Want to lose weight?

Concentrate on your health rather than your weight.

Change takes time.

Especially in the weight management department.
Losing weight fast may sound exciting but there’s a big catch. 
Fast weight loss = range of health risks.

Remember that the most important job you ought to do is to nourish and nurture your body.
The rest will come along.

Stop overeating and stop eating junk.

Slow down and stop thinking junk.

Start to eat well and nourish yourself
…and the change will happen.

Persevere. 

Remember- the real change takes time.

Do you want to lose weight?
Do you want to get rid of mood swings?
Are you the person who’s ready for a nap straight after getting up in the morning?
Are you fed up with bloating or heartburn?
The list goes…

If you answer YES to any of the above then you want to read this article!

When I say give up junk I mean all kinds of it.

In the food department of your life junk includes (nonetheless, it’s not limited to):

most of the supermarket shelf content like stir fry sauces in jars, muesli bars, non-organic meats, mayo, ready-to-eat porridge, low fat yoghurt, UHT milk, all sorts of “grab-and-go” and many many more, just go to any supermarket and it will be there on each single shelf waiting for you to pay for it and to poison you in return.

What’s even more sad that this is not only supermarkets who offer you junk products.

There are other sellers pretending to sell “healthy” options to you.

And of course YOU are the one who chooses to buy and use it all.

So how do you reclaim and sustain your health and well-being?

You start to change your eating habits.

It’s simple as that.

You start to:

eat green broccoli


1. Eat fresh and more green
choosing natural produce, organic/biodynamic whenever possible.

2. Avoid/reduce/best- eliminate:
– processed, refined and artificial products (including colours, flavours, additives and preservatives), 
– sugar,
– and all other types of sugar, often hidden in products, like glucose, corn syrup, fructose, etc.
– artificial sweeteners (this may get easier if you avoid products from the first group above).

3. Forget about wheat in any kind of shape and eliminate or reduce most of other grains.That means no more bread, buns, cakes, biscuits, pastas etc. made with wheat.

4. If you choose to eat grains remember that more tolerable are for most people non-gluten grains.

I would use millet, buckwheat, amaranth, rice and always sprout them beforehand.

You can also try products like chickpea flour, coconut flour, almond flour to bake naturally gluten and wheat free bread, cakes, pizzas and more.

5. Soak your non-gluten grains, beans, nuts and seeds.

The process of soaking neutralizes harmful anti-nutrients and hard-to-digest proteins and at the same time, activates vital enzymes, minerals and other beneficial nutrients locked inside.

Use the same clean water you use for drinking.

6. Reduce caffeine intake including not only coffee but also black tea and green tea as well (not to mention energy drinks!).

7. Use organic salt.

Celtic Sea salt and Himalayan salt are unrefined and unprocessed salts what means they can be utilized by our body properly.

Salt which is non- organic such as table salt has been harvested mechanically and put through artificial processes to crack its molecular structure what leaves it deprived of all of its essential minerals but full of chemical additives like iodine, dextrose and bleaching agents.

8. Eat slowly and chew well.

It does not only help your stomach to digest and your intestine to absorb nutrients but also prevents improperly digested food from entering your blood and causing a wide range of adverse effects to your health.

And as a bonus you finally get a chance to discover that your food is more flavorsome.

Plus probably you will eat less as it takes time for your brain to send a signal to your stomach that you’re full.

9. Don’t drink while eating.

Drink about 30 minutes before your meal and not earlier than 1 hour after eating.

If you are chewing adequately, you should be able to eat comfortably without liquids. 

10. Drink clean water and herbal teas.

NOTHING substitutes for water!

Investing in reverse osmosis home water filter may be a good idea. Otherwise you can fill up bottles at a local service station that sell reverse osmosis filtered water or buy high quality mineral water from the shops (the last option is the most expensive one).

Adding a pinch of Celtic Sea salt or Himalayan salt to water will replace some of the electrolytes lost in the process of purifying water (reverse osmosis filtering).

I use filtered water and high quatlity mineral water that has alkaline pH.

However, remember NOT to drink any alkaline water just before, with, or right after your meal (or even as soon as one hour after eating).

Alkaline water inactivates some enzymes that you need in your stomach while eating to trigger production of digestive acids.

Inactivating those enzymes will result in poor digestion and absorption of nutrients.

Tap water is not a clean water.

Using tap water (water contaminated with chemicals and not only) for making tea or cooking is not a good idea!

Boiling tap water will only concentrate heavy metals in it so remember to use for cooking the same clean water you drink!

11. Avoid excessive consumption of dairy and chose organic or biodynamic and non- homogenised unpasteurized products from cow’s, sheep’s or goat’s milk.

Listen to your body. Some races and cultures tolerate raw milk products and do really well on them while others can’t tolerate them and consuming dairy causes many health problems for them.

12. Go alkaline whenever possible.

Your health and well-being depends on the pH balance of your body.

On the pH scale 0-14 zero means purely acidic and fourteen means purely alkaline.

Human body works best in the slightly alkaline environment (about 7.35 on the pH scale).

The natural tendency of our body to be at balance can be supported by eating certain foods.

Supporting your body’s acid/alkaline chemistry through simple changes in diet can result in weight loss, increased stamina and strength, a stronger immune system and a greater sense of wellbeing.

I believe that it is not a coincidence that the numbers of cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes are rapidly growing.

It seems that they correlate precisely with the rise in consumption of acid forming foods such as sugars, trans fats, fast food, refined food and white breads and a dramatic decrease in our consumption of fresh, life giving foods such as vegetables and essential fatty acids.

Convenience or life-threatening choices?

13. Good fat is good for you!

High quality fat doesn’t make you fat.

Fat it’s essential for your body to function properly including building cells and producing key hormones.

Good sources of quality fat include:

  • Extra virgin olive oil
  • Extra virgin coconut oil/butter
  • Butter (raw, from organic grass fed cow’s milk)
  • Ghee (clarified butter)
  • Organic, grass-fed animal fats (lard, tallow)
  • Fish oil (be careful of its source)
  • Seeds (especially flax seeds)
  • Nuts (raw, organic, activated)
  • Avocados

Blue peas sprouts

Every human body works on similar mechanisms but we are NOT the same and each body has its own ways.

Factors such as environment, our genetic inheritance, our lifestyle may play a big part in whether or not certain foods are suitable for a person to include in their diet.

And remember – nothing in human body is either black or white.
There are all sorts of shades of gray which simply means our body doesn’t like extremes.

Extreme means out of balance and this is NOT what human body likes.

Remember this and stay on the right track of moderation

you can easily turn from Healthy to Unhealthy Healthy (which I will cover in a seperate article) and ruin your health by taking healthy living into extremes.

What you can do is to understand how your own body works and support it while it’s serving you best it can or you can run a war against your body…

Choice is ALWAYS yours.
Just remember that there will be no winners in that war…

You want to be the winner in your life, don’t you?

I bet you do!
Then START to change.
It doesn’t matter where you start. Just start.
One step at the time.
You are a winner already, all you must do is to stay on your path.

Balance in life – a little bit of my story. Part I

Everyone seems to talk about balance these days.

Balanced diet/nutrition, balanced lifestyle, balanced exercise program, balance between HDL and LDL (balance between “good” and “bad” cholesterol),
work-life balance,
emotional balance to name a few ideas in this department.
It all may be actually quite important to a human being, I figured.

What is your idea about balance in life?
What do you think may be out of balance in your life?

Obviously I’m not in the capacity to answer these questions for you but can tell you my own experience and I hope this helps a bit.

It all started with a judo throw.
Ouchi gari?
I can no longer remember what throw that was but it accidentally brought balance into my life…
Along with couple of other factors made that throw made me change my old ways that were not serving me anymore.

The same judo throw, that put me down on the dojo mats with a pain so great that literally took my breath away for a moment, actually turned out to be “a blessing in disguise” after all.

The very first step on the path to betterment of myself through torn cruciate ligament and lateral meniscus in my knee.

At that time I trained pretty hard (as I usually do anyway). I spent most of my days at the dojo training all the martial arts available and most importantly Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ).
I had fallen in love with this martial art and soon made myself break my own weaknesses and barriers and –
3 months from starting to train BJJ I was already competing in Pan Pacific Championships.

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu

Training, teaching, competing, working in several jobs, always in a rush- no time to eat, not much time to sleep, not much money to eat quality food. Fresh products count: close to zero.
I lived on supermarket home brand pasta, sweet chilli sauce, cheap eggs and bread- gluten in its purest wheat nature.

How far can your body go this way?

Not far at all…

So here I am, desperate to continue training and compete in the next Oceania BJJ comp with my knee giving me hell lot of a pain and restricting movement.
Screw this.
I’m winning silver in my weight category with my leg in a big brace made of a strapping tape.
A month later I can barely walk.
Surprise (!!).

So I’m desperate again.
I want to avoid a “death sentence” – that’s what I thought about the knee surgery and being away from trainings for months of rehab.

I start looking for alternative ideas and anyone who can make my knee working well again without surgery.
My coach introduces me to a CHEK practitioner who turns my whole world I used to know upside down.

He tells  me about diet, gives some hair-raising information about organic foods, dairy, gluten, processed foods, coffee, sugar, alcohol, relationships etc. …

He gets me to do all the impossible and absolutely bizarre exercises (well, at least they seemed to be back then…).
I do it all.
I try hard although still can’t believe or understand some of the things he tries to teach me.
I still do them.

I go organic, I change my eating habits, I change my sleeping patterns…
I change…

I start  to cook and forget about the coffee.
Coffee was a tough one- I can still hear myself arguing:

“What do you mean stop drinking coffee???
Ok, so now you’re saying I can actually have ONE a day if I really can’t go without.  (I sigh…what a relief…)
Whaaaat??
Before 9am only and with no milk?!
Really??
Whaaaat??
Artificial sweetener is a killer??”

So silly I was back then…

I try HARD to be in bed before 10am and do deep breathing beforehand
And I stretch. Oh my goodness gracious me!!

I DO STRETCH!!!

This awful and disregarded activity that I just couldn’t stand for years becomes a vital part of my life.

I chew my food thoroughly,
I concentrate on eating – no more movies, books, newspapers etc. just me, food and the process of eating.

I cook bone broth; the whole house stinks like a cowshed or worse…

I eat grass fed cows’ liver, forget about my beloved bread and most of the fruit.
I soak and dehydrate nuts before eating.
activated nutsLuckily I had already abandoned soft drinks (I call them “shitty drinks” and dare to say, as a former heavy user of the shitty drinks, I have the full right to call them this way)
and given up any idea about “low fat food”.

This all is super strange to me, quite difficult or even horrible!
But I don’t want my knee to get cut open and I want to train so much.
I need to heal and get stronger.
So I do it all.

Well, completely torn ligament does not grow back together just like that and I finally decide to have it surgically fixed.

I’m in the hospital, pale and about to faint before even seeing the anaesthetist, thirsty as hell (mandatory fasting before the procedure ain’t fun) but it should be good.

All those changes had already started bringing balance back to my life and my body grew stronger.

I should recover in no time.

I’m pretty much naked, wearing only that funny sort of a gown they give you at the hospital and trying to joke about it with my mum.

I’m really scared.
Now it’s just me and the anaesthetist.
He gives me some stuff, disappears and comes back with more.
Now I’m truly horrified.
Next thing I see myself on a bed in a big room, half conscious.
I can’t remember the pain then.
I was still drugged, with morphine and other stuff in my blood and I just wanted to sleep.

Then all the rest happens…

Morphine is gone and here I am with my aching leg and the whole new story in front of us.

New life is about to begin.

please bring me my bone broth