Some of the most common nutritional issues that I hear from clients in my sessions revolve around these phrases:
– I think I have food sensitivities
– I have no energy
– I need a plan
– I want more confidence in my body
– I don’t want to feel restricted
– I put everybody else first
– I feel out of control
– I don’t sleep
Simple Solutions
My wise friend, Dr. Brie Gindele, shared on my Facebook Page recently, that if you added one healthy choice of organic or whole foods to your diet each month for the rest of the year, by the time the year is complete, you would have added in 12 new different organic veggies into your diet.
Time and money are excuses that come up for many of us.
– Can I afford this?
– Will I have time?
It’s your health. You can make time now, or you can make time 10 years from now, either way you’ll need to do it.
When you eat clean (naked foods), then you are literally improving your health: you are missing less work, and more importantly, you’re spending less on prescriptions, doctors bills, cold medicine, and junk food.
Spend More to Save More?
I know that spending a few dollars more on clean foods will save you money, time, and happiness in the long run – or even as short as a week! But I can’t convince you – you really need to eat a whole foods diet without sugar, caffeine, gluten, alcohol, or processed foods for at least a week. There is no way you’ll know how amazing you can feel until you’ve lived without it for a period of time.
You keep working out because you feel the burn, sore muscles, and then eventually results, right? You will feel the discomfort for a few days when you give some things up, but then you’ll feel the way I did, and the way many of my clients have when they clean out their diet: a sense of clarity and wholeness.
A Visualization Exercise
You feel the energy you crave. You have a plan. Your confidence soars and you begin to trust yourself. You learn to put yourself first and you can understand your sensitivities. You begin to experience better sleep because your body is made to do this naturally.
It takes completely eliminating something in order to experience this.
The 18-Day Love Yourself Naked® Challenge is a catalyst and life changer for many men and women right now. If you’ve been on the fence, we close the doors for our spring cleanse in just 2 weeks. Details are here.
New Friends, New Experiences, New Lessons
As you read this, I’m flying out to an intimate retreat with Deepak Chopra, Andrew Weil, and many others. I look forward to sharing this experience with you on a later blog.
Speaking of flying, I met a man on a flight to the Caribbean in 2003 that I will never forget. His story impacted me immensely. At that point in my life, the conversation changed me, along with the view I had about the world. We started talking because I was reading a book about our food system at the time, and he happened to notice it. This interesting man is a farmer from the Midwest Corn Belt.
He spends his day-to-day life carrying on the legacy of the men (and women) before him, working the family farm. He told me that he got caught up in the industrial revolution and the idea that we needed to use chemicals to improve our production and quality of crops.
After years of spraying pesticides and using chemicals around the farm, this man’s body started to break down. He started feeling numb in certain areas of his body, and strange tumors began growing. He told me that he got crippling migraines and at times, he couldn’t even tend his farm.
He shared with me that never once at the beginning did it dawn on him that there could be a connection between the chemicals on the farm and his condition.
The Breakdown Before the Breakthrough
After months of seeing doctors, taking medications and drugs, and seeing no results, he decided to cleanse his body. He told me that he spent days in his home alone because the smell and condition of his body was so bad… His body was releasing the chemicals. It got worse before it got better because those toxins needed to come out. The smell his body was giving off was like nothing he had ever smelled in his life… it was so bad that he drove over an hour away to another grocery store so that the neighbors wouldn’t have to smell him, and no one would recognize him.
He said the tumors got worse before they got better. The tumors spread all over his body. As he detoxed and added in clean foods, eventually his health began turning around, and he healed his body.
The rest of our conversation was about the sale of his farm and the purchase of a new “organic” farm that has grown to be quite well known in the Midwest. What an inspiration and a familiar story for many other organic pioneers in today’s agricultural world.
What We Have Learned
This story really lit a spark under me a decade ago. I’m forever grateful for meeting that inspiring man. He is a pioneer for the Local Food and Organic Movement.
If you were to ask the FDA (Food and Drug Administration), they would tell you that all fruits and vegetables are safe for consumption and that the levels of pesticides are below the risk level.
Certainly, we have many more studies to do in the years ahead to determine exactly what the harmful effects of pesticides in our food and water supply have on our bodies.
Yes, most of us are not like my farmer friend – we are not directly spraying chemicals and breathing them in. Instead, we are just eating them and letting them absorb into our tissues, cells, and bones while being carried through our blood streams.
Most recently, there have been connections with pesticides and cancer, Attention Deficit Disorder, obesity and nervous system and auto-immune disorders
Moreover, it’s not just the sprayed pesticides, but it’s also the entire idea of factory farming, eating genetically modified and intensely processed foods, that should be a concern to you.
What You Can Learn
Today, we’ve put together 2 lists:
The first contains the top foods to buy organic every time, and the foods that you could get away with passing on the organic version so you can stay within your budget.
The second list is called the dirty dozen. It lists out a dozen things to look for within packaged and processed foods – things you do not want to be eating.
To download the PDFs, right click and save:
1. When To Buy Organic
2. The Dirty Dozen
Many of you know this stuff, but some of you are learning it for the first time.
How can you improve if you know this info?
Where are you slacking when it comes to your health right now?
If this is a new concept, can you incorporate 1-2 new items this month and work up to 12 new organic items in your diet by the end of the year?
Let me know in the comments!
xoxo
P.S. Reminder: we have about 2 weeks left before the 18-Day Love Yourself Naked® Challenge closes. Click below to kick start your clean eating routine.
==> 18-Day Love Yourself Naked® Challenge
P.P.S. Don’t forget to save your free documents:
1. When To Buy Organic
2. The Dirty Dozen