Do you use fragrances and personal care products? Then chances are your body contains elevated levels of chemicals called musks. What are musks? Musks are commonly added to personal care products in order to improve their smell and are generally synthetic. Artificial musks are found in lotions, deodorants, perfumes, cosmetics, and other similar things. They are found in household products such as laundry detergent.

Musks can concentrate in the fat in your body. In addition, they resist breakdown during wastewater treatment and they can hold up in the environment. For these reasons, synthetic musks are found in human breast milk, in fatty tissues, and in the environment. During the 1990s, some musks were banned by European countries because of their toxicity and presence in wildlife.

Studies have shown that people using a lot of personal care products will exhibit high levels of musks. Some musks are known to affect reproduction in rats and fish and damage DNA in cells. The effects on humans, however, are not fully understood. It is just another reason to practice nutritional cleansing.

So you have some belly fat to work off after the holidays? A very helpful way to burn fat is through cardiovascular exercises. However, doing cardiovascular exercise doesn't necessarily guarantee you will burn fat. You have to do cardio a certain way in order to burn fat. Here are some tips:

1. Don't do just any cardio, but the right cardio. Some workouts will burn more fat than others. Spend your time doing the more intensive kind of exercising. They may include running, rowing, kick-boxing, hiking, and outdoor biking. These can burn more fat per minute.
2. Make it short, but intensive. Don't spend hours and hours doing cardio workouts. Rather than doing long, monotonous exercises, do intensive interval cardio where you alternate between high and low intensity during your workout. Just make sure that the high intensity interval is high!
3. Be diverse and enjoy yourself. There are different aerobic exercises that you can choose from. Alternate between different exercises and have fun!

The following is courtesy and copyright Summum. It is used with permission.

"Where your ATTENTION is, is where you are."

  -- Summum

Meditation is the process of awakening you to your spirit. Most humankind simply talk about having a spirit, and some believe they have one, but are not really sure. For you are so "involved" in the drama of your physical life that your consciousness is bound up in your ego, and bodily nature and appetites, making you asleep to your spirit. The experience of awakening to the spirit is similar to one most of you reading this book have had. You can call on the Summum Principle, "As above, so below; as below, so above," to assist you in your understanding of the experience and how it relates to the search for spirit.

For more information read the book, SUMMUM: Sealed Except to the Open Mind.