Healing Cancer: How Your Emotions are Essential to Recovery

Fear, Anxiety, and Thanklessness – A Sure-fire Prescription for a FAT Midsection

Most people consider me an expert in restoring and maintaining health using diet and lifestyle approaches. My “claims to fame” are my in-depth knowledge of nutrition and biochemistry, and my program effectiveness for restoring balance to achieve vibrant health and energy.

Countless people come to me for advice, wondering why they are still overweight and ill, in spite of eating a healthy diet.

How Stress May Supersize You

While I can usually find things to tweak in clients’ diets, and I can recommend herbs or natural nutrition supplements to restore balance, we’re fighting an uphill battle if we ignore the role of stress, negative emotions, and worry; your health, energy level, AND weight are all affected.

On a past radio show, Your Muscles May be Making You Fat, I explored in detail the mechanism by which stress and worry contribute to belly bulge, and I encourage you to listen for details.

In summary, fear, worry, stressful thoughts and situations, and negative emotions trigger the release of cortisol and adrenaline from your adrenal glands. This hormone release triggers a series of fight or flight mechanisms that cause your liver and muscles to release sugar into your blood. Normally, this release would ready you for your “chase” or “escape”.

But what also happens, and this is the troubling part when it happens frequently, is that your insulin is also triggered to rise, so the sugar in the blood can be absorbed by your cells and fuel them to flight or fight. Keep in mind, that extra sugar in your blood would normally get used. Unfortunately, when your stresses are mental, you can’t burn all the released sugar. Insulin, in following through with its job of maintaining healthy blood sugar levels, causes the sugar to be put back into storage… as white adipose tissues, whose main receptors are – you guessed it – right around your belly.

I discuss more details concerning insulin, its role, and insulin resistance in Video 1, of the 5-part Bye-Bye Belly Fat, Brain Fog, and Burnout video series.

When you get stressed over situations that are beyond your control – like fires, earthquakes, hurricanes, traffic, other people’s attitudes – you are creating the perfect environment not only for “turning your muscles into fat” but for injuring your insides and setting yourself up for diseases. The three most serious and very common sequelae [secondary conditions] to chronic stress are the BIG 3: Heart disease, Cancer and Diabetes.

If achieving a slim trim body and keeping yourself safe from “the Big 3″ aren’t enough motivation to get a handle on stress, there’s more.

A Change of Heart Can Mean a Change in Dress Size

Your thoughts and emotions impact others around you, both those in close proximity and those far away.

Let me explain.

Research at the Institute of HeartMath has confirmed that your thoughts and emotions affect your heart rate variability (HRV). When you’re calm, HRV, when graphed, looks like a nice even sine wave and when you’re frustrated or angry, worried or anxious, it’s erratic and spikey. Notice the difference in the graphs to the right.

The smooth wave pattern is associated with ideal blood pressure, clear thinking, proper metabolic function and overall well being. The other pattern hallmarks disease, dysfunction, resistant weight loss and a host of other serious metabolic disruptions.

This article on the HeartMath website gives all the details, and it also takes you step-by-step through a couple of their techniques for restoring balance:

http://www.alternativeworldwidehealth.com/files/Heartmath_Stress_chapter.pdf

According to HeartMath:

In my Mend Your Metabolism & Maximize Your Vitality webinar, I will take you step-by-step through one of the HeartMath processes for Transforming Stress so you can feel for yourself the effects of being in a state they refer to as “coherence”.

It’s an amazing feeling and you too can learn it. In my 30-day B4 Be Gone program, I guide my patients and students through daily practice of this technique, and send them daily reminders and a recording of me guiding them through the process.

Join us on the webinar to get yourself started.

Get Slim, Stress-free, and Save the World

So now for the really amazing, almost unbelievable finding.

YOU have more power than you think over the state of the world, the energy in the room, and the stressful feelings of others.

Hear me out on this one…

When two people with different HRV patterns come into each other’s energy fields, the HRV’s tend to synchronize, and the strongest field prevails. This has been measured by the institute of HeartMath researchers on medical equipment!

By practicing the HeartMath technique called Quick Coherence several times a day, with as little a time investment as 5 minutes a day, you’ll become proficient at changing your emotional state and the HRV’s of others with whom you come into contact.

How cool is that?

And when you practice their more advanced technique, called Heart Lock-in, you actually practice deliberately projecting your energy out into the room. To master Heart Lock-in takes a bit more time, 15 minutes about 3-4 times a week!

When natural disasters like fire and flood strike, the natural tendency is to feel victimized. That puts you into the “triple P emotional state” that has been shown to be the most damaging of all… powerlessness, pessimism, and pervasive worry.

It’s times like these that we need to band together energetically and send positive thoughts, prayers, and uplifting energy to those whose lives are affected. Imagine the effect of thousands of people all over the world projecting their positive energy field! According to the above aforementioned article from the Institute of HeartMath (which I highly recommend you read in its entirety), “positive thinking” without accompanying positive feelings usually only provides temporary relief from emotional distress. Whereas the activation of positive emotions is more likely to transform the stress at its source.

According to Joe Vitale, author of The Attractor Factor, “there are over 25 scientific studies that prove when a group of people meditate together, they can change their surroundings — just by getting settled inside.”

Dr. Vitale lives not too far from where I live, just outside of Austin, and he sent out a plea for help with getting the fires under control through the power of positive emotion.

I’ve printed his entire letter on my blog, where Joe tells of his experience with this process when Hurricane Rita threatened Austin a few years back.

Whether you believe Dr. Vitale’s account of changing the course of natural events or not, there’s no disputing the positive effect of appreciation and love on your own chemistry and that of those around you. Lots of studies at www.heartmath.org support this.

So, what do you have to lose?

Even if you think it’s goofy, it can’t hurt and it will change your own emotions and your internal well-being.

So take a deep breath… find that place of peace inside yourself where you know all is well. Access that area of inner calm…and then just feel the fires going out; imagine the hurricanes heading out to sea; envision the earth’s core relaxing; and perceive that all the people affected are safe, sound, and protected.

Stop, breathe, focus, pray, or in some positive way send out an energy that will help dissolve the fear.
It’s your way of making a difference in the face of disaster, even if you can’t send lots of money or travel to the scene to help.

Check out the book Unconditional Bliss by Howard Cushnir. He says you can find happiness in the face of hardship.

And in the words of Joe Vitale, “… be happy, right now. Smile. Send that loving energy out, in the direction of Texas.

Intend for all to be well, for, in reality, all is well.”

Joe Vitale: Let Your Thoughts and Love Rain on Austin

- by Joe Vitale
- reprinted from http://www.attractmiracles.com/

Years ago I wrote an e-mail asking people to help me stop Rita, the hurricane that geared up right after Katrina.  I advised people to stop and send love and prayers to the hurricane; to dilute their own fear, find faith, and be a source of peace.  Rita did in fact drop from a category 5 hurricane to a category 2. When it finally blew through my area, it didn’t even rain.

Well, I’m asking for your help with the fires burning around the Austin area. I know it may seem goofy to some, but there are over 25 scientific studies that prove when a group of people meditate together, they can change their surroundings — just by getting settled inside.

I’m asking you and everyone else reading this to send love, light, prayer, positive thoughts and maybe even rain.  I am asking for the most benevolent outcome in this situation.  I’m asking you to sit, get quiet, and in whatever way you can imagine it, see the fires going out, and see people safe, sound, happy and healthy.  I’m asking you to help me clean on this outer reality representing an inner imbalance.

Together, we can do this.

Obviously, real people need to do real things to help control and extinguish these fires, but we can help them by being a source of calm.

I’m not asking for money or muscle; just your concentrated focus so we can attract a preferred outcome.

Will you help me?

Just take a deep breath… find that place of peace inside yourself… that place where you know all is well… the center of the essence of you… the Witness behind it all…the power source that is all love…

Get to that area of inner calm…

…and then just feel the fires going out… and people safe… and all is well….

That’s all I’m asking you to do.

Love,

Joe Vitale

PS – Excerpts for the original e-mail about hurricane Rita

I’m not saying ignore the storm warnings. I’m saying don’t get caught up in the fear that the warnings often trigger.

Look. If you think the storm will get you, then it’s already gotten you. You’re living in fear. Your life is dark, gloomy and in a cage. The media is flawless at whipping us into fear. So I suggest ignoring the media. It’s not information, it’s propaganda. It gets large groups of people to think negative, which of course then becomes reality.

Why can’t we do the opposite?

Why can’t we get large groups of people to think positive? At this very moment, as I type this and you read this, all is well. Isn’t it? Aren’t you ok? Aren’t you feeling fine right now? Yes, be sure to have batteries and water and supplies.

But also check the storehouse in your mind. Are you living in fear, or living in trust? Are you focused on the negative, or are you doing something to create a positive?

We are all, always, at choice. Happiness is a choice.

http://www.attractmiracles.com/

Thyroid Issues: What’s Really Leaving You Feeling Flabby, Foggy, and Fatigued!

- by Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo

Thyroid imbalance can leave you feeling flabby, foggy, fatigued and unfocused because your thyroid gland rules your metabolic rate.

Fatigue is a huge part of thyroid imbalance… and not just general fatigue either. Did you know that your organs and glands can suffer from fatigue? Your skin and immune system can too.

When you turn down the internal metabolic furnace and burn your fuel more slowly, the inevitable result is weight gain or the inability to easily shed your extra pounds. Generally, this slow-down is accompanied by a feeling of exhaustion, but not always.

Often the “exhaustion” is at a cellular level. When your skin is tired, you get outbreaks and slow wound healing. When your digestion becomes sluggish, you may experience constipation or indigestion. A fatigued immune system can’t adequately protect you from microbes and starts to attack itself. And a worn out liver is unlikely to be efficient at eliminating toxins.

While fatigue and exhaustion can have many causes, an underactive thyroid is a very common one. And what most people don’t realize is that most hypothyroidism (about 80%) is caused by an autoimmune process. Which, incidentally, means the real cause of your fatigue and weight gain has nothing to do with your thyroid.  The thyroid gland is just an innocent bystander in the war that’s raging in your immune system, for it’s your immune system that creates antibodies that attack the thyroid and make it malfuntion.  So simply replacing thyroid hormon without fixing your immune system does not solve the problem.

Learn all about thyroid function, testing, and a few tips to restore balance on my video here. It’s best to identify autoimmune thyroid problems early on, before your thyroid is completely destroyed. And the best way to do that is to balance your immune system. We’ll discuss that more in the new 5-part video series Bye-Bye Belly Fat, Brainfog, and Burnout, so be sure to sign-up and follow the series!

Join the program here:

http://www.B4BGone.com

Explanations and Exclamations for “Belly Fat, Brain Fog, and Burnout!”

If you’ve been following our newsletter or if you subscribe to the blog, then you’ll know we’ve been focusing on helping people fight fat, fog, and fatigue.  Dr. Ritamarie’s brand new 5-part FREE Video Series Bye-Bye Belly Fat, Brain Fog, and Burnout was juuuust released on Friday and it’s already receiving an overwhelming response of comments and subscribers. 

To see why the buzz has been so exciting, Click HERE!

How to Fix Your Fat, Fog, and Fatigue:

While many people want to change their lifestyle, so many have struggled to find long-term success because the programs they attempt to follow fail to address the underlying conditions that created the weight gain, cloudy thinking, and energy drain in the first place.  This series puts a spotlight on the biochemical individual reactions that may be occurring in your body.

Every other day or so, until the final Webinar on September 7th, 2011, a new video in the series will be released including:

• Video #1: 3 NOT-So-Sexy Hormone Imbalances
• Video #2: The Dangers that Lurk Around Your Midline: Balance Your Blood Sugar Naturally
• Video #3: Breaking Through the Fog
• Video #4: Quenching the Fire of Burnout
• Video #5: B4 it’s Too Late!
• Webinar: Mend Your Metabolism and Maximize Your Vitality! 
  • Including bonuses such as Breakthroughs that Balance and Foods that Flatten Your Belly, Focus your Mind, and Fight Fatigue!

Even though ONLY TWO videos have been released so far, it’s exciting to see the comments and stories that are already being shared:

Comments on Video #1: 3 NOT-So-Sexy Hormone Imbalances:

• I am so thrilled to be hearing what you are sharing about hormones, cortisol, adrenal glands, thyroid, growth hormone and brain fog/belly fat!!! The DC I am seeing recently told me the same thing you reviewed in this video and right now I’m taking natural ways to clear my liver and getting rid of cortisol thru exercise. Your explanation of eating… is something he did not mention, he didn’t go into the growth hormone aspect of it all yet, so I am thankful to have a heads-up on this so I can put this into practice also! What a blessing to learn this, and you put everything into such easy-to-understand terminology…good thing since brain fog can make things a little bit harder to absorb at times LOL! Thank you so much!!!  - Stacy
• Dr Ritamarie:
  Thank you for all the information. You explain things in a way that is so very easy to understand. I always learn something new when I listen to your classes. As someone who just stopped taking cortisone, what I learn in your Webinars is priceless in helping me regain fantastic health. I am looking forward to the rest of the series.
  Muchas gracias,  - Beatriz

You can read these and see all the comments when you sign up here and open the link to Video #1!

Video #2 was just released a few hours ago and already we’re receiving feedback.

Comments on The Dangers that Lurk Around Your Midline:

• I was very glad to receive this notice from you for these online courses. My doctor is the standard “eat less, excercise more” type, but with little guidance. I have hypothyroidism, sleep apnea, osteo-arthritis (one hip replacement), Factor V Leiden (genetic blood clotting disorder, overweight… I identify with all the symptoms; I am supposed to have the other hip replaced, but, the doctors want me to lose weight, of course to eliminate a risk factor, understandably. I haven’t felt like myself in many years… I am now 63. I have looked into “raw foods”, but don’t seem to fully get onto it… hunger wins out. BUT, I am open….. still… bring it on. – Sheryl

You can share YOUR comments when you sign up here.  You’ll have instant access to both Video #1 and Video #2!

We all know some people are more ready than others for natural lifestyle changes.  While excess belly fat, brain fog, and burnout may seem like superficial conditions, they can be symptoms of more serious illness. Dr. Ritamarie recently lost some close family members to conditions that could have been addressed through a better understanding of how the body works and the underlying causes of disease.  This 5-part video series is her free gift of education to the world to prevent others from suffering.

We hope you’ll share it with those you know.  Let’s help spread education instead of midlines!

Click HERE to watch the free 5-part series, Bye-Bye Belly Fat, Brain Fog, and Burnout!