Mini Post: Elevated Activity

I want to encourage you to engage in more "Elevated Activity" -- which is a fancy way of saying exercise.

Our modern lifestyle is way too inert for the composition of our bodies. I personally spend hours in front of a computer. It isn't good. Our muscles, bones, connective tissue, internal organs, and brain cells all need us to move.

When I talk to clients about getting more elevated activity into their week, I give them this perspective on what our bodies need:

1. Aerobic Exercise - exercise that elevates your heart rate for over 20 minutes

2. Functional Exercise - a combination of strength training, core conditioning, and balance work

3. Stretching - releasing tension from muscles

4. Mindful Exercise - being aware of your body as you move

Here are some ways to organize your exercise time:

Do fast walking OR running OR fast swimming > minimun 20 minutes.

PLUS

Yoga OR all of the following: Tai Chi/Qi Gong AND Stretching AND Strength Training

YES! A well-rounded yoga class incorporates mindful movement, balance work, core conditioning, overall stretching, and strength training.

So you could get all you need from just doing fast walking and yoga classes.

I obviously think yoga is really good for us all! I have been doing physical yoga practices for 35 years, and I am in better shape - with less pain - than I have ever been before. I have helped people in wheelchairs, elite athletes, and everyone in between to adapt yoga practices to work for them. I'm happy to help you! Let me know if you would like to talk about it. Schedule a FREE 30-minute consultation

Mini Post: My Favorite Anti-inflammatory Soup

I felt the urge to embrace the coming autumn yesterday. The urge came in the form of making butternut squash soup. I love having a big batch of soup in the refrigerator to add to my lunch, or for a snack. Butternut squash has a significant amount of vitamin C and fiber. It also has iron, potassium, magnesium, B-6, calcium, and small amounts of protein. Mixed with the nutrients in the onion, garlic, and apple, plus the oleic acid in extra virgin olive oil, this nutrient-dense soup is a great addition to your anti-inflammatory diet!


Butternut Squash and Apple Soup

1 small yellow onion, diced
Extra virgin olive oil for sauteeing
2–3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 Granny Smith apple, diced
1/2 tablespoon nutmeg
1 small butternut squash
4 cups vegetable broth
Salt, black pepper, a dash of apple cider vinegar, olive oil to taste
Optional: ½ cup coconut milk

Cook the squash whole in your oven at 350oF until soft. Peel, cut in half, and remove the seeds.

Sauté the onion and apple until translucent, then add in the spices and garlic.
Toss in the butternut squash and the vegetable broth, and bring to a boil.
Simmer until the apples are tender.

Blend with an immersion blender or a stand-up blender, and enjoy!

Let me know if you want more tips on an anti-inflammatory diet.

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Mini Post: Let's wrap it up. I mean our food.

My favorite lunch is served in a wrap: leftovers - maybe hummus or a veggie burger - add a little avocado, some arugula, a little salty or spicy sauce, and I am delighted with the mix of flavors.

Here are some of my favorite wraps:

1. Traditional flour or corn tortillas. Just warm them up in an oven or microwave for a few seconds.

2. Rice paper wraps. These traditional Vietnamese wraps are stiff and brittle when they come out of the package, but just dip one in water for a few seconds, then lay it on a plate and load it with your favorite fillings. By the time you get all your ingredients on, you can wrap it up like a burrito.

3. Nori Sheets. Crisp your nori sheet carefully over a burner or in an oven until it's crunchy. Add fillings, roll up, and enjoy.

4. New twists on traditional wraps. From almond to jicama, you can find a variety of plant-based alternative wraps. Some will hold together better than others. I tried a spelt flour wrap recently, and it just fell apart when I tried to roll it up. I did find that I liked making it crispy in the toaster oven and using it like a cracker.

I have so many tips on how to eat healthier and feel great. Let’s Talk!

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Mini Post: Skin-Care

I was thinking about how dry my skin gets in the winter. Probably two days after the last humid day in New Jersey, I woke up, looked in the mirror, and didn’t recognize myself. After putting on the lovely face-hydrating moisture cream made by a local herbalist, I recognized myself again. 

More important than a large shelf of skincare products are the self-care practices of exercise, eating well, and relaxation. 

Exercise increases blood flow, the mechanism that your body uses to distribute oxygen and nutrients throughout your body, including your skin. Sweating is a great way to detox your body and is excellent for your skin. Studies have shown that regular aerobic exercise can even reverse skin aging.

Speaking of those nutrients that the blood distributes around the body - they come from the food you eat. Supplements can help but aren’t a great substitute. Hydrating vegetables like iceberg lettuce, celery, cucumbers, and fruits like apples, oranges, berries, and melons are super-hydrating and great to add to your diet. Sweet potatoes (and yams, which are very similar) help with your body’s production of hyaluronic acid, which helps hydrate your skin. Just think about all the lovely nutrients from plants that support healthy skin - in whole grains, seeds, nuts, legumes, a rainbow of vegetables, and fruit - that you can have every day. Make sure that your diet also includes lovely cold-pressed oils to retain those nutrients - olive oil, sesame oil, coconut oil. And foods high in healthy fats, like olives and avocados. And of course, water. Not sparkling water. Not flavored water. Just plain water. Most of the day.

You don’t need to totally eliminate foods that are dehydrating, but think about having fewer of them: salty snacks, alcohol, coffee, fried foods, heavily salted meals, sugary foods. Concentrated proteins like meat, fish, eggs, and tofu can be dehydrating too, but they are necessary for our health. It's best to eat your protein as one part of a healthy plant-based diet.

Your body is primed for healing when you are at your most relaxed. So think about making sure that you are fully relaxed before going to bed at night. Some of the best relaxers are stretching, breathing practices, and guided meditations. Self-massage is also fantastic. Use a healthy natural lotion with shea butter, and press it into your skin as you massage away tight muscles. Seriously, dry skin can make you feel more tense. Go to sleep like a wet noodle, and let the rejuvenation of your whole body commence. 

YES, topical cream or lotion is necessary if you live in a dry climate, but nothing can replace your exercise, eating well, and relaxation for your glowing skin!

Feeling great is really important. Let’s talk about how you can Bump It Up and feel better!

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Mini Post: Nine Ways to Adjust Your Self-Care When Healing

Keep these variations on your healthy lifestyle in mind when you are injured or ill:

Exercise for healing

• The way that you exercise will probably need to be adjusted. If you are injured, you might need to learn how to rehabilitate the injury while keeping the rest of your body moving. Maintaining muscle tone in the rest of your body helps with healing.

• If you are dealing with a virus or an extreme allergy flare-up, you might need to stop exercising, because your body needs rest to heal.

• If you have an auto-immune disease, you might need to learn how to exercise in a way that doesn't increase inflammation.

Eating well if you are ill

• Instead of eating well 80% of the day (which is what I usually recommend), you might need to eat well 100% of the day.

• Make sure that your digestive system is working very well.

• You need to pay extra attention to how your body is responding to food. The heating or cooling aspects of different food can affect our healing. Warming spices like ginger, cayenne, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg can keep our internal systems warm and fight inflammation. Warm water and herbal teas can be soothing to our system. Cooling herbs and spices like licorice, anise, and mints might help digestive issues that present hot in the body. Working with herbs and spices is a healing art form that is not a part of the Standard American Diet. You might like to learn more about how your ancestors and the native people of the land that you live on used the plants around them as medicine. IMPORTANT: Some spices and herbs can be contraindicated when taking pharmaceuticals or high doses of other herbal remedies. Be sure to consult with a knowledgeable healthcare provider. You can find relevant medical studies on Pubmed.com, and discuss them with your healthcare provider.

Conscious Relaxation to give the body a chance to heal

• Listening to nature sounds and feeling the sun while noticing your breath can be very soothing.

• Guided meditations while resting can be more uplifting and restful than just lying around.

• Gentle stretching not only increases mobility, but also activates the body's relaxation response.

Sometimes we all need a little help when our body isn’t feeling great. Please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Schedule a FREE 30-minute consultation

A Cup of Chai

This weekend, Jim and I wanted to make a nice meal for some very special friends. I created a plant-based meal of stuffed mushrooms, vegetable fried rice, a veggie bean salad - and burgers, for the meat eaters - with a nutmeg mango crumble for dessert. But since it's getting colder here in New Jersey, I wanted them to feel warm and cozy as soon as they arrived. I thought that a warm cup of chai might be a great welcome when they came in.

In fact, chai is a great addition to a meal, whether you have it before or after, because the spices in it are all helpful with digestion and inflammation. When I make chai, I always wish that I had all the perfect ingredients on hand. But sometimes I just have to use what I have around. If I don't have cinnamon sticks, then cinnamon powder works just fine. I like to make a batch of boiled chai spices and keep it in a jar in the refrigerator. It'll last several days in the fridge, and up to a week if you add sweetener (honey is my favorite). Then it's easy to add some of this spicy mixture to a cup of black or herbal tea. You can also have it with or without the milk.

All these herbs can be purchased at an international grocery store or herbal store near you.

Ingredients for 6 cups of chai

2-inch piece fresh ginger, cut into thin rounds (** read about the medicinal properties of ginger)

2 cinnamon sticks (or powder)

2 teaspoons black peppercorns

10 whole cloves (or powder)

6 crushed cardamom pods (or powder)

6 cups water

6 bags of tea (preferably Darjeeling for a caffeinated version, or Rooibos for a decaf version)

2 cups whole milk (or milk substitute)

Honey, white sugar, or brown sugar to taste

Step 1: Bring the spices to a boil in 2 cups of water, and simmer gently for 10 minutes. Remove from heat. You can save this mixture in the refrigerator, or continue to step two.

Step 2: For 6 servings, add 4 more cups of boiling and water tea bags. Steep for 5 minutes. Discard tea bags. Add milk and sweetener. Strain chai into a teapot and serve hot.

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So here is my suggestion for a healthy happy hour today: Make yourself some chai, curl up on a cushy chair and enjoy some quiet time. Just 10-15 minutes of treating yourself really well can reset your immune system, your nervous system, and your digestive system.

There are so many ways that we can feel a little better. If you need some help figuring out what your next step is contact me. We can talk.

Schedule a FREE 30-minute consultation

Mini Post: Why you need to eat better to feel happier

This morning I feel inspired to tell you about the link between digestion and happiness.

Not only does our digestive system create hormones for digestion, it also plays a part in creating the neurotransmitters that help us feel happy. That is why our stomach is called our "second brain." This second brain, or technically our enteric system, is a part of our nervous system that works without us having to think about it. It will work well and play a part in our overall happiness if we treat it right.

It isn't going to work well if our digestive system is taxed with low-nutrient processed foods, a lack of fiber, and a void of foods that contain prebiotics and probiotics. In that case, it has a hard time making the essential hormones and neurotransmitters that help us feel great. A plant-based diet - you don't have to take out meat, necessarily - will probably clear up 50% of the problems with our digestive system's production of hormones and neurotransmitters.

Some foods help us create serotonin. Chocolate is one of them. But be warned: the "dark side" of chocolate is that it also contains caffeine, which can keep us from sleeping well or sleeping deeply. Another route to increasing our serotonin is to eat foods rich in tryptophan. Some of these are pumpkin and sesame seeds, fish, turkey, chicken, eggs, milk, and cheese.

However, these foods will only help if we digest them well. And if we struggle with digestive issues like IBS, heartburn, constipation, or diarrhea - or even less obviously linked struggles like brain fog - stress may be the real culprit.

Our stress levels significantly influence our digestive systems. If we are in "fight or flight," our bodies shunt resources - like blood flow - away from our digestive systems, which are then less able to produce neurotransmitters like serotonin that help make our happy thoughts. Serotonin is also a precursor to melatonin, the hormone which helps us get to sleep and stay asleep. Sleep is necessary to reduce stress. All of this can be a big loop of happiness for us - or not.

We help our bodies and minds relax with conscious relaxation methods like breathing practices, mindful movement like yoga or Qi Gong, or meditation techniques like guided meditation or sitting meditation. Learning what methods work best for us usually pays off with better digestion and becoming calmer.

This all seems complicated when we are trying to fit it into our busy schedule. Contact me if you need some help. Schedule a FREE 30-minute consultation

Mini Post: Vitamin D

I am looking forward to a Winter Solstice celebration of the return of the sun - and the return of easy access to vitamin D! Vitamin D helps us regulate phosphate and calcium, essential for bone health and quality of sleep. It also helps decrease inflammation and cramps. Sun exposure triggers vitamin D synthesis in our body, so make sure that you are getting out for your walk during the sunny parts of the days as often as you can. The best food sources for vitamin D are Cod Liver Oil, salmon, and trout. Vitamin D supplements, and kinds of milk and cereals fortified with vitamin D, are also good sources.

Here are are a couple of articles that you might find interesting:

Does vitamin D deficiency increase the severity of COVID- 19?

National Institutes of Health Fact Sheet on Vitamin D

Staying happy and healthy can be challenging. Let me know if you need a little help. Schedule a FREE 30-minute consultation

Healing from Chronic Pain

I am so passionate about helping women in the second half of life. At 45, my own thoughts about the second half of my life looked bleak.

On the outside, my life looked great. I had BFA in dance and was at the height of my career, choreographing on aerial equipment in a full-size theater in Hawaii. After years of struggling to make ends meet, my life was finally looking good. I was making more money than I ever had. As a single mom, I was able to comfortably support my daughters. The show I was directing that year was supported by an NEA grant. We danced to live music written for my choreography. I was feeling at the top of my game. 

But on the inside, I was living out a message that had been drilled into me.  I had been given the message that dancers in the second half of life lived with chronic joint pain, and I thought it would be how the rest of my life played out, because - I was living in chronic pain. 

My back was in constant inflammation, hot and stiff. The muscles of my neck and upper back were constantly seizing up, and my lower back felt like it was going to give out. It was harder and harder to dance and to choreograph. And right before our big NEA-supported show - the best show I would ever direct - I also got a debilitating case of pneumonia. The pain of that week, lying in bed coughing and trying to take care of my young daughter (who had bronchitis), is forever etched in my mind. 

My career was finally all making sense, but my body was giving out. Peter Levine, in his book Freedom from Pain, writes “that pain in and of itself becomes traumatizing.” After years of dancing with pain, I could relate. I knew that I needed a change.

This added emotional turmoil to my physical pain. I had been dancing since I was four years old. Dance was how I dealt with my emotions. It was my joy. I could never fully replace the happy hormones that it released in me. But, in order to heal myself, I made the decision to retire from my passion and my life’s work as a dancer and choreographer.

I needed to get out of the way of my healing.

I needed to create a different life and a new source of income.

I had to learn how to move in a way that healed my joints while supporting my core strength. I had to learn how to eat a nutrient-dense, non-inflammatory diet and deal with my digestive issues that were causing more inflammation. I needed to reinvent my life.

I became a personal trainer and yoga teacher. It wasn’t dance, but it was a source of income that eventually grew into a life path that I find a lot of satisfaction in. 

During the challenging years of working hard to recover my own body, getting rid of chronic pain, and finding a new life’s path, I also became a yoga therapist. It helped me to look at myself and my clients holistically. From my studies of yoga philosophy, and of research done on how to heal physically and emotionally, I began working to heal myself and my clients with my Five Points of Wellness--exercise, eating well, relaxation techniques, productive mental processing, and getting on a path of purpose. 

Within 2 years of leaving dance, I was able to move my body freely again without chronic pain. In my fifties, I was helping my husband Jim build his dream home. From using a pickaxe to break up soil, to helping him carrying heavy construction materials, all with zero chronic pain, I knew that I had beaten the odds of living the second half of my life in pain. 

When I am helping one of my clients work through pain, I always look at where there is an imbalance. Too much strength or not enough. Too much flexibility or not enough. Lack of relaxation. Lack of nutrient-dense food. I can help my clients learn new skills, or tweak some old ones they already have. These are the easier part of the healing process. But Peter Levine says that chronic pain can often be traced back to a specific incident such as an accident or abuse.

Addressing the emotional pain that comes with physical pain is the challenging part. Acknowledging that we might have leftover emotions from the incident that caused the pain, or that we might need to let go of the reason for the pain - like when I let go of my dance career - is the harder part of the healing process. Holding on to the physical pain might be easier than facing the emotional pain. Sometimes talk therapy is needed. Often mindfulness and awareness of the emotional pain, and a process to work through painful emotions, are required. 

Physical pain and emotional pain are part of this life. Our body’s ability to heal itself is also a part of this life. Being emotionally stuck in the traumas and disappointments of life can get in the way of that healing process.  

We can be present with our pain, access our intuition on how to heal, and get the support that we need to reinvent a life without pain. 

What I found for myself, and what I see for others, is that there is a NEW BEST JOURNEY beyond the pain, to be discovered, to be cultivated. We have more capacity than we know, and the journey of pain and getting out of pain teaches us about courage, resilience and that we have access to so much more than we ever thought possible.

So that is one of my stories about why I am passionate to help women in the second half of life. When I am able to teach the skills - the right exercise, eating an anti-inflammatory diet, focused relaxation, productive mental processing, and finding the right life’s path - I am in my happy zone. I have seen women find their truth and their happiness. I am so confident in this process.

I am dedicated to helping you find fulfillment and a strong purpose. Please sign up for a free Uplift Your Life Strategy Session with me. You deserve support, and I am here to help.