I have just completed Week 6 of my Wellness with Rose program. The lesson was called "Food Formulas for Younger Skin." However, Rose's opening statement was, "The way you eat and digest is so important. It's key to health." The lesson was all about digestion, enzymes, and some other cool stuff I really didn't know much about until now.

The week was broken into two parts. Though there was a ton of useful info in here, I'm going to sum up both parts as best I can.

Part 1: Enzymes

Enzymes comes from the foods we eat. These are what keep us alive and healthy. They can also drastically improve your skin.

Each food has its own enzyme which counteracts with our stomach in the digestive process. So for example, if you eat an apple, the apple has cellulose so you'll need cellules in your tummy to digest it. The problem is that most times apples come damaged or canned and all of the enzymes have leaked out. So the stomach can't properly digest many of the foods we have today, especially processed ones. Thus a raw food diet is best. However, it is almost impossible for anyone with a life to stick with a raw food diet. So getting a specific broad spectrum, plant based enzyme will help the body better digest foods.

Part 2: Stomach Acids

Throw out everything you know about Tums and heartburn. Apparently when you're having digestive problems it's because of low stomach acid, not because you have too much acid! And nearly 60% of us unknowingly have low stomach acid. To combat the side effects of it, Rose told us to chuck our Tums, carbonated drinks, and aspirin/painkillers. She also told us about her HCL Challenge and pH tests, which will help you figure out if you have a PH balance of 4+ and need to take Betaine, an enzyme that helps improve stomach acid situations and digestion.

She also mentioned that you should have as many bowel movements per day as meals you eat. Or at least close to that number. As gross as it might be to admit, after doing the HCL Challenge and taking our enzyme pills, BMs have increased in number and we're feeling lighter than ever!

Note: I've been doing extremely well with my good eating, exercising and keeping up with the Wellness with Rose program. However, this weekend was my husband's birthday and we had a big bash which meant I fell off the wagon big time. Not only did it take me three embarrassingly long days to recover from my head and stomach aches but my skin broke out and became blotchy (see photo). Though a night full of cake, beer, and buffalo chicken dip was fun and yummy, at this point, I'm not sure if it's worth it after all the hard work I've put in! Just goes to show you how quickly your body adjusts to the good and the bad.

Stayed tuned for Week 7's lecture, "Balancing Chemicals and Hormones to Turn Back the Clock."