Q&A: Everything about the Healthiest Fruits and Why Is Soy Bad for Your Health

How is your week? Mine is going great. I am getting my strength back, after the exhausting month I had. I realized that the best way to fight exhaustion, is to actually quit fighting it. You just need to let it be there and allow yourself to slow down a little bit. Once you do it, everything falls back into place.

Thank you for all your wonderful messages. this week I picked up three questions: which is the best fruit for breakfast, why is soy bad for your health and could everybody learn to do handstands.

Here is my opinion. Share yours in the comments below.

Ines, I always include some kind of fruits in my breakfast. In your opinion which fruits are the best?

If I have to share my opinion, based on mu understandings about healthy eating, I will have to say this: “Carbs for breakfast? BIG MISTAKE!”(read HERE) Still, I know that sometimes it takes time, in order for people to accept food, just as fuel and that more often than not, people have some kind of a sentiment towards particular foods. And this kind of emotional attachment dictates their choice of a nutrition plan. So, if after all you have changed your habits and you’ve excluded all the junk from your nutrition, and now you are left with just fruits, being your weakness, there is nothing bad in including them.

If this is gonna make you feel better and help you stick to your good nutrition. Still, my advice is to eat more berries. Especially when they are in season. During the rest of the year, stick to season fruits, but do not overdo the quantities. You can add a couple strawberries or some cherries, two-three pieces of apple.

So stick to fruits which are in season, but do not make the mistake to eat just fruits for breakfast. Prepare your usual breakfast of eggs and let fruits be just a small edition to your breakfast, not the main part of it!

Ines, for a while I’ve been eating a lot of soy products. But lately I am hearing people, who say that soy is not healthy! Why is that? I thought exactly the opposite!

The topic about soy is pretty vast, but I will try to explain it in short.

Why is soy risky for your health?

In order tounderstand it you need to know what estrogens are, what is a phytoestrogen and what it has to do with soy.

Estrogen

As you may already know estrogen is a hormone. And what is the primarily function of hormones? They are chemicals in the body that have signaling functions or in other words they give “instructions” to your organs and cells what to do.

In order to understand it further, you should know that there are estrogen receptors, which play the role of “locks” and estrogen molecules, which are “the keys”.  What estrogen receptors do, is telling your hypothalamus and pituitary glands, how much estrogen is available in your body. So in order for the “lock”(estrogen receptor) to be unlocked it needs a key( an estrogen molecule). When the lock and the key interact, there is a signal send to your pituitary glands and hypothalamus, and the more locks get filled with estrogen molecules,  the more signals for estrogen availability will be send. Which eventually leads to a red light signaling that there is enough estrogen in your body, which in turn leads to another signal to your ovaries that you should stop producing estrogen!

So this is enough information for the estrogen. Let’s move on to phytoestrogens.

Everything You Need to Know about Phytoestrogens

Soy, together with some nuts and legumes is a potent phytoestrogen. Pythoestrogens are chemicals that by structure resemble estrogen, but by functions differ from it. Which means that phytoestrogens mimic estrogens, but can’t perform their functions. It is something like twins- they look alike, but they are totally different people, with different characters, and just because they look the same way, doesn’t mean that they act the same way. Probbaly not the best comparison, but that is the only thing that came to mind.

Phytoestrogens are part of the category of xenoestrogen, which literally means FALSE estrogens. So that is another affirmation that phytoestrogens ain’t estrogens!

How Soy Negative Affects Your Body

So what does soy,phytoestrogens and estrogens have to do with your health.

When you eat soy products and other phytoestrogens, coming from vegetable oils, you are trying really hard to mess up your hormones. Why?

Remember the estrogen receptors and estrogen molecules? And the fact that even if it doesn’t function like estrogen, phytoestrogen resembles estrogen?

Just like you are probably gonna go astray which of the twins, is the one you know, estrogen receptors, go astray between real estrogen and phytoestrogens. What that means is that phytoestrogens can bind together with estrogen receptors. That in turn, will signal the pituitary glands and hypothalamus that you have enough estrogen and that will send a signal to your ovaries to down regulate the production of estrogen.

And where is the problem? That phytoestrogens can’t perform estrogen’s functions. So your body will be fooled that there is plenty of estrogen for its normal functioning, but in reality this is not the truth!

Thus, you end up with low estrogen levels, that will eventually lead to other hormones getting messed up, which in turn leads to your bad health and your terrible mood!

Ines, I’ve been following your Facebook page, as well as your blog and I love your pictures. I got inspired and I really want to learn how to do a handstand. Do you think that a person like me, who has nothing to do with professional sports could master it?

This is one of my main missions. To help people believe, that there aren’t limits for physical abilities. It doesn’t matter if you are a pro athlete or not. As there aren’t exercises for men and for women in the gym, there aren’t exercises for professional athletes or non- professional trainees, as well. Everything comes up to the level of physical preparedness, the proper training methods, setting the right goals and progressively achieving them.

I am not a professional athlete, but I learned to do a lot of things with my body. Back in the days when I was competing, I couldn’t do even 1/4^th of the things  I am able to do today.

A person can achieve everything! Really! It is about time to understand it and to stop limiting your choices, by placing yourself in frames. Everybody could master the handstand. Even if it looks scary, in reality it is not that hard to do it. Everything comes up to balance and coordination. Some more strength will always help you master it faster. Check out the videos in this article. I am sure that they will help you nail the handstand, and why not even start handstand walking… 😉

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