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Holiday Food Washing: Make Your Own

December 18, 2017 by Claire Fitzpatrick

Holiday food washing. You went out of your way to buy the freshest, most delectable, foods for your holiday recipes.  And you’re going to use…what?…commercial food wash to clean them?

Noooo!

Commercial fruit and vegetable washes often contain harmful ingredients and are no more effective at killing bacteria and microbes than fresh water mixed with 9% vinegar.  It is easy and probably better for you to clean you fruits and veggies using natural “Do-It-Yourself” items that you probably already have in the cabinet at home. Natural cleaners lack the harmful chemicals found in so many commercial washes and soap.

However, you have to use different methods for different items. Fortunately, these fall into three easy-to-identify categories and solutions.

FOR FOODS WITH A SKIN: WHITE VINEGAR

Plain white vinegar is C-H-E-A-P and easy to find.  If your produce has a skin, white vinegar is the perfect cleaner.

Clean your sink, put the stopper in, add your fruits and veggies. Fill your sink with filtered water – not tap.  Add 1 cup of white vinegar. Let it soak an hour, use a gentle scrub brush on them, rinse.

Be sure you let them dry completely on paper towels before putting them back in the fridge.

FOR GREENS: SALT, LEMON JUICE, THEN VINEGAR

Dissolve 2 tablespoons of salt in 2 cups of filtered water and add the juice of one lemon. Using a spray bottle, spray the greens, let it set 1 minute then put them in the “vinegar water” in the sink.  Let them soak for around 15 minutes, rinse, and dry completely before putting in the fridge.  A salad spinner can help get the water off.

HINT: put a dry paper towel in the greens container to help soak up humidity and moisture.

BERRY CLEANER: LEMON JUICE AND WATER

Berries have sensitive skin and soak up flavors.  Lemon is probably the least nasty-tasting cleaner that berries can absorb.

Spray the berries in a mix of 2 parts filtered water to 0.5 parts fresh lemon juice. After they are well coated, soak in filtered water (NO VINEGAR! UGH!) for about 15 minutes. Again, let them dry off before storing in the fridge

Now you’re good to go!  Make your masterpieces!

 

Filed Under: Home and Garden, Kitchen and Bath Tagged With: cleaner, diy, glass, health, lemon, longevity, natural, organic, recipe, salmonella, science, toxic, vinegar

Bring Your Voice to Life

October 24, 2017 by Claire Fitzpatrick

Your voice is strong.  Bring your voice to life.

I believe there is a place for your passion in this world.

If you think that others have already paved the way, and that your voice doesn’t matter…

LOOK AROUND

For every aspiring healer in the world, be they chiropractor, medical doctor, spiritual director, energy healer, yoga instructor, financial advisor, teacher, space organizer, nutritionist…you get my drift…

…there are THOUSANDS of people just like you who are trying to do the same thing – heal the world – and, despite the many voices speaking words of encouragement and love,

THEY DO NOT HEAR THEM.

It’s because they are waiting for you to deliver your voice – your point of view — to the healing conversation.

It is very easy to get overwhelmed by what is happening around us.  Hate, destruction, manipulation, and greed often seem to have won the spirit of humanity, to have stripped us of all reason and compassion.

IT. IS. NOT. TRUE.

You hold the key to our freedom.

We all do. We each have a key, unique and personal to our nature.

The world needs you to use your key.

IF ALL YOU SEE IS DARKNESS

If you feel like you are fumbling in the darkness, desperately searching to unlock the door to your successful entry into the world of world health and healing,

GET STILL.

Turn off the news.

Turn away from the noise around you and turn inward.

If only for ten minutes a day, listen only to your breath and the sound of your heartbeat.

MAKE YOURSELF AVAILABLE FOR ANSWERS.

When we feel that overwhelm, that’s what we project into the void.

Overwhelm is  not what we want to bring to the world, is it?

I know you want to bring love and healing.

We all do.  And, we all want that for ourselves.

One law of nature that is true, that sees itself realized over and over…

YOU GET WHAT YOU GIVE OUT.

It’s not a new message, but one that bears repeating.  Over, and over, with many words from many different mouths.

The gifts of love, gratefulness, compassion, and forgiveness know no equal at any time. Like the many faces of Divine Light that we wear, our gifts of love are unique for each and every one of us.

Remember: there are billions of people in the world, with billions of points of view.

We all need your voice of love.  We all need your light.

Even if you think your voice is small now, exercise it.

Massage it.

Bring it to life.

Bring it to LIFE.

I love you. I believe in you.

Filed Under: Spiritual Health Tagged With: beauty, chiropractic, faith, fear, healing, health, knowledge, love, massage therapy, meditation, natural, philosophy, poetry, rage, react, respond, science, success, tai chi, toxic, wisdom

A Lesson For Us All

August 26, 2017 by Claire Fitzpatrick

The following story illustrates one of two huge reasons why it’s hard to change our eating habits:

  • We talk ourselves into believing we are addicted to them.
  • We actually are physically addicted to them.

In this blog post, I am going to address #1.  I’ll address #2 in a future blog post.

Food is an easy comfort.

All we do is reach for it and consume it.

Food becomes a reward we give ourselves for putting up with, and making it through, yet another dissatisfying day.

it’s the same attachment that some of us have with alcohol and drugs.

To ask ourselves to give up our eating habits is asking us to give up the one pleasure that we allow ourselves.

We are so attached to that addiction that we actually tell ourselves that our eating habit is our choice, and we actually embrace the addiction.

We submit.

We succumb.

We release the struggle for a better way, and we accept — for better and for worse — the way we have.

I want to tell you a story.

It is a terrible story.

Last week, a man I know lost his girlfriend to heart disease.

She was not obese. She was not “obviously” ill.

She was relatively young, she was financially successful, and she died — shockingly and instantly — in her lover’s arms.

Let me fill in the details.

I’m going to change the names.  We’ll call him Paul.  We’ll call her  Joyce.

Paul is 43 years old. He is an acquaintance.

He is in the “acquaintance” camp because he’s kind of unbearable.

He’s judgmental. He makes ugly jokes that are designed to hurt, then he says he didn’t mean anything by it.

He’s sneaky. If he can get away with manipulating a situation to his benefit, he will.

He talks about people behind their back, and then when that person is in front of him, he will shower that person with praise.

We all have our stories…

He has a story about that. He suffered abuse at the hands of an ex-spouse, who took everything – his money, his child, his dignity – and moved to another state.

Since then, he’s become a bit unbearable.

Don’t get me wrong. I am sympathetic.  However, that doesn’t mean that I am willing to suffer his abuse.

So I don’t.

About two years ago, Paul re-met an old lover of his from his college years, Joyce.

Joyce had her own story.

She was smart – too smart for her life choices.

She had once worked as an editor for her local newspaper. The newspaper was purchased and went in a direction in which she didn’t agree, so she moved on.

Eventually, she got a job that paid very well but was extremely unrewarding.  She was the director of a bunch of managers at a company whose mission she disagreed with.

She made a lot of money but was never satisfied with her life.

She had had long-term lovers but never married. She was sensitive about what people thought about her, but she didn’t hesitate to tell others what she thought they were doing wrong with their lives.

If you tried to engage her in discussion, she accused you of being insulting. If you tried to respond to one of her criticisms, she told you that you were being defensive.

Joyce and Paul had one thing in common.  Food.

They each had allergies. He has allergies to dairy and wheat. She had allergies to nuts and legumes.  For their allergies, they listened to their respective doctors and were on a great deal of many different drugs.

They also both hated vegetables and they both loved sugar.

So, they spent a great deal of their time and energy together searching for and sharing sugary, starchy foods that met their allergic profiles. When they ate meat, it was processed meat, as cheap as they could find.

That’s actually quite a niche, isn’t it? That’s not easy – finding sugary, starchy foods that are dairy free, wheat free, nut free, and legume free, while at the same time avoiding fresh vegetables. That takes effort!

Neither smoked; that’s one good thing.

However, neither exercised. They didn’t even like to walk around the neighborhood. They drove to the corner store.

They complained of this ache and that ache, of this or that trip to the doctor.

They complained that the doctor could never “find anything,” and would take the pain killers that were prescribed.

But, whenever I tried to tentatively suggest natural, lifestyle changes in answer to Paul’s complaints, he would chuckle at me and say, “I know that’s what you do for a living, but I don’t want to be bothered; and sorry, but I just don’t believe in that stuff.”

So, we didn’t see much of Paul after he started dating Joyce.  When they were together at a party or a function, we chatted politely for a few minutes and moved on.

On the few times we saw Paul when they weren’t together, Paul would grumble about Joyce.

He would complain and tell unflattering stories about her habits.  Afterward, he would declare, “Well, it doesn’t matter. She’s as good as I’m getting. But I’m sure as hell never getting married again. She can forget that!”

It is difficult being close to people like that. It is not emotionally rewarding.

Time went on.

I haven’t seen Paul – or Joyce – for the better part of a year.

Last week, it was reported to me that Paul and Joyce were in the kitchen, putting together a meal.  According to Paul, they were having an argument. “Nothing out of the ordinary,” he reported. “We were just pecking at each other, you know,” when she stopped short and grabbed her chest.

He ran to her and caught her in his arms, just as she was falling.  They both tumbled to the floor.

She died in his arms.

She was 42.

Friends say that Paul is a wreck right now.

The last thing I understand he said to a group of people he visited was, “I wasn’t very nice to her. I wish I had treated her better.”

Was it her eating habits that killed her?

Given that she had seen doctors on multiple occasions to get evaluated for “serious diseases,” I could guess yes.

But I would hazard a more nuanced guess that her eating habits were only part of the story.

You see, food habits, like any habit that hurts us, are symptoms of bigger problems.

Those problems are inside.  They require self-reflection and a willingness to see oneself honestly.

So, the way we relate to food is often a reflection of the way we feel about the way we live.

You never know when the result of a life not-well-lived it’s going to happen.  But in retrospect, you can always say that you saw it coming.

You never know when you’re going to die, but you can often have a direct influence on its length and quality by intentionally living well.

I am 51.  These things are becoming very clear to me in my own life.

As Claire Fitzpatrick, private citizen, I have been to too many funerals of forty- and fifty-something friends and acquaintances to not notice these patterns.

As a chiropractor and nutritionist

I have seen people turn themselves around.

It is the most gratifying thing in the world to know that I have been a small part of their successes.

However, when I have a patient in my office who wants something I don’t offer – a “quick fix” – someone I can’t reach, someone who is a lot like Paul or Joyce, I shake my head and sadly move on.

I can’t help anyone who doesn’t really want help.

I can’t “walk the walk” for them.

Sometimes, the patient isn’t like Paul or Joyce.

Sometimes, the patient is someone who lives with, and takes abuse from, people like Paul and Joyce — someone who has no kind, loving support.

Sometimes, the patient is sweet, giving, lovely, shy, and lonely. Food is their intimate friend.

Sometimes, the patient is sad, depressed, anxious, and suspicious; someone who want to believe in themselves but ultimately sabotages themselves with excessive food (and, very often, with drink).

Sometimes, they want something better for themselves, but they don’t try.

Or, when they do try, when it becomes emotionally difficult to sustain the effort (as it always does), they lack the will to continue and they quit.

These are the cases that break my heart.

I have all kinds of tools to give. I can show how to use them.

For instance, as of this writing, I am hosting a 28-Day Rapid Reset Challenge (click here for details).

But ultimately, any tool I offer will fail if it is not used.

 

I’m not a psychologist.

I am a chiropractor.  I’m sort of a “neuropsychologist” for the body.

However, I do work with psychologists, and I recommend them often. We tend to see a lot of the same people.

You know, I have seen this over and over: Physical pain is worse when we have emotional pain.

Pain — physical and emotional — is frightening and isolating, and so it often becomes part of one’s self-identity.

Physical discomfort is easier to manage and eliminate if one has faith in oneself.

I wish I could reach into your heart and fill you with self-love and belief.

We walk beside you as you heal; but ultimately, we all walk the inner road by ourselves.

The best I can do is be here, continue to tell you how much I believe in you; and that, when you’re ready, I am honored to help.

Filed Under: Healthy Aging Tagged With: addiction, aging, failure, faith, fat, fear, food, food addiction, healing, health, healthy choices, healthy lifestyle, knowledge, love, natural, organic, rage, toxic, weight loss, wisdom

Here’s Five (Plus A Bonus!) Ways to Healthify Your Hair

July 6, 2017 by Claire Fitzpatrick

Want to healthify your hair?

I know, healthify isn’t really a word. But why would you not want to healthify your hair?

I was questioning if I should chime in on this whole hair thing and all.  I don’t have naturally long, luxurious, thick hair.  My hair is very fine, and as the years pass, I find I have less of it than I once did.

But I have to tell you: the hair I have now is WORLDS healthier than the hair I had when I was younger. It’s not even close.

I figured out these well-earned secrets like I have learned most of my hard-earned lessons in life: from 40 years of doing the wrong thing.

I am GIFTING YOU my 40 some odd years of trial and error here.  So, save yourself a couple of decades and read on!

1. Don’t wash your hair every day

My friend on Instagram, who has GORGEOUS hair, by the way, validated this for me last week. If you wash your hair every day, you’re asking for breakage.

Do you remember the movies in which the actress would say they can’t do anything that evening because they were “washing their hair?”

That used to kill me, because I used to wash my hair every single morning. I was so paranoid that my hair would look greasy and oily that it became just the opposite.

I used to have ridiculous split ends that no amount of conditioning could fix.

It wasn’t until I became an entrepreneur that I figured out that washing my hair less frequently helped it stay healthy.

When you work for yourself, you delegate all your time very judiciously. There’s no one else to do it for you, so you have to really regiment your time well…right down to the amount of time it takes to make a meal, to work out, to commute to work, to get ready for bed.

In the beginning, when I wasn’t yet very good at it, my choices started to look like this:

I can either shower or eat breakfast.

When faced with that choice, if I showered/washed my hair the day before, unless I did something extremely body-intensive that morning, breakfast won.

My hair started to get healthier without my even noticing.

I wash my hair two…maybe three…times a week now. I actually schedule my high-intensity exercise around my wash days so that I don’t have to wash my hair more.

2. Make sure your diet is healthy and includes healthy fats and proteins.

I know. So obvious, but it has to be stated.

If your body doesn’t have proper fuel for its nervous system, your bones, muscles, etc…It’s going to conserve its energy and allocate resources from “expendables,” like your hair.  Less effective nutrition = nasty hair (skin and nails, too).

Before I really knew something about nutrition, back in the 80s and 90s, I used to get my eating tips from popular books and vegetarian magazines. It’s not that they were wrong all the time – a lot of their advice I still use today. But back then, fats – all fats — were considered evil.

The covers of these magazines almost always featured a big plate of pasta tossed with colorful nightshade vegetables and silken, “low fat” tofu.

Make sure you get a healthy balance of Omega 3-6-9-7, fats and foods rich in proteins in your diet. If you work out, use undenatured minimally processed whey protein or, if you’re a vegetarian, use an appropriate pea-hemp protein.

Run from saturated, processed, hydrogenated fats and deep fried carbs.

Here’s an overall lifestyle tip: if you’ve seen it in a commercial, chances are that you shouldn’t eat or use it.

3. Use hair products that are all-natural, and sourced organically.

You have to do your homework here. It’s hard to find products that don’t have cancer-causing chemicals in them.  Two brands I can recommend off the bat are Acure and Aubrey Organics.

[thrive_text_block color=”blue” headline=”Thrive Market”]Quick commercial: you can find both of these brands at Thrive Market, where you can get 25% off your favorite healthy brands every day, and have them shipped right to your home or office. Get free shipping with your first order.   [thrive_link color=’blue’ link=’http://thrv.me/BMyxRV’ target=’_blank’ size=’small’ align=’aligncenter’]Get Your Very Own Thrive Market Account Now[/thrive_link][/thrive_text_block]

If you want to geek out on this stuff like I do, this is a MUST USE source: Environmental Working Group.

I refer to this site all the time. They have a database that details exactly how toxic a chemical is, so you can go to the store armed with knowledge.  YOU MUST make this one of your go-to pages!

4. When you wash your hair, towel dry it BEFORE putting conditioner on.

This has been huge for me.  I don’t know why, but one day it dawned on me that my hair was so wet, the conditioner just thinned out.  So I towel dried my hair before I put the conditioner on, in the shower.

While my hair was in a towel, I shaved my underarms.  I took the towel off, I saturated my hair with the conditioner, and I went about shaving my legs while the conditioner was on my head.

That leads to # 5:

5. Leave the conditioner on for 5+ minutes, then rinse for 10 seconds.

Don’t just do the 60-second wait. Schedule your shower tasks around the conditioner. Leave it on for at least 5 minutes, and when you rinse, don’t rinse your hair until it squeaks! Rinse for 10 seconds (give or take a second).  You know… one Mississippi…two Mississippi…etc…

Here’s a bonus round:

**Bonus**:

[pullquote align=”normal”]Let your hair dry about 85% before you put a dryer to it. Use a high-powered ionic hair dryer and dry it completely. [/pullquote]

When you’re out of the shower, towel-dry, brush your wet hair, and go about putting your lotion, deodorant, perfume, makeup…let your hair dry on your head.

When its about 85% dry, use a hair dryer that is over 2000 watts strong. If you want straight hair, use the flat head funnel adaptor; if you want curls, use the round knobby adaptor.  Dry your hair COMPLETELY. Then use the cold-shot button to set your hair with the cold air.

If you do these things, you’re going to see immediate improvement and obvious results in 3-6 months.

I know you have a tip. Please share!

Filed Under: Natural Beauty Tagged With: acure, aubrey organics, beauty, fat, hair, hair care, natural, organic, thrive market

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