It may takes use years to make the conscious decision, but once we begin our healing journey it can be a long and windy road towards improved, better health. Finding your route can take time and can involve exciting discoveries but also dead ends. Everyone’s body is different, and finding the right healing modality can take some time, trial and error. I don’t believe there is one answer for all of us. In this blog i cover a few modalities you may have heard of and hopefully some you may wish to try. If you want to reduce pain, lose weight and feel more energised, each of these routes have been shown to help! Which will you try?

RAW FOOD – When we cook food, we actually kill most of the nutrients in our food. When we eat raw food, we are receiving the full amount of energy (life force) and nutrients that food has to offer. Food is full of ‘life force’ which can be measured by electrical current a given fruit or vegetable has. Once most foods are heated to over 40 degrees the nutrient composition begins to degrade due to heat. Food such as meat and fried food have no life force, they are essentially dead. When we microwave food it also kills any life force left in the food. Raw food diets are a great way to help reset a lot of our body’s functions and gives the body all of the nutrients and energy it needs to heal itself. A typical raw food cleanse can last 60 – 90 days. Summertime is best as it is warm and you don’t go searching for comforting soups and baked potatoes.

Eating a raw food diet also has the added benefit of making it easier for your body to process the food, thus reducing the load on the stomach, small and large intestines and colon. Mono-food dieting is a great way to make things easy for the body too, where we just eat 1 fruit or vegetable for a meal ie 6 mangoes for lunch.

When we were out in nature scavenging for food, if we walked past a mango tree, not knowing when our next meal was going to be, we wouldn’t just eat two mangoes. We would gorge! Our body prefers to processes one type of food at a time instead of 8 – 15 ingredients at once.

We also wouldn’t stumble across a mango tree which was miraculously next to a blueberry tree and a banana tree. Raw food along with mono-food dieting takes a big strain off our body and is a very powerful way of healing.

INFRARED SAUNA – Sauna isn’t much a healing modality as it is an amazing health tool to keep in your health arsenal. All of these modalities are options you should explore so when the time is right to use one, you understand how they work and what is the best way o heal and deal with what is coming up in your life. Infrared Sauna provides a foundation with which we can begin to improve our health. Infrared Sauna is also a great tool to complement another healing modality.

Infrared Sauna heats the body directly, penetrating 4 – 5 cm into the skin, creating a cardiovascular workout on the body whilst removing heavy toxins. By increasing the circulation and oxygen rich blood flow, the sauna acts as a means to get the various bodily systems working. Systems such as the circulatory system, lymphatics and cardiovascular system. The sauna kicks these systems into life for some people for the first time in years. In many cases once they start to feel some pain relief, they begin moving more which inspires them to eat better because they’re feeling better and so the upward spiral of good health begins. My moments of true happiness are when a client says to me: ‘Alex since using the sauna my back pain has reduced so now i’m able to walk further in the mornings’. This is beautiful.

3 – 5 sauna session a week between 45 and 55 degrees is optimal to start to move things in the right direction. Here is a blog on sauna sessions and other natural remedies for arthritis and inflammation.

JUICE FASTING -Juice fasting is one of the faster routes to healing. A juice fast simply means not eating for a period of days by replacing food with fresh fruit and vegetable juices. Juices = a drink where there is no fiber in the drink (so no nutribullet). By not consuming fiber, we give our gastrointestinal tract a much needed rest, allowing our body to spend its energy on other important functions. Remember, digestion takes up a lot of energy, more than any other bodily function else in fact. After a 3 – 5 km run, we may feel exhausted, but soon after we have the energy to keep on moving. Now compare that with how you feel after christmas lunch? There is no chance you’re going anywhere! This is because our body needs to put all of its energy into digesting and assimilating food. Juice fasting means we aren’t turning on our digestion process, therefore leaving all our energy to be used for detox and healing.

When we juice fast we also flood the body with valuable phyto, macro and micro nutrients, minerals and natural vitamins from all of the condensed plant goodness; topping up our nutrient stores and giving our body the tools to heal further. I personally juice fast at least twice per year and after each fast enjoy clarity of mind, beautiful skin, increased energy and abundance! Things just seem to ‘flow’ after a fast as if i am being rewarded for giving my body some time to heal.

A three or five day juice fast is a great way to introduce yourself to fasting and it’s benefits. I promise you won’t be the same person afterwards!

ENERGETICS – Healing our ‘energy’ may seem like something for the spiritually indulged, however it is something we should all consider. Just like we can heal our body from disease through physical changes (more exercise, eating better) we can also heal by changing our thoughts and beliefs. Moving from negative self hate speech to positive self love speech for example; To stop carrying around other people’s baggage or not letting go of something, all of which can result in negative physical symptoms in the body.

Many famous authors have explored these concepts such as Louis Hay and Inna Segal.

Here’s one example of the energetics and emotions associated with being overweight:

‘Overweight – Guilt, shame, suppressed emotions. Carrying other people’s problems and burdens. Trying to cover the vulnerability, hurt or abuse from the past. Feeling not good enough. Feeling stuck. Punishing yourself with food. Trying to push people away or keep them at a distance. Not allowing your true beauty and essence to shine through. Keeping the weight as protection. Constant procrastination. ‘

-Inna Segal ‘The Secret Language Of Your Body’

The above is an example of the kind of thoughts and beliefs a person who is overweight may have. Now would simply having those thoughts yet living an otherwise perfectly balanced lifestyle result in someone being overweight? Perhaps not. But from my experience, people living a perfectly balanced lifestyle don’t foster these type of thoughts and the people who do, aren’t living a perfect lifestyle. The point here is that just as physical changes to our lives can make a difference in our health, so can our emotions, our ability to grown from our adversity and having a positive outlook on our lives.

KETOGENIC DIET – The ketogenic diet is hot in the media right now as celebtrities and others utilise this diet to stay sharper, lose weight and feel great. The ketogenic diet consists of consuming 80 – 90% fats, either animal or plant based which over time switches the body to burn fat for fuel instead of sugar. This is when our body is in ketosis. When our body does this, it generates ketones which have been shown to increase mental awareness and aid in memory retention. People also experience reduced inflammation in the body when on a ketogenic diet. I talk about how our body goes into ketosis naturally and without a ketogenic diet in a video here.

I do however consider the ketogenic diet to be a bio-hack (something that cheats the way we evolved to receive benefits we otherwise wouldn’t be able to). If we rewind 150,000 years, would we have roamed the vast Savannas drinking coconut milk and fat laden pieces of steak to ensure we consume a diet that is 90% fat? Probably not.

The reason i have mentioned a keto diet here is i believe we should be open to trying new things with our health; especially when the lifestyle we are practicing is leaving us in pain and overweight. The above modalities are just a few of many that people have used to improve their health. I personally have experienced amazing ‘results’ from raw food, juice fasting, sauna and energetic healing.

Be open to learning about something new, decide if it may be right for you and give it a go. Also just because something may be hard doesn’t mean it isn’t right for you. And don’t just try something for one or two days either. Changing your health doesn’t happen overnight and requires some form of dedication.

Click here to watch 5 things you can do to reduce pain and lose weight