Monday, April 28, 2014

Final Call for Exhibitors at the Health and Wellness Expo!


There are still a few booth spaces available for the 3rd Annual Health & Wellness Expo which is being held Saturday, May 10 at the Ramada Inn in Glenwood Springs. Exhibitor applications are being accepted only for the Basic Booth category. Deadline to reserve your space is 12pm, Friday, May 2nd. Booth descriptions and further information is available at http://www.healthandwellnessexpogws.com./ You can also call Suzette Skidmore for information: 970-379-6187.

Volunteers are also needed as greeters, runners, announcers, door prize coordinators and more. A meal (breakfast or lunch) will be provided for each shift worked. Shifts are 9am-1pm or 1pm to 5pm. There is flexibility if your schedule doesn’t quite match up and you still want to take part. Volunteers will be eligible for doorprizes and have up close and personal access to the event.

The Health & Wellness Expo is being produced locally to provide information and education about integrative health and preventative wellness solutions that are available throughout the valley. The event will feature more than 30 exhibitors and informative speakers.

To volunteer, contact Stephanie at 987-5029 or email cardiff@cwmail.com.

Sunday, April 27, 2014

Health and Wellness Expo Volunteers Needed!


Public Service Announcement
April 24, 2014

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Kimberly Henrie, 970-930-1242


Call for Volunteers for Health & Wellness Expo

Glenwood Springs, CO - Volunteers are needed for the 3rd Annual Health & Wellness Expo in Glenwood Springs. The event will be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, May 10, at Ramada Inn & Suites.

Volunteers are needed as greeters, runners, announcers, door prize coordinators and more.  A meal (breakfast or lunch) will be provided for each shift worked.  Shifts are 9am-1pm or 1pm to 5pm.  There is flexibility if your schedule doesn’t quite match up and you still want to take part.  Volunteers will be eligible for doorprizes and have up close and personal access to the event.

The Health & Wellness Expo is being produced locally to provide information and education about integrative health and preventative wellness solutions that are available throughout the valley.  The event will feature more than 30 exhibitors and informative speakers.

To volunteer, contact Stephanie at 987-5029 or email cardiff@cwmail.com.

For more information about this event, visit www.healthandwellnessexpogws.com.

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Overview of the Chakras

Chakras (Cakras) by The Yoga Chronicles
Everyone kind of knows about chakras, but sort of not really. So, here's a quick and easy run down of the chakra (cakra) system. To be fair, this subject is way bigger and more complex than we can present in five minutes, but this'll help you get your bearings. Hope you like it!

Monday, April 21, 2014

Introducing the Altaeros BAT: The Next Generation of Wind Power

Altaeros Energies is announcing the first planned commercial demonstration of its BAT (Buoyant Airborne Turbine) product in partnership with the Alaska Energy Authority. The Alaska project will deploy the BAT at a height of 1,000 feet above ground, a height that will break the world record for the highest wind turbine in the world. Altaeros has designed the BAT to generate consistent, low cost energy for the remote power and microgrid market, including remote and island communities; oil & gas, mining, agriculture, and telecommunication firms; disaster relief organizations; and military bases. The BAT uses a helium-filled, inflatable shell to lift to high altitudes where winds are stronger and more consistent than those reached by traditional tower-mounted turbines. High strength tethers hold the BAT steady and send electricity down to the ground. The lifting technology is adapted from aerostats, industrial cousins of blimps, which have lifted heavy communications equipment into the air for decades. To learn more, visit www.altaerosenergies.com.

Monday, April 14, 2014

Local Artist Randy Henrie Bringing Color to National Stage

Wow! I am so proud! Wow! I made the top 10 out of over 700 applications in this art contest. Here is my submission. Would really appreciate your votes to keep me going (you can vote once every 24 hours) Just follow the link below and thank you! https://www.facebook.com/Brueggers?v=app_713250698698536&app_data=gaReferrerOverride%3D


Saturday, April 12, 2014

Nuts

Thank You Food Matters

Nuts and seeds are a powerhouse of nutrients and contain high forms of digestible protein, antioxidant Vitamins A,B,C and E, calcium, magnesium, potassium, zinc, iron, selenium and manganese.

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Yoga and Body Size: Lessons in Humility


When big students show up to yoga classes, teachers often just don't know what to do with them. They don't bend the same way, they don't move the same way, they're just not — the same. 

Yup, they're not. Same as beginners not bending and moving the same as advanced practitioners, same as 50 year olds not bending and moving the same as 20 year olds, same as inflexible people not bending and moving the same as flexible people, same as differently-abled bodies moving and bending differently. "Same same but different."

Generally in our foundational yoga teacher trainings, we may learn how to teach beginners in theory, but what we're actually experiencing is learning how to teach at each other's level, and in a YTT, that's usually advanced, or at the very least intermediate. Reality sets in when we get out there teaching, and "those students" show up to class: the absolute beginners, the round, the inflexible, the people who've been mostly sitting for 30 years.

A teacher told me recently that while working privately with a middle-aged couple who were both deconditioned and uncomfortable going to a group yoga class, she had the stark realization that most of the "beginner's" classes she was teaching were truly closer to intermediate level. I think we need to be honest with ourselves about the Asana we're teaching and whether it really can meet everyone well. It's okay if some styles or classes aren't appropriate for everyone, but I think it's important that we begin having honest discussions that some yoga classes really aren't "for everybody." If we described our classes really well and with acute honesty about level and intensity, it would go a long way to help channel prospective students to the right class — for them.

We can choose to see these students' limitations as a deficit, or we can take a step back into humility, and consider that perhaps the deficit is our own — missing skills to better meeting their needs. While most of us can't be everything to everyone, this stepping-back process can at least inform us of where we might like to do further training. And to realize that perhaps the lack of diversity we see in yoga classes isn't because there's only "one type" of person interested in yoga, but that perhaps the way mainstream western yoga has been offered attracts, or is only appropriate for, one type of person and actually excludes many.

The following are some things for teachers to consider with regard to working with bigger-bodied students. Many of them involve stepping back into humility and recognizing our own blind spots, which is always a great growth opportunity:

ne of the best ways teachers can serve their round students is to accept and claim ownership of their own privilege and internalized prejudice. Recognizing that privilege and prejudice are intertwined is a first step (as explored in this great article about thin privilege), and accepting that there are many negative and damaging stereotypes we've internalized about fat people and fatness (even fat people have internalized them). For example, seeing a fat person's body as a "cry for help" or something that needs "fixing" is stigmatizing and confuses "public health" as "claiming certain bodies as the public's business." As another example, assuming things about people's habits or health status because of their body size (a group of people sharing one physical characteristic are not all going to be the same — there are people across all sizes who are both healthy and unhealthy, fit and unfit, prioritize or don't prioritize health, eat healthily or don't — you can't make assumptions about habits based on body size). And most of all, please do not assume that your big students are in your class to lose weight. Some might be, but you're stereotyping if you make the assumption that they're there for weight loss because their body is big.  Here's one of my favourite quotes from a survey I conducted of plus-size women about yoga:  CLICK TO CONTINUE AT SOURCE

Inspiration

"To keep the body in good health is a duty… otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear.” ~ Buddha

Monday, April 7, 2014

Health & Wellness Expo Booths Filling Up!

14 Booths left. If you have a friend that wants to participate and share their gifts with the Roaring Fork Valley please have them register TODAY at http://www.healthandwellnessexpogws.com/booth-registration/

Saturday, April 5, 2014

How To Construct a Living Fence


This French gardener is inserting dormant willow whips into the ground and weaving the tops into a lattice. They will root come spring and this will become a free living fence.

Thursday, April 3, 2014

Fermenting Foods


By Dr. Mercola
Ninety percent of the genetic material in your body is not yours but belongs to the bacteria that outnumber your cells 10 to 1.  These bacteria have enormous influence on your digestion, detoxification and immune system.
Sandor Katz is a self-described “fermentation revivalist,” and has published two books on this topic, along with a third on the underground food movement. He’s a native of New York and a graduate of Brown University. Sandor currently lives in Tennessee, where he pursues his interest by presenting workshops around the world on fermentation.
Fermented food is something I too have become quite passionate about, and I firmly believe it’s an absolutely essential factor if you want to optimize your health and prevent disease. The culturing process produces beneficial microbes that are extremely important for human health as they help balance your intestinal flora, thereby boosting overall immunity.
Moreover, your gut literally serves as your second brain, and even produces more of the neurotransmitter serotonin—known to have a beneficial influence on your mood—than your brain does, so maintaining a healthy gut will benefit your mind as well as your body.
Fermented foods are also some of the best chelators and detox agents available, meaning they can help rid your body of a wide variety of toxins, including heavy metals.
“It wasn’t until I was in my 20s... that I first began to learn about and observe some of the digestive benefits of eating live culture fermented foods,” Sandor says.
“It was another decade after that when I left New York City, moved to rural Tennessee, and got involved in keeping a garden that I first had a reason to investigate the practice of fermentation. All of the cabbages were ready at the same time, and I thought I should learn how to make sauerkraut. I did a little bit of research in cookbooks and started making sauerkraut. Thus began my investigations into fermentation about 18 years ago.”

Starter Cultures versus Wild Ferment

When fermenting vegetables, you can either use a starter culture, or simply allow the natural enzymes in the vegetables do all the work. This is called “wild fermentation.” Personally, I prefer a starter culture as it provides a larger number of different species and the culture can be optimized with species that produce high levels of vitamin K2, which research is finding is likely every bit as important as vitamin D.
For this past year, we’ve been making two to three gallons of fermented vegetables every week in our Chicago office for the staff, which they can enjoy with the lunch we provide as an employee benefit.
We use a starter culture of the same probiotic strains that we sell as a supplement, which has been researched by our team to produce about 10 times the amount of vitamin K2 as any other starter culture... When we had the vegetables tested, we found that in a four- to six-ounce serving there were literally 10 trillion beneficial bacteria, or about 100 times the amount of bacteria in a bottle of high potency probiotics.
There are about 100 trillion bacteria in your gut, so a single serving can literally “reseed” 10 percent of the bacterial population of the average person’s gut! To me that’s extraordinary, and a profoundly powerful reason to consider adding fermented vegetables as a staple to your diet.
You don’t have to use a starter culture however. Wild fermentation is fermentation based on microorganisms that are naturally present in the food you’re fermenting. It’s just as simple as using a starter culture, but it will take a little longer for it to ferment.
“It’s very predictable when you salt and submerge vegetables [in their natural juices or brine]. The bacteria that will initiate at fermentation are always Leuconostoc mesenteroides. Then it’s a successive process whereby, as the pH changes and as the environment changes, different strains of bacteria come into dominance...” Sandor explains.
“Typically, in a mature sauerkraut, the late-stage bacterium that’s dominant is Lactobacillus plantarum. It’s a very predictable succession, what happens with raw vegetables, [but] the specific strains will always be somewhat different depending on the vegetables you’re using and the environment that you’re doing it in.”

To Salt or Not to Salt?

Whether or not to use salt also largely comes down to personal preference. While it’s not a necessity, Sandor does provide some compelling reasons for adding a small amount of natural, unprocessed salt—such as Himalayan salt—to your vegetables. For example, salt:
  • Strengthens the ferment’s ability to eliminate any potential pathogenic bacteria present
  • Adds to the flavor
  • Acts as a natural preservative, which may be necessary if you’re making large batches that need to last for a larger portion of the year
  • Slows the enzymatic digestion of the vegetables, leaving them crunchier
  • Inhibits surface molds
Again, natural unrefined salts are ideal as they contain a broad spectrum of minerals, and the fermentation process makes the minerals more bioavailable—a win-win situation!

CLICK TO CONTINUE AT SOURCE