Thursday, January 29, 2009

Juicing in SLC too

I dusted off my juicer-dusty AND on the counter but unused-just yesterday! I shopped for the right produce and I can't wait. It's like coming home to an old friend. I start in the morning. I made a huge pot of vegetable soup to add to the detox, and I'm ordering in Bromalite to do an intestinal cleanse.

Must be the season! It feels perfect. So if I review my favorite green juice:
4 stalks of celery
1/2 cucumber
1/2 lemon with pith
2-4 large leaves of kale
4 large romaine leaves
a handful of cilantro
a handful of parsley
1 apple
a one inch slice of ginger

ready set go! Juicers UP!

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

juicing in slc

so for the past few weeks ive been juicing in slc with my juicer from nyc :) i had been feeling out of sorts here for the first month or so (when i 'officially' drove out here and 'officially' decided to call slc home :) and i had been complaining about no juice places in slc---then i remembered that i had packed my juicer this time....

so a few weeks ago i took it out dusted it off and began juicing. and yes, thats what i was missing. there is something about beginning a day with a juice that just sets the tone for the whole day.

its been so nice to make my own juices here for the first time since i started coming here in 2007! now, now its really feeling like home because ive been able to bring my rituals here - the ones that make me feel centered and grounded, like the juicing...! yipee!

have you guys been juicing at all?

More Orbs


I've been teaching over skype. It's working out great, and more than a few times people have been mentioning that they see orbs around me when I'm talking. Eyes wide open! I'm laughing. On my end I'm not seeing them, I'm focused on the screen, but usually I do notice the room temperature gets very cold. Colder than usual. The energy seems high and I'm quite animated-not sleepy. I've caught glimpses in my webcam screen (which is tiny in the corner) but can't validate. Will have to keep checking on it! More data needed!

Friday, January 16, 2009

Barley Water

This is a biblical recipe.

Barley water is an ancient remedy that was supposed to clear up the complexion and stop the formation of wrinkles. I'm all about that!

8 cups of water
1 cup of barley
pinch of salt.

Bring to a boil, then simmer for about 2 hours. The longer you boil it the thicker the water will be. Strain, and flavor the barley water with honey (up to half a cup), or even raw maple syrup, I'm thinking,
and as you like you can add to the water: cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, lemon, ginger. Try different flavors. Now, these aren't meant to be all at the same time-got it?

You can eat the barley, add it to soup, make it into barley cakes and bake.

So what is it about barley? It's loaded with niacin-B3! Niacin causes a fllush/detox in our system so no wonder it is good for the skin. It's good for gall stones, for the kidneys, for lowering cholesterol-all detox issues right?

The suggestion is to drink 1-2 cups a day, and that it helps speed the fat burning process-again a detox issue yeah?! Sounds good to me! If you try it, let me know what you think of it!

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Leptin means 'thin'

Your post Jac, made me ask some new questions, so thanks! I'd heard of leptin, but it made me curious.

Leptin is from the greek word 'leptos' meaning thin. It's a protein hormone that is important in regulating body weight, metabolism, and reproduction-all of which are regulated via hormonal secretions.

Leptin receptors are highly expressed in the hypothalamus in the areas that regulate body weight. So just like Jac posted, the leptin effects the hypothalamic center which then controls our eating behavior, hunger, body temperature, energy use, or in other words, our metabolic rate.

Now, if everything is working, increasing leptin should decrease our fat, and increase our muscle mass. But we could have a problem with our messaging-in other words, our receptors for leptin may not be open for business. The message could have been confused via dieting, or genetics or nutritional imbalances.

When our body fat index drops, say from dieting and not from faminine and starvation circumstances, our body wants to replace it and our body secretes LESS leptin so that the body can store more fat. Remember-leptin means thin. Less leptin, more fat.

What turns our leptin receptors back on, speeding up our metabolism and burning our stomach fat? Well it's more complicated than that, unfortunately.
It was found that obese people are unresponsive to leptin due to development of leptin resistance in the brain! In other words, our body self learns. It resists starvation.

This is exactly what we have found-those of us diet-aholics. The more we diet the fatter we get.

Says Umut Ozcan, MD: "Most humans who are obese have leptin resistance. Leptin goes to the brain and knocks on the door, but inside, the person is deaf." That would be in the hypothalamus. But why? And how do we reeducate the hypothalamus so we can lose weight and stay slim without the rebound effect? We end up with a thin allergy!

Here's the article in full for more information: Obesity:reviving the promise of leptin

Well, we've got to be nutritionally fit in order to circumvent the 'I'm starving' scream from inside us that sets this all off. We can't fight our body's needs, and shouldn't for obvious reasons, but do we really even know what they are?

Ozcan's study showed that ER (endoplasmic reticulum) stress, which is the stress in the hypothalamus btw, caused them to become leptin resistant. It also causes a genetic shift-ah! So as cells replicate, the next generation is genetically altered-from having LEARNED from the stress.

So essentially the system becomes desensitized to leptin-it ignores the knock knock, and we get fatter, with the best of intentions. The study pretreated mice with a chemical chaperone so that leptin sensitivity increased...as much as 10x!
Skinny mice were the result.

Recumbinant human leptin commercial rights-bought in 1995 for 20 mil. Do we have anything on the market yet? Um-no.
It's been 14 years. Sad...guess there is more money in keeping us fat and fatter than thin.

Why we can't go by the RDA anymore!

The RDA standards (recommended daily allowance) was really established as a health MINIMUM standard-in other words, the minimum nutritional amount to keep us from getting sick. Minimum-not optimum. This is so not what the general public realizes. They pick up vitamins and look at the RDA.

So, the RDA for C, for instance, used to be 15 mg-which is the amount they figured we needed to keep from getting scurvy. The amount needed, in other words, to keep our teeth from falling out of our heads. Minimum. They've raised it to 75 mg for women and 90 mg for men now.

But did you know that men need 5x that amount just to make healthy sperm? Do we wonder why we have a growing infertility problem in this country when doctors are generally telling people they can get all their nutrition from a balanced diet?

Studies in the UK and GR have shown that grown foods are actually from 25-75% less nutritionally abundant than they used to be, and higher in sugar!

So, this translates that the amount of potassium you used to get from a banana in 1968 would need you to eat 8 bananas now. We are overeating in this country because we are nutritionally starving from a combination of over-processed foods and low national standards.

When we have an ever increasing issue with imbalances in brain chemistry and mood disorders, learning disabilities and erratic behavior, why aren't we looking at nutrition MORE and medications LESS? Who are the experts you are turning to, and why? Who do you listen to? And how do we become more proactive in what is good for us and what we are willing to ingest? And I mean both nutritionally and educationally.

How often do we swallow some expert opinion without bothering to research it ourselves? WHY is it mainstream for pharmaceutical companies to advertise chemo meds in women's magazines? WHY do we need this information in the common daily world? That is scary. Do we want to have chemo meds as common as cold remedies?

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Weight Loss This and That

I was reading health.msn.com and I found new 'to me' information.

The article was talking about one of the reasons why we gain back the weight after we have lost a lot of weight.

 It said that when you have lost considerable weight you've lost fat from fat cells, but the fat cells stilll remain in your body. These fat cells are programmed to be filled, since fat is the body's energy supply. So when weight is lost, energy preservation mechanisms kick in to attempt to restore the lost body fat. It's unclear how much weight loss triggers this phenomenon, but it appears that when weight loss starts to plateau, often after about six months of with loss, some biological triggers try to reverse the loss.

Biochemicals are released in your brain and body that may affect your tendency to regain weight in a varity of ways: You may feel less full after eating, you may crave snacks more often, you may crave more fattening foods, and or you may get hungrier sooner.

The weight loss hormone is LEPTIN, and it tells your brain to suppress hunger. Here's how to make the most of it. Leptin could be the master hormone for you appetite!

Elevated triglycerides in the blood, which prevent leptin from reaching the brain, allows hunger feelings to persist.

Fortunately, you can take steps to bathe your brain in leptin and quell appetite naturally:

Eat foods low in triglycerides: Dairy Fat
Get hooked on fish oil: It may lower triglycerides and facilitate leptin's passage to the brain.
Sleep about eight hours: Anything less is associated with lower levels of leptin in the blood and brain.
Exercise Often: Regular activity lowers triglycerides and helps the brain abosorb more leptin.

An additional bonus to maintaining robust levels of leptin in the brain: a flatter belly. When appetite(and, thus food intake) is suppressed by leptin, the body first turns to it most readily available source of body fat, which is stored around the belly, for fuel.

Thomas Crook, PH.D, a clinical psychologist , has conducted extensive research to improve our understanding of how the brain works. He is a former research program director at the National Institute of Mental Health and is CEO of Cognitive Research Corp.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Pyroluria Testing, B6, Zinc and the BRAIN

I've been researching an interesting little vitamin-B6. The RDA is a whopping 2 mg a day, which is the standard set in 1968.

Think things might be different now???

Microwaves? Processed foods? Soil depletion? Electromagnetic fields? STRESS? Home computers? Cell phones?

B6 is deficient in most of the conditions involving a brain imbalance: things like ADHD, autism, downs, schizophrenia, bipolar, manic depressive. Without sufficient B6, we can't metabolize our foods-proteins, sugars, starches, carbs. B6 is used to make tryptophan, which is used to make melatonin, which is used to get us to sleep! It's an important little guy!!!

And another thing-some people have a genetic issue called pyroluria. If you are pyroluric you don't process zinc or B6 and it flushes out of your system so you are always chronically deficient...and many people with the above mentioned imbalances will test deficient in zinc, even if they take it.

I tested deficient-and still do. The taste test (liquid zinc sulphate) should taste quite nasty. Mine was neutral which means I was low. Interesting for me is that even supplementing up to 50mg (remember the RDA was 2mg) I still taste neutral. Odds are I AM pyroluric.

The best part is my brain feels calm, balanced, and I am happier. I am! I feel great, I have energy galore, and I'm just plain happy.

There is a mail order test if you want to know if you or someone you know has pyroluria. Here's the link:
phroluria testing

For more information, try these sites:
dr kaslow about pyroluria

Pyroluria is managed by restoring B6 and zinc; and if you are pyroluric, you are stress intolerant because you can't make serotonin-which is the feel good precursor. Other symptoms are poor short term memory, explosive anger at times, higher irritability, anxious, nervous, mood swings, poor mood control, and depression. Most pyrolurics have at least two of these, and in general they are stress intolerant. Symptoms increase with stress.

(which pretty much brings me back to my first point-our society is much more stressful than it was in 1968)

If you have a tendency to any of the above emotionals, this could be the smoking gun we've been looking for. Who would think a nutritional deficiency could be the culprit...oh wait...US!

And btw-remember it's genetic, so if you have it, chances are your kids or your parents-so pass the information on.

One more thing: for fun look up orthomolecular psychiatry...I did. They have known about these particular imbalances and how it affects the brain and emotional body-since the 1950s. The doctor that first came out with it...was disbarred and banned by the AMA. The next doctors that coined the phrase "orthomolecular psychiatry" and said that they felt nutrition could heal many of what were being termed 'psychiatric' conditions...they were also drummed out as quacks.

I don't know about you...but the way things are going...I'm even MORE inclined to look at who they are and have attacked...since the drugs don't seem to be what they thought. But that's me. Go research for yourself and see what you come up with!