Recommendation #4: Hold the Cheese

Over the past 5-10 years I have noticed an increase in the amount of food that is being "enhanced" with cheese. Many restaurants are now smothering steak, chicken, fish and other foods with cheese. Many items in the supermarket now have cheese in them. We accidentally bought chicken nuggets for our kids, and they were infused with cheese. I never expected that I had to look more closely at the chicken nuggets to choose the non-cheesified version.

Let's face it, we just don't get as much exercise as we used to. Cheese is fattening, so if you eat too much of it, you will most likely get fat. I'm not saying to completely eliminate cheese from your diet, after all, it is yummy and avoiding it would feel like punishment. But eating cheese should be a conscious decision. Just pay attention to it. At the restaurant, if there is a steak smothered in cheese, and there's another with no cheese, get the other one. I don't know why steak needs melted cheese on it anyway, it should taste good without it. If it's a choice between the onion rings or the mozzarella sticks, get the onion rings. If you really want mozzarella sticks, then just eat one or two, instead of five or six. Try to avoid meals with lots of cheese, avoid cheese fries and chicken parmesan. If you can't control yourself and you just can't give up your cheese stuffed jalapeno poppers, then go ahead and eat them, just try to have them less often. It's all about moderation, and as long as it is a conscious decision each time you have some cheese, in the long run you'll probably wind up having it less often and in less quantities.

As I've mentioned before, make sure to go slowly with these recommendations. It won't work if you do things too drastically. Like in this case, don't eliminate all cheese. Just slow it down a bit and give it time. Your body will thank you for it.

Recommendation #3: Don't Use Antibacterial Soap

Here's the next recommendation for a healthier body that doesn't require any extra effort, other than exercising your right to choose products that will be helpful to your body rather than harmful. Antibacterial soap is a menace. Your body needs bacteria as part of normal function. It is the bacteria in your body that actually prevents sickness and disease. Yes there are a few strains of bacteria that are bad for you and cause sickness. But once your body encounters one of these and you get through it, you will have developed antibodies that will combat that strain of bacteria in the future.You need to rely more on your body's natural defenses and less on manufactured chemicals.

Your hands have natural bacteria on them. This bacteria is meant to combat the bad stuff that your hands might come in contact with during the course of your day. You need the bacteria on your hands to be there and be strong, and work for you the way it was intended. When you use antibacterial soap and you kill that bacteria, you are making yourself more vulnerable to sickness, not less. Without any bacteria on your hands, there is nothing to combat the bad stuff when you do eventually come in contact with it.

So which soap should you choose? Hopefully one day I'll be popular enough to get an endorsement from some big soap company and I can tell you which one to use. But alas, this is not so. The best I can do is tell you to use the soap with the least amount of chemicals in it, and definitely non-antibacterial. Personally I use Dove soap. You should avoid soaps that are scented very strongly too, mainly because that probably indicates a large presence of chemicals and soap should be cleaning the chemicals off of you, not putting them on. So the next time you're at the supermarket, check out the different soap options, and make a conscious decision that follows the recommendation given here.

Recommendation #2: Get Rid of the Teflon

Non-stick pans are great, aren't they? Well, yes they are, as long as they're not coated with teflon, or whatever other name they call that black non-stick coating on your frying pans these days. Go down to the local Walmart and pick up a non-stick, ceramic pan. Then get rid of any other pots or pans that have a black non-stick coating on them. The coating that they use gets into your food and subsequently into your body.

There will be a prevailing theme with these recommendations, which is that you want to avoid putting chemicals and other non-natural agents into your body. In the first recommendation, we eliminated aluminum from getting into your body through your underarm deodorant. And in this recommendation, we want to eliminate teflon from getting into your food and into your body.

So far, in these first 2 recommendations I haven't asked you to change your eating habits or exercise more or any of the other typical things you find in a list geared towards healthier living. The idea here is simply to swap things out, gradually, and give yourself time to get used to each change before tackling the next recommendation. So, enjoy your new ceramic cookware and stay tuned for the next recommendation.

Recommendation #1: Switch to Aluminum-Free Deodorant

Putting aluminum in your body is extremely bad for you. Aluminum in your body will increase your chances of getting sick and getting cancer. This is pretty well documented but the vast majority of people I speak to don't realize how dangerous aluminum is for your body. The first thing that you must do is check the label on your deodorant. Chances are, it has aluminum in it, and every day you are putting aluminum into your body through your armpits. All you have to do here is switch your deodorant. Personally, I use Toms of Maine deodorant, which is one of the few aluminum-free choices in the supermarket aisle.

How to use this blog and change your life

I started this blog with the hopes of helping others do what I did and change their life. Each blog post is a recommendation on changing something in your life to make you healthier, avoid sickness and even cancer, and treat your body well. After all, you only get one body in life, and so you should really take care of it. But the things listed here are designed to take as little effort as possible. There is no calorie counting here, or vigorous workout routines or anything like that. It's mostly about giving up things that are preventing your body from operating normally.

The best way to make the changes that are recommended here is to do it gradually. Make one change per week or per month. Don't try to do it all at once. The more gradually you make these changes, the easier it will be for you, and the better chance you will have at success. At some point, once you have made a lot of these changes, you will start to notice that you will become sick less often and generally feel better. You will lower your risk of getting cancer, and you will start to see others making the mistakes you used to make and you will notice differences in life between yourself and them.

Ok well enjoy the blog, and please comment!

-Brandon