Purely Nourished

Let’s face it, find­ing time to work out is a chore. You come home from work exhausted and all you have energy to do is chow down and relax. Mak­ing a habit of get­ting your work­out in before the day starts is where you’re going to have the most suc­cess. Doing your work­out in the am is like a nat­ural espresso shot. It gives you an extra kick and a brighter out­look on the day; plus it gives you that sexy flushed look. Yes, some­times hit­ting that snooze but­ton sounds a bit more appeal­ing but in the end you’ll thank your­self …and it WILL get easier.

Check out Tone It Up  for quick exer­cise videos that will get your heart pump­ing and your body burn­ing. Hot body, here I come! 

All humans require a bal­ance of elec­trolytes for proper cell func­tion. Your hydra­tion, mus­cle and nerve func­tion, and blood pH lev­els are all affected by proper cell func­tion and extremely impor­tant for opti­mal energy main­te­nance. Sweat­ing and diuret­ics deplete your body of elec­trolytes.  Loose too many, and mus­cle weak­ness, cramp­ing and dehy­dra­tion may occur.

To remain bal­anced, water mol­e­cules must main­tain pre­cise osmotic gra­di­ents or equi­lib­rium between cells only pos­si­ble with key electrolytes.

Key elec­trolytes include: Na (Sodium) K (Potas­sium) Mg (Mag­ne­sium) Ca (Cal­cium) Cl (Chlo­rine) HCO (Bicar­bon­ate) and SO (Sulfate)

Should I be con­cerned? Yes, espe­cially if you are an active per­son or live in a dry climate.

To obtain an appro­pri­ate amount, watch­ing your salt intake and mak­ing sure you’re receiv­ing enough potas­sium from your diet is cru­cial, the other elec­trolytes are a bit eas­ier to come by.

Potas­sium sources include: bananas, pota­toes, spinach, broc­coli and cantaloupe.

Hydra­tion bev­er­ages are also a plus, if you’re choos­ing the right one.  Note: Not all bev­er­ages are cre­ated equal. Many are filled with arti­fi­cial fla­vor and col­or­ing known for aggra­vat­ing your diges­tive sys­tem and con­tribut­ing a tummy ache.  Visit Secret Drink Mix to check out a hydra­tion bev­er­age cre­ated by Allen Lim. His drink is all nat­ural, sweet­ened with only real fruit, and con­tains dou­ble the elec­trolytes of gatorade with only half the calo­ries. The prod­uct was orig­i­nally devel­oped to re-hydrate pro cyclists although the prod­uct is use­ful for any ath­lete need­ing to replace fluid and elec­trolyte levels.

Your over­all health is directly cor­re­lated to the health of your gut. It’s the bar­rier that sep­a­rates your insides from the out­side and fil­ters what is poten­tially harm­ful to your body. Fuel your body with the right foods and your diges­tive sys­tem will use them to replen­ish your body and keep you func­tion­ing well; Fill your body with “tox­ins” and your body will work to fight off those “invaders”.

Tox­ins and invaders come in the form of preser­v­a­tives, alco­hol, sugar, salt, antibi­otics. When the body has to con­tin­u­ally fight off empty calo­ries, it spends less time fuel­ing your bod­ies nec­es­sary processes. Plus these tox­ins kill ben­e­fi­cial intesti­nal flora, your immu­nity to colds and bugs, and replace it with chem­i­cals and side effects in the form of  inflam­ma­tion, cramps, gas, heart burn, and IBS. These symp­toms are only the begin­ning. Con­tinue to fill your body with crap and even­tu­ally more harm­ful symp­toms appear, dis­ease poten­tially fol­low­ing. At that point symp­toms aren’t always noticed in the mid-section of the body; They can man­i­fest in other areas of your body due to defi­cien­cies caused by those toxins.

Main­tain a healthy gut by eat­ing a wide vari­ety of fruits and veg­eta­bles . They con­tain roughage for your gut in the form of fiber.  Fuel your body with foods that make it happy. If you know you have a sen­si­tiv­ity to a food, avoid it. It’s not worth the dis­tress it causes your body.

• Fiber aids with diges­tion. There are two types of fiber both sol­u­ble and unsol­u­ble fiber. Try t get a healthy serv­ing of this roughage daily to keep your gut in tip top shape. Sol­u­ble fiber binds with tox­ins and helps elim­i­nate them. Bonus: Sol­u­ble fiber gives you a sense of full­ness, sta­bi­lizes blood sugar and reduces crav­ings. Insol­u­ble fiber is the street cleaner; it keeps you regular.
• Indi­vid­u­als who con­sume a healthy serv­ing of fiber daily (for men at least 29g and women at least 26g) are more likely to main­tain a healthy weight  and are less likely to suf­fer from dis­ease. Researchers sug­gest that’s accu­rate because any poten­tially harm­ful “toxin” is elim­i­nated quickly there­fore, it doesn’t have a chance to wreak havoc.
• Other ben­e­fi­cial options are fer­mented foods. Fer­mented foods work to keep the diges­tive system’s bac­te­ria in check. Try to incor­po­rate at least one a day to improve digestibil­ity of foods.
• Lastly, stay hydrated. Water also plays a role in flush­ing out unwanted “toxins.”