There are a number of small changes you can make this New Year’s that can have profound impacts on your life in the long run.

Take thirty seconds right now and WRITE down on a piece of paper some things in your life you would like to improve.

After you have written down your list, see if the following small changes can be beneficial in your life.

Do you want to lose weight?
• Try Alka Slim. It’s an all-natural weight loss solution that will not only help you lose weight but will also alkalize and energize your body by providing a smorgasbord of live enzymes and nutrients.
• Eat a salad instead of mozzarella sticks for an appetizer.
• Eat fresh fruit instead of ice cream for dessert.
• Take the time to make a nutritious homemade meal rather than eating out or eating a frozen dinner.
• Eat slowly to appreciate and enjoy the food on the table.

Do you want to increase your energy levels?
• Go to bed 10 minutes earlier every night. After a month, you will have gotten 5 more hours of sleep, which may be an entire extra night of sleep for you!
• Block off 30 minutes every other day to devote to exercise.
• Make an Alka Slim shake every morning to start your day off with the proper nutrition
• Try Trace Energy. It’s a homeopathic product designed to balance your body’s energy systems

Do you want to Alkalize your body?
• Try Alka Green. If you already use Alka Slim, mix in a teaspoon of Alka Green powder with your drink. Or take 5 Alka Green tablets every day.
• Add raw spinach, celery or carrots to your diet as they are some of the best alkalizing foods available.
• Try our Alkalize Pack. It’s meant to alkalize your body for health, energy and vitality.

Do you want to help the environment?
• Shut the lights off when you leave a room
• Plant a tree or a shrub in your backyard
• Donate $10 to an environmental charity such as the Nature Conservancy

Do you want to save for retirement?
• Keep a jar and label it FFA for Financial Freedom Account
• Place your pocket change in the jar every day
• Contribute to this jar every single day. Even if it is just your pocket change or if it is just a dollar. Like all the suggestions so far, these small amounts add up over time.  After a couple months, you will be surprised at how much you have saved.
• Every month, place the amount in your jar into an interest-bearing account.

We got this great idea from T. Harv Eker’s book, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind: Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth

Small steps–when done over time–can change your life for the better.  Choose 2 or 3 of the ideas listed above and make them your priority for the next month.  After a while, these actions will become habits–good habits–that will take you one step closer to becoming the real you.

You have our permission to do the little things today and tomorrow that will have a positive effect on the rest of your life.  Now give yourself permission.

Most likely your 2009 goals include some aspect of improving your health. Whether it is weight loss or increased energy, our tips below our designed to provide easy and simple ways to improve your health. Whatever you choose to do, it has to be something simple and easy. Complex plans, no matter how appealing the end goal, are just castles in the sand as these difficult goals get abandoned and forgotten after a few days or weeks. Pick a few tips below that will be easy for you to do consistently so you can create lasting habits that will ultimately increase your health and vitality.

1. Increase the amount of fruits and vegetables you eat:
Fruits and veggies are such a vital part of our diets as they increase the alkalinity of the body and also provide nutrients in their natural states. As you may know, nutrients found in their natural states are more effectively utilized by the body. For instance, you’ll utilize a much high percentage of the nutrients in an apple than you will utilize the nutrients found in processed foods like white bread, cookies, etc.

There are many small and easy ways to add fruits and veggies to your diet.

For Breakfast:
a. Add a banana to your cereal or oatmeal.
b. Drink a glass of 100% Not From Concentrate Orange Juice like Florida’s Natural.
c. Add mushrooms, onions and/or tomatoes to your eggs.

For Lunch:
a. Eat an apple as a snack or as part of your lunch.
b. If you have a sandwich, add tomatoes, cucumbers, etc.
c. Instead of French Fries, have a garden salad with romaine lettuce.

For Dinner:
a. Eat a salad as part of your dinner.
b. Add a side of veggies to your main dish. For instance, add green beans, broccoli or onions to pasta dishes.
c. For dessert, either skip it and have a piece of fruit instead or incorporate fruit into your dessert. For example, add fresh strawberries to your homemade ice cream.

Supplements:
a. Take a barley grass supplement like Alka Green as it will provide a smorgasbord of nutrients. Alka Green is pure Barley Grass so it’s an easy way to add veggies to your diet. If you’ve never taken Alka Green before, we suggest starting with 4 or 5 tablets a day. It’s that easy. Order Here
b. Weight Loss on your mind in 2009? We suggest Alka Slim, an all-natural weight loss shake that provides essential nutrition to help you lose the last 10 pounds. Order Here
c. Want an effective multivitamin? Try a Whole-Food Multi-Vitamin like Super V. Super V provides maximum utilization due to the vitamins and minerals being in a base of Gingko Biloba, Milk Thistle, Goldenseal, Dandelion, Burdock Root, Alfalfa, Pyrifera (Sea Vegetable) and Horsetail. Order Here

2. Eliminate Foods with ‘Junk’ in them:
Ingredients with trans fats, artificial ingredients and preservatives are found in many products in the grocery store. Ideally you want to eliminate all of these ingredients, but it’s all about one step at a time. So pick one of the ingredients below and make it a habit to stay away from it. This will take a dedicated reading of ingredient lists because these products can be hard to spot in the ingredient list. At first it will be tricky and time consuming to determine which products contain these ingredients and which don’t. After a few times at the grocery store, though, you will know which products and which brands to stay away from.

a. Trans Fats:
Trans fats are found in products like cookies and crackers. But you can’t rely on the advertising on the box to inform you of the trans fat content. Many boxes will advertise 0 grams of trans fat yet trans fat may still be in the product. Read the ingredient list. If you see partially or fully hydrogenated oils or shortening, the product has trans fats, even if the box says 0 grams of trans fats. This is because the food companies don’t have to report trans fats if the product has less than ½ a gram of trans fat per serving. Any amount of trans fat is detrimental to your health. Avoid the ingredients that contain these bad fats: hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils.

b. Artificial Sweeteners:
Many products on the market today contain artificial sweeteners. Anything low calorie or reduced sugar likely contains artificial sweeteners. Diet sodas, Gatorade Propel and G2, toothpaste, mouthwash and gum are many of the products that contain artificial sweeteners. The four major ones on the market today are Aspartame, Sucralose, Saccharin and Acesulfame Potassium. The first three are fairly easy to recognize on the ingredient list, but Acesulfame Potassium can be hard to spot because a quick read through won’t trigger Potassium as being an artificial sweetener. Here’s a trick to remember this artificial sweetener: remember it as Ace K.

If you’re worried about your calorie intake, eliminate that worry from your mind as these products have been shown to be dangerous to health and study after study show that these products actually increase your weight. Don’t be fooled by this calorie myth.

c. Artificial Colors and Artificial Flavors:
These ingredients are everywhere in the supermarket from candies to cereal to breads. If you choose to give up these ingredients, you will likely have to eliminate candies from your diet…which would be an excellent thing. Next time you buy macaroni and cheese or blueberry bagels look at the label as many brands will likely contain artificial colors and/or flavors. Spend a little more money and get the products without the artificial ingredients.

And for a great way to get all these un-natural food additives from your body, take a three week colon cleanse from Dr Morter! The gentle detoxifying herbs help rid your body of this artificial gunk, helping you feel better and have more energy! Order Here

3. Exercise
It’s easy to add some extra exercise to your daily routine.

a. Get in the habit of parking a block away from your destination.
b. When you are going to the 2nd or 3rd floor, take the stairs.
c. During your lunch break add some movement to your routine. Rather than having your food delivered, walk to the sandwich shop instead. Or take a couple laps around the office or up a couple flights of stairs during your break.
d. Add 5 more minutes to your runs, walks or bike rides. If you add 5 more minutes a day, after one month you’ll have done 2.5 more hours of exercise.

As always, consult with your doctor before starting an exercise routine.

For an informative read, we suggest Dr. Morter’s book Exercise or Diet: Which Will Win the Way to Health.

Choose a couple small changes to make in your life and then be resolute about forming these beneficial habits. After the first few days, it may be easy to give up. But stay with it; the new you is waiting right around the corner.

Wishing you the very best in all that you do in 2009,
The MorterSupplements Health Team
www.mortersupplements.com/

We are very bad at change.

We’ve tried hundreds of times to lose weight, to eat better, to start exercising. We start off gung-ho, we quit things cold turkey, we make huge New Year’s resolutions.

We’ll last for a few weeks, maybe even a few months. But then we have a bad day, which turns into a bad week, and pretty soon we’re eating a pint of ice cream by ourselves in the middle of the night.

These drastic changes can cause a great deal of stress and can shut down the cortex in our brains, causing us to lose our ability to think, judge, and reason. So, don’t beat yourself up.  Past failures are not really our fault. We were just changing too quickly and short-circuiting our minds in the process.

Instead of making life altering changes overnight, try changing gradually, giving your mind, body, friends, and family time to adjust to this new you. To lose weight, for example, you know you should start eating healthier. But don’t do it overnight, do it gradually. Start by eating an apple a day. Then in two weeks, add a salad to your meals. In four months, replace your steaks with chicken, and drink water instead of soda pop. In a year, you’ll be able to see your toes and you’ll feel 10 years younger. And how did you do it? By taking one small step at a time and doing it consistently over a period of months and years.

This same method can be applied to getting a better job, being more creative, and even saving more money. By starting small, taking one class at a time, writing one sentence in your journal each night, and putting $20 a month in your IRA, you can start yourself towards the goals you’ve always been too scared to work towards.

The days are going to pass anyway, why not do a little something each day to make your future brighter. In a year, you’ll thank yourself for being so diligent, and you’ll think, “Hey, that wasn’t so bad after all.”

What does the New Year hold for you? Are you a person who loves to make New Year’s resolutions? Or do you disdain taking the time to envision a future more to your liking? New beginnings are possible whenever a commitment with a clear vision of intention is made and written down.

What is your intention for this year? For many, health and wellness are at the top of the list. Unfortunately, many people only give lip service to what they regard as health. And they often regard it as something that happens to them rather than as a process that begins with the choices that only they ultimately control.  The process to achieve health and wellness is an inside-out job. The way we treat our internal environment ultimately affects us externally. Our health begins inside us with the choices we make in the six essentials:  what we (1) eat and (2) drink, how we (3) exercise and (4) rest, the air we (5) breathe, and most importantly, (6) the thoughts we think. The choices we make in these areas are outwardly shown.  We can either have health and wellness OR we can have disease and sickness. Are you happy where you are?

One of the most common New Year’s resolutions involves weight loss. What is your plan? Does it involve a diet or counting calories? Often times even if weight is lost initially, it is gained back again with a few more pounds added. Why? Because weight loss is not about a quick fix.  Weight loss is not something you do for a short period of time before reverting to your previous habits.  Rather, weight loss is really about a change in lifestyle. In the end, a move toward health and wellness including weight is about lifestyle. To be different from how you are today requires a change in lifestyle. It’s that simple and that hard. The tie-in with the choices we make in the six essentials becomes apparent. A healthy lifestyle means it has to become part of what we do on a regular basis day after day; it has to become a part of who we are.

Most New Year’s resolutions involve health, happiness, and success. It is a great time to reflect upon the past year and set goals and aspirations for the upcoming year. It’s a time to be accountable and reset priorities. It’s an open window for accelerating the process toward fulfillment and achievement, and an opportunity to stretch and go after the dream. It’s a time for focusing on relationships and our environment with love, caring, and kindness. And lastly, it is about living consciously.

Living consciously is to become aware of the self-defeating habits that control our lives, and then to begin the process of making conscious choices that take us toward our goals. We live in a world of choice. Become aware of the power you have to choose to change these habits. To be different one year from now requires change. Only you can do that. Promise to honor yourself this year by taking small steps toward a wellness lifestyle. These steps done day after day become a habit and pay enormous dividends for your health, your happiness, and your success. You deserve the BEST!

From the BBC Website:

Although many people are unaware of the fact, maintaining the acid/base balance of your blood is actually vital to your survival. If the pH of your blood drops below 7.2 or rises above 7.6, then very soon your brain will no longer be able to function normally and you will be in dire straits1. As luck would have it, although you cannot consciously detect your blood pH, the human body does in fact have an elegant but effective means of coping with every change in pH, large or small. This relies on three interlinking objects: buffers, the lungs and the kidneys.

From the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A8819652

Another fun fact…
Why do you breathe heavy when running?
According to this BBC article, the lungs can remove acid from the bloodstream in the form of CO2.  And although I’m not 100% sure of this, I’d guess that running causes a build up of lactic acid in the body, thus one must breathe faster to remove all this acid from the body.

It’s that time of year again where we sit ourselves down and resolve to make our lives better.  If you’re like most Americans, your #1 New Year’s resolution is to lose weight.  But you’ve tried all the diets, you’ve watched all the Fat Camp reality shows, and you’re still struggling with those extra pounds.

But what if you’ve been looking at dieting the wrong way? What if, instead of feeling guilty for your extra baggage, you could see that it wasn’t your fault? What if you were simply overweight because no one told you the secret to living thin?

The secret is….that hormones are the key.  And sadly, most doctors don’t know that and no Jenny Craig group is going to tell you about it.  Why? Because it’s so successful, it would put them out of business.

Forget about dieting. Forget about exercise.

The key to a thin and trim life is all about the hormones.

I know, you’ve never heard this one.  You thought you were overweight because you ate too much.  Well, let me ask you this, are you eating more now than you did when you were young and skinny? Probably not. In fact, you probably eat less and yet you’re heavier than ever.  You probably drink zero-calorie sodas and buy all the fat-free snacks you can find.  Yet you still keep on those pounds.  Why is that?

Because weight has very little to do with calories and almost everything to do with hormones.

Are you ready to change your life?

One of the principles that Dr. Morter believes is that your body can either be in ‘healing’ mode or ‘adrenaline’ mode. It’s an ‘either or’ principle.  Thus, if you’re always stressed out, your body will never have a chance to heal itself.

Weight is the same way.  Your body can either be in ‘fat storage’ mode or ‘fat burning’ mode. But not both.  And the key that turns on ‘fat burning’ mode is not dieting or exercise, but hormones.

Yes, the traditional weight loss methods can help, but only once the right hormonal key is inserted into the ignition can true progress be made. Without it, you can diet all you want and you body will simply be unable to keep off the pounds.

So what turns on this weight loss key? The answer might surprise you: Eat more!

Wow.  You’re shocked.  That’s entirely opposite to everything you’ve been told. But if everything you’ve been told was true, then you’d be skinny by now, right?

Eat more! No, not Twinkies.  More apples. More carrots.  More bananas. More fruit smoothies.  Nutrients, found in live vegetables and fruits turn on the ‘fat-burning’ hormone.

Our weight loss product, Alka Slim, fits perfectly with this principle that proper nutrition will unlock the key to weight loss.  That’s why Alka Slim is an all-natural product filled with whole food nutrients.  One serving of Alka Slim contains 50% or more of your daily recommended value of vitamins A, C, E, B6, B12 as well as over 50% of Thiamine, Riboflavin, Niacinamide, Folic Acid, Iodine, Biotin and Pantothenic Acid.  The best part is that these nutrients come from a whole food source!

When it comes to returning to your healthy size, the ‘experts’ have it all wrong.  But now you are informed. Just like it’s hard to start your car without your keys, it’s near impossible to lose weight without the right hormones turned on. High-nutrient foods and a more relaxing attitude on life are key to turning your body into a fat-burning machine.

P.S.  If you are interested in a great book dealing with hormones and weight loss, we suggest:

The 7 Principles of Fat Burning: Get Healthy, Lose Weight and Keep It Off! By Dr. Eric Berg

It is the season for giving and receiving and enjoying the gatherings of family and friends.
We have much to be thankful for and much enjoyment that has come our way.

I am reminded of a story that went something like this. Two men in a bar both wanted to find happiness but neither could find it in the bottle. So they went searching for happiness that they just knew had to be out there somewhere. Wherever they went, they were reminded that it wasn’t there. The more they searched for happiness the more disillusioned they became. Finally after many ventures, they threw up their hands in disgust and resigned that happiness was not to be found.  It was at that moment that an awakening took them by storm: they realized they had searched for something out there that could only be found within them.

As they discovered, happiness is elusive to the seeker and cannot be purchased for any price, though many have tried.  Happiness is found when the guard is down and love is all around; when the mind is minding its own business and not everyone else’s; and when the heart is running the show and filled with laughter and gaiety. As the holiday season comes to pass, remember that the joy of the Holidays lasts all year long and not just for a number of days. The ultimate gift is the recognition that happiness knows no color, keeps no score, answers to no one and can never be bottled up. Happiness is not a thing. Happiness is a verb that is dynamic and whole and can be used anytime, anywhere and is free.

Happy Holidays to you…all year long.

With the holidays upon us, we thought it would be appropriate to offer advice on an ailment that may be more prevalent around this time of the year.

Acid Reflux. It’s one of the buzz words today. We see many ads for drugs that supposedly ‘cure’ this ‘excess’ acid. In reality, these drugs only mask the symptoms.

Here is the real cause of Acid Reflux: The body is not producing the right amount of acid for the foods that are in your stomach. For example, proteins (like steak, chicken, etc) need to be digested at a pH of ~1.0. [pH ranges from 1.0 to 14.0, where 1 is extremely acid and 14 is extremely alkaline. 7.0 is neutral.] Proteins digest best at a pH of 1.0; however, when the stomach is at a pH of 4.0, there isn’t enough acid to allow the enzymes that digest protein to work effectively. This is improper digestion. The foods can start to ferment, causing acidic bubbles that push up through the stomach and into the throat bringing the acidic stomach juices with them.

The best way to correct acid reflux isn’t to neutralize the acid. The best way to treat acid reflux is to get the stomach to produce the right amount of acid at the right time. Proper enzymes and other nutrients can give the stomach the materials it requires to function properly.

An acid reflux remedy will give the stomach the proper ingredients to produce the correct amount of acid. Dr Morter’s Acid Reflux pack is one natural acid reflux solution. Other ones can be found on the internet.

Take the natural approach to acid reflux. Get to the cause of indigestion and realize that with the proper tools, your stomach works perfectly.

In this day and age, most of the foods we eat are devoid of minerals. Why? Because the soil that these foods have been grown in are depleted of these minerals. We have overworked the soils and the food that grows in this soil tastes worse and contains fewer minerals.

A lot of these minerals are extremely important to proper bodily functions. For instance:
The thyroid needs iodine.
The adrenal glands need copper.
The blood requires iron and cobalt.
The bones require calcium.
The bowels need potassium.
The ligaments need manganese.
The lymphatic system needs sulfur.
The immune system needs zinc.
The heart requires selenium.

Liquid trace minerals contain all of these required minerals and much more. And the best liquid trace minerals supplements come from all natural sources, so the body can easily recognize the form that the minerals are in.

For example, did you know that not all iron is the same? That’s right - one form of iron is the metal that is mined out of the ground. Can you imagine taken a pill that was pure metal? Your body wouldn’t know what do to with it!

That’s why the best iron for humans to take is actually in plant form. Plants absorb the iron in the soil and slightly change its form to utilize the iron in their plant structure.

This iron can easily be absorbed and used by the human body.

Thus, the best minerals for humans come from a plant source. When looking for liquid trace minerals supplements make sure you look for liquid trace minerals from a plant source. We highly recommend our liquid Trace Minerals product.

A liquid trace minerals supplement is important for proper health because our soils and thus are foods are lacking in the minerals they used to contain. For proper health, more energy, and a healthy immune system, consider a liquid trace minerals supplement.

Parts 1 and 2 of this three part series discussed the potential hazards in your shower of toxins and fluoride.  Now let’s talk about chlorine.  As you may know, chlorine kills living organisms in water. So when you drink chlorinated water it kills beneficial and necessary organisms in your digestive tract, which can lead to all sorts of digestion problems and built-up toxicity.  Therefore, we recommend Alka Cleanse to clean the junk out of the digestive tract and Alkadophilus to help replace the essential organisms for proper digestion.

One other downside of chlorine, and probably the least well known is that chlorine ingestion can lead to heart problems.

According to Kevin Trudeau’s book, Natural Cures ‘They’ Don’t Want You to Know About (a book we highly recommend reading.  You can find the book at Amazon.com) there is actually nothing wrong with cholesterol itself.  The problem occurs when cholesterol becomes attached to the arteries. The only time this occurs is when arteries are scarred.  There are three ways that the arteries become scarred, and one of them is through drinking and showering in chlorinated water.  Chlorine can cause artery walls to become scarred which can lead to cholesterol becoming attached to the artery walls which can lead to heart problems.  We are not going to mention the other two ways that arteries become scarred because we want you to read the book since it is filled with valuable information that you need to know to live a healthy life.

What is our conclusion then?

Tap water is unsafe to drink and shower in.  You need to take action to protect your family’s health.  There are two simple ways to ensure your drinking and showering water are safe.  First, we recommend a reverse osmosis filtration unit. This unit can be installed beneath your counter and will give you clean, safe water to drink.  Second–and just as important–is to install shower filters in your home. The shower filters are easy to install and will provide safe, clean water for showering.  We highly recommend a Shower Filter and a Reverse Osmosis Filtration System.