Green and Healing

Tony Robbins - and Keeping Holiday Depression At Bay

Instead of listening to the radio, which bombards me with millions of ads for things I cannot afford and leaves me feeling empty - I have been listening again to my Tony Robbins "Get the Edge" CD set.  I find myself arriving at work more focused and relaxed than ever before, and being able to roll with the punches a lot better - without letting the economic ups and downs get to me.

I plan to start Tony's recommended 10% savings program right after Christmas, and am already losing weight by drinking green drinks (while my husband and daughter turn up their noses). 

I highly recommend this CD set for anyone who wants to get their life back on track - turn off the radio and get out of the rat race!

If everyone did this, I would predict that holiday depression rates would decrease over 100%!!!   We get depressed as we just can't afford all the crazy stuff  being pushed at us every minute by the media.

What to Do for Achy Joints

Winter is here, and those of us who suffer from arthritis are feeling the bite of the cold air in our bones and joints.  There is relief to be had, and through research and trial and error - I have found a combination that works. The three best supplements to take are MSM, Glucosamine, and Chondroitin.  I find that when I take all three, I feel the best.   These supplements can take up to six months before you will notice the change, but they help provide the elements and nutrients your body needs to create healthy cartiledge and connective tissue. 

It also helps a great deal to alkalize your body, as we tend to eat overly acidic foods and acids will attack your joints and wear them away.  Drinking green juice or eating more greens will help.

One great product that combines all three of the beneficial supplements into one is called Joint Advance.   As our body also converts quite a bit of what we eat into acidic ash, this product includes a joint health diet plan as well. 

As traditional NSAIDs can deplete our bodies of sulfur, which is needed for the creation of healthy joint tissue, I would suggest NOT taking them.  Joint Advance includes White Willow bark which is a natural pain killer.  If this doesn't have enough White Willow in it for you, you can always go to your health food store and get more. 

Survive the Holidays Through Cleansing

 

Tis the season to pollute our bodies, gain weight, and get sick, but this year, I have decided that I REFUSE to suffer these indignities.  Instead, I plan to indulge only enough to enjoy the season, and to cleanse my body as soon as I do so that I don't end up pudgy, run down, and overweight. 

Here is my holiday survival guide:

1) I plan on drinking 8-12 glasses of water per day. This will help push the sugar cookies I am sure I will break the Provida diet with out and through.

2) Keep my body alkaline through drinking as much green juice as I can stand

3) Using an herbal cleansing supplement, such as Dual Action Cleanse which is a system with both a fiber formula (based on a proprietary mix of 22 different fibers and herbs), and a body purifier with herbs that target specific parts of the body, like the liver.  

4) Exercising daily in some form or another.  

My gift to myself this season will be the gift of wellness.   

The Liberating Power of Yoga

 

My youngest daughter is in the midst of a difficult transition - this is her first year of middle school.  We require her to take part in one activity, usually it has been music, but this year, she asked for yoga.  After inquiring at my local club, they allowed her to attend the adult class only if I would attend with her.

I was a bit nervous at first, I walk almost daily and lift weights to help improve my bone mass - but at my age I was concerned about whether or not my body would still bend into some of those difficult poses. 

Today, after my second class with my daughter, I am thrilled that we have undertaken this journey together.  Not only is my body slowly rising to the challenge and bending and moving much better than I had even hoped, but we have formed a wonderful way to bond together as mother and daughter. 

In today's class, I felt the stress melt from my shoulders and neck and my body relax in ways I haven't felt for many years.  Although I am a bit sore, I feel more flexible and capable - and younger in many ways.  I feel like issues such as judgement of myself and others, self-criticism, and anger are melting away in the peaceful movements as I go from asana to asana. 

I can hardly wait until next week's class!

[Photo Credit:  www.yogadestin.com]

Creative Ways to Limit Sodium in Your Diet

In today's world - healthy eating often mean expensive eating.  Due to my husband's illness AND the Provida diet I am trying hard to stick with - sodium is restricted, in his case, to 2,000 mg per day.   I had never limited sodium before, so imagine my surprise when I started to read the labels of common grocery store items.  Even the lowered sodium preprepared products have 600mg or more of sodium per can, and given the way we were eating, we were probably getting up to 10k mg per day or more.  Excess sodium has been found to cause anything from calcium deficiencies to high blood pressure to water retention, so it is really surprising our FDA allows this to continue! 

Soy sauce and all the oriental sauces, all preprepared soups and meals, pickles  or anything pickled, prewrapped and sliced cheeses, bacon, all sausage products, pizza, and/or beef broths all will take a healthy chunk out of your daily sodium budget so they have to be consumed sparingly.

Ways we have found to restrict sodium include:

Alkalinity and Health

In a never-ending quest for life improvement, today I continued listening to Tony Robbins " Get the Edge" in my car during my daily commute.  Today's topic was health - and Tony described how our bodies get highly acidic, and how this leads to many heath related issues.  One cause of acidity in our systems is animal proteins, and Tony is a well known advocate of cutting down on the consumption of red meat. 

Yet, I have found that by following the Provida diet which ENCOURAGES me to eat red meat (my body type tends to digest muscle tissue easily according to the Provida questionnaire) that I lost 30 pounds easily and kept it off until I started torturing my system with potato chips, sleepless nights and stress in the last toxic job I had (which thankfully, I had the courage to leave).   And again, I took off 20 pounds eating.......you guessed it.....red meat. 

So who is right?  I am going to try to drink green juices with my red meat and see if I can shake the last stubborn 10 pounds I am working to get rid of.  I do believe that acidity can lead to a candida overgrowth, which causes sugar cravings and flabbiness.  Even though the Provida diet is strict about not allowing white flour or sugar, it does advocate eating fruit which contains enough sugar to feed some candida. 

I will let everyone know what my results are.  

Save the Earth, and Reduce Our Dependence on Foreign Oil At the Same Time

Mother Earth is crying in pain, and we need to stand up and take heed.  No, not every person who looks at the environment and realizes that something needs to be done is a radical 60s leftover or activist.  Some of us are scientists and engineers who see these issues as presenting a challenge - and the old school attitudes that told us conservatives to "forget the environment" were simply voices of those who lacked faith in the collective intelligence and skill of the scientific and engineering communities. 

Every day, a new company is formed that promises to dramatically shift our dependence on foreign oil and overall energy consumption - which provides one step towards healing the earth by eliminating the need for offshore drilling, etc., not to mention reduces carbon emissions and polluted air from dirty fuels.  I am a Republican and I stand with Sarah Palin for the need for offshore drilling now - but wouldn't it be nice if all our cars in the future ran on water, or electricity - and we could remove the oil rigs from the ocean ? 

I say hats off to the VC firms who are funding these new and innovative companies - Mantra Energy Group in Canada, Al Gore in conjunction with Silicon Valley's own Kleiner-Perkins, and the Hudson Clean Energy funds.

We have some incredibly good ideas out there, but nothing that is cheap, clean, easy, and doesn't create an economic upset in another section (like bio fuels).   Funding teams of resourceful scientists and engineers will help us find a new solution that is eluding us at present, without making Iowa corn farmers into the next generation of oil millionaires. 

Does the Best Interest of the American People Healthwise Overrule Profits?

I realize this is strong - but I really believe that where capitalism should be tempered is when it comes to the health of the populace. We have outlawed saccharin - but cigarettes are sold in every corner gas station. Which product has killed more people? Go figure!!

There is just mounds and mounds of evidence that Splenda and anything with Aspartame in it destroys nerves and nerve tissue - but will the FDA outlaw it? No - the Searle lobby was too powerful, and instead of banning potentially harmful substances, instead, a completely safe sugar substitute called Stevia is banished to be sold as a "dietary supplement" only. Thank you Equal and Splenda lobbies, for placing your profits above the best interests of the American people.

And what about additives, such as sodium nitrate and sodium nitrite?  Every hot dog and piece of lunch meat in the nation has one or the other.  Yet both have been shown to cause cancer in laboratory rats.

I believe in capitalism and the free market economy - yet I realize that one of the causalties of capitalism is the health of the common people - people who can't afford to buy health food groceries or believe, naively, that that FDA wouldn't allow foods on the market that could compromise their health.

I say wake up - if you want a free market, you HAVE to educate yourself and learn what additives are harmful and which are safe.  Make your own judgements, and plant a garden.

Green and Being a Computer Geek

I used to think that being green and being a computer geek were mutually exclusive -  but no more.  In fact, I think the techical intelligensia will be the ones to solve the global warming problem, given time and support. 

Case in point is startup CherryPal.  Cherrypal makes a Freescale based computer that consumes no more power than an alarm clock, uses Cloud Computing in a hosted fashion so you don't have to worry about virus checking or spyware anymore, is designed to last 10 years, and has no moving parts (sorry Seagate, no disc drive!).  

No Intel, and no Microsoft - which could be tragic for those of us who rely on Microsoft's monopoly to have files that are compatible with everyone elses.  

But for those who use computing for Internet access, fun, and to manage their iPod - CherryPal is the way to go.   Use this code - CPP293 to get $10 off of the already totally reasonable CherryPal pricing.  

Thoughts on the Mind-Body Connection

More and more medical professionals are starting to subscribe to the belief that our bodies and minds are intimately connected.  Indeed, miracle healings happen when people believe they can be healed - and deaths and zombies can be created through the power of fear. 

This week, I was immensely stressed as I am responsible for bringing revenue into a startup while the US economy collapses at my feet.  I have developed all symptoms of strep throat.  As the throat area symbolizes communication - I am realizing that deep down in, I believe that my communications were not adequate.  Indeed, the throat chakra governs all forms of communications and illness here often points to words left unsaid - or words that should have been left unsaid.

I am working on healing myself by telling myself that I have done the best I could under the circumstances.   Warm tea, Melaleuca cough drops, and Echinacea have also been my friends.

But warm tea has not worked, and my throat is blistered..........meaning tomorrow I am going to have to bend to traditional medicine and get an invasive antibiotic so that I can return to productivity and sanity. 

[Photo Credit:  The Mayo Clinic]