Accelerated-State Conditioning

Anyone who has felt the high of a triumph, the buzz of an energy streak or the tingles of a first love knows how special those feelings are. All of these things share a similar feeling, and tend to make people giddy with happiness. I have wanted to find a way to recreate this sensation on command, but have never found an adequate means of doing so. I recently ran across a website claiming to be able to do just this. I have yet to try the method, but it seems very promising. The author claims to use it himself, and to have helped many others do the same. I have heard of similar techniques used in psychotherapy, so I believe this has potential. The technique involves positive self-talk combined with smiling in front of the mirror and an imaginary audience (cut out from magazines or pictures). This technique may take some people more time than others to be successful, and it should be viewed with an open mind. I wish anyone luck who decides to attempt it, and I hope to be doing the same soon! Below is the website providing further comprehensive information on accelerated-state conditioning:

http://www.acceleratedstateconditioning.com/index.html

Cleansing

Cleansing, if done correctly, can be a very beneficial way to heal your body. Many cleanses promote high sugar content drinks or fasting. I have found a great cleanse that includes neither of these things. I don't promote fasting, because I believe it will only decrease your metabolism. I feel a cleanse should provide proper nutritional content while helping to clean out your body; you should not feel deprived of eating. I started a cleanse yesterday, The Standard Process 21 Day Cleanse. This has been difficult for me, and I already have a restricted diet, so I advise anyone attempting it to prepare! Make sure you read up on the cleanse and buy the proper supplements. Everything you need to know can be read on the following website. You need to find a standard process dealer (a physician, or possibly online) to buy the vitamins and the drink powder. The website has a variety of shake recipes, which I would advise taking a look at. I wish you all the luck if you decide to attempt the cleanse, it's an amazing way to lose weight and feel better! I will keep you posted on my experience!
http://www.standardprocess.com/display/psppurification.spi

The Candida Snack Shack

It's very difficult to find quick and easy snack ideas, so most people grab something unhealthy to chomp on. I have been struggling with this problem for quite some time, and have found a fun, easy, tasty and relatively quick solution! This idea came to me after picking up random vegetables at the store and doing a little mix and match. The result is my take of a cucumber sandwich.

Ingredients:
1 Large Cucumber
Olive Oil (or any oil of your choosing)
Chopped Onions
Chopped Green Pepper
Lunch Meat (I prefer ham or chicken but it's up to you)

Cut the cucumber into relatively thick slices and place them on a place. Tear pieces of lunch meat up and place them over the cucumber slices. Then take a handful of both onions and green peppers and throw them into a bowl and add a fair amount of oil to the mixture. Take a spoon and liberally add the onion/green pepper mixture over the top of the cucumber and meat slices. This is a great healthy snack that is quick and easy to make, and will help stave off hunger! I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

What's for Breakfast: Easy, Quick and Healthy Breakfast Ideas

People have been told for a long time that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Unfortuantely, people are more inclined to eat something quick, because they don't have time to eat a decent breakfast. This leads to eating things such as cereal, donuts, meal-replacement bars and meal-replacement drinks. With breakfast being so crucial to getting your metabolism going and keeping your mind functioning at a good rate, why are so many people making such poor choices. I believe it has to do with poor planning, time, and at times, laziness. Many people don't stop to think that most of these breakfast choices are full of sugar and carbohydrates. This means that your body starts with a spike in blood sugar, and then you are prone to a crash in a couple hours. These things will not keep you full and satisfied, and are not the best choice for curbing your hunger until lunch time. I have compiled a list of quick breakfast ideas to help you start out the day!

Plain Oatmeal (depending on your gluten sensitivity this is a possibility)
Plain Yogurt (I like the full fat kind, with little to no sugar) - Depending on your lactose sensitivity
2-4 Tbls Almond Butter or other nut butters without sugar (For those that don't like to eat breakfast)
1 Avocado
Salad with Coconut Oil (yes a salad for breakfast!)
Bagel without Gluten (found at health food stores, but contains a lot of carbs)
1-2 Hard-Boiled Eggs (prepare ahead of time for an on the go breakfast)
Rice with/without Butter (prepare ahead of time)
Cucumbers and Coconut Oil
Squash (Add cinnamon and stevia for a sweeter breakfast)
1 Serving nuts of your choosing
Smoothie option: 1 cup milk of your choosing, 4 Tbls Almond Butter (w/out sugar), Stevia to taste, ice
Fried Eggs

Natural Thyroid Treatment

After I went off Topamax, which has a weight loss side effect, I experienced rapid weight gain soon after. This was very difficult considering I was maintaining the same diet and working out more. I started to wonder what could cause such rapid weight gain, and came up with a few ideas that seemed fairly legitimate. My first idea was water retention. This can cause weight gain at a very fast rate, but can usually be combated with a healthy diet, exercise and making sure you are drinking enough water. My next thought was metabolism. Since I figured there was little I could do to speed up my metabolism that I wasn't already doing, I continued to to eat healthy and exercise at least 4 times per week. My next thought was that perhaps my thyroid was affected in one way or another. I started researching different ways to help increase or regulate thyroid function, and I came up with a few things that I think have helped me to halt and possibly reverse my weight gain.

First, I began taking iodine, because I read that a deficiency can lead to hypothyroidism. I also decided to take two other supplements called Thyroid Complex (a product of Mediherb) and Thytrophin PMG (a product of standard process). Both are meant to help support the thyroid and help it to function at a normal rate. Neither of these products have Thyroxine in them, which is used in pharmaceutical medicines to increase thyroid. I would recommend all three of these things because they are natural, and work to help your body improve itself instead of teaching it to rely on medicine.  

A New Lifestyle: Making The Needed Sacrifices

I think the hardest part about making healthy lifestyle changes is the beginning. It is extremely difficult to embark on something, especially if you know it is going to be difficult. Once the decision has been made to start something new, most people fall short of completing their goal because it doesn't fit into their lifestyle or it becomes more difficult than they had originally anticipated, so they give up. This is all too common, and often leads to feelings of inadequacy. I think a huge problem with this scenario is that most people need to truly weigh their decision to start a rigorous lifestyle change. They must commit themselves fully to the change, and understand how hard the change will be.

Changing a lifestyle is much more than just changing a habit. It means changing many different aspects of your life. For instance, many people decide to eat healthier, not realizing that this will impact their relationships, time and finances. It becomes difficult to sustain when the change that is being made impacts a person's life in ways they haven't planned.

I think it is important to realize that changing an part of a lifestyle changes everything else in your life. This means sacrifice. When deciding to make a change, you must understand that you will be giving up something in order to achieve something else. This is not to be taken lightly, it must be well thought out so you can decide responsibly if this change is worth it. Once you decide that whether it is worthwhile or not, you must make yourself comply with your decision, because the drastic change will compromise your feelings and make you want to quit. It is important to keep your goal in mind, and keep reminding yourself that giving up something, such as processed and sugary foods, will in turn help you enjoy your body to its fullest physically and mentally.

Many people have a hard time giving up instant gratification for a long term goal. This means that perhaps you should make short term goals, so you feel gratification for accomplishing things at a quicker pace. This will help keep you motivated to continue, because you feel like you're making a difference. Also, a healthy change should be thought of as a lifestyle change, so make sure what you are doing is manageable in the long term. Many goals fail because people set the bar too high, and they just cannot accomplish what they had originally set out to do. Attempt to make more modest goals, and once you achieve them you can feel free to set a new goal. This will make your ultimate goal seem more in reach.

You should also make sure you have all of the tools needed to reach your goal. Make sure you have a good support system (friends and family), the right equipment and the necessary foods. You should make sure to plan ahead, because changes will be time consuming and difficult to find time to complete. I find it helpful to remember that my body is precious and I need to take care of it. I want to look and feel my best for as long as I'm alive. The changes I have made now will impact me forever, and will help me look and feel younger as I age. This is the only body I am going to get, so I want to treat it as best as I can, and so should you!

P90x Challenge

To combat my weight gain and the body image issues that came along with it, I have decided to start using P90x. I have heard quite a few good reviews about it, and I think it's just what I need. I am looking to build a fair amount of muscle, but stay lean as well, and this program seems to be perfect for that! I have done two workouts already and have decided I'm completely out of shape. I couldn't finish my workout yesterday because it was too intense, so I got about halfway through. It is definitely an extreme regime, but I think I am up for the challenge. I have always enjoyed working out, but have been more of a cardio girl than strength training (I do a little of that on the side). This program combines the two so you can build muscle and burn fat. I am going to keep at it, even if some of the workouts are a little too hard for me at first, I think I will get them when I get a little more in shape. I would like to lose around 6 pounds (the weight I gained), plus get toned and fit. I am hoping this program will improve my body image as well as my health, and hopefully give my metabolism the boost it needs to recover from discontinuing my Topamax. I will keep you posted on my progress with the program!

Fairwell to Topamax

I have officially quit Topamax, FINALLY! I feel like this has been dragging on for far too long, and it finally needed to end. My experience with it was rather odd, and has been very uncomfortable at times. I started at 100mg, tapered down to 75mg and then to 50mg and had no problems with weight gain. It was not until I decided to taper down to 25mg that I started to have some weight gain. This was obviously very scary, because it didn't matter what I ate, or if I worked out, I was gaining. I increased my dose back up to 50mg without relief, I still continued to gain more weight. I even tried 75mg to try and halt the weight loss, thinking I was going at this in the wrong way. 75mg did nothing as well, so I decided that since I was gaining weight on the Topamax, I might as well just go off of it and hope for the best. I was horrible to realize that this drug had screwed up my body so much that I had absolutely no control over my weight gain. I could do everything right and still gain weight, this frustrated me beyond belief. I may still be in the midst of the weight gain, because I might still gain more, I don't know. This is hard for me to relinquish my hold and control on my body, but I've had to do it in order to get off the medicine. So far I have gained 6 lbs. This may not seem like a lot, but it felt terrible to put 6 lbs on while doing everything right. It has been extremely hard not to go back to my old habits of starving myself and exercising all night. I realize that that will not help me, I just need to wait out the storm and do all I can. This being said, I had decided to start a workout routine to build muscle and get into shape. I am hoping that doing so will help me drop the 6 lbs I gained and get toned so I can combat the weight gain and effects from the drug. I will update you further on the specifics of my exercise routine later. I just want to encourage anyone that's having trouble with managing weight gain and an eating disorder to reach out to someone. It really helped me to have my fiance around while all of this was going on!