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Picture Credits:
1. My Birthday party trip on the Thames Vivian Jones, myself and husband Lord Brian Davidson Brigadier Allan Julius, his partner Irene and PR extraordinaire Valerie Blondeau.
2. Weight Workshop at Harley Street with trainers Katie Glen, Johlanta and friend.
3. Charming reporter interviewing reviewer Richard Fitzwilliams overlooked by Judy Buxton at the 'Young Mums and their Children' event at the elegant
4. Chesterfield Hotel Mayfair
5. Actors Judy Buxton and Jeffrey Holland
6. Celebrity guru Janet Ginnings with Miss United Kingdom
I am sitting on my yacht enjoying the fabulous weather and thanking my lucky stars that this year has had such a good summer. I believe there is no better place in the world than the UK in the summer and I have to say especially London, but then again I am prejudiced. On my birthday we always take the boat out and have a party and I find some incredible and wonderful people to join in the fun. This year we sailed past the Houses of Parliament, which is always spectacular. My new friend Brigadier Allan Julius and his lovely partner Irene were among the guests and they were able to make it back from their holiday in the South of France to join my special birthday group. I am always fascinated with the Brigadier's incredible background and knowledge on so many subjects. There were plenty of old and new friends around and everyone got on famously.
I always enjoy Sally Farmiloe's events and the support for 'Young Mums and Their Children' was no exception. Talking of children, there were two perfectly behaved young cousins acting as reporters and interviewing the celebrities. I spoke to one of them called Henrietta, a pretty child model who was able to give me some tips. If she wants to be a journalist she will go a long way. She pointed out ....the theatre reviewer. Miss United Kingdom, several actresses including Judy Buxton and her Husband Jeffrey Holland. He was telling me about his role in the Victoria Wood's new version of her play Talent at the Menier Chocolate Factory from Sep 23rd to 14th November not one to miss.
There were many more interesting people around and I met both business and social contacts where we exchanged addresses. Many of my friends are due to the events I have attended through Hot Gossip and Sally's invitations. My new friend Jilly here and we went on to a great pub owned by Guy Ritchie called The Punchbowl. It is an 18th century traditional pub in Mayfair. It's such a reminder of the elegant pubs of my youth with dark wood and wonderful character paintings. A striking oil painting of Churchill by the bar reminded me of my heritage and my father reminiscing about the war when he was alive, which seems so long ago now.
Get fit with Mind weight control
I held one of my weight workshops for therapists on my yacht in London and it was a great success. Hypnosis is an excellent way to keep you wanting to eat healthily and it is amazing how it allows you to be disinterested in unhealthy food or between meal snacks, especially at parties. Once I see myself eating the nuts and crisps at functions I know I am due for my annual hypnosis top-up before I go on my cruise to New York. By the time you read this column my husband will have hypnotize me to stop drinking, eat healthily and enjoy using the exercise rooms which are generally spectacular on the cruise ships. Since I am sailing on two cruises this year, the next one in November, I enjoy this fitness routine and it saves masses of money in this recession. My last hypnosis lasted for four months so it's now time for a top up and extending the time.
The New 'HEALTHY' illness?
Yes, now you can get an obsession with eating healthy foods or so the scientists are warning us. It has been called Orthorexia Nervosa, which means fixating on quality, It affects middle-class and well-educated men and women over 30 that, I would say, are sensible enough people that choose not to eat tampered-with food. Well, you can get an obsession about anything including buttons but being worried about healthy eating is not an obsession but rather a 'must' in my opinion. With the chemically-ridden foods we are being sold it is creating a fear of what we can eat. There was a headline in the same paper saying, "Don't give children ham sandwiches" - a dire warning from cancer experts saying children should eat less, if at all, processed meat for fear of bowel cancer in later life. There it is again - the word "processed".
Do you have a high fat hangover?
It has been just recently reported that organic food did not have more nutrients than conventional food. That is true - an organic orange will have the same amount of nutrients as a conventional orange but it failed to say that we don't want to eat the poison from the pesticides in the conventional orange. If the pesticide poisons are not enough to worry you there is a new research on claiming that too much fast food will make you less intelligent. This research was performed by scientists at Oxford University with rats. A high-fat diet in less than ten days damaged their intelligence and short-term memory. It also decreased their ability to exercise. The biological experts called it a 'high fat hangover'.
It was discovered in the research that in just four days, in the rats fed higher fat (as in junk food) their muscles were less able to use oxygen to make the energy needed to exercise, causing their hearts to work harder and increase in size. After nine days of the high fat diet the rats took longer to finish a maze and made more mistakes. The rats fed on lower fat were running 50% further than their fatter and now dumber counterparts. These findings were published by the Federation of the American Societies for Experimental Biology. The scientists are now studying the effects of short-term high-fat in humans. I think we all know what the findings will be.
What's the news this month on Swine Flu?
A survey of 1,500 nurses by the Nursing Times said 30% will refuse the vaccine against Swine Flu because of safely fears. It was also reported that Swine Flu could develop a resistance to Tamiflu because of the governments' 'haste' in distributing it. Since ministers are ignoring the advice of their own expert panel on Swine Flu, saying that there is also concern following news that doctors should be on the alert for a rare nerve disorder when the new vaccine is introduced in October. It will be interesting to see what happens. But then again there may be more to it that we know.
Zombie Research?
A strange research has been carried out in Canada by researchers from University of Ottowa and Carlton University on what would happen in a there was a 'zombie' attack. It reminded me of the rather frightening book called 'Cell" by Stephen King. The plot revolves around a mysterious signal broadcast over the global cell-phone network that turns the majority of the human race into mindless, rampaging killers- sort of zombies. Professor Robert Smith? (It's not a typo the question mark is part of his surname) said, said, "We model a zombie attack using biological assumptions based on popular zombie movies." But the serious side to the effect is that the paper is published in a book Infectious Diseases Modeling Research Progress. It was mentioned that in some respects, a zombie "plague" resembles a lethal rapidly spreading infection. Ooops....
Tips:
Organic Farm in Maida Vale and Bristol
'Sheepdrove 'is a butcher that specialises in top-quality organic meat from their own farm in Lambourn, Berkshire. It also has a delicatessen-type store which is worth a visit since there is so few shops that have 'real' organic.
Safe Deodorant
I was given some organic deodorant a couple of years ago to try for my article and I have been using it ever since. It works and it is safe and doesn't stain my clothes and a small stick lasts for well over a year. It is advertised as totally naturally made from crystallized mineral salts. Used for hundreds of years, it is said to work by leaving a microscopic layer of these mineral salts on your skin which inhibits the growth of odor-causing bacteria, designed to give you a 24 hour protection.
Safe to Wash Your Clothes
Soap pods:
These organic nuts grow on trees in Nepal and India and have been used for centuries to wash clothes. I also tried these non-chemical pods for washing clothes around the same time as the deodorant and these too work very well and are so very inexpensive and they are safe. It is really strange to break up these natural pods with a hammer and put them in a sack in the wash. There is no smell and your wash comes out absolutely clean and again it is very cheap. You can find information about them at www.soapods.com.
A plant that eats 'rats'
It does make you wonder why the farmers have chemicals that are expensive, rather than natural substitute pesticides. If you don't think there are plants and herbs on our planet that work efficiently instead of chemicals you should think again. There is a 4 ft plant discovered by UK scientists in the Philippines that eats 'rats'. Yes, you read correctly. So finding natural pesticides shouldn't be that difficult and many countries still use them because chemical pesticides are too expensive to use. Makes you wonder how they sold them in the first place.
Whole Foods we still love you
You may have read in earlier editions that I said that, "Whole Foods" did not carry enough organic food and gave the impression that most of its food was organic, it's chief executive John MacKey was reported to say, "We sell a bunch of Junk" . This was under the front-page headline in the Evening Standard, "We Sell Junk Says Boss of Organic Stores". I know I would like these stores to sell more organic food but I wouldn't like to lose them altogether there are so few places to go as there is.
Thank you for reading my page. You can e-mail me at: valerieaustinhyp@aol.com
Please visit my website at www.valerieaustin.com
Valerie Austin Training (founded 1989)
Validated (GHR, GHSC) Hypnosis Training courses at foundation & practitioner level in business and medical hypnotherapy.
Valerie Austin is author of six successful self-help books including SELF HYPNOSIS published by Thorsons
Founder of UKRAH (1992) The UK Register of Advanced Hypnotherapy.
Eds Note: VALERIE AUSTIN is an author, journalist and trainer with an international reputation in the field of hypnosis. Her best selling books and training help people achieve their full potential. She founded the Austin Corporate Stress Management Company focusing on reducing stress and anxiety amongst executives and CEO's. She also worked as a consultant in hypnosis at the Priory Hospital, the UK's equivalent to The Betty Ford Clinic, which specialises in food addiction and alcohol abuse. Valerie's work in the film industry (Hollywood) interviewing movers and shakers, producing TV news segments and publishing celebrity magazines in London gave her invaluable experience for her current Harley Street practice. |
