Trick or Treat…Which one is it?

I have to be brutally honest. As a young mother I dreaded Halloween. I had three children under the age of 5. I felt the pressure of making costumes and carving pumpkins (my daughter still has a scar from the "safe" pumpkin carving knife), followed by the aftermath of dealing with the "treats".

Back then; parents who attempted to be health conscious gave out apples, only to find the news that someone had hidden a razor blade inside one of them. Overnight, we could not offer nature's bounty unless we were willing to trek to the hospital to have our bags x-rayed.

The worst part was the aftermath; the unbelievable sugar rush and inevitably crash, exhaustion from so much excitement and crabbiness for the next several days.

I was fortunate in that two of my three children could carry the ADHD label (had I wanted to bestow that upon them.)  I learned about the Feingold Diet and witnessed first hand the difference in mood, attention and temperament on a diet of fresh whole food versus artificial colors, sweeteners and of course sugar. Do you know that rats will choose sugar 8-10 times over cocaine? Yes, we are all addicted to sugar.

When sugar was first brought to Europe in the 1600’s it was kept under lock and key because it made people crazy.  Yet we feed it to our children in baby food with GMO & HFCS, in formulas, to this holiday of excess sugar. Given that sugar feeds cancer, diabetes and heart disease as well as negative gut microbes that lead to attention deficit, anxiety, depression Alzheimer's, and are a source of inflammation and all dis-ease, I really have to ask, 

"Is this trick or a treat?"

Am I saying no to sugar; no, to sweetness? Become a monk and move to Tibet? No. Seriously though, how do we really want to treat ourselves?  What can we do that is more loving and nourishing to our bodies? What happened to apple bobbing and making apple butter and real pumpkin pies with natural unprocessed ingredients in the right combination that nature intended?

Here is a simple yet delicious pumpkin pie that was made from a regular large pumpkin that my husband carved.  Ingredients? Pumpkin, pecans, dates, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, cardamom and ginger. It's full of spices that are anti-carcinogens and warming and healing to the gastrointestinal tract.

Now that is a treat!           Happy Halloween!

An Invitation to BEGIN:

Friday, I shared with you my daughters good news in Celebrate today, Just Breathe, blog and introduced my seven steps to optimal health and wellness with this invitation on the first step (which is to begin with an honest personal assessment.)

Won’t you BEGIN by joining me  for a Kickstart to Wellness? Starting Thursday, October 16^th at 7pm.  If you cannot make the call, don’t worry, you can listen to the replay, but only if you register. 

Today I would like to share more on the first of seven steps to optimal health.  I began last week’s blog with this picture:

STEP ONE - BEGIN: Make a commitment and invest in yourself. Take an honest personal assessment and inventory.

How to become the leader of your life? Take action. To be the most effective leader, you have to have control of your health! Make the same investment in you that you have made in your family, friends, and career. Give yourself the gift of self-care; find new ways to energize and empower yourself.

First, take an honest personal assessment and inventory. Understand your WHY. I begin my discovery calls with my clients with the following questions:

What would it mean to you to be the best that you can be? What is your biggest obstacle or challenge? What have you tried—what has been successful and what has failed? How do you want to feel and see yourself in three months, six months, and one year from now as a result of working together?

We then look at your entire health history. Many falsely believe that because chronic illness runs in families that it must be genetic and that we are doomed. I used to believe this too as a practicing nurse when I took health histories. Fortunately, the study of epigenetics, or the study of the expression of genes has proven that genes can be turned on and off through diet and lifestyle changes. Do you know of any identical twins where one looks older and has more chronic disease than the other? This is an example of identical genes yielding different outcomes. This exemplifies the power to heal from within.  Again, don’t beat yourself up; instead get inspired to explore new options.

Give to yourself so you can give to others. Give yourself the same investment that you have put into your family, friends, and career so that you can continue to give to others.

Commit to small obtainable steps, one to three small “digestible bites” every two weeks and then celebrate your success.

Set SMART Goals:

•         Specific & Simple

•         Measureable & Motivational

•         Actionable & Accountable

•         Relevant & Realistic

•         Time Bound

Savvy Secret: A first SMART goal might be to simply keep track of what you are eating in a diary. If you did that and nothing else, you are likely to lose weight. Simply being conscious of what you are eating and more importantly how you are feeling before and after eating can have a transformational affect.

One reason I believe that it was hard for my daughter to initially stay on the diet regimen was that we really did not fully understand why the diets and supplements were recommended, nor did we know how to keep it up. For most of us, food preparation is a new skill. When Dana told me the diet was unsustainable, I said, “Then we have to make it sustainable!” We needed to really understand why the diet was important and find simple ways to integrate this into an active, social thirty-year-old’s schedule. Her life depends on it. This was my motivation for starting the cooking classes and for reading and studying so much about the thyroid, gluten, and hormones, and the lymphatic system and cancer, causes and cures.

This is where personal responsibility and a mind shift in thinking must occur. You have to understand the powerful connection between food and your mood and health. What nutrients are missing from the standard American diet (SAD) and how and why to heal the gut in order to heal your immune system.

Savvy Secret: Knowing your why is imperative to keeping you motivated towards positive change.

What is your WHY? Please take time to think and to share.

Carpe Diem, Lisa

Fall Equinox & September Blessings

This was a big month for me.  First, I turned fifty-five years old. Hard to believe so many years have flown by so fast!  Last year on my birthday, I made a 90 minute yoga dance video that included my daughters, my twin sister, and friends.  Just the process was so gratifying and so much fun and if it can inspire wellness in you, I served my mission. You can see some of the clips on the Carpe Diem Wellness App under Fun, Fitness & Fashion.

This year, two of my daughters went with me to Baltimore for Body Love Day where we practiced some wonderful meditation and yoga and feasted on green juice and chocolate…heavenly.

And last weekend, I was invited to be the keynote speaker for Women’s Wellness Weekend and provided an interactive workshop on my Seven Steps to Optimal Health.  First everyone patted herself on the back for already doing the first step…BEGIN.  Prioritizing time for selfcare is often the hardest task for those of us who are givers and doers.  We had begun the day with sunrise yoga, then a great breakfast followed by a warm up  of yoga dance let by Rosalie Grazzini.

The night before, we celebrated the Fall Equinox with a beautiful fire circle where we let go of what no longer served us. Most of the 90 women present gathered, wrote on index cards and threw these intentions into the fire.  There was a lot of surrendering of fear, inertia, indecision, and struggle.

The retreat center was located on a peninsula, 175 acres surrounded by water, a river and creek leading to the Chesapeake Bay. After we finished tossing cards into the fire, the most surreal thing happened.  The water next to us, that had been calm, began to churn loudly with with so much energy that the leader of the fire circle stopped talking about the fire and had to comment how water we can also be a cleansing aid to release negative energy.  Could 90 women’s thoughts and intentions have been so strong as to literally move water?  (If you were present, please share your comments on the experience.)

Next, we stood arm to arm and each one spoke of what we wanted to bring into our lives.  For when we let go of the negative energy, we open up space for new thoughts, behaviors and positive change. The most beautiful part was that we had time and space to bring in what we wanted to bring into our lives.  We wanted more fun, joy, love, and peace. We felt warmed not only be the fire but the camaraderie, of all of us united arm and arm in support of our positive intentions.

This is so symbolic of the Fall Equinox… a time to slow down, relax and let go of so much of the hot (Pitta) struggle. This is a time to savor the beauty of the fall leaves, and to be open to a new beginning, and to new ideas with the start of the new school term. For many the New Year often starts in the fall, not in January.  Commit now to a new strength to become more grounded.  A time to prepare yourself for the winter by fermenting food not only to make the harvest last through the winter but to help you prevent allergies, colds and flu through the winter.  This is a great time to do a seasonal cleanse to prepare the body for the winter.  Fall harvests like kale, collards, cabbage, cauliflower and apples are detoxifying, alkalinizing and full of vitamins essential for boosting the immune system and for good gut health. How do you strengthen your immune system?  By healing the gut and eating the bounty of the fall harvest available to us.

How will you celebrate life this fall?  Will you join us for the Savvy Secret Seven Day Cleanse or Kickstart to Wellness Program?

Carpe Diem,

Lisa

Savvy Secret Survey Results #2

Thank you again for your wonderful feedback!  What are the top two obstacles you are facing that is keeping you from feeling and looking your best?

1.     Time!   Those who have been to my cooking classes have seen the sign my daughter gave me:

Everyone laughs at this and I say that I’m going to disagree with this statement because we live in a fast food world.   Our food preparation does not need to take hours, it does not need to be too hard or expensive, but it cannot be FAKE.  

We are constantly being sold a bill of goods.  Michael Pollan, NY Times best selling food writer and author says in his book, “Food Rules” the more health claims and advertising given, the more suspect the packaged food should be.

Our grocery stores are inundated with hundreds of thousands of products that are being marketed to us, mostly convenience non-food that is designed to sit on the shelves for months, food that less organized creatures like bugs, won’t eat.  Food devoid of nutritional value and food where vital nutrients are replaced with chemicals that are “hyper-palatable” laboratory food like high fructose corn syrup, (HFCS) and monosodium glutamate, (MSG), that create strong cravings for more, mood swings and worse. There is even a new term for these: Obesogens. 

I’ve included some of my favorite whole foods that are fast, easy and inexpensive to make.

2.    Discipline! Do you think that you lack discipline to meet your goals?  Here’s an excerpt from the book where I talk about this:

YOU BECOME WHAT YOU THINK; Take an honest personal assessment and inventory

Unfortunately, what we think is buried for most of us deep within our subconscious.  We have been programmed since birth.  We come into this earth like a clean Macbook, with a blank hard drive full of promise and potential. Every input, every parental fear, every song, TV show and commercial, teacher, friend etc. writes on our discs.  We are all subject to corrupt data and information overload.  If we do not have a practice to clear out our minds and our bodies, we eventually crash. (Plus, far too often what we are choosing to read and watch and feed our minds is not much better than the synthetic junk foods we are feeding our bodies).

These downloaded messages from childhood linger within the subconscious and interfere with our goals.  My own experience is a case in point. I now recognize messages downloaded to my “hard-drive” that no longer serve me.  In high school, (despite the fact that I had won an award writing in junior high), when I told my stepfather I wanted to be a writer, he laughed at me. He said I would never be a writer because I was not disciplined enough. True, I was the “social butterfly” (and the comic relief in the family) and lacked discipline. I could continue to believe this self limiting belief or I can do what I’ve done which is to hire a coach plus engage in an accountability buddy to help me develop my discipline and focus to complete this book. We often just need a little support to develop these healthy habits.

Many of my clients tell themselves this same misperception that they don’t have the discipline to meet their goals. 

Savvy Secret: Discipline can be cultivated with the right motivation, the right vision and the right support.

In order to live life fully and to work in our zone, we have to shine light on these ANTs that have been programmed so that we can decide whether they are true or not and whether we want to continue to be limited by them. It is the attachment to these thoughts that cause pain and stress. We are not our thoughts.  It took me 40 years to fully realize this desire to write, thanks to a coaching program that offered me the structure, support and discipline to complete this goal. 

We all have discipline in some area of our life, most of us have jobs and/or families that we care for.  That is discipline.  Think about it and I think you will find at least one area in your life that have some discipline.  Discipline comes from creating habits and I can guide you toward habits that are fun and inspiring. A good coach will get you back on the path to health when you naturally want to stray or hit a roadblock.

Contact me if you want to have a discovery call to clear any roadblocks www.carpediemwellness.org.