Living Beauty x G.H. Wilke & Co. Jewelers

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The Foundation fo Living Beauty is excited to Introduce “Beauty is . . .”, a collaboration between G.H. Wilke & Co. Jewelers and Goldsmiths and Living Beauty! G.H. Wilke & Co. Jewelers is an amazing company located in San Gabriel co-owned by the fabulous Tracy Wilke.

Tracy and The Foundation for Living Beauty teamed up to feature Living Beauties as models for G.H. Wilke and Co.’s jewelry! Over the next few weeks we will be sharing on our social media beautiful photos taken by photographer Rebecca Little of our women wearing the stunning jewelry. Rebecca, a long-time Living Beauty supporter, specializes in photographing women and making them look and feel beautiful in front of the camera. These images evoke the true beauty and strength of women and each image will include a quote about what beauty means to each Living Beauty.

All of the jewelry featured is one of a kind and a portion of jewelry sales from now until Mother’s Day will be donated to The Foundation for Living Beauty in support of our mission to educate, uplift and empower women with cancer!

We spoke with Tracy Wilke about the beautiful jewelry and what inspired her to partner with Living Beauty to showcase it!

 

Tracy Wilke, Co-Owner of G.H. Wilke & Co. Jewelers and Goldsmiths

 

FFLB: How were you first introduced to Living Beauty and what drew you to our mission?

Tracy: I found out about the Foundation for Living Beauty through an introduction by Joan de Souza to Nancy Davidson. Nancy was engaging and so fervent in her goals for the organization to help women in ways that truly addressed deep needs. Nancy and I met for coffee and I felt strongly that I should find a way to help and partner with her.

 

FFLB: What was the inspiration behind partnering with Living Beauty to showcase your beautiful jewelry?

Tracy: We all know women with a cancer experience.  Two of the most frequent points I hear are the intense loneliness of the diagnosis and the shock and terror at receiving it. The immune system needs to be bolstered and part of that is a mental attitude. Living Beauty envelopes the women with resources, encouragement, a safe and understanding place to vent, peer to peer advice, experiences and products that make them feel normal and positive.

Something I’ve seen for the many years I’ve been in jewelry is that women are self-conscious about their nails, their hair, their clothes and their general style. When I put beautiful jewelry on them they explode with excitement and joy. I thought it would bring joy to these ladies as well.

 

FFLB: How do you think modeling this jewelry and having their photos taken impacted the Living Beauties who participated?

Tracy: Jewelry is transformative. People self-purchase or give jewelry as a connection – whether to the past,  the present or the future. The women were all thrilled to be wearing beautiful jewelry and some didn’t want to take it off. I was hoping that for at least a little time, the photoshoot would provide them a thrill of self-expression and documentation of that experience (the pictures). I think they went away feeling more aware of their own unique beauty.

 

FFLB: How did you decide what pieces would be featured in the campaign and could you tell us more details about the pieces of jewelry being featured?

Tracy: I asked Nancy to send me photos of the ladies and I spent quite a bit of time going through my jewelry to find pieces that seemed to highlight their essence. I looked at hair and clothing styles to try and determine what to bring out in each woman. It’s what I do here at the store – try to showcase the individual’s personality through the jewelry they wear.

 

To check out the entire collection of jewelry visit this link. To read more about Rebecca Little’s experience photographing our Living Beauties click here!

How to Detox Your Body Every Day

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How to Detox Your Body Every Day
By Harvey Slater, Holistic Nutritionist & Wellness Coach

Have you thought about doing a detox but don’t know where to start? The word detox is flying around quite loosely these days. People are talking about it a lot! The word “detox” gets almost 30,000 internet searches a month! Many of us come to think that “doing a detox” is some kind of big thing that we have to endure for a week or a month. There are certainly many detox methods out there that would require this kind of mindset. But what if I told you that our bodies were already designed to be in a perpetual state of healthy detox, and all you have to do is make some choices each day to support your body to do what it was naturally designed to do? Sounds too good to be true, right? It’s not! You and anyone can learn how to detox your body in your everyday life just by employing these simple habits, principles, and more.

8 Simple Practices to Support Your Body’s Natural Ability to Detox

  1. Stay Hydrated

A healthy body is considered to be made up of more than 50% water. When we are dehydrated our organs literally shrink from dehydration, and the toxins in our bodies become more concentrated. Hydration allows our body to function better and flush the toxins out instead of hanging on to them. Here is an article from the Mayo Clinic on how much water you should be drinking per day for your body and weight. Creating a simple habit of drinking more water can make a huge difference in how your body functions and how you feel.

  1. Drink Lemon Water in the Morning

Drink a glass of room temperature lemon water or hot water with lemon first thing in the morning.  The lemon alkalizes your pH and stimulates your digestion and liver cleansing function.

  1. Have a Plant-Based Smoothie for Breakfast

The traditional American breakfast is not what it’s cracked up to be when it comes to high quality, efficient nutrition. When you eat eggs, bacon, bagels, and cream cheese for breakfast, you are actually going backwards and bogging your body down from its ability to naturally detoxify. By starting your day with clean, plant-based, easy to digest food, you are giving yourself a morning cleansing boost. Use raw fruits and vegetables, a good, whole-food plant-based protein powder, and plant-based milk like almond, hemp, or coconut milk. You can also find raw greens and other “super-foods” in concentrated powders.

  1. Eat Raw Plants During Daylight

There isn’t some time of day mystic plant energy behind this. It is just a rule of thumb that I use to try to remember to eat raw, plant-based, cleansing foods throughout my workday. In his book, The Food Prescription For Better Health, Dr. Baxter D. Montgomery MD articulates the healing and cleansing benefits of eating plant foods in their raw state or as minimally processed as possible. This can be easily achieved because salad is already the main staple for most people’s lunch menus. Just take it a step further and try having some fun and exploring other ways to enjoy raw vegetables, fruits, sprouted legumes, nuts, and seeds.

  1. Try to Avoid or Reduce ‘The 3 A’s”: Addictive, Acidic, & Allergenic Foods

Some of the top contenders on this list are: Alcohol, coffee, refined sugar, commercial dairy products, highly processed gluten, to name a few. I know, I know! When we start getting into the territory of giving up the foods that we love it changes the entire context of this article from “simple daily habits” to “oh no I can never eat a doughnut again!” For the purpose of this article, just consider cutting back on one or two things here and there and see how much of a difference it makes for you.

  1. Eat Whole, Organic Foods

This is one place where you should definitely splurge at the grocery store. Here is my question: If the objective is to support your body’s natural ability to detoxify on a regular basis, why would you put environmental toxins like pesticides, hormones, and other harmful chemicals into your body? The further along society gets in this discussion, the more compelling the argument for an organic diet becomes.

  1. Drink a Detox Tea

We have a lot of bad daily drinking habits available to us, including but not limited to coffee, alcoholic beverages, soft drinks, so why not make a daily habit of giving your liver and kidneys some daily, healthy, hydrating support? You can find a high quality, safe detox tea at your favorite healthy food market.

  1. Establish Sustainable Healthy Habits!

Our bodies are living organisms on a homeostatic continuum. The more healthful, supportive, and nourishing an environment you create for your body, the more easily it can maintain optimal health and wellness, and do its “detox, heal and thrive” thing! By mastering basic healthy lifestyle habits, you can move toward a life of health and vibrance, and away from a life of constantly battling autotoxemia and illness.

I offer a virtual coaching program (for a fee) that can teach you these skills and show you the pathway to mastering your own health and wellness! The program is called “Habitude.” Habitude is defined as: “A habitual tendency or way of behaving.” And that is the foundation of the program. We’ll spend one year, 25 tele-health support sessions, and all the support you need on my virtual “Healthie” nutrition coaching app, mastering a curriculum of healthy living skills that will support you to take the best care of your body possible.

If you’d like to explore this further, I’d love to invite you to a complimentary phone consultation. Schedule your consultation right here!

Meanwhile, enjoy your new healthy insights!

If you enjoyed reading about how to support your body’s natural detox functionality, you might enjoy my website at harveyslater.com

*Harvey also presented a workshop on how to support our own detox functions. To view the recording, visit https://vimeo.com/474879301.

two women seated at a table while one is drinking coffee with a laptop, tissue, and clipboard in front of them

Basic Tips to Improve Your 5 Detox Organs

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Basic Tips to Improve Your 5 Detox Organs

By Jovanka Ciares

Your amazing body has natural built-in mechanisms for eliminating detoxing and self-healing. While your body is capable of eliminating the toxic substances that get in through or are generated through food, water, and other sources, that process can become overwhelmed by the sheer amount of pathogens and eventually work less efficiently. When that happens, your body starts to store these potentially dangerous substances, eventually damaging connective tissues, hormonal production, and vital organs.

In the past 2 decades, the practice of detoxing has become more and more popular as people look for natural alternatives to reduce their toxic load. We started incorporating ancient detoxing practices like Ayurvedic Panchakarma, oil pulling, sweat lodges, and herbal wraps/baths in combination with elimination diets in an effort to support. These practices may also require an added investment of time and resources to complete them. However, there are other ways in which you can support your natural detox organs without making significant changes in your lifestyle and keeping your monthly food budget almost intact.

There are five primary organs in your body responsible for processing most of the toxins in your body: the gut, liver, lungs, kidney, and skin. In my experience making these basic changes listed below can help each of these organs process toxins and work optimally for you:

The Gut: We know the gut covers multiple organs, from mouth to anus, and as the 2nd largest elimination organ, it is critical that it works efficiently.

Eating more fiber is one of the easiest mechanisms to “brush” toxins out of your gut.

More than botanicals, probiotics can help absorb heavy metals and remove carcinogens from the gut.

The Liver: The liver is often seen as the primary detoxing organ, and for a good reason. It is responsible for filtering out toxins from your blood and eliminating toxins that may arise during the digestion process.

The best way to support the liver is with herbal remedies and supplements like gentle dandelion, milk thistle, and turmeric, this last one added to your meals.

The Kidneys: Your kidneys help to maintain the delicate pH balance in your body and are responsible for filtering out toxins from the blood and eliminating them in the form of urine.

Eating water-based veggies like cucumber, summer squash, leafy greens, and bell peppers can help reduce acid load and help the kidneys properly detoxify.

Stinging nettles is the quintessential herbal

The Lungs: Put simply, the lungs are in charge of filtering out all the pollutants that you inhale every time you take a breath and bring cleaner oxygen to your heart and body

Using essential oils that protect and clean the soft tissues around your respiratory system is a great alternative. Embrace rosemary essential oil as a stimulant, eucalyptus as protectant or astragalus to cleanse, protect and calm.

The Skin: Your largest detox organ, every inch of it helps push toxins out of the body. Because it’s also so large, it is also responsible for a lot of what gets inside your body.

Sweating is a great way to help push out toxins through the skin. Veggies like carrots, and other yellow and orange fruits and vegetables are a great place to start. Tomatoes and berries are great to protect and keep your skin healthy and beautiful.

Botanical oils used in the skin can have an amazing effect on your ability to push toxins. Include calendula and jojoba oil in your skin beauty regimen.

As we continue our October program theme of “Releasing, Cleansing and Detoxing Naturally”, we want to remind you that detoxing does not need to be intimidating and depleting. Instead, we want you to remember that our bodies are built for detoxing and we have the natural resources available in a variety of foods and herbs that help our organs and body systems do so in healthy ways!

The Foundation for Living Beauty is thankful for the wealth of information that integrative herbalist and wellness expert, Jovanka Ciares shares with us! For access to more information and to learn more about Jovanka’s practice, visit https://www.jovankaciares.com/.

To watch the full recording of Jovanka’s “Natural Detoxing with Herbal Medicine” workshop, click here!

a woman in a blue sweater wearing a scarf on her head standing by a table set with a suitcase of products

Mindful and Proactive during Breast Cancer Awareness Month!

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The Foundation for Living Beauty provides wellness support to women with any type of cancer and at any stage in their journey. October is breast cancer awareness month and as we work to support our “Living Beauties”, we would like to remind you that early detection and self-checking is an important part of preventing breast cancer. Living Beauty Board Member and Breast Wellness Expert, Brenda Smith shares 3 tips on how to take time and be mindful of being proactive in prevention.

Three important things to empower yourself:

1 – Take your Vit. D. Not only is it crucial for maintaining a healthy immune system but studies have shown that breast cancer cells do not thrive in a Vit. D rich environment. Take your blood levels as close to 50ng/ml as possible. D3 with K2 is the best combination for breast tissue as well as bone health.

2 – Do your self-breast exams regularly. Many women find their cancers even after clean mammograms. You know your body better than anyone. Becoming familiar with your normal density can make you more aware of changes. Keep in mind that cancer does not come and go so there’s no need to worry about lumps caused by hormonal fluctuations. While the majority of breast cancer diagnoses in the United States are in women over 50, eleven percent of new breast cancer diagnoses are in women under the age of 45. Women of all ages should incorporate checking their own breasts into their self-care routine! As you wind down for the evening and take some much-needed time for yourself, take a few seconds to perform a self-check to put your mind even more at ease knowing you are connecting with your body

3 – Especially in this time of Covid-19, release negativity and receive gratitude. We know there is a correlation between our emotions and our health. Breast tissue is susceptible to stuck emotions. As we are challenged in this moment in history, find ways to release your frustrations and anger. Get out in nature, if possible. Spend time with safe friends who are good listeners, journal, scream into a pillow! Get all the anxiety out of your body so you can relax and reduce stress hormones. Then find movement that you enjoy. Dance, walk, exercise doing something you like, and most of all, laugh. In spite of it all, we have so much to be grateful for.

For more information about The Foundation for Living Beauty, visit our website at livingbeauty.org.

 

headshot of Chadwick Boseman showing a man wearing a patterned coat over a black shirt

Chadwick Boseman

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Let’s Talk About Colon Cancer

Millions of people across the country are mourning the death of superstar Chadwick Boseman, who passed away at the age of 43 from colon cancer.  So many of us were shocked, because the Black Panther we knew and loved kept his painful journey a secret.

Those of us who are old enough to remember know that breast cancer used to be referred to as “the C word.”  Our mothers, sisters and friends were embarrassed to talk about breast cancer.  Today, we’ve embraced talking about breast cancer, how to prevent it, how to treat it and how to survive and thrive in spite of it.

Colon cancer does not have to be this generation’s “C word.”  Education, early detection and treatment are the keys to surviving colon cancer.  The American Cancer Society says that colon cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States.  Younger people are less likely to get tested early, because the industry norm is to begin colon cancer screening at 45.  But early detection in young people leads to significantly better outcomes.

How do you lower your risk of colon cancer?  Everyone knows the obvious –   eat a variety of fruits, vegetables and whole grains, stop smoking and exercise. But most physicians and cancer centers now also acknowledge the need for more holistic wellness practices, like yoga, meditation and mindfulness.  Combining traditional techniques along with wellness practices will make you healthier overall, and help lower your risk of all types of cancer.

If you are diagnosed with colon cancer, seek support.  This is not a journey you have to take alone.  In addition to Living Beauty, there are nonprofit organizations that provide education and support, like the Colon Cancer Alliance, the American Cancer Society and The Cancer Support Community.

Chadwick Boseman’s professional film legacy as the Black Panther, Jackie Robinson, Thurgood Marshall, James Brown and others taught important lessons about racial inequality.  The personal legacy he leaves is that it is important to speak out, learn and seek support.  Colon cancer does not need to be this generation’s “C Word.”

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Women’s History Month: Angelina Jolie

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As an award-winning actress, Angelina Jolie’s beauty and talent have captured public attention for many years. Despite her incredible accomplishments in film, Angelina has been lauded for her humanitarian work, as well as her brave encouragement of women everywhere.

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via Vogue UK

Angelina has won three Golden Globe Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards and an Oscar, with her famous roles ranging from an action hero to a determined mother. Even with these successes, her most incredible roles exist in real life as she raises six diverse children and speaks on behalf of education and health around the world.

Early in her career, Angelina witnessed suffering in Cambodia while filming for her famous action film, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. It was after this experience that she became an ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, working to support refugees worldwide. Although Angelina donated to the cause, she personally visited refugees in over 30 countries, connecting on a human level with those she wished to help. Jolie has also made efforts to support environmental conservation in many countries.

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via CBS

Women, children and education are also central to Angelina’s work around the world. She consistently advocates for young immigrants and strong education in America and around the world, both through political lobbying and fundraising. She has opened schools for girls and children in many countries, including in Cambodia, Afghanistan, Kenya and Ethiopia. Additionally, she has launched campaigns against sexual assault in multiple countries, condemning it especially in times of war.

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via CBS

Among many awards, Angelina has received the Citizen of the World Award, Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and honorary damehood from the Queen of England. Recently, perhaps Angelina’s biggest accomplishment has been making her private battle public in hopes of encouraging other women’s health and self-appreciation. After learning her high odds of developing breast cancer, she underwent a preventative double mastectomy in 2013, as well as a preventive oophorectomy. She explained that these measures would hopefully protect herself and prolong her role as a mother. Angelina has received much public praise for her openness on the issue, and many women have undergone preventative tests as a result of her journey.

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via Getty

For her openness, tireless dedication and incredible attention to the world’s diverse people and needs, The Foundation for Living Beauty treasures Angelina Jolie.

Introduction image from UN

Women’s History Month: Misty Copeland

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In honor of Women’s History Month this March, we’ll be sharing stories of world-famous women who inspire us as they break barriers, conquer personal battles and share their powerful stories. Just like our Living Beauties, they embody inner strength and exude positivity that touches others daily.

This week, Misty Copeland serves as our ultimate inspiration! Currently making waves as the American Ballet Theater’s first African-American principal dancer and Under Armour’s leading lady, Misty has truly carved her own place in history.

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(image via @underarmour on Instagram)

Misty discovered ballet at the age of thirteen at her local Boys and Girls Club. While thirteen might not seem too old, ballet training often starts very early on as young dancers learn proper form and strengthen their muscles, feet and ankles. Considered a prodigy, Misty began attending classes at a nearby studio and was dancing on pointe within only three months. Usually, young dancers have practiced for years before beginning this difficult training, so Misty was an absolute standout. Soon, Misty won starring roles in ballets like The Nutcracker and Don Quixote, drawing in thousands of viewers. She was even named the best young dancer in Greater Los Angeles. All the while, Misty endured familial struggles but still balanced dance with academic excellence.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Y2h6fz2XzQ&w=560&h=315]

Later, Misty successfully auditioned and garnered interest from three of the best ballet companies in America. Between 1999 and 2000, Misty began working intensively with the American Ballet Theater. She continued to break down personal and professional boundaries while embracing her athletic, curvy body as a unique vessel for dance. Despite her status as an “atypical” dancer in background and body type, Misty worked to redefine the public image of a ballerina.

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(image via @mistyonpointe on Instagram)

As ABT’s principal dancer, Misty has more than redefined the image of a perfect ballerina. She embodies it and claims it as her own, with an entire generation recognizing her as dance’s most famous face.

Opening article image from Rolling Stone.