For the past couple of years I’ve kicked off the new year with two things on this blog, a list of my resolutions (mainly to hold me accountable) and a podcast with world renowned astrologers to help us navigate the new year. This year I decided to do something different. But don’t fret, I have an astrologer scheduled to come on the show in February, for those who like to have a forecast for the year! The reason I wanted to do something different is many people often have similar resolutions. In fact the top three are always related to money, health and happiness. And the content of this podcast changed my life in all three! Making it perfect to nail your resolutions too!
Over the past five years I have made it my mission to get healthy. I’ve said numerous times on this blog that it did not happen overnight. It’s been a stepping stone approach to progress:
- Started hot yoga
- Filed for divorce (yes this made me healthier!)
- Became a vegetarian
- Changed 50% of my diet to organic, and why you should too
- Sold everything to pave my way to financial freedom
- Started easing into eco practices
- Eliminated all processed foods
- Eliminated all soft drinks
- Cut out 50% of sugar intake
- Went 100% organic
- Attained financial freedom
- Combined yoga with weight training
If you meet me at a party you may think, good lord this gal’s a hippie. Why yes, yes I am. But as you can see, it did not happen overnight. The list above to better health started five years ago, which has allowed me to ease into it. But despite all my efforts, working out four to five days a week, eating really healthy, having low stress, an incredibly happy life, I could not attain my fitness goals. And this was especially frustrating!
David will agree I have put him through a dieting bootcamp. And honestly I hate the word diet because it isn’t appropriate. Living healthy is truly a lifestyle, but I was struggling to find the ‘lifestyle’ that worked. We did the low calorie thing, the one meal a day thing, the low carb thing, the no carb thing, the ketogenic high fat thing, the raw thing – and nothing worked!
I added in my gym routine in April of 2015, combined with hot yoga. My workout routine averaged 4 days a week but often was five days a week. I monitored EVERYTHING! How?
- Polar FT60 Heart Rate Monitor
- Fitbit Aria Scale
with body fat percentage
- My fitness pal monitors your daily food journal and water intake
- Fitbit Zip Zip
Gotta get in those 10K steps!
I tracked all of my food consumption, calories burned, calories consumed, water intake, body fat and weight. I had no problem gaining weight because I was building muscle, however, my body fat percentage NEVER lowered, but often increased. It stayed a consistent 31-32% Sometimes jumping to 32.4%. Frustrated was an understatement. Here I was eating tofu, kale, and raw fruits and vegetables and I was borderline obese. According to many websites, like this one, built-in.com, I was obese. I’m sorry but as you can see from the five year list above, nothing about my behavior was obese.
When I started in April I was SOOOO pumped to get in the best physical shape of my life. I started a kick-ass pinterest page filled with workout routines, and I started a motivational pinterest page full of inspiration – the butt of my dreams! Tons of photos on pinterest showing girls attaining amazing results with 90 day challenges. When I hit the 90 day mark with zero results, I didn’t get discouraged. Im not in my 20’s so it will just take a little more time. Unfortunately, by September I was starting to get really deflated. No matter what I did, I was 32% body fat, borderline obese, as you can see even by Wikipedia’s standards:
{Body fat percentage according to Wikipedia site}
I hopped online and did some research. A friend of mine told me to try acupuncture, perhaps my meridians were out of whack. There I learned about the elements, something we closely follow in Feng Shui. Turns out I was an Earth element, the hardest of all the elements to lose weight. But I didn’t want to lose weight. I wanted to lean out and have a HEALTHY body with low body fat, not an obese body.
But I was desperate so I tried it. A whole slew of Traditional Chinese medicine built to “drain” the body of it’s ailments. That didn’t work. So I lowered the amount of time I spent lifting and did more cardio. That didn’t work, and then I read HIIT, High intensity interval training may do the trick – zip, zero zilch. To be honest, I was done. It had been five months of killing myself, trying so hard, and not even a sliver of change. I’m sorry I may not be 20 anymore, but after five months I would have been happy seeing a 2% change.
Revolutionary New Approach To Weight Loss
That’s when I discovered this thing called the ALCAT, Optimal wellness through nutrition. HOLY AMAZE BALLS! Finally I heard the angels singing. The ALCAT is a blood test that you can have done that determines food sensitivities. You can get this done by most doctors, but I had mine done through a place called, Any Lab Test Now. So why was this the holy grail?? Well turns out all that raw food I was eating, I had an intolerance to, making my body react by way of SEVERE inflammation, headaches, fatigue and joint pain.
When I got my test results back, EVERYTHING I was eating on a DAILY basis, was pissing my system off. In case you’re curious I put my list below. I will say that apples, strawberries, spinach, broccoli, ginger, bell peppers, chamomile, pears, and tea were a HUGE part of my daily diet. Spinach, apples and strawberries were often consumed twice a day!
So why did I feel that this was an important post? Because if you’re like me, giving it your all and getting zero results, don’t get discouraged! I thought I was doing right by my healthy diet. And many weight training sites ENCOURAGE meal planning – which sets you up for failure. Our bodies are not meant to have the same foods over and over again, and even though that item may SEEM healthy, if it doesn’t agree with your body the side effects result in fatigue, headaches, inflammation, back pain, joint pain, indigestion and more. Many people get so used to feeling this way that they make excuses for it. Oh well, I’m just getting older. Or I didn’t get enough rest last night. blah, blah, blah. Turns out your system isn’t running on optimal levels.
As soon as I alleviated the above foods, I couldn’t believe how incredible I felt. And sure you may jump to, “Oh my god I’m not getting rid all my favorite foods, that’s torture!” Well, what those foods are doing to your body is worse than torture. Trust me when you see how great you feel when you get rid of them you’ll wonder why you didn’t do it sooner. I was actually going to get Botox on my right eye because it was always drooping!!! You know what I said? “Man I guess I’m just getting older” Turns out the severe inflammation was making my eye droop. Now I have no problems at all! All-natural Botox! Boom!
Today’s podcast is with Suzette Garcia, a nutritionist for Cell Science Systems, the company that specialize’s in the ALCAT food testing system. It is the gold standard for food testing sensitivities. In todays podcast you’ll learn:
- Why the ALCAT was created
- What it is and why it matters
- The cause and effect of wrong vs right foods
- Nutrition and it’s role in optimal health
- How good nutrition can heal 70% of your common everyday ailments
- What an intolerance actually is
- How long an intolerance will last
- How to read and understand your test (hey it isn’t a death sentence!)
- How to use this powerful knowledge about your body to finally feel better and get the results you’ve been dreaming of!
Click below to listen in on my interview with Suzette Garcia of ALCAT.