Take Control Of Your Energy: Fruit For Thought

Fresh Fruit are an important source of vitamins and minerals and should be eaten daily!

In 2008 I had the incredible opportunity to visit a fascinating community of African Americans, who had settled in Dimona, Israel. The founders of this community moved to Israel from the United States of America in the 1970s, based on the belief that most slaves which were sold from West Africa to the Americas, were in fact of Hebrew descent. This group of very interesting people had committed themselves to living according to God's Laws in the Old Testament and in fact, were serious about trying to live a lifestyle as originally intended by God. One of the laws they follow is the human diet outlined by God in Genesis 1.29-30: 

"God said, “I am giving you all the grain bearing plants and all the fruit trees. These trees make fruit with seeds in it. This grain and fruit will be your food."

And so they have gone to great lengths to adopt a vegan lifestyle. I was deeply impressed by their commitment and their creativity in preparing delicious vegan food. And with the fact that the large majority of the people who I met in that community was slender, energetic and had lovely smooth skin, despite the quite harsh climate of the Negev area in which they live.

This was not the first time that I had been pointed by life in the direction of living a vegetarian lifestyle. When I was 25 years old I had returned from a journalism internship in Germany with some useful experience and sadly an extra weight of about 15kg. Fortunately for me, I found a book titled 'Fit For Life', written by Harvey & Marilyn Diamond, and this became my source of nutritional information and guideline for a healthy diet. I managed to lose 13kgs in 8 weeks and the remaining 2kgs during the next four months. (Click on the book if you would like to buy a copy).

I also have maintained my weight by returning to the basic dietary philosophy in the book, whenever my weight has gotten a bit out of control because of too much travelling, sitting at my desk and writing and too little exercise!

'Fit For Life' was the first book that I read that actually explained to me WHY we need to eat certain food groups: Carbohydrate for fuel or 'energy'; Proteien for building muscles and organs; Fruit and veggies for the vitamins and minerals that our body and our brain needs to be strong and to function properly.I learnt about Calcium for the bones and teeth, Vitamin A for the eyes, Vitamin E for the skin, and how each vitamin and mineral has a different critical purpose in keeping us healthy. I also learnt that we need to try to get our veggies and fruit from organic producers and that we should avoid nutritional products. Since then, however, I have realised that so much of our food in the supermarkets and even from organic producers loses its Vitamin and Mineral content during packaging, shipping and in storage, that our body sometimes is unable to gain sufficient of these nutrients from our food.

And so I started appreciating the importance of excellent quality nutritional products. In fact, I now make available such a range of nutritional products to make sure you know where to find them, since I realized it is very time-consuming and quite confusing to choose an excellent quality nutritional product from a drugstore or supermarket shelf.

Of course, our first choice should always be to eat fresh fruit and vegetables to get the optimum amount of vitamins and minerals in our bodies. But fortunately for our generation, which is struggling to always have access to such organic veggies and fruit, we may supplement our diet with excellent nutritional products which have been researched and proven to help.

One final tip about getting in enough fruit and veggies that I found in 'FIT FOR LIFE' is to invest in a blender. 

Invest in a blender now. It will add huge variety and flexibility to your diet.

You can find different types of blenders in your local appliance shop, but for a proven brand I have added a link above, where you can order your own 'Oster' blender.

Breakfast

I use my blender in the morning for fruit juices. Simply peel three different types of fruit, remove seeds, pop into the blender and add a cup of water for two 'Smoothie' glasses for breakfast. This is probably the best kept secret to health: don't drink coffee or eat cereals until half-an-hour after enjoying your smoothie and you should never have any digestive issues again. You can use any kind of fruit and in any combination, so you never have to get bored by the same taste again. Nico and I usually use a banana for a bit of body, and an apple, then combine this with any other fruit in season. God specifically made fruit to be suitable for the varying seasons, because each contains specific vitamins and minerals that the body needs. For instance. citrus fruit in winter with high Vit C keeps colds away. Tropical fruit in summer help to cool our bodies down. I've never found a fruit combination that doesn't work. They're always delicious!

PS: Nico and I vary our breakfast over weekends. On Saturday we enjoy going out for a Cafe Latte and a buttery Croissant. And on Sundays we love a big breakfast around the table either before or after church, preferably with family or friends and have muesli, yoghurt, eggs, toast, butter and jam with coffee or tea. Yum! 

Lunch

When I have time to eat lunch at home, I often use my blender over lunch for a fresh veggie soup, especially in winter, served with wholewheat bread. In summer I try to have a salad and some wholewheat bread. Here are some variations:

a) Tomato Soup

I chop some onions into a pan, fry them in a bit of olive oil. Then I take 3 tomatoes per person and cut an 'X' or cross over the stem section. Put them in a bowl and cover them with boiling water, so that the skin pops open where the 'X' cut is. When the onions are ready, remove them from the pan to cool a little. Use a knife to pull away the tomato skin, cut them into quarters and put them into the blender, adding about half a cup of water, just to get the mix going. Blending for no longer than 1 minute I then pour the thick tomato juice over the fried onions in the pan, add a bit of salt or vegetable stock and stir it until it starts bubbling. I let it bubble up once more, then serve it in soup bowls. Sometimes I add a dash of cream (if I have any) or of Soya milk (if I want to eat 'vegan') for colour and I always sprinkle freshly grounded black pepper on top. If I have fresh herbs, I will also use these for garnish or even add a sprig of parsley or celery to the blender for a taste variation.

b) Pea Soup

I simply buy a small pack of frozen green peas and cook them as per instruction in water for a few minutes - about 4-5 minutes, adding some organic vegetable stock. I then pour the peas with the water into the blender and turn it on for about 1 minute. If everyone is seated at the table, I pour the soup directly into soup bowls, but if he is still pottering about the house, I pour it back into the pot and let it bubble up once more, then turn the heat down. It is very important to cook your veggies for as SHORT a time as possible, in order to retain the maximum vitamins and minerals. Also, the good thing with eating veggies in the form of soup, is that you don't throw out the water - often valuable vitamins and minerals are leached into the cooking water and thrown away, instead of being available for your body. Again, I will either add a dash of cream or a dash of soya milk to decorate the soup and serve it with freshly grounded pepper sprinkled on top. Parsley and coriander both work well as herbs to serve with Pea Soup. Sometimes, when we need a bit more body, or if I make the soup for dinner, I will fry Vegan sausages (in South Africa we have a great brand known as 'Fry's which is available at all main supermarkets) in some olive oil, chop them into small pieces and add them to the pea soup. PS: This recipe also works for potato soup, which is not as nutritionally valuable as other veggies, but tastes great in winter. Here add some one or two celery sticks to the boiled potatoes in the blender. Turmeric also works as a spice for potato soup.

c) Vegetable Soup

Again, buy a small pack of mixed veggies and prepare as you would the pea soup above.

d) Broccoli and Cauliflower Soup

These great veggies can also be bought in frozen packs. Prepare as for the pea soup, but instead of adding cream or soya milk, add a spoonful of peanut butter for a delicious, creamy consistency and a nutty taste that gets people to keep asking for more!

e) Pumpkin Soup

Using fresh pumpkins, peel them, chop them and boil them until soft. Use one cup of pumpkin per person and half a cup of water per person. This takes about 20-30 minutes! Then add the boiled pumpkin with the water into the blender, turn it on for 1 minute, and voila! Pumpkins are naturally creamy, so you don't even need to add any cream. Just spice them up with a bit of cinnamon or turmeric and you will have a winner on the table.

Of course there are many other ways to serve your veggies, but I thought I would encourage you to start making fresh soups, instead of buying powdered or canned versions, which is really 'dead' food. Fortunately, frozen foods have been proven to retain a high vitamin and mineral content, often even more than fresh veggies, which are exposed to storage in sub-optimal temperatures and transportation challenges.

Instead of investing in an expensive medical aid programme, rather invest in a pro-active, healthy diet and exercise! Nico and I are in or near the second half of our century of life, and during the past 10 years we have had hardly any flu or other health issues, despite having gone through extremely stressful periods at times. A hospital plan to take care of accidents when surgery may be required is a good idea, and keeping your teeth in good shape is also a must (for a variety of reasons). But by avoiding lots of animal fats, carbohydrates and sugar-overload, as well as staying away from alcohol, except for the odd glass of wine, really is the secret of a healthy, energetic life!

NOTE: A completely vegan or even vegetarian diet is possible, ONLY if you have the time to take great care in ensuring that you eat sufficient vegan or vegetarian proteien or vegetables which are high in iron, such as spinach or broccoli. This is usually very difficult for people working away from home or travelling a lot. If you want to move away from animal proteien, avoid meat, but enjoy an organic, free-range egg 1-3 times a week and eat fish once a week, to avoid iron shortage. Taking iron supplements is only a short-term solution and should not become a lifelong habit.

PS: If you have been dreaming of working from home in order to take more control over your life, have a look at this proven internet business opportunity which I have found. Just click on this link for more information.

Take Control Of Your Energy - The Better Protein

When someone says ‘Protein’ chances are that you are thinking ‘meat’. And yes, meat has become the main source of protein in diets influenced by Western culture. But at what cost? And why? There are some fascinating findings about the impact the high meat consumption has on our society and on our earth. Fortunately, there are lots of other sources of protein. The challenge is simply to start introducing them into your diets for variety. You don’t have to give up meat. Just eat less of it and substitute it with other protein, coming from plants.

According to some of the latest research available, livestock (cattle, sheep, chickens, pigs, etc.) production contributes to the world's most pressing environmental problems, including global warming, land degradation, air and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity. In fact, it is estimated that livestock are responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, a bigger share than that of transport. Apparently, expanding population and incomes worldwide, along with changing food choices, are causing a fast increase in demand for meat, milk and eggs.

Now already, grazing for cattle uses a quarter (26%) of the land surface of the Earth!

Cows - Man's Traditional Business Partner, not Man's Food:
Compost, Ethanol, Yoghurt, Cheese, Transport, Ploughing, Capital Investment

Think about what that means as populations increase. Existing land available for human settlements is not enough. So then more forests are cut down, which in turn affects our environment negatively as well. While this problem is at the moment mostly visible in South America, it affects all of us, because it affects our environment. In addition, about one third of all land used for agriculture is used to grow feed crops for livestock. On top of everything, about 70% of land in dry areas of the world which is used by cattle, goats or other livestock has become degraded because of overgrazing, which results in erosion.

Scientists estimate that livestock are responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, a bigger share than that of all transport (cars, SUVs, buses, trains, ships) combined. For those of you who don’t know this: greenhouse gas is the type of gas that is heating up the athmosphere of the world and changes our climate.

Also, the sheer quantity of animals being raised for human consumption also poses a threat of the Earth's biodiversity. About 20% of all animals alive are Livestock, and the land area they now occupy was once habitat for wildlife. By increasing livestock, to meet our human demand for meat, we are reducing the land available to wild animals.

I thought I’d add this information to this piece on protein, just to give everyone a bigger picture! Also, I want you to understand that – apart from the negative effect that too much animal protein has on our health – this is the reason why I encourage everyone to shift slowly to using more and more plant protein.

I’m not saying that you must stop eating meat. All I am saying is that we women have a huge impact on the food choices of our families. So we can reverse the negative impact of a diet high in animal proteins over the next couple of years, to help Earth and our bodies recover.

The meat industry is currently under a lot of pressure, because of the criticism against it, both because of the impact of cattle on increasing greenhouse gases, as well as because of the killer-diseases afflicting people living the ‘Western’ lifestyle. Plant and animal protein are both made of essential amino acids, but diets high in animal proteins have been linked to an increase in cancer, cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis. However, you don't need animals to get plenty of protein in your diet. There are plenty of plants that can be eaten to ensure you get ample amounts of protein each day.

As women who want to create a world where there is more love, greater beauty and more abundance, it should not be our intention to cause strain to anyone. However, if we slowly but surely change our shopping habits to include one portion of animal protein less and instead add one portion of plant protein into our shopping baskets every week, we are informing the market to change. In this way, cattle and other livestock farmers will have time to shift their production to include other products over time, without causing them economic distress.

I’m not going to talk about the forms of animal protein available in detail. You know them all: meat, chicken, fish, eggs and dairy products like cheese.

Instead, I’m going to focus on talking about plant protein, because this is an exciting new discovery for many of us!

Soybeans

Soya is known to have the highest content of protein per 100g, even more than any source of animal protein! I saw soya for the first time about 20 years ago. At that time it had been introduced as a ‘cheap-and-nasty’ meat substitute. I ate it once or twice, when my mom tried cooking it, but didn’t like the taste or the texture. Now I know that the brand that was available then was adding a lot of artificial flavouring to the soya to make it taste ‘like meat’. The next time I ate soya was in a vegan restaurant, while I was a student. There was tofu in my salad. I didn’t know that this was soya and had never tasted anything so tasteless and rubbery! Needless to say, the word ‘tofu’ filled me with apprehension ever since that experience. But things have come a long way since then!

In China, the soya bean has been cultivated and used in different ways for thousands of years. Soya beans are very versatile: soya beans can be used as whole soya beans, soya sprouts, or processed as soya milk, tofu, tempeh, soya sauce, miso (soup condiment). You can read more about this online at www.soya.be. Soya is also used as ingredient for non-food products, such as candle wax and biodiesel! Soy candles are becoming more popular because they burn longer and healthier.

I started seriously using soya as a protein in our diet about a year ago. Before then, it had been difficult for me to find it or use it. But then I had the amazing opportunity to visit a vegan community in Israel, that had started using soya as the base of their diet about 40 years ago. I’ve never seen such healthy, energetic and beautiful people! Their medical records have been carefully kept ever since they changed to a vegan diet and there is not a single case of cancer or high blood pressure among the community members that have been living on soya for almost 40 years now.

What was also highly inspirational was the incredibly creative approach to using soya to create all kinds of delicious dishes, including soya ice-cream! Through trial and error, the women in this community especially have now invented ways of spicing soya and presenting it in such a way that they create any substitute for animal protein that you can think of... chicken casserole, roast beef, scrambled eggs... you name it, they’ve got it.

It had not been easy until last year to find soya products in mainstream supermarkets in South Africa, but just as I returned from Israel, products from a South African producer of soya products showed up on the supermarket shelves across the country. During my recent visits to the USA I’ve been on the look-out for soya products and was absolutely stunned by the variety that is already available, although mainly in shops specializing in organic and health foods. But overall, there is really no excuse in many parts of our beautiful world, not to switch to a meat-substitute made from soya at least once a week. You’ll find these products easy to use: just cook them as you would normally do the type of meat they are substituting. I do suggest, however, that you carefully read the labels on the packaging. Avoid anything with artificial colouring and flavouring or preservatives!

Lentils

Lentils have been around since Biblical times and earlier. It was apparently one of the earliest plants that was domesticated in the Near East. Wikipedia tells us that a variety of lentils exists, with colors that range from yellow to red-orange to green, brown and black. Red, white and yellow lentils have their skins removed. There are large and small varieties of many lentils (e.g., Masoor Lentils). Lentils are sold in many forms, with or without the skins, whole or split.

Learning to cook more with beans and other pulses like lentils does mean getting into a ‘rhythm’ and planning ahead. These foods sometimes need to be soaked overnight or cooked for quite a long time. But the fact that they cost relatively less than the same weight of meat and don’t have a negative impact on our health, bring other important benefits.

In the age we live in, we are truly privileged to have so much information at our fingertips through the Internet! I searched the ‘net to confirm some facts I had, and also found lots of interesting recipes for all the plant proteins I am suggesting here. So, if you’ve never cooked lentils, just google ‘lentil recipes’ and you’ll see what I mean.

Peanuts

Most of us eat peanuts as peanut butter or as salty snacks, sometimes combined with raisins. Using peanuts in cooking is really not common in homes with a Western culture. Southern cooking in the USA features a lot of peanuts, however, as do oriental recipes. Peanuts can be used in many different ways, although they are mainly used for peanut butter in the USA. Peanut oil can be used in cooking, lighting, fuel and as a food constituent. Peanut oil has a better keeping quality than soybean, corn, and safflower oils and is a good source of Vitamin E. Peanut oil is the most popular use of the ‘groundnut’, as it is also known, in other parts of the world, outside of the USA.

Beans (Broad, Kidney, Red, Chickpeas, etc.)

All beans are an interesting mix of plant protein and carbohydrates. This is why it makes sense to eat beans together with carbohydrates, even though they are a protein: the can be digested by the same stomach juices as carbohydrates are. In fact, beans alone are not complete proteins, but combined with a grain are complete as a meal. So it is important to eat beans with other grain products. In switching away from a diet dominated by meat, beans are our best friends! They are hugely versatile and can be prepared in many different tasty ways. The Internet is full of delicious recipes, many being traditional recipes from across the world, which adds some excitement to your kitchen! I found a suggestion that, as you eat more beans, you need to increase your water-intake, in order to properly handle the higher fiber content in your diet. So there is another added benefit of beans: they will encourage you to drink more water. And water, as we know, is the ‘elixir of life’.

Seeds (including pumpkin and squash)

Seeds are generally not a main meal, but can be added to practically every dish, salad or baked item we make. Seeds are a rich store of energy, some have good protein levels, vitamins (especially vitamin E), minerals, and protective phytochemicals. Apparently, our ancestors who were ‘hunter-gatherers’ would follow seeds according to the seasons and ate  every seed that was worth collecting,  grass seed, legume (bean-like, pea -like, peanut and others), and any other seeds that were sustaining and productive, or big enough to be worth bothering with.

I am thrilled to see an ever-increasing selection of seeds on our supermarket shelves! Seeds are highly concentrated foods, so we need very few of them to add some taste to our other meals. Follow the example of our ancient ancestors and add seeds to your cooking, changing with the seasons to keep things interesting!

Nuts

Nuts, together with fruit and salads, are my favourite foods! Why? Because I don’t have to cook them. I just love the fact that these foods can be eaten ‘live’ – no fuel used on cooking them, all the natural nutrients ready for the taking, no vitamins or minerals lost. A handful of nuts, together with raisins, is my favourite (non-chocolate) snack. I know the protein and oils in the nuts are good for my muscles, organs and nervous system, while the iron in raisins helps to keep my blood healthy to take up oxygen. Did you know that, biologically, nuts are a fruit-and-seed in one? And that some types of ‘nuts’ are really seed, because they have to be extracted from the fruit, like cashews? I could spend hours on the Internet learning more about the foods we eat so thoughtlessly... It really is important to know where our food comes from.

This makes me think of a television programme I once watched in Germany, about ‘Spaghetti Trees’. It was a documentary, showing the ‘Spaghetti Plantations’ in Italy, where women painstakingly had to pick the ‘ripe’ spaghetti strips from the trees and lay them out in the sun to dry.... The programme was shown on April 1. April’s Fools’ Day! Of course all of us know that spaghetti doesn’t come from trees – or do we??!

As a human race we have become so far removed from the source of our food, that we really need to get in touch with the ‘food cycle’ again: seed, plant, fruit, harvest, compost, and so on. Make an effort to learn about where food comes from and teaching the members of your family the same. Understanding the value of food hopefully will help us to again respect food in the way it used to be respected by our ancestors, who had to spend hours looking for seeds and nuts to eat...

Mushrooms

I think edible mushrooms are God’s secret for meat-lovers, who need to stay away from meat for health reasons. Large, juicy brown portobello mushrooms can be ‘spiked’ with garlic sticks cut from fresh garlic and grilled on the fire just like meat. Or under the grill in the oven. Fried white mushrooms can be treated with the same spices one would use for chicken livers and enjoyed as such. Sliced mushrooms can be used together with onions and cream or soy milk to create a creamy sauce for pasta. Sprinkled with black pepper they are certain to satisfy any gourmet’s taste.

Mushrooms are the only natural fresh vegetable or fruit with vitamin D. Preliminary research suggests that the ultraviolet light found in sunlight may boost levels of vitamin D in mushrooms. Apparently, we can boost the natural process of “enriching” mushrooms with more vitamin D by briefly exposing mushrooms grown in the dark to sunlight for 5 minutes before cooking or using in salads!

Often grouped with vegetables, mushrooms provide many of the nutritional value of fruit and vegetables, as well as nutritional elements more commonly found in meat, beans or grains. Mushrooms are low in calories, fat-free, cholesterol-free and very low in sodium (salt). Still, they give us different nutrients, such as riboflavin, niacin and selenium, which are typically found in animal foods or grains.

For thousands of years, Eastern cultures have recognized mushrooms' health benefits. Studies conducted over the past two decades—mostly in Asia—have suggested mushrooms or substances in mushrooms may support the immune system. Traditionally, most of this science has focused on shiitake and maitake mushrooms, but this seems to be a common characteristic for all mushrooms.

Take some time to search and find all these interesting facts and delicious recipes for mushrooms on the Internet. A whole new world will open to you, as it did for me! 

Just on a closing note, some of the fascinating facts I found while researching this article today, is that oats and sun-dried tomatoes both are high in vegetable proteien. On the other hand, human milk – God’s food for babies – has very little protein! In fact, the protein found in human milk is equal per 100g as that found in bananas and carrots. So maybe we don’t need so much protein after all... Makes you think, doesn’t it?

PS: Much of the useful info I found came from www.wikipedia.com. But just using Yahoo or Google to search each of the plant proteins mentioned and adding ‘nutrition’ or ‘recipes’ will unlock an amazing world of knowledge for you. Have fun!

PS PS: Managing your energy by eating the right food in the right quantities and prepared correctly is critical if you want to achieve your dream! However, managing your time also is. And being your own boss, while working from home on the Internet can really help you take control of your own life. I found a great opportunity to do just that. You can too. Just click here and keep on reading.

Take control of your Energy – Know your Daily Bread! 

Isn’t it amazing how little interest we show into the food we eat? Except that we care how it tastes like. Having our daily bread is a privilege most of us take for granted. But how much do we know about carbohydrates or ‘starches’ and how they affect our bodies? For those of us who have heard the Bible story, food was the Devil’s first weapon to tempt us into self-destruction. And if we don’t learn to understand carbohydrates, this staple food can be deadly for your figure. Handle with care!

I love bread. I always have. Especially the fragrant, home-baked, whole-wheat bread with a golden crust that my mom would bake. When I lived in Germany, first as an Au Pair and again later as a trainee journalist, the bakers on every main street would tempt me with a huge variety of rolls, each with a different name: Lausbub, Milchbrötle, Vollkorn, Dreikorn, Roggenbrötchen, Salzpretzel. Absolutely delicious.  But I soon paid the price: my normally slender body started picking up weight at the speed of bite!

http://easteuropeanfood.about.com/od/breads/tp/ryebreads.htm

When I came back home, no one recognized me. And I had nothing to wear! This is when my quest for knowledge about food started. Now I am a fervent proponent of teaching nutrition in Kindergarten. Because it looks like modern mom’s don’t really have the knowledge they need to teach good eating habits to their babies and toddlers – especially not the most modern, scientific information. This is such a pity: every human child should know what food is good for its body and which food isn’t – regardless of taste.
How much our culture influences our choice of food is something I learnt especially since I’ve become involved in a charity that operates two boarding schools for teenagers, mainly from deep rural South Africa. The kids that attend these schools – one for boys, one for girls – come from homes where they have been taught that a meal without meat is no meal, just a ‘snack’. And that you have to stuff yourself with maize porridge (known here as ‘phutu’) in order to say that you are ‘full’, before you stop eating!
If I look at the rest of the parts of the world where I have been travelling to – the cultural paradigms are different, but the end result is the same: far too much carbohydrates and fat! In the USA, kids grow up on cereal with milk and MacDonald Burgers. In Europe, far too many are now also resorting to similar eating habits. Just a few weeks ago, in July, when I visited my godchild in Germany, his father was lamenting the fact that mothers in his daughter’s swimming class would come to him and sternly admonish him that his daughter was too skinny! He remembers from his childhood that all kids were wiry and athletic. Now the majority of primary school children is already showing signs of obesity!
Yes, we certainly need carbohydrates in our diet. This is the fuel for our muscles. So, especially if we are highly active, physically, we do need a lot of this type of food, in all its different forms: bread, cereals, pasta, and so on.
Children have much more energy than we do, because their bodies are not yet burdened with the bad eating habits that we as adults have adopted, usually from our own parents. Looking at the history of food, and just understanding my own ancestor’s eating habits, over-eating was simply not on the order of the day. Something happened after World War II, when it comes to our diets. Suddenly, all kinds of new artificial foodstuffs entered the mainstream: colouring, flavouring, preservatives. And television brought all of this ‘wonderful’ new food and these new tastes into our homes. So, of course, our diets changed!
Having white bread from the bakery in town became a special treat for us farm kids, who were used to the whole wheat bread baked by mom at home. If it had stayed a special treat, that would have been OK. But with urbanization and becoming further and further removed from the source of our food, white bread – wheat – has become the staple food of far too many human beings across the world.
There is nothing wrong with wheat – if you eat it in moderation. Like with most other things: if you don’t overeat, you’re generally fine, health- and weight-wise.
But when it comes to wheat, especially white wheat flour, there is a BIG ‘However’.
White wheat flour – like any other type of ‘refined’ grain where the healthy fibre, vitamins and minerals has been practically ‘surgically removed’ – is actually nothing but a slightly different form of sugar. Now imagine eating solid pieces of sugar, like we eat slices of white bread or rolls…
I didn’t know this, until I started researching the impact of the different food types on our bodies, mind and emotions. And yes, even on our spirit. Drugs affect our spirit. But that is a story for another day…
Today I just want you to become very aware of the fact that ‘refined’ wheat has the same effect of ‘refined’ sugar, if not treated in moderation. It makes the blood sugar levels shoot up high, resulting in more and more Insulin being released from our Pancreas (remember this organ from Biology class?) and in this way over time affects our bodies ability to regulate its sugar levels, too often resulting in adult-onset diabetes!
If you are a labourer who needs to do heavy manual labour, or if you are an athlete or go to gym every day, you can eat quite a lot of carbohydrates each day, because your body burns this ‘sugar’ as fuel to keep your muscles going.
However, if you are someone who spends much of your time sitting or just do moderate physical activity, you need to be careful with the amount of fuel you put in your body. Because every little gram of carbohydrates that you do not use on that day is turned by your body into sugar and from there into fat. Fat on our bodies is nothing but a ‘storage area’ – a ‘larder’ – for those days when we may need to fall back on this reserve. However, with our current blessed lifestyles, the chances that we will not have food tomorrow, has really shrunk to a minimum, so we also don’t need to store huge reserves of fat on our bodies. The problem with fat is that it causes excessive weight on our bone structure, pulling us down even further than gravity normally would, and also placing a lot of strain on the heart, which now suddenly has to feed a whole new layer of bodymass (pure fat) with blood. Fat sits directly below our skin, so if the heart is not able to work properly any longer, the blood struggles to reach our skin, and this has all kinds of effects on the well-being of our bodies. Just do some of your own research on this on the Internet and you will be amazed at how important it is to keep the fat layer under our skin at a lower range.
The other thing that we should become aware of is that wheat contains a material called ‘gluten’. Gluten is a form of proteien, that is easily digestible for most people, but over the last couple of years – probably because of humans over-eating wheat – an increasing number of people are becoming intolerant to this food, with a variety of symptoms ranging from chronic diarhoeaa and ongoing tiredness. The biggest problem is that in these  instances, the gluten prevents the digestive system from properly absorbing nutrients, like vitamins and minerals, resulting in malnutrition.
I’m not suggesting that you rush off to get a Gluten allergy test. I am, however, encouraging you to learn more about carbohydrates and how you can ensure that you and the people you prepare food for, can enjoy the benefits of carbohydrates, without suffering from the disaster of over-eating them.
Also, I am recommending that we all shift away from a wheat-dominated carbohydrate diet to including more different types of carbohydrates, because in this way we can have the benefit of different types of minerals and vitamins.
Let carbohydrates form the ‘backbone’ of your lunch menu for your family and proteien be the main component of your dinners. In order to make sure you keep variety in your lunch menu, here's a suggested list of carbohydrates to use each day:
Mondays – Wheat
This includes any type of wheat bread, pastry, pasta, and couscous.
Tuesdays – Sorghum/Spelt or any other ‘exotic’ grain
Visit your local health-store section in the supermarket to see what’s available and try out new recipes.
Thursdays – Potatoes
This is such a versatile food: mashed, boiled then fried, boiled, baked, chips, potato soup, croquettes
Wednesdays – Oats
Porridge, muffins, crunchy granola biscuits, sautéed oat flakes in salad or as a topping on soup
Fridays – Rye
Rye is known best as bread, but look for recipes for other interesting things to do with rye. There are different types of rye bread too!
Saturday – Corn/Maize
This is ideal for family gatherings. Corn-on-the-cob, nachos, maize bread and other traditional ways of using maize. Combine with beans, like the Mexicans do, avoid meat.
Sunday – Rice
There are lots of different types of rice, so there is already some variety. But then, of course, you can use rice as is, rice cakes, rice dishes, rice-and-soy milk soup with cinnamon and steamed dried fruit. Let your imagination fly!
The main secret that all of us living in the 21^st Century need to know is that it is very easy to over-eat on carbohydrates, because they are a form of sugar and sugar is addictive. So learn more about how you can rid yourself of this addiction and start on a fresh page. Your body will be grateful!

For more help on how to reduce your weight, or how to control your appetite, please contact me for a FREE personal consultation at Reine de la Rose Eco.Spa Wellness & Aesthetics Clinic at 616 Leyds St, Muckleneuk on the Hill in Pretoria, City of Tshwane, South Africa. You may call me on the office line from Wednesdays to Saturdays at 012-3443340 or any other time on my mobile phone at 0828520970. Or simply drop me an email at reinedelarose@gmail.com. Looking forward to meeting you!

Take Control of Your Energy: Know what you eat

If we want to change the world to a better place, we need energy and self-confidence!

So start making the world a better place, by starting to make yourself more energetic and self-confident, by eating the right food in the right way.

All of us living in the 21^st Century need to know is that it is very easy to over-eat or -drink on carbohydrates, because they are a form of sugar and sugar is addictive. So learn more about how you can rid yourself of this addiction and start on a fresh page. Your body will be grateful! And your energy-levels will surge.

You may know that cool-drinks, white bread, chips and sweets are about as low as you can go in terms of food. Yet, far too many parents give their kids some pocket money to buy something at the school tuck shop - not realizing that this is laying the foundation for a life-time of struggle with weight, possibly diabetes, later cholesterol and related heart disease! 

STOP TODAY!

Instead, make sure your kid and the rest of your family understand what I am writing about here:

I was a skinny kid, but I practically lived on my mom's oat crunchies when I was home for the weekends and holidays: sugar and carbohydrates. Because I lived in a hostel my whole school-going life, I had not much control over what I got to eat and generally speaking the hostel food was quite healthy. However, when I was 16 we were allowed to walk to town one afternoon a week and I had some pocket money. This is where my chocolate addiction started. I'd buy a slab of chocolate and eat it up before I was back in the hostel again! During my teenage years this did not affect my weight, since there were a lot of sport activities and I was never a big eater, but in looking back I can see that this 'unthinking' behaviour was the cause for much of my weight problems later in life.

So when I got to university in Pretoria, I discovered that chocolate was my 'comfort food'. Feeling very much 'out of my skin' in the new city environment and missing the structured, safe life of a small farming community, I ended up eating a slab of chocolate a day! Needless to say, my smooth skin broke out and by the end of my first year I had gained 13kg. This had a huge negative effect on my self-image, so I practically withdrew from my old circle of friends, who all seemed to cope so much better and food became my main source of comfort.

Even though I was a medical student at the time, I didn't know that I had triggered my insulin switch by eating too much carbohydrate-rich food, and that as a result, my weight - and because of that - my whole life was starting to spin out of control. From weighing 54kg when I started at university I ended up 24kg heavier at 78kg, when I was 25! So in seven years I had gained about 3.5kg per year. Many people yearn back to the time of their youth, but in my life, the time between 18-25 years of age were the worst years of my life!

Everyone who has been overweight knows the dieting 'yo-yo' that starts with 'food deprivation' and ends with 'binges', and each time we go on a binge, what do we eat? Fruit and vegetables? No! We eat carbohydrates: sugars and starch - usually combined with fat in cookies, chocolates and chips. Guys often go on 'beer binges' - again, beer is sheer carbohydrate. Add to that the alcohol, and the cycle of addiction is complete.

Mercifully, when I was 25 years old when I discovered a book titled Fit for Life written by Harvey & Marilyn Diamond, at Exclusive Books and for the first time I had a source of information that made absolute sense, when it came to food.  One concept that I've never forgotten is that they emphasized that food is the fuel for our body and also the 'material' of which we are made. 'You are what you eat' suddenly made a lot of sense to me. At that time I was a solid piece of chocolate. I preferred to sit down, because I had very little energy.

'Fit for Life' really changed the way I looked at food. I realized that I had started using food for other purposes (comfort), instead of for fuel and that this is why I ended up overweight and low on energy. This couple taught a whole generation of people in the late 80's about the 'Body Clock' - explaining the normal 'rhythm' of our digestive system and what we need to do to help our body handle its 'natural hygiene'. 'Fit For Life' teaches three key secrets to healthy eating habits:

1) Follow your 'Body Clock':
Your body takes in food, digests it, cleans your digestive system, then needs to take a rest. The idea is that you support this rhythm, not confuse it. So, have fruit for breakfast and in the morning, while your digestive system is resting, since this is the most easily digestible food and gives you energy when you need it most. From 12:00 you can eat other foods until about 20:00. Then don't eat after that time, since now the body is trying to digest everything properly. Your body cleans the digestive system from 02:00 in the morning until about 06:00 and then it needs a time to rest the digestive system, until about 12:00 again. And so the cycle continues.

2) Don't mix proteien and carbohydrate:
I can't believe that almost 25 years after this knowledge became available, restaurants STILL do not offer meals where proteien and carbohydrates are not served together! This is the single most effective way of helping your digestive system to work properly, which in turn speeds up your metabolism and really burns off fat. Everyone is still used to the 'old' way of eating meat, potatoes and veggies, instead of adjusting to proper food combining, i.e. combine veggies with carbohydrates and meat with veggies, but don't mix proteien and carbohydrate. Cheese sandwich: NO. Egg, bacon and toast: NO. Hamburgers and chips: NO. It takes a bit of getting used to, but once you've learnt about useful proteiens like beans and other legumes, which can be combined with carbohydrates, life becomes a lot easier.

3) Don't mix fruit with anything else!
To get the full benefits of the vitamins and minerals in God's perfect food - fruit - don't mix it with anything else! The reason for this is that if fruit gets in touch with dairy products, or starches or any other type of food, it starts fermenting in your body, slowing down the digestive process overall and making you feel bloated. Again, this is something we hardly ever find in restaurants, who continue to serve fruit milkshakes or fruit salad and ice cream or apple pie - all things that taste good, but make our bodies sloggish. Fortunately, if we eat fruit on its own, it takes only 30 minutes to shoot through our digestive system. So if you really have to have a coffee or eat a piece of bread, at least wait for half an hour after eating your fruit, so that your body may have the full benefit of the vitamins and minerals and you avoid any feeling of being bloated.

Once I started following these basic principles, my body lost 8kg in the first four weeks and then another 8kg  over the next four months, then my weight stabilised at between 56-58kg. So by the time I was 26 years old, at least I was back at a weight that was normal for me. Also, from that time onward I had more energy than anyone around me! Even better, I never had any weight issue again after that until a few years ago when my lifestyle became extremely stressful and erratic, and I started using Cappucino's, Croissants and Chocolate again as a daily crutch...

I started taking control of my life again a couple of months ago, simply by following the above simple rules and am back to my normal weight again. So I've just again proven - more than 20 years later - that combining food the right way really is the best way to eat!

However, what is interesting is that in recent years it seems as if, while there is no argument about fruit still being the best breakfast food, nutritional science is leaning more and towards avoiding carbohydrates as much as possible, and focusing on eating meals that only contain proteien and veggies.

Dr Johnny Bowden is a nutritionist who teaches that carbohydrates are the culprits in pushing our insulin levels sky-high, which results in us craving sweets and carbohydrates. 

Here is a video in which he explains why he believes that human beings should only eat from the following four food groups: "Anything you can hunt, gather, fish or pluck." - that is fruit, vegetables and proteien. So, basically, avoiding any form of processed foods, including grains that are turned into flour.

As someone who really does not like meat, I'm very happy to know that proteien is also found in non-animal sources, like beans, soya, peas, nuts and mushrooms. But sticking to a vegan diet and still getting enough iron is really impractical, so a bit of fish every now and again, or a bit of chicken or meat for carnivores, is a good idea.

I appreciate this new knowledge, because I could see that, while under stress, I was getting addicted to carbohydrates again. So avoiding carbohydrates altogether seems like a good idea under those circumstances, when your mental and emotional resources are low. You don't want Insulin to start pushing you into negative habits again!

The bottom line is: to have more energy and to help your body to achieve and stay at its ideal weight, know what 'fuel' your body needs and when and how to eat it. Also, don't use food as a 'comforter'. It's just a fuel. Find other ways to handle your stress or frustration or lack of self-confidence or loneliness or disappointments. 

PS: Another interesting thing I've learnt during the past couple of years is that the right nutritional supplements can make a huge difference to how you look and feel! But more about that in my next blog.

Take control of your time

Time. As we become more mature we realize that this is the most valuable resource we have received from God. We can’t really ‘save time’ as if we could place it in a Piggy Bank and use it again later. No – we simply need to take control of our time, every second, every minute, every hour. But if we do this we will be rewarded in ways we’ve never imagined before…

Similar to most children, I grew up with a sense that time was endless. It was a waterfall that would drop from the top of a mountain and disappear into the river beyond, never stopping for a moment, just simply splashing down in a huge, generous stream. Living on a farm where life was very much in sync with nature, the seasons contributed to this sense of time being something that would carry on forever.
 My parents worked with time, but in completely different ways: my mother always finding another creative or charitable activity to squeeze into her day, my father choosing to generously lavish his time on other people. Once I started school, my own time was punctuated by the bell ringing in the small, rural boarding school at Lüneburg, Kwa-Zulu-Natal, where I spent the greater part of my childhood. This was and remains to date one of the most idyllic places to grow up. The school is situated on a farm in the lush, green area of northern KwaZulu-Natal, in South Africa. When I was attending school there, the children of the German-speaking farming community in that particular part of the country were dropped off by their parents after church on Sundays and collected again by a parent lift-club five days later. In between, the days were marked by the ringing of a hand-held bell. The first bell meant rolling out of a warm bed onto a cold floor and saying your morning prayers. The next one meant getting up, making your bed, brushing your teeth and washing your face and getting dressed. The third one meant running barefoot over the sharp, crystal gravel to the Religious Education classroom, where the Pastor was waiting to hear if you had done your homework and learnt the necessary Bible verses and hymns off by heart. The fourth one meant running to the dining hall for breakfast. And so the bright sound of the bell trained us to act on the rhythm of time, until the final bell at night. This meant ‘lights out’ and was the signal for all eight little girls in my dormitory to forgive one another and ask one another for forgiveness for the day’s sins and hurting and fall into a deep and very peaceful sleep.

The school orchestra at Lüneburg Primary School in KwaZulu-Natal

Very rarely, our joyful games playing tennis or ‘catch’ or making clay figurines from the silky smooth red earth after it had rained, our day suddenly would be disrupted by the deep, sonorous sound of the church bell. This always meant that the time had come for some elderly man or woman to stop living on earth and enter into eternal life to join God in Heaven. But even then, except for awakening a sense of awed sadness in my heart, without really understanding it, I did not associate that sound with the importance of my own time here on earth.
When I first left the protected and regimented environment of boarding school life and moved to university and the ‘freedom’ of choosing what to do with my own time, I came face-to-face with the challenge of never having understood how to exercise self-discipline with regard to time. Without the bell ringing, I thought I had the ultimate power. But in reality I was lost. I found it extremely difficult to plan my own day and stick to the time I had allocated to specific activities. In fact, I found it a terrible drag, since my creative mind simply got carried away with whatever I was busy with at that point in time. ….
Interestingly enough, many years later I learnt about the African philosophy of the ‘Seven Spirits’ that live inside each one of us human beings. According to ancient African tradition, one of the ‘Seven Spirits’ is the ‘Wandering Spirit’ – the spirit that possesses anyone who is carried away in an obsession of one type or another. Our challenge as human beings is to manage these spirits (or call it attitudes) that dwell inside us. For the first time I had a visual image that I could understand easily to explain my lack of time management. I needed to manage the’Wandering Spirit’ inside me…

Students at the Themba Education Centre in Dirkiesdorp, Mpumalanga

Getting to grips with time became an increasing challenge during the past couple of years, when I  tried to combine serving a highly demanding consulting client with rescuing the Themba Trust, a struggling, rural non-profit organization, growing an own business and – to top it all – doing all this from two different places that were based four hours of driving apart! I ended up feeling like a ping-pong ball, which was banged around at the will of the different parties I was serving: clients, international donors and crisis issues at the non-profit, and employees in the business. 
As long as I had the cashflow from my consulting business, I could somehow keep this mad pace going. But when suddenly this rug was pulled out from under my feet, the whole house of cards came crashing down…
During the months of introspection that followed, I heard the bells of my childhood ringing in my mind: I simply HAD TO take charge of my own time! I could no longer allow my time to be at the beck and call of everyone else, or otherwise I would never achieve the goals I had set for myself. But this time round, I was the one who had to decide when the bells should ring…

Making time to watch a waterfall: a symbol of time rushing past. This one is on a farm in the area where I grew up.

So:-
- if you’re also plagued by the ‘Wandering Spirit’ that draws your attention away from the here and now ‘on the wings of inspiration’ to whatever has caught your fancy at that particular point in time, or
- if you’ve become a playball in the hands of others, being thrown around based on their needs, day and night,
Then:-
dear friend, I suggest that you do the wise thing and learn from your own and my mistakes and personally take control over your time.
One technique which I’ve learnt, is to learn as much as you can about, and adopt the habits of, the person who has achieved what you want to achieve. 
Now, you probably have heard the ‘urban legend’ about Billionaire Bill Gates, namely that time wise it would be cheaper for him to continue walking to a meeting, than to stop for a second to pick up a 100 dollar bill that someone had lost… At his then worth of 58 Billion Dollars, every second of his time was valued at $1829.-
I’ve never liked the saying ‘time is money’, and money is not the only reason why you should follow my (and all successful people’s) example of taking control of your time: scheduling time with your loved ones is worth more than all the money in the world!
But the bottom line is, if you want to be successful – whether this means being a world-class Golf Player, a Millionairess or a Billionairess, you have to start treating your time as if you were hugely successful already… adopt the habits of someone who already has what you want – someone who understands the incredible value of his or her time.

NOTE: One way of taking control of your time, is to make time to maximise your health and wellbeing. At Reine de la Rose Eco.Spa Wellness & Aesthetics Clinic in Muckleneuk, Pretoria, I work with my team of professionally qualified therapists to help you achieve this goal. Find out more about us by clicking here.

The first step to a new YOU!

The first step to a new you is to make your choice. It’s that easy! Choose to change. Adopt an attitude of success. Have faith. The only one that can take this first step is you.

 Taking the first step is usually the most difficult step. Making your choice to change your life from the comfort-zone of the known to the adventure of the unknown is daunting for most of us. But one thing is for certain: unless we choose our future, our future will choose us!

 Over the years I have been using a simple symbol as a blueprint for planning: the mandala. As you may know, a ‘mandala’ is a symbol used in many cultures: a circle divided by an equal-sided cross. I’ve always loved the interpretation of this symbol as being a symbol of eternal perfection – the ultimate goal. The circle with no end and no beginning symbolizes eternity. The equal-sided cross inside is synonymous with perfection.

 When I teach the unemployed youth I work with I use the body as a way to remember the significance of the mandala. I stand up, legs together and arms outstretched to either side to form a cross. I ask them to imagine a circle around my body. Then I point out the meaning of the mandala:

• The feet – that is the bottom of the cross – represent our body. This includes our health, our roots, our culture and our family.
• The left hand, closest to the heart, represents our emotions. This further involves our relationships to others, our attitude, as well as our contribution to society and our own community.
• The right hand, which most people use as their ‘main hand’ symbolizes our mind: our creative ability, our means to earn a living, everything that has to do with making money and finance.
• The head refers to our spirit – it is our connection to God, to whom we can communicate in prayer and rely on in faith. Spirit is also about leadership, vision, inspiration and motivation. I always point out ti these young people, that the fact that the neck is so short relative to our arms and legs should serve as a constant reminder that we cannot truly be successful and content as human beings if we are not connected to God. It is through this connection that we are able to fulfil our true purpose in life.

 The message of the mandala is that, if we want to live truly happy and successful lifes, we need to ensure that all four areas – body, emotions, mind and spirit – are in balance. This is what we constantly need to strive for. While it seldomly happens that all four are in harmony, if we want a balanced life, we need to work towards that perfection.

 In making your choices about the life you want, use the mandala as a guiding pattern. Take a piece of paper and divide it with a horizontal and vertical line into four equal sections. Now place the headings ‘Spirit’, ‘Mind’, ‘Emotion’  and ‘Body’ from left to right at the top of each section.

 The next step in your personal planning process is to brainstorm the things you want to achieve or change or simply want to continue growing under each of the four sections. For instance, under ‘Spirit’ you might write ‘Make time every day for prayer’, and so on.

 If you want to, you can also start this exercise by listing all the things, habits or people that are already important to you under each heading and taking a moment to consider this in a spirit of thanksgiving!

 Similarly, if you don’t know what you should choose, it may be helpful to take another piece of paper and write down the things, circumstances, habits or people that you believe are having a negative impact on your life and then, on a new sheet, translating each of those into a positive course of action. For instance, if under ‘Body’ you have noted a tense relationship with your mother, on the new sheet you could list one thing you could do to improve that relationship or deal with the situation better.

 This simple technique of writing down your choices can really help prepare you towards creating the life you want and fulfilling the dreams you have.

Of course, as a person with faith in Christ, you will want to place your dreams under His will. In order to be reminded of this continually, I generally draw a cross in the middle of the two lines crossing at the centre of the mandala. This serves as a reminder that, by placing Christ at the centre of our lives, we 'straighten out' any imbalance and are so much stronger.

Interestingly enough, the symbol that Martin Luther designed to summarize his' life's philosophy is known as the "Luther Rose' and is  in the form of a mandala.

Click here to read his interpretation of the 'Luther Rose' in Luther's personal words.

Enough is Enough

Enough is enough. At some point in life, each one of us achieves a point of ‘enough is enough’! This is the point of Zero Tolerance which forces us to take a decision about changing our life. Have you reached that point yet?

I did. A couple of months ago. Up to that point I had very much given up control of my life to external circumstances. I was treating ‘life’ as if it were the ‘master’ and I was its ‘servant’: jumping to address every issue that came my way, regardless of what I was busy with at the moment or what I had planned to do during that time. If this is the state of life you are finding yourself in, listen to me: having what Stephen Covey calls the ‘locus of control’ of your life outside of you, will turn you into the play ball of circumstance. And at the end of it all you will be standing with nothing in your mind except excuses. Excuses, why you’re dead broke. Excuses, why your relationships didn’t work out. Excuses, why you have a terribly flabby and unhealthy body. Excuses, why you’re faced with a mountain of debt. Excuses, why you never learnt to keep time. Excuses, why you never found your destiny nor fulfilled your potential. Like an abused woman that always returns to her abuser, letting ‘life’ or circumstance dictate your response is the surest way of all-round self-destruction.

Becoming aware of this behaviour is especially important for us as women: we are often raised to believe that we are, in fact, the ‘lesser gender’. Our men and our children are always put first. And if we don’t have a man or children, we are often made to believe that we are selfish and as a result respond to this criticism by going over the top in serving others around us. It’s time for all of us women to adopt the mindset of a ‘Reine de la Rose’- a Rose Queen. A ‘Reine de la Rose’ knows her worth, her self-worth. And knows that her time is her greatest asset, to be spent wisely in order to achieve all the various dreams she has decided to follow.

Make a choice to adopt the attitude of a ‘Reine de la Rose’ today: take your power back and make sure that the ‘Locus of Control’ is inside you – not driven by an external force. Choose today to become the ‘master’ of your own life and use life and circumstance as your ‘servant’ towards creating a world of more love, greater beauty and abundance for all.

God has given us humans three critical levers of control with which to steer our lives:

• Choice – our life is a sequence of behavioural choices – actions and consequences. As a Reine de la Rose, you will always have a compass to help guide you in your choices. This compass is a simple question:”Will the choice I make now help to create a world of more love, beauty and abundance or not?” The answer should be your guiding light.

• Attitude – no matter what the circumstance, we can always choose our attitude towards that circumstance. I learnt this far too late in life! While I’ve been generally blessed with a positive attitude and outlook on life, I never realized that I can choose my attitude every morning in the way I choose my outfit for the day – and how, even in the course of the day I can CHOOSE my attitude in how to respond to circumstances or events. I don’t have to have a knee-jerk reaction! The power in this particular choice is incredible.

• Faith – the ability to believe, against all odds, that things will always turn to the better for those who believe in Him. At some point in my life I decided on my position with regard to faith: either I believe there is a God, and then act as if there were one; or I choose to believe that there is none, and then act accordingly. To say that we believe in God, and then act as if He doesn’t exist simpy doesn’t cut it. As a Reine de la Rose you must create a sense of clarity about who you are, what you believe in and what you stand for. There is no space for ambiguity. Doubt, on occasion, is human. But even then, if you want to be a true ‘Queen,’ choose faith.

If we want to change our life, we need to change our behaviour, we need to adopt a positive attitude regardless of circumstance and we need to focus on growing our faith in God.

But then the question is: what do you want to change your life TO?

Usually, it is easier for us to decide what don't we want, than what we do want. Here are some helpful directions to guide you towards what you want.

1. Decide on your ‘Zero Tolerance’ issues: what own behaviours are you no longer willing to accept in your life?

2. Think about choices that you are facing in life at this point in time and test them against the critical question: “Will this choice help me to create a life and contribute to a world of love, beauty and abundance?” Only make choices that will help you to achieve this goal.

3. From today onwards, become aware of your attitude and choose a positive attitude, every day, like you would brush your teeth or apply your moisturizer or make-up (or shave, if you're a guy) every day, without fail.

4. Choose to have Faith – even if you cannot yet see the way or the bigger picture or have no personal vision, have faith that if you ask God everyday He will show it to you clearly, when you’re ready for it!

PS: For those of you who are living in Pretoria and need some 'quiet time' while thinking through these questions, allow yourself a restoring body treatment at the brand new 'Reine de la Rose Eco.Spa' in Muckleneuk on the hill. For more information, visit our website at http://www.reinedelarose.co.za