"It's you deep sea diving into the Fountain of Youth"

That's what happens when you eat right and exercise. How you might ask?

When you eat like crap--fast food, no veggies, no good sources of real protein--you are giving your body nothing good to work with. You are over-taxing all your organs because they aren't doing what they were designed to do. Our bodies were designed to process natural things effortlessly. When you consume too much processed foods and even cooked veggies, for instance, your pancreas makes up the slack. This over-taxes the pancreas. What do you feel like when you work too hard too long? Probably tired. Think about the pancreas too.

When you exercise, even moderate exercise....you don't have to run marathons or bike half-way across the country, you are diving into the fountain of youth because you are avoiding the pains of every day life. You are doing something good for your muscles, which supports the skeleton better. Supporting the skeleton better leads to fewer joint and back pains.

Don't you like when your car works more efficiently? When you eat right and get moving, you are allowing your body to work more efficiently and stay younger and stronger for longer. Your joints won't feel 'as old', your muscles will be strong and not groan at the simplest lifting tasks, your body will remain more flexible allowing you to turn your head in your car when backing up, for instance, without pain.

When you clean up your diet, stop eating fried foods, you are starting to eliminate some of the free radicals that do such damage to our bodies.

"Whoa....what is up with that term 'free radicals'?!?!" What is it? It is unstable oxygen molecules. They are fairly inevitable. Everyone has them. But you don't have to have a plethora of them. When you eat fried and smoked foods, your contributing to the free radical count. When you eat anti-oxidants, you're helping to protect your body from the damage of free radicals.

"BUT WHAT ARE THEY?!?! AND WHAT DO THEY DO!?!?!" you think. Free radicals are unstable oxygen molecules--this means that they are missing an electron....floating around your body. When they float around your body, they are looking to bind to any other molecule that will stabilize them--this is called oxidation. Another example of oxidation is a cut apple without lemon juice (the lemon juice drizzled on it acts as an anti-oxidant, just as blueberries do for the human body), the rusting process and 'the green crap on copper' (quoted from the hubby), 'the white powdery foamy stuff that forms on battery terminals in cars' (quoted again from the hubby :P), silver tarnishing. This isn't pretty! In the human body, this leads to many problems......they are linking free radicals to the aging process (balding, wrinkling skin, grey hair) as well as hang overs, dandruff and 85% of chronic and degenerative deseases (cancer, diabetes mellitus, atherosclerosis, cerebralvascular disease, stroke, etc etc etc).

I think it's worth watching what you eat and going for a dive in the deep sea of youth to prevent the oxidative damage of free radicals, don't you?!