Metabolism Matters (Part 1)

Hands up if you like more energy. Anyone like more energy? Anybody in the room like to lose a few kilos? Easily! Well I’m in the right place. Have you noticed that when things are going really well in your life, it’s easy to take care of yourself? Yeah? And you also noticed when things aren’t going quite so smoothly in your life it’s a little more challenging to stay on track? I decided I want to turn this around and in my forties I thought what can I do about it I had a really busy life. I have children, a business, was pretty overwhelmed. I had a day spa retreat in the Dandenong Ranges in Melbourne. Anyone heard of Dandenong’s? Beautiful place. Yeah. So I was teaching people how to relax while working seven days a week. Long hours everyday. So you could say that my life is out of balance and I had a lot of bad behaviors that probably contributed to my sluggishness, my metabolism failing and ultimately some mood swings that my charming family had to wear because what you eat does affect how you feel. Who else here thinks the only way to to be healthy and lose weight is to train really hard everyday and starve yourself. Or, what were you about to do? You starve yourself on the Dukan diet or have the diet shakes or whatever.

And here’s what I knew, I’ve been a national athlete in my 20s. I was the first female distance runner awarded a scholarship to the institute of sport in Canberra. I trained with 216 elite athletes so I learned a lot about goal setting and just about everything you could know about being fit and healthy. My first question that I asked myself, this is one of the tools I’m going to suggest to you is to, when you get a bit stuck in your life when you feel you’re in a rut, when you wanna make some changes, ask questions. Be defined about what you want. So I said to myself, what do I want? And having more energy was what came to me. Now I needed that energy to be able to start doing that training again. So I started researching ways to find it.

Anybody here heard about Aruveydic medicine? Yeah. So you’re probably aware then that Aruveydic medicine gives you the balance between your mind, your body and the forces of nature. So here I was waking up in a beautiful valley to a magnificent sunrise. On the forest every morning than choosing to get up really late. So every morning right in my face was all the clues of nature. The way the birds wake up, the way the mountain woke up and I was ignoring it. Aruveydic medicine brought me back to understanding the rhythms of nature. There was my first clue. The second clue that I discovered was your thinking really has a big effect on your motivation. So often we rebook so you might hear information tonight and it make sense to you and probably everyone in this room knows a lot about being healthy but are you actually implementing those strategies on a daily basis or occasionally when you remind yourself. So the motivation to be healthy is very important as well. Now the third aspect is organization. I was busy and as I shared with you I was getting up late. I had a few of these bad behaviors and what I found was I’d fly into my day always feeling behind. I often skip breakfast. I would grab something on the run mid-morning. And because I was busy I was a martyr. I worked through lunch. Anybody here do that? Have like late afternoon lunch? Yeah? Putting yourself last? So I had a really light lunch feeling really you know, that light flag feeling you get when you do that? Where you just had to eat anything? Then I’d fall in at home at night and think, oh what am I gonna eat? Then I have to go out again to the supermarket to buy some food to feed not only myself but my family. And quite often in all honesty, I would eat something very unhealthy for dinner. Just because it was there. Or I would drink too much alcohol.

So I’m sharing that with you so that you realize this has been a journey for me and all this information in the book is a see of tools that guided me to live my life with the routines and the perspectives that I have now. Helping you to start to listen to this voice and less to this one. Yeah. Or if you listen to this one, to challenge it and really start to discern what’s this to listen to. When I started adopting these Aruveydic principles which teach you to be in balance with nature, I certainly gained more energy. But after a few weeks something surprising happened. I’d lost weight and I thought I haven’t gotten to it yet. I hadn’t even started exercising. And there I was, I had this weight loss and I just went, whoa there’s something in this! So I started exploring it further and further and further and after a lot of research I actually came up with the concept of circadian rhythms. Anyone heard of circadian rhythms? Yeah. Very similar to Aruveydic. So I’ve researched it from the western culture and the eastern culture. And it overlays itself. One of the biggest tools, one of the aspect you can have is to empower yourself to learn about yourself in relation to health models and obviously here tonight to do that with a couple of speakers.

Your metabolism is amazing. It’s the engine room of your body. And when you start to get your head around the fact that it’s the beginning and end of all processes, you can really start to make that work for you. Now everybody hold out your eyelid and feel the skin of your eyelid. It’s thin isn’t it? It’s pretty much the thickness of your digestive system. So you’ve basically got this 25-foot hose that starts here and ends up here. Now here’s an interesting fact for you. One cell splits into two, one became your mouth, the other became. Adds new meaning to kiss my ass doesn’t it? And between it is this 25-foot hose that processes the food you eat. Now, no surprise, everything you put in your body is processed by your digestive system to give you fuel. It’s the absorption system through your body. Here’s another interesting fact, 70 percent of your immune system is in your digestive system. 70 percent. Yeap. How do I know this? Well, my mother in law’s doctor told me when he took out a big piece of her colon. He said I’ll be taking a big piece of her colon. She’ll be alright, she’ll go on. But along with that comes the big part of the immune system as well which travels through your digestive system. If your digestive system is not efficient for you, good chance rather is your immune system. If your digestive system isn’t clean and healthy it will compromise your immune system. So when I started cleaning up my digestive system, my immune system room increased dramatically. When you’re nervous about something what do you feel in your tummy? Butterflies. When you feeling really anxious how easy is it to eat? More than not eating when you feel anxious. When you’re really stressed, notice that you’ll be tightening in your gut. Tightening in your gut, guess what you’re doing to your digestives system? You’re cramping it. So being relaxed when you eat is really important. Now how ironic. To speed something up you actually need to slow it down.

So huge factor for your metabolism being efficient is to start looking at how you’re treating your digestive system. Are you eating on the run? Do you sit in your desk all day and eat? Actually noticed when you do that? You think you haven’t eaten? You got back for more? Next time you go I haven’t eaten, it’s not conscious eating. You just shove the food down and you actually don’t feel like you’ve been fed. So, a couple things to give up, eating on the run. Another factor that’s very powerful for kicking your metabolism along is raw food. Cooked food will have the vitamins and minerals in it but the cooking prices kills the liveness in it. The life force basically. So I encourage you to go back to eating some real food. So if you’re having pouched eggs, you know how those chefs used to put the parsley on the plate and they don’t now? Ask for parsley. Ask him to chop it all up and put it all over your eggs. If you’re having an evening meal that’s what particularly a meal like this, you just chop up some fresh herbs and put it over the top or have a salad with it. I cut out carrots and celery and feed it to my kids while I’m cooking their dinner. So I know the enzymes are there when I eat the cooked food. Everything you put in your stomach needs an enzyme to process it. Enzymes are called co-catalysts. They’re like a spark plug. They just trigger reactions in the body and they trigger the digesting of the food. So if you don’t have an enzyme in your stomach when you’re eating the food what do you think the enzymes come from in your body you? Your organs, your bones, your body will start extracting. So that’s what’s really important to get the enzymes in there when you eat your food. You hear that eating breakfast is good for you, yeah Everybody kinda know’s it but you actually know why?

What is explained in this book is some of the basic principles of why these concepts are there. So that when your mind starts to understand that the reasons behind it you can understand and implement it in a nice simple fashion. So imagine your digestive system like a clock and this clock is connected to the sun. So when the sun rises in the morning it’s gaining momentum and it’s actually waking up every cell in your body. How does it do that? Hormones. You have wake up hormones. Hormones that literally wake you up. Now I don’t know in your day-to-day life with your experience but think of the time of you being camping or staying out in the bush have you noticed that 5 in the morning woop wake up suddenly? Anybody experience that? You might not get up but you notice that sudden wake up. That’s those wake up hormones being triggered by the light of new day. This is nature’s template so that, we, and we are animals. Actually I know we like to think we’re very sophisticated but when you strip away all technology and we’re out in the bush we’re fending for ourselves just like the other animals. So this template triggers us into those instincts. So those wake up hormones are designed to get you up and going. Now you’ve been fasting throughout the night you haven’t eaten any food. You’re also dehydrated. So if you imagine your digestive system like the furnace of a steam engine it’s got burned out coals in it. Now then I’m gonna light a new fire without taking those coals out of the engine, we’re exactly the same. So your body actually needs a little bit of a detoxification first thing every morning. It needs a cleansing drink. Certainly needs hydrating. So here’s the recommendation. A raw juice. Have a raw juice first thing in the morning. We’ll have a barley grain shot or a wheatgrass shot or a glass of hot water with lemon juice. Now you’re all probably aware that lemon juice is good for you. Lemon juice is very alkaline when it mixes with stomach acid and it’s great for cleaning at the toxins out of the body. These sort of morning activities, these morning rituals hydrate your body, start removing the toxins out of the body. If you’re having a raw juice you’re filling your body with enzymes right at the start of the day. Very nourishing. And because you’ve been fasting throughout the night, in my case when I skipped breakfast, I’d had a whopping headache at 10 in the morning. That headache was a detox headache. Those toxins are just trying to find their way into my system.

Now when the sun goes down it triggers other hormones. Melatonin. Melatonin’s the relaxing sleep hormone. You’re actually meant to be tired at the end of the day and energized in the morning. Makes more sense to me. I never used to be like that of course. I used to be a night owl. So, early evening I eat my evening meal as early as possible. Now i know in busy life styles that can be a bit tricky but I’m also a bit particular bit what I eat at an evening meal. And the reason why is my metabolism is at its lowest because the sun’s gone down, you’ve got melatonin in your body slowing everything down. So I’m preparing really for a night sleep. That’s what’s coming. That’s what’s nature telling you need. There’s couple things here I don’t really want to go to bed with a full stomach of food because in that deep sleep phase, I wanna be healing my body. Now interestingly enough when you’re in deep sleep, and when I’m in deep sleep, that’s the dreamless sleep. Now science has absolutely proven before midnight sleep is the most beneficial sleep you can have. Anyone in the room hiding? I used to be an absolute night owl and regularly miss a steep phase of sleep and I was eroding my vitality. I was always waking up sluggish. I now find that when I get need the before midnight sleep, I’m awake very early, very alert, ready to go. And the people who wanted time, I’m gonna show you hey you’re gonna have more time in just a moment.

In deep sleep, we lose all our senses. Yeah? We know that. That’s why we need smoke alarms. We don’t see, we don’t hear, we don’t feel. People can touch you and you just don’t wake up in that deep sleep phase, yeah? All the senses are gone. So there’s a concept that that’s where your soul leaves the body. And goes to, i don’t know, have a rest, wander around, whatever it does during that phase. And then when you start waking up, when you start having dreams again, it’s back and all your senses are back. You start to smell again, you start to hear, you literally start to feel the person next to you, you feel your bed. You’re still in your sleep phase but it’s much much lighter. So it’s just a concept for you to think about. But isn’t it interesting that there is that need for that very deep healing rest. When I was a night owl going to bed at 1 in the morning on a regular basis, I never got that feeling of absolute rest. And what I found was my moods were often grumpy. Can you remember back to being a child and having that head on the pillow and someone wakes you up and say, “but I’ve only just gone to bed”. It’s like you just completely left. Your mind’s left, everything’s left and rejuvenated and come back. So that’s the value of that sleep. Now because I now get that before midnight sleep, when I wake up very early in the morning and those hormones hit and wake me up, I’m wide awake. So guess what I do… Anything I like! I wake up, I meditate, I go for a walk along the beach, I go for a run, I go to the gym, I write. But I do whatever I like. I certainly don’t wake my children up. So I I gained more time. That’s where I gained more time and I gained time at the front of the day. Me time. And the other way, the reason I was a night owl was because I work such long hours and I wanted time for me. And I sort of put the children to bed to make time for me but it was inefficient because I was tired and I’ve had too much wine by that stage.

So all I can suggest to you is to try this 24 hour clock. The six time frames within it, they’re designed to show you what to eat and when which suits each 6 hour time frame or 4 hour time frame. It also shows you what activities basing each time frame. So when you’re, when you’ve got melatonin in your body and your body’s trying to relax, if you trying to do a lot of strenuous activity, well guess what, you’re gonna use a lot more energy. You’re gonna be going against the grain. Here’s what I noticed with this clock. It wasn’t long and I noticed I was sleeping better, I had a better mental faculty, my moods were better. The body weight started falling off me. In general I feel in sync. And what I noticed was when I stepped out of this this model, which I occasionally do if I part or christmas time. I move back to it really fast because I miss that feeling of being in sync. A feeling of flow, of feeling the balance. And unless you experience it, you probably not gonna really understand what it all means.

One of the other models that I’ve been laying on top of this was very much about the motivation. Now, we are thinking, feeling beings. Everything you think creates a chemical reaction in your body. Tears of sadness and tears of joy have been analyzed and have a different chemical composition. Amazing. Yeah. So the neurology of your brain is very powerful. Now, it’s so powerful that when you chew food thoroughly in your mouth the messages go up to the brain of what’s there and the brain sends messages to the stomach to say, this is what’s coming, get ready. It’s so interconnected. So when you start to understand how powerful your thinking is, and let’s face it, try telling a child who’s just had a nightmare that there’s a monster in their room that the monster’s not real. They’re convinced. The body actually takes the messages from the brain, not the other way around. So when you start to understand this thinking, you realize that you can actually start speeding your metabolism up with lighter thoughts. Happier thoughts. More impairing thoughts. But I know what you might be thinking, how do you change your thinking? Well there are some methods in my book on how to do it. And with practice, the big thing that you all had, you had as a child. You notice in the day children are really over-stimulated? Yeah? The university decided to do a piece of research about children being over-stimulated. They go to a small room with no windows, filled full of hay. Put a little stool in the corner. Put two little girls. This little girl I brought in the room, sat her on the stool and closed the door. Came back 20 minutes later and she sitting on the stool sulking and sucking. And I said what’s the matter? She said oh it’s really dirty in this room and absolutely thing to do, I’m bored! Took her out of the room, brought in the next little girl, sat her on the stool, came back 20 minutes later. She’s throwing this hay all around the room! It’s everywhere! And I said, what are you doing? And she said, with all this hay there’s gotta be a pony in here somewhere.

What’s the difference between the two little girls? Attitude? Absolutely, yes. Yes, imagination. We’ve all got one. We all use it. How are you using yours now? And the thing is you are still using it even if you’re not conscious of it. You’re imagining all the time with your thoughts. It’s just often we’re imagining backwards. We might want to be fit and healthy and have all motivating, oh I’m gonna join a gym, I’m gonna get started, i feel motivated now. But in your quiet moments when you’re driving around in the car what’s really going on? Oh I don’t think I can be bothered. It’s all too hard. I don’t know where to begin. You know I’ve had this weight on me ever since I can remember so probably I’m stuck with it for my life. And on it goes. You know the talk don’t you? And it’s not just about our ways. It’s about a lot of things in our life. So, how’s your imagination working in that sense? Too much in the pulling apart. The demotivating of something.

Alright, I’m just gonna take a few little walks across this stage just so that you get a bit of feeling of this. And I want you to tell me what I’m thinking. Yeah? I’m gonna say anything.

You’re anxious.

Yeah. That’s right. Nervous. Very nervous. Okay.

And there’s one more.

I want what she’s having.

Okay. So I’m thinking a certain way and it’s reflecting in my motions and I’m acting them out. You can read people very easily if you just start looking at how they’re feeling. You can look at how someone’s feeling and know what they’re thinking. Know what state of thinking they’re in. So, you are conscious of me doing that but we are walking around all the time unconsciously thinking, feeling, reacting and wondering what’s coming back at us. When we have road rage. Yeah? It’s not me. I’m not an angry person. Let me think about that. So this is what motivates you. Really starting to consciously focus on your thinking. So, you know what you’re thinking now, you know the results that’s bringing you in your life, what if you could pull apart a little bit? What if you could actually experience it from a different perspective? Now Einstein always said that you can’t solve a problem by looking at the problem. You need to come at it from a different perspective. So part of gaining better health, part of losing that body fat you haven’t been able to lose is to look at it from a different perspective. If you keep running the program I’m fat, I’m always gonna be fat, I’m round, when I look in the mirror I see ugly. Well, how motivating is that? So what if you could create a new way of speaking to yourself? Way you spoke to yourself in a loving and kind way. You think that would be more motivating? Because that’s what it really comes back to. To speak to yourself in a nurturing and kind way. To get rid of the disapproving language that we all have and to start speaking to yourself as if you are your best friend and the person you love the most on the planet. Motivates you. Makes you feel like you want to look after yourself. It’s easier that way. This model we currently have in this country isn’t working. As Eloise said, it’s just not working and the solution that thing presented to us is flog yourself, you have to try hard every day and you basically have to starve yourself. Now I’m meeting a lot of people. The mind, body, spirit in just about every state meeting lots and lots of people who many of them said to me if I have to sit in front of another doctor who says you need to lose weight, I think I’ll punch him! Because it’s obvious! But she said I’m sixty, both my knees are gone, i cant even walk. And I’m being told that if I can’t exercise I’m stuck with this. So she said, I give up! I gave up long ago. So guess what? That model’s not working.

When you start to learn that what you think is very powerful and you can change it, you just need to learn how. When you start to learn how to eat more effectively to nourish yourself. When your body’s nourished it’s not that hungry. Hello! It’s pretty simple. Yeah? So you don’t crave the crap food basically. You need to become the change you want to see, but you need to see it and then step into it. So when you step into it you actually need to let go of the stuff that doesn’t match it.

I just very quickly wanna pass these around. There’s are very significant. When I found them, my child had to show me, oh I’m having those. I was watching him play with them many years ago. These are load stones. They are naturally occurring magnets. They’re just polished up so they naturally occurring and they’re magnetic. So if you want to be fit and healthy but you’ve got those negative thoughts, all those defeating thoughts. Then, I’m gonna pass these around, there’s no way I can match that. I cannot put that together. The energy doesn’t match. And we’re all learning about energy today aren’t we, with all the books we’re reading. But a shift of thinking, a shift in perspective makes it happen quite easily. So my message is it doesn’t have to be done with force which is what we’ve all been told it’s the only way. It’s actually quite natural when you get the variables right.