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Adrenal Fatigue: 3 Tips to Make Your Weekend Count

Jan

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

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The Power of Digestion: Chronic Fatigue Links to Your Stomach

Oct

Written by Ritamarie Loscalzo

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Poor digestion is beyond bloating and gas. Chronic fatigue, adrenal exhaustion, depression and challenges with focus, can all originate from poor digestion. According to Hippocrates, ‘the father of medicine’, “All disease begins in the gut.”

You may have been lead to believe that shopping the perimeter of the grocery store, eating whole foods, breathing deeply and moving is all it takes to have get up and go and maintain perfect health.

Yet more and more health practitioners are beginning to realize that even if you take the time to eat better and to shop, prepare and consume more consciously, you are not what you eat. While what you eat is vital to your overall health, it would be more accurate to say “You are what you digest and assimilate.” You may be eating great yet your cells may be starving. How can that be?

According to the NIH, each year digestive problems account for about 105 million doctor visits, more than 13 million hospitalizations and over 230,000 deaths in the U.S alone, and the cost of digestive disorders is staggering. These diseases cost the United States $100 billion annually in direct medical costs and $44 billion in indirect costs such as disability and mortality.

Digestive disorders are more than just a nuisance. They are downright dangerous. Chronic gut issues can contribute to cancer, heart disease, diabetes, suicide and a host of other serious conditions.

Most of us don’t think about our guts unless they hurt us. Yet your gut can be hurting you by letting you down on the
digestive job, even if you don’t have specific gut complaints. Maybe you experience fatigue, the inability to lose that last 5 pounds, or a brain that doesn’t seem to be the sharpest tack in the box anymore.

While you can’t build a healthy body without good food to nourish your cells and organs, even if your food is perfect, you can’t flourish unless your digestive tract is able to break the food down, absorb the nutrients and eliminate the waste.

So how do you know if you have digestive issues that need attention? If you’re bloated, gassy or have gut pain, it’s obvious. It’s the more subtle signs that are less frequently associated with gut problems. For example, difficulty sleeping, referred to as circadian dysrhythmia, can start because your cells are not well fed and your organs, like your adrenal glands and brain, are not receiving what they need to keep you energized during the day and horizontal and refreshed during the night.

Here are some questions you can ask yourself to determine if your gut is contributing to disease.

Do you have a chronic fatigue that doesn’t go away with any intervention you have tried?
Do you carry an extra 5 to 50 pounds regardless of how you eat or how much you exercise?
Do you have trouble concentrating, remembering things, or making decisions??
Are you frequently cold for no reason?
Are you frequently stressed out, worn out or depressed for no apparent reason?
Do you have a chronically coated tongue?
Does your pulse increase 20-25 beats within 15 minutes of eating?
Do you feel worse after you eat?
Do you usually have less two bowel movements daily? (Hippocrates told the Athenians that is was essential that they pass large bulky motions after every meal!)
Do your stools regularly smell ‘bad’?
Do you have chronic heart burn, burping, bloating, gas and pain immediately or within hours of eating?
Do you just not feel well no matter how vigilant you are with eating well, taking supplements, working out, trying to have a positive attitude?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you likely have a gut issue that needs to be addressed to protect your
health. If you answered yes to 3 or more of these, it’s possible that your gut problem is already adversely affecting the rest of your body and you need to take action right away.

Getting nutrition from your mouth to deep down into your cells where it counts takes a lot of intestinal fortitude and multiple steps with many organs and nutrients working in harmony. Many of our modern “advances” interfere with your gut’s ability to do its job – things like environmental chemicals, antibiotics, alcohol, some prescription and over the counter medications and chronic stress. This can leave you with chronic fatigue and adrenal exhaustion.

In restoring optimal gut function, it’s important to evaluate and target all the working parts of your digestive tract.

If you have chronic problems or are experiencing the effects of gut imbalance in parts of your body outside your digestive tract, it’s important that you take time out to do a gut healing protocol as soon as possible and repeat the process a couple of times a year to maintain your gut health.

Here’s a short list of actions you can take to get the process started:

Chew your food well. The only part of your digestive tract that has teeth is your mouth. Un-chewed food particles can’t be digested and can contribute to inefficient digestion. You’d be surprised by how many digestive problems are solved by this simple step.
Start to eat gut healing foods on a daily basis. Three that are easy to incorporate are: chia seeds, which soothe the gut lining and contribute essential fats to calm the fire of inflammation, green drinks, which provide an abundance of healing chlorophyll and minerals, and turmeric, a potent anti-inflammatory and cancer protective herb.
Eat daily servings of probiotic containing foods like sauerkraut, homemade nut and seed yogurt and coconut kefir or take a high quality probiotic supplement to keep your gut critters in harmony.
Relax and breath before you start to eat.

Having the discipline to do a gut support protocol on your own can be challenging. There are always excuses that prevent you from starting. That’s why I teamed up with my good friend, colleague and mentor Dr. Lindsey Berkson,
author of “Healthy Digestion the Natural Way” to create a unique program called “Get Your Gut in Gear”. This program is for you if:

You’re fed up with chronic indigestion, gas and bloating and you’re ready for a flat and comfortable belly.
You’re frustrated with not having the energy to fully engage in the activities you love.
You’re concerned about the risks of an out of balance digestive tract.
You’re tired of that extra 5 to 50 pounds you just can’t shed.
You answered yes to 3 or more of the questions above and you’re not sure where to begin to restore your gut to health.
You’ve tried various gut herbs and cleanses before and just can’t seem to complete them or get the promised results on your own.

Get Your Gut In Gear is lead by two digestive health experts and includes membership in a supportive community to guide you to detox, rebuild and reboot your gut so you can sleep better, feel better, think better and shed those last frustrating pounds.
Just eating a colorful healthy diet may not be enough. Digesting it adequately is what counts.

As Hippocrates said, “All disease begins in the gut.” To take it a step further…

“Good health begins in the gut.”
“Great health begins in the gut.”
“All health begins in the gut.”

Love, Health and Joyful Digestion,

Dr. Ritamarie

www.GetYourGutInGear.com

Tags: adrenal exhaustion, chronic fatigue, comfort foods, detox, digestive disorders, digestive problems, digestive tract, doctor visits, dr lindsey berkson, Dr. Ritamarie, Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo, father of medicine, good food, health practitioners, poor digestion, whole foods
Posted in Adrenal Fatigue, Chronic Fatigue, Exhaustion, Leaky Gut

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Detox Strategies

Apr

Written by Ritamarie Loscalzo

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lemonade Detox Strategies Remember the days when cleansing referred to clothes and dishes and detoxification was for drug addicts and alcoholics?

We live in a more sophisticated world now, and colon cleanse products are now sold at Walmart!

But do you really understand these processes? Or are you confused by the myriad of options, powders, potions, teas and procedures that are touted to be the “best detox ever” or to “cleanse your body in only 3 days.”

Cleansing and Detoxification are often used interchangeably in regards to programs designed to rid your body of impurities and restore that youthful glow. Are they over-rated? Is detoxification just something that your body does naturally and you need just to let it alone?

It helps to understand what parts of your body are involved in detoxification and how the process works.

There’s so much information about detoxification out there. It’s all over the internet. If you were to type the word “detoxification,” you would get hooked up to all kinds of websites that would try to sell you this potion, this powder, and this magic cure, saying, “take this for seven days and you’re going to be completely clean and pure.”

The fact of the matter is that toxins happen. Toxins are a byproduct of life. There are the toxins that you breathe in the air, put there industrial waste, pesticides, and cleaning products we use. There are toxins in your water. One thing you may not be aware of is that there are lots of toxins generated inside of your body, from the movement of your muscles, the foods you eat and the feelings of stress you experience.

While you have many inborn mechanisms for detoxification, your chief detox organ is your liver.

If you lived in a pristine and serine world, your liver would have no problems keeping up with the removal of toxins. In the real world, though, your liver tends to become overburdened by the constant barrage of chemicals it’s expected to remove. And sometimes, your liver gets so tired, that it falls asleep on the job. When this happens, toxic overload occurs and you experience symptoms of what we have come to call disease.

Did you know that most disease is the result of toxicity? I’ve seen and experienced miraculous recovery from chronic illness as a result of a properly conducted detoxification program.

Today I’ll share 3 Strategies for Detoxification Success. On my teleseminar 10 Tips for Choosing a Cleansing Strategy That’s Just Right for You, I go into all the details.

3 Strategies for Detox Success

1- Begin with the End in Mind. What is it that you’re looking to achieve by doing a detox program? Are you looking to shed a few pounds? Clear your skin? Clean up your digestion? Rest? Your goals will help you figure out the best strategy to take and keep you focused if the going gets rough.
2- Create a Support System. If you attempt to do it alone, as soon as it gets a little bit challenging, you’ll be tempted to through in the towel. If you have a buddy to call, or you’re doing a group cleanse with phone support, you’ll likely stick with it better than if you’re doing it alone.
3- Be realistic. If you choose a program that takes 3 hours a day to implement and requires a lot of expensive products, you need to clear the space and budget the money for or it. If you are a single mom with 3 kids, you probably need a program that’s easy and inexpensive.

When I work with people on choosing the best strategy for them, I keep these 3 things in mind and we work from there. I have a checklist for choosing the best strategy, based on your lifestyle, dietary preferences, activity level and finances.

I share it on my teleseminar 10 Tips for Choosing a Cleansing Strategy That’s Just Right for You.

Cleansing and detoxification programs are deeply personal and have the potential to profoundly change your life.

If you’ve never done one, you owe it to yourself to find out more, and schedule time to cleanse and rejuvenate.

I created 10 Tips for Choosing a Cleansing Strategy That’s Just Right for You, to demystify the cleansing and detoxification process and empower you to chose the process that’s just right for you.

Learn all you can and then engage fully. Your liver will love you for it.

Sign up for my FREE teleseminar 10 Tips for Choosing a Cleansing Strategy That’s Just Right for You,and get access to the recording so you can play it back whenever you need a booster.

Love, Health and Joy,

Dr. Ritamarie

Tags: cleansing, colon cleansing, colonics, detox, detoxification, Dr. Ritamarie, liver, toxicity
Posted in Adrenal Fatigue, Detox Program, Green Smoothies, Vibrant Health

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The Health and Spiritual Aspects of Giving Up Eating Meat

Mar

Written by Ritamarie Loscalzo

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People become vegetarian for many reasons. For me it was strictly health at first, then it evolved to so much more. I love hearing others stories and perspectives, about why they forgo animal foods and about why they choose to continue them. While I believe that there are no absolutes, the evidence is clear to me that diets that are high in green plant foods and low in animal foods provide the best protection against cancer, heart disease, diabetes and autoimmune disease. Yet I am not here to convince anyone of anything, and I am certainly not one to adhere to a dogmatic viewpoint in the face of evidence that a particular dietary regime is not working. I love raw foods and it’s the diet that works best for me. Here’s the perspective of my Book Doula, Dr. Liz Alexander:

Inside Out Eating

Dr. Liz Alexander

It wasn’t just red meat that was served for most meals when I was growing up, but any part of an animal that was remotely edible. Brain, liver, kidney, tripe, tongue—I swear that if my mother had found a recipe for entrails stew she would have served it. I faced so much congealed nastiness, given the rule in our house: If you don’t eat it for dinner, it will be waiting for you at breakfast. I struggled mightily at breakfast times.

As soon as I left home my dietary selections changed to higher end cuts. No more stewing steak with fat and gristle for me; it was to be prime rib steak or nothing. I’d toyed with being a vegetarian at age 15, more as an expression of teenage rebellion than anything else. But in the north of England during the late 60s, early 70s, vegetarian options were few and far between. My mother refused to allow me to think of our home as a “hotel” where I could opt for different meals than the rest of the family, plus there were only so many nut rissoles I could stomach. So the carnivore in me lived on.

Fast forward to my early 30s when, as a freelance reporter for a pan-European TV channel, I was asked to take part in (and report on) a six week detox. No more meat, bread, sugar, caffeine, or alcohol. The emphasis was to be on raw food as much as possible. After decades of eating processed and packaged meals you can image what the first week was like. Let’s just say I didn’t venture far from the bathroom, at times thinking my end had come and I’d never feel good ever again.

But I did. In fact, I felt so marvelous after I’d cleansed decades of gunk out of my system that I maintained my “no red meat, no caffeine, no alcohol” regimen for several years afterwards. And I noticed a distinct change. No more protruding belly (I’ve always been slim, but with what my mother called a “tummy”), or constipation, or insomnia. But gradually red and white meat (especially lamb and bacon—I loved lamb and bacon!) crept back into my diet, even though I’ve stayed away from caffeine and alcohol in order to calm my over-active mind.

spiritual The Health and Spiritual Aspects of Giving Up Eating Meat Then an interesting thing happened. As an author and journalist I started writing less about alternative health and more about spiritual principles. I devoured personal growth material voraciously, coming to appreciate that I could—as Ernest Holmes articulates in The Science of Mind—“turn away from the condition,” that is, disallow external circumstances to delude me into thinking that reality is fixed or outside my control. As advised by early 20^th century personal development thinkers like Earl Nightingale, I chose to change the image I had of myself, from the inside out.

As I embraced this more vibrant, energetic, happy and serene “me” I found I was no longer attracted to certain foods, particularly meat. Yes, I agree with all the intellectual arguments for foregoing hormone-laced meat and I abhor the disgraceful treatment of animals and poor husbandry practices of much of today’s food industry. But that’s not how I manage to successfully shun meat. I succeed because it’s not consistent with who I am, whom I’ve chosen to be.

Today, I find it easy to maintain a yummy 75% raw diet, to slug down 2oz wheatgrass shots daily, experiment with The Health and Spiritual Aspects of Giving Up Eating Meat home juicing and make delicious smoothies. Not because of any external or left brain “rational” arguments, but simply because I live from the inside out. What I put into my body, how I honor my inner being, and the way I feed my flesh and spirit allows me to smell sizzling bacon or see “lamb curry” on a menu, smile at the memory and realize that’s no longer who I am.

So, if you find yourself struggling to exclude meat from your diet, maybe you could try something similar? Ask yourself: What’s my new image? Then act the part, consciously and consistently until it becomes second nature. I don’t set myself any rules or deny myself anything that I love. I simply found that I was naturally ready to say “goodbye” to the old carnivore in me in the process of living life as my best self.

Dr. Liz Alexander is the author of ten nonfiction books, including The Magic of Labyrinths: Following Your Path, Finding Your Center (written under her former name of Liz Simpson), published by HarperCollins in 2002. Also known as The Book Doula, she works with would-be authors to creatively conceive, grow, and birth books that help them leave a legacy and use this promotional tool to boost their business, service, or subject-matter expertise. www.bookdoula.biz.