I'm back

I know I have been away for awhile. I have been working on some new things. One of the things that has come to mind as I have been coaching people regarding their ideal body is the whole idea of dieting. That word has such a negative connotation for almost everyone. This is because most diets bring a sense of deprivation in that there are lots of foods you cannot eat and if you really want to lose weight you have to go to the gym 3-5 days a week. The first thought that most people have when they think about a diet is all of the foods that they will have to give up or the fear that I will have to starve myself on this diet.

The first step to success in attaining your ideal body is to throw the word diet out of your vocabulary. Substitute the word ideal body and all of the negative connections will not come up for you.

Gluten - is it only in grains?

If you are someone who has a gluten allergy but don't have celiac disease, you may be reacting to lectin. Lectin is found in soy, peanuts, beans, dairy including milk and milk products, eggs, tomato, eggplant, and potatoes.

There is new research on lectins that links them to degenerative and autoimmune diseases. This is not an allergy, but rather an intolerance to the lectins in food. Arthritic symptoms may be related to eating tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, and potatoes. Gastric symptoms such as bloating and gas may also be related to this intolerance. The best way to test it is to go off of these foods for 2 weeks and then add in a group such as diary and see what symptoms arise.

The research is indicating that lectins may be involved in all forms of arthritis, inflammatory joint disease, diabetes type 2 in adults, obesity, fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome.

Happy 2008!

Some of you are probably wondering what happened to me. The day after my last post, my hard drive decided to die. I finally got a new upgraded hard drive, but then I had to get programs reloaded, etc. It took a while for the computer geeks to try to recover some of my data from my old hard drive - not a total success, but did recover some things.

Since I wrote last, I spend 5 days with Dr. John Gray learning about his system which is specific for men and women for balancing minerals in the body. I learned so much it is difficult to write it all down here.

But for today's tip, let's just make it simple. Two great sources of iron are raw cacao and black strap molasses. Now if you just eat some of the raw cacao nibs which you can find at places like whole foods, it will taste like you're eating dirt! Best is to mix it into something, but you can also just put them in your mouth and suck on them for a while and as they get soft you can chew them and they don't taste so bad.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. Hopefully you had a great day and didn't eat too much! I have been working on my website which is why you haven't seen any new posts here for awhile. I will let you know when things are ready to go.

I am going to northern California next week to learn from Dr John Gray more about enzymes and getting the right ones and right amounts in order to keep our bodies healthy. I will be sharing this information with you, so you will have the opportunity to learn about this as well.

I have been using some of his products and what I found for Thanksgiving is that sugars just don't make me feel as well and hence I don't want to eat them. I did have my pumpkin pie, but it did not make me feel so great, so I'm don't feel the need to have more of it! This is a good thing.

Meals and Foods to Eat

I am not a believer in the food pyramid. Balance is important, but there are certain things that you should be eating. First of all you should be eating some form of protein with every meal or snack. Now a snack could include something like 5-7 raw almonds and a piece of fruit.

Whole grains are also important, you should be getting 2-3 servings per day. I'll talk more about whole grains later.

You should strive to hit 8-10 servings per day of fruits and vegetables. Vegetables are often a great source of carbohydrate plus other nutrients such as vitamins and minerals.

Women require more fat than men. I'll get into this more later. Look for fats that are not dehydrogenated. Your best source is from fish or olive oil.

How often should you eat

Eating three meals a day is essential. The old adage that the most important meal is breakfast is absolutely true. Here is the reason why. Our bodies were designed to withstand famine. So when you haven't eaten since the night before and you don't eat in the morning, the body thinks it is in famine. It will then store as much as it can when you do eat into the fat depots so that if the famine continues it has something in the store house. What this relates to today, is that we see ourselves gaining weight and saying things like "I only eat once a day!" There in lies the problem.

So eat at least three meals a day. They don't have to be 7 course meals, but those of you who are attempting to lose weight will do much better if you eat 4-6 meals per day. The in-between meal snacks can be things like fruit, plain nuts such as almonds, or raw vegetables.

Tip for Cold and Flu Season

As I flew home from LA, I realized that we are into flu and cold season. One of the things you can do for yourself and those in your family to help prevent spread and further infection, is to thoroughly clean your tooth brushes. You can actually put your tooth brush in the dishwasher and it will be sanitized. Now I would recommend that you check before you put the electric tooth brush in, but certainly standard tooth brushes can be put directly into the dishwasher.