• Still suffering from losing that last 10 pounds?
• Can't control your cravings?
• Still binge eating?
• Still having a hard time being consistent with fitness?
• Having anxiety throughout the day?
• Suffering from depression?
• Feeling sad?
• Aches and pains?

It's time to march into MARCH with MINDFULNESS. With spring just around the corner, it's the perfect time to start your mindfulness/relaxation journey!

Simply put, we are prehistoric peeps, living in a modern world; and truth be told, our bodies WILL never adapt to the stressors we are exposed to daily.

We are a complete system that sadly has been "compartmentalized" by modern medicine.

A quick success story....Last month, I just finished up a 30 day meditation challenge with one of my clients. She is 49, has a very big corporate job and three children. We upgraded, optimized and customized the perfect lifestyle plan to help your lose weight, sleep better and optimize her immune system. Within 3 months she went off 20 mg of zantac and her beta blocker. She committed to two daily walks for 20 minutes (it's all about the cumulative results) and two 15 minute strength training sessions per week. She added in 9 servings of rainbow foods daily and was hydrating properly. She lost 32 pounds and 36 inches in total!!! She still wanted to lose one more dress size, but her stress levels were keeping her cortisol levels elevated, causing a plateau in her progress. We spent our last 2 coaching sessions on implementing and mastering the LOVE BUCKET (Thrive habit)-she committed to nourishing 1 love bucket per week and a twice daily, 5 minute meditation practice. We didn't modify anything else-in 30 days, she lost another 9 pounds, just by keeping her cortisol at bay with daily mediation and hiking 1 hour weekly with her dog (this was her love bucket)

Everywhere you turn, there is a new potion, lotion or miracle in a jar claiming to ward off the effects of ageing!

Women and beauty products - it's a love affair that's been going on for centuries. Young, airbrushed models that never seem to age promoting products that claim to "turn back time" or "Botox in a jar"- Sure, advancements in medicine and pharmaceutical grade skin care is all the rage-but how far are we willing to go to jeopardize our health?

On average, women expose themselves to 515 chemicals everyday without knowing the health implications associated with them. Our skin in the largest organ and anything we put on it is absorbed into the body, bypasses the liver and attaches to hormone receptors in the body. Hello estrogen dominance related diseases, cancer, infertility, hormone dis-regulation and accelerated aging.

The FDA doesn't require any pre-market testing or approval before beauty products hit the shelves-I find that scary, don't you?

That being said, there are so many things you can do to slow down the aging process, improve the health of your skin and turn back the biological aging clock with food, hydration, sleep and natural skin care!

The hard truth-Seventy percent of all American adults are either overweight or obese.

The first thing I'd like to address is that exercise isn't a means to weight-loss and a six pack. What it does is sets the metabolic environment to lose weight, but more importantly, it's the cornerstone to aging with grace.

Physical activity is decreasing in our modern society, particularly in children. Exercise has many beneficial physiologic effects, which result in demonstrable reductions in cardiovascular (CV) and other diseases. Daily exercise favorably alters gene expression (and improves other parameters, including: CV, musculoskeletal, pulmonary, and general fitness, glucose and lipid metabolism,blood pressure, autonomic balance, mood, sleep quality, and immunity.

By 2020, the fitness industry will be pulling in a whopping $200 Billion dollars a year!

Fitness has become such a big business and we've been led to believe that it's the be all, end all to coveting a six pack. Nope- they are actually made in the kitchen.

Happy 2018!

Every new year, I always pop onto Amazon and plug in the words "diet book" and each year, the number grows exponentially- there are now over 216,000 different ways to lose weight. Yikes!

Think about that for a second. How could there possibly be over 216, 000 ways to lose weight? I can see why people are so confused about where to begin and what "diet" to try.

I'll start off by saying that you are unique and so are the authors of these diet books. They range in age, gender, blood type, ethnicity, activity level, stress levels and whether or not they had a healing crisis they were trying to heal.

I'm not saying that all 216,000 of these diets are wrong (well, some are downright scary-like eating fruit for every meal for the rest of your life), but the diet worked for that individual, hoping it would also work for you too.

Often times it's not the diet, its that the individual has so much underlying inflammation, that nothing will work unless they address that inflammation first. Testing for food sensitivities is instrumental in helping to identify the root cause of low grade inflammation. I slowly and closely work with clients helping them heal the body and gut with a whole foods protocol.

Happy New Year Y'all!

Phew! That was a fast and furious holiday! I had family in town and entertained for 9 days straight, so I'm in need of a little TLC-how about you?

NYE is the perfect time to check in with yourself and do a full body scan to see what symptoms have bubbled up over the last few weeks.

If you've found yourself doing the following, you may not be feeling 100%:

• drinking too much wine
• Indulging in too many gluten free chocolate chip cookies
• Indulging in too many dips, chips and cheese
• not getting enough sleep
• sitting on the couch a little more than usual

No big deal if this sounds all too familiar-the past is the past, it doesn't serve us to beat ourselves up and just throw in the towel. It's time to regroup and reestablish our healthy habits that may have slipped through the cracks over the last few weeks.

How To Do A Full Body Scan

The idea of a full body scan is to bring awareness back to your body and check in to see how it's functioning.

1. Start by sitting in a chair with your arms relaxed by your side and eyes closed.

2. Starting with your head, imagine your in a x-ray tube and it's scanning your entire body. Pay attention to your joints, your back, your feet. Move your limbs around. Flex and extend. Take an inventory.

Do you find that you’re hungry all the time? How many meals do you eat a day? And what do you think about the effect it has on your body? Would you like to change this? Do you sometimes catch yourself at work watching the time tick by for when you can be freed into open society to feast? The answer to all these questions and more, it appears, are hidden in your hormones…

Everything that we feel, think, and act is mediated by what goes on in our brains. There is an ongoing relationship between our brains and body’s - bodily processes are in a constant state of flux, and it’s our brains interpretation of these processes that affects how we feel.

The specific part of the brain that controls hunger and satiety is the hypothalamus. It interprets signals hunger regulating hormones, to tell you when to eat.

Two of the main hormones associated with hunger regulation are leptin and ghrelin, and research has shown that they are secreted in other parts of the body but affect the hypothalamus. There are other hormones that have also been found to trigger feelings of hunger and fullness which we will also look at, but right now it is important to understand the two main hormones that have the most research surrounding their effects.

Are you completely and utterly confused about what you should be eating?

Are you struggling with losing unwanted body-fat?

Have you plateaued and can't seem to figure out why?

Do you think that you are eating well, but can't shed and ounce?

Are you frustrated about all the conflicting dietary advice out there?

I don't blame you, losing weight today is so complicated!

There are so many diets to choose from! What will work for you?

• Paleo
• Vegetarian (vegan, lacto-ovo, lacto, pescatarian)
• Primal
• Frutarian
• Flexitarain
• The Zone
• High carb
• Low carb
• Fat free
• Ketogenic

The list is endless. So, what is the answer?

The $24,000 Dollar Question

Here's a fun exercise. Head over to Amazon and do a search for "weight-loss" under the books category; what you will find is an astonishing hit of over 24,000 different diet books.

Yes, you read that correctly?

Do ALL of these diets work?

It's hard to believe, but YES they do work.

Here's the catch though, all of these plans are bio-individual, meaning they worked for a specific bio-chemical make-up. Humans are incredibly complex and our internal chemistry varies from one person to the next.