Rise And Shine With Vitagene

Posted on by Love Lezlie

Imagine you could get a curated supplement package each month delivered to you with all of the supplements you need to feel your absolute best and give you the boost in areas you may be lacking due to your DNA. Well my friends, that service is available here and now with Vitagene. From my research on companies that specialize in Personalized Nutrition based on DNA, Vitagene is the only company that currently offers this unique service.

 Vitagene provides an extensive online Supplement database with the latest scientific research on thousands of Vitamins, Minerals, Herbs, Plants, Macronutrients, Amino Acids, Elements, Hormones, and more. It’s perfect for the aspiring Bio-Hacker and for anyone interested in health and wellness. And as far as their actual supplements that they ship to customers, the quality is superb. Not only are the supplements formulated from the highest quality ingredients, they are free from additives and fillers.

As you can see in the photo above, the supplements come to you in two easy to use packages, one for AM and the other for PM use. They also provide you with a personal sheet that explains in detail why each supplement is included for you. I have started my supplement package from Vitagene and last night I had some of the best sleep I’ve had in years. The supplement they gave me for PM is Magnesium.

Vitagene also offers other reports in addition to Supplementation, including the following –

  • Ancestry
  • Diet
  • Fitness

The process is really easy. Like most DNA analysis services, you give a sample of your saliva and send it back in the self addressed box. From there, you can log in to your personal account on the Vitagene website and begin to answer the detailed questionnaire about yourself. Some of the categories include Health Goals, Nutrition, Lifestyle, and Medical History. I explain it in greater detail in this YouTube video. Be sure to check it out!

The next part of the Health Report that I want to share with you is Diet. It shouldn’t surprise you that 90% of diets fail. And as noted by Vitagene, this is likely because each person’s body is unique. Vitagene’s team of scientists have put together a curated diet based on your DNA profile using your specific traits that will help keep you healthy by being preventative.

The Diet portion of the Health Report includes the following information –

  • Tailored Food List
  • Risk of Weight Gain
  • Gluten Sensitivity
  • Alcohol Metabolism
  • Emotional Eating
  • Cholesterol Levels
  • Weight Regain After Dieting
  • Triglyceride Levels
  • Fat Intake
  • Lactose Sensitivity
  • Sodium Intake

What’s cool about the Tailored Food List is that it considers your responses from the Nutrition portion of the questionnaire you complete. Because I eat plant-based, my Tailored Food List was adjusted for my way of eating and I will share with you an example of the VitaMenu they provided. There is also a helpful explanation in this report that summarizes my VitaMenu and how each category will benefit my health. When you click on each category it explains why the category is recommended for you. For instance, when I click High Protein in my VitaMenu the reason I am given by their team of scientists is for my blood sugar. This is incredibly helpful to know.

I am really impressed at how all of the information is thoroughly considered and the final recommendations are solid. For instance, in the portion of my VitaMenu below, the fruit recommendations are all low glycemic. This is intentional because of what my DNA revealed regarding blood sugar. The dairy options aren’t animal products and although I checked off plant-based, the Vitagene team confirmed that because my DNA showed Lactose Intolerance they wouldn’t have suggested animal product dairy to me either way. I share these examples, because it’s great to know that the report you get back is the absolute best information for your personal DNA and lifestyle. Because of this, you can confidently apply this information to your daily routine.

Also, I’d like to share with you the Exercise portion of the Health Report. Did you know that your genes can determine physiological traits like endurance, fat burning, ability and metabolism? Well, they can. The information from this portion of the report can help you make sense of the best way to workout for your body and to attain your goals better and faster.

The Exercise portion of the Health Report includes the following information –

  • Customized Exercise Plan
  • Power vs. Endurance Exercise
  • Muscle Strength
  • Muscle Cramps
  • Exercise Behavior
  • Blood Pressure Response
  • Weight Response to Exercise

When you visit the VitaFit portion of your results, you get to select your favorite ways to workout. Once you do this, your customized workout plan is created. Vitagene shares the following information on how their team decides to create your plan. “Using your biometrics (height, weight, age), activity preferences, and exercise-related genetics. Your exercise plan is designed to fulfill your needs, while remaining flexible to your lifestyle. The plan detailed below has been calculated to remain consistent with your recommended daily calorie intake. To achieve maximum results, select the activities and schedule that most closely matches your lifestyle.” Pretty cool, right?  If you are curious, this is what my VitaFit results looked like once I clicked my favorite ways to workout.

 

From here, you can scroll down and look at the recommendations in each exercise category in greater detail. For instance, under Dancing, my report included Zumba, Ballet, Jazz, Modern, Aerobics, and Ballroom. Each of these options had a detailed paragraph that followed with even more insight into the workout, including how many minutes, how many times per week, and the calorie burn amount as a result. This menu gives you the freedom to switch your favorite ways to workout so you can play around until you create your ideal workout plan for your current lifestyle.

The last point I would like to share with you about Vitagene is regarding my overall experience with their customer service. At every stage of my experience, Vitagene’s customer service was exceptional. If you log in to their website you will see that a pop up window appears towards the bottom right and if you have a question they will promptly respond to you. Also, after I received my results I had a 15 minute consultation with 2 of their team members who were very helpful and happy to answer any questions I had regarding my reports and their company.

If you would like to consider starting your Vitagene journey, check out their website for more info. If you are ready to get your personalized report from Vitagene you can get a 15% discount with my special link below :).

Enjoy 15% Off Here —> Sharing Is Caring 

Have You Heard Of XCode?

Posted on by Love Lezlie


The first Epigenetic product I’m testing this year is Xcode. As the field of Epigenetics grows, more companies are developing services for the average consumer to get life changing information regarding personal health and wellness based on DNA. When I first started my hobby of DNA there were only a couple of companies out there – Prometheus and Nutrahacker, both of which I tried. Because they were pioneers in this field some of the information received wasn’t as clear cut as it is now. New companies like Xcode have been able to expand on the information provided and package it for consumers in ready to use formats. Xcode is empowering individuals globally with knowledge about their genes and providing the tools to make the knowledge easily applicable. It’s a curated service, using state of the art tools in Genetics and Bioinformatics and I’m excited to share with you my experience with this company.

 

To take the Xcode test it’s really easy. Check out the following video to see a step-by-step guide on what to expect.

 

And voila, it’s that easy. This process is similar to any other DNA analysis process out there that I’ve used like Ancestry and  23andMe. In fact, I was able to use my results from Ancestry and upload them to XCode for an even faster process. The hardest part of this entire process was simply deciding which reports I wanted to try. Xcode offers the following reports –

  • Ancestry
  • Medicine (Precision Wellness)
  • Family (Fertility)
  • Fitness
  • Health
  • Nutrition
  • Skin
  • Allergy

Since I have some personal goals for myself post-pregnancy I decided to start with with Fitness and Nutrition reports. However, if you are having a hard time deciding they also offer a bundle deal for $50. The reports I received were easy to read and included some interesting additional information. For instance, this was shared in my Nutrition report.

Some interesting facts about genes and nutrition:

  • Craig Maclean, the famous track cyclist and Olympics Gold medalist, and Novak Djokovic, the famous tennis player, were both diagnosed with Celiac disease (gluten intolerance) and owe their success to a gluten-free diet.
    A study on weight management conducted by Stanford University found that people who eat and exercise according to their genetic predisposition tend to lose two-and-a-half times as much weight as compared to those who do not.
  • Approximately 74% of Native American, 90% of Asian Americans, 70% of African Americans and 53% of Mexican Americans are lactose intolerant. Research studies have also showed that there is a considerable reduction in lactase activity among people whose ancestry is from Greek, Italian, Arab, Asian, African, Hispanic or Jewish origin.
    According to Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 43% of children and 38% of pregnant women suffer from iron deficiency, 1 in 6 women suffer from Vitamin A deficiency and 17.3% of the global population has Zinc deficiency.
  • Fast metabolizers of caffeine, who drank up to 3 cups of coffee per day, have almost 52% lower risk of heart attack as compared to slow metabolizers.

So, given all of this information you may be wondering what my results were or what it could look like for you. Here are the key takeaways from my Fitness and Nutrition reports, both of which I plan to incorporate into my personal health and wellness plan.

Xcode Nutrition Report

 

Nutrition Key Takeaways

Gluten Sensitivity

Gluten insensitive: Unlikely to be gluten sensitive

Lactose Intolerance

Intolerant: Likely to be lactose intolerant

Alcohol Flush

Low: Less likely to experience alcohol flush

Increase Intake of

Vitamin B12, Vitamin E, Vitamin K, Calcium, Iron

 

Xcode Fitness Report

My Xcode Exercise Plan

TRAINING TYPE

FREQUENCY

TIME

INTENSITY

TYPE

Cardiovascular exercise

3-4 days/week

20-40 minutes

5 on Borg’s scale 70% of HR MAX. Talk test- Can talk with heavy breathing but not out of breath to stop exercising.

Medium Intensity with Cardio Training Method – Ex Brisk Walking, jogging, cycling, trekking, swimming

Strength Training

2-3 days/week

45-60 minutes

70-80% of IRM 8-12 reps x 2-3 sets

Interval Training- alternate explosive strength exercise with less intense strength exercise. Ex – burpees (8×1) and push ups with 30secs rest in between, likewise 10 – 15 exercises.

Flexibility

2-3 days/week

2-3 minutes

Full range of motion of the joints

Static stretches & active stretches during the warm down phase

 

Cool, right? If you would like to learn more about Xcode, be sure to check out their Youtube Channel. If you are ready to learn more about your own personalized health and wellness, and would like to consider having your own Xcode reports, check out their website for more info.

www.Xcode.in

 

What Is Epigenetics?

Posted on by Love Lezlie

 

 

 

This year I am combining my fascination with DNA with my passion for health and wellness and diving into Epigenetics. Although this field isn’t brand new, it’s still relatively new to mainstream. And if you aren’t familiar with it yet, you will be very soon (well, if you are reading this now you are). Here’s a fun analogy from the website What Is Epigenetics that breaks down the roles of everything involved in this science.

Think of the human life span as a very long movie. The cells would be the actors and actresses, essential units that make up the movie. DNA, in turn, would be the script — instructions for all the participants of the movie to perform their roles. Subsequently, the DNA sequence would be the words on the script, and certain blocks of these words that instruct key actions or events to take place would be the genes. The concept of genetics would be like screenwriting. Follow the analogy so far? Okay. The concept of epigenetics, then, would be like directing. The script can be the same, but the director can choose to eliminate or tweak certain scenes or dialogue, altering the movie for better or worse. After all, Steven Spielberg’s finished product would be drastically different than Woody Allen’s for the same movie script, wouldn’t it?

Epigenetics is the ability to switch genes on and off. Can you imagine how different your life would be, the quality of it, if you were empowered to manipulate your DNA code by switching genes on and off for your benefit? Because of the ongoing human genome project and companies that analyze DNA for consumers it is now possible to look at your personal DNA like a computer code and analyze it in detail. You just have to do a little research to get going. It’s a fascination of mine, so this year I will do some of the work for you and share the results in case you would like to join along.

Because food has been a big part of my journey, as I’m sure it’s been for you, I’m starting with unpacking the field of Nutrigenomics. Wait, what? Nutrigenomics is a branch of epigenetics that focuses on the study of how food and nutrients affect our gene expression. Science is now at a stage where it can evaluate your DNA and determine what nutritional factors have the greatest influence on your metabolic pathways, both good and bad.

So, what’s the advantage to this? It positions you to cut through experimentation and know what’s ideal for your personal genetic code when it comes to nutrition and even exercise. You can know which supplements would benefit you because of possible mutations, etc. It’s my personal belief that this is the future of health and wellness, Genomic Precision Wellness.

And with this knowledge and the application of it, you can become closer to the best version of yourself.

Join the convo on my Youtube channel HERE.

#MomLife

Posted on by Love Lezlie

 

Hey Loves,

An entire year has come and gone and my little angel is now 1 year old. It’s true, the feelings that come with becoming a mother are hard to put into words. All I can really say is that I’m eternally grateful and enjoy every single day I get to spend with her. She’s helped me to practice living in the present moment because I don’t want to miss anything with her. She’s shown me how words are only partial communication, because we cultivated our own way of communicating from 2 months. And she’s brought pure joy into my life, something I’ve never had before but have always wanted.

She currently walks and her first two words are “hi” and “cat”. She adores our cat Coco, even though Coco isn’t too sure about her. It’s truly remarkable to watch a life unfold from Day 1. We spend our lives experiencing what life is, so to now be in the position of observing a new life is fascinating. I marvel at how quickly she forgives because she doesn’t comprehend offense yet, at least from what I’ve observed. And she wakes up each morning with excitement and happiness radiating from within.

I’ve already had moments where I jump to the future and see her at 5 going off to Kindergarten or 16 and leaving for a date and I can’t lie, I’ve shed a few tears. Our lives are so precious, every life is. Yes, babies are motivation to build a better future and world but also to relish in the now moment and appreciate this gift called life.

I look forward to sharing more with you this year, as a new mom and as the person I’ve always been.

Photos by: Fox Girl Magic

 

The Invisible Vegan

Posted on by Love Lezlie

 

Hey Lovers,

It’s been a while. I wanted to share with you all a project I was honored to be a part of. It’s a documentary called The Invisible Vegan. In this documentary I opened up for the first time about my struggles with food and how the transition to a plant based diet helped change my life and assist with my overall healing. For me, this way of eating is a natural tie to my faith and spirituality. It easily connects to a lifestyle of love.

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My Top 10 Pregnancy Products

Posted on by Love Lezlie

 

2016_lovelezlie_pregnant-model

Hey Lovers,

Now that I’m well into my second trimester I’ve found several products that have really helped me along the way. Before I share them with you, here are a few free apps worth downloading to your phone.

  • What To Expect (tracks week by week)
  • BabyBump (also tracks week by week)
  • Clue (good if you are trying to get pregnant)

This list of products accumulated naturally. Each week I feel like something new is happening connected to pregnancy so I’ve had to seek out solutions as I go. Everything from my skin to sleep to safe ways to get a pedicure, the list below contain products to help you adjust as easily as possible to this magical time in life.

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Baby Girl On Board

Posted on by Love Lezlie

baby-announcement_love-lezlie_2016

 

Hey Lovers,

I’m currently 22 weeks pregnant and enjoying every second of it. The day I found out was pretty funny. Clarence was out of town for work and I decided to watch this random 80s movie, “She’s Having A Baby“. I remember towards the end of it the thought crossed my mind that I should actually take a test. So I drove to CVS and bought a test, I actually thought I should get the pack with 2 for some reason so that’s what I got. Next, I stopped by the library because I had to drop off “The Girl With No Shadow“. Since I had the tests I decided to take one. It’s a good thing I listened to that inner prompting to buy the 2-pack because as I waited for the first test result I accidentally knocked it on the floor when I stood up. Don’t ask me how, I found a way. When I picked the test up it flashed “?” over and over.

Sigh.

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What’s Your Archetype?

Posted on by Love Lezlie

 

archetypes_lovelezlie_2016

Be that self which one truly is. – Soren Kierkegaard

Hey Lovers,

I’m currently reading a fascinating book called, “The Way Of the Actor” by Brian Bates.

For thousands of years, in traditional societies around the world, actors were seen as the guardians of intuitive wisdom, and the way of the actor was a path to knowledge and power. Brian Bates believes that this is still the case today—that actors and actresses fulfill an important function in our culture as modern-day seers and shamans. He portrays the actor as a creator of visions who transports spectators out of their habitual ways of being and leads them on a journey of self-discovery. Personal magnetism and charisma, intense body awareness, and psychic sensitivity are among the special powers that contribute to the actor’s mystique. – The Way Of the Actor 

Years ago I took an actor’s intensive workshop with Sam Christensen. In this workshop you learned about the impact you make on others, and the personal stories you are meant to tell in life and on stage. He mentioned that we all play an archetype. If you look at pop figures today and throughout history you will start to see the same archetypes repeatedly. For instance, one could argue that Kim Kardashian is today’s Sophia Loren or Marilyn Monroe because of her tremendous sex appeal and ability to dominate headlines.

Archetype, (noun) An original model on which similar things are patterned. (syn., mold, model, standard, example, ideal)
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Find Your Soul’s Mission

Posted on by Love Lezlie

Artwork by Dominic Liam

Artwork by Dominic Liam

 

Hey Lovers,

So this was a fun and helpful exercise that came across my path last month. I used to obsess over the question, “Why am I here?” But not anymore. I think purpose is subtle and natural and something we’ve done all along – often without even realizing it. The following 3 questions can help make your soul’s purpose, or mission, crystal clear.

  1. Clarify the core value in your life
  2. Identify your 4 or 5 most prominent talents, abilities & strengths.
  3. Choose how to word your mission statement.

Once I answered those 3 questions I was able to connect the dots into one succinct sentence.

I am here to lead others to God through storytelling that brings healing, wisdom, and love.

I hope this exercise was as helpful for you as it was for me. Drop me a comment below and share your mission sentence. I’d love to read them.

LoveLezlie

4 Beautiful Angels

Posted on by Love Lezlie

 

Hey Lovers,

I’ve been digging through some of my old work, especially my writing the past few months. It’s been a strange experience because I have entire folders of writing that I don’t remember. I can tell it’s my voice in some of the sentences, but overall it sounds so foreign. I think because I have focused on non-fiction for so long now that revisiting my fiction work was a bit of a shock. Still, there are certain familiar themes I’m encountering as I read my older work with fresh eyes. One thread that has always been there and will continue to be is the supernatural. I wrote the words to Magic Hour for Alan Algee several years ago. It was my first time writing from the perspective of a child and I loved it.

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