Doshas: Seasonal Cleansing

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What Is My Dosha Blueprint? Vata Pitta Kapha

When talking about doshas, instead of winter, spring, summer, and fall, the year breaks into dosha seasons.

Vata season, which is from late fall into early winter

Kapha season, from the coldest part of winter into spring

Pitta season, which includes the hottest, longest days of the year—from late spring into early fall.

Cleansing your Doshas – Gaia

My cleansing broken down:

I have done a cleanse before the start of April as I will be starting my 3rd Whole30 on April 1st. My cleanse looked something like this. A glass of water with fresh lemon juice in it first thing in the morning. (apple cider vinegar works too).  I drank one decaf coffee in the morning and roasted dandelion root tea in the evening along with a mint tea in the afternoon. The more to help with digestion the better.

Then I made sure to eat as clean as possible, watching for where the food I was purchasing was grown and avoiding all sugar, additives and preservatives, grains of all kind (rice and corn included) and minimizing the intake of coconut and almond flours.

I roasted my vegetables and cooked fruit into pies, crisps or sauces. I believe that a cleanse is to be as gentle on the gut as possible. I meditated in the evening for 10-30 minutes whichever amount of time I had available. Got as much sleep as I could, even going to bed at 9 pm a couple of times and avoided stress or conflict as best I could.

Of course I would prefer to be in different settings when doing a cleanse where there is no stress or conflict but that is impossible when you commute 45 minutes each way to work and work 40 hours a week. Do your best! And this is a great time to test your mental strength to be able to come back as fast as possible to a relaxed state after exposure.

The Whole30 is a program NOT a diet. These books can be borrowed from the library and is an amazing place to start cleaning your gut and learning about how your body works.

Image result for Food Freedom Forever     Image result for whole30 cookbook   HartwigCover

What`s your dosha

I am a vata so my season for imbalance is from fall into winter but each season change I like to cleanse and start fresh it makes me feel healthier and I don`t seem to get sick with colds or flu like others do. When my energy shifts I find I lose balance in all parts of my life and that is what I want to avoid completely.  The way I see it is if I am on top of the issue of imbalance before it happens then maybe I can avoid having Crohns flares.

Eating healthy the Whole30 way is a huge advantage for me, but I also have to watch where my vegetables and fruits come from. I am concerned about some of the food that come from Mexico because when I eat some I find it triggers inflammation. (Chemicals)

Image result for vata pitta kapha

Learn what your dosha is to find balance in mind body and sprint – The Chopra Centre

Image result for vata pitta kaphaThere is a lot to learn with each body type but you could be Vata/Kapha or Pitta/Vata or Kapha/Pitta, or like me 100% vata, etc. so make sure to take the test and google your dosha to get the benefits from the information online. Having a clean gut, eating healthy and knowing your Ayurveda body constitution is important for prevention of autoimmune diseases.

Andrea

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Positive Thinking & Self Talk

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We have a constant running commentary going on in our heads. Concentrate on it to figure out if it’s negative self talk or positive self talk. It’s easy once you notice your self talk to change its course. Whatever you are successful in is where the positive is in your life.

I am working hard on changing the course each time negative thoughts pop in my head. I want to avoid the negative to maintain my health, it was extremely hard work and expensive to get healthy and I want to stay this way. We need to be kind to ourselves.  When I realized that this was going on all the time I saw how I was hard on myself and knew I needed to change.

Sometimes we sit in negativity, how can we not when bad things happen to us. Sitting in the negative is what makes us sick and unbalanced. We dwell, we get stuck, we overthink and we stay in that unhealthy space too long.

It can be an exhaustive cycle that is hard to stop but so easy to spiral out of control. IE: I look ugly.  I’ve gained weight. I should have tried harder.  I’m such a loser or failure. I’ll never get it right. Why did I say that or why did I let him/her treat me like that?

Over time changing the self talk monologue has been a learning experience. Figuring out where in my life I was really down on myself was key. Correcting the negative wording to positive thoughts was a process to learn to  catch each time.

I have trained myself to stop as soon as it starts and change what I’m doing or make a plan so that I can change what it is that I’m down on myself about.  Instead of the negative self talk continuing I’m going to do something about it!

Sometimes it’s a reaction to someone’s actions or words and it can be paralyzing especially when the continuous loop from the time our eyes open until we fall asleep is mental flogging.

Sometimes when things are upsetting or throw me off, in that it’s an uncomfortable situation, those times stay with me and I hold on to them until I’m warm down, even though I don’t need to.  Ridiculous, when I think about it that way!

In general when life hands me negative situations I tend to reason it out immediately. They/he/she are having a bad day. I wonder what that person is going through to make them act or react like that. When I use this strategy it allows me to release that negative energy they put in my life so that it doesn’t bring me down.

I use to have a VERY different outlook on this, a negative outlook that was blame, anger and making sure that person was put in their place!  I have a huge piece of me that doesn’t allow others to be disrespectful towards me or others that are close to me, once they do, I’m not one to forgive.

Then I realized with that kind of attitude I was wasting my time on people that ultimately didn’t warrant my energy. I was using my energy on non issues instead of something positive.

Changing my perspective has truly brought me to a peaceful state of mind. It was a lot of work at the beginning to learn to redirect my thoughts but has slowly become much easier to stay in the positive as time goes by.

Resources:

Pyschology Today

Forbes

Elite Daily

It’s an ongoing process to change the negative into positive but it can be done! Here’s to being kind to ourselves. Cheers, Andrea xo

Finding balance through the Whole30

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I was listening to Melissa Hartwig on a live IG story (personal or Whole30) and one of the questions she was answering was how do I stay on the Whole30 when stress enters my life?

And in that moment I had an aha! moment. It’s BALANCE! This is definitely something I need to hear. I find the hardest thing in my life is to keep my balance.

I listened to the answer and it seemed so obvious yet I have been struggling with this since I was 18 when I left home for college.  Living at home upnjntil then with my parents there was always healthy food, meals that were planned and prepared every night.  That kept me aligned.

I lose balance so easily, it could be as simple as a few missed hours of sleep the night before or anything new like a move or job and when stress enters my life. Any of these occur and I fall apart and everything goes to shit!

I finally figured it out. It’s as simple as food! The Whole30 program is not a diet.  It is learning how to meal plan, shop, cook and eat for your body. It’s also more than that, it’s a community, feeling positive about food freedom and figuring out how food fits into your life.

Taking this information in as Melissa was saying something like; even when stress enters your life keep food as a routine. Then I won’t lose balance. THAT’S IT!  I literally wanted to yell from the rooftops that I figured it out, point to my cell phone and say look….This is me! This is it! Right here!

The Whole30 has taught me a lot about food, myself and how food fits into my life. It’s been a process and I think everyone should know it’s within you to learn and figure out. It takes the amount of time it takes. There is no time limit or certain mile stones or markers.

The battle with food is personal and individual. AND it goes much deeper than food.  It reaches the inner most depths of the mind, of the soul.  It’s a learning experience of the past and sets you free!

For me it’s cravings when I start to become unbalanced. My unhealthy food relationship is controlling my food intake when the number in the scales says 5 pound gained.  The instant I notice this happening I stop eating properly and that spins me into a horrible cycle of little amounts of nutritional foods and small quantities. I’ve narrowed it down to being entirely stress related.

When I lose balance everything falls to pieces and then once that shift happens everything slides out of control. Once I let my food routine go out the window it affects every part of my life. My sleep, my health, my brain and gut function. All I want is balance but I dislike routine so that’s why I’ve struggled with this for so long. By not sticking to the routine of meal plans, shopping, eating and cooking I ultimately sabotage my health.

Its the worst feeling to go from cooking and eating healthy, feeling well and in balance, to my body shutting down and spiraling out of control.  When this happens I would feel terrible but didn’t know why. I would be craving chips and chocolate and eating little else. No wonder I just kept going down hill. And when I didn’t see it or realize what the answer was I wouldn’t know how to stop it from happening.

Keeping the meal plan simple and whole30 I feel my best and I don’t lose balance. This is seriously THE best aha moment I’ve had and I’m so glad I found the answer to the biggest issue in my life. Knowing how to keep my balance on a consistent basis is a tremendous relief. Now the work begins to keep this aligned until it becomes a habit!

Everything Whole30

I lose balance in the fall/winter transition but I like to do an overhaul in the winter/spring transition too.  (I also do a cleanse in March) I am planning on doing a WHOLE30 starting April 1st.  If you are interested in joining me follow my One Gutsy Lady Facebook page for support, advise and to have fun with the program.

Here are the links for the Whole30 program.

What is the Whole30?

Whole30 Program Rules

Have you tried or completed a Whole30? What was the outcome? I’d love to hear your experiences in the comments.

Let’s do the Whole30 together! It’s free! Join me on Facebook  @onegutsylady

~Andrea

Get to know the Clean Fifteen & Dirty Dozen!

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4DD62057-8127-4612-9A61-6E15B1190419It’s important to clean your gut to avoid autoimmune disorders and if you have autoimmune disease(s) already.

Inflammation is the word for the movements that are all around us now. Eliminate inflammation for optimal health! A great way to start to clean your gut is to shop the dirty dozen and the clean 15 lists when buying fruits and vegetables.
Ultimately, growing our own would be the most healthiest knowing what environment these were grown in but not many of us can live with such a privilege.

Here are the ewg.com (EWG) Environmental Working Group dirty dozen and clean 15 lists to assist in avoiding harmful chemicals in the produce aisles. A good way to think about these choices is the clean 15 have the lowest levels of pesticides used ~ thin skin organic, thick skin non-organic.

 

Note: Green beans and kale are moving up on the most sprayed list.