Effortless Healing: Can You Help Your Body Fix Itself?

Everyone ages eventually. But you can overcome many of these troubling symptoms If you know how. In Dr. Joseph Mercola’s latest book, Effortless Healing: 9 Simple Ways to Sidestep Illness, Shed Excess Weight, and Help Your Body Fix Itself, he gives you his top proven tools for fighting the effects of somatopause (the decline of your body’s hormone production as you age), including controlling your weight, getting rid of stubborn fat deposits, and slowing down the effects of aging so you can look and feel your best.

If you’re currently challenged with a chronic health issue or excess weight, know that you’re not alone. Statistically speaking, you are much more likely to be some level of sick than you are well. According to Dr. Mercola, obesity rates are at an all-time high and rising. The Gallup Healthways Well-Being poll, which has been monitoring body mass index (BMI) since 2008, found that in 2013 the number of obese Americans rose a full percentage point. For the first time in human history, this generation will live a shorter time than their parents—and this is despite spending an estimated $2.9 trillion in 2013 on health care in the U.S. alone.

Dr. Mercola is one of natural medicine’s most passionate advocates, and his website, Mercola.com, is now the #1 natural health website in the world.

In Effortless Healing, Dr. Mercola gives readers simple steps that, at times, is contrary to what we’ve been told in the past. For instance, he recommends:

• Throwing ice cubes in your water to make it more “structured.”
• Skipping breakfast, as it could be making you fat.
• Eating up to 75% of your calories each day in fat for optimal health, reduction of heart disease, and cancer prevention.
• Avoiding certain meat and fish, but enjoying butter.
• Eating sauerkraut (and other fermented foods) to improve your immune system and your mood.
• Walking barefoot outside to decrease system-wide inflammation.
• Enjoying a laugh: it’s as good for your blood vessels as 15 minutes of exercise.

Why did Dr. Mercola decide to write Effortless Healing?

“My mission in writing this book is the same as my mission in creating the website and running the Health Liberty Initiative: to inform you of the details that are frequently omitted from the often manipulated health stories you hear or read about in the media; and to help you remove the roadblocks to wellness – such as subpar food and contaminated beverages – so that your body can do what it was designed to do effortlessly: stay well,” says Dr. Mercola.

Included in the book is some advice that seems to go against what we’ve all been taught about “healthy eating.” Just because you think it’s healthy, doesn’t mean it really is. Dr. Mercola recommends avoiding the following “health foods” and substituting them with healthier alternatives:

• Whole grains like brown rice — better choice is cauliflower
• Natural sweeteners like agave — better choice is dextrose
• Unfermented soy products, including tofu and soymilk — better choice is miso
• Vegetable oil — better choice is coconut or olive oil
• Most types of fish — say no to sea bass and tuna, try herring or summer flounder instead
• Conventional yogurt — better choice is organic, plain whole-milk yogurt

Dr. Mercola believes that each of us holds in our own hands the power to be  healthy. Here’s a sampling of what you’ll discover in the book:

• How to wake up your fat-burning enzymes to lose weight
• Tame your appetite and radically decrease your cravings for sweets and junk food
• The popular salad ingredient he advises avoiding
• An often overlooked reason why you may be feeling hungry all the time
• Dramatically lower your risk of cardiovascular disease

Says neurosurgeon David Perlmutter, M.D., who wrote the forward in the book:

“Epigenetic research [which refers to external modifications to DNA that turn genes “on” or “off] reveals that our lifestyle choices—the foods we eat, the supplements we take, the exercise we pursue, and even the emotional content of our daily experiences—are all involved in orchestrating chemical reactions that activate or deactivate parts of our genome that will either code for outcomes that threaten health and pave the way for disease or create an internal environment conducive to longevity and disease resistance.”