You want to lose weight. You want to ditch sugar cravings. You want to get to look and feel amazing — and your tired of the yo-yo get-healthy struggle with no lasting success.

What do Michael Jordon and Muhammad Ali have in common with Jim Carrey, Oprah Winfrey and Jack Canfield in creating success? ONE simple strategy. 

Affirmations.

All used affirmations to create success! Why would we not use affirmations in our get-healthy goal setting? Makes no sense not to, right? 

You’ve likely heard Muhammad Ali’s signature affirmation in his “I am the Greatest” speech:

Maybe you’ve heard Michael Jordon say, “If you quit ONCE it becomes a habit. Never quit!!!”

But do you know that Jim Carrey used affirmations to obtain work and make a name for himself as he struggled to become an actor, to then garner his first 10 million dollar role in Dumb and Dumber? 

Or that Oprah Winfrey used affirmations as she rose from poverty and being told no over and over as a black woman in a largely white male dominated profession, to hosting the highest-rated television program of its kind in history?

How about Jack Canfield, co-creator of the “Chicken Soup For The Soul” series? He used affirmations to keep him going, though ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY publishers rejected his book idea on after another, before he found one publishing house to print his manuscript.

Without affirmations, without believing in themselves and all that they knew they were capable of achieving, how could Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan, Jim Carrey, Oprah Winfrey, or Jack Canfield and so many others have created success in the face of years of seeming failure and rejection?

So WHY on earth would YOU not use affirmations to achieve your get-healthy goals, when you now know they’re effective? I mean, c’mon, they literally work! Actually, why would any of us not capitalize on any strategy that is super easy, like affirmations in any area of life, especially in the get-healthy game that leaves so many often without lasting results! 

The purpose of an affirmation is to push the edges of what you think is possible.

But if you don’t think it’s possible for you to look and feel better than you ever have, OR if you believe that “you’re too old,” “too busy,” “too tired,” or worse, some cockamamie limiting thought like “Americans don’t eat like that,” or “my family and friends don’t eat like that,” without affirmations and shifting to a more empowered mindset, your sunk. Doomed. Stuck in thoughts that could keep you at a weight you hate, feeing disempowered, exhausted, addicted to unhealthy food — and looking far less radiant than your best self!

Why not try affirmations? It’s a no-brainer. Right?

But let me let you in on an important insider’s secret, the effectiveness of your affirmation depends on how you FEEL when you say it!

When I help my 1:1 clients create affirmations, we always go by how they FEEL!

Do you feel excited, like, I’m not sure this is possible — I’ve never achieved this before, but I LOVE the whole idea of creating this result, then you’re on the right track!

Does it leave you flat? Unexcited? If yes, it’s likely not the right affirmation for you.

Do you feel indifferent, like it feels good, but it’s not really a stretch for you to achieve? It’s probably not inspiring enough to pull you forward.

I mean, c’mon, if you seriously want to look and feel amazing — IF you really want to lose weight, reverse health damage and INCREASE anti-aging benefits, then you need an affirmation that will pull you into action, pull you forward when everyone is saying, “Lighten up, go with the flow.” (READ: Lighten up, go with the flow = follow me to ruin and demise! Ha! ’Tis  true! Statistics of chronic disease are NO joke today!)

To create your affirmation use the Hammer Approach or the Butterfly Effect.

The Hammer Approach is when you pick one affirmation that you want to deeply integrate into your subconscious and conscious mind. I LOVE this technique. It’s like motivation on steroids because it helps me focus and create solid, tangible results repeatedly.

For example, my current affirmation is, “I am SO pumped to consistently set and achieve meaningful and extraordinary results today!”

This affirmation says it all for me. It’s all encompassing. It covers my commitment to my physical, mental, emotional, Spiritual AND professional goals and needs! I pick affirmations that are expansive, to include all I want to achieve in all areas of life!

It’s the Hammer Approach because you nail down ONE affirmation everyday so it becomes part of your life!

The Butterfly Effect is when you create a new affirmation everyday. I LOVE these too, and include them daily. For example, if you want to practice saying YES to choosing healthy food choices everyday, I say things like:

I am SO pumped that the healthy food choices I make today feel FUN and taste delicious!

I am SO pumped that my skin RADIATES from the healthy food choices I make today!

I am SO pumped by how my clothes just slip right on from the healthy food choices I make!

Remember, when creating an affirmation, you want how it makes you FEEL to guide you!

And it’s not an either or approach!

You can hammer down one affirmation that you know will help you move closer to achieving your BIG, WILD AND EXCITING health goals everyday, AND you can create daily affirmations that you know could help you on any particular day!

To get started, think about something that you think is flat-out not possible, but something that you flat-out would LOVE to have happen in your life, and create a Hammer Approach affirmation. Repeat that one every day. Then, create a few Butterfly Effect affirmations pertinent to the day, to keep you moving toward you exciting goal!

Let’s try it:

WHAT health goal seems impossible to you, seems to allude you up until now, but would be way cool to achieve?

Create your goal into an affirmation.

Write them out and post them below in the comments section. Let’s power them up together!

Feel stuck? Tell me what you’re thinking, where you think you could be stuck, and let’s move your thoughts in an empowering way about a health matter that’s limiting you.

You must go to Sun in Bloom in Brooklyn,  NY. You’ll have one the best salads you’ll ever have in your life. It’s called the Bella Divine Salad and highly recommend you go there and order it, that is if you’re in 100 mile radius of the restaurant. Everything they offer is delicious, but this is my favorite. I order it every time I go.

But… until you can get there, I offer you my take on this “best salad” recipe.

I always do this — I go home after eating something that I love when out at a restaurant, and I work to recreate the flavors of the recipe myself.

Are my ingredients exact to the original? No. I intentionally created my recipe a little bit different, with added ingredients I thought would enhance the original, but also to not infringe on the chef’s original recipe. Of course, there’s no way I could know exactly what the exact ingredients are anyway…

But as I say often, because I do this all the time, my take is a “close enough second.” Plus, it’s super delicious and super healthy too!

Serves Two

Salad Ingredients

• 1 bunch curly kale, destemmed, and ripped into bite-sized pieces
• 1/2 cup raw fermented sauerkraut
• Dulse, 1 sheets cut into thin strips (or to taste)
• 1 Avocado, sliced
• Hot pepper, chopped coarsely (optional)
• 1 cup kalamata olives, chopped coarsely

Optional: Thinly shaved carrot (use a vegetable peeler), Vidalia onion, shaved thinly, and/or radicchio, sliced thinly

Dressing

• 1/2 cup sesame seeds
• 1 lemon, juice
• 1 garlic clove, (small), minced
• 1-2 inch knob of ginger
• Coconut aminos to taste
• Stevia (optional)
• Water, blend to create thick creamy texture

Blend all ingredients until thick and smooth.

Massage kale with dressing until the leaves soften. Add sauerkraut, dulse, hot pepper and kalamata olives (plus other add-ons from the optional suggestions). Combine well. Plate salad. Top with avocado, and voila!

I hope you enjoy!

Buono Appetito! 

I remember walking up to the “pump house’ with my Mom when I was a young girl to pick fresh blackberries. I loved our walks. I loved eating these sweet berries when picking them. I loved that my Mom made homemade jam with them. Those walks and berry picking together are special memories I hold close to heart. But I’ve experienced first hand how sweet memories and family traditions can keep many of us stuck in unhealthy eating patterns.

Sugar is a substance that is purely addictive. Research done at the University of Connecticut shows sugar to be more addictive than heroine and cocaine, so of course I’m not going offer you my Mom’s jam recipe.

Rather, I offer you a super healthy, protein-laden, energy smoothie with a whopping 20 grams of plant protein. And best part? It’s clean. Clean. Clean.  Check out the ingredients and see for yourself. This recipe is clean, nutrient-dense, with no processed protein powder additives.

One word about this protein-myth — we need clean cells, clean tissues, and a clean body to access our strong, athletic physique. This happens when we focus our food choices on those that fire up our mitochondria and promote healthy and timely eliminations — Gil Jacobs, known as the “Godfather” of hydro colonic therapy chastised me for recommending protein powders to my clients. He said, after doing over 100,000 colonics, that he felt protein powders stick to our colon wall. Since I’m all for keeping my body humming and working correctly, and promoting “timely eliminations,” I welcomed his feedback as a challenge to create a recipe for a client who was stuck on protein powders. I think you’ll like this one — I do.

My Berry Energized Protein Smoothie has no processed protein powders that stick to the digestive wall — Only clean fresh, ingredients that your body will be able to efficiently use and eliminate.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups almond milk
• 1 cup raw cauliflower, chopped
• 2 cups spinach
• 1 cup blackberries/blueberries
• 1/2 avocado
• 1/4 cup pumpkin seeds
• 2 teaspoons spirulina
• 1 teaspoon maca
• Stevia to taste

Add all ingredients except the avocado to your high-speed blender and process until fully combined. When done, add the avocado and blend for the added creaminess and healthy fat it offers.

Cheers to you and your great health!

After you make this recipe, let me know how you like it in the comments section below.

Ready to really pick up your get-healthy game? Register for my new 7-Day Eliminate Excuses: Prioritize Your Health Mini Program today. I include 7 super important strategies I teach all my private 1:1 clients.

Someone once said to me, “You’re a self-actualizing machine.” But the context was, “You can do this get healthy thing, I can’t,” but she suffered with acute health problems and really wanted to look and feel better.

I heard the defeat in her voice and said, “I was once very sick. I had no idea at all of what it even meant to do things differently. What was healthy? What wasn’t healthy? I didn’t know where to begin. I didn’t know what to do. No one in my family, none of my friends, heck, it seemed like no one I even knew in passing had a concept of healthy lifestyle habits like I needed to make to feel better, so I started with one small step at a time.”

I tell this story all the time now, because everyone I work with struggles with the first steps of their get-healthy game, like I did, like you might too.

Just this week, as I wrapped up a wellness program I’ve been leading, one of the participants said, “I was so overwhelmed by everything you said on our first day.” But she opened up to the challenges I offered and lost 10 pounds, reduced her all-day coffee habit down to one cup in the morning, and… She even started making smoothies, including leafy greens and cucumbers, though she was opposed to the idea at first, “I’m not drinking my vegetables!”

This is just one of the participant’s stories from the program, but one example that best exemplifies one of my guiding credos, “Lean into it.” Do what you can. Don’t make yourself wrong if you falter. Just get back in the game when and how you can! When there’s no pressure, it’s just easier.

It’s like what Darren Hardy, editor of Success Magazine and author of The Compound says in this book:

“Small smart choices + Consistency + Time = RADICAL DIFFERENCE.”

I offer you here what getting healthy really looks like “on the street.”

It’s not perfect.

It’s not 100%.

And it’s definitely not a “self-actualized machine overnight.” But honestly, I couldn’t be more happy for every participant’s wins! They threw their ball on the court. They got in the get-healthy game and they played. No matter if they dropped the ball, they still played and that’s winning for me, because every step forward always leads to the next steps forward!

1. “I feel lighter and happier.”
2. “What I eat now, how I plan my grocery shopping, what I prepare for my meals is better. I’m more conscious of healthy choices now.”
3. “I used to drink coffee all day long. Now I only drink one cup in the morning.”
4. “I don’t like smoothies. I’ve not figured out how to make the time for them yet, but I like the juices. I can buy them.”
5. “I wan’t perfect. I did eat a little junk, but I made a smoothie and a salad every single day. That was different for me.”
6. “I added more whole foods to my diet everyday – I ate way less junk. I am definitely more aware of what I am eating now.”
7. “I lost 10 pounds.”
8. “My doctor said I lost weight and my high-blood pressure is way down.”
9. “No, I didn’t do the evening exercise, but I did do the morning one.”
10. “Someone offered me a cup of coffee during the day, said the challenge is over. I said no. This is a new lifestyle habit now.”
11. “I really like the breathing exercises.”
12. And the best response of all, because I know this participants meant it, “I bombed, but I’m inspired to try again.” She said this, though she made a smoothie everyday. She felt she bombed, she felt defeated, because in the end she wished she did more. BUT she did create one new healthy habit, a smoothie everyday.

One of the best parts about the whole experience and their responses? I got to meet all sorts of different people, from all sorts of different experiences, and… I got to appreciate again, what it’s like to watch people rise to a challenge! SO awesome! What I see over and over again is, we always want to be our best selves. Even when we are so busy, even when we think it can’t be done, that it’s impossible, we always figure it out, we always find a way = super cool! It turns out, “the self-actualized machine” is actually only a series of steps we take in the direction of our goal. 

When I lead workshops, I’m reminded about what’s most important in life from every person I meet.

As I learned from one of my mentors, “Great is the need of the student to learn — far greater is the need of the teacher to teach.” As a student of life, I’m honored by every lesson I learn when I teach.

Now you’re turn.

What does getting healthy really look like for you?

What do you bump up against? What pulls you forward? What stops you?

Post your comments below. I’d love to hear, and help if need be!

If you’re new to following my blog, you might not know that I often say when I make a new recipe, “this might be the best recipe I’ve ever made!”

Ha! But this time it might very well be true! If this is not the best recipe I’ve ever made, then it’s close to it — my 100% plant-based, part raw, part-cooked, Zucchini Pasta Bolognese. I even added a little fennel seed to infuse flavors of “Italian Sausage,” plus some cashew cream to mock the dairy — both are typical ingredients in a classic meat-preparation of the recipe.

One note: this recipe calls for a little more preparation than recipes I usually post, but not much more — just a few different steps, which I’ve mapped out for you below. You can whip up this recipe even on short notice… and I promise, it’s well worth the effort!

Ingredients: 

• 3 cups of grape tomatoes, processed chunky
• 1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes, processed chunky
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 small onion, minced
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 1 celery stalk, minced
• 1/2 cup fresh parsley, chopped
• 1 cup red wine
• 1/4 teaspoon fennel seed
• 1 1/2 cups mushrooms, chopped with some texture (fine and chunky)
• 1/4 cup walnuts chopped to a fine crumble
• 1/4 cup cashews, soaked (2 hours)
• Sea salt, cracked black pepper and crushed red pepper to taste
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 2 zucchini (room temperature), spiralized

In food processor, process each ingredient (except cashews) separately and put to the side.

Process soaked cashews with 1/2 cup of water to make a cashew cream.

Sauté: Extra Virgin Olive Oil, onion, garlic, carrot and celery until translucent. Add mushrooms and walnuts. Sauté for a few minutes and add tomatoes (fresh and sundried) and red wine. Simmer for 45 minutes on low.

Add cashew cream, fresh parsley, salt, black pepper and crushed red pepper to taste. Simmer for another 30-45 minutes.

Toss raw zucchini noodles with hot sauce to soften the noodles. Serve and enjoy… and let me know how you like it in the comments section below! I’d love to hear if you like it!

Buono appetito! 

I often text my clients and say, “want to look and feel amazing overnight?” When they say yes, and they always say yes, “Yep! Count me in,” or, “Definitely. I’m in,” they know what I mean = let’s do a juice day!

Mind you, I often text my clients mere hours before the next day… and they’re always in = gotta’ love a player = super badass clients who are committed to their health and a fun friendly challenge! This accomplished group includes, a busy realtor and a stay-at-home Mom, a marketing genius and a thriving entrepreneur, a CEO from the banking industry and… me!

That means that together, from literally all points around the country, we join together and rock a group juice party! Matter of fact, tomorrow a group of us from Oregon, California, Chicago, Virginia and Connecticut are juicing together, albeit from our own homes 3000 miles away from each other!

We don’t do anything but say “yes, I’m in!” We don’t text, but maybe a picture! We don’t talk on the phone, but maybe that text of a picture. We don’t meet up virtually anywhere, but in our hearts. We just join together with our word and our juice for some good, clean, healthy fun!

And I got to thinking… why not ask you to join us! 

So with this post, I officially invite you to join me and my clients any or every Monday for a group juice day… so you too can look and feel amazing overnight! Just email me and say, “I’m in,” and I’ll make sure you’ve got a virtual group to join you, or at least me, so you feel supported in your experience!

Download Your Free Juice Cleanse Guide! 

You can share pictures of your juices on my Facebook biz page and tag me here with the hashtag #juiceoneday

You can share pictures of your juices on Instagram, and tag me here with the hashtag #juiceoneday

You can share pictures of your juices on Twitter, and tag me here with the hashtag #juiceoneday

Or you can skip the pics and just rock your juice!

No heavy. No hard. Just healthy, juicy fun!

One Juice Day to come together to cleanse and rejuvenate for healthy fun and camaraderie! All you have to do is download this simple and easy recipe guide, and give me a shout out via email at carol@carol-egan.com and I’ll get a group of others, with you and me to virtually support each other!

Oh, by the way, for you who might be interested, but maybe feel you’re not quite ready for an all-day juice fast, I’ve got you covered! You can do juices AND smoothies, until you feel ready for an all-juice day (which is utterly magical!)! I included some smoothie recipes in the download guide so you can participate too!

That’s it! Join me and my clients for an all-juice day! The more the merrier!

Your countonable Monday juicing partner!

Cheers!

Download Your Free Juice Cleanse Guide!

Food cravings are a common problem.

Processed foods. Sugary foods. Salty foods.

Food cravings take over and thwart our very best commitment.

Someone I know emailed me the other day and said, “I need help. I’m addicted to sugar. Can you help me?”

My answer?

One, sadly your ‘addictions’ are highly manufactured. Processed foods are carefully formulated to trigger your brain’s pleasure center at the footnote of of $60 billion every year to make sure you want more!  

Second, I’ve got very good news to counter there efforts and your addiction! You need only do this one thing to easily free yourself from any and all food cravings,

With a high, live-food diet and lots of fresh-pressed, green juices, intermittent fasting is my top health recommendation for all it’s many benefits, plus it conquers cravings!

Think about it, by simply scheduling a shorter window of time to eat everyday, which is what intermittent fasting is, you reset your body to burn fat for energy, instead of sugar.

This reset is significant, since your body typically burns glucose/sugar for energy. When you shift your body to use fat for fuel, rather than sugar, your body will crave sugar less. 

Fat for fuel, rather than sugar for fuel equals freedom from cravings.

It’s that simple.

Just choose a shorter duration of time to eat everyday, like from 12:00 noon to 6:00 pm, or 10:00 am to 6:00 pm, and you will become a fat burner, rather than a sugar burner.

Au revoir food cravings! 

No joke. This works. Plus I can not impress the overall health benefits of intermittent fasting enough!

Your Turn:

1. Schedule your first intermittent fasting.
2. Plan and prepare what you’re going to eat for your first fasting day, and probably best to include the next day too, so you’ve got healthy food ready to go.
3. Come back and tell me how it went for you. I’d love to hear! PS — Do note, it’ll take more than one time of fasting to become a fat burner, but give one day a go and let me know how you do!

 

Do you struggle with losing weight? Feel exhausted? Stressed? Possessed by cravings, even preoccupied with chronic symptoms?

Worse, do these symptoms impact your day, even your productivity at work and your relationships at home?

It’s kind of wild, but research today says that our body is home to more bacterial cells than human cells. That each of us hosts roughly 100 trillion bacterial cells, that these bacterial cells outnumber human cells 10 to one, and an imbalance in our ‘friendly flora,’ versus rogue pathogenic bacteria can impact every facet of our life. 

You might say, “Cool,” and forget about it. You might say, “So what. Who’s got time to care?” But you might say, “Whaaaat?!?!,” as I did near 30 years ago when I was diagnosed with an imbalance of ‘unfriendly’ bacteria in my body.

Here’s why I say you want to remember and care about this factoid. If the balance of good bacteria in your body, particularly in your gut, becomes imbalanced by poor diet, stress and the fast pace of the modern lifestyle,

• Healthy digestion becomes compromised, and
• Immunity becomes compromised, and
• It spreads throughout your body, including your brain

Even cancer, cardiovascular disease and obesity are linked to an imbalance in the ‘microbiota,’ the inner bacterial terrain.

If you’re serious about reclaiming your health and vitality, there is plenty you can do to encourage friendly bacterial growth to rebalance your inner terrain.

1. The most important first step is to remove processed food-like substances, starchy foods, hard-to-digest foods and the top 5 common toxic-trigger foods, gluten, dairy, sugar, caffeine and alcohol. These foods feed the bad bacterial overgrowth that has taken over. Without the first step, every other step will bottom out. Hands-down.
2. The second important step is three-fold,
   • Add in nutrient-dense, electrically charged live foods that can help restore inner-balance, AND
   • Add in probiotic-rich fermented foods, foods laden with good bacteria, like raw sauerkraut, raw fermented kimchee and kombucha and you can find them all in refrigerated section of your natural foods market. Fermented foods,
     • Help boost the digestibility and boost absorption of foods
     • Produce their own nutritional benefits — They make vitamin B12 and vitamin K that are produced in the digestive wall. Fermented foods actually make them both for us.
     • Reduces IBS symptoms, like bloating, stomach cramping, abdominal pain, diarrhea and/or constipation and flatulence
     • Produce numerous compounds that destroy and inhibit the growth of pathogenic bacteria.

1. • Add in an anti-bacterial, like oregano oil. Yes, this very intense oil is available in capsule form, but I highly recommend the drops, When you add your drops to a small glass of water to drink, it will coat every tissue it touches, from the mouth, through the alimentary canal. This is super effective in killing rogue bacteria.
   • Add in a high-quality probiotic. This is the one supplement I recommend every client take.

By restoring your gut health and rebalancing your inner bacterial terrain, excess weight will fall off, energy will rise, stress will subside, productivity will return… and, you’ll sleep better, you’re mood will be better, your skin will radiate… and so much more. Makes sense though, doesn’t it, since you are largely a bacterial being?

Action Steps:

1. New to the get-healthy game? Lean in and choose one thing to add in, and one thing to take out.  and start with one.
2. Challenge yourself, this is how healthy change happens.
3. Prefer to start with more basic, but oh-so essential steps to getting healthy? Click here.

Got questions? Leave a comment below. I’d love to help!

Before you head out to the market, I recommend you consider two primary questions when writing out your grocery list:

1. Can the foods you choose leave your body efficiently and easily?
2. Will the food cause you harm?

These are the same questions I ask myself, and I recommend you ask yourself, before you head out to do your grocery shopping.

What I recommend in my ideal grocery list pivots off the grave statistics of chronic disease today.

Shopping for “healthy” is no longer enough. Healing is the game now.

One out of every two Americans suffers from chronic symptoms, so you need to eat foods that turn every cell, organ, system and bodily function on, so your body can run optimally.

And for we the one out of the two of us who suffer from chronic symptoms today, we know that these symptoms literally impact upon the quality of’our literal lived experience.

So, how do you plan a grocery list around these two important questions, with these statistics in mind?

1. Choose foods that leave your body efficiently and easily.

One of the easiest ways to take in vital nutrition is drinking green juice — it requires no digestive fire.

But we cannot live on green juice alone (although I’ve tried!), so your next best bet is eating a diet high in LIVE fruits and vegetables.

A good rule of thumb to follow is to choose foods from the periphery of the story — perishables. If the food you choose is refrigerated, it means it is still alive with life-force energy, vitality, electricity. The very vital electric energy in the live foods you choose is precisely what your body needs to ‘light up,’ and run efficiently.

But how efficiently your body can eliminate what you eat really matters.

What you eat and what your body is able to eliminate can make a profound difference upon living a full and vital life bursting with a Spirit of adventure, possibility and fun, or a life shackled to weekly doctor visits, chronic symptoms, excess weight and premature aging.

2. Avoid foods that cause harm.

Processed foods, nutrient devoid foods and even hard-to-digest foods cause irritation and inflammation in the body. The top 5 common toxic trigger foods known to cause trouble in the body are:

1. Gluten
2. Dairy
3. Sugar
4. Caffeine
5. Alcohol

Not only that, but many conventionally-grown foods are treated with harmful pesticides, so when possible, choose organic. When organic is not available, refer to the  Clean 15 list from the Environmental Working Group to find your best choices.

Oh yes, no doubt there is a whole big world of gastronomy that is considered ‘en vogue’ today, aka, “I’m a foodie.’ Bah! These bourgeoise influences, with familial and cultural ‘traditions,’ are keeping oh-so many of us sick today! One woman said to me, though her whole family suffers from chronic digestive problems, “but Carol, Americans don’t eat like that!”

So, what’s in my grocery cart?

While “Americans” may not eat like this, I certainly do, and so do my clients, as well as the leading health doctors I follow, add in my teachers, and my clients kids too! Heck, even my dear mother focuses on fresh vegetables!

So here’s a look at what goes on my grocery list and into my cart every week, and what I recommend you consider adding to your list and cart too!

• Always in my cart:

  I buy a rainbow of colors, leafy greens (all sorts of varieties), radicchio, sprouts, fresh herbs, avocados, cucumbers, celery, heirloom tomatoes, carrots, red beets, sweet potatoes, winter squash, zucchini, sweet and hot peppers, fennel, onion, garlic, ginger, berries, lemon, limes, grapefruit, green apples

• My favorite condiment:

  Raw fermented vegetables, like saurkraut and kimchee, though natural health food stores are offering many new mixes, with carrots and beets and even jalapeño… and Deliciously Detoxifying Pesto!

• Staples always in the house:

  Healthforce Nutritionals Green Protein Alchemy, hemp seeds, chia seeds, maca powder, raw cacao, sundried tomatoes, raw cacao, jars of organic marinara and Muir Glen tomatoes (yes, these are processed, but the ratio of live, nutrient dense foods to processed is minor)… and the list goes on.

• My favorite snack:

  Thinly sliced purple jewel beets with sea salt or a dollop of Deliciously Detoxifying Pesto!

• Best shopping tip:

  If it has a label, it means it’s processed, which means it is devitalized of any nutritional value — eliminate, or greatly reduce food-like substances with labels and buy fresh, whole foods from the periphery of the store. 

• My favorite place to shop:

  Whole Foods. Everyone who knows me knows I love Whole Foods. Matter of fact, I’ve been in near every Whole Foods up and down the east and west coasts! The produce is SO fresh… and I am primarily a produce girl! With that said… I SO support local farmers, farmer markets, small natural food markets and shops, especially for the speciality items and artisan wares you can’t find in bigger stores. 

• Best simple recipe:

  Roll a healthy dollop of Deliciously Detoxifying Pesto in a purple cabbage leaf with your favorite veggies, avocado and fermented sauerkraut. Super easy and super delicious! 

• Favorite Indulgences:

  Blueprint Juices, Imported Olives, Monterey Farms Fresh Grilled Artichokes and Jackfruit

Start your ideal grocery shopping today with these action steps.

1. Shop on the periphery of the store.
2. Begin to eliminate processed foods with labels.
3. Choose a rainbow of colors when you choose your veggies and fruits.
4. Experiment and discover new 'indulgences' that delight you, but won't harm your body!

And if you have any questions, leave a comment below. I’d love to help!