Change before you have to. -Jack Welch

Change is inevitable, right? Seasons change. People change. Weather changes.

But is change really always inevitable?

If you look closely, you’ll see that what you choose to do, or not, pivots off what you believe to be true, and not.

For example, have you ever wondered why you want to lose weight and look radiant, but also want to indulge in foods that make that impossible?

Or you want to wake up energized and excited for the day, but also want to indulge in unhealthy habits that thwart that from happening?

The thoughts behind your choices may offer you a sense of connection and relationship with those you love, but might also keep you from achieving the health goals you most want.

Thoughts like, ”my family has eaten this way for generations,” or “people just don’t eat that way,” or “I love _____ and am not going to give it up.”

Overlooked, your thoughts become the “cherished” stories that can hold you back. They limit you from experiencing something you might not have ever fully experienced, like what it feels like to wake up energized and radiant, at your ideal weight and with no brain fog.

When I finally got that it was my most treasured stories that held me back when I was sick, like those I mention above, was I able to open up to all the other ways of doing things.

I offer you three “new health rules,” I learned along my healthy path that dramatically changed my life because they asked me to think beyond ways I thought before, 1) calm your mind and let go, 2) optimize gut health and 3) intermittent fasting.  They’re simple recommendations that will appeal to your basic common sense, and their doable!

Calm Your Mind and Let Go:

Far beyond the traditions of ancient spiritual communities, mindfulness and meditation are powerful tools used by people from all walks of life, like CEOs and athletes, corporations and prisons, to calm the mind, embrace the present moment and let go thoughts that cause attachment and worry.

• Mindfulness and meditation makes space for new ways of doing things, and make every healthy choice possible.
• Meditation is an intentional practice of being with the breath for 5 minutes or 5 days (or longer), to train your mind to slow down the zillions of thoughts that rise every minute.
• Mindfulness is a more extensive practice of viewing the world with an increased focus and awareness, to simply be with what is, as it unfolds and let everything be OK.

Optimize Gut Health:

The digestive system is the hub of vibrant health and vital energy, which is why it’s paramount to safeguard the state of your digestive health.

Really getting this is a game changer!

A healthy digestive system affects your weight, your skin, your hormones, your immune system and your emotional and mental wellbeing, which is why it’s critical to extend extra-special care when choosing what you eat.

You want to know the 5 top common toxic trigger foods and how they impact the state of your digestive health: gluten, dairy, sugar, caffeine and alcohol.

• Gluten abrades the villi on the digestive wall, causing undigested food and bacteria to pass into the body, which sets the stage for a host of chronic health problems, including common allergies.
• Dairy causes excess mucous production, inflammation and imbalance in the digestive tract, which interferes with the absorption and assimilation of nutrients in your food.
• Sugar is highly addictive and causes inflammation and imbalance in your gut microbiota, the good and bad bacteria, which sets the stage for pre-mature aging and disease.
• Caffeine dehydrates, irritates the digestive wall, causes imbalance in the gut microbiota and blocks the absorption of magnesium, which sets off a cascade of problems,
• Alcohol dehydrates the cells and tissues in the body, and is known to cause dysbiosis, an imbalance in the gut microbiota, suppress the immune system, tax the liver and cause emotional imbalance.

Intermittent Fasting:

Intermittent fasting is the hot new rage in the anti-aging circles today. But it is not a diet, it’s a pattern of eating that cycles between fasting and eating.

Intermittent fasting provides the body an increased opportunity to cleanse, heal and rejuvenate by restricting calorie intake for a set period of time.

While many use intermittent fasting today for anti-aging and weight loss benefits, the rewards far outweigh weight-loss and glowing skin. Intermittent fasting:

• Reduces oxidative stress and inflammation in the body
• Increases cellular repair
• Increases detoxification and rejuvenation processes
• Stronger resistance to stress
• Good for the brain and overall health
• Increases longevity
• Reduced brain fog and increased mental wellbeing and clarity
• Fasting is like a reset button. At the cellular level, it puts your body into repair mode and offers long and short term benefits that make it a worthy practice.
• Ready to fast? Start by omitting food for 12 hours and work your way up to 24 hours one to two times per week.

As Jack Welch says, “change before you have to… ”

YOUR TURN…

After you practice these 3 rules, I want to hear from you! Tell me…

What benefits do you notice from meditating and being more mindful, more present? How do you feel from omitting any one or all of the common toxic trigger foods from your diet? Which one made the most difference for you?

What benefits did you experience from fasting and how did that help you in your life?

Share your experiences in the comments below. I can’t wait to hear what you tried and how it helped!

Want more energy now? Grab my new guide that offers the 5 habits top-achievers use to increase their energy by 30%!

Do you suffer with digestion problems? Do you experience discomfort and/or chronic symptoms on a daily basis? If yes, then you want to join me and Gurds Hundal, founder of “Get Inspired With Gurds Podcast,” for this power-packed and fun interview from all the way “across the pond” in the UK!

Gurds and I had a fun time talking everything digestion, because she get’s my mission, she too suffered with digestive problems, as did I early on.

As I discussed, and as she brilliantly weaved in and out in conversation with me about this important topic, it doesn’t matter if it’s Irritable Bowel Syndrome, bloating, chronic constipation or some other digestive problem, most of us don’t know how to deal with these symptoms we experience.

Most of us don’t realize that we are not simply what we eat, but we are what we digest, assimilate, absorb and eliminate.

If you or someone you love is experiencing any type of digestion problem, this episode of “Get Inspired with Gurds” is a must listen.

And as Gurds said, even if you don’t suffer from digestive problems yourself – “Carol’s perspective on healing and intuition is important to hear. Especially, how sugar is the cause of many digestion issues.”

Do you suffer with digestive problems? Have you gone to visit a few different doctors but are still not feeling great? Have a listen in to see if you here something that resonates with you. Then post your questions in the comments section below, or send them off to me via email . I’d love to help!

Over these past few months, did you ever want to say something about all that is going on in our country, but held back?

Held back because you didn’t want to offend or hurt anyone. You didn’t want to engage the hostility. The anger.

So you remained silent.

I held back.

I said very little, to nothing at all. I pushed down my thoughts, ideas and feelings.

But the problem with saying nothing was, it looked like I didn’t care about all that was and continues to go on in our communities and country.

And while I believe their is great strength in silence, I also know silence can hurt.

So after much time to reflect, I break my silence to say,

I believe, with all my heart, in the goodness that lives insides each and everyone of us.

I believe that in spite of all the ways you might express your views differently from me, we wish each other only all the very best.

I believe that even though it doesn’t seem that way, you would be there for me, and I would be there for you no matter how ugly, bad or contentious ‘it’ may seem.

Like Viktor Frankl described in “Man’s Search for Meaning,” when those closest to death and in most need of sustenance in the concentration camps would give their one daily piece of bread to another who looked stronger and more likely to live.

That beyond race, class, sexual persuasion, vitriolic exchange and even man’s inhumanity to man, our very human essence rises up for each other.

Do you agree their is great strength in silence? Do you agree that there is great strength in breaking silence? Do you agree, that beyond all the personal and political preferences, we really would be there for each other? I'd love to hear your ideas in the comments below, especially if they are different than mine.

“It is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” — Brother David Steindl-Rast

Has life asked you to look for the good in every experience—to bless it all, especially the moments that challenge you most? I’ve found that when I focus on being grateful, everything shifts. Everything feels lighter, clearer, better… even easier.

Gratefulness asks us to raise our bar. It asks us to be bigger than a moment of upset, anger, or jealousy. It’s gratitude in motion—a living, mindfulness sort of practice that invites us to see things differently.

Not surprisingly, research confirms what many of us sense intuitively: being grateful increases happiness, fulfillment, and our overall sense of well-being.

Who doesn’t want more of that?

To help you cultivate exactly that, here are 20 simple ways to bring gratefulness into your everyday life—not just during the holiday season, but far beyond it.

1. Begin your day with gratitude for 3 things.
2. Give thanks before every meal.
3. Shift from thoughts of lack to thoughts of abundance.
4. Transform the ordinary into extraordinary with thankfulness.
5. Take nothing for granted.
6. Remember the farmer when you eat your meals.
7. See the sacred in the simple and familiar.
8. Keep a gratitude journal.
9. Bless the people who have hurt you.
10. Thank someone who doesn’t expect it.
11. Extend “thank you” generously.
12. Notice one small beauty you’d normally overlook.
13. Send a gratitude letter to someone who matters.
14. Pause to appreciate it all.
15. Express silent thanks for strangers who make your day easier.
16. Appreciate challenges that asked you to grow.
17. Reframe one complaint as a hidden gift.
18. Look for the good in everything and everyone.
19. Find the one reason that can shift you from complaint to gratitude.
20. Close your day with gratitude for 3 things.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.

I recently met Tom at a networking event. He told me he had Crohn’s Disease, but quickly said not to worry, “I am as healthy as an ox! I take two tiny little pills everyday, eat whatever I want and haven’t had a problem for 5 years.”

I got it. Well, kind of. Though I took an array of pharmaceuticals back in the days when chronic symptoms, low energy and a sick body defined my life, I did not feel, “as healthy as an ox.” Rather, I looked and felt sick, tired and old, though I was a young woman.

So I set out to find answers for why I looked and felt so poorly, while so many others I knew dealt with health problems and took medications just like me, but seemed A-Okay like Tom.

It was mind-boggling and frustrating.

What I discovered felt revolutionary!

I discovered that even if the pharmaceuticals we take provide relief, the chronic symptoms and disease we live with does not stopped progressing, inflammatory foods still cause inflammation and wreak havoc in our body… and the “two little pills,” have us all thinking we are healthy and can eat whatever we like, while our body continues to decline.

The medications stop outward symptoms.

No more pain.

No more inconvenience.

No more concern.

No more reason left to do what it takes to create the changes necessary to heal the body and create vibrant health.

And herein lies the crux of the problem…

Change only happens if it’s a must, NOT a should.

Here’s what I mean, my client Nicole felt poorly, like I did early on, even though she took prescription medications. She suffered from Diabetes and previously with Hodgkins Lymphoma. With two little children at home, healing was a must for her, it was not simply I should. Her leverage for change was her children.

So in spite of her doctors recommendation not to take on a take on a healthy eating program, she chose to do it anyway, of course on the promise that she check her insulin levels everyday, and stay in close contact with me and her doctor.

Within 3 weeks of eating a clean, whole, unprocessed foods diet, Nicole reduced her insulin by 75%.

But Nicole was still on medication, and prescription medications not only mask the pain, inconvenience and concern typically needed to change to healthy lifestyle choices, they cause nutritional deficiencies in the body too. For example,

The top subscribed medication, Synthroid (Levothyroxine), recommended for hypothyroidism, interferes with calcium, with deficiencies leading to osteoporosis, muscle spasms, memory loss, PMS, obesity and increased risk for diabetes.

Crestor, a statin drug prescribed to lower cholesterol and fats (triglycerides) in the blood, also depletes coenzyme Q10, an essential antioxidant needed for energy production, and heart, nervous system, muscle and brain support.

This is a serious problem.

To boot, mainstream medical doctors receive only 20 hours of nutrition education. They are at a loss on what do beyond prescribing medication, since their training has been largely shaped by pharmaceutical companies with very little education on nutrition..

Add the impact of the fast-paced, high-stress modern lifestyle, Fast Food Nation and the ginormous success from marketing addictive foods as ‘healthy foods’ choices, it’s no wonder chronic disease and the need for pharmaceutical medications are on the rise.

But here’s what you can do to get out of the looping of taking pharmaceutical drugs,

1. Most important, learn to better understand that cravings and symptoms are your body’s way of saying it is imbalanced, that prescription medication is only masking the problem, and that you can heal your body with healthy lifestyle choices.
2. Incorporate what I recommend to all my 1:1 clients when we first start working together, the Wholly Trinity: include a green juice, a green smoothie and a meal-sized green salad everyday. This recommendation provides you with a triple-whammy of the most nutrient dense foods pound for pound, leafy greens.
3. If you feel overwhelmed initially, be patient with yourself and the process. Simply lean into it. With every effort you extend, getting healthy will get easier.

If you know you're ready to get healthy, click here to schedule a free call with me. I can guide you, as I did Nicole and my other clients, to healing your body and feeling energized and vibrant again. If you know your ready to dive right in, grab my new 1:1 Mini Program, More Energy Now. We can get started as soon as tomorrow!

(Disclaimer: If you have any specific questions about any medical matter, you should consult your doctor or other professional healthcare provider.)

Have you ever had a project due, or a deadline to meet, and you couldn’t get it done on time, in spite of trying? Have you ever wanted to quit something you said you would do, but quitting is not your style?

I had the title of my speech. I had my main talking points. But tried as I might, I couldn’t wrap my head around the speech I was supposed to give in just over an hour, though I worked on it all day.

It was 4:20 pm and I was slated to deliver a speech at my Toastmasters meeting at 5:45.

Panic and negative self-talk started.

I decided to take a hot shower, in the hopes that it would ease my frustration and clear my head.

I sighed and thought, what could I possibly say to justify canceling at this late time?

As the warm water eased my frustration, creativity took over.

I jumped out mid-shower and bulleted down the essence of my speech. As I did, I laughed when I looked at my main talking points.

My speech title? The Power of Choice and Why It Matters.

My main talking points?

• Drop the story,
• Know myself, and
• Flex the muscle (get in action).

I had a story to tell with each point, like how single parenthood taught me that anything is possible if I just dropped the story that “it’s” impossible.

That meditation and journaling (prayer on paper as I like to call it), showed me how easy it is to make a choice when I know myself, and that happens when I slow down with these sorts of practices.

And the alpha point that entrepreneurship taught me, if other life experiences had not already, to get in action, stay in action and don’t let limiting stories stop me.

As I laughed and got ready for my Toastmasters meeting, as I put on a little makeup and studied my bulleted outline, I thought, “now this moment is my perfect wrap up to my speech, how I am living my talking points live, in the moment, right now!”

Drop the story, Carol, that you don’t know what to talk about. You live these points. You know who you are, and you know what you are talking about. Drop the story. Own your stuff and give the speech.

I won best speaker for the night. 

As I drove home I thought about the power of choice… and the certificate and laughed again. Surely the paper certificate was not the score of the night. The score was what it took for me to get there to deliver the speech.

The power of choice that we each possess, that we each exercise, not chance, shapes the whole course of our life.

Your turn. Tell me why the power of choice matters to you in the comments below.

Is there a story that you know stops you from achieving a goal you aspire to, like getting healthy?

Do you have daily practices that help you slow down in ways that you know your choices reflect what you want, not what others want for you?

Did you download Five to Thrive yet? The guide to make you 30% more energized in 7 days? If not, get yours here! It's flying off the digital shelves!

 

Getting healthy. You’ve heard it all. You’ve tried it all. Diets. Exercise plans. Pills. Powders and potions.

You know what to do, but you don’t.

Well, you dabble.

You know, you eat healthy once in a while. Maybe you go to the gym a little bit more frequently than you eat healthy. Either way, you never seem to be able to stick with creating healthy consistently. Life always seems to get in the way.

Deadlines. Fatigue. Family commitments. Late night business meetings. Red wine… and Twinkies.

You know dabbling is no longer enough.

You know it.

Excess weight, exhaustion and foggy thinking are impacting your home life and your ability to keep up at work and you’re starting to get a little freaked out. Shoot, you even wonder if chronic symptoms and low energy are affecting your creativity and ability to focus.

Have you ever asked yourself why you don’t stick with your get healthy plan?

Maybe you think your diet and fitness goals are unrealistic. Or maybe you think it’s because you don’t have supportive people in your life, or… you really don’t know what to do so you flounder.

Author Wayne Dyer said, “change your thoughts, change your life.”

But, that could be a huge undertaking since we all have anywhere between 50,000 — 70,000 thoughts per day!

And that seems a little unwieldy for a reductionist theory person like me.

Don’t you agree that it makes much more sense to reduce 1000s of anything down to potent and usable golden nuggets?

For the get healthy game, I’ve done the reduction work for you, and I’m repeatedly led back to the age-old question over and over again, Who am I?

Who are you?

Think about it.

If you can answer this one question, all other answers to all other questions either, 1) become a moot point, or 2) come easily to you.

I know, this can feel like a lofty question, but after pondering on it for years, the same answer, the lowest-common-denominator response that always rises is, 

You are life itself.

You carry within you the force of the Universe, the force of God, Spirit, Mother Nature, the Divine. What you call this force, it’s your thoughts about it and how you live it that makes all the difference.

I mean, if you believed that you literally carried the same life-force as the Sun that holds each planet in its orbit and makes life on Earth possible, or the Moon that animates and moves the oceans with it’s gravitational force, how could getting healthy be hard?

Why would you the invincible, the unconquerable, the omnipotent partake in anything that does not bring forth your highest self and grandest goals?

But you say, I don’t know how to access this life force amidst my crazy busy days? When I am trying to meet deadlines and run errands and attend late night dinner meetings how could that even be possible?

I’ve got a super, easy-peasy, sure-to-deliver exercise:

First, place your hand on your heart then close your eyes. Breathe in and breathe out. This is not necessarily a mediation, but an exercise of presence to your breath flowing in and flowing out. After several inhalations and exhalations, get present to the fact that you are not breathing. You are actually not breathing, but being breathed. By this force. You don’t choose breathing. It’s chosen you.

In it’s most fundamental sense, your most vibrant health, peak energy and productivity, your most innovative creativity and clearest thinking, your ideal weight is an exercise of presence.

I know, it’s like whoah, right?

You are being breathed.

By the source of life.

YOUR TURN

Now that you know this breathing exercise to pull you back to your highest self, to get on, and stay on your get-healthy, be-your-best-self track, I want to hear from you.

Tell me…

What do you think could be possible, with this level of presence on your side?

What healthy goals do you think you can now accomplish, that you weren't able to access before?

Share your insights and post any questions you have about this in the comments below!

Did you ever ask yourself, “What do I really want to do with my life? What matter’s most to me? What lights me up? What would I do even if they didn’t pay me?”

Not the you that is a husband or wife, mother, father, son or daughter. Not the you that is decision-maker, sandwich-maker, bread-winner, entrepreneur or Little League coach. But you, the passionate dreamer, the one and only, never another human being like you on this planet ever!

Did you ever have dreams, like Neal Armstrong, Martin Luther King or Michael Phelps?

Ambitions, hopes, goals that thrilled you?

I didn’t.

Chronic illness limited my scope of even remembering that I was born with the same inalienable right to pursue happiness just like you.

I mean, how do you feel creative and vibrant if you wake up exhausted every morning? How do you feel motivated and excited for all that life offers, if the impact of low energy and poor health sap your best self out of you? How do you hope and dream, when soap-operas and reality TV are your easiest access to living an exciting life?

For me, this is the crux of my work. 

It’s never been about the food you eat. 

It’s not even about how much you weigh.

It’s not about this diet or that diet.

It is about all that becomes possible when you live in a healthy body.

It is about you looking and feeling as healthy as you are successful.

It is about you getting in touch with who you want to be, what you want to create and all you want to accomplish.

It is about moving beyond the apathy that low-energy and poor health can cause.

Which is precisely why, because you are literally a system of cells and tissues, nerve impulses and chemical responses that work synergistically together, you must eat foods that energize you and your dreams! 

It’s not about food, and then it is. Do you get that?

YOU TELL ME!

What does getting healthy mean to you? How can more energy impact your life at home and the office?

If you know it's time to start somewhere, start with one of the many smoothie recipes I offer here.

Have questions? Other ideas? Post them below. I can’t wait to read ‘em.

Rather talk? Email me here.

Yesterday I had a really cool experience. When I went to post a few pictures I took while flying out to California on Facebook, I saw that my iPhone’s smart capabilities tagged where I was when I took the pictures.

The one above said I was at PhinDeli Town Buford, Wyoming.

How freaking cool! I’ve never physically been to Wyoming, but this pics says I was, albeit in the sky.

I learned, Buford, as it was originally known, was founded in 1866 during the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad. And though it once boasted a population of 2,000. It is now famous for it’s population of one person.

In the spirit of the American Dream, Phạm Đình Nguyên bought the town and sells “PhinDeli” brand coffee that he imports from Vietnam in the convenience store.

One town. One person. One dream.

It never changes, when I fly, it feels otherworldly to me.

Ethereal.

Holy.

From simply wanting to capture a Heavenly view, I now felt connected with a man in the middle of Wyoming that I never met, as I flew overhead.

As I thought more about Nguyen out in ‘no man’s land,’ by himself, at an altitude of 8000 feet, I felt a shared connection of lessons I learned along the way, but can sometimes forget if I get lost in the sea of opinions others think are best for me. Like me, you’ve probably learned these life lessons already. But like me, why you don’t want to forget them either. Lessons like,

• Challenges will always rise, but who you become in the process is what matters most.
• There are times you will feel all alone, but alone time can be the most fertile ground for exponential learning and growth.
• There is great freedom in choosing you and what you know is best for you, especially when you discover people who you thought supported you don’t
• Your greatest strength emanates from rising above disappointments, setbacks, and hurt.
• Emotional mastery comes from getting back in the game, over and over and over

My thoughts brought me back to a favorite quote of writer Joseph Campbell’s,

“Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls.”

That in spite of other’s opinions, judgements and even ideas of how they think you you should do things. follow your bliss. Buy that piece of land you really want, even if it is in the middle of what seems like no where to others. Fly off to California at a time that seems poorly timed, it could be the best thing you could ever do for yourself and your business. And… say no to that unhealthy food choice even if everyone you know tells you ‘it’s OK to eat anything you want in moderation,” when you know research and your body tell you sugar is addictive and causes imbalance in your body.

Moments are like that, they offer you the opportunity to rise above, to learn and grow, to choose you, build emotional mastery… to follow your bliss, or concede your personal power to what others think is best for you. 

As my son said to me recently, “do you.”

I wrote a Guide about 6 ways you can look and feel your very best. I wrote it for me really, to organize my primary ideas about how to look and feel my very best in one coherent document, so when I trip up, I've got 6 primary ideas to help me get back on track. I wrote it for you too, because I know it can make a difference. You can get your copy here.