Georgeanne Brennan | Pig in Provence

October 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Interview with Georgeanne Brennan [10:08m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

We spoke with Georgeanne Brennan about her latest book “A Pig in Provence.” About Georgeanne from her website:

Georgeanne Brennan is an award-winning cookbook author and journalist who has won national acclaim for her evocative and lyrical writing about food and gastronomy. Her expertise ranges from farming and agriculture to history and food lore. A charming and inspiring teacher, as well as a writer, she captivates and imbues her students with her enthusiasm and knowledge about the pleasures of food and the table.

Georgeanne Brennan grew up in southern California and was educated at San Diego State University, the University of Aix-Marseille in Provence, and the University of California, San Diego, where she earned a Master’s Degree in History. In 1970 she and her husband returned to southern France with their small daughter (their son was born there) and bought an old farmhouse where they made and sold goat cheese, and raised and sold feeder pigs for two years before taking teaching jobs in Northern California, although they returned to France at least once a year thereafter.

In 1982 Georgeanne and a partner, Charlotte Glenn, started Le Marché Seeds, a national mail-order specialty vegetable seed company. With customers all over the United States, including emerging organic market growers, Le Marché was featured in such magazines as Family Circle, Metropolitan Home, Organic Gardening and Vogue, as well as in the food and garden sections of numerous newspapers.

Out of her these activities came her first book, The New American Vegetable Cookbook (1984) co-authored with Isaac Cronin and Charlotte Glenn. Since then, she has written POTAGER: Fresh Garden Cooking in the French Style, which has been called a modern classic by Patricia Wells, published into both French and German, and was also a finalist for the prestigious James Beard Award, as was her next book,The Glass Pantry; Preserving Flavors.

The Mediterranean Herb Cookbook (2000), which celebrates herbs and the Mediterranean way with olive oil, was followed in 2001 by Olives, Capers, and Anchovies: The Secret Ingredients of Mediterranean Cooking, (published in Dutch in 2002) both from Chronicle Books. These were followed by Great Greens, also from Chronicle Books. In 2006, she brought to life Dr. Suess’s quirky take on food with The Dr Seuss Green Eggs and Ham Cookbook, (Random House 2006), and in 2007 her food memoir, A Pig in Provence (Chronicle Books, 2007) was published to much acclaim. It will be released in paperback by Harcourt in March, 2008. She is currently working on tales of growing up in a Southern California beach town during the magical years of the 40s and 50s, as well as continuing to work on a mystery series set in Provence.

In addition to her books Brennan writes regular features for The San Francisco Chronicle newspaper’s food section and is a regular contributor to Fine Cooking, Bon Appétit, and Cooking Pleasures. She has also contributed to The New York Times, Garden Design, Metropolitan Home, Horticulture, and Organic Gardening. She has been featured in Food and Wine, Gourmet, and Sunset magazines.

In 2000, Georgeanne opened her own cooking vacation school in a restored 17th century convent located in a medieval village in Haute Provence, not far from her own small farmhouse. The week long experience for small groups features gathering and cooking from the kitchen garden - the time-honored cuisine du potager - as well as shopping in village markets and preparing the equally honorable cuisine du marché. Seasonal activities include mushroom hunting, gathering wild herbs, visits to olive oil mills and local cheesemakers, as well as visits to her favorite restaurants, antique markets and nearby historic sites. The cooking school is on hold at the moment, due to other commitments.

She has been a featured speaker on Provence at the Culinary Academy of America at Greystone and at COPIA: The American Center for Food, Wine and the Arts and a spokesperson for the California Tree Fruit Agreement.

She also has been a guest chef on Crystal Cruises, a frequent guest at the Chef’s Holidays at Yosemite, Whistler School of Cooking in Vancouver, B.C., and Macy’s De Gustibus Cooking School, as well as a guest teacher at cooking schools nationwide. Additionally, she has taught food and memoir writing at the University of California at Berkeley and Davis Extensions.

Active in the Slow Food movement for many years, she has served as a jury member for Slow Food International Award, a member of Slow Food’s American Ark Selection Committee, and is currently co-leader of the Slow Food Yolo Convivum.

She is a member of the International Association of Culinary Professionals, and of Les Dames d’Escoffier.

Georgeanne lives with her husband on their small farm in Northern California. They have four children.

Posted by admin | Filed Under Food, Travel, History, AUTHOR INTERVIEW, PODCAST

Interview with Georgeanne Brennan | Sound Authors Radio

October 22, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Dr. Kent: Welcome back to Sound Authors. My next guest on the show, Georgeanne Brennan wrote a book called A Pig in Provence; Good Food and Simple Pleasures in the South of France. She owns a little place there and welcome to the show Georgeanne Brennan.

Georgeanne Brennan: Thank you very much.

Dr. Kent: The New York Times said fascinating, you can almost hear her lips smacking. Tell us a little bit about this book, A Pig in Provence.

Georgeanne Brennan: Well, it has its origins in the fact that my husband and our little daughter went to Provence in the early 1970s and bought a farm deep in the heart of little Provence, acquired a herd of goats and learned how to make goat milk cheese. I had fell in love with Provence and the way of life there and the people and that love affair has continued until today. So the book is about these many years and adventures and good food in that wonderful part of the world.

Dr. Kent: You discovered many things there, including making fresh goat cheese. I really want to know how to do that!

Georgeanne Brennan: Well I sure did too at one time and it was a difficult discovery because when we went there as I said in the early 1970s, the old tradition of making cheese had pretty much disappeared withy two wars and people leaving the country side. all I could find out was basically you milk the goat, you strain the milk into a can and you add some renis, which is a coagulating agent, and then the next day it will have separated into curds and whey and ladle the curds into cheese molds, let it drain and turn it and two days later you have cheese.

Dr. Kent: Wow.

Georgeanne Brennan: Sounds simple but like any simple thing, it wasn’t.

Dr. Kent: Describe this world; Provence in 1970. What did it feel like for you?

Georgeanne Brennan: Well, we had left southern California, the San Diego area, and it was not just going to another country it was going back in time. This little rural community of about 200 people, I think there were only two phones, one in the bar and one in the Mayors office. Many people did not have full indoor plumbing, most people had electricity but it was really left over from 1930 and the best part was the people really lived out of their gardens and their orchards. Out in the fields were gathered wild herbs, mushrooms, asparagus and people shared with us the bounty of their protégées, their year around gardens. There was always something fresh and wonderful to eat.

Dr. Kent: You’ve written several cook books. What makes this one different? Of course, besides the fact that it’s a memoir, it’s got a beautiful cover and all that. What makes this different for you?

Georgeanne Brennan: What made it different for me, I think you notice in cookbooks there’s always what they call head notes, some kind of two or three sentences or maybe a paragraph that describes what the recipe is about or how to serve it or something like that. So for me, being able to write this book A Pig in Provence was like being able to write all those head notes that tell about the history and the place, the taste and the smells, and the people connected with the food. That became a major part of what I was doing rather than the minor part. The major being the recipes.

Dr. Kent: As far as the cookbook part of it, the recipes in here, did you find that over all of these years going back and visiting, you’ve gotten better at their recipes and their style of cooking?

Georgeanne Brennan: That’s a good question. I’d say yes I think that after time and actually I’m going back next Wednesday in just a few days and I find that its kind of become part of me. It’s intuitive. I can walk out into the garden and say oh here’s some char, here’s some arugula and the last of the seasons tomatoes, and what a wonderful salad this will make with some goat cheese. You know without really having to think about going to the supermarket other than for meats and stuff. It’s a wonderful way to think and relate to food. It’s very therapeutic in a sense.

Dr. Kent: Because we’re in the middle of the political season I’ve got to ask the question looming. Now living in Provence, isn’t the temptation to just cut your ties from northern California here and move out of the country?

Georgeanne Brennan: Well, I have heard that from several people. I’m going to buy a house and move to France or England or New Zealand or wherever it might be and of course having had a place in France now for more than 30 years off an on that’s been a temptation. But I really have come to the conclusion that for me my home is here in northern California and I’m very privileged to have another life with dear friends in a wonderful part of the world.

Dr. Kent: Lets talk a little about what your doing right now because you have a little farm, you’re active in the slow food movement, what does it mean to you someone who’s inside the culinary world, to support something like slow food? Of course, having a small farm or a living in a small town where there’s only two telephones. What’s the value to sort of going back in time?

Georgeanne Brennan: I think that whenever we can step away from our daily whirlwind of life, you know I think now with the internet and the tremendous amount of information content that we have, that any time we can step away from that and sort of recollect ourselves and get centered again and think about where does our food really come from? How is it made and who are the people who grow it? Does it come from human hands or is it simply sent off some place to be processed into something as Michael Palin said our grandmother wouldn’t recognize what it was?

So for me I think that’s part of the value of this slow food movement. Its encouraging people, it’s very educational in encouraging people to think about their food and where it comes from. Here in northern California, my husband and I have a small farm, ten acres, we grow lots of things. We grew over 1,000 tomato plants and just gave the tomatoes away to friends and family. People came and took 100-150 pounds away to go make tomato sauce with their children, it’s great. Its part of why I’m having my teaching classes here, now I call it Provence in California. It’s wonderful to be able to share the knowledge and enthusiasm I gained with others.

Dr. Kent: What do you have on the farm? I’m curious. Besides tomatoes do you keep goats and animals?

Georgeanne Brennan: No I don’t have animals other than my dog and partly because I still travel quite a bit and if you’re going to have animals you have to absolutely dedicate yourself to your care, you cannot be causal about that. So we have a number of blood orange trees, naval orange trees, and the garden which is huge. What we grow in the fields right now I have arugula, char, yellow beans, the garlic is coming up, I still have basil and sweet peppers, but the cabbages are on their way, the asparagus ferns are full and lush and soon they’ll be ready to be cut back and we’ll have asparagus before you know it.

Dr. Kent: It’s been an honor speaking with Georgeanne Brennan. She’s got Provence in California culinary weekends; gosh that would be neat to attend for anyone as well as writing this book A Pig in Provence and good food and simple pleasures in the south of France. It’s been such an honor speaking with you.

Georgeanne Brennan: Oh thank you, it’s been a pleasure.

Dr. Kent: We can visit her online at georgeannebrennan.com. We can find A Pig in Provence just about anywhere. My next guest on the show will be the legendary Blind Boys of Alabama.

Posted by admin | Filed Under Travel, Food, History, TRANSCRIPTS, AUTHOR INTERVIEW, Inspiration, PODCAST

Interview with Dr. James Carlson | Sound Authors Radio

October 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Dr. Kent: Welcome back to Sound Authors. This time of year; it’s May and we all start thinking about fitting into our shorter summer clothes and so we’ll talk a little bit today about diet and things like that. My next guest his name is Dr. James Carlson and his book is called Genocide, How Your Doctors Dietary Ignorance Will Kill You. Welcome to the show.

Dr. Carlson: Hi, how are you doing?

Dr. Kent: Tell me a little bit about how you got into this? How did you write a book about diet?

Dr. Carlson: You know it’s interesting. It all started for me about 12 years ago when I myself was about 60-70 pounds overweight and at that point in time I put myself on a low fat, low cholesterol diet, which only proceeded to add more weight to myself and increased my blood pressure and lowering something called HDL or the good cholesterol even further. I actually stayed on that diet for about two years until I came across some books demonstrating or the low carb dieting approach.

With my biochemical training from undergraduate school at Cornell University I actually thought that hey this might work for me. I embarked on a low carb regimen and took off the 60 pounds and actually came off blood pressure lowering and cholesterol medication. I guess the rest is history.

Dr. Kent: What I’ve heard in the media is that the balanced diets are the most safe I guess. Some of the low carb diets are actually somewhat dangerous. Is that because of the way that people actually use them? Is it because they’re then eating dangerous meats and stuff like that or what’s your opinion on that?

Dr. Carlson: My opinion is basically what I see in practice and that is when people embark on a low carb regimen what they usually do and let me just emphasize when I say low carb I also mean more fat, more cholesterol, more protein. What people will do as they’ll leave my office hearing low carb for sure, but they also think its low carb, low fat, low cholesterol which is incorrect. There aren’t really any dangerous meats unless they’re cooked improperly and things like that. It’s also interesting to note that even saturated fat is very beneficial for us despite what the vast majority of medical professionals think that saturated fat is actually bad for us. It really isn’t.

Dr. Kent: How about movies such as what was that movie called?

Dr. Carlson: Oh, Supersize Me. I’ve been asked that question quite frequently and it’s pretty obvious when you look at it. This gentleman what he was doing, certainly he was eating the meat, eating the fat, but along with that, I mean he was getting a tremendous amount of carbohydrates because he would also eat the french fries, the large regular coke or shake or whatnot. So he was getting bombarded with just thousand of grams of carbs per day and that’s pretty much what put his weight on.

Dr. Kent: So tell me a little bit about why would you, certainly you have extreme opinions because you called this book Genocide.

Dr. Carlson: Correct.

Dr. Kent: Tell me a little bit about that.

Dr. Carlson: Okay, actually the title Genocide reflects the fact that millions of people are dying each and every year not only in America but all around the world due to physicians’ dietary ignorance and I must stress that it’s not an intentional thing with physicians. I have a medical degree and I treat patients every day and I’m certainly not saying physicians are stupid. That would be a very wrong word to use. Ignorance implies that we can relearn what we think we know to be true and relearn the correct way to tell people to eat. Again, that’s why I selected the title Genocide.

Dr. Kent: So let’s talk a little more about that. Genocide that’s something that we talk about Dafur so it’s not just the doctors, we’re also talking about society itself.

Dr. Carlson: Absolutely. The information to support low-carb, more fat more cholesterol more protein diets is out there. With a critical look and logical review of the literature you’ll come to the logical conclusion that low carbs is the way to go but society is you know I really don’t blame society itself. Because who disseminates the dietary information but us doctors, dieticians and nutritionists? Really we’ve got to get to a grass roots effort in the medical community to disseminate the proper, the correct way to eat, not the accepted way to eat.

Dr. Kent: Tell us a little bit about the proper way to eat.

Dr. Carlson: The proper way to eat is basically you know to back off on the carbohydrates. It’s interesting because when I say carbohydrates I mean all carbohydrates and there are many guises. Physicians will often state as I used to 15, 16 years ago. Oh, you know what, stay away from the white stuff but its okay to eat the brown stuff; meaning of course the brown rice or the whole wheat pasta or whole grain, multi grain, seven grain bread and its okay to eat fruits and berries.

When you start to understand that its sugar that’s causing the problem, then you start to understand that the sugar in whole wheat bread or brown rice or whole wheat pasta is the same sugar molecule in the white counterpart. The only thing that’s different is the processing. For instance, most people don’t know this and most physicians have forgotten this. We make cholesterol in our bodies from sugar. Sugar molecules, most notably glucose, but fructose will also be modified. Fructose of course comes from fruits and berries in the body to cholesterol. Most doctors have forgotten that the starting point for cholesterol production and fat production, the triglycerides is the sugar molecule.

Dr. Kent: What’s your practice in general?

Dr. Carlson: Family medicine.

Dr. Kent: Okay; so when someone comes into you whose obese what’s your advice to them?

Dr. Carlson: My immediate advice of course I check to see what kind of medications they’re on and of course for the listeners I don’t want anybody stopping medications who’s listening to my voice. But I’ll tell them look you’ve got to back off on the carbohydrates. I’ll be quite restrictive with it. I’ll tell them 10 grams of carbs per meal and they have to make sure they count those carbs wherever they come from.

I always like to throw this out because it shocks a lot of people. The most fattening thing on this planet is fruit. Fruit is very fattening and I always get these weird shocking looks from people. “I thought fruit was good for you, it’s a natural sugar?” But its still sugar so an obese patient coming into my office, I will immediately back them off on their carbohydrates.

Dr. Kent: Now let’s get into a little bit of the details. You talk about things like priority reasoning and other things that folks might not understand.

Dr. Carlson: Right, of course. Chapter one is A Priority Reasoning; it’s a fancy way of saying deductive reasoning. You see a priority all the time in the medical circle, the scientific circle. Its deductive reasoning and goes something like this. If I’m standing on the beach and I’m looking out at the horizon, well the horizon looks flat doesn’t it? Therefore the world must be flat. Now nobody would subscribe to that line of reasoning, we know for a fact that the world is round.

Here is the same type of reasoning applied to how a low fat, low cholesterol diet came to be. Well, if my cholesterol is elevated, or my triglycerides are elevated or I’m overweight, well it must be because I’m eating too much fat and/or cholesterol, right? And the answer is no and its just like its somewhat of a complicated task actually, a huge complicated task to figure out the correct geometrical shape of the earth, it’s a complicated task to figure out why eating fat and cholesterol is okay but its not impossible to understand.

Dr. Kent: Let’s talk about; you said you lost a whole bunch of weight. I’m sure it involved also exercise.

Dr. Carlson: You know what; I’m going to be honest. The answer to that is no. This is where I think it might be chapter 6 where I talk about the calorie. What I normally say to my patients is I give them my three biggest dietary myths in America, probably around the world. Number one that fat makes you fat; that’s false. Eating fat doesn’t make you fat unless you’re overeating carbohydrates with that fat. Myth number two is that eating cholesterol containing foods causes heart disease and that’s again false.

Eating cholesterol containing foods believe it or not, and this is going to be a shock for listeners, has never been shown to cause heart disease. Myth number three, this is getting back to what you asked earlier, the calorie usually means something in human nutrition and that’s false. The calorie means nothing in human nutrition. Originally taking you back about a decade I didn’t really give the calorie much thought. I was taking weight off, I was happy with it, then I had a gentleman who was about 400 pounds plus who lost a tremendous amount of weight doing low carbs.

He came in and had this face like he was upset about something and I asked him what was wrong. He looked at me and said, “Doc, I quadrupled my caloric intake.” Meaning he multiplied times four the calories he was originally consuming from 2500 a day to 10,000 a day. I said, what’s the problem and he said “I’m losing weight, I don’t understand it.” I asked if he was exercising and he said no I’m not, and since that time, this is again about a decade ago, I have doubled and tripled people’s calorie intake without increasing their exercise and they’ve lost weight.

For me, if I have a patient that’s 350 pounds to tell Mr. or Mrs. Jones to start walking to incur a hip, knee or ankle damage is silly. So, when they back off on their carbohydrates believe it or not they actually take weight off, they lose weight, and now they’re able to safely engage in some type of exercise.

Dr. Kent: Well it’s been a fascinating discussion. Where can we find your book online, Genocide, How Your Doctors Dietary Ignorance Will Kill You?

Dr. Carlson: It’s available at Amazon.com and borders.com and also a place called booksurge.com.

Dr. Kent: Okay, so Dr. James Carlson’s Genocide. Thank you so much for being on the show and we will certainly investigate your theories. This sounds like a great plan.

Dr. Carlson: It was a pleasure being here, thank you Dr. Kent.

Dr. Kent: The next guest on my show is going to be Shel Horowitz to talk with us a little bit about book marketing and self publishing. Come on back.

Posted by admin | Filed Under Health, Food, TRANSCRIPTS, AUTHOR INTERVIEW, PODCAST

Marcus Wells | Body Thermodynamics

August 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Interview with Dr. Marcus Wells [18:22m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Dr. Marcus Wells’ book revolutionizes ways on how to energize the body without radically changing your lifestyle. Thermogenix reveals “hidden” cellular potentials that restore, rejuvenate and rebalance your life. In a growing aging society, how we’re to maintain a balanced metabolism will be more important, but also will become more problematic. Dr. Wells’ incredible idea blends both a strong scientific basis towards understanding energy with a natural pursuit of it. This demonstrates so many ways that have been overlooked or misunderstood that we can now achieve what is often call the “super burn” effect of metabolism. This method helps you recapture “latent potentions of energy” necessary to live a more productive happier and healthier life. Dr. Wells was educated and trained in western medicine in the U.S.A. Upon receving his Doctorate of Medicine (MD), he continued his medical education at the world’s premiere bio-medical researchcenter, the National Institute of Health (NIH) where he trained with the nation’s most notable scientist in the areas of heart, lung, blood, and metabolic diseases.

Posted by admin | Filed Under Science, Health, Food, Holidays, AUTHOR INTERVIEW, Medicine, PODCAST

Susan Smith Jones Transcript

January 19, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Announcer: You have been listening to “Sound Authors: Where Authors Sound Off.” If you would like more information about “Sound Authors” and Dr. Kent’s guests, visit SoundAuthors.com. Now, back to Dr. Kent and friends.

Dr. Kent Gustavson: Welcome back to “Sound Authors” on this beautiful, sunny Friday. My next guest is an internationally renowned health expert, she has, she won the Healthy American Fitness Leaders, awarded by the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. And, the previous winners of that include: Lance Armstrong, Ronald Reagan, and others, including Richard Simmons. It is my pleasure to speak with Susan Smith Jones about her new book and her new website online. Welcome.

Susan Smith Jones: Kent, how are you doing today?

Kent: Very good. I am a little bit sick, but, otherwise, I feel great.

Susan: Oh no. I will send you some healing energy.

Kent: There you go. Now, you have a whole bunch of experience working with college kids and professors, at a university, right?

Susan: Well, I did teach everyone, at UCLA, how to be healthy and fit for 30 years. Lecture all around the world, have written 17 books, and I am totally committed to educating as many people as possible on how to be vibrantly healthy. I have never taken medication in my life and I look to nature, on the things we will talk about today, on how to heal your body. I can take anyone listening and if they give me 90 days, just one season, or three months, I can make anyone look ten years younger, disease-proof their body, give them energy to spare.

Kent: Wow, that is quite a claim. And, you have worked with many, many clients, I know.

Susan: Thousands of clients over the years.

Kent: Your new website is called PagingSusan.com.

Susan: Well, of course, I have got my name SusanSmithJones.com. But, I have just launched PagingSusan.com. Anyone that goes there will get a free gift, a wonderful special gift, in addition to, they will be able to sign up a live, upcoming, free seminar I am giving on living a holistic lifestyle.

Kent: So, what is the first step? I know, you know, this time of year, people over-satiate themselves with wonderful, wonderful goodies and things like that, and don’t exercise and sit inside and look out at the snow and what happens when January comes around and everyone wants to repent.

Susan: And, remember, you are talking to someone who is in sunny Southern California right now.

Kent: Oh my.

Susan: I think, first of all, people think that you have to make major changes in your life, Kent, but that is not the truth. It is the simple lifestyle choices, from what you eat, how you deal with stress, how often you exercise, how much sleep that you get and water you drink, and even what you think. These have an enormous impact on longevity and quality of life.And, if you think about it, there are really three things over which we all have control. What we eat, how we move, and what we think. And, we have the ability to change all three of those. And, the body reflects the mind and the mind reflects the spirit. So, a good place to start is the physical body.I just got back from a major media tour and everywhere I go, Kent, people are saying that they are feeling physically, mentally, and spiritually off kilter. Or, they have lost joy of living, or they are overwhelmed by life. But, the way I see it is it is really about getting back to the basics.

Kent: Wow, and what are the basics?

Susan: Well, I would say, number one is, and I know this sounds like a simplistic answer, but it is so true, exercise is a great place to start. Everyone should be developing, if they don’t have it, a well-rounded fitness program that includes three things: strength training, aerobics, and stretching. And, you need to make that a top priority in your life and keep your commitment to it.Being fit is, without a doubt, the key to enjoying life. It unlocks mental power and physical stamina, and it even gives you a positive outlook that makes each day more of a pleasure. So, keep these three key points in mind, move, lengthen, and strengthen. You need to make sure you work out on a regular basis.

Kent: What is your advice for a fellow, yeah me, who, we had a…

Susan: Are we speaking personally here?

Kent: Yeah, we had a very strenuous move, we actually moved to a new place this week. And, we over did it, it was a 20 hour day, and now we are both sick. What is a good way to get back into gear? And, for other people, people who have been, let us say they just slid for a year, backsliding. What is the first step?

Susan: Well, first of all, you make a commitment. You have got to keep your word, and if we have more time at the end, I am going to talk about that. But, in addition to working out, for you and everyone listening, there is nothing more restorative for the body than getting a good night’s sleep, night after night after night. Think about this, last year, doctors wrote a record number of prescriptions for sleeping pills, over 43 million.

Kent: Wow.

Susan: And, over the past four decades, Americans have cut their snooze time by one to two hours per night. But, people don’t realize how important sleep is. Getting only six hours, Kent, a night, that is just two hours less than eight hours, here is what it does to your body, it makes you irritable, it makes people stupid. Because their words don’t come easily and they become forgetful. It increases blood pressure, it makes you hungry for unhealthy foods…[Kent laughs]

Susan: It makes you gain weight, makes you depressed, makes you stressed out. And, if that were not enough, people that get only six hours of sleep a night is equivalent to driving on four alcoholic drinks.

Kent: Oh my.

Susan: And weight seems to be a big thing. Everywhere I go, people want to know how to loose weight. And, when I talk to people about that, the first things I say is, “Make sure you get enough sleep.” Because, you could eat good foods, you could work out, but you could sabotage your health and weight program if you don’t get enough sleep. In a nutshell here’s why: research shows that when you skimp on sleep, it interferes with your body’s ability to process carbohydrates and that leads to elevated blood sugar levels and an increased tendency to store calories as fat. It happens because when you sleep-deprived, Kent, your body produces more of a stress hormone, which you probably have a lot of these days when you move, called cortisol that seems to set the chain reaction in motion.So loss of sleep, in other words, can be just as bad for your health and weight as no exercise or a poor diet. You know how when you have lots of stress but you get a good night sleep and things always look a little bit more positive the next morning that it’s just paramount to being vibrantly healthy is getting good sleep night after night after night.

Kent: You talk on your website and with your whole series not just about fitness, not just about health, but about being peaceful and being joyful. Is that related to fitness?

Susan: Oh, without a doubt. It’s hard to feel peaceful and joyful if you’re always stressed out. So you want to really work on dealing with stress that that should be close to the top of the list. You want to get enough sleep, you want to drink enough water because if you don’t you’re going to stress out your body. The healthier your diet, the more peaceful you’re going to be; get your weight and check if that will make you more peaceful.I also recommend that you stay disciplined. You make your word count. Follow through on always what you said you’re going to do because that’s a great self-esteem boaster. Kent, the thing that people wrestle with the most universally in this world is that most people deal with low self-esteem. The better you feel about yourself, the more good positive things you’re going to attract.There’s this unwritten law in the universe that says that you attract them to yourself the equivalency of what you think, feel, believe. If you don’t feel about yourself, you’ll attract more situations, more difficult times, more challenges that duplicate how you feel. Then paramount to that and also germane to that is the first 40 minutes of each day sets the tone for the day.So make sure in the morning that you’re not rushed and stressed out. Give yourself a little extra time, maybe set the table the night before, get your clothes laid out, get a good workout in the morning because those first 40 minutes will determine basically how the rest to your day is.

Kent: Wow! Now, how did you get started on this, [inaudible]?

Susan: Well, you can say I started by accident. Over 25 years ago, I was in a major automobile accident. My car was totaled, my back was severely fractured, and if we had more time I’d give you the story. It’s amazing, but in a nutshell, my team of doctors at UCLA said that I’d never be able to carry anything heavier than a small purse. But I choose not to accept the verdict. Within six months they claimed it was a miracle, I was healed. But I attribute my healing to eating a healthy diet, the power of spirit, faith, determination, and a deep commitment to living my highest potential.I write about this in my brand new two book Hay House series. One book is called “Health Bliss” the other book is called “The Healing Power of Nature Foods” and are both available through the Hay House’s tollfree number.

Kent: What is that?

Susan: That’s 1-800-654-5126. You can also order my two latest books on my website PagingSusan.com and you’ll also get a special gift there as well.

Kent: Wonderful. I also have a quick story to share. I was also in a terrible car accident and my father–that was about five or six years ago now–he has the same kind of courage and I really believe that human beings have an amazing potential. The doctor said he wouldn’t move his arm about three inches down, his elbow was rebuilt and all of that. He’s almost straight out now and they said he would never walk and he’s walking.

Susan: What an inspiration. So you two were together in the car?

Kent: We were indeed. I was pretty much unhurt, but he’s a real inspiration to all of us and it’s amazing to see what real strength–you know, honestly family helps, friends help, like that.

Susan: Oh, my goodness, yes. You know, [inaudible] said 99% of who you are is invisible, untouchable, and unsmellable. Yet, I believe that the remaining 1%, the body is absolutely exquisite. But you’re right, we have amazing energy and power within us. It’s just most of us live such stressed out lives that we don’t take time to go with them and tap in to that fountain of power and strength and healing and divinity that’s within each of us. We can create whatever we want and everyday can be a brand new fresh start. Anyone listening can choose to start fresh today.

Kent: It sure has been a pleasure speaking with Dr. Susan Smith Jones. Visit her online at SusanSmithJones.comor on her brandnew website, PagingSusan.com for a free gift and also check out her new books on HayHouse.com.Thank you so much for being on the show.