Do you feel crabby, irritable, moody, confused, cloudy, bloated, tired, angry, uncomfortable, or fatigued?

Have you ever been told this is “Just part of being a woman?”

I know I have, but the TRUTH is, these symptoms ARE NOT NORMAL.  Being a woman can and should be exciting, empowering, and invigorating.  Instead, it often feels like a curse.  Anyone agree?

Did you know this astounding fact?

The day that you experience any of the above symptoms is the day that your body ran out of nutrients to fuel what should be a normal process…menstruation.  Our bodies were designed to do this and do it well. So why do some of us end up curled up in a ball in our beds for days, or some of us feel “crazy” in our heads for half the month?

The answer is that your body ran out of vital nutrients that directly control and regulate your hormones far too soon.  You did not have enough of these nutrients to carry you through the entire cycle of mentruation.

If you are menopausal, this applies to you as well.  Women who have a proper intake of the vital nutrients listed below will make it through menopause with flying colors!

So What is the Barrier?

How many women out there can relate to the thought process that “It’s just too expensive.”  And yet we turn around and buy our children or our husband something they need (or don’t need!).  Why is it that we women can take care of everyone else and leave ourselves to last?  I totally do this all the time!!  I’ve come to adopt a new mantra…”I’m worth it.”  If mom feels bad and is falling apart who takes care of the rest of the household?  Or even if you aren’t a mom yet, it is probably in your woman DNA to take care of others and put yourself last…how does that work with your friends or family when you are not feeling well for days or weeks of the month, or possibly all month?

The list below is something I have put together to help women because it has personally helped me. I take all of the supplements listed below, PLUS a MultiVitamin (called Vita Lea).  I actually take the Vitalizer pack (which contains Vita Lea and 80 different nutrients), but Vita-Lea is absolutely necessary in addition to this list.

Shaklee guarantees that if in 30 days you do not feel better you can get your money back. I would highly recommend going for it one month and see how you feel. You may be shocked to find you never knew what it felt like to feel “good.”  As women we tend to feel bad for so long and put ourselves last in the family that “feeling good” is long forgotten…especially after birth.

If you have had children, read this article I wrote about Rebuilding the Mother’s Body After ChildBirth as well. It may give you some understanding of what a mother’s body goes through and the rebuilding that needs to take place.

Women’s Health Supplements:

1.  GLA: $28.55 GLA is used by many women to maintain a sense of well-being throughout their monthly cycle. This Shaklee formula contains GLA (gamma linolenic acid), an omega-6 fatty acid that our bodies use to form prostaglandins—potent, hormone-like substances that help the body to regulate many normal bodily processes.*

1 capsule two or three times a day

2.  Menopause Balance Complex: $25.95 Menopause Balance Complex contains black cohosh, proven to help regulate hormonal balance during menopause and reduce hot flashes, mild mood swings, and occasional sleeplessness.*  In addition, Menopause Balance Complex provides both soy isoflavones and flaxseed lignans, phytoestrogens currently being studied for heart, bone, and breast health.*

2 softgels daily

3.  Zinc: $6.10 It’s present in all cells in the body. As part of enzyme reactions, zinc is involved in such diverse biochemical activities as protein digestion, amino acid metabolism, energy production, bone metabolism, vitamin A utilization, and insulin production. Zinc is necessary for growth and development, and to maintain normal immune function. It is also important for the synthesis of protein and the genetic material DNA.  You can not even produce the proper hormones unless zinc is present, nor can your body utilize protein and other vitamins necessary for hormone production without zinc present.

One tablet provides 100% of the Daily Value for zinc. Some women, however, are very zinc deficient.  if you are not feeling better after trying 1 a day, go to 2-3 a day…one at each meal.

4.  Soy Protein:  $35.90 Protein is an essential building block for virtually every function of the body, including hormone production.  Without all 23 amino acids daily, your body can not make protein and all functions of the body are impaired (immunity, muscle building and repair, tissue repair, hormone production, etc).  This is VITAL for everyone.  Shaklee’s Non-GMO (Genetically modified Soy) contains important soy isoflavones that help with many women’s issues. Other forms of protein take much longer to digest so this is a readily usable form of protein that the body does not have to work overtime to digest.

Ex.  Pork = 11 hours to digest
Red Meat = 6 hours to digest
Chicken and Turkey = 2-3 hours to digest
Fish = 1 hour to digest
Vegetable sources (Shaklee’s Protein) = 30 minutes

Mix 3 tablespoons of Shaklee Energizing Soy Protein with a glass of milk, juice, water, or your favorite beverage. Optional: add fruit and blend.

OR

Put 2 scoops of Cinch powder in 1 cup of nonfat milk or light soy milk and mix like you mean it.

5. B-Complex: $21.60 B-Complex provides all eight essential B vitamins necessary for converting the food we eat into energy.  If you are feeling tired during the day, you are most likely B Deficient! Your food is not being converted to energy. B vitamins are essential in the synthesis of DNA and new cells. Hormones are made up of cells.  No B’s, no hormones. The B vitamins (folic acid, B6, and B12) promote a healthy cardiovascular system by helping to lower homocysteine levels in the blood.* B Complex is also called the “happy” vitamin or “energy” vitamin. If you are deficient you may feel more moody and tired.  Stress and sugar deplete B’s immediately.

2 tablets daily is recommended for NORMAL people; someone with deficiencies (from stress overload, poor eating habits, pregnancies, birth, nursing, or athletes, etc.) could need up to 6 a day, 2 per meal.   B’s are like zinc. Everyone’s body and deficiencies are different so you take as many as you need to feel better! Only you know your body and what it needs.

Click here to get started on your Women’s health supplements today.

***If you were recommended to this site by someone else, contact your Shaklee sponsor today for help!

Dr. James Bowen, M.D.
Before you read WHY Aspartame (NutriSweet) is so harmful to the body, read these stories below.

The horrendous toxicity of Aspartame has been well documented ever since its inception.

Sudden deaths logically arise from several of its many toxicities. For example, Christina Onassis, Patty Crane, and Carol Hamm are amongst those that I know of who were using Aspartame and were addicted to it, and visibly deteriorating under its influence when they suddenly, and unexpectedly died therefrom.

Patty Crane was found dead amongst a litter of diet Pepsi cans. When her mother, Betty Hayland, who was exposing Patty’s “Nutra Death” on TV, came to me to learn the biochemical basis of its deadliness; she, after learning some of the biochemistry, asked: “Dr Bowen, how could such a poisonous chemical ever be on the market?”  I answered “Betty! This is organized crime in our government.”  She became furious with me!  “That I should suggest there is organized crime in the US government!  What a nut!”  A few days later they called and threatened her life.  A couple days later two men tried to drag her into a car.  She was able to make her escape by breaking free and running.  A couple days later her husband Dave, who now has no question that organized crime runs our government, came home and found her shot dead in a puddle of blood on the floor.

Carol Hamm was a close friend, but not my patient so medical confidentiality does not prevent my discussing her tragedy. We played cards together a couple of times per week, and she constantly had diet drinks in her hands while she played.  She, over a short period of a few weeks use, visibly deterorated physically right in front of my eyes, and mentally. Her card playing deteriorated as well!  She would defiantly look me right in the eye as she drank diet to let me know that she didn’t care that I had warned her of what I knew about Aspartame.  She was going to satisfy her addiction, by damn!  Come what may!  What came was that, one night she didn’t show for cards, and her daughter Debby called the police.  When we arrived at her house she was lying dead in bed with bloody fluid running out of her mouth.  In all three cases the autopsy report revealed only “unexplained pulmonary edema”.

That is the difference between death from Aspartame metholism and regular alcholism, you can’t smell it on the breath, and medical politics forbids attributing anything evil to “Nutra Sweet.”

Jim Krossik was an employee at Searle’s first Aspartame plant in Phoenix.  He developed neural toxicty from breathing the Aspartame dust in the air in the plant and passed out on the plant floor.  When he recovered and returned to work, he found that all employees were required to wear face masks lest they breath the deadly Nutra Sweet dust! He complied, but absorbed enough through his skin that he passed out on the floor dead! The autopsy report revealed a “severe alcholic cardiomyopathy” as its only finding.  Jim used no beverage alcohol!

I have published extensively on www.dorway.com.  My articles such as “Sperm Warfare”, “Aspartame and methanol revisited,” etc., enlarge upon the unique methanol toxicity from Aspartame.  It metabolizes in a toxic axis of Aspartame to methanol, to formaldehyde, to formic acid, to carbon monoxide.  Aspartame, to a striking degree, carries toxic heavy metals into the body, as well as generating toxic superoxide free radicals in the metabolic channels that are poisoned by it.  A good overview of the Aspartame problem is my book “Billions of Victims” which is available as free advice at many educational/informational sites on the net.  Since it educates about Chemical Hypersensitivity, (CHz), it is essential reading for a full understanding of the issue of sudden deaths from Aspartame.

The heart muscle is very sensitive to alcohol poisonings. Such alcoholic cardiomyopathies frequently terminate in sudden death. The Aspartame molecule is an alcohol poison about 20,000 times as toxic a poison as ethanol (regular old sipping or beverage alcohol) on a per weight basis!

Moreover, myocardium never gets to rest except between heart beats, so things like the methanol from Aspartame which become more or progressively toxic upon metabolism in muscles are especially damaging to it. The myocardium is especially rich in mitochondriae to subserve this metabolic need. The mitochondriae and their DNA (Mt DNA) are especially subject to these damages, and Mt DNA lacks the repair mechanisms of nuclear DNA, so damage to it is highly cumulative and is even passed on to the fetus by the mother!

The Cardiac Conduction System is a specialized kind of tissue that is a hybrid of neuronal and muscle tissues, which is even richer in mitochondriae, and it never gets to rest. It is the clock that generates and effectively coordinates heartbeats and heart rythymns and contractions. Many various malfunctions of it precipitate sudden death. Its extreme mitochondrial concentration, and its dependence upon mitochondrial metabolism for its unresting labors make it a site intensely generative of the poisonous Aspartame cogeners and extremely subject to their resultant chemical, immune, mitochondrial and CHz damages.

When the methanol from Aspartame is metabolized, it has obligatory first step metabolism to formaldehyde, the strongest organic base.  This is a polymerizing agent which cross links sites on DNA so it can’t reproduce or function to transmit genetic information nor essential metabolic instructions.

The next step in the metabolism is to formic acid, which is a chromosome shattering agent.  (Along with cyanide and flouride it is called a “blister poison” because it is so damaging that it leaves blisters of dead tissue behind.)  Formate is also recognized as fire ant poison.  The whole, entire toxic axis are severe sensitizing agents.  A fire ant can, because of the sensitivity it engenders, kill a human being that outweighs it billions of times.

Thus, the myocardium and conduction system are rendered highly subject to attack both from the direct actions of the Aspartame poisons and their metabolic derangements along with the free radicals they generate via the impaired metabolic competence, and are highly succeptible to other toxics and “sick environments” via CHz (Chemical Hypersensitivity).  Damaged Mt DNA, as well, and its resultant mitochondrial dysfuction along with dysfunctions by and from immune and hypersensitivity reactions (CHz) are all associated with sudden deaths.

Cardiomyopathies from damaged MtDNA are also well known to be passed to the child from the mother.  Many other MtDNA diseases are inherited from mothers who have damaged MtDNA.  Because the MtDNA is not in the nucleus but rather is located in the mitochondria of the cell, its transmission in the case of a given ovum is haphazard and random, so that infants from such mothers usually display varied, random, and often dissimilar disease patterns.  One may be diabetic, another may have a cardiomyopathy, another pervasive developmental disorders such as autism, another, metabolically generated diseases like steatohepatitis, hypotonic obesity etc.  (See my www.dorway.com article, “Steato Hepatitis”.)

Another whole related area is the damage done to the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis.  Repeated poisonous assaults, such as CHz, cause the activation fo the antishock mechanisms of the adrenal glands leading to either adrenal fatigue or a cushionoid status Both are conducive to sudden death, especially in response to toxic or other shock inducing states, such as the CHz response.

The hypothalamus, along with many other brain structures, is severely damaged by the dicarboxylic amino acid neuroexcitoxin component of the Aspartame poisoning. This alone can cause adrenal insufficiency and resultant sudden death.

The phenylalanine isolate poisoning from Aspartame leads to serotonin and dopamine depletion in some areas of the brain, and elevation of serotonin in others, leading to neuroendocrine disruptions which contribute to all of the above, as well as depression and schizophrenic episodes which have often lead to Aspartame related suicides.

Aspartame is a potent epileptogenic agent, causing seizures directly from its toxic effect, as well as when in withdrawal from same, along with seizures induced by the CHz when the patient is exposed to even minute amounts of sensitizing agents such as chemical contaminants, i.e. sulphites from pulp mills (or the universally practiced  environmental abuse of illegally burning high sulphur coal in power plants), pollens, fungal blooms, and other “sick” environments, and food chemicals.  Such seizures can result in sudden death, especially if the subject is alone and suffering from the other aforementioned Aspartame risk factors.

Sincerely, Dr. Jim Bowen

Source: http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/dailys/02/Sep02/091302/800274ca.txt

To read more on diet sodas and their effects, click here.

Even though most of us are fully aware that we need to eat more fruits and vegetables, studies show that few of us really are.

A study of the consumer habits of our nation found that only 12 per cent of the population manage the five-a-day target, while another 12 per cent do not eat any portions of fruit and vegetables. Giles Quick, the managing director of TNS Worldpanel UK usage panels, said: “While the need for five-a-day seems to be common knowledge, the number of us who actually achieve this is shockingly low.”

Interestingly, the study found significant differences between age groups, gender and social class. The most likely groups to meet the target are the most affluent and the over-45s, with children and the less affluent the most likely to consume no portions.

I think this study is so interesting because we personally went through a season where the finances were extremely tight after my husband lost his job in January 2009.  Things were so tight that we were rationing out toilet paper and selling off furniture!  Most of us have probably experienced this type of season in our life at one time or another.  I did notice in this season that my mentality shifted to feeling like I needed to buy cheaper food because we didn’t have a whole lot of money.

However, one day I started to do the math and I found that the tendency was to buy mostly pre-packaged or boxed foods (i.e. granola bars, crackers, etc.). But what I found was that those foods, because many of them are not “real” food anyway because they are highly processed and lack nutrients, the kids would eat 2-3 times as much of them because they wouldn’t get full off the first serving.  Highly processed foods are low satiety, meaning they don’t make you feel full as you eat them because they lack fiber, water, and live nutrients.   Due to this fact, you end up eating MORE of the bad, cheap food so you are paying the same, if not more, than you would have had you bought the fresh fuits and vegetables in the first place.

I committed, even in a time of financial hardship, to select real foods vs. fake foods and the results were amazing. We actually saved money on our food bill and we were all healthier.  We chose to cut out meats during this season and stick to beans, lentils, quinoa, rice, veggies, and homemade soups (these are way cheaper than buying cans!!  And way healthier too!).

So I think we all can improve our intake of fresh fruits and veggies daily, even if money is tight. It all comes down to choice.  And if the kids don’t like it, they will learn.  It’s better to teach them now then set them up for a lifetime of potential health problems, possible weight issues, and worse because we didn’t introduce them to real foods early on.

In our house, we have a motto that we try to live by:

“If we don’t buy it, we won’t eat it.”

As simple as this sounds, it will really help you as you make choices at the store if you remember that no one is making you eat certain things. We all have the choice for what we buy.  Just make one better choice this week and you will be on your way to improving your health and your family’s!  You can do it!