 135 degrees. So how much exercise can 13 degrees give? Not much. For walking to be a good exercise in bone building for the pelvis and lower extremity, you would have to go very fast both uphill and downhill. That’s not likely to happen.
The energy we use for everything in our lives is produced by mitochondria. It is these furnaces of the cells where Adenosine Tri Phosphate is produced (ATP). ATP is the fuel that powers everything in our bodies. Most of the ATP in the body is made in the muscles.
The brain uses 33% of the body’s daily energy, the eyes 33% and the remainder is used by the rest of the body. If we have fewer mitochondria, as in diseases such as Mononucleosis, Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or due to age and loss of muscle, then all of our energy is significantly reduced and we are in a fog. The only thing that can significantly increase the number of mitochondria in our bodies is STRENGTH TRAINING (through lifting weights and/or doing body weight exercises).
Putting it all together:
Eating ‘dead’ foods leads to enzyme deficiency which in turn leads to physical degeneration, starting as early as age 27.
If we don’t replace the enzymes that we have lost, our body cannot perform basic functions such as fighting inflammation and disease, repairing damaged tissue or circulating blood (oxygen).
If we don't maintain high levels of circulating oxygen, bugs will grow and fester throughout our bodies and we will have low energy and a shortened life span.
If we don't raise our declining levels of sex hormones such as progesterone and testosterone, we cannot stop or reverse bone and muscle loss; we'll also become depressed, gain fat and have no zest for life.
All these issues can be taken care of just by eating (and drinking) live and raw foods, breathing correctly and strength training. In the process, we will undo the effects of premature aging and dramatically hold back the years.
"I welcome the years and I fear not their toll for my health is a thing
I control"
