It is time to prepare ourselves for the "flu season". I love Autumn, love the colours, the crisp air, candles, apple cider, warm woolly socks etc. but, I really detest the snotty noses, followed by the sinus infections and everything else. I HATE with a passion. I don't take my health for granted, or at least I don't think I do, so please please could we just dodge the crap this year??? Probably not, since we do live in a fallen world with disease and curses, and as much as anyone wants to argue that you can dodge sickness and disease with a well around plant based diet, well you just can't. SO, what exactly am I going to do about it?
I have this grand war plan to be as alert as I can with immunity boosting, cootie fighting strategies - which I will list down soon- but as fallible as I am, I'll probably start strong like a commit, lose my focus in a week or so into it and face-plant into the midst of a slimy snot fest. Just from experience, that's all.
The 10 (ten seems to be a reasonably stupid number to overwhelm us all) Ways You Can Fight The Slimy Snot Fest:
- Be the hero of your family, cook a batch of Elderberry-Lemon gummies and convince your family to eat them. My girls and personally I think they taste alright, but my boys are not so sure. I'm working on it! (recipe at the bottom)
- Diffuse doTERRA's OnGuard essential oil around the house. This virus/bug fighting killing machine is feisty! I usually lather up OnGuard with coconut oil the bottom of our feet and massage it on around their lymph nodes too. Today I put OnGuard in a capsule with a few other oils (Oregano, Melaleuca and Ginger) and ingested it. Wowza!
- Start your day with a "flu-fighting" smoothie. I use, spinach, avocado, frozen berries, vitamin-C powder, Greek yoghurt, orange juice, probiotics, powdered greens etc. with some extracts and other goodies, whatever I can find! I once blogged about it, http://holytempleunderrenovation.blogspot.ca/2012/04/morning-smoothie.html AND http://holytempleunderrenovation.blogspot.ca/2011/09/update-and-super-healthy-morning.html Notice, the latter is "super healthy" lol
- Avoid sugar. I can't go into detail.. well I could... but, I'm just too lazy to. Avoid sugar! Trim Healthy Mama Plan has MANY MANY recipes to choose from, and all are sugar-free! Google it! (Affiliated Link) being "pumpkin spice everything-season", I don't want to NOT eat these yummy goodies... I want it all!
- If you can afford it, get a Meyer's Cocktail done. Meyer's Cocktail is a highly concentrated vitamin and mineral IV administrated by your healthcare practitioner. In my case, this would be my Naturapathic Dr. down the road. *super-excited!*
- Commit to your high quality supplements. I had my Naturapathic Dr. go through my supplements and point out to the ones I was wasting my time and money on. Thankfully, there weren't too many that were poor quality. She pointed out that my probiotics then, consisted mostly from potato starch and less from the actual probiotics... umm ok! Check them out, and commit to taking them.
- THM (Trim Healthy Mama) have a few "all day sippers" that are very much so immunity boosting drinks! My favourites are the Good Girl Moonshine, Earth's Milk and Singing Canary. Basically drink plenty of water too! Infused or steeped, drink it.
- Make sure you get enough sleep. Maybe a bit more than enough. I'm guessing with the amount of cooties we need to fight off, it wouldn't hurt to ease off from other areas where we put our bodies under so much stress. Lack of sleep is one, diet is another etc.
- If you're a woman, make love to your husband! You're probably wondering how on earth this would be helpful and whether my husband paid me to write that in here?? Well, no he didn't bribe me and he is probably very ecstatic about "number 9" which he might hold me to every evening...*sigh*... ANYWAY, the reasons are plenty, here's a teaser -
"Love Your Husband Love Yourself -Jennifer Flanders" - I would say, hit the gym.... but, with so many cooties floating around, I recommend working-out outdoors. If the weather permits it, go for a run, walk, "freeletics", Pilates outdoors...
WHEW! There's 10 ways to "Kung-Fu" those viruses and bugs. Hope these help!
What do you do to prep for the "flu-season"? Comment below!
Elderberry-Lemon Gummies
Ingredients:
- 1C dried elderberries
- 8 drops doTERRA Lemon EO
- 4C water
- 6T Gentle sweet or 3T Sweet Blend -taste test and tweak it to your own liking
- 1t cinnamon
- 1/2t cherry extract
- 1/2t vanilla
- 6,000mg vitamin C powder (optional)
- 12T Gelatin
Method:
- Simmer elderberries, cinnamon, and sweetener on low heat with 3C water for about 30minutes.
- Strain the water into another pan and discard the berries (careful you don't do this the other way around!)
- Add the remaining water (or more) to make 4C of liquid in total. Let cool down.
- Turn on the heat to medium-low and add the extracts, Lemon essential oil and vitamin-C. Slowly sprinkle in the gelatin as the mixture warms up and whisk until dissolved.
- Heat up, but do not to boiling, then pour it into a glass baking dish or molds.
- Store in the fridge until set and cut into squares.
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