Where are my Young Living friends?
Right about now, we need happy things… and the smell of lemon🍋 does indeed give nearly everyone an additional pep in their step! Could it be the limonene and its scientifically proven beneficial effects on serotonin and dopamine levels in key regions of the brain that are associated with anxiety and depression?…. or maybe it will just make it a little more fun to wash your hands for the gazzillionth time during #alonetogether2020.
Either way, I’m a sucker for quality tea, and am super excited by these new additions to our Young Living family!
Cuppa tea anyone?☕
xoxo~liz
#bettertogether
#YLSpringlaunch2020
#ThanksYL
Skin
#3 Corona Virus 101
POST #3 Corona Virus 101…. Demographics
Based upon current info, this is what we can safely deduce…
👉 Most cases are hitting ages 30-79 years old, But the fatality rate was 14.8% in people 80 or older, likely reflecting the presence of other diseases, a weaker immune system…. LONGER EXPOSURE to pollution, toxins, and cigarettes or simply worse overall health. (see how this might skew the above overall stats?)
👉 Virus symptoms appear to be mild in ~80% of cases in children (a group not at risk!…. perhaps in part because they have had less exposure in their short lives to pollution, toxins, and cigarettes?)
👉 Pregnant mamas? Info gleaned in a small group study revealed that the virus appears to be more mild in pregnancy…. But mamas can transmit to their babies. As for the mothers, “Covid-19 seems not to be especially severe in pregnant women, at least based on the small number in this study,” the scientists wrote. Well this is good news! I might also add that pregnant women in China know enough about 5G that they wear special clothing to protect their unborn children. For real!
A bit further digging (and a tiny bunny 🐰trail!), and I found that you can buy radiation protective clothing here in the US too!
👉 Personally, my greatest concern lies within this last group…. the immuno-compromised. 👈These people … these are the ones that are going to need all of our help. The virus is real, and although it does appear to be relatively mild if you are a healthy individual and are taking care of yourself, but the reality is that we have ALOT of unhealthy people in our world. Who would qualify as immunocompromised? According to the CDC…. that would include:
HIV/AIDS
Cancer & Transplant Patients
Rare inherited diseases that affect the immune system
(that’s pretty much their list 😳 )
My list of those who might qualify as being immunocompromised is quite a bit longer…. We here in the USA have been encouraged to be vaccinated against pretty much everything under the sun, and yet, we are one of the sickest first world countries in the world. #truthbomb This is another topic I have plans to discuss at some point… not now. But my concerns are on point. Really, anyone who is diabetic, has heart disease, compromised pulmonary function, an autoimmune disorder that is not well managed…. if you know anyone in these categories, I encourage you to encourage them to #dothethings that will help boost their immune systems.
There’s no time like the present to start boosting your immunity now. Details to come beyond what I’m about to write…. but let’s simply start today with the basics:
1.🍖 Fresh (not processed) foods
2.Clean filtered water (not soft drinks, junk juice etc)
3. Regular exercise
4.☠️🍞🍟🍭🎂🍩💉☢️☣️Remove as much of the toxin load as possible in food, beverages, household cleaners, synthetic air fresheners, body care products, and even cosmetics and replace these things with immune system boosting products whenever possible, or at the very least “green and healthy” products.
If you are a Young Living member, I do not need to fill in the blanks for you…. if you are not a YL member, I encourage you to reach out to someone you know and trust who can help with the immune supportive cleaning supplies, cosmetics, and alternatives for air fresheners that Young Living provides for everyone. Many of us have been toxin dumping for years, and we can guide you thru what we ourselves have successfully done.
Studies have shown that toxin load reduction begins decreasing within days of implementing the above 4 steps.
Stay tuned…… lots more to talk about.
xoxo~ liz
#knowbetterdobetter
#healthismoreimportantthantoiletpaperwhenprepping
#ThanksYL
Don’t Feed the Dragon
Personal experience is often a driver of passion. If you’ve read my personal story (early on in my blog), you’ll already know that it included a very early diagnosis of endometriosis. I was diagnosed when I was a teen… way back in the ’80’s. Back then…. literally a generation ago, endometriosis wasn’t yet a common women’s health concern. It was still considered more of an anomaly…. enough so that it took some digging and even some traveling to doctors who knew how to both identify and treat it to the best of their ability at the time.
Wow! Things have certainly changed over the last 35+ years…. It is now estimated that approximately 11% of women have this chronic inflammatory disorder. It is also being held accountable for up to 1/3 of fertility disorders. There is much debate over “how” endometriosis comes to happen in a woman’s body, but there is no debate on the fact that its destructiveness is magnified by something called ‘estrogen dominance’.
While estrogen is a valuable and necessary hormone within our female bodies…. “back in the day”, our fore’mothers’ only had to concern themselves with the estrogen their own body produced and perhaps, to a much lesser extent, something called phytoestrogens (a small select group of plants that could add estrogen to what the body already had on board).
Roughly 70 years ago, a subset of synthetic chemicals began popping up in foods, personal care products, packaging (lining of cans and plastics), medications, household cleaners (and dryer sheets!), and…… heavens!!… even disposable menstrual products (Talk about feeding the beast!). For many years, there appeared to be little cause for alarm…. until unusual goings on began showing up in the wild world of amphibians…. and male frogs began turning into female frogs inexplicably in the wild. The first people to sit up and take notice were wildlife biologists. It was the canary in the coal mine revisited (Spoiler Alert: It didn’t end well for the canary in that scenario either).
Scientists slowly began sitting up and taking notice as endocrine disruption expanded from wildlife to humans. 170+ of these chemicals are now known as “Xenoestrogens”, and they are the harbingers of hormone imbalance in both men and women. They mimic the function of natural estrogen, thus creating biological hormonal mayhem the likes of which include PMS, heavy periods, PCOS, breast cancer, fibroids, ‘man boobs’, etc….. and endometriosis. Estrogen dominance is of epidemic proportions in developed, ‘advanced’, industrialized countries: Too much of a good thing, can be…well, too much.
All that factory farm raised meat and dairy tainted with growth hormones? yep
(go local, and find your hormone free, grass fed, humanely raised animals… ie: support your local farmer and rancher)
Pesticide containing food products? yep
(eat organic whenever possible)
Tap water? yep
(drink filtered water!)
Shampoos, lotions, soaps, toothpaste, cosmetics… other personal care products containing ingredients like parabens and phenoxyethanol chemical compounds widely used with abandon by the cosmetic and pharmaceutical companies? yep
(please… for the love of your children and yourself… use natural products!)
Heating plastics or plastic wrap in the microwave, or simply storing food in soft plastic or plastic wrap? Or use bottled water or canned food that incorporates BPA into the packaging process? yep yep yep!
(use glass or stainless whenever possible. aside from the obvious landfill issues, plastic contains phthalates, a pretty nasty one on the ‘no no’ list)
See the verbiage ‘artificial color or flavor’ on a favorite packaged food ingredient list? Back away from the item. Seriously.
(Approximately 31 substances may be added to processed foods for the purpose of artificially sweetening, preserving, coloring, or enhancing texture and/or flavor and are guilty offenders)
Dryer Sheets? Totally loaded. Obscenely so.
(wool dryer balls…. message me, I’ll score you some, teach you how to make them simply, or use 1/2 cup of baking soda in your rinse cycle!)
Ahhhhh! Veering back on the bunny trail we started on. Endometriosis. I suspect you are starting to get my drift here. No wonder it’s become a common problem, right?
Endometriosis is very estrogen dependent… it doesn’t grow and thrive in an estrogen poor environment. Conversely, it can spread like bunnies on fertility drugs when exposed to bountiful amounts of estrogen regardless of the source. Common western medicine more often than not will use chemical means to suppress naturally occurring estrogen in our bodies to slow the dragon’s path. Rarely do they sit down and talk to the woman (or girl child) about the ramifications of xenoestrogen’s effects on their body and how to minimize exposure to them.
While endometriosis (or something like it) was identified in the late 1800’s, it was a rare creature…. not unlike dragons. In fact, the incidence of endometriosis in less developed countries today is significantly less than in those countries where plastic water bottle toting, microwaved plastic wrapped food noshing, dryer sheet using people live. People like myself… whom, as a kiddo and young adult did the same thing… before I knew better.
Endometriosis is technically not an autoimmune disease, but having it creates a hospitable environment for autoimmune disorders to set up housekeeping alongside it. Chronic inflammation within the body will do that. Misery loves company.
Friends, please don’t wait until something goes wrong to clean up your life. Truly. Life is too short, and it’s so much easier to minimize risk factors than it is to mediate and do damage control.
Life is short! Keep it clean ;)!
Love and hugs, Liz
Oasis in the Desert: Choosing a Reputable Supplement Company
The uniqueness of the world I’ve chosen to live in is not lost on me. On one foot, I’ve got my mud encrusted muck boot as I wade thru one of the wettest fall/winter cow pastures in North Texas history. On the other foot…. my trusty Dansko’s: the only footwear I’ve found that are comfortable for a 10-11 hour shift at the pharmacy. I spend most of my days using my pharmacy knowledge to teach people how to avoid a long term relationship with a pharmacy. Other days, I put my white coat on and fill prescriptions…. some for those who have no choice, and others….because they continue to make life choices that come with a prescription price tag….. and still others, who simply don’t know any better. #knowbetterdobetter …… that’s why I feel so called to be here.
With the New Year comes a slew of questions regarding supplements at the pharmacy. Resolution toting customers looking for an easy way to lose weight, minimize fresh workout pain, or simply just trying to get healthy in baby steps.
The supplement industry is a tricky business, and deciphering the options can be overwhelming to anyone that hasn’t done a great deal of research…. doctors included. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a patient tell me incorrect information given to them by their doctor regarding supplements. The rare doctor has done his/her research it seems (Not much is taught in medical, nursing, or even pharmacy school regarding supplements. It’s up to the practitioner to crack the code and educate themselves), and the patient is pretty much left to their own devices to find the best product for themselves. My team is spending the next few months educating our ‘family’ on types of supplements, and this topic is so very important that I thought I’d include some of that education here.
Why do we need supplements anyway? There are several reasons:
- Farming practices since the 1970’s have stripped our soils of valuable nutrients. The only way we can receive minerals in our diet is thru nutrient dense soil. Plants soak up that nutrition and then pass it along to the herbivore (or omnivore) that eats it. Somewhere up the line, a carnivore may get involved and the nutrients are passed (or not passed) along to them.
- Genetic modification of our veggies, fruits, and grains have continued the depletion process. Nutrition has been sold out to prettier “eye candy” produce that ships well, stores well, and looks like something out of a glossy magazine. Fresh produce today is an estimated 50-70% less nutritious than its counterparts 50 years ago.
- Pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, fluoride, and chlorine contamination all have played their part in binding nutrients and making them unavailable for our body’s use.
- Existing health challenges, a regular diet of fast/processed foods, use of acid blockers/reducers regularly, and/or reoccurring GI issues? If you answered “yes” to any of these, odds are high that you have a crippled system preventing efficient production or use of nutrients. (This means you likely need more supplementation than the average bear.)
- And finally…. medications. Who’d have thought this was even a problem? Next to nutrient deplete food itself, it’s one of the biggest problems of all. More than half of Americans take medication regularly, and those that do (on average) take four or more on a daily basis. FACT: Hundreds of medications suppress or rob your body’s ability to produce or utilize vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and co-factors necessary for a healthy life.
How DO you find a good supplement company? The answer >>>> very carefully!
While the FDA does quite a bit of governing in the supplement world when it comes to wording (no diagnosing,treating,curing etc… or you might have some ‘splaining to do to the FDA), the reality is that the supplement industry lacks rigid standards that ensure product integrity and quality. If you sift thru articles, you’ll find dismal stories of adulterated products (especially in the weight loss, antioxidant, sexual performance and workout booster categories). The problem doesn’t just lie in possible contaminants tho… it also encompasses cheap and/or ineffective ingredients.
What this means is that company integrity should mean absolutely everything to you. Do you really know the company you’ve chosen to buy product from? In most cases, you can tell a lot about a company’s product line based on company standards, policy, history, and mission statement:
- Are the employees well treated and paid fairly?
- What was the motivation of the company to build a particular supplement? Usually, the best companies are the ones founded by people who had health problems themselves, and found a solution thru proper nutrition. (A great example of this is Kate Farms for their quality nutrition drink for those with strict dietary and medical needs.)
- Does the company put the purpose of the product above the profit? ie: This doesn’t mean the product will be inexpensive. On the contrary…. a well made product will usually come with a higher price tag (more on that later).
- Do you know their value system? Are the ingredients fairly and sustainably sourced?Are the ingredients without compromise?
- Does the company leave a positive impact on the communities they work with?
- Does the company have transparency? Are you able to visit them? Do they have 2nd and 3rd party testing?
If you cannot easily find answers to these questions, odds are high that you may be duped by your current company. Back away from your supplements, and listen up…….
The Care and Feeding of your Body: Supplements 101
Vitamins, minerals, and other micro-nutrients are absolutely essential for all body processes to function in a healthy manner. Energy must be produced, the immune system supported…..vision, brain function, attention span, digestion, skin, repair and recovery processes, structural integrity and thousands of other little nuanced jobs must happen for optimal health.
Our body is no dummy. It does it’s best to prep for us… stashing extra vitamins and minerals as it is able, in anticipation of a sabotage event. There’s a little bit of ‘prepper’ in all of us! If we’ve not allowed our body the resources to stash those excess nutrients, when the moments of stress, lack, or ‘robbery’ happens….. suddenly, there is no backup plan, and one or more systems begin to give warning signs of impending failure. Long term lack allows for dis-ease and dysfunction to set up housekeeping. This is one of the reasons our country is overflowing with auto-immune disease.
If it’s THIS important to keep adequate supplies of these nutritional building blocks on hand, it makes no sense to rely on less than ideal sources. Supplement companies can be tricky little suckers and it pays to be savvy and knowledgeable so you don’t get duped into thinking you got ‘something’ for next to nothing.
Price: There is no such thing as a high quality inexpensive supplement. Common sense should tell you that between bottling, labeling, shipping, marketing, distribution, and profit, a $10-$15 bottle of vitamins leaves precious little $$ left over to invest in quality ingredients. How much is your life worth after all? If you are willing to spend $5 per day on a cup of designer coffee (which is likely loaded with some of the very things depleting your body), you should have no qualms with spending the same amount (per day) on quality supplements your body desperately needs.
Throw out the ‘all in one pill’ mindset: It just can’t happen. There’s no way to cram everything into one pill and end up with a reasonably sized product that only an elephant could swallow. Size does matter, but it’s even more complicated than that. Not every nutrient is compatible with each other, and some nutrients need to be be brought in to the body multiple times a day because storage is just not possible (ex: digestive enzymes). If you’re really serious about protecting, fortifying, and prepping your body for health, expect to take 3-6+ capsules/supplements per day depending on the health challenges you may have been toting around for awhile.
The Junk: Quality and sourcing….. if you are trying to get healthy, the last think you want is unclean ingredients, and yet that happens all too frequently. If your body is having to filter unclean ingredients from your supplement regimen, you’ve lost sight of one of the main reasons you want to take supplements in the first place!
- Fish oil coming in from waters contaminated with PCB’s, heavy metals, toxins, and radioactive waste. Rancid fish oil that actually causes what it should be preventing. Other ingredients that are sourced from questionable, impure, or unclean environments……A recent study found over 800 supplements containing prescription medications (unlabeled).
- Fillers that are also allergens: byproducts of wheat, yeast, soy dairy, gluten, corn, or that are low grade and possibly irritating to GI tissue. Additives that are used to stretch the bottom dollar, but at best, do nothing for your health. SLS (sodium lauryl sulfate)… a chemical sometimes used as a disintegrator in tablets. This is a topical no-no in skincare but imagine the implications when consumed. Studies show it has a “degenerative effect on cell membranes…”. Ummm, no thank you. I’ll keep my cell membranes intact for as long as possible thank you very much.
- Cheaper forms of ingredients that are less biologically active (ex: using cyanocobalamin instead of the more bioavailable [and pricier] methylcobalamin.)
- Artificial colors, flavors , and sweeteners (Ahem, God provides awesome natural flavors and sweeteners! Why not use them?)
- Coatings- how well does your vitamin or supplement dissolve? Ideally, most need to be in capsule form for ease of dissolution. If you’ve ever seen your vitamins in your poop (a common thing), this should be your aha moment.
Ultimately, the question comes down to this: Do you trust the brand you buy, or are you relying on blind faith? If you are relying on the latter, it might be time for a do over. Just because the product(s) may be found in well known stores doesn’t mean it’s a reputable brand. The bottom line matters to a store, and buyers aren’t generally schooled in supplements (frequently it’s a 19 year old kid who is doing the ordering!)…. they are schooled to find the largest profit margin for their employer. Just as they are looking out for their employer’s best interest, YOU are the CEO of you, and you need to look out for the best interests of your ‘corporation’ too.
Be kind to yourself. Research before you buy…. and for goodness sake, find a company worthy of your trust. Your health depends on it!
Hugs and Love, Liz
#knowbetterdobetter
#thisiswhyIdowhatIdo
Whoops…We Did It Again(smh)
Yesterday, while at work in the pharmacy, we got official word of a voluntary recall on several brands of valsartan containing medications. A voluntary recall means that the drug company requests that products be pulled from the pharmacy shelves, and selling of that product cease immediately until new product is issued. It does not extend to the consumer level. You can read more about the recall itself here.
Recalls like this happen every so often in pharmacy, and are not usually call for alarm unless it happens to be one that extends to the customer level (not the case this time). That said, media caught wind of it and began reporting on the recall, causing fear and worry amongst customers who are on this particular blood pressure medication. I began and ended my pharmacy day yesterday fielding these many calls from customers who were fearful of continuing their medication even one more day, now that this information was known.
Once you know something, you can’t un-know it.
The cause of the recall? It became known that one of the ingredients used in this particular medication is a ‘probable’ cancer causing agent. (Ironically, one of the people I spoke to was a smoker. SMH!) Now, before you start calling your pharmacy wondering what you are supposed to do if you are on valsartan, let’s take a look at the facts:
- Right or wrong, the alleged ingredient has been in the medication since at least 2015.
- The recall is not at the customer level (meaning that the situation has not given the FDA cause to issue a recall on dispensed medication too). In fact, this statement was issued by the FDA: “Because valsartan is used in medicines to treat serious medical conditions, patients taking the recalled valsartan-containing medicines should continue taking their medicine until they have a replacement product.”
- “Probable” cancer causing agents should be fully excluded from our daily lives, but sadly they are everywhere you turn. The FDA and the EPA turn a blind eye daily as companies pump probable (and known) cancer causing agents into the environment, our homes, our food and drinking water, AND our personal care products. It’s no wonder that the cancer rate in the United States has skyrocketed since the 1950’s.
Visit the American Cancer Society website, you’ll see a list of these ‘probable (and known) cancer causing agents’ that people unwittingly use and allow into their lives.
Once you know something, you can’t un-know it.
I would advise stopping reading now if you want to remain blissfully unaware, because I’m about to give you the lowdown on just a few items on the FDA/EPA list.
Seriously. Stop now.
Here are just a few offenders from the long list:
- Acetaldehyde- solvent used in the manufacturing of many items including perfumes
- Asbestos – As recently as last week, Johnson and Johnson (yes, the very same company that produces well known baby products) was found guilty of producing asbestos laden talcum powder and must now pay 4.7 BILLION dollars in settlement to women who have suffered physical damage (cancer) because of regular use of their product.
- Azathioprine, Chlorambucil, Cyclophosphamide, Cyclosporine, Etoposide, Metronidazole, Tamoxifen….. these are all medications. The list is so long, I can’t name them all. Several on the list are cancer treating agents (that also may cause cancer themselves. SMH!)
- Formaldehyde – used throughout industry. Commonly found in nail products, soap, hair growing products. Also commonly found in the ingredients of cosmetics. (It is considered an inexpensive preservative….hence, its use. Economy trumps health unfortunately).
- Arsenic, Cadmium, Chromium, Cobalt, Lead, Mercury, and Nickel (not all of these are cancer causing agents, but do potentially cause significant health concerns and are found in many ‘mainstream’ cosmetic companies). The FDA has published an interesting survey on cosmetics that can be found here (or on the full length reference at the end of this post). https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/general-info/known-and-probable-human-carcinogens.html
- Herbicides such as Roundup and others. These are truly among the most disastrous carcinogenic agents allowed into our food and water supplies. If you’d like to read a treasure trove of information on this topic, please take a bit of time to visit a document depository on the history of the subterfuge within the chemical industry that stretches back nearly 100 years: The Poison Papers(link below). Roundup and other Monsanto/Bayer chemical products have been banned by wiser countries (sadly, not our own).
Giving you examples of known and probable carcinogens could easily consume my day, because this list just goes on and on and on.…… and ultimately I will bore you to tears (or wake you up to what you likely have in your home).
I’m hoping by now you see my frustration in yesterday’s moment of media hyped hysteria over the valsartan recall. Of course it should have been recalled, but friends…… we have much larger fish to fry if we are going to worry about this.
I would venture to guess that each person I spoke to about the recall yesterday has more than 100+ known carcinogenic products in their home and garage that they willingly (but perhaps unwittingly) choose to expose themselves to on a daily basis.
SMH.
If you didn’t listen to me, and read this post to completion, you’ve got some decisions to make. What you can’t choose tho, is to now ‘un-know what you now know‘. Knowing gives you personal responsibility for the skin in the game (your own) and begs the next question….. what are you going to do about it?
Reality is this: It’s not possible to avoid every carcinogenic or body damaging product out there, but there IS so much we CAN do to avoid the majority of them within our own home. There are also many ways to encourage detoxification of the body cheaply, effectively, and holistically.
If this post has you thinking that maybe it is time to wake up and clean up, I’d encourage you to start small in big ways. Get the ‘standard’ household cleaners out of your home…. one by one. When you run out of a product, don’t buy that junk again. Consider switching to Thieves Cleaner (a completely healthy way to clean).
Get the candles and formaldehyde laced air fresheners out of your home, and replace them with healthy diffusers. I promise…. you’ll sleep better, be happier, have fewer headaches, and….. if you diffuse the right oils, you’ll even boost your immune system and provide positive emotional support. This trumps possible and probable carcinogenic loaded products any day. Science backs this ya’ll….. as a pharmacist, I wouldn’t be here if it didn’t.
The cosmetic industry is rife with concerning chemicals. Use up what you have, but as you get close to needing more, consider ‘clean’ skin care and makeup. Yes, it does exist. I’d love to send you a few samples of whatever you’d like to see or try that is not only beautiful, but also loaded with health promoting ingredients. Ever heard of Savvy Minerals? If not, you are missing out.
This is one of the (many) things I love about Young Living. They stand in the gap for us where other companies do not. Scouring labels for toxins was time consuming and the print is small and fine (purposefully I think). I know I am taken care of safely with whatever I purchase for my family and our farm, and that we are taking personal responsibility for us….. because clearly, the governmental entities, are not doing enough of it.
If you’d like to learn more about living a more carcinogenic free life, please feel free to private message me.
I am not perfect in my walk, but I’ve done it now for much of my adult life and would be happy to walk with you as you begin your journey. It’s never too late to start.
Hugs and love ~ Liz
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