November Newsletter: How to make time for healthy living (even with the holidays)

A Personal Note from Me

It’s turkey time. I am already dreaming about the wonderful Thanksgiving getaway I’ll be sharing with my family at the “The Shapiro Local and Organic B&B”. It’s a Pittsburgh gem to where I often retreat. When the going gets tough, I go to Mom and Dad’s.

Being a health counselor, business owner, grad student, girlfriend, sister, daughter, and friend, I get busy. Throw in the holiday season and staying healthy can seem like another stress, even though I know my lifestyle habits keep me enthused and sane enough to see my life as rich with opportunity versus fraught with work.

There are a few great tips I’ve discovered that I want to share to help you during this extremely busy season. These will give you more time now, and when the holiday dust settles, make healthy habits an effortless part of your life. Before I get these tried-and-true tips, a couple of updates:

Upcoming Events with Me

For current and past clients, I am offering a “Staying Sane and Slim During the Holiday Season” teleclass. It’s a complimentary private class for current and past clients only and will be held Tuesday, November 24th at 7:30 p.m. I will send call-in details the second week of November, but mark your calendars now. If you don’t receive the information, please check your SPAM folder or email me.

In February, I will be starting a group program for those who want to learn the basics of healthy living as a moderate lifestyle rather than a time-consuming obsession. It will be a ten-week program meeting from February 2 till mid-April (a week spring break the first week of March) on Tuesday nights from 5:30-7:00 p.m. at Eviama Spa at S.17th Street in Philadelphia’s Rittenhouse Square neighborhood. It’s a healing and comforting space where you’ll join a community of people wanting to reboot from these crazy times by getting back to basics. The investment on your part is only $599, and if you bring a friend, you both will save $50. It’s an incredible value for all you’ll learn and accomplish. More details to come but email me now if you are interested. There is limited space and it will fill up fast. It will change your life!

Lastly, I have some exciting news. Many of you know I went to Sweden this summer to study sustainability. For my final course paper, I wrote an e-book about how our food choices affect global warming. In America, it’s the number one contributor to greenhouse gases, much more than cars. My professor, Dr. Alan Barstow, has asked me to present the book at a kick-off event for the Sustainability concentration in my Master’s program at Penn. In addition, I received an A+ (I’ve always been a sucker for good grades). My book, The Roots of Going Green: Your Power, Your Fork, will be available online on my website for purchase after the event on November 14. It would make a great holiday gift for someone interested in a quick, funny read that empowers readers to save themselves and the planet.

Creating Time for Your Health

Ok, enough shameless self promotion. I’ve been debunking popular health myths in my previous emails (all which can be found here) and this month, I thought it would be appropriate to visit the “Being healthy is hard work. I don’t have time.” If ever there was a time excuse, it’s during the two crazy months from Halloween thru New Year’s. Here are seven ways (four of them being attitude adjustments) to get yourself out of the “time crunch” trap:

1. Being healthy is not hard work. Like anything you start, there is a learning curve. But eventually, it becomes as automatic and addicting as stopping at Starbucks for a grande Pumpkin Spice latte. Feeling fabulous is something you’ll want more and more of, especially if like most Americans, you don’t realize how crappy you actually feel (many clients I work with never realized their lagging energy, stomach problems, and anxiousness weren’t normal). To make healthy habits easy and sustainable, select one thing a week you can do to improve your health. One thing. Maybe eat breakfast at home. Maybe start to eat breakfast. Maybe read a book on wellness. Maybe start exercising once a week. In week two, add something else. In three months, you’ll be brand spanking new. The self-confidence that comes from following through on your commitment will have you dreaming bigger.

2. Know what healthy living means. It’s not beans and sprouts, going hungry and slogging hours at the gym while doing exercise you hate. Being healthy is the exact opposite of being a martyr! It’s indulging in delicious food, working out smart not hard, doing less, living more and having the energy to do the things that make you thrive, not just survive. It’s quite freeing in that feeling great liberates you to accomplish more! Here are some fun and healthy ways to incorporate the flavors of fall I shared with Lori Wilson on NBC.

3. View time management in terms of energy management or time production. We all get 24 hours in the day. This is the only thing that makes us all equal. How we spend that time is what differentiates our lives. Taking time to cook or fit in a work-out usually means less hours exhausted in front of the couch or at the doctor’s office or waiting in line for prescriptions…or even complaining and worrying about your aliments and weight (this is no longer restricted to nursing homes across America!). You accomplish more when you take care of yourself. I think of my friend, Nicole, otherwise known as Dr. Lipkin. She is a maniac in the best way possible. The quantity and quality of her output makes me look like a lazy ass. Nicole does cross-fit five days a week, eats as healthy as anyone I know, makes time for all her friends and just got certified to drive a Vespa, all the while doing national PR for her first book launch, Generation Y in the Workplace. Her time production is through the roof. As Nicole says about making her work-outs, and diet a priority, “It’s not an option for me. Without quality workouts and an ample, satisfying and healthy diet, I don’t function adequately in mind, body or spirit. There are no good excuses for not making quality exercise and good food a priority–there are only bad excuses for not living the lives we want to live.”

4. Think self-preservation versus being selfish. Taking time for yourself and saying “no” to your endless “to-do” is healthy in and of itself. Stop trying to please everyone because you can’t. No one will miss you that much at the 99th holiday party and you’ll stop missing valuable sleep and a chance to recharge. In effect, you’ll also miss out on the sugar binge that keeps you going in the moment yet feels like a hang-over the next day.  This goes for all year. Prioritize what nourishes your spirit or what’s the point of all this madness?

5. Cook on weekends. I am not a huge cooking fan, and I hate dishes. I love cooking as long as I’m doing it once or twice a week (which also means one set of dishes!) My fascination with food is how it fuels me to live the life I want to live, not in complicated cooking techniques. So on Sundays, I hit the farmers market, put the Steelers game on and do the two-step: cook for two hours to make two soups, two side dishes and two main dishes. I learned quick and easy ways to cook and add vegetables to all of these meals. Bam! Done for the week! If I get inspired, maybe I’ll cook another night. While I enjoy those couple of hours cooking, I find an added benefit is that cooking this way is faster than take-out or going out to eat (even living in a city where I can walk to a restaurant in two minutes!). I’m always five minutes of re-heating away from a delicious, fuel-powering meal.

6. Invest in a crock-pot. These machines make me know the Universe wants people to cook. You throw in a bunch of ingredients, walk away and come home to a warm, aromatic dinner you can eat for the rest of the week if you wanted. Soups and stews work especially well here.

7. Work-out smart not hard. Long hours at the gym are unnecessary and can sabotage your health goals, particularly weight-loss. Learn about interval and weight training. Find a trainer who understands this; google it; invest in my “Supercharging Your Metabolism” teleclass here where I provide the knowledge and examples of these work-outs; do whatever it takes. You’ll reduce your gym time, waistline and your risk for disease. Less is more.

If there’s a will, there’s a very easy way to being healthy. For those of you who feel it’s more the emotional side of the equation that’s getting in your way, I strongly recommend purchasing the recording of my teleclass, “Divine Secrets of the Unemotional Eating Sisterhood”, which got rave reviews last month. I had several people email me about “aha” moments they had and new perspectives on why they overeat. The holiday season is a huge source of overeating for many of us. If you want to be able to indulge in just one or two peanut butter blossoms or Christmas cookie cut-outs and not arrive January 1 with another five pounds to lose, I highly recommend this call. It’s available for purchase here. And you can download it to your iPod, so there’s no excuse about not having the time! All of the other calls I’ve hosted are also available for purchase here. It could be your one thing this week you do for you and your health.

As we celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday, remember the gratitude piece of this season. It sometimes gets lost in the turkey, stuffing and too much pumpkin pie, yet it’s especially important during these turbulent times. Life usually cracks us open so the light can shine in. Make this time count. When we know better, we do better and in effect, feel better.

Gobble gobble,

Ali

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This Newsletter is written by Ali Shapiro and www.alishapiro.com. If you have any questions or comments, please send them to: ali@alishapiro.com

Green-washing, Pink-washing: Will the dirty laundry ever end?

Social responsibility is hot. Companies have done their homework and they know consumers are willing to shell out as much as 20% more on the purchase price if they perceive the company as socially responsible. How about that, we really do care about each other.

But what’s burning a whole in your wallet, health and belief in humankind are empty promises by companies exploiting your good intentions and lack of time to investigate every single product claim. Huh?

Believe it or not, those claiming to be “green” and now this month “pink” for breast cancer awareness aren’t always committed to the environment or erradicating cancer.

As a cancer survivor myself, I tend to avoid much of the cancer causes. That’s an entirely different blog post but I can’t support causes that many times, are perpetuating their existence. Buying M&Ms and plastic products that support breast cancer awareness is like giving an alcoholic alcohol. For those who don’t know, sugar and plastic both contribute to cancer. While there is a mystery why some people develop cancer and others don’t, there is no doubt about what contributes to it and anyone who tells you differently, is robbing you of your best chance at beating cancer: preventing it all together.

So now it seems even some benign cancer-causing products aren’t as rosy pink as we’ve been lead to believe. From fine print limiting donations to making you jump through hoops to get your donation where it belongs, find out if your money for breast cancer awareness is going where you think it’s going. Check out “Think Before You Pink” here.

And use that noggen to not only find out where your money is going but if it would be better spent on a pro-health cause like organic food or environmental clean-up. Then maybe we could eliminate this loop hole and breast cancer altogether.

October 2009 Newsletter: Weight, It’s Not About Calories and Willpower?

Welcome fall! The seasons are changing and so are the times in which we find ourselves. I know I’m wondering how I got to be 31 (birthday is today!) and why are the Steelers 1-2, losing to the Bears and Bengals. Really, is this happening?

It seems a 31st birthday has hit me more than my 30th. All of a sudden I’m like, “Woo, I’m really not getting any younger” (even though I feel it), and life is what you put into it. Hallmark wasn’t lying. Two years ago I left my corporate job and would have never imagined life would be this rich, spectacular and challenging (I have some really exciting news to share with you next month so stay tuned!). I see so many people like myself, reconfiguring their lives to match these crazy times, bucking the status quo and going for it, whatever “it” may be.

As someone who is not a huge fan of authority or of old-fashioned institutions, I find this all very exciting. People are finally starting to question and wonder, “Why” and “How”, and they are searching for new meaning. A little dose of skepticism (or intellectual curiosity for those Pollyannas) is healthy!

I see my clients understanding how much more powerful food is than pills. I see them getting savvier about what food even is! They are educating their doctors about food and healing themselves from diagnoses that were slapped on them by outdated medical information. For example, there is Dan, a former client, who had various diagnoses and struggled with digestive problems for most of his life. In four short months, his health was completely restored. Hear from Dan here with what life looks like now.

It’s empowering when you know you can heal and control your body. If you can do that, what else is there to master?

Before we get back to debunking myths, a few housekeeping items:

1.    Many have written that you’ve missed some of the Lounge & Learn classes but are interested in the various calls. All class recordings are available on my website. The $30 is an introductory price and will be going up along with my new website in two weeks. So get them here now. From “Gluten-Free” to “Supercharging Your Metabolism”, each one is designed around radical changes through rational strategies.

2.    The next Lounge & Learn will be Monday, October 19 @ 7:30 p.m. We’ll be discussing “The Divine Secrets of the Unemotional Eating Sisterhood”.  Sign up here (space is limited and these calls are growing immensely in popularity because of all the juicy information discussed).

3.    My new website (www.alishapiro.com) will be up very soon. If you want to continue to receive my newsletters, you will have to sign up from the new website. There will be a complimentary Lounge & Learn for signing up. I’ll send out an email giving you instructions but be alert!

As you have followed me the past couple of newsletters, I’ve been debunking popular health myths.  We are now onto myth number 4: I just can’t lose weight. I’ve struggled with my weight all my life and probably will forever. No matter how much I count calories or exercise, I can’t seem to get my weight under control.

Sound familiar? It has to, because 95% of people aren’t losing weight and keeping it off. And it’s for three main reasons:

1.    Weight^loss is not about calories in, calories out
2.    Conventional cardio makes you fat
3.    Most of weight^loss isn’t about weight

Remember what I said about times are changing – keep that open-mindedness even with what may seem obvious!

There’s a new emerging equation and by now, some of the mainstream media is picking up bits and pieces of it (my “Supercharging Your Metabolism” call ties all this information together in a nice and neat 7-step equation). And well, food companies have been aware of this information for years which is why they meticulously design their foods to exploit your genetic weaknesses and raise their profits.

While calories are important, equally important are caloric quality and balancing your hormones. When eating poor quality, processed foods, signals that keep your metabolism running smoothly don’t get delivered and the memo that you are full never arrives. On the hormonal side, which is affected by food, environmental toxins and lifestyle habits, hormones control satiety, appetite and the thyroid, (which is the gas pedal to the metabolism). When they are out of whack, so is the scale (here’s an article on plastics role in weight gain).

Our food quality and lifestyles have gotten so out of sync with our ancestral heritage that our bodies are on the fritz. Yes, evolution is real.   Because there is so much added stress on our bodies, from poor diet to lack of sleep to environmental toxins, doing long bouts of cardio can actually  stress the body even more. The excessive adrenaline and cortisol production that results from this exercise further aggravates the hormonal dance.

$%!*$%(*) It really isn’t that complicated though, I promise.  If you try to make it complicated and dramatic, then you are probably using your weight as an excuse not to address some other issue that is more painful to your soul than your pant size. Furthermore, if you get annoyed just reading that, then I’m probably speaking directly to you.

So enough with the problems, give me some answers! Here are five tips to get started on melting the weight off, permanently:

1.    Get on the “Cook It Yourself” diet. If you want to eat it, cook it. To understand how processed and restaurant food messes with your appetite for DAYS (yes, not just one meal), read this .

2.    For meals and foods you can’t cook, focus on nutritional value, not caloric value. Real food is packed with nutrition making you feel full and your hormones balanced. See here how I surprised Bill Henley on NBC about what real food is!

3.    Upgrade your grocery cart with these metabolism-boosting choices

4.    Integrate interval and weight training into your work-outs. This is crucial! You can work out less and get better results.

5.  Sit somewhere quiet. Be with yourself or a trusted friend who will be supportive yet candid. Ask the questions, “What would I have to deal with if I weren’t trying to lose weight?” Once you figure that out, get moving on solving that. Weight loss will be much more effortless when you have a life void of emotional landmines.

If you are really serious about weight^loss (and don’t want to wait years till doctors and the mainstream media catch on), I’m going to plug my “Supercharging Your Metabolism” call again, because it’s that good – and accurate. It will save you months of frustration and lay out the entire seven pieces of the real weight^loss equation (it includes great interval and mental exercises for weight^loss). And it’s only a $30 investment. Remember, prices are going up when I launch my new website.

And if you know it’s more an emotional-eating problem versus a logical one, join us on “The Divine Secrets of the Unemotional Eating Sisterhood” call on Monday, October 19 at 7:30 p.m. We’ll peel back the onion and explore what is making you eat emotionally and then provide a plan to end this de-habilitating cycle. It will be liberating and packed with great insights and mental exercises to have you stop eating and start living.

As I close, I want to give a special thanks to all my clients who have worked with me over the past two and a half years. Thank you for trusting in me to co-pilot your health and for being a rebel rouser. Many of my clients would never think of themselves as rebellious but they are, in the most quiet and influential of ways. They have bucked a social milieu and an economy that can only exist when we feel inadequate – in our bodies, our health, in our knowledge and in effect, our power. They are living and breathing inspiration to their families, friends, communities and doctors, of the power of whole foods and whole living.

You see, when you adopt this lifestyle, you aren’t just changing how you eat; you are changing the world. The times are definitely changing and for those people like my clients, it’s definitely for the better!

Here’s to some fabulous fall foliage,

Ali

Rocket man: Dan’s full throttle success

Ali’s program was amazing.  Hands down the best investment I’ve ever made in myself.  And I’m someone who invests a lot in myself.  The program was full of fun, discovery and friendship, and by the end, I found myself feeling the happiest I’ve felt in tens years and the most in control of my emotions and energy ever.

I lost more than 10 lbs and got back down to my high school weight as an unintended (but much appreciated!) side effect of our focus on getting my digestive, energy and mood issues under control.

Ali also helped me see how nutrition and health fit together with my long term goals and with the things I value in day to day life. Now I’m rocketing forward towards my goals while also enjoying the simple pleasures of each day more than I ever have. ~ Dan S., Washington, D.C.

Weight, it’s not about willpower? How losing weight really works.

Believe it or not, weight loss is not about calories in versus calories out. I know it sounds like I’m saying the world isn’t flat circa 2000 years ago. (Yes, the Earth as a round object was known way before Magellan and Columbus. Many scientists knew the earth wasn’t round before the Church finally came to that public conclusion…do I see a pattern here?)

I recently did a teleclass on “Supercharging Your Metabolism”, (and yes, it’s available for download for only $30. This is an introductory price, which will go up October 1) which summarizes the real equation to weight loss. Calories are a factor, but so are many other things which I got into great detail on this call. But just like much other nutrition and health information, lots of industries benefit from you being in the dark.

Pharma companies can continue to sell Alli or other prescription weight loss pills. The dieting industry gets reoccuring revenue from all your failed attempts. Food companies can peddle their  junk and make ridiculous profit margins because they are disguised as diet and health foods. Restaurants continue to sell more food because what they do to their food, makes you eat more.

Let me explain. In a nutshell, losing weight is about metabolism and metabolism is about all the chemical reactions in your body, including hormones. And a lot of processed foods interfere with this dance and as a result, the body doesn’t get the chemical message that it’s full.

Recently, a scientific study out of Texas (yes, there is some good there) showed how high amounts of saturated fat cause the body to ignore the appetite-suppressing signals from leptin and insulin, hormones involved in weight regulation. This can sabotage your dieting efforts not just for a meal but for days. What does this mean for those uninterested in the science but obsessed with scale – you will eat like a pig because the body knows no better.

So for all those who think losing weight is all about will power, think again. Self responsibility is key but it’s a will to cook your own food that is important. If there’s any diet I recommend, it’s the “Cook it Yourself” diet. This is the biggest piece of the REAL weight loss equation. I discuss the other steps in balancing your bodies metabolism and a simple action plan to maximize your metabolism in my teleclass which is available for a nominal investment in your health of $30.

If you are serious about weight loss, get it here now  because it’s going up in price to $43 this Thursday, October 1. It’s worth it’s weight in gold, frustration and self-confidence. And if you aren’t trying to lose weight, try not to be so judgemental of those who are. It’s a jungle out there.

The elephant in the room (& I’m not talking about that jack-ass Joe Wilson)

I have a lot to say on health-care. I’m going to allow myself to cool down before I provide my solutions.

I don’t want to just yell, scream, bitch and complain like some at those past town hall meetings in towns I never want to visit (I’m starting to wonder if a side-effect of fast food, artificial flavors and color dyes is decreased circulation to the head?). Plus, I know the solutions and money to pay for all of them are already here if we’d just be willing to look and EAT outside the box – literally.

Processed foods are what’s killing America and yet seems no one has the stamina to take on Big Food (if you are into evil, processed food is a genius business model. Get people tired and riddled with aches and pains so they can’t come after you!).

Read an excellent article here (by Micheal Pollen, one of my heros) on how real health-care change starts with real food.

Yippee! I’m healthy!

Exhale. I just got back from my yearly oncologist appointment. Nothing like a yearly cancer check-up to remind you how fragile and whacked out life is. It’s been 12 years since I’ve been doing this yearly ritual. Seventeen and a half since I’ve had my own cancer doctor.

The first five years after your cancer treatments, you go every six months because you’ve only earned a “remission” label. It takes five years to graduate to yearly appointments and the coveted “cured”. And even then, the healing has just begun.

Some think the first five years are the most nerve-wracking. You still think every ache, pain and/or lump means you have one foot in the grave. You sit in the doctor’s office, with the smells of chemo and plastic needles still enough to make you nauseous. You look at the other patients in the waiting room and you have to fight back tears because you still feel raw from the whole experience.

The emotional fragility of this point in time is unparallel. You are scared shitless and put your faith into everything the doctor says. She/he has become God to you because the other God you somewhat believed in, has a funny way of showing he cares.

But then, if you eat well, exercise, keep your environment as non-toxic as possible, find a sense of spirituality that helps you navigate life and no doubt, have a lot of luck, the years accumulate. You no longer wake up every morning fishing for lumps and the joint pains you chock up to working out too much. Cancer no longer runs your thoughts.

I can’t speak for every person who has experienced cancer, but for me, to truly move on with my life, I had to figure out why this happened and then if I couldn’t find answers, make a reason. I know conventional medical information, outside of lung cancer, can’t tell you why cancer happens. But being a big picture thinker and in the wellness field, I know a lot of medical information is funded by profit-motivated groups and the nature of research itself doesn’t look at system synergies but more isolated pieces of the puzzle. Yet, the human body is the most complex system in the world.

The more I research, the more I feel these years after being cured are more perplexing. I have to be vigilant about breast and thyroid cancers from the radiation I received. These are serious risks that I don’t take lightly. As my Dad says, “There’s always a trap door that can open on your ass.”

So why does my insanely intelligent oncologist, who I really admire and like, still tell me that eating well, working out and doing yoga “doesn’t hurt” my chances of reoccurrence or secondary cancers from my chemo and radiation treatments (especially as the waiting room is overflowing with patients)? Is it really smart to get yearly CT, Mammogram and/or MRI tests when we are now finding out these can be contributing to cancer? Why are known carcinogens like BPA and DDT still in our environment when we’ve known for decades they contribute to cancer? And how do I trust the American Medical Association (AMA) when back in the day, they were in cahoots with the tobacco industry to delay the obvious conclusion that cigarettes cause cancer?

I’m not paranoid. I’m smart, have common sense and am insanely well-read. And I can no longer go on blind faith. I’ve been through too much. I brought “The Secret History of the War on Cancer” to my oncologist this morning to suggest he read it. It’s where I found some of my answers to how I want to work with him to manage my health. Yes, they are MY answers, not the answers. But it’s also MY health and my responsibility to do everything I can, including asking the hard questions, so I can continue to only come back once a year.

While sometimes I long for the days when I believed the doctor knew best, I also know from my yoga practice, life has no absolutes (it’s probably why I fundamentally believe in yoga as its truths pop up everywhere – no faith required). On the flip side, I’m thrilled to no longer be so close to my initial diagnosis that I fear the delay in the doctor coming to my exam room means something was found in my blood work.

In these 17 years being cancer free, I’ve been able to figure out why this happened physically and emotionally. As a result, I’ve put more faith in the Universe and myself, especially as my common sense, knowledge and hunches seem to years later, be confirmed by scientific research. However, the more you learn, the more you realize you don’t know. So I’ll continue co-pilot my health with my doctor, finding some sort of balance that I hope, continues to tip in my favor.

September Newsletter

It’s September 1 and I’m curious how we got here. Seriously. What a bullet train of a year it’s been. Somehow it got to be August and I realized, “Wow, I haven’t had one week of vacation all year!”  That’s how consumed I have been with all that I’ve been juggling.

Fall is a time to reflect and refocus. For those ready to finally lose weight for good and ditch their dieting drama, my September teleclass will be about what the dieting industry doesn’t want you to know and the proven, scientific weight loss formula that those 5 percent of people who do keep weight off, including myself and my clients, know that you don’t. All the details are here. It’s going to be life-changing.

To give you an idea of some of the success I’ve had with the approach I’ll be discussing on this call, check out a former client of mine Sera’s story here . It will inspire you to really look behind your dieting drama.

This month I’m taking a break from debunking myths and hours of writing, researching and witticisms. I’m a little tapped out from an e-book I’m writing for my summer grad course on sustainability which point to our industrial food system as the largest contributor to global warming. Yep, before you get smug over your hybrid and recyling habits, look at your fork.  More details to come about when that will be available. In the meantime, support your local farmers!

I’ll resume in October with my view on crappy health information that you need not digest. For now, I am just going to be. Because I write this newsletter a couple of weeks in advance, I want and need my one week of summer vacation which allows me to be “unplugged”. I’m recycling some blog posts to keep you on your toes and engaged in some of the most important health topics of our day.

If you are only going to read one, please read the conservative view on health-care reform written by Dr. Andrew Weil. It’s important because if we adopted true conservative reform (not what’s being peddled as conservative!), the system wouldn’t be overburdened or overpriced. Everyone could have access to quality care and we’d actually have a health-care system worth fighting for. Life would really be so simple if some people would just play nice in the sandbox and share!

A view of REAL conservative health-care reform

Be Patriotic with your Fork

Before you go hating on Michael Vick

Exhale. I’ve had to do that a lot lately as I feel people have become particularly judgmental, especially without a whole lot of facts. I guess it’s a survival technique – and so is rest, relaxation and unplugging! So rest assured, I’ll be back in October fired up all over again.

Bring on fall and dem Stillers (for those not from Pittsburgh, that’s how they say it in Pittsburgh. It’s not a typo)!

Ali

It’s time to stop hiding and start living

I am on vacation this week and have a testimonial in place of a blog entry. It’s from a former client Sera. She’s wicked smart, focused and fearless, although she didn’t always know that until life tested her with a Desmoid tumor. She took the challenge, is recovering spectacularly and is now running to help others who have Desmoid tumors in the upcoming Philadelphia Distance Run (PDR).

Her story is below. I know marketing gurus tell you testimonials are only supposed to be a formuliac paragraph, but if you’ve ever struggled with your weight, body or food, you can learn so much from Sera’s story. She’s a fiesty young woman who makes you believe people are kind, honest and trying to be their best. I didn’t edit a thing. It’s all straight from the heart, and a very big and courageous one at that.

“The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own.” ~ Benamin Disraeli

There are many people who’ve come in and out of my life in the 27 years, but  very few have touched me like Ali. I still am not sure how Ali came into my life or how I was so fortunate to gain such a valuable friend, but I know one thing for sure – I will forever live a better, stronger, happier life because of her influence.

When I first met Ali I had no idea that she would become such an influence on me. I would venture to guess that many would not know what kind of caring, knowledgeable and charismatic person lives inside that 5’4”, petite frame.

After our first consultation I knew I had met someone that understood me – finally! Someone could speak to my innermost fears and help me answer questions that I had spent 27 years hiding from. I remember leaving our first meeting so light and free with so much hope, something I had not had in a long time when it came to my body.

I reached out to Ali because I had a tormented relationship with food and my body and I was so tired from it. I had spent 27 years starving myself, binging, purging, over-exercising, winning and losing my every day battle with food and my body. I knew I had to stop this battle, but I had no idea where to start.

I was skeptical when I first met Ali. It’s true she was a jolt of light and inspiration that I needed in my life, but she asked me to do things I had been utterly opposed to for years of my life: drink whole milk (no way: skim = slim), get off artificial sweeteners (and just how am I supposed to drink my coffee??), try new vegetables (hello, I eat so many fruits and veggies – how could you possibly show me anything new)? I did not follow  every idea she gave me right away and it took weeks (and months) for some things to sit well with me.

But that’s the special thing about Ali – I have never met a more patient, yet politely persistent, ‘I know what I am talking about and can give you more info if you want it’ individual then Ali. During the process of working through some very difficult patterns in my life, that I learned were the foundation of these eating problems, Ali unwearyingly sat on the sidelines and was my coach, interjecting just the right cheers when I needed a push, but letting me blaze my own path to set myself free. With Ali’s encouragement, wisdom and patience I have set myself free.

I have become a new, courageous individual that not only has a positive relationship with food, but I have become a woman with a little more hope, a little more faith and a lot more patience. Ali came into my life to help me transform my relationship with food, but she did so much more than that. Sure, she got me drinking whole milk, preaching to others when they use artificial sweeteners (you would really put that in your body?!), picking up kale and bok choy every time I go to Whole Foods (yes – there are many, many greens and veggies I knew nothing about), but more importantly Ali showed me how to trust myself, be patient with my body instead of torturing myself, be aware and accepting of life and the “mistakes” I make or challenges I face and learn from them.

I never anticipated how important the lessons she taught me would impact my life and how quickly I would reap the benefits. Several months after I started working with Ali and began to break down the walls I had so meticulously built around food and my body image a routine doctors appointment turned my world upside down when I found out that I had a tumor in my abdominal wall.

For a girl that lived and breathed, nutrition and exercise and how I looked, the news of this tumor and the accompanying surgery that I would need to go through to have it removed was the biggest, darkest nightmare I had faced in my life. Thank my lucky stars that I had Ali as a part of my support system during this process.

Her faith, hope, support, nutritional and meditative advice through the diagnosis, surgery, and recovery were nothing short of amazing. From pre-surgery meditations, to post surgery healing recipes and to recovery chats of confidence (not to mention a heroic realization during this whole process that I had a horrible gluten intolerance) Ali was a friend, mentor, health coach and ray of light. I may never figure out how she came in my life and how she joined me on my journey at just the right time, but I will forever be changed because she was a part of it.

Thank you Ali, for being you, for always having hope, for sticking by me when I wanted to give up and for believing I had a beautiful, promising future waiting for me – you were right and I am forever grateful. ~Sera S. Philadelphia, PA

To donate for the research on Desmoid tumors and help support Sera during the PDR, click here: www.active.com/donate/sera_dtrf

Is nothing sacred anymore?

They say never to talk politics or religion, especially if you are in business for yourself. Considering I’m in the holistic health field, that is tricky. Food and health care are all about politics. Spirituality (not religion but along the same vein) is something intrinsically tied to well-being and a personal fascination of mine. On top of all this, I grew up in family where we regularly discussed world affairs as my Dad is and has always been his own self-constructed news center – reading, listening and watching anything he can get his hands on.

And, I just happen to have a big mouth.

So while I’ve never been good at shying away from controversial topics, I was always told and thought sports were a safe spot. It’s especially easy when you hail from Pittsburgh, the city of Champions. I love the Steelers and who doesn’t? But now comes along Michael Vick and his signing with the Eagles. Seems I’m doomed.

Despite there being plenty of other athletes who have done equally reprehensible things, this seems to be the controversy that won’t go away here in Philly, kind of like Vick himself. And while I’m not sure how I feel about the entire situation, I KNOW many people support animal cruelty everyday with the food they eat, the pharmaceuticals they use and even as Alex Baldwin pointed out in a recent blog, the cars they purchase as live animals are used by some Detroit car makers for testing.

So while it’s easy to point the finger at Vick, and rightfully so, I believe a more constructive route would be to be the change we want to see in the world and start making more humane decisions ourselves.

I think Peter Singer, the founder of animal rights,  said it best in an article with the Philadelphia Inquirer, “…people who are very quick to jump on Michael Vick maybe could spend some time thinking about how they participate in the cruelty to animals just by walking into the supermarket, spend some time thinking about what happened to that animal before it was turned into meat. There are pigs, probably millions, on factory farms,” he said, “who are having a worse time than Michael Vick’s dogs. That’s what I find a little incongruous about the response to what he did.”

He goes on to discuss how cruel pigs are treated but for some reason, people care more about dogs. And given my own knowledge in this field, I know it’s not just pigs who are abused in the food industry. It’s every animal you eat that is at your favorite fast food joint, most restaurants and in your grocery store. If it isn’t organically, pasture/grass-fed or raised on a small farm, it’s probably been inhumanely treated.

I’m not saying don’t eat meat. I do myself. But I pay the extra couple of dollars at my farmers market because I know the animal has been raised humanely and in a win-win, tastes better and is healthier for me.

So if you are outraged with the whole Vick situation, remember that cheap meat is all about profit too. And here’s what you can do to be part of the solution and not the problem, in terms of food purchases:

1. Go see Food, Inc.

2. Read or watch Fast Food Nation

3. Purchase meat from your farmers market or meat labeled grass-fed, pasture-raised or organic.

4. Stop eating fast food and at restaurants that don’t offer humanely treated  meat

5. Become a Steeler fan