Macrobiotics and Weight Loss
If your condition is not balanced, then you can't control your appetite. That is why a healthy, balanced diet and lifestyle is key to weight loss.
10 Natural Anti-Aging Secrets
Everyone seems to be concerned about aging these days. People take special preparations and treatments to reverse the natural process of aging. Most of these treatments are based on hormonal and/or nutritional supplements, creams and injections, or surgery. Unfortunately, these treatments are only temporary and oftentimes these treatments backfire. What are the differences between those who age well and those who do not?
Macrobiotic Diet Foods
Macrobiotic practice embraces and integrates cuisines and ingredients from most of the world’s long-standing civilizations. Macrobiotics, as it is practiced now, has become a multicultural fusion of many of these cultures and civilizations. The plant-abundant diet is based on the full variety of foods in each of the following categories: grains, beans, vegetables, soups, [...]
Sugar: The Good and the Bad
Sugar, sweets and the sweet taste have a bad reputation and we often feel guilty indulging in our taste for sweets. Craving sugar may not be such a bad thing. Sweet is the most important and healthiest taste, followed by salty and sour tastes, then by bitter and pungent tastes. It is the predominant [...]
Protein: The Good and the Bad
All food has protein. Under normal circumstances, it is impossible to have protein deficiency. If we eat a diet based mostly on white sugar and other refined foods, it may be possible to have a protein deficiency. Similarly, with a damaged digestive system caused by certain illnesses or excessive medical treatments, we may require [...]
Carbs Good or Bad
All the world’s long-standing civilizations were grain based. In addition, all people identify with, and are inseparable from their traditional grains. Common examples include rice in Asia, bread in Europe, and corn in the Americas. As global economic development grew and the interconnectedness of cultures through globalization expands, we see different types of grain [...]
Things You Didn’t Know About Autism
I am not a medical doctor, but this is my experience and observation as a macrobiotic counselor. I have practiced as a counselor for 45 years, which includes counseling for a broad range of health problems from severe brain injury to mild learning disorders. I have used the same approach applied in unique ways with [...]
Mindfulness Meditation & Macrobiotics Day: Back to Our Roots
On November 6th, at the International House in Philadelphia, Susan and I will be joining with Anh-Huong and Thu Nguyen to lead a day in the complementary practices of mindfulness meditation and macrobiotics. I believe this event is the first step in returning to some of the original guiding principles of macrobiotic practice. Macrobiotics [...]
Without Doing Other Things
Forest Bathing It has been striking for me to compare the way spending time alone has changed over the course of my lifetime. It has become increasingly difficult for people today to give undivided attention to a daily activity. With so much media attention focusing on presence and mindfulness, being at peace with [...]
Keeping Up with the Solstice
Tempura with vegetables. Although today is one official start of summer, the energy of the sun has been rising since the Winter Solstice, and transitioned into summer on May 5th. Summer is the time when our energy and desire is opened fully and blossoming as in nature. In mid-August, the energy of the [...]
How to Reset The Biological Clock
An evening rhythm Rhythms come from nature, and our circadian rhythms are produced by the interactions between our internal and external environments, especially within our microbiome, the sun, and temperature. These interactions and relationships produce physical, emotional, mental, and behavioral changes with each day and throughout the year. Our sense of order, rhythm, [...]
More Thoughts on Healthy Sleep
I'd like to thank Dr. Neal Barnard for so much practical advice in his recent blog on sleep. I'd like to add a few tips that you may also find helpful. Our sleep is regulated by our eating habits, diet, and activity. Sleep problems are the result of an imbalance in diet and activity. It's [...]
Neurons, Modern Science & Macrobiotics Come Together
I just saw this amazing TEDTalk by Dr. Sandrine Thuret called "You Can Grow New Brain Cells. Here's How." In the video, Dr. Thuret describes the process of brain cell growth and how diet, and lifestyle affect our ability to grow new brain cells. I was struck by how similar her recommendations for growing [...]
Short and Sweet
CNN recently published a study about the benefits of decreasing sugar for ten days in children. I found this interesting because what we eat today goes into our blood plasma by tomorrow. Plasma, the liquid portion of our blood, renews itself every ten days. Avoiding foods produces short term effects, and adding healthy foods provides [...]
Putting Oil in Perspective
Oil has a long tradition in cooking; both olive and sesame oil have been in use for thousands of years. Both olive and sesame oil can be pressed naturally without added heat or solvents. Even though oil is not a whole food, it has the ability to transform our foods. The use of oil in [...]
A New and Refreshing Approach to Macrobiotics
Coming up with a definition of macrobiotics is not an easy thing. Practically speaking, macrobiotics is a guide to living a great life. Macrobiotics offers an approach to daily life that nourishes and sustains us as well as our families, societies, and the environment. Macrobiotics has been misinterpreted and misconstrued in the past [...]
Health and Weight Check-yourself-list
I recently read an article in the New York Times about a study in San Diego that researchers conducted on mice. In the study, they restricted some mice to certain eating times; some mice were fed within a five hour window, some an eight hour window and some a twelve hour window. Others were [...]
A Second New Year; Get Ready for Spring!
If you didn’t get a chance to make your resolutions stick since January 1st, you have another chance! And this new year also follows the course of nature. This new year, February 4th, is celebrated in Asia and traces of its western roots are in the celebration of Groundhog’s Day. Groundhog’s Day is a [...]