Do you have difficulty waking up in the morning and find that you have low energy all day long? Are you unable to concentrate at work, feel sluggish and depressed? Do you suffer from poor digestion, bloating or constipation? If so, you could be a good candidate for a cleanse.

Cleansing your body of accumulated toxins can help you gain energy and improve overall health. Many people report more clarity, greater alertness, over-whelming joy, and incredible insight after a cleanse.

What foods are best to eat after exercise to promote recovery? I hear this question with increasing regularity as people are becoming more aware of the importance of recovery. This is a good sign because it means most are starting to truly understand just how fitness is improved. Simply put, stress (training) combined with adequate rest and proper nutrition is the recipe for improved performance. Interesting to note, the better the nutrition, the less rest needed, therefore the faster performance improves.

It amazes me how little attention the value of balanced pH has garnered from the mainstream medical world. Positive acid/alkaline balance is one of the most important factors in athletic performance. In my opinion, by disregarding this fact, sport supplement manufactures have significantly reduced the effectiveness of their products. In fact some of the energy bars currently on the market are the worst offenders. Processed for the sake of shelf life and convenience, and consequently denatured and acid forming, many energy bars are not much more than disguised junk food.

Worried about those ten or more pounds you gained over the holiday season? Thinking of a crash diet to shed a few pounds from winter’s inactivity? Unfortunately, less than 2% of people who go on a diet, regardless of the type, keep the weight off after a year. In the long run, the more you diet the more weight you gain. This occurs because dieting lowers metabolic rate – the rate at which you burn off calories – by putting the body in a conservation mode. Here’s what you can do to get your weight loss mode activated.

Eat More Fat Burning Foods

The nutritional value of food as stated by the “label claim” is of course pertaining to what is IN the food, not what the body actually GETS from it. A more sensible way to assess the energy providing attributes of food is to consider its net gain. The net gain of food is the term given to what we are left with once the food has been processed for energy by the body. We all know that the body gets energy from food in the form of several nutrients.

If there is a question vegans hear more than any other, it is, “How do you get your protein?” I often respond by asking the individual if they know anyone with a protein deficiency. Protein is found in nearly all foods and they are abundant in seeds, nuts, legumes, fruits, vegetables and other plant-based foods.

As a professional endurance athlete I have had to learn to deal with high levels of stress. Not just mental stress from competition, but also extreme physical stress from training over 30 hours a week. If I am not able to recover from a workout quickly, my training sessions will have to be spaced further apart and the rate at which I improve will diminish.

As a society, we are inundated with an abundance of nutrient deficient foods. Eaten primarily for convenience, processed and refined foods have resulted in an overall decline in health and elevated medical costs. Processed foods are usually high in refined carbohydrates and calories yet we have to consume so much more of them to “fill up” due to their absence of usable nutrients.

My journey towards optimal health and vitality began in 1995. After suffering from years of rock n' roll self-abuse, I made the commitment to go straight, cutting out the punk rock party lifestyle and the drugs, drinking and smoking that came with it. Because of my addictive personality, I couldn't just go on the wagon; it was to be a complete lifestyle change; something that has become almost a religion to me.

Believe it or not, it is actually possible to any of us to "grow" a younger body. Simply put, a younger body is one that has regenerated its cells more recently. The key to maintaining (or developing) a functional, young body is to encourage it to be in a constant state of regeneration.