Miscellaneous
Welcome to Season 3 of the Body Wisdom Podcast with Dr. Michele. This season the podcast will be focusing on healthy habits. As your host, I’ll be recording solo episodes which will answer some of the most common questions I’m asked as a physician such as “how do I build a new habit?” "which habits are essential to get healthy again?" "what can I do to lose weight?" "how can I look and feel younger again?" "how can I start exercising again if I haven't done it in years?" and more. I will also be coaching patients and clients live on-air, and conducting interviews with other health & wellness experts. Of course, I am always open to new topic ideas, so if there is a topic you would like me to address or if there is a question you would like answered, please reach out. Email me directly at dr.michele.colon@gmail.com. Today Dr. Michele discusses "The Benefits of a Plant-Based Diet." I hope you enjoy the show! About Dr. Michele: As a physician & surgeon, certified Ayurvedic and Autoimmune health coach, yoga/anatomy teacher, and overall health & wellness expert, Dr. Michele Summers Colon is an Advocate for Women's Health. Her passion is helping women help themselves to heal their body. She is the author of Body Wisdom: 10 Weeks to Transformation, the creator and host of the Body Wisdom with Dr. Michele Podcast, and the leader of the Body Wisdom Membership Program. She has been interviewed and quoted in many prominent publications including USA Today, US News & World Reports, Health Magazine, Yahoo! Makers, and Bloomberg BusinessWeek. One of Dr. Michele’s greatest strengths is her ability to help women create balanced, healthy lives by looking at the whole picture. She combines the best of Eastern and Western medicine to create individualized health & wellness plans for her patients and clients. For over 24 years, Dr. Michele has dedicated herself to maintaining a private medical practice and providing exceptional care to her patients while at the same time studying holisitic and integrative medicine. Dr. Michele believes that food is medicine and that yoga, Ayurveda, and meditation are the keys to perfect health. Dr. Michele has a Bachelor’s degree in Physiology from UCBerkeley, a Master’s degree in Biomedical Sciences and a Doctorate degree in Podiatry from Barry University, and graduated from a Foot & Ankle Surgical Residency in Los Angeles. Dr. Michele is also certified in Ayurvedic as well as Autoimmune Health Coaching, Yoga, Reiki, Reflexology, and Laser Therapy. Dr. Michele specializes in Yin Yoga, Restorative Yoga, and Therapeutic Yoga to provide the most healing, relaxation, and rejuvenation to her patients and clients. Dr. Michele has studied Ayurvedic Medicine extensively and has worked with some of the best practitioners throughout the United States to bring Ayurveda to the forefront of medicine. Combining yoga, Ayurveda, and meditation is one of Dr. Michele’s passions so that she can spread the word to as many people as possible that this is the path to perfect health. Show Notes: This season we are going to be talking about Healthy Habits so that we can feel younger and healthier. When we talk about what we eat, we all seem to have a method and an opinion. We are in the day and age of personalization — and this extends to diet. “I’m a vegan,” or “I’m into paleo,” or “I need to eat animal flesh to function.” Around here, we’re less interested in labels and we’re more interested in the relationship between humans and the plants that feed us. In this habit, we turn our attention to taking your relationship between plants and your body to the next level of integration. Eating a plant-based diet is about the relationship between our outer ecosystem, where our food grows, and our inner ecosystem. How you source your body’s energy and what you build your body’s tissue out of is of obvious importance. We each have the opportunity to nourish and nurture ourselves from the outside in... and from the inside out. The first activity is to check out where you are in the spectrum of how you feed yourself. Once you know where you are starting, the next action step reveals itself on your path to a healthier and more conscious body. Next, investigate your relationship between your body and where you source your energy. You’ll become more aware of the exchange of consciousness, energy, and nutrients between the bodies of plants and your body. It’s a process full of nourishment — not deprivation. This relationship with our food and nature is very deeply tied to stress. Nature is trying to feed you. If we have the world view that life itself is nourishing, then we can’t really experience stress. The more connected we are to nature, the more connected we are to the plants, and the more nourishing we are to plants, then the more we understand that nature is trying to feed us. Foraging and Feasting: A Field Guide and Wild Food Cookbook by Dina Falconi describes the lost art of turning locally gathered wild plants into nutritious, delicious meals - a tradition long practiced by our ancestors but neglected in modern times. Do you know which local plants and flowers are edible in your local ecosystem? Eat the poppies. They're edible. It’s like “Wow, there is more! Nature is trying to feed me. All I have to do is tap in and get connected.” Where do you feel it in your body? When you go to the grocery store or to the farmers market to shop for your fruits and vegetables, go to the ones that are calling you. Go to the ones that you feel in your body that you want, and then buy those. “Your body knows before your mind does.” Connection Economy is all about your connection, your nourishment. At different levels of consciousness, we start to desire different levels of consciousness from our food. Let’s talk about programming and patterning: How many of us were programmed, at a young age, to accept some really damaging things, like “eat everything that you’re served”, “don’t waste food because there are starving kids in Africa”, “you can’t leave the table until you’ve finished everything on your plate”, “eat it even if you don’t like it because I made it for you”, “if you don’t eat the food I made for you then you must not love me or care about me”, “I slaved all day cooking for you so you better eat all of it”? Do any of these ring true for you? Do you feel nourished by your diet? Has it always been this way? Was there a pivot? What was one of your pivots? When we talk about nourishment, connection, and abundance, most of us were not taught this. We were taught so many words that don’t have immediate resonate with our bodies; they’re words that the sensual body doesn’t communicate with such as calories, carbs, vitamins, minerals, proteins, and fats. Let’s review the six tastes in Ayurveda. They are sweet, salty, sour, pungent, bitter, and astringent. When your doshas are out of balance, these six tastes can help you repair this imbalance. If you are healthy, Ayurveda advises you to include each of these six tastes in your diet. These six tastes will bring you into contact with the five elements and, in turn, these elements are the components of your body and your entire nature. If you’re missing a taste in a meal, you won’t feel nourished. And then you will crave that taste later, leading to snacking between meals and over eating. Plants want to nourish us. As they nourish us, we nourish them. Plants can help heal us. As they do, we can help to provide a thriving environment for the plants. It’s a co-creative communal connecting relationship. Dirt is a good movie. It explores the relationship between humans and soil, including its necessity for human life and impacts by society. Forks Over Knives is another good movie. It advocates a plant-based diet as a way to avoid or reverse several chronic diseases. People don’t feel that nourished. Some people have fear around food. They are so disconnected that they react to foods. They can’t change anything. Their immune systems are more broken down. The 3 stages of diets: In stage 1, the Standard American Diet, you eat vegetables, fruit, meat, dairy, wheat, processed foods, refined sweeteners, and standard whole foods. You may use alcohol, caffeine, marijuana or nicotine on daily basis. Most food comes from outside your ecosystem, from mega farms. GMO’s and petrochemicals are in the foods, which create internal pollution and cellular confusion. There is a large carbon footprint per nutrient value. There is a lot of disconnect and addiction. When we bless our food, we feel connected. When we don’t feel connected, we often have addictions to try to help us feel connected. Did you grow up saying grace at mealtimes? In Ayurveda, it is typical to bless the land for providing the food, to bless the farmers for growing the food and collecting it from the crops, to bless the person who cooked the food for us (if we didn’t cook it ourselves). This is done at each meal along with taking a moment to close our eyes, take a deep breath in and out, and say “Namaste” (the light in me sees the light in you). In stage 2, the Whole Foods Diet, you eat less and less processed food over time. You’re steering away from canned, packaged and frozen foods, and you’re choosing fresh foods more often. You know how to prepare food that is simple and nourishing. You are curious about adding different plants to your diet. You eat fruits and vegetables daily. You may garden or sprout to get fresher nutrients. You may be involved in a CSA, food co-op, or farmer’s market. In stage 3, the Plant Based Diet, you may eat mostly green vegetables, root vegetables, fruits, seeds. You may eat some grains, legumes, nuts, and animals — but in less quantity over time. You prepare most of the food you eat — and intuitively know what your body wants and needs. You get food at farmer’s markets, or a CSA. You know what plants thrive in your ecosystem and extend their immune system to you. You know where your food comes from. You eat what makes your body feel good regardless of the social situation. You find you don’t need as much food as you get older. You leave room for space while eating and between meals. You like to sprout your sprouts, culture your veggies, and grow edible plants in or in and around your home. You enjoy learning from people who are playing their edge with diet. When we are eating from our own ecosystem, those plants are healing. They are hardy and they make us feel more hardy. They make us feel more safe and more relaxed. They boost our immune system, and we don’t have to get flu shots. We are building strength from our ecosystem. Are you feeling nourished, and are you eating from your own ecosystem? Ask yourself if you can you identify each part of the plant in everything you ate yesterday. If you can’t, then it’s processed. What are some of the mental and emotional patterns associated with this? It’s like a war going on in your head. “I know I shouldn’t eat this” but some part of your body accepts it. There are so many chemicals added that there is an addiction. There is so much confusion. You may need a detox. The easiest way to detox is to start adding more of the good stuff, the greens. Basically, more plants and less processed foods. Are you starting to feel a shift toward automation with your habits? Good habits are not decisions, but rather are automatic routines based on prior conscious decisions. Automation frees up a lot of energy. Resistance comes up all the time. The resistance isn’t you, it comes from outside of you. It is probably negative and not in alignment with your fundamental goals. It doesn’t matter what the resistance or the physical body says, for example, it’s time to get up and exercise. The payoff worksheet goes deep to help you see why some habits are harder to change and what their relationship is to the resistance. For podcast listeners, I have created an awesome download to help you keep track of the plant species you eat. This will help you add more species into your diet, slowly but surely, which is the way we build healthy (and sustainable) habits. And, as promised, I have a second download for you, listing the benefits of eaing a plant-based diet. This would be a good one to print out and display in a place where you will see it at least once a day, helping you to build your habit of eating more of a plant-based diet. Click here your Plant-Based Diet downloads. Namaste, Dr. Michele ****************************** If there is a topic you would like me to address or if there is a question you would like answered, please reach out. Email me directly at dr.michele.colon@gmail.com or schedule a coaching call with me so we can dive deeper to find out what is going on and come up with a plan of action for you: drmichele.com/schedule Today’s show was brought to you by the Body Wisdom Membership Program. For more information, head on over to my website drmichele.com and click on the JOIN NOW or WORK WITH ME tab. All of the information is there about my group programs as well as 1:1 coaching. If you have questions about your health that you would like me to answer on air, you can email them to me or go to my website drmichele.com/get in touch to contact my team. If you have questions you’d like to discuss with me directly, sign up for a coaching call at drmichele.com/schedule. Contact Information and Important Links for Dr. Michele: Dr. Michele can be found online or by email. Dr. Michele is currently accepting new 1:1 coaching clients as well as new members into her Body Wisdom Membership Program. If you have questions about the Body Wisdom Membership Program or about how you can make lifestyles changes to improve your health, check out the Dr. Michele website or sign up for a coaching call with Dr. Michele here: drmichele.com/schedule Namaste, Dr. Michele Here's Where You Find Dr. Michele: website - drmichele.com email - dr.michele.colon@gmail.com twitter - @doctormichele facebook - @doctormichele instagram - @drmichele