If you understand the chemical effects of exercise and competition on your body then you should also be able understand why the antioxidants and neurotransmitters available from organic cocoa can help to improve your athletic performance and reduce your recovery time. In order to attain the benefits that cocoa has to offer, however, it should be taken in as raw a state as possible, and cocoa processed into a hot drink or into chocolate is not as powerful as the natural bean.

What’s next? You could say.  Whoever heard of such a thing?  No doubt it’ll be called “The Love Diet”.  Some will immediately wonder just what would be on the menu.  Interesting and inspiring as that …

Want to lose weight but tired of weight loss gimmicks? Follow this sensible advice.

1. Eat only real food: how much of what you eat comes from a box? If it’s processed, it’s probably no good for you. Real foods are the foods that you find in the fruit and vegetable aisle of your grocery store. Come in a box? Read the ingredients. If there are too many, or the names of the ingredients are unpronounceable, then don’t buy it. In doubt? Leave it. Fruits, vegetables, complex carbohydrates and lean proteins should be your diet. Don’t waste your money on processed foods that will only bog you down.

When people say they want to lose weight, they’re usually talking about losing excess fat.

If you want to lose fat, then it’s important to know under what conditions fat cells multiply, grow ‘fatter’ or shrink. Yes, fat cells can get fatter also. They are the cells responsible for storing the unused calories you consume, so the more calories and less exercise, the larger they will get. What’s more, when a fat cell grows fat enough (3 to 6 times its original size), it multiplies. These new cells, in turn, can get fatter.

5 years ago, I was under a lot of stress and I was constantly coughing and had problems breathing. I thought I had a cold or some virus. Went I went to the hospital, they took an X ray and found that my heart was so enlarged it was almost the size of one of my lungs. My stress hormones were also elevated – they found high levels of cortisol in my blood. I discovered that I was born with cardiomyopathy (a disease that involves the weakening and inflammation of the heart). The doctors installed a defibrillator, as a protection in case my heart stops beating, to shock it back to life.