Who Wants to Live a Healthy Lifestyle?

This is an easy question. Almost everyone.

But what can make this such a hard thing for us to do these days? In the US we typically live an eventful, busy life – filled with so many activities that to remember to treat ourselves well sometimes gets lost.

Journey to Optimal Health

To be healthy we should focus on five areas:

1. Good nutrition – what we eat matters
2. Weight management – how much we eat matters
3. Fitness – to make our bodies stronger and healthier
4. Stress management – to minimize unwanted influences to impact our well-being
5. Taking the right supplements – to give our bodies the best nutrients to stay at our best

Good Nutrition

Many times our eating habits are developed based on the wrong influences – eating what is handy, cheap, easy to find, or what tastes the best. Most people know what makes up healthy nutrition. We should cut back on fast foods, junk foods, and reduce soda intake.

Instead we should eat a healthy diet of the proper balance of macro-nutrients, healthy protein, heart-healthy fats, complex carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals, as well as the all important Omega 3 supplement.
Easier said than done – right?  But many times it takes just as much time, money, and effort to eat the wrong things.

Weight Management

Sixty percent of Americans are overweight. There are many causes, but we need to find the solution for what works for ourselves.

The diet cycle is tough on our systems and eventually results in ending up back where we started. This cycle can actually cause us to lose ground by ending up with lower muscle mass. Lean muscle is important because muscle equals metabolism. The greater our metabolism, the more calories our body uses and that means being able to lose weight or keep our weight where we want.

40%-50% of our diet calories should be made up of complex carbs, 25% to 30% of lean protein, and the remainder from healthy fats. Of course the exact formula for each individual can be different. And it is always recommended that a health professional – doctor or dietician – should be consulted to make sure you are on the right track.

Fitness

Exercise is important for our well-being and healthy lifestyle for multiple reasons. Working out can be an important activity in any weight management program. Stress can also be reduced from physical exercise. Cardio exercises can be very useful in making our bodies more healthy and can reduce the cause of many of the factors in making us unhealthy.

One hour a day is recommended by many professionals as the required fitness training each day. But that does not mean that you need to spend that time in the gym. Just by taking the stairs at work, walking whenever possible instead of using the car, and staying active in the back yard with the kids all count.

Stress Management

Stress takes its toll on our physical and mental health. A healthy lifestyle includes reducing stress whenever possible. You can start by recognizing the biggest stress factors in your life and minimizing them if you can. Even taking 10 minutes of breathing exercises can help out. And it is important that we all get as much sleep as we can with our busy schedules – eight hours a night can do wonders.

Taking the Right Supplements

If we are conscious about eating a healthy diet, we still may not be getting every nutrient we need to keep us in top shape. Poor foods, less desirable food sources, pollution, and even junk food do not help out.
The recommended supplements include multi-vitamins, antioxidants, calcium, fish oil for omega 3’s, and probiotics for a healthy intestinal tract. There are many sources of natural nutrition vitamin supplements. This may take some time to educate yourself on what is best for you. But the time will be a good investment. And don’t forget to check with your doctor to get their advice as well.

Once you make the decision to leave a healthier lifestyle, you will probably discover that you have more energy, feel better, and want to do more in your active life.

And it is very important to remember that even small changes make a difference.

Good luck and get started today!

The Shaklee Ingredient Philosophy

When Selecting Ingredients, We Look to Nature First

Founded on the philosophy of offering products in harmony with nature and good health®, Shaklee adheres to the principles that were established by our founder, Dr. Forrest C. Shaklee. When we select ingredients for our products, we hold to two important principles. These principles set us apart as a company and are the basis for our advanced approach to product development and production.

First of all, our ingredients must be as natural as possible. Secondly, those ingredients must reflect the most recent scientific and technological advances. The superior quality of Shaklee products is a result of our respect for nature’s wis- dom and our use of state-of-the-art research and production methods.

The Nutritional and Herbal Products Ingredient Glossary that follows is a testament to the principles and philosophy es- tablished by Dr. Shaklee. Information is the key to understanding. In our ingredient glossary, you will find a description of every ingredient found in Shaklee nutritional products. We’ve included information about ingredient sourcing and process- ing, as well as the roles the ingredients perform in our products and in our bodies.

The Shaklee Difference — The Highest Standards

Our Nutritional and Herbal Products Ingredient Glossary is a reflection of the Shaklee philosophy and principles at work. Each ingredient is as natural as can be and illustrates the leading advances in science and technology. That’s the approach to making products that Dr. Shaklee pioneered, exacting the highest ingredient standards possible.

The ingredients, though, are only one part of the Shaklee Difference. Our unique blend of ingredients, ingredient deliv- ery systems, and product forms, coupled with the cumulative power of the ongoing science behind our products, make Shaklee unique. Furthermore, as we constantly strive to make exceptionally high quality products, we place great value

in being ecologically and socially responsible. The Shaklee Difference is reflected in our research, in our product develop- ment, in the care we take to adhere to strict clinical testing and in our meeting the highest manufacturing standards in the industry, while minimizing our impact on the environment. That’s the combination that sets Shaklee products apart from all others. That’s the Shaklee Difference—demanding and providing the best and the purest—by setting the highest standards.

Natural Ingredients

Our number one priority is to use natural ingredients in our products whenever possible. In fact, when you look through the glossary, you will notice that the vast majority of our ingredients are naturally sourced and are categorized as natural. Ingredients in this category are primarily obtained directly from a natural source, or they may be obtained through simple chemical reactions such as acidification, basification, hydrolysis and fermentation. Such reactions do not significantly alter the chemical structure of the original natural ingredient. For example, beta carotene is harvested from specially grown algae, and vitamin E is obtained from soybean oil. We also include many plant-derived ingredients in our products as po- tential sources of other plant compounds that may be important to health but have yet to be identified by scientists.

The mineral ingredients that we use are also categorized as natural ingredients. Minerals are natural elements of the earth, and some are dietary essentials for good health. Sometimes, essential minerals can be sourced directly as they are found within the earth — for example, calcium from limestone. But more commonly, minerals must be purified and bound to specific carriers to enhance their bioavailability and digestibility. When a mineral source has a carrier, it is noted in the Nutritional Products Ingredient Glossary. Mineral carriers include natural compounds like mineral salts, organic acids, and protein/amino acids.

Naturally Derived Ingredients

Although an ingredient may be found in nature, it may not occur in a concentration that is high enough for our high-po- tency formulations. Fortunately, such ingredients can often be derived from natural sources through a series of chemical processes including many of those described for natural ingredients (e.g. fermentation). Vitamin C is a good example. Rose hips and acerola are two of nature’s most concentrated sources of vitamin C, but they are not concentrated enough for high-potency vitamin C–containing formulations. Fortunately, vitamin C can be derived from the carbohydrate that is present naturally in corn through a multistep process that includes fermentation. Ingredients like these are categorized as naturally derived.

Nutritional Products Ingredient Glossary

Updated 02/08

There are certain ingredients that are derived from natural sources that may be modified to perform a certain function. For example, soy lecithin can be modified to make hydroxylated soy lecithin. This modification of soy lecithin increases its solubility in water and enhances its ability to coat and protect tablets. So, modified natural ingredients like these are also categorized as naturally derived.

Naturally derived also includes ingredients originating from natural sources which undergo significant modifications so that their final form is structurally and functionally different from the starting material. Although properties of such ingredients have been changed, they are extensively tested for safety and efficacy. This subcategory of “naturally sourced” ingredients includes the ingredient hydroxypropyl methylcellulose. Cellulose is a natural plant fiber, originat- ing from wood pulp. In this case it is custom tailored by a series of chemical modifications so that it takes on different properties that make it functionally advantageous to certain products.

Scientifically Formulated Ingredients

Sometimes, a sufficiently concentrated source of an ingredient cannot be found in nature, nor can it be derived from natural sources. In these instances, advances in nutritional technology allow us to use highly bioavailable ingredients formulated from biochemical building blocks. Whenever we use these types of ingredients, they are tested thoroughly to ensure bioavailability, purity, and potency. The B vitamin, folic acid, is an example of a nutrient that is formulated from biochemical building blocks and in clinical studies has been proven to be more bioavailable than the folate found in foods.

Source: Singularity Hub

Unless you’ve been living under a rock during the last few years you know that vitamin D is a vital component of human health. Vitamin D is crucial for proper bone growth and maintenance, and a deficiency in vitamin D results in an increased risk of osteoporosis, cancer, diabetes, hypertension, chronic pain, and several other bad things. But ask yourself this: when is the last time you had your vitamin D level measured, and what are you doing to make sure that your body has enough of this important vitamin?

If you are like most people in the world, you have absolutely no clue if you are getting enough vitamin D. With some estimates placing as many as 1 in 3 of the world’s 6 billion people deficient in vitamin D (and even higher for those in industrialized nations) don’t you think it is time that you stopped ignoring the issue and started taking personal responsibility for it? After all, you do want to make it to the Singularity…don’t you?

Even with vitamin D fortified foods such as milk it is extremely difficult to obtain enough of the vitamin through diet alone. Nearly all of a person’s vitamin D is obtained when sunlight hits our skin and induces its creation within our bodies. Stay out of the sun (or wear sunscreen when you are in the sun) and your body isn’t getting any vitamin D. Take a worldwide culture that is increasingly couped up in sun starved indoor work environments and combine this with a phobia of skin cancer that causes most of us to wear sun screen whenever we do actually go outside, and you have the perfect storm for a worldwide epidemic in vitamin D deficiency.

It sounds bad – and it is. Vitamin D joins obesity, type 2 diabetes, and several other epidemics that are entirely created by poor lifestyle choices. Want to avoid vitamin D deficiency? Simple: get in the sun! It is generally agreed that only 10 minutes per day of quality sun exposure is more than enough exposure to ensure proper vitamin D production within our bodies. It really is that simple, but for whatever reason at least a billion people across the globe are likely failing to do this. Don’t be one of them!

In recent years there has been an avalanche of hype about the health benefits of vitamin D. Freaks are coming out of the woodwork to tell us that vitamin D, resveratrol, and a host of other chemicals will bring us unimaginable benefits to longevity and health. I wish it were true, but sadly it is my opinion that vitamin D really isn’t that special of a chemical after all. It is not the presence of vitamin D that makes you healthier. Rather it is the absence of vitamin D that makes you sicker! As soon as we lock ourselves in sun deprived homes and offices and slap on the sun screen we are opening ourselves to a man-made epidemic of increased susceptibility to cancer, type 2 diabetes, bone disease, and a long list of other problems. Helping your body to accumulate its evolutionarily natural level of vitamin D within the body isn’t going to make you any healthier than you are supposed to be. It merely allows your body to operate at the health profile that it is already designed for.

The first thing to do if you care about your vitamin D level is to go to your doctor and have your vitamin D level tested. A simple, cheap blood test accurately determines whether you are within the optimal range or not. If you are like most people in industrialized nations, you will find that you are either somewhat deficient or severely deficient in this crucial vitamin. In a recent test with my own doctor, I was shocked to learn that I was deficient in spite of several hundred IU of vitamin D that I was already receiving from my daily vitamin regimen. Apparently I am indoors blogging even more than I had realized! The obvious solution is to get more sunlight. If you work indoors like me all day and find it difficult to get enough sunlight, then do what I do and take a daily vitamin D pill (I now take 2000 IU per day and my vitamin D now measures normal). The pills are cheap and effective, but of course talk to your doctor before taking them.

If you really want to know all of the details about vitamin D – its chemical profile, metabolic function within the body, and much more, I encourage you to read one of the web’s definitive papers on the topic written by Michael F. Holick titled “The Vitamin D Epidemic and its Health Consequences“. For those that want a less intense look at vitamin D, below are a few of the more interesting factoids about vitamin D (based on a Natural News interview with Holick) that you don’t want to miss:

• The healing rays of natural sunlight (that generate vitamin D in your skin) cannot penetrate glass. So you don’t generate vitamin D when sitting in your car or home.
• A person would have to drink ten tall glasses of vitamin D fortified milk each day just to get minimum levels of vitamin D into their diet.
• The further you live from the equator, the longer exposure you need to the sun in order to generate vitamin D. Canada, the UK and most U.S. states are far from the equator.
• People with dark skin pigmentation may need 20 – 30 times as much exposure to sunlight as fair-skinned people to generate the same amount of vitamin D. That’s why prostate cancer is epidemic among black men — it’s a simple, but widespread, sunlight deficiency.
• Sufficient levels of vitamin D are crucial for calcium absorption in your intestines. Without sufficient vitamin D, your body cannot absorb calcium, rendering calcium supplements useless.
• Chronic vitamin D deficiency cannot be reversed overnight: it takes months of vitamin D supplementation andsunlight exposure to rebuild the body’s bones and nervous system.
• Even weak sunscreens (SPF=8) block your body’s ability to generate vitamin D by 95%. This is how sunscreenproducts actually cause disease — by creating a critical vitamin deficiency in the body.

Diseases and conditions cause by vitamin D deficiency:

• Osteoporosis is commonly caused by a lack of vitamin D, which greatly impairs calcium absorption.
• Sufficient vitamin D prevents prostate cancer, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, depression, colon cancer and schizophrenia.
• “Rickets” is the name of a bone-wasting disease caused by vitamin D deficiency.
• Vitamin D deficiency may exacerbate type 2 diabetes and impair insulin production in the pancreas.
• Obesity impairs vitamin D utilization in the body, meaning obese people need twice as much vitamin D.
• Vitamin D is used around the world to treat Psoriasis.
• Vitamin D deficiency causes schizophrenia.
• Seasonal Affective Disorder is caused by a melatonin imbalance initiated by lack of exposure to sunlight.
• Chronic vitamin D deficiency is often misdiagnosed as fibromyalgia because its symptoms are so similar: muscle weakness, aches and pains.
• Your risk of developing serious diseases like diabetes and cancer is reduced 50% – 80% through simple, sensible exposure to natural sunlight 2-3 times each week.
• Infants who receive vitamin D supplementation (2000 units daily) have an 80% reduced risk of developing type 1 diabetes over the next twenty years.

Gluten-free Shaklee dietary supplements
October 2008

The Shaklee Research and Development staff recently tested Shaklee dietary supplements for the presence of gluten. The products listed here are gluten-free:

Dietary supplements


Alfalfa Complex
Carto-E-Omega (Vitalizer)
CarotoMax
Cal Mag Plus Chewable
Cholesterol Regulation Complex
CitriBoost
CoQHeart
CorEnergy
Defend & Resist Complex
Energizing Soy Protein (all flavors)
EZ-Gest
Fiber Plan Tablets
Fiber Plan Unflavored
FlavoMax
Garlic Complex
Gentle Sleep Complex
GLA Complex
Glucose Regulation Complex
Immunity Formula I
Instant Protein Soy Mix
Joint Health Complex
Lecithin
Liqui-Lea
Liver DTX Complex
Meal Shakes (all flavors)
Memory Optimizer
Menopause Balance Complex
Mental Acuity Plus
MoodLift Complex
NutriFeron
OmegaGuard
OptiFlora Prebiotic
OptiFlora Probiotic
OsteoMatrix
Pain Relief Complex
Performance (all flavors)
Physique
Saw Palmetto Complex
Stomach Soothing Complex
Stress Relief Complex
Sustained Release B+C
(Vitalizer)
VitalMag
Vita-C Sustained Release 500mg
Vita-C Chewable
Vita-E Complex
Vita-Lea (with / without iron)
Vita-Lea Gold (with / without K)
Vita-Lea Infant Mix
Vita-Lea Ocean Wonders


Cinch Inch Loss Plan Products

All Cinch Inch Loss Plan products are gluten-free with the exceptions of the Berry
Almond Crunch and Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Meal-In-A-Bar, which contain oats.

January 2009

Shaklee scientists are hard at work testing our nutritional supplements for the presence of gluten so we can make a "Gluten Free" claim for those products that pass the test-great news for our gluten sensitive customers and for Distributors and Business Leaders marketing our products to people who are or may be sensitive to gluten.

To date, there has been no legal requirement to test for gluten to make a "Gluten-Free" claim, nor has the FDA provided a final definition of what "Gluten Free" means or established a gluten threshold standard to test against. Despite these facts, many companies have marketed gluten-free products basing their claims simply on the absence of ingredients that contain gluten.

While generally reliable, that practice has never met Shaklee's quality standards. However, with the passing of the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act in 2004, the FDA has now issued a proposed rule defining the claim "gluten free" for voluntary use in labeling food and dietary supplements. The proposed rule also included an established "gluten threshold" to test against.

Although a final rule is still pending, based on the proposed rule, established testing standards and the increase in demand from Shaklee consumers, we are now able to test for the presence of gluten in Shaklee nutrition products and make "Gluten Free" claims on products that meet the label claim criteria.

It should be noted that the majority of Shaklee nutrition products do not have gluten containing
ingredients, with the exceptions of Herb-Lax®, Vita-E® 400 IU Tablets, Iron Plus C, Zinc, and the Cinch™ Meal-in-a-Bar products.

We are excited to announce that Shaklee has begun testing our products and as a result, customers will begin seeing new labels with the "Gluten Free" claim on selected products over the next several months.

Shaklee Field Support

Our newer products, Vivix and Vitalizer, are also gluten free.

Individuals with gluten intolerance have generally been advised to stay away from oats. Recent studies have found, however, that gluten intolerance is caused by the intestine's immunological reaction to a very specific sequence of amino acids in one of the proteins commonly found in certain grains. Oats do not contain this reactive protein sequence and are therefore considered to be gluten-free when consumed in moderation.

For the record, dietary supplements containing oat-derived ingredients are:

• MoodLift - Green Oat extract
• Berry Almond Crunch and Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Meal-In-A-Bar


Shaklee Corporation _ 4747 Willow Road _ Pleasanton, California 94588

"Your are what you eat" is a well used line. But it is also true. In a time of record levels of obesity in American it is important that we understand what we eat impacts how we feel.

Healthy nutrition means that we eat what is good for us. Of course we know that we need to limit the number of calories we eat every day - that is the most important factor in healthy weight management. But it is just as important that we understand what it is that we are eating.

What kinds of nutrients are important for our health? There are several that are found to be helpful, including:

1. Antioxidants
2. Vitamins and Vitamin Supplements
3. Anti Aging Supplements
4. Vitamins and supplements for bone health, liver health, blood sugar, prostrate, and even the digestive system
5. Immune Support Supplements

These nutritional supplements are well known to help each of live a healthier life. But of course I am not a medical expert and this advice is only to give you more information and ideas on how to live a better life. You should check out more information to see what is right for you. You can do that by checking out Healthy Nutrition on my Shaklee Independent Distributor site.

You can also learn more about all of the Healthy Nutrition products available. Shaklee researches each and every one of the products they offer and have been in business for over 50 years now. So they know as much as anyone about what works.

Get started today. Learn more about how to live a healthier live.

Good luck in your quest for healthier living.