Newsletter June 2008
'Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune' - Jim Rohn
Thanks so much for all your lovely feedback and emails. We love to hear from you. This month's newsletter is jam packed with all sorts of information from botox alternatives to exercise excuse busters. We have a special article from our favourite nutritionist Cyndi O'Meara and we have a couple of workshops coming up! Indulge, enjoy and take special care! Kim & Fleur
Product of the month
The Most Natural Alternative To Botox We Have Found
We are constantly asked, what is most effective product to help slow down the aging process? What is the best alternative to Botox? What is safe? Well, our philosophy has always been about aging gracefully, rather than anti-aging, and embracing a wholistic lifestyle to achieve this. We all know we are going to age, so lets support our skin and health to do this the slowest way we can, rather than compromise our health and looks by being the guinea pig with a some new injectable ingredient, or even worse the knife.
A few months ago we were introduced to an incredible little machine called the Galvanic Spa. Using a Galvanic current which works on negative and positive current flows, it has the ability to penetrate key active substances into the skin, while stimulating the circulation and increasing cellular energy. The Italian scientist Luigi Galvani developed the use of this current and it has since been used for over a century in the medical field. In fact it is nick-named 'the healing current' due to its ability to rejuvenate the cells and promote healing. And I, (Fleur) have used the large Galvanic machine in beauty therapy treatments for years.
Over the last few years we have seen the 'anti-aging' phenomenon go to new heights. Over $12.2 billion dollars are spent each year on cosmetic procedures, and 83% of those are non-surgical - with the likes of Botox now being very fashionable. Now, if injecting yourself with a toxin all in the name of beauty isn't scary enough, what really scares us is that women as young as twenty are also buying into this silly 'anti-aging' scam.
And..... that is why we are happy to endorse the Galvanic Spa, as we feel this is the most natural alternative to Botox and other dermal fillers without compromising our health. It is inexpensive compared to salon prices and also produces phenomenal results in a gentle and safe way, as the pictures below
Just have a look at the results Deanne achieved in four months:
This hand held machine is a patented product that was recently launched by the company NuSkin (which stands for - Nutrition for the Skin). For those of you familiar with this brand NuSkin does not claim to be 100% natural, instead they promote their range as one of combining the best of technology and science in combination with key natural ingredients. With over 100 scientists on staff, they perform all of their own clinical trails, rather than relying from external sources, as a lot of other companies do. We have been particularly impressed with some of their products using these technology advancements.
Now, while we do not advocate some of the ingredients used in their products, they stand by the claim that they have eliminated a lot of the key nasty ingredients, like mineral oils to produce a product that is safe and works.
So while our passion is always with 100% natural high quality products, such as those we recommend on our website like Sodashi, Dr Hauschka, Mi-Essence, Carmaje, Trilogy and Living Nature, we have been very impressed with the Galvanic Spa and have seen first hand the results this easy-to-use device can produce.
Using a Galvanic current has shown through trials to increase the absorption of products by up to 70%, and continues to do so for up to 24 hours after a treatment. This means that whatever is placed on the skin after a treatment it will have a much higher efficacy rate. What better advocate for the Galvanic Spa than gorgeous actress Sophia Loren. She says the Galvanic is definitely her beauty secret!
What is exciting about this machine is that it is not just fighting the war on wrinkles. In fact it is something that everyone in the whole family can benefit from. It has been known to have amazing results on the head as it helps regenerate and thicken hair growth - brilliant for those suffering alopecia or balding. It is fantastic on the body for toning and is very effective with scar tissue and cellulite. And it is a wonderful aid for supporting the body to heal quickly, so things like aches, pains, headaches, bruises and soft tissue injuries improve in a relatively short amount of time.
We believe it to be a very handy piece of technology that produces a huge amount of benefits for a wide variety of concerns.
If you would like to find out more, or how you can purchase your own Galvanic Spa at wholesale prices then please email us at fleur@creativewellbeing.com for more information!
Exercise & Nutrition – It’s Easy!
Ok so you don't have enough time to exercise. You have tried getting up early and it doesn't work. It's too cold, too wet, too hard. Not enough money for good shoes? You have bought every gadget and still you aren't beating the bulge or getting toned... Well no more excuses - here is a set of exercises we call the Fab 4 In 5 that will not only get you toned and looking fabulous and help shed any excess pounds it will only take you 5minutes every morning in your own home to perform. As you get more addicted to the great feelings associated to strength training you are welcome to build on these fabulous four exercises.
Of course if you are not prepared to watch what you eat you could do hundreds of each of these exercises and not lose weight or notice the toning going on under the flab. You are what you eat! A good healthy diet rich in whole foods, natural foods, live foods - is what your body craves. Check out wholistic nutritionist Cyndi O'Meara's article on Nutritionism this month. It makes a heck of a lot of sense.
Resistance (strength) training helps promote human growth hormone (HGH), a great anti-aging hormone that boosts new cell growth. It also helps to boost your immune system, increase strength, shape and build muscle, burn fat and tone your skin. No more excuses - the Fab 4 only takes 5 minutes - so get up off your butt and give it a go. You'll love the results!
Start by aiming to do at least 10 of each Fab 4 exercise. If you are reasonably fit, then start with whatever number is comfortable for you, maybe 20 or 30. But if you haven't done this sort of exercise for some time, then start with five of each. The next day try an extra one and so on.
The key to doing these four exercises well, and with good results, is to do them slowly. Count slowly to three on the resistance and three on the release. The release is just as important as the resistance. If you wake the next day feeling sore (lactic acid is one of the by-products of over extended muscles) then lower the number you start with, have a rest day, have a massage or exercise on alternate days. Just a note here on the lactic acid soreness you can experience after exercise. Whilst it is important not to injure yourself by over doing it when starting on an exercise regime, you have to realise there will be some soreness if you have not done any specific exercise for some time...
I (Kim) remember talking to a gorgeous young man who was an up and coming AFL football star many years ago. Tragically, he was injured in a game and was paralysed from the waist down. He used to come to me for regular massage as he was in training for the Special Olympics (this guy was amazing with an incredible attitude, I might add). He asked how my training run went on the weekend as he knew I was preparing to run for Australia in an ultra marathon in the UK.
I told him how sore my legs were and how much they ached... As the words came out of my mouth I wanted the ground to swallow me whole. I couldn't believe I had just said that to a man with no use of his legs. I will never forget what he said though when he saw the horror on my face. "Kim, I would give anything for that feeling in my legs again" he said. "You know you have pushed yourself beyond your comfort zone and that's a huge privilege. Learn to love that feeling, it is a reminder of what your body is capable of." Oh boy - those words come into my mind every time I am sore from working underused muscles. And he is absolutely right guys - being able to exercise is a HUGE privilege. No more excuses!
Sit-ups are great for toning the stomach and lower back. You should be on your back with your knees bent. Wedge your toes under a chair or bed to hold yourself secure. Place hands behind the head and lift from the stomach only. Keep arms in one position and look at the ceiling. Only lift as far as you can feel resistance and hold for three seconds, pushing a little farther each time.
Press-ups are fantastic for firming and toning the chest and shoulder areas. They can be done with your knees touching the ground. Take each one slowly, counting to three as you take your nose to the ground and counting to three again on the way up. Once you feel strong enough in the back and arms, try one or two in the full press-up position, with legs straight, increasing the number by one each day.
Tricep Dips help give shape and strength to the shoulders and upper arms. A great exercise to reduce 'ta ta' arms (you know, the underarm bit that wobbles when you wave to someone!). Find a stable chair or low table. Sit on the edge and place your arms at your sides with hands on the table. Take your legs out to a comfortable distance and, taking your weight on your arms, lift your bottom off the table but keep it as close to the table as possible. Slowly lower your body as far as you can go, hold, then slowly come up.
Squats are brilliant at helping tone the butt and legs. Stand with your feet at hip distance apart. Stand tall with hands on hips. Take a large step out in front of you with your right leg, bending at the knee and taking your body as low as you can go, but making sure your right knee does not go past your right foot; if it does you have not stepped out wide enough. Hold, then bring the leg back to the starting position. Repeat with the left leg.
The key is to remember to do these exercises in a controlled manner and make sure you do them every day. It will only take 5 minutes and could be the best investment in your health you've ever made Check out our website for more exercise ideas and photos on how to do them correctly.
Nutritionism: The Wrong Way to Health
© Cyndi O'Meara 2008
Has the world gone mad? I find it amazing that when people look at the ingredients and nutrition label of a packaged food they are more engrossed in the nutrition label than the actual food content. When I ask people what they look for when they read the label of the food they are buying they tell me they look for the saturated fat content, or the amount of salt, or whether there is enough protein, or what the fat and sugar content is, and even the vitamins and minerals, as is the case with milk and calcium. Very few are interested in the actual ingredients. Modern thinking finds that a food is OK as long as the nutrition label and the components of food are in the right amounts as deemed by the scientific community and taught to the public by propaganda and advertising.
In other words, if you're on a protein diet, you look for high protein foods; and if you're on a low fat diet you look for low fat foods. If osteoporosis is a concern, then foods high in calcium, like milk, is what people consider. If you are a diabetic you make sure there is no sugar in the food and if you have hypertension then salt content is important. Or, if you've been told by your doctor that you should lower your cholesterol and not eat foods high in cholesterol, then you look for the cholesterol content.
To create a nutrition label is really easy. You go to nutriondata.com and plug in the ingredients of your food (for instance any recipe you are making), and a nutrition label is produced. It doesn't ask if the food is organic or what type of soil it was grown in or how rich in minerals the soil is, or if you boiled the food to death or if you used sea salt, or raw milk as opposed to modified milk, but merely generalises. So don't ever for a minute think that a nutrition label is accurate; it is usually very general.
But that is not the biggest problem. The problem is that we look at the nutritional facts and we forget to look at the ingredients.
Let me explain with the labels below.
The first food label shows the contents may have too much salt for someone who has hypertension, or too much saturated fat for someone trying to avoid saturated fat. The second food label shows high protein, so for someone who is looking for high protein foods this may be an excellent food. Now instead of looking at the nutrition facts, let's look at the actual ingredients. The first label could be something that you make at home; most people would have some or most of the ingredients in their pantry. Whereas the second food label is a totally manufactured food; many of the ingredients would not even be found as basic in
gredients on the supermarket shelf.
This focus on the nutrition facts rather than the actual food is an ideology that has been making its mark for the past 25 years. Slowly but surely we have dissected food into its component parts and decided that if the food has the wrong balance of the component parts, it's deemed unhealthy. And Science has been the major culprit.
Nutritionism
We are no longer interested in what the food is, but rather what it has in it. When most people look at a food label, they are more interested in the amount of macro-nutrients (carbohydrates, fats and proteins) than in the actual Ingredients. People select foods on micro- (vitamins and minerals) and macro-nutrient status, even if the food does not resemble real food. Protein bars, breakfast cereals, margarine, modified milks, diet foods and muesli bars are prime examples. These foods look good in the nutrient department, but when you look at the actual ingredients you find there are a bunch of numbers, soy protein isolates, hydrogenated vegetable oils and other non-real food items.
This is not only the case with packaged foods but other foods as well. Tomatoes are now being eaten for their lycopenes rather than as food that tastes good and goes well with many other foods. Carrots are known for their b-carotene status. Avocados are avoided on a strict diet because of fat content, but few people know that when you put avocados in a salad it helps to increase the absorption of many of the minerals and vitamins in the salad. Even wine is being drunk for the antioxidants, while meat is eaten for protein, milk for calcium, bread for carbohydrates and oils for fats. This ideology has been termed 'Nutritionism' and has taken over our way of thinking about the food we eat. To quote a well used phrase: "If it's something your great-grandmother wouldn't recognise as food, don't eat it."
If we look at food in a mechanistic way then food is made up of parts - carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins and minerals - and if we can twist them to be what science deems to be right, then we can make the food better, so science thinks! This is Nutritionism.
Vitalism
I've always lived my life with a 'vitalistic' health point of view, which is, 'the power that made the body will heal the body' as long as there is no interference and the right resources are given (good food, exercise, rest, clean air and sunlight). Health, these days, is practised from a mechanistic point of view, where the body is made up of the sum of all its parts and if a part goes wrong then 'get rid of it' (believing the body will be better off) or 'treat the part that has gone wrong' (rather than the whole person).
It seems now that this view point can be stretched towards food. Real food from nature is vitalistic; it is healthy and there is a symbiotic relationship between all the parts of the food that make it perfect, as long as it has been given the right resources (water, nutrient soil and sunlight) and not been interfered with.
Organising Your Pantry to Live a Vitalistic Life
Ingredients are the most important part of any recipe and now you are preparing healthy food at home, you need a constant supply of the right ingredients in your pantry. Just about anyone can knock up a meal, a cake or some biscuits, but whether the result is healthy depends on the quality of the ingredients. If you use good ingredients the dish will be healthy even if it's something sweet; but if you cook with substandard ingredients you will get unhealthy results no matter what the recipe is.
My first rule of thumb with cooking is to choose ingredients that are as close as possible to their natural sources. Eat real butter - not margarine, which is an artificial product that scientific studies have implicated in the increasing incidence of some modern diseases. Eat real sugar - not some artificial sweetener created in a laboratory.
My motto comes from my daughter Casie who, when she was seven, said:
"Nature makes all the healthy stuff and everything else is junk."
Buy as many organic and bio-dynamic ingredients as you can, because they contain fewer chemicals and more nutrients. You might think this is a more expensive way to shop, but in the long run it works out to be relatively inexpensive as well as far better for your health. When you start eating wholefoods you won't need to buy prepared and pre-packaged foods any more, therefore you won't fall into the trap of Nutritionism, so you'll find your food bill declining; and your 'sickness bill' will plummet.
Remember that when you eat nutrient-rich foods your body doesn't need as much and you won't be constantly hungry or craving foods.
Chemicals have been implicated in many modern diseases and it is not possible to avoid them all, but when you make a conscious effort you can reduce the amount of chemicals and technology foods you are exposed to and that's not only good for you but also for the environment.
Most of the ingredients I use can be found in grocery shops and health food shops. If you are on a farm, in a remote area, or travelling, don't think that you can't get hold of these foods. It's just a matter of finding a health food shop or grocery shop willing to package up ingredients and send them to you.
If your local supermarket or health food shop doesn't stock the things you're looking for, ask if they can get them in. They might not always agree, but they are far more likely to do so if you ask than if you don't.
Below is a list of foods that I use regularly and always keep in my pantry or fridge so that I am prepared for most meals.
Fruit, vegetables and meat I buy regularly, and organic when available.
Herbs should be fresh (preferably organic) and spices freshly ground if possible; otherwise use the best dried and pre-packaged ones you can find.
Flours - instead of buying white flour, discover organic white unbleached flour; nothing will be pure white again but the health benefits are far better. There are other flours that are worth experimenting with: besan (made from chickpeas), rice, arrowroot, potato, barley, rye, millet, oat, quinoa, and amaranth. The list is long and the nutrition is abounding when you use a variety of flours.
Sweeteners - Rapadura sugar (also known as Sucanat and Muscovado); this is a sugar which is made by juicing the sugar cane and dehydrating it. It is one of the best sugars available and can be found in most grocery stores. Organic raw sugar, honey and natural maple syrup are all great sweeteners.
Salt - Sea salt; it's grey and it's wet and you need to throw out the salt shaker but it is packed with nutrients and has no additives, unlike white salt. It's available in coarse and fine grind.
Vinegar - apple cider vinegar, wine vinegar or rice vinegar; these three vinegars do not contain wheat and are a healthy alternative to white vinegar.
Jam - The traditional way of making jam has been widely replaced by methods that use artificial flavourings, additives and sweeteners, with only a small amount of real fruit. You can make your own jam, of course, but luckily commercial makers of traditional jams can still be found in most towns. I buy my jam from markets and stalls, and always check that it is made from just fruit, sugar and pectin.
Milk - is it good for you or not? I believe the milk that is least tampered with is the most healthy. If you can buy pasteurised-only milk or, better still, milk straight from the cow, then this is the best. If you're worried about the fat (which you shouldn't be) just dilute it with some filtered water. Avoid the modified and low-fat milks.
Milk substitutes - rice milk, grain milk, nut milk and a good organic soya milk. It is important to read the labels and find ones that are made with only natural ingredients; avoid the ones with additives and those made with canola oil.
Cream - don't buy cream that has sucrose and gelatine added; make sure it is pure.
Yoghurt - read the labels and only buy yoghurt that is made with milk and culture. Watch out for excess additives - you don't need them.
Cheese - I usually buy my cheese at the delicatessen and make sure it has been fermented and made the old-fashioned way, without additives and hydrogenated oils.
Butter - Choose butter, not margarine. Margarine is an artificial product made from hydrogenated fat, one of the most dangerous of all consumable fats and worse than saturated fat. If you are put off by the fact that butter can be hard to spread, you can make your own easy-spread butter by combining butter with olive oil.
Bread - Most bread available today should be used to insulate the house rather than eaten to sustain life. When choosing your bread try and find a traditional baker who does not use premixes but creates bread with organic flour, sea salt, compressed yeast, organic raw sugar, and the like.
Oils - it is important to buy only cold pressed oils. I stick to olive and macadamia. Stay away from generic vegetable oils and canola oils - they are not what they seem.
Live a vitalistic non-nutritionism life. A life where you know that the power that made the body can heal the body and that power made real nature-based foods that are perfect for your body.
Happy Changing Habits
Cyndi O'Meara - www.changinghabits.com.au
BOOK OF THE MONTH
Pulitzer prize-winning author of March and Year of Wonders. This is a gorgeous read about a young Australian woman who is a renowned book conservator. When she is asked to go to Bosnia to start work on restoring the Sarajevo Haggadah - a Jewish prayer book - and help uncover the secrets about its miraculous survival, she has no idea on the journey that awaits her. As the mystery of the book takes us from the 1400's through to modern day, the story is one of hope, war, survival and love. Easy to read and beautifully written. |
This is a story about a superstar lawyer whose out-of-balance lifestyle leads him to an almost fatal heart attack. His physical collapse brings on a spiritual crisis that forces him to confront the condition of his life and seek answers to life's most important questions. He discovers an ancient system to release the potential of his mind, body and soul and learns to live with greater passion, purpose and peace. Well worth a read. |
The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin S. Sharma
