Health and Wellness – Page 2 – Here's What I Think…

Wellness: Keto is a strategy. There are other strategies too.

When my son’s high school principal contacted me and asked if I would be willing to speak to the staff on January 3, 2022 at their annual Professional Learning Community Day for forty-five minutes on: “promoting healthy lifestyle choices” I jumped at the opportunity. She added that she has been following my own keto journey on social media and wanted me to share with the staff how keto has helped me. I was impressed with her vision (a healthy team performs better than an unhealthy one) and I was determined to share in such a way as not to alienate. You see, the keto diet has come in for much maligning from mainstream media. They claim it is unhealthy, they claim it is unsustainable, they claim it fosters disordered eating. All I want is for people to live their best lives ever (as I am doing!) and I KNOW that health & wellness are tied to living a life in alignment & finding purpose. It’s way more than simply looking good and being a certain size.

Food Cravings & Emotional Eating: Practical Approaches for WINNING: Part 2

In my last post “Are Cravings and a Snacking habit getting the better of you?” I explored why we crave the foods we do, why we snack and what giving in to said cravings and a snacking habit could be doing to your health and your livity. If we’re keeping it a buck fifty, the foods we crave all tend to be high-carb, highly processed foods: chips, cookies, ice-cream, bread. And we established that there are valid physiological and psychological reasons at play. You’re not weak neither are you greedy. These hyper-palatable carbohydrate rich foods trigger pathways in our brain that simply make us feel good and when we remain in constant search of that feel-good place we simply repeat the behaviour that led to it in the first place: ergo, dependency or addiction.

This dependency on high-carb, hyper-palatable foods for many, many of us negatively impacts our health (we gain weight or we have difficulty taking and keeping off weight), we get bloated and live with various gut-issues like acid reflux & general discomfort, and we are simply trapped in a vicious cycle of having to be constantly thinking of what next will we eat in order to avoid “hangry” states throughout our day. Sounds familiar? Ok. So what next? Do we simply cut out these carbs and flourish? Easier said than done, right? If there is an actual factual dependency on these foods at play, HOW do we break the dependency and how do we meet the need that gave rise to this dependency in the first place?

Are Cravings & A Snacking Habit Getting the better of You? Part 1

“I do well all day and then at night I go off the rails!”
“The children’s snacks are my weakness”
“I do well all week and then weekends I just can’t seem to stick to the plan.”
“I need a snack after dinner when we’re watching TV.”
“I get hungry mid-morning and need a snack.”
“At about 4pm I need a little pick-me-upper.”
“I say I’ll just eat 2 cookies and I end up eating the entire pack.”
“If it wasn’t for this sweet tooth I know I could lose some weight.”

Could any of the above statements been made by you? Are any of the above impacting your quality of life? Put differently, are you struggling to lose weight? Are cravings getting the better of you? If not, great! You don’t have to read any further unless you’re simply curious or unless you know someone who is struggling to lose weight and for whom cravings seem to always get the better of and you want to understand what’s going on better. But if you’re like very many of us, trying to lose weight, trying to unshackle yourself from the lure of cravings that you know are unhealthy, read on!

What do the ones who win with Keto have in common? 8 CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS FOR WINNING WITH KETO

I’ve been on my own keto journey for 6 1/2 years now as of this update. Yes, I’ve lost weight (YAY!) and yes, my health and livity have improved significantly. I still do all the things I used to do when I was heavier (hike, road trips, cook, etc.) but the difference is that I move around with so much more ease, I enjoy food without guilt or any uncomfortable after effects, my moods are generally more stable and even, and I sleep way better. I’ve been privileged to work one on one and as a small group facilitator with people who feel that keto is the route to weight loss and wellness for them, guiding them as to what they could choose to eat in furtherance of their personal goals based on their proclivities and lifestyle, and serving as an accountability partner as they break old habits and form new ones. I’ve also It never gets old seeing them come off high blood pressure and diabetes meds, hearing them report on being able to sleep comfortably again without acid reflux or sleep apnea. I never get tired of seeing their before and after pics, with them modelling new clothing with a broad smile on their faces. And I have been thinking: what do the ones who win with keto have in common? What are their critical success factors?

“I’m not doing keto! I should stop reading this post right now!”

A Tale of Two Keto Cheaters: Weight Loss Stories we can learn from

I am a keto & weight loss coach. It has been my absolute honour to work with people who have decided that a low-carb way of eating is their chosen route to weight-loss and wellness. Many of my clients have lost weight and come off meds for conditions like bursitis, diabetes type 2 and high blood pressure. As much as they say I’ve helped them, I’ve gotta say, they have taught me so much. We are all different, and as I’ve guided and advised them on their own journey, I have had to adopt an open mind and listening ear and heart, in order to make my advice and recommendations meaningful to their specific circumstances. Back in December I had 2 clients who had 2 different approaches to the matter of cheating while keto. What follows are their stories, their choices and the consequences. Read for yourself and extract any learnings applicable.

She Lost 78 Pounds and she’s 68! LaRonda’s story.

I’d like to introduce you to my friend, LaRonda Robinson. We met on Twitter a few years ago. LaRonda is a very interesting woman, and a single blog post will never cover her many facets. The purpose of this particular blog post is to share a part of her story that she’s graciously consented to share. I have been intrigued by this part of her story and have wanted to document it for some time now. So here we are! Let me present the executive summary, and then I invite you to dig in for the details. LaRonda is a 68 year old great grandma who has lost 74 lbs over the last two years. Yes, 78 pounds! What follows is HER story. Are there learnings we can take from LaRonda’s journey? See for yourself!

3 Mindset Traps that are sabotaging your weight-loss journey

I’ve been coaching people looking to lose weight for a few years now, and I quickly realized that simply having a meal plan to follow is NOT the key to success! This is a head game that demands more than mere information. Check it out:

Me: “Oooh that breakfast looks lovely!”
Him: “It’s pretty good! I didn’t think I’d enjoy bacon & eggs without toast, yet here I am!”
Me: “That kale looks so fresh and green!”
Him: “It’s bitter, I’m not enjoying it, but I’m pressing through!”

I think my response stunned him… “Then why are you eating it if you don’t like it?” I sensed his surprise which quickly gave way to defensiveness when he replied: “Well it’s healthy, and I already bought it.”

I quickly reminded him that there are too many other “healthy” foods to allow yourself to suffer with your own food choices! So many of us trying to lose weight seem to feel the need to punish ourselves, to self-flagellate, as if we’re punishing ourselves for getting fat! Stop it.

Life In The Time of COVID Jamaica style: AN UPDATE

In my last blog post, I took the pulse of members of my immediate family in terms of how they were coping with the pandemic and their thoughts on the predicament that planet was plunged into. This was 6 weeks ago, and we had reported 469 cases of COVID-19, 9 of which had died from the disease. We were under lock-down, working from home, unable to go to the beach, and not certain as to what “normal” would look like. I decided to check in once again as more time has elapsed, and here in Jamaica, as with countries all over the world, we appear to have entered a new phase in our response to COVID-19. People are still getting sick, people are still dying, but the restrictions imposed here in the west as at end March are being loosened. Heck, Jamaica welcomed tourists June 15 for the first time in months! So I wanted to see how my people were feeling, what their thoughts were with respect to this impending “new normal” and just how they’re coping as at now.

Life in the time of COVID Jamaica Style: A snapshot.

Who would have thunk that we’d be here as a planet today? The entire world is grappling with a pandemic which is killing people, decimating economies and baffling scientists. When China first reported this new virus impacting parts of its population earlier this year, I don’t think many of us thought that it would touch us at all. It was a virus, all the way over there. Yet here we are…locked-down, quarantined, working from home, masking up and asking how will this end and when will it end. And guess what? Choose a country, any country anywhere in the world, and someone there is asking those very same questions. It feels as if everything has happened so fast and many of us are just trying to catch our breath and COPE. While I’ve been doing my best to cope, I’ve also been concerned about our children and how they have been coping with this upheaval. So I decided to check in with them and document it as a sort of personal snapshot of COVID-19 in Jamaica. For posterity.

Creamy Callaloo Coconut Soup: Keto Comfort

It is April 15 2020 and if feels like the entire world is in a state of upheaval. The way we have lived up until now has been upended; schools are out, classes are online, more of us a working from home, we’re wearing masks and joining lines to get into supermarkets. People have lost jobs, businesses have folded, whole sectors are in jeopardy of collapse. And most of all, people are dying…have died. This virus seems to have appeared out of nowhere and with no cure or vaccine in sight, it’s hard to ensvision how this ends and what our world will be like when it does end. This is an unsettling and uncertain time, and many are turning to food for comfort. But now is not the time to binge eat those foods that make us more susceptible to the ravages of COVID-19. Here’s a budget friendly, creamy, low-carb soup that will satisfy that need for warmth and comfort.