What’s good February 2026
Contents : Life Update, It’s been a while
GFT Body: Muscle Mytokines
GFT Mind: Self Discipline
GFT Spirit: Kundalini Yoga
Nutrition Corner - Are we getting enough fiber
Life Update - Its been a while…
From the great lyrics of my fav Aaliya song “Its been a long time, I shouldn’t have left you, without a dope beat to step to. Step to” come on! you know how the song (and if you don’t remind yourself) …. “you can dust it off and try again, try again.” So that’s what I’m doing. Trying again.
2023-24 hit me hard. The combination of challenges I found myself presented with both physically and mentally, then financially and spiritually forced me to retreat and recalibrate. A process that was not quick nor easy, but like all great creations, I am emerging from the ashes anew. Stronger, wiser and more brilliant “brush your shoulders off." I have taken the necessary time to heal my wounds and have realigning with my mission to share love and wisdom Thank you for your gentle prayers and patience. I hope to one day share all the strive that I endured so you can heed the warnings and life your life with more intention.
Over the past year in Vermont, I have been strengthening my spirit for me to jump back on this horse of public presence. Stepping up to be the leader and communicator of divine messages I am meant to be. Which is my purpose. Recently I was lead to read The Four Spiritual Laws of Prosperity by Edwene Gains and one of her spiritual laws for attaining prosperity is “Finding your Purpose.” She writes that a great number of humans lives are troubled because of their desire to find their purpose. I had mine and I let it slip away. I was ashamed that I was unable to heal my hormonal disturbances #perimenopauseisabitch because I was suppose to be this great nutritionist, teaching to “just eat clean” using food as medicine to heal the body, and it really messed with my mind when I was unable to. It consumed me with self deprecating guilt, some expert I am, NOT. Then there was the overwhelming stress of our financial hardship. Losing our house, watching my husbands business slip away. My feelings of failure in inability to build a network marketing business with Arbonne. Which, in retrospect, network marketing was not aligned with my heart and it took a physical reaction to the protein powder I loved so much to make my eyes open to this fact. It didn’t align with me because for network marketing to be successful, I have to sell my self and my story, and that’s not who I am. I am to share God Love and spread divine stories.
Its quite challenging and humbling to move to a new state where you know no one. Trying to emmerse yourself into a new community, where everything is so vastly different from everything that you were once used to and relied on for comfort. I am so thankful for the many hearts who were kind and welcoming to me. At the school where my daughter enrolled and I later began working at, God placed many supportive souls that uplifted me and reminded me of its divine presence. To Okemo Mountain where I continued teaching group fitness (because I would truly be damned if I was not able to move my body frequently and be a servant to God in this way). I also became a ski instructor and was reminded how much I enjoy just being outside with children and experiencing their joy in their accomplishments. Our first year out here was hard. I worked tirelessly to make sure we had money to put food on the table and electricity in our home. Now. that our financial situation has improved and the survival stress is not so overwhelming, my anterior cingulate cortex has calmed and I can stop avoiding what is meant to be my divine blessing (you know me, always with the science <3).
So there you have a brief overview of the past few years. Thank you for taking the time to read it and I hope you enjoy the rest of the content that follows.
Good For the The Body: Muscle Myokines
Have you heard of these things? Myokines are teeny tiny cells that are released after your muscles get stretched or worked. To break it down further, there exist many kinds of “kines”. Which are signaling proteins. For instance Cytokines function as messengers for your immune system. If your body was to perceive threats, an invading germ that could make you sick, your body has immune cells that fight the invading pathogens. Cytokines will signal your immune cells to fight the invaders [s]. The type of cytokine is often names for the type of cell that produces them. Ie Lymphokines are produced by lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell and Monokines, produced by monocytes, another type of white blood cell.
Myokines are cytokines released from skeletal muscles in response to contraction, injury, or metabolic stress [s]. Their are many forms of myokines and collectively their purpose is to stimulate myocytes (skeletal muscle cells) that regulate muscle hypertrophy, regeneration, and metabolism. These molecules exert autocrine (same cell) and paracrine (near by cells) effects on muscle growth and repair. Meaning that they are the magic dust that makes your muscles sore and/or stronger after physical exertion. They also have been shown to have positive endocrine effects on organs like the liver (glucose > insulin sensitivity) and fat tissues (hello fat loss).
Cool? Confusing? Let me give you the jist. Muscle contraction triggers the release of myokines. We NEED to be stimulating these myokines if we want to fulfill that human body need to be in a state of growth. Its a use it or lose it situation. Myokines are necessary for ensuring the maintenance of skeletal muscle health. Period. Meaning if you are not contracting your muscles there is an inevitable break down of your skeletal muscle tissues aka sarcopenia. Skeletal muscle loss is a major health hazard [5]! Have you herd of Dr Gabriel Lyons? She is a major leading voice in Skeletal Muscle health and created Muscle-Centric medicine. A field of study devoted to treating skeletal muscle as an endocrine organ! And as a fitness professional I’ve been gobbling up all her wisdom ever since I herd her on the Model Health Show, because I see the truth in its application everyday in my classes.
Her research and findings are the main reason we aim to consume high protein breakfasts!
Through their role in organ cross-talk and systemic regulation of energy metabolism, myokines are the key to reducing inflammation, reducing the risk of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes.
So why am I telling you about myokines? Because as we age our bodies ability to secrete myokines that help build up our bodies (like apelin, β-aminoisobutyric acid (BAIBA), bone morphogenetic protein 7 (BMP-7), decorin, insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), interleukin-15 (IL-15), irisin, stromal cell-derived factor 1 (SDF-1), sestrin, secreted protein acidic rich in cysteine (SPARC), and vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGF-A) decreases, and the myokines that breakdown muscle cells, IL-6 and myostatin increase [s].
Clifnotes: To preserve body health, you need to engage in activities that contract/challenge your skeletal muscles. So please, do something that challenges your muscles. Consistently go for walks in nature, carry weights around your house (wear a weighted vest), take group fitness classes. Use them or lose them. Its not just good for your muscles, its good for overall health. It helps cognitive function, mitochondial (our energy producers) function, it helps manage blood glucose level and makes us more insulin sensitive… which I think that should be a topic I share about because insulin resistance is the reason why our population is reaching for all theGLP-1 drugs and why we are unable to lose weight more efficiently.
Skeletal muscle-secreted myokines are involved in cross-talk with other internal organs to regulate cognitive function by promoting learning & memory, stimulates osteoblast differentiation (for bone strength), enhance islet β-cell function. promote insulin secretion, regulate mitochondrial function, increase lipolysis and promote glucose oxidation. Through their role in organ cross-talk and systemic regulation of energy metabolism, myokines hold substantial promise for reducing inflammation and reducing the risk of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes.
Good For the The Mind: Self Discipline
Our minds are a tricky bugger, they can imagine the grandest of things and images. The mind has invented so many modern wonders; electricity, the internet even the Shamwow! While at the same time, the mind can be velcro for negative thoughts .
The mind has the capacity to manifest your greatest hopes and desires or it can be the chamber of persecution and self destruction. To think of the lyrics to the most enchanting of ballads or to swear a symphony of cuses your great uncle would blush over.
Thing is to get a handle on it so it doesn’t have the hand on you.
How? First off, you must know that all the sounds that go bouncing around in there is not you, its thoughts. You are not your thoughts. You are the watcher of your thoughts. So listening to them is what we can make a choice about. We can hear them and love them. OR we can hear them and say “nope, that is a lie.” OR we can hear them and do nothing, letting them go like a whisper in the breeze. Not attaching to them, not judging them, or if we do acknowledge them, examining why you might be thinking such thoughts… are you feeling hurt by what happened before, are you feeling nervous about an upcoming interaction, of course you could be feeling something else entirely?
By making a choice about Your thoughts is you exhibiting self discipline.
Its discipline to not believe everything you think.
Which you most certainly should NOT believe everything you can think. You must have discernment when selecting which thoughts you wish to keep and which to cast off as meer speculation. “Can you believe that so and so, she thinks she can just waltz in there and be so bold” “Oh no, better play it safe” “You want a break, gotta earn that rest first” “Better not to speak up, you don’t want anyone to suspect you’re different from them” “Stay out of the way” “Don’t do that” “Don’t say that”
To share, the senetiment is easier said then done of course. I surely am not expert. To this day having the discipline to not hear everything I think is a challenge. But as I have come to learn, this is a skill and something that most certainly builds with practice. Self Discipline is a muscle. And I am a person that builds stronger muscles. It only takes regular exercise, practice. Lifting something heavy, something slightly more than you think you can handle. then before you know you have raised your own bar of what you can handle.
So what would be “heavy” to handle in terms of watching your thoughts?
For one thing, challenging your the definition of truth with those thoughts.
I like the take the lead from Byron Katie and her work “Loving What Is.” Her blessing to us is “the work.” Where she spells out some basic principles to “enable you to go inside and find your own happiness, to experience what already exists within you, unchanging, immovable, ever-present, ever-waiting. No Teacher necessary. You are the teacher you’ve been waiting for.”
Byron shares some principles in approaching this heavy lifting.
Notice When Your Thoughts Argue with Reality - Human suffering happens when what we believe does not match what is true. “What you think shouldn’t have happen, should have happened.” It did and all your thinking can never change that fact. Thing is, you have no control over what happens, only God does. So why are you thinking you have any power to control it? You are creating a state of inner resistance, creating confusion and an inner struggle.
Staying in Your own Business - There are only 3 kinds of business. Yours, mine and Gods. “Much of our stress comes from mentally living out of our own business.” If you’ve had the thoughts “I want you to be happy,” “You need to take better care of yourself,” “You should not say, xyz” you are inevitably not in your own business, you are in their business. If you are concerned about earthquakes, the plague, stock market, or the price of real estate you are in Gods business. Not staying within your own business causes a separation from self. Being mentally in someone else’s business keeps you from being present in your own.
Meeting Your Thoughts with Understanding - “A thought is harmless unless we believe it. It’s not the thought that brings the suffering but the attachment to our thoughts that causes suffering. Attaching to a thought means believing that it’s true, without inquiring” (if in fact it is true, or not). When a thought comes up, how are you meeting it? My hope is with compassion and love, not discouragement and punishment.
Becoming Aware of Your Stories - I’d rather say, becoming familiar with the various stories we continuously tell ourselves. Stories. You know the same sequence of thoughts that spew out over and over again after something happens. Your partner fails to do something you’ve asked them to and its the olde thoughts, they don’t care about me, Or maybe its your trying to remember where you put your keys and its idiot, how could you be so forgetful. Oh you know your stories but that’s all they are stories. Are they true?
Looking for the Thought Behind the Suffering - What is Suffering? We suffer when our imagined reality is not what we are faced with. When our expectations, rather our attachments to those expectations goes by unfulfilled. We live in this mess of muck. Then some try to chase suffering away with distractions and numbing, finding temporary comfort and illusion of control.
In her book she shares a wonderful analogy of feelings being the alarm clock to tell us we’ve had a thought that could be worked on. “Investigating an untrue thought will always lead you back to who you really are.” Once you understand, though inquiry, that an untrue thought causes suffering, you move away from it. Like when your hand has touched the hot stove. It’s in the inquiry where truth is unearthed and peace is born.
Inquiry (aka The Work)- Investigate, ask yourself “Is this thought True?” “Do I absolutely know this to be True?” “What happens when I believe this thought?” “Who would I be without the thought?”
To do this “work” is a way to enhance and strengthen our self discipline. For your mind to know what is true and what is not so we can finally end our own suffering over little matters that are likely none of our business anyway.
GFT Spirit: Kundalini Yoga
Yoga means to Yoke. Originating from the Sanskrit root "yuj" meaning to join or unite. And when we engage with a yogic practice we are yoking together our body and our soul. If you have experienced a wonderful yoga practice then you know this to be true.
For me, Kundalini is the fastest and easiest method for me to yoke my-selfs together.
For some reason, putting my head down on a mat and trying to quiet my thoughts to be with my body…. that doesn’t work so well, for me.
But tell me to breath heavily and wave my arms in the air, my mind can get around that. See for me, I need to direct my mind to something more engaging. Its hard for me to sit still, but I sit in a comfortable seat can when I’m told that the Ong sound vibrates my vocal cords in a way which stimulates the spinal cord/brain stem to elicit a para-sympatheic nervous system response that allows my brain to silence. It’s that when I hold my breath, my abdula oblongata is tickled and Acetylcholine is released, promoting the feeling of safety and enhancing cognitive processing. Its not yoga, its technology that impacts our biology.
See when the vagus nerve (the 10th cranial nerve) is stimulated it down regulated stress. And honey, I need all the stress reduction I can get. We all do! And for me, this method of yoga works. But what’s good for the goose is not always good for the gander. Best thing to do is try for yourself and see how you like it.
I’ve got some info anf FAQ’s if you’d like to learn a bit more. Or you could sample a quick practice for Prosperity and Relaxation.
OR Join me for a practice. My next workshop will coincide with the Full Moon, Tuesday March 3rd at DG Bodyworks 6:30 pm - 8:00.
Nutrition Corner - Are ya getting enough fiber?
Fiber is one of those things, we know we need more of it but getting more doesn’t come easy. We need a tool or something simple to make getting more possible.
Why do we need more fiber. Stop, you know why. Regular BM’s for one. For another because it makes our microbiome so happy. and a happy belly is not bloated and gassy. A happy microbiome shows on your skin, acne is minimal. Oh you can read all about the wonderful things fiber does in my blog post.
So how can we get this thing more easily? Incremental additions.
A sprinkle of chia seeds on your yogurt, adding a side of greens and beans with your eggs. Adding the beans to your greens. A scoop of prebiotic fiber in your smoothie or protein shake. Here are a couple recipes to get you started.
