So the other day as I was with a client we started talking about the Olympics. I was telling her how inspiring I found the athletes and asked her what she thought of it all. She hesitated and said, “Well I wouldn’t say inspiring, I would say that I admired them.” Of course I found this very interesting and asked “why not inspiring? Why just admire them?” She said because of all they have to “Give Up” to get there… Well OK…So they had to give up some stuff but they are one of the best athletes in the world in their sport…Right?

I got to thinking about some of the stuff people “give up” when they get healthy and fit. Not sure why but getting healthy and fit will oftentimes get a bad rap. Sometimes we believe that we really have to “give up” so much to make it happen. So with that in mind here is a short and some what humorous look at what people have to “give up” to get fit.

1. Muffin tops – you know when your fat becomes a roll over the top of your pants.
2. Indigestion – that burning, tight feeling in the center of your chest after eating lots of unhealthy foods.
3. Skin belts – when you have no clothes on yet still have a belt line around your middle.
4. Over-sweating – breaking a sweat just going out to the car.
5. Tight clothes – when everything you own is too tight and very uncomfortable.
6. Opportunity to have: Diabetes, Heart Disease, High Blood Pressure, Certain cancers and the list goes on…
7. High cable and High Def bill – laying/sitting on the couch watching all your favorite shows every night. Although some people swear this is the meaning of their life I believe deep down inside they know better. God has a bigger purpose for them.
8. Unwanted stares and snickers – yes, all those looks people send your way that you know really are not to do with your fabulous jewelry.
9. Lack of Energy - no energy due to the sugar highs and lows.
10. Not being able to play with your kids – not having the stamina, flexibility or maybe even the “want” to play because you really just “want” to sit down.
11. Opportunity to have to take lots of medication everyday.
12. Embarrassing Clothing Malfunctions - popped buttons, rips, tears all at inopportune times.

Hope you enjoyed reading this because I enjoyed writing it.

God Bless You,
Evey

Everywhere you look there are articles or segments of shows dedicated to the aging process. We are obsessed with staying young looking. Most of us have heard the 40’s are the new 30’s. That slogan or notion came about due to the advances made in our understanding of the relationship between how we live our lives and how it shows up on our faces and bodies. Most of us are at least AWARE that there are things we can do to slow down the aging process. Exercise is very important. Getting enough sleep is very important. Drinking a lot of water regularly is important. Giving up smoking and drinking is important. Probably of the most importance though is the food you eat all day, everyday.

SUPER FOOD GROUPS, SPICES:
1. Lean Protein sources – eggs, chicken, turkey, lean ground beef, salmon, tuna(canned or fresh), edamame
2. Leafy Greens – spinach, collard greens, broccoli, kale, romaine lettuce
3. Berries – blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, boysenberries
4. Fibrous Fruits – all Berries, Granny Smith apples, Green Apples, Green Pears, Kiwi
4. Whole Grains – oats, barley, wheat, quinoa, bulgar, couscous
5. Nuts – walnuts, almonds, brazil nuts, pistachios, hazelnuts
6. Beans -black beans, kidney beans, chickpeas, black eyed peas, cannellini beans
7. Fibrous Vegetables – leafy greens, mushrooms, carrots, onions, cauliflower
7. Starchy Carbohydrates – Brown rice, all Beans, Sweet potato, Potato, yams
8. Monounsaturated Fats – Olive Oil, avocado and it’s in most of the food above in small qualities
9. Spices – Tarragon, Basil, Cilantro, Oregano, Parsley, Ginger, Rosemary, Turmeric

In making these lists I pulled out parts of larger groups due to the importance of that particular food on our bodies fighting off the aging process. Like listing berries on their own when they also belong to the fibrous fruits category. A leafy green section when it belong to the fibrous vegetables. Beans when they also belong to the starchy carbohydrate group. These groups in particular have been shown to have a great impact on fighting off the signs of aging. Not all foods that qualify for the categories are listed.

Oftentimes the biggest complaint that a person has for the process of slowing down aging, dropping some pounds or just getting healthy is the LACK OF CHOICES in their food. In looking at the list above I hope that you are realizing that there really is quite a few choices from all the categories. Perhaps a better reason for your not wanting to eat to slow down your aging process or your health just boils down to wanting to go to the store or fast food restaurant and having a quick, unhealthy, processed meal ready for you NOW.

If you notice all the food listed are natural food, as GOD made them foods. Not from packages or restaurants. If you stick to all natural foods that have not been messed with you will surely get healthier and also slow down the signs of aging. Get yourself doing some weight training regularly with some stress reducing cardio exercise ( walking, running, boot camp, zumba, biking) and add a few of these foods into your everyday life and who knows maybe when you take the realage.com test you will be 10 years younger and look it too.

God Bless You,
Evey

HORMONES…This is a HUGE topic so for this entry we will deal with the hormones involved with females during the Perimenopause stage of life. The stage just before menopause(cessation of menses for a full year). This stage usually lasts from 2-15yrs and begins for some in the mid 30’s. I personally know many, many women who will benefit from this information, so read on. And yes your weight and your ability to gain/loss weight is directly affected by your hormones.

The three hormones involved in this change are Estrogen, Progesterone and Testosterone. Some facts about these hormones. “Hormone Levels Decline with Age” (excerpt from) “The Hormone Survival Guide for Perimenopause” By Nisha Jackson Ph.D.
Estrogen – A 30% drop occurs by age 50 with significant fluctuations during the 40 and often the early 50’s. In the first 5 yrs. of menopause, the levels drop sharply.
Progesterone – A 75% loss occurs from age 35 to 50 and continues to decline
Testosterone – A 50% loss occurs from age 25 to 50, and another 50% loss takes place by age 80.

So you might be asking yourself, “How do I know if I am in Perimenopause?” Great question. You can go to your Doctor and get your hormones tested and I recommend that you do. Each of us is unique and we live our own lifestyles that affects how are hormones respond and there current levels. If you noticed I wrote we all have our own lifestyles (ie. stresses, food choices, exercise or lack thereof) and THAT AFFECTS OUR HORMONES. Plus our own genetic make-up and so on.

A little over a year ago I was in a very, very stressful situation. My husband went into the hospital and they could not find out what was wrong with him for three full weeks. He just kept getting sicker and weaker everyday and none of the Dr’s knew why. Leading up to this I lost both my parents in a 1 year time span. My Mom had passed away 10 months before my husband went into the hospital, my Dad passed almost a year prior to my Mom and to say I was stressed is an understatement. I was still grieving and with my husband in the hospital I basically stopped taking care of myself and started eating convenience foods and didn’t exercise at all. Just trying to get through the days.

At one point after visiting my husband in the hospital I came home and got on the computer and looked up symptoms of Perimenopause because I was convinced that I was smack dab in the middle of it because it surely had to be something that was creating all these symptoms that I NEVER had before. And I was correct. Yes I was still grieving my parents and dealing with my husband’s situation and it showed… when I took that test I had 20 out of 30 symptoms and they came out of nowhere. From just dealing with a 1 or 2 symptoms to having 20 symptoms was an eye opener for me. Here is a partial list of symptoms you may be experiencing. This was my list.

1. weight gain around the middle
2. adult acne
3. Depression, anxiety and irritability
4. Chronic fatigue
5. Bloating
6. Hot flashes, night sweats or cold flashes and clammy feeling
7. rapid heart beat
8. Sudden tears
9. Feeling of dread, apprehension, doom
10. memory lapses
11. Itchy, crawly skin
12. Breast tenderness
13. Headaches
14. Difficulty concentrating
15. Trouble sleeping
16. Hair loss or thinning
17. Increase in facial hair
18. Gum problems
19. Dizzyness, loss of balance
20. Tittitus: ringing in ears

When you look over the list it is just incredible that all these feeling/reactions in your body can be caused by an imbalance in your hormones. Yes that is what perimenopause is…an imbalance between estrogen, progesterone and testosterone. Many, many things cause this imbalance with stress and how you eat right up there.

This blog would be way to long to go into all the detail of how these imbalances occur but it is always between these three and the functions of your liver, kidney and other organs. While reading up on this while I was experiencing these symptoms what became obvious to me was the correlation between how I took care of myself and the degree of my symptoms. After my husband started to rebound and get better (which wasn’t for certain to happen but Thank You God it did) I went back to cooking again and paying attention to what I was eating. Gave up the convenience foods and sugar and simple carbohydrates. Started slowly doing cardio and weight training and slowly all but 1-2 symptoms are still with me. And do you know what else, you can turn your symptoms around too. Get that sugar and white flour carbs out of your life and stuff will happen.

An excellent book on this topic besides the one mentioned above is “Dr. Bob’s Drugless Guide to Balancing Female Hormones.” By Dr. Robert DeMaria.

Would love to hear your feedback.

God Bless You,
Evey

Do you know what is in the food you regularly eat? Do you eat processed food? Do you think you eat a lot of sugar? Is sugar in your foods? If you don’t know the answer to these questions you need to find them out.

Often when we get a new client a very big part of our program is discussing their current eating habits. It is very important to get them off all the processed foods and basically very un-nutrient rich foods they have been eating that has led to their weight problem and get them on the road to eating quality food so they can start to get healthy and drop some body weight. This is a tough, tough process. Many people just don’t realize the junk they are eating. Most if not all that most people eat all day everyday is loaded with SUGAR. I think this really surprises people. I know it surprised me when I learned this.

Do you know the different names for sugar that is used in the ingredients list at the supermarkets? Here are a few: High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS)
Glucose
Sucrose
Maltose
Dextrose
Honey
Fruit concentrate
Natural cane sugar
Brown sugar
Brown rice sugar
Agave Nectar
Raw sugar
Powered sugar

Yes all these words mean one thing. You are eating sugar. Here are a few of the things you may be buying regularly at the supermarket that contain some of these words for sugar. In fact some items contain 3-5 of these words in one ingredients list. So you may be eating 3-5 different kinds of sugar in your one serving of the following…
1. Catsup
2. most Cereal, yes even the organic supposedly healthy varieties. Check the labels carefully
3. Jarred, canned spaghetti sauce
4. Soups
5. All Salad Dressings on shelves- I have looked and no there are not any without!
6. Peanut Butters…big brands…stick to natural peanut butter
7. Pancake Syrups
8. Most BREADS on the shelves – Pepperidge Farms Rye and Pumpernickel are the only ones without sugar!
9. Yogurts
10. Most if not all packaged, pre-made meals (most processed foods) even the so called low calorie, healthy ones.
11. Packaged oatmeals
12. Most Crackers
13. All Protein Bars
14. Alcohol – yes Ladies that includes all wines

So in reading this list I hope your thinking like I did many years ago, OH NO! BUT…I thought I was feeding my family healthy food! Yes many, many of you are eating just SUGAR all day long. So you may be asking at this time so what? Well I know most people think a little sugar here and there is no big deal and they are right. The problem arises when it is what you eat all the time.

Let’s say you eat cereal and milk for breakfast, lunch meat sandwich on whole wheat bread for lunch, snack of crackers and cheese in afternoon and then go home and have a spaghetti dinner with some bread and butter. Maybe this is not your regular day but close, guess what? You have successfully eaten sugar at everyone of your meals. And that is scary. I’m sure you thought you were eating healthy right? You didn’t eat a candy bar or any commonly known junk food?

While thinking about writing this blog I looked up sugar addiction and guess what I discovered. First it’s real and second it has some nasty side affects. I am sure many of you reading this already know this, I know I did from personal experience. So besides all the excess calories which in turn produces all that extra fat carried around there is some serious health hazards associated with excess sugar.

I am going to explain this very basically. When your eat a food that has sugar in it or is a simple carbohydrate (breads, crackers, pasta, cereals…flour products and processed whole wheat and all processed products…they all have sugar added too) which your body then converts to sugar it has to be metabolized (broken down to be used by your body). Although it has NO NUTRITIONAL VALUE, once it goes into the body your body has to do something with it right? In metabolizing this sugar your body draws from your vitamin and mineral reserves. So your not bringing in any vitamins and minerals because your eating food that doesn’t have any of that and you keep drawing from your stores well you can guess what happens here. You create deficiencies which, of course, create many health problems. And as we all know now, just carrying around lots of extra weight creates many, many health issues all on it owns. Heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, some cancers, high cholesterol and emotionally: depression, irritability, hyperactivity, mood swings and the list goes on….

So let’s get educated about this. Pay attention to the foods your buying. Read the labels and try to cut down on pre-made, pre-packaged, ready to eat foods and work toward getting ourselves and our families healthy. We always recommend to our clients to just stick with nature and you can’t go wrong. Did man mess with this food product? If the answer is yes put it back down and buy the product as GOD made it. It really is that simple. Did I say easy? NOOOO

A real quick way to find out if you have a sugar addiction is to cut it out of your diet and see how your body responds. If you have no adverse side affects then great you are not addicted but if you feel lethargic, craving sugar foods, depressed, flu like symptoms, HEADACHES ( common side affect), body aches, and well this list goes on and on…. these symptoms usually last from a few days to a few weeks so good luck.

Take the test, try just ONE day without any sugar products and see if you have a sugar problem. Love to hear back from you. An excellent reference on this topic can be found at http://www.globalhealingcenter.com/refined-sugar-the-sweetest-poison-of-all.html

God Bless You,
Evey