With every month comes change and progress

I always am so excited for the first week of the month…re-assessment week! I measure, weigh and do the same fitness tests that I do on our initial meeting. What a great way to see progress and it’s an awesome motivator!

Highlighted for last month is Kathi’s achievements! She started on her own by going to her gym facility at work and modifying her diet. Kathi trained with me for a few months 2x/week (with a buddy) and came to free Saturday bootcamps. Kathi advanced physically quickly, even though she deals with back issues.

Congratulations to Kathi for achieving her goal of climbing a rock wall at James Island County Park (not to mention kayaking too!). Kathi lost almost 7″ in 2 months, increased on all her fitness tests and increased her flexibility by 2″! Kathi is now giving our advanced class on T/TH with Heather a try!

Thanks Kathi for being an inspiration for making this her new lifestlye! Who else is ready to make a change?

Health and Happiness!

Tina

tina@theholisticchick.com

Purification wrap-up (a little late!)

My Standard Process purification wrapped up a few weeks ago and time has not been on my side to post about it. So here’s how it went:

All-in-all I didn’t find staying on the program too difficult. The last few days of it were 4th of July weekend, so I had some mac-and-cheese at a party and then cheated a bit at our weekend in Edisto. The less I drank alcohol and the less I ate, the more I realized I did not miss it. I only lost 3 lbs, but honestly, I didn’t have a lot to detox in my organs, and I eat pretty clean, so that was to be expected. I still am dealing with a lot of the problems I had before, I’ll be working with someone to get to the root of the problem soon.

It’s been 2 weeks since I ended the detox and I found that having a few drinks or eating most foods, especially at a restaurant still makes me feel awful. Mark and I had a Sunday Funday last week. After a museum and a walk on King street we decided to go on a little pub crawl.
– We started with a beer and calamari at Amen Street…so tasty!
– then we went for the views and to soak up some sun and a Corona at the roof top bar at Market Pavilion
– we decided to keep it classy and go to the bar at Husk…a wheat beer from Holy City and some pickled fried green tomatoes were just amazing!
– After all that beer and food, we were hungry, so we went to the Bull Market on King for sandwiches. I figured I had so much wheat in the beer, who cares if I had bread too! Caprese sandwich was fresh and yummy, especially knowing I can’t have bread or cheese too often.

I actually didn’t feel bad until I woke up in the middle of the night with the sweats. For being cleansed and having 3 beers and restaurant food, I didn’t do too bad, but won’t be doing that for again for a while!

The pictures below are: Wine taps at Amen Street, View at Market Pavilion, my beer at Husk and the cute boutiques at Bull Street.

This kid doesn’t stand a chance…

We went to see a movie on the beach at Folly a few weeks ago.  We sat down to watch Goonies, with everyone’s favorite character “Chunk”, and I noticed this poor kiddo next to me who is already a bit of a chunk himself.  A big yellow fluorescent bottle of Powerade sat in the sand next to him while he had a bag of bright orange Doritos.  About a half hour later he had a handful of Cheetos, because I guess the first round of orange chemicals wasn’t quite enough.

Most people say “so what, they’re just kids, it doesn’t matter”.  Well that’s a whole other subject, but the thing I want to explore here is what do you think this kid has in front of him?

A life battling with his weight, disease and depression.  This is unacceptable!

We live in a world where people are constantly eating, but are malnourished.  My guess is that this kid is not being nourished all day.  He is on a life path to constantly eating because his body is constantly searching for what it needs, but cereal, snacks, sodas, candy, chicken nuggets and fries will never give you it.  A life of constantly eating that empty, nutrient deprived food will lead to obesity and all the effects of it: diabetes, heart disease, high cholesterol, depression, fatigue and on and on….

Some people who eat like this don’t get fat, I was skinny when I was little and ate nothing good.  But look at this kids belly, he is not more than 7 and has excessive visceral fat all around his midsection.  Visceral fat surrounds the internal organs and is mainly a product of lifestyle choices.   You will see all the same problems that are associated with obesity…even if you are not overweight and even if you’re a kid.

Don’t set your kids up for these preventable diseases.  It’s YOUR choice parents.  I know you love your kids, show them by providing your kids with the proper tools to live a healthy life!

 

Days 7-10 of Purification

First week and a few days under my belt!  In some ways I feel better, however I am still frustrated with my bloated belly.  I noticed that eating really well and feeling really crappy still made me bitchy 🙂  A few things that seemed to set me off feeling bad were sweet potatoes baked in olive oil and salt and brown rice pasta with broccoli, olive oil and sea salt.  So I think I’ll stay off olive oil and salt for a few days and see if that makes a difference.

Food was typical smoothies and veggies listed in other posts.  We had spaghetti squash with capers, roasted peppers and onions and sautéed garlic and tomatoes .  I love all the veggies, but the squash made me want to gag a little after eating a big plate.  Guess that won’t be a staple in my diet!  It’s really pretty though…

I have graduated rom taking 21 SP CLeanse everyday to now only having to take 10 SP greens.  I’m down 3 pounds, so 10 more to go to my goal!

www.standardprocess.com

Days 3-6 Purification – Yummy food, a little cheating :)

Day 3 fell on a beautiful, sunny Friday.  We did your typical smoothies and Mark made a great dish for lunch: Lentils with roasted zucchini and squash and sautéed onion, carrots, bell pepper and kale.  Just a little olive oil, salt, pepper and some fresh oregano from the farm.

Even though we were on IOP on that beautiful sunny day while everyone was drinking Coronas and Westbrook White Tai, I refrained.  Water, water, water…and I was ok with that because I was feeling crappy.

Saturday and Sunday I cheated a little, I must admit.  Again, great smoothies.  For dinner we went to Ms Roses in West Ashley to see Mark Jackson Music (my honey – see link below).  I had an amazing arugula salad with pomegranates and a cherry vinaigrette.  The cheating part came with the feta on top.  I ate it, and it was GOOD!  I felt fine after as well.  Sunday we were lucky enough to wake up with an ocean view at a friend’s house on Folly.  She is a hostess with the mostess!  Look at this spread…how could you not cheat a little?  Just a few sips of wine and I had to have some fresh shrimp right off the boat and grilled to perfection, that’s all!

Monday I really didn’t feel like eating much.  I had some smoothies and a late night salad.  Salad was mixed arugula and greens with apple, honey, fresh squeezed lemon.  So simple and so delicious!

Tuesday I had to be at work by 8, so I ran out with just the shake (no smoothie with fruit and greens) and a bunch of fresh blueberries.  Again, I haven’t been too hungry, so it was fine until about 2.   We got a bunch of beautiful produce from the Mt P farmer’s market.  We also enjoyed some King Of Pops pops (I got Blood Orange Basil).  I had some pickle samples which I thought would have been fine.  Shortly after  I ate them I got bloated, achy, blah, blah…no more pickles for me, unless it’s Bubbies.

I made a super-delicious smoothie for dinner: beets, spinach, cilantro, 1/4 lemon, mixed frozen berries.  It’s beautiful too!  Oh, and just so you know, I hate beets and could never eat them.  I need them for my struggeling liver.  I’m so excited I can have them now!

Links:

Mark Jackson Music: http://www.reverbnation.com/jaxonunplugged

Ms Roses: http://msroses.com/

King of Pops: http://charleston.kingofpops.net/

Day 2 Standard Process Purification

Some yummy smoothies to be had today.  I can definitely taste the SP cleanse in there, it make it a little powdery, but they are still good.

Breakfast smoothie my honey made for me: 1/2 avocado, 1/2 banana, kale, mixed berries and SP cleanse

Snack: leftover green beans, asparagus and roasted sweet potatoes

Lunch smoothie: orange, 1/4 lemon, spinach, drizzle of honey, mint and SP Cleanse

   

45 minute bike ride

Dinner: spinach, tomato, cucumber, lemon and capers with a side of sweet potato

I’ve been getting a little shaky around 7, so I took some Gymnema to even out blood sugar.  Seems to work.  https://www.standardprocess.com/Products/MediHerb/Gymnema-4g

45 minute walk

Late evening smoothie: spinach, cilantro, a few cubes of pineapple and SP cleanse.  It was a beautiful green color as well!

My belly is still real bloated.  I’m really hoping that diminishes soon.  I feel like if you stuck a pin in me I’d pop!!!

Day 1 of Standard Process Purification

The Standard Process Purification System Day 1 has started great!  I typically start my morning with a smoothie, so the only difference here was the added SP Complete which offers whole food nutrition.  I also took a whole bunch of supplements.  See the above link for the protocol.  I added some extras too: probiotic, tuna oil and Catalyn which provides all the vitamins and minerals we need.

(The links haven’t been working, so try this: https://www.standardprocess.com/Products/Standard-Process/Purification-Product-Kit-DF-Gastro-Fiber )

Breakfast: 1/2 banana, 1/2 avocado, 1/2 lime, blueberries, big handful of kale, handful of cilantro, 2 scoops of SP Complete

Lunch: smoothie ~ carrot, spinach, mint, a few frozen strawberries and 2 scoops SC Complete

Snack: cucumber

Pre-workout snack: banana

1 hour workout burning around 400 calories

Dinner: Mixed berries, mint and 2 scoops SP Complete, asparagus, green beans and onions sautéed with olive oil and sea salt

Easy Peasy!  Here’s hoping the next 20 days are just as easy!  Below are a list of symptoms, measurements and pictures of what needs to change.

Symptoms:

excessive bloating, nausea, ravenous hunger, constant pain on left side of abdomen, constant ache in my throat/neck, low blood pressure, quick muscle fatigue, out-of-breath fast, irritable bowel, achiness, heart beats rapidly with salt intake, extreme pain and sickness sometimes after eating….oh yeah, and major brain fog…almost forgot that 🙂

*** With this being said, mind you that if I did not already eat clean and exercise regularly, I would most likely be obese with a whole host of major health problems.

Here’s my bloated belly:

…and what’s going on with my neck.  It’s always been the source of sickness, now it’s just kinda hanging there…

Throat issues: I had a lump in my throat it when I was little.  I remember the bubble gum medicine eventually made it go away.  In my 20’s it completely closed up, had to be rushed to the emergency room.  I was then diagnosed with hypothyroidism.  In my 30’s it was the start of sickness and would swell up.  In my 40’s..it has loose skin…really?  Ugh!

Weight: 128, really high for me.  I should be closer to 115, I’m 5’2.

Measurements: Neck 12.5, Chest 35, Waist 29, Belly 34, Hips 39.5, Thigh 22, Calves 13 and Arms 10.5

There, it’s all out there.  I hold my clients accountable, now I need you to hold me accountable! Thanks 🙂

Link

For the past 20 years I have been dealing with feeling crappy, sometimes it gets really bad.  That’s actually how I got into becoming a health counselor and personal trainer.  I was always researching to see why I was feeling the way I did.  I learned about clean eating and starting working out a lot, it just made me feel so much better…of course!  People started coming to me for advise.

I went to tons of doctors, had way to many tests, was told numerous things like: “maybe just eat a meat diet”, fibromyalgia, leaky gut, irritable bowel, estrogen dominance, one test even had that my uranium levels were off the charts…hmmm?!  No one ever got to the root of the problem.

One diagnosis that made the most sense and is the cause for a lot of the other problems is hypothyroidism.  Normal TSH levels are somewhere around .5 to 5, my levels were off the charts at 365, no wonder I felt horrible!  The rest of this story is long and has been up and down, I will expand on that later, but I will tell you that my adrenals and liver are now pretty messed up, which is a result of the inactive thyroid.  I have a constant pain in either my left ovary or maybe it’s my large intestine, not sure what that is about.  Progesterone cream helps.  I have major sensitivities to different foods.  The past few months it has gotten to a point where I have been in severe pain, ending up in the bathroom, scared to eat out, I can’t even enjoy a beer or glass of wine without feeling horrible and getting sick.  Enough is enough…time to purify my body and give my liver, kidneys and intestines a good cleaning!

Standard Process has a Purification Program that will clean all that out for me so I can start again with a clean start and get down to the root of things.  I’m looking forward to giving my body a break, losing some weight and getting my life back.  I’ll be posting daily updates with recipes.  Please check back and watch my health improve!!!

Shhh…listen, don’t Label!

I never really noticed the LABELS before I went to IIN to become a Holistic Health Counselor in 2009.  People would stand around and say “I’m a pescetarian”, “Well I’m lacto-ovo”, “Well I’m a vegan, but I’m just having this muffin because I have PMS”.  Thank goodness Paleo wasn’t a thang yet!  My questions is:

WHY DO YOU HAVE TO LABEL YOURSELF?

It’s bad enough that we are divided by political parties, religion, what kind of work we do, where we’re from…and on and on and on.  Do you really have to divide yourself further by what you eat.  A lot of people get down right nasty and in-your-face about it.  One of the crazy things is that if you’re vegan, you eat fake cheese and chicken.  Most of this is made from processed soy, a self-made indutry with NO nutritional value.  Paleo people have all kinds of “Paleo-friendly” breads and desserts.  I didn’t know the cavemen had bakeries!  haha

What it comes down to is EAT REAL FOOD IN A COMBINATION THAT WORKS FOR YOU.  The time of month, the seasons, or just where you are in your life will determine what your body needs.  It’s important to become really in-tune with your body and understand what it wants.  If you are having a sugar craving, take a look at the big picture: why am I having this?  Probably because you want energy.  Find a natural source of energy, like fruit or whole grain instead of a candy bar.  If you’re feeling really weak, you may need some good quality meat…just sayin!

To me, the most interesting research was made by Dr Weston Price.  He traveled the world and studied isolated human groups.  They all lived off of what was available to them.  Each part of the world had their own way of living because of what was available to them.  All instances showed that living off their land with no processed food worked amazing.  Disease only came to these villages when the Western diet started to creep in.  Do some research, what were your ancesters?  Maybe a diet they used to eat would work great for you!

– Keep it REAL!

– Listen to your body!

– Don’t feel trapped by a label you’ve given yourself

– Support local and eat seasonal as much as possible

– We all need carbs, fat and protein…don’t be scared, just eat quality

– Enjoy all the amazing foods from our earth!

– DON’T be a hater!

Health and Happiness!

Tina

Dads, do you suffer from Dickie-Do Disease?

In honor of all the wonderful dad’s out there, let’s bring Dickie-Do Disease to light.

What the heck is Dickie-Do Disease?  It’s when your Belly sticks out further than your…

….well, how can I say this tactfully…I can’t…then your Dickie DO!  (also known as a “beer belly”)!

My dad used to rub his belly proudly and told me it took 30 years to make it that round. The vision of him doing that cracks me up, but the effects a beer belly has on your body is anything but funny. He could tell you the same thing, but he’s no longer with us. Here’s why:

First of all, it’s a lot more than just beer causing this.  A poor diet (tons of beer would be included), lack of portion control and lack of activity and exercise cause that dangerous visceral fat around the belly.  If you have that, chances are you will develop:

– Type 2 Diabetes, Colorectal Cancer, Cartiovascular Disease and Sleep Apnea

Don’t believe me?  Too proud of your belly to let it go?  Here’s what the Mayo Clinic has to say about it!  http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/belly-fat/MC00054

Ready to make some changes to see your toes and everything else below the belt?  Great!  You will add years to your life and quality to those years!

If you don’t want to do it for you, do it for the ones that love you.  Give the gift of health to yourself and inspire others!

Let’s make this a challenge.  Try the 12-week Get Healthy Challenge.  You’d be amazed at how that belly will shrink 🙂