Taking control out of deperation, sometimes it is the motivating way to win.

The months start zooming by and stress starts to build

It is amazing to me that once July 4th gets here and passes by, it is almost a hop and a skip to the end of the year. It seems to happen every year lately, or maybe just now that I am thirty nine years old and holding. Funny thing is I heard younger people saying it too.

Do you remember when you were younger and it took forever for time to go by. We would start school and immediately start counting down the days until Christmas Vacation, and when we returned to school it was the spring break countdown. Soon after we started on the summer vacation, and even during that we dreaded the countdown until it was time to start all over again. Now if you blink whole months rush by. I find myself dreading the upcoming holiday season if only because as soon as Halloween gets here, New Years day is right around the corner.

I guess it is getting older. or maybe that we all have way too much on our plates, and the stress of events and projects coming due, or money needed to survive the holidays or just mental overload, it seems as if this is a game that all adults participate in yearly, and not by choice.

So, when asked what can we do to better cope with all of this added stress and with the pileup of things that are already overflowing our plates, I always recommend going back to basics. Many of us fall prey to the new and flashy things on the market to help with the problems that ail us, but sometimes getting back to the drawing board is ultimately and actually satisfyingly better, and more effective.

B Complex is still the most effective thing to use for our added stressful lifestyles.Preferably timed released for better all day coverage, as B Complex is water soluble and flushes out too quickly, but lasts all day with a perfectly balanced timed released formula. There are also calming herbs like Kava, Passion Flower, Chamomile and even St Johns Wort for when there is also a touch of mild to moderate depression symptoms. Something that many of us also overlook is the importance of getting a great nights sleep. Not just a period of time when you are in the bed going through the motions and tossing and turning and waking up more tired than when you went to bed, but an actual restful rejuvenate night of rest.

Sleep deprivation adds to the stress and leaves us anxious and burnt out and struggling to recapture our energy. If sleep is a problem there are wonderful alternatives to prescription medications that are safe and sold over the counter.Many adults spend their entire day loading caffeine beverages and using stimulant drinks just to get through the day, when if they would go back to square one, better sleep, more daytime energy.

The rebirth of L-Tryptophan has been a wonder pill for those individuals that are sleep deprived. Melatonin as well as Valarian Root are other viable solutions that could be tried. All of these things help us to be in better control of our energy as well as keeping us balanced and more able to deal with the stress life throws at us, or the stress we throw at ourselves.

If stress and sleep deprivation have been a continual problem for a long period of time,it might be a good time to see your Physician, and get a basic check up and some blood work done to rule out anything that might be an underlying physical cause. If all of that goes fine with the Doctor, keep in mind some natural alternatives for better stress control and of course some thing we all need, Better Sleep!!!

Ten things in your home that can kill your pet

Every once and a while, a friend will send me useable information , and when it comes to being a benefit to pets, it gets included for all to read and learn from. Mary Kay Grahn, who owns Smarty Paws, just about the best dog training facility in the west, and whom is here in Las Vegas sent this to me. By the way, if you want the most knowledgeable trainer that knows every aspect of dog training as well as dog nutrition, contact Mary Kay at smarty paws by going to her site directly at

smarty paws make sure to visit the sirte especially if you have a four legged friend that need some extra attention and schooling. The dog above is Ditto, one of Mary Kay's dogs doing what he loves, agility.

10 Things in your home that can kill your pet

Dogs are very curious animals and as omnivores and natural scavengers, can get into and eat just about anything. However, there are many toxic substances found in your home that could potentially kill your dog. The following is a list of ten common household substances that you should make sure to keep out of your dog's reach.

1) Antifreeze: Many people do not realize it, but common antifreeze kills many pets each year. It smells and tastes very sweet to your dog and is very appealing to him. Ethylene glycol is toxic however, and each winter, many animals are killed by it. Symptoms of toxicity include seizures, vomiting, stumbling and lethargy leading to kidney failure. Make sure to keep your antifreeze out of your dog's reach. If you suspect that your dog has ingested antifreeze, take your dog to the veterinarian immediately.

2) Chocolate: Chocolate contains a substance called the obromine which is toxic to dogs. Baking chocolate and dark chocolate is especially dangerous. While it usually takes a somewhat large amount of chocolate to kill a dog, poisoning and death does occur with smaller amounts ingested. Signs of chocolate poisoning include vomiting, diarrhea, increased urination, and increased activity. This can progress to seizures and unusual heart rhythms. Call your veterinarian immediately if you suspect your dog has eaten chocolate.

3) Bleach: As you might imagine, household bleach is toxic to dogs. Keep all products containing bleach out of your dog's reach. Symptoms of bleach poisoning include drooling, vomiting, and abdominal pain. Do NOT induce vomiting if you suspect your dog has ingested bleach and contact your veterinarian immediately.

4) Tylenol: As little as two regular strength Tylenol tablets can kill a small dog. Dogs lack the proper liver enzymes to break down acetaminophen. Signs of toxicity include drooling, lethargy, and abdominal pain. If you suspect your dog has ingested Tylenol, call your veterinarian immediately.

5) Watch Batteries: If your dog ingests a watch battery, it can cause a potentially fatal ulceration in the stomach within 12 hours. All other alkaline batteries are toxic to dogs as well. Symptoms of toxicity include drooling, lack of appetite, vomiting, and lethargy. If you suspect your dog has ingested a watch battery, contact your vet immediately.

6) Moth Balls: Moth balls are very dangerous to dogs. They contain an insecticide that causes central nervous system excitement and seizures. When metabolized, ingestion of moth balls can lead to liver failure. Symptoms of poisoning by moth balls include vomiting and seizures. If your dog has consumed moth balls, do NOT induce vomiting. Seek veterinary care immediately.

7) Fabric Softeners and other detergents: All sorts of household detergents are toxic to dogs at one level or another, but fabric softeners fall into the highly toxic category. Signs of toxicity include vomiting, lethargy, burns to the mouth, drooling, muscle weakness, and even coma. Do NOT induce vomiting if your dog has ingested any detergent. Contact your veterinarian immediately.

8) Mouthwash: Mouthwash can contain boric acid which is highly toxic to dogs. Symptoms of poisoning by mouthwash include vomiting, drooling, seizures, and coma. You should take your dog to the veterinarian immediately if you suspect poisoning by mou! thwash or other household item containing boric acid like contact lens solution or denture cleaner.

9) Peach Pits: With most fruits, the pits and the seeds are toxic to dogs. Signs of poisoning include drooling, vomiting, and lethargy. If you suspect your dog has eaten a peach pit or the pit or seeds of any fruit, take him to the veterinarian immediately.

10) Household Plants: Many common and popular household plants are highly toxic to dogs. A partial list of toxic plants includes poinsettias, lilies, ferns, devil's ivy, aloe, and ivy. Symptoms of poisoning due to ingestion of toxic plants include vomiting and central nervous system excitement. Many of these plants are fatal if ingested. Please contact your veterinarian immediately if you suspect your dog has eaten a toxic houseplant.

With diligence on our part, we can help prevent our dogs from getting into substances that are toxic to them. Many veterinary school websites offer lists of things that are toxic to dogs and what you should do if your dog ingests such things. As always, if you think your dog may have eaten something dangerous, contact your veterinarian immediately or take your dog to the closest emergency clinic.

I hope this article will give everyone that reads it the tools to prevent problems with our four legged friends. Thanks Mary Kay!!!!!!!!!!!!

So you are recently diagnosed with high blood pressure!

Have you recently been told that you have high blood pressure? It is a rising epidemic that for many people expresses not one symptom until they have a heart attack or a stroke. Others can feel light headed, tired, sluggish, they may have numbness in the fingers or may experience a warm sensation to the face and have headaches frequently.

Once diagnosed, most but not all people should look to their weight as the culprit, with a sprinkle of inactivity, stress and bad diet, and topped with fast food, excessive caffeine consumption and sprinkled with a drop of lack of sleep.

Many Doctors will recommend exercise and dietary changes, and many unless it is through the roof will ask you to monitor it and come back in a few weeks to see the changes, if any. Many people do nothing and end up on a lifetime of medication that can cause many side effects, but the trade off is they feel now no changes need to be made by them.Lack of personal motivation, yes. Laziness, yes, that too!

If you do find out that you have this problem, remember dietary changes and exercise changes are key, and supplements add the final touches. You want to make sure you let your Doctor know that you will be making changes and let them see the benefits AND MONITOR YOUR PROGRESS.

Some great nutritional suggestions for blood pressure reduction are as follows: adding Garlic, Cayenne Pepper, Hawthorn, B complex for stress help, also there are wonderful blends like BP blend which has many of the above all in a convenient formula. One thing to remember is that many people use these products along with their blood pressure medication and they use it safely. If you choose to do this, make sure you monitor it so as not to let it possibly drop too low. You can also add more garlic and onions to your food and also gain great benefits as well as adding flax seed oil. Sometimes when cholesterol comes down as fatty blockages are melted away, blood flow increases and blood pressure naturally comes down also.

So keep in mind that you can be in charge of your Blood pressure levels, seeing as we are the main culprit that caused it to be high in the first place. Try not to jump into the prescription revolving door first if you do not have to, and find a Doctor that has the same belief system you have. Good Luck!!

How is your adult skin???

Being as acne is not just a juvenile situation as it was when I was a kid, maybe some possible healthy suggestions are in order. When I was a kid when you turned about sixteen or seventeen acne was over as hormones started to balance out a little. It really was a childhood situation, but today it has changed drastically to an adult situation that is worst than the teenagers of today.

If you go into any Dermatologist office today you will find an array of skin disorders and among them will be chronic adult acne. Not just on the face, but also on the chest and back, and much more serious cases than you have seen in adolescent years. I have often wondered what the cause of this terrible and annoying skin problem could be, I am guessing it is a combination of many things. Not the least being stress, diet, pollution, internal bad digestion, bad elimination, water deprivation, fast food, fatty diets, medication side effects, and just bad luck. There are actually many nutritional things both internal and external that can be used safely and with great success.

Number one, and the easiest to do would be to increase your water consumption and cut back on chemical based and carbonated beverages. Second, making drastic diet changes like learning to stay away from the junk and from excessive sugar packed sweets and greasy and fast foods. Next on the list would be to check your elimination, if you are not expelling wastes through the normal means regularly and consistently, the body will force impurities and toxins through the skin to get it out of the body. Problem is it gets through the skin and then sits there and gets worst by the day. You can give into topical steroid creams and lotions that you will immediately notice clear things up, but soon after discontinuing them the skin problem without your making any lifestyle changes will always rear its ugly head again and with avengence most of the time and sometimes worst than before.

Internally, cleansing the body three or four times per year is very helpful to get rid of excess toxins that most people do not flush out on their own. Make sure to use a good over all vitamin program, I recommend the NSP program because of it's complete formula making sure you do not miss essential and vital nutrients. Flax oil and fish oils benefit by internally lubricating the skin and helping to prevent dry skin problems from the inside out. Taking extra Vitamin A, Zinc and acidophilus are also essential to help round out the internal defense program against these awful skin problems. If stress is an issue adding B complex will help to ease the stress and can also benefit the skin in a positive way.

Topically, there is a wonderful skin oil called Squalene that lubricates the skin and does it without causing a greasy layer. It is absorbed so quickly and makes your skin feel like it has a silk glove over it. The lotion can be used in larger body areas and is something that once you use it, you will never stray from it.

Hopefully these few tips will help to bring your skin back to it's healthy best. We all hate to make changes, but when it comes to your skin, it is hard to put your best face forward when your skin is not at it's healthiest. Small changes will yield huge benefits.

You have to wonder why twenty five to thirty years ago we never had adult acne, but we see it now in large numbers everyday. It is a good sign that this is one more thing we are most likely causing ourselves by our unhealthy lifestyles and fast paced living. The solution; clean up the diet, supplement internally and clean up the skin topically. A healthy glow is a great thing!

A day of global and American obesity statistics

Today's blog deals with statistics, most of which have to do with the bad health of this country. Sometimes when we see it in print, it really hits home as to the decline of health in America.

Latest Obesity Statistics

USA Obesity Rates Reach Epidemic Proportions
58 Million Overweight; 40 Million people are Obese; 3 Million morbidly Obese

Eight out of 10 over 25years of age is Overweight

78% of Americans not meeting basic activity level recommendations

25% completely Sedentary

76% increase in Type II diabetes in adults 30-40 yrs old since 1990

"We estimate that 22 million of the world's children under 5 are overweight or obese," said Mary Bellizzi, an expert with the International Obesity Task Force who presented the research to health ministers at the meeting

Deaths from Obesity: 300,000 premature deaths associated with obesity annually (CDC). Death rate extrapolations for USA for Obesity: 300,000 per year, 25,000 per month, 5,769 per week, 821 per day

Costs for Obesity: $33 billion annually spent on weight-loss products and services

Physician office visits for Obesity: 62.7 million

Work Days Lost from Obesity: 39.3 million

Bed Days from Obesity: 89.5 million

I think we need to take a look at a solution for this problem. I feel, as does the medical establishment and the world health organizations, that we will eat ourselves into early graves and become a financial strain on the medical system that cannot continue to support this epidemic.

It is not just about eating less, it is also about exercising, making better food choices, getting more rest and of course making sure all of your nutritional supplementation needs are met with your diet and your supplements.

Making sure you do not end up overweight, sick and malnutritioned is something this population needs to focus on. Not just adults, but the children of America, who are another growing epidemic in this country with staggering numbers that are also quite depressing and disheartening.

I hope that attention to these figures will reach enough people over the next few years that changes will start to happen, for all of our sake.

the last third of the year is here, pay attention!!

First of all Happy Labor Day Holiday to all. A time of the year when the summer draws to a close and the fall and winter season is just around the corner. Also a time of great stress and inactivity, I mean physical activity. Did you know that this time of the year is famous for many things. Not the holidays that we are all familiar with, but other things and milestones that seem to rear their ugly heads every single year at this time.

This time of the year has the highest incidence of urinary, bladder and kidney infections. Why, because most people are used to drinking water and fluids in the summer because they are actually feeling the sense of dehydration due to the heat, so they satisfy and quench themselves due to that feeling. In the winter, we do not have the sensation of heat upon us so the symptomatic warning signs are not there to slap us in the face and alert us. What we do finally notices is a urinary infection, sore kidneys, dry mouth, electrolyte imbalances, prostate infections and severe constipation.

This time of the year also yields itself to more obesity. As the weather gets cooler and we start to cover up more often, we get lazier and spend more time on the couch and not being active. We use every excuse from it is dark earlier, it is too cold, or we are getting ready for the holidays. whatever excuse works, and then we rotate the excuses so as to to sound totally lame and lazy.

Dry skin is a big issue also this season because as I mentioned above we do not drink enough water and fluids. We also start to pilr and layer heavier clothes that end up rubbing against our already dry flaky skin which causes more dryness and irritation. This is also a time for Dermatologists to double their patient load as Eczema, Psoriasis and Contact Dermatitis get more common. We also turn the heat on because we are cold and that heat taht allows us to warm our cold bodies also sucks the moisture out of our skin and dehydrates all of the fluid and actually makes our skin age and look older.Remember that using lotions topically is a wonderful thing to do. but beauty and healthy skin starts from within.

Of course we put our digestive systems to the test every year as we do the" indulge in everything because I am starting a new diet in January routine". We all do it to some degree but some people are well known for it, and will admit to you each and every year that this is the year they follow through. I know when it comes down to sticking to so called resolutions, it is no body's business except the person posing the resolution and their conscious and nobody else. It just seems that they seem to drag us in somehow, and before you know it they actually have us either supporting their failures, or they put us on the other end we end up yelling at them to get motivated. Crazy as it sounds, it happens every year to millions of us, though we swear we will never go through it again.

So as you start to think about the stressful holiday season approaching, and the upcoming weather changes that are around the corner remember to think you actions through carefully. This time of the year can actually be a very happy time where we get a jump start on the problems we all face this time of year, or it can be a disaster that takes you the first quarter of the year to correct what we put our selves through.

My suggestion, make it the year of positive changes and personal benefits and then start the new year ahead of the game; healthy, happy and enjoying your life.

September already

So here we are in September and I am starting my second year of blogging already. It has been an interesting year for me as I am doing things that I never thought I would do. After running my own stores for so many years and being within those four walls everyday, and loving it, I am now out in the field and the walls are down.

I am able to do what I love most which is train and inform and lecture and learn more myself about nutrition. As I visit different stores and meet different people around the country I always ask them about the people they work with. The most amazing thing is that no matter where I go or whom I speak with, the answers and the profiles are always the same. No matter where I am, what demographics, sex, religion or race or even age, most people all have the same concerns. What does differ in some areas is the actual motivation that people have to make these wishes or changes come true.

I am not sure if this is a geographic thing as it seems many people that are in larger cities seem to be more interested or health oriented, I guess it just comes down to the fact that we either are motivated or we are not. I have learned that most everyone does want to be healthy. Everybody does want to get off medications, live longer, look better, and have more energy and be able to deal better with stress. I feel that if there was an across the board thing that everybody does want, it would be to be more energetic and possibly happier and not so depressed.

What I see everyday are people running around in circles basically in a hurry to go nowhere quickly. Sweating the insignificant small meaningless stuff and focusing way too much on their careers and their jobs and forgetting to live and enjoy all they work for everyday. I am not saying to screw up on the job, I am saying to do it and do it well, and then go home and enjoy yourself your families and your friends as life is way too short.

A healthy life is attained by focusing and getting back to basics,the things that would make the largest percentage of benefit to everyone. Basics meaning eating a little better and making better food choices and drinking a little more water.Try focusing on getting more sleep, learning to relax, being more consistent with exercise and taking your supplements, and maybe the best thing, try not to take life too seriously. Learn from your mistakes but then laugh at your self for knowing better in the first place. Try to attain your goals no matter how small they are, and never let anyone keep you from those goals, and then focus on the number one thing to do for better mental and physical health and a better quality life, slow down and enjoy it! You know, smell the flowers and stop walking on them.