Time to Move with Spring Energy!

I love Spring. The renewal of life, energy, and all it brings is breath taking to me every year.

Today is March 5th. As I walked in the woods with my dog, I can feel the pull of the sun. It is getting warmer, brighter, stronger... another winter survived! I can smell scents that were not there even 2 days ago; scents of the coming Spring.

I even found a Great White Pine whose south side's snow was already melted away. I sat my butt, right in the pine needles, and pressed my spine up along this mighty pine's trunk. The sun was in my face and the pine needles under me were fragrant in the sun's warmth.

The earth I sat on.

The Great White Pine, looking up her trunk, as I sat in the sun.

Spring motivates movement: sap rising, buds opening, shoots sprouting, doors and window being moved up and open, people getting out of their homes, and on & on.

I want to encourage you to move this Spring. Get outside and reap the benefits of moving your body, being exposed to natural light, and breathing in the fresh air.

Movement of the body is a natural, sacred, and healing thing. People moved constantly to complete the tasks of daily living and food gathering (as I sit here click click clicking!) before modern technology and labor saving devices.

• digging
• gathering
• hoeing
• walking
• chopping
• on & on the movement went!

We have traded daily, steady and slow going movement for either next to no movement or run-run-run and get high intensity exercise into an hour movement. It is like we have to fit the whole day's movement, pre-tech, into 1 hour. From a functional medicine perspective, slow and steady is better. Slow and steady does not create the free radicals and inflammation of high intensity, high metabolism exercise. Slow and steady: walks, yoga, tai chi, qi gong, canoe, kayak, hike, bike, mt. climb, moderate weight lifting, push ups... movement for low impact and longevity.

Embrace the Spring the renewed energy of the sun, and more movement this season.

Things I do during my day of client support and education, business work, and blog / newsletter writing:

• get up and do a yoga pose or two or three every half hour holding the pose for 7 long, deep belly breaths
• stop to do the dishes while dancing at the kitchen sink
• walk around my house, up & down the stairs and toss in some push ups for good measure
• throw in a load of wash, I hang all of my wash so the bending to get clothes out of the basket and lifting arms to hang is a good motion to break up the sitting habit 
• go out for a walk around my home and maybe do a hand stand or two up against the red pine or the stone wall 
• resist the call of the Great White Pines in my back woods... or not and wander off to commune with the White Pines, sit with my back to her trunks, and gather some life force energy while enjoying the peace - solitude - and earthy scents of the woods (then it is back to work for me)

My requests of you:

1. Comment below and share what you do to move more as the Winter breaks into Spring.

Also, I have a request for you natural remedy peoples out there. The sacred, great white pine spot in the pictures above is a favorite spot of mine. Sitting with my back to the trunk, my face is towards the southerly sky and the sun. I am looking over a sweet little body of water. The problem is: when spring rolls on the poison ivy grows there.

2. Does anyone have a natural way of getting rid of poison ivy? Please comment below. 

My idea is to use my hand clippers and start clipping it back when the shoots are just popping up out of Mother Earth. If I keep doing this every few days, my logic is this clipping will starve the roots of nourishment (no sun on the new shoots means no photosynthesis keeping the roots nourished) and eventually kill off the roots and plants. 

I have never had poison ivy and walk through it frequently. Yes, I now avoid touching the plants as I have become older and wiser. As a kid, I did not care and never got more that 1 - 2 tiny blisters on my bare feed from trodding through poison ivy patches for the reward of a swim in the St. Regis River.

Happy Spring Equinox! Happy Spring Moving! Cheers.

PS  I know the season's names are not proper nouns, require no capitalization, but I cannot help but believe they deserve to be honored with capitol letters. The seasons are sacred; nature is sacred, you are sacred (you are nature).

Gluten Free Bread Recipe:   

http://www.paulayoumellrn.com/gluten-free-bread/

No Quick Fixes

The "quick fix miracle" I can offer to you...

Almost daily I receive emails and/or FB messages asking me for quick fixes for all sorts of health symptoms and ills including weight loss products... "Will this really work for me and make me lose the weight?" I have stopped sending answers with suggestions. Truly, for me to even consider responding to these messages is unethical on my part as it does not serve the person's best interests.

Quick fixes do not exist for problems that have settled into our body cells over a lifetime of eating and other less than optimal lifestyle habits. Truly it takes motivation to change and commitment to the process for the "fix" to be had. And... the fix is a lifetime process, a lifetime commitment. When we reach the goal, be it weight loss or the end of some cluster of ill health symptoms, our wellness walk is not over. The walk is a walk of life and for life: a commitment to self to make the best choices every day for cellular health and overall vital wellness.

Now I will tell you this: sometimes there are quick relief strategies for problems and symptoms. What I mean is I can suggest a little tweak here and a little tweak there to give quick relief for some issues while we work to get at the underlying reason these problems exist. Then we can work on changing what needs to be changed to get rid of the problem symptoms forever.

Examples of some quick relief strategies (keep in mind these are not long term solutions but rather a "get me over the hump until we can figure better solutions":

• muscle spasms and cramps (especially at night making you shoot up out of bed in crazed agony): take magnesium 400 mg at bedtime and drink more pure water throughout your day.

• constipation: again, magnesium (of the citrate variety) will assist here as well as more fruits and veggies, more pure water, move your body daily, and maybe use some herbs for a bit of relief until we can correct the underlying issues.

• sleep issues (keep in mind sleep issues can vary from trouble falling asleep, to staying asleep, to experiencing quality sleep): magnesium can help here as well, get off the caffeine and sugar, get outside and move...

Divine Weight Loss eCourse

Last night I was told the story of a local man who has transformed himself (over 2 years... it is about the long haul and commitment to self). He went from a 340 pound ill health human with serious cardiac issues; severe back, hip, knee, and ankle/feet issues; diabetes; depression with 3 medications; and high cholesterol to a 180 man with no health issues, no medications, and a healthy, fit body free from disease and depression.

What did he do? Changed the way he ate, what he ate, and got his butt to the gym and out for walks every single day. Sunshine. Fresh air. Movement. Real food, nothing processed. No sugar. Inner Conscious Connection work: how he thinks about himself and the world.

Why? Because his body was falling apart from the way he had ill treated it. It was a conscious decision on his part: stay grossly obese and sick or choose health.

He is a happy man for his endeavors and I wish he was my poster child! He did this on his own - Woo Hoo for him!

Lifestyle choices are up to you. I am offering you the opportunity and support to make health and healing choices in your life.

Blessing of good health and happiness on your personal path, Paula

E-Courses To Walk Your Health Path

RACK-ing Up Great Health!

I recently created the above image and idea I am calling R-A-C-K-ing up Health to remind people how easy the return to vibrant health is. When we follow life's plan, the natural laws of the earth and universe, our health flows freely.

I was thinking about this very concept as I was picking black raspberries at my Mom & Dad's home on Saturday morning. I began picking them planning to take them to my home and share the bounty. My kids were gone for the weekend so instead the hand to mouth experience began.

By the time I left my parent's home I bet I had picked and eaten, sharing with my good buddy Basil of course, a quart of these juicy delicacies. That is some powerful and colorful nutrition based upon the stains on my hands, face, tongue, lips, and teeth!  (The picture below is Basil and I on a little north country Hornbeck canoeing excursion.)

The thoughts of vibrant, live food kept passing through my mind and how much nutrition and life force energy our bodies receive when we pick and eat food immediately. Ah yes, the grace of local food, raised by ourselves or a conscious thinking farmer, brought to our tables within a short time frame to fill our body cells with nutrition and our entire being with chi energy.

When we pick plant based food from its life source, its source of life force energy, that plant based food begins to die.  The longer the time span between plucking or pulling the food from its source, the less nutrition and life force energy remain available to nourish your body. Grow, pick, and buy local for the most cell enhancing nutrition and life force energy infusion you can gift your body with.

To find local farmers here in Northern NY State: www.gardenshare.org

To find local farmers wherever you are: www.localharvest.org

Jump down below those gorgeous berries for a bit more life enhancing advice and a yummy, iced coffee recipe.

Eating fresh food is but one way we can enhance our life force energy and cellular health. Try these natural habits for increasing your vibrancy:

• deep breathing in a relaxed and peaceful way
• yoga
• meditation
• walks in the woods and time spent in nature (remember, you are nature)
• laugh
• acupuncture and energy healing methods
• take a swim in an Adirondack lake
• love with your whole heart

Added July 16th...

• Fun Loving Spontaneity increases Life Force Energy. See the words of wisdom, below, from Shelby Connelly, Five Elements Living, Colton, NY

Ingredients for spontaneity:

• The ability to let go:  Take a deep breath and jump. The chores and routine will await your return.
• Knowing life is short:  No one ever lays on their death bed wishing they had worked more.
• A friend to push you off the edge:   Every women needs a "Thelma" to her "Louise". Oh girls just wanna have fuu-un! (Cindy Lauper is my hero.)

Namaste'

Traditional Foods, Traditional Movement

Eating whole foods, real foods, the foods that are traditional to one's area of living and thriving on this planet is one key to healing personal (and global) health. I praise the cell enhancing and body healing benefits of a 100% whole food diet all the time.

I now want to introduce you to traditional movement, the act of simply moving your body in flexing and strengthening ways, the time honored ways people on this planet have always moved their bodies. This is moving the body in the simple acts of daily living tasks that involve using the body not auto door openers and mechanized, labor saving devices. 

The farmers of Birdsfoot Farm, Canton, NY going about their daily tasks: moving, flexing, and strengthening their bodies all while creating something tangible... whole foods! Explore Birdsfoot Farm's website to see what they are up to and what they have to offer towards your healing plan!

We are a culture that simply needs to move more. Movement creates all sorts of healing effects in the body and creates an upward spiraling ripple effect to entice us to make other healing changes in our lives. When we move and then feel better... we naturally want to make even more changes to feel even "More Better!" (My kids used to use this grammatically incorrect more better making the term very endearing to me.)

We are told by the media, scientific sources, and all sorts of exercise specialists that we need to get our butts in gear, dramatically increase our heart rates for at least 20 minutes daily, lift weights to keep our muscles and bones strong, etc., etc., etc. I am not going to tell you to not engage in such activities if you are so inclined to do so. What I am going to tell you (if you are not one inclined towards hard core, butt hauling, sweat inducing, heart pumping, serious shit at the gym exercise...) is that simply getting up and moving your body, several times daily, has huge benefits for your whole body, and yes for your each and every beloved body cell!

As I grow older, I like to think common sense and wisdom is growing with me. I am one who has run miles daily (getting those miles in at 6 1/2 minutes or less was imperative), rode my bike for long and hard miles, lifted my body weight in all sorts of ways (bench presses, squats, lunges, etc.), and swam laps across rivers and lakes... I think you get the picture. In comes the wisdom (I am glad I did those things as I have always had too much energy that I needed to burn but my wisdom also tells me that some of it wore hard on my body parts)... all 4 of my grandparents lived to be just months shy of 89 years old. Not one of them ever did hard core, sweat inducing running, biking, weight lifting, swimming, etc. They simply worked hard in their tasks of daily living, moving their bodies constantly throughout the day to take care of farm animals, gardens, orchards, wood for winter fires, hay for winter feed, etc. Their exercise and weight lifting was part of life and survival from year to year. 

Lifestyle Hints: walk away from the computers (Yup, me too) go for walks, even short ones, several times daily. Walk up the stairs to use your upstairs bathroom every time you need to go (Or do laps about the house, even outside, if you only have a down stairs bathroom). Drop and do some push-ups before peeing, drop and do some crunches or V-seats (boat pose) when you are finished on the pot. Stack wood (I have 4 more cords needing stacking if anyone is interested in assisting with some free movement, no gym membership fee required and I might even make you lunch!) Walk more, do work by hand instead of using machinery, i.e.: push that lawn mower instead of sitting on it (do push-ups and pull-ups before and after mowing), split wood by hand, hoe-rake-shovel-weed, do everything you need to by hand using those glorious muscles and save the drive, and membership fee, to the gym.

I am off now to do some muscle flexing-strengthening-balancing yoga, push-ups, and a walk in the woods with my dog. I will contemplate the wood stacking and lawn mowing!

Create some Movement Magic in your own life!

Sean Corn, Yoga Teacher. Image from Yoga Journal August 2015, page 23, Rainbow Light Nutritional Supplements ad.

This chilly, wet weather on June 28th has me looking for something to do in my oven. With a hankering for yummy granola and my local yogurt, the timing seems perfect to whip up a batch of...

Gratifying Granola

Please feel free to assume that all ingredients are whole (unrefined), organic, non-GMO, pasture raised animal products, and as local as I can get.

• 2 1/4 cup oats
• 1/2 cup spelt or amaranth flour
• 1/2 cup corn meal
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 1/3 cup water or milk of choice
• 1/4 cup butter, melted
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• pinch of unrefined sea salt
• 1 tbsp. vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 250 F.
2. Blend dry ingredients together in large mixing bowl.
3. Beat eggs in a separate bowl.
4. Add other wet ingredients to beaten eggs and mix well. If batter is seemingly too "wet" add tiny amounts of flour and meal to create a damp batter.
5. Drizzle wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and stir to blend well.
6. Spread granola batter in a thin even layer in baking pan(s).
7. Bake for 2 hours at 250 F. Set a timer for every 20 to 30 minutes and stir granola well and redistribute into a thin layer on the pan(s).
8. When granola seems crunchy and well baked (not burned) remove from oven and allow to cool in the pan.
9. Transfer cooled granola to air tight containers. I prefer wide mouth quart canning jars with the 2 piece metal lids.
10. Enjoy in any and every way you enjoy granola!

You Are NOT What You Eat

 

Ok, so the story, as we have been told, is that You Are What You Eat. 

I truly love this statement as it says so much. If you stop and think consciously about this statement, you just might think hard and long about your food choices.

At the same time that this statement says so much... it does not say enough. Hence my title:

You Are NOT What You Eat.

Let me explain myself.

1. You ARE what your body digests.

• real food is required

• chew well: food must be masticated very well so your body can easily break it down (digest it) otherwise you will just be pooping out undigested chucks of food. Pity, seems like such a waste of good food! 

• strong stomach acid is required to break down food so you are able to use all of the nutrients in that real food you spend good money on. You want to encourage stomach acid not repress it with acid suppressing drugs.

• good microbial colonization of your intestinal tract is needed for certain biological activities; microorganisms perform a host of useful functions such as fermenting unused energy substrates, training the immune system, preventing growth of harmful, pathogenic bacteria, regulating the development of the gut, producing vitamins for the host, such as biotin and vitamin K, and producing hormones to direct your body to store fats (and so many more good gut bug jobs). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gut_flora

Let's move on with this You Are NOT What You Eat concept...

2. You ARE what your body can absorb.

• in order for nutrients to be absorbed, they have to be able to be digested. I will refer you back to #1 above.

• your small intestine must be healthy in order to absorb the nutrients from the digested food. Processed, packaged, factory made foods (and all the synthetic ingredients in them) damage the villi and micro villi that line your small intestine. Damaged villi do not absorb nutrients well. Ask your body's cells how they feel about this lack of nutrients coming at them? What destroys these precious little villi and micro villi you ask?

1. packaged food's synthetic ingredients
2. sugar, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup
3. hydrogenated oils and partially hydrogenated oils
4. GMO food crops
5. gluten in people with celiac disease or gluten intolernaces
6. poor chewing... see above.

3. You ARE What Your Heart Can Circulate Around Your Body and Deliver To Your Body Cells.

• moving your body daily creates a strong heart, strong blood vessels, and strong muscles that all help to pump blood around your body. I could go on and on and write a whole book on the benefits of daily movement to your body's tissue strength and how this movement supports the movement of fluids, oxygen, and nutrients throughout your body. I will spare you the long story. Trust me, just get up and move. Dance and your body cells dance with you!

4. You ARE What Can Pass Across Your Body Cell Membranes. 

The nutrients in your real food that you have chewed well, were digested well, and absorbed into your villi and micro villi are only useful IF they can pass across the cell membrane and actually nourish your body cells. Complicated, eh?

• your cell membranes need healthy fat from real food to keep it strong and intact allowing nutrients into the cell and cellular waste products out of the cell.

• also, a daily dose of healthy protein keeps the cell membranes happy.

• avoid processed, packaged, factory made foods as they contain unhealthy fats (hydrogenated & partially hydrogenated oils, cheap vegetable oils high in omega 6 fatty acids), denatured proteins, and synthetic ingredients that confuse your body and interfere with this whole digestion - absorption - circulation - and transport across the cell membrane process (for more information head back up to #1).

You are SO much more than just what you eat. You ARE what you:

• digest

• absorb

• circulate

• pass into your each and every tiny cell

Deeper Dive Homework: look at your food and your bodily processes in a different light.  Feed your body whole foods.  Support all your bodily processes so you, in turn, feed your body cells well.

PS  Dandelions are a great digestive aid!

Comments and questions are always welcome! 

5 Shocking Ways Yoga Causes You To Lose Weight

updated 8/3/22

10-18-2024 Update: this link is no longer active to the Sivana Spirit blog. I am working on getting the article contents back from the company and I will post it here.

Yoga is an awesome healing tool!

I confess, I did not write the title to my article published on the international Yoga blog: Sivana Spirit.

Had I written the title, I would not have used the work "shocking" as Yoga's affects no longer shock me. I am not certain they ever did. I do know, had I been asked 20 years ago when I started doing Yoga postures, I would not have expected all the benefits Yoga has brought into my life. (Notice I put postures in italics up there. I have been doing Yoga meditation, guided visualizations, and mindfulness work since I was 26. I sincerely had no idea this was Yoga. When I started doing postures, I thought like so many others do, that the postures were Yoga. I have learned a lot!)

But these Yoga revelations have not been "shocking." They have been smooth and silky, warm and fuzzy, and oh so stealth in sneaking into my life.

To read more about these "shocking" Yoga weight loss impacts and benefits, click here. 

Yoga truly is an easy and amazing tool for health and healing. Maybe this fact is the shocker in a culture that prefers more difficult answers. 

Yoga tones the vagus nerve… this is a huge factor in creating awareness of what triggers you to do the things you do & react the way you react. You become a calmer, more peaceful person, able to stop - reflect - and chose healthy choices as opposed to knee jerk reacting into emotional outbursts and choices that do not serve your highest good or healing energy.

Namaste good people.

Yoga Supports these things in Your Life (photos added 7/17/19)

PS  More Yoga LOVE from me to you: 

http://www.paulayoumellrn.com/blog/2014/05/27/it-all-starts-with-you

http://www.paulayoumellrn.com/blog/2013/11/18/why-i-love-yoga-and-other-thoughts-on-whole-food-whole-health-healing

http://www.paulayoumellrn.com/blog/2014/06/06/building-muscle-building-vitality