Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Good morning, good afternoon, good evening wherever you are in the world. It’s Dr. Jan Fortman with Relationship Matters TV. I hope everyone is having a beautiful blessed morning, afternoon, or evening. We’re here in Chicago and today it’s what almost, what is it, November 10th and it was 76 degrees. Now today is Thursday and they are saying that Saturday we’re going to have snow flurries. Ah, you know you don’t know what to do but today what I did, I thought, you know what, it’s November. I have a little Eclipse, Mitsubishi Eclipse Spider. I pulled it out, I had my top down, and I drove around because I said, you know what, I’m going to enjoy this day. Well, I’m so happy to see all of you and we have an amazing guest today and we’re going to talk about, we’re going to have a Converse, two conversations actually. We’re going to have a conversation about caring for our aging mothers. So let me tell you who I have on today. Her name is Aurelia Acosta. Isn’t that a beautiful name? Aurelia is a vibrant woman, and you’ll see that, who loves food and loves to share how to enjoy what you eat while maintaining optimal health. She is a certified holistic wellness coach and after finding natural solutions to heal her stomach problems and her most challenging struggles during menopause with weight gain, adrenal fatigue, anemia, fatty liver, high cholesterol, and depression, guess what? She released 30 pounds and has kept it off for eight years. And Aurelia is always open to learning about the latest health trends and she shares them with her many clients so that she can find out what works best for them. Her focus is on weight loss, I’m interested in that, insulin resistance, diabetes, low energy, and kind of lack of focus. However, with all that she does, Aurelia is also on another journey. She is the caregiver for her mother. So, the first part of this show, what we’re going to do, we’re going to focus on the care of our aging mothers. So if you’re on this journey or you’ve been on this journey, you know someone else who might benefit from today’s show, please join us for this heartfelt and extremely important discussion. So what I want to do without further ado is bring on Aurelia. Hello, good day, good whatever. All right, how are you?

Aurelia Acosta
I am doing well. Today was a good day.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, now where are you located?

Aurelia Acosta
I’m right outside Houston. I’m about 20 minutes from Galveston, Texas.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, okay, so the weather there is nice.

Aurelia Acosta
It’s nice, but it’s humid and hot, so that’s not a good combination for my body, but here I am.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, well you look good and you feel good. So, you know, we are a part of the same women’s network, Women’s Prosperity Network, and that’s where I met you. And you said something one day about your mom.

Aurelia Acosta
Yes.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
And how you, with all what you do, you are the caregiver for your mom. So, you know, walk us, if it’s not too hard to do, just kind of walk us through your journey and what’s happening now.

Aurelia Acosta
Well, Mom turned 94 September 1st and oh my goodness, isn’t that something? And she’s still there and hanging on there. I suspect she’s doing that to give me time to get some things in order and be at a place where I’m more comfortable because in 2020, she started to have some serious mental lagoons which later turned out to be dementia. And as she started going into dementia, she would get confused with things in the house. One of the things that really took me by surprise, and I didn’t make the connection at the time, was she got really, really ornery and she would just grit her teeth and do this number, and I didn’t know what was going on. Come to find out later that this is actually related to dementia. She had gone for a brief visit to some of her relatives and that took her out of her familiar surroundings, and that’s what actually accelerated the dementia. So, a year after she came back from her trip, I placed her in assisted living. And I’ve got to tell you, I’m very blessed to have found this assisted living because it’s family-run and it’s a private assisted living. So you don’t have some of the benefits, but I prefer this because there are only a handful of people that they see and they give her much more care and attention. She was actually up and about and walking and even remembered things and she was okay there. And then all of a sudden, she just lost her ability to walk. And I really think that this was just her way of really starting to close down, to end, to leave this plane of existence, to die. People do it in different manners. Some go quickly, others take their time. But I will tell you, one of the most painful things for me is to go into the assisted living home and see her lying there. That just, that really does a number on me. And the funny thing is that she always recognizes me and sometimes she’ll tell me, “Where have you been?” And then she starts talking in bits and pieces about things that she remembers. Sometimes she’ll ask me about my father, who’s been long gone, and sometimes she’ll just mention things that children are trying to take from her or she’ll start talking about religion. And there’s another friend that goes in to see her and she starts reciting the Bible to her and Mom actually remembers these verses and she prays and she’s always like, “You know, may it be the will of God,” and what have you. And I just find that remarkable. But just because she is in assisted living right now does not mean I’m not caring for her. I take her little treats, you know, I buy her clothes when she needs them. Now she doesn’t really need too many clothes, obviously, she’s just lying in bed. But I go see her every week and I follow up on whatever’s going on with her. Just because you’ve placed someone in assisted living, the majority or the bulk of the burden has been transferred to assisted living. However, I am still responsible for her care. So when something goes wrong, when something is, when she’s experiencing something, I get the call and I worry just as if she were here because I’m still caring for her. I have not washed my hands of her. I’m still there, diligent. I call the assisted living place, I call the nurse, the nurses call me and give me a progress report. But of course, the good thing is that she’s safe, she’s being watched over 24/7, which is something I couldn’t do. And one of the things that I wanted to bring up during your show is that when I was growing up, I saw people all around me that were placing their elderly parents in assisted living and I always judged that. But what I didn’t realize is how impossible it is for a caregiver to have someone that has dementia in the home. So Mom, for example, would get up five times during the night to go to the bathroom and every time she got up, I had to walk her back, which means I had to get up, which means my sleep was interrupted, which means the next day I was unable to function. And this went on for about a year before placing her in assisted living. But even before then, I was always at Mom’s beck and call because she stopped, I made her stop driving when she turned 70 because I didn’t want, oh, that was hard. It was a little bit, and she would still remind me of the fact that now she couldn’t drive. But it wasn’t that bad because she knew she wasn’t in any condition to drive. I didn’t want her to end up hurting herself or killing herself or killing someone else. And I know that these are hard decisions, but they are decisions that we can choose to make in a very matter-of-fact manner. Mom’s reflexes were not what they were, and the last thing I wanted is Mom to be hurt. So that was a very responsible thing for me to do. And so I served as her taxi. And then as her health started to deteriorate, I would spend hours and entire weeks taking her from one doctor to another. One of the reasons that I believe that Mom lasted up until the age of 92 without any serious effects of her mind, you know, she’d forget things, is because I put her on a Paleo slash ketogenic eating style, just like me.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Explain what that is.

Aurelia Acosta
So, both paleo and keto do not consume grains, starting with wheat. Paleo peeps tend to eat a little bit more sugar. I used to, I’m also a wellness chef, and so I used to make pastries and tarts and torts and some of the most exotic foods you’ve ever seen. But all of that came to a halt as I found out what worked for me and what would allow me to release that excess weight. And so we started eating that way and she would fight me every now and then and say, “I want tortillas.” And I would tell her, “Mom, those aren’t good for you and you know it.” And she pretty much ate what I ate, but she was so happy. This is what people don’t get, that you can eat healthy and enjoy everything. So I would make so many other foods that she would forget about the tortillas and every now and then, right? But she ate so well here that she wasn’t missing out on anything. And so as time went on, she just forgot about it. But that’s one of the reasons that I attribute her to doing so well. And she would still walk around in the house and, you know, wash the dishes and fold the clothes and do things. Because what happens a lot of times is that as you get older, if you don’t have something to keep you active and your mind active, that’s when things really start to deteriorate. And Mom had really bad eye vision, so she had botched LASIK surgery and, no, it was cataract surgery. And so she wasn’t able to watch TV too much, so she would just mostly, you know, go to bed and rest. But that really contributed to her demise because I think she would have been much better had she gone out or gone out. I would, you know, put the chair outside so she would get at least 15 minutes of sun because we know that vitamin D helps you feel, release endorphins, you feel happier, and it allows your body to, pardon me, the sun allows your body to produce vitamin D so that you get this naturally good feeling. Vitamin D is actually a hormone and it’s a much-needed hormone and one that many people lack. And she just wouldn’t do it because it was too hot and it was too bad and it was to the other. She became insufferable. She had a very, very low tolerance for many things. She didn’t want to go out. But that’s another thing, you know, if you’ve got elderly parents at home and you can take them out, take them out, even if it’s just for a walk around the neighborhood or a trip to the grocery store, because that will really help them get back out into society and feel like a valuable member of society and feel that they still fit in and belong. And so I remember I would always take Mom to the grocery store with me or want to, and she would fight me because she didn’t want to go and she was tired and took this and she was that. And then when she’d get to the grocery store, she would talk to everybody. She’s a big talker like I am, and she would sample everything that they gave her. And I would tell her, “No, Mom, don’t eat that, that’s not good.” And she just, we used to have such fun at the grocery store. And we were a team because everybody knew us, you know, we would go to the same grocery store every Saturday. And then it got to the point where she couldn’t go because she would start, one time we went to a grocery store and she got lost and I was in a state of panic. And another time she went by herself, oh no, no, no, she went with me, but she would go off on her own and start sampling this. And on another occasion, she was sampling something and I said, “No, Mom, you can’t use your hand.” So I thought, you know what, it’s not wise for me to bring her. So this is where the caregiver has to use their best judgment as to when it’s appropriate to get the elderly parent or the elderly person they’re caring for to stop driving, to stop going certain places, and to stop doing certain things. And even when to put them in assisted living because that allows her to be fully cared for and it allows me to care for myself. Because I will tell you, after I put her in assisted living, I had adrenal fatigue and I was unable to function after one o’clock in the afternoon. This was the second time I had little to no energy and it took me about four months to recover. And then I got better and then I got sick. And so now I’m just dealing with the grieving part. But this has been such a toll on me as it is for many people. And so a lot of times people think I’m strong and I can do this, I can handle it on my own. But really what we need to consider is what it’s doing to us. Yeah, I’m irritable and I’m unable to function and I can’t do my work, which I couldn’t. Then it isn’t helping me and it isn’t helping my mother because then I would be in a bad mood or I would be upset and she would be upset and it was a mess. And those are hard decisions that we get to make them and we get to take care of ourselves first before we’re able to fully take care of the other person. Because now when I go see Mom, it’s very painful, but I’m happy to go see her. I look forward to it. But if I had her here, I couldn’t, I wouldn’t be able to. One of us would have been gone because the burden and the stress of caring for someone 24/7, like I would run to the grocery store and run right back. I would call a friend and ask her to come stay and she wasn’t able to stay. And then I couldn’t go or I’d go and then I’d come back and find that Mom had made a mess in her confusion. So that’s just anyone. And I’m glad that we found this private assisted living home. Now, not all states have this. I understand that there are some states like New York that doesn’t have this because I have another friend who’s taking care of her mom and apparently her mother is fine. She has dementia, but she’s okay. But everybody’s level of dementia is different. And what I didn’t know at what had happened, what happens with dementia is that the blood doesn’t circulate and it starts to shut down all the other organs. And that’s a process. And so, you know, as I think about it and I think about this every day, it’s not a day that I don’t think about Mom and how much I miss her. Is it better for someone to just be gone, just die, or is it…

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Aurelia, the thing is, we don’t know what’s in their head, you know what I’m saying? Because, you know, we’re thinking, we think, okay, so they don’t remember this, they don’t remember that. But actually, we really are not in there. So we’re seeing it as something that’s awful and negative and stuff. But for all we know, in here, everything is fine because they don’t, if they don’t, they don’t remember things, they don’t know things. So we really don’t know. But one thing I wanted to ask you, well, first of all, I’ll ask you this first, because a question came in. Prior to your mother’s dementia, what was your relationship like with her?

Aurelia Acosta
It was very tumultuous because she had a very hard life and she was very, very bitter and angry. And so that was the dominating factor throughout her life. And she took it out on me. You don’t take it out on the person that you see down the street. You take it out on the people that are close to you, and you take it out on your loved ones. And since I was the one that was here 24/7, she took it out on me. So it wasn’t a very good relationship. It wasn’t, especially toward the end as she got very, very angry and started going into dementia.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah, I, I, I, I’m a witness. I know that. We have a question that came in from Maxine Walker. She says, “How do you start a conversation with someone that needs to go into assisted living? My sister needs to be there, however, she’s very resistant to the point of being very mean.” And she says, “My sister is older than me and has no children.” Was it hard to get your mom to go to assisted living? You know, did she go willingly or, you know, so what do you do when the person needs to go and doesn’t want to go?

Aurelia Acosta
So my mom would always say, “When I get older, just put me in assisted living.” But you see, she repeated that so much that it became a reality. Our words have power, and this is what Mom created. The second thing, when it came time for me to take her there, because I said, “Mom, let’s go check this place out,” she got very angry and she said, “I’m not going anywhere.” But the next day when we went to check up, I just took her there because I went and I decided she was fine. I mean, she was a little hesitant, but she was fine. And I’m telling you that from February to August, she was happy and she would move and she would help the caretakers wash the dishes and she would dance for them. And she was very entertaining. Mom was very entertaining. And then all of a sudden, one of the favorite caretakers that she had left, and that’s when she went downhill. And this goes back to the fact that we don’t know what’s going on in their heads. So my sense of knowing tells me that Mom chose to live like this the last years of her life because this way there’s no responsibility and there’s no, “I’ve got to do this and I’ve got to do that and I’ve got to be happy or I’ve got to try to make this good or the other.” She does know what’s going on. She may not be, I don’t know.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Uh-huh. All right. Okay. So now you’re saying she didn’t want to go and you just took her. So there are so many women and men who are taking care of, you know, elderly people or sick people who need to be in assisted living, right? So do you have any advice for them? Like, what do you say to them when you know it’s best for them?

Aurelia Acosta
That’s exactly what I told her. I said, “Mom, it’s best for you and I’ll go see you.” And I have always gone to see her. Sometimes I’ve gone as many times as three times a week. I’m always there religiously every week, at least once a week. And I used to spend more time there when she was able to walk around. We would watch TV and I would hold her hand, but now I can’t. And she, you know, she has very low, very little energy, so she falls asleep. But here’s the thing.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh, go ahead. I’m sorry. Go ahead.

Aurelia Acosta
It’s kind of like the tough love. If Maxine knows that her sister needs to go and Maxine is responsible for her sister, she needs to take that role on fully and put her in a place where she knows it will be best. Because part of that being mean is because the mind is starting to go. And in those moments of lucidity, they are aware that they are losing it. And that makes them angry because they are losing their agency, which means their control. It’s like when Mom couldn’t drive anymore. She didn’t make any, she didn’t make a stink about it. And she knew I would take her places and I wanted to take her places. And on the opposite end, she didn’t want to go. But every now and then she would be like, “Well, you told me to stop driving.” And I said, “Yes, and I did that for your own good.” And she accepted it just like the day we went to the assisted living. She accepted it and then she was fine there. And she would talk to the ladies and Mom was a big talker. She loved to, she would love to talk to everybody and talk and did talk to everybody. So she had somebody to talk to. She had several people to talk to and it was, it was okay for her. On my end, I had a literal breakdown. And this is what you want to avoid. You want to avoid being in the position where you have a sick person or sick elderly person that you’re caring for and then you get sick because who is going to take care of you? And I remember I would hug my mom and tell her, “What am I going to do with you, Mom?” Because I couldn’t, I physically couldn’t. And that is the hardest thing to know that you can’t, you cannot and you should not because then you’re going to go downhill and that’s going to be two people that don’t have anyone to care for.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
And that’s the hard part of, you know, and I’ve seen it with several of my friends. I have a friend who’s now, her mom lives, well, she’s okay. My friend lives in Chicago. Her mom lives in Virginia. So now she spends five weeks straight there with her mom. Now her mom will not give up the keys to the car and her mom gets lost. Her mom doesn’t, will not go into an assisted living. So now when my friend comes back home, she is a wreck.

Aurelia Acosta
Exactly.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
You know, and her health is going down and going down. And the thing is, what’s hard, I know Aurelia, what’s hard is that you have to do what’s best for them, even though it hurts you and even though they will be angry, you know. And same way with my mom. Oh God, you know, angry, angry, angry. And like you said earlier, they’re angry and they strike out at the person that’s closest to you and you because I was the enemy, you know.

Aurelia Acosta
Yes.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
And you become the enemy. And so it’s important, I think, for people to really read about it and, you know, read the research and just remember that that’s not them, right? You know what I’m saying? And the same way, like you said, with your mom, you know, she was, you know, she had a hard upbringing and bitter. And so that, you know, so your relationship was tumultuous, which was mine later on as I got to be an adult, you know. But then when you find out how they were raised and what kind of life they had, then that’s when you can realize, well, you know what, now I know why she says the things she says, why she acts the way she acts. And it’s not me, like, you know, but it’s hard to say. But I had a comment came in. Renee said that she loves that you mentioned how diet and nutrition impacted her brain health.

Aurelia Acosta
It most certainly does. In fact, Alzheimer’s is known as the third form of diabetes. And it is from all of the grains and all of the starches that we’re eating and all of the sugar. And remember, it doesn’t necessarily have to be labeled as sugar. So it can be sucrose, dextrose, maltodextrin, so many inverted sugars, so many other names. There are over 72 names for sugar. That is one of the most harmful ingredients. Then you’ve got all the starches that behave just like sugar in the body. And then you’ve got the glucose climb. I just did a talk on this. And then you’ve got the valley. And down here in the valley, what people reach for in order to feel energetic again and to get their wits about them is more sugar. So you’re riding that roller coaster. And that does so much damage. When you are not eating the proper nutrition for your body, because every body is different, your neurons in your brain are not firing and wiring properly, which is why even young people now have these moments of, “What was I doing? What am I doing? Wait, what’s going on?” And you see it also in the elderly. And we used to associate that with the elderly, but it isn’t something that the elderly suffer exclusively. It’s something that all of us are facing. And artificial ingredients are a big problem. And MSG, which is part of the excitotoxin family, which is something that actually can stimulate your neurons to death. So they’re no longer working. So they’re not firing and wiring.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
I’m going to take a break. And when we come back, I want to talk more about that so that we who are, although I am a senior citizen, but when we are a little younger or whatever, the things that we can do and how we can eat in our diet that will keep us hopefully from, you know, having these, having dementia. So I’ll be right back. So don’t go away, everyone. Don’t go away because I think this is really a very, very important topic because if the Lord says so, we all gonna get old and we all want to be healthy. So we’ll be right back. We’ll be right back.

[Music Break]

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Thank you for coming back. And remember, tomorrow is Veterans Day and we want to thank all veterans, active duty and who are veterans. We thank you very much for your service, for taking care of us and taking care of our country. So we are back with Aurelia. So Aurelia, now I hope that I don’t get dementia or, and Renita says, yeah, brain fog, we all have it, but we none of them want our brain fog to go into something just, you know, just really kind of awful, so to speak. So you mentioned how you felt that the diet that you were giving your mom is what really, really helped her and just did a prolonged her mental capacity. Let’s talk about, because you are a certified holistic health coach.

Aurelia Acosta
Yes.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
So tell us about that.

Aurelia Acosta
Well, you know, I need to do sure everyone really, most people, there are some that don’t like sugar, but one of the reasons why we’re so addicted to sugar is because when we were out in the wilderness eating and Hunter as hunter gatherers, one of the main indicators that we received that told us something was okay to eat was the fact that it was sweet. And so that has stayed in our brain and we associate it being that sweet as being good for us. But quite the contrary is true because we didn’t consume this much sugar. You know, bananas, for example, were smaller and they had a bunch of seeds and they were not that sweet. Now a banana is pure sugar. I can only eat half of one. So this just goes to show how much our food has been modified, whether it’s genetically modified or just plain modified and bred and changed in order to yield big juicy fruit. Peaches used to be about this big and now some of them are literally this big and they’re juicy and they’re so sweet. And that’s not the way fruit was originally on the vine. It just, it was not that sweet. But all of the sugar is what is creating a problem for us because it, it allows us to, it causes our body to create these insulins, pardon me, these glucose spikes. And in the meantime, the pancreas is releasing insulin to make sure to bring that glucose spike down so that you’re safe. Because at any given time, we have literally less than one teaspoon of sugar in the body running through our body. This is how we are so divinely creative. And any moment we go over to this limit, our brain is like this, which is where you have the irritability, the hangry when you’re in the valley and you haven’t eaten because you had a big spike. And the law office, it says that what goes up must come down. So you’re up here with the sugar and then you’re down here because you have too much sugar and you’re going to crash. And when you’re down here and there’s no sugar, you can’t think straight. All you can think about is eating and you literally get angry. And the next thing you know, you’re arguing with your spouse or your, or your parent or whoever, your friend, your coworker, or you’re just mean at the store because I’ve seen this in people. I’ve been like that, not anymore because I, I pretty much keep my eating regulated. But so what we’re looking to do is to maintain that glucose level even to flatten the curve so that you don’t have these spikes, which are really doing massive major damage to our body. And what sugar does in the body is that it weakens the immune system. And another very important thing that it does is that it shuts down mitochondria, which are the little organelles in a cell that give, they’re like their chemical powerhouses. And what this does is allows us to live and have our life and do what we need. But we don’t have that when we’re constantly eating sugar. And sugar will also obviously make you put on weight. And that same weight that we put on causes us to be always hungry because it reduces the hormone known as leptin, which is what lets your body know, hey, you eating enough, stop, step away from the table while increasing ghrelin, which is that other hormone that makes you think I’m hungry. So if you notice people that are overweight are always hungry. And if you’re always hungry, it means you have insulin resistance, which is where it, your, your pancreas has been pumping out so much insulin that your body doesn’t know what’s going on. And you’re constantly in a state of having high blood sugar, which is very dangerous. And then right after that, you go into diabetes and Diabetes Type 2. And that is a very serious illness that we all ought to avoid. What functional medicine doctors have discovered, such as David Perlmutter, Mark Hyman, Joseph Mercola, all of these top-notch doctors, Josh Axe, so many other doctors, Dr. Jockers, is that Alzheimer’s is the third form of diabetes. Because what you’re doing is constantly giving your body sugar, but your body needs fiber, fat, and protein. And sugar is our empty calories. If sugar were to be re-qualified as a food now, it wouldn’t pass. It would be qualified as a drug. You can clearly see this in children. When children misbehave, what do they do? They give them sugar. And what do the kids do? Ah, they’re even crazier, right? Because it’s not good for our bodies. Now, a little bit of sugar here and there, the body and its infinite wisdom knows what to do with it. But when you’re constantly giving your body sugar or other junk food, you’re not giving your body the proper nutrition. And our bodies, I am telling you, this is one of my favorite subjects. The body is a beautiful, precise, divinely designed piece of machinery. Forget about your computer, forget about your games, forget about your car, forget about the latest and greatest technology. Your divinely designed human body, however you envision the divine, is superior to anything. We can’t even imagine how beautifully and wonderfully designed this by our body is. And this is precisely why we’re still discovering the human body. A few years ago, maybe like, I’m thinking 15, 20, we discovered the gut microbiome. And we’re constantly discovering things about the body, which is why doctors are so outdated in their treatment. And they’re so ignorant in the sense that they’re not keeping up. They’re too busy with the patient load and the pharmacist that’s coming in, trying to make sure he gives everybody drugs because drugs are the solution and the latest technology to cut people open and all of these other things. And that has a place and a time, but not the way we’re doing it. It is a complete failure. As you can tell, we’ve only gotten sicker. And even this, this virus, it has really taken down a lot of us. If you go back and you look at the people that have died from this, most of them had coexisting conditions, such as they had comorbidities. They were diabetic, they had insulin resistance, they were morbidly obese, they had allergies, they had high cholesterol, they had all of these things. So that the body is like this, and then it takes a hit, and then takes another hit, and then you’ve got this other thing. And then the next thing you know, a virus comes in, you’re gone. And that’s just the way the body works. I know with every cell in my being that whatever the body created, it can uncreate without a doubt in my mind. I’m not speaking about reorganizing, regrowing limbs. We haven’t gotten to that point yet. But I am talking about if you have diabetes, you can reverse that. I know that for a fact. There are doctors, there’s a doctor, his name is Gabriel Cousens. He has documented evidence. A Diabetes Type 1, which is where you don’t produce enough insulin to bring down the glucose in the body, can also be reversed by following a very strict protocol. That’s not something I teach, that’s not something I do, but I’m saying he has documented proof. Because when we give our bodies what it, what our body requires, it’s a win. It’s a win. And when you have your health, you have everything. And when you don’t, you don’t have anything. And I’ve been on the other side of the spectrum where I haven’t had my health. And I have, reading has not been my sister’s friend, where I have absolutely been miserable, where I’ve had stomach pain, pain, and that’s so much that I wanted to jump off the balcony of the condo I was living in when I lived in Rome. And all of that was due to diet. And you know what? I was starting to create gluten intolerance because I was eating pasta twice a day. That’s what you eat when you’re in Italy. And I thought that was a healthy way of being. But we didn’t know about gluten intolerance back then. This was like 30 something years ago. But my body knew because that’s the way that God designed it.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yes.

Aurelia Acosta
And that’s why our body is our temple. Fiber is our friend, Maxine, you’re right. The body needs fiber for so many reasons. You feel fuller faster because they say she ate it longer. You eliminate the cravings. You go in and you clean what’s in our intestine that we’re not using, all the slugs. You get all of the stuff, the junk out. We need this. But what is it? Well, you know, you can have a shake, you can have this, you can have that, you can go to McDonald’s. All of these foods, the history has told us and continues to teach us that all of these foods that we’re eating aren’t contributing to our health. We’re sicker and we’re fatter than we ever have been. Now, the fat is not a judgment, it’s a reality. And what goes on inside the body, it’s a million times worse than what you see on the outside. Because you’ve got your heart that’s pumping harder to make sure that it gets all of the blood circulating properly. You’ve got your liver that has become fatty liver. There is a book called Metabolical and it’s by a doctor, what is his name? Oh my goodness, it’ll come to me. When you try, that’s another thing, when you try to remember everything and you want to force your brain, your brain shuts down. So let’s give it time. I’ll give you his name in a few minutes. He was a practicing pediatrician and he said that he would see children as young as 10 come in with diabetes and fatty liver. Because this is what happens. Fatty liver is on the rise. When we consume all the sugar, the liver does its best to process it and what it can’t process turns into fat. And fatty liver has some very serious consequences. He spoke of a little boy that was Robert Lustig, that’s his name. He spoke of a little boy that was 10 years old that was waiting for a liver transplant.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh my God.

Aurelia Acosta
What have you done wrong? Everything. I see the crawler with the free ebook called How to Lose Weight When Nothing Else is Working. And that brings me to another point. One of the main reasons why we have all of the stomach upsets is because of the massive amount of stress that’s in our life and the massive amount of stress is that we place on ourselves.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
That’s very true. Now, Aurelia, you’re giving us so much information. But here’s outstanding Bernie and he said, Halle Berry is a prime example. She was a severe type 1 diabetic and cured herself through a very strict diet. You’ve given us so much information. So now, and you are a wealth of information and we want to know more about. So tell us, Aurelia, how if people are interested in really getting more information from you, how can they contact you and tell me what you’re doing now? Tell me that because I’ve got something across the bottom of the screen. Oh, wait, Sandy, bring this. Yeah, she came up with the name of the concert. Yes, I highly recommend. So the link, yes, the crawler that you see down there is for my ebook called How to Lose Weight When Nothing Else is Working. And it is a very easy read and it has one great suggestion that I highly suggest you follow. Now, as far as what I’ve got going on, I’ve got a group coaching that is starting December 1st, running through the 22nd for four weeks so that you can stay healthy during the holidays and set a baseline for yourself and be held accountable in a group environment. And I will tell you next time so I can put it in here. They can call me and if I don’t answer, then I’m busy. You can leave a message. I do keep my ringer off during the day so I can manage my appointments and my clients. But the number is 832.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Go ahead and say it again.

Aurelia Acosta
832-858-4260.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, so let me put this on here right now. Send me a text before calling me. I will respond. Oops, you got an extra zero in the or two. Oh, you got too many numbers. Yeah, wait a minute. Okay, hold on. Let me. Okay, so. Okay, so go in 832-858-4260.

Aurelia Acosta
Yes, 260.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh, yes. Sorry about that. Okay, so let me put that in there. Okay, come on. Let’s. Oh, no, we don’t want that. We want this. There it is. There you go. And so I’ve got a special prize and then I’ve got bring a buddy for a hundred dollars. So if you’re interested, please get with me about that. And then we’re going to do the detox in January so that you start the year off right and you start the year off with the desire and the knowing that you can do this instead of starting it off with a few like 10 extra pounds or five extra pounds. This is so important. The other thing that I wanted to mention is that I do webinars all the time so people can follow me on my Facebook page, which is Nutrilicious, N-U-T-R-I. I can put it in the chat for you to just copy and paste. Nutrilicious by Aurelia. It’s a combination of nutritious and delicious. And I do little videos with different topics, all that contribute to your health because your health isn’t just what you eat. It’s what you think. It’s your emotions and it’s your spirituality. And I wanted to mention something, two things that I think. There you go. I wanted to mention two things that are very important when considering what’s going on with my mom. I know that she is giving us another opportunity to fully make peace. She wasn’t able to do it when she was conscious, but she’s able to do it now. There is such a sense of peace about her. I’m very grateful for that. And that brings me peace on one hand. On the other hand, it’s painful to go in and see her the way she is. And it’s also allowing.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Right, I understand.

Aurelia Acosta
It’s also allowing our relationship to heal. That’s the other thing. And everything is in divine timing. Everything is in divine order. Everything can contribute to us. And the other thing that I wanted to mention is that I didn’t expect to be facing empty nester because since we were together for the past 25 years, her leaving leaves me with empty nest syndrome, which has been very challenging for me. But I’m okay. That’s one thing she taught me how to survive. Mom was a survivor. She was a tough cookie and still is.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Aurelia, thank you so much for being my guest. You have given us so much valuable information on caregiving, you know, how you’re doing that and what we can do actually. Yeah, I guess maybe I should throw my Hershey bars away.

Aurelia Acosta
But another thing is it’s okay because the body and its infinite wisdom knows what to do with that occasional chocolate bar that you have.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, well, thank you, Aurelia. You have been a focus. And people, if you want to get in contact with her, the number is on the screen. I’m leaving it up there so you can write it down. 832-858-4260. Aurelia, thank you so much. You have given us so much valuable information. And I really appreciate you coming on. I really do. All right, take care and kiss your mother for me.

Aurelia Acosta
I will. I most certainly will. Thank you.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
All right, bye-bye. Oh, this has been amazing. This has been wonderful. So much advice. And I know many of us have been through that journey. I have with my mom and dementia and Alzheimer’s. And I hope that you really received a lot of value from this. And I hope that you definitely follow Aurelia because she’s a beautiful woman, beautiful lady, and she has a whole lot to offer. So next week, I have someone just kind of following the same kind of veins. And what she does, she has an organization where she takes care of housing for seniors. And I hope that everyone will be able to come and join us for that. So in the meantime, in between time, have a beautiful, blessed rest of your morning, afternoon, or evening. This is Dr. Jan Fortman, Relationship Matters. And remember, there are all kinds of relationships. Today, we talked about relationships with our aging moms, and we talked about the relationship with our bodies. There are all kinds of relationships, and there are all kinds of relationship matters. See you again next week. Bye.