A Tribute To Gordon Downie

By Travis Wade

My good man Gordon Downie just passed through town for the last time. I’m very sad I never got the chance to see him. I’m terribly heartbroken the Tragically Hip lead singer doesn’t have long to live. He is a Canadian icon and has a knack for Canadian references in his songs that sound so natural and unforced. No one can do it the way Gordon Downie can do it. FYI Trois Pistoles is a cute little town near the coast in Quebec that I passed through on my way to Gaspé.

I’ll never forget my first van and how the CD player was broken and I couldn’t get Gordon Downie’s poetry album out of the CD player. There was the time they were playing a word of mouth gig at the Trailway Pub in Vancouver as they often did. 75 people in a small pub and the Tragically Hip. I ran all the way there and after standing in line for about 10 minutes they announced they were sold out.

I found myself on the roof looking at ways to break into the Trailway when I came to my senses and decided, maybe not get arrested that day. Another time I raced to Rexall from a job near Lloydminster to see if I could get a ticket at the box office, but the band already started playing and the box office was closed. This time I didn’t have to break in, but I snuck in and sat down and enjoyed the show. I have seen the Tragically Hip more times than any other band at 7 times.

The Brain

Although I am very sad Gordon Downie is going to pass and there is nothing I can do about it I want to pass on information to all of you that prevents cancer and brain degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s.

As an EMT, dementia and Alzheimer’s was seen in almost every patient living in an assisted living establishment. It’s so common it has become accepted as something that is inevitable with age. This couldn’t be more false.

The truth is brain degenerative diseases can be avoided with proper nutrition and exercise. That’s where I come in. I listen to Health Talks in my spare time everyday and I listen to hundreds of doctors talk about all kinds of diseases like cancer, thyroid problems, Alzheimer’s, etc. It doesn’t matter what the problem is, I hear the same things for all of them. So here is how to be healthy.

Avoid GMO’s. Stay away from white foods – sugar, flour, grains, dairy, potatoes – all foods with low nutrient value and high carb/glycemic index load. Lower your toxic load as much as possible, avoid food sensitivities, heal your gut with bone broth, find out what’s in your microbiome, correct dysbiosis (imbalance of good and bad bacteria of the gut), detox from heavy metals and other issues you might have; common ones are SIBO – small intestine bacteria overgrowth, and Candida which is a yeast overgrowth.

If there is something major to overcome, medication might be necessary, however, proper diet and exercise will give your body the optimal environment to recover and prevent relapse.

There are always specific things to help with specific issues, but today I will focus on brain problems and cancer in tribute to Gord Downie.

Cancer

The specifics for cancer beyond the above mentioned methods is a raw foods diet. There are books written on this and studies show pharmaceutical intervention in the treatment for cancer is futile. Juicing vegetables is the basis of the raw foods diet. Without sugar to feed the cancer growth and all the antioxidants in plant foods, an environment impossible for cancer to grow is created and in so many cases it reverses cancer growth.

Curcumin is the active ingredient in turmeric and the research keeps showing the positive effects of this powerful antioxidant. It helps with cancer and brain diseases like Alzheimer’s and dementia. If you supplement then a quality fish oil that isn’t rancid may help. If your cheap omega 3s taste like a rotten fish, you might want to upgrade. Of course eating the actual fish is going to have the best effect.

A quality multivitamin is always recommended and Sayer Ji from Green Med Info has brand names he recommends. If you want a recommendation just give me a text. Vitamin D is the biggest nutrient deficiency in North America and I’m sure our American friends get more than we do.

You’re not going to get a better source for vitamin D than the sun. The sun also detoxifies. You can never get enough sun and especially where we live. Take off your shirt and take off your sunglasses; you absorb most of your light through your eyes and I’ve heard one speaker say up to 90% of your light is absorbed with your eyes.

Alzheimer’s

Alzheimer’s is now being coined type 3 diabetes because Alzheimer’s is actually insulin resistance of the brain. This just means insulin can’t take sugar into the cells of the brain and brain cells die. The best solution doctors are recommending is coconut oil. MCT’s are great for weight loss for various reasons, but also great for the brain. Coconut oil has been seen to help reverse Alzheimer’s.

Dave Asprey, the founder of Bulletproof Coffee refines coconut oil to isolate the C8 in the coconut oil. C8 in particular does a liver pass and you will be in full ketosis in about a half hour. It’s instant ketones in the blood and doesn’t need insulin to feed the brain.

One more supplement I need to mention is according to research an apple a day reduces chances of Alzheimer’s by 37%. The sugar from a fruit affects the body much different than sugar extracted from fruit. High fructose corn syrup didn’t exist 60 years ago. Stay away from anything processed.

I wish you lots of health, love and happiness!

Travis Wade

The only holistic personal trainer in Edmonton

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What Vegans Know That You Don’t

These are the secrets vegans are keeping!

By Travis Wade

Oxidative Stress

Oxidants are highly unstable compounds because they are missing an electron. They steal an electron from their neighbor, but now the neighbor needs an electron, so it steals one from its neighbor, and so on. When this happens in the body, it is called oxidative stress and it’s very damaging to our cells if it’s not stopped.

How do we get the oxidants in the first place?

Free radicals or oxidants can be caused from processes in the body like metabolism, exercise, phagocytosis, and inflammation. External causes of free radicals are toxins, radiation like the sun, and medications or drugs. I looked on the internet to see if I could find a table that shows the oxidative stress of foods, but there is no such table. One thing people should know is carbohydrate metabolism causes exponentially more oxidative stress than fat metabolism.

We need a balance between antioxidants and prooxidants. However, if you look at the list of things that cause free radicals it’s easy to see we have enough prooxidants. All the toxins we are exposed to make it vital to get as many antioxidants as we can.

Antioxidants

Antioxidants are a molecule that have an electron to give without becoming unstable itself or it can steal an electron from its neighboring antioxidant buddy.

The compounds in fruits and vegetables giving them all their colors are called polyphenols and flavonoids. They are very potent compounds and thousands of them are found in plants. They are only found in plants; nowhere else. They serve as a defense for the plant against the oxidation of the sun. The reason plants don’t get sunburned is because they have these flavonoids, and carotenoids to some degree, that protect them from the oxidization of the sun. They are very potent antioxidants.

They have the same function in us. They lower inflammation very dramatically, they quench the carcinogens directly halting cancer growth, they improve our immune system, they affect our stress response system making us more likely to be calm, and they support detoxification. They do it in a way no other compound can.

Your cruciferous vegetables are high fibre, low calorie, and high nutrient making them essential daily. Check out World’s Healthiest Foods to see the nutrient content of these superfoods! All the nutrients and antioxidants may be the reason fruits and vegetables may be the cure for cancer. Any diet that staves off cancer has to be good for you! Check out Chris’ story here.

The Problem Vegans Encounter

Iron, zinc, coenzyme q10, collagen, protein or certain amino acids, omega 3 fats, and Vitamin B12 are very difficult for vegans to get from their diet. These nutrients are essential. Check out the links on these nutrients to find out more about how they are beneficial. I can’t explain all that here or this article will get really long!

Juicing Recipe

Because I don’t like vegetables, I juice them daily. One of the key ingredients Chris used to cure his cancer is carrots. And by the way, he used his method because he read God’s Way to Ultimate Health by Rev. George Malkmus with Michael Dye; he is not the only one who was successful curing their cancer with raw vegetables. There has been many. One thing I may add is, some doctors will use vitamin C intravenously to help with cancer treatment.

This is what I juice daily.

Ingredients:

1 bunch of spinach
2-3 carrots
1/2-inch knob of ginger
4 celery stocks
5 leaves of cabbage

Directions: Juice ingredients together and drink.

These are a great combination of vegetables for antioxidant and nutrient benefits. Spinach is on the Dirty Dozen list on ewg.org which is a great resource for toxic rating of all kinds of products. If you can get organic, it’s preferred, but if not make sure you wash your spinach really well. Celery is also on the Dirty Dozen list so the same goes. You can usually get organic spinach, carrots, ginger, and celery at Superstore. Cabbage is on the Clean Fifteen list.