Entries from July 2009 ↓

Well I stupidly stopped practicing what I preach over the last couple of months and now I’m paying the consequences with clogged pores and a breakout. But at least it proves (even to me) that what I teach actually does work. Check out my video-

This year a friend of mine decided to give up drinking any fluids with meals because he believed it was bad for his digestion. Problem was, he never had enough explanation to back up his theory.

So for those of you who are curious, here’s the explanation-

Why you give your stomach a tough time when you drink fluids with meals

Our stomach is actually really intelligent. It seems to know exactly what type and what amount of foods are in there, and it releases the right amounts of gastric juices accordingly.

Thing is, if what we’ve put into our stomach is too liquid then the gastric juices won’t work, and the stomach knows this. So what happens is the water component is absorbed through the walls of the stomach until the contents are concentrated enough for the digestive juices to act. But when this happens, the concentrated part that’s left usually ends up being even thicker than food usually is in the stomach.

But why is this bad?

Putting anything into your stomach that causes a bit of digestive chaos of course is not going to be that great for you or your body.

And when this process happens we are in fact delaying digestion and and possibly causing some foods to be absorbed through the walls of the stomach before the digestive juices get a chance to do their thing.

And why is this article in a skin care blog??

You may have gathered by now that I write and talk a lot about food and nutrition in this blog. This is because treating acne and taking care of our skin is something we must do holistically – which means taking care of the inside out and vice versa.

Digestion is particularly important to our skins health because a clogged up digestive system often shows up on the skin with clogged pores and blemishes. So it’s in our best interested to watch what we put into our bodies and to take care of our digestive health.

And I know that this is just ANOTHER rule that we need to look out for. But to be honest, I’ve known this information for a while now and I haven’t been that disciplined with it (yet). I’d much rather you focus your energy on making bigger changes like switching to brown rice, eating more vegetables, drinking more water etc. It all depends where you are on the healthy eating scale and how much improvement you’re comfortable with making in your diet at this time.

It just helps to at least be aware of what’s good and what’s bad for your body so you can make decisions accordingly. If you’re not dying of thirst and you think you can handle your next meal without drinking any fluids, then go for it! But remember, you don’t have to be perfect and you don’t have to follow all the rules

I was on a conference call this morning with two amazing women – Sandy who is a holistic counselor and a specialist EFT practitioner, and Radha, a High on Health reader. I won’t go into too much detail about what the conference call was about because that’s a special suprise for members of my coaching program, but we did explore Radha’s cystic acne in great detail and helped to heal her negative emotions that she’s associates with her condition.

Having always known the connection between the physical and the emotional I was expecting great results from the call, but when I watch it (or listen to it in this case) it still always blows me away just how clear the connection is.

Making sense? I may have done a better job explaining it in the video

Have a question or comment? Let me know about it in the box below.

I met Krizia at a bloggers meetup when I was living in Toronto. Krizia is one of those gorgeous women that just glows with vitality and energy, so I wasn’t suprised when she started up her health blog – Eat Smart Age Smart. Krizia has very kindly written this article for High on Health because she wanted to share her story with her own personal battle with acne. Thanks Krizia!

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I’ve had acne my entire life!

Like most people I started having acne in my tweens. Because my acne was becoming more and more severe and because my face looked like it was permanently spayed with oil, I was taken to the dermatologist for some much needed help. After an assessment, my dermatologist had me on this really strict diet because she believed that my acne was related to the consumption of certain foods.

I was 12 at the time and having to give up a few of my favourite foods was like torture, but I also was very self-conscious about my face and when you are that young, you are very concerned about being teased. If giving up a few foods guaranteed an acne-free face, I was a willing participant because being teased as a kid is just horrible.

Because my dermatologist cut out things like chips, fast foods, pops, whole milk and countless of other foods, I didn’t grow up with a number of bad eating habits that afflict so many teenagers. I had a fairly good diet growing up and since become an adult (and haven been a former personal chef) I’ve been quite particular about my diet and I gladly accept the label of “health-nut”!

The sad reality is that my acne is directly related to my stress level and the impact it has on my hormones. Continue reading →

The topic of this video may seem a bit weird, and if you think I’m a mega nerd, then hey I’m cool with that.

It’s all about my personal life choice to stop drinking alcohol, and how I’m trying to get comfortable with my decision as a girl in her twenties to not go to clubs and pubs on the weekend. Instead I love spending my time at the markets, in parks, at the beach, at the movies, dinner with friends ..you know, wholesome stuff!

I almost made a decision not to put this video on my blog because the first rating on YouTube was 1 star with the comment “this is boring”. And I forget sometimes that people can get a little bit uncomfortable when they find out that I don’t drink. I’m not sure if it’s because they think I’m weird or if if it’s because they assume I’m thinking less of them because they drink (which of course I’m not!). But either way I realize that this can be a bit of a controversial topic.

Please know that my personal decision not to drink alcohol is primarily for health reasons and nothing more dramatic than that. Also know that I certainly do not think less of anybody that does consume alcohol, regularly or not. I myself only just gave up alcohol a little over two years ago at the age of 27 so I used to be a regular drinker too.

However, my reason for talking about this stuff every now and again is to make it known to those of you out there that have made the decision or want to make the decision to give alcohol up or to just drink less, that it is okay to do whatever you want. I am very fortunate that I’ve managed to find myself a group of friends that don’t drink or don’t drink a lot so there aren’t many people around me who think I’m weird for it. But some of my friends who are in their early twenties have found it a lot harder. Especially in this country where social drinking is the thing to do on the weekends.

I spend a lot of my time following some of the top health gurus in the world, and to be honest, they wouldn’t even bother bringing up this topic because their health and well being is more important to them than what other people think. And as I mentioned in this video, the law of attraction does actually exist, so if you start following your truth path of what you love and what you believe in, then you’ll just find that similar people get attracted to you.

Five years ago if you told me that I would now be moving into a house with three yoginis as a vegetarian who doesn’t drink alcohol, I would have thought you were mad. But now I wouldn’t change a thing and I’m so much happier the way I am. I really feel like this is a much happier and “true” Fran, kind of like finding my core personality I guess.

So, if you think I’m strange then really that’s okay. Because the number one most important thing for me is how my own personal well being is. If I’m on the right path to good health and being happy then that’s just perfect

If you’ve got anything to add (except for, this video is boring ..hey, I can’t make a winner every time!) then let me know by writing in the comments box below.