Categories
Health Nutrition

The Secret of Maintaining a Slim Figure

I think in the US we’re led to believe that some women across the world naturally stay slim and it’s genetic. Unfortunately, to those of us born in the states, our genes must have mutated and now we all carry the fat gene. Can that really be true, even if our ancestors hailed from these magical lands of effortlessly slim people?

Of course it’s not true.

No one’s genes mutated. What changed are our daily habits and what’s considered normal here in the states versus abroad.

1) Walking- people in places who walk more stay healthier

2) fruits/vegetables/meat/fish – yes people in France and Italy love bread and desserts but it’s quality over quantity.

I read “French Women Don’t Get Fat” in college and it really changed the way I view food. It’s not our enemy but our life long love affair. We must eat to survive and we can choose to love the food we make.

3) We don’t eat enough soup- many cultures value eating soup for a meal or for a weekend to slim down after a particularly voracious week of eating.

4) Less soda, beer, and empty calories

5) Movement beyond Walking- walking is a part of daily life to get from point A to point B. On Google maps, you can choose a car, bus, or walk! That’s right, even Google maps considers walking a mode of transportation.

Therefore to maintain an ideal shape you must walk and put in some effort a couple of days a week with either light resistance weights, yoga, pilates, etc….

That’s it, it’s not a big secret. Unfortunately, we don’t want to give up our bad habits and we would rather take a short cut. Short cuts don’t last and on and on yo yo dieting goes.

The fitness industry has to be a 10 billion dollar industry these days, maybe more ?

If it worked so well then why are there new methods every day? Doesn’t make sense to me.

Categories
Fitness Health Mindset Personal Growth

Consistency: Why I love and loathe consistency

There are so many things that I love to be consistent…my morning coffee, my work schedule, my employees always showing up on time, my fiance making me quinoa or rice for dinner.

I don’t want to sound hypocritical right off the bat so let me say that I am very consistent at certain things like work. I rarely take a sick day, I keep to my hours and try to be the best leader.

However, there are dream projects that I’ve started and stopped over the years, like this blog and of course it’s gone nowhere. Am I surprised? Of course not but do I know where other people who started around the same time as me have taken theirs, yes I am painfully aware.

It’s not even the satisfaction of success, I feel satisfied in other areas and this didn’t need to be one of them. I’m not trying to escape my practice, I love it. But I do love the idea of consistently putting forth an effort on a hobby that I believe benefits others.

I was reading something my uncle, Sam Crowley at www.everydayissaturday.com posted and he said that John Lee Dumas did a podcast every day for 10-15 years and now he’s selling it for probably around 10 million dollars.

Of course it naturally evolved as things do, and he had paid guests to come on his show to pitch their ideas. He also has a website and sells courses.

But it really got me thinking what is the version of me doing that continued her blog 10 years ago and did it every day?

Of course, what is the version of me like who has stuck to everything that I said I’d do or never do again?

I think that version of me would be insanely fit and healthy, happy, joyful and grateful that I stuck to my commitments to myself.

I don’t know if I’m lying to myself to say I’m going to do better but I think I’ll try to keep my integrity to myself and give a little more effort.

Categories
Health Uncategorized

Morning Gratitude

Gratitude is the practice of thinking about all the people, opportunities and material wealth that you have been blessed with. It’s not always easy when there is much negativity surrounding you to keep a positive mental attitude. If you start a simple practice of morning gratitude it will transform your life from the inside out.

What To Do:

When you wake up each day, start by keeping your eyes closed and mentally go through all the people who help you every day, your parents, your kids, coworkers, staff members and thank each person individually and be specific about why they are important to you.

Next go through your material possessions like house, apartment, clothes, food, and be sure to be thankful all of the extras that you don’t need to survive but you have anyways.

Finally, go through all of the opportunities you’ve had recently. Maybe you were able to continue working or you took a trip. Sometimes it’s the small opportunities we can be most grateful for.

Gratitude is the quickest way to success fast. If you are at home googling how to make money fast from home or how to be more successful in 2021 then try adding this free and easy method to your morning practice. It will take you about 10 minutes at the most and you will feel so much better.

Not to mention, it helps to start hard wiring your brain body connection to look for these opportunities. You’ll start seeing more good people to connect with, more business opportunities, more ways to make more money.

It’s a skill that we develop when we want to move ahead and succeed, when we want to make money online or make more money for 2021 we need to begin within by creating the environment.

If this all sounds a little far fetched for you then you have nothing to lose but pride. We could all benefit from a little less pride. Work on first being open to making these changes and committing a few days a week for the rest of the month to morning gratitude.

Trust me it’s better than spending the morning reading the news or worrying about something that will probably never happen.

Categories
Nutrition Uncategorized

WFPBLF

Whole Food Plant Based Low Fat

I know I just posted a blog post on bone broth.

Ok, so what happened?

I went down the rabbit hole after reading/listening to some great information from Pam Popper. Pam is a naturopath who works/lives in Columbus, Ohio. She is an advocate for a whole foods plant-based low oil diet.

A whole food plant-based low oil diet is strongly advised by most cardiologists and cardio-thoracic surgeons.

For many years I have lived a whole food plant based diet, it wasn’t until recently that I tried meat and animal products again.

I did that for a few years from 2017 to mid 2020 and then I had a crisis of ethics. I could not continue eating in a way that I was sure was contributing to the degradation of my health.

It is in September that I recommitted to the WFPBLF lifestyle and I have felt amazing ever since.

I started using Engine 2’s meal planner which allows you to copy all ingredients into a single spread sheet that you can send to your local grocer.

This helped me to jump start to my way back to health.

Living this lifestyle for the past three months has already had a profound effect on my health. My cycle has become more regular and the inflammation I experienced after having major surgery was much less than the normal patient.

It’s delicious and satisfying to eat this way.

Categories
Nutrition Uncategorized

Soft Cleanse by OHS

I first heard about OHS a few years ago from a colleague. Optimal Health Systems is supported by Dr. Brimhall and Dr. Harris. Dr Harris is considered the expert in methylation and he uses the methylation and genetics testing kit to get to the root cause of many chronic issues.

I have not attended these seminars but decided that I should take some time to detox my body before my upcoming jaw surgery in the fall.

For the past month I took:

Female +B

Opti-Para

Opti-Mito-Force

Soft Cleanse

This review is on the soft cleanse. It comes in a neat and clean box that allows you to punch out a hole in the bottom and the supplements are on a roll that you tear off each morning and evening. They are labeled morning/evening so you know whether you’ve taken one or two for the day.

Each packet contains 5 pills:

2 FloraPlus

1 Liver Kidney

2 Opti Cleanse and Repair

From OHS website: “The Optimal Soft Cleanse Pak combines two formulas and utilizes a proprietary chlorella herb and patented glutamine blend to aid in cleansing. In addition, it utilizes special pectin fibers, along with nitrogen from glutamine, to aid in the safe removal of debris.”

Key Ingredients & Their Roles
Licorice Root – Support gut, liver and immune health
Psyllium – Bind to and remove heavy metals
Oat Bran – Promote a healthy colon
Celery – Inflammation reduction
Sweet Potato – Natural anti-inflammatory that promotes liver health
Pectin – Bind to and remove heavy metals
Chlorella – Bind to and remove heavy metals
Jerusalem Artichoke – Help detoxify liver
Barberry Root – Natural detoxifier
Dandelion Root – Encourages removal of toxins through sweat, bile and urine
Milk Thistle – Promote a healthy liver”

www.optimalhealthsystems.com

I’ve had a great experience with this soft cleanse and noticed that several key signs of detox were present.

  1. The smell of my sweat changed and became less pungent.
  2. My face has broken out several times and toxins leave through my skin.
  3. I checked my Zyto score and all of my body systems balanced out.

It’s important to detox every 6 months especially in 2020. We have toxins in water, in the air, in our food, basically every thing we do contributes to our toxic load.

Categories
Health Uncategorized

DIY: Essential Oil Mouthwash

The Story Behind Essential Oils

Essential oils are quite simply the oil that comes from a plant when you press it extremely hard.  You can extract this oil from herbs, flowers, and roots.  There may be others but these are the most common.  Using plant essential oils has been around as long as there have been plant and human interaction. 

Before the most recent craze of using essential oils for everything from toe fungus to hair serums, we were using essential oils and not even realizing it.  Chewing gum for instance was originally flavored with peppermint or spearmint essential oil. 

Many shamans, natural medicine healers, and early doctors used essential oils quite often to help heal their patients. You might think that we have come a long way since then and why should we go back?

Using Plants in Modern Medicine

Today many great discoveries in medicine are still found using natural plants. There are many botanists, pharmaceutical botanists, medical doctors, and researchers who are looking all over the world for natural cures to diseases and infections.  If nature made it, then surely nature can kill it?

Once a plant, flower or herb is discovered then they bring it back for testing and to learn about its chemical composition.  Let’s say for instance that a plant or herb is very good at curing disease Z, but this plant only grows for 1 month each year on a high up rock in one deserted part of a far away country.  Well then, it only seems natural that we would figure out what makes it so helpful and try to recreate it in a lab.  This would save the natural environment from unnecessary exposure to trucking, development and other unpleasantries.

Since the advent of “modern medicine” this has been the standard practice.  Find something useful and recreate it in a lab for mass production to help as many people as possible.

The Problem with This Solution

There’s always a problem, isn’t there? When we mimic plants and herbs that we find naturally occurring we end up making mirror images of their chemical composition and this doesn’t always mesh the same with our systems.

As the saying goes “nothing like the real thing”. So while, for some very expensive, hard to grow plants and herbs it makes sense to do our best with the chemical copy, when we have the opportunity to grow the ‘real thing’ then we should of course take advantage of this.

The reason this wasn’t always so popular was due to the fact, that making the artificial version has always been more ‘cost effective’ shall we say?

Due to this fact, the corporations making these products decided to go with the artificial version instead and they have been putting some other less desirable additives into these products that we’re consuming as well.

There are so many great website that track this information.  My personal favorite is www.ewg.org .  The environmental working group is committed to providing the general public with the information what is in the products that we are consuming. I think this a great resource for anyone who is concerned. 

Natural DIY Mouthwash with Essential Oils

½ cup distilled water

½ cup 3 % hydrogen peroxide

¼ cup aloe vera juice

10 drops peppermint oil

10 drops spearmint oil

Mix together, store in a glass jar

*do not swallow

Swish in mouth and spit into sink

Categories
Uncategorized

Atlas Orthogonal Patient Manual

Welcome!

Congratulations on starting your journey to health.  We are so excited that you have decided to delve into the realm of spinal health and expressing true wellness.

The spine has been neglected for too many years in mainstream medicine and we are here to remedy that problem.

Many people have experienced issues related to their spine and nerves without even realizing. 

  • Numbness
  • Tingling
  • Weakness
  • Stabbing Pain
  • Shooting Pain
  • Dull/ Aches
  • Changes in temperature, vibration
  • Migraines
  • Headaches

All of these are symptoms having to do with pressure on the nerves as they relate to the spine. 

The function of the vertebral column/spinal column is to act as a moveable protective encasement for the very delicate central nervous system. 

Central Nervous System– Brain and Spinal Cord

Peripheral Nervous System– Nerves after they have exited the spine and are in route to organs, muscles, and joints

The brain obviously has the best protection of all with the skull.

Spinal Degeneration

Even though the spine is made to protect the spinal cord and nerves sometimes things don’t go as planned.

Falls, accidents, and injuries can damage the ligaments that hold the bones together.

Each vertebra connects to other vertebrae through an interlocking mechanism and maintain movement by strong ligaments that hold the whole structure together as we bend, rotate, and move through life.

When we have a fall, accident, or injury we damage the ligaments that hold the vertebrae together.  Unfortunately, ligaments do not have good healing properties.  This means that when we damage them, they tend to stay somewhat damaged.

There are new regenerative medicines such as prolotherapy, and stem cell therapy. 

Regenerative Medicine

  • Attempts to heal tissues that are otherwise hard to heal
  • Prolotherapy – injections into the ligaments using ozone or glucose solution
  • Stem Cell Therapy- Injections into the ligaments using stem cells from your own body

Most of the time the body can heal itself from injuries; however, sometimes the body needs help and that’s where atlas orthogonal comes in. 

The most moveable bone in the body is the atlas bone and it connects to the skull via very tiny mounds on the bottom of the skull called condyles and to the rest of the spine via the axis bone

Accidents, injuries, micro traumas will cause the bones to ‘subluxate’ which is when they move out of alignment in such a way that they cannot get back into alignment.

Once the atlas and axis move out of alignment, they cause the rest of the spine to move out of alignment. The problem is when we let this sit there for years and years.  So, it’s pretty easy to understand that the longer it’s been out of place you are more likely to be in a later stage of degeneration.

Phase 1:  5-10 years

Phase 2:  10-15 years

Phase 3: 15-20 years

Phase 4: 20 + years

Atlas Orthogonal Treatment

Atlas orthogonal treatment cannot reverse the process of aging.  Unfortunately, science in general has not found a way to reverse the aging process in the spine.

This treatment is designed to realign the top two bones also called the cranio cervical junction. 

After your first or second treatment we will take a post film to check your progress.  This post film should show improvement from the original misalignment.

At this point, we will know if the ‘formula’ that we have derived from your x-rays is going to work for you. 

If there is not a marked improvement in the atlas bone at this step then we will re-calculate your atlas formula based on the changes between the pre and post film and attempt re-alignment again.

How long does this take?

Great question and that mostly depends on you.

This is a program that you must take seriously. The amount of effort that you put forth with determine the level of success you achieve. I will lay out some very simple but strict ground rules for you to follow and they must be maintained.

  1. No slouching – maintain good upright posture and make this a habit over the next 90 days.
  2. For every inch your head moves forward that multiplies the weight of the head on the neck, so if your head is one inch forward that will cause an extra 10-15 pounds on the next, if you head is two inches forward then that will cause an extra 30 lbs on the neck
  3. The same is also true for the low back but instead of 10-15 lbs were talking about an extra 50-60lbs on the low back. More if you are overweight or obese
  4. Sleep on your back or side. If you cannot commit to side or back sleeping then we recommend you do not start the program.  Stomach sleeping leads to premature again of the spine due to the extreme stress the neck is under while you are unconscious.  Stomach sleeping will lead to many many problems and it will immediately throw your adjustment out of alignment.
  5. No rollercoasters, no atvs, no extreme sports or activities. During the initial 90 days of treatment it is advisable that you do not participate in any activity that may lead to whiplash as this is damaging to the ligaments in the cervical spine, which we are trying to heal. It is recommended that you look at this period of time as one of healing. Pretend as if you have had neck surgery and try to move and operate from this mentality.  Would you go on a rollercoaster after having neck surgery? I don’t think so, so why would you now?
  6. Proper nutrition- what you eat affects so much of your body.  You need proper amount of good carbohydrates, good fats, and good protein.  Eat as much as you can organically and fresh farm food. Stay away from commercially grown produce, processed foods, caffeine, alcohol and other foods that are harmful to your health. 
  7. Remember you are trying to heal your body and this means giving your body healthy building blocks for growth.
  8. Rest- your body heals while you are sleeping. 8-10 hours of sleep is necessary for a healthy body. Remember to get to sleep early and to turn off electronics 3 hours before going to bed.
  9. Shift workers- do your best, turn off electronics, use blocking shades for the sun and support your body with good food and water
  10. Avoid sugar, flour, carbonated beverages, soda, and all other items that are not condusive to a healthy body
  11. Eat in moderation. Remember that your body can only handle so much at any one time.  Only provide what your body can handle.  If you are burping a lot that means you are eating too fast and consuming air with your food. SLOW DOWN.  Eat slowly, mindfully and listen when your body tells you are full.
  12. Learn to garden- no matter your living situation you can begin to garden.  There are gardening guides for apartments, townhomes, and homes, find your niche.  Herbs are a great way to start and they have many benefits to supply. Herbs are very medicinal and soothing to the body.

Exercise

For the first 90 days it is advisable to stay away from heavy lifting due to the fact that most people at some point have over developed some muscles due to their structural imbalances

Allowing muscle mass is reduce during the initial 90 days helps to reset the body and prepare for regrowth

The body needs a physiological rest during your healing phase, meaning that we need to allow the body to take a break and focus on what’s most important- healing your spine. If your body is in a state of constant physical stress with exercise then you will not be able to use your valuable resources on healing your body.

After your first 30 days in the program, the doctor may give you specific exercises to work on to help with certain weak areas

In general most people have very tight hamstrings and very weak gluteal muscles so it is recommended that people

Squat daily at least 25 times in the am and pm – do it while brushing your teeth and watch yourself in the mirror to maintain good posture

Bend down and try to touch your toes for 2 minutes every day

Standing doorway stretch for pectoralis muscles- stand with your arms in the door way and lean forward in order to stretch your pecs

Chin tucks- the chin muscles are often the most neglected muscles in the neck and lead to sagging ‘turkey neck’ every day you must chin tuck for at least 2 minutes a day to strengthen these muscles and this will help to relax the back of the neck muscles

Walking everyday is the best way to get cardiovascular exercise without damaging the spinal alignment until postural muscles strengthen

Nutrition

Water- you must drink ½ your body weight in ounces every day that means that you must drink 100 ounces of water every day if you are 200 pounds

No snacking at night before bed.  Stop eating at least 1 hour before bed

Chew your food 30 times before swallowing

Eat whole foods such as vegetables, fruit, organic meat and wild caught seafood

Stay away from packaged foods including breads, rices, grains, sugars, added sugars such as fructose, high fructose corn syrup, candies, sugary beverages, alcohol

Inflammation

So many people are inflamed systemically in their bodies due to poor dietary choices

Curcumin in turmeric

Green tea

Supplements

Vitamin D3 / K2

Melatonin

Omega 3, 6 essential fatty acids

Vitamin Bs – all of them

Alcohol

None

If you’re going to have some then organic red wine or clear potato based vodka- lower in sugar, no gluten, and less chance of toxic damage

Screen time

Get off your cell-phone at night

And ipad

And computer

You should not be looking down at your cell phone or ipad at any time of the day with your head held down – this puts a tremendous amount of strain on your body

Also stop using electronics 3 hours before bed