On Cleansing, D#1 – Kicking Caffeine

What is your most irrational fear? As you titrate with us off caffeine, gluten, dairy, alcohol and sugar, what are you most afraid will happen? Let’s start with caffeine. Today is D#1 of the Gottfried Cleanse, and I’m kicking caffeine – or at least I’m starting the process. Why is it so hard to decaffeinate?…

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On Cleansing, D#0

A Hindu Scholar named Swami Adiswarananda once said that we must renounce what we’ve been doing for something that feels better. None of us renounces what feels good for something that feels worse. His words frame my entry into the official start of our Gottfried Cleanse tomorrow, which is designed to balance your hormones and…

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Natural Health Magazine: Interview on Low Libido

Thrilled to be interviewed in Natural Health, published in the April/May 2011 issue. Most of what I said about hormones and how they modulate libido got cut. My main point that libido is extremely complex (and that 70% of the time there’s a hormonal component) but that there are many other factors including relationship connectivity…

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Kicking Dairy: Why Bother?

Throughout my 22 years of taking care of people, I’ve seen a lot of addictive behaviors. Particularly around food. Most common: chocolate, cheese, caffeine, flour, sugar, taken to anesthetize. These babies are drugs. I recall learning in the early 1980s that dairy products contain morphine-like substances. This was published in Science in 1981. Learned this…

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Slapdown Values That No Longer Serve

“Bitch slap” sounds violent, not a word a mom should use. So, of course, it’s just my type of word. Particularly for the musty, patriarchal beliefs that I stuffed into my backpack way back in my youth. I’m wondering how many of them I’m still dragging through the mud. I’m trying to shed, right? Get…

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Beginnings of the Ends: Telomere Storytime

I’ve been talking up telomeres a lot lately, which are emerging as the key biomarker of biological aging. Think you look younger than your chronological age? Here’s your marker: Telomeres are a lot like the plastic tips on the ends of shoelaces – in this case, telomeres keep DNA on the ends of chromosomes from…

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Sake Bombs or Kale? Vacation Review

At the risk of sounding insufferable, I have to share some thoughts on two side-by-side vacations. Let me preface our discussion with two disclosures:  I have adrenal dysregulation and two young kids. While I’m in adrenal “recovery,” as many of you know who are on this path with me — recovery takes a long, long…

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Madonna My Thyroid, Please

One comment personal trainers hear daily from overweight, middle-aged women is: “I want Madonna arms.” It makes them want to shoot themselves. Actually, um, I want Madonna arms. While she is controversial, chameleonic and doesn’t always comment wisely on her art, she is arguably looking mighty fine for age 52. In fact, I think she…

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