Fetal Origins Hypothesis

The more that I learn about the endeavor that I am about to embark upon, conceiving a child, the more freaked out I become.  I should have started this pre-conception diet when I was 5 years old according to the sources that I am reading.

I am taking it all in and doing my best to allow the knowledge to motivate me towards the humdrum daily tasks of fermenting my dairy, making sauerkraut, making ghee, eating soup over and over again….haha….

I have always been the artsy, creative type.  You may know the type.  You may not understand us.  One of the hardest things for me to do is to do the SAME thing day in and day out.  Talk about boring. Talk about breaking down my creativity.  And yet I find myself committed to my journey to create a baby that will change this world and that will not contract disease later in life.

Yes, you heard me correctly.  The studies that have been conducted on fetal development show that the nutrition of the mother during pregnancy can be directed correlated to the development of their baby even into adult years.

In fact, according to Dr. Barker, one of the forerunners in fetal health and development research, found that:

1.  Low birth weight links directly to the later development of heart disease in numerous studies in the US, European countries, and India.  In fact, the risk of a 5-pound baby is higher than a 6-pound baby, which is higher than a 7-pound baby and so on until the baby reaches 9-pounds.  Babies who are born small are not necessarily premature, rather, they developed slowly in the womb because of the lack of proper nutrition coming from its mother.

2.  In fact, low birth weight linked directly to the later development of diabetes.  Beta cells are cells in the pancreas that produce insulin.  Beta cells are formed in the womb and babies that are born at a low birth weight may not have had the opportunity to produce enough of these critical beta cells.  Thus, this may set up a baby to struggle with blood sugar handling later in life, possibly increase their chance of developing obesity and diabetes.

Just these two studies alone have enough impact to really rattle my mind and my emotions into action.  I must ensure that my child develops properly in the womb.

According to the researchers and scientists involved in the study of fetal health and development, our ability to thrive later in life in our bodies begins in the womb.  "The kind and quantity of nutrition you received in the womb; the pollutants, drugs, and infections you were exposed to during gestation; your mother's health, stress level, and state of mind while she was pregnant with you-all these factors shaped you as a baby and a child and continue to affect you to this day (Annie Paul Murphy, TIME magazine in response to Dr. Barker's research)."

In most traditional cultures, this is simply common sense and ancient wisdom that has been passed down from generation to generation which form and shapes the traditions and behaviors of those who continue to practice them.  For example, tribes who lived in the Andes mountain range send men down to the sea to collect fish eggs for their wives' who were preparing for pregnancy or for those who were already pregnant.  In a similar fashion, Gallic fishermen in Scotland would feed woman of childbearing age fish heads stuffed with oats and chopped liver.

Hungry anyone?  I have a stuffed fish head in my fridge, if you would like.  Haha.  There are plenty of healthy foods that we can feed our bodies if we are planning on conceiving or if we are creating life even now without being completely freaked out.

One of the best things for women who are planning on conceiving would be to make homemade bone broth from 100% grass-fed beef bones.  The amino acids, the minerals, the healthy fats make for the perfect food for women at the childbearing age.  One of the best benefits that I have notices has been an immense decrease in food cravings.  My body is so satiated by the nutrients in the broth, that I don't tend to overeat or crave towards any types of sugar (even natural and healthy sweeteners such as honey).

The grim reality is that more and more young couples are discovering that they are infertile.  As of now, the Mayo Clinic reports 15% of American couples are infertile.  In Canada, the infertility rates were 5% in 1984 and in 2009 infertility rates jumped up to 13.7%.

Why are infertility rates on the rise?  Why are cancer rates on the rise?  The National Cancer Institute predicts that 41% of all children born in 2012 will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime.  41%??!!! This percentage is insane and completely frightening.  The solution starts and ends in our diets and in our food supply.

We MUST be educated as to what is in our food supply, water, personal care products, cleaning products, and how this can potentially destroy our genetic potential and turn on genes that express disease and premature death.

Unfortunately for Americans, the battle to be healthy is one of the worst in our land.  And we continually export our refined, processed, and chemically altered foods to other countries who will receive it.  Thankfully there are some countries that will not receive what we are attempting to send.  There are plenty of countries who are legally refusing the entry of GMOed food into their land.  That is where I want to move when our food supply has been destroyed.

I know that I sound dramatic to some people.  But when you start to learn and become educated about what is happening, you may start to sound like me and may begin to fight not only for your health, but for the health of your fetus, your children, your husband, and your friends.

Internal Bliss

So here I am, week 2 of a preconception intensive diet.  And I am realizing why more and more people never start to make major changes in their lives.  There are so many mental and emotional challenges and blocks to health.  We have to overcome so many things to embrace a health lifestyle.

I have had people say oh, I could never eat soup 3 times a day (Disclaimer:  the plan does not put me on soup 3 times a day for the rest of my life, it happens in stages of adding in different foods to help heal my gut).  Acting like it is the most horrible, worst idea ever known to mankind.  Instead of considering the internal benefits of this lifestyle and plan, people are considering their cravings and taste buds.  I would prefer to consider the concept:  "internal bliss."  What does it mean to have internal bliss?

Internal bliss would mean to me complete balance and synergy of body, soul, and spirit.  Each aspect of my life blossoming in beautiful health and life.  Feeling comfortable in my skin, in my body, and feeling like I can overcome any obstacle that comes my way.

The road to come to internal bliss in my life is the most challenging road, the most narrow road and includes the most obstacles, distractions, and pain.  However, it also contains the most rewards and the most benefits to living a full life.

As I said in the beginning of my blog, I know why people don't ever start.  When you start, you have all the obstacles that begin to come up:  a fear of failure, a fear that it is just not working, procrastination, perfectionism, sabotage, and those horrible habits of emotional eating.

Last week, my favorite shirt snagged on something and ripped.  My initial reaction, to go to the pantry and have a chunk of dark chocolate.  Now that is a healthy habit to continue with (sarcasm included..).  I am watching myself and seeing myself struggle from so many angles as I change my diet and lifestyle (yet again, for the 20th time…).

Also, last week, I slept for 5 hours during the day while I was dealing with a healing reaction of sorts.  It felt crazy and wonderful at the same time.  I knew that my body was dealing with some sort of healing process and that it was necessary to listen to my body and submit to the healing process.  Thankfully it happened on my day off and it all worked out.   I have had moments of feeling tired and listless and moments of feeling wonderful and satisfied internally.

With every moment, I keep in mind that it is worth it.  Beyond the scale, beyond my self-image, and vanity, my body is going to create the most beautiful and miraculous thing every known to man:  a baby.  And this is precious and sacred.  It has to be worth the efforts, the ups and downs and the mini failures that bring me back to that moment that I decided to begin and that I was going to complete my goal of preparing my body for pregnancy.

I keep coming back to that moment that I decided.  That to begin the journey of self-sacrifice and love as a mother, I would begin with sacrificing my whims and desires to the strategy and plan of pursuing internal bliss.

YOUR DOING WHAT? Further experiences of being a healthy nut alien.

Haha....most of the time when I tell people that I am on a pre-conception diet they look at me with blank stares and wonder why in the world would I do that or why is it necessary.  Lately at social gatherings, I pass on all of the food with a simple explanation that I am on a plan to prepare my body for conception.

Many people look at me like I am an alien from a foreign country and that I am out of my mind.  Others wonder, am I trying to get pregnant now?  And there are a handful who look at me like a baby is about to pop out of me right that very instant.

Pregnancy has become an excuse to eat whatever our body is "craving," including pizza, pop, ice cream, and all other types of self-indulgent forms of "food" because our mentality of health is as deep as a number on a scale...thus, pregnancy is the one time that a woman can be fat and have a good excuse.  

I am sorry if I offend people with this post, but sometimes a little offense is necessary at properly distributing the truth to a world full of distortions, white lies, and slap you in the face straight up back-stabbing deception and manipulation.  

This mentality on pregnancy is selfish and all about self-indulgence at the cost of the health of an innocent baby.  We need to change our mentality about pregnancy and raising healthy children otherwise we will lose our children before their time or raise children with all kinds of imbalances and diseases.

The health of my child that I will birth one day is completely my responsibility and completely dependent on my diet and lifestyle while I am preparing for conception, during pregnancy, and before birth.  Another mentality on health that has lead to so many people being able to dismiss responsibility for their health is the topic of genetics.  My mother had diabetes, my grandmother had diabetes, and therefore I will just automatically develop diabetes.  I might as well eat all the brownies, cakes, and ice creams that I can see because it is all based on genetics anyways.  Right?   

Wrong.  Scientific understanding of genetics has come a long way and what we now know is that genes can be turned off or turned on based upon diet and lifestyle.  You may have received a gene for diabetes, but the reality is that it does not need to be turned on.  It can stayed turned off forever if you make a commitment to your health and to keeping refined carbs, refined sugars, processed foods, and fast foods out of your diet.  

Back to my baby.  That I will not be having tomorrow.  That I will not be having next week.  Or even next month.  In fact, we probably will not be trying to conceive for 1-2 years.  And yet, I am preparing, not just financially, not just emotionally, not just relationally and spiritually, I am preparing my body to do the most awesome task that it has been created for:  to create human life.  

This life is going to be spectacular and amazing, if I have any say in it.  This life is going to change the world, if I have any say in the matter.  And this life is going to be health, and this I know that I have a say in. 

Women for centuries upon centuries have taken the same careful, strategic planning in their diets in order to create the most healthy, spectacular human being that ever walked the face of the planet.  In many cultures, it is extremely normal for women and men to be on a pre-wedding and pre-conception diet in order to prepare to have children.  In fact, in these cultures, it would be strange for a woman to NOT prepare her body for conception with the best and most life-giving foods that their culture has to offer.  

I am WEEK 1 into a journey that I am so excited about.  Preparing for my baby to come to planet earth and be the healthiest baby that it can ever be.

I will be blogging throughout this journey, so join me, learn with me, and let's learn from cultures that I come before us who have paved the way.  We simply need to take the books off the shelves, dust off the years, and embrace all the wisdom that these cultures have to offer.

Soul Ties

Did you know that your soul can be tied to someone in a good way or a negative way?  Are you being controlled and manipulated by your child, friend, spouse, or parent?  This is one way to discern between a good soul tie or a negative soul tie.

Your soul is your mind, will, and emotions.  We are wired to make decisions based upon reasoning in our mind and emotions.  We make decisions based upon how we feel in any given moment or based on what we have been meditating on the last few days or hours.

I remember the first time that I realized that I had a negative soul tie.  I was in college and my mind was full, beyond capacity actually, of thoughts concerning a male friend of mine.  I could not get him out of my head.  I spoke with him every day and when I wasn't speaking to him, I was thinking about him, journaling about him, or talking to my friends about him.  I was obsessed.

Anything that he wanted, I would do.  Thankfully, he was a nice guy and did not take advantage of my obsession.  However, I had a serious problem in my soul.  I was bound.  I was not free to be me and to do what I wanted to do in life.

Anytime I had plans with a girlfriend, if my male friend called me and wanted to hang out, I would skip out on my girlfriend.  I was not normally like this.  Normally, I was a faithful friend and always showed up where I was supposed to be.

However, I felt completely out of control in this relationship.  I was out of control of my emotions, my mind, and my will.  I was controlled by my intense desires for this one man.  It was like a super-charged vacuum the size of a house that pulled me at every whim and moment.

I remember one particular day when I was praying and meditating by myself at my house.  I felt a still voice say, you need to let go of this relationship.  I felt so much fear when I heard that reverberate within my soul.  I knew that something needed to change.  But I didn't know how I could move forward with my life without this particular friendship.  I was scared of the gaping whole within my soul and the emptiness of being alone.

I was in bondage to an unhealthy soul tie.  This soul tie needed to be broken for me to experience freedom in my mind, my emotions, and my will.  I remember my friend praying to break the soul tie and literally feeling something break off of me.

It was different than I expected.  It took some adjustments, but I felt a new freedom of space in my mind and my emotions.  I had new sparks of creativity and spontaneity.  I felt freedom and space to pursue more relationships with friends.

It was the best thing that could have happened for my emotional health.  It is important for us to be honest and to assess which relationships in our lives are contributing to our emotional health and well-being and which relationships are controlled our mind, will, and emotions.

Kaizen: Embracing change

So you want to make a change in your life?  What kind of change?  What motivates you to change?

Lifestyle change can be very hard for people to make, especially after years of creating unhealthy habits.  Every time we do an action, a pathway is created or solidified in our brain.  The more that we do that same action over and over again, the deeper the pathway and the harder it is to make a new pathway.

Addictions are created by compulsively doing the same thing over and over again until the synapses in the brain are deep groves that are difficult to find a pathway out.

In Japanese culture, there is a concept of change called "kaizen."  Kaizen starts with tiny changes and improvements moving towards complete change.  The Sino-Japanese word means "good change" and is similar in meaning to the English word improvement.  A kaizen practitioner would recommend the smallest change which would lead to a complete 180.  For example, if you wanted to quit drinking coffee, a kaizen change would start with cutting back 1 ounce of coffee at a time until you are completely done with that habit.

If you wanted to start exercising again, a kaizen change would be 10 sit-ups a day until you worked up to an entire workout routine.  The reason why kaizen works is because you are bit by bit etching a new synapse in your brain towards a new habit.  It doesn't matter how small you are starting, it is that you are starting.

Anytime you are considering making a lifestyle change, it is important to realize that you should make changes that fit into your personality and your current lifestyle so that you can have success.  When I made changes in my lifestyle, I made an extreme dramatic makeover in the course of a few days.  My personality thrives with change and with absolutes and extremes so this was the perfect way to make a change for me.

However, for someone who is very busy and who has deeply interwoven bad habits into their lifestyle, it may be important to approach change with the philosophy of kaizen.

Ask yourself the question, what is the most important thing to change in my life right now?  And what would be the first step forward?  Once you determine the area that needs the most help and attention, take a very practical and very small step forward.  Pretty soon, you will build momentum towards lasting change in your life which will be very rewarding.

Have you ever watched the show Super Nanny?  I find this show very interesting because of the value that is shown in bringing in an outside person to consult with regarding areas of a family's life that is lacking or is not balanced.  Super Nanny does a wonderful job of not only assessing where change is needed, but delivering creative ideas to implement small changes.

On a path in the woods, if someone slightly started walking 2 degrees to the left, eventually they will be on a completely different path.  Imagine your life going in the wrong direction and how the smallest adjustment to the left or right could benefit where you land 5 years from now, 10 years from now, and 25 years from now.

Let's embrace change and implement Kaizen into our lives!