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But my bones NEED calcium to repair themselves you say!

You are right…they definitely do and when you have osteoporosis you don’t have enough in you bones…let me tell you why…

The calcium you do eat has become stuck in your cell.

Because your body has become acidic (as a lot of us are) through wrong diet (sugar, tea, coffee, salt, alcohol, drugs, refined foods) and negative emotions (stress, anger, bitterness, panic, anxiety can all cause acid too).

Our body is SO CLEVER so it manages to find some calcium from somewhere else (YOUR BONE!!!!) and take it the cells. This acts as a BUFFER to buffer the acidity and stop you from literally getting acidosis and becoming really very ill.

Fantastic but our bones are left depleted of calcium. So we go to the doctor and they see the SYMPTOM rather than the CAUSE and treat you for ‘lack of calcium’ and give you calcium tablets!

But where does this calcium go????!!! Into the cell! Because the cell is too acidic and so the cell eventually becomes CALCIFIED! If you speak to people who have bad arthritis and osteoporosis they literally do feel calcified and it’s very painful.

Can you see that the real cause of any bone challenge is the INCREASED ACIDITY in this persons body! This is why older people usually suffer from it…although it is becoming a younger disease now as we are all living more stressed and therefore acidic lives.

So what can you do?

REDUCE THE ACIDITY!

The easiest ways to do this are to;

• Increase vegetables
• Increase hydration
• Decrease stress
• Increase relaxation
• Express emotion and be aware of negative ones
• As always get support!

Are you stuck in a rut with recipe ideas?

Do you long to eat the foods that you know will help to heal your health challenge?

Does the rest of your life seem to get in the way of you preparing good healing food for yourself?

This September I am collaborating with International Healing Chef and Author Jane Sen to launch our very first ‘Cuisine Vivante’ workshop (the mind body spirit of food and its preparation).

This will be a unique healing foods workshop as it is the only one in the country where there is both an international chef and reputable nutritional therapist working together!

Our Cuisine Vivante workshop has been designed for those of us who

• Want to eat more whole living foods and are not sure where to start
• Are stuck in a rut with the same recipes and want some inspiration
• Are interested in what whole foods can do for our health and how this happens
• Have a specific health challenge they know can be improved with whole foods
• Are caring for someone else and would like to create healing food for them
• Want to feel energetic and vital on a daily basis
• Are excited to be at the forefront of food, health and inspiration

www.healthyfran.co.uk/workshop

I know the feeling very well. Even as a nutritional therapist I have felt like this many times. I have often in the past seen food as a functional necessity instead of a joy and pleasure.

It wasn’t until I conquered my relationship with food (and therefore myself) that I was able to really celebrate the colours, the smells, the flavours and how it was helping me heal. In fact this lead me to realise that my favourite part of food is preparing it for others! And this of course is very healing and therapeutic in itself.

I wanted to share with you this special workshop I have created to learn how and why to cook healing whole foods and to actually have a go yourself!

But first…

I want to help you start the healing process now so that you can start feel more vital, energetic and altogether more fulfilled. I know this works because I have been using it for a good few years and really believe it was one of the greatest keys to me healing my health condition.

To begin the path of ultimate health and healing you need to decide on the path of health and healing, just like I did.

Here is how it works:

When was the last time you decided on something? When you really made a decision that you followed through on. Decisions are not always easy to make but the sense of satisfaction we create by sticking to a decision has a profound effect on our body and on our health.

For example did you know that the more focused and certain you are the better your immune system? Our body likes our mind to be clear and this is where health begins.

In order to change our health we must become sick and tired of being sick and tired…and make the decision: I choose health!

www.healthyfran.co.uk/workshop

Our emotions and decisions are a great way to start and that is why I have begun working with International healing chef and author Jane Sen (formerly the head chef at The Bristol Cancer centre). Jane cooks from the heart and truly decides that each dish she creates will nourish and heal her guests.

Here is a testimonial from The Express

“Within a week I could feel the difference. I felt better and had a lot more energy.”

The Express

www.healthyfran.co.uk/workshop

And another from The Sunday Telegraph

“Exciting and unusual flavours - delicious enough to fob off to teenagers and children without their suspecting they are eating healthily.”

The Sunday Telegraph - Deidre McQuillan

How would you like to have the unique guidance and inspiration from and international chef and Nutritional therapist who can host Cuisine Vivante workshops for any health challenge and help you understand the root cause of your health challenge?

Small groups make for a relaxed atmosphere in the kitchen…you will have a chance to ask your burning health questions, taste, prepare and learn about Cuisine Vivante. What better way to ask your questions than over lunch?

Give your body mind and soul the gift of health

Make a decision today

Book your place on the only Cuisine Vivante workshop in the country

Love

Fran

P.S Click here to book your place!  Cuisine Vivante

Places are limited to 10 per venue!

• They are fast food
• They require little preparation or washing up!
• They are packed full of vitamins, minerals and enzymes.
• They taste heavenly
• You can make them light or heavy depending on your mood and condition
• They are easily digested giving your digestion a break!

Some recipes I like to use regularly:

Mango and Pear

2x pears

½ mango

½ apple

½ avocado

2 x tbsp sprouted seeds/beans

1 tsp flax

2 tsp lecithin

½ cup pure apple juice

Fill the rest with water and blend away!

Pear and Berry

You can use all the above ingredients and replace the mango with your fave berries. I like blueberries and strawberries because of the colour! If you are feeling light take away the avocado. Or if you have a long morning to get through add the avocado for a slow release of essential fats throughout the morning.

Therapeutic Smoothie

Sometimes I don’t want to be cleansed I just want to be reassured. Smoothies can be very acidic and high in potassium and sometimes I don’t feel like that so here is what I do.

1 heaped tbsp of congee (millet/rice)

1 tsp flax oil

2 tsp lecithin

2 heaped tbsp sprouts

7 x drops of calm and clear flower essence

1 x large pear

Handful of berries

Slosh of juice and the rest water…delicious and very calming.

I hope you enjoy experimenting! I would love to hear your own recipes too!

In health

Fran

When we are thirsty we drink diet soda or pop. Here lies the paradox…there a little or no calories in a diet drink yet we still don’t manage to loose weight and often times we end up putting it on. Not to mention the dehydration effects on the body. Did you know that for every one cup of caffeine the body consumes a further four cups are lost from the body? When we think the brain cells are 85% water its no wonder we can’t think straight half the time.

Caffeine, one of the main components we drink in the UK and US in pop and coffee and it is a drug. Essentially it is a pick me up but it also a dehydrator. So we feel thirsty, grab a coffee or soda and are satiated. A couple of minutes later we feel thirsty some more but reason that it can’t be thirst because we just had a big drink! So we grab a sandwich. Can you see the cycle? We set ourselves up for overeating.

Aspartame which is in so many of the commercially trendy drinks such as red bull (which by the way is banned in most other countries) and diet coke is 180 times sweeter than sugar without any calorie output. Great you may say! But it is so not great. Try to get this….your body expects you to feed it with real wholesome nutrient rich foods. When it receives a hit of aspartame the body is tricked. The body gets excited it is receiving some fuel (all be it in the form of sugar) and then quickly realises this weird sweet substance has no energy to use for its daily functioning like…thinking! So it panics and sends a message to the brain to cause a feeling of hunger and thirst once more, (amongst other more serious effects). Experiment with this yourself. I guarantee 30 mins after a soda or coffee you will feel like eating. But remember you are actually THIRSTY!

Number 2: Our salt signals are switched on!

Have you ever had trouble getting the salt out the salt cellar? Did you ever consider why that was? Try putting a teaspoon of salt next to a few drops of water and leaving it on your work top overnight. The next morning your work top will be dry as a bone. Salt attracts water and water most definitely follows salt.

Before I lose some of you because you don’t think you eat salt, let me make one thing clear. Unless you eat nothing but fruit, vegetables and whole grains with no added stock then you eat salt every single day of your life. I hear some of you say ‘don’t you need salt?’ This is where it gets interesting and the short answer is this: yes you do need salt but no more than occurs naturally in fruits, vegetables and whole grains. If this is what you eat every day congratulations….if your diet is a far cry from this then you may be suffering from weight gain due to water retention. Salt is also very dehydrating which as we have seen further promotes weight gain. It also stimulates the thirst signals so you may grab a soda! Can you see what is happening here? A continual cycle of weight gain and dehydration begins.

The great news you can always choose to break this cycle. Health and weight loss is a choice away.

Congee is eaten throughout China as a breakfast food and may also be known as rice water for this reason. It is thin porridge almost like a rice soup.

Traditional congee is made with rice but millet, spelt and other grains can be used.

Although rice is the most common grain for congees, millet, spelt, or other grains are sometimes used.

Congee is fabulous because it is;

• Easily digested and assimilated,
• Tonifies the blood and the Qi energy,
• harmonizes the digestion, and is demulcent,
• Cooling and nourishing.
• Provides an alternative for those sensitive to grains
• Sends a bulk message to bowel
• Sends a hydration message to the rest of the body
• Is delicious!

How to make Congee:

• 1. Take 100g of short grain brown rice and cover in a pan with pure water
• 2. Simmer for 2-4 hours until a soup like consistency is formed.

My Favourite Congee Recipes:

Sweet Congee: Add ginger, honey, sweet potato and cinnamon.

Savoury Congee: Add seaweed, Miso and onion.

On its own congee: Just as it is….lovely!

Enjoy!

Fran

Perhaps spring could mean the gift of sprouting your seeds, grains and beans…

A sprout (and not a Brussels!) possesses all of the energy, vitamins and nutrients and power that enable it to be transformed from a small seed into a strong plant.

At this stage its nutritional value is at its highest for instance, sprouted seeds can contain 400% more protein than lettuce and over 3900% more beta-carotine.

Because we eat lots of sprouted seeds, beans or grains at once we are eating the equivalent of hundreds of fully grown plants all at once!

Why I include sprouts into my daily menu (especially in msoothies!):

Sprouts are the only ‘living’ food

Given the right conditions sprouts will continue to grow after being harvested. Compared to every other ‘dead’ food we buy from the supermarket this is very attractive (and cheap) way of getting raw and alkalising food into your diet.

Sprouts nutritious value is off the scale!

Sprouts containing a greater concentration of vitamins, minerals, proteins, enzymes, phytochemicals, anti-oxidants, nitrosmines, trace minerals, bioflavinoids and chemo-protectants (such as sulphoraphane and isoflavone) which work against toxins, resist cell mutation and invigorate the body’s immune system than at any other point in the plant’s life - even when the plant is fully matured.

You can sprout almost any seed, grain or bean and the ones I love are

Lentils

Mung beans

Alfalfa

Sprouting is very easy

It is best to buy a sprouter http://www.energiseforlife.com/cat–Sprouters–SPROUTERS.html but it can be done very easily without. When I have been away (and without my sprouter) and wanted to sprout my food for extra enzymes I do the following:

Soak overnight to start the process of enzyme activity

Strain and place in small dish

Cover the dish with tea towel (so it is dark)

Check back on the sprouts to rinse them twice a day

In 4-6 days voila!

How to eat sprouts:

Sprinkled over a salad

Blended in your morning smoothie (very neutral taste)

Blended in a hummus

In a wrap

On their own (no really?!)

My personal favourite is avocado hummus and sprouted Mung beans on an oatcake.

I hope you enjoy your sprouting.

I would love to hear how you get on

Fran

How to Grow Bean Sprouts
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-1V4vtV8Yo]

When we are eating cake, coffee, coffee, alcohol, sweets, biscuits, white bread etc in a sense our brain is receiving the blood sugar it needs BUT 30 minutes to an hour later when the blood sugar falls we are in trouble.

Because the blood sugar drops lower than it would have done if we had eaten, carrot and hummus, nuts and seeds or oatcakes the brain begins to panic.

Did you know the total glucose concentration within the brain would be exhausted within 10-15mins if glucose were not readily available?

So when the blood sugar drops this low the body automatically increases its blood volume (where the glucose is stored) to get more glucose to the brain.

Unfortunately if this happens too regularly the nerve tissues become oversensitive from the pressure of the bulging blood vessels passing through them. It is this increased blood pressure that produces a headache or migraine.

For more information from Martin Budd look at his fabulous book

‘Low Blood Sugar.’

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Low-Blood-Sugar-Understand-Hypoglycaemia/dp/0722531192/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1202495106&sr=1-2

So many of you know the wonderful qualities of this tiny seed…but imagine drinking its qualities in a comforting and warm drink daily!

I drink about a litre of this tea daily and it helps me do the following:

Keep my radiant skin

Balance my blood sugar

Hydrate

Feel warm and comforted in the cold weather

Get some of my essential oils

And it tastes delicious and the best thing is….its absolutely free!

How to make weeks worth:

• Put 3 big tablespoons of linseeds in a pan
• Fill the pan to the top with clean water
• Place on your stove on SIMMER for 2-3 hours
• Come back and add more hot water to the top
• Take off the heat and strain the linseeds into a sieve
• You are left with a huge bowl of gloopy looking fluid!
• For your tea place a couple of inches in a mug, add water and VOILA!

Nutritious and Delicious! You wont believe the effects this drink has on your body mind and soul.

Enjoy and let me know how you get on!

PS I am posting videos on this site starting February by the recommendation of lots of my clients, friends and family oh and http://www.kahunka.com/

These will also be on youtube

Love

Fran

Just think about this for a moment because NOT thinking about this is what really holds clients back.

If you had boundless energy, perfect digestion, clear thoughts and creativity, an inner feeling of calm, no pain, a balanced body weight, clear skin, and a healthy appetite and so on, imagine how your life would be different.

In other words WHAT HOLDS YOU BACK?

Most people fall into one of four categories;

You do not do what it takes to feel and be healthy because you:

• a) Don’t think it will make any difference
• b) Think it will be much harder and more uncomfortable than sticking to what you have always done
• c) Are scared by change
• d) Think it will be too expensive

Now let me ask you a question.

When was the last thing you decided on something you really wanted in life and you succeeded in getting it?

How many excuses did you come up with that got in your way? Exactly! So maybe you don’t want this badly enough.

If you don’t see the long term benefits of changing your behaviour NOW…nothing you do will ever be a lasting change in your life.

Health doesn’t have to be hard… it just has to be a DECISION. Once you have decided what you want your life to be like in terms of health and energy nothing can stop you.

Like any other thing you have done in your life that was successful HEALTH is no different.

In the UK we are not so good at taking care of ourselves or for that matter putting ourselves first, especially when it comes to our health and well being. In fact many of us see it as indulgent and even selfish.

Let me ask you this…

• Is it indulgent to eat a separate meal to the rest of your family most nights because you know it will improve your mood and digestion which will ultimately help you feel closer and more connected to your family?
• Is it selfish to reject a beautifully homemade pudding at a dinner party because it is made with chocolate and you know you will get a migraine which will mean you are wiped out for the rest of the weekend?

It is not selfish or indulgent. We have to do whatever it takes and sometimes that means being different from everyone else.

To your health, success and DECISION!

Fran