How I Cope With Aging; Why No Cosmetic Procedures, Sugar, Soy, Dairy, Most Grains/Health Over 40, 50

How I Cope With Aging; Why No Cosmetic Procedures, Sugar, Soy, Dairy, Most Grains/Health Over 40, 50

Green, Healthy Beauty Over 40, 50, and Beyond.

ABOUT ME: I am a wife and 57-year-old, Texas-Born Girly Girl and Blogger/YouTube Vlogger, Passionate About Classic Style and Healthy Living.

The human body is programmed to self-destruct as we age. But the speed at which this happens is entirely up to us. Studies have proven this a fact, time and time again. Unfortunately, I can’t make you 19 again but I certainly can show you how to reverse the aging process drastically with this free audiobook.

Music: Purchased and Licensed

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hello everyone I want to talk to you today about a subject that is a lot more serious than any subject I’ve addressed on my videos before or in my blog and that is how I have dealt with the physical effects of Aging and what prompted me to so radically change the way I ate the reason I wanted to do this video a sort of sprang from a conversation I had with my husband a couple of days ago I just had my 57th birthday and it dawned on me that I am now the age my mother was when I first moved to Naples Florida in 1984 she was 57 I was 24 years old my father was alive and healthy my mother was healthy and and I thought where did the time go where did the time go my mother is now 91 in November she’ll be 91 and I it reaffirmed for me and I was saying to my husband how Porton it is that we make the most of the rest of our lives together that we do all we can to take care of our health but he he does all he can to take care of his health so we have many more years together and joyful years so after we had that conversation excuse me I started thinking about when did I start noticing all these changes when did I start becoming aware that I was aging I know we’re always aging mm hmm excuse me from the moment we’re born but when did I start noticing it and the age that comes to my mind is 50/50 was it that was seven years ago I remember as I was approaching 50 I was bothered for the first time fifty sounded old I remember getting a letter from AARP which is the American Association of Retired people and I thought why are you sending me this I am NOT an old person only old people belong to art so the other thing that was happening as I was approaching 50 were all these changes in my body changes I’d never seen before for the first time in my life I now had cellulite on my thighs I I now had droopy or skin than ever I mean everything was droopy I mean I’ve never had a really tight tight face I’ve always sort of thought I kind of had a hound dog face when I was a child I even thought that but now it’s even more true pee along with other things I I’m about the same weight I was in high school but I noticed that I didn’t have the same proportions my top was a lot skinnier my bottom was a lot bigger so all these things that I never oh you know the one that really got me I remember seeing a wrinkle in front of a person’s ear who was older and I thought oh I thought that’s not going to happen is it to me that must just be on that person well I noticed the wrinkle in front of the ear I never I never heard of anybody talk about this wrinkle in front of the year but I noticed it on that person and I noticed 10 years later now I had it that seemed to bother me more than anything I don’t know why but a big thing that happened that probably bothered me the most I would say is I got contact lenses and I am nearsighted and so whenever I would go out at night I wouldn’t wear my glasses because I only wear my glasses for driving and watching television or at the movie theater so when I was out at night if we ran into someone I knew if they were sort of walking towards me I wouldn’t be able to see them until they got up close to me so I decided I should probably wear contacts so one day I was leaving the dining room at my parents country club and we were walking down a hallway and the hallway turned and there was a chest of drawers with a mirror above it and I caught sight of myself in this mirror as I was going around and I was mortified because it was the first time I saw myself under overhead lighting and I saw that I had bags under my eyes something that only old people have and I thought when did I get bags under my eyes I was born with dark circles under my eyes but when did they turn to bags that’s what I wanted to know that was depressing so depressing so all these things were surrounding my 50th birthday on top of it my health was not good I had been diagnosed with asthma at the age of 28 and it was much worse by now by 50 I had been hospitalized four times I’d had to go to the emergency room twice in the middle of the night two times in the afternoon two times I had to do it alone because I couldn’t breathe and my fast acting inhalers didn’t work I would always carry with me albuterol it didn’t work so that’s terrifying and every time I got a cold I was horrified I was going to end up with the cold getting worse and getting bronchitis and then I would be in the hospital so but by now I also had all these symptoms of rashes I had symptoms of icy or interstitial cystitis so things were not good on the health front I was doing a lot to work on my mental health and my spiritual health but and I thought I was doing everything I needed to do from my physical health but nobody seemed to tell me how to heal those issues I exercised I had begun exercising three times a week when I was 45 I walked three times a week so between the ages of 50 and 52 I struggled with all of this and then one night in April of 2012 I woke up with a massive chest ache I knew instinctively it wasn’t a heart attack because my mother had had the same thing happened to her and they had rushed her to the hospital in the middle of the night thinking she had a heart attack and it was acid reflux my older brother also had had had issues with acid reflux so I thought oh my gosh that’s what that is it’s got to be what that is and that lasted for hours at night I woke up the next morning I still had the pain it lasted for days so I started googling googling acid reflux chest pain heartburn just kept searching you know I had searched for years trying to heal the other issues but now I was just focusing on the heartburn because the pain was so intense and I came across information on something called the gut and psychology diet or gaps and there was a lot of information there about how the health of the gut or the GI tract influences the health of the brain and the rest of the body and I immediately ordered the book it just rung true to me I’ll tell you why this is when I stopped and was stunned and for the first time in since I was 28 had hope this doctor listed all of my chronic symptoms as all being linked to an unhealthy gut so not only the heartburn but the icy symptoms the the rashes whether they were what are all the different route I can’t think of the names I never got mine diagnosed my doctor used to just give me steroid creams and of course the asthma oh emphysema eczema and what’s the other one the one I think I had was eczema so I ordered the book but I immediately decided to make changes in my life because not only did she talk about this doctor it’s a she’s a physician in England she talked about food influencing the health of your gut but also your environment and what you put on your skin put on your hair so then and there I decided to make some big changes I ordered the book and I phased in the changes the immediate thing I did was change my diet now before I go into that I just want to talk about what happened when I shifted my focus suddenly out of really self preservation my focus had shifted from the mirror and what I was seeing you know in appearance to what I couldn’t see which was what was happening inside and my health my physical health so without even realizing what was happening I had shifted my whole focus to my help and anymore I didn’t think about my what I look like I just wanted to get healthy I was terrified by now my asthma was so bad I was constantly having to use an inhaler if my mother in law had cats and I would be in her house you know for two hours and I would be having severe symptoms of asthma and having to use my inhaler and at the time we had kitties we had a dog but you know just piling on more and I got sicker so I phased in the changes but what happened is I stopped worrying about the way I looked and became focused on my health and that has made all the difference I started seeing improvement I’ll get into them what I changed in terms of my diet in a bit but I want to tell you what it did to me mentally because I started seeing changes I got hope five months was it about five you know maybe nine months within a year of starting the diet I was with my mother in law for a week staying in her I was I never had to use the inhaler once so that was one big major positive shift for me it was I stopped focusing on the way I look yes to this day I still want to look my best possible but I don’t focus on the imperfections the physical outward imperfections like I did before because I’m more concerned about my health and growing older in the most healthy possible way I was so chronically sick I was depressed I was unhappy that brings me to another point during that two years between 50 and 52 when when I got the heartburn and all the changes happen my husband and I were at a restaurant and we saw a woman that I hadn’t seen in decades but she was my age she was also blonde and I had always thought she was a very attractive woman when I was younger and even now she was very pretty and I said to my husband do you think she’s attractive and you know this was at the time when I was so unhappy with my looks and all the changes and he turned to me and he looked at me and he said yes because she’s happy that struck a chord with me I was so unhappy I had grown unhappy because of all the changes happening and the health issues and so when I started this change in my diet and the other things I’ll tell you about I had I was suddenly seen improvement in my health and I was so grateful I was joyful I was hopeful there was a chance that I could get rid of all these symptoms the first one I saw disappear was the heartburn and I have to say although it’s called the perfect health diet or the gut in psychology diet it’s not a diet it’s a it’s a way of life and it’s a way of eating so what did i do what did I phase in I was already off of soy I had been off SOI for years because I knew it it played havoc with their hormones and I didn’t like that so the diet says to go off of grains sugar sweeteners soy dairy in some cases so I decided to immediately switch to fermented dairy because that was okay on the diet fermented dairy and raw and organic when you can so I started buying only organic foods that first week I was off of all grains and all sugar all soy and just the fermented dairy and some cheese but I allowed myself to eat one cookie this big a week for two weeks and it was a raw oat and agave nectar cookie that I got at our health food store and I broke that up into four pieces and I did one a week and after that second week I knew I would never again have sugar a cookie or cake or ice cream that’s what I was worried about I I couldn’t imagine giving up desserts and candy and cookie I had always been a desert eater I had always loved chocolate and cake and I didn’t imagine I could ever give it up but I did I will say that about 15 years earlier I had tried to give up sugar because my husband had suggested it he had never been a sugar eater and I tried but I just couldn’t do it and I but I did end up cutting back so was it ten years maybe it was ten years earlier so I had by the time this all happened cut back on sugar so that’s the first thing I did was I changed my diet went off those foods then after the second week I was off of even those oat and agave sugar agave nectar cookies so no soy no sugar or sweeteners no grains I was still doing dairy eventually within a couple of weeks or months I came across the perfect health diet I missed what I found I missed the most was bread grains I missed pizza I missed hamburgers sandwiches hot dogs I missed those very much I didn’t miss sugar dessert so much so the perfect health diet as well as grain brain a book I read later it hadn’t come out yet they allow you to have some rice because it’s the least I guess unhealthy of grains so I allowed myself to have sprouted rice and in this case it was sprouted brown rice I found some in our local Whole Foods store so you’re probably asking well why no grains you’ve probably heard whole grains are supposed to be very healthy and what about sprouted whole grains and organic sprouted horan whole grains there is controversy over this but everything I’ve been reading the new science is saying it’s a good idea to give up grains especially gluten containing grains if you’ve got the kinds of issues I have my feeling was I didn’t know if it would help but I was desperate and I knew I was going to be eating a lot more of the other very healthy foods like vegetables whole fruits nuts which I sprout so let me tell you what I read is not healthy about them grains whether there are whole grains or refined grains they spike your blood sugar when you spike your blood sugar it causes inflammation in the body inflammation in the body is what leads to chronic disease as well as diseases like cancer diabetes and heart disease grains have anti nutrients which make it difficult for the gut to digest them so it causes stress on the GI tract these anti nutrients also inhibit the ability for the GI tract to absorb the nutrients from the grains well what about sprouting Graeme’s they say if you sprout the grains then it it eliminates the problems of that anti nutrients that’s true but it doesn’t stop the fact that they still spike your blood sugar levels the other thing that people say is well I’m not allergic to gluten I don’t have gluten intolerance what they found is some people with rheumatoid arthritis for example who didn’t test allergic to gluten or intolerant of gluten when they removed gluten containing grains from their diet their symptoms improved so because grains do all these things they spiked my blood sugar levels they have anti nutrients if you remove them some people with chronic illnesses their symptoms go away even if you are not allergic to the gluten in some grains or intolerant so it’s just there was so much evidence for me I I gave them up okay so I’ve given up sugar I’ve given up soy I’m only having rice how often do I have rice I only have it at most twice a week one serving twice a week and often I don’t have it at all I can go weeks and months without having rice I really only have it when I’m just craving maybe having a cracker a rice cracker with organic all natural lunch meat or old fashioned rice that’s when I have it usually I don’t even have it I’ve found some lentil pasta organic lentil pasta which is really great I even limit that just because it is a processed food but what else did I do everything I was reading talked about everything you put on your skin affects your gut also so that’s when I started making the drastic changes through what I put on my body my hair my face my body I started moisturizing only with coconut oil from the neck down that time I wasn’t ready to change too drastically in terms of moisturizer for my face because I still had the idea that oil on my face would break me out that’s what I’d learned when I was younger I still thought it was the case well so I just switched to a healthier soap I found kiss my face olive oil soap it wasn’t organic but that’s what I started with and I found some organic moisturizers I think it was my essence I was using back then in 2012 as for my hair I was already has started thinking about stopping the coloring at that point I was highlighting my hair because the gray had started coming in and I didn’t want to color it I didn’t want to low light it but I liked highlighting it but it used to dry it out so much I thought I’m gonna go off of that too so trying to think is that about the time yes so at the felt it was the same time I stopped coloring my hair I think that’s about it makeup in the last couple of years I found some all natural organic or both brands of makeup the Gabrielle Zuzu Lux and 100% pure and more recently colored annex lipsticks so I was thrilled to find those those are the changes I made and I kept seeing progress well then in the spring following that April so go through 2012 into 2013 that following spring I entered perimenopause I had never had a problem with my period I’d always gotten my period every month ever since the age of 13 so for the first time in that March of 2013 I didn’t get my period and then I did get it and then I didn’t get it so that happened for a year and a half and starting in October of 2014 I stopped having a period and I never got it again so I would say October 2014 is when I officially went into menopause and guess what a lot of symptoms came back or came back and worse or I got new symptoms so this was a whole new host of issues I had been doing well I will say well let me back up I had seen a lot of improvement in my asthma and then the interstitial cystitis symptoms but the rashes although they were about 70% better I think it was the eczema it was still there and sometimes it would flare up and be worse and it was much worse starting with the menopause I suddenly had something like eczema on my face in fact even up to two years ago when I started this channel in my blog I had the eczema in my hairline and my eyebrows luckily makeup and lots of moisturizer helped to minimize it but so that was when two years ago by two years ago when it had the and eczema was worse getting worse again I decided to go off of all dairy whatsoever all dairy so as of two years ago I am completely dairy free and I would say the eczema did subside I’m probably now 90% better I say 90 because once in a while I think through stress I will get some itching back but maybe I’m 95% better it’s so markedly better that it’s been worth it so that’s the changes I’ve made and because I can keep focusing on my health and doing all I can to be healthy and focusing on cooking healthfully for my husband we eat at home a lot more than we used to we still go out but I’m careful what I order you all who see me go out to lunch you see i order salads I talked to the waiter before I order to make sure these all these things aren’t in the salad I’ve been so surprised to find out some of these ingredients are in things and I didn’t know they would be so how I handle the effects of aging was through focusing on my physical health some of the other changes they also suggested I make was probiotics so I introduced probiotics early on in my diet also as for the heartburn something that was probably very controversial and I did it because my instinct said it’s the right thing to do was to take a hydrochloric acid supplement and what that does is actually stir up and get your acids going and I only had to do it for a short time I think it was maybe ten days I just followed the directions in the book and also on the bottle I was out of the country at the time so I bought whatever was available then you can find lots of options so I ate all the foods that I had always eaten just more vegetables and more fruits and organic when I was at home with nuts I sprout my nuts or i buy them sprouted now I stopped sprouting because it’s really time consuming and I buy it well only organic I try to buy only low omega 6 nuts like walnuts and macadamias because you want to make sure you’re balanced between omega 3 and omega 6 is a healthy balance we tend to get a lot of omega 6 in vegetable oils so that’s why I buy low omega 6 nuts I also eat a lot of fish wild caught salmon and sardines I have sardines every day in my salad at home my husband too when he eats lunch at home he grass fed beef organic free range chickens free range egg chicken eggs just a really healthy balanced diet I do eat potatoes although they’re not they’re not on the gaps diet they are in the perfect health diet so I eat those at most twice a week again being careful I do eat sweet potatoes squash so it’s a very healthy way of eating I only drink red wine and maybe twice a week at the most I drink green tea when I’m out occasionally if it’s a special occasion I’ll have black tea but I don’t put a sweetener and I’m telling you it was challenging at first but I especially being such a junk food eater and sweet sweet eater but you know back when I was in my 20s I was also a smoker I used to smoke about one and three quarter packs of cigarettes a day so that was difficult to give up but I managed to give that up so I knew I had the ability in me and I I had reached bottom I had to do something and I’ll tell you making this change in my life to focus on mental physical and spiritual health that’s made all the difference yes the changes with aging are going to keep happening but I’m I’m able to accept them I looked the look at them in a different way I’m grateful to be alive I had a partner in business who lived until she was 39 she never got to see her kids grow up so I’ve had many more years I’m lucky to be 57 we’re lucky to grow old and it’s just about accepting the changes now you know I support other people who want to have cosmetic procedures like Botox and the other injections and the face lifts and the neck lifts and everything it’s just not for me but I do worry about Botox the effects it has it is a toxin that I’m trying not to put toxins on let alone injecting them near my brain so that’s why I don’t want to do that and you young girls I hope you’ll reconsider doing it I know that’s being promoted as a way to prevent wrinkles but stay out of the Sun that’s the other thing my mother had taught me to use sunscreen as a young person so I did use sunscreen I didn’t know to reapply it so we used to go swimming in it all wash off but I did stop some baby at the age of 30 so now what I do I haven’t been doing it enough but I do try to get a little bit of Sun on my body about 15 to 20 minutes occasionally during the week but I always wear a hat I stop wearing sunscreen on my face because of the chemicals and I don’t wear sunscreen on my body unless I’m going to be on the beach from maybe an hour or more than I do I wear a an organic based sunscreen so that’s about all I do and I wear light makeup a lot of people are dealing with the aging by putting on more makeup and I just it doesn’t work for me it only emphasizes wrinkles so I use a lot of moisturizer that’s the other thing I switched in the last couple of years my skin started getting drier so I experimented with oil I decided to try it I thought if I break out I just won’t do it again and I decided to try to clean my face with coconut oil hot water in a washcloth and my skin actually felt great and the next day I didn’t break out in fact my skin was conditioned I didn’t need as much moisturizer so actually now I only use soap and water when I wear makeup so I will wash my face with soap dry it and then I apply coconut oil and that works for me and if I have more time I’ll actually wash my face with soap then I’ll apply the coconut oil and I’ll remove it because the removing process actually is a great way to exfoliate with a washcloth I know the other thing I wanted to really mention again is the importance of joy what my husband said about that woman that the the reason she looked attractive was she was happy and joy for me comes from gratitude the kind that’s the sustaining kind of joy it’s not based on external factors it’s based on being really grateful for what I have for the love of my husband for my friends for my mom still being alive were for all of you being so supportive for so many things so when I focus on those things and not on the negatives it really helps to lighten my life and shift the focus away from worrying about all the icky things that may be happening because I’m getting older if you’ve got any comments or questions or you want to add to this conversation I would love for you to leave your feelings in the comments section here at or on my blog or on Instagram or Facebook I’m sure you all have lots to say about it yourselves or how you’re handling it or what you’re doing you know everybody handles it differently I’m not saying everybody should do this diet and grow their hair long and stop coloring it or stop you know don’t do facial injections or plastic surgery we all have to find what works for us this just happened to be what worked for me what’s helping me deal with all the changes so if I’ve got I’ll put information about these books and everything I’ve talked about on my blog and that link will be down below and I’ll say I don’t know what I’ll say more information on my blog or something like that see my blog forum or something like that I’ll write it here on the screen when I figure out what I’m going to say but I hoped I I gave you some information that you were interested in weighing about I’m sure this video is really long I thank you for watching it all the way through if you have gotten to this point and I will talk to you in my next video bye ..