Category Archives: Naturally Healthy

Natural Way to Start the Day: Summertime Smoothie

Summer is the season of the green smoothie! You can get all your ingredients fresh from the Farmer’s Market. The best foods for our bodies are the ones that are available in season. Getting fruit and veggies from the Farmer’s market ensures that they were grown locally and that they were picked when ripe.

I start every morning with a green smoothie. (When I didn’t get to make it yesterday. I really REALLY missed it!) Here is what I have been putting in my blender lately:

Summertime Green Smoothie Recipe

Two big handfuls of Kale

The juice of a quarter slice of lemon

One peach, stone removed but skin intact

One cup of almond milk

One banana

Two tablespoons of Chia Seeds (These are rich in protein and fiber!)

I usually just throw it all in the blender and whirl it up. If I remember I will soak the chia seeds in the almond milk first. (Soaking seeds speeds up the time in which you digest them.) Most of the time, I just toss them in the blender with everything else. They still get the job done!

Another variation on this recipe that I like is to replace the peach with a few slices of melon. I try not to go overboard on the fruit. Although it is healthy, spiking your sugar first thing in the morning might have you crashing soon after you get to work.

Do you drink green smoothies in the morning? What do you put in yours? Please let me know in the comments section. I would love to hear from you.

Many blessings to All,

Cynthia

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Natural Lady: Red Raspberry Leaf to the Rescue!

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Any woman who has ever suffered from PMS and menstrual symptoms knows it feels like torture just to get through the day. Cramps, fatigue, headaches, bloating, food cravings, irritability… the list of crappy things that make life a trial for a week to two weeks every single month seems endless! It’s embarrassing to me that I didn’t know before this year, there is a natural remedy that helps mightily with all these symptoms, Red Raspberry Leaf!

I endured bad menstrual symptoms for decades. Although I always prefer to use natural remedies when I am ailing, it was hard to get through a really bad period without popping Advil or Pamprin. I would do my best to avoid it. I found some relief from cramps with Lemon Balm tea (an anti-spasmodic) but if I got a headache, it was all over, I reached for the over-the-counter meds. Then a few months ago, I was researching some other herb and came across Red Raspberry Leaf. It was a total coincidence that I am forever grateful for!

I was skeptical that one herb would help relieve all my symptoms but I was willing to try anything. Unbelievably, it worked right away. My cramps were gone within 40 minutes of taking it and stayed gone for many hours afterward. The fatigue and foggy head feeling lifted. I felt more like myself. You know how when you have when you have a bad period; you don’t even feel quite human? Gone! Mood swings- gone! Cravings- gone! (This is a big deal for me. When I have my period, I usually can’t get enough salt which, of course, didn’t help with the bloating.) Red Raspberry Leaf thankfully does help with the bloating too!

I don’t know if results are the same for every woman but I will share with you what I do. I take one herbal capsule each day, starting a few days before I expect my period to arrive. When I get my period, usually I can get by with one capsule in the morning and one before I go to bed. However, I carry the bottle with me and if I begin to get crampy, I will take another one, similar to how I used to take Advil, as needed. So far, so good! This has been working for me for my last three cycles. I have read other women prefer to drink Red Raspberry Leaf tea daily and that works for them. I like the sound of that but prefer the convenience of capsules.

So, if you experience painful, tortuous periods, you may want to give Red Raspberry Leaf a try. Please let me know what natural remedies you have used when you have your period in the comments section. I would love to hear from you!

Many blessings to all,

Cynthia

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Naturally Fit and Kind: Walk ‘dem Puppies!

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You know, I am hard-pressed to think of another activity that has more benefits than walking dogs. Yet, I haven’t had the best track record for doing it.

Chauncy and I walked twice a day, every day, back when we lived in my apartment. It was necessary. My yard was small and not fenced well enough that I was comfortable leaving him alone in it. When I moved in with family after Hurricane Sandy (and had to stay after the accident) I tried to keep up our walks for a while, now joined by my parents’ Bichon Frise, Lucy. I had to stop while I was healing. Since my folks have a fenced-in yard; the daily necessity wasn’t there. Other excuses like time, my long commute to work, snow and having the energy, also came up regularly.

Lucy and Chauncy do both love their walks! They actually cry and shake with happy excitement when the leashes come out after a long stretch without a constitutional. I would try to at least get them out on weekends but I knew it wasn’t enough. Then when I noticed that picking them was like hefting two big sacks of potatoes, I knew I needed to make sure they got more exercise. Quite frankly, I knew I needed to get more exercise!

Discipline, once more, has gotten me to arrange my schedule and organize my time in order to get them out every morning like clockwork. We’ve been at it for just over a week. Let me tell you, it may take humans up to 60 some odd days to form a new habit but it takes dogs less than five! As soon as I am done meditating, I now have two sets of dark eyes boring into me, imploring me to get my sneakers on faster.

Do you have a dog? If you don’t already do it; I would strongly encourage you to walk him, her or them daily. They will be fitter and healthier. You will be fitter and healthier. They will appreciate the opportunity to have a life outside your property. You will feel great about taking such good care of your furry kids. Atop of all that, there is something really wonderful about an early morning walk. It’s quiet and peaceful. You feel more attuned to nature. It’s an excellent opportunity to clear your mind or maybe count your blessings… starting with pets who give so much but ask for so little!

When was the last time you took a stroll with your pooch? Do you think you might try a daily walk? Please let me know in the comments section. I would love to hear from you!

Chauncy and Lucy at the ready!

Many blessings to all,

Cynthia

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Natural Pain-Relieving Beverage: Turmeric Milk

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A few months ago, I found out that my neck had been injured quite severely over the years. I will go into more detail on this in a future post but one of the things I found out is that I essentially have arthritis in my neck, as a result.

I knew that I wanted to find a more natural way of handling the pain, which at times could be quite severe. So, I started researching natural remedies and turmeric kept coming up again and again.

Turmeric is an Asian spice. You have probably had it in curry or commercially-produced yellow mustard. Turmeric is a natural anti-inflammatory. Curcumin is the component in turmeric that is most often cited for blocking inflammation and having positive effects in treating arthritis. Turmeric has also shown promising results in treating and preventing cancer, as well as, Alzheimer’s.

I add turmeric into certain dishes and often include it in my salad dressing. One of the tastiest ways that I have discovered to take turmeric is to drink it in a warm beverage. It tastes a bit like chai tea but a little earthier

Turmeric Milk:

One Cup of Milk (I use almond milk)

One Heaping Teaspoon of Turmeric

One Teaspoon of Honey

A Generous Sprinkle of Cinnamon

A Pinch of Nutmeg

Put the cup of milk in a saucepan and heat on low. Add the other ingredients. Stir until the honey is dissolved. Do not boil it! Just gently warm it. It should be pleasantly warm, not hot. Put in your favorite mug and enjoy!

Will you try Turmeric Milk? Do you have a favorite natural and delicious drink to deal with a health ailment? Let me know in the comments section. I would love to hear from you.

Many blessings to All,

Cynthia

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Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Muffins

Naturally Beneficial: Behold The Mighty Dandelion!

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Today, winter turns into spring but it’s snowing… So, it seems like a good time for you and me to discuss dandelions. That’s right, dandelions. Before you decide to kill them again this year, I implore you, let them live. Let them live!

I don’t know who convinced the American public- at-large that we all need lawns that look like pristine, lush, green carpets – probably some brilliant but evil marketing genius at a chemical company – but that person should have been sho- ahem, given a stern talking-to!

Anyway, however it happened, it’s a damn shame because the dandelion, and other so-called weeds with wonderful health-benefitting properties, went from friend to foe in the space of a generation, when all they ever wanted to do was heal us and the rest of the planet. That’s right! Those lovely, little yellow flowers are really nature’s medicine. Dandelions are meant to nourish us and many other species.

The bees, for example, rely on dandelions for food in the spring before many other flowers are blooming and again in the autumn, after less hearty blossoms have long been spent. Much has been made recently about the declining bee populations and the dire consequences that stem from their loss. You can help the little buggers out by leaving the dandelions alone! I mentioned in an earlier post that you may have noticed your dog or cat eating dandelions. They do this because instinctively they know that dandelions will clean them out and improve their health. Dandelions are a mild diuretic and they are high in vitamins and minerals. *

Guess what? Dandelions will help get you healthy and clean you out too! I can hear you now. “Oh Cynthia! You’re being weird again! There is no way I am picking dandelions from my yard and eating them!” Well, you don’t have to eat them straight from the yard. Bring them in the house and wash them first for Goodness’ Sake!

Early spring dandelion leaves are quite tender and delicious in a raw salad. I have also put them in smoothies. A lovely herbal tea can be made from fresh or dried dandelion leaves. Wildman Steve Brill has several interesting cooked dandelion root recipes on his website. You can even make the flowers into wine! (I gotta try that… one of these days!)

Have I convinced you not to poison or rip out and discard this misunderstood herb yet? Are you impressed by all the health-improving benefits offered by the mighty dandelion? If you still feel weird about picking these beautifully abundant plants, you can always go to Fairway and pay several dollars for a bunch instead of allowing them to grow in your own backyard!

What’s your take on dandelions? Friend or foe? Leave a comment and let me know!

*A somewhat decent but by no means complete list of dandelion’s beneficial properties:

Food for animals and insects
Diuretic
Eases indigestion

Good source of:

Iron
Calcium
Biotin
Potassium
Magnesium
Zinc
Phosphorous
Inositol
B Vitamins
Vitamin C
Vitamin E
Vitamin D

Love and Blessings to All,

Cynthia

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Being (a) Patient: Progress Isn’t Always Pretty!

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Five days from now, I will go to my uber-talented prosthodontic clinician who will once again rebuild my much abused flipper.

What’s a flipper? A flipper is a dental prosthesis that simulates teeth that are missing. It’s used by damaged people like me and pint-sized beauty queens who are in between their baby teeth and adult teeth.

I have not been able to wear my flipper for over a month, due to a complication with the augmentation bone graft, I had done in September to restore the bone I lost when I fell. Originally, my periodontist cut my flipper back to keep it away from the graft. However, it was still cutting off the circulation to my gum. So, I had to lose it to ensure the best possible result.

I have mixed feelings about wearing it again. Physically, I am more comfortable without it. It tastes like plastic. It presses against my gum and hard palate all day. It makes me gag. It make me cough. It makes me angry. It reminds me to hold the handrail on stairs. Emotionally though, it makes me feel safe. It makes me feel like maybe people will think I just have adult braces. It makes me feel less… vulnerable. I don’t like to feel vulnerable.

I keep my top lip pulled down when talking to people. When I laugh or even smile, my hand flies up to cover the gap left behind by my two missing front teeth. I’ve realized since this has happened that a toothy grin can compensate for more than just physical insecurities though. When you can’t flash a smile, tilt your head and toss your hair, your personality flaws become glaringly obvious. When it comes to conversation, I’m not an artist.

I think, perhaps, writers are writers because it gives us a chance to express what we would have liked to have said in any given moment, if only we could have thought of it at the time. If only…

I am determined to learn from this experience and be better for having gone through it. I don’t know exactly what that looks like yet. Habits form over decades; not all at once. Change doesn’t happen all at once. I hope that by the time this is all over that I can look back and see that I have taken one step at a time in the right direction.

Love and Many blessings to All,

Cynthia

Naturally Fit: Keep It Moving… So, You CAN Keep It Moving!

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“Get up off that thang! And make yourself feel better!” Okay, I know the lyric is really “…shake ‘til you feel better.” Either way, studies are proving that James Brown had it right. Sitting is BAD for you! And I mean bad; not, you know, like bad means good. Sitting apparently is awful for you.

Just do a Google search on “sitting is bad” and everyone from Huff Post to ABC to the Washington Post etc. will tell you all about it. Sitting has even been called, “the new smoking.” I heard about it on Leonard Lopate. The gist is you need to move! We are not built to spend nine hours a day in front of a computer or tv. When we sit around, we’re not burning fat and our circulation gets sluggish. This creates all sorts of problems that can shorten our lives, like obesity, metabolic disorders, cardiovascular disease, increased blood pressure, high cholesterol levels etc. etc., etc.!

“Cynthia, I go to the gym 5 days a work. This isn’t a problem for me,” you say. Congrats on the commitment you’ve made to exercise. Unfortunately, it’s not enough. Prolonged daily sitting is still risky even if you do exercise regularly. When we sit our muscles get stiff and shorten and circulation slows down. One hour of daily exercise isn’t going to compensate for 9 to 13 hours of being sedentary.

“I can’t quit my job or make my commute shorter, Cynthia! What am I supposed to do?” Oh, don’t I know it! You CAN move your muscles every 15 minutes or so. Make it a habit to get up and walk around. Go for a lap around the block or just around the building. Can’t spare the time? Walk to the bathroom and back. Can’t get away from office at all? Just get up, stretch, walk in place… stand, just stand up and wiggle a little! The point is to move your body.

I found a few videos on youtube.com that I’ve found helpful to keep moving at work. They take just a couple of minutes. Here’s one to check out by Denise Austin. She has a bunch of these targeting different parts of the body.

Denise Austin Total Body Toning Office Workout

The benefits are not just physical either. Getting up and moving is also helpful for mental capacity. People who make the effort to move throughout the day have reported feeling more creative and having greater mental clarity. And that should make everyone at work happy!

How do you keep it moving at work? I would love to hear from you.

Love and Blessings to All,

Cynthia

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Natural Hair Care: Are You Caring for Your Hair or Just Styling It?

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I stopped coloring my hair sometime in the spring of 2012. I figured at a certain point in life, you just have to be good enough the way you are. And I figured if my hair is more brown than blonde these days, well, I’m still loveable.

When I moved in with my folks after Hurricane Sandy, Mom threatened for a while to highlight my hair while I was sleeping… “Come on, just a few to frame your face, Cindy.” She realized though that I was serious about going natural and eventually gave up.

My natural hair care has since gone even wilder than putting a halt on chemical color. I noticed that although my hair wasn’t breaking off as much when I stopped, it still seemed to break more than I felt it should. A little investigation revealed that harsh chemicals aren’t just in hair color and lighteners; they are in nearly every mass-market, commercial hair product we use. I’m not just talking about mousse, hairspray and gel; they are in your shampoo and conditioner too. Grab a bottle of anything you use on your hair (or face or body) and see how many of the ingredients you can pronounce.

In the interest of keeping your interest and this blog post a considerate length, I will not be explaining the perils of every ingredient. (You’re welcome!) One of the biggest culprits in shampoo and body washes is Sodium Laureth (Lauryl) Sulfate, a foaming agent. Ohhhh, I like a rich foamy lather! The problem is Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS) is a known skin and eye irritant. It’s kind of funny that we would choose to slather our skin with something that irritates it. Are we all a bunch of masochists? The other big concern with SLS is the manufacturing process, know as ethoxylation, produces 1,4 dioxane contamination, a known carcinogen. Products with SLS contain traces of these 1,4 dioxanes.

It’s easy to dismiss it and say “weeeeelllll, if it is only trace amounts… is it really going to cause cancer?” Well, I don’t know but when you consider how often most people wash their hair and skin… you are putting this stuff all over your body every day! That’s a pretty significant environmental toxin if you ask me.

Sulfates are not just potentially poisonous; they also damage your hair and skin. Ironic, right? Harsh chemicals in all types of hair care products are dehydrating your hair and stripping off the natural oils that make your hair naturally soft and shiny. The more products you use, the more you damage your hair. Then the more you damage your hair, you use even MORE products to make it look shiny and healthy again. The crazy part is that if we didn’t use these products (or heated styling tools) our hair would be shiny and healthy! Even more ironic, right?!

Americans never used to wash or style their hair this much. I remember my Nana would get her hair washed and set once a week. That shellac-ed masterpiece looked about the same going into the salon, as it did coming out. I don’t want my hair to look like a helmet but it does show, you can go a week without shampooing and your hair won’t smell or look greasy.

You might think your hair is especially oily and needs to be shampooed every day. I did. However, the truth is that is how you trained your scalp. When you constantly strip your natural oils away, your scalp makes more oil to compensate. When you stop shampooing all the time, your scalp will slow down the oil production. At this point, I wash my hair twice a week: on Wednesdays, I shampoo and condition it (with a low hazard, organic shampoo and conditioner); over the weekend, I do a baking soda wash and apple cider vinegar rinse (acv). I have fine hair. So, if it looks a touch oily in between washes, I sprinkle a little arrow root powder on it to absorb the oil. I find this also creates volume at the roots. How nifty is that? No mousse or hairspray. All natural, you can even eat it.

A good rule of thumb in general… if you wouldn’t put it in your mouth, you probably want to at least limit how much you put on your skin.

So, tell me, how often do you shampoo?

Love and Blessings to all,

Cynthia

Resources:

Are you intrigued by washing your hair with baking soda and rinsing it with apple cider vinegar? Crunchy Betty has already laid it out brilliantly http://www.crunchybetty.com/no-poo-to-you-too

Would you like to know the hazard level on the products you use? Then you might want to check out the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep Database, http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/ There is an app you can download to your smartphone or apple mobile device to scan bar codes. So, you can be informed before you purchase.

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Being (A) Patient: The Next Step in My Dental Reconstruction

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Cynthia Lenz's Naturally Healthy and Happy Blog

Be healthy and happy…naturally!

Category Archives: Naturally Healthy

Natural Way to Start the Day: Summertime Smoothie

Natural Lady: Red Raspberry Leaf to the Rescue!

Naturally Fit and Kind: Walk ‘dem Puppies!

Natural Pain-Relieving Beverage: Turmeric Milk

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Muffins

Naturally Beneficial: Behold The Mighty Dandelion!

Being (a) Patient: Progress Isn’t Always Pretty!

Naturally Fit: Keep It Moving… So, You CAN Keep It Moving!

Natural Hair Care: Are You Caring for Your Hair or Just Styling It?

Being (A) Patient: The Next Step in My Dental Reconstruction