The Simple Steps to Eliminate Cravings

Friday's Fabulous Food!:
Breakfast:
Fruit Elixir with water, frozen wild blueberries and banana
Laughing Giraffe Organics Raw & Vegan Cranberry Orange Cacao Granola

Lunch: at The Stand, Norwalk, CT:
1 1/2 fresh green juices with kale, collards, cuke, celery and apple
1/2 hummus avocado wrap in collard with raw almond hummus, tomato avo and sprouts
1/2 curried collard wrap with curry almond pate, red peppers, avo and sprouts

Dinner: at One Lucky Duck Takeaway, NYC!: Shared with my friend Lori
Taco salad: Romaine, spicy taco crumble, pico de gallo, guac and cashew sour cream; cilantro-lime dressing......aaooaoaoowwwwowowowo
rawsagna: Zucchini and Tomato Lasagna: Sun-dried tomato sauce, pistachio basil pesto, pignoli ricotta
Desserts:
Moonpie
Malamar - just think of these childhood desserts a la raw; deep, dark chocolate, cream and bliss
1/2 pint of raw oreo ice cream
complete contentment!

Today's Food:
Breakfast/Lunch:
Amazing fresh raw goat cheese from Amish land gifted to me (thank you, Josef!). This cheese rocks!
Nuts Online Pink Salt & Cracked Pepper Mixed Nuts & Seeds
Fruit Elixir with frozen wild blueberries and banana

Snacks:
Laughing Giraffe Organics Raw & Vegan Cranberry Orange Cacao Granola
Nuts Online Rosemary Garlic Pistachios & Almonds

32 ounces water

Dinner:
Salad with mixed lettuces, spinach and arugula, yam, beet, carrot and parsnip (from Genesis Farm); with sprouts, dulse, nutritional yeast and sea salt

Dessert:
1/2 pint Vanilla Almond Buttercup raw ice cream from One Lucky Duck Takeaway

Are you getting enough sleep? Are you drinking enough water? Are you speaking your truth?
Most often, when we have food cravings, it is from an imbalance in our body system. Our body system is our whole physical body, including our blood sugar, which frequently becomes imbalanced by the foods we consume; it is our emotion/psyche body, which tilts off balance when matters of the heart create deep, intense feeling in us; it is the energy body, when old cellular memory floods the chakra system and elicits conditioned responses from long ago and far away; and it is the spirit body, when our connection to our Divine Source becomes unraveled.
On the physical end, we always need to look first at the primary components of daily health; food, water and rest. Our food should be primarily plant-based, laying low on sugars, flours, dairy, alchohol and caffeine. Our water should try to come close to half of our body weight in ounces. Our sleep should equal the amount you know you need to give you energy, focus and an uplifted mood. When we start compromising these simple components, our body system tries to compensate in other, more depleting ways, resulting in low energy and an increase in sugar, fat and simple carb cravings.
In matters of the heart, when we stop speaking what we are truly feeling; when we stuff it all in; when we stop asking for the love we need and the touch we desire, we look to those imbalanced foods to fill the unfulfilled spaces.
As my dear friend Jessica said to me this morning, "It's always so much more profoundly healthy to say how we really feel than let the "elephant" sit in the living room unidentified." When we actually share the "unspeakable," a huge weight is lifted off of us, and the freedom we feel in our bodies takes the place of the food we were craving.

Take a moment for a self-check-in: Are you eating mindfully, drinking fully, sleeping deeply and speaking wholly?

Letting go of Sugar Addiction

My Food:
Breakfast:
1 banana mushed with 2 tablespoons raw crunchy almond butter, shredded coconut and cinnamon; so nurturing!

20 ounces Nettle herb infusion in water; adaptogen herb to fortify and nourish the body

Lunch:
salad with romaine, cabbage, carrot, daikon, cuke and dulse with nutritional yeast, olive oil and Herbamare

Snack:
3 dates rolled in coconut

Snack:
2 bricks of Two Moms in the raw goji berry granola

Dinner:
1 banana

20 ounces Oatstraw herb infusion in water; nourishing herb for the body

For many years in my early years of practice as a Health Counselor, I gave talks that incorporated the addictive nature of sugar, and how it imbalances the blood sugar like a pinball machine, spiking our energy up and then radically lowering it; even when we may not feel it. My focus was really on processed sugars; you know, the stuff that starts out as a whole food (beet plant and sugar cane) and then goes through ten or twelve steps of refining and processing to become the white powdered substance in our sugar bowls. All the sugars with "natural" names; Florida Crystals, Sugar in the Raw, brown sugar, turbinado sugar; Splenda, maltose, dextrose, glucose, sucrose; I spoke about all of them. And then I would speak about whole food sugars; maple syrup, honey, brown rice syrup, agave and black strap molasses; the sugars that did not deplete our bodies by creating an acid environment and leaching calcium from our bones.
That being said, sugar is sugar in that it still taps into the cellular memory stored in our bodies that has kept us craving sugar for years.
The source may be healthier for our system than processed sugar, but sugar is still addictive in our body's memory. Sugar is also inflammatory and can trigger Candida (yeast). By the way, both women and men can get Candida. Often when you feel bloated and gass-ey alot, this is what is happening in your body; look to your sugar intake, your dairy intake and to how much water you are drinking each day (remember, do not consume your water with your meal, as it impedes digestion; have a nice big Mason jar in the early morning to really hydrate, and bewteen meals).
Paul Nison just interviewed a 108 year old man on his show, "The Raw Life Health Show," and when asked what the key to health and longevity has been, one of his responses was that he does not eat sugar and stays away from it.
So, you all know I've stopped my nighttime eating, right? And you know that eating involved my raw desserts, right? Well, here's what I noticed tonight: I felt like a Heroin addict without her drugs! I had to "white knuckle" the feeling of craving and hunger. This tells me that the sugar was splaying far too an important role in my body, and especially at night when it wasn't having a chance to properly assimilate. This, of course, has me know that it is definitely time to let go of that nighttime eating. Thankfully, my body always tells me.
Please write in and tell me what you notice in your relationship with sugar...