My Daughter Fia and The Night We Lost Electricty: The little lessons in life can teach us so much, especially about mindful eating!

Our neighborhood lost our electricity for approximately 7 hours on Friday. As I took a walk with my 9-year old daughter, Fia, in the evening, we marveled at people sitting at their dining room tables huddled around candles eating take-out. There were more people out walking than usual and we all greeted each other with warm smiles. The energy in the neighborhood seemed more relaxed than usual.

When Fia and I arrived home, we sat on the living room couch and had a long conversation about her week at camp, friends, anything that came to her mind. Typically, I'd be running around the house doing yet another load of laundry, attending to never ending emails, making beds, etc. I actually had a good excuse to take a breath and give my daughter my undivided attention. Sadly, it felt like a luxury.

For dinner, since I couldn't cook. We had raw nuts and fruits and vegetables I had purchased that day at a farmers market. When I asked Fia if she wanted dessert, she said, "No Mommy, I'm really full." I was, too.

This experience underscored for me how the more stimulus we have around us, the more absent we become because we're so distracted. Less truly is more, particularly when it comes to being present and mindful in the way we eat and deal with the relationships around us.

How many times do we say something we regret because we're over-tired or anxious? How often do we beat ourselves up for turning to food for comfort because we feel so overwhelmed with life?

One of the biggest goals of the JOOS Cleanse is to enable us to regroup. I do the JOOS Cleanse at least 4 times per year, in each season, because inevitably, life creeps up on me and I need to get back on track.

JOOS would love to support you on your road to a healthier lifestyle!

Looking for a Fabulous, Fun Workout? Try Zumba with Alexa at Siagel Productions

This past Wednesday, I attended my first Zumba Class with Alexa at Siagel Productions at 94 Rowe Street, Auburndale! My friend Suzanne wore her Polar watch and it registered she burned 900 calories in one hour. If you want to have so much fun, see friends and have a terrific work out, this is the class to attend. Every Wednesday at 10am. Hope to see you there next week.

For more information, please go to: http://www.siagelproductions.com/

What type of example are we setting for our children by blaming our being overweight on our genes?

Scenario: A wife eats an entire pint of Ben & Jerry's Phish Food ice cream and blames her husband for purchasing it because he should know that she has a weakness for this type of ice cream.

Question: Who is at fault for the wife eating an entire pint of ice cream and showing no restraint?

Scenario: An adult mother blames her genes for the reason she's overweight. Her parents are overweight so she's destined to be overweight.

Question: Who is at fault for her weight problem?

True, some of us have genes that could make us more prone to retain fat, but it's the WAY we eat that makes us overweight and we have control over the WAY we eat!

The Pima Indian tribe was always fit; that is, until they started eating the Standard American Diet and adopting the Standard American Sedentary Lifestyle. Now the tribe is experiencing epidemic obesity and diabetes. It's the WAY they ate by adopting poor eating habits, combined with their inactivity, that caused their weight problem.

What type of role models are we setting for our children if we do not take responsibility for our actions? Do we realize what message we're sending to our children when we blame our being overweight on our parents and our genes?

We would love to support you on your road to

Finding the Diet that is Best for Your Body Type: Being Honest with Yourself

I saw a friend Saturday morning at yoga who experienced a highly traumatic event five years ago. Through this period, she's read countless self-help books and embarked on an intensive spiritual path to understand how this could have happened and to alleviate the pain. On the surface, she was always upbeat, but I suspected that there must be going on inside.

When I saw her Saturday morning, I detected a more melancholy mood that I had never witnessed in her. I asked her what she had planned for the summer and she said, "Nothing. No fancy vacations. I'm not making any plans. I'm taking this period to regroup."

As I practiced yoga, it struck me all the paths we take to escape the pain, instead of confront it, the way my friend is. Some of us escape in harmful ways through alcohol, drugs and, of course, food. Others of us take a seemingly more "healthy" path and turn to sports and reading countless self-help books.

There comes a time, though, that if we really want to deal with the pain and alleviate it, we have to do what my friend is doing and just sit with it and figure it out for ourselves.

I remember when I was going through my own painful time and a friend said to me that if I really want to feel my best, I had to eat only raw foods. So, I tried it for a year. Now a raw food diet may be great for some body types, but not mine. I was too thin and my stomach was terribly distended. People in the raw food world told me that I wasn't food combining properly; yet, no matter what I did, nothing alleviated the discomfort, until I started adding healthy cooked foods back into my diet.

This was a very important experience for me because it taught me that I had to find the diet that worked best for my body-type. Remember, one person's food is another person's poison.

This is precisely what the JOOS Cleanse will help you do: put you on a path to discover what diet plan is best for your body so that you feel healthier and more vibrant.

We would love to support you on your road to a healthier lifestyle.