Paula Youmell, RN 6/24/16 Paula Youmell, RN 6/24/16

The Path To Easy Weight Loss

Yes, I Said Easy.

Before you click the X in the upper right hand corner of your computer screen and end this pseudo conversation (or before you want to reach out and slap me upside the head)... read on, add comments, and create a dialogue.

What is this path you ask? Mindfulness I say, mindfulness around your eating habits but more importantly, mindfulness around your life.

Why Mindfulness?
Mindfulness teaches us to be present-minded and grounded in our professional and personal lives from a foundation of inner (my word) connectedness. A mindfulness practice involves a small amount of time devoted to re-setting. This re-set allows us to be in the moment, make decisions, reflect and communicate from our innermost, authentic voice.

End Result: You make decisions based upon what is best for the growth of your higher self and the greater good not impulse based decisions to satisfy immediate gratification on some level or another.

Yes, I said easy.

What is this path you ask? Mindfulness I say, mindfulness around your eating habits but more importantly, mindfulness around your life.

Mindfulness defined from Jenny Kenny Morrill (Colton, NY) 3 Marigolds Mindfulness Tutoring services:

Why Mindfulness?
Mindfulness teaches us to be present-minded and grounded in our professional and personal lives from a foundation of inner (my word) connectedness. A mindfulness practice involves a small amount of time devoted to re-setting. This re-set allows us to be in the moment, make decisions, reflect, and communicate from our innermost - authentic voice.

Thank you Trillium Yoga for posting this Yoga wisdom picture on FB.

You have heard me speak of how my 16 year, daily yoga practice has created mindfulness in my life. I also hope you have enjoyed my earlier post on Walking the Red Road... I remind you of these things, and previous posts, because I want to show you that all of this is within your grasp and you will start creating a healthier you (including that weight loss you have been intending on).

Pick a mindfulness habit that works for you and start watching your life look like this:

Thinking thoughtfully around your day... "Oh, I have a big dinner tonight. I will mindfully eat very lightly the rest of the day to not over food, over stuff myself, in this 24 hour period.
"Wow, that family celebration was heavy last night." Mindfully I decide to fast a bit longer today, skip break - fast, and breathe deeply knowing I am fine without food for a few hours more.
You realize that hunger signals from the brain and belly do not always need to be immediately gratified. "Hey, I hear you speaking awesome body but I am going to pass on any food right now and I know I will be ok. This hunger pang too shall pass and I can wait until breakfast, lunch, dinner..."
Working through the ending sugar addiction becomes a practice of self-love wrapped in gorgeous, mindfulness gift paper and ribbons. Gently reminding yourself:

"If I stop feeding the gut bugs that thrive on sugar and refined carbs what they want (more sugar and refined carbs) they, the sugar craving gut bugs, will die."

"Yup, starve the 'lil buggers to death. My whole food diet will re-establish the amazing gut bugs I do want in my digestive tract. These wanted gut bugs will not be begging me for sugar, they will not scream from deep inside my belly to run and find that hidden ice ' cream in the freezer or that bag of chocolate chips I hide from the family."

"Goodbye soda, other sugary drinks, and packaged refined foods... my gut bugs don't want you!"

Seriously, have these dialogues with yourself and your gut bugs. Good inner dialogue keeps you mindful AND makes you chuckle (laughter is healing my friends!) as you move through your day on this magical path of mindfulness.

Use mindfulness to improve any aspect of your life, make those whole health lifestyle changes you have been meaning to, and support the kissing goodbye of all of the habits that are not cultivating your higher self or the greater good.

Need extra help?

Find a yoga teacher and/or class in your area. Here in Northern NY: Trillium, Yoga Loft, Five Elements, Northern Light Yoga
Call Jenny for mindfulness tutoring, see above.
Try meditation: go to Five Elements Living and check out the offerings with Sarah Jane, check out the upcoming classes: Cultivating Ease & Liveliness
More meditation in the Potsdam-Canton, NY area: Northern Light Yoga, Trillium Yoga, St. Lawrence University, SUNY Potsdam, and the Unitarian Universalist Church of Canton
Find what works for you in your area: tai chi, qi gong, tae kwon do, prayer, walking meditation...
Read a book on yoga or mindfulness and teach yourself... then practice every day.
Go to my blog page (hey, wait... you are already here!) OK, then just do this for some added loving support: in the search bar type in Yoga. You will get many posts on supporting your mindfulness practice. Now type in weight loss... yup, more support 'cuz friends, that's what I do... work to support your health and healing needs. I am hoping that a word or two of wisdom will spark some sort of change in you to help you find your natural path, find you, again.

BIG HUGS (filled with mindfulness of course) , Paula

**PS... Hey, I just remembered, I wrote a book and Jenny & I wrote a book together to help you cultivate your mindfulness and turn your life into a blissful existence.**

Currently unavailable. I have a few copies and am working on a re-publish. Contact me.

I wrote another book to help you navigate lifestyle changes to restore your natural health and lose that weight. See, I do have your back 24/7!

Join My Home Study Courses, The School of Self Healing

To Mindfully Restore Your Health From The Ground Up

Start learning with Divine Weight Loss to taste test

how I can support your health.

**Find your path and walk in peace.**

Paula Youmell, RN 2/23/14 Paula Youmell, RN 2/23/14

Arthritis: Cooling the Inflammation Naturally

Dietary Changes:

1. Ok, here I go.... whole foods.

If you replace everything you put in your mouth that is not 100% whole food with real food, whole food, your body will heal. It is really that simple.

I could give much more information but making changes, one simple thing at a time, is easiest for most people. Changing the diet from processed, packaged, food "products" to 100% whole food is a huge change for most people. Seriously think about what you eat for each meal and snacks, if you snack: How many food items are manufactured in a factory? How many were created by nature and nature alone (no human meddling)?

Support to move into a whole food eating & healing lifestyle.

Dietary Changes:

1. Ok, here I go.... whole foods.

If you replace everything you put in your mouth that is not 100% whole food with real food, whole food, your body will heal. It is really that simple.

2. While switching to whole foods, remove wheat and gluten from the diet.

By removing all these packaged foods from your life, you will be removing many laboratory made ingredients that are derived from wheat. Many food additives are made from wheat and therefore contain gluten. You will not read "wheat" on the label but the ingredients with weird, chemical sounding names, more than likely are wheat derived and contain gluten. Eat un-packaged food!

I know many people have complete relief of symptoms by getting gluten out of their diets. This is not as hard as people "groan and moan" it is going to be. People need to educate themselves around gluten and with this new found knowledge, avoiding gluten is not so difficult. Where it gets difficult is we have become a culture dependent on food products and eating away from home (which most food in restaurants is cheap, crap food; use the cheapest ingredients to make the most profit possible). Food products and food prepared out of home is often times full of wheat derivatives. For help: Gluten-Free Cooking & Living Class

3. Another key step in whole food, gluten-free eating is to avoid gluten-free products.

Most are full of filler crap ingredients that are debilitating to health. You will be, in essence, trading one debilitating food for another. Read labels on all foods, gluten-free included, for 100% whole food ingredients. All gluten free foods need to be 100% whole food: no white rice flour, potato starch, tapioca starch, etc. These are refined ingredients and hard on your body's health.

OK, so why remove gluten? Because it is very inflammatory in most people's bodies. Modern day wheat is extremely high in gluten compared to heritage wheat of days gone by, the wheat that existed before human manipulation. The high concentrations of gluten in modern wheat disturb metabolism and cellular health, some people notice it more than others. How gluten affects each person is different. What is known is that gluten is a huge culprit in arthritis and many people are relieved of arthritis symptoms simply by getting rid of gluten. Eat completely gluten-free for 2 weeks, see how you feel. If any doubts about it helping or not, try this: after 2 weeks of gluten-free eating, eat plenty of wheat at every meal for a whole day. Pile on the whole wheat bread, pasta, crackers, and cereal. Now pay attention to how your body feels!

Bread was traditionally made from sprouted whole grains and then fermented for 3 full days with sour dough cultures. The amount of gluten left after sprouting and culturing was very minimal. Today's bread is mass produced in a matter of a couple of hours. There was good reasons for traditional food preparation.

Gluten is naturally found in wheat, rye, barley, and oats*. Any variety of wheat will contain gluten: spelt, kamut, einkorn... anything that says heritage wheat variety. Yes, they have less gluten but at this point, with an auto immune disease, any amount of gluten will just exacerbate the internal inflammation.

Think lung disease: how many daily cigarettes would you recommend to someone with lung disease?

Think liver disease: how many shots of liquor would you recommend to someone trying to heal liver disease?

Think diabetes: how much sugar would you recommend to someone trying to heal the beta cells in their pancreas and ultimately heal their type II diabetes?

Would you tell these people to do the 80/20 plan with their cigarette, alcohol, or sugar consumption?

Eliminating the "culprits," (the cause or causes of the health symptoms) and introducing nourishing healers (food, lifestyle, herbs, etc.) is what will heal your beautiful body, right down to each and every beautiful cell!

*Avoid oats unless certified gluten-free and organic. Oats do not naturally contain gluten. If whole oats, oat flakes, Irish oats, or oat flour are CERTIFIED gluten-free, then they are fine. Gluten-free certification is essential with oats. Otherwise, you are consuming oats that have been contaminated with gluten in the grain harvesting and handling process. Oats are processed on the same equipment that wheat is processed on. This industry practice contaminates oats with gluten from the wheat.

All grains should be organic to avoid pesticides and agricultural chemicals that will, most likely, exacerbate your symptoms. Glyphosate (broad spectrum herbicide brought to you by Monsanto) is hard on the gut lining's health, disrupts gut microbial populations, and creates inflammation in the body.

4. Get rid of sugar:

A whole food diet will take care of that problem immediately. Perhaps some educational handouts around the ill effects of sugar would help out here? Email me and ask for my sugar handouts: pyoumell@gmail.com

5. Dairy:

Often people have much relief from arthritis symptoms when they completely avoid dairy. Some people do well to re-introduce dairy after weeks of eliminating it IF the dairy is raw and from grass fed animals. This means no pasteurization or homogenization. Others do well to re-introduce only raw, grass fed goat milk and goat milk products (cheese, yogurt).

6. Alkalize the body:

The human body likes to function in a slightly alkaline state. When the body struggles to balance from acidic eating and lifestyle habits our health suffers: mineral loss causing tooth decay and bone de-mineralization and deterioration of body organs, body cells.

Below is a chart on acid and alkaline foods. Eating in a balanced way, to keep the body alkaline, helps to heal, including arthritis. Example: Eat veggies with meat to balance the acid-alkaline effects. This is only a quick explanation of acid-alkaline balancing. I encourage you to explore and learn more.

A youtube video with a good, basic explanation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yk1ru_CJt2k (Forgive the couple of misspelled words, the content is what counts here.)

7. Movement Magic:

Movement is essential. Move it or lose it. Try something called dynamic movement which helps to heal the adhesions that settle in from moving body parts in one direction only. Can I recommend Yoga?

Lisa Huck: I cannot recommend this woman enough: her exercises will restore youthful movement in just minutes a day by lubricating (listen to her awesome words in the video). I stumbled upon her (thanks to Dr. Mercola) and her dynamic movements have ended my sciatica and low back issues (which were not low back issues at all, but movement issues!). She is the Goddess of Movement, my Goddess of movement!

http://thrivefnlblog.com/2012/04/16/dynamic-core-routine/

8. Herbal Healing:

Herbs are fabulous whole foods for healing the body. I would add these in AFTER you have had gluten out of your diet for at least 2 weeks. This way, you can see the effects getting gluten out has on getting healing into your body! You do want to know what is having the healing effects!

My favorite herb: Stinging nettles, I love this green healer. Her work is truly magic in the human body. Nettles adds nutrients to every body cell. This is what you want for your body!

Nettles: planted right next to my porch so I always know I have a supply!

9. More herbs to add for nourishing the body cells, easing symptoms of inflammation, and healing:

ginger, turmeric, cinnamon*, cayenne, and Devil's claw. (*Please use real Ceylon cinnamon, not the grocery store variety of cinnamon.)

Turmeric Ginger Anti-inflammatory syrup recipe

Turmeric butter, anti-inflammatory butter recipe

10. Burdock root and dandelion root:

Nourishing the liver and adding essential fatty acids to the diet heals the body. Both of these roots can be eaten in soups, stir fries, stews, and grated (raw) into a slaw salad or grated to put on top of a green salad. Making an infusion and drinking 3 to 4 cups daily is healing as well. An infusion is a medicinal strength herbal tea. Need help on how to brew an infusion?

11. Nature's Path:

Find that place outside and get fresh air and sunshine (even on cloudy days) every day. Visualize a potted plant, shoved in the bottom of a closet, no fresh air or sunshine. What do you think will be the outcome for that plant? Put this common sense in action in your life. All living beings need fresh air and sunshine, period, bottom line! Embrace it, love it, find time every single day. I promise, you will not regret it.

Putting your body in direct contact with the Earth is called Grounding. Think bare feet walking on a sunny day, cloudy day, even a rainy day. Try removing as much clothes as possible and lie right down on the ground getting as much Earth contact as possible.

Below zero and snow you say? There are Grounding mats you can buy. I will not profess any knowledge or experience around these things as I have never used them. I have clients who swear by them for relief of body aches and pains.

12. Acupuncture:

I would be horribly remiss if I did not tell you about the healing powers of acupuncture to reduce inflammation and move healing energy in the body. I recommend Shelby Connelly, Licensed Acupuncturist in Colton, NY: http://fiveelementsliving.com/

Not in the Northern NY State area? Find an acupuncturist from Tai Sophia, Maryland University of Integrative Health.

13. Yoga:

Does amazing things for healing! Find a yoga instructor knowledgeable in arthritis health and healing. Here in the Northern part of NY State, St. Lawrence County... I recommend Rebecca Rivers, Ellie Beeler, and Sarah Harris. Try the Yoga Loft & Trillium!

14. Reiki Energy Healing:

Find a Reiki practitioner to help bring calming relief to your body, mind, and spirit. I often recommend people take Reiki 1 training to learn to do Reiki healing on themselves.

Bottom Line:

1. Whole foods

2. Gluten-free eating, maybe grain free

3. Sugar free eating & drinking

4. Move your body

5. Fresh air & sunshine

6. Herbs

7. Acupuncture and energy healing

8. Yoga

9. Reiki

May this post inspire you to move forward in your life, to take self-responsibility for healing your own body. You know your body best and what it needs to heal.

Be well, relax, learn to heal your beautiful body through nature! If I can help you with your healing plan, you know where to find me. Contact Paula

PS Need some words of love & encouragement from happy clients & students?

Free Natural Health-Lifestyle Medicine Information to further encourage your Self Healing Skills:

Principles of Whole Food Eating (Whole foods are the foundation for your healing plan.)
Movement Magic
Whole Health Lifestyle Choices
Making Herbal Infusions
Bone Health
Making any recipe a Whole Food Recipe
Microwave ILLS
Gut Health
Keeping blood sugar healthy
Cook like a kitchen artist!
Clean 15, Dirty Dozen list from Environmental Working Group
Recipes