Showing posts with label healthy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label healthy. Show all posts

Friday, March 10, 2017

5 Healthy ‘Shots’ To Alkalize Your Body in the Morning

5 Healthy ‘Shots’ To Alkalize Your Body in the Morning



In the morning, we feel a little, well … less than stellar. Achy, stiff, the bed is calling our name to stay in, and let’s be honest, we just don’t feel so hot. While most of us do enjoy some coffee in the morning, before we head to the glorious pot or French press (or Starbucks for some of you), we should pause and make an effort to enjoy something else right beforehand.
The body is naturally very acidic in the morning because as it cleanses itself overnight. As we give it a break from food and allow our organs to rejuvenate so we can feel our best the next day, all the wastes from the previous day (or even days before that) make their way through our system. This is nature’s way of making us feel brand new, but first thing, the body can feel a little lifeless.
The answer to this is to consume a high-quality, alkaline drink the morning, but you don’t need a huge amount to reap the benefits. That’s why we’ve called these healthy options below “shots” but not the ones you’re thinking of—sorry!

These alkaline shots are so powerful in their ability to promote energy, an alkaline body, eliminate inflammation, an erratic stomach, and achy muscles, that you’ll feel it almost seconds, and especially minutes, after you drink them. Just 2-4 ounces of these is all you need and you’ll be set for the day. Making these fast and easy shots a practice in your day is a healthy habit that takes under five minutes that anyone can do.
Try these five…

1. Straight ACV

This is the fastest, and possibly, laziest yet powerful, option of them all. Apple cider vinegar, coined ACV, is nature’s most alkaline, probiotic-rich beverage that can relieve so many ailments in a small serving. Muscle pain, headaches, sluggish digestion, and just a general acidic feeling can all disappear in mere seconds after you have some ACV. To make a shot, combine 1 tsp of apple cider vinegar with 2-4 ounces of water (depending on how much you want), add a few ice cubes and drink. Or, just toss back 1 tsp. straight and call it a day. Your choice—you’ll benefit no matter how hard you take your ACV!

2. Lean, Mean, Green Juice

Green juice might sound like a trend you’re tired of hearing about, but it’s a very efficient, natural way to alkalize the body and improve your mood too. Rich in magnesium, vitamin C, and micronutrients that feed the body on a cellular level, green juice is an excellent remedy for achy muscles, digestion, and general inflammation. Be sure you keep your green juice simple and free of lots of sugar for the most benefits and efficiency. No one wants to clean the juicer in the morning or drink the amount of sugar equivalent in a glass of processed OJ. Make a lean, green juice with: 1 head romaine, 1 lemon, 1/2 inch ginger, and 1/2 a cucumber. Done!

3. Spirulina, Plant-Powered Green Smoothie

Green smoothies can serve as a breakfast option, or can just be simple and served before you even eat. If you’re looking to use this as a simple anti-inflammatory, alkalizing drink, just keep things simple, but add a boost with the amazing spirulina—a superfood algae that some call nature’s multivitamin. Blend 2 cups spinach with 1/4 cup frozen berries, 1 slice ginger, and a little stevia if you need some sweetness. This is filled with 10 grams of protein from the spinach, vitamin C, B vitamins, iron, and potassium to make you feel amazing first thing in the day. It’s also low-glycemic and would make the perfect breakfast if you’d like to add some plant-based protein like hemp seeds or a protein powder on the market.

4. Lemon, Cayenne, and ACV

Lemon, cayenne, and ACV are combined to create a top alkalizing shot that will make you feel incredible! Cayenne is a metabolism booster, inflammatory reducing spice that also aids in digestion, reduces pain, and can give you a similar buzz to caffeine without the crash. Lemon is a top alkalizing and cleansing food that adds sweetness and vitamin C to the already slightly sweet and tart ACV. The end result is a tonic that’s powerfully cleansing and rejuvenating. Combine the juice of a lemon, 1 tiny pinch (1/8 tsp.) cayenne, and 1 tsp. ACV in a small cup with 2 ounces of water. Add crushed ice, blend, and serve as an icy tonic that wakes you up and gets you going!

5. Ginger, ACV, and Lemon

For a tummy-helping beverage first thing in the day, go with ginger, lemon, and ACV. These three all have digestive boosting properties, but when combined are much more effective.Ginger relieves nausea, indigestion, bloating, and constipation, reduces pain in the body, and can provide natural energy. Combined with the benefits of ACV and lemon, this will settle the stomach, energize you, and provide clarity you need to start the day. A happy gut means a happier mind, and a happier you!

Do you have a favorite “shot” you like to drink first thing in the day? You can also see oursmoothies, liquid tonics, and other tips on alkalizing the body for more helpful information.
Lead Image Source: Ultra Queen K Performance Blendsource.http://www.onegreenplanet.org/vegan-food/healthy-shots-to-alkalize-your-body-in-the-morning/


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Tuesday, February 28, 2017

A healthy female animal

A healthy female animal



There are a tiny number of core ideas or techniques most germane to the concepts of growth and balance.  Three of them are:
1) “Love and Fear compete for the same place in your heart.”
2) The “Chakra” model that suggests that a healthy human being without fear barriers will automatically evolve toward higher expression.
3) The “Ancient Child”  model is a “sigil”—a “symbol of power” constructed of overlapping symbols.   A sort of conceptual mandala.   While there are probably about ten different powerful concepts overlayed one with another in an elegant fashion (and no, I won’t talk about all of them.  Your conscious mind just gets in the way) there is one core aspect that I find most fascinating:

a) Human beings are genetically programmed to feel protective toward children.  Not an absolute, of course, but those big eyes and round faces just kill us.
b) All human beings experienced love and protection at some point in their lives.   Whether you can consciously remember it or not, is irrelevant.  Humans who are not nurtured in infancy wither and die.   “Failure to thrive.” Period.
c) Most of us will accept conditions and associations we would NEVER want for our own children, or people we love

Combine these three artfully, and you can create magic.

Therefore, if you can imagine reaching out to the “child” part of yourself, and make that emotional/conceptual connection, you begin to feel self-protective on a level most don’t experience.

WE WILL DO THINGS FOR THOSE WE LOVE THAT WE WON’T DO FOR OURSELVES.

Both men and women fall into this pattern, despite the perspective held by some of each group that “they have it worse” or are more deeply programmed for denial and sacrifice.  That just reflects their own partial understandings.

I remember one example of this that came to me starkly while teaching a women’s self defense workshop twenty-five years ago.    (Please NOTE: the following only worked because I had established rapport with the members of the workshop.   They knew I cared about them, and loved them.  I would NEVER have tried this without that connection.)

I was holding a kicking pad for a woman who had been abused terribly. Came to the workshop in drab colorless clothes, no makeup, hair cut asexually, shoulders hunched. Could barely meet our eyes.   She just couldn’t hit the shield.     Was afraid to “hurt” me (afraid to anger me, thereby triggering retaliation.)   Was crying and shaking and just barely tapping it.   Blubbering that she couldn’t.

I had an inspiration.    “Do you have a daughter?”  I asked.  “No,” she sobbed.
“Do you have a kid sister?” I asked
“Yes.” She said, and her eyes brightened, just a bit.  GOOD.  That told me she had heart-space association with her sister.  
“And you love her dearly?”
“Yes,” she said.
“All right,” I said. “Listen to me.    If I get past you, I’m going to rape her with a broken coke bottle.”

She froze.  Her entire body language shifted. She narrowed her eyes.  Her face tilted forward into “predator” mode.  She was no longer worried about what anyone thought, or what I might do to her.  Her entire focus was on hurting me.

Her next kick slammed into me and damned near knocked me through the wall!  She hit again and again, in “controlled maniac” mode, letting out the pain and fear and rage and anger she had bottled up inside herself from childhood.   Knocked me off my feet.  Stomped me on the ground.  Then, shocked, looked at what she was doing as if standing outside herself, witnessing a miracle.

“THAT!” I screamed, leaping up.  “That!  That moment, that feeling, THAT switch in your head!”  I squeezed her hand, “anchoring” that state that feeling.  “Make a fist”  she did.  “Close your eyes”. She did.

“Go to that place.”  She breathed like a dragon, tapping into some place inside her head and heart she had never known.    “THAT is your guardian.  THAT is who and what you really are, and you need to know that.  Out of your pattern.  Mask OFF, dammit.  No one.  NO ONE has the right to touch you, or step into your space ever again without your permission.  Do you understand me?”

Sobbing, tears streaming down her face, she nodded. 
Opened her eyes transformed.

“I love you,” she said.  And hugged me tightly.  The entire workshop had stopped, stunned, watching, and burst out into applause for this little woman who had discovered who and what she really was, for the first time in her life.

My ribs ached, but the sheer joy of that moment, of helping one of my sisters find her strength, has lasted for decades.

She knew how to master her skill.   How to protect herself.  Which gave her permission to love.  Which opened the door to growth and evolution.  

She showed up at the workshop the next day with color in her clothing.  Her hair somehow softer around her face.  A touch of makeup.   Shoulders squared.  Smiling.  Eyes bright.  Radiating more of her aliveness…dammit, she was suddenly “sexier.”

She took me aside, and quietly said: “you changed my life.”

No.  She changed her life.  I just got out of the way, and let nature work through me.  She was now a female human animal, with her hands on the controls of her life.

I love my work.


Namaste,
Steve

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