Newsletter

July 27, 2015

Hi {!firstname_fix}

It has been RAINING in Albuquerque so the weeds are now shooting to the sky. It is a little daunting in a land not used to this. They were all just waiting.

So, I wanted to start giving you all a heads up about some changes that will be coming in the next few weeks. We will be launching a new website which will be updated and more streamlined. I think it will be easier for you to get around and find the things you love. I know that sugar-sensitive people and introverts generally have a hard time with change. I didn’t want you to just wake up one morning and not know what happened to the site.

We will also be scheduling a couple of free intro classes to show you around. I will put that in the class announcements so you have a heads up to get on board.

This class will begin Wednesday, July 29, 2015. Please click on the name of the class and it will take you to the registration page:

Clearing All That Clutter (2 weeks) - A FOCUSED, quick and dirty support to getting your house, your yard, your closets, your life, your soul all cleaned up. This will be a funny, playful way to look at the scary corners filled with 15 spice jars, cosmetics, pots of face cream, tools or old sheets that you might need someday. The inclination to *collect* or hold on to our *stuff* seems to be part of being sugar sensitive. This is an opportunity to take a look at how this impacts your life. The class is not about *getting organized* so much as understanding what is behind all that *stuff*.

This class will begin Wednesday, August 5, 2015. Please click on the name of the class and it will take you to the registration page:

Obesity Myth (2 weeks) - I LOVED this book and I think it should be required reading for anyone who is concerned about weight. Come join us in an in-depth look at the *myth* issues and the emotion residue we all have from them. Please get a copy of the book and have looked at it before the class starts. This book will change your life and the class will help you make sense of it.

A number of you have asked me how the classes work. Check the class list page for more information on this. And please go read the questions and answers before you write to me. If you have trouble getting through the process, write the tech forum.

Be sure to visit our Radiant Recovery website and Community Forum regularly.

Warmly,
Kathleen

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**Quote From Kathleen **

When your food is steady, your life is steady. When your food is wobbly, your life is wobbly.

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**Testimonial of the Week **

Diane and I were having a discussion about working with her health care providers. Here is some of our dialogue.

If anyone *scolds* you about anything, just remember that they work for YOU, and it is perfectly fine for you to say, "You know scolding me is not a useful tool." And your diabetes can be regulated just fine before your weight comes down.

kathleen

I love this so much Kathleen. With following your advice with this in the past, I have found it very empowering, and so helpful in building the kind of relationships with my docs that *are* the most helpful.

I have also noticed that while we are employing our health care providers, we are asking them for a service - to help, and they do know that and want to. My Dr. used to get pretty cranky of me coming to him for help time and time again, while not showing progress. I know I can get frustrated when people keep asking for my help while not taking my advice... and I bet my Dr. experiences that even more often than I do. When I started showing up with test results that showed improvement, he totally laid off the weight loss. He's been trained to feel that weight loss will help some, with the idea that obesity causes diabetes. He just doesn't get the sugar sensitivity/addiction info. Well, he didn't back in the day. He is much more of a believer now. The positive results are just undeniable! LOL. What I get now is, "good! - keep doing what you're doing!!" Which of course is fabulous to hear. :)

Thank you so much!

Thank you so much!

Diane

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**Interesting Bits of Science **

Used with permission from
http://truthinablog.organika.ca/?tag=virgin-coconut-oil
via label for reuse in google.

When I was in Maine, I was thinking about summer blueberries. I pulled up some fun ideas related to these wondrous little blues...

They may enhance memory.

Anthocyanins in aged blueberry-fed rats are found centrally and may enhance memory.
They may have an impact on breast cancer.

Berries and ellagic acid prevent estrogen-induced mammary tumorigenesis by modulating enzymes of estrogen metabolism.
They may improve blood pressure.

Dietary enrichment with wild blueberries (Vaccinium angustifolium) affects the vascular reactivity in the aorta of young spontaneously hypertensive rats.

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** Radiant Recovery^® Store **

Note about George’s^® Restore: We may have a slight delay in shipping Restore. The bouts of Avian flu have decimated the chicken industry which affects the production of eggs. Normally, we simply put in an order to our suppliers, they ship the ingredients to the blender, they blend and get it to us. We have a scheduled time and it all works. Last month the egg people said, *no eggs anywhere.* And *small buyers are not on the list.* Kathleen spent a fair amount of her time in Maine on the phone and in email sourcing it. All the ingredients are now in California waiting for their blending. But chances are, we will run a little behind, but it IS on the docket and will be coming soon.

Kathleen went to our storage area and noticed the Pycnogenol. She remembered she had a whole list of Pycnogenol benefits and thought you might like to see it again. It is pretty amazing stuff. Let’s take a look at a couple of the benefits on the list. I asked her to comment on what they mean in brackets. Let me know if you would like the specific abstract.

Reduction of cardiovascular risk factors in subjects with type 2 diabetes by Pycnogenol supplementation.

[Pynogenol reduced blood sugar levels after meals.]
An examination of the effects of the antioxidant Pycnogenol on cognitive performance, serum lipid profile, endocrinological and oxidative stress biomarkers in an elderly population.

[The cognitive markers were cognitive tasks comprised measures of attention, working memory, episodic memory, and psychomotor performance. *elderly meant 60 - 85 - that is a horrifying thought, LOL.]
Effect of pine bark extract (Pycnogenol) on symptoms of knee osteoarthritis.

[Results show that Pycnogenol in patients with mild to moderate OA improves symptoms and is able to spare NSAIDs.]
French maritime pine bark extract significantly lowers the requirement for analgesic medication in dysmenorrhea: a multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study.

[The number of days women required analgesic medication was likewise found to be statistically significantly lowered in the Pycnogenol group. - this was particularly true in the women with more severe symptoms.]
A randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial on the effect of Pycnogenol on the climacteric syndrome in peri-menopausal women.

[All menopausal symptoms improved without unwanted side effects.]
Control of edema in hypertensive subjects treated with calcium antagonist (nifedipine) or angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors with Pycnogenol.

[Pycnogenol controls this type of edema, it helps to prevent and limit long-term damage in the microcirculation in hypertensive patients, and allows the dose of anti-hypertensive drugs to be reduced in most patients.]
The cosmetic treatment of wrinkles.
Cramps and muscular pain: prevention with Pycnogenol in normal subjects, venous patients, athletes.

Please send questions and suggestions. I love hearing from you and truly want to help you do your program better.

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**Radiant Kitchen **

I found this recipe when doing a search for recipes with buckwheat. My 8 year old and I love these. They are very hearty and filling. My 2 year old doesn't like them as well as the cottage cheese waffles, but he will eat them. It is nice to have some variety sometimes. We are rotating these, eggy french toast, cottage cheese waffles and scrambled eggs for breakfast at our house these days. I haven't figured the protein in these, but my kids usually eat them with a little Restore shake on the side.

Buckwheat Blender Waffles

1 cup buckwheat flour
1/2 cup cottage cheese
1/3 cup unsweetened plain yogurt
2 eggs
cinnamon to taste
milk to make it pancake batter consistency

Whir ingredients in the blender. Cook on waffle iron. We like to grease our waffle iron with coconut oil. They are a grey/purplish color. Great with peanut butter or almond butter on them.

Lori

For great program-friendly recipes, check out our Cookbook in the store and visit our online Radiant Recipes site.

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**Radiant YLD **

When I first started the YLD program, I saw it as a way to provide support for people who wanted to lose weight. As you know weight loss is a HUGE motivating factor for a lot of people coming into the program. Many people come feel feeling like being fat is what is causing the pain. If the fat gets fixed, the pain will go away. And part of the process of YLD is to learn that this is not actually true. Initially, YLD was designed to have that dialogue. Over time, we added classes to support that exploration. Weight loss for sugar sensitive people is about:

Healing the addiction by doing the 7 steps. They create biochemical balance and shift the behavior from having to do something or take something to looking at strategic ways to create positive change.
Healing the angst of being fat. The three classes called The Obesity Myth, Weight Loss Emotions and The Clothing Class all address this in a very effective way.
Learning what you need to do to lose weight. This is in the book and is covered in a Weight Loss In Action class.
Putting it into action. That one is sort of functional.
Getting ongoing support. This is done on the main YLD list.

Today someone raised the issue of why we make you wait to do the actual losing process. That is simply functional and reflects the belief that healing the addiction first is what makes the program different from any other weight-loss program. The idea is not to shut you out, but to provide a healed place for the discussion and refinement of one's weight-loss plan. The whole theory of the program is to work on weight loss from stability, not desperation. And if you are feeling that you HAVE TO lose weight NOW, then this is not the right program for you because everything we do is to counter that belief. And if you think these ideas are silly, come to chat and share. We are happy to dialogue with you about it.

If you would like to join us in YLD, come find us here

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**Radiant Living **

As people in the program gained skill with doing the food, they started wanting a place to talk about the *other* things that emerged - how to hold pain, how to deal with families and partners, how to find life purpose, hormones, travel and 100 other things. Tackling these issues from a place of steadiness and balance was a little disorienting for those who had always used sugar as a way to do problem solving.

Radiant Living emerged out of that. Every week we get together and talk about topics of interest and importance to the members. It is an opportunity to see how radiance thinks and does problem solving. Often times, we follow the topic that has been posted in the newsletter. We don’t talk about food stuff, we do talk about living.

If you would like to join us in Radiant Living, come find us here

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**Changes are Happening **

Kathleen DesMaisons, Ph.D.

When I was in Maine, I went to a lecture on the tides. The woman speaking had her doctorate in making sense of how the ocean flows. She talked about there being 30 different *harmonics* affecting how the tides work. I, like many people, had always just thought the moon pulled and released the water, LOL. Yah, it was kinda funny thinking about my primitive understanding after I heard more. But, it was fascinating thinking about all the forces impacting the flow of water. And more fascinating to me that science can graph to the minute where the flow will go and when.

The speaker put up a slide with a chart showing the tidal flow in that part of Maine. I was struck how it looked like the chart of a heart beating. I just felt such a connection to the earth as a living entity, that somehow all of us are connected.

We live in a time when things are in total flux. Things are changing rapidly. Politics is weird, regardless of our values. The dimensions of the world struggles for power and control are so complex, I think that many of us just stop trying to make sense of it. I think the time of awakening that started a while ago is jostling the old. What used to make sense doesn’t work now.

When things no longer fit, we have an opportunity to clear out that stuff, to throw away the stuff that does not fit and to make room for something new. We don't know what that will be yet, it has not emerged. Making space for it is a start. Space allows the flow. This is one of the reasons I am doing the clutter class for you.

I have been doing a coaching class with a group of people who said they really wanted to take their program deeper. We spent the first couple of weeks getting a system in place, getting journals updated, getting timings settled and learning how to pay attention. On the surface it seemed as if not much was happening. I knew that people were thinking, "Well this is kinda boring, what is next?" So I wrote out my sense of what had happened.

You may feel as if nothing much is happening, LOL, but that is NOT the case.

Breakfast is pretty much settled for all of you. The reflection on timing has had a huge impact and I see you making changes.

You are making real progress with *steady state*...I think the timing reflection has affected that as well. The bowl discussions are helping you get a more *detached* (perhaps less obsessive) overview about what you are actually eating and how you would like to work with it.

You are doing a fantastic job with your journaling. The diligence with which you are doing it (and sharing) is incredible. You have moved through the shame barrier, and I think that functional may be shifting into fun.

The fact that you have mastered (or are working on mastering) the art of goggle sheets is in itself a miracle. You may think that part is just functional - it is not -it is a major step in moving out of learned helplessness, and practicing problem solving. And the fact that you are doing it together reflects stepping out of the independent, *I've got it, don't need no help, thank you* syndrome of sugar sensitivity.

You are learning to ask for help, to listen and accept it. This is about your willingness to *look* and to actually see things more effectively.

You are confronting the degree of restriction you have lived with for a long time.

You are moving out of *invisibility* and are wanting to be seen and nurtured.

You are stepping into empowerment.

All good, I think (smile)

Now, I think what is happening in the coaching class reflects what is happening in the community as a whole. There is a quality of change that I feel is very deep. There is so much less angst, so much more joy and functional just doing what we need to do. It certainly is a miracle from where I sit.

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Thanks for reading! If you know someone who could benefit from this, feel free to forward it to them.

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Until next time!

Here are the folks who are helping put the newsletter together:

Gretel, our webmaster, puts it all together.
David runs the Radiant Recovery^® Store.
mosaic contributes to the Notes from the Forum column.

©2015 Kathleen DesMaisons. All rights reserved. You are free to use or transmit this article to your ezine or website as long as you leave the content unaltered, use this attribution: "By Kathleen DesMaisons, Ph.D. of Radiant Recovery^®", and notify kathleen@radiantrecovery.com of the location. Please visit the Radiant Recovery^® website at http://www.radiantrecovery.com for additional resources on sugar sensitivity and healing addiction.

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