Sarah Wilson

how to heal autoimmune disease: the SCENAR machine

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I’m on a mission to find the most nurturing techniques for healing autoimmune disease conditions. As I keep saying: anyone who doesn’t have an AI will find these posts just as helpful because they’re all about moving towards maximum wellness. As in, effortless, kind, bountiful wellness. This post I’m sharing the sweet joys that are the SCENAR.

123506 4 600 how to heal autoimmune disease: the SCENAR machine
Photo by Gabriele Rigon

I first encountered the SCENAR via James Korber of Straighten Up. He’d treated me with the Atlas correction technique and at the end of the session pulled out this funny little device, about the size of a TV remote, and started running it up and down my neck.

Oh my.

I can’t begin to tell you the effect this contraption can have. Instantly. After borrowing James’ (and getting some little tutorials from him…if you’re in Byron, Newcastle or Sydney, he does SCENAR treatments in your home) I got my own. I apply it to painful, inflamed parts of my body, it zaps its thing and I get relief.

I’m guessing you need some more info…yes?

OK.

What is this thing you speak of?

SCENAR is an acronym for ‘Self Controlled Energo-Neuro Adaptive Regulator’. It’s an electro- bio-controlled device initially developed for astronauts for managing pain and overall health while in space. It uses a harmless (unless you get a little bit addicted to the pain, as I do) electric impulse that stimulates the body’s own adaptive mechanisms, via a biofeedback process. The effect of SCENAR is based on electric impulses of a specific shape – patterned from natural nervous discharges in the human body. Former USSR nations have approved the SCENAR on the national health care system and the US FDA acknowledges the technology as a viable method of pain management. Here in Australia some health funds also recognise it.

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Sugar free eating…for vegans (five fresh recipes)

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I’m not vegan. Nor vegetarian. But I eat a heavily plant-based diet. AND I get a lot of requests from vegos/vegans for non-dairy, non-meat, non-egg sugar-free eating. So it was that I noticed Maria at Scandi foodie had done a 21 day sugar free vegan challenge after doing my I Quit Sugar program a few months back so I invited her to share her 5 favourite recipes from the challenge. Go to her site for more ideas and recipes…so clever and pretty!

stuffed capsicums 4 Sugar free eating...for vegans (five fresh recipes)
amaranth and quinoa stuffed capsicums

Maria says:

At the start of the New Year, I set myself a little challenge. What if I go vegan for 21 days?

My goal with this challenge is simply to inspire and raise awareness. I encourage you to give vegan cooking a go, even if it means just adding one or two extra vegan meals in your weekly menu. Here are some of my favourite recipes from the challenge to get you started….

amaranth and quinoa stuffed capsicums

This recipe is one of my favourites and a perfect dish to impress vegans and non-vegans alike!

  • 4 red capsicums (bell peppers) *
  • 1/2 cup black quinoa, rinsed
  • 1/2 cup amaranth
  • 1 1/2 cups water
  • 1 cup edamame, thawed
  • 1 carrot, grated
  • 2 shallots/green onions, finely chopped
  • 2 tbl sesame seeds, lightly toasted
  • 2 tbl brown rice vinegar
  • pinch of sea salt
  • freshly ground black pepper

*I used 3 capsicums, but the filling makes enough for 4 medium sized ones. Any leftovers can be served as a salad the next day.

Place the quinoa and amaranth in a saucepan and cover with one and a half cups of water. Bring to boil and let simmer for about 12 minutes. Turn off the heat, cover and let sit for 5 more minutes. Fluff with a fork.

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the I quit sugar program: play with some sweetness (week #6)

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Six weeks in, some of you might have sugar out of your system. Some of you won’t, though. The cravings might still be there. What are you feeling? Are you feeling like you’d like to continue. To keep sugar out longer? Not in a draconian-I-must-be-vigilant way, but in a let’s just see how it goes for a bit longer way. Read on…

sprouted kitchen the I quit sugar program: play with some sweetness (week #6)
image via Unruly Things

Some housekeeping:

  • My second IQS webinar will be on Monday 13th Feb – next Monday at 6pm. You can sign up here. Click ‘join crowd’ to be signed up for my webinars, and hit ‘attend’ on next Monday’s event to receive a reminder email. Got it?
  • If you’re interested, 180 nutrition (a sugar-free, “clean” protein powder…great in your coconut smoothies) has a 15% discount on at the moment, for any readers of this blog. Simply click here for more info.

Some extra soundbites for you

Many of you liked the elevator pitch statements from last week’s newsletter. Here are a few little soundbites to fire off when those around you want to know more about your IQS excursioning, but don’t want to get freaked out. As I say over and over in the ebook: it’s worth being careful that you don’t get too draconian or bozzy or holier-than-thou with this no-sugar business. It’s a crook look. And it puts people off. Go gentle. Suggest some starting points. I’ve found this top 4 list of things to look out for gets interest going:

* Fruit juice.

There’s 8-12 teaspoons in a small bottle/glass. And, yes, freshly squeezed is the same as packaged. Fructose is fructose. Besides, it’s expensive. And a waste of packaging.

* Low fat dairy.

When fat’s taken out of, for example, yoghurt, it’s replaced with sugar to achieve the same fullness of flavour as full-fat. A small individual serve of low fat PLAIN yoghurt can contain 6 teaspoons of sugar.

* Sauces.

Some pasta sauces have more sugar than chocolate topping. Barbecue sauce…oh, you all know the drill.

* Muesli.

Unless it’s a sugar-free (fruit free) version. A lot of muesli contain more sugar than Coco Pops.

A thought on adding sugar back in:

This week in the program you add some sweetness in. I get asked this a lot: will it upset the apple cart just to experience sweetness – even if it’s fructose free? Will it tip dominoes

Yes and no. As always, you need to feel what your body can cope with. Hopefully after six weeks your body can answer this for you. That’s the whole point.

Yes, it will upset things if you head off to back dextrose cakes every day and particularly if your attachment to sugar tends to be emotionally based.

And remember this from the book:

Screen Shot 2012 02 06 at 9.33.02 AM the I quit sugar program: play with some sweetness (week #6)No, however, everything’s cool if you’re playing with a few new flavours and allowing some treats into your life so you don’t feel you’re missing out. This is not a mean diet. It’s an experiment.

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friday giveaway: a month’s supply of organic acai powder

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Happy first-Friday-of-February! To continue our Friday giveaways, this week I’m giving away 5 x 150g bags (a month’s supply) of RioLife organic freeze dried acai Our last Acai giveaway proved very popular, and the generous RioLife team have offered to share a little more. Each serve of acai berries is equivalent in antioxidant levels to … Read more

sugar as toxic as booze and fags? my thoughts…

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You might have followed all the chatter yesterday – sugar as toxic as alcohol…should be banned…oh, hang on, no, it’s harmless. Etc. Etc. Wendy Harmer buzzed and asked me to provide this comment for TheHoopla. I’d spent the day chatting about it today on radio (and I think I shocked a few jocks into putting down their Boost).

tt sugar as toxic as booze and fags? my thoughts...

Thought you might like to read my thoughts…

It’s a year to the week that I quit sugar.

And because I’m about to bang on about the need for more transparency in this world, some disclosure: I wrote an ebook about it. So it could be said I have a vested interest in this topic.

Anyone who’s quit sugar would know what I mean when I say that the most challenging-slash-intriguing part of quitting is The Resistance. People get affronted. Angry.

It’s funny. If I told people I no longer ate frozen peas, no-one would care. I wouldn’t get the outrage. The anger.

But sugar? Well…

Earlier today it was revealed a team of scientists from the University of California has called for sugar to be treated as a poison, in much the same ways as alcohol and nicotine. They’ve suggested sugar, too, be taxed heavily and come with warnings, better labelling and education campaigns.

In an article published in science journal Nature they argued sugar isn’t just a bunch of naughty, empty calories. It’s making us fat and killing us. Sugary food, they say, is responsible for 35 million annual deaths worldwide.

They point out that, at the levels consumed in the West, sugar alters metabolism, raises blood pressure, disrupts hormone signalling and causes significant damage to the liver that is still not fully understood, leading to heart disease, diabetes and cancer.

And boy has it brought on The Resistance. Today I’ve watched online as nutrition experts around the world railed against the idea.

But why? I mean. Why?!

Surely none of them think sugar is good for us? Or would disagree with the claim that we’re consuming too much of it? Why not push for better labelling?

As one of the article’s authors said, “We’re not talking prohibition. We’re not advocating a major imposition of the Government into people’s lives. We’re talking about gentle ways to make sugar consumption slightly less convenient, thereby moving people away from the concentrated dose.”

Some of these experts are arguing sugar is entirely avoidable. No it’s not!

Have you been to a supermarket or food court lately? Sugar’s in everything, and insidiously so. It’s so well hidden it shocks when I tell people that barbecue sauce is 50 percent sugar, that pasta sauces can contain more sugar than chocolate topping.

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The $21 food challenge

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Thanks to Picardie Girl, a reader on my blog, I recently discovered Simple Savings…a site devoted to helping people lower all their bills. They have a great $21 challenge where you try as hard as you possibly can to stay out of the shops for one week. In the process, their tips are mostly about cutting waste and simplifying eating. My pet hate is food wastage. I’ve written about loving food and hating waste here.

Picture 27 The $21 food challenge
image via justine pocock flickr

Simple Savings was set up by Fiona Lippey eight years ago, to help people lower bills,  and is on the government’s official Money Smart website. They’ve also released “The $21 challenge” book, and we’re giving away a few copies….see below.

For this post I asked Fiona to share THE BEST of her food efficiency tips, that make the most of your groceries and are about using subsitutes (to save heading to the shops to buy a whole new packet of something…more petrol, more wastage, more clutter, more effort):

1. Next time you run out of eggs, don’t panic! If you need them for baking you can simply substitute by using two tablespoons of cornflour per egg and adding a little milk to mix.  Or for cakes and muffins you can use one mashed banana or half a cup of apple sauce. You won’t notice the difference!

2. Grate cheese for a good saving.  Cheese is hugely expensive but you can make it last much longer by simply buying a block and grating it (much cheaper than buying it ready-grated).  Once it is grated you tend to use it a lot more sparingly but don’t notice any difference in the flavor.  If you go through a lot of cheese and would rather have your cheese sliced, it’s well worth purchasing a mandolin slicer, as it cuts the cheese much thinner than a regular knife.

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Fuzzy’s gluten free dumplings

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Last week the gorgeous Fuzzy, aka Faustina Agolley, was visiting and cooked a Chinese New Year banquet for a bunch of us. When I tweeted about the dumplings I got asked for the recipe…so Fuzz and photographer Marija Ivkovic set to working up these instructions for everyone.

DumplingsFinal Fuzzy's gluten free dumplings
photo by www.marijaivkovic.com

Fuzzy and I actually met via Twitter. I’d read something she’d posted about being grateful for the death of her Dad as a young child. I commented. She replied. We’ve stayed in touch since. Her joyous energy always makes me smile.

Picture 118 Fuzzy's gluten free dumplings

 Faustina says: Happy Chinese New Year! I’ve been GF for about 8 months now and have loved making dumplings in the past. With CNY, I wanted to revisit my love for dumplings by changing the regular wheat wonton skins I used to use with rice paper. Hoorah! It worked!

* You can switch up the mince and added ingredients to your liking e.g. if you like prawn dumplings substitute pork mince with prawn mince and add shredded carrot with a splash of fish sauce, and if you like chicken dumplings switch to chicken mince and add cooked sweet corn kernels.

gluten free dumplings

  • 500g Pork Mince
  • 1 garlic cloved chopped finely
  • 3cm nub of ginger chopped finely
  • 1 bunch of coriander washed thoroughly finely chopped including the root

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The I Quit Sugar program: experimenting (week 5)

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Hello! Detoxing much? Trying some of the detoxing/sweet help I suggest in the ebook? What’s working?

advicetosinkinslowly25 The I Quit Sugar program: experimenting (week 5)
by Always With Honor

Some quick housekeeping

* OK, I’m doing my first webinar tonight. I’m doing it on ustream and you’ll need to either go to my #IQS Facebook page or here (if you’re not on Facebook) to register. You’ll be able to “chat” with me and post questions…and it should be fun and it SHOULD work…

Three things:

  1. I will have to do this at 6pm, NOT 6.30pm AEST now. I hope this doesn’t muck any of you around.
  2. If it does, the video will be up on ustream and Facebook…I’ll send around links tomorrow.
  3. This is a bit of an experiment for me…so bear with me…fingers crossed it worked (and please suggest any tips!)

* Little reminder: it’s your last day to register for Febfast. Go on. Do it. Here.

PS I was on The Circle this morning chatting about Febfast…there I am…And will be chatting with Yumi and Chrissie Swan on radio – The 3pm Pickup – tomorrow about #IQS…tune in.P2100217 The I Quit Sugar program: experimenting (week 5)

A few elevator pitch statements

OK…all that aside I thought I’d share a few elevator pitch statements with you that come in handy when people say, “what’s this no sugar thing, in a nutshell”? People only want nutshell, chomper-size soundbites, mostly. So serve it up to them!

* In caveman days sugar – or fructose – was so rare that when we DID stumble on it, we were designed to binge on it AND store it instantly as fat. Our biology hasn’t changed in the 10,000 years since the agricultural revolution, nor since the 1800s when sugar was introduced. We’re still designed to binge on it and store it as fat.

* Fructose is the only food molecule that we a) don’t have a corresponding enzyme in our brain that says “we’ve had enough” and b) that goes straight to the liver as fat.

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what do your dreams mean? we asked an interpreter…

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Our own dreams are the most fascinating things ever. Other people’s dreams? Hmmm, not so much. For this post, I asked Jo to interview a dream interpreter. I’ve written about dreams before (and how you can use them to train yourself for tough decisions)…scroll to the bottom for a special reader offer. But, now, over to you Jo….

Picture 118 what do your dreams mean? we asked an interpreter...
photo via happy blogger

Weird dreams that don’t make sense? Who better to ask about them than someone who spends their days as a dream analyst, therapist, and alchemist. I chatted to Jane Anderson about some weird and wonderful dreams a few of us have been having lately…

q. Sarah and I were talking. She has ‘breast-stroking through the air’ dreams. What’s the deal?

Sarah describe it like this: “I’m usually chased and have to springboard off precarious surfaces – like tree limbs or balcony bannisters to get “traction”…I have to breaststroke for hours, trying to keep off the ground, and trying to get “traction” from the air.”

 Jane: You feel that aspects of your practical life are precarious, and respond to this by exploring ideas you’d like to get off the ground. You’re working hard at this but your efforts may be unconsciously more driven by escaping practical issues than finding solutions for them. You may feel that you springboard from one precarious situation to another, but you always hope that this time hard work and the right mental approach will save the day. To manifest ideas, to make them happen, we need the right balance between mind and body, between developing ideas and establishing practicalities.

[Actually rings very true – Sarah]

q. Your job is to investigate and interpret dreams. How did you get into that?

Jane: My curiosity grew throughout my years at university studying science where I specialised in developmental neurophysiology – how the brain interprets the world. In the end, it was a leap of faith, driven by passion, that got me into this field.

q. This reader dreams about wolves…?

The reader asked: “Wolves howl at my bedroom window. I think I’m safe because they’re outside, but they howl for ages, and

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