If there’s a quality difference found between foods based on source and processing, it’s safe to assume the same holds true for water. Jessica Ryan tells us what type of water is the healthiest for us in today’s guest post!

Everyone knows that water is essential to the human body. It hydrates us, protects our organs and provides our nutrients with a road to travel. These days just about everyone realizes the necessity of ample water intake.

With so many people reaching for healthier options, there are more choices than ever when choosing our H2O. Here is the lowdown on all the basic options available and their varied affects on our health:

Sparkling

While favored heavily in most of Europe and used throughout the bottling industry, this type of water is the least healthy. Sparkling water is still water but with a high concentration of carbon dioxide. The fizz and carbonation in sparkling water is the same acidic mixture used in sodas.

Long term use of sparkling water can present a health risk, particularly for dental health.

Distilled and Reverse Osmosis

This is 100% H2O, making distilled water (or deionized water) the purest option.

The drawback here is that there is no nutritional value. The extra minerals that come as part of the regular H2O package are not present due to the evaporation of the water which completely removes everything `heavy’ to become a gaseous state.

Water processed through reverse osmosis is also purified as minerals cannot escape through the processing. In addition to no nutritional value, water processed with these methods is also high on the acidic scale.

The consensus here is that distilled water is the least healthy of all water options due to the lack of mineral nutrition. That’s the only consensus in the water debate.

The battle between tap and bottled water rages on. The basic argument is that tap water can contain unwelcome contaminants. Bottled water on the other hand has been known to contain the same contaminants and some tests have shown higher levels of toxins like arsenic and excessive fluoride.

Tap

Natural tap water comes from many sources. Wells, surface water and deep water aquifers are all sources for tap water.

In the USA, tap water is under strict guidelines by the government and despite the occasional discoloring or funny taste, tap water here is very safe. Many larger cities have begun using advanced filtering techniques and the process of ozonation. This increased the filtering capabilities by further reducing the percentage of chemicals in the water.

Tap water is also rich in minerals which help many experts to argue that this reason alone makes tap water the healthiest choice. Many people also choose to filter their tap water in their home. This process maintains the mineral content but can help decrease everyday contaminants like lead or e. coli.

Filtered

There are many filters on the market. Some are better than others but the actual quality depends on the original quality of the drinking water.

A more contaminated water source calls for a heavier duty filtration system to remove the various toxins. Your basic decent tap water with just a hint of metal contamination from the pipes will be just fine with a cheap filtration system (on the faucet or water pitcher).

One negative hitch with filtration systems is that they get dirty. Maintenance is important if the filter is to continue working. Without the appropriate maintenance, bacteria and other collective gunk will start making its way into your water.

Bottled

Bottled water has the benefit of manufacturing. Some companies infuse the water with bonus minerals which actually enhances the health benefit of water.

Bottled water is increasingly being held to the same standards of control as tap water, but regulation still lags behind. Many tests have shown bottled water to possess more contaminants than tap water.

The trick here is that it all depends on where you get your water supply from and what brand of bottled water is used. Some tap water is extraordinary while others barely make a passing grade. The same distinctions apply with bottled varieties. This is why it’s impossible to determine one as healthier over the other.

Structured

Natural water from glaciers and deep artesian wells are typically known to be more “structured”. The actual molecular structure of the water reacts to the human body in the most natural way.

Water from many bottled waters and even distilled water are structured differently and may cause the body to process it differently; sometimes even treat it as a foreign body!

Structured water can be created at home through special systems. It is also beginning to carve a luxury niche in the bottled water market. Almost all experts agree that the molecular structure of this type of water is the most beneficial to the human body.

And the Winner Is?

The clear winner here is structured water. The science behind how its molecular structure boosts the human body’s performance is growing with every study.

Water is essential to the human body for hydration and the transportation of nutrients. With structured water this process is done cleanly and more efficiently. It is important to remember that most water is good water. Even water types with a potential to cause health risks are helpful and healthful to our bodies.

Sparkling water still has a large edge on soda when it comes to acidic quality. Even dodgy tap water can be filtered to healthy drinking levels. Bottled water is fabulous for an on-the-go healthy choice and choosing the right brand can provide extra health benefits.

So turn on the faucet, pour yourself a cold one and enjoy the incredible power of H2O.

About the Author

Jessica Ryan is a writer for Medical Assistant Schools where you can browse the top medical assistant programs.

What do you think, Readers? What water do you drink regularly and why?

If you’re looking for another great article about the healthiest water, as well as another one arguing that tap water is healthy, check out, “The healthiest water to drink” from CanadianLiving.com.

Would you like to learn how to heal yourself, others and the planet with the power of your thoughts? In her new book, Sandra Ingerman gives us practical guidance to do just that.

If you’re feeling the weight of the impending 2012 prophesies, then How to Thrive in Changing Times might be the right book for you. I’m in the middle of reading this small spiritual guidebook but here’s the press release to whet your appetite:

In a time when people feel overwhelmed by global problems, Sandra Ingerman shares in How to Thrive in Changing Times (Weiser Books, January 2010) spiritual practices we can all engage in that have the power to create positive change.

Imagine…

“Imagine. Before you were born you were just a little spark of light connected to the creative force of the universe. You looked down on this great earth. What a beautiful planet filled with wondrous life forms. Your started to ponder the possibilities of life on earth.

Reader, do you remember the preciousness of life and that all life was created to experience love, light, joy, harmony, peace, equality, and abundance for all? If you can feel this in your bones, then you know it is true. If you cannot, do not despair for I will help you to remember.

We are a community of people who can gather our spiritual light and energies together to remember and to create a wondrous life for all living beings. We must remember our vision and then focus on it and hold the vision together. This is how we thrive together in changing times.”

In How to Thrive in Changing Times readers will be guided toward living a conscious life; they will learn how their thoughts and words impact the world they live in and how their core beliefs influence what they believe is possible.

They will learn different ways to release and dissolve limiting beliefs and to utilize ancient principles of creation and manifestation to usher in healing the planet. Readers will be encouraged throughout to perceive themselves as members of a growing global community of conscious change agents, because that, Ingerman believes, is how we will survive changing times and how the earth will be healed.

About the Author

Sandra Ingerman, MA, is a licensed therapist and the author of numerous books including How to Heal Toxic Thoughts, Soul Retrieval, and Medicine for the Earth: How to Transform Personal and Environmental Toxins. She is also the author of several lecture programs produced by Sounds True. Sandra lives in New Mexico and can be found at www.sandraingerman.com.

Have you read any of Ms. Ingerman’s books or experienced one of her workshops?

Did you know 1 in 8 ingredients found in bath & body products are industrial chemicals? These toxic ingredients can interfere with reproduction, proper hormone functioning and cause cancer!

If you missed our past posts on the subject, I invite you to check out this list of dangerous ingredients as well as this one on healthy alternatives so you can be better informed and choose more wisely next time you’re shopping.

When we use these products, everything in them is absorbed through our skin and into our bodies. Overtime, biological havoc ensues. But not only are we harming ourselves with these toxic chemicals, we inadvertently pollute the environment and harm wildlife when they’re washed down the drain.

As one of the biggest and strongest proponents of environmental and wildlife preservation, The David Suzuki Foundation is inviting Canadians to help demand the government pass laws to better regulate toxic cosmetic ingredients. To sign the petition, click here.

The Suzuki Foundation has also created a short survey for Canadians to take until the end of June. All you have to do is grab a couple of products from your bathroom and compare the ingredients with those listed in the online questionnaire. They plan to report the results in September.

Once you’ve finished the survey, they send you an email with a recipe for homemade lip balm!

The image in this post is a handy list of the most dangerous ingredients to be on the look out for when choosing cosmetics and bath & body products. Here’s a printable version of the Sustainable Shopper’s Guide generously produced by The David Suzuki Foundation.

How often do you check the list of ingredients before you buy a product? For those of you who do, what’s the one ingredient that seems to always appear, even in `organic’ and `natural’ products?

Fear: a feeling of uneasiness or apprehension that carries with it an intense emotional response to a threat either real or imagined. It is a painful emotion linked to the anticipation of impending doom, danger or dread.

Have you ever done something you didn’t really want to do simply because it scared you? How did you feel afterward? Did it end up being a positive experience or did it confirm your initial fears?

This past Thursday, I had the pleasure of holding a 90-minute seminar about blogging at 2010 MagNet, an annual conference held by the illustrious trade association, Magazine’s Canada. It was my first public speaking engagement and I was not only uncomfortable – I was scared!

When we experience fear, real or imagined, our brain activates the fight or flight response in our body. We call this stress and while many believe all stress is created equally – it’s not. Just as our body needs a relative amount of stress in order to grow stronger (exercise), so does our mind, heart and soul.

Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” He was right. Stress is not our enemy – we are.

Health, Stress & Overcoming Fears

One of the main causes of (some would argue it’s the #1 reason for) health deterioration is prolonged psychological stress. From Wikipedia:

Prolonged psychological stress may negatively impact health, and has been cited as a factor in cognitive impairment with aging, depressive illness, and expression of disease. Stress management is the application of methods to either reduce stress or increase tolerance to stress. Relaxation techniques are physical methods used to relieve stress. Psychological methods include cognitive therapy, meditation, and positive thinking which work by reducing response to stress. Improving relevant skills and abilities builds confidence, which also reduces the stress reaction to situations where those skills are applicable.

Reducing uncertainty, by increasing knowledge and experience related to stress-causing situations, has the same effect. Learning to cope with problems better, such as improving problem solving and time management skills, may also reduce stressful reaction to problems. Repeatedly facing an object of one’s fears may also desensitize the fight-or-flight response with respect to that stimulus—e.g., facing bullies may reduce fear of bullies.

When we allow fear (and stress) to overwhelm us, that’s when we lose. Even Wikipedia says we have the power to control our emotions as well as our physical responses to those emotions!

Fears are Different Realities

“Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.” Jim Morrison

When Magazine’s Canada requested my participation at their conference, I was extremely honoured but my first thought was, “No, thank you.” I had never considered holding seminars before and wondered why I would do such a thing when it wasn’t a goal of mine.

A few friends were kind enough to ask that I pause before making a decision and reflect on my reasoning. They offered several possible, positive outcomes of accepting the proposal.

After some soul searching, I had to admit my gut reaction had more to do with the fear of public speaking (and an entire set of imagined, negative outcomes) as well as my lack of self-confidence (negative beliefs about my self and abilities) than with my original train of thought.

I realized my unfounded fears and beliefs were just stories I made up in my head. They were realities that I had created and instead of buying into them, I chose to create new ones.

In the article, “How Fear Inhibits Self-Expression and Personal Growth,” Saleem Rana says:

In very rare times, in an emergency, fear may help us to act to save ourselves or someone else, but for the most part, it ruins all initiative, growth, and spontaneous right action…

Yet when you examine the cause of any fear, it is usually nothing more than a highly-charged negative opinion.

Unfortunately, it is in those areas that we must grow that we feel the most fear. In fact, beyond the boundary of your fear is your next greatest opportunity.

I knew I had to speak at the conference for my own good. The new realities I created were: I had something valuable which I could share with others, and I could do it (and anything) with a little thought, education and preparation.

Overcoming our irrational fears challenges us on so many different levels, and doing so can be the ultimate action to take towards personal development.

Personal Development & Health

To tie this article together, I’d like to reference a brilliant article written by Max More about how technology is expanding the human potential and improving one’s life in every area. He wrote it in 1993 and it’s especially relevant in this discussion (and considering my seminar was on blogging).

Here’s the opening to entice you to read it in its entirety for yourself:

Self-transformation is a process that increases personal extropy. Extropy is a measure of a system’s intelligence, information content, available energy, longevity, vitality, diversity, complexity, and capacity for growth. Clearly, I intend “self-transformation” to necessarily imply “positive self-transformation.” The changes that I will discuss, rather than being value-neutral, all in some way amplify the extropy in your life and person: They make you more intelligent and wiser, physically healthier and more vigorous, increasingly psychologically effective, more creative, rational, and productive, and more effective at gathering and filtering information.

A Special Shout-Out

I’d like to thank my Motivational Superhero, Emmanuel Lopez, for helping me prepare for my seminar both mentally and with the physical presentation materials. He also lent his talents in videography so that I could analyze my performance and use the video for marketing purposes. This was a small contribution compared with the immense emotional support he provided throughout the preparation phase, during the seminar and even afterward!

I’d also like to thank all of my other friends, family and clients who offered their emotional support and wise presenting advice, too.

Thank you to all who attended: friends, colleagues and strangers alike. I’m especially grateful to those who graciously offered their honest feedback. You helped enhance the experience and reinforce positive feelings about my very first public appearance! I’m also anxious to apply your constructive criticism in order to improve future seminars.

And finally, thank you to Magazine’s Canada for giving me the opportunity to overcome my fears and helping me realize a previously unexplored talent!

Do you have any personal stories about overcoming fears? I’d love to hear them. Email me (stephanie [at] livelighter [dot] com) or share them with Live Lighter Readers in comments below.

Losing weight and getting healthy isn’t easy for most people. But would it be easier if you were in a team of friends all going for the same goal, had the direct support of people who have already succeeded and were being offered $10,000 as a reward?

Welcome to the 1st national weight loss competition brought to you by HealthyWage.com, an online network that rewards health and pays Americans to lose weight! 

Now I’m posting this a little late but you still have until Saturday, May 15th to register for the The Matchup $10,000 Team Weight-Loss Challenge with NBC’s former Biggest Losers, Pete Thomas and Neil Tejwani.

Here are the deets:

• Teams of 5 Americans will compete for the greatest percentage weight lost from May 15 – August 15, 2010.
• Pete Thomas and Neil Tejwani (who together lost and kept off 396 pounds) will coach and motivate teams towards success. They will provide daily motivation, tips and workout routines, as well as nutrition & weight loss advice. Ask them questions and hear tales from their Biggest Loser ranch experience on conference calls!
• Each team pays $100 ($20 per person) at enrollment, and weighs-in at the start and the end of the contest at one of the hundreds of health club weigh-in stations, at your clinic or doctor’s office.
• The team that loses the greatest percentage of weight over the course of 3 months will win $10,000!
• Second place will receive $5,000 and the third place winning team will be rewarded $3,000.

So what are you waiting for? Grab 4 willing friends, register at HeathyWage.com and weigh in at your nearest participating gym or your clinic/doc’s office (don’t forget to print out the Verify Me! form on your dashboard)!

For more information about The Matchup $10K Challenge, click here for the FAQs. For more information on HealthyWage, check out this recent TIME article.

Whether or not you’ll be signing up for this challenge, I want to know if $10,000 is a big enough carrot for you! Does the promise of this cash incentive boost your self-discipline and desire to achieve a healthy weight?

If you’re one of the 100+ new subscribers who signed up in the past few days, welcome to the Live Lighter community! If you’re one of our lovely regular readers, you may have noticed some dramatic changes recently here on the blog…

I’d like to take this opportunity to properly welcome our new readers by showing them around Live Lighter a bit. I’ll resist going into detail because what you see right now will be changing over the next month (more on this later in the post).

We’ll start with a short description:

Live Lighter is a blog for those looking to naturally and permanently release life’s burdens. If you’re feeling weighed down in body, mind, heart and/or soul, then you’ve hit the right website!

Live Lighter aims to provide you with a variety of reliable information on natural health & wellness. Some of our philosophy here includes:

• Everyone is unique and has their own health journey to experience. We respect that what works for one person may not work for another.
• Weight Loss is a natural and permanent by-product of living a healthy lifestyle.
• Nature has incredible healing powers and while results may take a little longer than they do from traditional medicine, they’re typically sustainable and arrive without nasty side-effects.
• Knowledge is power. The idea is to understand how nature works, including us, so we can work with nature rather than against it.

What you can expect on Live Lighter:

We share a ton of information on food & nutrition, cleansing & detoxing, getting physical, addiction, consciousness, as well as other healthy suggestions and lifestyle tips. To help you more practically, we have an ever-growing inventory of yummy, healthy recipes, including tasty smoothies and allergy-friendly meals.

Do you like diversity of info and style? Live Lighter features an assortment of guest bloggers, including the author of Spice Up Your Life, Bindu Grandhi. Not to mention product reviews, interviews and incredibly helpful post series, like The 2010 TV Detox, Health Made Easy and the Bodacious Beach Bod series!

The post schedule is currently 3 times per week:

1. Tuesday posts feature specialty natural health & wellness content unique to Live Lighter, designed to help you along your health journey.
2. Thursday posts are industry-related news, interviews and reviews on books, articles, products and places.
3. Saturday posts include alternating healthy recipes and videos.

Coming Up On Live Lighter

Spring is the season of rebirth. Here in the north-western hemisphere, the trees and flowers are blooming, babies are popping out all over the place, people are spring cleaning and a wide range of fresh fruit and veggies are cropping up for our eating pleasure.

It’s the perfect time to cleanup, reorganize and give Live Lighter a fresh face!

Surprise on the new theme, by the way, regular Readers! Stay tuned for a crazy, inspiring logo redesign, too.

Over the next month or so I’ll be tweaking the site. My intentions are to make Live Lighter as clean and organized as possible for you so it’s not only pleasing to the eyes but so you and new visitors can easily access relevant content to suit your immediate needs.

The site may be intermittently down-for-the-count during this time and I apologize in advance for any inconvenience or frustration this may cause. I’ll try to save the major work for the least busiest days (usually Sundays).

I also apologize for any disruptions or inconsistencies you may experience in content and delivery for the month of May. Unfortunately I was unable to undertake this project sooner and it coincides with a HUGE move (my Honey and I just bought our first home and we have major renos planned!).

Why couldn’t a redesign wait? I’m pleased to announce that Magazines Canada has asked little ‘ol me, as a Toronto freelance writer, to present on blogging at the MagNet 2010 conference this year!

I realize this month’s action plan will be a challenge but I’m confident it’s completely doable. I’ll do my best to continue providing you top-quality articles on natural health and well-being, and while I’m not planning to drop the ball, I hope you can forgive me if I do.

Your thoughts are appreciated – every bit of Live Lighter is for you! If you’re inspired during Live Lighter’s metamorphosis, please drop me a line (stephanie@livelighter.org) and share your feedback.

Have you checked out the latest POM Wonderful contest? Did you submit a work of art? I did. And if you’re interested, I share my slightly embarrassing submission  experience in this post.

POM Wonderful put on one of the best contests I’ve ever had the pleasure to participate in. They left it easy, open and allowed the creativity to flow!

There are some really inventive pieces and I invite you to check them out here. A community prize is being offered to the most popular, so make sure to vote for your favourites.

Lessons learned in the POM Heart Art Contest

Although I had fun with this contest, life (and myself) got in the way a little. POM gave us an entire month but I still managed to barely get my submission, POM Wonderful Angel, in on time.

The embarrassing part of this is that there was another earlier submission very similar to mine. It totally appears as if I copied this other person’s idea. Oy! *blush*

And, it’s about 20 times better than mine so if you like the concept, please vote for berfrancis’ Cupid’s Love Potion.

Here are my lessons from entering this contest so you won’t make the same mistakes:

1. Submit as early as possible, especially when there’s a voting aspect to the contest.
2. Check the other submissions before you submit yours. I did check them when I first contemplated entering the contest but because I left it to the last minute, I neglected to check again. And now I’m SO embarrassed.

Moral of the story? You may be on the same wavelength as another contest participant so get your idea in first!

If you check out the contest entries, I’d love to hear which ones you liked most. And if you’ve had a similar experience, would you share it with us so I don’t feel so silly?

Instead of forcing people to diet and exercise, Dan Buettner is inspiring people towards healthier lifestyles by changing their environment. The Vitality Project is an incredible concept and very promising for future generations!

Awhile back, we reported how Mr. Buettner was studying the world’s “blue zones”, places like Loma Linda, California, where people on a whole in the community lived similar lifestyles and had unusually long lives. Based on his studies, he wrote and published a book in 2008 called, “The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer from the People Who’ve Lived the Longest.”

One year later, Buettner decided to bring the health benefits he saw in these blue zones to middle America by partnering up with AARP magazine to start the Vitality Project.

Albert Lea, Minnesota, a town of 18,000 residents, signed up for the five month project and with some fairly subtle changes to the environment, they saw amazing results!

Almost 3,500 townsfolk participated. (Source: CBS) They got motivated, made friends, added a few years to their lives and had so much fun that they can’t stop! Read Dan’s article here in AARP magazine for testimonials and a more in-depth view on the project.

Some Results (Source: NewsWeek):

• Participants lost an average of 2.6 pounds.
• Boosted life expectancy by an average of 3.1 years.
• Health-care claims for city & school employees fell for the first time in 10 years – by 32% over 10 months.
• Residents uniformly reported feeling better physically and emotionally.

What were some of the environmental changes?

• New sidewalks linking residential areas with schools and shopping centers.
• They built a recreational path along the lake.
• Dug new plots for community gardens.
• Restaurants made healthy changes to their menus.
• Schools stopped selling candy for fundraisers (instead they sold wreaths).
• Schools banned eating in hallways (to reduce opportunities for kids to snack on junk food).
• Participants selected from more than a dozen heart healthy changes to implement at home, such as trashing their super-sized dinner plates.
• Community worksh0ps were formed to encourage more social engagements with one another.

Dan Buettner may have something here. Rather than try to persuade individual lifestyle changes, he changed the environment in little ways designed to help support and nurture healthier lifestyle habits.

What do you think of the Vitality Project? Would you support (financially, politically and personally) changes to public policy that enhance and encourage healthy living?

February is the month of Love; it’s also American Heart Month. Since pomegranates are loaded with healthy antioxidants which may improve heart health, POM Wonderful wants us to create some fabulous heart art for a chance to win awesome prizes!

Pomegranates have been listed by Shape.com as one of the top 15 healthy foods to have in your kitchen at all times. Between the juice and seeds, the antioxidants (including tannins and anthocyanins) have been shown to increase blood flow and reduce levels of harmful cholesterol.

I’m psyched to enter POM Wonderful’s Heart Art Contest!

All we have to do is create an original, heart-themed work of art. According to the contest rules, we’re free to use any medium but our finished pieces must include the POM Wonderful logo. As an option, we may include any POM Wonderful packaging.

To finish entering the contest, we take a pic of our art, sign in or register to their POM community and upload the pic along with a title and description of our masterpiece.

Easy and fun, right? But what’s up for grabs?

The Grand Prize is a POM Wonderful gift basket which includes a Flip Video, $100 American Express gift card, $250 donation to the American Heart Association in the winner’s name, and more!

The Community Prize includes a whack of POM products like a backpack, POM juice, POMx coffee and POMx bars.

Click here to find out how winners will be determined and here for the official contest rules.

Contest ends at the end of the month on February 28th, so we’d better get our creative juices flowing! Ooo… I feel something brewing…

Celebrities look great all the time. It’s their job. And they pay good money for coaches to whip them into shape. So tell me, would it be easier to meet your health and fitness goals if you had your very own personal coach by your side throughout the entire day?

Your personal health coach would be there to remind you of healthier choices, push you just enough so you can improve a little each day and kick your butt into high gear when you’re slacking.

That’s why I’m excited about my new M2 personal health coach (given to me as a Christmas gift from my thoughtful, wonderful and beautiful cousin. Thank you, Tina!).

The folks over at MyTrak have designed a health solution that fits on your hip and tracks your movement throughout the day. It’s interactive and customized, so you go online and set up your profile. After a few questions about your current state of health and your goals, you’re ready to rock and roll!

Here is a 2:48 minute video introducing the M2 personal health coach:

I registered and configured my M2 on January 15, so it’s only been about 20 days since my personal health coach has been by my side. I’m aiming for a more intense lifestyle!

Stay tuned for an upcoming M2 review post where I share my experience with it and the MyTrak online community.

What do you think of the M2 so far, Readers? Do you think it’ll help you achieve your health & fitness goals?