How To Preserve Your WineHow Much Wine Is Healthy?

How much wine should we drink?

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Is Wine Healthy?
Over the years we've seen numerous headlines about drinking wine, and other forms of alcohol, for our health. If you're from an Italian family with grandparents who lived into their 80's or 90's, you'd say, "duh", but there's a lot more to this story than that. 

Benefits and Risks for the Heart
The benefits of drinking wine and other forms of alcohol are mostly for the heart. Studies have shown that drinking moderate amounts of alcohol:
* can reduce blood clots
* increases your good cholesterol, or HDL
* helps reduce your bad cholesterol, or LDL, which helps prevent damage to your arteries

Despite these benefits, the American Heart Association and National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute do not recommend that you start drinking just for health reasons. But if you already drink, you should do so in moderation.

They define drinking "moderate" amounts of alcohol as:
* one drink a day for women of all ages
* one drink a day for men over 65
* up to two drinks a day for men age 65 and over

One drink is 5 ounces of wine, 1.5 ounces of distilled spirits, or 12 ounces of beer.

Drinking more than this can have a negative impact. It can:
* increase your triglycerides,
* raise your blood pressure
* lead to liver damage

What about Cancer?
Whereas alcohol has some heart health benefits, there is no evidence that it is helpful in the prevention of cancer. In fact, the more alcohol a person drinks, the higher that person's risk of getting cancer is. The American Cancer Society also advises people to limit their alcohol consumption to one to two drinks a day, as described above.

The ACS also warns:
* oral, esophageal, laryngeal, and pharyngeal cancers are more common in alcohol users than in non-alcohol users, especially if they also smoke.
* alcohol is a major cause of liver cancer
* women who have 2 to 5 drinks a day have a higher risk of breast cancer
* heavy alcohol users have a higher risk of colon and rectal cancer.

A Trick to Preserve Wine and Limit Consumption
When you open a bottle of wine, several things happen, besides overwhelming feelings of joy and anticipation. You drink a glass, your judgement goes to hell, and the wine starts to oxidize. So here's what Doug and I started doing.

#1 - Buy a half bottle of wine with a screw top. Drink it and save the bottle.

We found a nice half bottle Sauvignon Blanc with a screw top.

#2 - The next time you want open a normal size bottle of wine, pour half of it in the empty half bottle. Pour it up to the top and screw the top back on. This will prevent oxidation so the wine will keep. It will also discourage you from drinking the rest of the bottle after your judgement weakens so you may have to hide it :-)

We opened a bottle of our Turtle Vines Pinot Noir

Poured half into our empty 1/2-bottle

After filling completely, leaving no air space,
screwed it shut

Then we drank the rest of the opened bottle

A bottle of wine is 750 ml or 25 ounces. So a half bottle provides one 5-ounce pour and one 7.5-ounce pour which meets the guidelines for a woman and a man. I'm supposed to drink the small one but as you can see from the above picture, we didn't quite pour it that way. The 2012 Pinot is my favorite vintage, so I was weak! But usually, I give Doug the bigger pour.

Cheers!

How To Make Your Own Cough Syrup Avoid Dangerous Over-The-Counter Products

Over-the-counter cold remedies can be dangerous.
So try making your own!

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What's In Your Cough Syrup?
You can tell that it's cold and flu season by the melodious sound of hacking coughs in the supermarket, airplanes, schools, and in the office. A cough can disrupt your sleep and leave you exhausted. 

Most people think that over-the-counter medications are pretty safe and when faced with a never-ending cough, are desperate to try anything. But like many pharmaceutical drugs, the side effects can be more dangerous than the symptoms you are trying to suppress. Especially when you take too much. And when you can't stop coughing, sometimes it's easy to take a bigger slug that what is prescribed.

Many cough syrups contain DMX, or Dextromethorphan. Side effects of taking too much DMX can include:
* Blurred vision
* Confusion
* Drowsiness or dizziness
* nausea or severe vomiting
* difficulty in urination
* shakiness and unsteady walking
* slowed breathing
* unusual excitement, nervousness, restlessness, or severe irritability

In addition, some children do not have the enzyme to metabolize this drug so this becomes an extremely dangerous remedy. Many teens use and abuse cough medicine containing DMX to get high which can be fatal. If you have young children in the house, it's a good idea not to have these types of medicines in the house.

OTC cough medicines may also contain other ingredients such as acetaminophen. Around 80,000 people a year end up in an emergency room for acetaminophen toxicity which can lead to severe liver damage.

Make Your Own
Once again, mother nature comes to the rescue. With a few simple ingredients, you can make your own cough syrup with real health benefits and no dangerous side effects. This syrup has these healthful ingredients:

Onions
Onions are in the allium family. For centuries, they have been used as a medicine. Egyptian physicians recommended the onion for literally thousands of separate ailments.  Rich in the antioxidant quercetin (and other flavonoids), they stimulate the immune system, protect against oxidative stress, and act as a natural decongestant. 

Garlic
Also in the allium family, garlic has been used throughout ancient history for its medicinal properties. Rich in the sulfur compound allicin, it bolsters the immune system and is a potent antibiotic. It has antibacterial, anti fungal, and antiviral properties as well.

My garlic harvest.

Ginger
Although ginger is most notably used for nausea, it is a natural decongestant and antihistamine. It can warms the upper respiratory tract and is useful in treating symptoms of colds and flu.

Honey
Although many vegans avoid the use of honey in daily cuisine, it remains an important medicine due to its strong antimicrobial properties and wound healing abilities. These properties have been documented in the oldest medical literature. With respect to cough suppression, some believe it is as effective as dextromethorphan. It is also used to treat infections of the upper respiratory tract. 

             *                             *                           *            

Here's a simple recipe for the relief of chess congestion and coughing. I make this in very small batches since it is best when fresh. Store in the refrigerator and make a new batch ever two or three days.Take as much as you need to control your cough. No one has ever OD'd on onions and garlic but I wouldn't advise going on a first date. 

Homemade Cough Syrup
[makes ~ 3 to 4 tablespoons]

Allow 8 to 24 hours for extraction. You can use an Instant Pot, yogurt maker, or just a warm spot in your kitchen.

Ingredients
1 organic onion
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated organic garlic
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated organic ginger
1/4 cup raw honey

Directions
Peel the onion and cut in half vertically. Thinly slice the onion in half moons and place in a glass pint jar. 

Combine the garlic and ginger with the honey and pour over the onions. Mix well and push down so the honey is above the onion mixture.

Place the jar in your Instant Pot and hit the YOGURT setting. Cover with a regular lid and let sit until juice forms. If you don't have an Instant pot or yogurt maker, just cover the jar and place it in a warm spot in your kitchen. Either method will take 8 to 12 hours. If it doesn't get juicy enough, let it sit longer. 

Using a fine mesh strainer, strain the mixture into a small jar. Cover and refrigerate until needed. It tastes better than you'd think, even with the garlic and onions! 

I hope this recipe brings you some relief.

P.S. 
I hated to waste the onion mixture, so I rinsed off the honey (not necessary) and tossed it in my Instant Pot with some beans. Pretty yummy.

What You Should Know About ChocolateA Healthy Treat For Your Valentine

Raw chocolate treats have maximum benefits.

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Our Love Affair with Chocolate
Chocolate is practically synonymous with Valentines Day. About 58 million pounds of chocolate candy are purchased in the U.S. during the week of Valentines Day, racking up sales of more than $345 million.  And though sales of candy have declined because of growing concerns over obesity and sugar consumption, the sale of chocolate in the U.S. grew 33%, from $14.2 billion in 2007 to $18.9 billion in 2017.

The good news is that this delicious treat can be good for us, but not all chocolate candy has benefits. Before we discuss it's benefits, here's what you need to know about selecting chocolate.

The Anatomy of Chocolate
Chocolate comes from the cacao beans of the tropical tree Theobroma cacao. Theobroma means "Food of the Gods". After the beans are harvested, they are fermented and dried. 
They are then processed to create the three components of chocolate:

(1) Ground up, whole cacao beans are called Cacao Liquor, Cacao Paste, or Cocoa Mass. This liquor is then pressed into:
(2) Cacao Butter or Cocoa Butter, or the "fat" of the cacao bean and:
(3) Cocao or Cocoa, the solid parts of the pressed liquor that are ground into a powder.

The Good Stuff
I know you've already heard that the healthiest chocolate is "dark" chocolate. That's because it is made from 70% to 99% pure cacao fat (cocoa butter) and cacao solids. My taste threshold is around 72% so that's what I usually buy. But 80%+ plus is even better for you if you enjoy it. 

White chocolate shouldn't even be called "chocolate" because it doesn't contain any cacao powder. It's basically a blend of cocoa butter, milk solids, milk fat, sugar, and lecithin. There are no health benefits to eating white chocolate - it's basically candy.

Milk chocolate can also be considered candy, depending on what you buy. The FDA minimum percentage of real cacao is only 10% to be labeled "chocolate." For example, a Hershey's milk chocolate bar only contains about 11% cacao. This low level has few, if any, health benefits, especially because these bars are generally high in sugar. In addition to having very little cacao content, the milk protein in milk chocolate can reduce the ability to absorb the antioxidants from the cacao because they bind to the flavonoids.

Bottom line, if you want health benefits, always select dark chocolate. Don't grab a Twix bar and think you are doing something good for yourself.

Nutrition
There is a surprising amount of vitamins and minerals in an ounce of dark chocolate. One ounce of chocolate provides:

168 calories

12 g fat, 6.9 g saturated fat

9.5 mg omega-3 and 341 mg omega-6

12.8 g carbohydrates, 6.7 g sugar

2.2 g protein

3.1 g dietary fiber

27% DV (daily value) manganese

25% DV copper

19% DV iron

16% DV magnesium

9% DV phosphorus

6% DV potassium

6% DV zinc

3% DV selenium

3% DV vitamin K

2% DV calcium

Now, the Benefits
Chocolate contains healthful polyphenols, which are powerful antioxidants. Antioxidants can protect our cells from free radicals. Free radicals can damage DNA inside our cells. This damage can lead to Alzheimer's disease, cancer, heart disease, and more. Flavonoids are one of the most studied of the polyphenols and are found in chocolate, as well as many fruits and vegetables.

Here's the list of good things chocolate can do for you:
* Protects from free radical damage with potential to prevent cancer and other diseases caused by free radicals

* Makes blood platelets less sticky and able to clot, reducing the risk of blood clots and stroke

* Lowers the risk of heart disease 

* Reduces hypertension

* Improves blood flow to the brain and may improve cognitive function and potentially slow cognitive decline

 * Improves cholesterol profile, lowering "bad" LDL cholesterol

* Helps hard-to-shake coughs. The theobromine in chocolate can reduce vagus nerve activity which triggers those lingering coughs.

* Improves your mood (that one's obvious!)

                            *                             *                             *

Here are a few healthy chocolate recipes to make for Valentine's Day:

2-Ingredient Flourless Chocolate Cake 
Make sure you make this with at least 70% dark chocolate bars or chocolate chips.

Raw Vegan Tropical Chocolate Truffles

These delicious raw truffles have no added sugar and are sweetened by dates and dried mango. They also contain omega-3 rich walnuts.

Vegan Mexican Chocolate Cake

This yummy cake has 1/4 cup of pure cocoa. Great with non-dairy ice cream and fresh berries.

Happy Valentines Day!!

10 Tips To Reduce Your Sugar Intake

Americans eat 76 times the sugar than their ancestors did!

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Make This Year the Healthiest Ever!
With the holidays are behind us, and like we do most Januaries, we want to get healthy, shed some pounds, feel better, and commit to doing something good for ourselves. Perhaps lowering our sugar intake would be an excellent start.

Lowering our Sugar Consumption is a Great Way to Start the New Year!
Today, the average American consumes an average of 152 pounds of sugar per year. That’s 6 cups of sugar a week or 14 tablespoons per day! At 48 calories per tablespoon, 14 tablespoons chews up 672 calories. These are calories that are displacing those that would contribute minerals, vitamins, and other important nutrients that would benefit, not detract, from your health. Or, they would be added calories that would lead to obesity, overall inflammation, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, cancer, and more. It would take you more than two hours of brisk walking to burn up 14 tablespoons of sugar. Not many of us have the time or commitment to do that.

To put this in prospective, two hundred years ago the average American only ate 2 pounds of sugar per year. When we wonder why diseases like cancer, heart attacks, Alzheimer’s, autism, various autoimmune conditions, and other degenerative disorders have skyrocketed over the past hundred or so years, it may very well be attributed, at least in part, to our drastic increase in sugar consumption. How did all that sugar end up in our diets and what can we do about it?  

Where is this Sugar Coming From?
Sugar finds its way into our food supply in many forms and with many names. It’s in jams and jellies, cakes, cookies, crackers, soft drinks, energy drinks, fruit drinks, specialty coffee drinks like lattes, specialty tea drinks, like chai, candy, breakfast cereals, ice cream, fruit yogurts, canned vegetables, prepared foods like canned soups, condiments, and more. 

It also has many names such as glucose, dextrose, fructose, maltose, sucrose, lactose, honey, sorghum syrup, corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, brown rice syrup, fruit juice concentrate, brown sugar, corn sweetener, sorbitol, evaporated cane juice, sucanat, barley malt, agave nectar, beet sugar, date sugar, molasses and more. 

Tips to Reduce our Sugar Consumption
Here are some easy and painless tips on how to reduce our sugar consumption:
#1: Read labels
Look for all the different names for sugar on the labels. New labels will now have “added sugars” in grams. Dietary guidelines suggest that no more than 10% of your daily calories come from added sugar. I personally think that’s too much as it’s still over 4 tablespoons of sugar per day given a 2,000 calorie diet.  
(Note: 1 tablespoon sugar = 12.5 grams = 48 calories.)

The new label has "added sugar"

#2: Eat PB&F instead of PB&J
Instead of smearing sugary jelly or jam on your peanut or almond butter sandwich, place slices of fresh fruit or berries on your sandwich. Sliced strawberries, apples, pears, persimmons, and bananas are some of my favorite additions to my nut butter sandwiches. One tablespoon of jelly contains 56 calories, almost no fiber, and 11 g of sugar (almost a tablespoon of sugar).  A third of a cup of sliced strawberries, on the other hand, would only have 18 calories, less than 3 grams of sugar, provide over a gram of dietary fiber, and important vitamins and minerals such as folate and manganese. 

Almond butter sandwich with fresh strawberries 

#3: Replace Soda
Instead of drinking soda, energy or other sugary drinks, have a cold glass of bubbly water with a splash of juice. My favorite is a glass of Pellegrino with a splash of unsweetened cranberry juice and a twist of lime. Or just add a slice of cucumber or strawberry to a cold glass of water. A 12-ounce cola beverage has 136 calories and contains 33 grams of sugar (over 2 ½ tablespoons of sugar), zero fiber and no significant nutrients. Just giving up one soda a day would be avoiding 60 cups of sugar per year and allow you to lose 14 pounds! Although drinking diet soda may avoid added sugar, the sugar substitute aspartame, used in most diet sodas, has been associated with a number of reported complaints such as headaches, dizziness, eye issues, mood changes, digestive issues, and more. 

#4: Reduce Sugar in Recipes
I find that I can easily reduce sugar in recipes without adversely affecting its taste. For example, in baking I replace a cup of sugar with ¼ to ½ cup of sugar plus some stevia to make up for the loss of sweetness. No one has ever noticed!

#5: Don’t buy Fruit Yogurt
Fruit yogurt sounds healthy but it’s loaded with sugar. For example, a container of Kite Hill Peach dairy-free yogurt has 180 calories and 15 grams of sugar, much of which comes from cane sugar. That same container of the plain, unsweetened yogurt has 140 calories with zero sugar. So it’s always best to find unsweetened yogurt and add your own chopped fresh fruit. 

Select unsweetened yogurt and add your own fresh fruit

#6: Ditch the Donuts
An Original Glazed Krispy Kreme donut has 190 calories and 10 grams of sugar. Or if you are opting for a Dunkin Frosted Sugar Cookie Donut, you are signing up for 420 calories and a whopping 30 grams of sugar. Although bagels contain far less sugar (zero to 6 grams), they can be high in calories, especially if they are covered with full fat cream cheese. In any case, swapping out one or two donuts with a single bagel, smeared with slices of avocado, would be a better choice.

Eat an avocado bagel with seeds instead of a donut

#7: Sugary Cereals, Oh My!
There is so much sugar in some breakfast cereals, that they should be carried in the candy isle. Kellogg’s Honey Smacks are 56% sugar, weighing in at 15 grams per serving. Kellogg’s Froot Loops, Marshmallow are 48% sugar and also contain 15 grams of sugar per serving. No need to go on – there are far too many examples of bad cereals that are heavily marketed to young children.  

Always read the labels on boxes of cereal

There are, however, some better choices, like Ezekiel 4:9 Almond Sprouted Whole Grain Cereal that has nutrient-rich ingredients and less than a single gram of sugar. 

A much better choice of cereal

But my favorite cereal alternative is homemade oatmeal sprinkled with omega-3 walnuts and a dollop of dairy-free, unsweetened yogurt.

#8: Reduce Sugar in Coffee and Tea
Coffee and tea are healthy beverages. But somehow Starbucks has turned them into high calorie, high fat, and high sugar drinks. A grande Coffee Frappuccion has 240 calories and 50 grams (4 tablespoons) of sugar. And a grande Green Tea Crème Frappuccino has 430 calories with 65 grams (5 tablespoons) of sugar. So stick to your regular coffee or tea with a touch of stevia and enjoy the many benefits of these drinks. 

If you want to enjoy a fancy latte, get a frother and make a green tea latte with unsweetened non-dairy milk and a bit of stevia. 

Homemade latte with no sugar

#9: Afternoon Pick-Me-Up
When I was a CEO, I had a continual battle with the vending machine company trying to get them to offer healthy snacks to my employees. Other than a few offerings of nuts and trail mixes, the rest consisted of sugar-filled candy bars or salty chips. When you work in an office and start to get hungry around 4:00, your food choices may not be great. One Snickers bar has 30 grams of sugar, a bag of Skittles has 47 grams, a Hershey’s milk chocolate bar has 31 grams, a York Peppermint Pattie has 25 grams, and a Milky Way has 35 grams. So make sure you bring a piece of fruit to work or keep a little fruit bowl on your desk with tangerines, apples, and bananas. And take an ounce of raw nuts along with you too, like almonds, walnuts, pistachios, and pecans. 

Fresh fruit is a great pick-me-up

#10: Canned Vegetables
Canned vegetables often contain added sugar. You will find sugar listed in the ingredients of many popular brands of canned vegetables. Whether they do this for preservation or just to cater to the American palate, is a mystery. So if you are not able to buy fresh vegetables, always buy them frozen as they generally do not contain added sugar. 

Ingredients: Peas, Water, Sugar, Salt

Ingredients: Garden Peas

If you make these simple changes to reduce the sugar in your diet, you can significantly improve your health. You may miss sugar at first as our taste buds get attuned to too much fat, salt, and sugar - manufacturers count on this. But as we transition to a healthier lifestyle by reducing these ingredients in our diet, we lose our cravings for them and once again appreciate the natural delicious flavors of undoctored foods. 

Vegan Green Tea LatteDelicious With Lots Of Health Benefits

Packed with the powerful catechin, EGCG.

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How I Start my Day
I need a little help getting started in the morning - who doesn't? I had to give up coffee years ago because it triggers my reflux. I still occasionally treat myself to a decaf almond cappuccino but I always start my day with a high quality Sencha green tea from Japan.

Green tea has been enjoyed as a health-promoting beverage since ancient times. Many of its health benefits are attributed to its most abundant catechin polyphenol, EGCG (epigallocatechin gallate.) It has clear cognitive benefits and since I turned 69 this week, keeping my brain working is pretty important to me! It also has very strong antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties and helps prevent cancer, cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, stabilize blood sugar, and boosts your immune system.  
I usually just drink a cup of Den's Sencha tea (using their pyramid tea bags) or make a cup of Matcha Green Tea. But for an easy treat, I make myself a green tea latte.

Compare to Starbucks Latte Macchiato

A Starbucks Grande whole milk latte provides:
230 calories
12 g total fat
7 g saturated fat
35 mg cholesterol
19 g carbohydrates
18 g sugar
12 g protein
160 mg sodium

A Sencha Green Tea Almond milk Latte provides
7.5 calories
1 g total fat
0 g saturated fat
0 mg cholesterol
0 g carbohydrates
0 g sugar
0 g protein
40 mg sodium

If you substituted a green tea latte made with unsweetened almond milk and stevia for a Starbucks whole milk latte every day, you'd lose 23 pounds in one year!

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Green Tea Latte
Vegan, Gluten and Dairy Free
[makes 1 serving]

Requirements
Espresso Aeroccino Plus or other milk froth maker
Mesh strainer (optional for topping)

Ingredients
1 cup of green tea
1/4 cup unsweetened almond milk (or other non-dairy milk)
Stevia drops or 1/2 packet stevia, to taste 
Pinch of matcha powdered tea (optional topping)

Directions
Prepare a cup of green tea by pouring boiling water into a cup leaving room at the top for the milk. Let the water cool to 140 to 160 degrees F. You don't need a thermometer. Do this.

Make your froth by adding milk and stevia to your froth maker. 

Spoon into your tea.

You can top the froth with a touch of powdered matcha but put it through a fine mesh strainer so that it doesn't clump.

Latte with optional matcha topping

At less than 8 calories a cup, enjoy as many as you'd like!

Summer Is The Perfect Time For A Raw Food Cleanse

Enjoy Chia Seed Pudding on your raw food cleanse.

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Raw Food Cleanse

It's been almost a hundred degrees here all week and I've naturally been craving raw foods. So I thought it might be a perfect time to do a raw food cleanse. 

I've been writing about raw food cleanses for at least 7 years now. For me, it's a much easier way to detox than doing a juice fast or other liquid fasts. Eating raw food is satisfying, doesn't trigger a severe detox reaction and it doesn't require taking a bunch of herbal supplements (although B12 supplementation is always necessary when on a raw vegan diet.)

How Long?

What I like about doing a raw food cleanse is that any amount of time gets results. You can do it for a day, a weekend, a week, 21 days, or a month. It depends on your goals. Are you trying to lose weight, lower your cholesterol, break some bad eating habits, jumpstart a healthier lifestyle program, or just do a general detox? 

The Rules

It's really simple. Just eat mostly organic raw food - vegetables, fruits, nuts, sprouted grains and legumes. If you want, add a 1/2 cup of cooked beans or quinoa each day to one of your meals, but otherwise just raw food. Drink lots of pure water and skip the soft drinks and booze.

For breakfast, or anytime of day, drink raw smoothies like my favorite Blueberry, Pear and Baby Spinach Smoothie. Or start the day with a breakfast fruit salad with nuts. If you are feeling ambitious and you have a dehydrator, make Raw Granola.

Blackberry, Strawberry, and Mango Breakfast Salad.

For lunch or dinner, enjoy a raw soup like Raw Zucchini with Crushed Pistachios, or make a gigantic raw salad like Bernadette's Everything In The Garden Salad.

Scoop up fresh guacamole with slices of jicama and bell pepper. Make a Veggie Sushi Roll.

Enjoy raw desserts like Chia Pudding or raw Peach and Blueberry Crisp. If you have a Yonanas Elite Healthy Dessert Maker, you can eat 100% raw fruit soft-serve "ice cream" every night!

My favorite yonanas dessert is frozen bananas with cherries.

There are many delicious raw food recipes on the blog that you can use or you can download my ebook, Health Begins in the Kitchen for more recipes and detailed instructions on how to do a raw food cleanse with menus.

So don't deprive yourself or try a dangerous juice fast. Try a raw food cleanse!

One Week Unplugged At Rancho La Puerta

Can you unplug for a week? It's not easy.

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Just What the Doctor Ordered
A few months ago my son Vaughn suggested that we do a little mother-son bonding at a in spa where we could get some rest and relaxation. He found a beautiful 3,000 acre property in Tecate, Mexico called Rancho La Puerta. 

Vaughn had been working furiously at his job for a while and really needed some time away. I had been recovering from pneumonia and working hard on 10 different projects and badly needed to disconnect. My husband Doug needed a break too and joined us mid-week. This was the perfect place for us to enjoy each other while resetting our busy lives.

Night Night Little iPhone
The first thing they hand you is a little sleeping bag for your cell phone. There are no TV's in the rooms. On the entire 3,000 acres, there are only a few places to get a WIFI signal and a newspaper but they are not well advertised. So we were totally disconnected!

This was a welcomed break for me as I've become a news junkie. I start every day reading two newspapers cover to cover and then have the radio or TV with some news show on in the background while I do my work. I watch news shows while I workout on my exercise equipment. By the end of the day, I'm totally aggravated and often in a negative state of mind, depending on how crazy a news day it was. I know this isn't healthy but it is hard to disconnect, especially with all the things happening in the world right now.

The grounds were filled with cactus and other native plants.

Sculptures were woven throughout the landscape.

One Week Unplugged
It's amazing how many positive things you can do when you aren't on your computer or phone or reading about or watching  the news. Rancho la Puerta offered a large selection of hikes, classes, and lectures every hour so we got to do lots of new things and hopefully we can continue to do some of these now that we have returned home.

Signs throughout the campus help
guide us to our next class or activity.

My Take-aways from the Ranch
Here are some take-aways that I got from the ranch that I want to share because many of these things can be done without going to a spa. 

#1 - Learn Something New
Probably the most fun part of this week was being exposed to all kinds of new things and getting reintroduced to others.
Vaughn took Cardio Kickboxing and Pilates. 
Both Doug and Vaughn joined me for some dance classes, like Zumba and Hot Latin Cardio.
Doug was also introduced to Pilates and Postural Therapy. 
Doug and I played Pickle Ball for the first time and are now completely addicted to the game!
I took a number of Feldenkrais classes which I've been wanting to do for some time.

Me and my son Vaughn (right) with our
Hot Latin Cardio Teacher, Manuel (center)

#2 - Sound Heals
This past week I was made aware of how sound effects our health and moods.
I listened to Gary Malkin talk about the power of Music and how some music can heal, deepen and enrich our lives while other music might have more negative effects. 

I also took a class on Sound Healing where they use the tones of quartz crystal singing bowls for healing and meditation.
Besides music and crystal bowls, I enjoyed the sound of the many water fountains throughout the campus. 

Crystal glass singing bowls used in sound healing.

#3 - Mindfulness

Perhaps the best experience I had this week was what I learned from the monk, Thich Phap Hai. I not only learned about mindfulness from the classes he taught, but I also learned something about stereotyping people.

I met this tall Australian on the bus on the way to the ranch. Head shaved and sporting a long brown robe and a fairly expressionless face, I couldn't imagine striking up a conversation with him. I knew he was one of the speakers but was a bit skeptical about taking a class from him. I cannot sit still so I've never taken a liking to meditation, so when Vaughn dragged me to the monk's lecture, I warned him that I would bolt if turned into a meditation. But the talk was incredibly interesting. The monk had an amazing sense of humor. He made me see things in a different light. I wanted to know more about Buddha and his teachings. He reminded me how important it is to be present - to truly experience each moment. 

The next day I attended another one of his classes. I was a bit concerned about going to a mindfulness class wearing my Nasty Women tee shirt but the monk made a point of walking up to me to tell me that he was a follower of the Nasty Buddhist Women Facebook page. At this point I decided that this guy is the coolest dude I've ever met! So the lesson here for me was that my first impression of seeing a monk in a long robe, someone so different from me,  someone that made me feel a bit uncomfortable, turned into a person whom I admired, respected, and grew to like a whole lot. There's an obvious lesson to be learned here.

#4 - Nature

Most of the hikes at the ranch started at 6:15 in the morning. Vaughn and Doug enjoyed these early hikes so much that by the end of the week, I willed myself to get up and go on a shorter hike that started at 7:00. Had I known how incredible this experience would be, I would have gone sooner and more often. 

But hiking, especially in Northern California, is easy to do and now I'm inspired to get out there and enjoy the air, the stillness, the wild life, and the mountains. 

Morning hike in Tecate, Mexico.

#5 - Feed our Body, Feed our Soul

The food at the ranch was all local, organic, mostly vegetarian food with a sprinkling of seafood throughout the week. This healthy diet was life changing for some of the visitors at the ranch but to us, it was how we eat every day. Even so, it was great not having to worry about going on vacation and then going on a diet when returning home. One thing they did at every lunch and dinner was to start the meal with a small, mostly blended soup. This is a great way to get lots of veggies in your diet and curb your appetite. I must remember to do that every day.

The dining hall had indoor and outdoor seating.

They had two nutrition speakers last week. One was Dr. Victoria Maizes who is the executive director of the University of Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine. I've heard her speak before at Andrew Weil's annual Nutrition Conferences that I've reported on in this blog. The other speaker was Dr. Joel Fuhrman, author of Eat to Live and creator of the Nutritarian Diet.

Dr. Maizes was pretty chill and nonjudgmental. She believes, like I do, that one diet does not fit all. Dr. Fuhrman, on the other hand, pretty much dictated that everyone should eat his diet with the guarantee that you would never suffer a major disease. And if you did get sick, it wasn't because of his diet, it was because of some underlying issue that needs to be addressed. I'm paraphrasing of course, but I will say most of the crowd was pretty put off by his rigid message. Food is meant to be part of a daily celebration, to be shared, to be enjoyed. Yes, it should be healthy, packed with nutrients and free of toxins, as Dr. Furhman prescribes, but if you only view food as fuel and criticize others for not following as rigid a diet as you do, well, that's not healthy either. 

Lunch of roasted vegetable salad with turnips, sweet potatoes, new potatoes, eggplant, corn, zucchini, curried garbanzos, broccoli, mushrooms, and caramelized pecans.

#6 - Self Care

Last but not least, I was reminded to take the time to get a massage. Sometimes a year or more will go by and I'll forget to get one. Massages are not just for pampering - they are incredibly important for mobility, lymph drainage and release of toxins, stress reduction and more. Again, this is something I can do at home and for a lot less money than what they charge at a spa. Must remember to schedule a monthly massage!

Take the Challenge!

Try disconnecting for a week. Too tough? Start with a day. Put your phone aside. Only check your email once or twice a day. Don't look at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. Take all that time you would have wasted on social media and take a walk, sign up for a class, cook a new healthy recipe, book a massage, play some healing music instead of listening to the news, write in your journal (or start one), read a book, meditate or do yoga. My goal is to do "mindful social media". I'm not isolating myself from the world but I'm drastically reducing its hold on me. Let's hope it lasts.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to find a pickle ball court!