Laurie Robillard asked:


 

Knowledge Does Not Require Action. Kick the Habit or Kick the Bucket?



5,000 people in the US quit smoking in the US a day.

1,000 people every single day die from cigarette smoking related disease.

Tobacco’s association with cancer, heart attacks, strokes, and chronic lung disease account for over half of the deaths in the Us annually



 

 

What Can You Expect When You Quit?



Money in your pocket.

Days added to your life

Decrease medical cost/insurance cost

Strengthened character

Influence for good on others



 

 

Step 1 How Are Your Self Denial Muscles?

Are you able to park your car at the end of the parking lot at the mall and then walk to the mall’s entrance? How about on a rainy day? Are you able to have supper without meat? Are you able to pack a lunch for work instead of buying it at a fast food place? Are you able to keep away from other smokers for one week? Only a baby gets to relieve itself whenever it feels like it. Adults know how to delay gratification. Start practicing small denials.

Addiction temporarily gets your mind off your pain, anger, loneliness, sadness. Maybe you had unmet childhood needs like an absent father or an abusive mother. Sometimes life is painful. It’s supposed to be that way. All of us are faced with grief, loss, and struggle. Stay with your pain, don’t avoid the painful feelings and don’t numb them out with addiction. When you’re ready you can take a step to solve the problem. And it’s with struggle that we define and strengthen our character.

Addiction is half mental (Cigarettes give pleasure.), half physical (Give me a cigarette now!) A big part of the mental picture is created by cigarette companies who spend billions to keep their unwitting customers buying their lethal wares. For example the beautiful scenes in magazines, the glamour, macho, and even athletic suggestions to the subconscious mind are not what the end results of cigarette smoking prove to be. The end result is oxygen masks, intravenous medication and literally hours of pain, misery, and gasping for breath. Smoking does not make one glamorous, macho, or athletic. It does make one sick, poor, and dead. The use of hard drugs begins first with alcohol or tobacco.

Admit you have an addiction. Get out of denial. Knowledge does not require action. You don’t need to pretend that smoking isn’t enjoyable – it is enjoyable to watch the smoke curl as it comes out of your mouth. The tobacco companies with their mammoth advertising budget have promoted the idea that smoking is a matter of personal choice. Ask yourself: “Am I addicted to tobacco?” “Am I truly making a freely made choice when I smoke?” You might consider that you need to have a cigarette. Nicotine addiction is as hard to break as heroin or cocaine.

It might make you mad about all the unreliable scientific studies and we need to be careful about accepting evidence uncritically. Those reports which are supported by a government agency, a scientific journal, or scientists known to be reputable are generally reliable. Reports in newspapers and popular magazines seldom discriminate between good and bad results, laymen easily exaggerate the reliability and significance of what they read.

Start saving old magazines and stuffed animals. The reason for saving these materials will be discussed later.

When you’re ready to admit that you have an addiction you may have the desire to quit. You need to find your reason. Maybe you want to be a better example to your children, maybe you want better health, maybe you want to participate in sports, maybe you have watched a loved one die from a smoke related disease. But if you don’t quit and “grieve now” this great friend of yours (the cigarette) will probably turn on you and kill you one day. It’s statiscally equivalent to playing Russian roulette with two bullets in the gun. Functional compromise begins to be evidenced by such benign signs as chronic cough, hoarseness, wrinkling, and lowered immunity.

Faith starts with desire. Faith moves people to action. It takes faith to say I can do it. I can quit. I am willing to do the work. I say you can do it with a plan.

 

Step 2. Make a Written Plan Make it a Reality



Quit date on the calendar (if you wait for everything to be perfect you will never quit) Christmas, New Year, and birthday parties are harder to quit.

Need to go shopping (cinnamon gum, cinnamon sticks, straws, mint tea, mint candy)

Hide the alcohol, sugar and coffee the first week.

Change your routine (take a different road to work, make your bed in the morning, make homemade juice, go on a vegetarian diet for 1 week etc)



 

 



Write a daily journal, blog (write me a comment)

Decide on medication plan (See your doctor)

Decide on support system (You are not alone)

Rewards at each milestone (1 week, 1 month, 3 months, 1 year)

Pamper yourself (baths, aromatic oils, start walking on trails, cycling)

On the morning of quit date wet the cigarettes and destroy them, wash ashtrays and put them away.



 

 

Step 3 People Who Succeed Best Get Help

A business person gets a lawyer to write contracts, an advertising agency to create ads, a marketing executive to do the marketing, an accountant to do the accounting.

 

Ask for support from family members, friends and co-workers. Ask for their tolerance. Let them know you are quitting and you might be edgy or grumpy. Ask them not to smoke in your presence. Look up American Cancer Society and American Lung and Heart association for Quit Smoking Programs. National Cancer Institute has a Smoking Quit Line offering proactive counseling. You can join a small group of other quitters Nicotine Anonymous. Quitnet is an online program like Nicotine Anonymous. They have a 12 step program based on AA. Reading stories of others help you realize you are not alone. With no program only 5% of quitters are still smoke free at the end of 12 months.

 

Urge to Smoke

Remember the urge to smoke only lasts a few minutes and will pass. The urges gradually become farther and farther apart as the days go by. During an urge you can beat up your stuffed animals, rip up old magazines. The best thing to do is inhale deep. Fill your lungs full of air and exhale very slowly. Inhale and exhale three times. It will be your greatest weapon during strong cravings.

Restore and Replenish Nutrient Reserves

Depending on how long you smoked you have a co-existence issue of toxicity and nutrient depletion. Drink lots of water and sugar free juices especially the acai berry 19 fruit blend in one healthy drink. The antioxidants will flush out the nicotine and other poisons from your body.

Cook with garlic. Garlic is high in sulfur and selenium and helps pull cadmium from the body (a toxic mineral by-product of smoking)

Affraid to gain weight throw away your butter, margarine, and vegetable oils. Only use extra virgin olive oil for salad dressing not for cooking. Olive oil plays a role in improving cholesterol levels and contains antioxidants. Use good quality coconut oil/butter for cooking. It’s impotant not to buy cheap (dried) coconut oil/butter not fit for human consumption. You need to buy fresh meaning processed within 24 hours after picking. Coconut oil does not go rancid even when cooked at high temperatures. It is a natural fat and has no negative impact on cholesterol or the health of arteries.It is available on-line. Don’t have a credit card. Pre-paid ones are available.

The MonaVie Fruits Helpful in Detox

Passion Fruit



excellent source of vitamin A and C

potassium and sodium

good source of iron

magnesium, niacin, phospherous



 



 

 

 

 

 



Acai Berry Powder 500

Shel asked:


I read that there may be abdominal discomfort but that was about it. Will it cause heart attacks are something else bad?

Acai Perricone Diet

Petrea Dishman asked:

For many years, the Acai berry (ah-sah-ee) has been a well-kept secret of the Amazon rainforest and it has only been on the market for about the last 5 years. The rainforests of the Amazon are thought to hold the key to treating many ailments and common diseases, and for thousands of years the indigenous peoples of the Amazon region have known about the many health-enhancing benefits of the Acai berry.

The Acai berry grows wild on top of many palm trees that are native to the rainforests of Brazil and the Amazon basin. Local farmers in the area harvest the fruit of the tree, and it is used to make a healthful fruit pulp. This fruit pulp is then quickly frozen in order to preserve its nutrient value.

The Acai berry itself is a deep purple color, and it is quite rich in a number of important nutrients, including many of the most valuable antioxidant vitamins.

ENERGY, HEART HEALTH: The Acai berry will give you a high energy boost. It is also thought to have a significant impact on heart health, and on the health of the cardiovascular system. In particular, the Acai berry contains a very high concentration of compounds known as anthocyanins. These compounds are the same ones thought to be responsible for giving red wine its widely reported health benefits. However the Acai berry has 10 to 30 times more anthocyanins then does red wine.

LOWERS CHOLESTEROL LEVELS: In addition to these anthocyanins, Acai berries are known to contain large amounts of protein and fiber, as well as both omega-6, which lowers cholesterol levels and omega-9 fatty acids, which lowers LDL cholesterol levels and maintains natural HDL cholesterol levels. These omega fatty acids have been studied for years as a way to protect the heart from damage, and reduce the amount of cholesterol in the blood, thereby providing possible protection from heart attacks, strokes and other common cardiovascular complications.

These anthocyanins are known to have significant health benefits, and they are the subjects of many studies. Many people are looking for ways to capture the many health benefits that have been associated with the consumption of red wine, but without the calories and other negative consequences of red wine consumption. The rich, delicious fruit of the acai berry may be able to provide these important health benefits.

ANTI-AGING: Perhaps the most important health benefit of the acai berry, however, is its strong impact on the aging process. As a matter of fact, the acai berry is generally acknowledged to be one of the top superfoods for anti-aging. The amino acids and vital trace minerals found in the Acai berry aid in proper muscle contraction and regeneration, thereby slowing damaging effects to the skin that cause signs of aging. The fatty acid found in the Acai berry is similar to that of olive oil and is high in monounsaturated oleic acid. This fatty acid combined with Omega 3 fish oils penetrates cell membranes and makes them suppler. This allows for hormones, neurotransmitters and Insulin Receptors to operate more efficiently, which greatly reduces inflammation, inflammation being one of the leading causes of Aging.

HIGH IN ANTIOXIDANTS, DESTROY CANCER CELLS: The antioxidant benefits of the acai berry, combined with the fatty acids it contains, make this one of the most important superfoods on the market. The Acai berry is thought to have an antioxidant content which is a full 10 times greater than that found in grapes, and twice as high as those found in blueberries. As a matter of fact, the acai berry is widely acknowledged to have the highest nutritional value of any fruit in the world, and this has earned it the acai berry the title of superfood. These antioxidants destroy cancer cells. A study done by the University of Florida and published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry in January of 2006 did research that showed that the antioxidants in the Acai berry triggered a self-destruct response in 86% of the cultured Leukemia cancer cells tested.

Additional information: For such a tiny fruit, the Acai berry seems to have a great many heart healthy benefits, and the secret that has been part of Amazon culture for thousands of years is slowly spreading to the rest of the world. The Acai berry is a rich source of antioxidant vitamins, protein, fiber and heart protecting fatty acids, and it has an important role to play in protecting our good health.

Acai berries can be purchased whole and eaten as part of a healthy diet, but they are most often encountered in juice form. Acai berry juice is widely available both in health food stores and from many Internet retailers. As with other kinds of juice, it is important to ensure that the Acai berry juice you buy is made with 100% pure juice, and that it contains no artificial ingredients or added sugar.

As the popularity of the Acai berry continues to grow, and as its value to good health continues to get out, it is likely that this little purple fruit will become more widely available. In coming years, Acai berries are likely to be available at traditional grocery stores and supermarkets in addition to health food stores and Internet retailers.

When choosing between products made with the Acai berry, it is important to choose only the highest quality products, and to look for products that have been frozen quickly after harvest. How the Acai berries are handled after harvest can have a significant impact on their health benefits, so it is important to buy your Acai berry juice from those who use the best manufacturing methods.

Acai Perricone Diet