Wouldn't it be nice to actually respond "I'm fine" and mean it? Emotionally, spiritually, mentally and physically being fine and knowing it to be 100% true. This is where it is absolutely necessary we stop falling for the lie that there is nothing we can do about what we are experiencing and feeling. This is where we stop letting stress dictate how we should feel and respond in order to live. It is where we decide we are active consumers in our health and we want more for the value and quality of our life in terms of health and well-being. At the very core of this situation is the realization being fine is more than a word. It is learning to reawaken our entire being and listening to it in a way it can be supported for improving and supporting our health. It is knowing the aches, pains, headaches, inflammation and low energy are not the result of aging but rather the collection of lifestyle events and activities that have not been good for us. Fine and not-fine get crystal clear and we get comfortable speaking up with its the latter. We feel it and we know it's off and we want to do something about it. That's where we move from the gray area of fine to building a healthy fine that makes us feel our best every day. Yes, I'm saying its time to get real about our health and stop buying into the marketing messages of pharmacy companies about what health looks like as well as the processed foods and soda manufacturers that show us what healthy eating consists of. Fine for you is no longer a zero calorie plastic wrapped fake thing we try to soothe our feelings using. If you truly want to be fine and mean it, you have to do more than wishful think and hope for it. That can happen on a large and small scale in our life but it won't happen at all until it starts at our restlessness in the state of fine grayness. The first step I take with clients awakening to this idea we don't have to settle in our health is the very basics. How much water should you drink? What colors are the foods in your diet? How many hours of sleep do you get? These fundamental things lead to the larger questions of where things hurt, why they hurt and for how long that's been going on. Your body has an incredible ability to heal and it is was made for growing and thriving. Things do slow down as we age but not to the extent we see people growing old before their time and not living a quality life full of energy until that point. I feel like this is the magic that has been hushed in the overflow of big pharma advertising and doctor's reference books to match symptoms to pills. We don't have to take prescriptions for everything. In fact we usually need very few to no prescriptions if we take care of ourselves. Somewhere we have lost the knowledge about how to do that well. It is more than a healthy diet and exercise too. The distortion of what it means to be healthy and fine and perfect have all meshed together into this incomprehensible mess where no one knows how to do those things anymore. Yet, this is exactly where holistic health comes in. It is the return of natural medicine where we listen to the body and let it tell us what it needs rather than matching its symptoms to pills. Its where nutrition is the medicine. Using herbs and food as medicine is not an exciting new concept but it has been pushed aside in pursuit of faster and better that isn't helping us feel fine. What I like to tell my clients is holistic health is the center where your body guides the path to healing. It dictates the protocol and we learn from its wisdom. It does have such wisdom too. The ancient modalities of Chinese medicine, Ayurvedic, and others have all persisted through times just like these when man thought he knew better than nature. If you want to be fine and mean it, we have to turn back to our core design and build health from the inside out with nature. We are after all not manufactured but rather created. We were meant to be more than fine. I hope the next time you say it, you mean it. To work with me, schedule a holistic health consultation at dragonspitapotheacry.com

There's something about when you become a mom that immediately shifts in your being. Honestly, a lot of things shift and some of it we don't even realize until years later when our children are grown. We however do quickly see our entire identify shift from being that of an individual to a mom. There is no job description but we all quickly learn in our own way all that it entails. What no one talks about though is the effects of this shifting. From our bodies to our emotional and spiritual well-being, all moms shift in our focus from us to our families. Our needs however don't change much when you uncover ourselves from the diapers, school books and soccer practices. We still need health and vibrancy to do all the things we do as moms and as women. I'd like to say women's healthcare has come to understand these needs but that would assume they understood us at all. Western allopathic medicine has not adapted under the guidelines and structure that was originally defined by men. Certainly, there are departments for women's health but these too are often limited to the standards long ago defined by men. The two largest standards can be summarized as if it cannot be diagnosed, it doesn't exist. If it cannot be medicated or removed, then it is unfixable. I believe there is more to us as humans and certainly as women when it comes to our health against these standards. What I find even more interesting is the lack of specialty for women's emotional, mental, and spiritual health needs. Here we are lumped together with men as if there were not anything unique or different about us in these areas that would warrant specialization. It does all bring to mind if women's health has really advanced at all. Why women's health needs are different Women are unique and despite the standards of healthcare, we do have unique needs on a physical, emotional, mental and even spiritual level. I believe women are much more deeply designed to present the integration of whole health needs that we as a human race deserve. We are more than just the sum of our physical parts for what makes us who we are and the health needs we need supported. When it comes to moms there are even more uniqueness. Our bodies change as we age in a different way than men because of the reproductive responsibilities we have, regardless of choosing to have children or not. Most important is the integration of our emotions within our physical body. Women are by nature more emotional and this plays out in how we feel physically. By the way, I do believe men have unique health needs as well but it further demonstrates that the sexes are simply different. For years women didn't even have a voice in their health decisions. All discussions between a doctor about a woman's body were between her doctor and her husband. In many ways though that model still exists because no one listens to what the woman really is trying to say is going on because it usually doesn't match up to the physician's desk reference of symptoms and medications. There is much about the woman's body that is unexplainable and by design cannot be solved without looking at a woman in her physical, emotional and spiritual as one complete being. By continuing to only treat the physical woman's body needs we continue to miss the real opportunity to promote healing and health vitality.- Amy Kramer, Dragonspit Apothecary Our health needs include our emotional, spiritual, mental, economic, social, and cultural states as much as they are about our physical. Health is the perfect balance of these states where we can thrive and live in the most optimized state of being. What women's health really needs to address and support To fully provide health for a woman it is to understand all that she needs in all aspects of her life. It is an appreciation for the level of stress most women live under to provide, care for, and support her family. The number of hours she rests in real sleep and how much water she drinks along with what type of supplementation she takes. Yet it is also how connected she feels to other women, her community, her family and God. By design women are caretakers of others. We take on many roles in our life but at the heart of it is usually caretaking. That means our own needs often go to a lower priority and we have a high level of guilt if put ourselves ahead. I believe this is why women have such a higher tolerance of pain than men. We need nutrition as much as we need confidence that by taking something for ourselves we are not shortchanging others we are responsible for caretaking and protecting. In our crazy world, this fundamental fact about women has seemed to become lost. Our needs are cancelled out and held back against the need to perform, demonstrate our strength and be all to everyone without any sign of weakness. If we show that weakness or softness than it only serves to prove the point we are not capable. Nothing could be farther from the truth but this is the societal pressure women also feel when they try to balance career, family, community, and self without letting any suffer. At the most general level women's health needs attention to stress, nutrition, hydration, rest, sunlight, spiritual connection, emotional safety, and economic fairness. As it is women have had to fight for their rights in all these areas and continue to do so today. I don't know a working woman anywhere that doesn't have high amounts of stress and as a result nutritional deficiency, inflammation, insomnia, digestive complaints, and depression and anxiety. Add to that mix motherhood, family responsibilities, financial obligations, community and culture responsibilities and you can quickly see there is little left for the woman to be herself or get the care she needs to feel her best. Where opportunity for women's health improvements exist As the primary consumers making the purchasing decisions for a family, women play a pivotal role in nutrition and health. We are more likely to buy fresh vegetables for our family than we are ourselves. However, using that logic we can also work to help ourselves in health needs. The real opportunity for improving women's health care is by working to reframe the stress in our lives. Many see that as impossible or a matter of adulting but in reality it is the very heart of so many issues in women's health. As a society we can preach taking care of yourself first so you can give the best to your family but that logic is outdated. Instead we need to come at women's health from where she is standing in the middle of her life. It is not taking care of herself if we are not also addressing all the things she is caring for too. Our bodies have a wonderful ability to stimulate self-healing when we are in the right environment that allows that to occur. Removing toxins, stress, chemicals, preservatives, gases and other harmful substances is one way to improve the environment. The other is to address the environmental factors contributing to these situations. Namely stress and nutritional deficiencies as the two largest. The stress women particularly are under is horrendous these days. No one is exempt from stress and I certainly do not mean to imply men have none. However, women on top of financial, career, political, soci-economic and large scale stress men have, they also have stress from home. Despite the growth in stay-at-home dads and dual income households, women still bear the brunt of home responsibilities for cooking and cleaning. Women are still the primary person sitting down to pay the bills for the family, do the shopping and make arrangements, schedules and ensure homework is completed. Again, not to imply men don't do these things but predominately it is women who traditionally have and still do them on top of things outside the home. I think its time it was acknowledged and respected the amount of home care women actually do have responsibility for and how that impacts their health physically, emotionally and spiritually. It is not complaining about having to do it but rather having it respected and considered as part of more than just what is expected. The effects to our health that also suffer and go unaddressed as a result of it also bear consideration. How many women will put off going out with friends for lunch or to the gym because they have things to do at home? I am certainly guilty of that. For many women the burden of responsibilities often comes first before we consider doing something in the name of caring for ourselves. That's not a new challenge. It is however new that we have not yet figured out how to do something about it besides just expect more hours in the day or to figure it out on top of all we need to get done - which most of us work very hard to do and then feel like failures for not accomplishing. It all carries a heavy toll on our weight, health, mental well-being and emotional health. So has women's health care advanced for the better or do we have just a newer version of the same men's model of care from before? As a holistic health practitioner I like to think I do things differently. One of the foundational teachings in natural health is the idea of supporting the whole person where they are in their health journey. This means addressing health on the physical, emotional, spiritual and mental levels as one. That alone is challenging to do and what further complicates it is the easy gravitation to address presenting symptoms. Those symptoms are often uncomfortable and of immediate focus for the client. Yet they are very often not the cause of the problem. So in delivering care to my clients it is a balancing act of supporting immediate relief while helping the client realize there is more work to be done if they don't want those symptoms to come back. Whether it is weight loss, skin and digestive concerns, overall health there is always something deeper going on. However, most of us just want relief to what hurts now. It becomes my primary role to help them see the connection between the symptom and deeper issue. We then work together to support the root cause so healing can occur on all levels of our being. The results are not only the symptoms fade away but there is an overall improvement everywhere. A great example is a client I had who was struggling with low energy. She just didn't feel like she could make it through her day without caffeine. Like most of us she has a high stress lifestyle that included just getting through a litany of things for work and home. She tried to eat as well as she could most days, played golf when she could and enjoyed her evening wine to unwind from the day. Why wasn't this working? We did a liver detox on her. It was about 2 weeks into this detox she messaged me to say her dreams were incredibly "loud." They were from her past, it was tense and uncomfortable. I asked her to track these dreams and see if they were trying to tell her something. I also recommended some flower essences to ease the effect of the dreams on her sleep. The liver is associated with strong emotions and I suspected her dreams were her liver's way of unburdening finally all these toxic emotions she was carrying. Towards the end of her detox, she updated me on her progress. The dreams had become more pleasant and she was feeling more energy. She also was not drawn to her evening wine any longer. She described it as a smoker who finally breaks that habit and finds smoking unnecessary for themself. Overall she said felt happier, lighter and the energy she felt was more than just physical. This example shows the power of addressing not only the body's message of a problem but the deeper reason that was occurring. To feel more energy not only in the body but on the emotional, spiritual and mental levels too is where we see health thrive. We feel more like ourselves. It is where I believe women's health care should occur and where real progress can be obtained. To work with me, schedule a holistic health consultation at dragonspitapothecary.com

Adrenal fatigue doesn't exist per your doctor and insurance company. You cannot be diagnosed with it. Nor will it appear on your bill as a coded item approved for payment by your insurance company. To them it is a non-existent illness. Per Mayo Clinic's website it is defined as, "It is a lay term applied to a collection of nonspecific symptoms, such as body aches, fatigue, nervousness, sleep disturbances and digestive problems." Anyone who has experienced adrenal fatigue would tell you there is no doubt it is real. When I finally had words for what I was feeling, it changed how I saw my doctor and healthcare from that point forward. Does it exist then? I believe so. There are plenty of health conditions to which the Western medical system lacks prognosis or diagnosis. Western medicine is based on the ability to align symptoms to specific medications to which it is believed the symptoms will be mitigated. Treatment cannot be provided until symptoms are observed. Where the deviation between Western medicine and other medicine systems exists is in practicality. Western medicine is limited where other medical systems have expanded options. This system prevents healing at the root level of the symptoms which can exasperate symptoms to worse conditions. There are varying arguments of course. Western medicine is backed by politicians and pharmaceutical companies lending significant influence with claims being backed by science. Other medicine systems are also backed by science but also the element of of defining health in intangible terms such as emotions and spirit. This is where Western medicine and other medicine systems separate. It is also at this point, I believe illnesses like adrenal fatigue are not able to be diagnosed by Western Medicine. I believe admitting its existence, admits where our healthcare system is ill equipped to provide meaningful healing. -Amy Kramer, CHHP, Dragonspit Apothecary, LLC Certainly you can find medical doctors willing to prescribe the varying symptoms they consider under the collection of adrenal fatigue. There are medications for anxiety, inflammation, pain and aches. There are not however, treatment for the underlying cause for why these things exist in the first place. For this type of healing and support it is necessary to leverage the knowledge and experience of holistic health medicine systems, including Chinese medicine. Or you could accept the statement by your medical doctor that these are separate symptoms or all in your head. Unfortunately, this is also where most who suffer from adrenal fatigue lack access to healing. Taking a antidepressant in this situation will not do much to help the body recover and heal from the effects of depleted adrenals. Nor will extra sleep. What then is adrenal fatigue? The good news is you don't just wake up one day with adrenal fatigue. It is a condition that occurs over time with increasingly louder indications the body is experiencing what we call symptoms. Adrenal fatigue is the result of stress that has not been recovered and mitigated by the body. It is not stress of one day or even a couple months. Rather it is the result of long term stress that hasn't ebbed and the body able to return to a non-alert state. At times of stress, the body responds by shifting into a state of adrenaline. This is inherent design where people could rely on adrenaline to get them out of unsafe situations. It also occurs when we feel stress responses to deadlines, overwhelming responsibilities, frustration and conflict for example. Adrenaline has both positive and negative impacts on the body. It is perfect for the immediate stress response we need to have in times of surprise. There is no way to know how much adrenaline each of us has or can produce. Generally speaking, adrenaline is sufficient for short term stress lasting from a few minutes to a couple months. At this point, adrenaline production cannot keep up with the demand if the stress continues without significant time to recover and rest. Once adrenaline is used up and stress is still present, the body will shift to cortisol that is produced by the adrenals. This creates the commonly described flight-or-fight response. With longer term stress, flight-or-fight was also used to keep us safe in life threatening situations. Consider cortisol like a longer running battery version of adrenaline. The body however can only produce so much cortisol and after a time it too will deplete. Up to this point, various symptoms may have been experienced including anxious feelings, sleeplessness, irritability and low energy. When we are in chronic stress the body's ability to optimally run our immune system, digestion and reproductive system is slowed. All effort is placed on supporting the body from the stress stimulation. As a result, we can become more prone to illness such as congestion, respiratory illness and even inflammation. Adrenal fatigue is hence a depletion of the adrenals to continue the production of cortisol to support ongoing demand. Our body can no longer support normal function and stress stimulation management. Yes, it is real. Yes, it hurts physically, mentally and emotionally. No, it's not all in your head. Healing from adrenal fatigue The encouraging news is that you can heal from adrenal fatigue. It however is not a 5 minute fix and takes more than a mani-pedi self-care session. Healing from adrenal fatigue is journey that is highly personal. The strategies to apply when healing from adrenal fatigue requires us to first rebuild our foundational health elements and reserves within the body. We start with the very basics as they become the place where health can be best supported in this space without adding additional stress to the body and mind. Ultimately, we want to get stress under control and feel back in control of our life with renewed energy and vigor. The path to getting there is different for each of us. That is easier said than done so what usually works best is to look for those areas where we can make changes without adding more stress. Let's face it, if you make a big sweeping change to your life without addressing the problems, it only adds more stress. Stress is what got us here in the first place so it is illogical to just pile on stress, even though well-intended, for the sake of making improvements. Some people have found tremendous help with bio-hacking and other strategies to help build in healthy habits over a stress ridden lifestyle. It works for some and others it just complicates things. What I find is most helpful is looking at the stress we volunteer for and introduce on our own. These are the easiest to manage back to a healthy boundary and give us the space we need to rest and rebuild. Herbals such Ashwagandha and flower essence remedy are usually helpful as you work through resetting the stress boundary in your life. Even some mushrooms have been long used for supporting anxiety related responses due to overtaxed adrenals. Lion's Mane is one commonly accessible and easy to take to help. Emotionally stress is very tiring and taxing on the mind and body so providing that support to process and navigate is important. Nutritionally, we also focus on rebuilding our cells to generate healthy turnover, rebuilding strength and immune function. When you've been running on an empty tank that leads to the state of adrenal fatigue it is common to find digestive problems, menstrual problems and even recurring illnesses like headaches and UTIs. These symptoms point us to where the body was using reserves so we can support them. I always include muscle response testing when dealing with nutritional needs identification because listening to the body is the best way to make sure it is getting what it needs. Too often we have been led to believe that not only is feeling adrenal fatigue all in our heads but the related symptoms we feel like recurring illnesses are just addressed through prescriptions. Multiple rounds of antibiotics is not going to address why those things keep happening! This is where holistic health has an edge because we are looking under the symptoms and what you are experiencing to get at what is causing it and providing support from that perspective. It is very much like a detective linking the clues to get to the culprit. So, while adrenal fatigue is not medically recognized it does exist and it is able to be supported to promote healing. Addressing the root cause of what got you there is the best way to take the path out of that state and onto one of improved health and thriving vitality. To book time with me, schedule your holistic health consultation at dragonspitapothecary.com

Your hormones are easy targets. When you're in the middle of a hot flash feeling makeup run down your chin while sweating through a beautiful blouse you cannot change out of right now because you're sitting in a work meeting - well, it is very hard not to see hormones as a problem.

When was the last time you had a resolution that didn't involve that same 20 pounds you want to lose or the idea of being more healthy? We carry the same resolution with us year and year without results and this idea that somehow this year, finally, will be different. Resolutions just don't work that way and soon they will become the forgotten ideas of a New Year safely left behind in January so they are easy to find the next time a new year comes around. Why then do we torture ourselves knowing we will just repeat this cycle year after year?

Do you countdown months in advance for when you can officially put up your tree, decorate the house and make holiday cookies? Or are you someone who cringes when you see stores putting up decorations months early of the holidays even to the point you avoid going into the stores? These two extremes of people describe fundamentally the same problem with the holidays. How so you ask? Well both are an imbalance that can cause problems in our health and lead to concerns for our mental well-being.

The holidays will be here before you know it! According to most stores they have been here since September. With every year the holidays being just a bit more complicated, time pressing and expensive to pull off, how do you deal with the holiday pressure and stress on top of every day life?

Life expectancy in the United States decreased 1.5 years in 2020. This marks the first time in over 100 years a decline in life expectancy has occurred. There is no denying we are getting sicker, fatter and older before our years despite advancements and innovation of elements intended to protect our health and support a thriving life. Along with a decline in longevity, there is an increase of diseases including cancers, heart disease, diabetes and obesity. There is also an increase in food allergens, thyroid disorders, blood pressure, cholesterol and other disorders that result in people needing to take life long prescription medications. Piled on top of all this is a significant increase in mental health illnesses including depression, anxiety and trauma. These statistics are less than flattering and can make you wonder what exactly is going on in our health system. Where are these problems stemming from that are now impacting our longevity and the health of our children? Why are the advancements in medicine and health care not working to make us healthy and mitigate some of these problems? What does this all mean for your own health? There are many things we can blame when it comes to the bad news about our health. There’s certainly a large amount of stress in our lives, we are highly sedentary, don’t sleep well, lack enough water and eat processed and fake foods including the most recent “beyond meat” products. Take your pick on what you see as the primary evil of us getting older and sicker before our time. Why in fact the quality of our life in our senior years are in fact spent waiting to die rather than living our best years in golden bliss. Between the medications and diets, the health care crisis we see is easily understood. The human body is unable to function as it was designed under the weight of what we are putting in and on it. Our bodies are failing us because we are not giving them what they need to repair and support health needs. We are attempting to make them better by using artificial elements and instead it is resulting in a worsening condition of our health that has now leaked into our very own longevity. I believe the reason our health in the U.S. is in such dire straits is due to the lack of nutrition and real education about diet. We have been led astray by food manufacturers seeking to sell for profit that have introduced chemicals in the form of preservatives and convenience under the guise they are healthy for us. We have been further ted astray to believing things like fat are bad for us. My response to this is why is it that a food from nature itself, such as eggs or milk, can be called bad for our health but things like potato chips, enriched cereals and diet soda never put on that list? Are we really supposed to believe an egg is worse than chips? Or cookies are better than a piece of fruit? Yet, that is exactly what has happened in our society. Some foods, usually those that are naturally derived and sourced are put on some health hazard list while we gravitate towards fake milk and meat products and bagged processed foods. Most obese people are actually starving for nutrients. Many people on blood pressure and heart problem medications is the result of lack of movement. We live in this lala land idea that we can take a pill and still eat whatever we want that comes in a bag. Shouldn’t we be questioning where the food from nature has gone and working to bring it back? With less than 7% of U.S. adults having a healthy metabolic function shouldn’t we be addressing diet? As is in teaching people to eat real food from nature that is nutritionally sound and not some altered version of reality in convenient portion sized bags? Why are we continuing to promote a supposedly heart healthy diet based on low-fat artificial food that has been proven not to be the appropriate answer for improving heart and cardiovascular conditions? Why are we blocking our bodies very ability to heal through the use of medications that do nothing to actually improve health? It’s quite disturbing when you realize just how much this has eked into our very life day-to-day. What is all means for your own health is you have to be your own best advocate and a savvy consumer who knows how to navigate the grocery store and health care system to get what you need for your own health. If you really want your odds in health be improve read this Despite the horror of our health on a society level there are specific things each of us can do to change our own odds. Even our inherited genetic disposition can be improved to support a healthy vitality. It comes down to very simple things that change dramatically our own health story and what it represents to be healthy, manage illness and mitigate health risks. The answer is return to our nature and here’s what that looks like: Break up with diet industry thinking. This includes 100 calorie packaged snacks, heart healthy labeling and enriched manufactured foods. Eat raw veggies and fruits that are organically labeled and grown Include healthy fats such as coconut oil, real butter and raw milk Obtain good quality meats that are also organic and contain minimal processing Move your body with regularity and love daily. This is not hard core gym workouts but rather standing up more, taking 1000 steps after meals and stretching. Drink good quality water that minimizes fluoride and public water added chemicals Reduce and if possible eliminate plastic in your life in as many areas as possible Reduce and if possible eliminate all other sources of toxins including memory foam, detergents, cleaners, beauty products, soaps and etc. Get outside and soak up some sun Actively address stress levels in your life Improve your sleep None of the things on this short list are hard. All of them invite us to reconnect with nature, feel like ourselves and thrive in our health. Most importantly, all of these things reduce our risk in health problems and help us change the odds of a declining society that is suffering under piles of weight, medications and the increasing cost of healthcare that is not making us better. I recommend getting realistic about what it means to be healthy and seeing it as more than a number on the scale but rather understanding it stems from your whole being. By aligning heart, mind and body needs in your plan to health you see what building health is multi-layered and deeper than simply numbers from your latest metabolic panel. It is where we reconnect with joy, find contentment in our life and experience real health in all aspects of our being. If you feel good, you look good. If you treat your health with love, it loves you back. It is not longer a matter of simply losing some weight. Our health risks are higher than they have ever been as a result of escalating factors in our health care and food industries. If there is one things we can give our children for a brighter future it is health and the knowledge to be able to take care of their own health. In doing so, we can reverse the downward spiral of longevity and life expectancy and thrive in health as we were designed. To work with me, book a consultation for your health needs at dragonspitapothecary.com

If you’re really honest, or maybe not so honest, with yourself, you can easily name the thing or set of things that let to your jeans being unbreathable. It doesn’t take us much to come up with the list of things that equated to that moment of laying on the bed, holding your breath, trying to button your jeans and praying the zipper doesn’t pop. It’s a horrifying moment and we’re hoping it’s exactly not the moment our husband walks in the room. NO ONE needs to see this. You feel ashamed, guilty and swear it’s salads and water from here on out. Yet what really got us to this moment? There are a lot of reasons and depending on your life some are quite compelling for why. Yet, underneath every reason is one big elephant of a reason that we simply cannot ignore in the spirit of honesty. We know its there and yet we think there isn’t a thing we can do about it. It is the single reason we are going jeans shopping for a bigger size and probably a pair with the stretchy material so our mind doesn’t totally blow a gasket for how far out of control our weight really is. That single incredibly terrible thing you ask? Anxiety. All the stress, eating junk food, living off Starbucks, not sleeping well and being constipated all comes down to our body’s inability to process the anxiety we feel about how we are living our life. Yet life is good. Our job pays well, we have a great house, the kids are excelling in school and we have great sex with our partner regularly. At least that’s what our Instagram says is going on. Let’s not even talk about the stress of capturing just the right collection of pictures to make into a reel to the trending music so we can show our friends how great things are. The very friends we blew off the last three times because we are too busy with our perfect life. Is it really that perfect? Is that why you’re eating M&Ms and drinking wine while hiding from the kids in your closet? Is that why your jeans suddenly don’t fit and you’re saying negative things about your body in the bathroom mirror? Maybe you shouldn’t have skipped that Pilates class last week right? The truth is it’s not just the lie we tell ourselves about our life but it is rather how we are living that glam life. The divorce rate is 50% for a reason. Anti-depressants are the number one prescribed medication for 7 years running because we just love taking them right? The reason you are not losing weight is we are blaming all the things in our life that we think caused the weight but in reality we’re not dealing with the real cause. Stress induced anxiety that has gone on so long that we can’t even recognize it anymore so we call it adulting. Until we get real about the stress in our life all the workouts, restrictive eating and push to get thin will be short lived and highly exhausting to maintain. That’s because we’re simply adding more chaos to an already stress filled life that’s run amok. Yes, the caffeine, diet and lack of exercise all contribute to that weight problem too. Yet, if our stress was under better control likely we would have the energy, focus, stamina and interest in getting a workout done, having time to meal prep and healing our body. It’s all from stress. Getting stress under control is not a five minute fix. Just fair warning on that point. If you try to put a band-aid on this problem it will only create a bigger problem. We have to clean out the wound and let it heal completely. We have to learn our lesson and not keep putting our finger in the stress socket of life non-stop. When I work with clients about stress, we find it is multi-layered, especially for women. We are caretakers, employees, wives, mothers, doers, and high achievers. We don’t rest until the last load of laundry is done and lunches are packed for the next day. We work hard and it can feel like a thankless job. Recognizing all of these things is powerful yet most of us will worry we are not doing enough. Stress management starts with recognition, walks deeply in forgiveness and emerges in delicate grace. Yes, we do all the things and many most don’t even notice. That is great! Yet when we do all the things and don’t love ourselves in the process or we forego all our needs all the time, this is why our jeans don’t fit anymore. When we stop hearing our own voice, taking care of our body, mind and spirit we lose ourselves in the chaos of life. It’s easy to do. I think its important to recognize all that we do. One of the first things I task my clients with is creating a list of all those things and showing it to me. We then take that list and appreciate it because it represents all that we are to others. Never have I had one client do this task and list on there the things they did for themself because it helped them be the better mom, wife, employee, volunteer or other role they held. Never. So obviously, the next task is the list of things we need on a body, mind and spirit level that help us be the great person we described on the other list. What does that woman need to keep being her best? How can she do better if she’s tired, overwhelmed, burned out and eating junk? Where can we love and support her? That goes on list number two. Then we implement it. This is where stress management comes into place because anxiety increases. We start to worry what will suffer because we’re working on list two rather than list one. Truthfully, we are still working on list one but women don’t believe me as it’s not how we’re trained to care for others. No one really puts on their own mask first, do they? Retraining our brain to take care of ourselves, even though we know we should do so, is challenging. The lists create the view we often need to see where not doing so has physically, emotionally and spiritually hurt us. It gives us a map of how to get our identity back and create the better person list one demands and needs of us. It truly is where the jeans fit too because we make the space we need to support our own health. Until we are ready to deal with the stress in our life, this situation won’t change. To work with me, schedule your Holistic Health Consultation at dragonspitapothecary.com

I feel like I have tried everything. All the diets. All the working out. All the things. Yet I’ve not managed to drop weight, keep it off or do much at all that is significant overall in changing my weight. Here’s my pattern. I get frustrated at the size of my clothing and the fact my thighs will rub together. I notice something about my arms or face that gives me a surge of gotta do something about thinking. The logical answer is to clean up my eating right? Go on a diet. Break old habits and put new ones in their place. Basically get my shit together and stop doing the things that are resulting in what I see in the mirror. Well ok then. Diet it is. I immediately go to the grocery store and buy all the food that are healthy. No chips, cookies, snacks or anything that is outside this healthy food me and the family will not be eating. We are all going to benefit from this change. I can’t wait for how good we’re going to feel and how much better we’ll be eating. For the first few days there’s arguments with our son about not eating his vegetables. My husband supports me by quietly eating his own salad drenched in ranch dressing. I crunch the veggies and act like it all tastes great so I don’t understand what they are complaining about. After the dishes are done and the salad bowl put up with commitment to eat salad again for lunch tomorrow we start to settle down for the night. The TV goes on, hot water for showers gets used up and pjs put on. Here is where it all goes wrong. We’re feeling snacky. We’re a little hungry from the light dinner. Ice cream sounds great, who’s getting up to get it? While you’re at it grab some crackers, fruit snacks, cookies hidden at the back of the pantry and maybe an orange because well we are trying to be healthy after all. After about 3 weeks, I can’t see the point of continuing. My son refuses to eat dinner, we’re all snacking at night anyway so why bother? I have a few late nights at work and we’re all back eating hot dogs, cereal and whatever is quick because who had time to prepare anything? Time and again. In talking with my friends, they also struggle with keeping up the expectations of dieting and getting the family to eat better too. They too have a hard time getting meals fixed and having them be healthy when you’re running from long days at work to soccer practice to homework and bedtimes. Somewhere in there you need to feed everyone and it’s just easier to have something than something we don’t have time to prepare and serve that no one wants to eat. What gives? Well, for me and friends I’ve spoken to about this it was our pant size going up. What other options were there? We’ve tried them all and at the end of the day, nothing fits into our life and our pants we have don’t fit at all without cutting off our breath. Sometimes you just have to admit it isn’t going to work and move on. Yet I’m supposed to know better. I’ve spent a lot of time, energy, brain matter and money on education teaching me holistic health and natural health which is largely based on nutrition to heal the body. When I work with clients it is easy to give them the advice, guidance and information I know will help them. Yet they too are right where I am in trying to juggle it all and figure it out and do this new improved me thing on top of it all. It doesn’t work for them either. We have all tried it all, bought it all, been there and done that. What else is there? I had to rethink this for my own health and that of my clients. What kind of natural health doctor would I be if I couldn’t even help myself and my own family? Really hard to take advice from the fat girl who’s telling you to eat celery while admitting she can’t get it to work for herself right? This is completely the conversation I had regularly with myself too. It deeply had me questioning why I had even invested in the education which I believed in fully but couldn’t get to work in my own life. Where to even begin. It hasn’t been easy first of all. Namely, because I had to get real with myself. I believe we are naturally programmed to not do that. You know feel deeply, love and see ourselves as we truly are and admit where we need to grow. It is so much more fun to ignore it and blame the stress in our lives. Which yes who doesn’t have stress? What it does all boil down to is stress too. A lot of it in fact is directly related to the amount of stress we have in our life. What we’ve chosen and what we didn’t, it all matters. Stress is too often underplayed as just the way life is and as a result you get to be fat, low energy and not sleep worth a darn. You go-go-go and then find yourself sitting in a Chick-Fil-A drive though doing a mobile order for dinner, again this week. Yes that’s the fabulous adult lifestyle we call stress. So, aside from admitting I have stress of my own and that wasn’t really contributing positively to a desired healthy lifestyle that obviously seemed the closet to clean out first. Or was it? Where to start when your life is a mess and you want improvements can be an overwhelming place. Some advice would tell you to just start somewhere but I believe that too can leave us just doing a surface level job ignoring the really big problem that should be resolved first. This is where my natural health training kicked in because I know firmly, all problems have a root cause. You can’t continue to pull buckets of water out of your life or health and not realize you should really plug the leak first. – Amy Kramer, Dragonspit Apothecary Yes, truth be told and it is a hard truth sometimes, we have to figure out what is making the mess in our life and health and deal with that at the root. Otherwise all the other changes we make will be just touching the surface. Relieving probably but not long term fixes that support long term, life lasting goals of a desired weight and healthy lifestyle. Ok, root cause it is. So let’s dig through all the crap in my life and figure that out. Is it the job I work at some days 12 to 13 hours a day? Is it the lifestyle that I created from the paycheck I earn to have the job I do? Is it my own laziness to just not want to do it all? Do I have emotional trauma that is holding me back? Is it feelings I’m not experiencing deep enough to process in a healthy way? I could spend years in therapy trying answer some of these questions. The truth is the root cause is going to be different for all of us. Life gives us all different circumstances that create the life we have. We do our best with what we are dealt right? So when it comes to tagging something as the root cause we have to consider not only our health but our finances, relationships, emotional well-being, stress management style, goals, values, guilt level and so much more! We may not be able to solve all of the root cause quickly but at least feeling like we know what it is gives us the opportunity to figure out how to eradicate, fix, resolve, mitigate or at least support healing from that point forward. In my own situation, that root was overwhelm. There were days it just becomes too much and I can’t do it all, yet I try like hell. It wears me out at times and it stops me from feeling like I can support what I physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually need at times too. I remember describing a time in my life where every major area of it was on fire in big heaping piles of you know what. I probably lit it up but at the time it didn’t feel like I had as I was standing in the middle of it watching it all burn. That’s what overwhelm feels like to me. Big piles, big things and too much all together. Dealing with that strategically was the best way for me to setup the resolution for how to make the rest of my life better and more consistent when I tried to do crazy things like lose weight. Consistency really is the best health habit we can create in our life. It provides the stamina to do the hard things well and generate the progress to keep going. – Amy Kramer, Dragonspit Apothecary With a root cause identified and understanding that my goal was consistency not smaller jeans, it became easier to find the path forward. What met me head on that path was the clarity that this had to be a personalized journey. Diets are not personalized therefore there wasn’t a book, script, meal plan or established program I would fit in. That was ok too. Equipping ourselves to journey in new direction is liberating because we get to figure out what works best for us. I want to imagine all the great diets we know about today started as a single step by someone in this same place. We get to create that for ourselves. Where there is value in having guidance and support is from natural resources that encourage that deeper learning about ourselves so we can further customize what we need for a solution. It doesn’t mean its all perfect, beautiful or easy but it fits well. It feels good to do it without restriction, punishment, severity and guilt. I have failed at so many diets where I just tried to apply to my lifestyle or on top of a mountain of stress. No more. To work with me, schedule a consultation at dragonspitapothecary.com

When artificial sweetener first came onto the scene in the 1970s it was aimed at helping people slim down. There was a growing concern for heart attacks and the belief was the culprit was over consumption of sugar. Over time I’d like to think we’ve evolved from this thinking and have better answers but artificial sweeteners have persisted and evolved too. Instead of helping us slim down and reduce our heart attack risk, these numbers have also increased. Today, we not only see adults struggling with losing weight but children as well. The idea that over consumption of sugar is still the culprit is misguided. In addition to sugar there are many ingredients, including preservatives and chemicals, that are adding to the health concerns of the average American. We are a nation struggling under weight of poor diet and malnourishment. We are literally starving ourselves into obesity. – Amy Kramer, Dragonspit Apothecary Artificial sweeteners are chemical products and byproducts packaged and sold to us under labeling making us believe they are better for us. The amount of diet sodas sold and consumed in the United States is staggering. The number one sweetening agent used in these sodas, artificial sweetener. 48% of American adults drink at least one glass of soda every day Since becoming a public health concern in the 1970s, we haven’t changed our our ways and the products we’re using have only created a bigger problem in our health, including weight and heart concerns. A bit too sweet Study after study shows artificial sweeteners are hundreds of times sweeter than regular sugar. The below table shows how many times sweeter than sugar the most popular artificial sweeteners are. What happens when we consume these types of sweeteners is it rewires our brain to think it is consuming sugar. We get the high energy from sugar but our body is trying to process what it is being told is sugar but its really a chemical. This creates chaos in our cells as it can’t do what it normally does to sugar so the sweetener gets pushed off into fat cells as your body cannot process it. Over time this sitting sweetener either gets eliminated or manifests into problems within your body including unhealthy cells, tumors, and other undesirable effects. Meanwhile your brain continues to act like it does on regular sugar trying to process these artificial sweeteners to function. Your brain actually needs glucose to operate which it gets naturally. Well, if it is only getting artificial sweetener then here too we can experience harm to our brain because it cannot process these chemicals either. Well but I only use a more natural option I’ve had many friends and clients tell me they only use Stevia or some other form of more natural artificial sweetener. Unfortunately, those are not healthier options. While it may not have a direct impact to your diabetes number it does continue to present the same cellular problem of any other artificial sweetener. Long term there just is not an artificial sweetener that is worth it. Understandably, we have all become afraid of sugar. To an extent that may be the only good that came out of the 1970s health scare. However, instead of promoting an improved diet, we saw people doing Jazzercise and drinking Diet Cokes. The message was clear, you could have your health and drink whatever you wanted. Even if you are not a soda drinker, these artificial sweeteners sneak into other products as well. Most likely you’re encountering them in your protein shakes, gums, and other processed foods. It can unescapable to avoid as you browse the health food aisles looking for cleaner options. The real problem is we have an addiction to sweet as a result of years using higher than normal sweeteners. We are trained to see certain words on our food labels that tell us something is healthier when it is actually not. Then we are battling within ourselves between our mind and body trying to figure out why we can’t lose any weight! It all just becomes a big vicious circle that leave us without answers or resolutions. The path is not a straight line nor as sweet Breaking up with sugar is hard but I believe it is harder to break up with artificial sweeteners. The idea they are safer, healthier and able to be used in anything like regular sugar has fooled us for a long time. Our brains are programmed to use something sweet or to crave sweet things to deal with life. Getting boundaries on all of this can be highly frustrating and challenging. In most situations, this is a years long problem. Many of us have never lived at a time when these artificial sweeteners did not exist. There will be some form of sweetener or sugar in almost any product we buy that comes in a bag or package these days too. So in considering how to curtail and get rid of it from our diets is a very long and difficult path. We will literally fight within ourselves to rebuild the relationship between body and mind so they can work together too. Healing from artificial sweeteners When I work with someone who is realizing they need to make this break with artificial sweeteners we first start by looking at where it exists in their life. Often people are surprised to learn how much of it is lurking in their food that they are not even aware! We work together to become label readers and understanding all the aliases of sugar and artificial sweeteners. There are many and new ones come out all the time as manufacturers come up with new ways to sneak these into their products. Once we have the sources identified, we then work to map out a path out of the sugar hell we’ve been living. I highly prefer not to do a cold turkey approach because it can leave the body and brain in shock. That creates further chaos that slows the ability to effectively detox and heal from this situation. Instead I prefer an individualized approach designed around the person’s lifestyle, values, goals and even their opinion. If we don’t learn to listen to ourselves from the beginning when trying to heal from sweeteners, we will only find ourselves back deaf and buried under them. – Amy Kramer, Dragonspit Apothecary Ultimately, we are looking to eliminate artificial sweeteners in our diet and we can get there with an approach that is right for us individually. There is quite a bit to unravel in this process, again keep in mind it is a years long problem that has persisted longer than the average marriage or job even. Healing from it has to be intentional and wrapped around the individual for this to be long lasting. In doing that we look at: Stress and stressors and how you respond to stressful situations Food cravings including timing for when these cravings occur Energy levels throughout the day How well you sleep Cognitive function and clear headedness, brain fog Resistance points, where you could realize challenge The last one is key. Understanding where we are resistant to change is very insightful because if we ignore these barriers we will hit them hard in the healing process. We have to respect where we are today and not overlook the journey between points now and later. Too often we can head into changes determined and highly motivated only to deflate when things get hard. It is where dieting and highly ambitious goals without a plan fail. Sugar and sweeteners are emotional investments Clients I work with often think it is going to be harder to physically break up with sugar and artificial sweeteners than it is emotionally. Yet, sugar and sweeteners are emotional food. Cravings for sweets that we satisfy with either sugar or sweeteners is an emotional response occurring a physical message. As part of detoxing from artificial sweeteners we are rewiring our brain’s response to sweets while also addressing emotional needs. It is common to have cravings and tendencies to eat sweets when we are emotionally drained as they provide that pick-me-up. Artificial sweeteners have been sold to us as that guilt free way to do achieve this. That is difficult to navigate when we live in high stress fight or flight mode continually. In the journey of healing, I see clients who have experienced adrenal fatigue and burnout for so long they don’t even realize that is what is going on. It can take time to rebuild our health in this area so that is why it is essential we give ourselves grace in not only changing the artificial sweetener habit but in those times when it is literally all we know to do for ourselves. Detoxing can help but only when it is combined with a framework built around emotional healing and opening the connection between mind, body and spirit so we can optimally function again. Otherwise, what happens is we detox and are left with bareness that leaves us feeling vulnerable. That can lead to a what’s next feeling that is fearful of the changes we are trying to apply. I highly suggest not breaking up with sugar or artificial sweetener alone. It is important to work with someone who can help you define the path to break up with these things and rebuild our relationship internally. To work with me, book time at dragonspitapothecary.com

I’m more and more surprised when I learn how old someone is. They seem to either look really, really good for their age or well, they look older than their years. Not that there is an ideal look for any age but there are just things you wouldn’t expect of someone in their 40s, 50s and even 60s. It’s the old story of two friends who are exactly the same age. One looks younger, more vibrant and healthy. The other shows the wrinkles, graying hair and slower spring in their step. How is it they are the same age? What makes one person age faster than the other? Of course the answer is a multitude of things that contribute to the effects of aging including, lifestyle, nutrition, stress imprint, and more. However, in a time when we are more advanced than any prior generation, why does there persist to be a significant difference in how we are aging? Most scary though, is why is our average lifespan decreasing for the first time in over 100 years? (source: https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/why-life-expectancy-in-the-us-is-falling-202210202835) What the age decline doesn’t tell us While we can gauge age through the subtle and non-subtle physical signs there is more to the aging story going on. I believe the differences in how well and fast we age is based primarily on our sugar consumption. No other ingredient or food we eat has the impact to our body, mind or spirit than sugar. Sugar accelerates not only our energy temporarily but long term high use of it can speed up aging. The body can only convert so much of sugar to energy before storing it as glucose. After a while it gets stored in the adipose cells (fat cells) and impacts our cell performance, including metabolism. Over time our liver begins to develop darker spots from sugar consumption. Age spots, also known as liver spots, often found when we begin to age start to appear on the skin because our skin reflects what is happening our digestive system and age spots are a direct reflection of what is appearing on our liver! It is truly the old saying that sooner or later, your bad diet is going to catch up to you. I like to refer to the signs we see for how well someone is aging as their sugar age because most of the signs are a direct result of our sugar consumption. Sugar has been linked to not only age spots but dementia, inflammation and many other golden year symptoms and diseases. The quality of our golden years is directly tied to our lifetime relationship with sugar as a result. So it only makes since why we would see advanced signs of aging and a decline in average lifespan. The trouble is none of the reports, statistics or even your medical doctor are talking about this over consumption of sugar. This single ingredient is found in so many of our foods today and manufacturers continue to give it new aliases to disguise its presence. On top of enjoying sugar where we should enjoy it, in birthday cakes for example, it is rampant in our daily diet without even trying to celebrate anything! Yet, very few experts in our health care system are talking about the devastating effect sugar is having on our lifespan or aging process. Reducing sugar isn’t easy To cut down on sugar in your diet is not an easy feat. For one thing, where do you draw the line? Is it you only eat natural sugar from fruit? Do you cut all processed foods all together? Can you even afford to cut sugar from your diet because given the price of food many of us are having to turn to highly processed foods just to keep our families fed these days! Where is the path to curbing sugar so we reduce our risk of its impact across our health? What I advise clients on and have applied to my own family is what I call the “sanity of balance.” Going cold turkey and forever giving up sugar isn’t realistic. So somewhere between the extremes of cold and forever and too much sugar is the ideal place for you individually and for your family to peacefully and healthfully live with sugar. Each of us is different so the goal is not to just get to the middle but to find that place that creates balance in your own body. That level will be different than other members of your family too. Our health care should be personalized to the individual level. I believe this is where typical diets and our western medical system fail us time and again. Not everyone is going to fit into the rigid parameters of what defines things or what heals the body. It is sad to know that our medical doctors can lose their professional license for deviating from the Physicians Desk Reference and direction from the Department of Health Services (DHS). Therefore, the ultimate way to be healthy is to understand what your individual body needs to thrive. What I teach my clients wanting to improve their relationship with sugar, is to first improve the relationship within themselves. What this means is deeply understanding where you are drawn to sugar, where it shows up in your diet, and how you consume it. From there understand what it makes you feel when you eat it, why and what is going on during those times. Tracking these activities on a mind, body and spirit level is very insightful as it will show you exactly where and how much sugar you are eating every day. From there we look to build improvements in our diet where sugar is dominating. If it is artificial sweetener we work to eliminate due to the multiple negative side effects this ingredient contains to our health. Additionally, we educate on natural sugar replacements. Just because you eat a natural sugar, like honey, monk fruit or something else doesn’t mean you can swap one for one processed sugar for natural. There is still a balance needed when it comes to all forms and sources of sugar. Swapping a natural sugar for processed or artificial sugar is just as concerning. We cannot just do a 1 for 1 swap with natural and think our health risk decreases. – Amy Kramer, Dragonspit Apothecary Developing an improved relationship sugar takes time and lots of trial and error. There are some wonderful general guidelines to help but for true healing from the binds of sugar we have requires us to individualize the approach to make them long lasting. Where healing from sugar begins Where many of us struggle with balancing sugar in our life is in thinking it has to be an all or nothing approach. We can be challenged making meaningful smaller steps that are progress because we are used to having it all done immediately. Many of us have lost the patience for the slow, steady beautiful walk that creating health brings to us. Instead we overwhelm ourselves and particularly our body which causes resentment within us. Instead I caution people on this risk and work with them to build a map for how we will gauge progress and focus on more incremental milestones. One of the great healing effects from detoxing from sugar is a decrease in the body’s inflammation. Many clients who start to see less puffiness, aches, pains and energy lulls from sugar detoxing allows them to rebuild how sugar fits into their life better. A little relief goes a long way to helping us improve on building healthier habits and boundaries with sugar. From there we work to retrain our brain from scolding us. For example, rather than declaring all sugar bad and then in 6 weeks you have your birthday cake makes creates chaos. Real life and our health journey are not in alignment so it creates conflict. We feel bad if we “cheat” and eat birthday cake. There is no cheating when it comes to your health journey and there is a place for cake. Instead of chaos and conflict we look to things we can do on the average day that don’t add stress and that support our health journey goals. We also plan in the special things. It isn’t always perfect but it is kinder to ourselves. I really believe when we create the setting for us to be authentic between the mind and body connection we learn to listen to what our body actually says. The mind is no longer trying to take control because it sees the body not retaining the desired weight. In doing so we create a healthy space to live with sugar and freedom to enjoy it without guilt. Reducing your sugar age Each of us will age, sooner or later but it becomes a matter of the quality of life in our golden years. Where we can retain being active, enjoying our days and living our best life for as long as possible. I firmly believe we can change the outcome so many elderly experience with limitations by changing our relationship with sugar. It doesn’t and shouldn’t be a life without sweetness but like all things there needs to be a respectful balance that creates and supports health and well-being. A beautiful body without the link between our mind and emotions is just a body. Whereas a whole person living in alignment and at peace with themself is a life we can all aspire to achieving and enjoy to the fullest. To change the dynamic of how fast we age and the implications of aging, it is never too late to start. As humans who need food to live, it is our duty to demand better of food manufacturers but also our responsibility to ourselves and our family for what food we purchase. It is important to understand a life without sugar, well it just wouldn’t be as sweet not only physically but emotionally and spiritually as well. Sugar has a role in our life but currently we are using it to our demise rather than to our benefit. Changing that not only improve how we age but how quickly so we can look forward to golden years of a fun active nature. To work with me, book time at dragonspitapothecary.com