What Are YOU Hungry For?

As many of you know, I am finishing up my education at The Institute for Integrative Nutrition. I want to share with you one of the unique teachings that really speaks to me deeply: Primary Food.

What is Primary Foods, you ask?

    Well, think back to a time when you were deeply involved in a project you loved. You were excited about this project, and it stimulated your senses. The outside world faded away. You didn’t feel the need to eat, or you didn’t remember to eat and someone had to come by and remind you.

Remember back to when you were a child, playing outside with friends. When dinner is ready Mom or Dad are there to remind you that it’s time to come and eat, but what did you say as a child? More often than not, you probably responded with, “No thanks! not hungry yet! :)”

As a child, you live off Primary Food. Play fuels children and the little food you get in is Secondary Food, nourishment from calories, vitamins, and minerals.

The same is true when you’re deeply in love, or working passionately on a project that you’re excited about. Primary Food is the fun, excitement, and love of daily life. They have the power to feed us so that we feel full and food becomes secondary.

Now think of a time when you were sad, lonely, or your self-esteem was low; you were starving for primary food. No amount of secondary food would do. You ate as much as you wanted, but never felt satisfied.

Even in good times when we come home at night, we often look to the fridge for something to eat, when all we really want is a hug or someone to talk to.

Elements such as an inspiring career, meaningful spiritual practice, enjoyable physical activity, and honest and open relationships that feed your soul and your hunger for living all constitute primary food.

The more primary food we receive, the less we depend upon secondary foods. The same is true for the opposite. The more we fill ourselves with secondary foods, the less we are able to receive the primary foods of life.

    All that we consider today as nutrition is really just a secondary source of energy.

To have an understanding that it is not just what you eat, it’s the water you drink, the air you breathe, the love in your life, the fact that you exercise, and so much more.

Think about the person who goes home at night and binges on junk food, do you think that exact same person would go home at night and binge if they came home to someone who gave them a warm hug and said, “I love you.” …Much less likely. As yourself this, does this person have and eating disorder? Or a love deficiency? This is a very serious problem that many people suffer with. I’ve been there.

Make sure you are getting your Vitamin L: LOVE

It’s not just relationships, it’s career too, you’re work is nearly half your life. If you are in a job that you don’t like, that is painful to be at. You will live a life unfulfilled. I’ve been there too, I get it. It’s odd to me now, though, to witness people spending 8-10 hours a day in an environment that they don’t love, don’t believe in, and is diametrically opposed to their personal values. This is not healthy. I don’t care how much 401K you have.

It’s not only the foods you’re eating, it is also the environment you are assimilating that really will effect your health and your future. A lot of people believe it is only a dream to work in a field that you are passionate about and fully believe in. It’s not a dream! It is fully available to people who insist that it should be that way.

 Please take time to explore your primary foods as you embark on your health journey.

What are YOU hungry for?

Who are you? What is your unique gift that you can share with the world?

If you are interested in working with me contact me for a free consultation.

If you would live to learn more about The Institute For Integrative Nutrition, please feel free to ask me anything!

Much love and light to you,

Angie

How To Get Things Done

“Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.” David Allen

How mind blowing is that statement right there? Really take a moment, take a deep inhale, then exhale. Now, is your mind clear? Or are you still thinking about all the things you think of every moment of everyday? “I have to…, I can’t forget to…, Oh man, what was that thing I was supposed to be thinking about? Why can’t I remember.. What is it..” Sounds familiar?

As some of you may know, I have been spending the past year working on building a business. Building a business takes a lot of thinking! And remembering! I can say that I’ve never considered that I’ve always used my brain as a storage device before this year, but I have. Are you?

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I remember a time when I fell behind about a week in school. I was so worried and nervous about being behind by a week, that I spent almost another week worrying about how I was going to get caught up! Do you know what I mean? I basically wasted hours “worrying” but not taking action. I became so trapped in my thoughts of “I can’t do it now..” but I could have!

I could have sat down with a notepad and a pen and written out all of the things that I was worried about completing. If you write out all of your responsibilities for the week, you don’t have to think about them anymore! Then, after writing out your responsibilities, you cant jot down the steps you need to take to complete those tasks. Then, the amount of time it will take you. Not only will you have a better understanding about what you have to do, but what you have TIME to do. If you add up all of your responsibilities and the time limit you have to do them in, you’re able to move tasks around to where they fit in best for you. That saves space for you to think about things that are happening in the present. When you think about what is happening in the present, you are able to fully engage and obtain the best results. What do you think about your amount of productivity day in and day out? Do you think you could work to improve your skills in time management to optimize your productivity? This is definitely something I would like to master.

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 For as long as I can remember I’ve been storing things in my brain. That’s what my brain is for, right? …Maybe not. After that moment when I realized that I had been using my brain as a storage device, I decided to type “How to get things done” into my Google search bar. What I came across was priceless. I found the artist of stress free productivity, David Allen.

If you have been struggling with time management and getting things done, please watch this wonderful video. It will change your life! ❤

You may want to watch it 2… or ten times. 🙂

 

So how do you feel now? Are you going to make some changes in the way you store your information? Let go of things that really don’t serve you? I hope this helps you the way it has helped me!

 

Love, Light, and peace of mind,

🙂 Angie

Reflections of a Vision Board

I was looking through my first binder that I put together when I first received my books and welcome pack from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. I came across my 1st assignment, which was to create a vision board for what I want out of life, career, what will bring me happiness and abundance? This is what I put together:

Right away I see healthy eating & fitness. Look a little deeper and you’ll see I love to juice fresh fruits & vegetables, I love to make delicious & nutritious smoothies. Look even deeper and you’ll see that my intention is to just be, simplify, while experiencing my own personal growth, and pursuit of happiness, health and success.

While I learn I will also teach.

My mission is to create a ripple effect of health and happiness. I want you to know what it feels like to have unlimited energy. I want you to know what it feels like to evict negativity from your thoughts and only think kindly about everyone, including yourself.

I hope to inspire those around me to think for themselves. Do what you feel best doing, and stay grounded with love. I know it’s not always easy to do that, but once you make the shift, you’ll never go back! Don’t be afraid to love people up! Each time you send love to another human being, they are going to take that love and spread it in their world, which is your world- our world. We all live here. Let’s spread some extra love and happiness out there. Can you imagine what the world would be like if every single person on this plant loved themselves and everyone around them? Love’s powerful stuff!

I will be working on an updated vision board for 2014, I invite you to put together your own to create intentions and then decide your action steps.

What do you want out of this life?

Please feel free to comment & share with us your vision! ❤

Much Love & Light to you,

Angela

 

The Dirty Dozen & Clean Fifteen – Shoppers’ Guide to Pesticides

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Have you been trying to incorporate more organic nutritionally dense produce into your life? Are you feeling like you’re spending too much money on organic? Wondering if it’s worth it?

Two-thirds of washed produce samples in recent government tests had pesticide residues. Did you know A single grape sample contained 15 pesticides. Single samples of celery, cherry tomatoes, imported snap peas and strawberries showed 13 different pesticides a piece.
 Or how about the fact that a conventional head of lettuce contains 68 different pesticide residues?! 68!!

The USDA’s most recent pesticide monitoring data included hundreds of samples of packaged baby food. Which was found to contain acetamiprid, a neonicotinoid pesticide, as well as carbendiazim, a fungicide.

The USDA found 6 different pesticides in apple juice, including DPA, which was banned in Europe in 2012.

I encourage you to do further research on the toxicity and dangers of pesticides and fungicides used by big agra today.

So are ALL conventional fruits and vegetables dirty? … Not quite.

EWG’s Clean Fifteen™ for 2014 – the produce least likely to hold pesticide residues – are avocados, sweet corn, pineapples, cabbage, frozen sweet peas, onions, asparagus, mangoes, papayas, kiwis, eggplant, grapefruit, cantaloupe, cauliflower and sweet potatoes. Relatively few pesticides were detected on these foods, and tests found low total concentrations of pesticides.

Notable findings:

• Avocados were the cleanest: only 1 percent of avocado samples showed any detectable pesticides.
• Some 89 percent of pineapples, 82 percent of kiwi, 80 percent of papayas, 88 percent of mango and 61 percent of cantaloupe had no residues.
• No single fruit sample from the Clean Fifteen™ tested positive for more than 4 types of pesticides.
• Detecting multiple pesticide residues is extremely rare on Clean Fifteen™ vegetables. Only 5.5 percent of Clean Fifteen samples had two or more pesticides.

I want to share with you The Environmental Working Groups’ Dirty Dozen & Clean Fifteen Shoppers’ Guide to Pesticides.

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Print this awesome guide out and stick it right on your fridge! Keep yourself up to date as the levels change each year.

It is good to know that you can save some money by buying conventional on some important staples that could have 0 pesticide residue.

Although,  wouldn’t recommend buying conventional sweet corn because it is almost certainly genetically modified. That’s another crazy way they are messing with our food supply. I’ll go more into that in a future post.

I hope you are able to use this tool in your daily life. It has definitely saved me some money since I started to use it. I used to let it slide when buying strawberries, bell peppers, and cucumbers because they are so unbelievable expensive for organic. I also used to avoid every item on the clean fifteen list unless it was organic. Ironic, huh! Knowledge is power.

Vote with your dollars. When you can, buy organic. If you can’t AVOID the dirty dozen.

Much love & light to you,

Angie