When Tawni Gomes stopped making excuses, she started losing weight—almost half of her body weight, in fact.
Tawni’s epiphany came one day in September 1996 as she watched The Oprah Winfrey Show on television. Oprah’s guest was her personal trainer, Bob Greene. As Greene explained the basics of
weight loss to the audience, Tawni began to feel inspired. At 300 pounds, she knew that she had to slim down. So the San Francisco resident headed for the nearest bookstore and picked up a copy of Make the Connection, Winfrey and Greene’s book. She read it cover to cover that very night.
Over the next month, Tawni struggled to stick with the exercise program. Excuses like “There aren’t enough hours in the day” and “I don’t have a personal trainer” conveniently prevented her from making a serious commitment to slimming down.
Then she heard that Greene was coming to town to speak and do a book signing. Book in hand, she went to hear him. “A woman in the audience asked Bob how she was supposed to find time to exercise with four kids, a house, and a full-time job,” she said. “Bob looked her straight in the eye and without hesitation said, ‘You’re not ready to lose weight.’ He turned to the rest of the audience and said, ‘Next question.’”
Tawni’s jaw dropped. “I was so shocked by his bluntness. But I had to admit that I was making the exact same excuses,” she says. “Everybody has the same number of hours in a day. If people with kids and tighter schedules than mine can find time to exercise, then, I figured, so can I.”
The very next morning, Tawni rolled out of bed at 4:00 A.M., laced on her walking shoes, and headed out—alone—for a brisk walk. It was the start of what would become a daily ritual. “With my work schedule and family commitments, that was really the only time I had to exercise,” she says. “At that early hour, it was so quiet and peaceful that it gave me a chance to think about my life and clarify my goals.”
Over time, Tawni switched from brisk walking to running. She also began lifting weights and performing stretching and toning exercises. The combination enabled her to take off 125 pounds in 3 years.
“No excuses” remains Tawni’s life motto. At age 34, she continues to work out regularly, and her weight is holding steady at 175 pounds. “That’s about right for my height and bone structure, though I’d like to lose about 20 more,” she says. She now has an online support group to help others get on the road to “no excuses.”
WINNING. ACTION
Make time, not excuses. We all have things that we need to get done, so we end up doing what’s important to us. Decide what’s most important for you. When you make yourself and your desire to live a healthier life a top priority, that’s when weight loss will happen for you.
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Ann is twenty-seven years old and was prescribed Ativan (3 mg) when she was told her baby was mentally handicapped. She coped well, but felt very down. After about four months, she felt increasingly anxious. Her doctor suggested she doubled the dose of Ativan. The anxiety lessened, but she had frequent headaches and lost her balance very easily. She thought she was run down due to increasingly heavy periods. Her husband complained that she was not the same person, and suggested a holiday.
Ann thought she might have more energy if she reduced her pills to half the dose. Two days later she felt very ill. She had diarrhoea, vomiting, nasal congestion, and a sore throat. The doctor diagnosed a virus. Ann had not slept so she resumed her full dose of Ativan. The symptoms dramatically disappeared. She recognized the same symptoms nine months later when she forgot to pack her pills when she stayed with an aunt. She thought it could have something to do with the pills, but her doctor assured her they were safe and non-addictive.
The heavy bleeding persisted and she was admitted to hospital for investigations. The ward sister kept the pills. Her skin burned, she felt sick, and the world looked strange again. She was sure it was the pills this time. Her doctor was kind, but said that this was unlikely.
A phone call to a friend, a Community Psychiatric Nurse, gave her some hope. He advised her to cut down slowly. Three months through withdrawal she noticed her periods were not so heavy and the sinus pains that had plagued her for the two years on Ativan had gone. There were times during withdrawal when she felt unwell, but she felt her old self returning. Her husband remarked how different she looked. It is now nine months since she completed withdrawal. Getting off to sleep, and palpitations, are still a problem, but apart from these, she feels well and is delighted to be drug-free. She is also delighted that the hair she lost during withdrawal has grown in again.
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Changes in Body Temperature
Some people complain they are ‘on fire’. Others say they feel icy cold, or cold one minute and hot the next. Feeling hot, with or without profuse sweating is often a feature of drug withdrawal. If you are very cold perhaps moving more or massaging the affected parts would improve circulation.
Sore Mouth
There are frequent reports of painful/cracked/glossy/ swollen tongues; mouth ulcers; gum boils; cracks at the corners of the mouth and sore lips. These symptoms may be a reflection of the nutritional state of the body, particularly in the long-term user. Even if the diet seems adequate there is often so much disturbance in the digestive system that absorption of essential minerals and vitamins could be impaired.
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Depression Following Tension
How often have you heard people say that they were depressed when the examination finished, or after an unwelcome visitor had left. The depression does not arrive whilst the strain is still there, but comes when you have a chance to relax. Perhaps this is nature’s way of forcing you to slow down. Physical exercise and a conscious effort to relax during stress could prevent this type of depression.
How Does A Depressed Person Look?
If he is very depressed, he could look round-shouldered, head bowed, slow moving with a shuffling walk, and mask-like expression, or he could be the joke-a-minute person who tries hard to cover up his inner misery by being the life and soul of the party.
What do Depressed People Say?
‘My body is so heavy; life, relationships, work, have no meaning; I feel far away and isolated, even in a room full of people; I know I love my family but I cannot feel it; I have no interest in anything; I won’t read the papers or watch the news in case there is anything that makes me sadder; the smallest physical task seems beyond me; washing and dressing is such an effort; everyone else looks so normal; I dread a visitor in case they can see how abnormal I feel; my relatives would be better off without me; I see everything through a grey mist’.
How Can I Heal Myself?
If your doctor has ruled out physical illness, he may want you to have a course of anti-depressant drugs. These help some people dramatically, but cannot erase bad memories, or the way you feel about yourself. Acknowledge that by positive thinking, you can stop the past, or the present, circumstances hurting you.
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Repetitive thoughts form an important part of an anxiety neurosis. These are often provoked by awareness of autonomic over-activity; e.g. a patient who feels his heart beating fast may worry about having a heart attack. Thoughts of this kind probably prolong the condition.
The appearance of a person with an anxiety neurosis is characteristic. His or her face looks strained, with a furrowed brow; the posture is tense; he or she is restless and often tremulous. The skin looks pale, and sweating is common especially from the hands, feet and axillae (armpits).
Readiness to tears, which may at first suggest depression, reflects a generally apprehensive state.
The physical symptoms and signs of an anxiety neurosis result from either over-activity in the sympathetic nervous system or increased tension in skeletal muscles.
The list of symptoms is long, and is conveniently grouped by systems of the body. Symptoms related to the gastrointestinal tract include dry mouth, difficulty in swallowing, epigastric discomfort (under breastbone), excessive wind caused by aerophagy (air swallowing), borborygmi (rumbling of intestinal gases), and frequent or loose motions.
Common respiratory symptoms, include a feeling of constriction in the chest, difficulty in inhaling (which contrasts with the expiratory difficulty in asthma), and over-breathing and its consequences (which are described later).
Cardiovascular symptoms include palpitations, a feeling of discomfort or pain over the heart, awareness of missed beats, and throbbing in the neck.
Common genito-urinary symptoms are increased frequency and urgency of micturition (act of passing urine), failure of erection, and lack of libido.
Women may complain of increased menstrual discomfort and sometimes amenorrhoea (absence of menstruation).
Complaints related to the functions of the central nervous system include tinnitus, blurring of vision, prickling sensations, and dizziness (which is not rotational).
Other symptoms may be related to muscular tension. In the scalp this may be experienced as aching or stiffness, especially in the back and shoulders. The hands may tremble so that delicate movements are impaired.
In anxiety neuroses sleep is disturbed in a characteristic way. On going to bed, the patient lies awake worrying; when at last he falls asleep, he wakes intermittently. He often reports unpleasant dreams.
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Patients with the autoimmune disease SLE illustrate the sort of symptoms that can be produced when immune complexes are deposited in the blood vessels. Among other things, they suffer from skin rashes, painful joints, and damage to the kidneys and lungs.
All these symptoms are produced by the deposited immune complexes causing inflammation in tiny blood vessels known as capillaries. In the case of the joints, the capillaries supplying blood to the joints become inflamed and this causes pain.
In the kidneys, immune complexes can become deposited around the delicate membranes that do the important job of filtering the blood. Their task is to remove excess salts and certain toxic compounds from the blood so that they can be flushed out of the body in the urine. Proteins in the blood are not normally allowed to escape into the urine, but when there is damage to die structure of the kidney, then this can occur. Because the body’s much-needed proteins are being lost in the urine the general state of health will eventually deteriorate, especially in children, who need protein for growth. The failure of the kidneys also means that excess water is retained, so there is puffiness in various parts of the body (oedema).
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Many people have questioned the cost of royal jelly, since there is no uniformity of price. In the United States it can cost five, six or even ten times as much as it does in Europe, but the price tags on European products can also vary considerably. It is unfortunate that such products are not always honestly priced and, as a consequence, a good natural remedy can become discredited.
Our own Gelee Royale is marketed in 10 g (0.353 oz) jars and this quantity gives about a month’s treatment. It is also available in the form of ampoules, called Apiforce.
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At this point the doctors had given up all hope of curing her. The wound would not heal and constantly exuded pus. After nine weeks the patient asked to return home from the hospital and her family and relatives continued treating her with much care and devotion. Every ten minutes the dressing on the wound had to be changed and a special ointment applied. But despite all this kind attention the pain could not be relieved.
An acquaintance of hers who had read of cabbage poultices in my monthly magazine Health News (Gesundheits-Nachrichten) recommended this treatment and – lo and behold – within four days of trying it, the pus was discharging freely and the terrible pain receded. In spite of suffering from chronic constipation and headaches resulting from it, the patient felt much better and was delighted to be on the mend after a year and a half of illness. It is hard to believe that cabbage can achieve such success, but if this patient had not taken advantage of the treatment her condition would probably have greatly deteriorated instead of improving as it did.
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Since kelp is a seaweed some may wonder what this plant from the cool ocean has to do with the feeling of laziness or listlessness experienced by many people at the onset of spring. Well, many things in life are astonishing, not least the fact that this ocean plant can help to replenish the body’s deficiency of minerals and vitamins that causes this unwelcome and bothersome feeling.
Kelp, a species of seaweed from the Pacific Ocean, is rich in minerals and for this reason has been successfully used to reduce obesity and treat thyroid problems, as well as to combat ’spring fever’. Its successful application for both purposes has been confirmed by an increasing number of people. Kelp is always at our service with its rich content of important trace elements and it is therefore the simplest, and possibly the best and least expensive, remedy to combat ’spring fever’. The easiest way to go about it is to take one Kelpasan tablet after each meal. If you suffer from Graves’ disease (exophthalmic goitre) or hyperthyroidism, it is important to take kelp only in homoeopathic potency (lx-6x) because the effect of the remedy depends on the appropriate dilution being used.
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The type of person most likely to benefit from Natrum muriaticum can be described as follows: puffy face, with watery-looking skin; thin, in spite of having a good appetite; feels the cold acutely especially along the spine and back, as well as in the hands and feet; easily exhausted by mental and physical work; cannot stand the heat of the sun; inclined to headaches and migraines; easily agitated and upset. If one tries to comfort such people they become bad tempered or angry. Their bowels function badly and the stool is dry, hard and crumbly. In the case of women these symptoms are accentuated during and after their periods, which are always irregular. A typical aversion to bread can often be noted. There either seems to be a great yearning for salt or a definite aversion to it. Those who have a number of these characteristics will find Natrum muriaticum an excellent and quite harmless remedy.
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