The Anti-Diet Episode

What is it that you TRULY want to eat? Is it what your doctor, your friend, your mother, your magazine, or your 'tests' told you is healthy?

WHY are you eating the way that you eat? Do you feel relaxed, joyful, and expanded around food? Or is it a constant obsession over calories, restriction, & instruction from others, making you feel shameful, powerless, & constricted in your body?

Your body is not against you. Check out the latest Raw Talk with Sheena podcast episode 51, where Sheena Mannina and I discuss how to start listening to your body: get to know it, learn to trust it, & honor your power.

YOU are your own best healer. Are you listening?

Talk to Your Water

Talking to your water is less creepy than you think. Placing positive intentions in it can actually change your health & your life. Since water has a crystalline structure, it acts like a recorder...so your water holds memory.

This is very powerful, as you can tell your water how to interact with the water-based cells in your body & exchange vital information. It's like your bottled water is a carrier pigeon for sending messages to your body. The highest intention that's been scientifically measured that you can send: The combination of LOVE & GRATITUDE.

Yep. Your Monday just got way better. Be the freak in the office who talks to your water.

[For more on this & other tips, you can hear me as a special guest on the new iTunes podcast, Spiritual and Intuit, episode #3] http://spiritualandintuit.libsyn.com/rss See More

Mind Your Thoughts

Did you know that healing your body can have everything to do with your thoughts & words? Thoughts & words carry a level of vibrational energy, and thus are powerful. The human body is susceptible to its surroundings & can actually materialize your thoughts & words into a physical expression (i.e.; negative: physical pain, fat gain, acne, swelling, disease, etc.; positive: muscle gain, fat loss, feelings of weightlessness, glowing skin, health, etc.) 

Experiment for yourself: Think about the word SADNESS and notice how your body feels....Now think about the word JOY. Feel the difference? It could be as simple as contraction versus expansion. If the body contracts and constricts, this prevents oxygen, blood, and nutrient flow throughout the body. Being expanded & open allows flow and health to occur. Therefore, the state of one's health is largely influenced by the words we hear, say, and think on a daily basis. 

Mind your thoughts & words, and you can drastically change your health

Become a Healthy Bitch

The Healthy Bitches Course is back and better than ever!  This is a 4-week course designed to help you become the healthiest you, in the healthiest way!

Each week, you will be e-mailed a new lesson and "challenge" to complete for that week.  The upside is that you will have this information for life, so there's no need to force yourself to complete it within the 4 weeks...take it at your leisure and also in the comfort of your own home.

This course will ultimately give you the tools you need to become your own healer through the intelligent use of food, exercise, and optimal lifestyle choices.

You will be given the most simple and most effective starting points, as well as the best tips for how to eat, how to move, and how to live like a Healthy Bitch.

Please note that this is NOT a crash weight loss diet.  Rather, it's intended for educational purposes only, providing you with useful information you can choose to take advantage of in order to reach your health-related goals. 

The objective of this course is to clear up the confusion in the world of health and to empower you to take back control over your own health. 

The first e-mail will be sent out on Sunday, January 3rd, and every following Sunday for the remainder of the course.

**BONUS: For local residents (Covington, LA+the surrounding areas), I will be offering a 1-hour group session for $20, every Wednesday evening throughout the course at my office, the Healing House (1101 Village Walk, 70433).  I'm only taking 10 healthy bitches, so sign up today! (Meetings: 01/06, 01/13, 01/20, & 01/27.  Total= $80).

NOT Your Grandma's Cookies

Some people may think, "How'd I get fat? How'd I get so many wrinkles? How'd I get cancer?" 

When your body cannot recognize a foreign agent entering the body, it taxes the immune system and causes stress, aging, breakdown, and fat storage: all of which lead to dysfunction and disease.

Health is not about "calories in, calories out".  Always check the INGREDIENTS label.  If you cannot understand what it is that you're eating, chances are good that your body does not either, and your health will pay the consequences.

Move Your Bloomin' A**

It's too expensive or uncomfortable to work out at a gym? 

Solution: Start by walking outside (which boosts your mood/gives you a dose of Vitamin D) or around your house in 5-minute increments, 2-4 times a day.  To build muscle, grab anything around you in your home or outside in nature that weighs even 2-5 pounds...it can be a small child (as long as it's yours), a milk jug, or an inexpensive weighted ball.  

Once you change your mindset, the world turns into your playground!  So, get up and get moving because life's too short to make excuses to not use your beautiful body.

Mental Health

As May comes to an end, I'd like to touch on mental health, as this month is Mental Health Awareness Month! So, here are some tips for your mental health:

Did you know that there are more neurons in your gut than in your brain?! Mental health is just as important as physical health--your mind & body hold hands. So if you suffer with anxiety, panic attacks, depression, suicidal tendencies, obsessive compulsive disorder, and the like, nutrition is largely a wonderful way to help! 

1) Salt water lowers histamine and adrenalin levels, which can greatly help to reduce anxiety and the incidence of panic attacks. (Sea salt or Morton Canning & Pickling salt).
2) Fruit is a wonderful mood-booster and helps to clarify thoughts, as it contains a sugar off of which the brain solely runs.
3) Meat & bone broth are also helpful in building neurotransmitters that are responsible for mood.
4) Staying hydrated with water helps to clean out neurotoxins that could be affecting the way that you think.
5) Low levels of cholesterol are associated with increased levels of depression.  Saturated fat, fruit, and lifestyle changes like meditation, rest, sunshine exposure, and exercise (even if it's walking outside) all help to normalize cholesterol levels and are all excellent ways to get back in touch with yourself, find your center, boost your mood, balance emotions, and empower you to conquer your day!

Always be mindful of what's in your food (& lifestyle), as what you eat (& how you live) can manifest into how you view the world!

Stay Salty

Salt helps produce energy efficiently, boost the metabolism, and protect against inflammation and degenerative stress.

Salt restriction actually increases blood pressure and damages the metabolism. 

Add a pinch of canning and pickling salt or a white Celtic sea salt (NOT table salt) to your liter of quality water to lower adrenalin, alleviate headaches and stomach cramps, create hormonal balance, and inhibit fat-storing stress hormones. Your mood, skin, hydration, and health will all improve.

You're welcome.

The Law of Action

“Vision isn’t enough unless combined with venture. It’s not enough to stare up the steps unless we also step up the stairs.”

— Vance Havner

No matter what we feel we know, no matter what our potential gifts or talents, only action brings them to life.  Those of us who only think we understand concepts, such as commitment, courage, and love, one day discover that we only know when we act; doing becomes understanding. 

Action is not easy in this world.  Still, we must act. Turning all the words, concepts, and ideas into action requires energy; it requires sacrifice.  We have to overcome insecurity and hurdle past self-doubt, lethargy, apathy, excuses, and a hundred good reasons not to rock the boat, to stay the course.  But we keep getting the same message from life: It’s better to do what we need to do than not do it and have a good reason.  This states, as well as anything, the Law of Action.

Still, most of us take action only when the emotional, mental, or physical pain gets so bad that we have to.  Let’s change this.

Let’s acknowledge that action and change require initial discomfort, effort, and energy.  Even if we are ready to take action, it boils down to actually doing it: Just do it.

Most of us wait for permission from our insides to do anything.  We wait to “feel motivated”.  We wait until fear is looking the other way, until self-doubt and insecurity step aside and give us permission to act.  But action is stronger than subjectivity; there are times when we have to act with strength and courage no matter how we’re feeling or what we’re thinking.

Our mind may whisper, “Wait, you can’t do this.  You’re not up for it.  You’re not ready.  You’ll make a fool of yourself.  You’ll only get hurt.  You’ll fail…and then what?”  All of these voices may pass through our mind, but act anyway.  Soon, these voices or feelings stop coming around so often…and then you’ll wake up one day to find that you’ve done it: You’ve made the change.

Butter is Better

Real BUTTER contains life, so it will attract life.

Butter does not have fake chemicals, like engineered margarine, that would make it resemble the properties of plastic.  If you place real butter next to margarine, you'll notice that living insects avoid the margarine, but try to feed off of the nutritious butter. 

This is because butter contains the following vitamins and other beneficial properties:

1) Lauric acid- helps fight fungal infections and candida

2) Conjugated linoleic acid- a potent anti-cancer agent, immunity booster, and muscle builder

3) Anti-stiffness factor- prevents hardening of the arteries, cataracts, and calcification of the pineal gland (which helps with levels of motivation, creativity, and sleep)

4) Butter helps promote fertility and contains strong anti-tumor and anti-cancer properties

5) Butter is a quick source of energy, so it's not stored as fat tissue on the body

6) Butter protects against gastrointestinal infections in the young and elderly 

7) Butter is rich in the most easily-absorbent form of Vitamin A necessary for thyroid and adrenal health.

8) Lecithin- essential for cholesterol metabolism

9) Anti-oxidants- protects against free radical damage and weakening of the arteries

10) Selenium, Vitamins E, K, and D- all help with vital metabolic functions, like absorbing calcium and much more
 

It takes life to give life, so do yourself a favor and dump the plastic margarine in the trash...the flies won't come near it.

(Note: If you're concerned about butter raising cholesterol, know that 80% of your cholesterol comes from your liver, not your diet. Cholesterol is an anti-stressor in the body, so if you have high cholesterol, it is a sign of having too much stress in your life: metabolic stress, emotional stress, physical stress, spiritual stress, social stress, financial and work stress, and so forth. It's more effective to address those issues, rather than blaming it on butter and other healthy saturated fats.)

Love Yourself

Wise words for the day. The human body responds to everything you do and think.

Make sure you choose good food, movement, thoughts, words, and actions.

Your body is always listening.

Success is not always what you see

On your journey of creating health, it's not always about immediate results on the outside.

If you're feeling discouraged because you've been working for months or even years to achieve the body you want and haven't gotten it yet, do not give up. You're still doing amazing things for your body, your health, your life, and others' lives. 

Continue to take care of yourself because even if you may not see direct results, it does not mean you're not gaining success through your daily routine choices.

We're All on Drugs

After recognizing the undeniable evidence supporting the healthy effects of coconut oil, the FDA wants a piece of it. This is only the beginning...

Dr. Bronner's Coconut Oil label: "Clinical research confirms that the saturated medium chain fatty acids (MCT's) in [Virgin Coconut Oil], such as lauric acid, actually improve blood cholesterol by increasing the ratio of HDL to LDL cholesterol."
The FDA's stance: This simple statement suggests that extra-virgin coconut oil is a "drug", as only drugs are capable of affecting human health. Dr. Bronner's is engaging in the sale and distribution of an illegal drug.

Dear, FDA,

This isn't a statement; it's a peer-reviewed, scientific fact. Coconut oil has many amazing benefits on the body, as does organic, real, whole foods. If everything that affects the body/human health is considered to be a drug by the FDA, then I guess we're all on drugs. 

Moral of the story: if it's not FDA-approved, there may be a high possibility that it's good for you.

For more information, please visit http://eatlocalgrown.com/article/13680-fda-dr-bronner-coconut-oil.html

Why am I a Holistic Health Practitioner?

Since many have asked me, and I've even asked myself, "Why holistic health?", here is my viewpoint as a Holistic Health Practitioner:

Ahem....Dear Americans,
Why do I care so much about your health?

• Well, because it doesn't make sense to me why we have spent years donating to "finding a cure", when the real cure remains elusive.
• Because it doesn't make sense to me that we've taken out fat, salt, sugar, and essentially the joy in eating, but are still overweight and diseased.
• Because it doesn't make sense to me that with America possessing all of the world's finest, latest and greatest medicines out there, we are still a sick society.
• Because it doesn't make sense to me how even when we diet and exercise, we can still gain weight.
• Because it doesn't make sense to me why there's so much confusion that has been created by commercials telling us to buy big triple-patty melts, followed by a celebrity-endorsed, calorie-counting diet, and then, to top it all off, telling you to ask your doctor if a prescription medication (with the side effects taking up most of the advertisement time) is right for you.
• Because it doesn't make sense to me why such a wealthy country is in such a healthy debt.
• Because it doesn't make sense to me why western medicine has separated the body into parts, when we are, in fact, whole.
• Because it doesn't make sense to me why we don't promote mental health more when it comes to wanting to see physical results.
• Because it doesn't make sense to me to do the same thing over and over again, expecting different results...And it doesn't make sense to me why all of the above doesn't make sense, when it should.

Therefore, I am a Holistic Health Practitioner simply because there are answers to everything that doesn't make sense, when you begin to look at the whole picture...because you and your health deserve so much better than fear and secrets.

If it doesn't make sense to you, ask why.

Photo Credit: Steven Canatella

What Is Holding You Back?

What is holding you back from creating health in your life?

Most people would tend to say, "lack of time", "lack of money", "lack of resources", and so on. The truth is that it's not about something you're lacking. It's about familiarity.  Human beings like routine and familiar things, which also happens to be within our comfort zones.  The fear of immersing oneself into new behaviors is enough to hold someone back from achieving their goals. 

Although changing routine behaviors can be challenging and a bit scary, the results are well worth the effort.  It does take commitment, but once the new behaviors become routine, you'll be creating health on an everyday basis with ease and within your newly-created comfort zone.

So, with that said, it's time to become comfortable with feeling uncomfortable in a new routine: one that will create health, not dysfunction.

Filling the majority of your life with repair and regeneration, rather than destruction and breakdown, is the key to preventing or reversing dysfunction.  You have everything you need; all it takes is that first step. (And if you want a guide, that's why I'm here).

Hair Loss, Pattern Baldness, Oh My

Pattern baldness may have nothing to do with your genetics and everything to do with what you eat and how you live.

In an experiment done by Gardner and colleagues, dogs that were treated with large doses of estrogen lost their coats, while anti-estrogenic factors renewed their hair growth.  So what if you're "estrogen deficient"?  Keep in mind that blood levels of estrogen do not necessarily reflect the tissue concentrations of estrogen.  You could show an "estrogen deficiency" in your blood work, while having increased amounts of estrogen in your cell tissues.

Then what is contributing to your hair loss, you ask?  It could be a number of things:

• Too much darkness and not enough sunlight
• Estrogenic foods, such as soy and whey, omega-3 fats and other polyunsaturated fats like nuts, seeds, and plants (greens and eating that daily salad), vegetable oils, nut and seed oils, margarine, etc.
• A lack of the right kind of salt
• A lack of vitamins A, E, K, & D from the right food sources
• Inadequate protein, carbohydrates, and fat from the right sources--i.e., eating too little of the right foods while eating too much of the wrong foods, not eating enough--period, etc. 
• Experiencing stress on a number of levels (metabolic, mental, emotional, physical, taking anti-depressants & other pharmaceutical drugs, yo-yo dieting, "detoxing", "muscle-building" protein shakes, etc.)
• Too much tryptophan and serotonin (what?!)
• and the list goes on & on.

Before turning to supplements like Biotin, vitamins, drugs, creams, shampoos, hormones, toupées, Donald Trump comb-overs, hair plugs, surgeries, eating Miracle-Gro, and other things to help grow your hair back, realize that the answer could be as simple as the following:

• Reducing stressors in your life, like eating digestible, nutrient-dense foods, at the right times and in the right ratios for your particular body
• Taking off that baseball cap or hat and letting your scalp breathe while exposing it to the sun
• Resting, hydrating, and moving well for your body
• and much more

Moral of the story: you may not be a victim of your state of health or genetics.  Any dysfunction in the body is a message for you to change....so it's best to listen to it.

The Secret of Your Success Is Found In Your Daily Routine

Your "diet" should not be a temporary, crash weight loss system, with a quick end in sight and fast goal in mind. Your diet needs to be part of your everyday lifestyle.

You didn't get to where you are today, overnight, and you cannot expect to reach optimal health overnight.  Achieving a healthy lifestyle takes little changes, each day.  These little changes are not just about dieting and your food. 

It involves every aspect in your life:

• Your time schedule
• The way you think
• How you treat yourself and others around you
• How you allow others to treat you
• The amount of love you have for your body
• How much room you give yourself to relax and breathe
• and so much more.

Sometimes you need to slow down, stop trying to be a perfectionist, and try to make small, but important decisions, each day, to help you live a better life.  It may be a slow process, but it will become easier to maintain over time.

After all, it's not a race to lose weight and get healthy.  Your body needs your patience.

You must get healthy to lose weight; You cannot lose weight to get healthy.

So make positive changes a priority, every day, and it will become your way of life.