You’re going to do it. You know it will happen. So why does a large percentage of the Western world (including you) eat inflammatory weight gaining foods during the holidays? The kind that keeps them bloated with bad health? Most do this every year with the knowledge that after the crystal ball falls on New Year’s Eve, they will (again) wish they had eaten healthier, but couldn’t.

Most folks do this every year for a lifetime. Would you be interested in learning how to break this healthy cells-ravaging cycle? I might just be able to show you how in my extremely informative new book Healed by Farm. It only takes a short time to learn the johnrankinsway.

For those of you who need a little help getting through the holidays and keeping your health intact, I recommend 10 easy to do but very important things that will keep your gut healthier, inflammation lower, immune system stronger and weight lower, even if you haven’t changed your eating habits just yet and still eat terribly!

  1. Upon rising each morning drink a minimum 8 oz. water, even before your feet hit the floor. A human body is dehydrated after 8 hrs. of sleep. This will re-hydrate your organs such as kidneys, bladder, colon and liver–all while flushing out the bad toxins you ate the night before. The more you drink, the healthier you become. Water is cheap, so try some!
  2. Deep breathing. Take 10 deep breathes, half thru your mouth and half through your nose. Exhale slowly. Breath extremely deep into your lungs to the point you feel them expand. Do this 2-3 times daily for oxygenated muscles and faster metabolism, which will give you much more energy for any activity. And it makes you feel great!
  3. Enjoy a daily fresh-squeezed lemonade to help reverse an acidic body from an overdose of processed holiday foods. This happens when the lemon metabolizes into a great alkaline food source. It should help to keep inflammation and weight down. For sweetening, use only a pure stevia with no other ingredients on the bottle, no maltodextrin or dextrose labeling, none, just stevia! Squeeze 1 lemon in a quart of pure water and sip all day long, every day!
  4. Keep your vitamin-D 3 level at 85-90. (A simple blood test will reveal your level.) Some people take 10,000 to 15,000 units daily to achieve this level, especially in the winter. If needed, get this from organic liquid drops and not hard pills or capsules. This should do the trick to help keep your immune system in overdrive protecting you from disease, even while eating poorly chosen foods.
  5. Get some exercise. Even during the holidays, you need to move your body. Something such as hurrying up a hill or some yoga-type extreme stretching a couple times daily will keep your heart and muscles pumped full of healthy blood and oxygen. This takes 3 easy minutes, so do it in the morning and also before bedtime for a better night’s sleep.
  6. Spend time outdoors as often as possible…even a short time is better than not at all. This reconnects you to nature and allows your body to breathe in all of the healthy bacteria and viruses that are meant to pump-up our immune systems, naturally! It’s Mother Nature’s way!
  7. Steep and drink ginger, turmeric and cardamom tea once daily, swapping out occasionally with a healthy green tea. Make this with a couple of ginger and turmeric root slices the size of a quarter each and ⅛ tsp crushed green cardamom. Steep all this in 12-16 oz. pure hot water under 155 degrees. A tablespoon of pure local honey would add a little extra good health along with delicious taste benefits.
  8. Keep some healthy finger foods at your fingertips. Use olive oil on vegetables in place of processed ranch dressing. Go for the watermelon first (very alkalizing) if available on party trays and be sure to include nuts and seeds in your diet.
  9. Study something every day that will greatly improve your life like my new book Healed by Farm. This will make a big difference in the way you think, eat and feel, plus give you intense motivation to choose food wisely.
  10.  Getting a good night’s sleep could be your best friend. 8 hours is best. Slow down the evening sugars and caffeine by 7pm so that a good rest is possible. My favorite evening medicine is a glass of raw milk at bedtime.

Enjoy your holidays! All the best to you and yours!

~ John

Everyone loves the food traditions of the holidays. All of my life I have observed every detail of these and other holiday events. They usually start out with everyone arriving with their prized dishes to share, happy and excited for the celebration. A couple of hours later and after feasting well, everyone is sitting (mostly lying) on the couch, moaning that they ate too much, especially on Thanksgiving Day. Some announce they have stomach aches, headaches and even back aches. The bathroom door is usually revolving faster than a department store on Black Friday. At this point, many family members are asking Grandma if she has any over the counter medications to cure their ailments.

What causes these negative side effects of the feasting? The turkey always gets the blame. They say it’s the amino acid tryptophan in it that makes you tired. We have always been told this so everyone knows that to be true, right? If this were really true wouldn’t you think insomniacs would be taking tryptophan supplements at bedtime instead of taking all those dangerous and addictive sleep medications? No, tryptophan is not the culprit for that Thanksgiving Day post-feast coma. Turkey has less of the tryptophan amino acid than chicken, and chicken doesn’t knock us out when we eat any. When was the last time you heard someone eating a healthy lean chicken sandwich say it’s putting them to sleep? Most likely never.

From all of my years faithfully observing these holiday health disasters, I came to some probable conclusions for myself. After watching a couple of 5 pound bags of sugar, white flour and a can of hydrogenated trans fat disappear into that beautiful and tempting traditional family feast, I started putting the puzzle together. It’s obvious to me that the heavy overload of refined food ingredients in the feast is what bloats your family member’s stomachs all the way to the couch and bathroom.

An additional serious issue is the ingredients in all of those easy to fix ‘food’ items with seasoning packets. You see them stacked in all the grocery aisles and filling everyone’s shopping carts during the holiday season. These products may seem innocent enough but you need to be aware that these seasonings are not the kind of food you may have innocently thought you purchased. Your thoughts were of fresh dried herbs right out the garden, just like the picture on the packet. Nope. Most are nothing more than processed sugar, MSG, hydrogenated oils, dyes and highly addictive inflammatory chemicals, with a dash of onion and garlic powder.

What did we do for thousands of years prior to these products being introduced into our lifestyles? Are you starting to get the picture, and is it time to stop blaming the turkey? These chemicals are not only highly inflammatory (which can cause tremendous weight gain) but have also been known to cause a lot of disease. When you load your body with these neurotoxins and excitotoxins bad things happen, and I mean really bad things! These toxins kill healthy cells, and a lot of them! Besides the fact that your body becomes inflamed and is in distress when you ingest these chemicals, your thyroid crashes. What happens to your body besides the extreme swelling of your organs when you ingest these insulin exploding thyroid killing poisons? You become sleepy…very sleepy in fact. And it’s not just feeling tired. Most people become somewhat lethargic, some have headaches, some have kidney, bladder and bowel problems. Some can hardly catch their breath from all of the heart racing and palpitations caused by these refined chemical products.

So I advise you to take a step back from the traditional holiday feasting recipes, look at what’s really going into the bodies of your loved ones, and stop ignoring the truth: real food doesn’t cause you to feel ill, in fact it’s usually quite the opposite. Real foods make you feel alive and energetic! The truth is the truth, nothing more, nothing less! I invite you to learn these truths with me. I have spent over 4 ½ decades learning the truth about healthy living, and most of it I learned the hard way! I am extremely excited to share these truths with you in my new book, Healed by Farm. I know these truths will help you cook the healthiest meal ever during the next holiday season, and will most likely reward your family member’s bodies with extreme vitality. And when you make these healthy choices I suggest, know that your post-feasting coma and sickness will never come your way again. Blessings to everyone during the holidays ahead.

~John