Last night someone said to me, “You haven’t aged one year, Carol (though I haven’t seen this person in 30+ years). Can you help me stop eating so much? Tell me what’s your top secret to looking so young?” …As they whispered in my ear, “What’s your favorite treatment?”

I laughed, and didn’t attempt to defend my 30-years of get-healthy effort, or express my objections for “treatments,” but the answer is salient, and perhaps unexpected…

The Irony

Someone recently contacted me. Before our call, they said via email that they wanted to discuss the chronic digestive problems that “have plagued them all their life.” They said that they wanted to “discuss new ways of dealing with the chronic symptoms they experience.”

I went to the call with the same Spirit of generosity I go to every call — I wanted to be of contribution. I wanted to make sure this person left our call with at least one new insight to weigh in on, one new action to take, some bit of knowledge that could make a difference for them. 

But ironically, from hello, this person held center stage on all that they know about poor digestion, so I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. I didn’t get to share anything. Nothing.  

I didn’t get to weigh in on one new action they could take. 

And though I tried, I didn’t get to share not even one bit of knowledge that I know could help. 

I felt dumfounded, and still find myself shaking my head wondering, “why did this person want to talk to me?” 

The experience left me thinking of something George Bernard Shaw said, “Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” 

The Juxtaposition

I’ve got this AWESOME client. He’s both a highly trained  leader and a Harley guy.

He hired me to help him with a serious diagnosis.

And though he put some ‘serious skin in the game to work with me‘ (financial investment), and though he’s got a very compelling reason why he wants to beat his diagnosis, once, when we first started working together, skepticism about rose up when I explained to him our next and necessary steps.

But I heard his skepticism, so encouraged him to take some time to process my recommendations.

He came to our next call and said, “Let’s go.”

And though the reflective time proved advantageous to our work together, I I know he rightly examined his skepticism. I know he smartly researched my recommendations, and I trust he thoughtfully weighed in on his faith in me.

But I also know that though he’s a highly trained leader, and though I know he loves burning the reasons that try to stop him from playing full out, he’s a Harley guy that I’ve asked to invest into his healing in ways others invest into a Mercedes Benz or a tropical vacation.

But he came back to our call ready and open.

The Path to Looking and Feeling my Best

I said to the pharmacist at the CVS drugstore, “Can you lower the dosage of this medication? It’s too strong for me. I can’t get out of bed.” She agreed, but said she’d have to call my doctor.

With chronic digestive issues and a multitude of other problematic symptoms, I experienced acute anxiety years back, so my doctor recommended I take Xanax.

As I waited for the pharmacist’s response, I could tell she was first talking to the receptionist, then the nurse, then the doctor.

When the doctor asked to speak to me, I thought “Oh good. He’ll understand.”

My doctor said, “I thought you said you trusted me? If you don’t take the medication the way I prescribed, the anxiety will lead to panic attacks, and you know what happens after that, right?”

I stood there confused and full of fear, “No doctor, I have no idea.”

“Suicide.”

“If you do not take the medication the way I prescribe, panic attacks will lead to suicide.”

I stood there speechless, as tears welled up in my eyes… but, like a small, barely visible light in a thick and heavy fog, amidst the real fear I was feeling, the thought “I need to find someone who can help me understand why my body is breaking down,” rose up like a fierce and mighty warrior within me.

The Answer: The Insider Advice You Need to Look and Feel Your Best

Thirty years later, I offer you the answer to my friends’ question, “What is your top secret to looking so young? with 100% certainty.  My answer would be the same answer for the person who reached out to me earlier this week with the hopes of learning a new way of dealing with the lifelong, chronic symptoms they experience. It would be the same answer for you, and whatever the health problem that challenges you. It’s the same answer that differentiates the client who puts autoimmune disease in remission, goes off anti-depression medication and skyrockets their energy. It’s the same answer my Harley guy embodies.

You must develop a curiosity for new ideas, new ways of doing things. You must be willing to let go of what you believe to be true. You must challenge what everyone around you says is “right.” You must develop and openness to the thoughts and ideas of others, without fear of losing yourself.

In a nutshell, to look and feel your best, you MUST open to the unfamiliar, the out of the ordinary, the new, the fresh, the unconventional, even the exotic. 

When I look back over my life, it was my ability to create and expand an open-way of being and thinking that was the most powerful driver for literally changing the whole course of my health and my life… And is perhaps the single most important piece of advice I may likely ever offer you, to look and feel your best.

For me to reclaim my health, heal my digestive system and every other symptom I ever experienced, including anxiety, I had to challenge every mainstream idea I had been taught about a typical “normal” diet, food choices and even ideas of fun. I had to look more deeply into what caused illness and how I was taught to think about healthcare. I even had to challenge who I thought I was, without other’s definitions of “what’s good and acceptable and what’s not,” constraining the choices I wanted to make for me, my health and my life. And more, I had to challenge what I had been taught about my Faith, and what it meant to me and the choices I needed to make to be my Highest Self. I literally had to open to new ways of being, perceiving, understanding and doing, to get to all that I’ve learned about living inside a vibrant and healthy body.

But like Robert Frost said… “Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”

The Possibilities for You

But, I did NOT eat this elephant of looking and feeling my best in one bite. My goodness it took me 30 years to get to where I’m at now… So it would be unrealistic for you to think you can eat this elephant all at once. Unless of course you want to expedite your results by working with me. If yes, you can learn more here. If no, or just not yet, your next step to healthy begins here. I’ve organized my top 5 best steps to help you increase your energy and build a very solid foundation to your get-healthy game!

Any questions? Feel free to post your questions below, or email me here. I’d love to help… If you’re open!

My plan for one of my client calls this week was to highlight what I thought would be smart for her to consider, as she moves forward from all that she’s accomplished in her 6-month coaching program, “Your Best Health Project.” 

But I began our call with a review. It’s makes good sense in general, to contextualize where we’re going, with where we began, and why we made the choices we made in our work together.

I wanted to remind her of three perspectives that shaped our work together — That we learn in two ways, with one important caveat. We learn 1) from the socialization processes that shape who we become in life, from birth through roughly age seven, and 2) through the repetition of these lessons, and 3) through the equally important caveat, that we were in a state akin to hypnosis through most of this learning because we were so young.

I wanted to remind her of these points because the vortex of the modern lifestyle, immediate gratification and fast-food nation are so strong, that if we’re not mindful, we can all easily get pulled away from what we know makes us feel better.

Socialization and Repetition 

The lessons of socialization from my days as a newbie high school teacher made a lasting impression on me, when I was offered the opportunity to launch the Sociology program for one of Boston’s esteemed exam schools. This is when I learned more indepthly, and simultaneously taught my students, that up until the age seven, we learn “what is right, and what is wrong,” by our families first, and then our peer groups, then our social institutions, like our schools and churches, and then the world at large, like our workplaces, government and even mass media. 

While many revere childhood traditions and mainstream ways of doing things, my clients and I, however, intentionally set out to “scratch the CD” of what they learned early in life, by creating healthy habits to counter what’s caused them to suffer from chronic and acute health problems.

Think about it, how could I ever hope to help my clients create healthy lifestyle patterns if “This is the way our family has eaten for generations,” or “Everything in moderation,” or “Lighten up, go with the flow,” is on perpetual autoplay in the background of their lives uninterrupted… while plagued with chronic symptoms? 

Healthy Habits and Routine

Herein lies my whole reasoning for pressing my clients to create ONE healthy habit at a time (depending on where the client is at when we begin). IF we can effectively replace one unhealthy habit with one healthy habit, and consistently, we not only build a new habit, establish a new routine and develop a stronger mindset, we build the muscle of change, as we scratch the CD that’s autoplaying “You should do it this way, NOT that way.” This is not necessarily easy for some, especially after a lifetime of cultural conditioning and social expectation to conform. But that I attract some of the most badass clients ever, we achieve some pretty astounding results together — results that even astound me! 

Hypnosis 

The thing that’s super important to note about the socialization process we all go through is, we learned everything we think to be true as adults, while in a state similar to hypnosis, when we were children. Think about it, when you were 3-years old, did you voluntarily agree that ravioli tasted better for you than apples? Or when you were 6-years old, did you have the wherewithal to say, I prefer salad instead of fast-food? Of course not. You and I were both taught from infancy through age seven and onward, by our families, friends and the world around us what was best for us to eat, drink, think and do. We developed “our preferences” according to their ideas of what is best.  

Sociologists call it socialization, but the formal definition of hypnosis says we learn in a state in which a person loses the power to voluntarily choose, and is highly responsive to the suggestions or directions of another. There’s no splitting hairs on this one, we didn’t voluntarily choose our preferences as 3-year olds.

And with the epidemic rates of chronic disease we’re facing today, and with the ginormous benefits my clients gain from the efforts they extend to put autoimmune disease in remission, reduce insulin, go off anti-depression medication, lose 40 pounds, and so much more, this conversation of “who really chooses what’s best for us” bears repeating over and over, to safeguard the goals my client’s have achieved.

As my client and I pressed on about what she most wants now, I also reminded her that we can often feel penalized and/or ostracized, or at the very least, misunderstood, when others don’t realize why we choose to do things differently. THIS point, from my vantage of professional objectivity, IS her work, is actually every client’s work, as it is your’s too, to remain vigilant in WHY you choose healthy for yourself. That first, above and beyond everything else, is to remember WHAT matters most to YOU and why, and to cultivate THAT — Connecting to our WHY in everything is our great stabilizer. 

You and I were socialized to believe many things we might not agree with at all; attitudes, ideas, behaviors, traditions, and/or practices that don’t reflect who we know ourselves to be, which is why so many of us struggle with creating consistent healthy habits — Through repetition, the ideas of others were ingrained. These ideas that are not of our choosing become our default-mode. And because of this hypnosis-like-state we all learned within, as innocent, young children,

1. Many will likely not understand why you choose to do things differently as an adult. They’ll want you to do things “the way they’ve always been done.” As an analogy, the fisherman knows to never puts just one crab in the bucket. It will climb out. He knows if he puts two crabs in one bucket, one crab will always pull the other down. — The one crab wants the other to stay in the bucket.
2. Why you too may find it very difficult to break unhealthy habits, habits that you want to break more than anything, and why you find it very difficult to build healthy habits.

But fortunately, socialization and repetition work both ways. You can scratch the autoplay CD of messaging that holds you back, by developing and building one healthy habit at a time, to establish a healthy routine and even develop mastery over time, even if you slip and slide along the way. I’ve established a whole new quality of life based on this model of building one healthy habit, building a healthy lifestyle routine, and scratching the CD of messages that no longer work for me.  I’ve watched client after client achieve what they really wanted, beyond healing of chronic symptoms, like dating again, like flying across country to attend events they would have never attended, if not for feeling so good, like waking up every day free of the panic that once plagued them. 

On our near last call, my client and I accomplished what I most wanted her to gain — A review of an important perspective of our work together, to hold her steady as she plans her next steps in life.

What autoplay messaging do you need to scratch up, to get to what matters most to you? Consider these three perspectives. They’re potent.

Want to get your health game started? Your first steps to healthy begin here. 

You hear me talk about my love and reverence for the healing powers of drinking green juice and eating a green centric diet likely more than anything else. 

You also hear me repeatedly sing the praises of creating ONE healthy habit at a time, that it’s the best way to help you build a healthy lifestyle for results that last. 

I also talk a lot about the invaluable benefits of meditation, journaling and a building a strong mindset. 

And though you may have experimented with some or all of them, to see if they could help you achieve your health goals, you may have never consistently stuck with any one of them. 

What’s The Use

Which leaves you feeling like, “What’s the use?” Right?

So let’s step back and think about the context of my suggestions. 

If you’re super busy like my clients and me, they’re all just suggestions that could land as more to do, within the context of your already very full schedule. And though you may have tried some of these ideas, and maybe even liked them, you didn’t create any consistency in doing them… so you end up feeling defeated and still struggling with excess weight, debilitating exhaustion, obsessive cravings, and chronic symptoms. 

As my 6-month superstar client Teri said, “Before I began working with Carol, I struggled with following through on my commitments so often, that I was worried about investing in yet another program that I might not follow through on anyway.”

A Little Secret

So let me share with you a little secret that I shared with Teri, that I share with all my clients:

Drinking green juice, building healthy habits, establishing a meditation practice and creating a journaling routine are NOT the end game we’re after. Good grief. Alone, that would simply be hitting a checklist and leave you feeling busier, and likely very defeated = Superficial = With no deeper relationship to the power of WHY you’d want to get up early to meditate when you’re used to sleeping in, or WHY you’d want to say no to eating pizza, when you’re used to eating whatever you want, whenever you want it, OR WHY you’d want to set time aside to make fresh juices and prep healthy foods, though it would be so much easier to pick up any fast food option. 

So here’s the secret:

WHEN we’re committed to BEING our BEST selves, we consistently use our ability to CHOOSE what we know upgrades our life like a power-tool, to transcend everything and anything that could keep us from being our BEST and Highest Selves. 

That’s it.

Yes, green juice helps deeply nourish the body and magnetizes toxicity out of our cells. Yes, building one healthy habit at a time sets the stage for creating a healthier lifestyle in all ways. Yes, meditation helps us transcend daily distractions.  And yes, oh yes, journaling can help download all sorts of gunk from the psyche. 

But if used with no intentionality for WHY you want to do each of these practices, they’re simply just busy work and they end up feeling like just one more thing to do…

Ultimately, we who are committed to being our best and Highest Selves, we consciously and very deliberately use the power of choice as a power-tool for removing everything and anything that could get in our way of achieving all that we know we are capable of achieving. 

When you get clear on this one thing, that you want to be your very best you, NO MATTER WHAT, and that you get to choose that with every choice you make, you’ll discover that there is NO hoop, NOT one, that you won’t jump through for every health goal you want to achieve… BECAUSE of ALL that BEING your BEST and FEELING your BEST makes possible in every area of your life!

And I promise you this, you too can achieve all that you are capable of! I watch clients like Teri, a high school teacher from a small suburban town in Connecticut blow the very definition of “a player” out of the water in jaw-dropping ways, and defy odds and achieve results that initially seemed improbable over and over again!

That’s the secret. You just need to want to be your best you. 

Teri does. Joel does. Juliette does. I do.

Do you?

Where to Begin

IF you know you’re ready to commit to you, to you being your best and Highest Self, but don’t know where to begin, download my guide, 5 to Thrive: 5 Habits to Increase Energy by 30% for Top-Achievers. It’s a great way to begin building 5 awesome foundational healthy habits that WILL help you increase your energy and create healthier balance in your life!

We think ourselves healthy, yet rely on medications. We accept that some bodies “just can’t” digest fruits and vegetables—the foods nature designed for us. We believe that heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and autoimmune disorders are just genetic fate, as if we’re powerless to change our future.

But let’s stop for a second.

• What happens if I stop taking this medication—do I feel better, or worse?
• If my prescription only eases symptoms, what’s actually happening to my illness?
• Why would my body struggle to digest the most natural, nutrient-dense foods?
• Am I really a victim of genetics, or is there more to the story?

The body regenerates. It was designed to heal. Just like a plant needs sunlight, water, and nutrient-rich soil, the human body needs the right conditions to function. And when it gets them, it performs near-miraculous acts of healing.

Your liver can rebuild itself in months. Your gut lining regenerates in days. A broken bone starts healing within hours. Even your brain rewires itself.

Yet despite this, we chase new wellness trends or, worse, resign ourselves to diagnoses that don’t make sense. We accept “normal” as something that, deep down, we know isn’t right.

Why?

Because we’ve been conditioned to.

Three Metaphors to Consider:

The Frog in Boiling Water

A frog dropped into boiling water jumps out immediately. But if the water heats up gradually, the frog stays—unaware of the danger—until it’s too late.

That’s us.

We grow up in families, communities, and societies where medication is just “how it is.” Where heart disease and cancer are “genetic.” Where someone says, “I can’t eat vegetables,” and no one questions it. We absorb these beliefs not because they’re true, but because they’re everywhere.

And when we do question them? We get labeled crazy.

Decades ago, when I first sought out a naturopath, a close friend laughed at me. “You’re nuts,” they said. The pull to stay in the warm water—to believe what everyone else believed—was strong. It always is.

The Herd Mentality

Humans like to belong. We don’t just want to fit in—we need to. It’s wired into us.

And sometimes, that need keeps us stuck.

We follow trends, not because they’re good for us, but because they make us feel included. One year, kale is the superfood. The next, oat milk. We upgrade our phones, our wardrobes, our cars—all to align with what’s “normal.”

And when it comes to health? The herd mentality is even stronger.

I’ve lost count of how many times people have said, “But my family has always eaten this way.” As if that justifies staying sick. Or, “Come on, live a little,” when I turn down processed food, as if choosing health is some kind of punishment.

It’s not. It’s freedom.

But stepping outside the herd is uncomfortable. When you start making different choices, people notice. Some will challenge you. Some will mock you. Some will outright reject you.

And yet, when you’re struggling with chronic symptoms, cravings, exhaustion, brain fog—how long can you keep ignoring the truth?

Head in the Sand

We all do it.

We pretend the problem isn’t there, or that it’s not as bad as it seems. We tell ourselves, “It’s just genetics.” “It’s just aging.” “It’s just stress.”

A client once told me, “It never even occurred to me that I could stop taking my medication.” Not because they didn’t want to heal—because the idea simply wasn’t on the table.

I get it.

Thirty years ago, I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism. My doctor handed me a prescription. I took it. That’s what you do, right? That’s what everyone does. It never crossed my mind to ask if there was another way.

Until I saw a holistic dentist. He looked at me and said, “You don’t have a thyroid problem. You have an adrenal problem.”

That moment cracked something open in me. I realized I hadn’t been thinking for myself—I had been following a script written by a system that profits when I stay sick.

Most people never get that moment. They stay in the warm water. They follow the herd. They keep their head in the sand.

The Gap Between Knowing and Doing

This is the hardest part.

Because deep down, we know. We know what our bodies need. We know what’s making us sick. We know what we should change.

But we don’t.

Why? Because the gap between knowing and doing is massive. It’s the space where we fight with ourselves—where we hold two conflicting realities at once.

One part of you knows the healthiest choice. The other part resists.

You want to feel better, but you don’t want to be the one at dinner who skips the bread. You want more energy, but you don’t want to be the “difficult” one who orders a salad. You want to heal, but you don’t want to be laughed at, challenged, or excluded.

And that’s the real struggle.

Closing the Gap

This is your task.

Your health, your energy, your ability to fully live—it all hinges on whether you close this gap.

Yes, it’s hard.
Yes, you’ll meet resistance.
Yes, people will judge you.

But this is where freedom lives. This is where you stop pretending and start aligning with who you really are.

I remember when a client leaned in close, looked me dead in the eye, and said, “Eat a potato. You look terrible.”

I was sick. My face was covered in painful acne. My body was exhausted. Anxiety gripped my chest every waking moment.

And in that moment, the pull to cave—to abandon everything I’d learned—was fierce.

But the pull to reclaim my health was fiercer.

If you’re struggling right now—if you’re dealing with chronic symptoms, exhaustion, weight gain, cravings, brain fog—I want you to hear yourself in this.

Where are you? The frog in boiling water? Stuck in the herd? Head in the sand?

And more importantly—what’s it going to take to break free?

The answer to that question is your first step.

And the first step? That’s everything.

---

Final Thought

Viktor Frankl once wrote:

“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

That space is yours. What you do with it? That’s up to you.

Anxiety was but one of the symptoms I suffered from when I was sick many years back. So one of my doctors, among the several treating me, recommended I take, what was for me, a debilitating dosage of Xanax. When I asked the pharmacist if she could lower the dosage because I couldn’t stand after taking it, she said she’d call the doctor for his approval.

After talking to the receptionist and the nurse, I could tell the pharmacist was then talking to the doctor. She passed the phone to me and said, “He wants to speak with you.” Great I thought, he’ll understand. But he opened with, “I thought you said you trusted me?”

“If you don’t take the medication as I prescribe, you do know what will happen, right? Next it will be panic attacks, after that suicide.”

Suicide.

Though I cried in private every single night with embarrassment and horror from the ways cystic acne began to disfigure my face, and the ways my body would shamelessly pass noxious smelling gas no matter how hard I tried to suppress it when in public, when this “specialist” said that my anxiety could lead to suicide, I knew I needed to find someone, anyone, who could help me heal my body. I needed someone to help me understand, beyond the zero answers the medical community offered me, for why my body was breaking-down.

And so my journey from to illness to wellness began from a team of Western medicine specialists, to treatment by naturopaths, to nutritionists, on to natural dentists, acupuncturists, Chinese herbalists, Ayurvedic practitioners and even a Structural Integrationist.

I attended workshops, seminars, special trainings and read every book recommended to me to try to find answers for healing… And though I learned something from every practitioner along the way, I intuitively knew that taking a handful of supplements every day, versus pharmaceutical medications, was not the answer I was seeking — Every approach I learned still felt reactionary, not root cause work, like icing-on-a-mud-pie.

Why Detoxification Matters, Reductionist Theory and What I’ve Learned

Along the way I became a reductionist theorist — I needed to find the lowest common denominator for why I was so sick — “What’s the root cause? If it’s not root cause work, it’s a waste of my time. Because if I don’t know why my body is spiraling out and breaking down, how can I heal it?”

And this is what 25 years of research, inquiry and critical thinking showed me in clear and ugly color: 

The human body cannot eliminate the food-stuffs of the modern lifestyle — The ways we eat today have devolved to accommodate a fast-paced, unhealthy, “foodie” lifestyle, with no time for anything, but go-go-go… and indulgence. And it’s all considered normal, even sophisticated.

But unfortunately, this diet we think of as normal, because it’s based on the common fare of the Standard American Diet and Fast Food Nation, is a wholly nutrient-devoid, processed, pseudo food-stuffs diet that is made from ingredients that the body doesn’t recognize as useable fuel, because it’s not real food — The foods we eat are largely all manufactured, mass-produced products that have been processed to sustain a long shelf-life, rather than our health. Sadly, like me many years back, many live on this diet today, so they’re taking in little to no nutrition that their body needs to maintain optimal health and ward off disease. 

As a result, we’re seeing epidemic rates of chronic disease, with the immune system grossly going awry, as evidenced by now over 100 autoimmune disease diagnoses today, though cause continues to remain generally unknown within the medical community. The rise of autoimmune disease has skyrocketed by 300% since the 1950s, with costs exceeding cancer by 50%, and evidence showing they pave the way to future chronic and debilitating health problems developing.

And the tide continues to rise with obesity and diabetes, heart-disease and cancer, even food-addiction and pre-mature aging. C’mon, even a rookie can see something is terribly wrong!

If what I say makes sense to you, that the body can’t eliminate the foods of the modern lifestyle, or at the very least, that chronic illness has affected you or someone you love so much that you’re willing to continue to stick with me here, doesn’t it makes sense to now ask, “Where do these foods go? These foods that we’re eating, but not eliminating?”

A Noble Metaphor: The Garbage Bag Theory

Imagine you’re in your kitchen chopping and prepping ingredients for your dinner. Imagine further, that the garbage bag begins to overflow from all the scraps you’ve added in… and someone unexpectedly knocks on your door. To tidy the kitchen quickly, you hurriedly tie the bag and toss it outside on the back porch. It’s 98.7 degrees outside… and you forget you put the bag out there.

Several days later you discover the bag on the porch.

I ask you,

What do you think happened inside this bag of food stuffs, as it sat in 98.7 degree temperature for days?

The Life-Changing Answer to this Life-Changing Question

Bringing the metaphor home: The food in the bag, that is, the back-up of constipated food-stuffs that the body doesn’t know how to eliminate, begin to decay, rot, putrefy and ferment, with the predictable growth of the by-products rot produces; bacteria, yeast, mold, fungus, noxious gases and pathogen (Make no mistake, pathogen is a polite word for parasites. But this post is not about polite cordialities, but the quality of your life). The putrefaction and decay (think premature aging in every horrifying way, far beyond a loss of beauty) begins in the intestinal walls, but easily spreads throughout the body, as it passes into and beyond the digestive wall. Bacterial imbalance circulates. Heavy metals accumulate. Parasites proliferate. Viruses grow. Noxious gases destroy.

Why Detoxification Matters: What You Want to Know

Because the human body is an interconnected, whole ‘unit,’ the impact of “The Garbage Bag Theory,” is far reaching, all encompassing and systemic. This is why your body absolutely needs your help with detoxification — When the colon becomes obstructed with toxic waste matter that hardens, calcifies and blocks your internal pathways, the dominoes of the elimination system begin to fall (read fail), with the liver, kidneys and lymph bearing the heaviest brunt initially.

But you’d short-change the impact of a dirty, toxic body on your health and wellbeing if you stopped at the deleterious effects overwhelming the elimination systems. Because the body can’t remove the calcified, toxic waste, it pushes deeper into every cell, tissue, gland, organ and system within you, including your brain, with acute systemic effects caused by the noxious, carbonic gas it produces (CO2 toxicity is linked to central nervous system damage and permanent deterioration of respiratory functions).

Detoxification becomes squarely about removing toxic waste, and way more than a one and done practice.

Detoxification is the foundational lifestyle habit you exploit, to build whole-body, whole-life wellness upon.

Detoxification is far more than just a whole-foods, live-foods, green-juice laden diet, but your key to guarantee the whole quality of your life.

Think about it, HOW can you look and feel your best, if you’ve got a backed-up dirty sewer sitting in the middle of your body? How can you feel emotionally balanced, or think clearly and smartly and creatively and productively, how can you wake up energized and ready to create newly, if you’re body is permeated with toxic waste matter?

From my reliable reductionist theory rationale, WHAT can supplements possibly do for you, HOW can “everything in moderation” remotely make sense, HOW can the next-best-recipe conceivably matter, IF you do not remove the backed-up, calcified, toxic waste matter that’s obstructing your body’s internal pathways? HOW can you NOT be, even just a little bit, affected physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, by rotting decay in the middle of your body?

Detoxification is not a diet. Detoxification is a tool you use to remove backed-up, toxic waste from your body, to literally liberate you from the mental, psychological and emotional bondage it causes. 

As I like to say to my clients, we are not simply healing you of chronic and acute symptoms, we are not only helping you lose weight, feel more energized and look radiant, we are circumventing the dire consequences that would undoubtedly come if we never got to removing toxic waste from your body.

In today’s world, with the epidemic rates of chronic disease that are ravaging the quality of our lives and the lives of the people we most love, your body absolutely needs your help with detoxification.

Where to Start

To begin supporting your body in the detoxification process, you want to lighten up density in your diet, so what you do eat can pass through efficiently and support your overall healing efforts. That means add in lots of water-rich, live vegetables and fruits, and take out or reduce the harder-to-digest animal proteins. The highly-charged water in fresh vegetables and fruits will hydrate and help magnetize toxic waste out of the tissues of your body. Reducing or eliminating animal protein will conserve your energy for detoxing and healing, since it’s density needs more energy to break it down,

To help get you started, I offer you a comprehensive guide I made for my private 1:1 clients, a guide of 90+ fresh juice, smoothie and salad recipes called The Wholly Trinity Guide. Click the button below to download.

Download Your Free Wholly Trinity Recipe Guide!
Questions? Feel free to post below, or email me. I’d love to answer all your questions. Heeding the truth bombs this post offers can change your whole life, as they did mine.

 

 

Do you suffer from chronic illness, or know someone who does?

Maybe it’s not chronic illness. Maybe it’s chronic headaches, sore joints, allergies, fatigue, dry cough, even premature-aging?

I know, “who doesn’t experience one or more of these symptoms, right?”

I spoke to someone last week who suffers with five chronic illnesses.

Which is why you should know,

Every symptom, may it be physical, mental or emotional, is a sign of imbalance. 

Every symptom. 

We can respond at the first seemingly benign symptom, while trusting that our brilliantly designed body is telling us it needs our attention. Or we can wait to respond, and deal with the consequences waiting causes.

We get to choose when we respond and how we respond, and there’s typically two kinds of responses:

1. A response based on what everyone else would do, like your family, friends and even doctors — This response is reactive and often fear-based. This looks like checking in with everyone you know and asking what they would do, or what they think you should do, rather than you going within to find what you know would be best for you. Or,
2. A response driven by discernment. This choice is reflective, rather than reactionary, it’s calm, clear and empowered. Rather than looking for answers outside of yourself, you go within and you choose powerfully for yourself, even when others approve or don’t approve of your choice.

But there’s no choice when it comes to the solution. When it comes to healing the human body, the lowest-common denominator is creating order out of the disorder that’s taken over. 

Your body, or your loved ones body wants to be in balance. The human body will do everything and anything it can to restore balance.

But here’s the rub — The human body, you’re body, needs your help.

Whether you were born with illness, lived on processed foods your whole life, or just never got on the get-healthy train early enough, your body, irregardless of it’s current state of health, continuously stalks balance… and it needs your help (to counter the acidic and unhealthy lifestyle choices you’ve made for far too).

So how do you help your body create balance, if disorder and illness, or even just seemingly benign symptoms have taken over? 

Theres only one place to begin… “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step,” and you’re the only one with the answer. It doesn’t live outside you, and no-one else knows what this one thing is but you. One thing, that if you do it, you know with full confidence you’re better equipped to make smarter choices for you! When you do this thing, you can feel your strength and clarity fire up — This is when you become what I like to call, “a self-actualizing machine!”

You KNOW that if you meditate, or go for a run, or sit by yourself with a journal and download all the gunk that causes you confusion and stress, you feel clearer, stronger, more confident, and ready to DO whatever you need to do, to reclaim healthy balance. This IS your one thing, that you must do with consistency and impeccability every day. This IS when you’re like kryptonite, able to defy unhealthy temptation like a superhero!

Because the more often you go within to access your inner wisdom and guidance, the more you will learn to hear and trust you, and what you know is best for you, and the more clearly you will be able to hear and trust the seemingly benign signals your body sends you as warnings to heed, not ignore.

Let’s be clear, the goal is NOT your one thing, but the GOLD-stuff the one thing gives you access to — Calm. Clarity. Confidence. Inner wisdom. This IS what you most want, to heal your body… and for every other good choice you hope to make.

Stalk balance. Do what you need to do to live in balance. Choose actions that create balance. Balance is what you’re after.

From this angle, every symptom becomes your most trusted and reliable advisor.

Don’t you just love that? It’s a reframe, and it’s a game-changer!

If you or someone you know is suffering with chronic symptoms, or suspect now’s the time to grab hold of your health, I am accepting new clients. To schedule a consultation click here, contact me at 860-836-1990 or email me at carol@carol-egan.com

When growing up, my grandfather would bring a roast beef for my Mom to cook every Sunday. And in our Irish American home, of course mashed potatoes and gravy were a given. Roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy were always our slated Sunday family tradition, a tradition laced with love and the sweetest of memories. I remember at a very young age laughing with my grandfather as he would swing me in the air and run around with me and my brothers in the back yard, after our family dinner.

How about you? What were you’re family traditions? Salmon and lox? Biscuits and brisket? Pasta and meatballs? Barbecue and grits? Rice and beans? 

Indulge me for one minute and close your eyes. Try to recall a holiday, or a regular week day when you were young, when you and your family would gather together to have dinner and festivity. What memories rise up, what associations do you hold sacred to the meals you had with the people you love?  

Food and memory are inextricably linked. 

But do you know that food combinations like these traditional classics slow digestion down?

Do you know that carbohydrates, protein and fats each digest at very different rates, and each require different digestive enzymes to break them down, so eating them together is really not good for you?

I can hear you say, “But my family has been eating like this for generations.”

Yes, there might have been a time in history that the inner terrain of the gut was strong enough and healthy enough to break down the meals we know as traditional to our culture. But the modern lifestyle, the Standard American Diet and Fast Food Nation have all undeniably altered and impaired the microflora and inner ecosystem of our gut in ways that we can no longer  break down, absorb and assimilate the foods we eat.  

Let me ask you, do you struggle with weight loss? Perhaps low energy? Poor mental clarity? Or chronic symptoms? 

If you answer yes to any of the above health concerns, then humor me in taking on a healing experiment, for one day, one week… maybe even one month. This experiment I propose is called proper food combining, or “The Quick Exit Strategy.” 

For one month put on your “scientist’ hat to study and observe how you feel and how your body responds to combining what you eat in healthier combinations that promote a quick exit.

Food combining and the Quick Exit Strategy are based on the ways the body breaks foods down. It considers the density of the foods you eat, the varying ways the foods you eat break down and the varying ways your body responds with different chemical reactions. It recognizes your body’s need to absorb and assimilate nutrients, not simply eat them, and it also recognizes the consequences of eating in ways that waste matter can’t leave the body in a timely manner, if foods are combined poorly. The back up of waste matter sitting in your body leads to fermentation, yeast overgrowth, bacterial imbalance and a build up of carbonic gas, which correlates directly to your inability to achieve your health goals with lasting results. I can’t overstate this enough. 

So let me repeat, we want to eat what we eat in ways that provides maximum energy and nutrition, and efficient elimination. It’s the body’s inability to eliminate toxic waste, that cascades in every detrimental way throughout the body, affecting the overall state of our health.

To begin to promote quick exit meals, I offer you 3 simple food combination rules within The Quick Exit Strategy, as a mighty tool to detox your body, lose weight, increase energy, increase mental clarity and decrease chronic symptoms. 

3-Simple Rules of Food Combining: The Quick Exit Strategy

Rule One: Eat low sugar fruits away from all other foods — (lemons, limes, grapefruits, berries and green apples) 

Rule Two: Eat protein and vegetables

Rule Three: Eat starches and vegetables

What does proper food combining look like on your plate?

Protein and Vegetables: Whatever your protein source, be it animal protein, beans, dairy or other vegetarian/vegan options, you will eat it with only low-starchy vegetables, like a big salad, sautéed leafy greens, string beans, asparagus or broccoli. Do note, avocado and olives, nuts and seeds are considered protein fats, so combine them according to the protein recommendations. 

Starches and Vegetables: With this combination you will eat starchy vegetables like a baked sweet potato, winter squashes, roasted root vegetables, or other starchy choices like quinoa or pasta with low-starchy vegetables, again like above, with a big salad and/or any other low-starchy vegetable of choice. 

Since statistics suggest more than 75% of us suffer with chronic digestive problems today, I recommend you experiment with proper food combining and the Quick Exit Strategy.

This recommendation directly addresses the impact of the modern lifestyle on the human body and it’s impact on digestive health, and the natural and biological ways your body thrives. Yes, you’ll have to get to take on and challenge the eating habits you consider normal from your family traditions, but you might discover that you’re able to achieve the health goals you’ve long wanted, and feel amazing again. 

Do you have an inquisitive way like a scientist, like me? 

Tell me how it works for you in the comments below. 

Tell me too, if you try my recommendation, and how it worked for you. 

Questions? Post them below. I’d love to help. 

** NOTE: If you suffer from chronic health symptoms or chronic health problems, do note that animal protein requires a lot of energy to digest. I recommend you keep your scientist hat on and reduce or eliminate dense, animal protein intake, and even lighter choices like wild-caught fish or raw goat cheese for a healing interim, to see how it adds to your overall sense of wellbeing.

If you’ve followed me for even a short time, you know I get-high on building healthy habits. Why? Because I’ve changed my whole life by building one healthy habit at a time — With definite nutrition recommendations, plus mindset and emotional mastery strategies, I help my clients do exactly the same.

I’ve learned on my own, and with my clients, that if we can create success with one small habit, we’re more adept later to take on the bigger habits needed to achieve the loftier goals we REALLY want to achieve most in life.

In this spirit, I offer you 1 super-simple habit to start your day, but one that’s laden with far-reaching health benefits!

Begin every morning with a cup of hot, steamy, boiling water. Hot water dilates your cells, tissues and organs, which promotes circulation, digestion, hydration and elasticity, and washes away impurities. 

Ayurvedic medicine, one of the world’s oldest holistic healing systems says sipping on hot water can cure us of 100s of diseases.

Let’s break this down:

Even if you get just temporary improved circulation while drinking hot water, you’re promoting oxygen-rich blood flow throughout your body, and oxygen is literally life-force energy. This point alone is a compelling stand-alone reason. 

But that most eat a diet high in processed food these days, foods that are categorically devoid of the most life-giving substances on the planet, water and oxygen, dehydration is common place. This absence of water in foods and the mainstream diet causes dehydration throughout the body, which devolves down to the single most common digestive problem today, constipation. Chronic constipation is the single condition with the most detrimental side-effects on the human body and quality of life.

And that the human body is on average 50-75% water, it makes sense that basic levels of hydration are not only necessary for maintaining healthy digestion and radiant, supple skin, beginning on the cellular level, but it’s also necessary to ensure that every organ and system can run your “machine,” your body, as optimally as it was designed to run. Human cells simply can’t function without water.

When water is hot, it can promote sweating and the release of toxins out of your cells, tissues and organs. Toxicity can cause excess weight, fatigue, brain fog and every other health symptom you experience.

Experiment with drinking hot water every morning for 21 days. It’s a simple, but worthy habit to try, to see what sorts of benefits show up for you.

Now for a few complimentary recommendations: 

• Sip water (keep it hot if you know you’re dehydrated) throughout the day for maximum hydration. As an analogy, imagine a dry sponge. Can it pick up water off your counter as readily as a damp sponge? No. Your cells are the same — they can’t absorb as readily when they’re dehydrated, so sipping water throughout the day will ensure maximum hydration, and all the benefits it provides.
• The standard recommendation is to take in 1/2 your body weight in ounces of water. If you weigh 150 pounds, you’ll drink 75 ounces of water, with one caveat: Green juice is the ideal stand-in. I begin my day with hot water, and I sip water throughout the day, especially days when fasting. But I always drink green juice to break my fast, as the first nutrition of the day.
• First thing in the morning, omit any additives, like lemon, and especially like caffeine, which is dehydrating. By sipping plain, hot steamy water first thing in the morning, you’re hydrating, while not asking your body to turn on any systems, like digestion. The benefit? You maintain the state of healing, rebuilding and even promote weight loss during this added window of time.

Try it and see how many seemingly benign problems seem to go away. 

Questions? Post them below. I’d love to help.

Have you heard all the hoopla from the supplement world about collagen?

Collagen supplements are gaining traction as the latest “Fountain of Youth” addition for your daily anti-aging regiment, with endorsements hailing from celebrities and nutritionists alike.

Last year alone the sales of collagen supplements reached $98 million from within the beauty world, and promises to continue double-digit growth by 30%.

While many buy collagen supplements to reduce joint pain and degeneration, many more buy them as an anti-aging fix — to improve hair, skin and nails — to look younger.

The Problem

But there is an unsafe side effect not talked about amidst all this excitement and product sales…

Collagen supplements cause constipation.

Do you know that constipation causes inflammation throughout your body?

Chronic constipation triggers irritation of the colon wall, causing the production of excess mucous and the proliferation of pathogen, like yeast, mold, fungus, rogue bacteria and parasites.

Since the health of your digestive tract effects your overall health, including your mental and physical wellbeing, and the widespread problems constipation can cause, what supplement could possibly be worth the benefits it’s touted to offer?

Your stomach was designed to breakdown and process the foods you eat, to absorb and assimilate the nutrients you need to function optimally, to then move out the waste you don’t need for for elimination.

If there is a breakdown in any of these processes, of course there is going to be signs of premature aging, excess weight and brain fog.

Waste is not leaving the body.

Rather than serve as a weigh station, your digestive system is serving as a toxic waste land.

What’s Possible

Twenty years ago I looked older than I do today (said a former employer I ran into), because I suffered from chronic constipation.

A year ago, when Courtney, my 34-year old client came, she said she felt she looked old and tired — She suffered from ulcerative colitis. Now? She’s off all medication and says she looks and feels better than she ever remembers.

Constipation is widespread today. Constipation brings millions of people to a clinic every year, with more than 700,000 emergency department trips.

The Problem is a Problem

Chronic constipation leads to inflammation, stagnancy and slow to in-frequent eliminations, which causes waste matter to harden, calcify and cause obstruction within your colon walls.

Herein lies the root of all health problems. Waste is not leaving the body.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1 out of every 2 of us suffers from 1 chronic disease. One out of every 4 of us suffers from 2 or MORE chronic diseases. Seven out of 10 of us will die of a chronic disease.

Add to these statistics all the ways the digestive system impacts brain health/mental health — 90% of serotonin that is produced in the digestive wall. Researchers at John Hopkins are finding evidence that “irritation in the gastrointestinal system may send signals to the central nervous system (CNS) that trigger mood change. These new findings may explain why a higher-than-normal percentage of people with IBS and functional bowel problems develop depression and anxiety.”

Not an Aside

Among the top over-the-counter medications are treatments for pain relief, laxatives and yeast infections, which treat problems directly directly correlated to chronic constipation.

Yes, the problem of chronic constipation stems from many problems, like a diet high in processed foods and poor lifestyle choices. But with statistics of chronic disease near epidemic, it’s foolish to add a supplement that could hinder healthy elimination, since constipation has such far reaching consequences.

Consider This:

If you suffer from any digestive problem (Are you 1 of the 74% of Americans who does?), the enzyme pepsin and the acid HCL, which are both responsible for breaking down food in your stomach, will be impaired from the cascade of problems that happen from constipation (or diarrhea) — The body won’t be able tp break the collagen down anyway.

World renowned hydro-colonic therapist Gil Jacobs sees how products like these actually build up on the colon wall in his NYC practice — they are a hindrance to vibrant health, rather than a help.

And let’s not forget collagen supplements are a processed product, which the body doesn’t recognize as fuel, but as a foreign invader.

It’s Up To You

There is a we-are-being-sold-to mentality, and there is a question-everything-mentality.

Choose the later.

Why? Even some leaders in the integrative health community tout products that directly spin off the immediate gratification, fast-food, modern lifestyle mentality, with no apparent deeper inquiry into the long-term consequences of the short-term gains they’re suggesting.

This is why I say question everything.

I don’t care WHO the teacher is, put on your investigator hat.

Look to basic common sense. Always.

Trust this:

While we’ve all been taught to love quick fix solutions within our Fast-Food nation mentality, trust this, there are none. Near everything we are being sold today is a product of the modern lifestyle = give it to me (the result) and give it to me NOW (with NO effort extended… and far reaching consequences).

We are living beings that require proper care to function optimally.

If you want to look and feel your best, if you want to look and feel 10 years younger, you don’t need collagen supplements.

You need healthy habits that deliver real results.

Start with these 3 easy steps and you’ll see and feel the results you want in ways far beyond what collagen can offer you:

1. Buy and use a juicer everyday.
2. Eat a meal-sized salad every day.
3. Eat less everyday.

No quick-fix works. But basic common sense does… AND a return home to your own inner guide.

Did you ever hear the saying, “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise?”

While I love to go to bed early, and get up early, most executives I work with say they feel lucky to get 5 hours of sleep a night.

But this means that their body and brain lose 2-3 hours of the sleep they need for the energy, mental focus and peak productivity the next day.

How long can you expect energy to last without a fully charged battery, without proper sleep?

How can you hope to do your best, if you’ve not slept well the night before?

This is why you don’t want to watch TV and return late-night emails from bed — They can interrupt your body’s natural internal clock and the production cycles of hormones melatonin and cortisol that help you sleep.

Unhealthy, interrupted, and poor sleep patterns can affect even your most basic daily routines.

Which is why it’s so important to think about how you end your day, to set the stage for healthy sleep — to set the stage for an awesome next day.

Research shows that the light from computers and technology significantly lowers levels of melatonin, which regulates sleep cycles.

If you constantly wake up or can’t fall asleep, research also shows you could suffer from lower concentration and lower cognitive functioning. Just one sleepless night can cause you to feel foggy, unfocused and scattered.

To ensure that your body is ready to sleep when you go to bed, to create great success tomorrow:

1. You must choose ‘before-bed’ activities that set you up for a healthy and restorative night of sleep, like reading, meditation and removing all technology from your bedroom.
2. You must reduce stimulating activities 1 hour before bed, and aim for 7-9 hours of sleep every night, to reap the energy, mental clarity and peak productivity a well restored body offers.

If you do these two simple steps, you literally sleep your way to greater success, because you’ll wake up restored and recharged for all that you want to accomplish!

Don’t underestimate these simple recommendations. You will feel more productive. You will feel more alert and focused. You will feel more energized…

Ask yourself, “what could be possible personally and professionally, if I felt more productive, alert, focused, and energized every day?”

As my client Kathryn said, “I’m getting so much more accomplished now that I’m sleeping better.”

And… I’ve got 4 more simple daily habits like this one that top achievers use to increase their energy by 30% in my free guide, Five to Thrive. You can get a copy here by clicking to download.