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.

1. Eat protein with every meal. Eating this way keeps you full for longer periods of time, helping you to avoid over-eating. This helps you to stay within your calorie budget for the day, rather than exceed it.
2. Drink More Water. In fact you should drink half your weight (in pounds) in ounces of water everyday not only to lose weight, but to also boost your metabolism, keep your muscles, tendons and joints lubricated for workouts. Here’s an easy way to approach your daily water consumption. If you weigh 150 pounds you should be drinking at least 75 ounces of water. Round it up and shoot for 80. Find a favorite water bottle and keep it filled. Drink your first 16-20 ounces as soon as you get out of bed and finish it up 2 hours before bed to avoid disrupting your sleep patterns.
3. Eat whole fruit instead of drinking the juice because it saves lots of calories. Just think of it, 1 medium orange contains only 39 calories and no added sugar, while 1 cup of OJ has 112 calories and 26 grams of sugar.
4. Fill-up on veggies. Vegetables are lowest in calories of all other food categories and have more fiber, which fills you up so there’s no room for high-calorie, sugar and fat-laden, diet-blowing foods. For weight-loss, veggies are the holy grail because they’re not only chock-full of fiber, they are nutritional powerhouses. They also contain lots of water, which makes them nutrient-dense, high volume foods that you can eat far more of without the guilt. Steam, bake, broil (think tomato), sautee, or roast. Make a point to eat lots of leafy greens (collards, kale, arugula, spinach, cabbage, Brussels sprouts), green beans, and asparagus. Green foods help to protect you from inflammation throughout the body from the joints and muscles to causing more serious diseases (heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and more).
5. Replace white rice with black, brown, red, wild rices, and quinoa. These whole grains contain more fiber and keep your blood sugar stable, which prevents the weight-gain.
6. Replace refined grains with whole, unprocessed grains called sprouted grains, like that found in whole grain breads and cereals, such as Ezekiel Breads and Cereals.
7. Substitute refined pasta with that made of Black Beans and other beans. Black Bean Pasta is made of only 2 ingredients: black beans and water, and is 48% fiber, packed with 25 grams of protein (never heard of in pasta before), and 26% iron. The combination of fiber and the small 17 grams of carbs with the 25 grams of protein is a dietary coup for losing weight. The texture is chewy, the flavor, slightly meaty, and perfect for a filling, high-protein meal with ground turkey, mushrooms and red sauce.
8. Make meat, fish, and poultry an accompaniment to your meal, not the main attraction. Fewer calories and portion control will get the body you seek much quicker. Learn to do this several times a week and you’ll find that you not only lose the weight but it will stay off. Permanently!
9. Eat sandwiches 1 slice of bread at a time. Instantly slash 100-130 calories from your meal by eating open-faced sandwiches. Most slices of bread are 100-130 calories each. By making open-faced sandwiches, you beat the system and cut calories, a necessary and manageable way to lose weight. If you opt for Ezekiel Bread, which is whole, sprouted grains, you could occasionally use both slices of bread at only 80 calories per slice.
10. Go Meatless. Make meatless meals such as pasta and red sauces, veggie stir-fry, beans and brown, black, or red rice, curried veggies, egg salad or egg white and veggie omelet, almond butter on toasted cinnamon (Ezekiel) bread. From breakfast to dinner, these are just a few examples of quick-n-easy meals to make in minutes to help you stay the course.
11. Share entrees and dessert when eating out. You can save up to 500 calories if you do this and make a point to leave food on the plate. No one ever lost weight from being a member of the “clean plate club.”
12. Boost Metabolism and Up Your Workout Game. Eat 2/3 cup of cooked oatmeal 45 minutes to an hour prior to your workouts to increase endurance and in turn, burn more calories.
13. Eat your first meal within 1 hour of waking up. You boost your metabolism this way, which prepares your body to work harder for you for the day.
14. Stop Eating 2-3 hours before bed. If you are working out consistently your body will burn fat and calories even at rest. Late-night snacking is the bane of existence for anyone trying to lose weight, so lose this habit…quickly!
15. Get 7-8 hours of sleep each night. Your body has its own clock and needs sleep just as it does food and water. Sleep makes you more alert, helps you to maintain high-energy, and keeping your circadian rhythms in tact, which help you to lose or maintain weight.

This blog post is sponsored by F-15 Meal Plan (The Program Dr. Ro used to help America Shed 5 Million Pounds).

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 Fifteen Tips To Lose 15 Pounds Now! appeared first on Everything Ro.

Pasta:

When you think of carbs, pasta is the holy grail. It is the first thing that generally comes to mind. But 1 serving of traditional spaghetti and meatballs contains 54 carbs and 433 calories. But with Explore Asian black bean spaghetti you can reduce your carb count to 17 grams and your calories to just 180. Now that’s what I call a win! This is my new favorite pasta because, not only do I love its chewy texture and meaty flavor, but it is made with just 2 ingredients—black beans and water and has a whopping 25 grams of protein and 12 grams of fiber in each serving! This is big, because traditional pastas typically contain only 7-8 grams of protein per serving. When you eat a complex carbohydrate like beans and include lean protein in the same meal, you get the double benefit of energy, compliments of the complex carb and the muscle-building protein, plus the fiber fills you up so you are satiated and feeling full for longer periods of time so no over-eating. Now that’s hard to beat.

Pizza:

Of course its not just college frat boys and co-eds, who enjoy a good pizza every once in a while, but did you know that you can cut carbs here too? That’s right, its all about the crust. When you switch the ingredients of your pizza crust you can cut carbs to a tasty and manageable level that allows you to have pizza night for yourself and the family any time you choose. Eureka! Just one slice of cheese and veggie pizza has 41 grams of carbs and 372 calories. Most people have 3 slices at one sitting. For a woman following a 1,200 calorie weight-loss diet, that could amount to her carb and calorie budget for the whole day! Here’s one creative way to have your pizza and eat it too and it’s tasty, healthy, and cuts the carbs in half.

Make the dough using cauliflower instead of wheat flour and reduce your carb and calorie count from 41 grams and 372 calories/slice of traditional pizza to just 14 grams and 272 calories/slice of the cauliflower crusted pizza with my recipe.

Potato Chips:

I have yet to meet the person, who doesn’t enjoy a good potato chip, and for good reason. They are the perfect combination of a salty, buttery flavor with a crunchy bite that satisfies, but a single serving bag of potato chips has 15 grams of carbs and 160 calories and the truth is most people don’t eat just one…bag. But I have found a way to satisfy the chip lover in you that’s scrumptious and the best part is these chips are carb-free! These cheesy chips contain only 60 calories, no carbs— zip, zilch, nada, and they deliver on savory flavor and crunch.

To make your own cheesy chips:

1. Slice 1 each roll of string cheese (made of part-skim mozzarella) into quarter inch slices
2. Lightly spray a cookie sheet with olive oil cooking spray
3. Place cheese “chips” on the tray an inch apart
4. Bake in 375 degree oven for 4-5 mins.
5. Peel off chips, and enjoy!

Ice Cream Sundae

We all scream for ice cream! But ice cream in its creamy, cool, sugary goodness is a high-carb, indulgence that can certainly pack on the pounds. The average ice cream sundae contains a whopping 172 grams of carbs and from 600 to over 1,000 calories. This one-time treat can blow your entire calorie and carb budget for the whole day. But there is a way to simplify this dessert and dramatically cut carbs and calories. I call it banana nice cream.

1. Add 1 frozen banana to a food processor
2. Add 2 TBS of almond milk and pulse to desired consistency
3. Top with a sprinkle of cinnamon.

If you enjoy a good butter pecan ice cream try adding 1 TBS of crunchy almond butter, it does the trick.

Find the recipes to all of my carb-fixes at www.everythingro.com

Bon Appetite!

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 Eat Carbs-No Weight Gain! 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.

GOD

I recently watched a broadcast of Your Move with Andy Stanley and learned more about the life of Moses and its impact on the true value of time. It turns out Moses and I have more in common than I imagined. Using his example, Andy pointed out a very important spiritual lesson about ways to more effectively use our time and in the process get even more of it from our day. Both the concept and Moses’ journey resonated with me.

Full disclosure: I never read the bible as a daily practice because I didn’t understand the “thee and thou” old testament passages and couldn’t relate to it’s fire and brimstone “I will smite thee” language. I now read it occasionally, using a plain English or new Living version to get the lessons therein.

Journey to The Promised Land

So Pastor Andy (a really good teacher) explained that the first part of Moses’s life was great! He became a Prince, an adopted grandson of the original Pharaoh of Egypt. But after a catastrophic life event he was forced to leave the palace, run for his life and became a shepherd for the next 40 years. It was considered a lowly job, so much for being born for greatness, right? Not so fast. He did his job with excellence and pride and in the process was prepared for the great life that he would come to experience.

Then as the story goes, God called on Moses to lead his people to the Promised Land but when they arrived, he was told he could not enter and could only look at it.

My Journey To The S.E. Projects

These two examples of Moses’ life experience seemed to be akin to a few of my own. For the first 9 years my life was literally charmed. My mother—the most loving, funny, and kind soul I could have been born to, worked tirelessly to give me a life in which I would “want for nothing” (as she’d put it). She loved me more than life itself, saw to it that I had healthy self-esteem, and used every moment as a teachable moment. Life was great! Then at age 9, she died.

Life after her death wasn’t exactly charmed but I had love from a guardian that couldn’t have loved me more had she birthed me herself. But we moved to the S.E. housing projects in Washington, D. C. and it was one of the worst living experiences I ever had. From rats and roaches taking over our small home to burglaries, robberies, street violence and much more, it was pure HELL.

Without it [and my guardian to guide me] my life today may not be as good as it is. The experience of having to live in the projects fortified me, built my character, and gave me stealth determination never to have to live that way again. I developed an unstoppable work ethic and commitment to excellence that even I didn’t know lived inside of me.

Life On My Terms – A 13-Year-Old’s Decision

Upon leaving for college I vowed never to return to the Garfield projects again. Much later, it was Iyanla Vanzant that helped me to recall a memory that I had buried, yet was living out. She told my husband in a coaching session that I was the 13-year-old girl who stood outside my project home and watched the movers carry our meager belongings inside, while gigantic-sized rats bore holes under its structure (a visual to this day that remains a fixture firmly implanted in my mind), and said to herself, “I’ll take it from here because when adults take over my life it gets effed-up!” And you know she could not have been more accurate. I remember the moment I took responsibility for my life—as that 13-year-old. It felt at once terrifying and empowering.

That move began my Shepherd experience. I’ve had others since then. I’ve also been to the mountaintop and peeked out over it, but like Moses, it wasn’t my time to enter. I’ve also realized that the way I wished to earn my living may not always be consistent with my calling and is just the tip of the iceberg [for what God has called and created me to do]. With deep spiritual diving, I’ve come to understand that Moses, who tended to his sheep with care and excellence, appreciated the opportunity to do so. I too, appreciate every opportunity I’m extended.

US

Sometimes we want the big rewards, money, spotlight, and fame that come with being celebrated. But in God’s eyes our gifts, talents, and earthly flash are rarely the reason for our creation. There are celebrated and gifted people who bring lots to the world to make it and us better. But for those who manage to connect with their purpose, I believe it has little to do with money, even less with fame, and much more to do with the good that can be achieved, using them all.

The Lesson and Getting More TIME

So whatever your time as a “shepherd,” a guide on the side, or sage on the stage – I urge you remember your reason for being— through it all. We each have a finite number of days to be here. But we can choose how we live them, moment by moment and we have the opportunity to use them to live a life of true authenticity.

The bottom line is this…when we live out loud, celebrate what makes us different, rather than blend ourselves into the surface of other peoples’ expectations and comfort zones, we can choose to spend our time, talent and resources on what matters most to us. In this way we can get even more time from our days because we’re not running around spinning our wheels on what the world says we should. In the process we may find our connection to what we came here to offer the world and ourselves. When we can do that there lies the opportunity to leave a world better for our having been here.

With Love and Happiness,
XOX

Rovenia Brock, Ph.D. has contributed to The View, NPR, Meredith Vieira, and served as 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 Lose Your Final 15 a new book in which she developed the Final 15 Program and is on a mission to help 1 million people lose 15 million pounds. For more tips on health, nutrition, and inspiration join Dr. Ro’s 15 Million Pound Challenge and follow her on social media at www.everythingro.com.

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All dressed up wearing no make up… and for me, that’s ok

I’m all dressed up, wearing no make-up…and for me, that’s ok. You see this is a day for which I am most grateful. My grandmother lived to be 93 years old. I was only 7 when she died. I was heartbroken, but one year earlier, I had lost my mother’s eldest sister to complications of diabetes and hypertension when she was just 58. Two years later, just as our family was still reeling from their monumental losses, I would lose my mother—a single parent—to stomach cancer. Suffice it say that I became intimately acquainted with death far earlier than I wanted or thought I would. So you can appreciate that the reasons for my gratitude today run far deeper than usual. For the first 40 years of my life I was plagued by thoughts of being visited by an early death before I was ready.

My mother was 53 when she made her exit.

My mother was 53 when she made her exit. So 7 years ago, when I turned 53, then 54, my preoccupation with death subsided. I thought, well I’ve made it past my mother’s age at her time of death, so maybe I’m safe. I should tell you that my preoccupation with death was exacerbated by the fact that my mother learned that she had stomach cancer the same year she gave birth to me. That fact informed doctors to keep a close, watchful eye on my healthcare all of my life. No one could be sure that I had not been exposed to the cancerous cells that took over her body while I was still in-utero. I offer this short slice of my story as a way of sharing what I’ve learned through these and other experiences for well over more than a half century.

I am painfully aware that we live in a society wrought with age-ism and a constant yearning for perfection. And try as we might, we can never achieve (perfection) because perfection in itself is an overrated, unrealistic concept. In my 60 years, I’ve learned that to make progress, not perfection— is perhaps one of the greatest gifts you can give to yourself. To love yourself enough to thumb your nose at doubters and on-lookers and be comfortable in your own skin is really what’s hot.

In truth, we baby boomers, all 77 million of us, left to the whims of the advertising industry, Madison Avenue, and a millennial generation, would be cast aside to wither away and die, as if we had outlived our purpose. HA!

“There Is No Life Without Purpose”

There can be no life without purpose, meaning if you, anyone, or anything is here, alive—you have a purpose. It would be a shame to leave this earth and your life, without living out the full purpose of the life that God intended for each of us.
So age-ism, be damned! You can be sexy, smart, beautiful, loving, kind, and generous of heart, spirit, and of your time at ANY age. It’s not about what others see on the outside that makes us great or special. It’s what’s on the inside that counts…

I’ve come to understand that with this purposeful life we can get the best and the most from it if we:
1. Enjoy and marvel at the little things. They’re all around us and teach us life’s deepest meaning over all.
2. Love ourselves, and others as God loves each of us.
3. Never take “no” for an answer for the things that are deepest in our character and our calling and that we hold sacred.
4. Laugh often, because laughter truly is the best medicine. Food is a very close second.
5. Take care of our bodies, stretch our minds, and nurture our spirits. Without either we are unable to fulfill our purpose on earth.
6. Dare to Look into the eyes of others–all others–and see ourselves. It is the quickest and most effective path I’ve found to serving humanity. It liberates us to be truly accepting of what is, while appreciating what we are, and encourages our refusal to judge others—lest we “be judged by the same judgment”. When you can do this the heinous acts committed on humanity by humans become impossible.

Celebrate and support other women, for we are our sisters’ keeper.

7. Celebrate and support other women. We are really our sister’s keeper and we are literally responsible for giving birth to civilization itself. What we do to or for our sister, we do to and for ourselves. “If not for her, where would I be?”
8. Get off the shoulders of our ancestors who blazed the trails before us and fertilize new ground with our own contribution for the generations that follow.
9. Love our spouses and partners unconditionally, for in each other we are strength.
10. Give more that we expect to get. It is our rent for living.

It comes down to this:
Age really lives in your body, from the neck up. Age and aging is less about how you feel and more about how you think. You’re as old or young as your attitude dictates. You are the age of whatever your perspective is and your relationship to yourself and the world around you. Compare yourself only to yourself and live, really live, your life as you choose. Refuse to live a life projected onto you by someone else, no matter who that person is or how much you love them. Your love of self only fortifies your ability to love another. Dedicate your time to things that bring you joy over pain, growth over ignorance, and the rest? As my mama used to say “Charge it to the ground, let the rain settle it!”

Maya Angelou, an inspiration

I don’t know if “40 really is the new 30” or if 60 is anything but 60, but I know this— when Oprah asked Maya Angelou during a Super Soul Sunday interview “What is it like to be 80?” Maya responded, “Its good work if you can get it. You ought to try it if you can.”

I’m on the path to get there so far it has been one hell of a great ride!

Celebrate your age and beauty! Share your story and send me your feedback..
Share, Like and Invite other women to share their stories here and send pictures of yourselves in all your beautiful splendor 😀

I can’t wait to hear from you!

With Love and Happiness

XOX

The post Age AIN’T Nothin’ But a Number! A Call to Women 40 + appeared first on Everything Ro.

Think about it. Let’s say you’ve wanted to sing songs that maybe you even wrote, in front of an audience your whole life. But you’ve been surrounded by people in your community, maybe even in your family, that discourage such behavior because you have a steady job and should, in their unsolicited opinions, focus your efforts on your steady gig. But since you were a small child, maybe even a fetus in your mama’s womb, singing has been the thing you’ve wanted most to do.

How could it be wrong for you to do literally what MAKES YOUR HEART SING? But you trot yourself, your soul, spirit (you decide what you wish to call your inner-most guiding being) off to the desk at your sensible job, seething because everyone and everything in your midst makes you feel as if the life is being squeezed out of you–moment, by each excruciating moment. And day after tireless day, you find yourself even more unfulfilled than those days that came and went before.

Sound familiar? If it does, know that the person who penned these words stands with you. This too, was my story. More on that as we build our relationship here. What I will say to you now is that I’ve always known what I wanted. I believed my mother, who told me so as a 4 year old and I’ve since confirmed for myself that she was right. But I’ve also learned that just because you’re lucky enough to be born with clarity doesn’t mean you’ll always be supported in your pursuit of what you want by those around you. And here’s the really tricky part. If you ignore your heart’s desires and suppress that which you may have come here to do…your soul will die just a little, each day you ignore your truth. That’s right, you can be ultimately responsible for killing your own soul’s desire, therein killing your own soul. Let that sit there a while and marinate.

It is a sobering thought, yes! But the remedy may not be as difficult as you may think. I’m not advocating that you give up your job without an income to live on; we are all responsible for our own lives, our own pursuit of dreams, and our own happiness. But the fact is you too, can be as happy and as fulfilled as you want to be.

Let’s take those songs you’ve written, or the book that you’ve been telling others around you that you were going to write, or maybe the dance lessons you wanted to take, but allowed the busyness of life and other people’s problems to interrupt your own pursuits. Whatever the reasons or story you’ve told yourself, you are in control of what happens next. That is a fact!

The blessing and the cool thing about this gift we call life, is that we can change the course of our own at any point in time. Today, this moment now, you can decide to stop telling yourself the same old story of what you could be doing and want so desperately to do and just, well— DO IT!

Now you may not do it at first, on a world stage. Don’t be disappointed. Do it for friends, strangers, or anyone who will listen. I started as a poet on the front college campus lawn of my undergraduate alma mater, Virginia State University. I performed (because I’ve been a performer since I was born, and maybe long before) for upper classmen and a few friends as a college freshman, fed up with the apathy I saw amongst my peers. I used to write and recite poetry about social issues that got under my skin. The poems, then and now would simply arrive and I would write them down and they became the spoken words of my life. That eventually led to a performance at Blues Alley, in Washington, D.C. with jazz great, saxophonist Mike Phillips, whom I now call a friend. It was a dream, come true! I performed on the same stage where I had seen Nancy Wilson, Phyllis Hyman, and so many other iconic artists dazzle audiences, all because I said “yes” when the universe offered me the gift of poetry at VSU, and again when that gift refused to lay down and die, but took up residence and continues to live in me today. Poetry has not only helped me to give voice to the people and issues that matter most to me, but last year Oprah even excerpted one my poems “The Life We Got” in her column of O Magazine (see Dec. 2014 issue “What I Know For Sure.”) How fortuitous!

So to you I say, whatever your heart’s desire, don’t let it die. You’ve got the great gift of life–you’re here. Grab hold and live it with gusto!

Refuse from this day onward, to live anything less than a vibrant life.

As we say “goodbye for now”, I leave you with a gift from my heart to yours, a poem, “Be True,” from my soon-to-be released Poetry CD, titled “Poetry In Motion.” I hope you dig it. It’s about being true to one’s self J

With Love and Happiness,

XOX

The post How To Fix What Sucks In Your Life appeared first on Everything Ro.