Welcome to Week #4 of the 5% Solution. This is Robin Nielsen and I am smiling from ear to ear just thinking about your beautiful journey.

Today’s tip is about food as medicine. This is the second element in our powerful 5-element system.

Food is medicine. Hippocrates, born in the year 460 BC said “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” He was considered the “father of medicine.” Somewhere along the line, we forgot that food is medicine, and started getting chronic diseases and conditions. So let’s get back to using food as medicine.

When my two sons were teenagers, I had an epiphany one day. We all had some health issues, and I was so tired of telling them not to raid the pantry at 5pm when they were hungry. Because they would always go for the unhealthy, quick fix foods like chips or cookies.

So one day, I thought to myself, “I have all the power”. I do all the grocery shopping and all the cooking so what we eat is really up to me! I called the family together and we talked about this. I asked them if they would go on a healthier journey with me.

I had acne and was so tired all the time, my husband was overweight, my older son had bad cystic acne and my younger son seemed fragile – tired and sick more than I thought was normal.

So I carried the microwave out of the house and into the car to take to goodwill. My boys freaked out. But I told them that in no time they would learn how to cook in the oven and on the stove top.

Fast forward a few months, and both my boys were becoming amazing cooks, my husband Eric had lost 25 pounds, and my acne was all but gone. Here’s what I did:

1. I cleaned out the pantry and got rid of all junk food – most every box and bag
2. I purchased only vegetables, quinoa, brown rice, meats, eggs and nuts and seeds
3. I started using more spices, herbs, sea salt and added some coconut aminos and tamari (wheat free soy sauce) to my dishes – that not only made them more nourishing but also made them so much more delicious

Your to-do this week:

Clean out your pantry. Go through it and get rid of anything that might sabotage you on your healthy journey, for example. you will be mad at yourself if you eat it – you know that mean little voice inside your head that says terrible things to you? We don’t want any of that!

Enjoy your week and I’ll meet up with again next week. We’re here to support you every step of the way.

Food as Medicine

Welcome to Week #5 of the 5% Solution. This is Robin Nielsen and I am jumping for joy that we are on this journey together.

It’s important that you plan on really giving it your all for a year. Sometimes it takes 2 years to fully heal from metabolic dysfunction – hormone imbalances – but in one year you will be there or almost there if you follow these 52 tips and continue the Insulite nutraceuticals. That’s because it just takes time for our cells to change over and for our genes to begin to express health instead of disease.

I was at a PCOS conference recently and all the case studies of those who were successful stuck with it for at least a year. Later I’ll share with you some blood work markers to ask your doctor for so you can start following them to gauge your progress. But for this week, we’re going to focus on Food as Medicine.

Today I listened to an interview with Dr. Barry Sears, the author of the Zone Diet which was all about reducing inflammation in the body. He never dreamed it would be a crazy amazing bestseller! But it was because his approach was all about using food as medicine to reduce inflammation through managing hormones.

And this is the same ground-breaking approach that Dr. Schwarzbein, an endocrinologist, discovered when she was working with diabetics and was actually able to teach people how to reverse diabetes in her book, The Program.

Both of these approaches used food to heal. Because food is a drug that can either harm you or heal you…depending on your choices. And it’s all about how you manage insulin, one of our MAJOR hormones.

So from here forward, think of food as your powerful drug to heal. Food is so delicious, yummy and nourishing. Keep that thought when putting your meals together.

Your to-do this week:

Eat a hormone-balanced meal every time you eat. Here’s what that looks like: eat a healthy protein, fat and carbohydrate every time you eat.

1. Healthy proteins are foods like grass fed and grass finished animals, wild caught fish and shellfish, and cage-free organic eggs.
2. Healthy fats are olive oil, coconut oil, avocado, nuts and seeds, grass fed butter, clarified butter or ghee, grapeseed oil.
3. Healthy carbohydrates are the low carb choices like non-starchy vegetables with a small portion of starchy vegetables like beets, sweet potatoes or yams, and other root vegetables like celeriac or pumpkin, acorn squash, etc.

If you want to have beans or legumes, have a small amount – 1/4 of a cup, and avoid grains all-together as they can raise insulin too high. If you really need a grain, try gluten-free grains like brown rice or quinoa.

You’ll notice these suggestions are wheat, gluten and dairy free. I’ll share more on this later…Stay tuned for more Food as Medicine tips. Because these are the most powerful for healing and for keeping the fabulous healthy feeling and sexy body going!

Enjoy your week and I’ll meet up with again next week. We’re here to support you every step of the way.

Welcome to Week #6 of the 5% Solution. This is Robin Nielsen and I am over-the-top happy to be here with you.

Can you believe you’ve been on this journey for almost 6 weeks now? By making small changes each week, you are replacing habits that not longer serve you with healthy habits that will serve you forever! (Twirl around and jump for joy!!)

I read a bumper sticker recently that said “Don’t believe everything you think.” This is my new favorite saying! I love this because thoughts become things!

It’s so easy to get caught up in the muck of our negative thinking. That’s our ego telling us we’re not good enough, or we don’t have enough, or we’re not pretty enough. And this keeps us small, needy and unhealthy, full of self-loathing and zero self esteem. Who wants that??...

So let’s ditch the negative self talk by becoming more aware of when it’s happening. Then you can immediately switch to a place of gratitude, by simply stating 3-4 things you’re grateful for. This will help to get us to that place of bliss, right here, right now in the present moment. And what we think about grows!

So if we want more fabulous in our lives, just think about what that looks like and be grateful for the things you want more of. Even just daydreaming for a few minutes every day can have amazing effects.

My mindfulness practices include:

1. Meditation - about 3 days a week for 15 minutes
2. Yoga 1-2 times a week
3. 2 daily walks
4. Surfing/hiking once a week
5. Riding my bike to and from my office

Being out in nature is so great for getting in the present moment.

Here is your to-do this week:

Purchase a beautiful journal – or make one yourself – and write down 5 things that you’re grateful for every night before bed.

Enjoy your week and I’ll meet up with again next week. We’re here to support you every step of the way.

Welcome to Week 7 of the 5% Solution. This is Robin Nielsen and I am bursting with joy to be here with you.

Let’s talk about Food as Medicine this week because the kitchen is one of my happiest places and you’ll want it to be yours too! That’s because we get to make amazing meals that not only taste good but they also make feel so good.

I’ve gotten so I don’t like to eat out very much because the food just isn’t as yummy. And I drive the server crazy with all my special requests anyway.

Growing up I never learned how to cook. My mother told me that I would have to cook soon enough so she did all the cooking. But I did learn how to bake. Because I loved baked goods. And cookies were my favorite.

For my wedding shower, I had to make a chocolate cake without a recipe – it was supposed to trip me up – be a joke. But the joke was on my maid of honor because I had no problem - I whipped up a chocolate cake in about 15 minutes... I could bake food that made me feel terrible but I didn’t know how to cook that made me feel good.

I had no idea that my diet of baked goods and bread was causing my many symptoms like acne, inflammation, weight gain and even my horrible moods. What we eat matters for  hormone balance – more than anything else you could do.

Today I want to share how to make one of my favorite go-to meals, The Shake. A shake is fantastic for a quick and easy, delicious-tasting meal that’s easy to digest – let me translate – you could eat it on-the-go. And no other meal you can!

For a quick refresher, the special formula for creating every meal is to always combine a healthy protein, fat and carbohydrate and you’ve got a hormone-balanced meal!

Here’s the BASIC recipe:

• 1 cup water with some coconut milk or almond milk unsweetened
• 2 tbls flax seed
• 1 cup berries (raspberries are my favorite)
• a handful of greens: parsley and spinach for example for some much-needed greens to reduce inflammation – don’t worry – you hardly taste them.

I blend this up first and then I’ll add my protein powder at the end to blend gently.

The quality of the protein powder matters. I use either the PurePea or the PurePaleo and you can find them here on our store: Protein Powder

If it’s really warm outside I’ll add an ice cube or two, otherwise I try to keep it more room temperature as it’s easier to digest that way. Mmmm, delicious! I’ll make this up for breakfast, or lunch and sometimes dinner or whenever I want a lighter meal or I’m in a hurry.

Here is your to-do this week:

Make a shake like this one. Keep it simple but always use a healthy protein, fat like flax seed or avocado, and vegetables with a some berries, and you’ve got the special formula!

Here is a link to 12 more healthy shakes. Don’t vary the recipe unless you want to add a few more vegetables.

Enjoy your week and I’ll meet up with again next week. We’re here to support you every step of the way.