Events in January / February

HAPPY NEW YEAR  

What better way to kick off 2013 than to think about your health? 

I have 4 events happening over January / February - workshops and talks to help you on your way to a healthier you. See below.  All are held in Dorking, Surrey.  

If are interested in any of them, let me know via email / phone. 

With best wishes for a happy and healthy 2013 

Judith

Want to feel healthy, vibrant & fabulous in 2013? JJJJ WEIGHT LOSS COURSE Mondays  21, 28 Jan + 4, 11, 18, 25 Feb    (7.30pm - 10pm) * Do you have a New Year’s resolution to eat more healthily but don’t know where to start?   * Do you wish to lose a few unwanted pounds? * Are you fed up of yoyo diets, counting calories or points?  * Are your clothes feeling a little tighter than you'd like?  * Do you want more energy? * Do you have a health niggle and would like to tackle it naturally?   YES? Then join up now!!  Much more than just a weight loss course, you will find out in a relaxed and friendly environment how by combining a healthy diet, detox and exercise you can enjoy more vibrant health, feel great and lose weight naturally. The course is held at my home in Dorking, so booking is essential.  Price £75 To book, contact me on 01306 884235 or drop me a line at judithreidnutrition@gmail.com

Introduction to BACH FLOWER ESSENCES Wednesday 23 January  8pm - 9.30pm A gentle solution to life's ups and downs JJJJ Our emotions can hold us back in life and make us feel thoroughly miserable. Are you perhaps * fearful * lacking in confidence * in shock after a trauma * angry              * shy * sad * lonely * undecided * depressed? If so, help is at hand. J Bach Flower Essences can help to rebalance you emotionally so that you can start to enjoy your life and feel at ease once again. J Learn about these wonderful natural remedies which are easy and safe to use at home. The talk is held at my home in Dorking, so booking is essential.  Price £10 To book, contact me on 01306 884235 or drop me a line at judithreidnutrition@gmail.com

Want to give your digestion some TLC? JJJJ DIGESTIVE WELLNESS WORKSHOP Saturday 02 Feb 2012   1.30pm - 5.30pm Are you fed up of bloating, constipation, diarrhoea, indigestion, heartburn, spasms, IBS or general digestive discomfort? This workshop is for YOU!!  Don't be shy!  Come along and find out in a relaxed and friendly environment how you can give your digestive system some much needed TLC.  The workshop is held at my home in Dorking, so booking is essential. Price £28 To book, contact me on 01306 884235 or drop me a line at judithreidnutrition@gmail.com

Rethink your diet - Nourish to Flourish!   JJJ Introduction to Naturopathic Nutrition Weekend Workshop Saturday and Sunday 16 and 17 February   10.30am - 4.30pm Rethink your diet so that you can enjoy better health, feel great about yourself and flourish at all levels.  A MUST if you are serious about your health. Lots of information, tips, tasters, handouts and recipes to set you on the path to a healthier you. Learn in a relaxed and friendly environment. Nourish your mind and body. Be empowered. Be inspired.  Meet like-minded people. A chance for you to re-focus on YOU! The workshop is held at my home in Dorking, so booking is essential.  Price £110.  EARLY BIRD PRICE = £95 if booked before 14 Jan.   To book, contact me on 01306 884235 or drop me a line at judithreidnutrition@gmail.com For more details see www.judithreidnutrition.co.uk

Grounding our dreams in 2013

NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS

Bach Flower - Clematis  helps us root our dreams and goals in reality

Yes, I know I have written about Clematis relatively recently, but seeing it adorn the fences of the nearby railway the other weekend, it made me think about New Year’s resolutions and how some of them often remain as pipe-dreams only.

So Clematis is making its second appearance in my blog!!  

The airy-fairy dreaminess of Clematis becomes all too apparent in the winter months, when it blankets the otherwise bare and quite dull hedgerows!! With its grey wispy appearance it looks rather ghost-like, reminding us that those in a negative Clematis state are hardly present. They maybe physically present, standing there before us, but their thoughts are usually far away, dreaming of the future, of a better life.

As we approach the end of 2012 and the beginning of a new year ahead, it is common to make resolutions. We may dream of being a gorgeous, slimmer version of ourselves, or of making a great success of our new business venture but these will remain as pipe dreams if all we do is take a Clematis approach to the future.

Dreams ARE important. Visualising ourselves as our future selves can motivate us towards achieving our goals, but we need also to ground ourselves and actually DO something. We need to live in the now, and put in some effort, whilst at the same time holding that dream. 

If we wish to lose unwanted pounds we need to get off our bottoms and exercise, as well as taking a good hard look at what we eat and making changes. If we dream of a successful business, we may need to put in hours of training, networking and advertising.

The bottom line is that we cannot hope to write a masterpiece if we do not put pen to paper!!

The Bach Flower Essence of Clematis helps to root us in reality and gives us a firm foundation on which to grow our dreams into a reality.   

Happy Christmas

Wishing Everyone a very Happy Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year ……… 

4 Bach Flower Essences for Christmas

I consider my set of BACH FLOWER ESSENCES as 39 friends on hand to calm me when I feel out of balance emotionally. Four worth considering at Christmas are:

* Vervain - where we are enthusiastically trying to produce the perfect Christmas and finding ourselves unable to relax. This essence helps us to do just that - relax and enjoy, without doing things to death and striving for perfection! 

* Impatiens - when we feel tense, irritable and impatient, perhaps because the children are playing up or others aren’t doing things as quickly as we’d like. We find it hard to cope with the frustrating Christmas queues and delays!!  This essence helps to bring patience and the realisation that everything happens in its own time.

* Elm - where you have so much on your plate (and I’m not talking too much turkey here), and you feel overwhelmed by it all. This essence helps to put our “list” into perspective and renews our confidence in being able to do what needs to be done.

* Olive for when you are simply exhausted mentally and physically from over doing things in the run up before the big day. This essence brings us a sense of peace and renewed strength but also gives us insight into how we overdid things to begin with to get so exhausted. 

Do any of these speak to you? These are just 4 of my “friends”.  There are many more to choose from.

For a more general helping hand - there is always * Rescue Remedy which can be used for major and minor traumas - anxiety before an event, the after effects of an argument or perhaps an accident in the home. It helps to restore calm, diffuse shock and trigger the body’s self-healing into action. NOTE: if you experience a medical emergency, this can be used whilst waiting for (but not instead of) medical help - a few drops on the tongue or pulse points.    

Good breast health

GOOD BREAST HEALTH 

Last December, I reached my half-century and within weeks was being “invited” to have my first mammogram. I knew well before the letter arrived that I would never put myself through one of these. Tales from my mother having had a painful and worrying experience had made me realise that squashing a boob between two plates in the name of health, was in fact traumatising local cells and very delicate tissue. I happen to believe that my cells like a little respect and bags of TLC so that’s what I intend giving them in bucketfuls!!

My game plan is to reduce my risk with a healthy diet and lifestyle AND IF the need arises to check out any untoward symptoms with a proven safe method of scanning - and yes there is one. See below.  

I do NOT intend in participating in “just in case” invasive procedures. If I were to do that, I might as well also pop a daily statin just in case my cholesterol becomes too high (and the joke there is that cholesterol isn’t the problem it’s made out to be either!)  

I was delighted to buy my first copy of “What Doctors Don’t Tell You” back in September as it featured a bumper article entitled “The Great Mammogram Con”. I don’t intend re-writing it here, but would urge EVERY woman (whatever age) to read it. Instead I’ll just include a few key points.    

First of all, for every true case of breast cancer detected by a mammogram, it also sees 10 false positives!!! A false positive can lead to a full-blown scary rollercoaster of more tests and treatments including biopsies, lumpectomy (where the cancer is removed), full mastectomy, chemo and radiation. And this isn’t taking into account the months of worry and stress!! There are numerous stories in the papers / on the net telling of women who have unnecessarily had breasts removed.

Radiation and compression of the breast tissue carry dangers. It is argued that the X-ray radiation of one mammogram is negligible, but I would argue that any X-ray carries a risk. Also, at a screening, it is common for there to be 4 X-rays per breast so the cumulative effect is not as negligible as doctors would like you to believe (and ladies, if you consider our annual invite, the risk factor keeps building up).  And just to add insult to injury, literally, as well as being ultra-uncomfortable and often painful, a mammogram can spread existing cancerous cells!!

Mammography is a limited technology as it only sees mass and structure, and not activity, so there is no way to know if a lump is cancerous or aggressive. About one third of all aggressive breast tumours are not detected and in dense breast tissue (fairly common in younger women), cancers can be missed.

You’ll be pleased to know that there is a safe alternative. This is thermography - digital infrared thermal imaging. Where a mammogram sees mass, thermography sees activity from the heat emitted by fast, cancerous growth. It can pick cancers up early, when it is easier to tackle. It is safer because there is no radiation and no breast compression either. Win-win. 

The down side is the cost. Not yet available on the NHS, this procedure has to be done privately. A company called Medical Thermal Imaging Ltd runs mobile clinics throughout the UK (0333 800 3003). It is still worth asking your doctor about this because the bigger the noise we can make about this safe option, the more hope there is that someone may take note and introduce this instead of mammograms.

Whichever way you choose to check, the bottom line is not to buy into the fear. The problem is that the word “cancer” puts the heebie-jeebies into the most level-headed of us, and we can get drawn into having procedures which we may not need.

It pays to take a preventative approach and this starts with diet.  If you eat junk, you are not giving your cells (breast and other) the TLC they deserve, toxins build up and then disease can manifest.  If we stress our cells on a daily basis, they will spend all their time defending themselves rather than healing and cleansing.

Diet-wise

J drink plenty of clean water

J minimise/avoid caffeine

J eat organic

J eat a predominantly plant-based diet (and cut out dairy for sure)

J eat lots of veg and fruit, particularly green veg

J minimise/avoid sugar (cancer thrives on this)

J eat wholefoods and avoid processed

J minimise/avoid alcohol

   

Lifestyle-wise

J don’t smoke

J de-stress (do you REALLY HAVE to do this and that?); relax; stop to smell the roses

J get plenty of sleep

J get plenty of exercise. It’s non-optional if you want to stay healthy 

J get savvy about your toiletries, household cleaners etc. Ditch any chemical cocktails asap

J go hippy-style and ditch your bra. In particular under-wired bras can put undue stress on breast tissue

J re-think your deodorant. If it’s a bog-standard smelly stick, it’s likely to contain aluminium as well as other nasties. You are rolling this directly into the lymph glands under your arm, which sit next to your breasts. Not a good idea. My recommendation is to wash well and go au-naturel, but it that’s too scary, choose a more natural product

Here’s to good breast-health. 

DOMESTIC DEMON #1 - the hidden dangers of tinned food!

We think of our home as our sanctuary, somewhere safe to relax and hide from the outside world, but just how safe are some of our favourite things which we use on a regular basis?

For a while I have been including a “Domestic Demon” article in my newsletter so thought that I would post these to my blog.

No need to panic!!!! Just take a deep breath and read on. 

My Domestic Demons are, on the whole, things which may be lurking in your cupboards so it should be easy to change to a product which is safer and healthier for you and your family.  

So here goes.  Let’s take a look at what might be accompanying your favourite baked beans!!

DOMESTIC DEMON #1 - the hidden dangers of tinned food!  

What could possibly be wrong with good old tinned baked beans / fish / tomatoes etc?

The process of preserving foods in cans harks back to the late 18^th century, thanks to Napoleon, who offered a prize to anyone who could suggest a way of preserving food for his men during the Napoleonic Wars. At the time, there were more casualties from malnutrition, starvation and scurvy than actual war wounds! The prize was won by a brewer called Nicolas Appert, and his invention was a well guarded secret until the English got wind of it at the turn of the following century. Interestingly can openers didn’t make their debut in England until the 1850s, so getting to the foods entailed brute force - rocks, bayonets, hammers and chisels, with no doubt an array of accompanying injuries!!

Tinned food is no doubt a lifesaver. Armies have marched on them, arctic explorers have explored on them, not to mention saving lives in emergencies across the world.

And that is the important word - EMERGENCIES!!      

Most of us today aren’t travelling to obscure places, we have access to fresh produce and we also own fridges. So really, the only reason for using tinned food when you are at home is for convenience.

Sadly there is a gremlin lurking in the can.  A chemical called BPA (Bisphenol-A) is used to line cans to stop them rusting and to keep foods fresh. It is also used in some water bottles. The problem with BPA is that it is a synthetic oestrogen (or “xenoestrogen” which means foreign oestrogen) and this encourages your body to go on a gender-bending, hormone-disrupting rollercoaster of a trip. Our bodies are finely balanced creatures and when we feed them foreign oestrogens, this can overload us into “oestrogen dominance” which for a woman can manifest in such conditions as menstrual problems, endometriosis and possibly cancers; and for a man, as man-boobs and prostate problems, including cancer.     

So ask yourself - just how convenient is this convenience food? You might “save” an hour here and there TODAY, but in the long term how convenient is it when your health is under par and you cannot enjoy life as much as you would like or even worse become so ill that you spend more time at the doctors and hospital than at home?

I’m not saying, don’t ever use canned foods (I confess to having a few tins in our cupboard just in case) but don’t make them a daily staple. The problem is that these chemicals (not to mention the added refined salt, sugar and additives) push our bodies to the limit and have a cumulative effect.    

It’s always good to be “food-aware”. What’s in it? Where has it come from? 

Excessive Media!!

EXCESSIVE MEDIA

For as long as I can remember, my mother has ticked me off for not paying more attention to “what’s going on in the world” as she puts it, but I have to confess that until relatively recently  I have always kept a wary distance from news programmes as much as possible. Call it a sort of subconscious self-preservation if you like.

In my current line of work (and passion), however, all too often I get sucked into the politics of  vaccinations, GMO, alternative versus orthodox medicine and can at times find the whole thing depressing and totally frustrating!! 

So when I saw this cartoon on Facebook, I had to laugh as it sums me up perfectly!   I love Marianne Williamson’s words. “Do not be mystified about why you are depressed by noon when you start your day with angst and despair in the world, especially if you add caffeine”. How true is that? Think back to how you felt during the Olympics. My guess is you were happy. It’s not just that we witnessed daily success stories that made us feel personally that anything is possible but the general feeling of positivity – like an invisible magic elixir in the air – seemed to permeate everyone’s subconscious!! More people smiled – I’m sure of it!    And that’s just it, we are part of nature, with animal instincts, and although not fine-tuned like our wild friends, can pick up emotions both consciously and subconsciously. Have you ever walked into a room and sensed something was wrong? “You could have cut the atmosphere with a knife” is a common phrase used when the air is thick with bad emotions.  If happiness is hanging in the air, we somehow pick that up and it takes a lot more to pull us down. If there is doom and gloom hanging around like a bad smell, our antennae pick up on that too, although we might not be able to put a finger on why we feel so down or perhaps agitated.  In the age of crazy communication, we can if we choose be plugged directly into doom and gloom 24/7.  This is generated daily by media and big companies. A lot of people quite understandably feel fearful by what they see and hear, and this contributes to a collective smog of underlying anxiety, in which we can all marinade.     When we are fearful, so too are our cells, including those of our lovely creative brain! Poleaxed by “what ifs” and bathing in a soup of invisible angst, our poor brain cells do not function at their best, so we cannot make mindful decisions or move forward in life, and are more likely to accept without question whatever so-called media “fact” is given to us.  For instance, as we head into the winter months, who knows if there will be another scaremongering about the latest “killer” flu bug. All scares over recent years came to nothing, but they sold lots of vaccinations = ££ for Big Pharma. Tony Benn said that to control people you need to frighten them and demoralise them. Educated, confident and healthy people are hard to control.     So that’s why it’s best to take personal control.  1)        Educate yourself on how to eat and live healthily. If you look after your cells with health-giving sleep, food and exercise and try to ditch the stress, you are less likely to succumb to illness or any bugs doing the rounds. 2)       If our cells are in a calm healthy state, when life DOES throw a wobbly in our faces, we are less likely to be pulled right down by it, because we are stronger physically, mentally and emotionally.   3)       Note that only 5% of illnesses can be put down to faulty genes. Any other genetic “weaknesses” can be trumped by our lifestyle choices, in particular, diet. Eating correctly can help switch genes on and off. (More in a future edition). So by following (1), we no longer have to live in fear of a family trait as if it was a ticking time-bomb.      4)       Try to give yourself a media-holiday for at least a day a week (more if you can). 5)       Be grateful. In David Hamilton’s “How your mind can heal your body” he suggests writing down 50 things you are grateful for every day.  Yes, that does seem a lot, but as you get into the swing it becomes easier. They don’t have to be big things: being grateful that the sun is out, or a stranger smiled at you in the street both count. As you buy in more to life feeling positive, doom and gloom news should affect you less. 6)       If you are finding it hard to release any fear, consider Bach Flower Essences which can help to  balance you emotionally.   7)       As with everything, balance is best. I’m not suggesting you become a hermit and cut yourself off from the rest of the world, but wallowing in despair (and I know someone who does) will only add to the collective despair and not help to repair it.  Tune into positive news, spread positive news and don’t buy into everything you hear on mainstream news. 8)       Ditch the morning caffeine. Coffee in particular causes big stress to our cells. Stress = fear. No thank you very much!! DRINK MORE WATER!!