The Lessons I Learnt during 2017

As I start to wind down from what has been a challenging yet rewarding 2017, I wanted to reflect on the year that saw so much personal growth for me and the lessons I learnt along the way and how I want to enter 2018.

I've had my own coaches and mentors this year and they have been priceless as they've guided me through not only my professional journey, but that of self too.

Here are some the lessons that stood out for me and in no particular order:

1. Find the gold in EVERY challenging situation

Always find the rainbow...

I've come to know and understand that in EVERY challenging situation, there is a golden lesson and a rainbow. We just need to be present enough to see it. We need to keep the faith and belief that we are protected and everything will work out the way it should. This lesson was by no means easy, but this mindset is what kept me going plenty of times in the face of wanting to give up or succumb to a victim mentality.

2. Great health is soooo much more than just the food we eat

I've said this numerous times that nutrition is pivitol and synergistic for good health, but this is only one piece of the puzzle. You are truly misguided if you think that there is NO impact for choosing to eat good food 80-90% of the time. There will be consequences, if not now, down the track, especially for our kids who are already in a health epidemic according to the World Health Organisation. Yours like mine, are already part of the statistic, however it CAN be turned around, IF you choose to. So there really is no argument whether we need to eat wholefood to experience good physical health. As Nike says - JUST DO IT! However, optimum health is truly a wholistic approach of mind & body and true health cannot be experienced without the balance of these 2. Our mental and emotional state matters just as much to our health as does our physical state. This has become abundantly clear to me this year and probably would not have believed it until I experienced it myself. I am grateful, that I am open and teachable

3. Be who you are unapologetically

I'm not going to lie to you, being in this space is incredibly difficult for me and not to mention so far out of my comfort zone, I cannot even begin to tell you. It has taken a while and much soul searching to understand who am I in this space. If I'm honest I was trying to be someone I'm not because I wanted to be liked, after all who doesn't want to be liked? But this has felt very much out of alignment and I've come to realise that it is OK to be me and that some people may not like that, and I'm OK with that too. I am pretty much a no nonsense, no BS, straight to the point type of person (with love and compassion) who is immensely passionate about empowering and supporting one family at a time to eat one HEALING wholefood at a time to break this vicious health epidemic we are in.

Be who you are and don't apologise for it. You are perfect just the way you are and rock it - there is no one like you and you are by no means flawed.

4. We are so much more in control of our destiny than we think we are

There is not much in this human experience that we can control, but what we can control is what matters the most and can determine our outcome:

• The food we choose to eat - ALL in our control

• The thoughts to we CHOOSE to think - ALL in our control

• The actions CHOOSE to do or not do - ALL in our control

Focus on what you CAN control and let the rest go. There is actually so much choice that we do have

5. The art of letting go and surrendering

This ties in with the above and lesson and was not an easy lesson for me to learn this year. As a recovering control freak, I was very much attached to an outcome and devastated when it was not achieved. This caused so much unnecessary angst. My own mentors kept telling me, to let it go, but I refused until I got smacked so many times, I finally decided to listen....what a concept! It has actually been so freeing to practise this mindset the second part of the year. I am now a firm believer of "What will be, will be"

6. The work is in the rest

My mentors told me. Yep, sure I know what you mean. Upon further thinking, I was like, no actually I don't know what you mean. Eventually I came to understand that we need to STOP from time to time and just be and become present, ideally daily and multiple times during the day. It is during these REST breaks that our best work is done, i.e. answers to life's questions (your subconscious is talking to you ALL of the time, but you need to be in state to hear it), your creativity flows and solutions to problems show up. Neuroscience tells us that the brain needs to reset often during the day, it likes specific tasks. This is how I decided take this information on board and rest everyday:

• I have a golden hour (ideal) or golden what ever time I get before the family wakes for the day. This has truly become non negotiable for me and has made a massive difference to my mindset for the rest of the day, not to mention the flow on effect for the rest of the family. I use this time to exercise, meditate, reflect, read etc. If for whatever reason I cannot get my full hour, I use the time I do have and do what I feel will best serve me that day. This is not easy or convenient, but then again, nothing worthwhile is. I am prepared to sacrifice some sleep for inner peace. It is so worth it!

• I have a timer set on my phone that rings every hour. I use this 30 seconds to one minute to regroup, refocus and make sure I'm on track to get done what needs to get done in a peaceful and calming manner for the rest of the day.

These small consistent tweaks have made a massive difference to my mindset, productivity and energy during the day, which has resulted in a much calmer household....most of the time! It has also meant that when I do slump, I bounce back that much quicker because of the new level of awareness of self.

Reflecting on all of the above lessons, I have so much gratitude for what I've learnt as I know I'm not the same person I was at the start of 2017. The words I choose for 2018 are flow and ease taking the above lessons into account and how I even further connect to self and do what makes my heart sing.

What lessons have showed up for you in 2017 and how have you decided to enter 2018? I'd love to know....

On that note, I will be taking a much needed rest break myself and spent quality present time with my family.

Lots of love Chantal XO

5 Easy Ways to get Healing Foods into your kids without fuss!

Getting healing foods into you or your child daily does not have to be a struggle.In fact when you re-adjust your mindset to that of wholefoods ONLY, it’s just something you do on a daily basis and then it does not become a “thing”

Many of the types of foods are consumed on a daily basis anyway, so it’s just a matter of thinking how can I make this more nutrient dense and add a healing agent food.

Below,  I’ve given you 5 easy ways of getting healing food into the diet on a daily basis:

1. Smoothie

Who doesn’t love a good smoothie? This is a fabulous food to get extra nutrition into your child without them necessarily knowing the goodness included

Types of extra goodness to that can be added:

• Use non dairy milk alternatives such as homemade nut, seed or coconut milk varieties

• Probiotics – they wouldn’t even know! Just make sure it's good quality and broad spectrum

• Clean protein powders or collagen hydrolysate for gut healing benefits

• Whey – the liquid strained from yoghurt for probiotic goodness

• Superfood powders, like these from Nutra Organics

• Coconut oil or butter for cellular and gut health

There is just so much bang for your buck in a smoothie

2. Blissball

A great way to get awesome extra goodness into them such as protein, fat, fibre, zinc and magnesium by way of ingredients such as nuts, seeds & dates, cacoa and coconut oil or butter

Add extra goodness such as:

• Hydrolysed gelation

• A little turmeric

• Superfood such as nutri organics

• Soak the dates in some water kefir then you have a probiotic Blissball

3. Soups and casseroles

A wonderfully healing and great way to get veggies, slow cooked meats and broth into them that are tasty. Favourites for us are slow cooked lamb shanks and a root vegetable soup. Funny thing is my little man is not a fan of "eating" pumpkin but will happily have pumpkin soup, go figure! My princess on the other hand is not a fan of soup period, but loves Chicken Noodle Soup.....you just have to work with what you have :-)

4. Jelly or gummies

Who said gut healing food had to be all about broth. You can still get all the great properties of a broth in a jelly or gummy using a quality grass-fed gelatin. It is definitely not a replacement for broth, but an addition to.

Take it a step further add additional goodness such as:

• Raw honey as a sweetener for amazing immune boosting anti-microbrial properties. It's still a sugar, so go easy :-)

• Quality broad spectrum probiotic capsules and you have a probiotic gummy

• Herbal tinctures such as Elderberry syrup for wonderful immune boosting

• Even use the gelatin to make custards, puddings and panacotta

5. Water

Who would guess water??? Amazingly you can ferment water with the right starter culture and then you have probiotic water, otherwise known as Water Kefir.

Ferment it a second time with a fruit of choice and you a flavoured probiotic tonic.

You can incorporate the above food daily as a guide:

1. Breakfast: - Smoothie either but itself which is quite satisfying or alongside something like porridge pancakes. Recipe can be found in this blog post in the download

2. Snack – Blissball – only need 1 depending on how big you make them

3. Lunch/dinner – soup or casserole with a small probiotic drink

4. Snack – a few gummies

I've put together the following recipes in an easy downloadable Ebook:

1. Gummy

2. Root Vegetable soup

3. Blissballs

4. Ginger probiotic tonic

5. Water/Coconut Water kefir

Click here to Instantly Download Your Copy

If you are wanting to address your health or that of your family using nutrition & wellness principles, do not hesitate schedule your FREE Health Mapping Session here or here

Chantal is a Certified Nutrition & Wellness Coach that specialises in helping stressed and overwhelmed mums heal their children with wholefoods using a personalised wholistic step by step approach.

Sleep - Who doesn't want more? Interview with Naturopath Norelle Hentschel

Who doesn't love a good night sleep? I most certainly do. Since recovering from Adrenal Fatigue it's something I've really learned to prioritise.

I've had the pleasure of chatting to Naturopath Norelle Hentchel from Your Remedy to discuss all things sleep. Norelle's clinic is based in Crows Nest, North Sydney and has a special interest in helping women sleep better and manage stress and anxiety so they can reclaim their energy and health.

It was her personal struggles with sleep that really sparked her passion for a good night sleep.

Watch the interview here:

Here is audio only:

Below I've summarised a few key take away points from our chat together.

The definition of a good night sleep.

• The indication of a good night sleep has more to do with how you feeling during the day. After a good night sleep, you should feel energised, no mood swings, ability to focus really well and have a good appetite.

• Research show that the sweet spot for a good number of hours sleep a night is between 7-9 hours.

Factors that affect having a good night sleep:

Women

• For women sleep is usually affected by their hormone levels. Typically they experience better sleep during the 2nd phase of the menstruation cycle due to the increased levels of progesterone.

• Progesterone also has a calming effect on the brain and contains plenty of anti-anxiety properties too.

• Lack of iron is also known to interfere with sleep, especially mothers of newborns. So a good idea to get this checked

Children:

Factors than can affect sleep for children include the following:

• Illness can provide a short term interruption to good a night

• Food intolerances & sensitivities

• Night time asthma

• Anxiety

• Parasites & threadworm - a typical symptom of this would be itchy burning feet

How to improve sleep.

• Prioritise it

• Develop a wind down routine - think about activities such as writing out a to-do list before going to bed, journalling, having a cup of sleepy tea and get off technology at least 1hr before going to bed.

Foods to avoid & why.

• Caffeine - This has a half life of 8hrs which means it takes 8hrs for your body to break this. Your cuppa is best had during the first part of the day and also be aware of caffeine content in your chocolate fix before bed.

• Alcohol - Although this aids going to sleep, it affects the quality of your sleep and is best had 3 hours before going to bed

Norelle's message.

"Make sleep the super powers to have lots of energy & vitality to be the best version of one's self"

Norelle can be found online:

Instagram: YourSleepRemedy

Facebook: Your Remedy Naturopathy

Website: Your Remedy

Email:  info@yourremedy.com.au

Phone : 0439 660 064

If you need help with you or your child’s gut healing journey, book in for a free 15 minute call, email me or check out my work with me page to see if one of my programs are a suitable fit for you.

Chantal is a Certified Nutrition & Wellness Coach who specialises in working with stressed and overwhelmed mothers of immune & digestive challenged children to heal their child’ gut by implementing a wholistic personalised step by step plan.

The 4 lessons I learnt healing from Adrenal Fatigue

After many years of working solidly to rebuild my little man's immune system, I remember very distinctly the day I took a sigh of relieve thinking we were finally at a place with his health I could only dream about.

This was also the noticeable decline of my own health; although there were many earlier signs I chose to ignore.

Lesson 1 - Don’t ignore your body’s speech through physical dis-ease

Leading up to that that day, I was experiencing many symptoms of physical dis-ease, but I just brushed them under carpet until I could no longer ignore them. These symptoms were starting to impact my daily life and my ability to complete simple tasks. Some of these symptoms included things such as:

• Lack of energy

• Lack of enthusiasm

• Extreme exhaustion to the point of not being able to get out of bed after 10 hours of solid sleep

• Weight gain for no particular reason

• Brain fog, unbelievable brain fog

• Irregular cycle

• Emotional

• Angry and irritable for much of the time without obvious cause....think cranky pants mum CONSTANTLY...poor kids

• Inability to concentrate on a task for long periods of time

These symptoms were quite uncharacteristic for me, but I just put it down to the struggles of motherhood. With this in mind, my attitude was “ Pull up your big girl pants and get on with the job" whilst trying to keep the facade of a mother that had it all together (which clearly I didn’t)

I knew there was cause for concern when I woke up crying most mornings due to the sheer feeling of exhaustion and not knowing how I was going to get through the day, and quite often my husband would return home from work seeing a very similar picture.

After trying to implement a few self care strategies myself without any improvement, I consulted my qualified health care practitioner whom diagnosed me as having severe Adrenal Fatigue, stage 3 or 4 I believe. I thought she had lost her mind to be honest, especially when I was told recovery would take nothing less than 9 months but closer to 2 years because of the state I was in. My instant thought was,  “I’ll show her, I’ll knock this over in 3 months, just tell me what I need to eat and what supplements I need to take”.....ha ha little did I know.

Lesson 2 - Surrender, accept the situation and ask for help

This is how I spent much of my recovery time in the early days.

Having this diagnosis was almost like music to my ears as now I had an explanation for the symptoms I was experiencing. It also felt like someone gave me permission to just let it be. It was at this time my body then started adrenal crashing multiple times a week, which was quite scary initially as I did not understand what was happening. In simple terms this meant I was in an enforced horizontal position for most part of the day. I was physically unable to complete basic household functions or drive for periods longer than 10 minutes and virtually left me incapable of looking after my family. This killed me inside, but I now also knew that I had no choice but to surrender to the current situation rather than fight it nearly every minute of the day. I could no longer fight what my body needed, and instead, I gave in and showered it with whatever was required. I was unbelievably blessed that my mother was able to stay with me 3-4 days a week for 3 months whilst I rebuilt myself again. Initially I felt like such a failure having to accept this help, but this mentality was no longer serving me or my healing and once again practised the art of surrender.

My treatment plan as recommended by my health care practitioner included the following:

1. A nourishing diet, excluding GLUTEN, minimal grains, focusing on quality proteins, fats and abundant vegetables. Plenty of daily broth and fermented food.

2. Quality, broad spectrum probiotics

3. Adaptogenic herbs – the tinctures changed as my needs changed.

4. High doses of Vitamin C

5. Antioxidant supplementation

6. Acupuncture

7. Rest as much as was needed, sometimes this was napping 4 hours in the day or multiple little naps until I became stronger and was able to sustain stable energy throughout the day.

Please note, I provide this purely for information purposes, seek guidance from a qualified health professional if you think you are suffering from Adrenal Fatigue. Treatment for each person is very unique. This is what worked for me over a period of time.

Lesson 3 - Healing had more to do with my mind, than my physical body

It soon became clear that eating and supplementing alone was not going to aid my recovery but my mental and emotional well being was big a part of that picture. Initially I resisted this if I’m perfectly honest and thought it was a load of crap. As a type ‘A” personality I’m results driven, not method driven. Liking the method was irrelevant. If I wanted the result of feeling abundantly healthy and energetic again, I needed to do whatever I had to, and once again practised the art of surrender. At this stage I was starting to get pretty good at recognising when I needed to do this. Therefore I listened to what was being recommended to me and reaped the benefits.

My daily emotional well being practices looked like something like this;

1. Guided visualisations of being healthy and energetic- usually done whilst napping

2. Gratitude

3. Deep breathing, usually 1-3 minutes multiple times a day

4. EFT tapping

5. Mantra’s affirming health & vitality

Lesson 4 - Forget being superwoman

Prior to being struck down with Adrenal Fatigue, I loved to idea of being able to do it ALL and run a million miles a minute, but going through this experience has been one of my darkest and challenging times and I never want to experience it again. So once again I realised that this thought pattern was no longer serving me or my family and I let it go. I do what I can with ease, rather than push myself beyond my limits.

I now intuitively listen to my body, and in fact, she is my queen and I honour it. If it says it’s tired and showing any signs of physical dis-ease, I immediately stop, re-focus, re-group and get back to basics. I then become the priority over ANYTHING else and I feel no guilt for doing this, as trying to be selfless and ignoring my needs got me into a lot of trouble. So far, this practise is serving me well:-)

Full recovery did take me closer to the 2 year mark, but after 7-8 months applying ALL of the above I had sufficient energy to at least get through the day without crashing. I can still be prone to bouts of fatigue if I’m not tuning in to my physical & emotional needs quickly enough, but this is very easily resolved these days.

I am so grateful to have experienced this condition (even though I did not think it at the time, in fact I remember cursing it) and the lesson’s it has taught me. In every challenge there is a seed of benefit.

As mother’s we are so hard on ourselves and it’s time to just give you a break. We are doing the most important job in the world if, but in order to do that well, we need to look after ourselves first and it’s totally OK to tend your needs before anyone else. This is setting up very healthy boundaries for you. We are doing the best we can with what we know and have available to us at the time, and when you know better, you can then do better.

This whole experience has really amplified my belief that optimal health is so much more than what we eat, albeit it is super important and foundational. Being healthy is a combination of pillars and they all need to be in balance to experience health & vitality.

Just know that you “ARE ENOUGH” and you deserve to feel “AMAZING”, because YOU are WORTH IT.

XX

If you need help with you or your child’s gut healing journey, book in for a free 15 minute call, email me or check out my work with me page to see if one of my programs are a suitable fit for you.

Chantal is a Certified Nutrition & Wellness Coach who specialises in working with stressed and overwhelmed mothers of immune & digestive challenged children to heal their child’ gut by implementing a wholistic personalised step by step plan.