You have a trading plan, how about a HEALTH plan?

Do you pay a health insurance premium just hoping you'll get a chance to "get your money back" someday? Are you anxiously awaiting the day you'll get to say, "Ha! I've got you now Mr. Insurance company. Here's a bill for $100,000 from my hospital to pay for my chemotherapy. And you thought you'd get to keep all those premiums I've been paying you over the years!"

E-Mini Player said he wouldn't mind another health post in his blog. This is the last one. If it's of interest please copy and paste it. This is from my files. I did not write it. It's at least a few years old.

Cancer Update from John Hopkins:
1. Every person has cancer cells in the body. These cancer cells do not show up in the standard tests until they have multiplied to a few billion. When doctors tell cancer patients that there are no more cancer cells in their bodies after treatment, it just means the tests are unable to detect the cancer cells because they have not reached the detectable size.
2. Cancer cells occur between 6 to more than 10 times in a person's lifetime.
3. When the person's immune system is strong the cancer cells will be destroyed and prevented from multiplying and forming tumors.
4. When a person has cancer it indicates the person has multiple nutritional deficiencies. These could be due to genetic, environmental, food and lifestyle factors.
5. To overcome the multiple nutritional deficiencies, changing diet and including supplements will strengthen the immune system.
6. Chemotherapy involves poisoning the rapidly-growing cancer cells and also destroys rapidly-growing healthy cells in the bone marrow, gastro-intestinal tract etc, and can cause organ damage, like liver, kidneys, heart, lungs etc.
7. Radiation, while destroying cancer cells, also burns, scars and damages healthy cells, tissues and organs.
8. Initial treatment with chemotherapy and radiation will often reduce tumor size. However prolonged use of chemotherapy and radiation do not result in more tumor destruction.
9. When the body has too much toxic burden from chemotherapy and radiation the immune system is either compromised or destroyed, hence the person can succumb to various kinds of infections and complications.
10. Chemotherapy and radiation can cause cancer cells to mutate and become resistant and difficult to destroy. Surgery can also cause cancer cells to spread to other sites.
11. An effective way to battle cancer is to starve the cancer cells by not feeding it with the foods it needs to multiply.

CANCER CELLS FEED ON:
a. Sugar is a cancer-feeder. By cutting off sugar it cuts off one important food supply to the cancer cells. Sugar substitutes like Nutrasweet, Equal, Spoonful, etc. are made with Aspartame and it is harmful. A better natural substitute would be Manuka honey or molasses but only in very small amounts.
b. Milk causes the body to produce mucus, especially in the gastro-intestinal tract. Cancer feeds on mucus . By cutting off milk and substituting with unsweetened soy milk cancer cells are being starved.
c. Cancer cells thrive in an acid environment. A meat-based diet is acidic and it is best to eat fish, and a little chicken rather than beef or pork. Meat may also contains livestock antibiotics, growth hormones and parasites, which are all harmful, especially to people with cancer.
d. A diet made of 80% fresh vegetables and juice, whole grains, seeds, nuts and a little fruits help put the body into an alkaline environment. About 20% can be from cooked food including beans. Fresh vegetable juices provide live enzymes that are easily absorbed and reach down to cellular levels within 15 minutes to nourish and enhance growth of healthy cells. To obtain live enzymes for building healthy cells try and drink fresh vegetable juice (most vegetables including bean sprouts) and eat some raw vegetables 2 or 3 times a day. Enzymes are destroyed at temperatures of 104 degrees F (40 degrees C).

12. Meat protein is difficult to digest and requires a lot of digestive enzymes. Undigested meat remaining in the intestines become putrefied and leads to more toxic buildup.
13. Cancer cell walls have a tough protein covering. By refraining from or eating less meat it frees more enzymes to attack the protein walls of cancer cells and allows the body's killer cells to destroy the cancer cells.
14. Some supplements build up the immune system (IP6, Floressence, Essiac, antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, EFAs etc.) to enable the body's own killer cells to destroy cancer cells. Other supplements like vitamin E are known to cause apoptosis, or programmed cell death, the body's normal method of disposing of damaged, unwanted, or unneeded cells.
15. Cancer cells cannot thrive in an oxygenated environment. Exercising daily, and deep breathing help to get more oxygen down to the cellular level. Oxygen therapy is another means employed to destroy cancer cells.

PLEASE READ ON
1. No plastic containers in microwave.
2. No plastic wrap in microwave.

Dr. Edward Fujimoto, Wellness Program Manager at Castle Hospital (Hawaii) was on a TV program to explain this recently. He talked about dioxins and how bad they are for us. He said that we should not be heating our food in the microwave using plastic containers. This especially applies to foods that contain fat. He said that the combination of fat, high heat, and plastics releases dioxin into the food and ultimately into the cells of the body. Instead, he recommends using glass, such as Corning Ware, Pyrex or ceramic containers for heating food. You get the same results, only without the dioxin.

So such things as TV dinners, instant ramen and soups, etc., should be removed from the container and heated in something else. Paper isn't bad but you don't know what is in the paper. It's just safer to use tempered glass, Corning Ware, etc. He reminded us that a while ago some of the fast food restaurants moved away from the foam containers to paper. The dioxin problem is one of the reasons. Also, he pointed out that plastic wrap, such as Saran, is just as dangerous when placed over foods to be cooked in the microwave. As the food is nuked, the high heat causes poisonous toxins to actually melt out of the plastic wrap and drip into the food. Cover food with a paper towel instead.

Feed your brain and stay on your game

I’m going off on a tangent here today. But it’s a very important one (nothing more than life or death). If you click on my name you’ll see my interest in health and nutrition. I first became interested in this after getting out of college. It has served me well. In my adult life I’ve only filed a medical claim twice, and both were for minor accidents, not illnesses. No prescriptions. No doctor visits. Nothing. (Yet I continue to get ripped off by insurance companies every time a premium is due.) And I’ve mentioned before that I’m older than probably everyone reading this. Maybe I’m lucky. Luck can have a small role in lots of things. But I do more than just “talk the talk” as well.

You younger traders may think you will live forever in great health. It’s a common delusion of youth. Don’t be so naïve. Does being naïve help you become a better trader? Even if you make a fortune by the age of 35 what good will it do you if you are locked in a nursing home with a devastating case of Alzheimers? Wouldn’t you rather be out traveling and enjoying life? Trust me, the grocery stores, the water we drink, and the air we breathe are all full of man-made poisons our grandparents never had to experience. It’s all done in the name of “progress”. Don’t be so naïve as to think illnesses “just happen”. 80% of the time it’s up to you.

Your trading career is over when your brain can’t keep up. When you retire from trading you have no business to sell for a windfall. Your brain is your business. What are you going to do to “insure” your business? In my time I’ve kept lots of notes and written my own reports on food. It’s not hard. But it takes effort and devotion to do it. One of my favorite authors is Jean Carper. You can get her books at a library, or better yet buy some. Another is Charlotte Haigh’s “Top 100 Immunity Boosters”. A whopping $12.95. I’ve read many others. Nowadays the book stores are full of such work. I’m not into exotic solutions and foods. Just as the stores are full of poisonous crap they also have almost all the essentials you need to live long and healthy. You call the shots with your selections. Here’s a short excerpt from my notes on brain health:

“BRAIN: Keep your BRAIN in top shape…. You need anti-oxidants particularly for your brain and mental functioning. Your brain is vulnerable because 1) it’s rich in easily oxidized polyunsaturated fat, 2) and it consumes 1/5 of all the oxygen taken into your body. 3) Your brain has a lot of iron in it, an oxidation promoting mineral, and 4) your brain produces few anti-oxidants on its own. So if you DON’T want Alzheimer’s, or just plain senility, you need to take in more anti-oxidants than the typical person who doesn’t know any better.”

In today’s internet age you can find answers in minutes. But then you have to commit yourself to doing something about it. Ahhh, you know there was a catch. Like everything else in life, if you want to rise above the norm you have to do what the majority (the norm) aren’t unwilling to do.

To be a top trader you can’t be brain lazy and unable to focus. You can’t afford to punish your brain by feeding it garbage any more than an athlete can get by with eating pizza instead of protein. There will be a price to pay somewhere, sometime. If you aren’t vigilant it will creep up on you an inch at a time, almost undetected, until it’s too late. If you want living proof go visit a nursing home. Or for a less active, but still worthwhile manner, go online and look up some stats. Maybe it will “scare you straight”. I know it has for me. Just my 2 cents on a subject worth a million times more.