Are sugar cravings bad? I was a sugar junkie, so I have a definite opinion about this question.

Sugar is  the primary ingredient in the highly-regarded anti-inflammatory diet, and the cornerstone of my clean eating programs, that took me down as a young girl. (Yes, “took me down” absolutely means destroyed the whole quality of my life.) Sure, all of the other inflammatory foods that we remove on a clean eating diet contributed to my body breaking down, but I was a sugar addict. Hands down. What does that mean in a larger context, I was a sugar addict?

My body was riddled with candida—an overgrowth of yeast throughout my body. Candida is an imbalance of bad bacteria, to good bacteria in the body. Ha! That’s when I first heard the word poly-systemic. New vocab word—poly-systemic. Yup, poly-systemic meant that the yeast spread from my gut into the tissues of all the organs in my body. No wonder I was a hot mess! Yes. It was very bad. I had symptoms raging from cystic acne to chronic constipation, from poor digestion to chronic fear and sadness.  And 25+ years ago Dr. William Crook, author of the Yeast Connection estimated that 80 million Americans had candida at that time, but didn’t know it. Hmm. Wonder how many million there are now, especially with the way most of us eat these days? Wonder if you are one of the lucky ones who does not have it, from among those 80 million—with inflation of course. I tried to figure out where and how this began for me. Why? I just wanted to pinpoint where this started so I could stop it from happening. I came up with all sorts of theories, but the bottom line is sugar NOT GOOD, or as my Dad would say, NG!

Sugar is acidic. Sugar feeds candida. Sugar is acidic. Sugar feeds candida.

Sugar feeds candida. Candida loves sugar. Cancer loves sugar. ALL chronic disease loves sugar AND an acidic environment. Candida, cancer and chronic disease can NOT live in an alkaline environment. It’s a simple math equation really. Easy Peasy, right?

So is a little sugar OK once in a while? Is a little alcohol, gluten, dairy and caffeine OK once in a while? You tell me. Are you healthy? Are you happy? I mean are you healthy and happy in the ways that you wake up feeling energetic and on fire for your day—you just can’t wait to go and express your love for your family and friends and everyone you interact with in your life? Does kindness in your heart explode and you can’t wait to share it with everyone? Or do you experience low energy? Do you experience chronic bloating, headaches, bad breath, moodiness, slackened skin, even anger? Or maybe you have behaviors that feel far less that who you know yourself to be deep down, or just not you, but you just can’t help yourself? That is an acidic environment. That IS an acidic environment.

Until we stop the looping cycle of what came first, the low energy and poor health or the negative, less than our best thinking and behaving, I say keep your diet PRISTINE.

People like Jay Kordich and Kris Carr began to eat cooked vegan fare ONLY after they healed themselves. While they were sick with cancer and in healing mode, they kept their diet raw, very green and loaded with juice. Why? Because the raw food diet and juice-fasts are known to be the most healing protocols on the planet BECAUSE they alkalize the body. And if you ever get to talk to her, which I have once at the Tibet House in NYC, she will tell you that she was caught in this looping too. But today Kris Carr is one of the most gorgeous and vibrant voices in the health world! She, among other very luminous people in the world I move inspired me to create a personal credo a few years back “put off what I want now, for what I want most.”

Sugar? My vote? Don’t. Pretty compelling when the president of Sloan Kettering Hospital, the leading cancer research and treatment center on the planet opts out!

Interested in cutting out sugar? Take 1000 milligrams of a supplement, an amino acid called glutamine every 5 hours. It literally fools your body into thinking it’s getting sugar.

Raw “Classic” Tabbouleh

For the tabbouleh:
1/2 head of cauliflower, processed coarsely
1 bunch parsley, process leaves, de-stemmed (pulse a few times)
2 Tablespoon fresh mint
1 C. grape tomatoes, chopped
1 cucumber seeded, chopped
1/2 cup hemp seed

For the Dressing:
1 lemon, juice (or more to taste)
1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 clove of garlic, squeezed (aim for the juice)
Sea salt and black pepper to taste
Serves 2

Put parsley, mint, garlic and lemon juice in food processor, slowly add olive oil.
In a bowl toss parsley mixture with remaining ingredients. Add avocado and olives for a heartier meal.

Buono Appetito! 

Ha! I can hear you now, “there she goes again with that living life fully garbagio! What the heck does she really mean by this anyway?”

Several years ago I was sick. I was very sick. I went from my general practitioner to my gynecologist, then to an endocrinologist and a urologist. Oh, let’s not forget the gastroenterologist, the hematologist, a dermatologist… and yup, of course the therapist. And guess what? NO ONE offered me any tangible reason for the symptoms I was experiencing. Yet each doctor did prescribe the magical pill they thought could help me get better, even though they did not know what was wrong with me. Hmmm? Whuhhh?

But bouncing from doctor to doctor to doctor was NOT the biggest problem. No. The biggest problem was who I was becoming as my body was breaking down.

While my body was breaking down, my confidence dropped. Dropped? No. Vanished. Kaput! Gone. I was losing my sense of self as my body broke down. I developed acute anxiety, but no one could tell me why. I had all sorts of digestive/elimination problems, but no one could tell me why. My face broke out with a cystic acne, and no one could explain why. My brain would not work. I could not remember anything. I could not focus. I could not concentrate. No. Matter. How. Hard. I. Tried. And no one could tell me why.

I went to a local Univesity and took ONE class. Yes. Just one. I created study partners. I worked with 2 study groups. I even met with the professor several times to try to figure out a way that I could remember what I was working every waking hour of the day on to remember, to no avail. But my brain would simply not work. I felt stupid, and this is a word I do not use. But this IS the word that I internalized, this is the word that took over me. Stupid. And ugly. And afriad. Then.

This was my life. I looked sick. I felt sick. I WAS sick. I had no confidence. My brain would not work. And I lived in a fearful, anxiety-filled state. Living life fully? Um. Not so much.

But lightening struck and “the” decided moment that changed the course of my life came one afternoon as I waited for my Zanax prescription to be filled. As I waited, the pharmacist told me the doctor wanted to talk to me personally. You see, I had expressed great concern to the pharmacist about taking the recommended dosage. That I was so petite, I explained, I would fall on my face if I took that much medication. I didn’t even want to take it, but the symptoms were real. She agreed and called the office.

The doctor said, “I thought you said you trusted me?” “I do, but that much medication,” I explained, “is too strong for me. I felt dizzy when I took it, like I couldn’t even drive.”  He said “look, do you know what will happen if you don’t take the medication as I prescribed it? Panic Attacks. And do you know what happens after that? Suicide.”

Done. In that moment, as sick as I was, I knew something was very, very wrong. In that moment I made a conscious decision to find someone, anyone to help me. But I knew NO one to recommend someone to me. I knew no one to go to. I knew NO one who subscribed to natural approaches to well-being. I forged a path where no path existed, but my Grace was that I intuitively knew that something was terribly wrong and that I had to do something.

So I sought out every natural doctor, practitioner, healer, teacher and mentor I could find to help me pin down the reasons for my health problems. The gift of it all? I shifted the whole course of my life in the process.

I graduated Cum Laude with Honors on a full-scholarship from the first women’s college in this country, Mount Holyoke College. I graduated Magna Cum Laude with Honors on half a scholarship from Boston College. I attended Cornell University and the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. I studied intensively with Anthony Robbins, Robbins International and Landmark Education. I attended marketing maven Marie Forleo’s B-School and completed my first yoga teacher training with Live Love Teach. I spent one month in Italy and France and another month in Ireland, and… I walked on fire! 

What do these accolades and experiences really represent? For me, they all represent only one thing that really matters to me, and that is, IF we fuel our body as it was designed to function, everything, absolutley everything is possible.

This IS what I mean when I say “it’s NOT about food, it is about living life fully,” because now I am literally actualizing dreams I never even imagined existed.

You want to do the very best healthy thing for yourself NOW?

Juicing IS the magic bullet. Hands down. And here are my 3 reasons why juicing is my top recommendation to kickstart your health:

1. Concentrated Absorption of Nutrition—Fresh pressed juice is the single-best thing we can do for ourselves. It is like running an IV of pure nutrition straight into our veins because there is no digestion necessary. This means a much needed break for our digestive system and better absorption of the nutrients we are taking in. Because so many of us suffer from some form of digestive malady these days, our ability to absorb nutrients is compromised. Juicing enables us to take in concentrated servings of vitamins, minerals, photonutrients, antioxidants and enzymes straight into our cells, which is even more important for those of us who have experienced compromised digestive processes.
2. Mega-Doses of Nutrition—Some health authorities recommend that we get at least 6-8 servings of fruits and vegetables per day. Some say that we each should consume 1 pound of raw vegetables per day for every 50 pounds we carry. By juicing, you could achieve this recommendation very easily every morning by starting your day with a fresh juice. Think about it, could you eat a whole head of celery, 2 cucumbers, a head of kale, a bunch of spinach, 2 lemons and 2 green apples in one sitting? Likely not, because that amount of fiber would be too much for most of us to take in at one time. Consuming the recommendation of 3 pounds of raw fruits and vegetables for someone roughly 150 pounds in weight will be much easier to achieve by juicing everyday.
3. Variety is the spice of life—Perhaps the greatest advantage I’ve learned from clients is juicing makes it possible for them to include vegetables and fruits that they might not normally like, or even consider. For instance turmeric root is a food that many would not normally include in their daily diet. But with turmeric’s benefits continuing to gain attention for the many benefits it offers, like anti-inflammatory benefits, healthy liver support, mitigates several dietary carcinogens, lowers cholesterol and even acts against Alzheimer’s Disease, many are now adding this and many other vegetables that they might not normally include to their juice recipes on a regular basis. Famed Dr. Max Gerson also successfully treated cancer with a juice-only protocol. Though highly disputed at the time (1930s-to late 1950s), today many like Kris Carr, author of “Crazy Sexy Cancer” and Joe Cross, author of “Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead” have documented and contributed to the growing interest in juicing and including a wide array of vegetables and fruits for their healing benefits.

Here are a few recommendations to consider as you begin juicing:

• Alternate your greens. This is the perfect example of of everything in moderation. Yes, include kale, but not everyday. Use all the other gorgeous other varieties of greens available to ensure a great array of nutrients.
• Limit sweet fruits. Fruit is actually much better used whole, or in a smoothie. Without it’s fiber, sweet fruit is a pure sugar-blast and is as detrimental as some very sugary, over-processsed beverages. Limit your everyday juice recipes to fruits like green apples and berries, lemons and limes. The first two are some of the lowest sugar-fruits, and the two latter are very alkalizing.
• Drink your juice straight-away. Unless you have a masticating juicer that ensures nutrient vitality beyond immediate consumption, it’s best to drink your juice when you make it. With that said, I often make large portions of juice and bottle it up for later. But do know, if not a masticating juicer, the vitality of your juice does lose it’s nutritional vibrancy shortly after making it. Famed Jay Kordich, the “Juice Daddy” recommends filling our bottles up to the top, to reduce oxidation and to preserve the integrity a little longer, if are not going to drink it right away.
• Chew your juice. Seems funny, huh? But when we “chew” our juice, we actually activate the digestive enzyme amylase, to begin the digestive process and to help us absorb the nutrients just as if we were eating the juice in it’s natural whole food state.

In the spirit of “I LOVE my juice,” here’s a recipe that is LOADED with Vitamins A & C for you to try:

Pure Sunshine

Makes 16 – 20 oz.
6-10 carrots
2 green apples
1 lemon, peeled

Prep and wash all produce. Juice all ingredients and Enjoy! As a “energy” kick, add a dash of cayenne pepper to the juice before serving.

Cheers!

Music is a TOTAL “state changer,” and since “training” ourselves everyday to be who we want to be in the world is one of my personal practices and coaching credos, and since I LOVE all sorts of music, I offer you my first playlist called, Carol Egan’s Playlist #1 “Can’t Hold Us.” Music shifts our mindset in literally just moments!

Think about how some songs make you cry in an instant, or lift you up with just a few beats. I integrate “power” and fun music into my day, every day, to drive my results-driven goals. And oh, yes, that DOES include a particular playlist for whatever result I am up to producing at any particular time!

Here I offer you a playlist of 45 of my favorite empowering songs to remind you that EVERYTHING is possible and that FUN is essential (though I do have lots more, which I will post in another blog). The adrenaline-rush alone from listening to fun music raises our bar! I listen to this music when I work out, when I rebound, when I make fresh juice, when I clean. I blast it when I am driving down the road with my sunroof open… especially when I am headed to attend a networking event, or to meet a client. NO doubt, I am in “total state,” totally upbeat when I arrive. I train to ensure this! Ha! Most times I even say when I get to where I’m going, “I hope the party I just arrived to is as good as the one I just left in my car!”

Playlist #1 “Can’t Hold Us” is just over 3 hours of pump-you-up, FUN music! Listen through the whole list, or use the scroll bar on the side to fast-forward through to the songs you like best. With that said, most of the songs I included offer lyrics that will empower you. Some are included just for fun, so you might want to “give it a go,” as I created it! Whatever you choose, stream it in your car to get your mojo going!

Please leave a comment with some of your favorite empowering songs that I may have left off this first list! I look forward to hearing what songs set you up for success!

Non-Negotiable #13 Clean Eating.

I love to eat clean, healthy foods.

I believe that eating clean, nutrient rich food IS foundational to everything else we hope to achieve in life. Heck, our body IS our “machine,” and what we eat IS our fuel.

I often ask clients, if you put gas in your oil tank or oil in your gas tank, would the car run efficiently, or would it break down? Same with our body. Depending what kind of food we feed eat, we must ask ourselves, does our body run as efficiently as it was designed? Does our brain perform as clearly and as effectively as it is capable of doing? Does the food “I” eat serve as the best fuel for my machine, for my body to function optimally?

I’ve learned that many resist even considering “switching over,” from the Standard American Diet, aka the fast-food, overly-processed, nutrient devoid diet to a cleaner way of eating because they think it is too hard to do, or they just don’t have time, or it costs to much to eat healthy.

But I am VERY busy too. So how do I eat to optimize my heath, even though I am busy? What tips and suggestions do I offer my clients, as they move forward with any one of my programs?

To begin the transition to eating healthfully everyday, simply create the posture that you are going to ‘lean into it,” and that is going to be fun! Creating any new practice begins more with a psychology shift, than the actual act of doing something. So if you say eating clean and healthfully is going to be fun, easy, affordable… and that you are going to just go with the flow, the experience will be SO much more enjoyable! I say this to you with confidence beyond my own individual experience—all my clients are transforming their whole lives with this simple credo behind their commitment to really getting healthy.

We make small changes and keep looking for ways to eat clean on our budget and find ways to funnel more money over to the food line. It is an investment, but I can tell you that it is one worth making.

If you’ve been wanting to eat more healthfully, but just not so sure how to start, let me offer you a few simple suggestions. Here are my top 7 tips for eating clean, even on a budget:

1. Shift your psychology—Yes, to begin to really take on creating healthy eating practices, we must shift our psychology from “I don’t like to grocery shop,” or I don’t have time,” to “this is really fun!,” and “this is so good for me and my family!” Yup. From the ground up, build a new mindset with “why” you want to do this. IF you don’t know why you want to get healthy, why this would be beneficial to you and your family, then the busyness of life WILL take over and thwart even the very best intentions. Solidify your “why” and you are 80% there
2. Prepare—if you prepare in every way, like maintain an ongoing grocery shopping list, create a specific day to shop and a few specific days per week to prepare and cook meals and snacks for the rest of the week, you are even closer to winning this game of getting yourself healthy! I recommend prepping and cooking 2x per week to my clients. For example, if you cut up lots of veggies and wash your lettuce ahead of time, it will only take you minutes to whip up a really delicious salad when you come home late from work tired and hungry.
3. Buy and cook in bulk—when you make your grocery list, buy staple items in bulk so that you always have the ingredients you use most often on hand. That way it will be so much easier to eat healthfully if you can whip up a fast meal, even when you are running low on other ingredients. Additionally, when you cook, cook a double portion of something like a pot of soup so that you can have extra for the next day, or some to freeze for later in the week.
4. Join a local food sharing group, like a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). There are many local food sharing groups and CSAs that offer savings by pooling their buying power. Check into local co-ops and farms for CSAs, to access affordable ways to getting really healthy and local produce.
5. Pack a healthy snack—NEVER leave home without water, an apple and a home-made trail mix. This is like Immersion-Health 101—I tell all my clients that if they have plenty of water for the day packed, with an apple and a trail mix, they can hold at bay even the worst of cravings! PS—For a quick, delicious and nutritious trail mix, add a handful of raw, sprouted pumpkin seeds, a handful of raw, sprouted sunflower seeds, a bit of raw, shredded coconut and a small handful of fruit-juice sweetened cranberries together. This combination offers you the perfect balance of healthy protein, healthy fat, natural sugar and carbs to satiate and hold you in the face of any food temptress!
6. Plant-force your diet—if you haven’t already reduced or cut animal protein from your diet, you can begin by reducing your intake every week and add legumes in its place. Legumes like lentils offer 19 grams of protein per cup, and garbanzos offer a whopping 39 grams of protein per cup! And both of these legumes are very easily digested, which is yet another reason to include them as a really healthy and clean protein source.

Cheers to you and to your success at creating clean, healthy eating and healthy living practices!!

Personal Power. Life always offers us so much to learn. Everyday. One thing that was perhaps the most pivotal in my learning was getting how commitment to “seemingly” small daily practices every single day could impact the whole quality of my life in the most extraordinary ways. How the act of let’s say creating daily affirmations, setting daily and weekly goals, and even juicing fresh vegetables, with the grander context of my long-term goals, has markedly shifted the whole course of my life.

Several years back I began with small overtures like committing to creating gratefulness for 3 things when I first wake up and juicing at least 3 days a week. Now I spend at least 1 hour, and often longer every single morning, with a whole host of Spiritual, success and healthy lifestyle practices to “create” my day. When I first began, spending an hour or more would have seemed an utter impossibility, but by beginning with one new daily practice and staying with that one small commitment every single day, I’ve evolved my daily practice over time.

Why? Why would I, why would anyone spend an hour or more meditating, and/or studying new success theories every single morning?

For me, I recognized how my thoughts and actions were predicated by what you thought about what I was doing. I cared about what you thought I was doing more than I cared about what I wanted to be doing. This was NOT good. Ha! When I recognized this, I got that “you” were driving my “one wild and precious” life! I thought, good grief, I give my power away everyday!  I was NOT the “master of my fate,” I was not “the captain of my ship,” “you” were, and as long as you were, I would NEVER access my personal power. So I began with one small commitment and grew upon it by adding new commitments to my routine, as I recognized a consistency growing with the daily practice I had already begun.

I have exponentially altered the quality of my life by beginning with 1 small commitment, and adding to each one over time. Now, as I said above, I have a morning ritual that sets me up for success everyday. Before this, I lived the reactive life. I cared about what “you” thought in ways that limited me. Now, I live the created life. Now I care what I think. My vision and my purpose drive me. My commitment to healthy lifestyle practices frames me. My mission to contribute and be of service inspires me in the face of “seemingly” insurmountable obstacles. And this all began for me in one moment that I chose to own my personal power with one small overture, practiced every single day.

Join me in my 7-Days to Change to reclaim your personal power, with small, seemingly benign overtures. It is the small, seemingly benign overtures made every single day that make all the difference.  As one of my mentors Darren Hardy of Success Magazine says:

“Small, smart choices + consistency + time = radical difference”

Non Negotiable #12: Confidence. With confidence, what is not possible?  If the fires of “reality” rise up around us, but we believe in ourselves and our Higher mission, from a deep rooted place of confidence in who we are and what we are up to, what we have to offer others, in heart, soul, talent and Spirit, what could we not create? Lately, the “message” I continuously here in all that I read is, ‘if I don’t rise up and step into my unlimited potential,’ I not only deny myself, I actually deny you, I actually deny the world from experiencing me and the special gifts I have to offer. I was like, whooooaaahhh, really? This message “turned the dial” for me, it caused yet another shift for me to step out on the “skinny branch” without fear, without reasons… even more than I already do, to live my life FULLY!! Don’t deny yourself. Don’t deny me. Don’t deny the world, of your unique gifts!

PS—just over 10 years ago, my first career coach said to me, “love your family, love your friends, but be mindful, they may try to hold you back, even if unwittingly, because you remind them of what they are not doing.” Felt harsh when I first heard it, but if you think about it, there may be some fruit from this counsel to consider! Let go of other’s opinions of what they think you “should” or “should not” do, and just go for it! As poet Mary Oliver asks, “what will you do with your one wild and precious life?