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www.wholehealthresources.com
Natural Weight Loss
is a free e-newsletter that addresses the physical,
mental/emotional, and spiritual aspects of weight
issues. A healthy, fit body is the
natural outflow of shifting your attention from food and
weight to balanced health, emotional harmony, and joyful
living.
Our culture is looking in the wrong direction for
solutions to its growing weight problems. Weight
issues are issues of your Whole health. Your body is
communicating to you that something is out of balance and
needs to be changed. Instead of looking for
the deeper messages, many take a superficial
approach-- dieting.
Reducing food intake, taking drugs, starving oneself, and fad diets
will never bring long-term results. You may lose some
weight temporarily, but you'll still be struggling and won't
resolve the deeper issues and conflicting intentions that
created the problem. Nor will you be happy and free.
You can have so much more with my “Whole Health” approach –
radiant health, emotional harmony, passionate living,
abundance, loving relationships, and joy and fulfillment
from life. Balanced health includes all of these factors,
and their lack contributes to
weight problems.
Natural Weight Loss ™
provides information, articles, tips and resources to
get you back to your center—the place where a slimmer,
healthier you is just waiting to emerge. The foundation
of my
approach is Holistic. Because your body is affected by a
variety of factors, internal and external, this e-zine
offers suggestions for your WholeHealth.
Culinary Alchemy:
Flavors for Health and Weight
Loss
(Part II)
To
read Part I,
click here.
This is the second in a four-part series on how the five
flavors--pungent, salty, sour, bitter, and sweet--each
have specific therapeutic properties that can help you
lose weight and reverse health imbalances. This
information is based on my 25 years clinical experience
and professional studies of nutritional therapies.
The principles of Traditional Chinese Medicine provide
an accurate method for determining which foods are best
for each individual. This is an intelligent, effective
and sensible way to restore your body to good health and
balanced weight; to maximize vitality; and to establish
a clear, focused mind and emotional harmony.
The last issue focused on the pungent flavor and its
therapeutic uses in reversing weight and health
imbalances. If you missed it,
click here.
I’d like to reiterate some important points before I
discuss the benefits and pitfalls of the salty flavor.
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The food you eat is regenerating your body, mind,
emotions and spirit;
-
A perfect diet that will bring everyone good health
does not exist;
-
Popular diet plans are limited by a narrow and fixed
way of thinking;
-
The five flavors can bring you into harmony with
seasonal influences;
-
Cravings for certain foods may indicate you need its
flavor;
-
Each flavor is necessary for balanced weight and good
health;
-
The same flavors that can help reverse imbalances
cause discomfort, excess weight, and illness when
eaten in excess.
-
Most people do not have a clear understanding of which
foods are best for overcoming personal weight and
health imbalances.
-
Often popular food plans are used with little or no
results, or worse, yet, undesired results.
-
There are conflicting views in almost all popular
dietary programs.
-
Not everyone benefits equally from the same foods.
Salty Flavor –
friend or foe
Salt,
an important mineral, is vital to human life. Without
it, you would die. Most people are aware that too much
of it causes water retention, high blood pressure and
kidney and heart problems. According to Chinese
Physiology, there is a relationship between salt and the
health of the kidneys, urinary tract, adrenals, bones
(including bone marrow, teeth), fluid metabolism, hair,
and sex organs (including libido).
Salt
has the most grounding and centering nature of
all the flavors. The right amount and quality can
strengthen energy; build healthy bones, improve
digestion; moisten dryness; detoxify
poisons from poor quality foods; enhance your ability to
focus more clearly; and, yes, help your body lose
excess weight. However, there is great potential for
its misuse. Poor quality salt and too much of it
creates the opposite effect.
Some
symptoms of salt (and other mineral) imbalances
include: bone problems, anemia, metabolic imbalances,
depressed mental activity, weak digestion, gas,
bloating, poor circulation, feeling cold, difficulty
losing excess weight, frequent fatigue, arthritic pain
in hands, arms, feet, knees, lower back and shoulders,
and many emotional imbalances from anxiety to extreme
fear which are discussed in the Mind/Emotions section of
this article below.
What Your Salt Cravings
are Telling You
Sodium, a major element in salt, is plentiful in eggs,
seafood and all meats and some vegetables.
Naturally occurring salt is found in many foods, both
animal and vegetal. Processing removes much of
these natural salts, and manufacturers add more salt
(sugar too) for flavor. Nearly all canned and packaged
foods have salt added to them.
If
your diet consists of high amounts of processed foods,
meat, dairy and eggs, and rich, greasy foods, you are
likely getting an excessive intake of sodium.
Eating more than is necessary of these foods and then
adding salt to them sets the stage for insatiable
cravings for sugar, coffee and/or alcohol.
These are depleting foods and will help your body
eliminate excesses of salt and other minerals.
Some of you may be familiar with the vicious cycle of
ingesting high amounts of salt or heavy, rich foods and
then experiencing insatiable cravings for sweets, coffee
or alcohol. Then, after eating them, the cravings
reverse and you find yourself unable to resist salty
snacks or more animal food. Choosing extremes to
balance opposite extremes will leave you frustrated,
overweight, and in poor health.
Your body has an innate wisdom and is always seeking to
create balance. It speaks to you through your
cravings. The problem is most people don’t know how to
accurately interpret these messages in healthy ways.
Join
me on April 14 for my workshop on Understanding
Cravings and Addictions and learn why certain
foods stimulate your appetite, while others deplete
nutrients and set you up for cravings for nutrient-dense
foods. There are many reasons for cravings, and trying
to contain, rather than satisfy your appetite in
educated ways, causes health imbalances, and
psychological and emotional distress. This workshop is
available as a live class in Pittsburgh or as a
TeleSeminar for long-distance learning. Click
here
for details and registration.
Balanced
Use of Salt
Many
people abuse salt, eating nearly 6x the recommended,
thus giving salt a bad name. Most of today’s commercial
salt is the highly refined chemical variety that is
99.5% or more sodium chloride, with additions of
anti-caking chemicals, potassium iodide, and sugar to
stabilize the iodine. The common table salt that most
people use is refined through heat processing, bleached
with chemicals to make it white, then aluminum stearate,
another chemical, is added so the salt doesn’t clump.
Most salt is denatured and highly refined as are most
foods in the modern diet.
Even
common refined sea salt has been stripped of nearly all
of its sixty trace minerals. You can buy good quality
sea salt in which sunshine alone has been used to
extract it. Some good brands include Lima, Muramoto,
and Mexican “Si” sea salt. You may have to go out of
your way to find it, and it is well worth the effort for
the health benefit.
Click here to order the Mexican
“Si” Salt.
Salt
labeled sea salt is typically the refined pure white
variety. Whole natural sea salt is in larger crystals,
granules, or a powder. All salt originates from the
sea. Whole salt from the sea has a mineral profile
similar to that of your blood, and when used properly,
helps to maintain good health and eliminate cravings.
There
is a tendency to overeat when foods are highly
refined. It’s your body’s attempt to get the nutrients
that have been lost in the processing. Salt cravings
are often a craving for the many minerals that are
lacking in chemically grown food and lost in food
processing. Your body craves more salt in an attempt to
capture the wholeness that it instinctively knows should
be there.
Alternatives to the Salt Shaker
Vegetables from the sea have been used for thousands of
years for their ability to prevent disease, prolong
life, and impart beauty and health. Eating small
amounts of them on a regular basis is a balanced way to
include the salty flavor in your diet. Sea Vegetables
are the most nutrient dense group of foods available.
Just as there are many varieties of vegetables that grow
in the earth, there are many varieties of sea vegetables
that grow in the ocean, each with a distinctive nutrient
profile. Some general common properties they exhibit
include: detoxifying, diuretic, remove residues of
radiation in the body; act as lymphatic cleansers;
alkalize the blood; benefit the thyroid; improve water
metabolism, moisten dryness, and resolve phlegm.
Sea vegetables are useful for weight loss and for
resolving cholesterol and fat in the blood. They
help your body metabolize sugar and fat more quickly and
efficiently.
Some people are unwilling to try sea vegetables fearing
they will have an unpleasant taste. I assure you that,
when cooked properly, they can be quite tasty, and are a
good compliment to many foods you are already eating.
Click here for
recipe for Arame sea vegetable, which
has a milder flavor than some of the others.
Click here to order Arame.
Another common sea vegetable is Kombu which aids
the digestive system when eaten in small amounts
consistently. It greatly increases the nutritional
value of all food prepared with it, and is
considered the most completely mineralized food.
It is available at Natural Food and Specialty stores,
packaged in dry strips. Simply break off a 1-2 inch
piece and put it in the pot when you are cooking beans,
grains, soups, and some vegetable dishes. After it is
cooked, chop it in small pieces and stir back into the
dish you cooked it with. Kombu has no taste—just great
health value!
Click here to order.
Our
human development begins in a saline solution in the
womb and we are nourished by blood that has almost the
same composition as sea water. It makes sense to
eat foods that comes from the sea.
Miso
is an extremely nutritious and health-supportive food
and an effective way to include the salty flavor in your
diet. There is much confusion about the use of soy
foods. Science has a very fragmented approach to
analyzing food values and has convinced many people
whose health would improve from using miso, that all soy
is bad. All soy is not created equal. Some are
extremely beneficial (especially for cancer) while
others are harmful and should be avoided. I’ll be
discussing the truth about soy in my
Menopause, Naturally Workshop on April 28.
Click here for details.
Miso is a fermented soybean paste made by combining
soybeans, a culture (koji)salt and various grains,
then fermenting for 3 months to 3 years. The longer it
is aged, the stronger the taste. You may be familiar
with miso soup if you’ve eaten in a Japanese restaurant,
and soup is the most common use for miso. I’ve found
that miso soup in restaurants is far too salty. If you
make your own, you control the amount of miso you add
which should be ½ tsp. per cup of liquid.
Miso contains lactic acid, bacteria and enzymes which
aid digestion and food assimilation. Studies show that
those who regularly use miso suffer significantly less
from cancer and heart disease.
It
contains Amino acids, B12, minerals (including calcium,
iron). Miso helps protect the body against radiation
and heavy metal poisoning. Miso has 25x more
genistein (a potent anticancer agent) than unfermented
soy foods such as tofu and soymilk. Miso reduces the
risk of coronary heart disease; protects cells from free
radicals and aging. The lactobacillus fermentation
increases the quantity, availability, digestibility and
assimilability of nutrients.
Miso is effective in reducing chronic pain. It breaks
down and discharges cholesterol, neutralizes the effects
of smoking and environmental pollution, alkalizes the
blood, prevents radiation sickness, neutralizes the
effects of chemicals, medicines, and a poor diet, and
strengthens blood quality. Miso contains lactic acid
bacteria and enzymes which aid digestion and food
assimilation.
Studies have shown those who eat miso soup daily have
fewer cases of certain types of cancer and heart
disease. Researchers have found that women who east
miso soup daily reduced their incidence of breast cancer
by 40-50%. The findings are published in the online
edition of the U.S. based Journal of the National Cancer
Institute.
Miso may be used instead of salt or soy sauce as a
seasoning and it’s best to buy unpasteurized miso. It
is a live food and prolonged cooking destroys the
beneficial organisms. Add unpasteurized miso to
preparations just before removing from heat. Like salt,
miso is better assimilated when combined with foods due
to its concentrated nature. My personal favorite is
South River brand. It comes in glass jars and is in the
refrigerated section of Natural Food stores. Their
website has a free miso recipe book that you can
download by
clicking here.
What You Can Do
Get in the habit of using a small pinch of good quality
sea salt in cooking only. Avoid adding salt to the
food on your plate. Eat small amounts of sea
vegetables regularly--daily is not too often.
Incorporating miso soup 3-7x a week is one of the best
things you can do to improve your health and longevity.
Of course, eliminating processed foods, salty snacks,
and commercial salt is important.
If
you're overweight, sea vegetables, miso and other good
quality salt used in cooking only can help you get rid
of the excess.
Have
you consumed far
too much salt in the past and are suffering the health consequences
now?
Generally speaking, I would still use sea vegetables and
miso soup for their detoxifying abilities, and limit use
of salt. To learn more about how to cleanse your
body of years of stored salts, fats, and cholesterol,
join me on March 24 for my Spring into Health
Workshop.
Click here for details.
For professional help in
creating an individualized nutritional plan, call me at
412.421.7760
to schedule a
free
30-minute evaluation/consultation.
Your
body, mind, emotions, and spirit are not separate
entities. Every choice you make impacts your
WholeHealth. If you’re experiencing any of the physical
disharmonies listed above it’s likely that your mental
and emotional states are negatively affected.
According to Chinese physiology and its theory of the
Five Elements, there is a relationship between salt and
the kidneys, and specific mental/emotional states.
The kidneys rule the emotions fear and insecurity. A
desire for excessive salt may reflect a wish for a more
emotionally safe foundation and security. When this
element is strong and healthy, you feel confident,
stable, courageous, curious, adventurous, and
optimistic. Your will is strong, you experience right
timing in life, are independent, and have a healthy
imagination and the ability to actualize what you
imagine for you life.
You can accomplish a
great deal without stress, and understand the importance
of balancing action with nurturing.
Do
you experience phobias; general anxiety about life;
paranoia or negativity in general? Are you always
expecting the worst and consumed by worry? Are you
withdrawn or lacking in confidence?
Do
you move from one problem, place or relationship to the
next without ever getting to the root issues?
These are all aspects of kidney imbalances resulting, in
large part, from under use or misuse of salt and other
minerals, and from poor quality, denatured products.
When you work through the root causes, these patterns dissolve.
All physical, mental and emotional problems are rooted
in the foods you consume.
Balanced intake of good quality salt (and other
minerals) from food will improve kidney health and the
emotional disharmonies that are related to it.
What you eat directly affects the way you think and
perceive, and your emotional state. Conversely,
negative mental and emotional states weaken physical
health.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Having a customized plan incorporating therapeutic
foods, attitudinal healing practices for mental and
emotional harmony, and other factors for your uniqueness
may be the best investment you will ever make.
It's far easier, effective and faster than trying to
make sense of all the contradictory information
available.
Doesn't it
make sense to seek professional guidance from an expert
who understands food therapeutics and the relationship
between physical, mental and emotional imbalances--someone
who
can create an effective plan for your individual needs?
There's a positive perspective to all of your problems.
They are urging you to change and have lead you to read
this e-newsletter. There are always safe,
effective solutions.
Call
412.421.7760
for a free
30-minute evaluation and consultation. This can be
done by phone or in my Pittsburgh office. 50% of
my clients are long distance and their success rate is
very high.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Long distance learning from anywhere in the world is
available via TeleClasses. Join me from the
comfort of your home for these Natural Weight Loss
TeleSeminars. All you need is a phone and the
ability to receive e-mail class notes.
-
Spring into Health (includes detox info)
-
Creating Healthy Metabolism
-
Shrink Your Belly
-
Understanding Cravings and Addictions
-
Menopause, Naturally
-
Conflicting Intentions
(Self Sabotage)
Click here
for all TeleClass dates, details and registration.
Group Natural Weight Loss™
Coaching
will be available long distance via TeleClass in April.
Dates will be posted on the website by March 30, or send an
email to
deborah@wholehealthresources.com for information.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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-
Spring into Health (includes detox info) - March 24
-
Creating Healthy Metabolism - March 28
-
Shrink Your Belly - April 4
-
Understanding Cravings and Addictions - April 14
-
Menopause, Naturally
- April 28
-
Conflicting Intentions
(Self Sabotage)
April 10 and 17
These classes are available as TeleSeminars for
long-distance learning.
Click here for dates.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Deborah Barr is available to present
a variety of presentations or workshops to your organization or
company in half-day or multiple session workshops, or
60-90 minute presentation. These can be
customized to meet the needs of your group. Send an email to
deborah@wholehealthresources.com
or call 412.421.770
for information.
CLICK HERE for a complete listing of all
presentation topics.
Counseling may include nutritional
therapy, attitudinal healing and herbal/supplement
guidance, and other modalities. Programs are customized based on your health
condition, constitutional strengths and weaknesses,
age, and lifestyle. Coaching will guide you toward
clarity in your thinking, empower you to remove
obstacles and make changes necessary to reach your
goals, teach you creative problem solving, and give
you accountability in an environment where you are
fully listened to in a non-judgmental way.
FREE initial session
(30 minutes) can be done by phone or in my
Pittsburgh office. Offer expires April 20, 2007. Call
412.421.7760 or send an email to
health@wholehealthresources.com
to schedule.
CLICK HERE
for Counseling/Coaching, and
Attitudinal Healing information.
Nearly 50% of my clients are
long distance. We have sessions by phone and
recommendations are sent via email. Support is
given in between sessions.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Deborah Barr, 25-year Holistic Health
Counselor/Coach, speaker, and author, works with
clients who want to reverse weight and health
issues; achieve emotional harmony, radiant health,
passion, peaceful living, work-life balance, and a
life they love. She has received Professional
training in Traditional Chinese Medicine with an
emphasis on Nutritional Therapy, Whole Foods
Cooking, Oriental Diagnosis, Herbal Medicine, and
Shiatsu; Macrobiotics; Attitudinal Healing, Yoga and
Spiritual Development, Reflexology, and
Aromatherapy. In 1985 she founded
Whole Health
Resources, the premier Holistic Health
Center in Pittsburgh. WHR’s mission is to promote
the healing and development of body, mind and
spirit, and to teach an understanding of the
relationship between diet, attitudes, lifestyle and
wellness. She offers free help through her 2 e-zines,
Natural Weight Loss™,
and
Whole Health Matters™, and free
articles at
www.wholehealthresources.com. She can be
reached at
412.421.7760.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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