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Showing posts with the label health

The Body's Keepers by Paul Kimmel, M.D.

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The Body's Keepers by Paul L. Kimmel, M.D. narrated by Lane Hakel From a medical standpoint, this book is quite interesting.  Does it give you information on how to help yourself if you have kidney issues?  No, it does not.  However, it does a great job of detailing the function of the kidneys, the past and current available treatments, as well as the ramifications of a capitalistic medical machine has on the treatment of patients. Dr. Kimmel uses medical cases and personal accounts to help you understand the ramifications of kidney disease on your health and finances.  Living with kidney disease is not an easy undertaking.  I am currently at stage 3a of chronic kidney disease.  This means that my kidneys are not functioning to the capacity that they are supposed to be.  This book helped open my eyes to what it truly means to have CKD and its effects on my body.  You don't really realize how much is affected by your kidneys not functioning at a normal level.   I was able to lea

#Phytopia Slimway

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    The first thing I noticed when I opened the bottle was the wonderful scent.  I have been working with essential oils for quite a while now.  Some blends are overpowering and do not have a pleasant smell.  This has a great aroma and is not too strong.  Plus the blend of carrier oils didn't leave me feeling greasy like some of them do.  This one absorbed into my skin and left it feeling soft afterwards. I did notice a huge drop in my appetite after I started using it.  And as an added bonus, grapefruit essential oil also helps with mental clarity and overall energy.  So I felt that it helped me in things other than just curbing my hunger. You can order a bottle from Amazon at:  http://www.amztk.com/weight-loss-essential-oil Disclaimer:  I received this product free in exchange for an honest  and unbiased review.  I did not receive any form of compensation.

Visualization for Weight Loss

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  Description In Visualization for Weight Loss, Jon Gabriel expands on the most talked about tool in his best-selling book, The Gabriel Method: visualization. This powerful technique helped Jon drop 220 pounds without dieting or deprivation because it didn’t depend on calorie counting or extreme exercise—rather it changed his biochemistry and neural pathways. In turn, this helped lower stress and its associated inflammatory chemicals in his body, allowing him to lose weight easily and naturally. Examining the importance of visualizing for weight loss, Jon takes readers through the latest research on the power of the mind in order to show why this technique works. And then he lays out concrete, unintimidating advice about how to implement visualization into their lives. In addition to teaching readers how to move into the most powerful brain state for enacting change, Jon includes visualizations to help readers:   Overcome disempowering beliefs surrounding food and we

The Doctor On Demand Diet

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  Description People succeed at weight loss when they follow a diet plan that is personalized specifically for them. One way to get a custom-designed eating and exercise plan is to meet weekly with a nutrition professional—but that’s not practical for everyone. Instead, with "The Doctor on Demand Diet," readers can create their own personal diet plan. A companion to the highly popular Doctor on Demand tele-medicine app, "The Doctor on Demand Diet" leads readers through a series of steps that allow them to personalize their own successful weight-loss plan. It takes their individual lifestyle into account and creates a weight-loss program that is most likely to work for them. With a program that fits perfectly into readers’ lives, "The Doctor on Demand Diet" provides an easy-to-follow, customizable road map that can help readers lose weight and keep it off long-term. The book is useful on its own or as a valuable add-on to the experience of communicati

Weight Loss For People Who Feel Too Much

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Description From internationally renowned intuitive counselor, life coach, motivational speaker, and author Colette Baron-Reid, a four-step, eight-week program for managing empathy overload--the hidden cause of unwanted weight gain Through her own personal experience and work with thousands of clients, Colette Baron-Reid understands the real reason many of us struggle to lose weight and keep it off. It isn't that we don't know what to eat or that we don't have enough willpower; it's that we are responding to feeling too much. Weight Loss for People Who Feel Too Much focuses on the keys to weight loss for sensitive people: managing empathy, setting and maintaining healthy boundaries, eating to support well-being, and dealing with challenging situations that can trigger disordered eating. With a simple, practical program, Colette shows you how to release the extra pounds and create a new, healthy relationship with your body, your weight, and food. Review One thing

Yoga Meditation

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Description “All yoga practices are preparation for focusing the mind during meditation,” notes renowned yogi Stephen Sturgess. In his new book, Sturgess demonstrates how to use a wide range of yoga meditation practices as a portal to higher consciousness. Initial chapters explain what yoga meditation is and why it is so useful in our busy, modern lives. Here, Sturgess gives insight into the Eight Limbs of Yoga (an established approach to the successive stages of yoga) and enlightens us on the workings of our internal energy system – all of which lay the foundation for a deeper understanding of the practices to come. Sturgess then guides us through the key seated meditation postures and a range of helpful mudras (hand gestures) and bandhas (energetic seals) before going on to offer clear, step-by-step guidance on a wide choice of the most effective yoga postures, purification practices, breathing exercises and meditation techniques to still the mind and awaken the inner spirit. In t

Full Catastrophe Living

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Description Stress. It is everywhere around us. Even worse, it gets inside us: sapping our energy, undermining our health, and making us more vulnerable to anxiety, depression, and disease. Now, based on Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn’s renowned mindfulness-based stress reduction program, this groundbreaking book shows you how to use natural, medically proven methods to soothe and heal your body, mind, and spirit. By using the practices described within, you can learn to manage chronic pain resulting from illness and/or stress related disorders…discover the roles that anger and tension play in heart disease… reduce anxiety and feelings of panic…improve overall quality of life and relationships through mindfulness meditation and mindful yoga. More timely than ever before , Full Catastrophe Living is a book for the young and the old, the well, the ill, and anyone trying to live a healthier and saner life in today’s world. Jon Kabat-Zinn , Ph.D ., is the founding director of the Stress Reduction

My Brother My Sister

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Description A feminist film critic’s thoughtful, outspoken memoir about transgender and family On a visit to New York, the brother of well-known film critic Molly Haskell dropped a bombshell: Nearing age sixty, and married, he had decided to become a woman. In the vein of Jan Morris’s classic Conundrum and Jennifer Finney Boylan's She's Not There, a transgender memoir, Haskell’s My Brother My Sister gracefully explores a delicate subject, this time from the perspective of a family member. Haskell chronicles her brother Chevey’s transformation through a series of psychological evaluations, grueling surgeries, drug regimens, and comportment and fashion lessons as he becomes Ellen. Despite Haskell’s liberal views on gender roles, she was dumbfounded by her brother’s decision. With candor and compassion, she charts not only her brother’s journey to becoming her sister, but also her own path from shock, confusion, embarrassment, and devastation to acceptance, empathy, and love.

Crazy life

I am sorry if anyone has emailed me lately and I haven't had a chance to respond.  Things have been really hectic here. And when things are slowed down for those rare moments, I have just been trying to relax.  That is a little hard to do considering. For those of you who do not know, I was just diagnosed with uterine cancer.  I had my first visit with the oncologist last week.  They have already set me up for surgery on September 23rd.  So right now I am running around trying to get everything done that needs to be done before the surgery. After the surgery, I will be in the hospital a few days.  I plan on taking my kindle and getting as much reading done as possible.  However, I am betting that I won't be able to concentrate enough to read.  I was told to expect to be getting morphine or dilaudid after the surgery.  So I will probably be in la-la land afterwards.  I would rather be in Nora Roberts Land though. I am trying to do some reading before in order to get some posts u

Knocking on Heaven's Door

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Description In this visionary memoir, based on a groundbreaking New York Times Magazine story, award-winning journalist Katy Butler ponders her parents’ desires for “Good Deaths” and the forces within medicine that stood in the way. Katy Butler was living thousands of miles from her vigorous and self-reliant parents when the call came: a crippling stroke had left her proud seventy-nine-year-old father unable to fasten a belt or complete a sentence. Tragedy at first drew the family closer: her mother devoted herself to caregiving, and Butler joined the twenty-four million Americans helping shepherd parents through their final declines. Then doctors outfitted her father with a pacemaker, keeping his heart going but doing nothing to prevent his six-year slide into dementia, near-blindness, and misery. When he told his exhausted wife, “I’m living too long,” mother and daughter were forced to confront a series of wrenching moral questions. When does death stop being a curse and become

The Waiting Game

I have never really been a patient person.  Now more then ever. So here I sit, waiting.  Waiting to find out if my life will irrevocably change.  I already know that no matter what the diagnosis, I will still require surgery.  It's just whether or not I will receive the big C diagnosis.  I am so scared right now.  One of the worst things is that the sister I live with won't let me just be scared and cry it out.  That is what I need.  The only time I can do that is when she isn't around.  Otherwise, she tells me that I am being silly.  That I just need to think positive.  That everything will turn out fine.  WELL, I'm sorry if I am human and knowing that I might have cancer is completely freaking me out.  I'm sorry if me showing that I have emotions is the wrong thing to do.  Why can't she just let me express how I feel instead of repress it?  I just really need a shoulder to cry on.  Unfortunately, I just don't have one. My best friend hasn't been around

Life update

It's been awhile since I have written a blog post giving an update on my life and my health. Things have been pretty crazy here.  My health has been in a really steep decline.  In fact, I have been in the hospital already twice this year.  Both times I needed blood transfusions due to severe anemia.  Come to find out that one of my medicines was actually exacerbating my problems.  So I can either continue to take the medicine and have issues with one problem or not take the medicine and have issues because of another problem.  It just seems like I can't win. I had a biopsy about a week and a half ago.  I go for the results on Friday.  I certainly hope that it isn't the big C.  Too many in my family have been taken because of that disease.  I don't want to be added to that number. Even if it isn't cancer, they are still planning on doing surgery to remove the issue.  So I will be in the hospital for almost a week post op.  Maybe more if I end up needing more blood. 

Go Out and Play!

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Book Description   Go outside and play! Here, at your fingertips, are how to's for more than seventy best-loved games, all set to spread the fun of active play to kids of all ages. Do you know how to draw a hopscotch grid? What’s the silliest challenge in the game of sardines? How do you keep from being "out" in SPUD? Is there any way to escape the blob? This lively, infectious guide to games runs the gamut from classic to contemporary: kick the can, freeze tag, blindman’s bluff, red light green light, four square, duck duck goose, and so many more. It’s all sparked by KaBOOM!, a nonprofit with a passion for creating outdoor play spaces nationally and around the world. For KaBOOM!, play is serious business! So this guide also includes tips for adults on how to encourage and facilitate outdoor play as well as a wealth of resources on how to help create more play spaces in your own community.   Book Review   There were tons of great outdoor games to play

The Disease of More

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Book Description   The Disease of More chronicles the childhood, young adulthood and current life experiences of Eleanor R., a woman who overcame great odds to recover from the diseases of alcoholism and food addiction. It is the true story of one woman's journey toward becoming the person she always wanted to be, despite her disadvantaged upbringing and her early affliction with addictions that took her to places of extreme shame and humiliation. Eleanor is every woman who struggles with self medication through food, alcohol and things. She is a mother, a wife, an influential public servant in one of the largest states in the nation, but still, after 25 years, she must get up each day and be vigilant against slipping back into cravings and her fears that she does not have enough. This book is an inspiring story of surrender and ultimate victory. Every reader will discover nuggets of Eleanor's hard-won wisdom that drive home the truth of her journey and the triumph of her

Spontaneous Happiness

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Book Description   Everyone wants to be happy. But what does that really mean? Increasingly, scientific evidence shows us that true satisfaction and well-being come only from within. Dr. Andrew Weil has proven that the best way to maintain optimum physical health is to draw on both conventional and alternative medicine. Now, in Spontaneous Happiness, he gives us the foundation for attaining and sustaining optimum emotional health. Rooted in Dr. Weil's pioneering work in integrative medicine, the book suggests a reinterpretation of the notion of happiness, discusses the limitations of the biomedical model in treating depression, and elaborates on the inseparability of body and mind. Dr. Weil offers an array of scientifically proven strategies from Eastern and Western psychology to counteract low mood and enhance contentment, comfort, resilience, serenity, and emotional balance. Drawn from psychotherapy, mindfulness training, Buddhist psychology, nutritional science, and mo

Chakra7 System

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Website Review   Carol Tuttle has amassed a wonderful array of knowledge on her website.  There are articles, meditations, and various other things to help balance the chakras. However, the meat & potatoes of the website is truly her Chakra7 System.  This system helps the user work through each Chakra independently in order to release blockages.  As an experienced Spiritual Healer, I have to say that the information presented was excellent.  Each Chakra section has a workbook, a transcript of the videos so you can read along, several videos to watch, and even a script for you to read to help clear the blockages.  In the videos, Carol discusses what each chakra affects, how it can become blocked and what you can do to unblock it.  There are so many modalities to chose from when watching the videos.  She shows how you can use breathing, yoga, crystals, EFT, RET, colors, and many others in order to help yourself.  One tiny complaint that I have is that the video is grainy

The 17 Day Diet Cookbook

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Book Description   As a family practice physician and an advocate of preventive health, I believe healthy food can still be wonderful. I refuse to accept that a diet has to involve going to extremes or that diet food has to taste like cardboard. It doesn’t! It just has to be thoughtfully prepared, in a reasonable amount of time, and taste incredibly good. That’s the kind of food you’ll find in this book. I know you want meals that are quick and healthy. You want them to taste wonderful, you want them to help you lose weight, and you want them now! Seems like a tall order, but that’s what these recipes deliver. I encourage you to try several of these recipes each week to reap the benefits. Maybe the Tuscan Pork Tenderloin will become a new favorite, or the Mexican Chocolate Pudding can take over as your go-to dessert. Maybe you’ll love the Curried Poached Halibut or start making Oven-Barbecued Chicken all year round. Just start with a cycle’s worth of meals, and do it. Having th

Unjunk Your Junk Food #unjunkyourjunkfood

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Book Description   Join the edible (R)evolution! You don’t have to give up junk food to eat healthy—just make smarter choices. Discover yummy alternatives to your favorite treats. Unjunk Your Junk Food is a quick and easy guide to: • Healthy choices for the snacks you crave • Savvy alternatives to conventional brands • Tips for reading food labels and recognizing false claims • Nutritious ingredients to look for and dangerous additives to avoid • A tear-out Worst Ingredients chart, and more Now you can have your cake and eat it too! Book Review   This book was definitely an eye opener for me.  There are so many items that I buy in order to eat healthier alternatives, but these foods have additives in them that actually make them worse then some of the foods that I was trying to avoid. I first found out about this book through Naturally Savvy , the creators of the book.  They have tons of great information on their website.  And when they pointed towards this book, I just

Working It Out

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Book Description   In 2006, Abby Rike lost the life she knew and loved when her husband and two young children were killed in a car accident. Devastated and numb, she shut down. For nearly three years she walked through life like a spectre, present in body only. As she descended, so did her health. Fortunately, Abby was not alone. She had loving parents, supportive friends, and a faith that continued to sustain her. Little by little she found the courage to return to life. Joining The Biggest Loser proved a catalyst for the physical and emotional changes she needed to make. In fact, against all odds Abby gained strength, courage, wisdom, and continued her steadfast relationship with God. Instead of anger, she found herself slowly but steadily healing. She lost a hundred pounds but gained hope. In this riveting book, Abby tells her story--from her joyous life before the accident to the unbearable pain that followed it and her eventual emergence as a woman reinvigorated by her

Arnicare–Review & Giveaway

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  Product Review   Because of various health issues, I am always on the lookout for over the counter pain relief.  I HATE take pills.  So I tend to look for something topical.  I don’t want to be like my mom and smell horribly of some of the other formulas that are on the market. So that limits me greatly on what I can use.  I was just recently sent a 2.6 ounce tube of Arnicare.  It is all natural pain relief that comes in a gel.  They also have creams and pills as well. First off, I liked that it has a very pleasant mild scent.  So its definitely something that I am not embarrassed putting on and going out somewhere. Plus, it helped stop the pain rather quickly.  I was completely blown away with how fast my legs stopped hurting.  It’s a very rare day that I go without pain.  It was so nice to be able to find something that actually takes the pain away.  And not only did it take the pain away, it also relieved some of the swelling that I get in my legs.  I also loved th