Inspirational Quote
“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone. So if you are feeling uncomfortable right now, know that the change taking place in your life is a beginning, not an ending.”
Neale Donald Walsch
One of the most important things you can do to lose weight is conquer your ego.
To help you understand why this is so important, I would like to go back to basics.
The Total Fitness equation is:
Your Exercise x Your Attitude x Your Rest x Your Nutrition = Your Body
If we go back to basic math, if you multiply anything by zero you get zero.
You can do all the exercise and dieting in the world but if you don’t work on your attitude, you get no measurable improvement in your physical body. It’s that important.
In the kinesiology I do as part of my healing work, finding the emotions that block your health and happiness is not just part of the work but also an essential, do not pass go, don’t collect $200 without it aspect of actual healing.
You can receive massage, chiropractic, energy work, body work or any other therapy but if you don’t change your attitude, the emotions that caused dis-ease will simply recreate the actual problem in the same area or morph into another problem in another part of your body.
So if your back is hurting and you continually go from therapist to therapist with no results, you have to question your attitude.
If you try diet after diet and get nowhere, then it’s all about your attitude.
To change your attitude completely, it is helpful to understand how your ego actually works.
One of the primary functions of the ego is to keep you safe.
Because the ego wants to keep you safe, your ego is constantly going around labeling everything.
Your ego says, “This is good. That is bad.”
Philosophers call this the dance of attractions and aversions.
The ego reels from running towards what it perceives to be good and running away from that which it believes to be harmful.
If you don’t believe me, just listen to your inner voice during the course of an ordinary day.
“Traffic Bad,” you may hear. But who knows if being in a traffic jam is keeping you from an accident farther on down the road or some other untoward event? Just ask the people who were late to work on 9/11. Maybe they now have a different view of what it means to be late.
“Junk food!!! Good!” your ego may say. Yummy to the tongue. But what about your digestive system that has to process all that grease, sugar and microwaved junk? What about your jeans that are a little too tight or no longer fit at all?
To conquer the attitude game in weight loss, it’s imperative that you change the labeling game.
One of my yoga students picked up on this game recently.
He said to me, “I used to hate the exercises we did lying on our side. Then just recently I realized that the reason those exercises were difficult is because my back muscles are weak and that they need to be strengthened.”
Instead of labeling the side lying exercises as “bad,” he now realizes that those exercises are his friend and will save him a world of pain if he actually performs them regularly.
Maybe you have friends, family members or associates who view lunch without French fries or dinner without dessert as a tragedy to be avoided at all cost. More than likely, these people could improve their health and lose a few pounds in the process if they simply changed their attitude.
A good place to start is to make two lists.
What foods do you list as “bad” and “good?”
If you listed French fries, second helpings and dessert as good, rather than kale, spinach, grass fed beef and lots of water, then perhaps you are due for some mental reframing.
What exercises, or exercise in general, do you list as “good” or “bad?”
A new client came to see me recently for help alleviating back pain. At her first session, we went over how she can sit, stand and sleep to avoid hurting her back further. At her next session, she told me that her back hurt worse after learning proper posture, even though we did no actual exercises at the previous session. She had developed a fear of moving and we worked on her attitude before moving forward with therapeutic exercise.
The reason that slim people continue being slim is that we have developed positive associations between eating healthy food and exercising regularly.
This is where kinesiology can help you overcome your blocks and resistance. Set up an appointment today and learn what you can do to improve your attitude so you can start releasing body fat and pain.
Why It Is Imperative That You Research Your Medications
One of the first assignments I give every new client is to look up the side effects of each and every one of your medications.
My father and brother are both medical doctors and I have great respect for the importance of traditional Western medicine.
However, many people are not aware how their medications are actually affecting their overall health.
The Washington Post published an article Nov. 24 this year explaining that in a year-long period ending August 2012, The New England Journal of Medicine had published 73 articles about original studies of new drugs. Of those 73 articles, 60 were funded by pharmaceutical companies, 50 were co-written by drug company employees and 37 had a lead author who had previously accepted compensation from the sponsoring drug company.
The article went on to point out that recent new published drug studies had overlooked or understated potentially fatal side effects.
For example, a Food and Drug Administration scientist now estimates that the diabetes drug Avandia has been associated with 83,000 heart attacks and deaths.
An FDA investigator now believes the arthritis drug Vioxx caused an extra 27,000 heart attacks and cardiac-related deaths.
Even in one of the most prestigious medical journals, the objectivity and scientific veracity of new published drug studies has to be questioned.
The odds of coming to a conclusion favorable to the industry are 3.6 times greater in research sponsored by the industry than in research sponsored by government and nonprofit groups, according to a published analysis by Justin Bekelman, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and colleagues.
“It used to be that drug companies would hand their new drug over to an academic center to have it tested, and then they sat back and waited,” said Marcia Angell, who retired as editor in chief of NEJM in 2000 after more than 20 years at the publication. “Now they’re intimately involved in every step along the way, and they treat academic researchers more like hired hands.”
Even if the medications you are taking are not likely to lead to heart attacks or deaths, the side effects may be influencing your mental, emotional or physical health in ways you had not previously recognized. Your inability to lose weight may also be directly related to drugs you are taking.
A great place to start researching your drugs is www.rxlist.com.
Many people tell themselves that they are better off taking a drug when natural treatments would ultimately be less harmful or even more effective, both long and short term.
For example, www.rxlist.com has this to say about Paxil, an SSRI drug commonly used for treating depression, panic attacks, obsessive compulsive disorder and severe PMS.
From www.rxlist.com:
Get emergency medical help if you have any of these signs of an allergic reaction: skin rash or hives; difficulty breathing; swelling of your face, lips, tongue, or throat.
Report any new or worsening symptoms to your doctor, such as: mood or behavior changes, anxiety, panic attacks, trouble sleeping, or if you feel impulsive, irritable, agitated, hostile, aggressive, restless, hyperactive (mentally or physically), more depressed, or have thoughts about suicide or hurting yourself.
Call your doctor at once if you have a serious side effect such as:
unusual bone pain or tenderness, swelling or bruising;
easy bruising, unusual bleeding (nose, mouth, vagina, or rectum), coughing up blood;
agitation, hallucinations, fever, fast heart rate, overactive reflexes, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, loss of coordination, fainting;
very stiff (rigid) muscles, high fever, sweating, confusion, fast or uneven heartbeats, tremors, overactive reflexes, feeling like you might pass out;
nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, loss of appetite, feeling unsteady, loss of coordination; or
headache, trouble concentrating, memory problems, weakness, confusion, hallucinations, fainting, seizure, shallow breathing or breathing that stops.
Less serious side effects may include:
feeling restless or nervous;
mild headache, drowsiness, dizziness;
sleep problems (insomnia);
mild nausea, constipation, diarrhea;
weight changes;
decreased sex drive, impotence, or difficulty having an orgasm; or
dry mouth, yawning, or ringing in your ears.
If you discover that you are suffering from your medication, ask your doctor whether or not you really need it. Make an appointment with me so we can discuss how holistic therapies, including fitness, nutrition and natural healing might contribute to your overall well-being.
From My Blog: Is Your Pain Caused By What You Are Eating?
Last week, a client came to me complaining up head to toe skin rashes. She felt so bad she had made an emergency appointment with her medical doctor. But at the last minute, remembering that she had reacted badly to medications in the past for previous skin issues, she made an appointment to see me.
I used kinesiology to determine A, what the root source of the problem was and B, what she could do to feel better immediately.
Even though she was not a heavy or even regular drinker, she had a few too many alcoholic beverages on Saturday night followed by an overdose of Halloween candy.
I have found through years of helping clients relieve all kinds of skin issues that the root cause is often a liver-kidney imbalance.
A lot of people understand that alcohol adversely affects your liver.
Very few people know, however, that high fructose corn syrup – the main ingredient in soft drinks and most candies – is very similar to alcohol in that it has to be metabolized by the liver before it can be utilized by the body.
An overdose of junk food or candy can cause fatty liver just like alcohol can. In fact, there is even a disease called non-alcohol fatty liver disease.
A simple way to look at yourself and anyone and find out if you fall into this category is by seeing if you have an extra roll of fat above your belly button. That’s your liver roll, if you are unfortunate enough to have one. Even if you don’t drink more than 14 alcoholic beverages per week – the amount that technically puts you into the category of being an alcoholic – you may simply be eating more sweets than your liver can actually process.
High fructose corn syrup is a common ingredient not only in soft drinks and candy but also cereals, breads, breakfast pastries, waffles, so-called protein bars, ketchup, cookies, cakes, chocolate, yoghurt, ice cream, jams, jellies, salad dressings, mayonnaise, corn chips, organic soups and BBQ sauce. In other words, if you want to get high fructose corn syrup out of your diet completely, you are going to have to read labels and think twice before eating anything processed.
So back to my client with the head to toe rashes.
Her immune system was suppressed and she was reacting to hand lotion, common pain killers and over the counter allergy remedies, organic coconut oil and over 20 common foods that she had been eating. It was a good thing she had come to see a kinesiologist because I could very carefully ferret out what foods she could and could not eat without getting a reaction, what over the counter medicine she could take for pain and allergy relief and even what kind of lotion she could now put on her body without aggravating the rash.
I encouraged her to use a far infrared sauna and take an oatmeal bath. I gave her two supplements, including one for detoxification and another to support her immune system and stop the bad reactions to multiple foods. I encouraged her to drink lots of water to flush her kidneys.
I saw her again Tuesday. “I feel so much better!” she told me. Not only had her skin improved, her energy was better and – big surprise – the achey pain in her joints was gone completely.
If you have been following my blog, you will have read how I explained that our organs feed energy to our muscles. And you will have learned that you hold toxins in your joints.
So when you improve your eating, and specifically avoid any foods that you may be reacting adversely to, your organs are healthier and therefore you notice you have fewer if any muscle aches.
If you take the time to detoxify, you will notice your joint pain going away.
Sometimes a bad reaction like a skin rash can be a blessing in disguise if we take the time to listen to what our body is begging us.