Naturally Simple Ways to Weigh LESS...

Naturally Simple Ways to Weigh Less

and Live More Every Day of your life!

This is all about re-balancing your body, mind, and spirit to create a vibrantly healthy you... inside and out. So much more than the number on the "scales!"

1. Feed your soul with primary food.  Friends and family, physical activity, spirituality and a satisfying career feed us. Lack of primary food creates over-reliance on secondary, edible food.
2. Drink water. Most people are chronically dehydrated. We often mistake thirst for hunger. If you feel hungry between meals, drink a glass of water before giving into cravings. Limit liquid calories from soda, juice, sports drinks and “enhanced” waters.  Stick with nature made!
3. Eat a plant-rich diet. Plant foods are typically lower in calories and higher in fiber than meat, dairy and processed foods, while providing loads of essential nutrients.  Purchase your animal products from farmers who raise the food in a natural manner; healthy and naturally balanced foods make for a healthy, naturally balanced human. Make certain you do get enough fat and protein in your daily diet to satisfy hunger, appetite, and nutritional needs for YOU.  Each of our needs is different!
4. Chew your food well. Digestion begins in the mouth. By thoroughly chewing your food, your body will better assimilate nutrients; you will also slow down your eating. It takes about 20 minutes for your brain to register that it is full. By slowing your eating, you’ll feel full, satisfied, and better nourished on less food.  More nutrients in each cell mean a healthier body!
5. Eat real food; avoid processed, packaged foods. Avoid products with high-fructose corn syrup or a long list of unpronounceable ingredients. (Reduce or eliminate refined sugars from your diet; glucose, fructose, any “oses”.) Packaged and convenience foods tend to be highly processed, lacking the nutrients your body needs, and are often loaded with empty calories. Avoid artificial sweeteners.  Avoid refined sweeteners, even stevia products.

If you have attended my workshops or been supported by me as a client:  Remember the cellular health information from the Whole Food slide show?  Feed your cells well!  Need to experience this workshop? Join me and the Local Living Venture on Thursday, September 25th for the start of the Whole Health and Healing Academy!  

A few more tips for balancing mind, body, and soul weight.

1. Eat raw foods:  raw fruits & veggies, raw nuts and seeds, raw nut & seed butters.  Raw foods are rich in nutrients that are not altered by the heat of cooking and provide natural enzymes needed in the body for many processes including digestion.
2. Eating enough healthy fats and protein to satisfy your appetite and your body’s nutritional needs:  choose naturally raised animal products for protein and fat and the omega 3's found in naturally raised meat, eggs and dairy products, wild salmon, avocados, walnuts, raw nuts and seeds.
3. Eat breakfast. Skipping meals causes your blood sugar levels to peak and dip, affecting your energy and moods. It can also cause overeating later on because you’re so hungry.  With this said, listen to your own body and what you know works for you.  Some people do much better without breakfast and have no problems with the rebound overeating later in the day.  Be conscious of you and your needs. I can personally admit I am not a breakfast eater.  I get hungry by 11 AM or so. I listen and follow my body's requests for food.
4. Eat mindfully. Turn off the TV. Get away from the computer. Sit down and savor the food you are eating with no distractions.  Eat from a space of unconditional self-love!
5. Get moving. Do any type of physical activity every day. Find movement or exercise you enjoy.
6. Get outside.  Your body needs fresh air and natural light.  You will create life long health benefits!
7. Sleep, rest and relax. Breath work creates relaxation, slow down & breathe deeply.  Ask me for my educational handout on breath work.  When you are sleep-deprived or stressed, your body will crave energy, causing cravings for sugary snacks and caffeine as an energy boost.
8. Schedule fun time. Boredom and stress can lead to overeating. Make sure to take time to laugh, play and participate in activities that bring you joy.
9. Find a mindfulness practice and use it every day. (Yoga, Tai Chi, Tae Kwon Do, Meditation, Prayer...)

PS  Just a reminder about the Whole Health & Healing Academy that starts Thursday, September 25th. Join us to create vibrant health in your life!

Preventing Hair Loss, Restoring Hair Growth

Amazing herbs for health, hair, skin.... Stinging Nettles, Yarrow, and Rosemary (in the order they appear above).

Recently, it seems, that many people have been asking me in my workshops:

"What can I do about hair loss, thinning hair as I age?"  This is a topic that hits home with me as I have always had very fine and thin hair.  More thinning with age?  What will I have left?

So I decided to do an experiment with me as the guinea pig.  This is all natural, no abuse to the guinea pig's (ME!) skin or eyes as happens in commercial body care product testing.

Keep in mind this is about hair growth.  It takes time and a long term commitment (uh-oh!)

1.  I have added the following herbal essential oils to my shampoo:  Rosemary, oregano, peppermint, and yarrow.  I add about 8 drops per ounce of shampoo and I recommend using an all natural shampoo.  Chemicals in our hair care products clog the pores of the scalp and contribute to unhealthy hair, scalp, and hair loss.  Aubrey Organics products are a nice choice, available at Nature's Storehouse in Canton.  Read ingredients for "whole" ingredients, just as you would on a food product label and you can find other natural brands as well.  Read the ingredients, not just the "all natural" hype label on the front of the product.

2.  I make a tea and pour it over my scalp, making certain to soak my hair, well, through to the scalp, all over my head.  It is made with the whole herbs yarrow, nettles, and rosemary.  See pictures above.  For information on making herbal teas, email me.

I make a quart every 4 days and use 1 cup per day after shampooing.  Shampoo less often, the tea lasts longer.  Keep it refrigerated and always label your quart jar.  It is fine to drink, so no panic if someone should indulge in a 'lil of your herbal, scalp tea.

3.  I then massage my scalp in two different ways.  One is the general "rub my fingers and knead the scalp" method.  The other is placing my fingers in a stationary place on the scalp and shifting the whole scalp back and forth and side to side underneath my fingers.  This helps tremendously with scalp circulation and relaxing the scalp muscles around the actual hair shaft.  Do this massaging when washing your hair, when applying the above scalp tea, and when spraying on the below concoction of herbs.

4.  A scalp spray made up of about 1/3 cup of the above scalp tea which I then add the rosemary, peppermint, and oregano essential oils to it.  I am thinking about adding drops of the tinctures of yarrow, nettles, and horsetail as well.  This is made to spray onto the scalp, before bedtime, and massage the scalp as per above.

5.  Oh, and I am taking a saw palmetto and horsetail herbal tincture (easy to make with the herbs, good vodka, and a month's time to let the herbs "steep" into the vodka.  Horsetail is good for hair and skin health and saw palmetto is an herb for hair loss prevention / restoration.

Did I not say I was being a guinea pig?!

Today, as I write, it is November 9th.  I have been playing this hair restoration game for about 1 month now.  I imagine it will take at least 6 months before I can see any major changes (yes, my hair grows slowly!).

See what I mean about this being a long-term commitment... let's just see if I can stick to this hair restoration challenge and then report back my fabulous results.  Then, I will patent my formulas and become the rich, modern day Lady Godiva (Yes, I will also need to make some more of that face cream and take care of aging on the face as well) riding the streets of Potsdam!

Horse or Harley? Horse called Harley?

If all else fails, I still have this gorgeous Doo-Rag (from my Harley riding days), graciously modeled by my Thanksgiving pie pumpkin!  I will plop it onto my head and tie into place, forget about making any more scalp tea, and then, I will buy another Harley.  Or maybe a horse and I will name her Harley!

Update March 2019: It is 5 1/2 years later, where the hell does the time go?

Time & commitment to the process is absolutely required. I cannot say I have been consistent with above stuff.

What I do now, 5 1/2 years later:

• whole foods 100% (well, 98.435%) of the time.

• take Synergy multi-vites for women (I only take 2 daily, not the 4)

• take Synergy’s whole food vitamin c, magnesium daily, extra vitamin D 2-3 X weekly, and use wild yam herb capsules for general feminine health

• rub this oily herb infused goop on my scalp 2-3 times weekly on the nights I am going to wash my hair the next day. Less is more and this bottle lasts for months.

• herbal medicinal infusion “teas” for bone, skin, hair. Sometimes this is simple a stinging nettle only infusion. I make 2-4 quarts at a time so I have enough for a couple days to a week.

• whole health living AND yoga every day. Well, seriously, yoga (links to many blog posts I have written about Yoga’s amazing benefits for health, weight loss, healing, inner peace…) in every moment but that’s because Yoga is not about the poses.

Local Food Abounds, Health Benefits Innumerable

What's in the bowls, you ask?

Fresh, raw grape-apple sauce made from local concord grapes (across the road from me) and local apples (Thank you, Anna Campbell!).

I have been making this fresh, every morning, by chopping apples with their skins intact and putting them into the blender.  Pull grapes from their vines, seeds and skins intact, and toss into the blender.

Blend on high speed until a well blended sauce, pour into bowls and enjoy!

BENEFITS:  The benefits of local foods is that the nutrition is intact. The food is fresher as it has not been transported thousands of miles.  Apples and grapes are an amazing cleansing AM food for the liver and colon.

The skins are loaded with phyto-nutrients.   The grape seeds, well, they are too.  People pay good money for grape seed extract and yet spit the seeds out of the grapes they are eating.  What?  Grind them up, glean the benefits of the seeds!

The nutrition in both fruits is low sugar and feeds the body cells with an amazing array of nutrients (most of which we know nothing about nor have a name / label for them!).  It is a fall food to enjoy until they are gone, knowing that next season they will be back to enjoy again.

Concord Grape Jam: easy & low sugar

Concord Jam: easy & low sugar My neighbor, graciously, brought me about a peck of concord grapes last eve.  They have been growing on his property since the early 1960's! I made Jam, yummy, yummy jam.  No, not grape jelly but jam, using the whole grape, seeds and all. After a quick wash, I plucked them from their vines and threw them into my Vitamix blender.  Blending on high for about 2 minutes purees the whole grape, seeds and all.  Grape seeds and skins have amazing anti-oxidant properties, so I could not see straining them out.  I am not certain how much of the anti-oxidants survive the boiling process, but hey, I try my best! I use Pomona's Universal Pectin because I can use any amount of sugar I want (or do not want) and any type of sweetener I like... honey, maple syrup, etc.  Buy at the Potsdam Food Coop or Nature's Storehouse in Canton. I have come to the conclusion that most jams are best (in my kids' eyes and they are the ones eating it) when I am using just plain, organic sugar.  Not the Rapadura or Sucanat version but yes, the more refined, slightly tan colored, organic cane sugar. The Sucanat and Rapadura have all the molasses still intact in the dried cane juice sugar.  This makes for a very heavy tasting jam, alters the flavor of the fruit to end up tasting, well, like molasses sweetened fruit! The recipe for grape jam calls for straining, which I did not do as per above description.  It also calls for 4 cups grape liquid to 2 cups sugar.  I used less than 1 cup sugar for each 4 cups of grape puree.  I had 26 cups of grape puree and used 5 cups of sugar.  Otherwise, I followed the Pomona recipe instructions provided. The end result is a very strong, grape tasting jam, tart but not too tart, slightly sweet but not obnoxious sweet like most jams (jams that call for 4 cups of fruit to 6-8 cups sugar... that is just crazy proportions!). That's my story for today, or should I say last eve's "making jam until midnight" story? If you would like more personalized attention achieving your health goals, please contact Paula Youmell to set up a Nutrition and Health Consultation.  I can be reached atwww.HandsOnHealthHH.com. Enjoy radiant health today and every day!  Paula