Conventional medicine rarely seems to ask this question of its patients. Typically, you present your provider with your symptoms. They ask a few questions about symptoms, run a few tests, and then match your symptoms to a drug they then prescribe you to take. Often, there are reasons you are having symptoms of chronic illness. When you can identify and address the actual causes of your illness, you can make changes to address many of them and give the body the ability to heal. After all, most of us are born healthy. The diseases develop later. Why?

Here are some of my original root causes that I discovered and changed with lifestyle adjustments:

• Food intolerances
• Sedentary
• Heavy metals
• Adverse Childhood Events
• Little Spirituality
• Little Sunlight
• Blue Light / Electromagnetic Forces
• Malnourished / Toxicity (ultra processed food consumption, environmental chemicals)
• Complicated Grief

As I started to make the indicated changes to my life, I was able to stop needing three (3) pharmaceuticals to manage allergy, eczema, and asthma symptoms. 

A symptom is a consequence of your lifestyle choices or events. For example, if someone has a headache, is it because they bumped their head when they fell? Are they dehydrated? Have they been exposed to chemical fumes? Each root cause would require different treatments that simply consuming a medicine may not address, let alone worrying about the lists of potential side effects.

When you make modifications to your lifestyle (and they can be quite diverse!), your body can do what God designed it to do, heal and function well.

What are some of your root causes? Do you need help identifying or adjusting your lifestyle to heal?

I offer free health consultations. Contact me if you want to explore how you can take back your health!

Just about one month ago, my life was upended with a major, unexpected life change that was not in my control. Basically, my husband made the decision to retire rather than continue with a major change at his employer. Now, I knew this was coming soon as he had started to discuss it and wonder about when the best time was to retire. I expected there would be more time to adjust and plan for this event, but it was completely outside my control. I acted as a sounding board for him and provided my opinions and thoughts for his decision-making process. However, he was the one who had to make the decision that served him best. He has been overjoyed with this decision and has no regrets.

I ended up with mixed feelings. Extremely happy for him, but leery about the impact this change would have on me. As virtually anyone can tell you, major changes often derail people's healthy lifestyle habits. Just look at the success rate of New Year's Reservations! People are notorious for starting out with good intentions and then fall off the wagon later. So, I knew I had my work cut out for me to stay on track. How did I tackle this? How am I faring so far?

• The biggest obstacle was the impact on morning routines. Having him home, caused every day to feel like a Saturday morning routine to both of us. On Saturday mornings, I do not participate in my morning fitness routines, do not set an alarm clock to get up early, don't do my spiritual practices until midday, and don't do household chores. Instead, we typically watch morning news podcasts, sip hot beverages together, and eat a late brunch.
• The next obstacle was the impact on my remote job - online meetings, quiet analysis times, spending adequate time to complete tasks.
• The third obstacle was wake-up time and bedtimes. Weekend routines and daily routines for these were vastly different for both of us. Alarms? No alarms? What time to shut everything down and prepare for bed?
• The fourth obstacle was income changes from full-time employed to retired.
• I had to reframe this event in my mind as a challenge, an adventure, an opportunity to calm fears and anxieties. I know a lot of couples whose marriage did poorly once retirement age hit, empty nest, etc. I'm trying to avoid that. Living in fear and anxiety is a problem.
• We had to communicate our individual needs and daily goals then adjust our individual routines to accommodate these. This took me several weeks to broach the subject and try to address. We now try to discuss the night before and early morning what each of us need to achieve and specific appointment times that day.
• We had to experiment and try different arrangements to see what works best - different locations, different times, doing things together or separately.
• We had to prioritize and be willing to discuss calmly and compromise on some items.
  
• We had to understand our values and emotions to make decisions and understand the other person's concerns and priorities.
• I successfully kept up my morning fitness routine after the first week of some bumps.
• Sometimes household chores get delayed longer than I would have waited for retirement. Subsequently, the podcasts I used to listen to are delayed or done at different times with my husband. I am still working on this one.
• The work performance is almost there. I sometimes let his presence during the day make me procrastinate at work. However, I haven't had any major misses yet. This is still a work in progress.
• We mostly agree on good bedtimes and wake up times. After two weeks off, my husband seems to not need to sleep in anymore and respects my need to stay on working schedule for morning commitments. 
• We now talk about money a lot more than we used to do when both of us were working full-time. This is a plus. We realize that there is less cushion for mistakes or waste and mostly have the same financial goals.
• As other stressors came in from work and family issues, I did notice an increase in frequency of symptoms and severity, but I can identify the causes as stress. I am very conscious to take good care of myself now to try to minimize this.

How do you handle major disturbances in life? If you need help navigating these to achieve your health goals, I am here to be your accountability partner and guide. Contact me to learn more.

I wish I could report that I drank NO coffee at all in the last month. I really wish I could. However, I would be lying! And I try my hardest to be honest. This isn't an area I would be tempted to lie - that occurs when someone I deeply care for asks my opinion on something and I just really don't want to hurt their feelings. And, if it's a profoundly important area where they need truth spoken into their life to grow, I will try to be the person who can do that in a very kind, sensitive way. But, yes, I did drink some coffee. Some, deliberately, and some accidentally, but, overall, I'm pleased with this experiment so far and not at all unhappy with the experience. 

The first weekend, right after Blog Post Part One, was the hardest. I woke up that morning and joined my husband in the living room, and the smell of freshly brewed hot coffee was too tempting. I did have some, but I restrained myself to only add 2 spoonsful to my hot tea. No noticeably bad effects. The next morning, I was faced with the same temptation. This time I again succumbed, I made a teeny, tiny, itsy bitsy cup (less than 4 oz.) to drink after I had my tea. Still no adverse effects. The next day I returned to new tea drinking habit.

This past weekend my husband made mushroom coffee. My friend had recommended that, suggesting the taste wasn't too far off of coffee. Her husband consumed this at times. My husband saw it advertised on one of his vendor podcasts so bought us some to try. I had a large 12-oz. cup both days of weekend. I was surprised that the taste was so similar to coffee that I mentioned it to my husband late Sunday. He laughed and said, "It should. It has coffee in it!" "Whaaaat?" I gasped. Sure enough, listed on the bag - Mushroom PLUS both dark roasted Columbian and Brazilian beans. That wasn't intentional. This morning, I am back on my teas.

Were there effects of the binge drinking last weekend? Yes, I believe there were. I have battled symptoms all morning today, despite normal eating and exercise patterns and a very good night's rest. I had to pull out some of my extra self-care tactics to rein them in. I would not be surprised if this indulgence was why.

What's next for me on the coffee consumption trials? I'm glad you asked. I do see benefits from curtailing use. Dosage and frequency really do seem to matter. So, I think I may resort to small cups (6-8 oz.) of my organic, mostly decaffeinated, cold-brew coffee just once or twice a week. 

Do you need help changing a bad habit on your journey to better health? Health History consultations are free. See if I can help you!

Early in May, I went for one of my annual check-ups (preventive, non-invasive exams). I chose to take an additional exam to capture more information and see if I would recommend it to my own clients to be helpful. My practitioner now had TWO data sets to say,"I really think you should give up coffee." Noooo!!! One of my guilty pleasures. He's been recommending this to me for 5 years now. I haven't exactly tried this long term, just for brief periods doing detox regimens. His voice in the back of my mind has driven me to make better versions. Now, I only drink organic. Mostly, I drink freshly ground. I now store my coffee in the refrigerator. I regularly even practice cold-brewing. I started getting water-processed decaffeinated coffee and mixing it with regular coffee to take only about one-third of caffeine. I don't drink any caffeine after 2:00 PM. I like my morning hot coffee ritual, plus it's a carrier for my sea salt, high vitamin butter, often brewed with other herbs and spices for flavor and health. How can I possibly give this up? "Just try it for 10 days. Do a reset." So - I took a big sigh and decided to try this. I am supposed to be my own client first. How hard can this be, after all? You've done it before. You're currently drinking 100% decaff... piece of cake!

Actually, it wasn't. I savored my last cup of cold brewed, organic decaffeinated the next day, then started the process of replacing this. Whenever you are changing a habit, you need to have a replacement, bolster yourself with your motives for doing the change, find an accountability partner. My accountability partner is ultimately me, as a health coach, but I threw my husband in there for extra support. 

First few days, there was still a craving for my coffee, despite replacing with hot herbal teas. Days 2 and 3 I was actual irritable. Day 4 my mood lined out. I'm still continuing forward to see how this helps. What have I learned positively so far? I do feel more mellow and relaxed, not keyed up, less anxious. My mind doesn't race as fast or as long when it does. It feels, frankly, weird, because I'm not so bubbly and energetic. How much of that was caffeine only? I thought it was only my personality. LOL I'm not used to that, but it's more peaceful. I'm finding that peace is so underrated in our society and that lack of this peace drives a lot of disease. I have discovered some tasty new herbal teas. It also has changed my digestion a bit, just different. I've thought, perhaps I'm detoxing without the caffeine load on the liver. 

The doctor suggests making coffee a sometimes-treat, not a daily one. Maybe I will.

Do you have any habits you need help changing in your life to improve your health? Email me to see if this might be a fit for you. 

Like many people, one of my common excuses for not cooking more is the time it takes to shop, prepare, cook, serve, and clean up a meal after working all day. One of the ways I developed that makes it more likely for me to cook dinner is to use leftovers creatively. I can hear some of you grumble now, "But, Jill, I HATE leftovers!" My husband is one of these so I came up with this hack after seeing his thinly veiled disappointment when I would heat up leftovers and serve them again a few days later. My solution is to take the leftovers and use them as a base to make a completely new meal with similar ingredients. This not only saves money, wastes lest food, and provides you a nutritious meal - you also get to use your creativity. 

Need more explanations? Here's one recent example.

Meal 1:

• Smoked Italian chicken sausages
• Mashed butternut squash with butter and nutmeg

Meal 2: 

• Panfried codfish
• Homemade coleslaw
• Brown rice

Creative Leftovers:

• Grilled chicken
• Butternut squash rice pilaf
• Sauteed spinach

Can you come up with any examples in your meal planning? Happy creative cooking.

Have you ever experienced boredom? Or how about just restless with same-old, same-old routine? Consider inserting some creativity into your week to liven it up. When you are generating something original, whether that is a new recipe, a sketch or painting, clay shapes, garden design, or a new way to solve a problem, your brain is being challenged and stretched to grow in new ways that can bring better mental or emotional health. As an engineer by education and experience, I didn't consider myself very creative. However, when we studied this in coaching classes, I realized there are a great many ways to be creative that aren't generally first in your thoughts. I am very creative when cooking or baking. I like to take recipes and make them my own or take several and meld them into one new one. I like to solve complex problems which often require creativity, which drew me to engineering in the first place (Loved Chemistry and Mathematics!). 

Try adding in some creativity into your weekly routines and see how that boosts your mental and emotional health!

Need some help figuring out how to make this a regular goal? That is one of the things Health Coaches do; help clients make sustainable changes. Holler at me for a free consultation to see if I can help you meet your health goals.

Taking classes to receive my Integrative Nutrition health coach certification, I was surprised at the concept of Primary Food. These categories are considered by the Institute of Integrative Nutrition (IIN) as being in many ways more important than the food you eat. If these areas are in balance and present and healthy in your life, you can get more lee way with not having perfect nutrition to be healthy. One of these categories is Joy. The definition of joy is the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires - delight.

Like every other factor, what brings joy to one person is very unique and different than what joy means to others. For me, one of my areas that has always brought me joy is playing my violin in a symphony. I spent last weekend doing just that with the Southwest Symphony (SWS) here in Hobbs. We celebrated the SWS's 40th anniversary this year, and musicians were recognized for their tenure. I have done this for 18 years, and, before that, I played in the Clear Lake Symphony in Houston, TX. As a teenager, I was very active in my high school orchestra, in music competitions, private lessons, solo concerts, playing in the youth community orchestra Tucson Junior Strings. My joy comes from so many aspects of this activity: the community and friendship of other musicians, working together to create pieces of beautiful music, pleasing the audiences, the music itself, practicing and mastering new material, an emotional outlet into the music played, the many prior experiences relived in the current concert, the gratitude for the sacrifices of my parents, especially my mother, that I can still be doing this so many years later. 

What does Joy look like for you? Do you have enough joy in your life? If not, what might you do to increase the amount of time spent experiencing joy? What might you try to see if it brings you joy? Purposefully work to bring more joy in your life and see if your whole health (physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual) doesn't show improvements!

If there are obstacles that make that difficult, you can consider using health coaching to make Joy a habit. Contact me if you want to learn more.

Just because you are working on improving or maintaining your health doesn't mean you should never have dessert. Everyone should indulge at times. Being health conscious, I am simply cautious about what, how much, and how often I eat dessert. My favorite daily go-to are a small serving of dark chocolate or dark chocolate with stevia (Lily's brands are great). Some nights I will eat one gluten-free cookie that my husband will bake. I try to target my treats to contain less than 10 g added sugar. How much or whether I do indulge will depend on whether I ate meals high in refined carbohydrates earlier or not as well. When I really want a treat, though, it means make it yourself. I always plan and make a dessert for family gatherings, holidays, or special occasions, such as Super Bowl gathering last week. I came up with this to serve after the meal was over. It is reasonably inexpensive, but not necessarily super fast to put together. I used freshly ground organic spelt flour to make this, but you can use organic whole wheat or process organic rolled oats instead. You can use regular whole milk if you do not have a food sensitivity to it, or you can use all buttermilk or all almond milk in this recipe. I tolerate buttermilk better than whole milk, but too much dairy becomes a problem for me so I try to incorporate the best of both worlds. Enjoy!

Winter Fruit Cobbler

Filling:

• 1 c. fresh cranberries
• 2 large Bartlett pears, cored, peeled, and diced
• 2 Granny Smith apples, cored, peeled, and diced
• 1/3 c. fresh squeezed orange juice (from 1 large orange)
• 1/2 c. coconut sugar
• grated zest of 1/2 orange
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla
• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• 3 Tbsp. flour

Topping:

• 1/2 c. butter (1 stick, melted)
• 1-1/4 c. whole grain flour
• 3/4 c. coconut sugar
• 1-1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. sea salt
• 1/2 c. buttermilk
• 1/2 c. almond milk

1. Preheat oven to 375 F.
2. Toss the filling ingredients together in oven-proof casserole or large pie dish and set aside for 30 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, whisk topping dry ingredients together, then make a well in the center.
4. Pour in melted butter and milks. Sit until combined.
5. Place dish of fruit in oven for 10 minutes.
6. Remove dish and spread topping over fruit. 
7. Place oven in dish and bake for 35 minutes or until top is golden brown and center is set (springs back when touched).
8. Let dish cool 10 minutes before serving.
9. Makes 8-10 servings.

One of the best way to stay healthy or regain your health is to cook your own meals. However, when you have worked all day (at work or at home), this is often the last thing you feel like doing. The key is planning, preparation, and using time saving hacks. Many people resort to eating out for convenience and believe that a fast food meal is inexpensive. In reality, shopping might have a slightly higher upfront cost, but usually provides more meals at a smaller cost per serving. If you factor in the excluded costs of poor health care, requiring doctor visits, time off work, feeling poorly, then cooking comes out a clear winner!

Find and keep on hand recipes that are fast and easy that can be put together on busy days. You can take a recipe and make simple changes that make it faster, and can even be cheaper, without hurting the nutrition. In this recipe, I modified a recipe to make it easier and cheaper to put a healthy meal on the table for your family. You can choose between purchasing pre-chopped vegetables in produce section, frozen food, or take longer to prepare the vegetables yourself (often cheaper).

Serve this soup with healthy crackers or crusty sourdough bread with butter. Don't forget to read your labels when choosing these!

Winter Borscht Soup 

Yields: 4-6 servings

Preparation Time: Up to 1 hour

• 1 lb. ground beef
• 1 large potato, diced (or 1-1/2 c. frozen diced potatoes)
• 1 c. sliced cooked beets (organic preferred)
• 2 c. beef broth
• 2 c. water
• 2 Tbsp. butter
• 1-1/2 c. chopped onion (fresh or frozen)
• 1 celery stalk, chopped 
• 1 carrot, diced (or 1/2 c. sliced frozen)
• 1/2 cabbage, shredded (or 1 pkg. coleslaw mix and drop carrot)
• 2 Tbsp. cider vinegar
• 1 Tbsp. brown cane sugar or honey
• 1-1/2 tsp. sea salt
• 1 tsp. caraway seeds
• 1 tsp. dill
• 1 tsp. black pepper

Melt butter in large Dutch oven over medium heat. Saute onion until onion is clear. Add ground beef and cook until meat is done. Add carrots, celery, cabbage, and potatoes and cook for 10 minutes. Add remaining ingredients. Bring to a simmer and cover. Cook for another 15 more minutes.