Table Of ContentEnlightenweight
Cultivate the Garden Within
By
Andrew Miles, LAc
Xuelan Qiu, PhD
Enlightenweight © 2013 by Andrew Miles and Xuelan Qiu. All rights
reserved. Eugene, Oregon, USA. No part of this book may be used in any
manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief
quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
ISBN: 978-0-9893684-1-4
www.Enlightenweight.com
Dedication
This book is dedicated to you, your family, and your circle of friends. We
want you to be healthy. Our quality of life depends upon our shared health and
success. If you find this book to be useful, we’d like to thank you in advance for
sharing it with those you care about.
Disclaimer
This book is not intended as a substitute for the medical advice of physicians.
Readers should regularly consult a physician in matters relating to their health,
particularly with respect to any symptoms that might require diagnosis or
medical attention. Enjoy.
Table of Contents
Enlightenweight
Dedication
Disclaimer
Foreword
Part I
Chapter 1: An Ancient Legacy
Chapter 2: The Garden of Microbiota
Chapter 3: Learning from Fungi
Chapter 4: Climates Barriers
Chapter 5: Cultivate the Garden Within
Chapter 6: Understanding Food
Chapter 7: Hot and Dry (Desert)
Chapter 8: Hot and Moist (Tropical)
Chapter 9: Cold
Chapter 10: Cold and Dry (Arctic Microbiome)
Chapter 11: Cold and Moist (Temperate Rainforest Microbiome)
Chapter 12: Secrets of Microbiome Mastery
Chapter 13: Useful Tools
Part II
Chapter 14: The Breath of the Universe
Chapter 15: Emotional Factors
Chapter 16: The Light Within
Part III
Chapter 17: Mastering Movement
Chapter 18: The Road to Fat Loss
References
Foreword
DESTRUCTION THROUGHOUT
You can eat nothing but whole grains, organic produce, and superfoods hailed
by celebrity doctors and personally blessed by actual talk show hosts, but if you
aren’t considering your internal microbiome, you might as well be eating shards
of glass. Either way, you could be tearing your insides apart. When your gut
loses balance, 100 trillion microbes that were once beneficial citizens of your
internal world begin to riot. They begin feasting on your intestines like a horde
of microscopic zombies. This feeding causes intestinal lesions that have been
associated with a host of chronic diseases such as:
Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD): An autoimmune disorder that takes the forms of Crohn’s disease
and ulcerative colitis.
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA): An autoimmune disease that often results in bilateral inflammation of the
joints.
Fungal infections: This includes everything from toenail fungus to yeast infections.
Fibromyalgia: Associated with fatigue, generalized pain and sensitivity to pressure, this disease is
heavily correlated with depression and anxiety.
Hormonal imbalance: Hormone balance influences gut balance and gut balance influences the
hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis, playing a role in depression, insomnia, bipolar disorder,
gynecological disorders, and chronic fatigue.
Schizophrenia: Characterized by a loss of contact with reality, hallucinations, false beliefs, disorganized
speech and behavior, restricted range of emotions, and impaired reasoning and problem solving; results
in occupational and social dysfunction.
Autism: Neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by impaired social interaction and communication,
repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior, and uneven intellectual development, often with
intellectual disability.
Obesity: Excess body weight, defined as a body mass index (BMI) of ≥30. Complications include
cardiovascular disorders (particularly in people with excess abdominal fat), diabetes mellitus, certain
cancers, gallstones, fatty liver, cirrhosis, osteoarthritis, reproductive disorders in men and women,
psychological disorders, and, for people with BMI ≥ 35, premature death. Obesity itself is also
associated with a host of chronic diseases. It doesn’t just hurt people physically; it also comes with
significant financial, social, and emotional costs.
COSTS OF OBESITY
The costs of obesity are enormous. In 2005 the average obese American spent
an extra $2,741.
This includes the costs of diseases related to obesity, their medications and
their side effects. Since that time, costs have risen. This doesn’t even take into
account the loss of human life. We take moments of silence for acts of war and
natural disasters. The impact of these is sudden, but a far greater tragedy is
occurring slowly. It isn’t an explosion or an earthquake, yet the casualties are far
higher. Imagine a city somewhere between the size of Chicago and Los Angeles.
Now imagine everyone in that city dead. Were it to happen at once in a single
location, high-rises and silent city blocks would be full of dead families. While
the victims of obesity aren’t all in one city, the impact on society is similarly
tragic. Every year three million adults die as a direct result of being overweight
or obese. It weighs upon all of us and affects the people we care about.
Obese people suffer widespread stigmatization, which can have an emotional
impact on children, and this stigma doesn’t go away with age. People carry it
into adulthood. This includes medical professionals. Their attitudes are
compounded by repeated frustration. When people are heavier, it is harder for
medical professionals to perform assessments. The increased mass and uneven
distribution of fat can be challenging to work with. Helping a heavier person
onto an exam table can be dangerous. It brings greater risk for injuring both the
employee and the patient. Heavy people are often the hardest to diagnose.
Palpating an internal organ in a heavier person is harder than in a bonier
person. Imagine trying to find your way around a city when all of the signs are
under a layer of snow. Even in a town you are familiar with, it would be easy to
get lost if all of the familiar landmarks were insulated.
