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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Eating for Hormone Health: New Hope for Hormone Imbalance

Written by Ritamarie Loscalzo

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I’m excited to be doing a talk in New Jersey this week on Eating for Hormone Health.

Karen Ranzi, author of “Creating Healthy Children” is hosting me.

Here are the details.

If you live in the area, come on by.

Eating for Hormone Balance

The Secrets to Staying Young and Vibrant At Any Age

With Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo, MS, DC, CCN, DACBN

How to Nourish Your Hormones and Keep Yourself Strong, Safe and Healthy Your Whole Life Through.

In this Inspirational talk, You’ll learn:

• Who all the members of your hormone family are and how you can keep them balanced and humming
• The role of your digestion,emotions and your environment in keeping your hormones balanced and safe.
• How balancing your hormone starting as early as in your 20’s leads to improved vitality and strength in your later decades — the untold secret to seeing more life ahead of you than behind you.
• The 5 foods you MUST eat and the 5 foods You MUST avoid for hormone health
• How stress effects your hormones —and techniques for protecting yourself from the dangers of being in fight-flight mode daily
• How nutrients effect hormone balance, and why synthetic nutrients can be dangerous
• The importance of sleep in protecting you from hormone-related cancers.
• How hormones are disrupted by the environment and essential secrets in protecting yourself.

In her fun and exuberant style, Dr. Ritamarie shares her passion for vibrant health and her secrets for creating for herself more strength and stamina in her 50’s than she experienced in her 20’s. There’ll be ample time for questions and answers.

For over 2 decades, Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo has been a student and practitioner of natural health and whole fresh food diets as a path to wellness. Her success in recovering from chronic fatigue and lifestyle induced health challenges prompted

As a doctor of chiropractic certified in acupuncture, clinical nutrition and herbal medicine, Dr. Ritamarie empowers powerful transformation and vibrant health in busy people worldwide. Through her coaching programs, nutrition consultations and books, Dr. Ritamarie touches countless lives with her message of self-healing. Visit her website www.FreshnFunLiving.com for lots of resources, recipes and valuable information.

Thursday August 5, 2010 7:00 – 9:00 p.m.

Ramsey, New Jersey (201) 934-6778

Investment in your health: $20 in advance, $25 at the door

To register contact Karen at karen@superhealthychildren.com

Tags: biology, cell signaling, Dr. Ritamarie, Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo, eat, eating, endocrinology, exuberant, Gluten Free Diet, health, hormone, hormone balance, Hormone Imbalance, hormones, karen ranzi, Living Foods, medicine, nature, new hope, nutrition, physiology, ritamarie loscalzo, secret, self care, signal transduction, vegan foods, vibrant, Vibrant Health, whole foods
Posted in Articles, Hormone Imbalance

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Raw Spirit Festival and Raw Weekend Update

Written by Ritamarie Loscalzo

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Raw Spirit Festival and Raw Weekend Update

Sedona Arizona is a magical place all the time. Bright orange peaks that resemble characters and castles, energy vortexes and a wide array of alternative healing opportunities make it a great place to visit anytime. Add 2000 living foods enthusiasts, beautifully prepared and delicious living foods, inspiring talks and great music, and you have a prescription for joy.

The Raw Spirit Fest was truly an amazing event and I am grateful to the organizers, volunteers, and my family for affording me the opportunity to attend. I met lots of new people and made lifelong new friends. Can you imagine making living foods recipes for 2000 people? A crew of volunteers managed to pull it off for 7 meals in a row. Each meal was beautifully presented and packed with nutrition. Next year’s event is already being planned for mid- September. Mark your calendars. It is an event worth attending.

The Living on Live Foods Level 1 class this weekend was was an incredible success. I was joined by 20 amazing people who shared in the excitement of making delicious, vitality promoting dishes. I tried out a new format for the class and it was an overwhelming success. Instead of mostly demonstrations by me and lots of tasting by the students, the students got to make and eat lots of food. Each one walked away knowing that making the food was not only do-able but pretty easy! It was great to taste all the delicious variations of the recipes! The artistry was pretty amazing as well. Thanks to all for making Saturday such a fun day for me.

Saturday evening was equally as amazing. We had a huge turnout for the potluck featuring Yemiah Favor and her Thai Delights DVD. I learned several new techniques and am looking forward to making her Thai noodle recipe. Everyone really outdid themselves on the food, too.

We had delicious Thai soup made by Dina, Thai salad by Yemiah, Tapioca Pudding by Dr. Ritamarie, carrot cake, mango chutney, croquettes, several types of crackers, beautiful and delicious salads too numerous to recall in detail and lots of fresh fruit. We had many new comers and many familiar faces. Wow! The community and support is awe-inspiring!

Thanks to everyone who participated in making this weekend a joy for me. Many many thanks for all the help in making the class a success. Pamela Weems, a recent Living on Live Foods Level 2 graduate made her living foods teaching debut with her delicious version of Spicy Lime Green Cilantro Soup. Pamela’s sister, Melinda Carter, a July 2007 level 1 graduate, came all the way from Dallas to help out. Joshua Adair, our dedicated farmer’s market assistant attended the class and assisted with food prep and cleanup. And of course, thanks to my invaluable assistant, Maureen Honey, for getting the class materials and rosters ready for me while I was away in Arizona attending Raw Spirit Fest. Many thanks to Yemiah and David for sharing their DVD and wealth of knowledge. They are inspiring to all of us.

I am looking forward to this week’s events. We have 3 planned. Wow. Another week filled with high vibration activities to inspire and motivate. I am especially looking forward to all the guest speakers we have lined up through the end of the year.

I just got my professional website back online after it was hacked over the summer. I will be adding resources soon, but in the meantime, I am excited to have it back online at http://www.austinhealthcoach.com/ . The complete class schedule is at http://www.drritamarie.com/

Until Next time,

Yours in health

Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo

Tags: health, Living Foods, nutrition, potluck, Raw Foods, Raw Foods classes, raw spirit fest
Posted in Raw and Living Foods, Vibrant Health

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