Chia Seeds: Aztec Miracle, Modern Superfood

by

Victoria Challancin

flavorsofthesun.blogspot.com

Health Benefits of Chia Seeds

• For Nutrition:  a complete source of dietary protein; very high in soluble fiber; contain high amounts of Omega 3 and 6 oils; have antioxidant properties
• To Provide Energy (provide the raw materials for building flexible cell membranes to let in oxygen and nutrients and provide an easy outlet for CO2 and other cellular wastes)
• To Boost Strength
• To Bolster Endurance
• To Stabilize Blood Sugar (by slowing down both the release of carbohydrates for digestion and the conversion of carbohydrates into sugar for energy, thus preventing suden spikes in blod sugar)
• To Aid Intestinal Regularity (via the soluble fiber)
• To Reduce Cravings (and Induce Weight Loss)
• To Provide Easily Absorbed Dietary Fiber (this also lowers cholesterol levels and allows for the slow release of carbohydrates that produce long-term sustained energy)
• To Improve Cardiovascular Health (due to the high levels of heart-healthy Essential Fatty Acids)

• Contain Vitamins and Minerals: large amounts of B vitamins, calcium, zinc, iron, copper, potassium, magnesium, phosphorus, and boron (Chia seeds are known to be nutrient-dense)
• Are Digestible Without Grinding (and are quickly absorbed)
• Have Long Shelf Life
• Are Convenient to Use
• Are Gluten-Free
• Have Low Sodium Content
• Help Retain Electrolytes (especially during physical exertion or bouts of diarrhea)

Click this link for the rest of the Chia Seeds article. You will also find more recipes and food articles as well as great photographs and travel stories.

Because I have been getting a great deal of site traffic from people suffering with a lot of joint pain, inflammation, stiffness and swelling, I am considering writing a series of articles on self-healing of these conditions.

Here is a knee replacement problem submitted by Danielle in the Comments section of the article Reduce & Heal Your Knee Pain. I have decided to reprint this here to make it more available since many viewers never get to the Comments sections of articles.

If your condition does not involve your knee, you may still benefit from this information since the self-healing principles that will help you to heal a knee pain will apply to pain you might have in other parts of your body.

Please feel free to make comments and ask questions.

Danielle’s Knee Problem

Dear Norm,
On Nov.5 I had a bilateral knee replacement. 4 months into my recovery my knees have a feeling like they are being strangled and they are very stiff. Yet I have flexion of 26 degrees on both legs. Even though I can bend my legs and I go up and down stairs
several times a day , as the bathroom is upstairs , I continue to have pain and a grainy feeling along side of my knee cap.

I have been told by my physical therapist that it is not scar tissue but inflammation, and fluid. My knees become very stiff in the night while I sleep and when I wake I am compelled to stretch them straight and I seem to have no control over this action.

I have been told to only do 10 leg lifts raising the leg on to the height of the other bended knee. I was suppose to do this 3 times a day.

Another doctor told me to just walk, so I walked 2 hours a day. This made my knees really hurt and the swelling in my knees remain.

I currently supplement my diet with Super B complex , calcium, E&C, magnesium and 5000 units of D3. I drink a lot of 100% juices a varied mix and eat lots of veggies and oatmeal in many forms.

I have been doing this now for 3 months and I still have this strangling, tight, stiff feeling in my knees. Your advice would be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely
Danielle.

Danielle,

I will be very happy to help you. First, be sure that you do your best to follow the advice on my article, Reduce & Heal Your Knee Pain.

Under 1 > First: STOP whatever activity is aggravating the joint and causing the pain, Obviously walking two hours a day and causing more pain and swelling isn’t the answer for you. There are many things that you can do with yoga postures that will not aggravate your knees.

Have you been practicing 2 > Elevate the legs up a wall to improve circulation and reduce swelling, inflammation, and pain? This will really help you and you should do it several times a day for longer periods.

Are the juices that you are drinking fresh squeezed? Or are they from cans or bottles? Fresh juices are way more valuable for you.

You should do 7 > Adopt an Anti-inflammatory Diet.

Start with this and I will give you more later. In fact, as I mentioned in an email announcing the post, How Alida Overcame the Pain & Spinal Misalignment of Scoliosis, Because I have been getting a great deal of site traffic from people suffering with a lot of joint pain, inflammation, stiffness and swelling, I am considering writing a series of articles on self-healing of these conditions.

I might move your comments to a new post and go from there.

In the meantime, please feel free to ask questions and make more comments. Also, it will help if you answer the questions I have just made here.

Blessings,
Norm

Tuesday, March 15, 2011   Danielle’s Progress

Dear Norm,

I started doing the feet up the wall pose a few days ago , I can see that the puffiness around my knees have gone down.

I have stopped the walking all together. and I am icing my knees for 20 min every other hour, after I ice, I put my feet up the wall, after I get down I put my legs on a shiatsu massager for 15 min. then I take a nap.

The juice I have available to me is out of bottles and are 100% juice. I do not have a juicer and no funds to buy one at this time as I have not worked for several months.

I do eat a lot of fresh fruit. This week I will buy a pineapple and a papaya .

I do not know anything about yoga, so I don’t know the poses. Is there I site where I can see them ?

Thank you for writing to me, I appreciate your help and I will do what ever you suggest to me.
Sincerely
Danielle

Danielle,

I am happy to hear that you have gotten some reduction in knee swelling by doing the legs-up-the-wall position.

How long are you staying with your legs up the wall?

How often are you doing it?

The longer and the more often you practice the legs-up-the-wall pose, the sooner you will reduce swelling and pain.

Please notice that in 2 > Elevate the legs up a wall to improve circulation and reduce swelling, inflammation, and pain, in my article, Reduce & Heal Your Knee Pain, I talked about the student who stayed in that position for four hours and healed his knee in a very short time. This student was here doing yoga with me for a month recently and is in excellent shape. He is not limited in any activities and has reaped the results of regular yoga practice.

Diet

You will not get as much value out of bottled juice as you will from fresh juice. However, you don’t need to buy a juicer. You can just eat fresh fruit and you will even get more benefit because you are eating the whole fruit.

Yoga Poses – For right now just do what you can with my free videos, Improve Your Circulation Video, Knee Healing Video, Knees, Hips, Ankles, Toes: Improve Circulation & Range of Motion Video, and the others.

Learn to practice these in a way that does not cause pain, and in a way that feels good.

If you would like inspiration, read the Success Stories on this blog.

Be very gentle in your practice.

Let me know how you are progressing and I will give you more guidance.

Namaste’, ……..Norm

In my most popular article, Reduce & Heal Your Knee Pain, I advise an anti-inflammatory diet as a way to reduce swelling, inflammation and pain. Since many of you have asked for more information on anti-inflammatory diets,  I have asked musician Peter Berquist to share his resources and experiences in establishing his raw, low-fat vegan diet for two reasons:

1. Peter has told me how much better feels, how his energy has increased, and how much happier he is with this diet.

2. I am finding more doctors and scientists who recommend a vegan diet for all kinds of conditions as well as a preventative against heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and pain.

Raw, Low-Fat Vegan Diet Resources

by

Peter Berquist

Norm,

Thanks for the opportunity to share with you a little about our experiments with diet.

In 1989 my wife’s mother passed away from cancer at a relatively young age. Around that time a number of books were appearing (including Dr. Ornish’s) showing the link between diet and cancer, heart disease, diabetes, etc.

So mainly for health reasons we adopted a vegan diet in 1990. We started out following Dr. McDougall’s approach, which is similar to what Dr. Ornish recommends. They both emphasize the importance of keeping fat intake low – at or below 10% of daily calories. We still consider this low-fat cooked vegan diet the next best thing to what we are doing now.

We then found Natural Hygiene, read a number of books, and started eating a raw food diet in 1991. However, the information we had at the time was incomplete, there was no Internet, and it didn’t work out. So we went back to a cooked vegan diet.

Subsequent to that we read more books and experimented with other cooked vegan diets, some better than others. In hindsight, none of those other cooked vegan diets are as good as the low-fat approach of Dr. McDougall and Dr. Ornish.

Then in early 2008 we read on the Internet about the popular raw vegan diet, and gave it a try. Without realizing it, we were eating a diet very high in fat – the promoters of this diet counsel against eating fruit, which for a raw-foodist leaves only high-fat dishes that include nut and seed pates, etc., in addition to salad vegetables. Needless to say, this diet was far from ideal, and despite eating exclusively raw food we were having problems.

Then finally, after 18 years of experimenting with various vegan diets, we had a major breakthrough in December 2008, when we found a book called “The 80/10/10 Diet”, by Dr. Doug Graham. Dr. Graham has a Natural Hygiene background, and is in agreement with Dr. Ornish and others who recommend a low-fat diet, the only difference being it is raw rather than cooked.

So we have been eating a low-fat raw vegan diet for the last two years. Dr. Graham’s book is the definitive book on that diet. In fact, in our opinion, it is the single most important book on diet currently available.

In his book, which came out in 2005, Dr. Graham combines the latest scientific evidence with his vast experience in helping others. He has personally been eating this way for about 28 years.

Here is the Amazon page for Dr. Graham’s book:

http://www.amazon.com/80-10-Diet/dp/1893831248

And here is a link to Dr. Graham’s website, which has a lot of excellent articles and other information:

http://foodnsport.com/

As I mentioned last summer, we are ecstatic about this diet – it is far superior to anything else we have tried. And I expect that we will eat this way the rest of our lives.

Just to sum up, our experience and research has shown that the most important thing regarding diet is to minimize fat. So if one is a vegan that leaves two possibilities: a cooked low-fat vegan diet based on grains, starches, vegetables and fruits; or a low-fat raw vegan diet based on fruit and vegetables. Our experience is that the raw version of the low-fat vegan diet is superior.

It’s also important to emphasize that there is a huge difference between the low-fat raw vegan diet and the common high-fat raw diet so widely promoted on the Internet.

One thing about the diet recommended by Dr. Graham is that you can’t make a lot of money off it selling supplements, pills, powders, superfoods, etc. Everything you need is in the produce section of the supermarket.

Finally I’d like to share a few more links with you.

First, here is a link to the beginning (Part 1 of 11) of a talk given by Dr. Graham back in 2000:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0m3-8yZQPgw&feature=related

In this lecture, Dr. Graham discusses the science behind the low-fat raw vegan diet, and provides a great deal of information on health and diet in general.

And here is a website by a guy named Andrew Perlot, who has some of the best information (other than Dr. Graham) on the low-fat raw vegan diet : http://www.raw-food-health.net/rawfoodhealth.html

For comparison, here’s Dr. McDougall’s website: http://www.drmcdougall.com/

And here is a section from Dr. McDougall’s site with low-fat cooked vegan recipes:

http://www.drmcdougall.com/forums/viewforum.phpf=5&sid=19d30b2d7f286d90f041972a30987223

Best wishes for a New Year,

Peter Berquist

Peter Berquist is a bassist who is active in both the classical and jazz scenes in Southeast Georgia and South Carolina. Here is a link for the Hilton Head Symphony, where Peter is principal bass: http://www.hhso.org/

And this page has links to videos of some of his jazz performances: http://www.youtube.com/user/pberq?feature=mhum

Thank you, Peter,  & Namaste’,…..Norm

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Please feel free to ask questions and make comments below, which will require you to sign in with your name and email address in order to prevent spam comments. Your email will not be posted on this blog nor will it ever be sold or otherwise distributed without your permission. I dislike spam as much as you do…Norm

Q. What can I do about fatigue? It seems that no matter how little I exert myself, nor how much more I rest, I still feel tired. My doctor says I have no medical problems.

It sounds like you might be going in the wrong direction: resting too much and exerting yourself too little.

One of the Biggest Causes of Fatigue Is Lack of Circulation Due to Too Little Activity.

I know that there is a very common tendency to try to rest more when you don’t feel like you have a lot of energy. But if your tiredness is due to poor circulation, you can actually make yourself feel more tired by resting. These conditions can be compounded in modern living where long sedentary periods seated before a TV or computer, or in an automobile during morning and afternoon work commutes, tend to inhibit the natural tendencies of regular physical activity.

Assuming that your doctor is right and that you have no medical problem that is causing your tiredness, consider these other possibilities.

How Overeating Saps Your Energy

Sometimes in an effort to get more energy from food, you may unwittingly develop the habit of overeating. Remember, even healthy food becomes a dross to the body when taken to excess. Overeating puts a tremendous load on the digestive system and causes an imbalance of energy since so much energy is diverted to the digestive organs. This can create such a drain on the other parts of the body that you can feel very tired as your body attempts to deal with the overload of food.

Notice how you feel groggy after a big meal?

Worse yet is the coronary attack that follows when the energy needed for the heart is pulled away to deal with a heavy, hard-to-digest meal.

Too Much Rest Will Slow You Down

Yoga Science teaches that too much sleep makes you lethargic. One reason for this is that lying motionless for a long time causes a decrease in the elimination of waste material due to lessened circulation. That is a reason why the longer you sleep, or lie around, the less flexible you are upon awakening.

Oxygen intake is cut down due to slow, shallow breathing.

Get Your Energy Flowing

To improve this situation, the first thing that most Yogis do in the morning, besides meditating, are techniques to get rid of waste material and to increase circulation, oxygen, and flexibility. In other words, they prepare their bodies to behave like open conduits for the free, unobstructed flow of energy.

Improve Your Flexibility

If you lack flexibility, it is difficult for energy to flow easily. Because stiffness limits the range of motion of your body, circulation decreases. which increases your stiffness, which further slows your circulation, and on and on in vicious downward cycle. As your circulation slows so does the ability of your body to eliminate toxins, which in turn slows the free flow of nutrients to the cells. When toxins are not completely eliminated, deposits form in your joints, organs, glands, and blood vessels, and your flexibility diminishes.

How Hatha Yoga Asanas Will Help You

To combat this problem the yogis discovered Hatha Yoga, a unique system of Asanas (Postures or Poses) designed to improve circulation, energy flow, flexibility, and eliminations.

What makes Hatha Yoga such an efficient system is that all these benefits come about without the production of a large amount of waste byproduct, as happens in most other forms of exercise. If this waste material is not eliminated, your muscles will feel sore later.

When you do exercises of such a nature or in such a way that your muscles ache the next day, you will find it difficult to improve flexibility. In fact, many runners find that the more they run, the stiffer they become.

On the other hand, when you practice Hatha Yoga correctly, you will find a steady improvement in flexibility, eliminations, circulation, energy, and strength, with a minimum amount of effort, regardless of your age or present condition.

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Please feel free to ask questions and make comments below, which will require you to sign in with your name and email address in order to prevent spam comments. Your email will not be posted on this blog nor will it ever be sold or otherwise distributed without your permission. I dislike spam as much as you do…Norm

I very much would like to hear from those of you whose success with Yoga might inspire others.

Q. I am planning a fat free diet in order get my weight down. How can I be sure that my diet is totally fat free?

First of all, why do you want such an extreme diet? Unless you are intending to be on this diet just a short time, you run the risk of developing nutritional deficiencies.

A healthy diet includes fats, proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals. Fats are necessary for their lubricating effects upon the cells, joints and limbs to prevent wear and uncomfortable friction. Fats are a source of energy. And a certain amount of fat in the body is necessary to protect the cells.

Good Health Requires Balanced Living

Whenever you attempt to eliminate any element that is a natural part of a food, you run the risk of upsetting both the balance of the food and of your own system. Foods in their natural, whole, fresh, clean, unadulterated state tend to include all of the elements necessary for their proper metabolism in your body.

If you want to eliminate fats from your diet because you feel that your diet has been too high in fats. or because you are overweight, or because you have deposits in your arteries, use good nutritional sense.

Beware of simplistic solutions that advocate unnatural substitutes. In our rush to find easy answers, we support large industries that supply us with non-dairy creamers, non-cream whipped toppings, and non-butter butter substitutes. A little common sense will tell you that these are not solutions.

For instance, you may have fatty deposits in your arteries but this may not be because you are eating too much natural fat. It may be the result of

Common sense should tell you that if you do have atherosclerosis for any of the above reasons, that the indiscriminate use of fake cream, butter, cheese, and milk substitutes will not solve your problem. Most of these products have replaced the natural food elements with chemicals to color, flavor, preserve, and shape the products. If your body has had a hard time handling the fat in milk, the first food humans are able to assimilate, imagine what it does with the aluminum and whiteners found in some nondairy creamers, or with the hydrogenated oils and artificial butter flavors and colors found in some margarines.

Eliminate These Fats First

If you want to reduce your fat intake and improve your health, begin by cutting down on unnatural fats such as foods fried at such high temperatures that the fats are no longer easily assimilated by the body. Eliminate marbled beef that gives juicy, tender, easy eating steaks but comes from animals that are overfed and not allowed to exercise. Don’t eat any food made with oils that normally are liquid at room temperature that have been chemically treated or hydrogenated to change the oil into solid margarine that the body cannot digest and assimilate, and which clog up the cells and blood vessels.

Your best insurance for a healthy body is still a balanced program of yoga asanas (postures) with relaxation, breathing and meditation, a clean diet high in fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, and a cheerful attitude.

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Please feel free to ask questions and make comments below, which will require you to sign in with your name and email address in order to prevent spam comments. Your email will not be posted on this blog nor will it ever be sold or otherwise distributed without your permission. I dislike spam as much as you do…Norm

I very much would like to hear from those of you whose success with Yoga might inspire others.

Q. You said you would give us a simple diet to follow, but this almost seems too simple. Do you mean that if I make my diet raw fruits and vegetables, whole grains, nuts, cheese, milk, eggs, beans and peas, I can relax knowing that I have perfect nutrition?

The Difference Between Diet & Nutrition

No. Sorry, but diet and nutrition are not necessarily the same thing. Diet is what you eat. Nutrition is a result of what happens to what you eat. This is one of the least understood aspects of health.

The Role of Exercise in Nutrition

While it is important that you begin with good food, it may be of far greater importance how you digest and assimilate this food. You can have an excellent diet supplemented with high potency vitamin formulas and still fail to properly nourish all the cells of your body, if your digestive system doesn’t extract the nutrients and the blood stream does not carry the nutrients to where they are needed. This is why exercise, and especially the Hatha Yoga Asanas (postures) are so important. When you practice the Hatha Yoga Asanas correctly, you will increase your digestive fire, improve your circulation,  and do a much better job of  eliminating waste materials.

Q. I’ve never cared much for exercise, even when I was younger and in much better shape. How can I make myself run,  or work hard in a fast-paced aerobics class?

You don’t have to. Be reasonable and enjoy what you are doing. The best way is to just start where you are and slowly increase the amount of exercise you do. For most people just walking one mile a every day would result in a tremendous improvement in their circulation, health, and feeling of well-being. If you find that it is difficult for you to walk one mile, then walk a half-mile or a quarter of a mile. And if even that is too much, then do one block. More important considerations are that you find an activity that is pleasant to you, within your capacity, and that you begin. One of the biggest causes of failure in exercise programs is that the person tries to force himself into an activity that is against his constitution.

One indication that you are doing the right exercise for you is that you will feel better for doing it. There is a saying in Yoga, “For a thing to be good, it must be good before, during, and after.”

If your exercise leaves you feeling stiff, exhausted, or sore, something is wrong. Either the activity is not right for you, or you are doing it too fast or too hard.

Q. What if I can’t find an activity that I enjoy?

Of course you can. Just be open to the idea of changing your attitude. Think Harmony. Remember, your natural state is activity. You were created with a system that requires activity to be healthy. In order to be inactive, you must resist the natural laws of the universe. And that takes a whole lot more energy than it does to exercise.

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Please feel free to ask questions and make comments below, which will require you to sign in with your name and email address in order to prevent spam comments. Your email will not be posted on this blog nor will it ever be sold or otherwise distributed without your permission. I dislike spam as much as you do…Norm

I very much would like to hear from those of you whose success with Yoga might inspire others.

Do you frequently wish you could feel better?

Do you wish you had more energy? Are you tired of being tired?

Do you wonder if you will ever win the battle to control your weight? Alcohol? Cigarettes? Drugs? Prescription as well as recreational.

Would you like some simple, easy-to-follow plan of diet and nutrition?

Do you wonder if there is such a thing as vibrant health? An enjoyable exercise program? For someone your age?

Have you at times wondered if there were methods of tension-control that someone like yourself could learn?

Would you like to be free of backache, headache, neck ache, stiffness, muscle and joint pain? Do you long for a restful sleep?

Are you curious about meditation? Are you wondering if it is true that meditation can help you lower blood pressure and cholesterol, heal heart disease and cancer, improve your memory and intuition, expand your consciousness, and help you understand the meaning of life and the existence of God within? Do you need a Guru, or is meditation something you can learn on your own? Do you long for peace of mind?

Welcome to the Science of Yoga

My purpose of writing this blog is to share with you what I have learned about healing, improving, and maintaining health and well-being in over forty years as a student, teacher, and therapist of the Science of Yoga. Using these ideas will enable you to help yourself to better health and happier living. Here you will find workable health tools that will serve you regardless of your present condition or past training and experiences. Since these articles will be in a Question and Answer format, I will begin with a frequently asked question.

An Ideal, Easy-to-Follow Diet

Q. Some time ago I realized the importance of good nutrition for bettering my health and I began reading health books in an attempt to find the diet right for me. The more I read, the more confused I became. Even the experts don’t agree. Can you recommend some simple method for choosing my diet?

Have the better part of your diet consist of fresh, raw, fruits and vegetables with some lightly-steamed vegetables. These are the foods that put the least strain on your digestive system, leave the least toxins in your body, and have the greatest cleansing effect. Also, they are rich in minerals, vitamins, and enzymes. Additionally, they tend to have a more positive effect on your mind, causing neither agitation nor lethargy, as do some other foods. For all of these reasons, you would be better off choosing organic foods when available.

Using fruits and vegetables as the base, you would then add natural whole grains, and non-meat proteins, such as eggs, milk, cheese, nuts, seeds, beans, peas, and avocados. Meat is not recommended because, although it contains high quality protein, meat will leave many toxins in your body and may cause deposits to form in your arteries, joints, and muscles.

Q. You recommed a diet high in raw fruits and vegetables. If I eat more than just a small salad, I get excessive gas. Certain foods, like cabbage, I haven’t been able to eat in years. How can I possibly follow this diet?

Just do the best you can. If you have been used to eating mostly cooked vegetables, your stomach may have difficulty handling much raw vegetables. Try to increase the amount gradually. The food you eat must also be food that your body can handle. From among the most nutritious foods, select the best food for you. Then stick to that diet.

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Please feel free to ask questions and make comments below, which will require you to sign in with your name and email address in order to prevent spam comments. Your email will not be posted on this blog nor will it ever be sold or otherwise distributed without your permission. I dislike spam as much as you do…Norm

I very much would like to hear from those of you whose success with Yoga might inspire others.