Dr. Ritamarie’s Appreciation Journal Day 8 – Boost for Adrenal Fatigue

Written by Ritamarie Loscalzo

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Going into week 2 of appreciation is exciting.  Especially since today is 11/11/11!

Use the day of ones as a new beginning.  It’s also Veteran’s day here in the US, which is a day to acknowledge and appeciate those who’ve given their lives or risked their lives for our freedom.

So let’s focus on the positive effects of appreciation on your adrenals and those things effected by adrenal fatigue and  excess adrenal activity when you’re stressed.  Appreciation shifts you out of fight flight mod and into positive emotion that has the following benefits:

1. Decreases your cortisol production and prevents your blood sugars from getting too high and exposing you to the negative effects of excess insulin
2. Improves your digestion by relaxing the valves between the components of your GI tract and improving enzyme production.
3. Improves your short term memory by supporting DHEA production and preventing the destruction of hippocampus cells by cortisol.

Try it.

 

 

Join Me for 30 Days of Gratitude!

Simply go down below to the comments box and post your appreciations for the day.

You’ll be pleasantly surprised at the changes in your “energy, vim, and vigor.”

Evoke appreciation before each meal, and you’ll soon find your digestion is humming and your energy is rising.

Dr. Ritamarie’s Appreciations for Today – Day 8

1. All the lovely comments I have had and the outpouring of love I have felt since starting this appreciation journal.
2. That it’s November and the temperatures are back into the 80s!
3. The ability to buy and eat all the whole, organic food I need to keep me healthy, strong and vibrant.

I tried to focus on all the bad things that happened this week, to write down for contrast.  It was hard.  My mind just keeps focusing on what I have to be grateful for.

Go ahead, give it a try and discover the magic for yourself. Write your appreciations below.

 

Tags: Adrenal Fatigue, adrenals, appreciations, blood sugars, digestion, excess insulin, freedom, gi tract, gratitude, love
Posted in Adrenal Fatigue, Appreciation for Health, Chronic Fatigue, Chronic Stress

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Lean Summer Body Strategies and Summer Cleansing Tips

Written by Ritamarie Loscalzo

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It’s that time of year when the weather outside beckons you to enjoy outdoor activities, like swimming, gardening, lawn sports, cycling,  nature walks and picnics.  It’s especially  important this time of year  to put the healthy habits in place that nourish your tired  adrenals  and give you abundant energy so you can enjoy your favorite summer pastimes without feeling exhausted every time you exert yourself.

The sad truth is that over 50 % of people today experience fatigue so severe that even a trip to the grocery store exhausts their energy and requires a recovery nap afterward.  And 80% of women will experience adrenal fatigue at some time in their lives. That’s definitely not a pleasant condition to be in, especially if your friends and family members are encouraging you to join them in summer time fun. Unfortunately, the typical summertime celebration food served at picnics and barbecues zaps your energy and can lead to alll sorts of health consequences, like cancer, heart disease, diabetes and immune system dysfunction.  In my opinion, it’s just not worth the risk.  Yet you may be emotionally attached to your foods and the happy celebration memories that eating it stirs up. What if you could eat your favorite picnic foods and feel energized and comforted,  knowing that the ingredients  are not only safe, they are loaded with antioxidants, vitamins and minerals that energize and nourish you? It’s been a long time since I needed caffeine and sugar to energize me so I could enjoy summer activities.  I used to need stimulants to make it through the day and still crashed in the early evening.  Now I fuel myself on whole fresh food and everyone I meet comments on how energetic I am ALL the TIME! What would your life be like if you could say the same?

1) Spring Cleaning

I always do some sort of cleanse in the spring, to rid my body of any excess fat and toxins that come from spending so much time indoors during the cooler months.  I’ve done short water fasts of 5 -7 days, juice only regimes, powdered meal replacement shakes and even a modified version of the Master Cleanse, eliminating the maple syrup and using powdered greens to supplement the lemonade.  I’ve done all sorts of variations of many cleanses and even developed a few of my own. My all time favorite way to cleanse, owing to its high simplicity and satisfaction score is Green Smoothie Cleansing.  A few short years ago, I created a group Green Smoothie Cleanse and have guided hundreds of participants to increased energy, decreased brain fog and a reduction of belly fat.  I am amazed at the profound results most participants receive within just a few days.  Many are even able to reduce pain medications because their inflammation significantly decreases.  I’m leading a group cleanse in a couple of weeks and I can’t wait to experience the lightness and sense of renewal I always feel after a  7 day cleanse. The concept is quite simple, and you can can certainly do it on your own if you have the discipline and a variety of recipes.  I find that I personally need the accountability of the group experience, otherwise when those periods of desire for solid foods become strong, I crave in.  These periods don’t last long in general, so when I am accountable to the group and have regular check-ins scheduled, I sail through in spite of occasional temptations. I’ve set up the group Green Smoothie Cleanse experience so that there are 3 different options you can choose from, depending on your level of cleansing experience and your schedule.  There are daily check-in forms you can use to report your progress and get personalized feedback and this time you’ll also get extra support through a facebook chat session. To  join in the Spring 2011 Cleanse register at www.Greensmoothiecleanse.com

2) Make Delicious Nutritious Picnic and Barbeque Foods

Whenever I’m invited to summer parties, or am hosting my own, I make sure to create a few easy dishes to take along that are remakes of picnic and barbecue favorites, like mock hot dogs, burgers and potato salad and coleslaw made with a creamy nut or seed sauce instead of mayonnaise. I also cut up veggies and make delicious dip, usually including some sort of blended green vegetable and sea vegetable.For dessert, there’s the picnic tradition of watermelon and peaches, plus I add berries and cut up fruit with a yummy dipping sauce, usually made with chocolate or carob to please the kiddos. I’ll often make a seasonal fruit pie with a nut, seed or coconut based crust, like the ones in my book,  “Dessert Making it Rich Without Oil.”

The pie is simple to make.  For example, when I get lots of fresh peaches from a local farm, I slice the peaches and lay them inside the crust.  I’ll then make a sauce to hold it all together.  That can be as simple as blended peaches or possibly a different complimentary fruit like berries.  I sometimes add a couple of teaspoons of psyllium husk powder or coconut butter to thicken, and then pour the creamy sauce over the fruit and refrigerate until ready to eat.  This simple pie takes minutes to make and is usually the hit of the party. Burger substitutes can be made by putting sunflower seeds and almonds in the food processor along with vegetables.  My favorites are carrot, celery, onion and something dark green, like arugula or spinach.  Process until it begins to hold together and has the consistency of…I hate to say…chopped meat.  Season to taste and dehydrate or eat as is. Any of the bread recipes in my e-book Dried and Gone to Heaven can be formed into burger buns and even hot dog buns.  There are a few burger recipes in Dried and Gone to Heaven as well.

The bread recipes in our video course Amazing Gluten Free Living Bread can also be formed into burger and hot dog buns. And speaking of hot dogs, my dear friend, colleague and talented chef  Karen Osborne has created a hot dog recipe that has fooled many a kid.  It looks, tastes and cuts just like the real thing without all the nasty ingredients.  Now to me, eating something that tastes like a hot dog is not appealing, but for kids and kids at heart who love hot dogs, that’s great news. Karen will share her gluten free, raw food recipe for hot dogs and several others in our class “Picnic Foods and Barbeque for Gluten Free and Living Foods Diets” on May 22 .  Videos and live cast are available if you either live far away or can’t make the

I interviewed Karen on my Blog Talk Radio show and she shared the ingredients she uses and tips for making summer celebration foods.  The recording can be found at Dr Ritamarie Radio

3) Short Frequent Bursts of Exercise

My last strategy for getting and keeping in shape for summer is to incorporate short bursts of exercise throughout your day.   This can be in addition to your regular exercise program, or on busy days, in place of it.  Studies show that 30 seconds of all out intensity exercise several times a day can have the same or even better effects on your blood sugar balance as a 30 minute aerobic exercise session.  It also results in improved stress hormone balance.  Better blood sugar control and fewer cortisol spikes result in a flatter tummy.

Bonus Results of My Lean Summer Body Strategies and Summer Cleansing Tips

 

In addition to a flatter tummy and boundless energy, some of my favorite extra bonus results you’ll experience when you use these strategies for getting in shape for summer are:

• Happier mood
• Sharp focus and mental clarity so you can be more productive
• Decreased inflammation and more comfortable muscles and joints
• More efficient and painless digestion
• Improved blood lipid balance and reduced risk of heart attack

If you Have any favorite recipes to share for summer celebrations, please post them in the comment box below.  If you have a website where you offer recipes, feel free to post that too, and if your site is in alignment with mine, we’ll leave the link for all to see.

I wish you Love , health and a happy summer!!

Dr. Ritamarie

Tags: abundant energy, Adrenal Fatigue, dehydrated food, Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo, gluten free diet recipes, healthy desserts, picnic foods, raw and living foods recipes, vitamins and minerals
Posted in Adrenal Fatigue, Chronic Fatigue, Cleansing Programs, Gluten Free Diet, Gluten Free recipes, Green Smoothies, Raw and Living Foods, Raw Food Recipes, Raw Foods Diet, Reduce Belly Fat

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Energy, Exercise and Taking Care of YOU!

Written by Ritamarie Loscalzo

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Are you taking care of yourself on a deep and nurturing level DAILY?

It’s your time to SHINE with vibrant health, a flat belly, clear mind and vibrant energy.

It’s really easy to get wrapped up in all your have-to do tasks and leave out the important things that keep you energized, happy and slim.

I’m guilty of it too.  Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day, yet due to the backlog of work caused by my computer gremlins earlier in the week, I was busy catching up to meet deadlines.  Some were self-imposed deadlines, others were obligations I had made to others.  Either way, I gave up my exercise time and as I look back, I ask “was it worth it?”

Simple Strategies to Double Your Energy and Shrink your Belly Fat

Move Your Body Daily!

Last week I wrote about a BUSY PERSON’S GUIDE TO EXERCISE

I talked about burst training exercise and how much benefit you can get from 30 seconds of intense exercise.  It’s equivalent to 30 minutes of aerobics in terms of the effects on growth hormone and insulin, two key players in determining your degree of leanness vs. fatness!

Yet in spite of all my admonitions to include several 30 second bursts throughout the day, yesterday I did only 1!    It was right before bed and when I did it and I realized how much I missed out by not doing it throughout the day.  I felt alert (not necessarily a desirable thing at bedtime) and happy!  The extra 2 minutes it would have taken to do an extra 4 throughout the day would have been time well spent and would not have negatively affected my productivity!

For guidance in getting your exercise program going and flattening your tummy to boot, check out the Women Getting Fit Teleseries.

Michelle Melendez, a certified personal trainer and very dynamic personality, is going to be speaking on Friday about the “right”  way to begin an exercise program in a talk called “Three Big Mistakes You Make When Starting An Exercise Program.”

My talk on Women Getting Fit is about “How Digestion Can Make or Break Your Weight Release Efforts”

Transform Stress to Positive Self Nurturing

In addition to exercise and food, one thing that can make or break your health is your attitude and self care.  Stress is one of the leading causes of illness, fatigue and even DEATH.  Our top three killer diseases are heart disease, cancer and diabetes.  Studies abound connecting all three to the long term effects of over production of cortisol and the cascade of physiologic and biochemical reactions to it.  So not only does managing stress help you to reduce belly fat and brain fog, it helps protect you from life threatening disease.

Make Time For Doing What You LOVE

Tera Warner created the  WISH Summit as  the avenue for you to do just that with 40 days and 40 nights of inspiring interviews with experts in the field of self care.  You can take it at a relaxed pace.  There’s just one interview each day, so it’s easy to fit them in .  I listen while I work at the computer, make meals and exercise.

You have so many resources available to you to keep you on track with high energy living and vibrant health.  Take advantage of the inspiration and experience of others who’ve been there and can guide you through the challenges.

Go out and get some fresh air and sunshine, move your body, clear your mind of stressful thoughts and let me know how you feel.

Comment below and let me know what you did today to take are of YOU!

 

Love Health and Joy,

Dr. Ritamarie

Tags: Adrenal Fatigue, belly fat, brain fog, burst training, flat belly, self care, starting an exercise program, vibrant energy
Posted in Articles

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Reduce Belly Fat and Brain Fog: Adrenal Gland and Stress Connection

Written by Ritamarie Loscalzo

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7 of my favorite strategies for reducing brain fog and reducing excess belly fat were outlined in a previous post .

1. Get a handle on stress.
2. Burst exercise
3. Regulate your Blood Sugar
4. Eat a Nutrient dense diet rich in whole, raw plant foods and test nutrient levels and function regularly
5. Balance  Your Immune system, avoid allergens and eat a Gluten Free Diet
6. Get sufficient high quality  Sleep
7. Incorporate regular Cleansing and Detoxification, like a 7 day green cleanse every quarter.

Today’s post discusses getting a handle on stress to reduce belly fat and brain fog.

It should be no surprise that managing stress tops my list of brain fog and belly fat reducing strategies.

Face it.  Stress happens.  You can’t necessarily control the external circumstances.  You can control your response to them.

When you’re stressed, your adrenal glands produce adrenaline and cortisol.  Adrenaline is responsible for helping you to perform heroically, like in the story of the mom who lifts a car off her child.

Cortisol rises more slowly than adrenaline and lasts longer.

One of it’s jobs is to cause fat to be released from storage and turned into sugar…which is a very good thing if you’re running away from a tiger.   It also causes you to become more efficient at burning fat for energy – you’re not going to be able to refuel while in pursuit by a hungry animal.

Since most modern day stressors don’t require physical exertion, like getting stuck in traffic, financial concerns, an over demanding boss, or  juggling children’s activities cortisol can work to your disadvantage.   When your fat stores are released and turned into sugar, the lack of physical exertion causes your blood sugar levels to rise, which causes extra insulin to be released.  Insulin triggers the extra sugar to be converted back into fat because you don’t need it in your sedentary life.

Most of the fat is stored on your waist.

Then there’s the effect of  cortisol on your brain, explained in detail in the 7 Strategies to reduce belly fat and brain fog.

Managing your stress levels, and reducing the amount of time you spend in fight flight mode, also known as sympathetic nervous system dominance, is mandatory if you would like to reduce belly fat and brain fog.

It takes some retraining, yet I know from both personal and clinical experience that it can happen.  One of the easiest practices you can start is breathing and appreciation.

With an investment of as little as 3 minutes a day, you can create a breathing and appreciation practice that can transform the negative effects of stress to highly beneficial ones.

The best description of this is on the Heart Math website.  I’ve been employing these methods for years and have taught them to thousands of patients and clients.  The results are miraculous.

I’ve taught this technique to many patients and students with great success and even have a recorded teleseminar and work book available to guide you through it.

Other practices that can help you dissipate the negative effects of stress are yoga, meditation, massage, Reiki and tapping, also known as EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) .

It’s important that you find a method that works for YOU.  My personality and lifestyle is such that Heart Math works better for me than meditation and yoga because I need only invest small amounts of time throughout the day and I can do it while I do other things.  It’s the best technique for all of us chronic multitaskers!

The next article in this sequence is Reduce Belly Fat and Brain Fog:  Blood Sugar Level Regulation

Tags: adrenal exhaustion, Adrenal Fatigue, adrenal glands, belly fat, blood sugar levels, brain fog, cortisol, detoxification, DrRitamarie, Gluten Free Diet, immune system, insulin, loscalzo, managing stress
Posted in Adrenal Fatigue, Brain Fog, Chronic Stress, Reduce Belly Fat

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Adrenal Fatigue: 3 Tips to Make Your Weekend Count

Written by Ritamarie Loscalzo

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Adrenal fatigue is estimated to affect 80% of women at some point in their lives.  That’s 4 out of 5 women who’ll experience exhaustion of a key gland pair – the adrenals.

You’re not alone if you feel frazzled and exhausted by the end of the work week.  While our fast paced age of technology has done wonders for keeping us connected like never before, it comes with a price.

Used to be you only got your adrenals fired up when tigers and lions were chasing you.  As soon as the threat was handled, your adrenals would settle down and you’d return to a calmer and more steady pace.

When you’re at work, managing the tigers of deadlines, unhappy customers, unruly students and the abundance of stressors that frequent your day to day life, your nervous system operates from a state called sympathetic dominance. When you meditate, rest, do yoga and take time to “smell the roses”  you operate from parasympathetic dominance.

Who cares?

You need to if you desire to be focused instead of foggy, energetic instead of exhausted and  fit instead of fat.

You see, in sympathetic dominant mode, your digestion slows down, the valves between the various parts of your digestive tract tighten (leading to constipation and abdominal discomfort), and the high level thinking part of your brain, the prefrontal cortex, is inhibited, your hippocampus, gate keeper of your short term memory,  gets damaged and DHEA, sometimes called the anti-aging hormone, decreases.  The end result is you feel bloated, foggy headed and worn down.

In parasympethic dominant mode, the opposite happens.  Your digestion becomes more efficient,  your prefrontal cortex is enhanced, your hippocampus repairs and DHEA increases. As a result you feel calm, clear headed and focused and young.

By you may be wondering how to lengthen your stay in parasympathetic dominance.

Start by using my 3 tips to make your weekend count.  They will put you into parasympathetic dominance and enable you to rejuvenate before starting the hectic pace all over again on Monday.

Make the weekend count by using it to regroup and give yourself the gift of self care.

1- Set aside 30 minutes for you! Go ahead and look at your calendar and schedule it in.  And KEEP the appointment with yourself.  Do something you love to do.  Take a bath, lay in the sun, read a book…just do something that’s strictly for you.  You’ll feel rejuvenated as a result.

2- Take time several times a day to express appreciation to someone, to yourself or to the universe for the blessings in your life.  Studies have shown that 30 seconds of appreciation is the most effective means of restoring balance to your system.  The Institute of Heartmath has performed dozens of studies on the benefits of appreciation.

3- Take some extra time to sweat. Yes, sweat.  When researchers analyzed the sweat of participants after exercise,  they found it loaded with toxins.  Exerting to the point of a good sweat has many benefits with regards to cardiovascular health, hormone balance and detoxification.  And surprisingly they found that the sweat after running for 30 minutes was more full of toxins than the sweat produced in a sauna. If you use your weekend to sweat away toxins, you’ll feel more focused and peaceful when you start the week again.

If you find yourself thinking, “I already know that”  in response to the simplicity of these tips, ask yourself this:  “Am I taking action?”

Many of the people I work with in group programs and individually are looking for the more glamorous solutions to their health challenges and fail to handle the underlying sympathetic dominance.

Sympathetic dominance is a real problem. No matter what herbs, supplements and foods you eat to support your tired adrenals, if you just keep forcing them to work hard, you won’t be able to restore them.  And burned out adrenals can lead to thyroid issues, hormone imbalances, insulin resistance –which contributes to excess belly fat— and chronic fatigue.

I urge you to slow down and use the weekend to restore balance.  Once you get that piece wired, we can talk about how to increase your parasympathetic dominance during the week.

To find out the impact of sympathetic dominance on your health, you can answer a set of questions, check physical signs, look at a few markers in routine blood work and even order specialized hormone tests.

In my new course, Assess Your Own Body Chemistry I teach how to evaluate for signs of nutritional deficiency and hormonal imbalance.

Love, Health and Gratitude,

Dr. Ritamarie

Tags: Adrenal Fatigue, appreciation, chronic fatigue, detox, detoxification, digestion, digestive tract, Dr. Ritamarie, DrRitamarie, health challenges, heart math, HeartMath, hormonal imbalance, nutrition, self care, supplements, thyroid, tired
Posted in Adrenal Fatigue, Chronic Fatigue, Chronic Stress, Detox Program, Exhaustion, Fatigue Treatment

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