Inside HBC

Traditional Thai Massage: Stretch, release, lengthen and balance

Schedule a Thai massage this week and receive a 10% discount. Thai Massage is an incredible tool to help you handle the “winter blues.” During the cold winter months, your body goes into a more contractive state.

During the winter months you may experience:

Stiff and/or achey muscles and joints

Difficulty getting moving in the morning

Sadness or depression

Increase in sugar or caffeine cravings

A deep sense of cold or feeling cold “to the bone”

Thai Massage is a wonderful healing tool to even out the contractive state that winter ignites in your body.

Because Thai Massage is a deep energetic and physical healing treatment, it can balance your mood and general state of well being in addition to physically stretching and lengthening your muscles and increasing your circulation.

The combination of deep tissue bodywork, stretching, acupressure and systematic working of the Sen (energy) lines all helps to balance your body and improve your health. Thai Massage is a wonderful tool to combat the “winter blues.”

Seaweed Detox Bath: Luxuriate in the opulence of the ocean

The holidays can be a time of high stress, parties that overextend you and overindulgence of food and drink. Soaking in a hot seaweed detox bath is an incredible remedy to help increase the blood and lymph flow, break down cellulite and move waste out of your body.

HBC’s seaweed detox bath uses not only organic seaweed from the coast of Maine, but also a blend of dead sea salts and himalayan salts as well as spirulina. Spirulina is rich in antioxidants (which reduce signs of aging in the body) and also boosts cellular health. The combination of ingredients in our seaweed detox bath can help to support adrenal health. When you are under high stress levels and eating lots of sugary foods or drinking alcohol…your adrenals are taxed. A few signs of adrenal fatigue include weight gain, trouble sleeping, insomnia, and poor digestion.

Directions for Seaweed Detox Bath:

Add bath mix to hot water as the bath is filling.

Get into the bath water before the tub is full–by doing this, your body will adjust to the temperature of the water. Fill the tub with very hot hot hot water so that your pores will open and your muscles will soften to the wonderful healing properties of the bath’s ingredients.

Soak for at least 20 minutes. You may begin to sweat as your  pores open and your body flushes toxins.

When you finish your bath, you can pat dry your skin and then use a body brush vigorously to continue to encourage circulation and a flush of toxins. Drink a lovely glass of cool lemon water and then snuggle into a long refreshing night’s sleep.

You will awaken feeling ready to greet the day with optimism and a clear head and will know you have partaken in the opulence of the ocean.

You can stop in to the clinic to purchase the Seaweed Detox Bath or order online at http://www.heavenlybodiesclinic.com/biodetox/detox_products/index.nclk

Happy Holidays from the HBC group!

Hot, Cold, Warm, Cool… foods?

Traditional Chinese Medicine often includes dietary changes to affect disease or discomfort. What you eat can affect your body’s reactions and can either make you feel better, or make you feel worse. If you have a migraine, cooling foods like cucumbers and most leafy greens and lettuces will help lower the temperature of you body and ease the pain. If you are feeling lethargic, warming spicy/pungent foods like ginger, peppers, and garlic will bring up your energy. If you swap those around, those foods will intensify your dis-ease.

Take a look at this article, and then let us know if you’d like more information on how you might eat to improve your health.

Peanut Butter and Banana Shake

If you’re dieting to lose weight, the reasons to add a protein shake to your daily diet may be obvious—it’s a meal replacement, reducing how much bulk you take in without compromising the nutrients you need to get through your day.  The reasons to lose weight? How about improved health with more energy, less joint pain, less fatigue and more mental focus?

There are other health reasons to add a protein shake to your daily diet, either replacing a meal or replacing snacks, even if you aren’t dieting to lose weight.  Lactoferrin, pure whey protein without additives, fillers or flavors, has been proven to increase the strength of your immune system, fight cancer cells, prevent osteoporosis and nourish the nervous system.

Our brand of Whey Protein is PURE—this means it has NO additives, fillers, natural or artificial flavors (all the things that compromise your health). Look on the ingredient label of protein drinks and count the number of ingredients.  Our Whey Protein has ONE INGREDIENT: whey protein. To order, send us a note.

TIPS: Blend all ingredients before adding stevia. You can add more than one flavoring. For example, make a frappacino-like shake by adding cocoa powder, vanilla extract, espresso, stevia and ice. Blend well. Top with whipped cream and a sprinkle of cocoa powder.  Here’s a recipe for one of our most popular shakes:

Peanut Butter and Banana Shake

• 2/3 C. Coconut milk (sweet)
• 1 C. heavy cream (sweet)
• 1 C. water
• 3 Tbsp. crunchy peanut butter (sweet)
• 1 Tbsp. vanilla extract (sweet)
• 1 Tsp. banana extract (sweet)
• 1 Tbsp. cinnamon (pungent, bitter)
• 1 C. protein powder (sweet)
• 40 drops of stevia (sweet)
• 1/4 C. shredded unsweetened coconut (sweet)
• 1/4 C. flax seed
• 10 ice cubes

Blend ingredients together until smooth. This makes 4-6 servings.

Flatbread with Leeks, Capers, and Asiago Cheese

In the springtime, add leafy greens, onions, leeks, and other early vegetables to your meals. Looking at Food as Medicine in Traditional Chinese Medicine (and maybe just by common sense?) eating seasonal foods is the way to go! The foods that arrive in the spring, tender green vegetables and herbs, provide energy as directly from the sun as possible and support us as we become more active and the days get longer.

Here’s an easy recipe for flatbread that can be adjusted to use your favorite seasonal toppings all year long.

• 2 cups GWF Baking Mix (sweet, salty)
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/4 cup olive oil (sweet)
• 1 medium leek, white and light green parts, cut into long thin strips (pungent)
• 3 oz cheese, shredded or cut into 1/4 cubes (sour, salty)
• 2 TBS capers (salty)
• Freshly ground pepper (bitter)
• Olive oil

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Place 2 cups of GWF Baking Mix in a large bowl and add water and oil.  Mix well.
3. Press dough onto a lightly oiled baking sheet to about 1/4 in thick.  Drizzle about 1 tsp olive oil over top of dough and spread leeks evenly over the top. Generously spread cheese and capers over the leeks.  Sprinkle with freshly ground pepper, and drizzle again with olive oil.
4. Bake in oven for 25 minutes.  Remove, slice and enjoy!

Essential Oils for Weight Loss: Grapefruit

This past Saturday morning in the Heavenly Bodies Clinic our aromatherapy expert, Marlene, demonstrated how using essential oils can help with weight loss.  The oil from the grapefruit has a calming effect on your mental state and can help curb your appetite. Some of our Weight Loss Club participants were here, and we all got a chance to try it!

Marlene put a drop of the oil on our hands, we rubbed them together and then held both hands in front of our faces and breathed deeply.  You know what grapefruit tastes like: a little sweet, a little sour, maybe even bitter if you get the right one.  The scent is similar. Here’s how Sharon described it: “It smells refreshing, and it clears any other scent that may have triggered my appetite.  I can even imagine that I just ate a grapefruit!  I think this is going to help me stay on track.”

That’s what we like to hear! Marlene made some inhalers for us to take home and use this week.  She recommends holding the inhaler up to one nostril, sniffing for the count of four, holding breath for the count of four, then exhaling (you got it, to the count of four!).  Then repeat in the other nostril.  You can do this 4 or more times a day, as needed.

We’ll let you know how we do!

Learning the 5 Flavors

Our weight loss club participants are learning how to use the 5 Flavors to satisfy their appetites.  Using the 5 Flavors in your meal planning will also help to keep your body healthy.  As you learn to identify these flavors, and identify your cravings, you may also learn to put attention on areas that are deficient.  Your attention cues your body to send healing energy to those areas.  (And needles sure do help, too.)  As always, work with the Doctor on diagnosis and a healing plan.

The 5 Flavors are Sweet, Salty, Sour, Pungent, and Bitter.

Here are some foods that will help you learn the 5 Flavors (pages refer to recipes in the HBC Recipe Book).

• candied ginger (pungent/sweet)
• dark chocolate–70% if you can find it (bitter/sweet)
• roasted almonds (salty/sweet)
• grape tomatoes (sour/sweet)
• kosher pickles (sour/sweet)
• Mediterranean olives (sour/sweet)
• slices of cucumber with curried yogurt dip [pg 5] (sour/sweet/pungent)
• celery with peanut butter or goat cheese/ground pepper (salty/sweet)
• pistachio nuts (ALL 5 FLAVORS!!)
• protein shake [pg 15, pg 16]  (sweet)
• green drink (sweet/sour/bitter)
• spoonful of peanut butter (the natural, no sugar kind) (sweet)
• guacamole [pg 8]  (sweet, sour, pungent, salty)

All of the recipes in the HBC Recipe Book list the flavors of each ingredient to make it easier for you to do your menu planning.

Gillian will be in the clinic select Saturday mornings (watch our Facebook page) with GWF Baking Mix goodies and to answer your questions about 5 Flavor Eating and the Weight Loss Club.

HBC Detox Soup Week!

This is the soup that resets your body for the new season.  It helps you lose your “taste” for sugar and allows your body to let go of the season’s excesses. It is fairly bland as is, even though it contains each of the 5 Flavors: sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and pungent.  How you season it each day allows you to really taste each added flavor so you can more easily identify them.

Now is a great time to make a batch, especially if you are part of our HBC Weight Loss Club.  All are welcome to join–just get on the scale next time you are in the clinic and record your weight on the 3×5 card on the fridge.  Get your Fox Nuts from the Healing Team in the clinic (or order by sending us an email).

Baking with GWF Baking Mix

Gillian’s World Famous Baking Mix is so easy to use–just like any other baking mix you may have used in the past–except it doesn’t have any wheat or sugar in it.  And it full of protein, and tastes pretty awesome in savory and sweet recipes.  And we’ve tested lots of recipes.

I just put some scones in the oven (there are some recipes on this blog, and also in our recipe book available in the clinic).  I made blueberry/banana and cranberry/orange; just a couple of these little biscuits are perfect for breakfast with some hot tea or coffee.  The protein content is so magnificent that they will keep you satisfied much longer than if you had just about anything else in the same quantity.  You just have to try them.

I’m bringing several different baked goodies to the clinic this Saturday for taste testing–these very scones, cookies and double dark chocolate biscotti.

I hope you can come see us in the clinic soon!

Gillian’s Journey with the HBClinic Weight Loss Program

I hated being fat.  So much so, that I didn’t realize how fat I was. My brain somehow wouldn’t let me see what I really looked like. Sounds odd, I know, but I think its common.

When I was on Active Duty in the USAF, I was required to maintain a certain weight.  It was just below what I weighed in college when I joined AFROTC.  I had a language degree and thought maybe I could “see the world” with the military. I had to learn how to control the weight, though.

For years I read magazines, talked to friends and coworkers, gathered all the tricks (some not so healthy) and maintained, just barely, the standard. When I left the active force, I joined the AF Reserve.  They have the same standards, but if they don’t see you every day sometimes it gets overlooked.

Somewhere along the way, my tricks stopped working. I cut out all fat, stopped eating meat, snacked on pretzels, not chips, ate lots of fruit, but it wasn’t working anymore.  In fact, I was gaining weight like crazy.  I knew I had to get it together, but I was really at a loss.  Then one day, I saw my friend Sharon.  She had to have been 15 pounds lighter than when I saw her last; it couldn’t have been more than a couple of months?  OK, maybe three?

After complimenting her, I begged her to tell me what she’d done.  When she said “acupuncture” I remembered a friend years ago in Germany who swore she quit smoking after a doctor stuck 5 needles in her ears.  (I was curious, but I didn’t smoke! Missed opportunity… )  Sharon offered to take me to her next appointment at the Heavenly Bodies Clinic so I could learn more.

I was embarrassed to tell Dr. Ana that I was there because I was fat and needed help (I think she knew, though–duh). I told her my reason for coming in was that my shoulders hurt. And they did, indeed–I had knots, couldn’t turn my head, couldn’t raise my arms over my head for more than a few seconds.  She agreed to help me with this pain, and after a few sessions, I decided to ask for help with my weight pain.

During the months of my weight loss program, Dr. Ana taught me how food works according to Traditional Chinese Medicine to deliver nutrition and energy to our bodies.  I asked lots of questions because what I was hearing was so different from what I “knew” about healthy eating, especially for weight loss.  Some of what I learned is now available to the general public since Atkins, Southbeach, and the other famous “diets” that focus on low carb dieting became so famous.  But the information Dr. Ana gave me was different–it was not a “diet”, it was just “how to eat” and how to think about food for energy and as medicine.

In six months, I lost 40 pounds. Tiffany’s Meridian Exercise changed the shape of my body so much I went from a size 14 to a size 6.  SIZE 6! Normally, “they” say you drop a size as you drop 10 pounds. As I was getting used to my new “heavenly” body, my sister sent me some photos from the past Christmas–7 months earlier–that she had just downloaded from her camera (she had a one-year old).  I called her and we both laughed (while I held back the tears).  We were amazed at how different I looked! Neither of us saw it back then, but I was truly shocked.  And excited, and happy, and grateful.

Whether you have lots or not so much to lose, talk to Dr. Ana if you’d like more information. And to make some changes. You’ll love the new you.