For many of us, summer means it’s ice-cream time! OK, maybe any time is ice-cream time for you (Cynthia, is that you? :-)…  and me! But maybe like me, you no longer want to indulge in the dairy-laden, sugar-laden commercial kinds. Hello, Strawberry Nice Cream! This super-simple, super delicious 3-ingredient recipe will totally satisfy your craving for ice-cream! Promise.

Nut free  •  Dairy free  •  Sugar free  •  Guilt Free  •  Just pure delicious decadence, with a special shout out to you, Cynthia, who loves ice-cream! 

• 3 cups organic frozen strawberries (OR raspberries, blueberries or blackberries)
• 1 cup fresh strawberries, chopped (match the berries of your choice above!)
• 1 cup raw cauliflower, chopped (or more)
• Stevia to taste

Add all ingredients to food processor and process until smooth and creamy. (Maybe a little almond milk or water, if you need to lighten the density of the mix). Top with:

• Fresh, sliced strawberries, or
• Strawberry sauce — 1 cup of strawberries blended with stevia until smooth, or
• Chocolate sauce — 1/3 cup almond butter, 2 tablespoons coconut oil, 1/4 cup raw cacao and stevia to taste, blend until smooth by hand in bowl (add a little water to thin if needed).

Optional: Two caps of live-probiotics to make Strawberry Cheesecake Nice-Cream

Happy Summer! Enjoy!

Like you, I hear all the dietary theories many espouse today. Worse? Many call themselves experts though they have little to no training. One course, or even notoriety seems to bestow “expert” status these days.

Beware. Many of these dietary theoreticians want to let you off the hook from creating a diet based on foods that you intuitively know are best for you, your body and your God-given radiant self… with theories laden with excuses, reasons, justifications, limitations. 

You hear all that I hear, it’s in the airwaves, “you can eat bread and lose 26 pounds,” “you can lose 3x more weight than ever (while eating sugary and processed, nutrient devoid foods),” “you can eat everything in moderation,” all the while recommending highly inflammatory foods and in in poor combinations, which cause stagnation, calcification and obstruction in your one and only Sacred body!

Add to that a world that is telling you that processed foods are food (but really only food-like substances!), and worse, good for you, when in fact they provide no vital nutrition whatsoever and simultaneously break down your digestive wall. Your body needs the live, vital electricity that raw vegetables and fruits provide to rev you body up! It is the electricity in these foods that turns your cells and systems on, which is all happening at the subatomic level.

Think about it like this,

Do you think that the Creator of life thought you’d get more vital nutrition from a tomato you pick fresh off the vine from your garden, or after it’s been picked, processed, preserved-for-long-shelf-life, put into a can and then shipped?

In the fast-paced ways most of us move today, with businesses competing to manufacture the“best” quick-and-easy products that accommodate our hurried lifestyles, our food is not the only thing that has become denigrated, but our relationship to how we think about what we eat.

Rather than bending towards nature and our innate commonsense, we are bending towards a fast-paced, fragmented, constantly-on-the-go lifestyle seeking anything and everything that makes life easier, rather than better.

But you can shift your relationship to the food you eat by taking time to turn inward and question why you eat what you eat and what the impact of your food choices is having on your health and wellbeing, your mindset and potential and even your outlook on life.

I write about themes like this extensively. But learning more is often not your first best action. Learning more can and often does pull you away from what you intuitively know is best.

For example, a client of mine recently said, “someone said this allergy test would be good for me.”

I said think about this question with me, “If you someone you know suffers from ulcerative colitis, Irritable Bowel Syndrome or a leaky gut, which means the gut wall is highly inflamed and irritated, do you think you can get a fair reading from that test?”

The nature of life today is so fast moving that your best first action is to turn within, to reconnect to you, so you can access your intuition, smartest thinking and deepest knowing.

Not in a woo-woo, airy-fairy way, but in a smart and feel-it-in-your-bones kind of way.

To create clarity about what to eat,

Take time to slow down. Commonsense lives and breathes in the white spaces of life.

Take time to think. New ways of seeing things emerge with reflection, meditation and deliberate time to process and reflect.

Take time to regroup. When you’re calm and centered, your smart Self and best intuition will lead you back to the food choices you know are best for the body.

You are the expert of your body. Yes, there are some who’ve studied healing for years, if not their whole life, like me, who guide many in healing life-long health problems. But separate from the zillions of conflicting and confusing theories and star-struck “sages” out there, you know what is best for the body to thrive — your commonsense tells you so. Create time to slow down, to think, to regroup, to access your intuition, to clear confusion about what foods really serve your big goals in life!

Your turn.

Have you tried many dietary styles, and still suffer from chronic symptoms?

Even though you may feel as though you’ve made great progress, do you intuitively sense you’re not yet experiencing your peak health and energy?

Have you tried turning inward, but still feel utterly confused?

Please post your comments below. I’d love to share what I know about best choices, healing and turning inward. And… if you know you’d like a little support, check out my new mini program, HOT: Health On Track! I LOVE this little “foot on your fanny” program! It will help you get back on track and clarify what foods are best for you to be eating, and why!

Be honest, how many times over the years have you tried to get healthy, to only cave-in for Thursday night Happy Hour, Friday night beer and pizza, or Sunday afternoon wings and nachos?

The question is, how is the yo-yo dieting impacting your health, and equally important, your ability to realize your full potential in life and at work?

Most likely, you’ll deal with acute or chronic symptoms, excess weight, lethargy, constant food cravings, or at the very least, a disconnect from what you’re really committed to creating in life.

Here’s why:

The evolution of modern society has not been kind to the human body. Statistics of chronic disease are off the charts, and yet we’re considered a sophisticate if we’re a foodie. One out of every four of us suffers from a chronic disease, yet, we’re counted as worldly if we know fine wines. One out of every four of us suffers from two or more chronic diseases, yet we’re regarded as cultured if we’ve dined at the best restaurants.

Here are 5 ways to counter the harmful impact of modern society on your body:

Food as Identity

In times when food as identity pulls us to the most unhealthy lifestyle habits in history, we must learn how to commit to our health newly. We must learn to practice habits that help us get healthy for life.

Healthy for Life,

Is a simple 3-part method that was designed to help you create lasting results in the area of health and wellbeing, for the grander benefits of all that becomes possible when you live inside a healthy body. One part is not more important than another — All parts are integral to the other — each depends on the other. With Healthy for Life, you learn,

• How to use nutrition for maximum energy and balance
• How to use what you think in ways that serve your goals, rather than defeat them
• Why connecting to something bigger, beyond yourself, is integral to what matters most to you.

Nutrition

You need vital nutrition to maintain vibrant health, energy and inner-balance. Your body contains nearly 100 trillion cells, with at least 10x more bacteria than cells, and a number of biological systems that all depend on you taking in the vital nutrition.

If your body is healthy and in balance, it can carry out all the specific functions it needs to for basic, everyday living. Without vital nutrition and inner balance your body starts to “talk to you,” through symptoms like allergies, chronic headaches and fatigue. If you ignore these common symptoms, your body will begin to “scream” a little louder with chronic and acute problems, like disease. It really is that simple. Your body needs vital nutrition to carry out every biochemical processes in your body.

Mindset

A common question I hear from clients, or potential clients is, “I always start out strong, but then I lose interest. What can I do to stay strong in my get-healthy game?”

Choose thoughts that drive your larger goals. Choose thoughts that inspire you to take the actions you know will make a difference. Get ruthless in weeding out limiting thoughts that hold you back. Consider these questions,

• What are you committed to creating in life? Make choices that support you achieving that.
• WHY do you want to be healthy? Buff? Looking HOT? What could be possible if you looked and felt your best? Focus on your why!
• What could you be doing, what would you be doing, if you weren’t struggling with food all the time? Develop a relationship to that, that will keep you in the game!
• When you’re clear on what could be possible if you looked and felt your best, when you’re clear on why you want what you want, use that as leverage to hold steady when your friends invite you to indulge in ways you no longer care for.

Mindfulness

Many today feel fragmented and disconnected from what matters most to them. How can you choose what is best for you from that state of being?

Living on a poor diet affects you on a biochemical level and can cause you to feel this way, no doubt. Indulging negative and limiting thoughts can also cause you to feel this way.

And feeling cut off from what scientists call the Laws of Nature, or what others call Universal Laws, laws that say you are connected to everything, and that what you think, what you say, what you do and what you believe will have a corresponding effect on everything and everyone, including you, can also cause you to feel this way. What good can come from feeling cut off from the larger essence of life?

If you feel connected to something bigger, mindful  that there’s so much more beyond your one life, you’ll find it much easier to choose what you know is best for you!

When you set out to achieve your full potential, nothing less than these three forces are at play. This is why you want to approach creating success through a holistic approach.

Your turn.

What could be possible if you remembered that you are part of a greater whole, and that nothing is random in your life? That the laws of cause and effect are always in motion, and that feeling connected requires effort from you everyday? What could you do differently?

Knowing that nutrition, mindset and mindfulness are equally important for you to realize your fullest potential, your most vibrant health, what could you do differently?

I recently joined Pierrette Raymond, a multi-business owner, public speaker, 4 time published author and founder of Women Living Fully on her podcast of The Living Fully Show. When Pierrette and I initially met, we knew that we shared a similar mission in helping others reprioritize their  so they can focus on what matters most to them, in all areas of their lives. So I am sure you will hear the beautiful synergy between us and our commitment to our work in this interview.

When we talked together, I identified exactly how I help clients get their healthy mojo back, by working from the “3 buckets,” of nutrition, mindset and mindfulness. I say more in the interview about how one “bucket,” like nutrition alone is never enough. That each approach to wellness is integral to the other for creating lasting, healthy habits, because healthy is a holistic endeavor.

In this episode we specifically talk about:

• The story of why I became a health coach
• The top 3 greatest challenges professionals face regularly
• The top 3 recommendations I recommend to my clients for the greatest results
• My favorite resources to help in the get-healthy journey
• My definition of living life fully
• 3 Things you can begin to do today

This episode comes from Pierrette’s The Living Fully Show podcast where she interviews special expert guests to discuss real life issues and strategies on how to get the most out of life and live it fully. Download her free gift to you: The Art of Living Fully and subscribe to The Living Fully Show.

If you enjoyed this show, please share it with another who you know could benefit from what we offer!

Raw Fettuccine Alfredo

I love to create uber-healthy spins on classic recipes, especially classic recipes I used to love! Fettuccine Alfredo was one of my favorites, but as I leaned more and more towards healthier options, the classic version left me feeling bloated, lethargic and imbalanced.

I’ve added an even extra-special spin to the Raw Fettuccine Alfredo recipe I offer you here — it’s lower in fat than many ‘raw food’ versions, which means it won’t bog you down! The secret is zucchini in the sauce too! Nuts are heavy and hard to digest, but add a creamy texture, so I’ve included a little, but only just enough!

You’re likely going to giggle, like I do when I taste it, like my friends do when they taste it! It’s an awesome, low-fat, super-healthy and super-delicious spin on a popular classic! Really!

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup cashews, soaked overnight
• 1 small zucchini, chopped (for sauce)
• 3 small zucchini, spiralized, or peeled into thin fettuccine noodles with vegetable peeler
• 1/2 cup green peas
• 1 clove garlic, small – medium size, chopped
• 1 lemon, juice
• Sea salt, cracked black pepper, to taste
• Fresh basil, chiffonade
• Fresh oregano, minced
• Crushed red pepper, to taste

Prepare

Noodles: Spiralize zucchini and set aside

Sauce: In a high-speed blender, process cashews, small zucchini, garlic, lemon juice, salt and cracked pepper

Combine: In a large bowl, with your hands, massage the noodles and peas with the sauce

Plate: And garnish with fresh basil, oregano and crushed red pepper

Buono Appetito! 

Your turn:

Tell me how you like this recipe in the comments below. I’d LOVE to hear!

 

You might be thinking, “detoxification is one of the body’s most innate functions to keep it healthy, so why do I need to do a detox?” Or you might say “I don’t have time.” “I don’t like kale,” or “I like food too much to feel deprived.”

If you feel crappy, if you carry excess weight or if you suffer from chronic exhaustion, cravings, allergies or symptoms, you might  want to reconsider why detoxing could be your new best friend!

Maybe your symptoms are not enough to pull you to doing a detox. Read on. In this post I get to the raw, unfiltered reasons why I think you might want to reconsider. 

Here’s a few not-so-secret secrets why you might need/want to detox your body:

1. Our soils today are no longer mineral-rich. Modern and intensive agricultural methods strip nutrients from the soil, which effect the nutritional profile of the food you eat, which impacts upon simple, everyday bodily functions.
2. Plus, pesticide residue on the food you eat can have an effect on your health (on your central nervous system, on your ability to focus, concentrate and remember, on your immune system, and on… ).
3. We no longer live “rightly,” with plenty of healthy foods, exercise and sunshine.
4. If your body is dirty and toxic inside — and with the impact of modern society on you, it’s kinda’ likely — even the healthiest of foods can’t help! (Did I ever tell you that when I was really sick I eliminated whole undigested capsules? I know, I know. Too much information. But to underscore the point, I share.)
5. Stress is as toxic to your body as nutrient devoid, processed and unhealthy foods, and there is no splitting hairs on this.

In order to protect you from toxicity, you’re right in pointing out that your body has it’s own natural detoxification systems. It eliminates wastes through the kidneys, colon, liver, lungs, lymph, and skin.

But despite your best efforts to eat fresh, organic foods and create consistent healthy habits to support your natural detoxification systems, the effects of the modern lifestyle are substantial and weigh heavily on your body — physically, mentally, emotionally and Spiritually.

When toxins accumulate in your cells, tissues and organs, it leads to stagnation and obstruction in your body.

Let’s break this down.

Toxicity = poisonous, harmful, pernicious waste substances stagnant in your body.

In. Your. Body.

What good can come from stagnant waste in your body? HOW can you hope to look and feel your best with stagnant waste in your body?

The next likely question is, “when waste matter and undigested food can not leave my body, what happens?”

In a steady 98.7 degrees heat, what do you think happens? Dare I say, the very same thing that happens when the waste matter is outside your body — it decomposes. It ferments and it rots. Yes. I said it. It rots.

Hello candida albicans, mold, fungus and pathogen, which is a by-product of stagnant waste… and the root cause of excess weight, low energy, pre-mature aging, emotional imbalance, compromised cognitive ability and chronic symptoms. And these organisms are living, so they excrete toxins too.

This is a heavy download of information, I totally get it. But is there an “attractive,” more palatable, polite way to say any of what I’m sharing? When it comes to the state of health in our country, the rate at which so many are suffering today, and the impact toxicity has on the health of your body (7 out of 10 of us will die from chronic disease), don’t you agree that full disclosure is crucial? That niceties are kind of like icing-on-a-mud-pie at this point?

Ignorance is not bliss. Trust me, I know.

Shrouding this conversation in niceties, by stepping over the conversation of inner filth would make me complicit in all the ways it impacts your health and wellbeing negatively.

… And that I am committed to you looking and feeling your best, and more than that, reaping all that becomes possible when you do, this conversation could literally change your life if you take in what I offer you.

“The truth will set you free,” and in this case, detoxification can help you get there.

Supporting your detoxification processes is not only beneficial today, it’s necessary.

Whole body detoxification will help you bring your body back into balance.

Whole body detoxification will help you release excess weight.

Whole body detoxification will help you increase your energy, focus, creativity and productivity.

Whole body detoxification will help you reduce and eliminate inflammation, accumulation, cravings and even soften the deep lines on your face (yes, indeed!)

It’s really pretty simple, disease is not found in healthy tissues.

You Want to Detox Your Body.

You want to get started right away.

Grab my FREE One Day Juice Cleanse here,

Or my FREE one day detox here,

OR… get my new More Than A Detox Mini here. This program comes packaged with 3 Premier Research Labs Detox supplements to help you fast-track your efforts! But without the detox-protocol included with this program, the supplements are for nought. When it comes to detoxification, there is no such thing as a quick-fix. You must do the necessary cleansing work to support your body in releasing toxicity and healing.

Each offering provides a different level of detoxification. Choose what you know could be best for you right now.

Your Turn:

What questions do you have about detoxification or a symptom you are experiencing?

How can I help you get started?

Post your questions below. I’d love to help!

An ode to to my first hate-mail sender who “strongly voiced” her opinions of me and my staunch views against sugar.

Have you ever gone long periods without laughing? Without fun? Without the light-heartedness you love about yourself? Many years back it seemed like I’d not experienced any one of these feelings for a very long time. I wanted my sass back.

My new naturopathic doctor said, “Have you ever been tested for candida?”

You’ve Got Candida

Before I got to my first visit with my new naturopath, I had a team of doctors who could not tell me why in my mid-20s I was chronically sick. So when he told me what candida was, an aggressive and opportunistic fungul bacteria, my eyes welled up, I leaned forward and said, “No need to test me. I’ve got it. I’d bet all the money I’ve ever made that I have this candida thing. Matter of fact, I say that if you try to measure it, it will be off the ‘richter scale.'”

Check. They couldn’t measure the candida in my body, it was that high. I had what is called chronic polysystemic candidiasis, which means the rogue bacteria, candida, spread throughout my body, beyond my digestive tract and was eating away at every cell, tissue and organ in my body. Without knowing for sure if I had ‘it,’ I intuitively knew I did.

Making The Connection

At this time, Dr. William Crook wrote and published the book, The Yeast Connection. I learned that at that time, 80 million Americans suffered from candida, like me, but it was largely overlooked by the medical community. I also learned that near every symptom I was experiencing was associated with this bacterial overgrowth throughout my body. I suffered from chronic exhaustion which caused me to think I was just lazy and miserable, an insatiable craving for sweets and yeasty breads that largely made up what I lived on (who didn’t?), cystic acne on my face that broke my heart and caused me to develop a profound self-consciousness and sadness as each bump throbbed, brain fog that affected my concentration, focus and memory that caused me to feel “stupid” and shaped my whole sense of self, hormone imbalance including hypothyroidism and adrenal fatigue, chronic allergy problems, digestive problems including, gas, bloating and constipation that impacted everything I couldn’t do, plus chronic urinary tract infections, chronic vaginal yeast infections and Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

Long list, eh? Take another look. All of the symptoms I experienced are considered ‘ commonplace and normal’ in today’s world — Take a pill, “you’ll feel better in the morning.” But I didn’t.

Prescription Medications and Candida

But my body was breaking down, I was losing my fun Spirit, and my doctors didn’t know what to do for me, but prescribe antibiotics like M&Ms and cortisone like spa treatments, while I ate cookie after cookie! And guess what? When we take antibiotics, they go in and wipe out all bacteria, including the troublesome rogue bacteria AND the beneficial bacteria we need! And when the friendly bacteria are knocked out and imbalanced, the candida rise up and proliferate like wild-fire! Add cortisone shots, birth control AND an insatiable sugar addiction and I had the the perfect storm for candida to take over! (But WHO doesn’t take medications in combinations like this today?)

The research I site from Crook in The Yeast Connection is 30 years old. Today, researchers from Rice University show that 70 percent of all people are affected by Candida! 

Sugar and Candida

Do you crave sweets, bread or alcoholic beverages?

I learned that we who live on a high-sugar diet and yeast-containing foods are prone to a bacterial imbalance of candidiasis. And as I’ve said, but it bears repeating, sugar stimulates the growth of candida, and candida overgrowth in the digestive system can quickly spread throughout the body and affect every bodily function, as it did with me.

This is why eating sugar in moderation can NOT provide the healing your body needs to keep candida at bay.

And because candida is such an opportunistic pathogen, it can become very difficult to treat.

So I ask you, HOW could I be upset with someone who attacks me about my aversion to sugar? I personally know how detrimental it can be on the state of one’s health. She must not know this, or she’d totally understand. She may not have ever experienced profound illness in her body either, as I did, so how could I be upset that she doesn’t get how detrimental sugar can be on the human body.

But maybe you got sick like I did. Maybe when I recommend giving up sugar, to just do it, to cut it off, so you don’t feed and help this opportunistic organism proliferate throughout your body, it resonates and makes sense to you — You hear something from my younger self crying out to you, that an extraordinary life FAR beyond the laughter and play I so longed for years back does indeed exist on the other side of sugar addiction, chronic symptoms and candida.

I hope you heard something for you, in what I shared today. That was my goal in writing this post. It’s WAY more than mind-blowing to recount those early days of illness that have directed and shaped all of who I am today.

Your Next Steps

Do you know sugar owns you? If yes, then buckle up and get ready for 4-5 days to take the sugar-beast on! Addiction will scream (so will the yeast) for more sugar! You can NOT feed it. Think of it this way, can an alcoholic or drug addict have a little alcohol or drug? Sugar is THAT addictive! Bite the bullet and hold on — detoxing CAN help! It’s only the first 4-5 days that you’ll feel really challenged. It get’s easier after that!

Get a quality oregano oil. It’s anti-fungal, anti-viral and a great product to kill off yeast, as you stop feeding it with sugar! You can also add in Pau, D’Arco tea. It’s another great supplement to kill-off candida.

One more tip: Remember to stay focused on WHY you want to take sugar out of your diet. Surely it’s not about sugar, but about all that becomes possible if you’re not possessed and ravaged by the affects of sugar! Commitment can sometimes feel challenging, but the rewards are so worth it!

Do you agree?

Awesome! Now go clean out your cabinets, desk drawer and other little hiding spots with sugar tucked away!

Ever tried to get healthy, to only have someone say, “lighten up,” “go with the flow,” or “everything in moderation?”

If you look around, even if just within your family or close circle of friends, how can “everything in moderation” make sense? It’s the worst advice ever! I mean, everyone I ask says they know at least one person who has, or has died from, cancer, heart disease, diabetes or suffers from depression. 

I know more than one person. I bet you do too.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), one out of every two us suffers from a chronic disease. One out of every four of us suffers from two or more chronic diseases. Seven out of 10 of us will die from a chronic disease.

Add to these statistics the time, care and attention required to attend to chronic and often debilitating symptoms, it’s predictable that the quality of life is reduced in uncountable ways. So how can the notion of “everything in moderation” still hold merit?

I’ll give you this, advice like “everything in moderation” feels light-hearted, definitely. It’s easy, appealing with “go with the flow” all over it, but it’s also a freaking rabbit hole — even the BAG is scientifically manufactured for us to want more and more and more! You know how the saying goes, “you can’t eat just one,” chip OR cookie! Add to that, do you think it’s possible to eat too little fast-food? You can TOTALLY skip it all and be that much better off!  

We’ve all lost people we love! Isn’t it high time we all question the rise of chronic disease?

Isn’t it HIGH time we really get that “everything in moderation” is an antiquated and outdated way of thinking?

Everything in moderation is the worse advice today. Here are 3 hacks to help you counter that way of thinking, to help you remember your commitment to being your healthiest you, especially when someone imposes their ideas on you:

1. Choose you. People who care about you won’t care what you eat. They’ll honor and respect your choices. But for whatever reasons that are of no concern to you, others will project their ideas of what they think is best for you. They may comment on your weight, what you eat, or tell you to “lighten up and go with the flow.” Will you let their lifestyle habits direct the choices you make for your health and your life? Safeguard and honor your food and lifestyle choices. Choose foods that you know energize and enliven you.
2. Choose green. We include a diet high in leafy greens because they are alkaline. What is alkaline? Simply, the more alkaline the food, the more ‘electricity’ it provides. So the more green a food is, the more alkaline a food is, the more electricity it provides, and we NEED electricity to function optimally! This is MORE than nutrition, this is energy! And this is why you want to steer clear of the ‘plant-based’ enthusiasts who recommend frozen vegetables and powdered supplements for smoothies — processed foods offer NO electricity, aka, energy. We need the live electricity/energy the leafy greens and other vegetables and fruits provide.
3. Choose congruency. Trust that you know what is best for you and let the thoughts you think be congruent with the actions you take. Trust that the choices you make are what serve you and your body best, and develop a lifestyle that lines your thoughts up with the actions you take everyday. Trust that ‘temperance’ in these times of indulgence and chronic disease is a whole lot smarter than giving yourself free license to eat anything you want “in moderation.” Temperance is way smarter than the slippery rabbit hole of “everything in moderation.”

YOUR NEXT STEPS

If you’re ready to move beyond the “everything in moderation” advice, but you feel stuck, it means you’ll have to be intentional about your choices.

You must develop a stronger mindset, and reconnect to you, so when others impose their ideas on you, you’re strong in the basic fundamentals of your healthy lifestyle.

As you develop a stronger backbone in making healthy choices inspite of the pressures others may impose on you, remember to go easy and just lean into it. Trust that you’ll develop more fortitude with every effort you extend!

Here’s one more tip: Look for and notice everything and everyone who supports you and who doesn’t. Make it into a game. Look for what empowers you, and what doesn’t. Those lessons are priceless and life-changing!

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

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

Affirmations.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And it’s not an either or approach!

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

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

Let’s try it:

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

Create your goal into an affirmation.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Serves Two

Salad Ingredients

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

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

Dressing

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

Blend all ingredients until thick and smooth.

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

I hope you enjoy!

Buono Appetito!