This colony, made up of about 500 different species of bacteria, is called the Microbiome. But these bacteria, while being fully separate from us, act as if they were an organ unto themselves within our bodies. And what they do, amongst each other and in coordination with the cells in the lining of our colon, is truly extraordinary.

There is an idea that GERD, Heartburn, and Acid Reflux are caused by too much stomach acid, and idea pushed heavily by pharmaceutical companies who make quite a bit of money from antacids and acid blockers.

But while these give a temporary solution, in the long term they actually make the problem worse.

This is because it’s not high levels of stomach acid that cause acid reflux and GERD, but the exact opposite — too little stomach acid. In fact, there is no research at all showing high stomach acid to be a cause.

The ability to fully digest and absorb protein determines your body's ability to maximizing muscle gains and fat loss. It also affects your energy levels, hormones, inflammation, and overall health.

So, understanding exactly how digestion works and how to keep it, or get it, working properly is very important.

Let’s look at this.

If your cells are taking in less sugar because they’re resisting insulin knocking at their door to let in sugar, then the cells have less energy to work with. 

That sugar is there, and insulin is happily converting it to fat, but your cells aren’t getting it so of course they’re hungry and will keep telling you to eat more until they finally get some. 

Especially as they get older, women can find it easier and easier to gain weight and harder and harder to lose it. 

But more and more this is happening with younger women as well — and there is an exact reason for this. 

It has to do with hormones, the messenger chemicals in our body that tell our cells how to use the foods we eat, whether to store fat or lose it, increase or decrease energy. They even affect our moods. 

And when they get out of control, it can become harder and harder to climb back out of the hole.

So let’s take a look at exactly what’s happening here. First, we’ll define a couple of things.

Testosterone, like Growth Hormone, plays a large role in muscle bulk and strength, as well as fat-burning. 

It also helps regulate sex drive, bone mass, fat distribution (as in where the fat is stored), body composition, and the production of red blood cells and sperm.

As it’s the “male” hormone, we see much higher numbers in men than in women, though women still need this just as men still need some estrogen, the “female” hormone. 

The chicory root has been a staple of the human diet for over 2,000 years. Records of the chicory plant as part of regular meals date as far back as ancient Egypt, through ancient Rome, and into modern times.

Sadly, many people are unfamiliar with this incredible root, and an understanding of its many health benefits has begun to fade into obscurity.

Today we are going to discuss the benefits and uses of this extraordinary plant, one of nature’s most effective weapons in the battle for optimal health.

Sleep is one of the largest factors affecting overall health. In fact, our body would go into shock from lack of sleep before lack of food. 

Sleep is when our body is able to do very necessary repairs and recover from the day. Without this recovery time we get “little issues” that build up, starting on a cellular level, and finally showing themselves in fatigue, bad mood, fat gain, muscle loss, heart trouble, toxicity levels, and much more. 

You see, sleep is when many of our daytime hormones and processes “simmer down” and other hormones are released, activating very different processes. 

Sleep is when our body regenerates and rebalances. And without it, or without good, refreshing, restorative sleep, all sorts of problems, both short and long term, can crop up.

It affects our mood, our ability to think, our energy levels, our hormones, our ability to heal, burn fat, and much more.

So let’s go over how lack of good sleep affects us, what may be causing this, and what we can do about it!

If you’ve ever had a shock and felt the adrenaline surge in your body then you’ve felt cortisol. It’s a wake-you-up, get-you–ready-for-action hormone.

It really is. It hits its lowest point around midnight, so you can go to sleep, and then peaks again about an hour after you’ve gotten up in the morning, getting you to wake up and get ready for the day. 

It’s nick-named the “stress hormone” because it’s released in moments of stress. So in a dangerous situation, or if you get scared suddenly, you’ll feel it. 

But… when we have too-high levels of cortisol for too long, it can make us feel stressed… even if we have no reason to be.

Alright, so we know that when sugar comes into the body Insulin is released to shuttle that sugar into the cell. And if the cell is full, then it connects the sugars in chains and stores them as something called Glycogen in your muscle and liver cells for use later on. And if those are full then it connects the sugar to fatty acids and stores it as body fat. And, while Insulin is in the blood stream, fat burning is prevented.

We also know that, given too much sugar for too long, the cells start resisting it and refusing to let it in when Insulin tells them too, causing them to have less sugar to make energy with as well as causing more of it to be converted to body fat.

This is the second article in a series on Insulin, Insulin Resistance, Sugar and Body Fat, as a well as an overall series on hormones, so stay tuned!

Alright, if you read the first article in this series (Link this to first article) then you understand that when sugar is in the blood stream the hormone Insulin is released to send it into the cells for energy, or to store it as energy in the muscles as something called Glycogen, or to convert it into fats known as Triglycerides — body fat.

And that while insulin is in the bloodstream almost no fat burning can take plac