I’m very proud to share Lauren’s wisdom here! Lauren is healing her Crohn’s disease naturally and doesn’t have to take over half the medication she used to be on due to her healing vegan diet and supplements. I found Lauren’s story over at the Crazy Sexy Life blog. (go ahead and read a little background on her, I’ll wait)

You mention you stressed and worried a lot. About being diagnosed with crohns or in general about other aspects of your life?

The worrying started before crohn’s. I originally thought it was what brought on crohn’s disease. I still feel it probably played a big part in the disease showing up. I’ve always been a worrier, worrying about things that didn’t even matter, like what I was going to do tomorrow instead of living in the present moment and really being there. Crohn’s opened my eyes to this and has made me a more relaxed person. I don’t stress of things I can’t change, nor do I worry about the future. I live in the now and that’s the best I can do.

What essential practices keep you from worrying too much and how does that affect your health?

My essential practices are definitely yoga and meditation and like I mentioned, staying present. I find that quieting my mind even for 5 minutes a day makes a world of difference. Everything that matters before I do that seems to not matter anymore. I also read a page from an affirmation book and try to apply it to my day or pull an Angel Card from some oracle cards I have. I always seem to open to a page or pick a card that can relate to the situation I am in.

What are your primary supplements you can’t go without?

For Crohn’s I find supplements are important. We have absorption issues so a little extra goes a long way. I take a few things, right now I am pregnant so I take a raw vegan prenatal, I also always take vegan vitamin D, iron, B12, calcium, DHA oil, probiotics. I am always adding goodies like hemp seeds, maca powder, spirulina, chia seeds and goji berries to my smoothies.. When I am not pregnant I also take aloe vera juice (a shot every day as soon as I wake up) and digestive enzymes.

What is your exercise regime?

When I am not pregnant I exercise a lot! I really enjoy it as a hobby! I have treadmill so in the morning I will walk about 2 miles 6 days a week and also do either an aerobic type of video, weight lift or yoga. I also make sure I get some form of exercise after dinner, either walking with my dog, riding my bike, going on a hike. Usually something outside, as long as the weather permits. Right now, since I am pregnant, I walk 2 miles 5 days a week and I also do prenatal yoga once or twice a week.

What advice do you have to those diagnosed with Crohns disease, who are afraid NOT to take all the western medicine approaches?

My advice to anyone with Crohn’s is to go with your gut, no pun intended! I knew that at times my doctor (my old doctor) would try to have me on as much as possible without just trying out one thing at a time. I usually paid attention to how I felt on the lowest dose, or least amount of medication and then would add or take away if needed. Of course, I told my doctor I was doing this and wouldn’t suggest anyone doing it on their own. My doctor now is very understanding and knows I want to me on the least amount of medication possible. Our goal is to one day be off of all medication, where my old doctor had once told me that I would be on medication for life. My crohn’s isn’t healed enough to be completely off of everything, but I hope to get there in the future.

Where do you think you would be at if you didn’t go vegan and took all the medications they wanted you to take?

If I didn’t go vegan and took all the medications the doctors wanted me to take, I would probably not be pregnant! I would be very sick, not knowing that food had any part of healing. I was lucky to always be a health food and natural health advocate so I was aware of a lot of things that I don’t think many with crohn’s know. Diet plays a huge part, and cutting out meat and dairy is essential, in my opinion. Meat is extremely hard to digest and dairy.. well, who doesn’t have problems with dairy? IBD or not, most Americans can not digest dairy. So if you are eating it and have something like Crohn’s you are not going to heal your gut, and I definitely wouldn’t be where I am now.

I’m assuming high acidic drinks like coffee and alcohol are off limits for you, how do you substitute them?

I haven’t had coffee since a few months after being diagnosed. I was still drinking it for a short period and I did once try to have it again and it was only 2 days before I got sick. Alcohol was different, I was still drinking here and there up until about 2 years ago (I’ve had crohn’s for 5 years). I got really sick and ended up in the hospital after a few weekends of drinking a little red wine and that was the end of it for me. Now I drink a lot of herbal tea. I also love Teeccino! It is an herbal coffee made from herbs, grains, fruits and nuts. Definitely a great substitute. For alcohol I like to drink Kombucha which is a fermented drink that has lots of probiotics (helpful for the gut). For some reason it reminds me of alcohol, almost like a wine cooler. I pour it in a wine glass when we have friends over and it gives you an amazing feeling from all the benefits it provides. GTS brand is my favorite!

Lauren Nastasi is a health enthusiast who has always had a passion for wellness. She chronicles her journey towards healing through a vegan diet on her blog Ginger is The New Pink. Numerous people living with and without diseases have contacted her in response to her candid account of life with her disease. Lauren enjoys creating healing meals, exercising, yoga, hiking, bike riding, reading and spending time with her husband and pug.

I’m so thrilled to share with you today the wisdom of Ani Kaspar. You can learn more about her book that details the story of healing her breast cancer naturally here. When I heard of her brave decision to stop chemo, and feed her body what it needs to heal, and believe in the healing power of her own body– I knew I had to ask her some questions to share with you here!

What form of exercise do you do and how often?

Daily exercise is essential to sacred and miraculous wellness. The beautiful, so very intimate connection of mind, body and soul is what I call well-being. When you exercise you invite not only bodily moments of grace, but you also surrender your mind’s busy-bee activities, and engage your rich soul’s deepest divinity. The miracle of wellness, health and Being is actively allowed when you exercise. I consider exercise a holy act, and an act that dances my entire Being, lovingly and sportively. Daily I practice Kundalini yoga as taught by Gurmukh of Golden Bridge Yoga. I cannot more highly recommend a practice for whole health and deep soul empowerment. My connection to nature is strong so ocean swimming, snorkeling, and long sunset walks along the beach are my chosen methods of spending more time in nature’s radiance, abundance, and harmony. Daily I choose the best option for my personal wellness. Literally, often I will simply ask myself: what do you need today? God/dess is inclusive, so whatever answer arrives incorporates what each cell in my body desires, what the destiny of my soul chooses, and what motion stills my mind and engages my heart most deeply.

What are the three most major things you do to keep your life in balance (stress free)?

1. Each morning when awaken, after drinking freshly juiced lemon water, I meditate. Having studied many traditions, I’ve developed a personal mediation that is flexible and resonates with where I am in the moment. My mediation is fluid, alive and filled to the brim with soft love. I allow myself to be led into a state of still grace and remain there for as long as I am able given the day’s events. Always in the early afternoon personal affirmations close to my center of Being are recited to enhance the day and my connection to Being.
2. I also practice what I call moment-to-moment intentional thinking. The more continually I focus upon choices that are most loving, beneficial and truthful for my soul, the more I am in alignment with God/dess or the divine. The more I align with divine frequencies, the more miracles cascade upon my life, the more paradise on earth is created before my grateful eyes. The subtle power of moment-to-moment intentional thinking is amazing – it is, I have found, the instant manifestation of loving grace in our lives.
3. Most importantly I love. I choose to love – myself, my life, all aspects of being in our world today, and every one I encounter in my life, regardless of superficial differences or dis-agreements. I choose to love. Love is the masterpiece piece in healing, in health and well-Being. Always love, and love more!

What are your core supplements?

Bio SuperFood, E3-Live, Marine Phytoplankon, Quinton Marine Plasma, DIM-Plus, Protective Breast Formula, CoQ10, Zyflamend, Chorella, Spirulina and other major superfoods. I focus exclusively on organic, whole foods based supplements to super-nourish my body.

What kind of diet do you eat?

While I respect the incredible living foods movement, I found after many years of following a living foods lifestyle, that 100% raw doesn’t best suit my Being. Now I follow what I call a bio-compatible diet: 80% organic, living foods, with lots of greens, sprouts and anti-cancer specific foods and 20% organic, cooked food, always specific for anti-cancer effects.

Some of the best anti-cancer foods and diets are listed in a few fabulous books: ‘Anti-Cancer: A New Way of Life,’ ‘Beating Cancer with Nutrition,’ Nature’s Cancer-Fighting Foods,’ and ‘Foods to Fight Cancer.’ Ingest each of these books and you can create the best diet choice for your body, your type of cancer or other dis-ease and begin deep physical healing.

I prefer 80% living foods because when I eat living foods, I consume the vibrant energy of the greatest life-supporting force in or galaxy, the sun. I also alkalize my body and build my blood by ingesting the great green God/dess – chlorophyll. I could write a book about the miraculous benefits of chlorophyll. However, I believe we all by now know that a plants blood, or chlorophyll, is akin to our own. With every bite of a strong chlorophyll based food, your body is deeply replenished and refreshed. The very best sources of chlorophyll are green grass, algae and plankton. I eat and drink as much as I can of these miraculous “sun foods.” I believe we all should, given the state of our “food supply” and its vital loss of nutrients. Along with ingesting “sun food” I ingest “water food.” Pure, truly unprocessed living water if possible, is critical to well-Being.

Often dis-ease is allowed a foothold simply because we are dehydrated. We need to drink, daily, as much living, pure water as possible, to help the body cleanse, to replenish our cells with necessary oxygen, and to engage our soul’s “fluidity” or capacity for transformation. I prefer natural spring water.

Always before I eat or drink I thank the element, all who have contributed to its gift of nourishment to me, and love deeply the sacred grace of the life the food or water gifts me.

What do you have to say about people who are afraid of taking the alternative route to healing cancer?

I believe in the right to choose. I believe what is right for me may be wrong for you. We are one, but we are individual. God/dess supports our diversity with her love and her grace, moment to moment, breath to breath. Our purpose is to understand deeply who we are, what nurtures us, and what blesses us. In a medical system committed to authentic healing and wholeness, we would be allowed the amazing myriad choices Gaia offers us.

We also would be offered the practices necessary for us to make the wisest, most authentic choices for our well-Being. We know what is best for us. We truly do. Healing medicine facilitates our deepest, most authentic knowing. I believe our immortal existence is about choice, moment to moment, breath to breath.

Whatever you choose is perfect for you, for your soul’s journey and growth, and for your deepest healing. Even if the end result – to which we remain unattached – is ‘transformation,’ the term I use for death. You have the right to choose what most benefits you as an eternal Being, not only as a human being. I believe dis-ease, healing and death, all to be energy state changes. Love or true life is the immortal pulse choosing a given state simply to experience the limitlessness of Being.

What is the most important thing to you in keeping a healthy home?

Love is the most important element to creating and keeping a healthy home. Without love, all else fails. You can eat the best, most organic and pristine anti-cancer foods, use only the most organic and natural personal and house care products, live in the greenest house possible, however, without love, of self, of others, of all that is, has ever been and ever shall be, without love with out conditions, we miss the mark in creating a healthy home. Home is where the heart is – Si?

Ani Kaspar is a pioneering advocate of non-invasive, alternate cures for cancer. She’s a humanitarian, seeker of truth and conduit for healing. Ani’s humanitarian call to action “Compassionate Cure for Cancer®” asks cancer patients worldwide to request the modern medical community investigate and deliver natural, less invasive methods of treating and curing cancer. She is a four-year thriver of intra-ductal carcinoma-the most prevalent breast cancer in the world. Today, Ani consults, conducts educational seminars, workshops and retreats, and is a life coach and international speaker. After abandoning Wall Street in 2005, she founded BodyByBlissTM, an international wellness consultancy. She is the creator of a unique, self-exploration method called IS® Intuitive Sovereignty. Ani is fifty-one years old and lives blissfully in Rincon, Puerto Rico with pelicans, coconuts and butterflies.

Raw Juice Fast, Vegetarinism, Yoga and what it all means!

The following post is from a girlfriend of mine, whom decided to do a Raw Juice Fast. She is also regularly practicing yoga. The following is a personal journal about what she experienced while fasting.

Trying to fall asleep the last few hours my mind just keeps flashing images of art that I have a deep desire to put out. Paintings or sculptures of my unconscious thoughts and feelings of recent events
and experiences that have not yet been expressed or made sense of.

I have been experiencing so much change and evolution, and much experimentation primarily with my diet. Aside from the idea of sparing a few more animal lives my vegetarian/vegan diet was about feeling whether there was a shift in me. In my energy or my body’s energy if I seized eating meat. Truthfully there wasn’t. Sure my mind raced back to images of innocent animals being slaughtered for the pleasures of humans, and felt good about not contributing to the meat industry; but it still wasn’t hitting home.

Last week I suffered a severe allergic attack and was not able to breath. I became overwhelmed with a feeling that my body was full of poisons and the allergy a reaction of my body trying to fight it out
the infestation. I decided to detox on pure fruit and veggie juice for a few days and see if it made a difference, and it did.

My mind resisted it because of the pleasure and psychological habit of chewing food. However, I felt alive when drinking the juices and I felt a surge of energy and life entering my body. I also had two
physical reactions to the new diet.

• On the one hand my allergy was gone and I was able to breath again within the day.
• My skin on the other hand developed an infection on my chin and upper lip area, Which I find the placement of the infection interesting, considering it is around my mouth. I can assume two things. one that the infection is a result of toxins exiting the body or that my body is rejecting the dietary changes.

Either way the infection is impossible to hide and left me feeling exposed and self conscious, which set off another train of thoughts dealing with perception and desire for acceptance, and wanting to feel attractive on the outside, realizing if there is inner balance it radiates out but that i have to keep sifting through the shit to allow the good to gain more confidence.

I am beginning to come to an agreement between my body and mind’s emotional reactions. Understanding that it is not whether or not I eat animal products that make the difference, but rather giving my body what it needs while harming my environment and surroundings as less as possible. In other words, what are my intentions? Am I killing in order to survive or for selfish reasons of enjoyment?

I do feel more firmly about the energy of food and its powerful effects on the body, and feel strongly that through nutrition I can cure many of the imbalances both physical and mental. such as my skin sensitivity, chronic knee pain caused by jointal/artheritic causes and release of tension and energy from food/and surrounding experiences that the body retains.

A few more powerful things also came to me tonight. An image of a dark red core surrounded by a bright light. Perhaps a core surrounded by truth and allowing it to enter. Maybe symbolizing my spiritual growth or release of pain and emergence from a darkness. Perhaps its the work I’ve been putting in to shine more light so I can follow my path. I was also visualizing figures of nude women which according to Feng Shui images of solitary women symbolize being alone- perhaps expressing to me that I need to remain alone right now while I’m on my spiritual journey, and that although my mind may desire a partner my heart is not ready yet. I once again saw images of roots digging deep into the ground and a headless figure with a chest wide open and an exposed heart. Perhaps symbolizing that I follow my heart and not my mind, or a vision of how I want to see the world. Rooting deep into the earth as I grow on my personal spiritual journey and wanting to share more love.

As I continue to heal and find balance physically, it is opening up more room for the spiritual inner growth I’ve been seeking. I feel my mind is becoming less occupied with finding solutions to physical imbalances and shifting inward to find more inner peace a higher intellectual development which will allow the physical to work its self out in time. Whatever shift is occurring it is allowing me to find more peace and balance and lead a happier life. It truly amazes me how much tuning in to the body and the surroundings reveals. The more I am able to quiet the mind the more i am able to learn and grow intellectually. Gaining insight of my self and my surroundings and the cause and effect.

I think the Hatha yoga I’m doing is tuning me in with the gift Jnâna yoga offers the soul.

I thank my friend, whom also works at The Yoga Shelter based out of Detroit for sharing her experiences and soulful discoveries invoked by her raw juice fast. From her personal journal entry one can gain insight on some experiences the juice fast can bring.

Dr.Sachi- Acupuncturist

Dr. Sachi is fit, fabulous, and over 50 years old! (Look at the picture. Can you believe?) She is a practicing Doctor of Chinese Medicine, an Acupuncturist, and Yoga Instructor, in the South Florida Area. She gives many workshops. (Find out more at her website: http://sachispirit.com.

I always found her health, poise, figure and youth amazing, and was eager to follow the same health habits that got her there!

I asked her a few questions in this regard, and she was more than happy to share, of course!

Jade: What are your core healthy habits you have that keep off weight and prevent aging?

Sachi:

Well you can get away with a lot of things when your 20, like staying out late and drinking, but it catches up after certain age and you need to follow some basics for continued health.

Here’s a quick list:

• Really good quality of food
• Eat very little or none at all of already prepared food, like microwavable dinners, or things that have been preserved.
• Eat in a happy environment. Eating should be sacred and not in front of the TV or after or during an argument for example.
• Eat only organic when possible.
• I believe the vibrations of food enter our body so I don’t eat meat as the animal was killed. I’ve been a vegetarian for over 20 years and I’m strong and healthy.

Jade: What kind of diet do you eat?

Sachi:

Aside from being vegetarian, I listen to my body and it guides me as to what I want and what I need. I’m Italian and sometimes I want pasta. I know gluten isn’t the best or healthiest, but it’s happy food and reminds me of my roots and I greatly enjoy having pasta and bread and wine… and it’s [occasionally] a good thing for me!

Sometimes I just want a salad or just roots such as parsnips, sweet potatoes, and carrots with a few dried Chinese roots tossed in such as ginseng, astragals, and dong quai – they are tasty sautéed with a chunk of ginger or onions and some fresh coriander as a side garnish.

Jade: Do you believe in supplements?

Sachi:

I believe we need supplements to make up for how deficient our soil has become. We no longer get the vitamins and minerals we need from it. So we need to look for ways to get those missing nutrients.

I’m also a fan of supplements that convert fat into lean muscle mass. I recently lost too much weight, and the secret of keeping the body at an ideal weight if you lose a lot of weight is not to gain fat! 100 calories of cake for example is not the same as 100 calories of broccoli! So try to eat healthy! Not unhealthy fats and empty calories.

I’m currently taking alpha lipoic, congeline to help build muscle mass and not store fat. It’s important in this situation to take supplements that convert fat into lean muscle mass and that’s what I’m doing.

Jade: What about Antioxidants and Vitamins?

Sachi:

I start everyday, after tea, with a fruit smoothie with fiber, flax oil, and lecithin.

I also take about 20 vitamins once to twice a day when I remember and I’m constantly rotating. As a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, I’m like a kid in a candy store. I pull off the shelf what I feel like I’m needing.

Jade: What about exercise?

Sachi:

You absolutely need exercise. I once saw somebody walking into a big fancy building and then get in the elevator and take it to the floor of the gym they were going to work out at. Kinda funny.

So many of us lead sedentary lifestyles. You have to make an effort and exercise. You can schedule time and make time to do it but also exercise can be worked into our lifestyles just by using the stairs or parking far from the store.

I like to do some cardio and yoga which stretches rather than bulks.

Jade: I know you do yoga. How often?

I wish I could say everyday. I at least practice a few times a week, even small amounts. I’m currently working on a second yoga video, a morning and afternoon short series.

I don’t like the power yoga; I think the best benefit is the ability to turn inwards. Yoga and tai chi are the only forms of exercise that have the meditative effect of yin and yang balance (mental side) together with exercise.

Jade: What about meditation?

Sachi:

We all need quiet time. Nobody can keep a clear mind unless they are enlightened. In meditation, we are taught to practice viewing all our thoughts that come in, but not to chase them or get involved with them. A lot of people get pissed when I tell them this, and say, “But I get way too many thoughts!” And I say, “Great! Bless them!”

Life is not going to go smoothly. When things come at you, meditation enables you with the experience and training of how not to go after these and get so involved, upset and emotional.

The golden part of meditation is learning how not to allow your thoughts disrupt peace! NOT to completely still the mind.

Jade: You Meditate every day don’t you? How do you stay motivated to wake up every morning and meditate first thing?

Sachi:

Oh I look forward to meditating! First thing I do in the morning is brew a cup of tea, and while it’s brewing, I go meditate. I like a nice Indian chai tea with caffeine cloves and cinnamon. After I meditate, I sip my tea and integrate my morning meditation thoughts. It’s my meeting with myself.

Q; What other advice do you have for us?

Sachi:

Stay positive! Have a good attitude, be nonjudgmental and come form heart. Relate to someone as a soul. You don’t have to like them, but you can love them, and that keeps you from getting involved in their human side. When I get fed up, I say to myself “look at their soul!”

Jade: What do you have to say about people who are afraid of herbal medicine treatments?

Sachi:

I would ask them to look at why. There’s probably a reason. Read a book called “Death by Prescription.” It documents all the deaths by correctly prescribed Western Medicine drugs. My advice? Try gentle first! Try herbs before toxic medicine.

If it doesn’t succeed, you have other options. Thankfully we have them (Western Drugs) if we really need them. But if you start first with the toxic prescriptions, then where do you go from there? You are worse off from the side effects, and the herbal remedy has to take much longer now.

Jade: What is the most important thing to you in keeping a healthy home?

Sachi:

First thing after my tea, I light Japanese incense candles that are free of chemicals and don’t use wood so that no wood is fallen for their production. These are the purest ones. I light 5 and put one in every room, and I go in each room and do a blessing. For example, in the kitchen, I say something like may this food prepared here bring health to everyone that eats it. I also put one at my altar and say a prayer.

When I enter my home, I stand at my front door and consciously drop concerns that I don’t need to think about now, and I take off my shoes. This is a ritual that is preparing to enter home purposefully. I then burn lots of good clean candles made of beeswax and soy for example.

Jade: Finally, What do you have to say about people that think health and weight is all in your genes?

Sachi:

I think we have a genetic predisposition such as blood type or body type. There is a lot of truth in it. If you have blue eyes, you can’t make them brown! If you have a large bone structure then you can’t shrink your bones.

However, you can do so much [with your body], such as reshape and tone. Half of the time it isn’t so much genetic as it is learned behavior! Like eating the same foods as our family raised us on, holding stress the same way.

I deal a lot with learned behavior everyday. It is a proven fact that in cases of people with multiple personality disorder, that in separate blood tests (one done on each persona) the blood tests differed! When in one personality, the blood will be that of a diabetic! And in separate persona, the blood returned to normal. It’s a proven medical fact!

So that said, if you have this disposition that “nothing can be done”, then I say we have no idea of the power of the mind!

Give your belief a try! I’ve been able to change people’s body types. People who were really heavy all their life and so unbalanced, who had assumed this was going to remain unchanged their whole life… and it wasn’t true. But they accepted it and it became part of their belief system and that is a very hard thought pattern to break out of.

Race and religious problems come about the same way: People believe they are in their “box” and that’s what we believe and make others believe. When we see souls all as one, these problems will disappear.

If you enjoyed this interview, you may also enjoy my interview with Dr. Simm

Dr. Simm Gottesman is an Acupuncture Physician from Florida in possession of vibrant health and youth, a great niece (me!), and much wisdom on natural health secrets.

Simm was the first one to influence me to change my eating habits. I have never been the same since she shared her health secrets with me, more than a decade ago. She is over 50 years old chronologically, but physically, much younger. Her face barely has a crease and she’s maintained a perfect weight for her height for years.

Simm received her acupuncture license in 1982, one of the very first people in the USA to become a licensed Acupuncture Physician (#36 to be exact!). Since then, she has inspired many other people to become practitioners, and there are now almost 2,000 licensed Acupuncture Physicians, in Florida alone.

I asked Simm some frequently asked questions …

Q: What are your main healthy habits to keep off weight and prevent aging?

Qi gong

Qi Gong (Ancient Chinese form of exercise involving gentle movements)- It’s a way to keep you in touch with your body and is a kind of moving meditation to calm mind, body and spirit. It moves the energy, or Qi, in your body, improving your metabolism.

Connecting with nature

Every day, take a walk outside. Hug a tree! Stand on soil- not just on concrete.

I am blessed to have wild life in my back yard. Wild Iguanas, along with an array of ducks and water birds, graze through my back yard everyday. Whenever I have leftovers I always share with my animal friends. I grow plants and herbs like rosemary, lavender, and sage. I also grow milkweed, the only plant that monarch butterflies need to stay on the planet, so that I can be mother to the Monarch Butterflies! I’m always checking on their eggs and caterpillars and making sure they have enough to eat.

Some of the new plants I’ve recently met are stevia and the “dragon fruit plant.”

Eating Healthy

I don’t always eat the same way (eg: just vegan or just vegetarian or just omnivore.)
If you eat the same way all the time I believe it just can make you feel bored and crazy! I believe that variety is the spice of life.

• I alternate between eating 60-70% vegetarian and 60-70% raw, and I switch between them.
• I suspect that one of my other health secrets is dark chocolate! at least 70% dark.
• I also make raw smoothies – about 1 a day, or at least 4 times a week. Click here for Dr. Simm’s smoothie recipes
• I love a cup of coffee in the morning! (I drink Organic coffee because I like the idea of supporting the small farmer co-ops.) Research has proven that coffee has many health properties, and 1 cup a day can have medicinal properties such as:
  • excellent antioxidant
  • prevents Parkinson’s
  • prevents Alzheimer’s
  • prevents Bladder Cancer
  • helps Diabetes
  • excellent antioxidant

I also add soy milk and honey! not sugar and milk! I love to see the confused looks on people’s faces when I ask if they have honey for my coffee and the questions I get about that one.

As mentioned above, I like variety. Forgive yourself if you have desert once in awhile. You deserve it, as long as you know how to balance it with the healthy diet I outlined above. Don’t beat yourself up; think of it as an opportunity to practice forgiveness! We have to remember to treat ourselves like our own best friend!

Q: What form of exercise do you do and how often?

I start off every morning with my morning meditation for about 10 minutes. I play my morning meditation music do some ohming chants and some conscious breathing techniques with silent prayers. Then I move on to my Chi machine. This is a way to get the lymphatic system moving. It is a device that lets you rest just your ankles in it and it gently rocks your legs to and fro while you lay on your back relaxing. Then I do a somersault and a headstand.

I also practice Qui Gong (see above) regularly.

Q: What are your core supplements?

I’m actually not a big believer in supplements. Too many supplements can clog the colon. I used to give colonics and actually saw all the gel capsules that didn’t dissolve and were lodged inside people’s colons there! My suggestion is that if there is a supplement that you want to take, test it out by putting it in a glass of water and see how long it takes to dissolve.

Here’s what I do believe in:

• Alkaline water
  (Also called ionized water.) It hydrates you more than regular water. The alkalinity of the water creates an alkaline environment in your body that cancer can’t live in.
• Probiotics
  Not necessarily just those tablets that are from a bottle! You can also get other probiotics that you need, from the food that you eat – such as things like sauerkraut and yogurt.
• “Holy” basil
  This herb has been revered by holy men in india for thousands of years as an outstanding anti-inflammatory.

Those who wish to consult with Simm Gottesman, Acupuncture Physician, may do so by contacting her by email direct: acusimm(at)aol.com. She is available for acupuncture treatments in the South Florida Area.

Read more here on Dr. Simm’s natural healing advice.

I’d like to thank Dr. Simm, Acupuncture Physician, for taking the time to do this interview with me. She is an Inspirational person who is staying young, thin, and disease-free and over 50 too! I thank her for all her wisdom and natural health secrets and sharing it here!

If you enjoyed this interview you may also enjoy my interview with Dr. Sachi