Growth Hormone (GH or HGH) is a key hormone that helps us build muscle and burn fat.

Your muscles are made of cells that have been fused together into muscle fibers. And on the outside of these fibers are things called satellite cells.

When you work out you damage cells in the muscle fibers. To fix this, your body releases Growth Hormone, Growth Factors (other hormones) and Testosterone. These tell the satellite cells to start replicating to both repair and replace damaged cells in the muscle, and also to add more cells, increasing the muscle fibers in size.

Someone born in 1950 started out life receiving 50 times less toxins going into their bodies than a child today. Their mother had grown up receiving even less than that and so had less to pass onto them before birth as well.

And they grew up on this much smaller toxic load.

So the amount of toxins injuring or destroying cells was much less.

But now look at where we are today — 50 times as many chemicals as we had then, and many of them are much more toxic.

These very definitely have an affect on our health. In some cases it’s quite obvious, but in most cases it’s something we don’t notice, because it happens over time.

In the last article we covered cortisol, a hormone which, among other things, acts to break down our muscle, breaking down the proteins in it into amino acids, which are then converted to energy sources such as sugar.

At the same time, it holds onto body fat and acts to raise body fat levels, while also preventing protein synthesis for new muscle growth.

But it also lowers key muscle building and fat loss hormones, so let’s cover what those are and how to maximize their production and use within the body for best results.

Did you know that factors such as diet, exercise, toxins, sleep, stress and more can affect how able our DNA are to make new, healthy cells? This is actually a huge factor in aging.

If our DNA can't make new cells properly, but instead make "faulty" cells, then, as our body is nothing but cells, over time our body begins to slowly degrade.

We see it in our skin, our strength, our energy levels and our overall health. This is half of what we call "aging."

But it doesn't have to be this way. This is a created situation. And we can reverse it.

When we look at the fact of aging, or getting older, we often measure it in two ways:

The number of years we’ve been on this earth, chronologically.

And the amount of decay that’s set in: fatigue, lower energy, poorer fitness levels, poor sleep, loss of muscle, physical conditions, etc.

But, while we’ve come to see the second as the inevitable result of the first, it’s actually not. It’s the result of getting biologically older — accelerated aging before our time.

We don’t realize this because our view is obviously based on what we’ve seen for decades now. And what we’ve seen is not good.

But this isn’t a natural situation. It’s a created one.

If we want to actually increase longevity, increase lifespan and increase overall health and ability during the entirety of that lifespan, then we need to define what we’re talking about and, even more, compare the current “norm” we’ve become accustomed to… to what not only can exist, but does exist in other places today.

 A person should be able to live past 100 years old, with high energy levels, strength and mental ability, doing what they want without the need of twenty different drugs to keep them going, and then pass away peacefully.

And not only should that be the case, but in places outside of our “modern world” — called Blue Zones — it is the case. Quite routinely.

Water retention is swelling in some part of the body, usually the feet and ankles, caused by large accumulations of fluid in the spaces between the body’s cells or in the blood vessels.

But it’s a symptom of something, not a condition in its own right.

And, while it can be caused by specific physical conditions of the kidneys, heart or circulatory system, most cases are actually due to lifestyles or diet, and they’re pretty easy to fix.

But there are many things that can cause this, so let’s jump in and see how this all works so you know what to do to help you.

In the last article we covered how many companies selling natural sweeteners such as stevia and monk fruit, knowingly or unknowingly cut their product with artificial sweeteners by 60% or as much as 100%.

They can do this because the only way to tell for sure is to do very extensive chemical testing.

Yet these artificial sweeteners can pose real health risks, from heart trouble to gut trouble.

And they're in about 99% of non-sugar sweetened products today.

But if it takes thorough chemical analytical testing to be absolutely sure it's natural, and you probably don't have access to that, what can you do to know what's real or not?

Well, there are a few ways.

We recently upgraded the sweeteners in our PerfectAmino Powder and PerfectAmino Electrolytes.

And in doing so we found out something quite disturbing.

We already knew some sweeteners labeled “Pure” or “All Natural” were often cut with artificial sweeteners to a degree, and we have always had to watch this.

But what we found out when researching natural sweeteners for our new formulation, and the amount of them that actually aren’t what they say they are, was surprising and somewhat scary.

It turns out, about 99% of so-called natural sweeteners actually contain artificial sweeteners in amounts as much as 60%, 80%… or even 100%.

And we want to make sure you know about this, why it matters, and what to look out for.

The body is a complex contraption, full of very exact systems, and a thousand different factors influencing its overall health and performance in one way or another.

But how do we separate out the important factors that allow us to measure our overall health and spot potential health troubles before they become a real situation?

There is something called Heart Rate Variability, or HRV, and it is a literal measuring stick for our health that we can use to monitor ourselves.

Whether we're into extreme sports and maximum physical performance, or trying to achieve optimal health for a long life, learning what HRV is, and how to use it, puts our health and performance in our hands.

This helps us spot trouble when it’s still a ways away, so we can handle it before it gets out of hand.

High stress levels are a leading problem in society today, with over half of Americans reporting they feel moderately to significantly stressed during the day.

This leads to depression and anxiety, as well as high tempers, and makes life much less enjoyable.

But it goes beyond that, because our mental stress levels affect our physical health.

Mental stress raises our cortisol levels, which in turn throws other hormones out of balance, lowers our ability to get deep, restorative sleep, causes weight gain, slows or prevents muscle building, and lowers our energy levels.

Stress also reduces our ability to recover from exercise and injury and lowers our overall health.

But while mental stress raises physical stress levels, this is not one-sided. Physical stress levels can raise and magnify mental and emotional stress levels.

In fact, our physical and mental stress levels work in tandem, each raising or lowering the other.

So what causes us to be stressed and how do we lower our overall stress levels?

How do we achieve a more even-keeled mood, more able to calmly face the challenges life presents?

How do we become the most alert and competent we can be mentally, while at the same time being able to relax when we need or want to, or when it's time to sleep?

And how do we raise our energy levels, improve hormonal balance, and increase our overall health?

Welcome to the Stress Series and 3 week challenge.

Well done on completing the 30 Day Lean Body/Lean Bulk Challenge!

While you may feel and look different on the outside... on the inside things are even more different.

We’ve balanced hormones and repaired or replaced trillions of cells.

We’ve removed fat not only from our fat cells, but from our organs such as our liver and kidney, where it can make them less efficient or prevent them from doing their job.

We’ve built lean muscle and, depending on where we started, changed our body shape.

We’ve improved digestion and the microbiome, the most important gatekeepers for our overall health.

We’ve improved our body’s energy levels, our endurance, and our body's ability to recover, burn body fat and build lean muscle.

And we've set ourselves up, if we maintain our current lifestyle, to stay lean and continue to add muscle.

And if we have some extra deserts and gain a couple of pounds... we're now much more physically and hormonally set up to lose that very fast, often within a couple of days.

In short… we’ve done a lot!

But what do we do now?