Wednesday, October 31, 2012
If you write it they will read: Day Three, But who's Counting?
If you write it they will read: Day Three, But who's Counting?: I have to admit, yesterday was hard. I was out with appointments and it seemed that food is everywhere in this country. Every corner, ever...
Day Three, But who's Counting?
I have to admit, yesterday was hard. I was out with appointments and it seemed that food is everywhere in this country. Every corner, every meeting, everywhere. I felt like one of those cartoons where you have the devil you on one shoulder and the angel you on the other both fighting to get me to do what they want me to do. One voice saying, just one bite won't hurt, no one has to know, it will just be our secret. Then the other voice saying, but people are following your blog, what will you tell them? It's only 10 days, you can do anything for 10 days. And so on and so on. But at the end of the day, I listen to the "angel" side and stay true to the juice fast. So this morning I am happy to say that I am down another 2 pounds. That makes it five pounds since I started the fast.
I hope that me doing this juice fast will motivate, inspire you or someone to maybe look at their own lives and maybe make a change to their current eating habits.
Feeling Strong!!!! Feeling Motivated!!!! Feeling Healthy!!!!
I hope that me doing this juice fast will motivate, inspire you or someone to maybe look at their own lives and maybe make a change to their current eating habits.
Feeling Strong!!!! Feeling Motivated!!!! Feeling Healthy!!!!
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
If you write it they will read: Day 2
If you write it they will read: Day 2: So finished the first day of the juice fast. It wasn't as hard as I had thought, although I did get hungry in the afternoon before dinner. ...
Day 2
So finished the first day of the juice fast. It wasn't as hard as I had thought, although I did get hungry in the afternoon before dinner. Woke up yesterday and exercised, then had my juice for breakfast.
I was going to be out at lunch time, so I made a juice in the morning, put it in a to go container and put it in the freezer until I was ready to leave. I sipped on that and drank water while I was out, I had two meetings, and was able to drink my juice during the meetings.
It was until about 3 or 4 yesterday afternoon that I was beginning to feel hungry, I was also tired yesterday afternoon and took about a half an hour nap. After my dinner juice, I was fine for the rest of the night.
This morning, I noticed that during my exercise time, I was a little tired and didn't feel like I worked out to the level that I am used to. But I believe that is just my body adjusting.
I like the juices and experiment with different tastes.
I am happy to say that I was three pounds lighter this morning, so that is exciting.
Feel good today, getting ready to go make my lunchtime juice. Also drinking lots of water to help with the hunger.
I am being supervised by a doctor and did a urine test this morning to see how my levels were. It will be interesting to see not only the changes in my body as I lose the weight, but to see the difference in my blood and urine tests.
Thanks for following me on my journey. More to come tomorrow.
I was going to be out at lunch time, so I made a juice in the morning, put it in a to go container and put it in the freezer until I was ready to leave. I sipped on that and drank water while I was out, I had two meetings, and was able to drink my juice during the meetings.
It was until about 3 or 4 yesterday afternoon that I was beginning to feel hungry, I was also tired yesterday afternoon and took about a half an hour nap. After my dinner juice, I was fine for the rest of the night.
This morning, I noticed that during my exercise time, I was a little tired and didn't feel like I worked out to the level that I am used to. But I believe that is just my body adjusting.
I like the juices and experiment with different tastes.
I am happy to say that I was three pounds lighter this morning, so that is exciting.
Feel good today, getting ready to go make my lunchtime juice. Also drinking lots of water to help with the hunger.
I am being supervised by a doctor and did a urine test this morning to see how my levels were. It will be interesting to see not only the changes in my body as I lose the weight, but to see the difference in my blood and urine tests.
Thanks for following me on my journey. More to come tomorrow.
Monday, October 29, 2012
10 days of Change
Today I started on a 10 day juice fast, yes that's right 10 days of nothing but juicing. Now why would someone want to go on a 10 day juice fast, you might ask. Well there are a couple of reasons that I chose to start this fast. The first was watching the movie "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead", if you have not watched that movie, I highly recommend the movie. In the movie Joe Cross goes on a 60 days juice fast, to not only lose weight but because he had a chronic illness and was on several medications that were making him sicker.
Now, fortunately, I am not taking any medications and although I am fairly healthy I know that I need to lose weight and if I was to continue on the path that I was on, it was very likely that I would need to be on medications at some point in the near future.
So what did I do, where did I start? I started by making slow changes to my diet and lifestyle. Now I used to be a big or should I say BIG diet soda drinker. I would stop every morning on the way to work to get the extra large soda at the nearest fast food restaurant I could find, and of course since I was using my Debit card anyways, I might as well get me one of the breakfast sandwiches and hash browns, I mean who wants to use there debit card for just a dollar soda? Now you would think that would be my only soda a day, but no, come lunch time I was ready for another diet soda to go with my lunch. So the first thing I did was to cut diet sodas out of my diet. That was a big first step for me.
The next thing I did after watching the movie "Forks over Knives" I cut meat out of my life. No red meat, no chicken, no fish. This was actually not too difficult for me, I learn to eat more beans and drank a protein shake every morning to give me the protein that I needed. Now at this point I only cut out meat, I was not by any shape of the imagination a "vegetarian" which I presume to mean that I filled up on vegetables. No, I just cut the meat, my diet was more breads, chips, beans, some fruit in my protein shake, cheese and dairy products. Not healthy but part of my journey.
Now after more movies stressing the importance of vegetables, I started grilling the vegetables and found that I really liked vegetables in this form and I got rid of the dairy products. No more milk, cheese, sour cream etc. Now I'm was eating more veggies, and learning to actually like them.
Then I bought a juicer, which sat on the kitchen counter for weeks because I was too afraid to use it. I couldn't wrap my head around the idea of juicing and how you could possibly get juice out of spinach for example. I was also afraid of messing up and making something that I hated and then wasting all of those vegetables. But eventually I got up the nerve to go for it, and to my surprise the juice tasted good. So now I can actually call myself not only a vegetarian but I vegan.
So here we are today and start of my 10 day juice fast, so why? Because although I have lost weight, I have found myself at a plateau so I am going on this 10 day juice fast to get over the plateau and to take my body through new changes.
So I hope you will follow my journey as I share the adventures on this 10 day juice fast.
Now, fortunately, I am not taking any medications and although I am fairly healthy I know that I need to lose weight and if I was to continue on the path that I was on, it was very likely that I would need to be on medications at some point in the near future.
So what did I do, where did I start? I started by making slow changes to my diet and lifestyle. Now I used to be a big or should I say BIG diet soda drinker. I would stop every morning on the way to work to get the extra large soda at the nearest fast food restaurant I could find, and of course since I was using my Debit card anyways, I might as well get me one of the breakfast sandwiches and hash browns, I mean who wants to use there debit card for just a dollar soda? Now you would think that would be my only soda a day, but no, come lunch time I was ready for another diet soda to go with my lunch. So the first thing I did was to cut diet sodas out of my diet. That was a big first step for me.
The next thing I did after watching the movie "Forks over Knives" I cut meat out of my life. No red meat, no chicken, no fish. This was actually not too difficult for me, I learn to eat more beans and drank a protein shake every morning to give me the protein that I needed. Now at this point I only cut out meat, I was not by any shape of the imagination a "vegetarian" which I presume to mean that I filled up on vegetables. No, I just cut the meat, my diet was more breads, chips, beans, some fruit in my protein shake, cheese and dairy products. Not healthy but part of my journey.
Now after more movies stressing the importance of vegetables, I started grilling the vegetables and found that I really liked vegetables in this form and I got rid of the dairy products. No more milk, cheese, sour cream etc. Now I'm was eating more veggies, and learning to actually like them.
Then I bought a juicer, which sat on the kitchen counter for weeks because I was too afraid to use it. I couldn't wrap my head around the idea of juicing and how you could possibly get juice out of spinach for example. I was also afraid of messing up and making something that I hated and then wasting all of those vegetables. But eventually I got up the nerve to go for it, and to my surprise the juice tasted good. So now I can actually call myself not only a vegetarian but I vegan.
So here we are today and start of my 10 day juice fast, so why? Because although I have lost weight, I have found myself at a plateau so I am going on this 10 day juice fast to get over the plateau and to take my body through new changes.
So I hope you will follow my journey as I share the adventures on this 10 day juice fast.
Friday, September 28, 2012
Time to Empower
So yesterday we talked about how Hormones get out of balance. And maybe it sounded a little hopeless. So today is all about empowering with the knowledge of what you can do.
First thing that you can do, is to get knowledge. Next time you go into the doctor's office don't just follow blindly when they prescribe medications, or recommend a treatment program ask questions and then do your own research. Particularly when it comes to things like birth control, hormone replacement etc. What are the side effects? Is it bio-identical? RESEARCH, RESEARCH, RESEARCH. It is your body, so you decide what goes into it.
Birth Control pills, progestin, are not bio-identical. They can cause cancer. Find other alternatives.
Next read labels!!! Read the labels on your food, your skin care, anything that goes into your body or on your body you need to read the labels. What should you look for when reading labels? Hormone Free, antibiotics free, no mineral oil, no parabens, no animal by-products. These are just a few things to look for.
Cut the stress, I know easier said than done, but take time for yourself, exercise, relax, detox, read a book, take a walk, anything to de-stress.
Get away from harmful, toxic cleaning products.
If you change the way you eat, research your medications, de-stress and pay attention to the toxins in your cleaning products you will go a long way to help balance your hormones.
Finally, you can take bio-identical Progesterone. What should you look for in Progesterone Cream, well of course it should be bio-identical, it should be standardized, in a airtight container and not be based on mineral oil. Why would you want to avoid mineral oil?
Check back tomorrow and I will tell you all about mineral oil and other harmful ingredients found in most of your personal care products.
Check out my Facebook page for products that I recommend.
Sign up for my mailing list.
First thing that you can do, is to get knowledge. Next time you go into the doctor's office don't just follow blindly when they prescribe medications, or recommend a treatment program ask questions and then do your own research. Particularly when it comes to things like birth control, hormone replacement etc. What are the side effects? Is it bio-identical? RESEARCH, RESEARCH, RESEARCH. It is your body, so you decide what goes into it.
Birth Control pills, progestin, are not bio-identical. They can cause cancer. Find other alternatives.
Next read labels!!! Read the labels on your food, your skin care, anything that goes into your body or on your body you need to read the labels. What should you look for when reading labels? Hormone Free, antibiotics free, no mineral oil, no parabens, no animal by-products. These are just a few things to look for.
Cut the stress, I know easier said than done, but take time for yourself, exercise, relax, detox, read a book, take a walk, anything to de-stress.
Get away from harmful, toxic cleaning products.
If you change the way you eat, research your medications, de-stress and pay attention to the toxins in your cleaning products you will go a long way to help balance your hormones.
Finally, you can take bio-identical Progesterone. What should you look for in Progesterone Cream, well of course it should be bio-identical, it should be standardized, in a airtight container and not be based on mineral oil. Why would you want to avoid mineral oil?
Check back tomorrow and I will tell you all about mineral oil and other harmful ingredients found in most of your personal care products.
Check out my Facebook page for products that I recommend.
Sign up for my mailing list.
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Enough is Enough
I met this morning with a friend of mine, who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. We talked a long time about what the doctor said and about what she wanted to do.
As I write this, I feel frustrated that I have so many of my friends with breast cancer. Sometimes it just makes me want to scream, "Enough is Enough" Not another one of friends, no cancer back off, go away, leave my friends alone.
I know that yelling at the cancer will not make it go away, but I wonder is there something we can do? Can we make the cancer go away without subjecting ourselves to chemo, radiation or surgery. Are there other ways to fight back? And what about the cancer in the first place, can we lower our odds of getting cancer altogether?
Well there may be ways to fight back, ways to put you in control, to not have to play the victim to breast cancer.
As women we have two dominate hormones, we have more than two, but women have two dominate ones they are Estrogen and Progesterone. To understand the part that these two hormones play in breast cancer we must first understand how they work. If you think of your car, you have two main pedals, the brake and the accelerator. The brake of course makes your car stop and your accelerator makes your car go. Both are important and both have their function in operating the car. Well in your body Estrogen would be like your accelerator, but instead of making your car go, Estrogen is a growth hormone that makes things grown. Think breasts, hips, the lining in your uterus, Estrogen is what makes us soft and curvy, a good thing. And Progesterone is a like your brake, it helps make you calm, happy, slows down the growth that Estrogen started. Both are needed in our bodies.
So what's the problem? The problem comes when we have too much Estrogen and not enough Progesterone. Think back to your car, if you only had an accelerator and not a break that would be very bad, as you're driving down the freeway and come up on stopped traffic. Like your car, if you have too much Estrogen and not enough Progesterone, then instead of getting in an accident, you get all kinds of bad side effects: PMS, Hot-flashes, heavy periods, migraines, etc. and of course you can get breast cancer, because what is cancer but uncontrolled growth.
So why do we have too much Estrogen? There are several factors that contribute to an over abundance of Estrogen or what is known as being Estrogen Dominant. This first being prescription drugs, if you are like most women, probably at sometime in your life you went to the gynecologist and he put you on birth control. Maybe it was to prevent pregnancy, maybe to regulate your periods, maybe for some other reason, but what he didn't tell you was that he was that he was giving you a Hormonal contraceptives (the pill, the patch, and the vaginal ring) all contain a small amount of man-made estrogen and progestin hormones. So two things, not only was he giving you estrogen, he was also giving you a man-made form of progestin. You notice that I did not say Progesterone. Progestin is not Progerterone and it does act the same way in our bodies, in fact it is very dangerous and has been known to cause, what? Breast Cancer. So we are getting more Estrogen, that our bodies do not need and we are getting something that is dangerous to our bodies.
Another reason that we become Estrogen Dominant is from what we eat. Ok think back to what I said about what Estrogen does, it grows things. So if you wanted grow cows, chickens etc. faster to get them to market faster to make more money what would you give the cows to make them grow faster? That's right, you would give them Estrogen. So in turn when we eat these animals we are ingesting the hormones.
The third thing that contributes to Estrogen dominance is what is called Xenoestrongens or false Estrogen. This can be found in so many products that you use everyday. Your shampoo, laundry detergent, dryer sheets, the list can go on and on. False Estrogen gets into your body and your body does not know what to do with it. It can start growth that the body will not be able to turn off.
The final thing I want to talk about today is the role of stress and hormone imbalance. When you are stressed you actually deplete that amount of Progesterone in your body. So you are Estrogen dominant by virtue of the fact that you have less Progesterone. Which of course is you calming, happy hormone, which makes you more stressed. Wow what a vicious cycle that can be.
So we know the problem, now what can we do? Come back tomorrow.
As I write this, I feel frustrated that I have so many of my friends with breast cancer. Sometimes it just makes me want to scream, "Enough is Enough" Not another one of friends, no cancer back off, go away, leave my friends alone.
I know that yelling at the cancer will not make it go away, but I wonder is there something we can do? Can we make the cancer go away without subjecting ourselves to chemo, radiation or surgery. Are there other ways to fight back? And what about the cancer in the first place, can we lower our odds of getting cancer altogether?
Well there may be ways to fight back, ways to put you in control, to not have to play the victim to breast cancer.
As women we have two dominate hormones, we have more than two, but women have two dominate ones they are Estrogen and Progesterone. To understand the part that these two hormones play in breast cancer we must first understand how they work. If you think of your car, you have two main pedals, the brake and the accelerator. The brake of course makes your car stop and your accelerator makes your car go. Both are important and both have their function in operating the car. Well in your body Estrogen would be like your accelerator, but instead of making your car go, Estrogen is a growth hormone that makes things grown. Think breasts, hips, the lining in your uterus, Estrogen is what makes us soft and curvy, a good thing. And Progesterone is a like your brake, it helps make you calm, happy, slows down the growth that Estrogen started. Both are needed in our bodies.
So what's the problem? The problem comes when we have too much Estrogen and not enough Progesterone. Think back to your car, if you only had an accelerator and not a break that would be very bad, as you're driving down the freeway and come up on stopped traffic. Like your car, if you have too much Estrogen and not enough Progesterone, then instead of getting in an accident, you get all kinds of bad side effects: PMS, Hot-flashes, heavy periods, migraines, etc. and of course you can get breast cancer, because what is cancer but uncontrolled growth.
So why do we have too much Estrogen? There are several factors that contribute to an over abundance of Estrogen or what is known as being Estrogen Dominant. This first being prescription drugs, if you are like most women, probably at sometime in your life you went to the gynecologist and he put you on birth control. Maybe it was to prevent pregnancy, maybe to regulate your periods, maybe for some other reason, but what he didn't tell you was that he was that he was giving you a Hormonal contraceptives (the pill, the patch, and the vaginal ring) all contain a small amount of man-made estrogen and progestin hormones. So two things, not only was he giving you estrogen, he was also giving you a man-made form of progestin. You notice that I did not say Progesterone. Progestin is not Progerterone and it does act the same way in our bodies, in fact it is very dangerous and has been known to cause, what? Breast Cancer. So we are getting more Estrogen, that our bodies do not need and we are getting something that is dangerous to our bodies.
Another reason that we become Estrogen Dominant is from what we eat. Ok think back to what I said about what Estrogen does, it grows things. So if you wanted grow cows, chickens etc. faster to get them to market faster to make more money what would you give the cows to make them grow faster? That's right, you would give them Estrogen. So in turn when we eat these animals we are ingesting the hormones.
The third thing that contributes to Estrogen dominance is what is called Xenoestrongens or false Estrogen. This can be found in so many products that you use everyday. Your shampoo, laundry detergent, dryer sheets, the list can go on and on. False Estrogen gets into your body and your body does not know what to do with it. It can start growth that the body will not be able to turn off.
The final thing I want to talk about today is the role of stress and hormone imbalance. When you are stressed you actually deplete that amount of Progesterone in your body. So you are Estrogen dominant by virtue of the fact that you have less Progesterone. Which of course is you calming, happy hormone, which makes you more stressed. Wow what a vicious cycle that can be.
So we know the problem, now what can we do? Come back tomorrow.
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