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.

In 2012, a consumer product review magazine published an alarmist article on the supposed “dangers” of dietary supplements that carried the dire warning...

The importance of having a well-functioning and healthy immune system has become increasingly obvious in recent times.

Sadly, everyone seems to have a different answer as to how you should go about strengthening your immune system. When you go to your local health and wellness shop, you might see twenty or thirty products that tout their “immune boosting” powers. An Amazon search reveals thousands of results.

Well, we’re here to tell you about an effective and ancient remedy that has been in use for over two thousand years: the red reishi mushroom.

Obesity is poised to become the single greatest health risk in America. Any significant health crisis is a complex mix of factors. There is no “single” cause or...

According to the CDC, 37 million people in the US have chronic kidney disease [1]. And 90% of them don’t even know it. Kidney disease creates protein toxicity.

An estimated 100 million Americans live with impaired liver function and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease [2]. And since the year 2000, deaths from liver cirrhosis have gone up a shocking 19.5% [3]. 

The liver is critical for processing the toxic byproducts of protein metabolism.

Everyone is affected by this. Continue reading now!

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!

I wanted to share with you how Perfect Amino helped me while I trained for my first bikini/fitness competition. First, I have been using it for 6 years.

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

Yes, about 90% of what most of us consider as body fat is made by and from sugar. 

But probably not how you think. 

And it has a lot more to do with the type of sugar it is and, more specifically, how it affects your hormones (messenger chemicals that tell your body how to use the food you put into it). 

Because it’s your hormones that will determine what will ultimately happen with this sugar and whether or not it will be used to make new body fat.

Let me assure you, this is not another low carb rant!