What's New

LoveYour Face

October 22, 2005 9 AM – 11:30 AM
Toledo, Ohio area

The previous Love Your Face Classes were so popular that we are doing it again! Two hours of fun learning to nurture and pamper yourself, creating face oils made with natural, sensuous essential oils (no perfumes!) that are exactly right for your skin type, and learning to care for and feed your beautiful skin. Facelifts are not the answer to aging skin. In this totally hands-on workshop, you learn how to massage and nurture your skin, developing strong face muscles and a beautiful glowing skin … for the rest of your life. A perfect Mother’s Day gift – gift certificates are available!

Cost: $25 registration (There is a twenty percent discount if you pay in full one week in advance, i.e. you pay only $20.) plus $15 materials fee per bottle of face oil that you will make (this includes the carrier oil, cobalt blue bottle, and all essential oils that you choose).

Menopause Workshop

Toledo, Ohio Area
Saturday, November 5, 9 AM - 11 AM

Menopause provides a wonderful, healing time for women in which we can discover and uncover our true self. For the first time in many of our lives we have an opportunity to focus energy and healing on ourselves. This workshop provides the beginning of unlocking the doors to our heart and soul. Take the time to share, discover, and heal with other women on a similar path as yours. Discover that you are not alone and that life really is beautiful!

The cost is $20 (or $15 if registration is completed and paid for by October 21st). Carolyn’s book will be available at the reduced rate of $10.

For more information on either course and to register, contact Carolyn at 419.867.7137 or info@menopausebook.org


What’s to eat?

Recently several of my younger friends just entering perimenopause bemoaned the fact that they are gaining weight and asked for help to lose those newly gained pounds, especially around the mid-section. The following guides you through the basics of eating and a healthy diet (not as in dieting, as in a way of being).

And before I continue, talk with your health care professional or nutritionist to help you design an eating plan that fits your needs. Fluctuating weight of 5-7 pounds is normal. More than that can indicate a problem – you begin to wreak havoc with your hormones, your metabolism, and all the systems of your perfectly balanced, beautiful body.

Here are some simple, general guidelines for healthy and balanced eating habits. Remember that what works for you, personally, may not be right for your best friend, your sibling, your partner. Create what works for you and allow everyone else to create what they need for them. These are personal choices that help you to be in balance and healthy.

Animal Protein

If you like red meat, then eat it – just keep it to small quantities of lean – about 4 or 5 ounces at a meal. In fact, you need a little more protein during perimenopause. Chicken is great, especially some nourishing chicken soup with vegetables when you are feeling a little under the weather. Be sure to buy organic or at the very least free-range meats – including eggs, cheese, and other dairy products. Your body doesn’t need the extra hormones or the antibiotics that are part of the diet of cattle these days. The hormones you ingest affect the balance of hormones in your body. For an excellent article about growth hormones and antibiotics in cattle go to Sustainable Table web site.

For more information about buying organic meats visit Eat Wild web site. Also, for you non-meat eaters, you might be interested in this woman’s change from vegan to occasional meat-eater at the Organic Food web site.

Fish, rich in Omega-6 fatty acids, can be wonderful – and a word of caution: mercury. Check the mercury content of fish before buying. Larger fish like shark, ahi tuna (my personal favorite) have large amounts of mercury in them. For more information about mercury in fish go to the EPA web site.

Veggies

Eat lots of green leafy vegetables and a wide variety of them. There is little nutritional value in eating head lettuce (iceberg) so avoid that and go for the good stuff - romaine, leaf lettuce, butter lettuce, raw spinach (or lightly steamed). Also eat cooked greens, like kale, chard, bok choy (my personal favorite – especially baby bok choy) – all rich in vitamins and nutrients – and don't over cook them.

Try grilling onions, garlic, and mushrooms (not button – shitake, crimini, chanterelle, etc) and add the greens at the end, add olive oil after it is cooked and yum! Just make as much as you can eat in one meal – vegetables don't retain much of their vitamins when reheated.

Experiment with new and different vegetables. Make a root soup – great for cold winter nights – that includes carrots, beets (golden if you don’t like eating red soup – though it makes a beautiful holiday soup), taro root, celery root, rutabagas, turnips, a small parsnip. If you make your base from meat, shred the vegetables in a food processor and add them toward the end. This works for feeding people that don’t like vegetables – they can’t pick them out and they can’t taste them. Add spices like a Thai Kitchen Red Curry Paste. Or add fresh grated ginger, fresh minced garlic. Or add Debra Dawson’s Herbs de Provence for Soups, Stews, and Marinades. You can email her at the Good Thyme Herb Company. Or cook the veggies, put them in a blender, and pour them into the soup – they completely disappear. Be sure to put the water they were steamed in into the soup as well. Then lightly grill mushrooms and onions and add them to the soup. If you eat meat, put cooked chunks of meat in the soup.

Try steamed veggies then add olive oil; grill veggies next to your favorite meat, then drizzle olive oil over the top. Vegetables do not need to be boring. It amazes me at restaurants when I ask for vegetables instead of fries or pasta and they serve over-cooked vegetables without anything. No reason for it; be creative! Here’s an idea: mix soy sauce, olive oil (or almond oil or safflower oil or toasted sesame oil), fresh grated ginger, fresh minced garlic, chopped cilantro (or parsley if you don’t like cilantro), and the juice of a fresh lime – notice I did not say canned or bottled anything – mix together and use for marinating veggies or meat or fish. It’s delicious.

And of course, eat organic! For more information on eating organic, do a Google search for “organic food” and you will find thousands of web sites – 836,000 to be exact. Many grocery stores now carrying organic produce. If yours doesn’t, talk to the produce manager about starting small to bring in organic.

Fruits

Eat lots of fruit. Apples are magnificent and a beautiful, delicious source of fiber (that’s what keeps the digestive tract singing). Be sure to eat fruit away from other foods. Fruit digests much faster than anything else – especially protein. Never end a meal with fruit – begin a meal with fruit, then take a break and drink some water prior to eating the rest of your meal. A grapefruit first thing in the morning wakes up your digestive system. Follow it with some other fruits …except melon which needs to be eaten alone – away from all other foods. For more information about food combining go to Food Combining Tips web site.

Carbohydrates

If you eat carbs, only go for the whole grains and only eat a small amount – avoiding white flour and processed sugar! Carbs are mostly sugar; however, the more complex, the more fiber, the less sugar. Potatoes are not recommended – nor pasta unless you get brown rice pasta or whole wheat. Then only eat small amounts. Pay attention to the amount of carbohydrates that you eat in a meal, in a day, in a week. There is a very good article explaining carbohydrates at the Doctors's Medical library web site.

Fried food

A word about fried food: if you want to clog your arteries fast and gain weight fast, then eat fried food. When you stay away from the fats and fried food, you learn another way to eat and you stop craving it. The idea of fried shrimp or fried chicken disgusts me. That’s only because I haven’t eaten it in years! Next time you eat out, order a salad instead of fries. And here is an article (from the Washington Post ) on fried food warnings from the World Health Organization.

Final Food Notes

Think about what you are about to put in your mouth.

For information about vitamins read this excellent article - probably the best that I've seen and worth keeping handy for future reference.

As you age, if you don't reduce the amount of food you eat, you will gain weight. If you snack, try almonds, apples, carrots, celery, instead of crackers, chips, and cookies.

Exercise

Choose exercises that are fun for you! Mix them up and vary what you do. I enjoy working out daily. So to keep from being bored, I alternate between running, biking, rollerblading, yoga, weight-lifting, and a brisk walk. Belly dancing has become all the rage – anyone can do it. Like any new skill, it takes time to learn. Tap dancing is tons of fun. Get together with friends and support each others’ efforts. Or just get out of bed in the morning turn on the Pointer Sisters and dance in your underwear! Just get up and move.

The following, (from Sympatico), is an article about simple, practical ways to stay strong, healthy, and looking good - with one exception: panty hose may make you "look" good; they do, however weaken your abdominal muscles. I suggest that you stick to the exercises.

If you don’t like the choices you’ve made in your life … make another choice!

Mar 29, 2005
I invite you to share your success stories with me. In the future, I'll include portions of them on this page. How have you gracefully slid through menopause without hormone replacement? If you have any secrets to share, I look forward to passing them on.