Carson Natural

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Back to the Basics with Back to School Germs

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It’s August, and that means it’s back to school month. So what does that mean for YOU? For many of us that means BACK TO THE BASICS of a daily routine. We have new schedules, strict bedtimes, early wake-ups, lunches to pack, homework to check, papers to sign and kids to inspire. Unfortunately with kids going back to school, it can also mean back to school germs as well. Don’t worry! There are some basic things we can do to help fight the germs and keep our immune systems STRONG and HEALTHY!

Believe it or not, our body is full of TRILLIONS (with a TR) of bugs living on and in our bodies! There are good bugs, and there are bad bugs. These microscopic organisms are vital to our overall health, but especially our immune system. It is believed that 60-70% of our immune system is controlled by these bugs in the digestive tract. The truth is that we need these bugs. To learn more about the good and bad bugs, read this article where I tell more about it.

For now I know that you want to stay as healthy as you possibly can with the back to school schedule. I believe that you can increase your chances of that while decreasing your risk of getting sick by following these seven recommendations to help strengthen your overall immune system.

  1. Increase the foods in your diet that contain the good bugs – The foods I’m speaking of are fermented foods, such as yogurt, keifer and tofu. Just be sure you stay away from the fat free and sugar free varieties of these foods. Sauerkraut is another good fermented food, while Kombucha teas are a great fermented drink that does an excellent job supplying and restoring good bacteria to our bodies. If you don’t eat these foods or are unable to get these foods, then my recommendation would be to make sure you take probiotic supplements instead.
  2. Cut the sugar as much as possible – Some of the bad bugs that live within our body, such as yeast, feed on sugar. Make those lunches and after school snacks healthy and cut out the sugar. 024: Are You Making Healthier Snack Food Choices for You and Your Children?
  3. Manage the stress – Don’t let the stress of back to school control you. You control it! Take the time each day to destress by walking, running, meditating, yoga, lifting weights, deep breathing, or whatever healthy activity calms you down.
  4. Get good sleep – Your body needs rest and time to restore the good bugs in your system. A good night’s sleep can make a world of difference in your immune health.
  5. Take your vitamins – The processed foods that we eat also help destroy the good bacteria in our bodies, and they are almost void of the nutrients that our body needs for a healthy immune system. There are many many nutrients found in food that help support our immune system, and when we eat food that doesn’t contain any of these, we compromise our immune system. By taking vitamin and mineral supplements we get the nutrients we need to protect us. The most important one you need, as the fall and winter seasons are soon approaching, is vitamin D, the sunshine vitamin! With busier shorter days and less opportunities to get out in the sun, supplementation with vitamin D can be very helpful.
  6. Do not neglect exercise – I know with the business of school routines, our exercise routine is one of the first things to go. Recent studies show that people who exercise regularly are less likely to catch a cold. This falls in line with other studies that show regular exercise greatly increases immune system health!
  7. Support your thymus gland – The Thymus gland is a small gland that sits in the top of your chest wall and is the master gland of the immune system. This gland produces T-cells that fight off invaders in our body, especially viruses. The six previous steps can help support the thymus gland, but there are also thymus supplements available that can give you that extra immune system boost during the winter months.

Why use a supplement to support the immune system? Because the right ingredients can work with the body’s own immune response. A good supplement can give your immune system a boost when it needs it the most.

Why use ThymuPlex™? It provides broad-spectrum, intensive support for your immune system: ThymuPlex™contains vitamins, minerals, glandular and herbs (including Echinacea) essential for your immune system, white blood cell functions, and thymus gland activity. It provides thymus gland extract “predigested” that is already broken down for use by the body. It also includes these glandular ingredients: spleen extract and lymphatic extract and enzymes: trypsin, papain and bromelain for protein digestion.

Probiotic supplements contain good bacteria that are vital for proper functioning of our immune and digestive systems. These good bacteria also known as “normal flora” promote a healthy digestive system and reduce the growth of harmful bacteria in our bodies.

Whenever we take antibiotics, anti-inflammatories and numerous other medications both prescription and over-the-counter we are unknowingly destroying our good bacteria. Stress and processed foods can also be detrimental to the population of good bacteria in our bodies. It is important that we replace these good bugs and the best way to do that is with a good broad-spectrum probiotic supplement. Enterobiotic from Natural Creations is one of my favorites.

Both Enterobiotic and ThymuPlex™ are are available through our website. Order today and save 15% by using code “special15” during the month of August.

Your best defense against today’s (and tomorrow’s) global health threats is a strong immune system! I recently spoke at the Immune Defense Summit, and you can still benefit from the 36 amazing experts (including your very own Dr. Phil) teaching you the best strategies to rejuvenate your immune system and neutralize the threat of superbugs, pandemics, viruses and other chronic infections! Gain the best strategies to rejuvenate your immune system and neutralize the threat of superbugs, pandemics, viruses and chronic diseases. Click here for more information.

You can also check out these other back to the basics blog posts and podcasts on the website that will hep you get back in the school routine.

OH Nooo!! Not Head Lice!!

Why Do We Make Our Children Drink Something That Can Make Them Sick?

013: What’s Yeast Overgrowth Got to Do with ADD/ADHD?

014:What’s Mitochondrial Dysfunction Got to Do with ADD/ADHD?

024: Are You Making Healthier Snack Food Choices for You and Your Children?

Healthy Blessings,

Dr. Phil

 

How to Start Living Healthy

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If you watch TV or surf the internet, chances are you’ve seen an advertisement for a diet or exercise program that promises significant results in very little time. Most of these focus on superficial goals like weight loss or muscle gain, and show you “before and after” photos of people who have completed the regiment. Some diets require you to take a pill, or substitute meals for shakes made with powder that often contains harmful substances. Other programs include intense exercise routines that most people who are not avid exercisers at the time they begin the program cannot handle. The majority of people who purchase these types of products don’t finish the full cycle of exercise routines or dieting requirements because the change is too drastic and the demands are too rigorous. This failure to complete what they started can be a major discouragement and create bad feelings about eating well and exercising regularly. Don’t you want to know how to start living healthy?

 

In his book How to Live Until You Die, Dr. Phil Carson explains that to really live life to its fullest and enjoy each day, minor changes, not major changes, need to be implemented incrementally. Dr. Phil shares his seven keys to living happy, healthy, and whole with readers and gives them concrete examples of how to improve their health and increase their quality of life by following simple steps and how to start living healthy.

 

In the first chapter of How to Live Until You Die, Dr. Phil talks about the importance of maintaining balance between eating, exercising, and five other key areas. He quotes the legendary basketball coach John Wooden who said “Next to love, balance is the most important thing.” Dr. Phil elaborates by explaining that being healthy doesn’t consist of replacing meals with pills and diet shakes, and that a balance of proteins, carbohydrates, and healthy fats should be included in each meal. He gives examples of acceptable choices for each of these categories, and provides additional resources to help you build your own food plan.

 

Using the method that Dr. Phil provides, anyone can improve their eating habits without making drastic changes to their everyday meals. Sometimes, simple replacements (substituting a sugary breakfast cereal for oatmeal made with steel cut oats) can deliver an immediate upgrade to our overall health.

 

As he says in How to Live Until You Die, “Being healthy is all about making smart choices on a daily basis and it starts with a simple five-step framework to eating clean and healthy foods.” The five steps to building a successful plan for eating healthy are covered in the first chapter of the book. The first step includes a list of the Big Seven Toxins which can be deadly if consumed regularly. Although you may not feel it right away, these toxins work through our bodies and leave us with diabetes, obesity, and worse.

 

Dr. Phil stresses the importance of creating a meal plan that works for you, consuming foods you enjoy eating, making smart choices, and including a balance of healthy foods rather than just following the latest fad diet.

 

If you’re ready to improve the quality of your life and start living healthy by following the five steps to eating healthy, order your copy of How to Live Until You Die today.

 

 

 

Healthy Blessings,

Dr. Phil

 

 

 

 

Why Am I So Tired All The Time?

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One of the  most common questions I hear from patients that I coach or counsel is, “why am I so tired all the time?” They have no energy and they always want to know what they can take to get more energy or what can I do to have more energy. There is not a simple answer to that question in most cases. There are so many different reasons why people are lacking energy or feeling tired all the time.

When someone comes to see me for help with their issues with low energy or excessive fatigue I take them through a series of questions to try and determine the cause of their problem. There are multiple underlying causes but I am only going to cover a few in this blog post. There are several simple causes of low energy levels with simple solutions and most of these are behavior or lifestyle related. I believe that most people can simply correct their low energy issues by changing a couple bad habits that they may not even be aware of.

sleepbabyThe number one problem is lack of sleep. That’s obvious right? Well a lot of people don’t realize that’s a problem until they have it pointed out to them. Of course you aren’t going to have enough energy to make it through the day if you aren’t getting enough sleep at night. Now I’m not talking about people who try to sleep but aren’t able to sleep or who go to sleep but can’t stay asleep, that’s a whole other issue that I will discuss in another blog. Sometimes we just need to go to bed at a decent hour, get that good 7 to 8 hours of sleep that our bodies require, and we’ll have the energy that we need.

Citrus-Fit-Five-Healthy-BreakfastAnother often overlooked and underlying problem is lack of nutrition, not eating at proper times or skipping meals. One of the first questions I ask people that are suffering from low energy is “Do you eat breakfast?” I am often surprised at how many people say no. As I teach in my Fit in 49 program, breakfast is the most important meal of the day, as it sets the tone for the day. It energizes you! It gets the neurons firing in your nervous system! It stimulates your brain to think and to work! It energizes your muscles! I don’t understand people that don’t eat breakfast! The simple solution is eat breakfast! However it does matter what you eat for breakfast. If you eat a high carbohydrate breakfast such as cereal, pop tarts, or high sugar pastries, like donuts and honey buns you will probably have plenty of energy for about 2 hours before you come crashing down from the rapid drop in your sugar levels. So when I say eat breakfast, I mean a good healthy balanced breakfast with the right amounts of protein, carbs, and fat. If you do that you should have all the energy you need to sustain you until lunch.

The third simple underlying cause is called nutrient depletion. This is most often caused by the medications that the patient is taking, and most of the time the patients have no idea this is happening. There are so many medications on the market that cause nutrient depletions. Thankfully this problem is easy to correct by taking the necessary supplements to restore and replace what’s being depleted by the meds. I discussed an example of one of these in a recent blog, Statin drugs which deplete Coenzyme Q10, a vital nutrient that we need for energy. In fact every cell in our body needs CoQ10 for energy! Since we’ve been talking about heart health this month in our blogs, I will tell you that there are many blood pressure medications that cause nutrient depletions as well. These meds often deplete the minerals in our body that are essential for energy and muscle function, such as potassium and magnesium. These nutrients are available in over the counter supplements and can replace what is being depleted. My advice to you though is don’t go and start buying a lot of supplements until you have been tested to see if you have a depletion or you know for sure that you are taking a medication that depletes these nutrients from your body. To find out if any of the medications you are taking may be causing nutrient depletions check out drug nutrient depletion guide from chiro.com!

Before starting any kind of supplement regimen I recommend you speak with a qualified health professional that can give you good advice on what supplement you should take and how much to take. If you’re suffering from low energy and you want to correct it, make sure you are getting enough sleep, eating balanced meals (especially breakfast), and are checking to see if any medications, prescription and over the counter, are causing nutrient depletion. We will discuss more low energy recommendations in our next blog so be sure to check back next week! 

The Feeling Good Podcast

This past week we officially launched the Feeling Good Podcast! You can click here to visit the page on iTunes and download the first two episodes! Every week we’ll be answering your questions and talking about the major health issues of our day! If you want to have your question answered then please email [email protected] or click on the microphone on the side of the page!

Healthy Blessings,

Dr. Phil

 

 

Why Are We Sending Our Children to School on a High?

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This week I started a healthy living class at my church. The class is called Fine in 49, and it’s a 49 day program for living a more balanced, healthy, and vibrant life.

Week 1 was on nutrition and healthy eating. Of course I started out teaching the class about healthy eating by making sure they knew the most important meal of the day is breakfast! So I asked them the question, “What do you think are probably the two most consumed breakfast foods every morning by adults and especially children?” They had no problem answering correctly, cereal and pop-tarts. I went on to tell them about how unhealthy these two foods are, especially for our children. Most are sugar laden, and are loaded with all kinds of unhealthy chemicals and preservatives as well. Not only do they contain an excessive amount of sugar, but they are made with processed grains that convert to sugar in the body causing our blood sugar levels to go even higher. One of the sad things about this is that we feed these foods to our children and consume them ourselves without even thinking about the nutritional value of them or the harmful effects the toxic ingredients in these foods cause to our bodies.

cerealIn preparing for my class, I visited the grocery store and strolled up and down the aisle that contained all of these harmful breakfast foods. I picked up boxes and read the labels, and I thought to myself, “If people only knew what they were really eating, if parents only knew what they were feeding their children.” The thought occurred to me that there are millions of children right now that have started the new school year and are going to school every morning on a sugar high! Millions of these kids are being diagnosed every year with ADD or ADHD, and maybe, just maybe, these kids don’t have ADD or ADHD. They’re just on a sugar high when they get to school. You see, what happens to our bodies when we consume a high sugar food like cereal or pop-tarts is our blood sugar rises very quickly and within two to three hours it takes a sudden drop. At that point our bodies usually begin to crave more sugar or something to compensate for the lack of energy or focus. I call it needing a sugar fix! Do you think, maybe, what we’re eating can be contributing to the behavior problems and the learning problems in our schools today, more than ever in the history. This article, published on NPR, highlights several studies that concluded a protein rich breakfast to be the best for helping kids learn!

eggs and fruitAs I said, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It sets the tone for the entire day. The two foods that I’ve been talking about, cereal and pop-tarts, contain no protein, only carbohydrates and fats. Our nervous system requires protein, especially in the morning! I want everyone to know that you can and you should be eating protein every morning for breakfast. Here are my suggestions for a healthy replacement for cereal. How about two eggs and a small serving of fresh fruit, or your favorite breakfast meat and a small serving of fruit? If you’re eating a pop-tart out of convenience because you need breakfast on the go, try a protein bar instead! Preferably one made with whey protein or vegetable protein, and please note that I said a protein bar, NOT a high carb cereal bar, most of which contain no protein. Yes the protein bars are a little more expensive than a cereal bar, but is your health and the health of your child not worth it to you? Another option for a healthy breakfast is peanut butter! Check out one of the first blogs I wrote and find out why peanut butter makes an excellent breakfast! One more healthy option is oatmeal topped with nuts, cinnamon, and maybe a spoonful of berries! However be sure that you eat old fashioned oatmeal, not instant oatmeal. Instant oatmeal is just as sugary and processed as the cereal I’ve warned you about.

I challenge you to try my suggestions for 30 days and see for yourself the difference in how you feel, how you think, and how well you focus, and after 30 days talk to your child’s teacher and see if they’ve noticed a difference in your child! I’d be willing to bet that you’ll notice a difference in their grades. If you’re willing to accept my challenge, I’d love to hear from you in 30 days with a report of any changes you may have noticed in yourself as well as in your children. Eating healthy, of course, takes more time and more effort, if it didn’t then everyone would do it, but I guarantee you that it is and forever will be worth it. You will be glad to you were willing to spend a little extra time and put forth a little extra effort to make lasting changes for you and for your family! You can contact me at [email protected], by filling out the contact form, or by clicking on the “Ask Dr. Phil” Microphone and leaving a voice message! I look forward to hearing from you in 30 days!

There is a product I recently discovered that you may be interested in. This product can provide a genetic nutrition and fitness assessment based upon your unique DNA and lifestyle. Click here for a short video detailing the assessment. If you’re interested in achieving a new level of wellness, then please contact me through the channels above! Also just below here is an email signup box to sign up for our monthly newsletter if you haven’t already! All you have to do is enter your email address and press enter. In our newsletter is a recap of selected blogs, a funny story, patient testimonials, product reviews and a money saving coupon code for products in our online store!

Healthy Blessings,

Dr. Phil


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Guest Blogger Corie Jones – Rise and Shine For A Healthy Breakfast!

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I want to share one more guest post from my friend and client Corie Jones of LoveGiveLive.org. She and her family have been gracious and wonderful hosts this week for our church’s youth group mission trip. Corie is having amazing results with the lifestyle changes she has made! She is not only impacting her own health, but that of her family as well, and with her blog posts, I believe she is impacting other families also! Way to go Corie! Oh yes and please check in to the amazing hand made furniture and art work that her Husband Jason makes at Jonesyworks.com

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Rise & Shine for a Healthy Breakfast

I’ve never been a big breakfast fan until now. I have always felt like if I ate breakfast that it made my stomach hurt. Of course, I was not eating healthy so I am sure my stomach did hurt. Now that we are eating all clean healthy foods, breakfast does my body good! In fact now I realize that the days I am dragging and just not feeling it, are the days that I skimped on my breakfast intake. I want to share a few of our family’s favorite breakfast options.

1. Egg, Avocado, Lettuce & Tomato Breakfast Sandwich
IMG_8510This can actually be for breakfast, lunch or dinner. We have enjoyed this during many meals in our home. We all love it, and I highly recommend it. Just add leIMG_8515ttuce, tomatoes, avocado slices and 1 egg over easy, stacked on top of 1 slice of toasted organic SAAA-Wheat Eureka bread!! So yummy!! My kids even enjoy this sandwich stacked on toasted Eureka bread with NO butter!! That’s a first!! This is my personal favorite. I could literally eat it everyday.

 

2. Healthy Omelet

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Again, this is great for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Sometimes breakfast for dinner is just fun and out of the ordinary. I add two organic eggs, tomaIMG_8326-1to, bell pepper, sweet onion, avocado, fresh cilantro, salt, and pepper in my omelets. Lucy cooked her very own omelet for the first time in cooking class a few weeks ago!! She loves our little home school cooking class. She is getting better and more comfortable while pouring and stirring over the stove. Of course I am right next to her supervising and making sure she11156374_10153274061198792_9143317760101408041_n is staying safe. Great job, Chef Lucy!! Here we are wearing aprons and cooking in the kitchen. I wouldn’t trade this for anything. I’ve never really enjoyed cooking until recently. Actually, Jason did most ALL all of the cooking. Cooking and eating healthy can be so much fun, especially when I get to teach Lucy and Jack. We watched Ted Talks this week with Jamie Oliver:Teach Every Child About Food. We agree with him that kids need to be taught to cook and eat real food again. It’s my job to teach my kids. It’s my job to be their example. I’m committed to doing better! Together we WILL make a difference. Not to mention, my husband is totally happy with my new found love for cooking!

3. Green Smoothies

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I like my smoothies with spinach, kale, mango, pineapple, grapes, bananas, oranges, strawberries, cucumbers, oranges, apples (basically any fruit I have on hand) and 2 scoops of Standard Process Whey Protein Complete. I add water to my fruit and protein. You can also use almond milk, but I prefer adding water. My friend and health and wellness coach, Dr. Phil,  has a great blog entry complete with recipes for his favorite protein smoothies. Check it out here. If you enjoy green smoothies on a regular basis, check out what he says about it here.

I have listed 3 healthy breakfast options, plus, when we add in the Egg-O-Cado and healthy pancakes from previous posts, that gives us 5 happy healthy breakfast options to choose from on a daily basis. Look, I know these are simple recipes. I like simple. I am busy. We all are busy. Between being a wife, mom, home school teacher, business owner, kids church leader, volunteer, blogger, painter, cook, and cleaner of the house and laundry, I need simple. I can do simple. I think sometimes we make things harder than they should be. Eating clean and cooking healthy meals can be simple. Simple works for me. It can work for you too.

This week makes over 4 weeks of only cooking and eating clean healthy foods in our home. Please, may it remain here for good this time and become our forever lifestyle. That’s my goal. I let stress, being way too busy and pure laziness stop me before. I can do better. I will do better. After all our lives depend on it! I want to send a HUGE thank you to Dr. Phil Carson at Carson Natural Health and Wellness Consulting for all his help, guidance and inspiration!!

Remember, if I can do this, you can do this!

Much love!87d6d339e9056851043bd9251ddc5fec00b132f8_original

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You can check out more of Corie’s healthy lifestyle blog by following this link! I’m honored to have a small part in helping this beautiful family achieve a better level of personal health. Thanks to Corie for letting Carson Natural use her blogs this week! As usual if you have any questions feel free to contact me by filling out the contact form or by clicking on the “Ask Dr. Phil” Microphone! Your question could be the topic of a future blog! Also just below here is an email signup box to sign up for our monthly newsletter if you haven’t already! All you have to do is enter your email address and press enter. In our newsletter is a recap of selected blogs, a funny story, patient testimonials, product reviews and a money saving coupon code for products in our online store!

Healthy Blessings,

Dr. Phil


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