The mighty mitochondria! You’ve heard us talk about them before. Mitochondria are the tiny power houses inside our cells that take glucose and fats from the blood and magically convert them into energy. The more mitochondria we have, the more fat we burn, and the more energy we have. If you’d like more energy, more mitochondria will help you get it. How to get more mitochondria? According to a report on work being done at the Translational Research Institute for Metabolism and Diabetes (TRI) in Orlando, Florida, aerobic exercise stimulates your body to create more and better-functioning mitochondria. Without enough exercise, muscle atrophy accompanies aging. Starting around the age of thirty, muscle fibers shrink, while fat stores accumulate. Even if we maintain the same weight, we lose muscle-to-fat ratio. We also lose mitochondria, and those we have become less effective. This can lead to developing insulin resistance, making it even harder to manufacture energy, as well as…

It may seem like a simple mathematical equation:  One pound equals about 3,500 calories. If you want to lose one pound, you simply eat less and/or exercise more so that you consume 3,500 less calories than you’re burning. But the truth is more complex. Although if you eat less and exercise more, you can lose weight, most people who take this limited approach have a hard time and often wind up like our friend Debby who reported, “I exhausted myself losing five pounds, but they found me again!” As Raymond Francis says in Never Be Fat Again, overweight is a disease, a disease that can only be cured by normalizing body chemistry. This is done by permanently adopting a holistic lifestyle that supplies the body with all the nutrients it needs to be healthy, and eliminates toxins that interfere with good health. A body in optimal health sustains self-healing, self-regulating mechanisms that automatically shed excess pounds and then maintain a healthy weight. Regular exercise is…

The strongest and most hard-working muscle in your body, your heart is also associated with vulnerability . . . and for good reason.  Powerhouse though it may be, the heart is living tissue that requires proper nourishment. A nutrient called coenzyme Q10, or CoQ10, is essential for keeping your heart strong and healthy. Yet it’s quite possible your CoQ10 levels are suboptimal, leading to a condition that underlies many heart problems called “energy-starved heart.” Every cell in your body contains hundreds of little energy factories called mitochondria. CoQ10 facilitates various chemical reactions in the mitochondria’s energy-producing process. Simply put, when you lack CoQ10, you lack energy. Your muscles, including your heart, may be ready, willing and able, but there’s just not enough fuel in the tank. Even minor deficiencies in CoQ10 can impair heart function and eventually damage the heart itself. CoQ10 plays yet another crucial role in cardiovascular health: Keeping…