If I take a moment and look back on my teenage years, twenties, thirties and forties, I marvel at the self-confidence, self-esteem and sheer unadulterated chutzpah with which I lived!

I was slim and gorgeous. I was fortunate enough to have had a wide and varied education. By the time I was 40 I had visited 48 countries and lived in four. I was an actress, a singer, a TV writer and producer, a radio director and performer, a music publisher, a software designer, a clothing and jewelery manufacturer… and the list goes on!

The reverse side of the coin, as you would expect, was a little blacker. At 17, I was diagnosed with manic depression (bipolar disorder). Over the years, I spent time in hospitals for severe manic episodes or equally severe depressive episodes. Standard treatment was Lithium plus some other drugs. I experienced the pain and heartbreak most of us experience, including the early death of my father, the loss of a child and the loss of my mother to dementia.

I entered my fifties; buoyant, energetic, vivacious and in my usual somewhat hyper state (not manic … just up!). In fact, business was as usual until I turned 55!

I woke up one morning looking like a piece of chewing gum on the sole of my shoe … my beautiful little body with pert boobs and a sensational bum (both of which were definitely lower than they had been the day before) looked sad. My skin started to resemble a crepe frock, and my arms became the proverbial bat wings. Staring back at me in the mirror was … my mother! Don’t get me wrong; I loved my mother but as long as I’d known her she had been old. And now I looked like her and we all know what that means…

 

Written by Penelope Whiteley (www.agingdisgracefullynow.com) – to find the rest of her story to see how she was able to reinvent herself.  It may help you reinvent yourself!   – read the original and entire article here

 
1- Guylaine asked:  Gaining weight during perimenopause, and how to lose it.  I watch my food I exercise every day, and it doesn’t move.

We covered this one pretty thoroughly – hopefully you took good notes or you can listen to the recordings.

The one reason I wanted to create this specific call is because we hear the frustration and confusion every single day!  Women are doing everything they are told to do – but they still can’t lose the weight, still can’t get their blood sugar under control, still can’t get the energy to do anything, and as we discussed at the beginning they are looking at the wrong thing.

 

2- Kari asked:   How do you trigger hormones – I didn’t know you could even do that.

We covered this question pretty well too. When people come out of a mentality of cutting calories to lose weight, or eating a low fat diet, or eating at fast foods places – and just counting calories – they will remain frustrated.  We just wanted to educate you on the relationship between what you are doing and how the hormones are being effected.

 

3- Cherylyn asked:  About what age does menopause begin? I am 43, am I close?.

The average age for women beginning menopause is 51.  Most women begin to notice some degree of hormonal changes in the mid 40s, so that might be what you are beginning to see.  That time is called perimenopause.  This is when your ovaries are still producing estrogen – but beginning the process of slowing down, the hormones are fluctuating so you are experiencing symptoms.  Not to worry!

If you make the lifestyle changes as far as eating the right foods, getting daily exercise for your body, good quality sleep, a positive mind-set, then you will be okay.  We can help you with making those changes, one step at a time.

 

4- Carolyn asked:  How do I keep my heart healthy doing perimenopause?

The beauty of what we have been discussing about keeping your hormones healthy keeps everything healthy.  Most diseases we see – from heart disease, to weight gain, to diabetes, to arthritis, and all the other “Itis” is from living an inflammatory lifestyle. 

Too much sugar, bad fats, too many refined carbs and fake foods, too much stress, too little exercise, not enough fresh air and sunshine, insufficient sleep, drinking enough pure water, etc.

So it’s not a function of just focusing on your heart – it’s a matter of focusing on your entire being.

 

5- Donna asked:  How do I regain my muscle tone?

Hopefully you took some good notes as well – especially when we discussed being over-fat and under-muscled.  As we age, it’s much easier for the body to accumulate and store that fat, even if it eats it’s own muscle to do it.  Go back and listen to the exercise part, and reducing the sugar in the diet.  We didn’t discuss resistance exercises – like weights, or bands – but that is a big part as well.

 

Principle 5 – Detox

The liver is the major hub of most of your toxins and poisons – referring to the pesticides, the herbicides, the preservatives in our food, fungicides, heavy metals.   All of these poisons build up in your body.

So why is this important?

Your liver is also the hub of all of your fat burning hormones.  Eighty percent of the thyroid hormones are activated through the liver.

The adrenals work through the liver, the pancreas works through the liver and the pituitary works through the liver.  That’s why detox and the liver is so important.

 Someone sent in a question about a Detox program they saw on line –

When anything says, “Lose 20 pounds and flatten your midsection ” without dieting and exercising –

We would be strongly suspicious – there is no quick fix to weight loss or detoxification – most of these are intestinal cleanses – but they do not detox on a deep cellular level – and that is what happens – the cells become toxic and not able to communicate with the hormones that are trying to get them activated.

It’s kind of like vacuuming your living room for guests.  It might look good for a little while but the rest of your house is infested.

Principle 3:  You need the appropriate exercise for you.

Another HUGE Myth and misconception is that you need to exercise harder in order to experience any weight loss!

Why should you exercise?

The reason to exercise is NOT TO BURN CALORIES.   The reason to exercise is to increase the number of mitochondria in your cells, to increase stimulation of your fat burning hormones and to increase the fat-burning hormone production.  It works only if you do it correctly.

Actual fat burning occurs 14 to 48 hours after exercising  IF you:

• don’t have any sugar before or after
• are not stressed
• getting plenty of good restorative sleep  (when the growth hormone is made)
• do not eat carbs before or after a workout

Exercise is a stress.  You stress your body.  Then you stop.  What is supposed to happen is you recover and you feel better than before you exercised.  That is the time you burn fat.

The key in proper exercising is how long it takes you to recover – the unhealthier you are, the longer it takes you to recover.

This recovery period is a function of your parasympathetic nervous system.

There are two parts to our Autonomic Nervous system.

The Sympathetic Nervous System is like the accelerator on your car – it speeds things up.  You’ve heard of the flight or fight response – it makes your heart rate faster, tightens your muscles, increases your blood pressure, takes blood away from your internal organs and shifts it to your arms and legs making you ready for action.

The parasympathetic system is like your brake.  It slows everything down. Most people today have a very unhealthy parasympathetic system – they can’t slow down – always on high alert and ready to fight or flee. If this system is not functioning properly – the recovery period after exercising is very long – which is where the fat is supposed to be burned.

When you take time to love your pet (or any animal), you are triggering your parasympathetic system.  That is a good thing!

There are 3 parts to an exercise:

1. Duration
2. Intensity
3. Recovery

The intensity is what generates (GH)  Growth Hormone, also referred to as anti-aging hormone.

The problem is when you increase intensity but you are stressed and can’t recover well.  You have to work up to it – increasing intensity and also improving recovery.  We call it Interval training,  surge training or bursting.

The best way to perform this to take your resting pulse rate – do something to get it up to 80% of maximum and then see how long it takes your body to recover back to your normal resting heart rate.  This becomes your interval training cycle – and then do 3 to 4 cycles.

This is the best way to stimulate the GH – which is one of the fat burning hormones.  It is a major one.

Watch for Part 3 of this article to find out about why “good quality” sleep affects your fat burning hormones (which also helps with weight loss) and what you can do to help it!

One billion people in the world are overweight!
65% of Americans are overweight!
30% are clinically obese!

If there are so many gurus, so many diet aids, diet books, diet shows, diet drinks, exercise gyms, exercise books, videos, mp3s, and websites –so many diet drugs and now the latest diet drug that just came out – and then all the weight loss surgery – how come we are still so fat?

That means our children will be sicker and die younger than their parents. Why?

We are applying an old model of health care that does not deal with the problem – which is chronic disease and obesity.

Look back to 1900 when our grandparents and great grandparents were alive – all of our meals were eaten at home.

The sad facts today:

• Now – more than half of our meals are eaten outside the home
• One in five breakfasts are eaten through a car window
• 30% of Americans eat at least one meal a day in the car
• $33 billion are spent annually just in the marketing of poor quality foods that contains dangerous fats, toxins and additives

SO IT’S TIME FOR A PARADIGM SHIFT ALERT – It’s time to look at the world a little differently.

In this series, we are going to be discussing 6 Principles concerning Weight Loss Resistance.

 

First Principle:

You must be healthy to lose weight – you don’t lose weight to get healthy. We know you may have never heard that before!

Being fat is a symptom – it’s not the problem. Fat accumulation is the problem.

Taking drugs or medications to alleviate the symptom is like turning off your fire alarm and not looking at what’s causing the fire alarm to go off – that is what most drugs and medications do – they shut off the fire alarm.

So what makes you store fat instead of burning fat?

When people don’t understand this principle – they become very susceptible to the very next unhealthy program that comes along. And there are plenty of them out there – which is why only 2% of dieters are successful. Crazy calorie restrictive diets, low fat diets, low carb diets, the Twinkie Diet, Subway diet, the diet pills, and potions, and on and on.

Fat is stored energy – and it will only be released when your body is healthy.

Most diets focus on the calories and the weight – instead of the getting healthy to lose the weight.

How exactly is this stored energy released? The answer is hormones.

There are 6 hormones that burn fat and 3 hormones that make fat. Each of the hormones has it’s own unique triggers.

So you are either triggering your fat burning hormones to burn the fat – or you are triggering your fat storing hormones to accumulate fat. You need to enhance the health and production of these fat burning hormones and the organs and glands that produce these hormones.

Let’s define what food actually is: “That which is eaten to sustain life, provides energy, and promotes the growth and repair of tissues, nutrient”.

It is NOT just a fuel for the body – or something that gives pleasure – it’s not just a bunch of calories. Using this definition – you may realize you don’t eat much food – most food consumed today is CRAP – Carbs that are Refined, Artificial, and Processed.

There are 320,000 processed foods on the market.

160,000 created in the past 10 years.

There are 250,000 fast food restaurants.

That’s a problem.

Fat in your body is stored energy. It is ONLY used when absolutely necessary – after the sugar fuel has been exhausted.

KEY POINT – This is an evolutionary priority – it’s based on survival and evolution.

Your body ALWAYS uses stored sugar and dietary sugar as a priority before tapping into fat fuel.

So Are You A Sugar Burner Or A Fat Burner?

That is why people are always craving sugar – they need it because they are using it for energy – can’t burn the fat.

That’s why as people do lose weight from calorie restriction of quick weight loss – like some diets, hcg – people do indeed lose weight – but where does that weight loss come from? Not from the fat – but from the muscle.

This evolutionary drive is so powerful, the body will actually eat up it’s own muscle that give up the fat stores – as long as it is depending on sugar as it’s main source of energy.

This is the principle reason why people are not experiencing weight loss! Watch for Part 2 to find out what you can do about losing weight in a healthy way and permanently!

Not long after going through menopause, Denise Roberts (not her real name) began to feel severe pain during sexual intercourse with her husband. Penetration, she says, “felt like a knife inside me.” The estrogen and vaginal lubricants recommended by the various physicians she saw offered little relief.

She felt ashamed, anxious, and inadequate as a wife, and she dreaded having sex.

Denise’s pain and frustration persisted for eight years before she heard about pelvic floor physical therapy, a technique that helps relax and strengthen muscles in the vaginal area. After several months of therapy and continued use of estrogen and lubricants, Denise felt much better. “It’s like a miracle,” she says.

Millions of women experience pain before, during, or after sexual intercourse—a condition called dyspareunia (from the Greek dyspareunos, meaning “badly mated”).

This condition not only saps sexual desire and enjoyment, it can also strain relationships and erode quality of life in general. For postmenopausal women, dyspareunia may also raise concerns about aging and body image.

Many women suffer in silence and don’t seek the help they need, or they have trouble finding a clinician who can diagnose and treat the causes of their pain. That is unfortunate, because treatments are available for many of the problems that underlie this vexing condition.

Dyspareunia (pronounced dis-pah-ROO-nee-uh) can happen at any age, but it’s particularly common among women who’ve reached menopause. Studies and surveys suggest that one-quarter to one-half of postmenopausal women experience painful sex.  The pain can range from mild to excruciating; sufferers describe it as burning, stinging, sharpness, or extreme tenderness.

Depending on its cause, pain may be located in the outer genitals (vulva), within the vagina, or deep in the pelvis. Many women feel discomfort mainly in the vestibule, the nerve-rich area surrounding the vaginal opening.

Dyspareunia can start suddenly or develop gradually. Pain may occur every time with sex, or only occasionally. For some women, simply thinking about intercourse can start a cycle of tightness, pain, and avoidance of sex.

Does the vaginal orgasm exist?  For years, scientists — and women themselves — have grappled with this question.
According to new research published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, they do, and past studies that concluded otherwise are suspect.

Experts (Mostly) Agree: There’s More Than One Type Of Orgasm

In a series of essays published, experts examine past and current data about the female orgasm.  Their overarching conclusion is that the clitoral orgasm (whose existence no one seems to dispute) is a separate phenomenon from vaginal orgasm (VO).  “We have plenty of evidence regarding the difference between the two main orgasms, clitoral and vaginally activated orgasm,”  Emmanuele Jannini, a professor of endocrinology at the University of Aquila who organized the series, told LiveScience.

Not all of the contributing experts agree. French gynecologist Odile Buisson argues that the internal parts of the clitoris can’t be separated from the vagina, so therefore neither can the two types of orgasm.  Essentially, she believes that a vaginal orgasm is just a clitoral orgasm achieved through slightly different means.

However, other researchers — including Jannini — make the case for a greater distinction between the two as well as the existence of other types of orgasm.

If you have a problem achieving an orgasm, or you are still curious about the female orgasm, CLICK HERE to see what the experts say.