Category: Healthy Living

Hi there!

Recently, I had the pleasure of interviewing Pragna, an incredible woman who works with Cancer patients through complementary care. If you didn’t have a chance to see the video with Pragna as to how to best survive and avoid Cancer, you can watch it here.

Today, I bring you two articles I found that talk about how to keep Cancer away through diet and lifestyle changes. Cancer is a disease that, according to Cancer  Research, will affect one out of every two people, which is a maddening statistic.

Timing of Dinner and Bedtime
Tied to Increased Cancer Risk
 

Advances in Cancer Prevention

It is also noted that for half of the people who get Cancer, it is completely preventable by changing lifestyle and diet. So isn’t it worth trying? Now studying BioMedicine, in preparation for the degree in Naturopathic Nutrition, I’ve come to realise just how much we can do to ensure that our health is optimal at any point in our lives. It is never too late to change and live healthier, cleaner lives. If you would like some help with managing your diet, your weight, your stress or your lifestyle, book a free call with Julia on the link below.

Hi there!

Recently I interviewed an incredible woman I met while doing the Best You Expo this year. She has changed her life and her career to work with patients who are suffering from Cancer as a complementary care therapist. She has also lived in a family where two close family members were stricken with the disease. Here, her observations on why some surpass Cancer and others are taken by it and how we can do what’s necessary to keep Cancer at bay.

If you would like more help to live a healthier life, book a call with Julia on the link below.

Hi everyone,

It’s summertime and the weather is still fantastic, so it’s a great time to enjoy the sunshine. So today’s video is about suncare. We’ve obviously read quite a lot about protecting our skin from the sun, but we’ve also read about the health benefits of Vitamin D. So should we use sunscreen or shouldn’t we? Find out in the video below.

Need help taking better care of your skin from the inside out and the outside in? Talk to Julia by booking your free call today using the link below.

Schedule a free introductory call here

Hey you,

Your body is your temple, your body is your home, your body is your way towards expressing who you are. In ancient Greek times, being physically fit was considered as impressive as being intelligent. The belief was that in a beautiful body lives a beautiful soul. This may sound unjust. After all, we are in fact so much more than just our bodies and I do agree with the often used expression: “Don’t judge a book by its’ cover”. Superficially judging others is not only unfair, but it also leaves us missing who they really are below the surface. That said, we know that the same Greeks who held this belief were actually a profound, deep-thinking people.

Plato is a great example of someone who believed that keeping mind AND body in shape was deeply important. While one of the greatest philosophers of any time, he also was one of the greatest Olympian champions — and to be an Olympian champion in Greece, you had to be fit!

In ancient Greece, taking care of one’s body was perceived as a sign of intelligence because your body is your vehicle in life. Yes, you, that someone inside, is the driver, but if your car breaks down, you cannot go very far. It is all about balance; you give as much attention to inner as to outer. You have a responsibility to your body to nurture it. Responsible people reflect that responsibility to their bodies as well. It should not become your sole occupation, but it should be one of your priorities.

Hence in this mood of health, I decided to share an interview I did with a very dear person to be, who has been through her share of skin health issues, telling us how she dealt with them and how your body can become holier by simply attending to your nutrition.

Will Greenhouse – Change Coach to the rescue 

As you may already know, I’m a strong believer in collaboration and hence reach out to work together with quite a few other therapists and practitioners, especially those on the cutting edge of their field or doing something particularly interesting and that’s you all can benefit from. So it is with great delight that I introduce you to Will Greenhouse: a unique this coach with a truly original work title: “Change Coach”.

Since the start of my own practice some years back, collaboration with other therapists and coaches has always been an integral part of our ethos and has led to incredible connections, friendships and benefits for my clients. I greatly enjoy speaking with these amazing practitioners, hearing their stories and providing my readers with the knowledge of the vast variety of coaching services that I am fortunate enough to come in contact with. Often these are enriching and life changing. Sometimes, in fact, we are not even aware of an issue we are faced with day to day until someone else eloquently articulates it.

William Greenhouse is one such person. He uses a fascinating technique to swiftly encourage change in his clients. Watch him describe what he does in the video below.

” Your unconscious mind runs everything, all your bodily functions, from regulating your heartbeat to managing your immune system, processing all the information that comes in through your senses and much more. Sometimes it is advantageous to communicate directly with it” ~ Will Greenhouse

As much as I enjoy holidays (of course who doesn’t!) I often dread the return to normal life with extra weight gain from too much enjoyment. Whether we go away for the holidays or not, the celebration of holidays is strongly associated with the pleasure of eating and that often carries with it weight gain. One such holiday, associated with yummy chocolate sweets, is just around the corner: Easter, accompanied with its’ entourage of Easter chocolate eggs and what nots…

As some of you following my work and my newsletters may know, my business is changing significantly. For one, I’m not only calling myself a Love Coach but am now a Holistic Therapist too. You may be wondering what exactly this means and how this changes things with what I do. Well the best way to explain this seems to be by video. So to understand better what I mean by Holistic Therapist and how I can now help you better to reach your goals, click on the video below. 

Have more questions about how exactly I can help you, book a free 30 minute call with me here

If you’ve been trying to lose weight and it hasn’t been working for you, it could be because of your diet, or it could be due to your lifestyle or just a general lack of fitness. But if you’ve tried quite a few things and are still struggling, then you may be missing this one key element that slim people already do naturally.

If weight management is an issue for you, watch this video I did on Facebook Live. Once you’ve watched it, if you feel you’d like some help to help you slim down, you may want to join my 8 week Weight Management program combining Hypnotherapy with NLP and Wellness Coaching to ensure you reach your weight goals. Need more information, book your free 30 minute call with me here

Watch The Video 

Hey you,

Are you struggling to find the motivation to eat healthy? Need more reason to keep fit? Well apparently having a good waist-hip ratio isn’t just about being attractive; it actually determines your brain function in later years as well. Research states that the bigger your waist (as compared to your hips), the smaller the ability of your brain. That’s right, if it wasn’t already a good reason to exercise and eat right: in order to avoid obesity, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, etc; apparently being unfit and having a large waist circumference actually also predisposes you to brain issues such as Alzheimer’s, poor memory and even depression. And it also predisposes you to premature ageing (and looking as if you’ve prematurely aged). The ideal waist-hip ratio for beauty is around .74, which happens to also correspond with better health.

Although a claim that slim people have better brain function may sound unfair as well as a predicament that has the potential to set off yet unseen judgments, and although we must of course keep in mind body type which also predetermines body shape and curves, there is actually legitimate explanation to this strange (somewhat unfair) claim.

Dr Perlmutter, in his book “the Grain Brain” claims that waist ratio determines our brain function. Yes this is what he says, providing a clear explanation. There are two important things to take into consideration: firstly the matter of “waist”; and secondly that of “ratio”. The importance of waist as opposed to certain other parts of the body, is key. The waist is where many of our delicate organs are located. It is not an accident that the phrase refers to waist circumference and not to the overall slimness of a person.

Dr Perlmutter also claims in the same book that gluten, sugar and carbs can lead to fatal disease and damages to our brain. The food we eat and allow to digest and travel through our gut has a huge effect on the overall system of our body and especially on brain function. Just because our brain is not located in the stomach does not mean it is not affected by the stomach or the belly area.

Optimal health, therefore, comprises of the following: healthy food and healthy organs doing their job well. What we ingest is key in this equation because it has the power to dull our organs and stop our brain from functioning optimally. In order for our precious organs to function properly, they need to work to the best of their ability: free of extra weight, bacteria, inflammation etc… It’s simple really: you can walk up the stairs far easier only carrying yourself than if you had to carry your younger sister or brother with you as well. Therefore, having healthy and lean tissue around the organs is necessary for the healthy function of the organs and in also the healthy function of the brain! The waist area — including the heart, lungs, abdomen, etc have to stay lean and healthy whereas some extra pounds on our thighs or bum might not lead to anything disastrous. Hence the lean waist helping our brain function better. It is not just that lean waist is healthier because it looks nice to some… no it is because it holds all of our precious organs and we need to make a nice and habitable environment for the organs to thrive.

Secondly, about the ratio: If you are naturally a bigger person, no one expects you to have a unreasonably thin waist no matter how much you exercise and starve. You should never starve!  While it is about the waist size, it is NOT ABOUT THE WAIST SIZE per se. Everything is in moderation to yourself. However, having said this, some people, especially women have bodies that are inclined to gain wait around the waist area. These women unfortunately might have to struggle more to burn that fat around the organs. I’m one of them, by the way, and while one nice repercussion is naturally bigger breasts, it also means more work to maintain the healthy waist-hip ratio. When it comes to health unfortunately, half of it is what we are born with, therefore we always have to work with what we have.

I, for example, take care to maintain a healthy ratio through what I eat and regular exercise, despite having had two kids (which definitely makes the work of maintaining a slim waist more challenging). Many answers to our weight problems come from little daily habits that our clever minds automatically disregard as problematic. For example, what one biscuit a day can do… or one unhealthy chocolate bar after a super healthy salad lunch, if taken regularly can actually work against us. Eating very fast, or snacking before lunch as well. Basically there are a lot of of little habits that one might not be able to register in themselves… Therefore, it is important to really observe how one lives, eating patterns and all the small little things one does in order to lose weight or gain weight for that matter consciously and not through vain diets.

Need more evidence to back this theory, check out this article in the Independent following some research on waist-hip ratio: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/health-what-a-man-cant-resist-the-perfect-waist-hip-ratio-forget-about-breasts-says-jerome-burne-its-1440859.html

Want to know how to slim down ASAP and avoid the downward spiral of your brain along with your body? Book your free 30 minute call with Julia Keller now”

Some time ago I was forced to change my diet – radically. I have never been a junk food addict, and I stay far away from sugary fizzy water that pretends to be a drink. But I have to admit that even I was combatting my own urges of crisps and a good dessert from now and then. But the main reason that I watched my diet then was to avoid weight gain. Knowing better what I needed in my life than even I do, as the universe always does, it sent me a health problem that opened my eyes not only to my own occasionally harmful habits, but to an entirely another sea of problems that threaten the well being of so many: food addiction – or rather society’s overall predilection towards food (and drink) that is temporarily filling and tasty, but that actually is really not good for you. What does any of this have to do with love coaching, you may ask? Actually, loads. It has become a common issue among my clients that a malnourished heart often leads to the abuse of food and that, in return, this lack of care for their body (and skin) then leads to them looking worse, which then heightens their sense of worthlessness.

Book a call with me

Hey you,

Do you feel stuck in a negative eating pattern and unsure how to change it? Do you wish that you can be healthier and look after yourself better but unsure where and how to begin? Is your self esteem affected by a negative self-image that you wish you can change? Do you believe your life would be much better if you only looked different or had a different figure or body type?

Well if you thought “yes” to any of these questions, take comfort in the fact that you are not alone. Many people, especially women, suffer from lack of self confidence — in one way or another — and very often related to self-image. One of the most prominent reasons for low self esteem and poor self image is connected to your feelings about your body, your figure, or your weight.

Many of my clients, for instance, turn to food for comfort after a bad day or when feeling lonely and then feel bad about it afterwards as they watch their efforts at controlling their weight deteriorate. “What can one harmless piece of chocolate do with my beloved cup of coffee,” they tell themselves at the moment. Or something like, “So what if I make it a junk food day today, I deserve it after the crapy day I’ve had”! Or how about, “I’ve been exercising for ages but still haven’t lost any weight, so screw it, I’m having a bowl of pasta”. And there are many more. Does this resonate? From my experience, many people (women especially) turn to food to temporarily suffocate feelings of loneliness and unhappiness.

Unfortunately, clever advertising has caught onto this tendency and is using it against us for the benefit of raising sales of well-known food vendors. The significant rise in vendors means that we are constantly bombarded with advertising telling us that we will feel good if we just eat or drink some product or other. This makes resisting temptation that much more difficult and challenging on a regular basis (even if also more worthwhile). While some 20-30 years ago there was one big chocolate brand advertising its’ scrumptious happiness-giving chocolate, these days we have to endure over a dozen different chocolate brands trying to sell us their product in the most attractive way, normally using our lack of willpower against us to lure us to purchase their product. And let’s not forget the other unhealthy temptations, such as junk food, fast food, soda, coffee, alcohol, etc.

The desire for our purchase has now become a battleground where we have to fight temptation constantly in order to keep our figures and maintain our ideal weight without getting lured into wasting money on so many easily-available unhealthy options. When you pass Starbucks and feel proud resisting that amazing chocolate frappe, a few steps further you encounter Nero’s, Costa, Pret a Manger, McDonald’s… Sometimes, if your willpower and your reason for fighting isn’t strong enough, the battle of resistance becomes too tiring and it’s easier to give in than to hold out… even if that means setting yourself back in your body image goals and feeling terrible about yourself afterwards.

I too have undergone this battle many times in my life and I also know how bad it feels to lose and how good it feels to win. All of my work as a Love Coach begins with helping clients to love themselves better and to feel empowered enough to achieve the life and love situation that they really want. Because I am passionate about helping my clients on the deepest levels, and because I am constantly pursuing learning better and better ways to do this, I embarked on a course to study Hypnotherapy: the fastest method to work with nốt just the conscious mind, but also the subconscious one. Very quickly I saw that weight management and confidence and self-esteem work were areas most crucial to a vast majority of my clients, even before they were ready to find love.

For this reason, I’ve decided to focus on those areas specifically for my hypnotherapy certification project, to run a project tackling precisely this issue of how a negative body image can adversely affect our self esteem. I already use hypnotherapy and NLP successfully to help my clients to improve their self confidence and now I am beginning to use it to help clients with weight management, thereby significantly improving their self esteem as their outwardly image improves. Hypnotherapy is not magic (though the results my clients have seen have often been quite magical); it is simply a method of rewiring your brain to break the old and unhealthy habits and to exchange them for the healthy habits that you actually want and that really serve you.

At the moment, I’m looking for 2-3 more clients who want help to reach their ideal weight, figure, or size to participate in my study looking to demonstrate a parallel between feeling better about yourself physically (by being closer to your physical ideal), when you like the way you look better, and feeling better about yourself overall, thereby having a better self-confidence. If you would like to be one of these few clients participating, schedule a free call with me here to discuss if you are appropriate for this study.

Is sex without love enough?

One of the questions I often get from women when they find out that I’m a Love Coach is around the issue of how long to wait to have sex with a man they’re seeing. Some of them, disappointed with the dating scene and feeling desire to be intimate, rush into sex in order to meet their “needs” only to feel not so great after.

Recently, a client of mine shared an experience with me. To get over a man that she was still hung up on, she decided to indulge freely in a one night stand rather than try and wait for the “right guy” to come along again. This came about naturally as she met a friend of a friend at a party. Initially, she didn’t pay much attention to him as he was not “her typical type”. He was fun and attractive, but he was more of a “party guy” and not someone in a place to have the serious relationship that she was looking for before, so she would never have considered having something serious with him. However, after hanging out with their common friends for a while, the two ended up having some sexy, playful dancing that then led to sex. Rather than holding herself back as she normally would, she decided to “go for it” which was out of character for her and she had an amazing night of sex. At that moment, she didn’t find it awkward or immoral; she just wanted to have pleasure. She also didn’t expect anything from this man (or so she told herself) so she wouldn’t be disappointed if he didn’t contact her the next day.

While I have heard enough stories of women who are confident having amazing sex, without commitment, very early on with a man, and it turning into something serious eventually; I have heard too many more of the other kind of stories: those of women being hurt by the man’s lack of contact following sex that came too quickly. Hence, I normally advise my clients to wait for sex until they are in a committed, monogamous relationship. Believe me, I know the pull of hormones and how desire can make one want to rush into physical contact. I also know how good sex can feel with the right person as well as how bad it can feel when that right person forgets you exist the morning after. I have had more than enough clients and friends crying to me at sessions following being hurt due to rushing too quickly into sex to recommend “no sex without commitment” as a regular policy.

I know that we live in modern times, and I get how the sexual revolution makes women want to exert our sexual independence. However, women and men feel sex differently and, unfortunately, the double-standard still exists without being clearly admitted to. Recently, I questioned a small number of men about their thoughts on women who go for sex quickly. Their responses were candid and telling. Some were almost too candid: “I would never take a woman who sleeps with me too quickly seriously, even if I was the one initiating the sex. She should say no.” I know, I cringed too when I heard it, but the other men in the group corroborated that as unfair and sexist as this may be, it also happens to be mainly true. There are certain exceptions made for some pretty amazing women and in some special circumstances, but we can’t count on being an exception. What we can count on is following a rule.

The reason I stick so firmly to “no sex without commitment” is because it is a policy that not only is better for your health (do you really want to let someone you barely know into your home or your body?) and for your self-esteem (how will you really feel when he doesn’t even try to contact you the next day), but it also serves as a wonderful filter. That man who won’t be ok with waiting for you to get to know him better before being intimate with you was probably never that serious about being with you anyway. Sex also feels much better when had with someone you have strong feelings for, and when you know that that someone is “doing the deed” only with you.

So, my advice: have patience, wait, date, get to know the men you’re interested in and choose one you want to know better. If you want help meeting someone special or becoming the “Chooser” in your love story, or in finding out how to turn his desire for sex into the ideal Segway into a very cool and non-threatening conversation about commitment, book a free 30 minute call with me on this link. Ask about my one to one coaching and my soon to be launching self-study program at a fraction of the cost of one to one coaching. Also ask about my Elite package that takes you through all you need to be totally and completely “Love ready”

Independent is good but inter-dependent is even better!

Last week saw America celebrating its’ Day of Independence and I wrote about the benefits of being independent in oneself from one’s situation or circumstance. (If you didn’t get to read that blog, you can find it here.) But what about when independence goes from being a good thing that helps you to be create the life you want to becoming a quality that by holding on too tightly to actually stops you from getting close to anyone.

We have been in one way or the other swooped by the tide of modernism called: achieving independence. I would even go as far as making it one of our definitive terms of our era: “the dawn of independence” or an “age of independence”. Having independence over one’s circumstance is great and empowering, as I wrote last week; but what does wanting complete independence of everything really mean in the context of our relationships with other people?

Lets face it, being completely independent is most often related to being single, empowered, financially not in need of anyone else, and in no need of having a partner. But though having this kind of freedom to do whatever one wants without having to consider the feelings of another may sound liberating and fun in a moment, many such moments together into a long part of one’s lifetime and this independence can begin to feel very lonely.

Hence independence can become a double-edged sword: liberating and empowering on one hand — bringing with it freedom of self and decision over ones circumstances — while also carrying loneliness and a lack of strings or relationships when taken too far. So what is the answer?

Well the answer, I believe, is something I call interdependence. Interdependence is akin to the saying “the whole is greater than the sum of its’ parts”. Interdependence is collaboration, it’s co-working, it’s sharing, and it’s partnership. Independence may make us strong as individuals, but interdependence makes us stronger as a whole. Interdependence is better for the unit. Picture the cohesive couple versus the one where each is thinking only of their own selfish needs (divorce court anyone). And interdependence is also better for society as a whole (peace process where each side gets their needs met versus perpetual threat of war as each is attempting to exert what it believes is right).

The truth is that total independence can never be achieved as nothing in this world exists in itself; everything to an extent is dependent on some other thing and needs something else to ensure its’ own survival. As we need plants, water, and sometimes animals (or another food source) to survive as nourishment, so in the world where we are still beings of relationships, we need other people to survive and love for happiness (parents, siblings, friends, lovers, colleagues etc).

I have seen countless cases of ‘independent’ women, who seemed to have it all, feeling completely unhappy due to loneliness. Independence taken too far leaves us clinging to something that will never truly fulfil us. Interdependence is the better version that takes into account our strengths and the strengths as a whole of those we can work together with to succeed beyond just ourselves.

Should you wish to understand how you too can move towards interdependence, finding that ideal partner to share your life with, or sharing your life better by improving your relationship with your current partner, you can schedule your free 30 minute phone call with Julia here.