Discover the Formula for Great Skin! (and 2 bonuses at the end!)

Pillar 1 of my S.I.M.P.L.E. Method-Sensory Input

 

Want the magic formula for great skin? (Your ideal morning routine is at the end… )

Imagine this: you see friends after long hiatus, and they say you age in reverse. You know some of this is genetics—but your heritage only affects 5% of your traits.

Luckily, the 95% that you control is what matters the most… your lifestyle! Forget about “genetics,” since that’s out of your control (and that wee 5% doesn’t affect much of anything).  🤷‍♀️

Your glow comes from multiple things you do throughout the day—it’s not luck or good genes. Change your habits, diet, and lifestyle based on what you know about your body, and what we’ve learned through studying Ancient Wisdom (like Ayurveda). You can have this dream, even if it seems impossible right now…

 

If you want to understand how crucial sensory input is (and why it’s the 1st pillar of my S.I.M.P.L.E. method), I explain it in a link below. Believe me, you don’t want to skip this, especially if you’re suffering in any way.

 

Our external health is partly internal habits, partly external ones. Eat well, demand sleep for a minimum of 7 hours, drink lots of water, get LOTS of sunshine, and use organic skincare.

 

You and I know these things intuitively, but the very last part comes with a caveat: organic skincare doesn’t mean soap. I’ll explain why with a brief story of how I accidentally stumbled on this concept.

[read more…]

Will a Snake Oil Charmer Kill You?

For now, let’s refute the dangerous essential oil trend

This is where I ruffle some feathers…

 

During a recent offering of Transformation 101, a student asked me about the safety of essential oils to relieve her digestive issues because it was recommended to her. An MLM rep suggested she take doTerra’s enyzme formula, along with dropping an oil blend from her lower abdomen to her stomach area.

I cringed…  🤦‍♀️

There are multiple issues with this:

  1. A doTerra rep is NOT a nutritionist, nor a dietician. Only dietician’s or doctors/naturopaths should offer prescriptive advice for healing a medical issue—this is why I give you blueprints and formulas vs. telling you to eat specific amounts of nutrients (e.g. 25 IU VitaminD).
  2. My student is on medication, which can react with other remedies, natual OR pharmacalogical. This is why my clients also have physicians and if they’re on medications, they are instructed to have regular visits, tell their doctor they’re working with me, and can pass along my info to speak with their doctor as needed. It’s important to monitor health and medications closely.
  3. My student wasn’t diagnosed with a specific condition, yet an untrained individual gave her medical suggestions on how to relieve it. This is just an essential oil rep—please ask for someone’s background before taking ANY medical advice!
  4. doTerra now understand digestion and is involved in the additionally unregulated area of supplements. Enough said…
  5. Essential oils can be dangerous and potentially LETHAL when ingested undiluted. Do most people die from ingesting them? Certainly not… but some do and why risk being the one who does?
  6. Dropping essential oils in the insane “raindrop therapy” does nothing for your health. (“Raindrop therapy” is dropping oils on your body as if they were raindrops, as natural and unadulterated as the rain. Insert eye roll…) While the placebo effect is arguably a positive factor and helps with multiple health concerns, placing undilted oils on your skin can also cause harm. doTerra even states this on their own website, though reps rarely mention this. Photosensitivity, allergic reaction, irritations are just 3 problems with this little gimmick…

This kind of advice lines the pockets of some well-meaning reps and higher-on-the-chain (maybe NOT so well-meaning) shareholders. The less you dilute, the more you use. It’s a basic sales tactic, cleverly disguised as a healing protocol.

I’ve spent YEARS teaching essential oil safety and making organic skincare products (pssst, those major brands are expensive and not organic… why!? What are you paying for, if it’s not even organic!? Read that last paragraph again, if you’re curious.). It enrages me to hear irresponsible information like this handed down to people. You can kill someone!

When people suffer, there’s a perfect chance to take advantage of them. There’s a fine line between offering services to help people and just selling them a clever gimmick. [read more…]

How to Lose Fat & Stop the Yo-Yo Cycle

… with Facts Not Fads™

 

For 4 weeks, students and I spent hours together in my Transformation 101 course, going deeper than ever before. With 6 months of intensive nutritional school behind me (and 6 months to go! 🤦‍♀️), I know more about why we can’t lose weight easily, nor keep it off.

 

This deeper level of information builds on what I wrote years ago, so students and clients see better results faster.

 

The first thing you should understand is online calculators are incorrect, setting you up for failure. I use MyFitnessPal with a couple of clients for food tracking, so I entered my age, current/goal weight, height, activity level—it said I should eat 1430 calories per day.

 

When I use the calculator from school (the Harris Benedict calculator, if you’re interested), I get 1379 calories. That’s a 51-calorie difference PER DAY. In a week, I’d overeat 3500 calories. That’s almost a pound of weight in calories, gained each week. All because of inaccurate calculations, which by the very nature of the app you’re using, SHOULD be correct. Wow.

 


No wonder we yo-yo so much. We’re not given accurate tools for calculations!


 

The second thing you need to know is our biggest concern is overall health, which is an ever-moving target. Fat loss is obviously an important metric of health, because many of the top disease-related deaths are because of excess weight. But when we focus on our health and body as a whole, we’re considering how we feel about ourselves through our Senses, Intuition, Movement, Plants, Love, Exploration—and nutrition is just one aspect of this model of health.

 

With both goals in mind, I’ve shared a few important video conversations around fat loss and nutrition you need to understand: [read more]

Unexpected Importance of Food Tracking

Recently, a client gave me unexpected feedback about the food journal I have them use each week. While I understand there are difficulties with tracking1 (unreliable food data entered, challenging in social situations, time constraint), the pros often outweigh the cons.

 

If I don’t know what a client is eating, I can’t help them with their nutrition or lifestyle goals. It’s certainly impossible to see which foods are problematic, especially if there’s a digestive issue at hand… quite often, symptoms don’t appear immediately, unless it’s a food allergy (less common than many would believe).

 

A current client suffers from a couple health conditions, is on multiple medications, and wants to lose fat. We’ve worked on these issues in that order, by their request. (My clients decide 100% what they wish to work on, and in what order.)

 

While I know the multiple positives of a food journal, I never considered this aspect: uncovering a relationship between symptoms and medication. [read more…]

Paul McCartney performs on stage on the Paul McCartney World Tour, Ahoy, Rotterdam, Netherlands, 11th November 1989. He is playing a Wal 5 string bass guitar. (Photo by Rob Verhorst/Redferns)

5-Minutes, 30 Years Later…

5-minutes can change the path of your life forever. 30 YEARS AGO TODAY (May 1, 1993), this man changed mine… and the lives of hundreds or thousands I’ve taught over the last decade. When Paul opened his concert with a 5-minute clip about the brutality of slaughter houses, furriers, etc., I watched, horrified.

My values, my identity, habits, EVERYTHING changed in an instant—I haven’t touched meat since. I immediately went back to college in a small rural town of NC with no idea “how to do this veggie thing.” I at least had skills of being scrappy from a rough upbringing, so making cheap meals was pretty easy. How to make them meatless back in 1993 took some brainstorming. (Kinda like walking uphill both ways in the snow, like your grandparents did. 🤣) A HUGE thank you to Janet, for being the best roomie and figuring it out with me… Hamburger Helper, anyone!?🧡

I recently touched on this story in one of my cooking classes before moving on to the recipes While I don’t believe it’s the video he showed in ’93, I mention “Glass Walls” in a few different classes… I didn’t realize the effect it would have on one of my students, but she explained it during a different class I taught. Give it a quick listen here: https://youtu.be/tdmH_o_kIxE.

Her feedback re “Glass Walls”: “It didn’t feel good at all… I know it’s not all like that, but that was something that just stuck with me this week—it’s not really good for me, anyway. So, as hard as that was to watch, thank you for sharing that with me. It was really a big influencer.” She then swapped her usual weekly fare of grab-n-go ham sandwiches for a sweet potato topped with kale salad and chickpeas.

How to Recognize and Change Habits

If she wants treats, food, fresh water, attention, or wants to be covered with a blanket, she lets us know. This cat communicates better than most humans, I tell ya…

When we’re busy and miss or ignore her cues, she gets louder and louder. Eventually, you can’t ignore the “I want it MEOW!” And that’s when it hit me…

In nutrition school, we recently studied neurotransmitters, the nervous system, and how stress and environment affect health and obesity. We learned how food cues are how our brain processes images, sounds, smells—using memory and emotion to “tag” foods for pleasure. This is a VERY basic description of a complicated process-I outline it further in point #4 below. It’s also extremely fascinating and necessary to understand if you want to help yourself or others permanently achieve health or other lifestyle goals.

As I stared at Doodles bitching for her latest treat, I told her, “no, you’re too fat!” She didn’t care, literally huffed at me, and continued to beg. “ah yes, of course this rationalizing won’t work! You don’t care and you don’t have the complex part of the brain we have, where we make decisions and work through complicated problems.”

How to Lose Fat Quickly (or Not!)

If you’re 50+ pounds overweight and want to lose fat quickly, I’ve outlined how you can do that. As your Health & Wellness Coach, I’m giving you the protocol I use with my clients IF their goal is: 50+ pounds fat loss, reduction of medications, and regaining their health.

This allows you to make an informed decision about this course of action, including:

  • The benefits and consequences of rapid fat loss,
  • Methods you can use to create rapid fat loss,
  • Things to keep in mind if you want to reduce the risk of experiencing some consequences I list initially.

If you have less than 50 pounds you want to lose, please pay attention to the very last bullet point starting with “We’ll also change the % we decrease your calories as you go along, too…” This is the guideline for those with less fat to lose (because this matters a lot!)

Note: to understand the content, it’s important you understand the context… I wrote this as a response to a request for rapid fat loss (i.e. any diet promoting over 5 pounds of weight loss per week). Email me or comment below, should you need any clarification with any of it. As always, thank you for your consistent and continued efforts in improving your health!
[keep reading]

March Into Mindfulness

Give me 31 days and I’ll show you a happier, more mindful life

 

I’m sure you can agree we humans are less and less connected… disconnected more now than ever.

For a highly social species that relies on others, this is horrible. I declare March as a month for Mindfulness, and I challenge you to March Into Mindfulness! 😊

Tomorrow, I’m teaching one of my favorite classes, Mindfulness 101. The story behind this class is amusing, but I’ll save that for when you take the class—just know I it’s not something I thought I was qualified to do, despite years of teaching about sensory awareness, mindful eating, the importance of mindset, so on.

Hey, we all need someone to point out our blind spots, right!? We all have shit to work on…

In honor of that class, I wanted to share 5 insights not covered. In conversations with friends and other business owners lately, there’s a common theme appearing… we’re less and less connected than ever—meaning less aware and mindful of each other.

2 disclaimers:

  1. Be gentle with yourself, if any of these sound familiar. We’re all beautiful BEings that need help in improving ourselves. It’s why we take classes, read books, and hire therapists, coaches or mentors.
  2. These aren’t “pet peeves,” though it may appear that way. They are observations others shared with me. I pass along potential solutions so we can improve our lives and the world.

As you read this, consider if you have anything to add to these. If so, send them over or comment below—we have different ideas about how to make the world a better place. I’d love to share your thoughts!

Most important, you don’t have to be a Tibetan monk to experience the benefits of mindfulness. These are 5 basic practices that improve your connections with others in ways you may not have considered.

What Would Happen if You Knew Nuances Around Nutrition?

Before I dive into some tips to help you navigate your health journey in January, here are some startling facts. Read to the end, consider the tips for success, and let’s change the overall success rate to a higher number!

New Year’s Resolution Facts1, 2 :

  1. 83% of us never even set goals, yet
  2. People with goals are 10x more likely to achieve them
  3. Of the 17% who set goals, most set unrealistic goals or don’t have a plan on how to achieve them (which is why I teach my clients how to set small, manageable, realistic goals that are what’s called Optimal Goals… not too easy, not too difficult… because that matters!)
  4. Only 55% of the 17% mentioned above keep their pledge after one month; we’re down to 43% after three months (the math is getting harder, isn’t it!? Just know the goal-setting group is getting smaller and smaller.) In fact…
  5. Only 8-9% of those who set goals accomplish them by year-end. Here’s how you can help bring that to 10% or higher…

3 of the keys to their success?

How to Lose a 6th Grader

A 12-year-old boy weighs about 87 pounds on average. When Rob and I analyzed how our bathtime feels different, something struck me… we’ve lost a combined weight of 112 pounds total, in the last year. It’s the equivalent of a 14-year-old child. Remove that from a bathtub, and it’s bound to feel different.

He’s lost 87 pounds to date, with about 10 to go. He’s no longer diabetic, doesn’t get hangry if he misses a regular meal time occasionally, and no longer desires “those” foods. He’s lost the equivalent to a 6th grade child. He was carrying around another human, 24-hours a day. In hindsight, that’s mind-boggling.

He reflects on the journey a lot, as I recommend anyone doing, when they’ve accomplished something amazing.

“When I think about it, it comes down to 3 things:

  1. The knowledge of what to eat (that’s where you come into the picture as my wife and expert),
  2. Willpower, because the 1st 3 months are a detox from all those foods, and
  3. It took me 20 years to put on all that weight, but only a year to lose it.”

I’m going to emphasize his 3rd point again: “It only took a year to lose it.”

That’s a tremendous shift in mindset.

So often, we hear people complain about how difficult it is to lose weight (been there, so I get it!). But that’s simply not true. We gain, on average, 10 pounds a year, unconsciously. Yet we LOSE 25 in a year, when we’re conscious. 

 


The difference is simply where we’re focused… we rarely focus on the scale when we’re gaining, yet obsess over it when we want to lose.


It’s not that it’s harder to lose weight than it is to gain it, despite what EVERYONE says. It’s just that we’re focused on losing weight, so it APPEARS to be harder. Where’s your attention/intention? Because as my Transformational coach says, “You are where your attention is.” If you’re focused on the scale, the clock ticks away. When you’re focused on everything BUT the scale (or you have a Dr. who tells you the scale is a useless tool), time flies by.

 

Anyone ever looked in the mirror and said, “how’d I get here?” If so, you understand that your attention wasn’t on fat loss.

 

Why is no one discussing this, especially when the mental aspect of health is critical to success? It’s SIMPLE to be healthy… but it’s not easy. Until you get your brainset right…

 

Here’s an example of the deep programming we live with:

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