DETOX 101

DETOX 101

Think you don’t have to “detox” because you have detox organs? This is a common misunderstanding of how the body works.

Our body’s are innately created to detox through the large filter systems: kidneys, gut, lymphatic system, skin and liver, but unfortunately, our world has become overly toxic and so have our bodies. We can no longer rely on our “system” to adequately detoxify for us.

It has become impossible to avoid. Pollution and chemicals (77,000 to be exact) are everywhere and our body’s just need help - they were not designed for this type of assault! Our immune system and liver are working 24 hours a day trying to clean our blood and after a while just cannot keep up. As a result, we get run down and as a consequence we can’t keep up so the toxins get stored in our fat cells, which causes them to expand. Inflammation follows as estrogen and cortisol levels rise in both men and women and blood sugar becomes increased due to stress and your cell receptors being blocked. Eating less and exercising more is not the answer. Our body needs support from detoxifying supplements and specific foods to remove the chemicals and purify your body. Increasing your consumption of plants (not plant based food chemically made to taste like meat), eat meat that has been raised in a pasture and fed organically, drink at least a gallon of purified water a day, move your body daily, sweat, dry brush, limit processed foods, limit sugary drinks and alcohol, add supplements that support your body’s detox pathways will help to keep outside toxins low.

Signs you need to detox?

• Bloated

• Trouble sleeping

• Weight gain

• Low libido

• Acne or skin rashes

• Aching joints

• Frequent colds or allergies

• Irritability

• Auto-Immune disease

• Type 2 diabetes

Our body is designed for one thing - to survive. Detoxification and cellular cleansing is the answer to what we need to maintain wellness, healthy aging, maintaining a healthy weight and hormone health.

INNER PHARMACY

INNER PHARMACY

The concept of the body as a self healing organism is not new. 6000 years ago, ancient doctors noted that given enough time and support, the body will often correct itself. Our minds and bodies are naturally bent toward healing - it’s not just a trick of the mind. It taps into our inner pharmacy: chemicals with a drug like effect that are naturally produced in our body. Our bodies have one job and that is to survive. It is always trying to get better and soon will figure out what it can shut down without initially harming itself.

Along with the miraculous cures of the 20th century, has come an expectation that there must be a pill for every ill. This expectation has produced incredible cures, but it has also warped our understanding of what it means to be healthy:

20% of Americans take at least 5 prescription drugs

Medical errors rank as the 3rd most likely cause of death

Prescription drug errors alone kill more than 100,000 Americans a year.

A synthetic drug forces your body to do something. If it is mimicking a natural chemical you are deficient, your body will assume it can stop trying. Sadly the synthetic form is going to cause side effects that many times require another synthetic pharmaceutical to manage which starts to cause a vicious cycle. It is rare that you will find someone taking just one peripheral drug. Finding the root cause of why there is a deficiency or even excess is key to tapping into your inner pharmacy. I don’t think anyone ever said they want nasty side effects from a synthetic substitute! We have to find the reason the body isn’t recovering, remove it or supplement it naturally and let nature do the rest.

UNEXPLAINED HAIR LOSS

UNEXPLAINED HAIR LOSS

Hair loss due to illness is a thing and it surprisingly doesn’t happen until after you recover. It’s becoming a common response with Covid. This literally will happen anytime your body has a high temperature, but people are noticing it more frequent with Covid and typically weeks to 3 months after recovery.

Illness with a high fever moves your hair out of the growth phase. Your body shifts resources to other places. Hair growth is not vital to survival so your body can put a hold on that until you are healed. The reason why you notice the significant hair loss is there is no new hair taking it’s place. It is not a permanent condition and depending on your individual phase it could take up to 9 months to shift back.

What can you do?

• Reduce stressors (external and internal)

• Improve sleep

• Don’t over exercise

• Good nutrition (no processed food)

• Quality probiotic

• Omega 3

• Collagen

• Hyaluronic acid

• Vitamins C,D, copper and zinc

• Natural hair products

Go easy on hair styling products and don’t worry. 80-90% of your hair is always growing. It will come back!

If you are experiencing hair loss out side of illness a lot of the above suggestions go for that as well but I would take a deeper dive in your hormones and gut health in those instances.

WHY ARE WE SO TOXIC?

WHY ARE WE SO TOXIC?

The air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, even the clothes we wear are exposing us to more toxic chemicals than our body knows what do with. According to the National Toxicology Program of the NIH, there are over 77,000 man made chemicals in the environment around us. These chemicals have been proven to cause cancer, disease and weight gain. They are a tremendous source of inflammation which leads to auto-immune (responses), diabetes, obesity, skin problems, blood pressure issues, cardio vascular disease, fatigue, digestive distress, brain fog, migraines, infertility and reproductive issues just to name a few.

The body works very hard to protect itself against the effects of toxicity, but if there is too much it simply cannot keep up. Visualize a cup that you just keeping adding to until it overflows. The idea is to keep the contents low so it doesn’t overflow. Once it does overflow, symptoms begin and we start to have problems. Keeping our toxic load to a minimum with what we can control is the key. Baby steps, you will overwhelm yourself if you try to tackle everything at once. I’ll make some suggestions in future blogs, but for now some basic suggestions would be: refer to the Environmental Working Groups list of clean 15 and dirty dozen for what fruits and vegetables to buy organic vs conventional, avoid all GMO foods and avoid processed foods as much as possible.

OUR IMMUNE SYSTEM

OUR IMMUNE SYSTEM

Corona virus is here, the flu is here and honestly we are living in a cesspool of germs. There is a lot of concern about the current virus, but I would like to remind you that God created our bodies to survive and heal itself. Our internal health is the most important thing we have in terms of immunity and overcoming illness, the health of our gut is very important to our overall immunity. Our bodies are very capable of fighting off virus' and germs when we treat it right with food, vitamins and supplementation where needed.

Paying attention to what you are eating is extremely important and you need to listen to your body if it is telling you something is not in balance. The functionality of your immune system really determines how susceptible you are going to be to illness.

Here are some ways we can naturally strengthen immunity. Immune boosting foods:
- Ginger
- Turmeric
- Garlic
- Apples

Avoid sugar and sugar substitutes unless plant based such as stevia, and avoid processed food. These two things will impair your bodies natural ability to fight. Include lots of organic fruits and veggies in every meal (if you cannot afford organic, refer to the EWG.org clean 15 dirty dozen list when buying produce.

Immune supporting supplements:
- Vitamin D3
- Zinc
- Oregano Oil
- Elderberry Syrup
- Echinacea
- B-Complex

Immune boosting activities:
- Intermittent Fasting: give yourself at least 12 hours between your dinner and breakfast.
- Sleep (7-9 hours per night) - Wash hands with hot water and soap - Manage stress – I cannot emphasize this enough! being stressed out or afraid puts you into the sympathetic nervous system (flight or fight) which over time weakens your immunity (among other things) - avoid sugar and processed food.
- Keep up your exercise routine. If you usually go to the gym and are not comfortable with going, move out doors. Go for walks, hikes, do body weight exercises such as holding a plank, push ups, squats, yoga poses etc. Your body will protect you if you give it what it needs. Don’t be scared, just support your system. Let it be a reminder that we need to take care of our body’s ability to stay healthy and IF you do get something, you will be strong to fight through it.

4 Reasons Why You Should Make Personal Development as Important as Professional Development

Your list of career goals might look something like this:

1. Negotiate a raise before the end of 2022.

2. Secure a promotion to a leadership role within the next five years.

3. Start your own business within the next decade.

4. Become an expert in your chosen field.

5. Land a job at a new company.

No doubt you will have given a bit of thought to the stepping stones that will get you to where you want to be. However, many employees overlook the importance of addressing personal development to ensure long-term professional success.

Here’s the distinction.

Personal Development

Personal development is the continuous process of self-improvement that allows you to be the best version of yourself. The skills and capabilities you acquire through a focus on personal development will largely consist of soft, or “essential,” skills.

By honing your quality of thoughts and giving time to improving your health and wellbeing, you’ll enhance your sense of identity and grow more confident and effective as a person — both in the workplace and in your personal life.\

Professional Development

Professional development is the process of developing your knowledge and skillset in areas that will directly improve your career potential. This might include taking on additional responsibilities, studying for a new qualification, completing training courses, or widening your knowledge in areas that relate to your role.

The skills you develop from doing so will make you more efficient and effective at your job. They will build your reputation in the workplace.

Why Is Personal Development as Important as Professional Development?

There’s no question that personal development will help you to thrive professionally, even though it might be harder to measure quantitively. By focusing on the core aspects of yourself, you’ll likely find your career advances quickly and seamlessly.

Here are four reasons why:

1. It Encourages You to Break out of Your Comfort Zone

One area of personal development involves interrogating your areas of weakness, which will serve to push you out of your comfort zone. In the workplace, this will likely translate to aspects of your role that you dislike or are the least adept at performing. By confronting these head-on, your experience and confidence will grow.

2. It Boosts Your Self-esteem

Personal development might involve learning a new skill, taking up a hobby, or reading more widely. Ticking off self-assigned goals is a natural confidence-booster. When you feel good about yourself and your capabilities, your performance in the workplace will be stronger.

3. It Helps You Figure out Your Priorities

Taking the time to focus on your personal development will compel you to become more self-aware by examining your core values, motivations, and life ambitions. You’ll learn new things about yourself and perhaps realign your priorities, which will impact how you perform at work. This time of introspection might even trigger a major career change.

4. It Improves Your Work-life Balance

With any luck, focusing on personal development will encourage you to pursue a healthy work-life balance — if you didn’t already have one. You may decide that you need to find more time for yourself and your loved ones and take better care of your mental health.

How to Focus on Personal Development

There’s no right or wrong way to commit to personal development. Ultimately, you need to approach this process in a way that works for you, whether that means focusing on improving your wellbeing or working on addressing your weak spots. Here are some options to consider.

• Commit to improving your public speaking skills.

• Take up a new hobby.

• Learn a language.

• Focus on actively listening to those around you.

• Read widely. Read diverse authors, non-fiction, and fiction. Learn about history and culture and politics, and the experiences of people who are different from yourself. This will, in turn, help you to develop your emotional quotient (EQ).

• Work to improve your time management and assess your work-life balance.

• Try to develop a growth mindset.

• Go out of your way to meet new people.

• Focus on self-care.

• Learn to embrace change.

How to Choose the Right Health Coach for You

How to Choose the Right Health Coach for You 

Many years ago when I was looking for a practitioner to help me with my own health and imbalances I was at a loss for where to start.

There were so many different practitioners and coaches and I just couldn’t figure out who would be able to help me with my specific health issues. Because of that, I ended up seeing many practitioners before realizing what I should’ve been looking for in the first place.

So to save you the expense of spending thousands of dollars and the frustration of not knowing who to connect with first, I wanted to share my viewpoints on finding the right health coach for you.

The 5 Factors for Choosing the Right Coach

1. Knowledge

The reason I put knowledge first is because even if a health coach is well-meaning and wants to help you it doesn’t necessarily mean that they have the specific knowledge in order to know what to do to get to the root cause of your health issues. They may be more concerned with working on your symptoms and although that may be helpful in the short-term, it will not get you the long-term results you were looking for. This is why working with a health coach that has access to at-home health testing can make all the difference.

2. Experience

My second criteria is that even if someone has the book knowledge of knowing what to do, they may not have the experience of working with hundreds or thousands of clients before you, to know how to customize a program just for you. The reason why this is important is that even with the best health protocols, you will most likely need a little bit of adjustment to your plan to make it work for you. In the end, this will shorten the time it takes to get well or achieve your goals.

3. Accountability

Looking for a health coach to hold you accountable may seem strange at first, but when you realize that the reason why the majority people don’t get results is because they don’t stick with their plan long enough in order for their body to begin to actually take hold and change. This is why it’s important that you don’t simply do one consultation with a practitioner where they never check in with you again to see how you are doing. In my experience, it is the follow up appointments that enable you to make the small, but crucial adjustments to your plan to maximize the effectiveness.

4. Compassion

I met with so many practitioners in the past that were knowledgeable and they did have experience, but they were very cold and distant while working with me. Although you can still get results with this type of practitioner, I feel it’s important to work with someone that can empathize with what you are going through and be kind in their approach to helping you heal since it’s typically a multi-month process for many people going through more difficult health imbalances. This more compassionate approach will also help you feel like you’re not all alone in the process of healing.

5. Perseverance

Perseverance is simply not giving up. To me, this is the most critical factor when all of the four factors above have been taken into consideration. The reason I say this is because for the small group of people with difficult health issues, they need to understand that there is always an answer and they can get well too. However, they are going to have to dig deep and not give up during the process. They also need a health coach that is going to stick by them and realize that the both of them are in this healing process together. This type of a health coach is more rare to find, but it is typically someone that has gone through their own health issues and is committed to ensuring you achieve your goals.

There may be a few other factors that you look for beyond the five that I just mentioned such as personality, similar background, or specialty, but in my opinion any health coach that embodies the five factors above is going to be someone that will enable you to achieve your wellness, weight, or anti-aging goals.

After reading my About and Coaching page if you feel that you personally connect with my story and my style of health coaching and experience please feel free to click on the free consultation button to set up a no obligation, complimentary discovery call with me to see how we can help you get well from within together.

How To Finally Get Well

How To Finally Get Well

By the time many of my clients come to me they’ve reached the old adage that goes, “I’m just sick and tired of being sick and tired…”

I’ve heard this hundreds of times over my coaching career and I’ve experienced it myself as well. The problem is that you have most likely never been shown how to finally figure out how to get well, lose the weight, or grow younger. The reason I say this is that before I discovered this myself more than 10 years ago I just thought I was going to have to live with my genetics, current ailments, and the fact that I may never have the energy, ambition, or life I truly desire.

What You’re Missing

What changed my life and what I think may be missing for you as well is the fact that everything we suffer from comes down to one or more underlying root causes that are creating imbalances in your body. You see, underlying imbalances caused by certain vitamin, mineral, or other deficiencies do not enable your body to have the raw material it needs as you age in order to slow the inflammation and repair as quickly as you once did when you were younger.

When you combine these deficiencies along with all of the environmental toxins we are exposed to and hormonal and balances that can come as a result you are dealing with a two-front battle that is causing you to feel the outward symptoms of poor health, fatigue, weight gain, or rapid aging.

Although none of this sounds like good news, there is hope. The reason why I say this is that for myself and the thousands of others I’ve worked with, once we discover your unique underlying root cause imbalances (which are your specific deficiencies and toxicities) we can go about rebalancing those. Because remember when you bring up your deficiencies your body now has the raw material it needs in order to be able to provide energy for your system. And when you remove a lot of the toxicities, the blockages that were once holding you back have now been gotten out of the way.

How to Figure It Out

So now that you know how to go about getting well once and for all, the next step is figuring out what your specific deficiencies and toxicities are that lead to a dis-ease of the body in the first place. What I did, and what I now share with my clients is using simple to complete, at home health tests that show you what your current levels are of all of these biomarkers in your body:

●      Digestive imbalances

●      Hormone levels

●      Stress levels

●      Neurotransmitter mood levels

●      Vitamin levels

●      Mineral levels

●      Omega-3 inflammatory levels

●      Heavy-metal toxicities

●      Food sensitivities

●      And so much more

This Makes All the Difference

To be honest any program you begin that doesn’t look at you as an individual is going to be hit or miss in terms of being able to promise results. The difference with what myself and other Integrative Health Practitioners do is that we take the guesswork out of the equation and instead figure out what it is that’s holding your body back from becoming well again.

Once you have knowledge of your individual deficiencies and toxicities a personalized plan can then be developed in order to go about rebalancing your body and mind. When an Integrative Health Practitioner works with the client they don’t just provide you with your testing results, but they empower you with a knowledge of what your numbers actually mean. After that, you can then easily see for yourself what needs to be done in order to bring life and vitality back to your body.

It Will Work for You Too

All of this is truly an amazing process and with the help of the right IHP Certified Health Coach to guide you along the way you will learn more about yourself in the next 12 weeks than you may possibly ever have. This exact process has worked for me and my clients and that is why I can’t wait to share those same results with you.

For more information this exact process simply click on the free consultation link to set up your 20-minute Discovery Call today.

The Fastest Way to Lose Weight Safely

THE FASTEST WAY TO LOSE WEIGHT SAFELY

Are you looking to lose weight, but tired of trying yet another fad diet without the promise of the results you’re after?

I found myself in this same position years ago and I was simply frustrated with the short-term results a diet would provide only to be followed by regaining the weight again… I knew there had to be a better way, yet everything I tried never seemed to stick for very long.

The problem was that I was looking in all the wrong places. I thought by removing carbohydrates, going high protein, or high fat, or some other macronutrient adjustment to my diet would somehow enable me to lose the weight and keep it off. And some actually did help me lose the weight, but the diets were simply unsustainable - Until I switched my approach.

The Answer Lies in Your Metabolism

I ended up studying how the human body and metabolism actually worked. I began to realize that weight loss does come down to calories vs calories out, however the issue is that if you have a slow metabolism you can’t eat very many calories or carbohydrates! So, if you don’t want to literally and figuratively starve your body, it’s time to discover how to boost your metabolism.

When you realize that it’s not just a calories issue then, but a metabolic issue you can begin to look at the weight loss equation differently. You now understand why the secret to losing the weight and keeping it off actually comes down to figuring out how to boost your metabolism so you can eat more calories and still lose the weight. And the way that you do this is through optimizing these hormonal levels in the body:

●      Thyroid

●      Adrenals (cortisol)

●      Estrogen

●      Progesterone

●      Vitamin D (hormone synergist)

●      Blood sugar

●      Insulin

Once those levels have been optimized, weight loss is actually automatic. I know that may sound strange, but it’s the reason why when you were younger you may have been able to keep the weight off without trying and why as you’ve gotten older (or had children) it may be more difficult to stay lean. It’s also why some people can eat all the carbs they want and still never gain a pound!

This is Truly the Only Way

Plus, the more you diet, reduce your calories, and lower your carbs, the more you actually hurt your metabolism. This is what the diet “experts” never share with you when they talk about “calories in vs. calories out.” All they want to do is get you to buy their next diet plan. But again, with every deprivation diet (lasting longer than 28 days) I can assure you that it will begin to lower your thyroid, increase stress hormones (cortisol), and affect your estrogen/progesterone balance.

This is why I can’t recommend enough, getting off of the fad diet programs and moving towards a healthier way of losing weight. Remember, your body knows the weight it should be at when healthy - You just need to rebalance the fat burning hormones that will enable you to boost your metabolism. Once you do this, the weight will begin to come off without the struggle.

If you’d like help in discovering your personal hormone levels that I shared above, just click the link below to set up a complimentary consultation where I will walk you through the discovery process of losing weight the healthy way once and for all. I look forward to speaking with you soon!