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Self-care...that buzz word. Ugh!Yes, I sometimes forget to relax like all other women, because the list of stuff we take care of never stops.And I love a good bubble bath as much as the next girl, trust me.But what if this concept of self care is not about taking care of you, but taking 100% responsibility for your life?I know, its terrifying.Rest assured, if you are reading this and thinking about this, you are in the top 1% of the 1%. Because so few people in the world think this way... or even consider the possibility that they could take FULL responsibility for everything in their own life.If this sounds intriguing, then you are my people!Because a nice bath makes you feel good for an hour or two, right until you start thinking about... the rest of your life that you don't want to do anymore.Is it possible to live a life where you only do what you want to do? Yes, I believe it is.It starts with focusing on what you want, minimizing what you don't until its gone and stepping up.What does that mean? Minimizing what you don't want? Huh?It means making a plan to deal with removing what you don't want from your life, executing it and keeping it as far away from your feelings and thoughts as possible.That also means... no drama.
None.Drama makes us feel very relevant. It makes us feel smarter, needed and our ego loves it.After all, if you solve other peoples problems, or judge them for having them, you are by default, superior.Our ego loves to "work" on "helping" because it also gives us do-gooder points. SEE I care!!!!But drama sucks your time and energy away from your life, drama commands your emotions, because eventually someone will make you upset and then you will have to cope with that negative emotion.What happens then? You over eat? Drink? Shop? Gossip? Hurt people back.If you're up for it, I'm challenging you to a no-drama challenge this Thanksgiving week.Save the drama. Enjoy the holiday! When you are tempted to get involved just take some deep breaths and say Wow! or No, Thanks! Then walk away.They don't call it a challenge for nothing!JenniferPS Our most amazing offers happen between black Friday and Cyber Monday!! -
For some reason I'm resisting writing this to you. I have some blocks about these sorts of topics- self-care, self-love and slowing down... my guess is you might, too.I feel like so much has been written about the negative aspects of stress already and yet we all experience stress and don't really know how to change it.Escaping from chronic stress is a driver for many unconscious and addictive behaviors. When we struggle to control our intentions, our emotions can drive us to seek more of what we don't want.What does that mean? Unconscious addictive behavior will never fill the void that is meant to be filled with living your creative purpose.So I will be writing more on that topic. But, right now I want to focus on what keeps your weight loss stalled.Recently, there have been many articles circulating about how the emotional to do list of the household falls on the women in the world mainly. The thinking, listing and obtaining the hundreds of household things even before they are known to be needed by the rest of the house. The thinking, listing and obtaining of food, the preparing, the serving, the cleaning up. The constant cleaning, organizing, washing and jeez... I'm exhausted.Even if significant help is offered during some part of these tasks, the emotional burden generally still falls on the woman. Even if she is working inside or outside the home, or both... the stress of it running smoothly still falls on her. You. Me.This significant stress, which is sometimes minimized by society and men, is always running in the back of our minds.Why don't men feel the weight of this burden? First of all, men have different priorities. They generally prioritize providing money to make these tasks possible. Men have their own kind of stress, its usually just different.Men are also much more resilient to stress. They are less sensitive by design, it makes sense if they are the hunters/providers, they need to deal with much more intense situations for a shorter amount of time.Women's hormones make us much more sensitive (of course some of this is genetic and some is environmental) to sensory factors, emotional factors and disturbances in the force. It also goes the other way, our hormones are deeply affected by our psychological state.We were not meant to live in chronic stress that is never solved... and that is where our physical body gets thrown out of balance.If you are in a chronically hostile relationship, or even one that is unstable and doesn't provide the emotional security you seek, your hormones will suffer greatly. This could be romantic or any other significant relationship.If you are having to work at a job that's not fulfilling and also struggling to make ends meet financially and under debt that you don't see yourself getting out of, this is incredibly stressful.This stress is registered on the pituitary-thyroid axis and is seen as a threat in that feedback loop. Threats mean lock down to your fat stores. Threats mean something bad, like starvation or illness may be close at hand.Chronic dieting, chronic illness and other stressors can also lead to a disruption in the thyroid. Household toxins, clothing additives, pesticides and other compounds can also inhibit this loop.Do you see why so many women are struggling with their thyroid? And eventually adrenal fatigue. Pushing through it is a bad idea.Sugar, refined flour combined with low fat diet will also accelerate this process and make it much worse, inciting inflammation. Drinking excess caffeine all day will also make this problem worse. Anything that might seemingly help you cope, like fast food, alcohol or binge watching Netflix all night, will make it worse.How do we start to heal this huge problem?1. Getting a system of organization that will take the anxiety and burden of all the tasks you carry in your mind, easing the burden of stress. Really start to look at how to change your life to make it less stressful.2. Eating a low glycemic diet that is high in vegetables, especially green vegetables and seaweeds. Use high quality fats, such as olive oil, coconut oil, coconut milk.3. Using Adaptogen herbs, such as holy basil, ginseng or ashwaganda.4. Making sure your levels of selenium, Vitamin B, Vitamin D are adequate. Seek help with supplementation if necessary. Spend times outdoors several times a week.5. Stress reducing exercise such as yoga, pilates, barre, walking in nature, meditation.6. Use guided meditations, acupressure, massage or therapeutic touch as you need. Do not force yourself to do modalities that cause more stress.7. Use essential oils such as frankincense and myrrh.8. Try to get 8-10 hours of sleep while you are healing.9. Detoxification through sauna or hot baths will help clear toxins from your system and give you a relaxation response.10. Consider increasing your spiritual or volunteer practices, if you feel these will add to your happiness, explore giving more. Minimize time around people who are a negative influence on your life.11. Meet with a credit counselor or debt expert to make a plan for how to get your financial house in order. Hopefully think about what changes you can make in the future to provide security for yourself, additional schooling or training.Sea Glass Beach tea contains the adaptogen herbs useful for helping overcome these problems: Holy Basil. Newport Skinny Tea daytime contains the adaptogen herb Ginseng which is also beneficial for hormone balance. Both are on sale now.Remember that this self-healing is subtle, its a game won in inches not miles. Anything that reduces your stress will help, do not underestimate the impact your psychological emotions have on your physical and emotional bodies. It could be as simple as watching happy movies, cleaning out your closet or just swapping babysitting with a friend one night a week. -
So, I told you to get ready- things are changing! Or are they?A few years ago a huge uproar was made about a statement that said women were gaining weight because they were vacuuming less...Yeah, no one cared. In fact, that seems completely ridiculous. and sort of sexist. Right?Still all expert hands on deck persisted... IF YOU WOULD JUST EXERCISE MORE....Sigh, I know. Goodness Gracious, no one deserves THIS.Eat Lettuce all day and when you aren't doing that, just keep running. All. Freaking. Day.But the reality is that, as TIME magazine exposed, exercising generally makes us eat way more and become way more lazy for the rest of the day.So here comes another fun fact, there are two type of movement "EAT" and "NEAT."EAT stands for Exercise Activty Thermogenesis and NEAT stands for Non Exercise Activity Thermogensis.What does this mean?
NEAT is the energy expended for all non sleeping, eating or sporting activity.EAT is specifically related to energy expended for all sporting activity.Which do you think counts for more of our total energy expenditure? By the factor of 3?NEAT accounts for 15% of our energy use and exercise accounts for 5%.This is why the vacuum comment was made. The bottom line is we need to stand more and sit or lay down less. Using accessory muscles that are recruited for things like cleaning, gardening, laundry or other household tasks makes our bodies use even more energy. Even gum chewing, finger tapping and fiddling count.Can you imagine how energy much shopping in Forever 21 and squeezing your thighs into 6 different pair of too small for you pants uses??Exercise is not the calorie fighting super hero we once thought it was, but it does help make us more insulin sensitive, it helps us physiologically, mentally and emotionally. Just don't overestimate its abilities, you should still treat cupcakes like kryptonite. And apparently vacuum like Wonder Woman.You may even find that stress relieving exercise like walking in nature, yoga and dance more beneficial to weight loss than "hard-core" calorie "burning" cardio.Well talk about why tomorrow....JenniferSea Glass Beach Anti-C Tea is on Sale!! It helps you want to do more, have smoother skin and feel less bloated. -
First of all, how are you doing on your challenge?Great I hope, keep at it, remember that small actions taken every day soon become your life.We are a multitude of habits, and the only way to change your life is by making habits that support the change you want to see part of your daily life.So, the great news now is that real progress is finally being made regarding women and the metabolic effects of food on them.If you did not know, 95%+ of medical studies done regarding metabolic effects of foods and exercise are on college age men. WHY? Because they are monetarily efficient.When you pay for a study, you want some results. College age men typically out perform all other sub groups of people.However this seems to be a time when doctors, researchers and companies are waking up to the fact that women over 35 do not respond like a college age man to their suggestions. In fact, much of what might work for the men might actually make things worse for older women!!I'm not going to say its exactly cohesive research, but progress is happening.One especially exciting development, even though it applies to both men and women, is that medical doctors are finally waking up to the metabolic effects of food and drinks.Forever we have heard that a "calorie is a calorie" and like I've been saying for years now, a calorie is definitely not a calorie. In fact, sometimes I wonder how you could get something MORE wrong?Still we cling to this notion of calories, as if our body is some sort of gas tank. It's not. I know, this may be painful for some of you to really acknowledge, its even painful for me sometimes still, but calories really don't matter all that much.As the renowned nephrologist Dr Jason Fung states "Here’s the bottom line truth. ‘Calories’ is NOT a physiologic concept, just as ‘weight of food’ is not a physiologic concept. Both are unit borrowed from physics. Longing for mathematical precision, obesity experts have severe ‘physics envy’, and try to shoehorn the useless physiologic concept of calories into a human biology that does not accept it."If you'd like to experience true next-level food nerd science than you can read his full article: "The Useless Concept of Calories."So what does this have to do with tea? Quite a bit actually, because two of the main obesity promoting components of food are inflammation and insulin resistance.Both are caused in part by what you eat, and tea can help fight and reverse both of them as well.There are many other aspects that need to be addressed when dealing with both of these topics, but remember that small habits over time will yield exponential results. Keep drinking your tea and tomorrow I will be back with more about how you can tame the inflammation and insulin resistance that is causing weight gain and so many other issues.JenniferPS: Want to fight inflammation quickly? Our Sea Glass Beach Anti-C tea helps and its on sale , its our most medicinal tea and only for those who can handle it! Now available in 7 day size as well. -
I hope this is making sense so far, its really a lot of life changing information you've absorbed over the past few days.Are you connecting the dots about how you may be exercising and not seeing results?In the old equation... you subtracted the number of calories you "burned" from what you ate. Simple math right? So why doesn't it "add up?"In the new equation... you have to achieve low enough blood glucose and circulating insulin to be able to unlock your fat stores and use them.So the pre-workout smoothie you've been having, full of sugar, you basically drank it and then used some of it up and probably stored some of it as fat.This is why "fasted-state cardio" works so well, because your body has depleted its glucose stores overnight and insulin has fallen.Fasted state exercise is any exercise you do after sleeping and before eating. And if you are insulin resistant, it makes you feel pretty bad!Exercise has many benefits, its well known that weight loss is not very achievable through weight loss alone. Partially because of what I've just described and partially because it stimulates appetite and you tend to make up perceived calories out with more food.The more of a fat burner you are and the less of a sugar burner you are, the easier it is to liberate your fat stores and use them.If you are constantly used to getting a sugar hit every 2-3 hours, you will not be burning much body fat fuel.Step #3- can you include some mild exercise before you eat in the morning? This doesn't have to be epic, it can be 8-12 minutes of body weight intervals, yoga or 20 minutes of walking the dog.If your cortisol is high, intense exercise in the morning will drive it higher. So will drinking tons of coffee.More on how to become a fat burner instead of a sugar burner tomorrow.Tea is naturally metabolism boosting, and so are certain herbs. Venice Beach Fat Burning Fitness Tea is specially designed to help replace sports drinks, boost your energy and help your body burn fat, right now its 25% off. -
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