Wellness Wednesday - Is your body a ticking time bomb?

It's always a shock when someone we know gets cancer, or finds out they have a chronic disease. It's difficult to process. Our first reaction is, invariably, "Why?" Our second will probably be, "How?" There is a fair amount of questioning and commenting and, almost always, one of the comments to come out of our mouths will be, "But she is so fit and healthy. I just don't understand how this could happen!"

That IS the question. How does someone who appears to be so fit and healthy, who gyms regularly, follows a healthy diet and basically follows all the steps recommended to maintain a healthy lifestyle, acquire a dread disease like cancer. It makes you realise your OWN vulnerability and it makes you wonder just how healthy you actually are... for a few weeks maybe. But then you gradually move away from that harsh dose of reality and go back to your daily life where disease isn't actually a REAL possibility for you. It's something that happens to other people. It doesn't occur to us to think that our bodies may also be a ticking time bomb.

That sounds really dramatic but it's, unfortunately, very true. From the day we are born, our bodies are exposed to things that bodies just shouldn't be exposed to. In fact, it actually starts before that, while we are growing in our mother's wombs. Whatever mom eats, or uses on her skin, breathes in, or is exposed to, gets transferred directly to her baby. It's frightening to think that, at such a crucial time of our lives, we are already ingesting chemicals and they are contributing to the cells of our tiny bodies.

After we are born, we continue to be exposed. Breast milk IS the best thing you can give your baby BUT, again, whatever you eat or drink, or use on your skin, will be transferred to your baby. If you feed them formula (and I know some mom's have no choice because they can't breastfeed) you are exposing them to even MORE chemicals because most baby formulas are processed under extremely high temperatures and that leads to the formation of AGES (Advanced Glycation End products) These nasty things build up in your body over time, leading to oxidation (think of rust on anything exposed to the elements for too long) and inflammation, which is linked to a number of chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease and, of course, cancer.

Babies products, which are supposed to be safe, are NOT at all safe. Johnson and Johnson is such a well known, commonly used manufacturer of baby products like shampoos and body washes and yet they contain two, potentially cancer-causing chemicals. One is quaternium-15, a toxin which releases formaldehyde; a skin, eye, and respiratory irritant, and a known carcinogen. Frighteningly, formaldehyde exposure has also been associated with leukaemia. The other is 1,4-dioxane, a carcinogen which is toxic to your brain, central nervous system, kidneys and liver. Talcum powder is another, commonly used baby product which has been connected to cancer AND asthma.

All this happens before you can even walk. Over the span of your life you move from baby products, to toxic beauty products from soap right through to body cream. You will get sick and visit doctors who will prescribe medications, like antibiotics, that further break your body down. In between those doctors visits, you will self-medicate with various other over the counter chemicals to cure pain, inflammation, hay fever and insomnia, among other things.

The average person eats roughly 800kgs of food a year. The bulk of that food will consist of processed "foods", takeaway and, if they eat fruit and vegetables, they will be conventionally grown and pesticide-ridden. Whatever meat they eat will likely be hormone and antibiotic-ridden AND from grain-fed animals. Their diet will be heavy in processed and refined grains and low in good, healthy fats. In reality, most people DON'T eat fresh fruits and vegetables anyway. They prefer to stick to packaged and processed foods developed in science labs because it's convenient and they are taken in by labels like "low-fat" and "low-sugar" thereby exposing themselves to even MORE toxins.

In case you don't really know where all this is leading, let's think about how our bodies work. You really ARE what you eat. Everything that you eat gets used to build the body you have. Your body is constantly regenerating itself and it uses WHATEVER you give it, to regenerate itself. It won't be able to differentiate between an organic apple and a packet of crisps. Your digestive system will break it all down and send it out to be used to build more cells. You can imagine that the apple will provide some stellar fuel for your system, but the crisps? Not so much.

Did you know that you can lose anywhere from 200 000 to 3 000 000 cells per SECOND. It's difficult to get an exact answer as to how many body cells we lose on a daily basis but the atoms in your body go through a complete turnover about once every 7 years. That doesn't mean you get a whole new body as you hit the 7 year mark;) It means that, by the end of those 7 years, all the cells you started with at the beginning of that 7 year cycle, will have been replaced with new ones. When we are younger, we are making far more cells than we are losing. As we get older, or we get sick, we are making fewer cells than we are losing and that's how you notice the ageing process beginning to happen. We see the result in the wrinkling of our skin, the greying of our hair, the loss of muscle and strength etc.

Consider all that I said before about how you start your life exposed to chemicals and continue to expose it, on a daily basis, for your entire life. If your body is constantly regenerating itself, what is it using for fuel? Well, it's using all of the chemicals and toxins that you feed it day after day. That means that the cells in your body not only CONTAIN toxins, but they are MADE UP of toxins. Your body wasn't meant to be part plastic and chemical. What is going to happen with all that foreign matter in your body? It is going to transform what you thought was a healthy body, into a very sick, diseased body.

The frightening reality is that most of us are already sick. We just don't realise it. It's basically impossible to be 100% healthy given what we do to our bodies year in and year out. Most of us operate at about 50% on a really good day. We pick ourselves up with doses of caffeine in the form of coffee or coca cola. We have a daily red bull without which we likely wouldn't get through the morning. By the afternoon we are shoving refined carbohydrates down our throats to try and get through the remainder of the day. We JUST crawl over the finish line and make it home to our couch where we blob in front of a TV, too exhausted to think or move. By the time we get to bed we are shattered but can't sleep because we've overloaded our systems with caffeine and sugar all day so we pop a sleeping pill, or have a few glasses of wine, just to get some shut eye.

This isn't a NORMAL way to live. If you are battling to wake up every morning, and feel tired until about 10am, something is wrong. If you are taking painkillers every 4 hours for a constant headache, something is wrong. If you are having to rely on caffeine to pick you up and your body is craving carbohydrates and you are lagging by the afternoon, something is wrong. If you are struggling to sleep EVERY night and it's normal for you to take a sleep aid, SOMETHING IS WRONG. If you don't listen to the signs that your body is giving you, then you will likely wake up one morning and find a lump where there shouldn't be one, or blood where there shouldn't be blood and by then it will, very likely, be something that is only fixable with very toxic medication that will strip your body from the inside out and leave you with a permanently compromised immune system. The only difference between you and a person that is already living with cancer is that they have ACTUAL proof in the form of a lump. Do you actually need to see that lump to believe that you are sick? Hate to be a prophet of doom but by then it may be too late.

There is a way to try and prevent that happening:

• LISTEN to your body
• RESPECT your body. You only get the one.
• Give your body the fuel that it really needs. ie. organic produce and meat from pasture fed animals
• Get rid of ALL processed and refined foods and eat only food that will spoil. ie. REAL food
• Consider a homeopath instead of a conventional doctor. Better yet, consider allowing your body to heal naturally instead of pumping it full of medication. Stop taking pills.
• Get rid of ALL your conventional beauty products
• Get rid of ALL your conventional household cleaning products
• Drink filtered, or boiled water
• Exercise
• Do I need to say STOP SMOKING? It's a no-brainer really.
• Get rid of ALL artificial air-"fresheners" YESTERDAY!

All this may sound like hard work to you but, honestly, what's harder? To do this, or to go through 6 months of chemo and radiation and being in remission with a constant threat hanging over your head? There is no compromising when it comes to your health and that of your family. If you are stuck with how to start, follow the links I've given you. They give you loads of tips. Or just start at the beginning and work your way through. I'm not saying I am all-knowledgeable. Far from it. But I've done a lot of the research FOR you so that you don't have to search high and low. Take advantage of the fact that I am addicted to research and educate yourself;) Use what you want and leave the rest.

Cancer didn't exist just over a century ago. It's a disease of civilisation. That means you have a better chance of avoiding it if you don't succumb to the marketing and hype surrounding all the products that you are exposed to every day. You actually have the power. Don't stick your head in the sand and pretend it's not happening, because it is.

You'll be amazed what happens when you become aware. Suddenly you realise the potentially negative environmental impact you are having on the world around you and, before you know it, you are doing as much as you can to lessen that impact. Becoming aware means you KNOW the consequences. It makes you feel responsible and it makes you WANT to change. That, in turn, makes you more in touch with the world, with people, with the environment and with animals. That kind of reaction has a way of rippling all around you and touching those near you and, before you know it, your friends and family will ALSO be aware. You have the potential in you to save, not only your life, but the lives of the people around you through your awareness.

Don't give in to that ticking time bomb. It's not a given if you are prepared to make the changes. You have nothing to lose so the question is, why on earth wouldn't you?