I cannot believe October is on us and Christmas is around the corner. Things are moving almost too fast to keep up with! This month I have a few notes for you and some exciting news.
NEWCASTLE 6 NOVEMBER!!
Another seminar of Magical Menopause is being held in Newcastle NSW on 6 November.
For those of you in Queensland, you do realise that air travel is the cheapest form of travel at present, don’t you? So getting down to Newcastle is a real possibility for anyone who may have missed out in June on the Gold Coast. The region around Newcastle is very pretty and there are plenty of B&Bs, so if you want to catch more good news about menopause, get yourself south-bound that weekend!
AIR POLLUTION
We have always known that air pollution affects respiratory illnesses like asthma, bronchitis etc. But recent research shows that air pollution can also increase the incidence of other diseases. For instance, diabetes increases with the proportion of air pollution, as does the incidence of suicide! Who would have thought….!
And it is not just one study. Medical research workers in the US, Germany and Korea have come up with similar results. And even Monash University have found that there is a clear increase in daily deaths (from all causes) with increased pollution!
This makes our pollution/carbon tax even more important than we may have thought. I don’t care about politics, but I do care about our planet.
SUGAR METABOLISM
Those of you who have heard me speak, either in one of the many seminars, or in the clinic, will know that I have a particular hang up about carbs and what they do to our metabolism in middle age! There is no doubt that you can get away with eating and drinking ‘stuff’ when you’re young that completely blow your metabolism to bits when you get a bit older.
Remember when you could drink 5-6 brandies at a party?
Or 10 beers (boys) and feel a bit tipsy, not roaring drunk fit to be tied down?!
That’s because Nature has an interest in managing anything you throw at Her while you’re still able to procreate and maintain the species. But once you have turned off the baby-making, there is no need for your poor liver, heart, adrenals, pancreas etc to bust their gut (so to speak) to correct your mistakes of diet.
Nature says: “If that’s the kind of rubbish you want to eat, then since you are no further use to your unborn children (cos there ain’t gonna be any) we are not going to help out more than the minimum.”
Therefore a huge, or even modest intake of carbs without protein and good fats to balance them, will induce a surge of insulin which in turn will plunge down your blood sugar, and will go on doing so, way beyond the level you started at! You feel it dropping, ‘cos that’s your control mechanism in alarm mode, and you reach for more carbs urgently to back up the sugar level. More carbs, more insulin, more sugar bouncing up and down!
And you wonder why you can’t lose weight??
Because the only immediate thing your poor body can do with all this sugar to store it, is to turn it into fat in case there’s a famine. And since there are precious little proteins coming in, the body is inclined to read the evidence as famine+++ and grab as much carb/sugar as it can and put it on your hips for use later.
Since we will be dead before there’s another famine in the western developed world, we will all die with that fat on our hips unless we restrict our intake seriously. But, you tell me, lots of people die thin, don’t they? Yes, because they have contracted some disease that eats up all their fat stores, or because they have become so demented that they are not eating anyway. Which goes to prove my theory.
Eat less, eat well, live longer!
MAKING PROGRESS TO YOUR SOUL’S PLACE
One of the amazing journeys I have been on recently, as part of my personal development program, has been to seek and find my “authentic self”. Now, I know that those of you who know me well, know that I already “tell it like it is”. But sometimes that’s just me being provocative and controversial, just so there’s something to talk about.
But being who you really are requires a thoughtful consideration of where you are this minute, emotionally speaking, and how you got here, and where to next. Not easy things to dash off in a moment in a newsletter, but worthy enough for me to ask each one of you to think:
- Am I really living the way I want to right now?
- Is there something standing in the way of me reaching to my top values as a person?
- Can I get past whatever is tugging at me to hold back from living and loving fully?
When a middle-aged woman asks me to intervene in her hormones to put them into proper balance, I know that is usually only part of the story. The other parts are her general health issues and her place in the universe, as a spirit in human form.
This last area is not taught to us in school, or colleges, universities or even at our mother’s knee. Time has eroded the wisdom that women need to know and integrate so that they can reach the full potential of their life here on earth. Whether you believe in life after death or not, there is scant reason to waste this life and its gifts. Finding your way to yourself is very worthwhile, for you can pass that knowledge on, and it is worth more than a king’s ransom.
Interrupting a tired and defeated life is easiest at the hormone level. When a woman finds that she is feeling better, more capable and more optimistic, she may be ready then to see if there really is more to life and living than she had felt to this point. Then she may be ready to find and feel the cobwebs of delight, see the moon rays of curiosity, seek the shadows of deep love, hear the sounds of simple laughter that are there for all but the way-too-busy to see, hear and feel.
The journey into tomorrow comes to us only one hour at a time, one day at a time, one lifetime at a time. Be sure you make the best you can of it. Your authentic self will rejoice in finding its own voice at last.
“The longest journey begins with a single step….”
