How to Guide: Easy healthy meals for the week

 

Fit, Fabulous, Over 50…and Sharing Secrets!!

Dr. Sachi is fit, fabulous, and over 50 years old! (Look at the picture. Can you believe?) She is a practicing Doctor of Chinese Medicine, an Acupuncturist, and Yoga Instructor, in the South Florida Area. She gives many workshops. 

I always found her health, poise, figure and youth amazing, and was eager to follow the same health habits that got her there!

I asked her a few questions in this regard, and she was more than happy to share, of course!

Jade: What are your core healthy habits you have that keep off weight and prevent aging?

Sachi:

Well you can get away with a lot of things when your 20, like staying out late and drinking, but it catches up after certain age and you need to follow some basics for continued health.

Here’s a quick list:

• Really good quality of food
• Eat very little or none at all of already prepared food, like microwavable dinners, or things that have been preserved.
• Eat in a happy environment. Eating should be sacred and not in front of the TV or after or during an argument for example.
• Eat only organic when possible.
• I believe the vibrations of food enter our body so I don’t eat meat as the animal was killed. I’ve been a vegetarian for over 20 years and I’m strong and healthy.

Jade: What kind of diet do you eat?

Sachi:

Aside from being vegetarian, I listen to my body and it guides me as to what I want and what I need. I’m Italian and sometimes I want pasta. I know gluten isn’t the best or healthiest, but it’s happy food and reminds me of my roots and I greatly enjoy having pasta and bread and wine… and it’s [occasionally] a good thing for me!

Sometimes I just want a salad or just roots such as parsnips, sweet potatoes, and carrots with a few dried Chinese roots tossed in such as ginseng, astragals, and dong quai – they are tasty sautéed with a chunk of ginger or onions and some fresh coriander as a side garnish.

Jade: Do you believe in supplements?

Sachi:

I believe we need supplements to make up for how deficient our soil has become. We no longer get the vitamins and minerals we need from it. So we need to look for ways to get those missing nutrients.

I’m also a fan of supplements that convert fat into lean muscle mass. I recently lost too much weight, and the secret of keeping the body at an ideal weight if you lose a lot of weight is not to gain fat! 100 calories of cake for example is not the same as 100 calories of broccoli! So try to eat healthy! Not unhealthy fats and empty calories.

I’m currently taking alpha lipoic, congeline to help build muscle mass and not store fat. It’s important in this situation to take supplements that convert fat into lean muscle mass and that’s what I’m doing.

Jade: What about Antioxidants and Vitamins?

Sachi:

I start everyday, after tea, with a fruit smoothie with fiber, flax oil, and lecithin.

I also take about 20 vitamins once to twice a day when I remember and I’m constantly rotating. As a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, I’m like a kid in a candy store. I pull off the shelf what I feel like I’m needing.

Jade: What about exercise?

Sachi:

You absolutely need exercise. I once saw somebody walking into a big fancy building and then get in the elevator and take it to the floor of the gym they were going to work out at. Kinda funny.

So many of us lead sedentary lifestyles. You have to make an effort and exercise. You can schedule time and make time to do it but also exercise can be worked into our lifestyles just by using the stairs or parking far from the store.

I like to do some cardio and yoga which stretches rather than bulks.

Jade: I know you do yoga. How often?

Sachi:

 I wish I could say everyday. I at least practice a few times a week, even small amounts. I’m currently working on a second yoga video, a morning and afternoon short series.

I don’t like the power yoga; I think the best benefit is the ability to turn inwards. Yoga and tai chi are the only forms of exercise that have the meditative effect of yin and yang balance (mental side) together with exercise.

Jade: What about meditation?

Sachi:

We all need quiet time. Nobody can keep a clear mind unless they are enlightened. In meditation, we are taught to practice viewing all our thoughts that come in, but not to chase them or get involved with them. A lot of people get pissed when I tell them this, and say, “But I get way too many thoughts!” And I say, “Great! Bless them!”

Life is not going to go smoothly. When things come at you, meditation enables you with the experience and training of how not to go after these and get so involved, upset and emotional.

The golden part of meditation is learning how not to allow your thoughts disrupt peace! NOT to completely still the mind.

Jade: You Meditate every day don’t you? How do you stay motivated to wake up every morning and meditate first thing?

Sachi:

Oh I look forward to meditating! First thing I do in the morning is brew a cup of tea, and while it’s brewing, I go meditate. I like a nice Indian chai tea with caffeine cloves and cinnamon. After I meditate, I sip my tea and integrate my morning meditation thoughts. It’s my meeting with myself.

Q; What other advice do you have for us?

Sachi:

Stay positive! Have a good attitude, be nonjudgmental and come form heart. Relate to someone as a soul. You don’t have to like them, but you can love them, and that keeps you from getting involved in their human side. When I get fed up, I say to myself “look at their soul!”

Jade: What do you have to say about people who are afraid of herbal medicine treatments?

Sachi:

I would ask them to look at why. There’s probably a reason. Read a book called “Death by Prescription.” It documents all the deaths by correctly prescribed Western Medicine drugs. My advice? Try gentle first! Try herbs before toxic medicine.

If it doesn’t succeed, you have other options. Thankfully we have them (Western Drugs) if we really need them. But if you start first with the toxic prescriptions, then where do you go from there? You are worse off from the side effects, and the herbal remedy has to take much longer now.

Jade: What is the most important thing to you in keeping a healthy home?

Sachi:

First thing after my tea, I light Japanese incense candles that are free of chemicals and don’t use wood so that no wood is fallen for their production. These are the purest ones. I light 5 and put one in every room, and I go in each room and do a blessing. For example, in the kitchen, I say something like may this food prepared here bring health to everyone that eats it. I also put one at my altar and say a prayer.

When I enter my home, I stand at my front door and consciously drop concerns that I don’t need to think about now, and I take off my shoes. This is a ritual that is preparing to enter home purposefully. I then burn lots of good clean candles made of beeswax and soy for example.

Jade: Finally, What do you have to say about people that think health and weight is all in your genes?

Sachi:

I think we have a genetic predisposition such as blood type or body type. There is a lot of truth in it. If you have blue eyes, you can’t make them brown! If you have a large bone structure then you can’t shrink your bones.

However, you can do so much [with your body], such as reshape and tone. Half of the time it isn’t so much genetic as it is learned behavior! Like eating the same foods as our family raised us on, holding stress the same way.

I deal a lot with learned behavior everyday. It is a proven fact that in cases of people with multiple personality disorder, that in separate blood tests (one done on each persona) the blood tests differed! When in one personality, the blood will be that of a diabetic! And in separate persona, the blood returned to normal. It’s a proven medical fact!

So that said, if you have this disposition that “nothing can be done”, then I say we have no idea of the power of the mind!

Give your belief a try! I’ve been able to change people’s body types. People who were really heavy all their life and so unbalanced, who had assumed this was going to remain unchanged their whole life… and it wasn’t true. But they accepted it and it became part of their belief system and that is a very hard thought pattern to break out of.

Race and religious problems come about the same way: People believe they are in their “box” and that’s what we believe and make others believe. When we see souls all as one, these problems will disappear.

If you enjoyed this interview, you may also enjoy my interview with Dr. Simm