Do you really need a Personal Paleo Chef?

Do you believe in fate? I do. I believe everything happens for a reason. I am not entirely sure why Laurah Lawson, founder of Eatology, was brought into my life this weekend, but I am sure there is a purpose.

I was sitting on a bench in the hair salon, waiting for my daughter to get her hair done, reading You can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay. I highly recommend this book, by the way. Laurah was setting up a booth right next to me and I couldn’t help but notice her flyer stating the food was Paleo.

After striking up a conversation, I learned her menu was actually Paleo Zone, which is pretty much the same as The Wild Diet by James Abel that my family has been following.  We discussed how eating clean is great, but portion control is also a must. She lost 25 pounds in a month eating fish and vegetables for pretty much every meal. That dieting technique is not so different than the eating chicken and veggies six times a day program that many bodybuilders follow. Now, I could do salmon and asparagus three times a day, but six is a bit excessive.

Laurah’s mom is a chef, so we know where Laurah got her talent and love for cooking. Her creative talent is taking a deliciously fattening meal and making it healthy enough for every athlete and personal trainer to eat.

Many people know how to eat clean – lean meats, lots of veggies, a couple of servings of fruits and grains. However, making it delicious, and finding the time to meal prep on Sundays is the key to really sticking with the healthy eating way of life. That is where many of us fail. Even I have a hard time actually preparing a week’s worth of meals for my husband and me to take to work. Let’s just say I eat a lot of dark leafy green salad and tuna or canned chicken for lunch.

When I attended Strong, Stretched, and Centered in Hawaii back in the 90’s, they prepared our meals for us and placed them in the refrigerator daily while we were at class. It was so easy to eat clean when you had the meal right there, already prepared. I have frequently thought…if only I had a personal chef to prepare super healthy meals for my family, giving me my time to work out after a long day at the office.

Well, Eatology is that personal chef. The meals are reasonably priced, and Laurah is trying to find a way to get make them even less expensive so that everyone can afford them. The company goal is to, “Cure obesity in our lifetime.”

Not only does Eatology offer healthy, ready-to-eat meals to your doorstep, but they also offer free nutrition classes online through Periscope, and in person. Do you feel that your office could benefit from a little nutritional training? Check out the staff at Eatology.co, which is a whole other story… a very faith based, spiritual story that Laurah should tell you herself. 

Fit to Fat to Fit on A&E

I have been watching the show Fit to Fat to Fit on the A & E Network. As I am sure you know, the basis of the show is personal trainers gaining 40-60 pounds over a four month period so that they can understand where their clients are coming from.  Then the trainer and their client have four months to get down to their goal weight. Of course, throughout the season you see female trainers having meltdowns because they can’t handle seeing themselves with the weight, as well as what happens when extremely regimented trainers find out that sugar is a hard addiction to break.  That is where you really see that diet is at least 70% - 80% of the battle.

As someone who spent most of her adult life as a trainer, then gained 30+ pounds working a stressful office job, and is still working to get it all back off, I definitely feel a bond with the trainers on the show. Everything they are going through is exactly what I am going through. As I watch the show, I see the fat personal trainers making the same statements I have made throughout the last few years, “I don’t even want to go to the gym,” and my personal favorite, “I have turned into one of my clients!” These words are coming from people who LOVE the gym and love to work out. It is their passion. When you are working out, you feel good, and you want to help everyone feel as good as you do. But, when you stop eating clean and working out, you gain weight and lose all your energy and motivation to help others.

I love the show. Even my husband and 15 year old daughter are addicted. It gives hope to see that if they can get down to their starting weight in just four short months, so can others.  Of course, it makes me want to get back out there and start helping others reach their health goals. I love the idea of working out with my clients to give them a bit of healthy competition.

Trainers work in a gym, or outside, motivating their clients. They have an active job.  Most people don’t. Many are office workers that are forced to sit all day, tightening their low back muscles, sitting in positions that cause their shoulders to roll front, their upper backs to stretch while their pecs tighten. These imbalances cause headaches and back pain. Add in the stress of their job and they are mentally exhausted when they get home.

Then you have the workers that are on their feet all day. Again, depending on what they are doing, they are causing muscle imbalances through repetitive movements. They ache when they get home and are physically exhausted. The last thing these people want to do is hit the gym. 

Leading experts say we should get up early and work out in the morning. That is great in theory. But for many, the exhaustion is still there in the morning due to not enough high quality sleep. Add in a headache, muscle aches, nausea, and working out takes serious work.

That is where the words working out really kick in. You have to force yourself to work your body, like you force your mind to focus on your job all day. Only, at the end of this work, you won’t feel drained and exhausted. You will feel energized, like you really accomplished something. The more you do it, the more energy you will gain. The pain will melt away and your entire mindset will change.

For me, just running or walking a mile before work makes all the difference in the world. It changes my outlook on the day, the way I react to traffic and office stress. It even makes me feel like lifting weights when I get home.

When I miss those runs a few days in a row, I fall back into the mode of achy, stressed out, and too tired to lift my butt off the couch, or even to roll out of bed. My diet suffers as well. When I work out, I crave whole foods that are healthy for me. When I skip workouts for a few days, the junk food cravings creep back in to my head. Watching Fit to Fat to Fit made me realize, that is the typical reaction.

I have created a workout program based off Cory Gregory’s Squat Every Day Program, which can be found on Bodybuilding.com.  I added in exercises that are necessary to rebalance the body after spending 9+ hours sitting at a desk.  I will be posting it on my webpage for you to try after I am done tweaking it a bit.  So far all I can tell you is….It works and you will be sore!

How Vitamania changed what my family and I take for supplements.

Vitamania by Catherine Price is an amazing book of knowledge and humor about the discovery of the substances we now call vitamins and how and why supplement sales are so high.  I am really hesitant to take any isolates anymore after reading about the whole l-tryptophan fiasco.  We are all really just guinea pigs when it comes to the supplement industry. I highly recommend this book! 

We try to eat a whole food based diet, and much to my surprise, my children have come to enjoy a variety of salads as their side for most dinners.  After watching, My Diet is Better than Yours, we ordered James Abel's The Wild Diet. The recipes are wonderful and so satisfying that, although you are allowed to have dessert, I rarely have a desire to eat it.

Even though we eat healthy, I know there are nutrients we are missing. I can't eat dairy, my kids don't eat enough veggies, and we all don't eat enough fermented foods or sea vegetables. Therefore we supplement.  However, Catherine Price posed a question that has plagued me for years, if you take something daily that your body produces naturally, will it stop producing it? Well, I don’t want to find out, so we take weekends off from our supplements.We currently take the following on weekdays:

Calamari Oil – 500 mg/ 2 times daily. According the Dr. Perlmutter and Dr. Alberto Villoldo in the book, “Power Up Your Brain,” you need 1000 mg of DHA daily. If it is good enough for my daughter who continues to recover from the removal of a brain tumor, it is good enough for the rest of the family.  Calamari Oil is naturally very high in DHA. 

Garden of Life MyKind Organics multivitamin –  These vitamins are made from an organic real food blend. There are a couple that don’t come from the blend like K2 and B12. 

Garden of Life Raw Calcium – 2 pills/ 2 times daily. Again, Garden of life harnesses the goodness real food offers. Plus, I have always noticed a difference in my hair, skin, and nails, when I have taken it in the past. 

Isagenix Product B Isagenisis - contains Alpha Lipoic Acid, N-Acetyl Cysteine, and herbs that benefit the aging body. My daughter  takes it as well for the memory boosting and liver protecting herbs it contains.

We alternate the following on weekday mornings:
      Solle Naturals Cinnamate – My husband likes the taste, I like the immune balancing benefits of the yeba mate and thyme. Yerba mate contains 15 amino acids, phytonutrients, trace minerals, and more. Thyme is also nutrient dense and known to be good for fighting off illness. My daughter alternates this with Isagenix AMPED Recover BCAAs because they are sweetened with Stevia.
     Solle Naturals Excell - My husband and I drink this for the hormone regulating, eye enhancing, and blood pathway strengthening herbs.Plus, it makes our morning protein shakes taste delicious!

We alternate the following in the evenings:
     Solle Naturals Solle Vital - Solle Vital contains adaptogenic herbs that help balance your immune system and reduce the effects of stress.
     Solle Naturals Solle ReNue - Contains herbs that help rebuild our muscles, heal our bodies, and calm the mind to give us a good night's sleep.

Now, this may seem a bit excessive. However, for us, it is a way to stay healthy and energetic enough to exercise.  I have always been one to get sick when I hit the cardio hard. This supplement routine has helped me overcome that. My husband and son both suffer from hay fever and skin issues like eczema. Let's not forget my daughter, who is working at getting the neurons to re-fire in her brain after the extensive surgery. My oldest daughter fights the multiple supplement routine, but she is still young.

There are many people who believe natural supplements are natural, so they can't hurt you. That's not true. Natural supplements have side effects, interact with certain medications and each other, and can harm you, if taken in excess.  For instance, green tea extract (which is now found in everything) can harm you liver in high daily doses. They are now saying cinnamon is the same way. Even eating too many cruciferous vegetables every day can effect your thyroid.

They say at least 70% of health is the diet, 20% exercise, and 10% supplements.  When health issues arise, it may call for additional supplementation. That supplementation may be short term or long term, depending on the situation.  Please remember, everything in moderation, and don't take more than suggested dosage. Just because it is natural, doesn't mean more is better.

I always check the ingredients of any supplement before I take it or give it to a family member. I strongly urge you to check the ingredients on WebMd.com or Drugs.com before starting a supplement program.

Here's to your health!

Rush Fit

A couple of years ago, my husband and I gave each other the gift of wellness with the Rush Fit workout program. I believe my hubby tried it once and decided we didn't have the space in our video room to complete many of the moves. My daughter and I tried a couple of the videos and came to the same conclusion. So....the video program was shelved.

Fast forward to now. We have a gym in our garage and I am home from work to help my daughter rehabilitate from surgery to remove a brain tumor. Not only does she need to work on her vision to stop seeing double, but she needs to regain her balance and strength. 

20 weeks of physical, occupational, speech, and vision therapies daily has gotten very boring.  My goal was to have her start physical therapy on horseback a couple of days per week, then fill in the rest of the sessions with water aerobics, strength training, hiking, and yoga.  

However, after speaking with her homebound teacher, it was decided she would  return to school over a month sooner than planned. The equine facility didn't have any weekend openings, and I really needed a workout to help prepare my daughter to return to school in just two weeks. 

As a yoga instructor, I do have some balance workout ideas. But being able to work out WITH my daughter instead of instructing her on HOW to work out is much more beneficial and saves us from unnecessary arguments.  My hubby and I are P90X fans. However, I didn't feel that was the best balance training. Body Shred by Jillian Michaels was a fast paced, fun workout, but my daughter did not feel she was ready for that much jumping.  I decided to pull out the Rush Fit program.  BEST decision EVER!

The workouts are fast paced and fun. But most importantly, they really work on balance and core. I can't believe how much my daughter has improved and how beneficial the Rush Fit program would be for people with lower back pain or chronic headaches from bad posture. The program offers a good warm up to reduce the risk of injury and the cool down contains moves that I prescribed to my clients with chronic low back pain. The workouts focus on strengthening the postural muscles, that in a weakened state, cause many people to suffer from pain in the back, neck, and head.

Don't hesitate to run out and buy Rush Fit!