No Quick Fixes

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

Your Best Medicine

As an herbalist student of Rosemary Gladstar, I have great respect for her healing ways. This quote could not be nearer or dearer to my heart. Truly, the way we live our lives, every day, IS the best medicine we can give ourselves.

We have a powerful choice, every day, in the food we feed our body, mind, and soul with. 

Whole foods feed our bodies; feed our cells for vibrant health and healing.

Whole, positive thoughts (our own and those we invite into our lives) feed our minds for happy living.

Whole, deep spirited energy feed our souls for compassionate living and loving from our hearts.

I hope 2016 is your best medicine year yet! 

I am creating learn at home eCourses to better support you with my health & healing work. Learn from home and invite your best medicine into 2016 and your life!

E-Courses To Walk Your Health Path

Join me and bring powerful medicine into your life. We both will be glad you did!  

Healthy people make the best communities to live in.  Join my quest to support your health and healing and make our communities vibrate and glow with amazing health!

My Healthy New Years Gift to the next 5 people who enroll in:  Food As Your Healing Tool: using foods for your healing advantage & decrease disease causing inflammation.  

25% discount off the $60 tuition: $45 for the first five "get healthy in 2016" students!

Class release dates on January 6th & 13th, 2016

Immune MishMash in the kitchen

When a touch of the flu hits your home be prepared with some tools to boost the immune system:

1. Brothy soups (bone broths are nice)
2. Elderberry syrups or tinctures (Check out my elderberry article in the next Potsdam Food Co-op's newsletter, coming soon)
3. Flu tonics: (No Time For Getting Sick, everyone around me was sick and needing my care, I had to be the one to stay functioning!)
4. Herbal teas: nettle, yarrow, rosemary, peppermint (Instructions for making medicinal infusions, teas, click the herbal teas link 
5. Hot baths with plenty of water (or the above immune herbal teas) to drink  while bathing. Fevers need to be kept hydrated and allowed to do their work. A fever's purpose is to destroy the microbes causing the sickness with their heat. Fevers are part of your immune response for healing infections. If you reduce fevers with medications and cold baths, the heat of fever cannot work for you. Keep the feverish person very well hydrated to avoid the problems of fever that people fear.
6. Whole food green drink such as SuperFood Plus
7. Foods rich in:

• Vitamin C (lemon water?),
• selenium (brazil nuts anyone),
• zinc (pumpkin seeds?)

I was making a pot of soup, pictured above, to offer something brothy for my sick kid's bodies. The flu hit and one kid had a fever for 11 days. Mom care was required. As I am making the soup, "extended fever boy" is lying on the couch around the corner and says to me:

Jake:  "What are you making for dinner Mom?"

Mom: "Soup"

Jake:  "Your soup is scary to me. It always contains one or more of the following:

• animal carcasses (bone broths)
• rotting bean matter (miso)
• vegetables that most of the modern world have never heard of!

Mom: "Thanks for the vote of confidence."

Jake: "I don't appreciate finding scary things in my scary soup. The soups usually taste good but what is in it terrifies me. I observe it very carefully before I eat it."

Makes a Mom run to the kitchen to create healthy fare for her loved ones!

The Soup Recipe

1. Bring 3-4 cups of water to simmer, slowly, no need to boil. Keep pot covered and on lowest heat.
2. Saute' a medium onion chopped into fine slivers. Saute' in butter from pastured animals, animal fat, or coconut oil.
3. Grate or finely chop cabbage, about 1 cup.
4. Grate a small celeriac.
5. Add both to onion saute' and quick stir fry.
6. Add above veggie mix to the simmer water and keep heat as low as possible. Do not boil this soup.
7. Finely chop kale and saute', about 1 cup.
8. Grate a carrot and add to saute'.
9. Toss into saute' some frozen red pepper strips that you perhaps froze before growing season ended.
10. Stir fry all 3 together and add to veggie soup mix in pot.
11. Add a pinch or two of cayenne to soup.
12. Peel and press 1-2 cloves of garlic into soup.
13. I then added 3-4 tablespoons of South River Miso's Sweet White Miso. 
14. Last addition was the flu syrup sitting on the counter. It contained raw apple cider vinegar, raw honey, garlic, onion, ginger, and turmeric. There was 2/3 to 3/4 a cup left in the jar. I dumped it all into the soup and stirred it up.
15. Soup was finished and ready for serving to my terrified kid.

The only thing else I would have added, had I some bone broth on hand, would be bone broth instead of the water at the beginning. I recommend keeping bone broth made and frozen in wide mouth quart canning jars for flu emergencies. 

Happy immune boosting soup making. I hope you efforts are appreciated and not creating a reign of soup terror!

Making Bone Broth:    From my educational handout on bones and minerals

Bone broths are made with fish, chicken, turkey, beef, and lamb bones and a tablespoon of vinegar to liberate the minerals.  Put bones in a sauce pan, soup pot and cover with water, just enough to cover bones. I squish the bones down into the pot. Add the tablespoon of raw apple cider vinegar and cover the pot. I soak the bones in the vinegar water overnight and slow simmer for hours the next day. I gently bring to a simmer on the stove top. Then I place in a pre-heated 220 F oven and leave for 4-5 hours if chicken bones and longer if harder bones. Remove bones and use as a soup stock for veggie soup or eat the broth as is (add a bit of unrefined sea salt to taste). If making veggie soup, I saute' the veggies before adding to the hot broth to avoid simmering the broth anymore.

Disease... genetics or lifestyle? Am I doomed?

Words I more often hear than not in regards to a person's individual health around:

• heart disease
• cancer
• diabetes
• obesity
• kidney disease
• auto-immune diseases
• basically all dis - ease that can interfere with individual human health...

The words I am speaking of:

"Oh, there is nothing I can do about it. My mother (father, grandparents, etc.) had this disease. It is in my family. 2 of my 4 siblings already have it. It is just a matter of time and I will have it as well..."

Can I please tell you that nothing could be further form the truth? Your body is unique. Sure, you may have inherited genetic tendencies towards certain dis - ease states BUT those genes are not set up to play out. Your lifestyle choices have a huge impact in how your body's genetic code plays out over your life time. 

Choosing Healthy Living is the Path to Disease Prevention and a Lifetime of Wellness.

Let's look at cancer as one dis - ease of the body.

• All cancers are the result of multiple gene mutations. The risk of cancer is estimated to be based only 5-10% on inherited genes and 90-95% on lifestyle (unhealthy lifestyle choices can create further gene mutations and also affects the activation of genes - or not). Across all cancers, the risk of the same active cancer dis - ease between all twins was found to be about 10%. Between identical twins and breast cancer the risk was only 20%. Your lifestyle has a huge impact on how your genetic code plays out in your life time.  (Genetic cancer risk information from the New England Journal Of Medicine.)

The environmental factors Dr. Craig Venter speaks of are our day in and day out lifestyle choices. You are in control of whether your body becomes diseased or not.

My work in this world (for 3 plus decades now) has been to teach, support, and role model healthy living choices that promote long-term wellness and prevent disease. 

To make my life's work more accessible to all I have created online courses to:

• bring easily understandable information to you,
• in the comfort of your home,
• on your time, course work can be listened to and learned whenever & wherever is convenient for you (although I do not recommend late nights, burning the candle at both ends, to view course materials... plenty of sleep, every night, is one of your body's best healing mechanisms, and
• at affordable tuition.

Each mini-course gives you a deep look into the root causes for health problems and the specific lifestyle choices and strategies you can invite into your own life to prevent disease and heal your body from any current ill health challenge, dis - ease.

My eCourses I offer to you and your vibrant health are listed here:

http://www.paulayoumellrn.com/online-classes-1/

My wish for you, and why I do my work in this world, is for health that shines from your each & every body cell! Cheers, Paula