For some people, exercise is a daunting challenge. The good news is that if you use the Peak Fitness Method, exercise can be fun and efficient—you won’t need to take a lot of time out of your schedule to do it! “Peak Fitness” was coined by Phil Campbell, a trainer to athletes for over 35 years. The Peak Fitness approach to exercising takes only twenty minutes a day, but your heart rate peaks eight times during that period of time so that you are working intensely for about four minutes out of...

Hands-on massage feels marvelous, but it has many health benefits, too! More and more people—especially baby boomers—are recognizing the health benefits of massage. For non-medical massage sessions, you may want to learn a few techniques on your own and proceed toward enjoyment. Some massages are just pleasurable sessions between loving couples. These massages can be fun, relaxing, and intimate. Join Kira and Bill Van Ittersum as they discuss the experience of massage and the positive...

Everybody has a different idea about what is stressful in life. A situation or an activity that may seem stressful to you might be enjoyable for someone else. So, what’s important for you is that whatever it is that gets you all tense and balled-up inside may be producing damaging stress for you. Here are some signs that you are experiencing too much stress in your life: constantly not sleeping well, frequent and/or prolonged headaches, being angry, often having unhappy thoughts, alcohol or...

In the 1960’s, 1 in 20 women would be diagnosed with breast cancer. Back then, this was considered a very serious and threatening national medical situation. Unfortunately in 2015, fifty years later, close to 1 in 8 women are diagnosed with breast cancer—a two-and-a-half times increase! What’s causing this catastrophic crisis? What can be done about it? One bright area of research is the study of how environmental factors may contribute to the occurrence of breast cancer. These findings have...

Part 3 is all about Super Brain Food Snacks—yummy treats that keep your energy up while keeping your weight down! After all, who doesn’t enjoy a good snack? Now, by “Good Snack” Kira and Bill Van Ittersum mean snacks packed with brain-powering nutrition that helps our brains function at high-level efficiency from one meal to the next. Also, snacks that will not spike our blood sugar with unhealthy levels of glucose or artificial additives. All this boils down to snacks that will satisfy our...

What we eat has a lot to do with the health of our brains. A diet balanced in organic, whole vegetables, “good” fats, and protein will keep your brain in optimum running condition.  In fact, if you misguidedly tried to cut out all fats from your diet, and skimp on protein, your body would sicken and die! In “Super Brain Food – Part 2, Kira and Bill Van Ittersum talk about 8 “good” fats in both whole vegetable and oil form. Listen in to see which ones you’re consuming...

When you make eating healthy foods a daily habit, it not only nourishes your body but it increases the odds of enjoying a happy, healthy brain for the whole of your life. So much research has now concluded that eating healthy—fresh, organic, and whole fruits and vegetables, good fats, beans, and good grains—will indeed reduce your “biological” age as your body ages chronologically. Most children, teens, and young twenty-somethings are not too concerned with these findings, unless they have...

Keeping a meal planner simplifies the whole eating process and keeps eating healthy on track! We all want that, right? You won’t have to stop and think about what’s for dinner—especially when you’re tired and hungry and you’re resistance is waaaay down—because your food plan is all written out and you’ve already bought all the ingredients you will need tonight! “Thank you, Meal Planner!” Listen in as Kira and Bill Van Ittersum share their secrets to constructing and implementing a successful...

We all need to breathe to stay alive, but much of the time we just take our breath for granted. Breathing is an act of inspiration, which in its expanded definition means “a divine act to receive sacred revelation.” In this podcast, Kira and Bill Van Ittersum share tips and ideas to recognize your breathing as a conscious “tool” for wellness and how you too can train your breath to stimulate divine awareness. Links Deep Breathing by Yoga Meditations, Audio CD Science of Breath: A Practical...

No weight loss strategy works if you find it unpleasant. If you don’t like doing it you won’t keep it up for long. Anything that you don’t follow through with doesn’t get done. In this podcast, Kira and Bill Van Ittersum share five simple tips to permanent weight loss. They strive to make them fun and easy to do so you won’t give up before you reach your goal. Listen in and enjoy the results in your figure! Links 6 Easy Ways to Speed Up Weight Loss by Melanie...

In addition to breaking down all the food you eat, extracting the nutrients, and processing most of the remaining waste, your gut is also responsible for 60 to 70% of your entire immune system! Your gut is an amazing organ and most people treat theirs very shabby indeed. Spoiled food, over-processed food, too much sugar, caffeine, and alcohol, chemicals in the air and water—these are just some of the things that we often make the gut digest. It’s no wonder that your gut rebels with symptoms...

Physical movement is so important to your overall health. If it’s fun and easy, you’re more likely to do it! Moving your body oxygenates your cells, helps carry wastes from your body, and strengthens your muscles and bones. Physical movement also boosts your blood stream’s job to provide the nourishment that your cells need to thrive. Kira and Bill Van Ittersum suggest that you move into exercise gradually in a fun and easy way. Do whatever movement you find enjoyable. As Dr. Oz says, “If you...

Your liver is your body’s chemical plant. It processes and eliminates waste products and dead cells from your blood stream, it detoxifies poisons, heavy metals, and other pollutants, it metabolizes drugs (OTC, prescription, and recreational alike), it produces glycogen for brain and muscle energy, and it produces bile for aiding digestion. A healthy liver is a blessing to your life. It helps give you strength, energy, and vitality. If you continuously abuse your liver with air pollution,...

Some people are worried about some of the ingredients in commercial sunscreens. Some dermatologists are concerned with these chemicals in the sunscreens, but the majority of dermatologists think that the FDA approved ingredients are perfectly safe. Most professionals believe that the risks of going out into the sun’s harmful UV rays far outweighs the controversy surrounding sunscreen products. In this podcast, Kira and Bill Van Ittersum cover fears of some of the chemicals in sunscreen,...

Ahhhh, summertime, and the livin’ is easy! Time to go down to the beach and catch some rays or work outside in the garden. However, if you are exposed to frequent and intense UV radiation, you are exposed to one of the major risk factors for melanoma. Ultra Violet radiation from the sun can penetrate the upper layers of the skin and causes sunburn, and can cause changes in your DNA and can stimulate unchecked cell growth such as skin cancers and tumors. Kira and Bill Van Ittersum discuss the...

Ahhhh! Time to relax! Get a cold or hot drink, watch some TV or grab a mystery or a romance novel, kick your feet up. Who could ask for more, Right? Wrong! These activities, including the sugared and hi-carb drinks do little to reduce the damaging effects of stress. A new term has been coined by physiological and psychological researchers: “The Relaxation Response.” This means: learning to develop a state of deep calmness that is the polar opposite of the stress response. Kira and Bill Van...

When your pancreas doesn’t make enough insulin, or stops producing insulin at all, or your cells stop responding to the available insulin in your blood and can’t absorb glucose from your blood stream, you will have a condition called diabetes: too much glucose (sugar) in your blood stream. One common symptom of diabetes is frequent urination which then triggers thirst and increased water/liquids consumption. Other symptoms are fatigue, nausea, vomiting, and sometimes blurred vision....

More than 3 Million cataract surgeries are performed in the U.S. annually. This large number makes cataract surgery the most common surgery of its type in the country. It is elective surgery and the Boomer Generation is choosing to have it done more often and sooner in their lives than older generations did. It starts with “blurriness;” you can’t read the fine print anymore—whether in a book or on the computer screen—without an aid such as a magnifying glass. Driving at night can also be a...

Over 42 million Americans still smoke cigarettes. Add to this number the people who smoke cigars, pipes, or use chewing tobacco, snuff, and other tobacco products and you have 1 out of 6 Americans addicted to tobacco. There are over 480,000 tobacco-use related deaths each year in America and an additional 14,500,000 people are afflicted by a tobacco-use related disease. The direct cost to America’s health system is estimated at $133 billion dollars a year with additional indirect costs to the...

Late in the evening, the “food siren” calls to you from the kitchen! “Come to meeee! Come to meeeeeee!” In this podcast, Kira and Bill share their tips that they use to “snack healthy,” yet satisfy their cravings. Food manufacturers have been using “food science” to hook western-world consumers with the triple-whammy combination of “sugar—salt—fat,” and they have been enormously successful in their endeavors. There are more people who are overweight today, as a percentage of society, than...

Banana bread is always a treat, but now with gluten-free flour, sea salt, organic eggs, raw sugar, coconut oil, and walnuts it can be a high-energy “pick-me-up” snack for young and old alike. Kira and Bill Van Ittersum talked about this bread in their Gluten-Free Baking podcast a few weeks ago and the response has been fantastic. Listeners wanted the whole recipe, so here it is. Bill and Kira serve this fresh banana bread to their grandkids for an after school snack and they love it! Spread...

What is it about meditation that inspires some people to make it a daily practice? What are they enjoying that most of society is missing out on? In this podcast, Kira and Bill Van Ittersum share personal stories and real-life experiences from several people about their success with meditation. They leave the “how,” and “what, when, and where” of meditation for you to research on your own and instead focus on the “who” and “why.” From Fleur Carter’s story, “The benefits of meditation are...

Kira and Bill Van Ittersum are talking in this podcast about healthy snack foods for the entire family. They are all too aware of how important it is to have nutritious snacks on hand, because, not only are they attempting to keep waist expansion to a minimum, but they also often care for their grandchildren, and want them to develop healthy eating habits. That’s why they have healthy foods on hand that are easy to prepare and great tasting too. Kira says, “We don’t buy cookies, cakes, or...

In this podcast, Kira and Bill Van Ittersum are introducing you to the joy of easy and scrumptious gluten-free baking! Kira knows firsthand that reactions to wheat gluten may not always be obvious. She has suffered with headaches and lethargy throug...