This idea is about loving you and creating a beautiful life-style that you deserve!
I wonder how many health problems are self-abuse? No more, we can learn how to love ourselves totally, inside and out, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.  You can eat to be the most vibrant and energetically beautiful you!

1. Mental & emotional
What we think about ourselves become our feelings. Our thoughts trigger chemical releases in our brain which effect our emotions. Developing our love muscle for ourselves in crucial for our success. If we are thinking inferior thoughts or unworthy thoughts it creates a cycle of thoughts and feelings and hormones making us turn to food to feel better about ourselves, which is short lived as then we don’t feel good about ourselves for over-indulging and the cycle continues.
Stress increases the hormone cortisol which isinterrupted by the body as famine and the body chemistry changes to lay down as much fat as possible…cortisol also increases appetite. (next week we are going to address stress). Depression is associated with low serotonin which is the hormone to feel happy. It is also associated with deficient levels of B vitamins, low zinc and causes low energy and comfort eating.
Your brain is responsible to send messages to your organs for function.
Your brain is also responsible for producing good feelings, happiness, satisfaction, hopefulness, self-worth and good self-esteem. It does this by producing certain chemicals, or hormones called serotonin, dopamine, endorphins, and gabber.
When these hormones are absent or in low supply you will feel ‘blue’, inferior, depressed, irritable, anxious, worthless, hopeless, and of course this makes you eat more – right!
Eating dairy and wheat can also cause depression for many people and they are completely unaware of it.
Foods with toxins and chemicals like preservatives interfere with our brain, in fact high inflammatory foods and high sugar foods damage the hypothalamus part of your brain. This causes Neuro-degeneration and Neuro-degenerative diseases…it actually destroys cells and neurons in the brain.
Your body chemistry can become out of balance because of your hormones. Hormones are your body’s chemical messengers that are released into your blood stream and give orders to your cells to do certain things.
Your body creates and releases certain hormones at certain times to perform certain functions.
If your brain is not functioning right and there is a chemical imbalance, how can you have good physical health?

2. Appetite Satiety Centre Working (hypothalamus)
Leptin is the hormone that decreases appetite and gives us a full feeling. It is made in the fat cells. However, inflammatory foods cause Leptin resistance and we are not getting the full messages.
What are the inflammatory foods?
Sugar, fructose, artificial sweeteners, processed foods, bad fats
How to heal the hypothalamus:
• Stop inflammatory foods
• Heal with nutrients and or supplements
• Healthy oil in diet increases leptin
• Detox the liver
Ghrelin + others are made in the stomach and increase the appetite.

3. Alkaline environment
Eating to many acidic causing foods creates an acidic body which means the blood is acidic. Ideally our blood should be slightly alkaline. We achieve this through eating vegetables and fruits and avoiding acidic forming foods. Please refer to the chart provided to advise which foods are acidic or alkaline.
Why is it important to have an alkaline environment?
An alkaline environment allows normal body function absolutely necessary for the body to resist and fight disease.
When there is too much acid the acids must be neutralized, our alkaline reserves are used leaving the body in a weakened and vulnerable state.
When you have high levels of acid in your blood it can cause weight gain, obesity, diabetes, low energy, chronic fatigue.
The dangers of Acidosis (over acidic body)
I cannot stress how important it is to correct an over acidic body through diet and lifestyle.
This condition forces the body to borrow minerals from vital organs and bones to neutralize the acid and safely remove it from the body.
This is such a strain on the body and can suffer severe damage due to high acid body. Sadly this condition can go unnoticed for years.
Problems mild acidosis can cause:
• Weight gain, obesity and diabetes
• Low energy and chronic fatigue
• Burning urine
• Bladder and kidney conditions (kidney stones.)
• Acceleration of free radical damage (some suggest contributes to cancerous mutations)
• Premature aging
• Osteoporosis, weak brittle bones
• Joint pain, aching muscles and lactic acid build-up
Over acidity is very common today mostly due to the Western diet
The Western diet is full of acid-producing processed foods like white flour, sugar and drink acid-producing beverages like coffee, soda and soft drinks. Drugs are acid-forming, artificial chemical sweeteners are extremely acid forming.
Stress will cause acidity in the body.

4. Absorption of nutrients and minerals
Most Australians are deficient in zinc and iodine. The brain needs zinc to make serotonin. Zinc is important for depression, sex hormones, immune system, insulin. We need iodine for the thyroid hormones.

5. Balanced diet with water and fibre
The large gut functions on water and fibre. The body needs 1.5 litres just to stay alive.