weight loss Archives - Claire Cutler Casey

Do you want to get by or do you want to get better? Is food intolerance getting in your way?

Food intolerance may only be the start of the story……. Do you want to get by or do you want to get better_

Food intolerance is on the rise, with nearly 20% of the population believed to suffer symptoms including:

- Diarrhea
- Abdominal pain
- Rashes
- Runny nose
- Bloating
- Headaches
- Nausea
- Fatigue
- Reflux
- Hot flushes

Food sensitivity testing identifies the foods the body is struggling with and elimination diets can provide some relief, however, food may only be the start of the story.

In Traditional Chinese medicine the stomach is the ‘home of emotions’, where we experience a vast array of emotional responses.

Consider a time you were nervous, did you experience butterflies in your stomach?

butterflies are a common sign of anticipation, excitement and nervousness

The stomach is the organ that begins processing all the nourishment we take in, be it physical or emotional. Metaphorically we ‘chew things over’ before swallowing, if we take on board something that is against our better judgement it can leave a bad taste in the mouth and decisions or situations that are indigestible to us, can cause emotional upset, making the stomach churn. If we cannot let something lie it can repeat on us resulting in physical and emotional pain as we go over it repeatedly, dissecting it to look for other information to support our decision.

emotions

Exploring our emotional diet alongside our physical nutrition creates a robust mechanism for supporting the body to better digest physical food, build emotional resilience and eliminate emotional situations that do not nourish us.

What emotional sustenance are you taking in that is not nourishing you? Are you self-critical, do you compromise your own values to maintain the status quo or are you holding on to some anger or resentment from previous experiences? Do you get stomach ache, headaches, nausea, diarrhoea or constipation? Do you suffer with IBS or bloating? Does your body react uncomfortably to the food you eat?

Whilst elimination diets provide a respite for your physical body they do nothing to address the emotional strain your body is experiencing, in fact, the added pressure of reading labels, checking restaurant ingredients and ensuring foods you can eat are accessible, whenever you need them, can create additional stress, increasing the body’s sensitivity to foods. The relationship between food intolerance and stress is difficult to untangle, ironically they ‘feed’ each other, dragging you down in the perpetual cycle.

Reducing the amount of stress and emotional turmoil you experience every day gives your body a greater opportunity to heal because every extra bit of stress perpetuates the downward spiral, be it stress from food or life.

Break the cycle, create space for the healing to begin.

out of order

In your personal kinesiology food sensitivity session you will receive a full kinesiology session to balance your system, before we go on to test over 150 common foods, to ascertain which ones are the most stressful to your system, helping you to eliminate these from your diet for a specified period, allowing your body space to recuperate.

During this period you might choose to address other emotional issues to support the healing process, it’s up to you, it really depends on how quickly you want to get back to the life you love.

Food sensitivity

We will discuss your concerns. You will receive practical tips and support to take away with you, enabling you to deal differently with the foods and situations that are not supporting your health. You’ll also receive valuable insights into the mechanisms your system has created to help you cope and what you can do (or stop doing) to improve your own comfort and build resilience, helping you take it one step at a time so you can build on your success everyday.

woman Jumping

So, ask yourself, do you want to get by, or do you want to get better?

Claire Cutler-Casey is a professional Kinesiology Practitioner and Touch For Health instructor as well as delivering a variety of business and well-being workshops designed to help you navigate the process of change.

If you would like to book a 1:1 Kinesiology session, please click here.

You can also join our online community here.

Hydration, why it’s never too late to re-hydrate

Hydration, why it’s never too late to re-hydrate. Your body is approximately 70% water, we are the most amazing pieces of organic engineering, creating power, strength, resilience and sustainability out of water.

Your brain and heart are approximately 73% water and your lungs are about 83% water.

If your car or your mobile phone ran on water you’d make sure they were fully recharged every day, to ensure you have all the power and functionality you need, yet we still find it difficult to drink enough water to stay hydrated and function well.

it's never too late to rehydrate

Water is fundamental to our survival, not liquid, just water.

As soon as you add anything to water it becomes a food, then it must pass thorough the whole of your digestive system before the water can be extracted.

Think of it like legos. A cup of coffee is constructed from some water bricks, some coffee bricks, some milk bricks and some sugar bricks all bonded together. The blocks can be broken apart again but that department is in your small intestine. So all the tissues that make up the oesophagus, stomach and duodenum don’t get any direct hydration from the liquid you drink, they have to wait a few hours and hope they get some from the water that is absorbed through the lining of the small intestine, and into the blood stream. They have to join the queue only, now, they are at the other end.

Your hydration is important to us, you are held in a queue and may be answered ... eventually

Meanwhile your body is performing at much less than optimum, because everything that your body does uses water. There is not one single bodily function that does not rely on hydration.

Think about that for a moment. Every thought, action and breath. Literally every thing your body does relies on water.

Signs of dehydration include

Fatigue, weight gain, reduced mobility, aches and pains, headaches, inability to concentrate, fuzzy head (like a hangover), irritability, dry skin, chapped lips, wrinkles, flaky skin, halitosis, poor urination, urinary tract infections, constipation, acid reflux, indigestion, changes in blood pressure, nausea, dizziness, increased resting heart rate, poor memory, slower response times, reduced dexterity, depression, anxiety, tension, mood swings, confusion…… and the list goes on.

Understanding the bodies need for water and the impact that can have on our system it’s time to get real.

How much clear, pure water do you drink, every day, and how much do you need?

Using a baseline of average adult (I know you’re not average, I know you’re amazing) but let’s use average as a starting point.
The average adult needs about 4 pints of water a day.
This adult is having a fairly decent time of things, no stress, no caffeine, no bugs to fight off, sleeping and eating well and taking moderate exercise.

So if you have stress, stimulants, illness or take more exercise you will need more water to keep you hydrated. How much is difficult to say but there are rules of thumb that we can use to help

For every cup of coffee drink twice as much water again – for 250 ml coffee drink 500 ml extra water
In times of stress drink more water, stress is very dehydrating. Drinking more water reduces the anxieties around stress and also helps the body recover more quickly from the effects.
Working out – drink more water. Yes, you’re sweating but did you know that water is responsible for the elasticity in muscles? If you’re really interested in building resilience into your workout – drink more water.
Feeling ill, recovering from a bug or laid up with something – drink more water. If the bug creates mucus, your body is using water to make that. If your body is fighting something off, your immune system uses water to make and distribute the anti-bodies to the internal battlefield, and to clear away the debris to keep your system clear.

As you run through the calculations you may begin to wonder how you’re going to have time to drink all that water, here’s the pay-off.

The better hydrated you are the better your system functions.

Stress reduces so extra water intake can too, drinking more water means you are naturally drinking less coffee because there are only so many hours in a day, right?
This reduces stress (again) so you will need less water.
Your sleep improves so, yes, you guessed it, you’re less stressed and so you need less water.
Your immune system functions better so you get less bugs so you need less water to be well hydrated.
You lose weight so your body requires less water to move you about.

In a fairly short period of time you reach that sweet spot of balanced hydration, where 4 pints of water a day is enough to keep you hydrated and you are more responsive to your bodies need for extra water as/when required.

It’d never too late to rehydrate and experience the benefits that decent hydration has on your physical, emotional and biochemical systems.

So, what are your waiting for?

Hydrate, sleep well, live better

If you would like to book a 1:1 Kinesiology session, please click here.

You can also join our online community here.

Kinesiology: What, Where, When & How

The purpose of my kinesiology practice is to help you get into the natural flow of life, known as the Wu Wei in traditional Chinese medicine, meaning ‘without effort’.

In the west we talk about being ‘in the zone’ or ‘in the flow’ and you may already have some experience of that; that feeling of everything going smoothly, seemingly without effort, this is what we work towards with kinesiology; creating sustainable internal harmony that enables you to be the best version of yourself, achieving whatever you wish with ease, grace, calm and contentment and supporting you to handle the ups and downs of life, effortlessly.

I work 1-2-1 with clients, in my cosy clinic on the rural outskirts of York, in the North East of England.

I also offer Touch for Health Kinesiology Training, CPD workshops and monthly circle gathering designed to help you get the most out of yourself and the seasonal energies that are most active at the time.

Kinesiology is an interactive, non-invasive therapy, as a client you remain clothed throughout (you may choose to remove your shoes). We sit together and undertake a short, thorough consultation, to ensure all relevant information is captured, we then discuss the changes, both subtle and profound, that you are interested to address in your personal journey.

I then take you gently through the process of muscle testing, allowing you all the time you need to adjust to a space where, finally, the whole of your system can get involved in creating and accessing your own unique solution.

Together we’ll explore the binary muscle monitoring system. This is the foundation of all kinesiology practice and you can ask all the questions you need as we go along.

Then, together, we check which aspects of you are already working towards the changes you wish to make and which aspects need some help to do that.

Kinesiology embraces a comprehensive range of techniques drawn and adapted from various disciplines, as well as plenty of its own. Your system will indicate which technique(s) are needed. You may also be given simple techniques as homework. Homework reminder sheets are provided to help you.

After your session we check in to see how you’re feeling, you may feel some changes immediately and some may need time to evidence.

After your session you can carry on with your day and, when it comes time to go to bed, you may feel more tired than usual. My advice is always to listen to the needs of your body; it is possible that your system has done some significant work that you might not be fully conscious of, so sleep, restore and allow the changes you have worked on to permeate.

Please contact me to book you own window into your unique world,

I look forward to working with you.

Claire

If you would like to book a 1:1 Kinesiology session, please click here.

You can also join our online community here.