Last year, I found myself waking up in the ICU of a hospital, with no memory of how I got there. My last memory is that I was at the airport. I remember having a vague conversation with a police officer. Other than that, I have no further recollection of that day until I woke up in that ICU two days later. Luckily I carry my health info and medical cards with my drivers license, so they were able to care for me. The diagnosis? DKA – Diabetic Ketoacidosis. My blood sugars had spiked to nearly 600 and I was on the verge of a diabetic coma. Considering I had never had any indication of sugar issues — all my bloodwork always came back perfectly normal.
So what happened? My doctors explained that my recent move, my recently broken shoulder and the resulting pain and lack of sleep, burying a parent, extensive dental work and weight loss (a good thing) put quite a bit of stress on my system. All of these contributed to a metabolic imbalance and my body decided to crash—big time.
Turns out the ability of the body to control insulin can make significant differences in the quality of one’s health. Insulin is a hormone that is generated in the pancreas. It is released, optimally, in small amounts throughout the day and in larger amounts after meals.
Insulin and its effects can also cause weight gain, battle metabolic issues and even lead to diabetes. The below article from “Get Your Lean On” gave me some insight and tips on controlling the insulin my body manufactures and I thought I’d share.
It recommends avoiding all forms of sugar, which led me to the R3 lifestyle. The study results showed sugar promotes insulin resistance. Refined carbohydrates are another food to moderate or avoid completely, if you are able, since they are converted to sugars. With my new R3 eating plan, I rarely crave sweets or carb-loaded foods—but I still crave grapefruit and indulge that craving every other day.
The article also recommends eating foods that are higher in soluble fiber and will help stabilize and regulate blood sugar levels. Soluble fiber also produces higher levels of good “gut’ bacteria and makes you feel fuller, longer. I make certain I get lots of veggies (especially cucumbers and peppers) and drink Fiberwise daily. With R3 I do have two healthy snacks every day, usually veggies. I’m never hungry between meals anymore.
Of course, the study recommends that regular exercise should also be a part of a good daily, healthy regime. Unfortunately with my broken shoulder and subsequent shoulder replacement, I’ve not been working out or exercising for the past year—other than walking the dog, that is.
Finally, I’ve followed the suggestion to increase consumption of lean protein. With R3 I make it a point to have protein within an hour of waking up each morning. I didn’t believe it when I was first told to do this, but it works! Turns out the protein helps to absorb valuable amino acids that build muscle. Eating the right proteins is critical to the overall effect of an insulin “smart” diet, so I pay attention to the types and amounts of the protein I eat at every meal.
You may also want to consider some supplementation in your plan, regardless if your goals are weight-loss or simply universal good health. My company has developed a great tasting shake in several different flavors that allow me to easily and conveniently control my blood sugar and insulin levels.
The Post- Holiday Season typically presents challenges to both our physical and emotional health. Whether it’s the rush of it all, overextending ourselves physically, Seasonal Affective Disorder from the short days, dealing with difficult relationships, financial stress, inclement weather, or a host of other issues, it can be a tough time.
I’m not an authority on this subject, but I have observed a number of things that can help keep you physically and emotionally healthy through this winter season.
PHYSICAL HEALTH CHALLENGES
There’s are fewer daylight and your skin is almost totally covered with clothing such that your natural vitamin D production is almost nil. Those short days also lend themselves to Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) which can not only depress your immune system, but also affect you emotionally. Your home and workplace is shut up against the cold, so you have a lack of fresh air and a greater exposure to disease-causing microorganisms. That closed environment also makes it easier for you to get infections from those around you.
Colder temperatures are also more stressful on your body, requiring greater adaptation to stay healthy. So what can you do:
1. Be sure to take at least 5000 i.u.’s of Vitamin D-3 daily — you may need 10,000, especially if you live in a non-sunny climate. 2. Get some fresh air in your home, even if that’s just opening some windows for a few minutes or leaving a window cracked in your bedroom at night. 3. If you are particularly bothered by the short days, consider getting one of the specially designed full-spectrum lights and expose yourself to it in the early morning and late afternoon. 4. Take other immune system stimulating supplements, such as L-Lysine, echinacea, IP6, etc.
I personally take Peak Performance Packs year round to help keep my siystem at optimal health. What do you take or do for the winter?
I love my shopping club but did you know the number one question I get asked is if my Shopping Club’s products are more expensive or cost more? May answer is always NOPE.
The dish soap is less than $4. The laundry detergent costs far less than Tide, and my other household cleaners that compete with 409, Windex and the like, are less than $1 per bottle and smell like botanical flowers
As fo supplements, not only are the good, they are competitively priced. For example: Vitamin D3 is $7.49 for 120 tablets. I consider that a score!
The company offers each new customer the “new customer cleaning pack”. This box of cleaning supplies costs less than $100 and comes with 30 different products , from windows cleaners to floor cleansers and bathroom cleaners to your laundry detergent. This box alone means 64 loads of laundry can be done at a cost of 18¢ per load. That’s some savings!
I’ve yet to find a single product in m nearly 20 years of being a customer that costs more than what I was paying before I switched stores.
This shopping club has: • Close to 500 products to choose from • Walmart like pricing • Whole Foods quality. • All products are eco-friendly and safe • No price gouging. • No lines. • No leaving the house. • No one has ever been harmed by these products in the company’s 35 years in business • Products are so SAFE that Childproof caps NOT REQUIRED (that’s benefit for those with small children)
The best part? EVERYTHING is delivered to my front door and I get free products every month I shop. Switching stores 20 years ago has been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made for me and my family.
My R3 journey started around 2017. I wanted to lose weight feel and better about myself. You see, I wasn’t always overweight or obese, I was always fit in spite of my asthma. To keep my lungs healthy, I worked out several days a week lifting weights. I did aerobics two to three times a week. I swam. I biked with the bike club two “short” rides and one long ride every week. I also rode my bike to work 19 miles each way practically every day. I was active and had a great social life.
Then, I gained a little weight, not much at first. After a major asthma attack which landed me in the ICU for several weeks, I gained “prednisone weight” about 20 pounds. I still participated in the Dublin Marathon three weeks after getting out of hospital. I was so full of Prednisone weight, I walked the marathon. (It took five and a half hours.)
Shortoly afterward i participated in an asthma drug study. During that study, I gained 70 pounds.
I had become fat. Not only that friends treated me differently as though I lacked will power or I was lazy. I wasn’t, but…
Around this time my dad went into a nursing home. My mother did not drive, so I became her driver and patient advocate for dad while working 60-hour work weeks and volunteering for local charities. Although I was busy and on my feet all day and water running three days a week, I remained heavy.
At my heaviest, I was 250 pounds and often the heaviest person in the room. I hated it.
At this point, my dad passed, I was now my mothers caregiver. Because of my weight, my doctor suggested human growth hormone injections to see if I could lose weight. His program started out promising, and combined with early morning workouts with a personal trainer, I lost 13 pounds in the first two weeks, but nothing after that. After 3 months we gave up. It wasn’t working for me.
That brings me to that first R3 Challenge around 2017. I took the before picture and submitted it. I didn’t do all that well, but I did lose maybe 10 pounds When comparing the after picture with my before picture you could tell my clothing definitely ldid not look or fit the same. The same clothing is in both photos. If you look closely you’ll see my left arm is in the pants. Most of my work colleagues and friends thought I lost a lot of weight but I hadn’t. I’d lost inches. A Non-Scale Victory (NSV).
I semi-participated in other challenges after that, but never really finished them. My schedule was terrible, I was taking care of everyone and everything but myself. But I finally was j200 pounds thanks to swimming and rowing three times a week. It was progress.
In 2021 my mother passed away and I decided I needed to make life changes. I changed jobs. I put my house on the market. I took a trip to South Carolina to check out the housing market.
2022 arrived. For me, 2022 will forever be “Year of the Shoulder”. The year began with a good purchase offer on my home on January 6. That same day, while at work, I tripped over a case of wine, fell and broke my right shoulder (my dominant hand). My house was closing on January 25. I had 20 days to pack, find a new home and move—all with a freshly broken shoulder. I ended up purchasing a brand new house sight-unseen in Florida with a closing date of January 26 — a day after my New Jersey closing. I was lucky as I was also able to find a good mover to match my timeline. It was a very painful move but i made the 16-hour drive with my mother’s dog.
Once arriving in Florida, it was time to regroup. I found I moved to a new development in a town I had never heard of, but it was now home. Rain was coming down in buckets. I was wondering if I did the right thing. The pain prevented a lot of unpacking (It took nearly a year to find all of my silverware).
Being on Worker’s Comp, I needed to find an orthopedic doctor in Florida who would accept the Worker’s Comp insurance to care for the shoulder. I finally got an appointment for an orthopedist on April 28. I weighed in at his office at 213.
I wasn’t happy. I went on a girls’ trip vacation the following month at nearly 250 and wearing a sling. I was once again the fattest person in the room. I was sick and tired of being overweight, unhappy and in pain. I had to do something.
When I saw the Challenge beginning June 6 – the same day I started Physical therapy — I joined. I figured I couldn’t work and unpacking the garage was still a tedious, painful, one-armed process. I couldn’t even find my scale in the garage, I had to buy a new one! Nor did I have a mirror (It was somewhere in a box in the garage). What could I lose? Weight!
I started the challenge with no expectations at all. Some days were good, some weren’t. My physical therapy lasted the entire length of the challenge. I was in constant pain. When the challenge ended, I was down 25 pounds! I was surprised I lost the weight, since I wasn’t the best at sticking to the plan 100 percent.
The best part, I continued to lose weight (another 15 pounds) after the challenge just by following the Real Life part of R3.
In August, after an 18-month wait, I flew to Washington, DC and Arlington National Cemetery to bury my mother. The flight home was an adventure. After multiple delays and a layover, I arrived at my destination airport, and I woke up two days later in a hospital ICU. Apparently, stress and the pain medication caused a cascade effect resulting in diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA). I also had never been a diabetic prior to this event, I have no memory of being in an ambulance, in an ER or let alone in an MRI, but I was.
When I was released, to go home —my day trip to DC had turned into a week. I had gained 11 pounds (they said water weight from IVs). It took three weeks to lose the water weight. I followed R3’s Real Life phase. The good news was the endocrinologist approved the R3 plan and liked the idea of my eating five to six times a day to keep my metabolism balanced. By September, my blood numbers were back to normal and I was taken off nearly all of the medications that came home with me from the hospital.
October came and I was down a total of 53 pounds. I decided not to do the Fall R3 challenge. I had a surgical date for a total reverse shoulder replacement on November 16—I didn’t want hospital food ruining my challenge!
Knowing I would be incapacitated for six weeks, I cooked R3-friendly meals—enough for 42 days and froze them tor my recovery meals. By the time of my surgery, I had lost an additional 14 pounds. This time, at the orthopedic office, I weighed in at 146 pounds! I was fully dressed and still in my shoes!
Of course, after surgery, I swelled up and gained 30 pounds! I left the hospital weighing 176 pounds, It took a month to shed those 30 pounds of water weight. Again, I did it by following my R3 Real Life phase.
On December 31, I was 145 pounds.
I’m happy about the weight loss, especially since I wasn’t allowed any workouts other than walking my chihuahua. I admit I feel better about myself now that i’m closer to my ideal weight. My shoulder still needs to finish healing, before I can go back to swimming, water running and rowing, to stay fit, but I’ll get there with R3. I want to lose the last 15-20 pounds for my ideal weight.
R3 is really a lifestyle for me and I know I’ll never go back to being that overweight again.
You may be wondering why I’m posting photos of these boxes? Well,it was 19 years ago that I decided to take a leap of faith for my health and my finances. These brown boxes arrive at my door every month. These boxes remind me that help others and in the process transform my own life. It also reminds me that II made the right decision. Love the products & Love the Company
In 1991, I was introdced to a company where I could work part-time selling products that I loved and seeing others feel the same about the products. Yes, it was a party plan, but those social times were fun!
I did well enought to get promoted, but there came a day that selling to meet quotas became a pressure for me. You see, at the beginning of every month I started over with a zero income base — additional pressure. Plus, most of my earned income was not coming from the sales I made. Most of the income came from being a subject matter expert in the field and doing seminars or consultations on how people could improve their lives using these or similar products. That was more fun and being that I was a full time freelance graphic designer first and foremost, the work at home behind those successful years was too much pressure for me.
So, in 2002 I walked away.
After a two-year hiatus. A friend called and told me she found a line of safer for you, less expensive, better-performing products that Ishe thought would help with some of my medical issues. Doubtfully, I tried them, loved them, and became excited when I discovered I could make money! That fit my lifestyle!
This online wellness company shared its revenue with shoppers who referred other shoppers to the shop club instead of using paid advertising. Word of mouth testimonials and simple referrals are the reasons the company could use natural, better working ingredients and sell their products at money-saving prices. No paid advertising saves billions!
For almost 20 years, I have received a check every single month from my referrals. Why does it work? People love the products and 96% of the customers I’ve referred order again the next month.
Would you really enjoy a check you could depend on every month that did not require selling products?
It’s an income stream that doesn’t interfere with your main business/priorities — it fits in nicely with my ilfestyle I know this residual income could take me through my retirement…I thought my story was worth sharing and, if you’re interested in learning more, feel free to contact me.
Cucumbers contain most of the vitamins you need every day, just one cucumber contains Vitamin B1, Vitamin B2, Vitamin B3, Vitamin B5, Vitamin B6, Folic Acid, Vitamin C, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Potassium and Zinc.
Feeling tired in the afternoon? Put down the caffeinated soda and pick up a cucumber. Cucumbers are a good source of B vitamins and Carbohydrates that can provide that quick pick-me-up that can last for hours.
Tired of your bathroom mirror fogging up after a shower? Try rubbing a cucumber slice along the mirror, it will eliminate the fog and provide a soothing, spa-like fragrance.
Are grubs and slugs ruining your planting beds? Place a few slices in a small pie tin and your garden will be free of pests all season long. The chemicals in the cucumber react with the aluminum to give off a scent undetectable to humans but drive garden pests crazy and make them flee the area.
Looking for a fast and easy way to remove cellulite before going out or to the pool? Try rubbing a slice or two of cucumbers along your problem area for a few minutes, the phytochemicals in the cucumber cause the collagen in your skin to tighten, firming up the outer layer and reducing the visibility of cellulite. Works great on wrinkles too!!!
Want to avoid a hangover or terrible headache? Eat a few cucumber slices before going to bed and wake up refreshed and headache free. Cucumbers contain enough sugar, B vitamins and electrolytes to replenish essential nutrients the body lost, keeping everything in equilibrium, avoiding both a hangover and headache!!
Looking to fight off that afternoon or evening snacking binge? Cucumbers have been used for centuries and often used by European trappers, traders and explores for quick meals to thwart off starvation.
Have an important meeting or job interview and you realize that you don’t have enough time to polish your shoes? Rub a freshly cut cucumber over the shoe, its chemicals will provide a quick and durable shine that not only looks great but also repels water.
Out of WD 40 and need to fix a squeaky hinge? Take a cucumber slice and rub it along the problematic hinge, and voila, the squeak is gone!
Stressed out and don’t have time for massage, facial or visit to the spa? Cut up an entire cucumber and place it in a boiling pot of water, the chemicals and nutrients from the cucumber will react with the boiling water and be released in the steam, creating a soothing, relaxing aroma that has been shown the reduce stress in new mothers and college students during final exams.
Just finish a business lunch and realize you don’t have gum or mints? Take a slice of cucumber and press it to the roof of your mouth with your tongue for 30 seconds to eliminate bad breath, the phytochemicals will kill the bacteria in your mouth responsible for causing bad breath.
Looking for a ‘green’ way to clean your taps, sinks or stainless steel? Take a slice of cucumber and rub it on the surface you want to clean, not only will it remove years of tarnish and bring back theshine, but is won’t leave streaks and won’t harm you fingers or fingernails while you clean.
Using a pen and made a mistake? Take the outside of the cucumber and slowly use it to erase the pen writing, also works great on crayons and markers that the kids have used to decorate the walls!
With my allergies and sensitive skin, there were always issues with laundry detergents and my clothing. Brand new clothing would itch and cause rashes, so it had to be washed before wearing. Of course, depending on the detergent used, washing would often not remove the issue. Some of those detergents caused additional rashes, leaving me no better off than I was before.
Just walking down the detergent and soap aisle and inhaling the varied scented soaps and powders was enough to set off an asthma attack. Naturally, I avoided the aisle as much as possible so I wouldn’t have sneezing and coughing fits, On one trip to restock, I discovered a phosphate-free detergent, which helped some, but there were other ingredients that still caused my skin to react with rashes and welts. It was a constant problem.
Then I found my wellness shopping club and their laundry detergent. Wow! It was a game changer! For the first time ever I had no rashes, no allergic reactions to the smell and my clothes were clean! The best part, it came in liquid form and you only need to use a small amount to get your clothes clean becausebecause it’s powered by a proprietary formula with three stain-busting natural enzymes. In fact, a 32-ounce. bottle could wash 96 loads! So, in the long run, it was also a savings.
How can this product work so well? Well, the proprietary formula’s enzymes powerfully yet gently lift stains and encapsulate them to prevent those stains from redepositing on my clothing. National brands use brute force that destroys fabric in the process!
The small amount needed is actually two tiny teaspoons. Yes, two teaspoons can clean an entire load of laundry. You’d need more than a quarter cup of the most popular National brand to do the same job! For me, that makes it a great value.
This product is the most concentrated liquid laundry detergent on the market. That means it produces significantly less plastic waste and fewer greenhouse gases than competitive products. The natural ingredients and enzymes are great for the environment as well.
I’ll never use another brand of laundry detergent again.
The FDA requires that all sunscreens maintain their full strength for three years—so, if you have leftover sunscreen at the end of the summer, you should be able to safely use it for two more summers. Some sunscreen manufacturers print the expiration date on the bottle or label, but not all do. When you buy a bottle of sunscreen, check for an expiration date. If it doesn’t have one, write the date of purchase in permanent marker on the container. Be Happy and Be Healthy!
Hayseeds Creative 