You know my why, and now you need to begin to learn the how for yourself. You need the basics for turning your home into a Rebel House. Keep reading to get started on this great journey!
#1 CHOOSE YOURSELF
–Love yourself and everything that makes you you: You’re perfect just the way you naturally are. Develop a relationship with you. Learn yourself to be able to do better by that person in the mirror. In that love, accept when certain changes may be necessary to be a healthier you. A healthier you is a win, and becoming healthier is one of the biggest things you can do to show love for self.
–Make time for self: There will always be something that you can do to put your needs off. Find ways to make time to address your needs, including obtaining the help of friends and family to ensure that you are taken care of.
–Engage in positive affirmations: Saying empowering things to yourself on a regular basis can help you to make positive changes. Say things to yourself like “I am beautiful”, “I am worth sacrifice”, “I’m in charge of how I feel; I choose happiness”, “I will be better today than I was yesterday”.
–Meditate: Use meditation as a means to center yourself or to focus on and envision yourself achieving your goals.
#2 OPTIMIZE NUTRIENTS NATURALLY
Many dietary suggestions focus heavily on the macronutrients (carbs, protein, and fats), but micronutrient focus is constantly missing. The micronutrients are the vitamins and minerals, which include your electrolytes. Vitamins are organic nutrients, minerals are inorganic nutrients, we must get both from foods. No food contains all, or even most, of the necessary amounts of micronutrients, and this is why we must eat a widely varied diet. Unfortunately, most people are very limited in terms of foods eaten. It’s not enough to simply get the nutrients, but we need to get them in the amounts necessary for optimum growth and optimum functioning of all bodily processes, and to avoid the development of various diseases.
Choose mostly whole foods and whole-food supplements over synthetic or even naturally-sourced extracted/refined nutrient supplements. This is one of the most important basics. The body doesn’t handle synthetic or highly refined nutrients well. It is difficult to absorb these in the digestive tract, and what is absorbed is often not well utilized by the cells. Additionally, it’s important to understand that there is synergy within the body. The body is one whole thing, not just a collection of individual parts. All processes rely on other processes, and all relies on nutrients. The nutrients themselves don’t work alone either, but rather rely on various other nutrients for absorption and optimum utilization. Some nutrients also compete with certain others for absorption or utilization. These are some of the reasons why nutrition must be understood and optimized holistically.
Try to make sure that the majority of your foods are grown and/or raised in healthy ways that are healthy for the plant or animal, and for you. It’s difficult to avoid all of the problems in the realm of food production, including harsh chemicals and horrible feeding/raising practices, but we can choose the best possible options based on what is available and on our financial ability. The absolute best option will be to grow/raise our own food. Although it may not be possible to do so for all of our foods, we do ourselves a great service if we begin to grow for ourselves, even if we only start with a simple indoor herb garden in a window sill.
#3 COOK FROM SCRATCH MORE OFTEN
This is definitely easier said than done, but it’s well worth making the effort. I know that life is hectic these days for most people, but try to do whatever you can to make more home-cooked meals and make them from scratch. Bone broth is always going to be of higher quality when it’s made in your kitchen. The same holds true for most any food you can think of. When you want to optimize nutrients, quality is what you want most. Making things from scratch means you have more control and you know exactly what went into your meal. Quite often, even the most decent pre-prepared foods that I find have at least one problem ingredient, whether it’s refined salt, refined sugar, or some disguised no-no like yeast extract. While I don’t expect that you’ll prepare any breads or pasta from scratch, it sure would be much better for you if you did, especially if eating grain, nut, seed, or bean based breads/pasta, which need special preparation in order to make the nutrients more bioavailable.
One thing I suggest is choosing a day to meal prep several meals and storing, via refrigeration and/or freezing, as necessary until use. If there’s more than just you in your home, you can make this a household affair. If you have friends and family with health goals that are similar to yours, you can make it a joint effort. Just remember that you’re worth whatever that effort is, be creative and resourceful, and go for it!
#4 DRINK MORE WATER
You’re probably thinking that’s a no-brainer. The biggest reason for this being included here is the confusion about what kind of water is best to drink. Tap water, filtered water, reverse osmosis water (aka drinking water), distilled water, or spring water.Because the body relies on various minerals, electrolytes, to maintain it’s natural pH of 7.4, foods and water that we eat should have good amounts of them (not added to them, just naturally in them). For this reason, distilled water (which is largely devoid of minerals) should only be drank if it is infused with something that helps replenish it, like unrefined sea salt or lime/lemon juice. The same goes for reverse osmosis water, which has a few more minerals than distilled, but not much. Tap water is the least desirable water, and its often contaminated with chlorine and even some has lead and other harmful substances. I consider spring water to be the best option. Some may disagree and prefer distilled, but again it must be replenished in some way.
In recent years, there’s been a big push among healthy eaters to drink what’s called alkaline water. I purposefully left this for last because of confusion that is surrounding it. Some are saying that the higher the alkalinity of the water, the better. I’ve seen bottles of water with a pH of 11. That’s actually scary. One claim is that higher pH of drinking water, equates to better health via insurance of a more alkaline blood pH. Nothing could be further from the truth. The first issue is that the stomach needs to be acidic, not alkaline. Drinking water with a pH of 8 or higher is absolutely a no-no. This disrupts the stomach pH, forcing your digestive system to have to work harder to return it to it’s natural alkaline state, all the while you are more susceptible to various bacteria, fungus, and parasites. The stomach, in it’s natural acidic state, is one of our first lines of defense against these things. Additionally, drinking or eating things that have an alkaline or basic pH doesn’t mean that it will help the blood to be alkaline. Understand that the blood’s natural pH is more near neutral. Even if you could increase it beyond that through drinking water, anything above that equates to major illness, and is called alkalosis (the opposite of acidosis). Water should have a pH near 7, neutral.
#5 CHANGE THE WAY YOU GROCERY SHOP
–Avoid these things on food labels: These include HFCS (high fructose corn syrup), shortening, all artificial sweeteners, BHA (butylated hydroxyanisole), all food coloring, all food flavoring, MSG (monosodium glutamate) and all of it’s aliases, GMO (genetically modified organisms), refined ingredients like white sugar, sweetener made from sugar, white flour, white salt,
–Find good or better replacements for things that include the ingredients you want to avoid: For example, you can replace your commonly purchased chips with things like banana chips, apple chips, and GMO free or organic chips.
–Be deal oriented: If you’re not already frugal, becoming so can help you to eat healthier. The healthiest foods are usually the more expensive foods. Being deal oriented helps us get the most out of our dollar, which helps to optimize our diet.
–Buy ‘play food’: Be sure to grab foods to experiment or play around with. You’re likely going to make the simplest changes first, but be sure to begin to challenge yourself and venture into the realm of the unknown from time to time. This is how you can add to the list of foods that you like. Even if you try something and you don’t like it initially, don’t give up. Try, try again.
–Buy less pre-packaged foods.
–Buy more water and less drink mixes, juices, and sodas.
#6 STOCK YOUR REBEL HOUSE ARSENAL
Building up your home apothecary is essential. Always look out for good options for various herbs/powders that you absolutely want to have on hand. Herbal teas, antiviral herbs, antibacterial herbs, natural fever solutions, etc.
Make an all-natural first aid kit, for your car or for other travel, and keep it stocked and up-to-date. Include items for (but not limited to):
-bacterial infection
-viral infection
-fever
-parasites
-burns
Learn about the most effective herbs and practices for these ailments in our blog, and look out for new articles regularly.
#7 ARM YOURSELF WITH THE KNOWLEDGE TO FIGHT AGAINST SERIOUS ILLNESS
All too often, we feel that we have no choice but to subject ourselves to drugs. Whether it’s vaccines or high blood pressure drugs, we have other options for prevention and/or recovery. For certain ailments, including diabetes and high blood pressure, adding dietary augmentation to the use of herbs is very necessary because the source of the problem is typically dietary. For issues that are viral or bacterial, temporary dietary changes can be very helpful, but aren’t always necessary. For each ailment, the solution will vary, but you can use Rebel House information for greater understanding. Our blog is frequently updated as a service to you.
#8 TRAIN YOURSELF TO BE GRATEFUL & THINK MORE POSITIVELY
–Frequently express your thankfulness: You can do this out loud or quietly in your head, during a meal, during a hug with a loved one, while observing breathtaking scenery, or for whatever reason you can think of.
–Correct for the shot: This is something that ballers might be familiar with, if they had a great coach. During practice, a player who has released the ball incorrectly and missed the shot, should keep his hands in the air and adjust their position to the correct place before letting them down again. This helps to ensure correct hand positioning with future shots. How does this relate to your thinking? Well, if you tend to worry or be pessimistic, then you definitely want to have thoughts along those lines less frequently. To help to train your brain to be more positive, you want to take notice when you have a negative thought (even if you think you’re just being ‘realistic’), then actively and immediately replace that thought with a more beneficial one. For example, if your thought is “I’m not good enough to ____”, immediately replace that thought with “I’m very good at ______, and I will work to be even better. I am worthy”. It’s that simple. Make the claim, and do whatever needs to be done afterward. Don’t have pity parties, have strengthening sessions.
–Change your mind about food: What tastes good and what tastes bad is only in your head. Thankfully, you can work toward changing what you think. Holding onto the idea that something is nasty will get in the way of a better you. Refer back to what I said about buying play food when grocery shopping. Playing with your food can help you to get past the picky. It will take time, but you’re worth it.
–Reduce stress: Find ways to reduce your stress, whether it’s mental or physical. If you train hard, figure out if you have to. If it’s not a requirement for your profession, begin to look into ways to train differently. Choose optimized weight training and mild aerobics (like walking or standard bike-riding) over hour-long insane workout sessions. If you’re mentally stressed and you can’t seem to get away from it (perhaps the stress is coming from home of work), incorporate cool-down methods as often as possible. Some suggestions for ways to cool down and de-stress are:
- Don’t sweat it: if you tend to be a worry wort understand that worrying will solve nothing whatsoever, no will it make you feel better, but it will certainly make you feel worse. Refer back to the information for how to ‘correct for the shot’ and remind yourself to back off of whatever it is you’re worrying about. You may even want to try to distract yourself with something more beneficial, and trust that a solution will come to you. Do the best you can with things you can do something about, and be accepting of things that you can’t change.
- Go ahead, laugh!: Make it point to laugh often. Think of a funny incident, watch a funny show, play with a baby or child, call up the friend who always makes you laugh. Laughter helps to heal so many things.
- Add beauty and better air quality to your home with various plants. In addition to the aesthetics and benefit to your lungs and body, this can help you to relax. Rubber Trees, Boston Ferns, Azaleas, Philodendrons, Tulips, and Bamboo plants can be great for the air quality aspects, but all plants will be helpful. Of course an aloe vera plant is great to have around for better air quality and for use with cuts, burns, and other skin issues. Some house plants can be poisonous to babies and pets, if eaten, so be sure to keep them out of reach or stick with plants that are safest.
- Connect with the Earth: Earthing, or grounding, is what happens when you allow your bare feet to meet with the bare Earth. It’s great to do this for several minutes, or hours, per day.
- Seek out someone to talk to who can help to resolve issues. It isn’t easy to find mental health professionals who won’t just push some drug or another on you, but it’s worth your time to find one. A truly good life coach, counselor, or psychologist is an asset.
- Meditate often.
#9 WORK TOWARD REDUCING TOXINS IN/ON THE BODY, AND IN YOUR HOME ATMOSPHERE
–Purchase non-toxic cleaning supplies: Vinegar, alcohol, and hydrogen peroxide are actually great cleaning agents. Click here to see cleaning recipes that I’ve been using for years.
–Purchase natural, non-toxic candles, or candle alternatives: Candles can be pretty pricey, and non-toxic, beeswax, wood-wick candles can be way too expensive. Another option can be to buy a diffuser and diffuse essential oils. You can even simply add a few drops of essential oil and water to tea light candle wax burners. Another option is to make your own wax melts. Click here to find out how.
–Use natural skin moisturizers: I tend to use coconut oil and/or cocoa butter to moisturize. Simply spritz with distilled water and follow up with either oil. It works great!
–Refer to #5 to reduce toxins that you put in your body
#10 ACKNOWLEDGE AND APPRECIATE THE CIRCLE OF LIFE
Our nutritional requirements aren’t suggestions, they’re necessities. We may not like the idea of taking the life of another to live, but it is how things work. No person is horrible for trying to eat optimally. The problem comes in when wild claims cause confusion. Claims that humans don’t need to, or shouldn’t, eat meat, and comparisons between humans and other animals (particularly herbivores) for support of such claims are the results of childish fantasy and inability to accept the uncomfortable truths.
Additionally, regarding vegetarian, vegan, “plant-based” diets, these questions must be asked:
-Are refined or synthetic nutritional supplements, which aren’t food at all, considered superior to eating meat?
-Is a diet/lifestyle plant-based when synthetic or refined supplements must be taken to obtain what plants alone cannot sufficiently provide? Is there a zinc plant? Is there a Vitamin B12 plant?
-Why does it seem that the problems with agriculture, as it pertains to plants, is being ignored?
-Is insistence on a “plant-based diet” a form of animal worship? Why are animals being considered more important than plants, bugs/worms, or even ourselves?
-If humans who eat meat are bad people, what is to be said about carnivores, including carnivorous plants (which eat insects, and even small rodents)?
-What does “plant-based” mean, if all plants depend on bugs, worms, and animals (living and dead) for nutrition?
We can’t escape the fact that all living things depend on other things (living and dead). In the circle of life, plants also depend on other living/dead plants, feces of animals/insects, and living/dead animals/insects (whether as soil or as freshly-caught prey) for nutrients. For more on this subject, you’ll definitely want to read this.
ADDITIONAL TIPS
–Be patient. You’re worth it!
This isn’t about getting well quick or living perfectly by tomorrow. We live in a fast food society, and we grow ever impatient by the generation. However, real life is more about ‘all in good time’. Change and recovery can take a day or several years. It all depends, and one has to understand that most likely the problems didn’t occur in a few days, so correcting them may very well take just as long or longer. The goal should be overall good health, not just a quick fix, especially if you want to reduce the occurrence of additional issues later. If you don’t believe that you’re worth the time, energy, and effort, then who will? Trust me, you’re worth it. Now you just need to act like it.
–Trust your instincts, but educate yourself well
The idea that doc knows best is best catapulted from your brain. This isn’t to say that fear should rule or that you shouldn’t take certain things seriously or into consideration, but if you’re very uneasy about something, don’t brush it off. At the very least, give yourself time to research it and even get a second opinion. No matter what, don’t ever allow doctors bully you, scare you, or guilt you into doing what they say. At the end of the day, it’s your body, or your child’s. You have the final say.
With that said, it is very important to know that your emotions or fears can get the best of you and make the worst of a situation. The absolute best way to safeguard yourself and your loved ones is to get all of the information on a subject and give yourself time to do so. Feelings can be dead wrong, but if you research, without allowing your emotions to dictate what is acceptable, you can win in any situation.
Rebel Well!
Disclaimer: Content on this site is for reference purposes and is not a substitute for advice from a licensed health-care professional. You should not rely solely on this content. Always read labels and directions before using a product. Statements regarding dietary supplements have not been evaluated by the FDA, and Rebel House products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease or condition.
Rebel House does not diagnose any ailment, disease, illness. Rebel House products do not cure, prevent, or treat any specific disease or health challenge. The body can do what it has the tools to properly do.