Celebrating new website & hitting my targeted 10kg weight loss

Im so proud that on the launch day of the new Prana Healing Holidays website that I’ve also reached my goal of losing 10Kg – wooohooo.  I stated this intention on the first day of my blog after arriving in Kovalam about to commence my 14 day Panchakarma treatment with Dr George – that I would lose 10kg. 

And it’s taken a combination of two things, both of which are quite effortless, especially to receive Ayurveda treatment – gee that’s so effortless that you literally lie down relaxing most of the time – losing weight and being made healthy.

It all started with the Ayurveda treatment which is designed to re-balance your Dosha’s through a 14 day Panchakarma Treatment.  This is where you take specialised herbal medicines whilst having specific massage and oil treatments to suit your Dosha body type and to address any health needs you may have.  The idea is to detox the body from toxins (which we all start to accumulate from birth) and then the channels within the body are cleared so that the nutrients reach all the parts that it needs to promote good health, anti-aging and disease prevention.

So I did that first because I already know that it’s the best place to start for optimum health, and given that exercise is another essential key,  I was unable to do any because my muscles were spasming all the time when I moved (which doesn’t happen now that I’ve had a Panchakarma).

 In fact it’s the second time I’ve experienced this.  After my first 14 day treatment with Dr George in 2008 it took nearly 4 years and a baby to even start to get back to having the old muscle spasm problems again (in July 2012 I was bedridden unable to walk and on heavy drugs for 2 weeks because the old problem had crept back up again – and then some). 

It’s an ENORMOUS relief to know that I can have this treatment and it rids me of my Pitta imbalance/inflammation condition that is “like fibromyalgia, but not” as the Specialist would say.

But this time for me, post-treatment, it’s  different because I now know what to eat and what lifestyle choices I can make that will suit my Dosha type (which is Pitta with a Vata imbalance).  And I will NEVER get that incapacitated again.

And the second phase of the 10kg weight-loss came from following the 5:2 diet.  Friends of mine were doing it after seeing the BBC Documentary and they all thought it was a good, safe idea and they are GP, physical therapist and a vegan so it came with high recommendation.

Details on the documentary below.  It’s by UK physician and filmmaker Dr Michael Mosley who talks about the age-old benefits of fasting.  And with advances in technology they have discovered that, in addition to weight-loss, that fasting can also have disease preventative benefits – namely by lowering your Insulin-like Growth Factor 1 (IGF-1) hormone through fasting you are likely to remove the chance of getting heart disease and diabetes. 

Additionally, Dr T Colin Campbell writes in The China Study that “IGF-1 is turning out to be a predictor of cancer just as cholesterol is a predictor for heart disease.”  And, that it is a “fact that we make more IGF-1 when we consume animal-based foods like meat and dairy”.

Don’t know if I also mentioned that I changed to being predominantly a vegan back in August 2012 after my back went out and my 2 weeks were spent reading The China Study.   I believe that Dr Campbell and The China Study have helped save my life.  And I believe I have the evidence, because back in February 2012 my routine breast scan showed a “suspicious mass” deep on my chest wall. 

So after reading Dr Campbell’s multiple sources of research and evidence dating back now 50 years of how eating the “recommended” quantity of animal products actually causes diseases in the body and, more importantly, what eating a whole foods plant based diet does do to replenish cells, then I made the change to see if I could change those cells back.

And it worked – much to the amazement of the technicians doing the tests, and so the Doctor came and did the scan himself and bent over to look me right in the eye excitedly to say “its gone, it’s gone”.  I do eat “happy” free-range/organic animal products on rare occasion – what we call special occasions because I think it’s great to acknowledge the specialness of an occasion not by celebrating with meat but celebrating with others.

Dr Campbell’s research is not conclusive that by including less than 5% of animal products in your diet, that it will cause the diseases known as “Western diseases”, and given my immediate family suffers from each and every one of these Western Diseases, then I know could be playing Russian roulette. – but so are most of us.  And this is why I try to live my life to “maximise health and minimise disease”.

But having said that, I hope that by continuing to do the 5:2 diet that I am additionally lowering my IGF-1 through the fasting.  And fasting is easy peasy too.  It just take a little know-how and figuring out but essentially Dr Mosley discovered that by eating normally for 5 days then fasting for 2 days a week that it has the same effect.  So it’s not a full fast, women consume 500 calories and men 600 calories which as it turns out is plenty when you bulk it up with teas. (I can help you with Meal Plans).

I will talk all about this in later blogs, especially when I announce that I am open for business to commence creating Nutrition and Lifestyle Plans for clients – which will be soon.  They will be for people who want to lose weight in the “normal” way, for people wanting to integrate the 5:2 diet into their life, and those who want the Plan according to their Dosha type following a treatment with Prana Healing Holidays.

So welcome to my new-look website www.pranahealingholidays.com and to my new, improved (lighter) body (pics to come).

Light, love and happiness to all. Alison 

I highly recommend you watch the BBC Documentary by Dr Michael Mosley called “Eat, Fast and Live Longer” and join me in fasting or ask me to help you integrate this into your life by having a Nutrition& Lifestyle Plan created for you.