Moving Strongly Forward

WAP Conference - Dr. Kaayla Daniel, PhD and CCN, Empowering Detoxification of Heavy Metals

Chronic toxicities of heavy metals can be responsible, at least partially, for depression ADD, adrenal fatigue, memory lost and more. The information below affects health more broadly, but the focus of this talk is heavy metals. Due to this focus and my incomplete notes, please keep in mind that the implications for some of the points are bigger, and Dr. Daniel recognizes that.

Here are the steps to recovery:

Step 1 - Stop exposing yourself. I am just beat down on this one.

• Mercury - Getting rid of your amalgam fillings is the first step and the most important problem. Find a biological dentist. The International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology  can help you find one. Don’t remove too many fillings at once! She didn’t say how many is too many. Also note that some composites have BPA, so you want to avoid those as well.

• Aluminum – Exposure is from aluminum foil, chocolate and other pre-packed foods, cookware, water bottles, restaurant buffets.

• Stainless Steel – Exposure to nickel (more people are toxic in nickel than you would think) and chromium. Get rid of your CHEAP stainless pots and pans that are pitted and scratched. Do not cook with lemon, tomato or vinegar in them. Replace with glass cookware, which you can get off of Ebay, or cast iron with enamel. If you can, get titanium instead of stainless steel braces or other orthodontics.

• Nickel – Shortening, margarine, transfats. A lot of people have an allergy to it. I don’t know how it expresses itself.

• Borax – Do not use this for health.

• Mercury and Cadmium settle in the kidneys.

• Lead settles in the bone (to get it away from the organs), and it replaces calcium. Get the lead and aluminum out of your body to improve your bones. Lead also disrupts the formation fo red blood cells.

• Oxidative stress – inhibits antioxidant production.

• Needed minerals that are toxic: copper, manganese, iron from fortified cereals and cheap supplements.

• Drugs have toxic metals, both OTC and prescription.

Step 2 – Diet

• High fructose corn syrup contains mercury.

• BPS is in most packages and can linings.

• Eat animal foods such as eggs, red meat to ingest cysteine. Soy binds cysteine and prevents its use.

• Zinc from red meat

• Eat veggies when in doubt – they are a vehicle for butter

• Antioxidant rich fruits include berries, but beware of salicilates. Check out this article: Plants Bite Back.

• Healing the gut – If the GAPS Diet doesn’t work, then you have a heavy metal problem.

• When detoxing your cholesterol can goo high because of the detox.

Step 3 - Steps for cleaning up your lifestyle:

• Decrease stress

• Increase sleep

• Get rid of coffer

• Address EMF problems like cell phones, computers, WiFi. EMF solution – a Q link pendant for $100. Philip Stein has also developed a Teslar watch.

• Highway fumes create a manganese problem

• Get rid of underwire bras – they constrict the lymph and affect detox. Wearers are more prone to breast cancer. Aluminum deodorant contributes to.

• When exposed to radiation, take salt and soda baths. One pound of each. Stay in bath for ½ hour to 45 minutes, allowing the water to cool naturally.

Step 4 – Lab Assessment

Hair test is the best. Blood and urine tests are for sudden exposure, not chronic problems. If your hair test comes back negative, that means you are not healthy enough to get the heavy metals out. Ratios are more important than levels. The sodium to potassium ratio is key to energy and detox.

What can we do on our own?

Diatamaceous earth

1T per 100 pounds body weight. Side effects: Awake/lack of sleep as liver detoxes – or sleep well. Stools change – either loose or bound. Change is good.

Toxiclenz – diatomaceous earth and phytate, which binds have metals. Take before bed.

Coffee Enemas to detox the liver.

Kaayla does not like juicing – it creates a sugar imbalance.

Kaayla does not like fasting – it is too toxic.

Check out Kaayla’s article Mad as a Hatter.

And that is all from the WAP conference. Whew!  

WAP Conference – The Heart is Not a Pump with Dr. Tom Cowan, MD

Ok. This talk is so hard to describe. I don’t even know if I want to try - much. Read this article from Temple University: THE HEART IS NOT A PUMP: A REFUTATION OF THE PRESSURE PROPULSION PREMISE OF HEART FUNCTION. Here is Dr. Cowan’s take on it: The Heart Does Not Pump.

After reading the articles, I don’t have anything to add, except the below three points, which tie back to my previous blog post: WAP Conference – Heart Health with Dr. Tom Cowan, MD.

Here are the points:

1. Artherosclorosis compensates to keep blood pressure up because the blood pump (which is not the heart) is broken. Put another way, the tubes narrow in response to a bad pump.

2. How do you fix the pump? Eat more healthy fat and exercise more.

3. Muscles expand and relax into themselves. They do not have contractions.

WAP Conference – Heart Health with Dr. Tom Cowan, MD

Dr. Cowan’s two talks were mind blowers in that that completely plowed over the paradigms that most people understand related to the heart, its health and its disease. In person they were amazing, but my notes are so inadequate. I am going to link to some articles that help explain Dr. Cowan’s points, but you really had to hear the talks to fully get them. My brother-in-law, an ER nurse, was visiting when I returned from the conference, and he had some good rebuttal points which are going to require some brainpower on my part to figure it out. You can learn more about Dr. Cowan at The Path to Four Fold Healing.

The True Cause of Heart Attacks

Dr. Cowan’s talk is based on his article: What Causes Heart Attacks. You really should read this article. The background information is fascinating and it much better explains the issue than my notes.

The current heart attack (HA) theory: Inflammatory debris is sealed by cholesterol. This is wrong. The alternative theory is from an MD in South America – coronary artery disease does not cause heart attacks. Heart attacks are a condition of the heart and brain, not the arteries. If an artery is blocked, the heart gives itself a bypass. Plaques that occlude the artery are the consequences of the heart attack and the amount of occlusion depends on how long you live after the attack. If you have a blocked artery and a heart attack, the heart attack happens in another part of the heart, not the part related to the blocked artery.

What are the causes of HAs?

• Emotional/psychological stress

• Smoking

• Diabetes

There is no pathology related to the large blood vessels from these causes. The causes help deteriorate the capillaries. Smoking and stress are diseases of the small blood vessels. Stress increases adrenaline, which is bad for the capillaries. Capillary deterioration leads to no food and oxygen to the heart. Lactic acid increases and ph falls, killing the heart tissues. Heart can’t flush the toxins and it cramps, like a leg cramp. Unlike a leg cramp, you can’t stop the heart and take a break. Lactic acidosis destroys the heart tissues and HA results. When the heart stops beating, blood can’t flow forward – it is like a dam, so backpressure is created – and my notes are incomplete at this point.

The South American doc, whose work will be published on Dr. Cowan’s website, discovered that Ouabain (Strophanthus) rapidly converts the heart back to a normal rhythm. Ouabain is the insulin of the heart.  It resolves acidosis, undoes HA symptoms. Adrenal glands make Ouabain and cholesterol becomes Ouabain. Statins decrease Ouabain.

Here are some thoughts that I draw from the information on Ouabain. Americans’ adrenal glands on a large scale are fried, and they probably aren’t producing much Ouabain. Americans eat a horrible diet, knocking their cholesterol out of whack. Americans are on statins. Americans have a lot of heart attacks.

What is the general treatment Dr. Cowan uses for heart conditions and optimizing heart health? Here it is. I am not recommending its use – only sharing information as best as my poor notes allow. If you want more information you should contact Dr. Cowan    

1. A Nourishing Traditions diet, leaning toward the GAPS Diet. Play with the animal and vegetable components. Animal builds the body and plants feed it vitamins and minerals. A grain based diet = a smaller brain.

2. Cod Liver Oil and Butter oil – ½ tsp. a day.

3. CoQ10 – 200 mg

4. Cardiopluss 2 – 3 x a day

5. Riboctane 2 – 3 times a day

6. Strodival – usually 1 time a day

I don’t know that the last three things mean, but there they are.

Regarding exercise – increase the intensity slowly. Eventually aim for running up a hill 12 times a week. It doesn’t matter how you break it out over the week – just do it. It increases oxygen capacity.

Tomorrow’s topic from Dr. Cowan: The Heart is Not a Pump.

WAP Conference – Organ Prolapse

Kim Thompson, a movement specialist, held classes before breakfast. I missed her “how to sit” class, but I attended 2/3 of her core strength class.

WTF! I knew I had bad posture and I have been too lazy to correct it. The key word is had. I am quickly working to correct my posture thanks to Kim. She scared the heck out of me.

Apparently women are vulnerable to organ prolapse – or your organs falling into your vaginal opening or right on out due to poor posture and muscle strength. When posture is good, then bones support the organs and the muscles are working optimally. When it is poor, there is no support. It happens to women who have been pregnant and those who are not. According to Kim, surgery can be used to temporarily to correct it, and a woman can have surgery a maximum of three times, with each surgery lasting only five years. Then the woman is at the mercy of the organs or the hysterectomy. Considering that prolapse can happen to women in their 20s, it is frightening to think that a woman could spend the vast majority of her life with prolapsed organs!

How many women suffer from prolapsed organs? American Urogynecological Society estimates that “nearly 50% of all women between the ages of 50 and 79 have some form of prolapse.” The Cleveland Clinic reports that: “Nearly 50% of women who have had children are affected by pelvic organ prolapse.”

I am finding a movement coach or buying the Saving the Whole Woman book and CD (see below). Maybe the movement coach is the way to go – it would be a whole new reason to hang out with my friends.

Check out these websites for more:

What is Organ Prolapse?

Saving the Whole Woman – Peggy O’Mara of Mothering Magazine endorses this book.

For those in the Gaithersburg, MD area, you can contact Kim Thompson at 301-275-0880.

WAP Conference – Awards Banquet

Just as at the conference when I needed a break, I need a break from blogging on it too, so I will tell you about the Awards Banquet. It was so cool. My friend, Noelia, who got me to the conference, saved us wonderful seats. I had great discussions with my doctor of Oriental medicine, the food was incredible, and Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm rocked the evening with another awesome call to action. Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez, MD, won the Science and Integrity award, and he was surprised and quite modest. Here are my notes on Dr. G: WAP Conference – Nick Gonzalez, MD and Cancer. I also met Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride, MD, creator of Gut and Psychology Syndrome (GAPS) diet. She is a wonderfully warm person. I introduced her to Dr. Gonzalez, and the nuclear explosion of knowledge was intense.

Stand by, because in two days I am going to write up Dr. Tom Cowan’s, MD, lectures on the heart. That was a trip!

WAP Conference – Nutrition and Mental Health

Nora Gedgaudas presented this talk. She elaborated on some of the points that Dr. Gonzalez discussed the day before: WAP Conference – Nick Gonzalez, MD and Cancer. As with all of my notes, these are incomplete.

Before getting into her talk, an understanding of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, per Wikipedia, helps:

The parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) is one of the three main divisions of the autonomic nervous system (ANS). The ANS is responsible for regulation of internal organs and glands, which occurs unconsciously. The parasympathetic system specifically is responsible for stimulation of activities that occur when the body is at rest, including salivation, lacrimation, urination, digestion and defecation. Its action is described as being complementary to that of one of the other main branches of the ANS, the sympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for stimulating activities associated with the fight-or-flight response. Because of this relationship, the action of the parasympathetic nervous system is often described as "rest and digest".

Here are the highlights of Nora’s talk:

• Humans are designed to be in the parasympathetic state 99% of the time.

• When blood sugar is high it decreases magnesium, hurts the PNS and destroys the brain. Aluminum replaces the magnesium.

• Natural dietary fat stabilizes the brain. It should be the primary food. Nothing is more stabilizing. Nora did not recommend this site, but I found it to be a quick and easy look about fat in the human brain: the Franklin Institute. About 2/3 of the human brain is fat.

• Ketones, which are by-products of fatty acids, provide energy for the brain. Ketones = a health brain. The brain uses them when blood glucose drops. High levels of ketones can stop seizures. In relation to my nephew, this is probably partially why Dr. Hyman is recommending a higher fat formula. My nephew, who is 22 months, is plagued by seizures. This would also help explain why a high fat, high sugar diet is addictive. This post provides some insight about food addiction: Dr. Mark Hyman – Must Read Article and Reflections on Our Meeting.

• The PNS digests our food. Anxiety kills the PNS, which affects digestion. If we are unable to digest properly, we are unable to nourish the brain. Further, 95% of seatonin is produced in the gut. If we are not digesting properly, our sleep is disrupted and our feelings of wellness decrease.

• Nora mentioned thyroid function and the thyroid antibody test. If the test is positive, then do not take iodine! 80% of decreased thyroid function is auto-immune.

WAP Conference – The Politics of GMOs

I had planned to avoid political and governmental sessions at the conference due to my long professional history and continuing to deal with Farmers that Lie and The Great Egg Recall and the Little Farmer. Even with my avoidance intention, nothing was catching my eye at that conference time slot, so I wandered into Jeffrey Smith’s talk on GMOs. What an amazing guy.

Jeff Smith fights tirelessly and passionately for a GMO-free America. While I didn’t learn much new in his talk, he gave a compelling presentation. Being forced to look at the big picture of GMOs, which I hadn’t pondered in a long time and hadn’t fully understood (because I can only fight so many battles at one time), was frightening and inspiring. Jeff inspired by discussing how the tide against GMOs is growing and we need to keep fighting. You can learn about Jeff’s work and how you can help by visiting Responsible Technology.

One of the things that I learned during Jeff’s talk is that genetically modified corn turns the gut bacteria into pesticide factories that continue to poison us. An heirloom seed provider that I met later said that corn crops can pollinate each other from up to two miles away! Even the organic corn may not be organic for that reason. Until this summer, we almost completely stopped eating corn three years or so ago because of the GMO threat. This summer we enjoyed delicious corn on the cob from non-GMO seed. I even let a few bags of organic corn chips sneak in (even though store bought corn chips are often rancid due to the oxidation of oil). Corn causes inflammation of the body, but it is sooo good!

For a humorous and thoughtful look at corn, check out Michael Pollan's talk on corn. Be sure to hang in to the 10 minute mark when corn comes in, along with Michael’s reflections on the week he worked at Joel Salatin’s Polyface Farm.

WAP Conference – Radical Homemaking with Shannon Hayes

Shannon Hayes gave the evening talk on Friday. The concept of Radical Homemaking includes women AND men, and it focuses on turning the family from a unit of consumption to a unit of production and maintaining and building community. Click on this link to read the introduction to Shannon’s latest book: Radical Homemakers.

Shannon has a great sense of humor, a far reaching vision and practical ways of helping people remove themselves from the rat race. I enjoyed her talk so much that I purchased her book, Radical Homemakers, which was the only book that I purchased on my limited budget.  

Ryan and I have started down the path of Radical Homemaking after two layoffs, many financial hardships, and almost no desire to purchase anything that is unnecessary. We still are units of consumption, and we want to make the switch to production. We live in Cary, a city that does not allow chickens for egg production and is the only city in the Research Triangle of North Carolina that prohibits it. The house we rent is too shady to have a garden. Ryan does not hunt because he is too emotional about killing animals. He was a soldier in the Army, trained to kill people (fortunately he never had to), but killing animals was a hurdle he couldn’t visualize overcoming.

Ryan is on his way to becoming a hunter, though, thanks to our friends. They have chickens, and coincidentally there is a rat colony that is raiding the flock. Our friends have tried everything to remove the rats and not caught one. Enter Ryan with Colson’s air rifle. Score: Ryan 2, and Rats 1 escape. Now he believes he can hunt if he had to. Hopefully there will be some venison in my freezer in the next year or so. Even as I write this Ryan reminds me that there is a big difference between rats and deer.

I met several fantastic people who are radical homemakers. One physics teacher has converted his house to 75% off of the grid. He has a 3,000 square foot garden, chickens and he has converted his car to vegetable oil. His next step is to go geothermal and be completely off the grid. After that he will sell his super cool Long Island, NY house and become a farmer. His partner is right there with him on the journey. He was a ball to get to know and hopefully he will start a blog that I can follow.

A friend that I rode to the conference with is a farmer, and she and her partner are still refining their skills, but they are pretty darn accomplished. When we are ready they will teach us to raise farm animals and process them. We have wonderful friends who are organic/permaculture farming specialists who will teach us the ropes about gardening. If you are in the Triangle area and want to get off of the food grid, please contact them via their website: Branches Ecological Landscapes.  

We are at least a year away from implementing anything further on our journey to be radical homemakers and producers, as the financial blows from the layoffs were severe. We are grateful, though, to have a network of friends who will jumpstart us when we are ready.

WAP Conference – Nick Gonzalez, MD and Cancer

I was Dr. Gonzalez’s room monitor to fulfill the volunteer hours required of me as a conference scholarship recipient. A day with Dr. Gonzalez is a Wow – more than I could have imagined. Dr. Gonzalez is a cancer doctor with an exceptional success rate for treating pancreatic cancer and other cancers through the use of nutritional protocols and enzyme therapy. You can learn more about him and other speakers in this WAP description: speakers and from his website .  

Before I get into his talk, I will tell you a little about Dr. Gonzalez (Dr. G.) as I got to know him during his lecture day (he spoke for six hours and is an ultra marathoner when it comes to speaking and answering questions) and the day after. When Dr. G. enters a room he COMMANDS attention. He is a force that literally clears a path, and when the initial tsunami passes, the second wave in the form of Mrs. G. comes at you. Professionally, I have been through the ringer. I have had 2,500 angry citizens directing their hostilities at me when I worked on endangered species issues. My home address was “outed” on an internet forum hostile to the environmental work I did, and my home was vandalized as a result. I have had multiple levels of law enforcement protection. I haven’t been intimidated in almost 20 years. That all changed the morning I met Dr. G.

I won’t go into many details, but I and my fellow room monitor worked like crazy to keep a very flawed room from a noise standpoint in useable shape. The sense of urgency was heightened because Dr. G’s talk was being filmed and recorded. Dr. G. gets on a roll when lecturing, and it is immensely hard to get his attention to let him know a break is coming or he needs to take questions (he didn’t take questions until the end). The bio that I read was flawed, so I had to correct it. His mic died and I had to run for another. All of these and more are minor things when interacting with most speakers, but in Dr. G’s room everything is magnified, and he is not a warm and fuzzy guy. Dr. G. took questions after five hours of fast-paced and compelling lecture (fast is an understatement). He will stay and answer questions as long as there is need, and I was the last questioner. His somewhat snide greeting – “My hall monitor is here.” In fairness, Dr. and Mrs. Gonzalez complimented me several times over the day. The next day when I was labeled the hall monitor for the third time I called him on it. Finally he cracked, gave a faint smile and showed some warmth, and said that it was a term of endearment.  He then proceeded to answer my question patiently and thoroughly.

After reflecting on my two days interacting with Dr. G, I think it is his tsunami-like force combined with is brilliance that helped him to receive funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to carry on his cancer work. He is the only truly innovative MD to receive NIH funding, as far as I know. I will continue to strongly endorse him as an MD to people I meet who are suffering from cancer. I think his innovative therapy combined with his energy and expectation that his patients can triumph over cancer are critical.

On awards night at the WAP conference, Dr. G received the Weston A. Price Science and Integrity award. I believe he was the fifth person to receive it – it is not given out yearly. He quickly got up, physically accepted it, said he was not expecting this, said thank you and sat down. He was up and down in 30 seconds or less. Very modest for a guy who is saving lives the way he is.

Now on to what I actually learned during Dr. G’s lectures. There was no PowerPoint presentation, just Dr. G. lecturing faster than any professor I ever had. The morning session was heavy on biology. He did not stick with the topics in the conference guide, so referring there isn’t much help. Most of the morning lecture and some of the afternoon lectures were beyond me, but here is what I gleaned. Keep in mind that these notes are INCOMPLETE.

There are five characteristics of cancer:

1. Primitive and undifferentiated – germ cells go haywire in the wrong place at the wrong time.

2. Proliferates without restraint

3. Invasive

4. Migratory

5. Androgenic (I think that is what he said)

Radiation shrinks cancer but it comes back more aggressively. “Thank you Madam Curie.” Successful cancer treatments were being developed in the early 1900s, but then Marie Curie and her two Nobel Prizes entered the scene. She said that curing cancer was easy when using radiation, and radiation then squashed the other promising treatment research. Marie Curie died due to radiation exposure and her laboratory is still unapproachably radioactive.

Dr. Gonzalez discussed the Pottenger’s work on the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. Dr. G said that an imbalance in these systems leads to disease and discussed the effects of nutrients on the autonomic system. Calcium and magnesium stimulate the sympathetic nervous system and potassium the parasympathetic. Pottenger has a 1944 book that I want to read. It discusses manipulating and balancing the nervous system.

Dr. G discussed his mentor, Dr. William Kelley, in great detail. Dr. Kelley was a dentist who cured himself from incurable cancer in the early 1960s and went on to help many more people. Dr. G has just released a book about Dr. Kelley’s work.

In his early 40s, Dr. Kelley had so much cancer that the tumors protruded from his abdomen. With only weeks to live, Dr. Kelley realized that different foods affected his tumors differently. He could feel the effects in a half hour or less. Meat and animal products helped the tumors grow. Non-animal products stabilized them. Calcium supplements made them worse. Magnesium and Potassium saved his life. Dr. G. emphasized that Dr. Kelley very methodically and individually tested each food and supplement and documented his progress. The tumors shrank, then broke up. Dr. Kelly became very sick due to the toxins and then implemented liver flushes to remove the toxins. During each stage of his recovery he did much research and moved forward based on his findings and the work of other doctors whose work fell from the consciousness of the medical community over the decades.

Dr. Kelley became cancer free and he went on to live another 40 years. He helped others beat cancer, and he learned that the approach that worked for him did not work for others. Cancer cures with nutrition and enzymes must be individualized. No assumptions can be made because people are so individual. Dr. Kelley authored a 32 page pamphlet entitled One Cure to Cancer and was investigated by 14 government agencies. The U.S. Supreme Court forbade him from publishing any further work. He is one of two people to whom this has happened.

Dr. Kelley said that there are ten basic diets and many subsets. Here are the ten:

Three vegetarian types with three gradations (moderate, extreme and inefficient, with the inefficient needing cooked food)

Three meat types with three gradations:

• Extreme - Meat, fat and raw foods

• Moderate - Meat and more plants and fruit

• Inefficient – Everything needs to be cooked

Four balanced types.

Dr. Gonzalez discussed how foods influence the autonomic nervous system. An alkaline environment shuts down the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and stimulates the parasympathetic (PNS). An acid environment, created by meat among other things, increase the SNS.

Below are a few of the NS differentiators that Dr. G. mentioned. Based on these differentiators, I am a mixture of PNS and SNS. I lean toward meat, but not strongly, I am competitive, and I have allergies. I guess that my mixed diet of meat, fruits, vegetables, beans and dairy serves me pretty well. I do have preferences for veggies over meat and fruits at times but that reverses at times. I guess that is my autonomic nervous system correcting itself?

Here are the differentiators:

• If your body leans toward vegetarianism you are SNS dominate (such as those living in the Amazon or other lush areas at the equator) and if you prefer meat you are PNS dominate (such as those living in the Arctic).

• If you are not competitive you are PNS dominate and if you are competitive you are SNS dominate.

• If you have allergies you are PNS dominate.

• If you have autoimmune reactions you are SNS dominate.

• When a cancer patient has hard tumors the SNS dominates. PNS dominates when cancer patients have soft cancers like leukemia and other immune cancers.

If you are trying to alkalize, do not use apple cider vinegar. It is acidic. Use lemon juice. While lemon juice is an acid, the liver converts it to bicarbonate, which is alkaline.

Inflammation stimulates germ cells to become cancerous. An autonomic imbalance is always at the base of the problem.

Liver toxicity is a problem. The Gonzalez’s do a liver flush every quarter, according to Mrs. G. Dr. G. does coffee enemas every day, according to Kaala Daniel, another conference presenter.

Needless to say, I was in need of refreshment by the end of the day, but Dr. G. could have kept on going. You can see that he loves to educate people, especially as shown by his willingness to stay an extra hour for questions and answer questions throughout the weekend. I am very grateful for the day that I spent with him and Mrs. G.

Weston A. Price Conference – WOW!

What an experience! Three days at the conference was like a week in Paris. So much to learn, see, do, and eat! All of it was awesome! Even better, all 1500 people were like old friends. No matter where I was, it was easy to talk with everyone I met. At meals I could pick any table and the conversation was guaranteed to be fascinating. I thought I knew some stuff, and I do compared to the standard American, but at the conference I was seriously humbled by the attendees and the speakers.

Before I describe the lectures that I attended, which will occur over several days, I have to mention a bit more about the food. It was amazing! Chef Amanda Love oversaw feeding all 1500 of us. How she created WAP food for all of us and have it turn out so amazingly I will never know. I have never had better food and there is no describing it. It highlighted to me that I need to step it up in my own kitchen. As much as possible the food was local and donated organic, pastured, grass fed, wild caught, you name it. There were barrels of kombucha (60 gallons), fermented kefir cheeses (which were part of 605 pounds total), lacto-fermented vegetables and fruits (95 gallons), raw milk (300 gallons) and special teas (575 gallons of ice tea and 2,200 tea bags) to drink. The amount of raw milk consumed at every meal was mindboggling. I didn’t overeat (much), and the food was so nutrient dense that I was never hungry, which was amazing given how hard I was thinking the whole time – from 9:00 a.m. – 9:00 p.m. and later!

You can learn about the food and recipes here: FOOD! A couple of other interesting statistics about food amounts that are not on the website: butter (785 pounds), oil (343 pounds), yogurt (50 gallons), eggs (600 dozen), fermented salsa (19 cases) and salmon (450 pounds).

At the awards banquet the guest chef was recognized and she in turn recognized the hotel chefs and staff that she commandeered for four days. It was really wonderful, as I don’t think that the hotel chefs and staff get much recognition, and they were all brought on stage for some serious appreciation. The head chef said a couple of neat things, such as they learned a lot about food and they were grateful to actually cook with real butter and lard. He hoped that the guest chef would come back soon. Someone should have filmed these four days and made a documentary similar to the one that Jamie Oliver made.

Finally, I want to thank my friend, Noelia, for getting me to the conference. If it wasn’t for Noelia urging me to go for the scholarship (over and over), then driving me there and sharing her room with me, I would not have attended. You are an amazing friend and I wish I could better tell you how much I appreciate you giving me all of that effort to get me there. It was the most amazing conference and I am so glad I shared it with you!

Tomorrow I will give notes from my first day, which was a day spent with the amazing cancer M.D., Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez.

WAP Conference - the Night Before

I am hungry today due to the non-nutritious food I had at dinner. In addition to the great conversation with a friend, I met Mark McAfee, a super hero in the nutrient dense food world. Check out www.organicpastures.com for Mark's farm. He is a great guy! I buy almonds from him once or twice a year and he says that this season's crop is excellent!

Homeopathy for Sleep and Stress

The job situation has made the past 18 months very stressful for my family. Because I am the wizard behind the curtain, so to speak, and it is my job to keep financial and other household issues running smoothly, it has been especially stressful for me. The challenge was magnified because we have a child, and it took a lot of effort to not fully reveal the seriousness of our situation. Fortunately, we survived the challenge and are on the upswing in the job area, and we have maintained our independence. Even with these positive job events, the stress became so ingrained in me that I had serious sleep challenges the last five months that I could not overcome.

I slept only one or two hours a night. I taught myself this sleep pattern during graduate school when I was enslaved to a professor I could not stand – I had to report to him for my assistantship. I couldn’t shake that insomnia pattern for six years. Now, 14 years after being cured thanks to homeopathy, I resurrected it.

My doctor of Oriental medicine can instantly break the insomnia pattern with acupuncture, but it wasn’t a cure because my head and emotions caused it and it would quickly be back. Thank goodness I know a great homeopath and have the ability to become his patient. His name is Hart Matthews and I highly recommend him (see Dynamis Homeopathy).

Hart’s approach to homeopathy is different than my first experience 14 years ago (the homeopath was strong and confrontational homeopath who had me in tears in about 30 seconds). Hart is gentle, patient, yet persistent in his efforts to help both the patient and himself understand the symptoms, and he is thoughtful and well-researched when recommending the remedy. Hart made me think harder about myself than I ever have, and he is so easy to talk to. I felt safe with him. The remedy that he prescribed had immediate impact and quickly put me to sleep the first night! What a relief!

As I said, Hart’s approach to remedies is different than that of my previous homeopath. My first remedy 14 years ago brought deep and fast relief literally overnight, along with some significant skin irritation. The remedy was almost like being caught in a stampede. Hart’s approach is gentler, without the irritation. While I am now easily falling asleep, I am usually not sleeping through the night, and often wake around 3:00. That results in five to six hours of sleep, which is a huge improvement! Hart expects to see more improvement in the form of more nights of longer sleep, and he is increasing the potency of my remedy to facilitate it more quickly.

I am amazed by the negative sleep pattern I have taught myself and how strong it is. I try to rely on my body’s wisdom to guide me, but my mind can overcome that when times are too stressful. Thank goodness I know the healers I need to overcome my challenges when I can’t to do it on my own!

If you would like to learn more about homeopathy or Hart and his practice, check out his website: Dynamis Homeopathy. He does phone consultations in addition to office visits.

Thank you, Hart, for helping me back to vibrant health!

Two Year Blog Anniversary – and a Call to the International Community

Thank you for reading about my family’s health adventures these last two years. Looking back, my family’s health journey has been a great success, with many surprises, unintended experiments, pitfalls, strides forward and a few steps backward. The blog has helped me see where we have been and where we need to go. What is immensely comforting is that we are now at a level of competence that we either know how to handle our challenges pretty well on our own or we have a network of wonderful friends and fantastic healers in place to quickly get help.

It has been great fun and very rewarding helping others through my blog and learning from you through the comments you have left. For all readers, but especially those outside the U.S., I would love to hear from you about your favorite healing practices. I am amazed by the number of different countries we come from, and I am sure that we could all learn from each other. I am a strong believer in collaboration, and I hope to hear your story. If you would like to create a guest blog post, please send it to me at movingstronglyforward@yahoo.com.

Thank you everyone!

Here is the list of where we are from, representing 46 of the approximately 195 countries (that number is an interesting story.). We represent almost a one-fourth of the world! Pretty cool, eh?

• Antigua and Barbuda

• Argentina

• Austria

• Australia

• Belgium

• Brazil

• Canada

• Costa Rica

• Croatia

• Czech Republic

• Finland

• Germany

• Hong Kong

• India

• Indonesia

• Ireland

• Korea

• Malaysia

• Mexico

• Monaco

• Netherlands

• New Zealand

• Nigeria

• Norway

• Pakistan

• Peru

• Philippines

• Poland

• Puerto Rico

• Qatar

• Romania

• Russia

• Rwanda

• Singapore

• South Africa

• Spain

• Sweden

• Switzerland

• Taiwan

• Turkey

• United Arab Emirates

• United Kingdom

• United States

• Venezuela

• Viet Nam

• Zambia

A Great Book to Read

I received this announcement from a great healer that I know. Hopefully it will be helpful to you.

Friends and Colleagues,

Please check out Let Magic Happen about the new book I am writing, Let Magic Happen:  Synchronicities, Healing Stories and Techniques of a Holistic Radiologist.  Chapter 1, Intuitive Diagnosis and Chapter 9, Intuitive Problem Solving, are posted for you to read based on my experiences at Duke University Medical Center and the Rhine Research Center.  Each chapter ends with a different mind-body-spirit technique including specific instructions on how to do it.

If you have success with the techniques in Chapters 1 or 9, please send me a short email description of it, and I may ask you for permission to include your experience in the book or a future newsletter.   Starting in December, I will be sending out a free monthly newsletter to a new email list featuring one of the other techniques in the book which are listed in the posted Table of Contents.  If you want to receive the newsletter please send me an email through the contact link on the website.

Let magic happen,
Larry

Odds and Ends

I have so many things to write about, but none of them demanding lots of attention.

Michigan

Colson and I took a six day trip to Michigan to see my family. It was wonderful. They are wonderful. My nephew is wonderful (he is fighting a deadly mitochondrial disease at 20 months old, and he is one strong, beautiful boy!). We had great times with family and friends and learned a few new games.

The food was awesome – so much delicious Lebanese food! But along those lines, I had enough food off of our usual diet that I acquired some acne. We ate at one restaurant for breakfast, and Colson and I both had a hard time with the food. It is called Big Boy, but the food tasted so bad to us that Colson called it Bad Boy. Growing up I ate there a lot and loved it. It is amazing what happens when your body gets cleaned out!

Vibrams Shoes

I blogged about my Vibram Shoes experience here: Another Attempt to Run and a Barefoot Update. I am happy to report that I am pain-free when running short distances, and I can probably go longer. I just haven’t had the time or inclination.

What I have found interesting is that my food has shrunk about half a size. I did put on some old tennis shoes for the first time about two weeks ago, and I am not used the arches after five months of barefoot walking or simulating barefoot walking. I literally felt like I was going to topple over. Earlier this week I wore some winterish shoes, as it is cooler and my Vibrams are not for cold weather. Even though the shoes have little arch support, it was enough to unnaturally scrunch my feet and they rebelled. Time to by some Soft Star shoes. A friend of mine has bought them and loves them. I bought a pair for Colson, who loves them, but he is having a hard time running safely in them, so we also purchased some Nike Free running shoes, which is Nike’s effort at barefoot running.

Weston A. Price Conference

Next week I travel with a friend to the Weston A. Price conference. I am very excited to be going, as I didn’t think it would be possible to go due to finances. My friend kept encouraging me to apply for a scholarship and I did receive one. She is generous enough to share her car and room with me as well. This is going to be a powerful, jam-packed conference, with Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride of the GAPS Diet and Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez, a fantastic doctor who is doing great work curing or managing cancer without making people sick. I am moderating Dr. Gonzalez’s session and am thrilled about it. I am sure I will have lots to report back.