Advice for Raising your Energy!

So here's my advice on transitioning from low-energy to high-energy. I think what you eat is more important than what you do, so although you asked me about activity, I'm starting my advice with food.

1. Keep a food journal for at least two weeks. Write down every single thing that you consume all day long, try not to leave anything out. When we can be honest with ourselves about what we are actually eating, we can begin to make positive changes. Once you've kept your food journal for awhile, you can start to look it over and notice where your patterns or weaknesses are and make positive plans to help prevent your mistakes.

2. Begin with one meal at a time and try to make improvements on the quality of your nutrition. Breakfast is a great place to start. If you can get that one meal right, you can set a positive tone for the rest of your day. I recommend fresh fruit smoothies, vegetable juice, home made oatmeal (not the instant kind), an egg with a side of steamed spinach, brown rice and some salad.

3. Begin with one weakness at a time and try to make some improvements. Don't over do it, or your body will revolt. Maybe you drink soda, start but cutting your portion sizes in half. Maybe your portion sizes at meals are too big, try using a smaller plate. Do you eat junk food with your kids, maybe you can have more healthy snacks readily available like chopped veggies. It will take awhile for your taste buds to get used to different flavors, so give yourself time.

4. Try to eliminate packaged food and fast food. Avoid diet foods and fat free foods and try to eat natural whole foods instead. Diet soda is not better than real soda, its worse! All this stuff is full of salt, chemicals and not a lot of nutrition. They make your body swell up, clinging to every calorie in the hopes of finding some nutrition.

5. Drink lots of water! First thing in the morning have a big glass of warm water with half a lemon squeezed in it. Before each meal drink a glass of water, this will help you eat less.

As for activity, I recommend walking. Walk anywhere you can. Is it possible to walk your kids to school? Can you walk to the store and carry your groceries home? Start with small amounts and increase your time as you feel up to it. Try to be active in different ways throughout the day. Wash your car, pick some weeds, make some bread from scratch. As far as stretching and getting limber, just do it! Put some music on, roll around on the floor and just put your body in different shapes. If you need inspiration of course there is tons of stuff on the internet and probably some free classes in your community you can find, but I don't have any specific recommendations on this.

You can read this post I wrote on yoga for some ideas. And you can read this post for lots of healthy food ideas from a 30 day cleanse I did last fall. And read this post to learn about an educational movie that will get you motivated to eat healthy.

Good luck, and let me know how you-re doing!

Kombucha Tea: Soda Pop for Hipsters

The Kombucha Display at the local Whole Foods, so many wonderful flavors, I love Guava!

A number of years back in my freelance yoga training I began to see the magically marketed GT Dave's Kombucha bottles in the hands of glowing yogis.  I began to treat myself at the local food co-op after classes taught in OB...and soon at Whole Foods...Sprouts....and now even at Von's, corner stores in San Francisco, at the Ashram gift shop.  You can learn about Kombucha on the internet, but basically it is similar to yogurt in that you have a starter liquid, milk in the case of yogurt and tea in the case of kombucha.  You add to this starter liquid some finished product, yogurt into the milk cultured with probiotic organisms, brewed kombucha tea with mushroom skoby into fresh tea.  Then there is a waiting period, over night for yogurt, 5-15 days for kombucha.  You reserve some of the finished product to begin a new batch, an on-going cycle in the kitchen.  Now what is the mushroom skoby?  It is a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast that forms a gelatinous patty that resembles a mushroom.  When added to sweetened tea and fermented the resulting liquid contains vinegar, B vitamins, other chemical compounds and a small amount of alcohol, making the drink effervescence.  Many other compounds are produced in this process such as organic acids, active enzymes, amino acids, and polyphenols.  Finished kombucha may contain any of the following components:
Acetic Acid
Butyric Acid
B-Vitamins
Ethanol
Gluconic Acid
Lactic Acid
Malic Acid
Oxalic Acid
Usnic Acid

It's pretty mixed news as to whether this stuff is good for you or not as you can read in this article from the NY Times.  It's the latte for Generation Namaste of which I am a reluctant card carrying  member, and I'm hooked.  But it's not cheap, sometimes I'll be lucky and find 2 for $5, but typically it's priced about $3.50, and with recent scandals over alcohol content, it just doesn't have the fizz and buzz of a few years back.  This change in formula and high price has cause my consumption to decline recently.  So in the theme of my life lately, making things from scratch, I have been contemplating brewing my own.  On Etsy you can easily find the skoby, or mother mushroom, used to brew this probiotic tea.  I choose a seller that listed the product as organic and that included educational support and great return policy if you have problems.  It came today and I'll post my results of my first batch as I proceed through he process.

A more oficial photo from the G.T. webpage.

Touch for Health

I am excited to now offer Touch for Health at The Robin's Nest.  Touch for Health is a healing modality that combines applied kinesiology with acupressure massage to bring greater balance and vitality to the individual. I personally received enormous health benefits from the Touch for Health sessions I have been receiving from my chiropractor, Dr. William Lerner, over the last few years.  I wanted to learn how to work with people in the effective, diagnostic way he had worked with me and he pointed me in the direction of Touch for Health.  I am fortunate that the system was developed by a chiropractor in Los Angeles, Dr. John Thie.  His son, Matthew Thie, now runs the organization and I have had the tremendous honor to study Touch for Health from Matthew directly.

A Touch for Health session can range from 30-90 minutes.  It is not so much of a massage but more of a series of interactive exercises.  Each exercise will isolate a particular muscle and determine the relative flow of energy to that muscle and it's coordinating organ meridian.  Based upon the pattern discovered in the body, acupressure points are massaged to bring greater balanced and then the deficient muscles are retested to see if a positive change has taken place.  The session is most effective when are particular goal or intention is created at he beginning of the session.  In this way the blanching becomes specific to an aspect of our life, and can be an effective tool for goal setting and enhancing wellness.

I am currently offering Touch for Health sessions at no charge while I am still in the learning, or student phase of my practice.  These complimentary sessions are available until August 31.  Beginning September 1 I will offer Touch for Health sessions on a donation basis through the end of the 2012 year.  If you would like to schedule a Touch for Health session please click on the following link to use my on-line scheduling system Schedulicity.