Hi, there!
If you are like me and love food, this post is a must read for you! We were created to love and enjoy our food, and this is all good news! But I used to believe that food was 'made' to feed my body, and now I know better: nowadays, food is made to sell and not to meet any nutritional needs. Over the time, I always suffered from a bloated stomach, constipation and sensations of tiredness. It seemed like the more I ate, the worst I felt. No improvement happened until I started to eat more unrefined food, more nature-made food, and not so much man-made food. My 'tummy' symptoms diminished but stayed with me. I found natural pills that relieved my symptoms and gave me the impression that my tummy was healed, except that I was depending on the pills. And I just wanted a pills free life, so I started to search and look for 'that' natural, common, inexpensive 'something' that would help my tummy get a normal shape - meaning helping my stomach and liver get better at doing their daily job.
So my research brought me to the miracle of lemons. And one month ago, I decided to give lemons a try.
I started to use lemons in anything I could and I drank my hot lemon water every morning.When I woke up I boiled water and squeezed one big lemon in it (I then let the lemon float in the water too). I had this 1 liter hot lemon water in the morning or before any consistent meal, like breakfast.
After one month of daily lemon intake, I can testify the miracle properties of lemons. It is not only that I felt my body being cleansed, it is not only that I got a normal digestion, but also my moods improved and I simply felt energetic and happy!!! (I have not actually had lemons for the last two days and today I told my husband to please buy some lemons on the way home!!! I was feeling miserable and extremely moody and ready to kill ten moose, not only one -for dinner- P.S. We live in Alaska).
The magic is that hot lemon water is diuretic, and taken first thing in the morning, it helps your body with its daily cleanse. A daily detox is simply necessary as the lemon cleanse helps the liver function better. If we want to be healthy, feel healthy and if we want our bodies to work at their best capacity, we need to care about our bodies daily. And as we all like to clean and beautify our bodies on the outside, why should we not care about what is going inside too?
And one of our most important 'insides' is the liver. Everything we eat goes to the liver, whose job is to process the food, get rid of the bad stuff and feed to our cells the good ones. The problem is that most of us are captives of the modern age food trap, consuming highly processed foods - when this happens, the liver is overworked having to eliminate all these nasty things (which are basically paramount amounts of fats and sugars). By not caring about the nutritional value of our food and eating what it's easy and fast (like ready made meals), we abuse our bodies eating too much of the wrong stuff - then we abuse our liver giving it too much work to do. And as we clean our bodies once or twice a day having a shower, as does the liver need to get his daily cleansing too.
So please love your body and decide for a daily detox. Hot water with lemon, first thing is the morning, is a great detox and also a great 'morning' start. You will feel better, happier, lighter and your tummy will start to love the scale...a better digestion so does love the scale. I have lost 1 kg in 1 month just by using one lemon/day. Also, I use lemon juice in salads and in pretty anything I can (we don't have any vinegar in the house - it is a personal choice, but some types of vinegar have certain health benefits).
Other Health benefits of the lemons:
You need to consume lemons because they also (like limes) contain some unique compounds (flavonoid compounds) that have antioxidant and anti-cancer properties. Extensive studies have discovered that lemon and lime juice can alter the cycles of our cells and also the activities of the special immune cells (called monocytes). So the lemon and lime juice can indeed alter the decision a cell makes about whether to divide (mitosis) or to die (apoptosis). So what can you do for the health of your cells?
You should consume lemons because they are an excellent source of vitamin C.
Vitamin C, one of the most important antioxidants in nature, travels through the body neutralizing any free radicals with which it comes into contact in the body: both inside and outside cells. The free radicals are unpaired electrons that will simply 'steal' an electron from other molecules; when a molecule is losing one electron, it becomes a free radical' and free radicals will attack any molecules and even your DNA (so free radicals basically attack your own body). When the free radical attacks other molecules, it will interact with the healthy cells in the body, damaging them and their membranes. The free radicals treat your body as an enemy and will not stop wanting to damage your body. And the fact is that the body can generally take care of itself, but the body cannot make antioxidant chemicals like vitamin C, E and flavonoids to protect itself. We need to take these vitamins from our diet and as they are rapidly used by the body, they need to be constantly replenished. A lemon has between 30-50 mg of vitamin C and an adult needs 75-90 mg of vitamin C daily; if you smoke (or practice any other damaging habits) you need at least 35 mg more. The vitamin C is important because, like any other vitamin, it can inactivate the free radicals even before they produce any damage in your body.
So, as we have seen earlier, vitamin C is vital to the function of a strong immune system (because it inactivates the free radicals). The immune system's main goal is to protect the body from illness, so vitamin C will also help with cold, flu, recurrent ear infections.
Lemons have also anti-bacterial properties and can be used against bacterial and fungal infections, can be effective against internal parasites and can regulate blood pressure. Since free radicals can damage blood vessels and can change the cholesterol to make it more likely to build up in artery walls, vitamin C can also be helpful from preventing the development and progression of atherosclerosis and diabetic heart disease.
Generally, it has been proven that vitamin C reduces the risk of death from all causes including: heart disease, stroke and cancer. The compound found in lemons (and limes) called limonoids - have been proved to help fight against cancer of the mouth, skin, lung, breast, stomach, colon.
Lemons are considered miraculous at killing cancer. They are considered 10,000 more potent than chemotherapy (This is a hot topic nowadays: people are becoming less and less willing to take chemotherapy, but look for other more natural treatments).
Nevertheless, vitamin C helps with any stress or nervous disorder and the lemons are used in aromatherapy as well.
There are many ways in which you can use lemons in your house too: from making your own face creams and hair masks to using lemons to fragrance up the room, bleach some delicate clothes or take those stubborn stains off your cups.
So, why should we not make use of lemons and decide to benefit from them?
Try to take it one step at a time, using possibly raw honey in your hot lemon water; then as you get more used to the taste, try to reduce the honey amount. My husband is not a fan of lemons, so he is using limes instead. Limes come very close to lemons in their miraculous nature and produce much more fragrance (that's why they are used in cocktails). Whatever you decide, stick with your decision for at least few weeks so you can see a more obvious result.
Have a very lemony day!
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