[rubysoho]

Hi everyone!

I'm going to be out of town for 10 days and I won't really be able to do my NBE routine until I get back but I just thought I'd share an interesting technique I found. This is from a really old Ayurvedic book that was full of these amazing natural herbal cures for stuff, everything from a common cold to diabetes. I was super surprised to find something about NBE!!

The main technique was one about lotus seeds. I tried looking it up online and there doesn't seem to be much (if any) research about the link between lotus seeds and NBE - it's included as something that helps NBE, but it doesn't really say why. I read there are phytoestrogens in lotus stem/seeds, so maybe that's it?

Anyway, I got the instructions translated from the Ayurvedic book. Here it is:

Step 1
Soak the seeds at night

Step 2
The next morning, peel the skin off the seeds and, if you have the whole stem, remove the green leaves (you can skip the last part if you just bought the seeds)

Step 3
Dry the seeds in the sun (or until they are completely dry... may take a day or so)

Step 4
After they are completely dry, grind the seeds down into a fine powder

Step 5
Have 5g of the lotus seed powder in a cup of milk - drink that once in the morning and once at night
-for lunchtime, have 1 tsp of the lotus seed powder in fresh yogurt

Apparenty, this method was successfully used in the olden days and results start to show relatively soon.

Does anyone have any info about this or has heard about this? I found it very interesting. I wonder what the significance of the seeds + dairy is?

If anyone wants to give this a shot or incorporate it into their routine, lotus seeds can be bought from pretty much any Asian store. Usually when I read about something Ayurvedic, I believe it - that branch of medicine has been around for thousands of years (and even personally I've had lots of success with Ayurvedic healing methods) so I think that it must have some validity! So I will probably give this technique a try when I get back from my trip and I can report my results with the seeds if anyone's interested.

Good luck everyone!

[BarbieGrrrl]

Thats so interesting! id love to hear what results u get

[Isabelle]

Hi rubysoho,

Be careful with the dose: at a very high dose (40 g), lotus seeds have an anti-estrogenic effect:
http://www.bioline.org.br/request?rm08002

On p. 106 of this book
http://books.google.nl/books?id=HFJWD9bwm9oC&printsec=frontcover&dq=A+guide+to+medicinal+plants:+an+illustrated,+scientific+and+medicinal+approach&hl=nl&sa=X&ei=WSUaT6qbENGq-gaQ2KiqCg&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=A%20guide%20to%20medicinal%20plants%3A%20an%20illustrated%2C%20scientific%20and%20medicinal%20approach&f=false
a dose of 10 to 30 g is recommended, for another purpose. The skins should be peeled of for safety.

In the recipe on p. 93 of this book
http://books.google.nl/books?id=hDBKXgtDP9cC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Ancient+Wisdom,+Modern+Kitchen:+Recipes+from+the+East+for+Health,+Healing,+and+Long+Lif&hl=nl&sa=X&ei=hScaT-mEGo31-gbdtbCwCg&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Ancient%20Wisdom%2C%20Modern%20Kitchen%3A%20Recipes%20from%20the%20East%20for%20Health%2C%20Healing%2C%20and%20Long%20Lif&f=false
25 g seeds are used in soup for 6 to 8 people, without removing the skins.

[rubysoho]

Thanks Isabelle, that was very informative! So with this lotus-seeds-as-a-NBE-method, 15g of lotus seed would be consumed daily... for the anti-estrogenic effect to occur, would the whole 40g have to be taken at the once? Or would it maybe be better to take the 15g of lotus seeds every other day or so, as to not have a lot of them in the system at the same time?

[Isabelle]

Hi rubysoho,

The anti-estrogenic effect was found after 40 mg daily for 40 days, so I think 15 mg daily is safe, and is below the stalling dose.

[rubysoho]

Awesome, that sounds good then. Thanks Isabelle! I will get back into my NBE routine on Tuesday so I will start this then. BarbieGrrrl, I will diligently monitor the results and report back with any information!

[leeannel]

Interesting! I'm going to give this a try if my current routine doesn't work for me. Hoping I can buy it already ground up though...

Also glad that you brought up ayurvedic medicine working for you. That's also something I'll be looking into. What types of problems have you treated with Ayurvedic medicine?

[rubysoho]

Hey leannel!

This is going to be a lengthy post, so sorry in advance.

My mom has a few books on Ayurveda that have been passed down for ages and ever since I was little, I used to call them her "magic books" because whenever anyone of us kids had a problem of any sort, she would just go to the book and find a solution! They cover a huge range of topics, from colds, arthritis, diabetes, cancers, tumors/ulcers, constipation, eye problems, etc. (and apparently even NBE!)

Whenever I was sick as a kid, my mom always gave me herbs and made homemade natural concoctions instead of hopping me up on pills. I used to think my mom was so hokey for giving me these random herbs, but when I lived on my own I just used pills when I got sick and they never worked as well as the herbs. Also, my sister has been getting horrendous migraines since she was 8 years old and the only thing that has lowered the frequency of her headaches and eased the pain when she does get them is Ayurveda.

The time that I really became a believer in Ayurveda and the "magic books" was once when I was 17 or so, I was super unhealthy (not eating properly, depressed, etc.) and I hadn't gotten my period in like, 3 months (which was not usual for me). Well, one day I guess my body started trying as hard as it could to make me have my period and make me healthy again. I don't know the medical term for what was happening, but I have never been in so much physical pain as I was that day. And that's saying a lot because I have a very high tolerance for pain! It honestly felt like someone was slowly ripping out my uterus from my body or something. I was writhing around in my bed, screaming my ass off, and basically wanting to die because I was in so much pain. It was like my body was trying to squeeze out some blood and forcibly shed my uterine lining. My mom was obviously so worried and didn't know what to do, so she went and consulted the "magic book". I was rolling my eyes (in between my screaming ) because I thought that we don't even know what's happening to me, and what the hell are some herbs going to do?

Well, my mom found a chapter that described the exact symptoms that I had and gave an herbal solution. It was also audacious enough to claim that once I ingested the herbal concoction, I would feel 100% better within 30 minutes. Yeah, OK there! Obviously I didn't expect that to be true, but I took the concoction anyway.
You wouldn't even believe it, but LITERALLY 30 mins later, all the pain just abruptly stopped... as if some switch had been turned off or something. I remember it was exactly 30 mins later, because I wanted to watch a TV show at 1pm lol. My pain had started at 1230pm and I was sitting by the TV at exactly 1pm, no joke. It was seriously like magic. After that, I was like "Ok, I'm now a believer!" haha. I know it sounds unreal and like I'm exaggerating, but I am the biggest skeptic ever, so no one can be as shocked as I was to find out that that stuff works.

My mom has some health problems too and same thing - the only things that have actually made a difference in helping her is Ayurvedic medicine. Western medicines are all about the quick fix - they give the illusion that everything's better by stomping on the symptoms and suppressing them. That's why people tend to think they're "better", but really the problem hasn't been solved, it's just been put aside. But with herbal medicines, sure they take longer to have an effect that you can feel, but inside they are actually curing the problem, not just tossing it aside.

I've been fascinated with Ayurveda and the Vedas in general and when you really do some research on them, you find that these people were talking about surgeries and medical conditions thousands of years before the rest of the world caught up - I just find that so amazing, how advanced the people who wrote them were. Virtually everything in the Vedas is practiced nowadays, which is fascinating when you realize that the Vedas were written literally over 5000 years ago! That's what I mean when I say that it's easy for me to have faith in Ayurveda, even simply for the fact that it's lasted for so many thousands of years and is actually still valid; the information has barely changed and is in accordance to current medical techniques (surgery/condition-wise), not to mention in regards to scientific findings, too.

People are always going to roll their eyes at herbal remedies (like I did! ), but that's because we've all been so conditioned to believe that the only things that help are pharmaceuticals, which is so laughably untrue. People prefer pills because it's a quick fix - societally, we're a very impatient group of people. It's the same thing with NBE - people laugh at the concept of NBE and say the only way you can increase breast size is through surgery and you're an idiot to think otherwise. This forum is enough proof that that's untrue. Augmentation is a quick fix, NBE requires patience and faith which is a lot harder to have.

Come to think of it, NBE teaches you patience, temperance, humility, and diligence, so technically we can all say that NBE is making us more virtuous!! LOL

[leeannel]

Thanks so much for your reply!

I've always been interested in things like home & herbal remedies & alternative medicine, but find that hardly any of them work the way I want them to.

Can you give me the title of the books you have? Maybe I can get them off Amazon and try some stuff out.

[rubysoho]

Hey leeannel!

Unfortunately, the books that my mom has are from India and have been passed down to her for ages from her mom, her mom's mom, etc. The books don't even really have a cover on them and even if they did, there's no way there'd be an English translation of it.

However, all hope is not lost! There are a lot of great books on Ayurveda that are written in English. Here are some of the best ones that I've heard of:

"The Complete Illustrated Guide to Ayurveda: The Ancient Indian Healing Tradition" - by Gopi Warrier
--> this book is an all-inclusive, epic look at Ayurveda, not only from the dietary aspect but the spiritual aspect as well. I think this is considered one of the best books on the subject, because the illustrations help with understanding some of the more complicated concepts as well. Here is a link:
http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Illustrated-Guide-Ayurveda-Tradition/dp/1852309539

"Ayurveda: A Life of Balance - The Complete Guide to Ayurvedic Nutrition & Body Types with Recipes" - by Maya Tiwari
--> the author of this book was diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer and was not expected to live very long, and she managed to cure herself strictly through Ayurveda! Totally awesome. From what I know, this book is highly informative, but a little bit more dense - there's no illustrations or diagrams, it's just text.
http://www.amazon.ca/Ayurveda-Balance-Complete-Ayurvedic-Nutrition/dp/089281490X

"Ayurveda: The Science of Self Healing - A Practical Guide" - by Vasant Lad
--> another thorough book that is good for beginners and easy to follow.
http://www.amazon.com/Ayurveda-Science-Healing-Practical-Guide/dp/0914955004