Inflammation from the periodontal disease had ravaged more than just my gums, it had invaded my body. The effect, reflected in the sallow tinge of my skin, the brittleness of my hair and nails, even the slightest bruise or wound was slow to heal. My immune system was compromised. What was once a fighting machine was on the verge of surrender. The only way I reclaimed my health was when I changed my lifestyle. While lifestyle changes don’t happen overnight, often circumstances forced our hand. In total, my recovery took 18-months. But it’s not about perfection; it’s about progress.

What makes our body so phenomenal besides its healing power is the highly organized population of almost 100 trillion cells. As a global population of eight billion people, we can barely organize a disaster coalition. Yet, the body functions with pinpoint precision and delivery.  If an invasion arises, an army of cells dispatches in a microsecond to attend to the situation. Each organ has its own commander in chief and battalion of cells—think of them as countries within a united nation. They don’t sit around a table in a situation room arguing about who’s at fault; they band together and take action to eliminate the problem. We just have to get out of the way and let the body do its job.

The liver’s job is the toughest, filtering everything we consume and acting as a utility dispatcher, like a FED-EX depot. Within the bloodstream are carrier cells, their job is to deliver nutrient packages to the assigned recipients, and the body does all this without us even thinking about it. Now that’s an efficient machine.

“We are what we eat.”