Most people don’t know what to say or do in times of enormous pain and suffering. It happens that I’ve learned a few things during the past month in which I lost my mother-in-law and three weeks later, her precious son, my husband and love of my life. I hope these points help you to navigate the experience with grace.

Don’t tell the spouse or responsible party for their care to “be strong.”

The fact that they continue to endure watching their loved one fight for life and show up for them every day and night, is evidence of their strength.

Many days, they want to break in two, but instead, they stand tall and face gripping uncertainty so palpable your well-meaning strength requirement discounts everything they’re going through.

“I want to help.” That’s great!

Start here.

Ask what they need and how you can help.

Don’t give them assignments and more work to do like updating you and entertaining you because you’re on the scene.

Try actually helping without any effort from them.

Here are a few ways to help:

• Cook meals and store in the fridge or freezer so they don’t have to. Daily trips and commutes to hospital visits are taxing. They need energy provided by food and your love.
  
• Pay for meal delivery from local eateries to hospital rooms or home to keep them well nourished and to provide much needed energy.
  
• Grocery shop for them without making it a thing.
  
• Offer to take them to and from hospital visits. This is needed more often than you may think.
  
• Babysit or provide childcare for those with children. Donate a day/night or two to give them rest.
  
• If they have pets, look after them – feeding, walking dogs, and caring for pets while they stay overnight at hospital visits.
  
• Prayer circles work miracles!

However, don’t ask for nor share specific details of the patient’s medical condition.

If you’re not a doctor on the team caring for the patient you don’t need to know the specifics.

Leave it up to them to share what THEY want to share and keep your mouth closed!

In this world of internet viral-ness the world seems to have gone mad sharing EVERYTHING!
It is not normal. People suffering and those supporting those suffering do not need their medical details spread to the world, large or small.

What to Say:

• I’m in this with you.
• I’m listening.
• I hear you.
• I’m here to mitigate stress and drama.
• We’re believing with and for you.
• God is in the Blessing and Miracle Business!
• I’ve got you!
• I’m praying for you with belief everyday!
• What would you like me to pray or chant for specifically?
• How can I be of service?

Losing a loved one is one of the most difficult experiences one can have.

The process leading up to their loss is gripping. You, a loving, well-meaning person can be a significant source of help and comfort, but it is a delicate balance. Be thoughtful, listen more than you speak, and set your intention on being comfort to them.

You’ll find they will remember you forever as someone who held them up while standing in the gap. ❤️

The post When Your Friend or Family Member is Fighting for His or Her Life appeared first on Everything Ro.

And try as they might, it is nearly impossible to have just one. Ahhh, but tasting one of these hot, freshly baked jewels can blow your plan if your goal is weight-loss. In fact, there are about 1,100 reasons why you should pump the breaks each time you reminisce about how good the experience might be. That’s right just 1 doughnut can cost you a whopping 1,100 calories! Translation? If your calorie budget is 1,200 a day, you’ve got maybe a piece of fruit, or 2 servings of leafy green veggies and water left to consume the same day without blowing your diet.

Wowzers! Are you still willing to take the Krispy Kreme plunge?

Willpower is a good enough strategy to abstain, if you’ve got it, but who are we kidding? Many of you had already abandoned your food and diet resolutions by the end of January and you know its true. Believe it or not and I do want your buy-in here, you can use the foods meant for your greatest pleasure—to as counterintuitive as it may seem, be your deepest motivators to win the battle of the bulge.

My True story: I confess, I’m an ice cream lover, a connoisseur of sorts. My go-to favorite choices were Haagen Dazs Belgian Dark Chocolate or Banana Split ice creams, which I used to inhale by the pint. Yes, America’s Nutrition Coach confesses, she never a met a pint of either flavor she didn’t love! But for obvious reasons, I knew I had to quit. I started the process by convincing myself that everything about the ice cream was bad for my body: it contained too much fat, sugar, and far too many calories for my body and therefore had to go. So I set my mind on these thoughts:

I made it disgusting—the smell of banana split was too sugary and the chocolate, too chocolaty and it made my breath smell of milk. I also decided it was too expensive and that other brands were more fairly priced. Each time I went to the grocery store I made a point not to trot down the ice cream aisle just to maintain my resolve. The alternative would have rendered me weak at the knees and many days it did. I should mention here that Banana Split is a limited edition offered by the brand, only at certain times of the year and for a LIMITED TIME. Because of this, the urge was strong to take the ice cream route on the way to the seafood or any other area of the store. It was as if the ice cream had some sort of gravitational pull, a real hold on me. Suffice it to say it was hard, people!

I convinced myself that it not only tasted horrific, but that it also gave me brain freeze, and not worth the economic “hardship.” On this point I decided that I could use the money for things more important to me. So each time I bought and ate the ice cream, I became increasingly more convinced that this was a horrible experience for me and it had to stop.

Here’s a fact. When you talk (to yourself), even as a thought, your brain, your whole body listens! And this may sound kooky, but I will tell you that your spirit, your very soul listens too; a very good thing, because all of your body’s important parts respond in kind.

Back to my ice cream story—

One day after having just purchased a fresh pint of Banana Split, which is 560 calories, 32 grams of fat, and a whopping 54 grams of sugar per cup serving, I had had enough. I rationalized that the calories alone were just under half of the calories I should have been eating all day. The 18 grams/serving of saturated fat in the ice cream far exceeded the maximum 13 grams I should consume in a day. There was no win here, for me the nutrition coach who had gone rogue.

But there was something different with this pint of ice cream that hadn’t happened before. I noticed that after all of the self-talk and demonizing, my desire for what had controlled me and my behavior for too long, had waned, much like summer comes to an end. I took a tablespoon from the kitchen drawer, scooped 2 level spoonsful of the ice cream, ate it, and decided that was enough.

What happened next was even more surprising. I didn’t eat any ice cream the next day, nor the four days that followed.

Weeks raced by before I did have banana split ice cream again, and not more than my decidedly level-headed, 2 level tablespoonsful. I allowed myself to savor the ice cream and realized that I could be just as satiated with 2 spoonsful as I had been with an entire pint.

The point is…just as you can savor an uber-pleasant experience about something that causes you to spin out of control, whether its ice cream, cigarettes, or foods that blow your weight-loss plans out of the water…you also have the same power to convince yourself of their unpleasant, detrimental, horrible, disgusting, diet-sabotaging effects. See what I did there? Now you have even more adjectives to add to your arsenal the next time you happen upon your personal “Krispy Kreme” moment.

Here is the Krispy Kreme Strategy in a Nutshell:

• Convince yourself that the food you crave, is the demon in your diet, then purge its warm, gooey memory from your psyche
• Make your demonized food-fave disgusting, repugnant, and offensive in your mind. Think of it as an upset to your digestive system
• Feel the uneasiness and discomfort of being too full of the food to the point that it becomes difficult to keep it down

Still want that pesky old food that represents the bane of your dietary existence or nah?

You have my permission to take this mental exercise as far as your imagination will travel. Remember, the reason you crave the food is because you have fond memories of deliciousness when you think of it. The goal is to make your thoughts about your food demons, especially those that you crave, work for you rather than against you. Thoughts are things too, and in this case your thoughts can make or break your diet and healthy living success.

Repeat these steps and remind yourself each time a pleasant memory tries to inch its way into your thoughts that it’s a trick that you’re not falling for this time.

Now breathe—release and let it go!

With Love and Happiness,
XOX

Rovenia Brock, Ph.D. is a medical advisory board member and contributor to the “Dr. Oz Show,” where she helped more than a half-million Americans lose more than 5 million pounds. She is the author of Dr. Ro’s Ten Secrets To Livin’ (Bantam). For more health, nutrition, and fitness tips, join Dr. Ro and her social media community and get a FREE Download of her new eBook of super-easy tips, “You Healthy and Happy” at http://www.everythingro.com

The post Krispy Kreme Doughnuts-The Best Part of a Weight-loss Diet appeared first on Everything Ro.

So why is this important to you? African Americans suffer from type 2 diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and conditions such as lactose intolerance, at disproportionate rates, compared to other groups, and therefor may benefit from supplements along with the inclusion of specific foods to prevent or treat these illnesses.

The first line of defense for nutrition should always be food, but because many people fall short, supplementing your balanced diet may be in order.

DISCLAIMER:

If you choose to take nutritional supplements, check with your doctor to confirm that they will not interfere with any medications you may be taking and DO NOT exceed the recommended daily allowance of the nutrient.

Here is my short primer of nutrient supplements and the reasons they should matter to you:

Magnesium– needed for more than 300 biochemical reactions in the body, including a healthy immune system. This macro-mineral helps to maintain normal nerve and muscle function helps to keep your bones strong, protects the heart, helping it to beat steadily, regulates blood sugar levels, and steadies blood pressure. These functions are especially important to African Americans who routinely have higher than average rates of type- 2 diabetes, heart disease, and high-blood pressure. In fact, there is continued ongoing research underway on the role of magnesium in preventing and managing high blood pressure, heart disease, and diabetes disorders.

Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs) for Magnesium:

Adult females: 310 – 320 milligrams/D

– Pregnancy: 350 – 400 milligrams/D

-Breastfeeding: 310 – 360 milligrams/D

Adult males: 400 – 420 milligrams

Your Food Rx for Magnesium:

Include more magnesium in your diet with dark, leafy green vegetables, and fruits: bananas, dried apricots, and avocado; include nuts: raw almonds, pine nuts, and cashews; peas , beans, seeds like pumpkin seeds, and legumes such as peanuts, and whole grains such as millet, and fish (think mackerel).

Calcium- needed not only healthy bones and teeth, but calcium may also be helpful in the prevention of heart disease and there is good evidence that calcium is also useful in the prevention an control hypertension, obesity and it helps protect against breast and colon cancer, all diseases and conditions with which African Americans struggle at greater, often 2 or 3 times the rate of white Americans.

Adequate Intakes (AI) for Calcium from food:

Adults 18 years: 1,300 mg/D

Adult Women: 19-50+ years: 1,000 mg/D

Adult Men: 50+: 1,200 mg/D

Tolerable Upper Limits (UL) for Calcium from Supplements:

Adults and Children over 1yr. old: 2,500 mg/D

* Take calcium supplements with food and break into 500 mg doses for best absorption.

Your Food Rx for Calcium:

Include more low-fat milk, cheese, yogurt, broccoli, kale, bok choy, calcium-fortified juices

Vitamin D- needed for bone health, a healthy immune system, even fighting depression. Its primary source is the sun, but there are a few foods that provide good amounts of vitamin D as well. Most people in the U.S. are known to have sufficient vitamin D, but studies show that African Americans have lower blood levels of vitamin D compared to other groups. The latest NHANES –III data found that 54%-76% blacks in the southern region of the U.S. had low blood levels of Vitamin D compared to 8%-33% of whites. One reason that may explain the disparity in part is the fact that melanin, responsible for our skin pigmentation reduces vitamin D production in the skin. But another reason has everything to do with diet. From puberty well into adulthood, black people are well below the recommended vitamin D intake at every age group. This is probably related to the problem or in some cases, the perception and self-diagnosis of lactose intolerance, an issue easily rectified with lactose-free milk, or lactaid capsules (taken with meals and before consuming dairy products). 

Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs) for Vitamin D:

Adults up to 70: 600 IU/D

Adults 70+ years old: 800 IU/D

Your Food Rx for Vitamin D:

Include more low-fat milk and cheese in your diet. If you are lactose intolerant or have dairy allergies, try and vitamin D-fortified nut milks such as almond and cashew, or coconut milk. Other options are canned salmon with bones, packed in oil, canned tuna in water, mackerel, cod liver oil (generally 1 tsp/D) , beef, egg yolks, and calves liver.

With Love and Happiness,
XOX

Rovenia Brock, Ph.D. is a medical advisory board member and contributor to the “Dr. Oz Show,” where she helped more than a half-million Americans lose more than 5 million pounds. She is the author of “Dr. Ro’s Ten Secrets To Livin’ Healthy (Bantam). For more health, nutrition, and fitness tips, join Dr. Ro and her social media community and get a FREE Download of her new eBook of super-easy tips, “You Healthy and Happy” at http://www.everythingro.com

The post The Life of Your Dreams In A Pill appeared first on Everything Ro.

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As a nutrition and wellness coach, I spend countless working hours delivering the message of Empowerment and owning one’s own special kind of beauty to women who’s body images have wreaked havoc on their minds and self concepts. Watching Lizzo fully and rightfully stake her claim on her beautiful body and embolden other women to follow suit was refreshing to say the least. It gave me hope that the table has been flipped and Big-bodied women were finally getting the message that no matter what anyone else says, they deserve to own their worth as women and as vessels of beauty and intoxicating power.

LIZZO The Lecture – Now The Lab

But the next day, I ran into a beautiful woman at the grocery store, “Hey Girl, Hey!,” who told me that a previous relationship had messed up her head so badly that almost 10 years later (now) she still didn’t feel good about herself. She complained of carrying a few extra pounds following the birth of a baby boy two months earlier, but she looked totally healthy and of normal weight to me.

I listened as her darting, sad eyes found every way imaginable to say she had been broken by someone too unenlightened to honor her value. The stench of this “curse” still clung to her whole person which she now embodied.

I spoke to her soul when I shot straight through her faulty belief system and said simply, “You Are Worthy.” I asked, “Who told you that you weren’t?” It was there that the tears came rolling down her beautiful cheeks. Her eyes filled with water, found a place on the asphalt lot as she recounted daily humiliation, mental tricks, and emotional abuse from a former lover. Now she was married to a man who loved her with his whole heart and spent every waking moment telling and showing her as much, yet she couldn’t hear him through her previous lover’s opinion.

She still believed what someone had said about her was true. Women, especially take to heart the opinions of others about their bodies. Here again was a glaring example of the societal and communal collateral damage staring me in the face with those beautiful and sad eyes believing the lies of hurt people were true.

Geico, You Play Too Much–And We See You ?

After Lizzo’s dope, empowering performance on the VMAs I saw the Geico commercial. It sanctioned the fact that society needs a gut check when it comes to selling and buying the same old lies–that skinny women are somehow more worthy of love, affection, and attention than average-sized and Yes…big-bodied women. Hold up–wait a minute!

When Geico decided to put an averaged-sized, plump woman in a laundromat to sell insurance it was one thing. In that body, she like the rest of us, had lost socks to the dryer and life was hum-drum. [I mean do we really love doing laundry]? But when they switched that “same” woman to a slimmer version of herself, surrounded her with smiling, adoring men, who pawed and fawned all over her (honestly they couldn’t get enough), found all socks-–perfect pairs, and was Winning–I almost threw my shoe at the TV! The nerve! Shame on them for pushing this propaganda!

Let Me Bottom-line It For You, Geico

Our bodies–though they come in a myriad of shapes, sizes and forms–are each and all to be celebrated- but are not the full extent of our personage. And get this–our collective value and worth is greater than the sum total of every woman’s body you have ever or will ever see. #facts Got it?

I’m aware that selling insurance is a far cry from touching hearts, but seeing a person for her humanness is a great starter for this nutritionist and servant. Because I have observed from my clients and the community…people don’t care what you know until they know that you care.

Hey Lizzo! Keep being a beacon!

Dr. Ro is a veteran Nutritionist, Author of the book, Lose Your Final 15, media personality and Host of the Dr. Ro On Demand Podcast.

The post Geico Got It Wrong, Lizzo Gets It Right! appeared first on Everything Ro.

During difficult times – Author Wendy Mogel, Ph.D. Psychologist and author of Blessings of a Skinned Knee says —
“Don’t look at a snapshot and think it’s the whole movie. Get out of bed and your comfort zone, build a new dream, have a short cry and a good laugh with a friend, and one day you’ll sing about how you got over the blues too.”

Have you ever learned something by “going thru the fire?” Tell us how you got through your difficult situation and how it has changed your life for the better. Win a signed copy of Dr. Ro’s Ten Secrets To Livin’ Healthy. Write your comments below and email us at info@everythingro.com with your address and phone number to receive your book!

With Love and Happiness,
XOX

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Though vegetables were plentiful in our house, they were usually cooked with lard or fatback and either deep-fried or slow-cooked until the nutrients were leached out. That diet finally caught up with my mother, and she became very sick. The overweight powerhouse I had known for my first nine years ended up confined to her bed, a tiny shrunken shell of her former self. During her final days she was unable to keep down even a forkful of watermelon, her favorite summer fruit. Her best friend, Rosetta Lewis, who became my guardian, would send me off for it, saying, “Run to the store as fast as your little legs will carry you.” I did, thinking if I could just make it to Safeway, get my mom’s watermelon, and race back without delay, I could somehow stop the bandit that was robbing me of my precious mother. I was wrong. Even the love and undying dedication of a 9-year old could not stop the inevitable. Finally, my mother died and the devastation of the blow crippled my spirit.

In the years since my mother’s death, I’ve learned a lot about diet and disease prevention: Abandoning the brown and beige meat and potatoes American style of eating and adopting a meal plan of colorful fruits and vegetables with small amounts of whole grains and lean protein can save your life. Chemical compounds — like phytochemicals and antioxidants — found in dark, leafy greens and brightly colored fruits and vegetables protect the body against the harmful effects of free radicals, and can thereby reduce the incidence of cancer and heart disease.

Had my mother known better, perhaps she might have lived to see more of what I would do with my life. To be sure, I feel her presence with each milestone, and I know she smiles upon each opportunity I seize to make life better for the countless others whom I serve.

With Love and Happiness,
XOX

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