Let’s say you want to give up chocolate for good. For the rest of your life not one more bit of chocolate passes your lips. Most of us cannot make it 40 days of Lent without breaking our promise to not eat chocolate. If we do manage it, then that Easter Sunday we are taking on the chocolate bunny like it is manna from Heaven. So what makes us think we could possibly give up chocolate the rest of our life? Some of us try though, repeatedly. That is the logic of diets. Give up certain foods, categories of foods even that are not considered within the parameters of the diet for ever. Build a new lifestyle based on these rules and you’ll live a skinny life looking and feeling your best. If it means giving up chocolate, birthday cakes, wedding cakes, peas, corn, bread, eggs, and any other food deemed unaligned with that diet, is it worth it though? We have all done at least one strange diet that required adding in or restricting some odd piece of food or several. What guarantee do you have that you will look and feel your best? Given diets track record I think its safe to say very few of us can go without foods we enjoy the rest of our chosen diet lifestyle. Can we truly be happy if we never have another birthday cake in our life? My answer is no. I know personally that would be a deal breaker for me. Going to a birthday party, even my own, and never being able to enjoy and partake in the centerpiece of that event would not be happy for me. Food is a socially and culturally embedded element for who we are. Food is meant to be used as a way to connect us to others, celebrate and comfort one another and be there as our foundation of life. Why then would we do anything that takes that element of ourselves out of our life? The rules of dieting are dumb. They rob us of the very joy of eating and destroy our relationship with food.” – Amy Kramer, Dragonspit Apothecary When we think then of changing a bad habit to a healthier one, what does that even mean? Well for one thing, it is not a process of deprivation and restriction. It is one thing to improve ourselves and another to punish ourselves. Our approach to building better habits can go down either path but only one is life lasting. For demonstration, let’s say we choose the restrictive path and swore off a certain food for the rest of our lives. What that does emotionally and spiritually to us is based on how important that food is to us, individually, socially and culturally. Given that most of us go for the big things in life as we see them for the reason we are in the state we are, that usually means a food that is significant. The first few times we’re practicing this new restriction it will be challenging and hard. Over time it may get easier to physically refrain from eating it. We may even feel proud of ourselves for not having any of it for many years. Yet, what doesn’t get talked about is how that action physically is impacting us emotionally and spiritually. It is not talked about how we feel when we are at a celebration or situation in our life where that food is there and it is calling to us. We create this battle inside ourselves between body, mind and spirit instead of being free to celebrate, grief, connect, comfort, and experience the essence of that life situation. We scold ourselves for considering giving in. We feel the eyes of those around us waiting to see if we will eat it or not. In many cases this behavior leads to closet eating. We are so embarrassed that we are not as strong as we want others to believe so we eat Little Debbie Cakes in our closet where no one can see our stash. Then we scold ourselves for being so weak. Neither approach is positive for a healthy relationship within yourself. Instead of restriction, I prefer to teach my clients the value of having a healthy relationship with food. In this method, we work to see where special foods fit into our lives and build the healthy habits to have our cake and eat it too. Is it Sunday dinner with a group of friends, an upcoming friend’s wedding or just something you deeply enjoy? The number of habit building techniques and tricks available are not always helpful here either because they can again introduce restrictive punishment to our selves. So, to build a new habit you must first develop a good foundation within yourself. Understanding where that special food comes into play matters. What I teach clients is: You get to be human in the process of being healthier Foods and settings where we eat them is important to our physical, emotional and spiritual health You can include all kinds of food without deprivation and still reach a health goal Losing weight is a side effect of building health across your mind, body and spirit It doesn’t mean we get to eat Oreos every day I think one of the most important things we have forgotten in the diet thinking we’re programmed to do is that we are human. We get to feel, enjoy, find pleasure and connect over food. In fact, we were created to do just that. Secondly, where things have gotten off the rail is in treats. As Americans, we love treats and snacks. Gradually over time, many of us graze all day rather than at specific meals. This constant eating has caused us to have no boundary when meals begin and snacking ends. That distorts our ability to understand when we are hungry and when we are full. When I work with a client who has dieted more times than she can count, struggles with cravings, is desperate to lose weight and has so much dieting thinking programmed in her, things can feel tough. She looks at me like I’m insane when I say no food is off limit from now on. Some of them are not sure how to respond because for so many years they’ve been told not to eat certain things or it didn’t fit into whatever diet they were doing so for years they’ve not had something, like an egg. In the process of building new habits we have to break up with the old patterns by gifting ourselves freedom from the chains of restrictive eating. By relearning to eat we relearn how to work across our mind, body and spirit when it comes to navigating food. We relearn how food feels, tastes and appeals to us in different situations. There is this healing we undergo to reconnect our mind and body when it comes to eating so that they work together rather than at odds. Dieting has broken that bond between our mind and body making them enemies. Our mind tries to take control because it sees the body as not doing what it needs to retain or be the size we think it should be. Over time that creates this negative thinking not only about our body but with our relationship to food. There is this continual guilt and shame applied to foods or deprivation as rewarding thinking that further tears down the internal connection in ourself and the perspective we carry about food. In the process of building new habits we have to break up with the old patterns by gifting ourselves freedom from the chains of restrictive eating. – Amy Kramer, Dragonspit Apothecary Here’s a great example, a friend of mine follows and sells a popular weight loss program. In this program you must eat or rather drink these mixtures of powder throughout the day and then have a reasonable meal in the evening. Certain foods are prohibited in this program including green peas, breads, desserts and other higher in sugar, whether naturally there or not, foods. My friend lost a lot of weight and became a proponent of this way of eating. It became impossible to go out to eat with her because there was very little off an average restaurant’s menu she could eat on this program. It became even harder to have her included in get-togethers where there was no guarantee there would be anything aligned to her meal program that was allowed. Very importantly her unwillingness to partake in birthday cake, made others feel uncomfortable about eating it! Yes, we are deeply influenced by others in our eating. For good and bad. My friend’s decision to eat a strict diet actually prevented others from enjoying a milestone celebration with a slice of cake. So not only did she not have any, many others didn’t either. This relationship with her created an isolation where she was no longer included. It wasn’t that we didn’t love her anymore but that we couldn’t connect with her. There was nothing holding us together. Now, I can hear some of you saying but she chose to be healthy. Cake is bad! Yes I agree cake isn’t necessarily a healthy food but it is an emotional food. It is a celebration food in this situation and important. There is a balance that is necessary to not only feed our physical body but also our emotions. Also and this is most important, like it or not, food connects us. It connects us to ourselves through understanding why we are drawn to certain foods so we can support ourselves. It also nourishes us physically. If we only feed the physical we disconnect our brain, emotional response and body from using food in the way it needs to thrive. I’m not saying my friend was right or wrong in choosing to not eat birthday cake. It was after all her choice. What I’m saying is over time of this repeated behavior it became uncomfortable to be myself around her. She changed in a way that no longer connected with me and others we were friends with. There is an ancient from Tibet philosophy that says, “It is better to eat cake with a friend, than a carrot in isolation.” I do truly believe it is wonderful she lost a bunch of weight and I wish her only the best. However, I also truly miss our friendship and the connection I had with her that is no longer possible. Building new habits has to encompass our mind, body and spirit in the process of positive change. Let’s consider for a moment, you are ready to incorporate healthy habits into your life. You want to drop some weight and be realistic this time about how you achieve that. Here are my favorite tips for clients in this work: It is still about doing the work but this work is about freedom not restriction This process is about learning to listen to your body, not shut it down and scold it for being human There is room for cake and eating it too If it doesn’t feel good in the body, mind or spirit then it isn’t right for you It can take a long time to de-program from diet thinking Building habits is not an overnight, 5 minute activity The steps you take to build a healthy new habit involve forgiveness, love, support, strength, freedom. Ironically, none of these words are typically found in diets or meal plan programs. Again, it doesn’t mean you’ll eat Oreos every day but it does mean you will make choices right for yourself when presented Oreos. That is truly empowering and loving to yourself. One step at a time is where we start to see healthy habits emerge and personalized to who we are as individuals. It is unique to ourselves because we know what we need and how to support our body, mind and spirit in a loving way nutritionally and in connection to food. To work with me, book a consultation at dragonspitapothecary.com

There you are sweating in your coverup. You can literally feel it rolling down your back and under your arms but yet you are resisting taking off that cover up and getting in the water. It would feel so good right now too. Cool, blue water washing away the sweat and giving you a pleasant refreshing splash. So why don’t you go in? Regardless of size, almost everyone woman is self-conscious of how she looks in her swimsuit. We buy these ridiculous thick, squeeze it all in swimsuits in what is supposed to be complementary patterns and colors to hide ourselves. Then we buy further hiding gear with cover-ups, big glasses and bigger hats. By the time we wrestle into these supportive padded squeezing suits and get the cover up on we are ready to rethink the whole idea of going outside because it is that physically and mentally exhausting to put on a swimsuit. I finally talked my husband into a private backyard pool to avoid the whole going out in public in a swimsuit as much as possible. It is wonderful but even with that, I am still highly self-conscious of walking outside in my own backyard in a swimsuit. Why do we torture ourselves so much with swimsuits and cover-ups? There are multiple places to put blame when it comes to our own body image. We can self-blame that we are not eating right and exercising. Maybe that’s true and maybe it isn’t. We can blame clothing manufacturers for their horrible designs and incomprehension of the variety of women’s bodies. There is also enough blame for the diet industry, food manufacturers, porn, super models, and general society. Probably more but you get the point. The reason we torture ourselves over swimsuits and not enjoying being in them is how engrained all of those things and more is within our brains. We are stigmatized over the whole ordeal that our own body image is held hostage the moment we think about swimsuit season. It’s not actually a season by the way either, that too is just more of the stigma state we exist on this topic. It becomes a traumatic event to wear a swimsuit that we encounter every summer. – Amy Kramer, Dragonspit Apothecary The struggle to want to be outside enjoying the weather, water and summer activities and wearing a swimsuit to do those things creates trauma within us. It kills our joy and happiness by imposing limitations on what we do, how we feel and what we think is appropriate. Should we just give up summer? I don’t think so. That in fact would make me incredibly miserable. The truth is the only way to not have all the horrible things we think happen at the thought of putting on a swimsuit, is simply to put it on. Releasing the trauma around it is not easy but absolutely necessary for the freedom of realizing it is just a swimsuit and what is at stake. There are some well meaning pieces of advice for how to wear a swimsuit, including wearing a cover-up. Whatever you have to do to get through it right? I say while well intended, the real need here is to heal from the trauma that causes this to be so frustrating and limiting in the first place. As a natural health practitioner it is necessary for us to get at the root of the problem so healing can truly occur. Otherwise, if we don’t, we’re just literally covering it up with something… in this case a swimsuit cover-up. At the core of this situation, is a lot of societal and cultural beliefs about what women should look like. Here’s the truth, you look like you. There is not a standard because you are unique. This is a big bit of truth so you may need to let it soak in and do some other healing to accept this and be able to apply it to you. There is a standard for women because you are unique. You will always be unique so why would you continually try to measure yourself against something that doesn’t really exist? – Amy Kramer, Dragonspit Apothecary Secondly, our perspectives about what we should and should not do needs to be addressed. We may not even realize we have limiting beliefs about ourself but I promise you we all do to some extent. Any time we say to ourselves or out loud, “No I can’t.” It’s right there. That’s limiting you. Big and small, we do it to ourselves all the time. There is nothing at all on this Earth you cannot do. Again, that’s a big piece of truth that may take a while to settle in what it means to you. That’s ok take all the time you need with it. Lastly, it is absolutely necessary to build a healthy relationship within ourselves across mind, body and spirit. See when we don’t feel well about our body, this is where our mind tries to control the situation. Negative self-talk, restrictive dieting, over exercising and more all occur when we are operating from this state. This creates imbalances between mind and body that break our ability to stimulate healing and creates blocks in our energy. It leads long term to not feeling good in our own skin. None of these things may offer quick fixes like having a black swimsuit that offers instant slimming through tight spandex but it is where we find healing. It is where we can confidently go out in a swimsuit, get in the water and play, feel alive and enjoy the summer season. For help in creating healing in your body, let’s talk. Book your appointment at dragonspitapothecary.com

A lot of it comes from the clothing world where designers have taught us well that being bigger is undesirable. It is an ages old situation where only the cute clothing comes in sizes 0, 2 and 4. There is a bold line in the sand when shopping in stores too that separates us based on our size. The average woman in the United States wears a size 16. That is a significant different size than a 0. Over time these sizes have gotten bigger too. Depending on brand and cut sizes also vary, where a size 16 is not the same fit as another. It all makes the numbering on clothing bizarre as well as frustrating, deflating and well one of the most dreaded experiences in life depending on what you are shopping for. No one wants to have to buy a swimsuit, wedding dress or other important outfit and have to buy a bigger size. Yet we do. To combat the tag size of our clothing we resort to hacks implemented by the clothing industry to help us feel better. These include a number of things that while probably started in an attempt for help has also created further mental distress for clothing size. Everyone knows these hacks at this point and ultimately they become the outward tag size we wear. Mentally we wear these tags feeling them become representative of who are. While we are not defined by our size, it is hard to escape the imprint clothing has left on our minds as a result of our size. Here is the list, the one that directs what you wear when you are not the ideal size. I’m not sure who came up with this list or the ideal size but they are not a very good person in my book… or maybe they are and I am in denial. Regardless, this list has become the reason so many of us suffer and feel miserable rather than having healthy relationships with our body. We have let this list become defining, real and tangible when selecting, wearing and feeling good in our clothing. I for one say this list is nonsense but even I have felt its clutch on my heart when shopping for clothing and seeing myself in pictures. Breaking up with this list is extremely difficult because we are surrounded by what defines beauty for so called experts. It changes how we think people see us and certainly how we see ourselves. It gives men permission to look past us in favor of someone who more closely aligns to the ideal size, shape, hair style and so on. It measures all of us fairly or not but it does. I say it is more separating than anything we have done in the history of people. The list: Black clothing make you look thinner, sexier and feel more confident. While I personally love some black I also don’t always want to wear it. Wearing black all the time affects our mood, it limits our vibrancy and what we may believe about ourselves is possible. Certainly, black is a staple color for a lot of reasons in life but if we’re wearing it just to appear thinner and sexier, then we are missing the larger reasons to wear it or include it in our wardrobe. Stripes should be worn horizontally, not laterally if you are larger. They can make you look taller and thinner. What if though I like my stripes diagonal or crisscross? The idea we cannot wear something we love because the stripe is one way or another gives me pause. Skirt length should be longer if you are both bigger and older. I quietly cry with this one because I grew up in the time of mini-skirts and have loved them ever since. As I’ve gotten older, the idea I shouldn’t wear a shorter skirt makes me sad. Bold colors should not be worn if you are bigger. Again, I refer you to black as this seems a rule no one should listen to as an exclusive. Bikinis should only be worn by younger and thin women who have the body for it. Last I checked they made tops and bottoms of bikinis in all sizes so I think this one is garbage. Coverups on swimsuits are a must for the larger women. Granted I love a good cover up but its because I’m wanting to limit sun exposure or love the breeze through the fabric that makes you feel cooler. However, wearing it because you are not a bikini sized 0 that’s not fun at all. Prints and patterns should be complimentary to your body shape. A larger person shouldn’t wear larger prints and patterns for example. Secretly, crying at the inability to not wear polka dots here. The list goes on but I’ve pulled the ones that I personally have encountered feeling in my own clothing. Granted there is a way to dress that makes you uniquely feel your best and certain styles look better on you than they do others. However, choosing things simply because of size you wear, that is limiting and depressing. It creates this disconnection between our mind and body that leads us straight to dieting and destruction to our mental well-being and overall health. It may be impossible to change the mindset of clothing designers who are taught to only work with beautiful tall skinny models, but let’s talk real people. The mom in carpool, who works endless hours at her job, taking care of her family, getting to soccer practice and getting her kids to eat a veggie. The person who has so much on their plate they reach for the fast food because that’s what’s available when they haven’t eaten all day and are starving and late for their next meeting. Let’s talk about the person who doesn’t have the personal trainer, chef and anything in the way of true help to focus on our needs and chores. Her list is drastically different than the one of designers. Her list is seeking comfort in clothing that doesn’t pinch, bind, twist, constantly need to be pulled up and that can get mixed with the kids dirty soccer uniform in the wash. Her clothing must hold up, give her confidence, be easy to wear and fit her life. That list: Colorful variety that fits what we feel in that day Comfort that gives us confidence, doesn’t make us self-conscious and makes us feel like a million bucks every time we put it on Personalized for our likes, style preferences and who we individually are This list is shorter but I like it a lot more. For one there’s freedom that if something aligns with these points than it is closer to being something I’ll love immensely every time I put it on. Secondly, it helps me feel like me instead of fitting into what everyone else is trying to wear this season. Lastly, it gives me the opportunity to see clothing for what works for me and makes me feel my best according to my list, not a designer. I believe it is good for us to build health, be healthy and work on our weight but not at the expense of our mental and spiritual health. If we don’t first love ourselves than no amount of weight loss will ever be there to help us do that. That relationship with ourselves is created through balance of mind, body and spirit where they can work together to heal our body and help it be the ideal weight for us. For help with your health and weight, visit me at dragonspitapothecary.com

This is me. I couldn't meditate. It would always turn into the Julia Roberts moment of sound asleep and snoring in meditation class (Eat, Love, Pray). I just wasn't good at it and disappointingly could not understand how people did it. What was I doing wrong that prevented me from getting the benefits, besides a great night's sleep, from doing meditation?

It’s July and your News Years Resolution to lose weight is packed up with the Christmas decorations in the attic. You realize though as you look at the invitation to your best friend’s wedding in two weeks, you did not obtain that glamour slim body you thought you would have by now. Should you just not go to the wedding? It always seemed odd to me that we tie looking our best to being skinny. Why isn’t it that we look our best because we have a great hair day or more importantly are a super sweet, kind person? Nope. It’s always about what size we wear and how great people tell us we look. Ok. So now what do you do? The weight wasn’t loss. You’re looking at your body in disgust, again, and looking for the black dress you wear to everything. Black covers it and makes us look slimmer, right? That’s what we’re told anyway. By the way, wearing black all the time to hide our body, is equally bad for your emotional health. Yes, black a great color to have in your wardrobe but if you only wear it to hide yourself, it’s emotionally and spiritually draining. It also doesn’t help you love your body. Still have that big event this summer, is it too late to lose weight? Dieting is always a panic reaction As I work with my clients, one of the things I always ask about is their dieting history. What they tried. Do they do Keto? Then I ask, how it made them feel. This is very telling because most people talk about their weight they lost or didn’t. It’s never about feeling better, sleeping well, having more energy, being happier. It’s always the number. I believe we have been so engrained by the diet industry that the point of losing weight is no longer about being healthier unless we are thin. That’s incorrect logic. When we go on a diet, it is always in a panic reaction to something else. A big event, milestone birthday, promotion, relationship, a scare from the doctor. Any other time we may think about our weight and think we should lose some but doing anything about it doesn’t usually come until we have a bigger reason. Again, I believe this stems directly from the diet industry and not our own natural behavior, that we can’t feel anymore. The truth is, weight loss is a side effect of making other things in your health better. – Amy Kramer, Dragonspit Apothecary If we don’t address the stress in your life, then you will always be prone to junk food to cope. If we don’t learn to process and release big emotions, then they stay in our cells protected safely under fat layers. If we don’t learn what our body individually and uniquely needs for nutrition, we will always be over-eating and starving. The list goes on. Until we address the core of why we have a weight problem, the weight is just going to go up and down. Mostly up. What the diet industry and probably not your doctor are telling you, is that your body already knows how to heal itself and lose weight. It can’t though until you remove the other things that are in its way. Another panic realization that you should start a new diet on top of a mountain of stress in your days, is not going to work. Ever. Certainly not long term. How then do you lose weight? Call it woo-woo or some of that hocus pocus natural health stuff that you’re told not to listen to but hear me out. The ability to stimulate your body to do what it needs to do in losing weight, is to rebuild the relationship with yourself. Connect all the parts of you in the way you were designed and supporting the real you. Easy, right? I hear you shucking back in that sarcastic, “Yeah sure.” Our US health care system breaks us into parts. You see a specific doctor or specialist for a certain thing. The one part doctor doesn’t talk to the other part doctor. You support your health in parts. The diet industry does the same thing with your weight. Over time we have become parts instead of a whole when it comes to our health. Putting back together your mind, body and spirit into one whole being that works together makes things an incredibly lot easier to make health, and weight loss, happen. Yes, I’m telling you the reason you’re not losing weight or able to stick to a diet is because your mind is trying to be in control and punishing your body. Your spirit is over there in a corner crying. Your body is exhausted and not interested in listening to your mind anymore. Your mind is angry at all of you. Hence, you’re not losing weight, sticking to your diet, are mad about this upcoming exciting thing in your life instead of being happy and you’re looking at a dark black dress, swimsuit, whatever. It’s black. It’s hot summer time. You’re depressed. Sounds fun! How to rebuild you This is where the self-care trend of getting your nails done and doing nice things for yourself has also missed the mark. There is nothing at all about being good to you. That is important. Treating yourself well is important but that’s not where we actually practice self-care or stimulate our body to do better. Self-care in this way is just a couple hours of distraction. I’m talking the deep work, the ugly stuff that isn’t a 5 minute fix. When you rebuild that relationship in your mind, body and spirit you are taking on a journey that only you can go on. Well, you and a lovely health practitioner such as myself who can guide you. This is about understanding you on the levels we are not taught when it comes to what we need for food, sleep, release, movement, love, and all the things that make us who we are. This work is tricky because we are so dunked in the pool’s deep end of comparing ourselves to others. Who has the bigger house, nicer car, better job, more well behaved children. It is super easy to feel you are not enough and that you want the things you see others have because you don’t know the words to describe your own person. So we put on the mask of other people’s lives and wear those. In working with me, we take off those masks and figure out you. We look at your body to see what foods actually help you thrive. We talk about your emotional processing and how food is used with cravings that come up. We talk about how you respond to stress. All of this creates the picture of how you try to fit in this world and what it is doing to either build or break the components within you. Knowing this information is where healing and weight loss begins. With knowing comes the identification of the path needed to make all the great goals you have in your life, that are truly yours, come to reality. But I have this thing in 2 weeks! Is it too late to lose weight? When I hear a client is basing their life activities because of their weight, that tells me they are not looking for answers. They want another diet that further strips their body of nutrients, punishing it for not being skinny enough so they can fit into a dress or swimsuit. They’re not ready. Yes you can lose weight quickly on a lot of the diets out there. Here’s what happens though. The minute you stop doing that diet, the weight comes back plus some. You create resistance in your body for the next time you get into a panic and need to drop weight. There will be a next time too. The reason this happens is because when you hard core diet, your body stores all the emotions and things that are protected in fat, deeper in the body. It goes into survival mode against the brutality you are applying to it. Once you stop the maddening diet, it is all like the munchkins in the Wizard of Oz when the Good Witch tells them, “You can come out now. She’s gone.” They do all come out too and expand across the body stronger for the lessons they learned in hiding. This is where we see metabolism resistance, insulin resistance and more make it nearly impossible to break through on diets alone. Why not look forward to whatever event you have coming up and being you? Why not be happy for the thing you have been planning, paying and praying for and celebrate in that moment? Why would you let your weight be the barometer for how much fun you can have? When you have rebuilt the relationship within you, you know your body is doing all it can to help you lose weight. You are giving it the right support to be successful in that work. You have peace in your heart and confidence in your eyes to go into any situation assured you are doing right by yourself. You may or may not be wearing black because that too becomes about who you are and not what some designer said you wear when you didn’t lose weight. To work with me, visit dragonspitapothecary.com

It seems simple right? Seems a dumb thing to write about because doesn’t everyone know how to identify food? It’s the stuff you put in your mouth when you’re hungry (or just want it) that you then chew and swallow. Why is this a question? This how to identify food thing that everyone from birth to death needs and figures out pretty quickly? We after all have stores filled with things called food so how hard can it be to actually find food? Deceptively hard. It is actually incredibly hard these days to find real food. Despite the aisles of shelving holding incredible amounts of packaged and prettily displayed things, finding and identifying food is not as easy as we are led to believe. How I found out my family couldn’t identify food My 11 year old son likes to go on errands with me. We make it an adventure and while it may only be a trip to the grocery store or other random Saturday chore, he thinks its fun. His outlook on errands has actually influenced me over time to consider that errands can actually be fun sometimes too. I try to use these adventures as part learning experience for him. How to use a credit card, how to pay for things with cash, making purchasing decisions, and how the world generally works. On one of these Saturday adventures, we went to the grocery store and I asked as we were walking in, could he identify real food? Being the bright young man he is, his answer was, “Mom, we’re in a grocery store, everything is food here.” Well, not quite so I told him. There is distortion when it comes to defining food that has led us to sometimes not recognizing food in its many disguises. At the heart of a lot of our problems, is the very lack of ability to recognize and consume real food. – Amy Kramer, Dragonspit Apothecary This created a grocery store trip unlike any I have ever experienced and one my son is likely to never forget. We proceeded to spend the next couple hours doing the family’s grocery shopping and having a continual conversation of what is food throughout the store. Grocery Aisles of Food? In the first section of our store is the produce section. My son proudly believed this section was what I was talking about when we talked of real food. Yes and no I explained. Certainly, there were foods in this section that were considered real food and that were nourishing to us but not everything in this section fit that definition. Confused or concerned I couldn’t quite read his face in that moment. Did his mom just say some vegetables weren’t real food? Is she the coolest mom ever or just crazy? If we apply the definition from Briticanica.com that says: Food, substance consisting essentially of protein, carbohydrate, fat, and other nutrients used in the body of an organism to sustain growth and vital processes and to furnish energy. The absorption and utilization of food by the body is fundamental to nutrition and is facilitated by digestion. Then through this definition, potentially everything in the grocery store could be considered food but upon deeper looking we realize that definition is a little too broad for seeking out real food. That is because we cannot see the thresholds by which protein, carbs, fat and other nutrients from food qualify it as food. Our body’s absorb a lot of things in a day, good and bad, does that mean it is food, even when bad? Is Food Only Good or Bad for Us? Categorizing food as good or bad comes directly from the diet industry. It is meant to help guide in food choices that are more nutritionally whole and helps our weight and waistline. However, long term this line of thinking has been detrimental to not only our health but mental weight as well. A scale is the fastest way I know to add 20 pounds to your mind.” – Amy Kramer, Dragonspit Apothecary I believe food is neither good or bad. Certainly there are foods with more vitamins, nutrients and things our body needs but at the end of the day, food is food. Where we have deviated is in consuming ingredients of food that are chemically based and alter our body’s ability to process and absorb what it needs from food. The better determination of food is in the quality of the ingredients rather than labeling it good or bad. When manufacturers of food changed to cheaper ways to mass produce, grow and create food it changed the aisles of the grocery store. Shelves became full of manufactured food that are filled with sugar, real and artificial, chemicals to help them last longer and changes in tastes. The result? Grocery stores on average having only about 40% real food contained within them. When you consider what real food is compared to manufactured food you see the problem is much deeper than good or bad. What is food? The lesson in all of this adventure was the understanding of the definition of food. It should be simple and yet like many things, mankind has complicated it and created versions of the truth that blind us at times. Food is what we consume to fuel our body, mind and spirit. It is the substances that create the ability for our cells to convert it to energy, replenish vitamin and mineral levels and allow life to occur. Food is essential to our very being. It is medicinal, therapeutic and supportive. At the heart of it all, food is rather complicated and simple at the same time. For help improving your nutrition and reclaiming your health, book a holistic health consultation with me at dragonspitapothecary.com

Without extreme measures, which may or may not be absolutely necessary, is it possible to have a healthy relationship with sugar? Can we have our cake and eat it too as they say? For clarity, when I speak about sugar, I don’t mean the artificial stuff. Most artificial sweeteners are incredibly dangerous and while offering zero calories and guilt they are not all that sweet after all. In the vast majority of cases artificial is well fake, and many times chemically sweeter than real sugar. Your body doesn’t know what to do with it either which creates other problems, including insulin resistance. Beyond the artificial then, I am talking about real sugar. The white stuff, whole leaf stevia, raw cane sugar, coconut nectar, lucuma, raw honey and even real maple syrup. Natural sugar as it comes to us from Earth with minimal processing and is incredibly sweet without man mucking it up with some chemical. As far as having cake and eating it to, I do think it is possible and even necessary for life. We are as humans drawn to pleasure and sugar is pleasurable indeed. Life would not be as sweet either if we lacked all forms of sugar. While the body does not need to ingest any sugar to do its job, sugar is an emotional food that our mind, emotions and spirit do need, occasionally. It is finding that healthy boundary and relationship with sugar that gives us the most challenge. Honestly, most of us have a sugar addiction that influences so much of our behavior and routine today that we don’t even recognize it. Sugar is also the number one ingredient in most foods manufactured so it is nearly impossible to avoid and that further adds to the challenge we have in managing it. Sadly, the majority of children being told by schools and doctors they need ADD or ADHD medications is the result of sugar in the diet as well. https://www.healthline.com/health/adhd/sugar-and-adhd Avoidance is futile. This is at least what the food manufacturers want you to believe. Anyone who has tried to cut out sugar knows all too well that it is one of the hardest changes to make in a diet. Often sugar is the culprit that destroys diets and thoughts of weight loss too. Instead of seeing sugar as the enemy though, I think we need to reframe it. Sugar is not the enemy. It is just a substance. Understanding what this substance does in our body is where we gain the edge in figuring out how to manage it. Like most of health, there is not a one-sized-fits-most approach. We are all different and have different experiences that make up our relationship with sugar. Therefore, the approach to building healthy boundaries with it must also take some personalization. As part of the reframing, I think we need to be honest here too. Brutally honest. Never eating another cake, cupcake, candy bar, cookie, ice cream or drinking anything with sugar in it EVER again in your life is unrealistic. What a buzz kill too! Realistically, we talking of putting sugar in its rightful place in our life. As treats, parts of celebrations and places where enjoyment is complimented with sweetened foods and drinks. We are looking to corral it into its own category where it can be honored, appreciated and enjoyed guilt free. When sugar is everywhere in your diet and drinks every day, it is not in its rightful place. There is imbalance and that creates the running amok situation we find ourselves in today with having a love-hate relationship with sugar. This is where sugar gets its bad rap as our enemy. Building Sugar Fences Once we realize the goal is not to eradicate but rather corral sugar in our life, things become more easily planned. Each of us needs to determine what that treat special category in our diet looks like. Is it just special occasions like birthdays, weddings, and holidays? What do we turn to food wise when things are not so happy? Decorate this treat area with all you need to equip sugar in your life. Make it a happy, comforting place that is exactly what you need sugar to represent for you. Then build it. Leverage this special room every day. If you have a place to put sugar in your life, then navigating your daily diet becomes a more even playing field. You can feel empowered to make choices around what you eat that has sugar in it. You feel more in control when craving arise. As you encounter sugar in your day, you know you have a place where sugar can go if it is not a situation, place, time, purpose where you want to consume it. It takes practice. You won’t do it perfectly every time, especially in the beginning. This is important to recognize because if you don’t release the guilt and shame or call it cheating then you are continuing to punish yourself for being human. Whenever we rebuild something in our life, it takes time to build up the skill to do it well. Sugar is no exception. Beating yourself up over not being perfect on day 1 is not constructive or positive to supporting the changes you are attempting to make. Feel it. It’s ok. You will get there. When you eat sugar rather than put it in the special category, look at why. Was it a particularly stressful time? Did something happen? What were you thinking, feeling and doing at the time? Part of our healing with sugar is also learning to process our emotions in a healthy way. We don’t want to just push down our feelings and cover them in a layer of sugary frosting anymore. As you redefine where sugar comes up in your day, you quickly realize the hold it has had on you. Amazing things start to show up that you didn’t realize was holding you under the sugar glaze. Food taste better! Your taste buds reawaken and you start to experience more flavor in your food. Sugary treats become smaller in portion. Without sugar in your diet every day or every meal, when you have it, you actually want less of it! How beautiful is that? You can enjoy it and naturally want less of it. You savor what you have and it becomes pleasurable on a new level that I promise you do not have today. Yes, sugar is always pleasurable but when you are at this point in your relationship with it, it’s like a whole new lover that you didn’t realize you were missing. Your cravings change. Cravings are mostly emotional responses presenting as physical sensations in our body. With the shift of sugar in our life, we find we are processing our feelings in an improved way which in turn changes our cravings. Your mood and behavior improve. Our normal mode of operation is flight or fight, high stress mode every day. When we improve our relationship with sugar, we are calmer, more centered and happier. We feel more attentive and able to focus on complex tasks with more energy. Imagine how different our children will be with this change! For help making your sugar fence plan and implementing it for you and your family, set up a consultation with me at https://p.bttr.to/3BcyS8q

Sugar comes in many forms these days. It is hard not to find sugar. I think I am most surprised to find where I wouldn’t think it is needed and yet there it is. Subtle and sweet underlying almost everything we eat. It is not that sugar is inherently bad for us but rather that most sugar contains artificial ingredients which does make it one of the least healthy things we consume. Sugar is also one of the highest consumes things we eat regularly which doubles down on the effects it can have on our health. Your body needs some sugar which it gets from natural sources such as fructose from fruit. It doesn’t need much but there is a need for it in the body. Physically, real sugar’s role in our body is to support energy functions within the cells. Its the little bit of gas you give the car to get up a hill. Your body again gets all it needs from food, real food, where sugar is in its purest form. We don’t often think of raw pure sugar but it is actually fructose in fruits and vegetables that is a nutrient in micro form. The problem with sugar though is our overconsumption of it and the type of sugar being sought after. Let’s be real honest here and admit, we are not seeking apples, oranges, green peppers and other veggies to fulfill our sugar needs. These real sugar forms are farthest from our minds when we have a hankering for something sweet. The body actually wasn’t designed to crave sugar at all again because we need so little of it as a nutrient. That means of course… Sugar is an emotional food We eat sugary sweets for pleasure only. There is no nutritional need our body has for anything beyond what it gets in the very minimal forms of fruit and vegetables. So any time we eat something sweet or crave them, it is an emotional need done for pleasure and comfort. Emotional eating is not something easily admitted or recognized for most of us either. For a long time I had this vision that emotional eating meant someone who couldn’t stop eating something from a break up or depressive situations. It was temporary in most cases. I mean seriously how many movies have you seen where break-ups are best recovered from through sweat pants and ice cream on the sofa until your girlfriends come get you for margaritas? Yet, we all have some form of emotional eating because our emotions are part of who we are. Too often we are taught to hold back what we feel so we lack the means by which to process emotions. They are still there though and often they come out as these big waves of emotional responses when they’ve built up enough. We cannot separate our emotions from our physical being. This is one of the biggest fail points within our Western medicine culture in my opinion. Recognizing our emotions and understanding how to adequately support them is a big part of living as a whole person. Your emotions affect your physical body. When emotions are not in balance or being processed well, they can come up as physical cravings for certain foods, such as sugar. This is because sugar gives us pleasure. Who can eat a birthday cake and still be sad? That’s because we associate sugar with goodness, fun, happiness, comfort, joy, inclusion, hope and all the feel good feelings we have and want to experience in this life! Disregarding this aspect of ourselves in favor of sugar restriction will only get you so far in your health journey. This approach disconnects the emotions from the body and punishes the body through harshness. It creates the feelings of guilt and shame over wanting something we naturally were made to feel but lack in our life either temporarily or long term. This is why when we come off a harsh diet we find ourselves easily spiraling back into old patterns and habits. Emotions are held in our body’s cells We regain the weight plus some because emotions are stored in our cells. As we lose weight through harsh restrictions, our body condenses what it is holding but it doesn’t actually get rid of it. Once the harsh diet is over our cells literally bounce off the walls of our body expanding once more. We experience ups and downs in our emotions, see our face break out with acne and struggle to lose weight. This is known as insulin resistance yet it is often just treated on a physical level again through harsh dieting. The chemicals in processed sugar alter our taste buds and rewire our brain causing a dependency on sugar. This happens for most of us at a young age. Our brain links certain feelings and experiences that feel good with the food that we are also provided in those situations. Often it is cake, cookies, candy, sodas and fun foods. Those sweet moments in life become recorded in our brain so when we have moments that are not to that level of experience our brain triggers a call for something that will recreate it. This emotional response from our brain is where sugar addiction comes from. It creates a vicious up and down cycle of energy bursts and crashes that prevents us from processing feelings that are causing these situations to occur. When we notice things like our clothes not fitting or the scale stopping on an unlikable number we punish ourselves with a restriction of things like sugar. It is actually not the sugar that caused the problem with our weight though, but our inability to process emotional needs in a healthy way. -Amy Kramer, Dragonspit Apothecary Yet we take it out on our body. We punish ourselves through guilt, shame, anger, frustration and hate towards our body because of our struggle to balance emotions and use sugar in a healthy way. Yes, I did just say use sugar in a healthy way. While we may not need much of sugar in our body as a nutrient, I do strongly believe sugar’s role is important in our life overall. A life without wedding, birthday, special because cakes is not a life I want at all. We need those experiences and culturally sweet foods are a part of what makes them special. Restricting them through avoidance of the foods means cutting away a part of life we were meant to enjoy. Rebalancing Sugar in Our Life The largest aspect of having a better relationship with sugar in our life is in the very rebuilding of our emotional and physical body relationship. When we reconnect our being and treat our needs as a whole person things not only become clearer but easier to support in the healing process. Changing how much sugar we consume in a day and what we crave starts with understanding how we are feeling emotionally. It is here we find what we truly are wanting in our life and creatively begin to outline how to fill those needs. Through this process we develop a deeper understanding of who we are and what makes us happy. We release all the lies we’ve been told about what happiness looks like and start getting really real with ourselves. There is no doubt that is a large amount of work but what I have come to realize in my own journey in this area is that by doing so, things like insulin resistance and weight loss struggles heal much faster and easier. I no longer feel the need to harshly treat my body with restrictive diets that leave me even more miserable. To begin your journey with resetting your sugar relationship, sign up for the “How to Have a Healthy Relationship with Sugar” workshop. Inside you will learn the tips needed to create that improved relationship between mind and body so sugar is not the enemy and your body doesn’t need to be punished for it. Sign up here: dragonspitapothecary.com

Sweet, sweet sugar. The essence of every dessert. The delectable treat of every holiday, major and minor life event. It is the sweet comfort of tears and broken hearts too! Yes, sugar is both celebrator and comforter cornerstone ever present. How then can we even imagine a life without it? Is it even possible to completely avoid sugar in all the ways it presents in how we eat, celebrate, mourn, cry, and live? Why We Love Sugar It is amazing the ways sugar gets incorporated into our foods. From baby food to the well known sodas and desserts, sugar is literally everywhere. It is what makes food taste good and gives us that nice sweetness that is so often sought after. Real sugar though has become an enemy of health. Since it is used everywhere and in every thing we have become addicted. Our brains are overpowered by this craving for sugar that sometimes seems insatiable. That addictive behavior of sugar can introduce risks to our health and yet at the surface it really is not sugar that causes these problems. Consumption of too much sugar definitely can have negative health impacts. However, I believe it is the overuse of sugar that has caused what we see today in the over-addiction to sugar and inability to keep a healthy balance of where sugar belongs in our diets. We have created this problem not sugar. Sugar was only the means to the end. In my opinion, we were meant to have sugar in our diet. It is natural and it is found in fruit, vegetables, and other real foods we were made to eat. Life and food were meant to be sweet and enjoyable! In true man’s ways though we have productionized sugar into this ingredient that changed its form, consistency and purpose. We went 10 miles beyond what was intended and turned it into this over-used, over-made, over-consumed beast none of us can safely find refuge from. We are inundated with sugar in every form. So no, I don’t think sugar is evil. I do believe we were meant to enjoy sugar in balance with all the other foods available for us in nature. What we know as sugar though is not natural. How we use sugar in our foods is also not natural. We love it because we are addicted. We have lost the connection of true sweetness in food and find foods without sugar dull and tasteless. We have lost ourselves in the quest of mass produced bags of sugar. Going Cold Sugar There are ways to break the cycle of sugar’s hold on us that can be drastic. Sometimes these measures are necessary to give us a leg up on the challenge and other times we can reset another way. Please know that any time we deal with food we are not only addressing physical needs and healing but also emotional and spiritual elements. Food is intertwined with our emotions so physically denying yourself is not going to build up the health we need to overcome sugar’s addiction long term. Yet sometimes we have to start somewhere and going cold sugar (instead of cold turkey) is certainly a way. It can be harsh, excruciating and challenging to the point we may literally feel we are going to be sick but it can work when done with love. In natural medicine, the connection between physical and emotional health is key to rebuilding health inside out. Addressing the emotional aspects of a sugar craving are therefore essential to long term success. What I’m proposing here is not ignoring that aspect of natural health care. In fact, I believe emotional work should be done in conjunction with all and any form of physical work being done to stimulate healing in the body. When you go cold sugar, you are detoxing the body which in turn also detoxes the mind and spirit in the process if you do this correctly. I have found fasting effective as a tool in this work because it uses all of our being to navigate the fast and builds that connection with our entire being. When I have done a fast, I use the 3 day reset process outlined by Plexus. (link: mysite.plexusworldwide.com/dragonspitapothecary) Each day of the fast I use intentionally to focus on my health in mind, body, spirit. Day 1 is always a mind day because I have to dispel the myth of hunger in my mind. I get to work through all the games my mind plays about what my body actually needs. This sometimes takes longer than 1 day but it is usually sufficient to get my point across to my mind within this time. Awareness heightens at this point and my mind seems to go through all phases of grief, including hangry. In the end though, I feel at peace. The connection between my mind and body is restored and communications are beginning to flow again with honesty and clarity. On day 2 it is about my body. I focus a great deal about how my body is feeling in this process of a fast and what it needs to stimulate healing. It is amazing what you can feel in this process for what is happening all around your body. How your toes feel to wiggle, what water feels like running down your back. It is like your senses get turned back on and you feel the blood pump back into your veins. What I have found interesting is how much my body speaks. When we get busy going about our day we tend to ignore those signals from the body that says there is a need. How many times have I ignored simple requests like needing to use a restroom because I was in a meeting or on errands. I’ll get to it I say but not as the need arises. This day is about letting all those pent up words my body has to say out. It is a freeing experience that leaves me exhausted and content. The last day is my spirit day. This is where I build the strength to talk about what’s next, where my heart is calling me and what this experience has taught me. It is where affirmations and woo things come in. I used to think these things were stupid frankly because who has time for them in the first place and do they really even work? When you are connected in mind, body, spirit the answer is yes. When you are emerging from a healing process such as a fast, the answer is definitely yes. During fasts like this I find myself drawn to meditation. It helps when I’m struggling to understand what is going on or the fast is showing me things that I need to work through. Tough emotions that come up, my bones expressing pain, my mind going in a million directions. Fasts are meant to stimulate healing and meditation can help us process and support that healing. When it comes to sugar, a fast such as this is effective with creating enough of a break in our diet of sugar to make awareness occur. We feel calmer, more in control of our body and able to make decisions that effectively improve our relationship with things like sugar. Cravings also tend to be lessened at the outcome. This is a great example of how to create the unity necessary within yourself to have the power unlocked to control sugar. It is the only cold sugar approach I recommend to my clients. Gradual Sugar Step Down The other method of breaking up with sugar is the gradual approach. The problem with this approach is it can be very easy to slip into diet thinking, where sugar is evil and must be limited. This can lead to further breakdown in the alignment of self preventing a true healing of the situation from occurring. In using the gradual step down approach it works to let each day flow and unfold without pressure and punishment. You intentionally look at where you are consuming sugar and simple make a decision on if you want it or not. It is easy to say yes you want it which is why we need to first build alignment in our mind, body, spirit to get to the real answer. Sometimes still the answer is yes but it is understood why. In this approach we encounter a lot of emotional responses triggered through sugar. Many times when we reach for things like cookies and chocolate it is out of emotional pain, frustration and stress. Cravings are often based on these emotions and sugar provides a balm. Sugar Flu Whether you use the cold sugar approach or a gentler step down method, many of us will suffer what is known as the sugar flu. The symptoms can feel just like a regular flu too. It is uncomfortable and not much fun but sometimes a necessary experience to begin the process of healing from sugar. You may get a sugar flu regardless of approach you take to reduce your sugar intake. That’s because our addiction to sugar reacts differently for each of us as we change those patterns. The good news is it is not long lasting and it gives us increased motivation to not want to experience this again. How long does it take to break up with sugar? When it comes to putting a duration on reframing our sugar relationship that is largely dependent on you. It is important to understand that while significant changes to your relationship with sugar are the desired goal you are not aiming to completely eliminate sugar from your diet. For one, it is impossible and secondly, long term your success rate is improved if you set boundaries rather than restrictions. In general though, most people can rebuild their sugar relationship using moderate approaches that include dietary changes within a couple months. That is not long at all given how quickly sugar can overtake our mind, body and spirit. Detoxing from sugar is a process. It will be different for each of us because we’ve all had different experiences with sugar to this point. The goal is to reset boundaries with sugar and feel like we are in control for how and where it comes into the picture. In that journey you are going to see where you have fallen for sugar’s lies and work through those storylines to build a new healthy version. In my workshop, “How to have a Healthy Relationship with Sugar” I talk about the effects of sugar to the mind, body, spirit and give you tips and support for changing your relationship. The beauty of this journey is we not only reset the sugar in our life but we often find we break up with diet mentality too! That leaves us healthier, more confident and able to set a map for our own needs that allows us to move forward in grace and peace with ourselves. You can access the workshop here: https://www.dragonspitapothecary.com/book-online

In true dramatic movie fashion, my image of fake food takes place in a desolate place that has long been vacated. I search the cabinets, drawers and places people normally kept food, when life was normal. Finding this small left behind package of some cardboard looking flat thing that is colorless and odorless is my reward. I’m tentatively eating it out of desperation and last thing on Earth because otherwise I will die. No mention of what I eat next… Right now in your pantry… is something that should be aligned to that imaginary movie scene. It is actually a horror film scene because it is disguised as colorful, enriched flavored, crunchy and satisfying. It may or may not melt in your mouth but you recognize it instantly as something that is edible. Starving or not, that fake food in your pantry is there because it was selected form an array of other similar fake foods sitting on a shelf in the grocery. It awaits someone to open it and it will outlast a nuclear blast to be that single package someone finds left behind. Dramatic you say? We are likely to eat at least one fake food every single day. Most likely more than one. Let that settle in your mind a moment. Not in some imaginary movie but in real life, the average Thursday, a quick lunch or some nighttime snack. Some part of our food for the day will be a fake food. There is fake food literally every where around us. Even if you are a health foodie, I promise you cannot avoid fake foods entirely. Unfortunately. What is a fake food? The simplest definition of a fake food is any food that is manufactured, packaged and includes ingredients that are not natural. It contains ingredients that may have started out in life as a real food but has been stripped down to nothing to the point it needs to be enriched back with something that symbolizes the original food. The average grocery store is roughly 75% to 80% fake food these days. This is why nutritionists tell you to shop the parameter. The minute you start looking at bags, boxes and packaged things, you often default to a fake food. Fake food is surprisingly hard to identify sometimes. Labeling makes it deceptive. The US FDA further complicates this identification process by not requiring all ingredients be disclosed. There are actually ways to inject things into foods and food products without having to tell you, the consumer, what you are fully buying. YIKES! When it comes to fake foods, we are all victims. Our Children are Fake Foods Biggest Fans The basic child diet consists of a lot of fake foods. Mac and cheese, hot dogs, chicken nuggets make up the cornerstones of the preferred kid’s diet. It is convenient and kids love it. The reason comes down to consistency. A chicken nugget will always taste like a chicken nugget. The shape is always the recognizable weird shape or in some vague dino shape. Kids recognize it in shape, color, taste and its easy for them to eat. Many parents, myself included, have caved to the pickiness of trying to get kids to eat a veggie or fruit. In schools, day cares and pre-schools, packaged foods and drinks can be counted on as the meals and snacks provided. Once again because they know kids will eat it and it’s easy and cheap. As a child grows up they become picky eaters instead of curious about the foods of the world. It limits their willingness to try new things and makes it one of the most frustrating aspects of family meals. Even baby food is made in this way of consistency. What is more scary though is many baby foods include sugars that add to the desire to increase sugar in the diet as they grow. It literally changes the taste bud so real food is not good tasting. How to break up with fake food The hard core among us would advise breaking up cold turkey. A thorough sweep of your pantry and fridge with large donations to the local food bank. poof! A clean slate in which to introduce misery, irritability and hangry outbursts from everyone in your home. To make matters more severe, let’s say you did a complete sweep and then you restocked your pantry and fridge with organic everything including tons of fresh produce. While certainly healthy you and well intended, you are likely not going to have good family relationships for a while. This was also very costly and an extreme way to improve your diet. Unfortunately, this has often proved a very harsh approach that not many find achievable or sustainable long term. My family’s approach was not so severe and we continue to evolve as we find ways that work best for us. It takes time, but is also much less expensive. We also found a way to make it inclusive of all our tastes and likes while still balancing real life. Let’s face it, you and your family are never going to entirely avoid birthday cakes, chicken nuggets and sodas for the rest of your life. Nor should you. The first step we did was stopped buying some of the regular fake foods you’d find in our pantry. We experimented with different fresh fruits and veggies to find what we liked. We started looking for the organic label on produce and products and bought in small quantities to try them. Warning, organic peanut butter takes a bit if you are used to a certain brand. I looked for sales to try different things we wanted to try. While I think it’s important to find healthy options and reduce fake foods in your home, it is also important to realize we all live on budgets. Food is not free. Taking the time to try things, figure out the prices and make sure it is a viable product your family likes, will use and is worth your money. It is perfectly fine to honor your budget and your health. Both are important. – Amy Kramer, Dragonspit Apothecary The good news is most organic foods do not cost more, and in many cases are comparable and even less than regular products. My favorite is telling people I found organic angel hair pasta for less than regular angel hair pasta. For the most part the difference is going to be cents in terms of cost. This approached worked well for us because we were able to honestly say if we liked something or not. It gave us time to make budget changes and find ways to incorporate healthier eating in our home over time. It didn’t feel sneaky and was not interruptive to what we were already eating. Yet it was small incremental and intentional changes we were making every time we went grocery shopping. Fake Food Grocery Store Education When my husband looked at our current jar of Jif Extra Crunchy peanut butter and the new jar of organic crunchy peanut butter he concluded they were pretty much the same things in both. This was true on the surface but the fact that all the ingredients in the organic version had organic in front of them and there were less ingredients in it was the difference. Organic means it was minimally processed, was not exposed to chemicals and pesticides and was grown or made in the most natural way possible. There are not added things in the product to extend shelf life or make it prettier with the use of dyes. This slight change makes the organic peanut butter healthier by the standard that while calories, carbs, and other label percentages are similar the actual ingredients are not processed or chemical based. This is the case with a lot of fake foods versus organic. This is where reading the complete label is important. Many companies are producing more organic products in response to the consumer demand for better. As a result, it is also necessary to know the company, parent company and sourcing of the product in some cases. Green-washing is the process by which a company will make seemingly good changes to their product to make it better and more healthy. In reality, it is a switch of hand that covers up hidden things in the product that are not any better than the original ingredients. You’ll see this a lot in green-washed cleaning products but the same principle can happen with food products. Essentially, if you cannot pronounce the ingredients or have to Google them, it’s probably something that falls more into the fake food category. Filling your cart changes when you make this relationship change with your grocery store aisles. There are still bags, boxes and packages of things but the quality of them vastly improves. Your cost for groceries stays about the same overall from my experience. Why break up with fake food? You can say food is food and whatever you can get cheaper is ok. Many people do this and I used to be one of them. The truth is long term the impact to your health makes this change necessary. The sooner you can incorporate even small changes in the quality of foods you consume the more you are investing in your future health as well as improving now. What I find most interesting in the fake foods we see typically in our home is how easy we have been made to believe they are right for us. Logically, we know these things are questionable at least. Yet out of convenience, habit, cost and just not knowing any different we buy these fake foods all the time. They are advertised to us constantly and often on sale making them irresistible. Plus our family likes them. The kids won’t fuss about it so it seems a no-brainer. When you take those first steps though to change that scenario you not only see improvements in the food that’s coming into your home but in how your family feels. Food is as much an emotional nourishing device as it is physical. The relationship between food, emotions and physical need is intertwined so tightly that often this is why doctors cannot find cures to what is causing is to be ill. Breaking up with fake food is an incredible journey that will leave you feeling healthier, happier and more aware of just how wrong we have been steered down the aisles of the grocery store. To work with me, request a consultation at dragonspitapothecary.com

Picture this… You’re getting ready to pack for this awesome vacation you’ve been looking forward to for literally forever. You worked overtime and maybe even took a second job to get the upgrades. The tickets are paid for, hotel confirmed, early morning Uber scheduled for the airport, and you are hours before sitting on some exotic location living your best life. You pull out your extra large suitcase and start to pack for this dream vacation. Upon entering your closet this all gets even more real. What is going through your mind is one of two things…. Option 1: You are deeply regretting that you didn’t quite work out as much as you intended in order to feel more confident in that new bathing suit you bought. You’re secretly beating yourself up for indulging in two pieces of cake last week too. Maybe you can just “suck it in” and no one will notice. For sure you will avoid the camera because you don’t like how you look. Before packing you try on everything and realize nothing is fitting so that means another shopping trip for the dreaded bigger size. Thankfully the tags are still on the one you bought. Option 2: You’ve worked out hard for months, ate salads to the point the thought of another one makes you shiver. The results though are spot on exactly where you want to be going on this vacation. That 2 piece bathing suit looks fantastic on you and you are looking forward to showing it off on the beach. You’ve lost so much weight that even you suitcase is lighter so you pack some extra fun things because you are feeling confident you may need a second black dress. The sacrifices were worth it for how good you will look in the vacation photos. In both cases, I can promise you that what you eat on vacation is going to be top of mind. Regardless of what you have done to this point in preparation for this vacation, food will be a topic that you will immediately have an emotional and mental response on that may not be the healthiest for our well-being… in either case. Will you deprive or indulge in the umbrella alcoholic drinks, desserts and high carb meals? Will you tell yourself it is enough you are there and eat little, perhaps they have different kinds of salads, drink water and skip desserts? Will you go all in and “pay” for it after vacation? Pre-Vacation Weight Mindset It is natural to want to look your best when you have some big event coming up. Maybe it’s a class reunion, your best friends wedding you’re the maid of honor in, or an exotic vacation. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be at your best in these situations but where we falter is in our approach to achieving that state. We are programmed to believe hard core dieting, deprivation and high intensity workouts with a screaming trainer are the best route for results. We are told it will be worth it because we will reach that vision we have for our body and can be proud of our efforts standing in that moment. Some do achieve this level and should be proud of their hard work. Was it worth it? Well, that is personal I guess. For the majority of us though, we may start out with strong determination and willpower but it wanes and we find ourselves not reaching greatness in this approach. The larger question is are the results achieved, regardless of extent reached, sustainable? Or have you just set yourself up for regaining all that back plus some when you stop being so cruel to yourself? I believe it is wonderful to have health goals that empower us to strive to feel and be our best. If we don’t however, work on a mind, body, spirit level we are only addressing one part of our being. Without the other two parts the results cannot be long lasting unless we stick to strictest of living. For most of us that is not sustainable because it is not pleasurable. The truth is, yes vacations are pleasurable but every day life is also meant to be that way. If you only see your diet as a sacrifice to look good, you miss out on the connected way of living every day that is beautiful and pleasurable. Health is immensely important but it not health if we only work to manage the physical aspects of it. So, back to this awesome vacation pre-plan. How then do you achieve the right mindset to achieve great results to look your best on that vacation? The answer is quite simple. You set realistic expectations of yourself and build a personalized plan that is right for you. The plan is actually inclusive of what you need in mind, body and spirit that supports not only a big event but long lasting sustainable results that promote every day living of feeling your best. Hard core willpower and determination combined with restrictive dieting do not achieve that. Nothing tastes as good as being skinny feels. This was my daily motto leading up to my wedding. I skipped meals, ate more lettuce than a rabbit and had two different personal trainers. You better believe I was the best looking bride to ever walk the flower littered aisle. When we got to our reception, I couldn’t eat or drink. On our honeymoon, I barely touched the exquisite dishes at our romantic beach resort. Months later, I couldn’t explain why weight was slowly climbing back on my body. Granted, I was still eating the restrictive diet the trainers gave me but was not working out as hard. I was a new bride setting up her home, having fun and focusing on the other parts of life. The stress of the big day long past and I had to get into real life now. My body didn’t understand what was going on. What happens when we only focus on physical aspects means the body is left without support. Just because you work out hard and restrict eating, if you don’t combine that in spirit and mental work then your body is doing all the work. Sooner or later it can’t keep going because you were not designed to pull the cart one legged. Working to achieve health balanced in mind, body, spirit is not as easy as it sounds. Mostly, because we don’t understand what that means or where to even begin. – Amy Kramer, Dragonspit Apothecary When I say mind, body spirit most of us think about yoga and complicated pose we’re trying to hold our breath in while balancing on 1 leg. While yoga helps us to create the physical space to support mind, body, spirit alignment that is but only one way to achieve this result. The point being establishing this balance is the first very vital step in developing a natural health plan that gives results and that are sustainable. It would take me years to find my own balance in mind, body, spirit. Every day I need to work on it too. What if I don’t make the goal in time for my vacation? The fact that you have a big vacation planned, booked and paid for is exciting. NOTHING should derail you from having the best time of your life. NOTHING. Not the fact you are size 16 rather than a 6. Not the vision of what you think you look like versus what you imagine. Even if you do reach your goal, I say this is still true. Why are we focusing on what we look like rather than the beauty around us and the fact we are on this incredible experience? You worked hard for that opportunity and gave up a lot to have it. Do not let what the number on your pants size dictate the level of fun you can have in your vacation or life. Yes, it would be fantastic to lose weight, wear a smaller size or even a bikini but you know what is more important? How you feel about yourself. What your health actually is. Let me tell you friend, health is definitely more than what size you wear. Get in the picture and make memories. Why we tie big things in life to our body Life is full of big moments and events. We have this vision that everything is perfect in those moments. Things we worked hard for are reality, our wildest dream came true, and we’re standing in the limelight for it. Do you look back at those big moments and regret what you looked like? Most of us don’t, except for when we see the pictures. Julia Roberts had the perfect lines for this in the Eat, Pray Love movie. When a man is making love to you, do you think he cares what your pant size says? Most men, real men don’t. They love you. Why then can’t you love yourself? It really does come down to that. Loving ourselves, regardless of size and meeting ourselves truly on the road where we are in this very moment. We can make the best choices of what to do from that point when we are one and at peace with who we are. When you work from this perspective, it doesn’t matter the setting, event or mission you are on because it will be the right path for you. Tying big events to the tag size of our clothing seems a poor measurement to the quality of life we could be living. – Amy Kramer, Dragonspit Apothecary This does not mean we don’t care about our health or how big we are. It means the opposite. It means we care so deeply that we’re willing to consider all of who we are and what we need beyond just the physical appearance of our body. We move united in that doing what is best for ourselves. The very shape of our goals change when we do this too. No longer is our goal to fit into a bikini sized 2 for vacation. It is to look our best, feel our best and be our best so we can enjoy the experience of that vacation. See the difference? Your approach is now wildly personal for what you need most in achieving that state. It is focused on nutrition, moving in grace and building strength in our mind, body and spirit collectively. One is not more focused on than the other. That is how you not only have an awesome vacation, but don’t find yourself crying in your closet among new clothing that doesn’t fit the night before your vacation. Then you eat whatever the hell you want, freely and without guilt before, during or after. You’re on vacation! To work with me on defining your personalized plan for improving health and weight in your mind, body, spirit, schedule a consultation at dragonspitapothecary.com

How often I have justified what I ate or drank. It was Tuesday. I had a bad day. I was hungry. My best friend was no longer my best friend. The list goes on. Food was always there for me. It didn’t matter what went down, I knew there was a carton of ice cream or box of pizza that would be there for me. Nothing soothes tears of a break up better than pint sized ice cream and Hallmark movies. There’s even numerous Hallmark movies about that very scene so how could it be wrong? I think my connection of using food to soothe emotions started when my mom used to give me M&Ms. When boo-boos came and later boyfriend breakups and trouble at school, out would come the chocolate covered treat as a way to make things better. You could count on this being the go-to for any problem because what could not be better when you had M&Ms? We’ve all been soothed by the baked cookie that comes with a hug and promise tomorrow will be better. That’s how it happens. No, I don’t blame my mom or any parent that has done this well known practice of soothing with sweets. It is what they are good for after all. Where the system fails is that we never really move past this method well into our adulthood or ever in most cases. It is just what we know to do. It is why people bring casseroles during funerals and cakes to weddings. Food is our centerpiece of celebration and grief. By design or long handed down tradition, it is simply what we do. Trained to soothe with food There are a couple misnomers about using food to comfort and soothe. First, the diet industry would have us believe this cannot occur because if we want to be healthy we must be deprived of comfort. Instead it should come from knowing we can fit into our pants and we look physically good. Secondly, what happens if we don’t heal and never get soothed? The emotional eating detriments can have long lasting health impacts. If we never feel better we are constantly being driven by cravings, desires for comfort foods and stuck in the perpetual ice cream aisle seeking comfort. I personally really despise the negativity the diet industry has brought to our relationship with food. If there is one area of our life that we don’t even realize the damage being caused to our health it is the association of the word diet. That single 4 letter word can invoke incredible reactions within our being that are usually tied to negativity, disappointment and guilt about who we are and what we look like. It creates such a feeling of failure that even further disconnects from our whole being and the nourishment food can give us in mind, body and spirit. The other side of the coin is the struggle to emotionally be well. Stress, trauma, illness and many other factors feed into our emotional health status. We can all at times encounter bouts of the blues but for many of us it is long periods of time that can be severe. In both situations we become disconnected from our true selves. We see our health in parts instead of a whole being which prevents real health from being addressed. I believe food was designed to give us nourishment in mind, body and spirit. When we only focus on one element of who we are, or we struggle in one area of it where food becomes dominants rather than supportive the balance becomes impossible to maintain. For example, when we only focus on physically losing weight we can see food as an adversary to that goal. We may feel resentful of what we consider healthy and not like the taste of it. Yet when we approach losing weight with a balance in our mind, body, spirit, we can approach food in a supportive way and see where it is helping us move forward. Food nourishes our emotions as much if not more than it fills our physical hunger. You have to feed your whole being. – Amy Kramer, Dragonspit Apothecary In my opinion this is why most diets fail. We focus solely on the physical aspects of weight loss by controlling food portions and types. We think gaining control of food will long term be the best route. The reality is most people gain back weight from this type of eating because it is not sustainable. Food is evil though right? We certainly cannot go around eating pizza and dessert every day because of what’s in 99% of the pizza and ice cream ingredients. Definitely not if we’re looking to lose weight or have long term health. That doesn’t make pizza and ice cream and all the other food we encounter bad though. Classifying a food as bad or good is something else the diet industry has given us. This careful tightrope can easily have us tumbling back into the rabbit holes of what various so called experts call good or bad foods. It is actually the ingredients used that make one food better than another. You can make an incredibly healthy pizza and ice cream. Even if you don’t like a cauliflower crust there are other means to accomplishing a healthy slice. So, it is not that pizza is bad it is the ingredients that consist of preservatives, sugar, salt, man-made fake food and more that give some foods their bad rap. Would we like pizza and ice cream if those ingredients weren’t in there? The reason nutritionists tell you to shop the perimeter of the grocery store is because that’s where real food typically lives. Every aisle of the grocery store though has risks of these ingredients that really should not be in our food. Walking through the produce section is a great example. For years there was this push that organic foods were too expensive and were not consistent in taste. Yet, organic produce is one of the best foods in the grocery store and the majority of the time, the price differences are nominal compared to regular fruit and vegetables. As for taste, it is actually what a real banana, grape, tomato, cucumber and other should taste like. The use of ingredients that speed up the growth, create consistent taste and extend shelf live of a product have not only altered real food but played trickery on our own mind. Your body craves real food because it knows what to do with that. Your mind though has been trained to seek consistent routines and tastes. This is often why parents struggle to get their kids to eat fresh foods over chicken nuggets. A chicken nugget is going to taste the same every singe time. A blueberry is going to taste different berry to berry. The best way to improve your diet is to become a label reader and avoid products that don’t contain real food. Start rebuilding your taste buds to their original state and enjoy the cornucopia of color, taste, texture, and smell of real food. Amazingly, as we improve our relationship with real food, a great deal of our health problems go away on their own. – Amy Kramer, Dragonspit Apothecary The truth is once you start loving real food again, the attraction to things you used to eat starts to wane. You’re less drawn to the pizza and ice cream. It doesn’t mean you won’t ever have it again, because you will, but you develop other desires to nourish your mind, body and spirit. Food plays the lead role in that change. When it comes to soothing our emotions with food, that will always exist because it is inherently how we are designed. Food was meant to be pleasurable and comforting. However, it is changes how we use food in these situations. Building health inside out means we don’t gravitate as much to the sweets and grease because our body, mind and spirit have what they need to heal without them. So, when we do have these types of foods it becomes intentional instead of mindless, with the ability to understand what it truly going on so we can wrap further support around ourselves. That shift in seeing food changes our entire relationship with it. To answer the question, food is not evil or bad. It is how we use it, all kinds of it that matters. When you soothe with chocolate or indulge in a hot slice of pizza it can be done in pleasure and comfort. It can be an experience that does not leave us with guilt, shame or worse feelings than we had prior to eating it. We direct the relationship we have with food most when we work to maintain the balance in mind, body and spirit and understand the powerful role food has in that. To work with me, setup your private consultation at https://p.bttr.to/3BcyS8q