Parenting an Addict: Mother Tells Her Gripping Story of Unwavering Love
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Like a drowning woman, Christine Naman grappled for a lifeline and choked on her harsh reality: it was time to let go of denial. The tin foil, spoons and lighters she found in her daughter’s vanity weren’t the makings of a science experiment; they were drug paraphernalia. Christine’s only solace was that she hadn’t found any needles. Three days later she did.
About Natalie is Christine’s raw, compelling story of her valiant fight to help her daughter overcome seemingly insurmountable odds. It is a gripping, cautionary tale of how, in spite of a loving family and a comfortable life, a child can end up on the wrong path, meet the wrong people and get lost in the unthinkable.
About Natalie takes readers deep inside Christine’s emotional and mental turmoil as she grows into her new, unfortunate role as the parent of an addict. She steps on syringes left on the floor and wrestles one from the family dog’s mouth. She lives the nightmare of finding an unresponsive child on the floor and uses Narcan to revive her. She struggles and wins, struggles and loses, cries and rages.
She chases away a drug dealer and stays up all night waiting for her missing child to come home. She rejoices during periods of recovery and hope and is devastated during relapses. When her daughter suffers, Christine suffers right along with her. But through it all, never once, does Christine ever contemplate giving up.
At its core, About Natalie is a story of fighting for — and right alongside — the ones we love, no matter how difficult the circumstances. It’s a story of keeping the faith, battling hard and helping a child get back on the right track. It is the story of struggling, living through it all and coming out on the other, better, side.
Christine has watched a perfectly healthy daughter thrive and then succumb to the pull of substances. She has suffered the feelings of isolation, pain and humiliation that being the parent of an addict often brings. She hopes that by sharing her family’s difficult story she can bring understanding and knowledge to those who do not know the problem firsthand as well as provide comfort to those who know the nightmare of addiction all too well.
Bestselling author Christine Pisera Naman is a wife to a beautiful man named Peter and a mother to three fantastic kids named Jason, Natalie and Trevor. In her free time, she enjoys crocheting, which she does poorly; painting, again poorly; and volunteering at her local hospital, which she hopes she does well. She is the author of the Faces of Hope series of books that are now housed in the 9/11 Memorial Museum in New York City. Her other works include Caterpillar Kisses, Christmas Lights, The Novena and The Believers. About Natalie is her heart poured onto paper.
About Natalie Publisher: HCI Books Release Date: May 2021 ISBN-13: 978-0-7573-2385-0 (Paperback) ISBN-13: 978-0-7573-2386-7 (ePub) Available from Amazon.com
Trish Stevens Melanie Howe Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com 281.333.3507 Phone
Holistic, Science-Backed Program Helps Build a Healthier Relationship with Food, Eating and Weight
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Could a dietary lifestyle that nourishes us physically, emotionally, spiritually and socially be the answer to stemming America’s rising tide of overeating and obesity?
Original research points to yes, and in Whole Person Integrative Eating: A Breakthrough Dietary Lifestyle to Treat the Root Causes of Overeating, Overweight, and Obesity, nutrition researcher Deborah Kesten, M.P.H., and behavioral scientist Larry Scherwitz, Ph.D., offer documented proof that by nourishing ourselves multi-dimensionally each time we eat, we can develop deeper, healthier relationships with food and eating that leads to attaining and maintaining weight loss. The authors’ Whole Person Integrative Eating (WPIE) program is not a diet that a person goes on … then off. WPIE is a scientifically sound, dietary lifestyle designed to be practiced for a lifetime.
“If people follow the revolutionary program outlined in this game-changing, insightful book, it may be the most helpful step they can take toward losing weight and keeping it off,” says bestselling author Kenneth Pelletier, M.D., clinical professor of medicine at University of California School of Medicine, San Francisco.
Divided into three parts, Whole Person Integrative Eating begins by describing seven root causes of overeating: Emotional Eating, Food Fretting, Fast Foodism, Sensory Disregard, Task Snacking, Unappetizing Atmosphere and Solo Dining. A Self-Assessment Quiz follows, with 76 questions to help readers identify their unique food choices and eating behaviors that lead to overeating and weight gain. Part Two provides a step-by-step guide to WPIE antidotes for each overeating style. It also explains why the elements of WPIE work and how they can be incorporated into daily life. And Part Three offers over 30 recipes based on the three main criteria of WPIE: fresh, whole and “inverse,” meaning mostly plant-based foods with small or no servings of animal-based foods.
An excerpt from the Foreword of Whole Person Integrative Eating by New York Times best-selling author Dean Ornish, M.D., Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of California:
“[The book] offers an evidence-based alternative to the conventional wisdom about attaining and maintaining weight loss. What’s groundbreaking about Kesten and Scherwitz’s re-search is twofold: They have created a scientifically sound, comprehensive, and integrative program for treating overeating, overweight, and obesity based on these principles. And in addition to what (food choices) and how (eating behaviors) we eat, they have identified sev-en statistically significant root reasons to explain why we overeat: what they call “new normal overeating styles” and eating behaviors that also have a profound influence on how much we eat and weigh.”
The authors’ paradigm-shifting message is that food influences not only the physical dimensions of health, but also our emotional, spiritual and social well-being. Their dietary lifestyle can build bridges between the millions who struggle with overeating and weight issues and the medical community. And it can inspire us all to re-envision our relationships with food, eating and weight, so that each time we eat, we are nourished … for life.
Deborah Kesten, M.P.H., is an international nutrition researcher, award-winning author, and medical/health writer, with a specialty in preventing and reversing obesity and heart disease. She served as Nutritionist on Dean Ornish, M.D.’s first clinical trial for reversing heart disease through lifestyle changes, the results of which were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. She has served as Director of Nutrition at cardiovascular clinics in Europe and on the Board of Directors of the American Heart Association, San Francisco, for 10 years.
Kesten has published more than 400 nutrition and health articles. Her first book, Feeding the Body, Nourishing the Soul, received the first-place gold award in the Spirituality category from the Independent Publisher Book Awards. Whole Person Integrative Eating has been honored with the #1 gold, best-book award in the Health category by Book Excellence Awards. She is a VIP Contributor at Arianna Huffington’s Thrive Global, and is married to behavioral scientist and co-author of Whole Person Integrative Eating, Larry Scherwitz, Ph.D.
Whole Person Integrative Eating: A Breakthrough Dietary Lifestyle to Treat the Root Causes of Overeating, Overweight, and Obesity Publisher: White River Press ISBN-10: 1887043543 ISBN-13: 978-1887043540 Available from Amazon.com and integrativeeating.com
Trish Stevens Maria Jenson Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com 281.333.3507 Phone 800.854.2207 Fax
(This press release may be reprinted in part or entirety by any print or broadcast media outlet, or used by any means of social media sharing)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
If you’ve always wanted to try journaling but didn’t know how to get started, take heart. With the right tools, it can be easy, enjoyable, and most importantly, it can be life changing.
Empowered: A Motivational Journal for Women contains inspirational writing prompts, thought-provoking exercises and quotes worth contemplating to encourage you to open your mind, manifest your goals and reflect on your dreams.
Written by award-winning author and licensed psychotherapist Michaela Renee Johnson, Empowered is designed to help you connect with your deeper self and visualize your intentions through creative exercises. The author can address topics, such as, ‘how to find hope and create dreams during uncertain times,’ and ‘how to focus on things you want to create in your life while dealing with change,’ among others.
Organized around the themes of dream, believe and achieve, Empowered includes exercises that ask you to explore your feelings and thoughts through writing, while others encourage you to go beyond the book to meditate, listen to music or enjoy nature―and return to contemplate your experiences. There’s no right or wrong way to use this motivational journal; the important thing is to begin.
Empowered: A Motivational Journal for Women provides:
Creative freedom―Explore out-of-the-box ideas like drawing and coloring, creating a vision board, or crafting a reflective poem.
Your own space―The colorful, beautifully illustrated modern layout gives you abundant room to express yourself directly in the pages of this motivational journal.
Inspiring words―Cultivate a positive mindset with quotes from influential women like Alice Walker, Amelia Earhart and Michelle Obama.
You can unlock your true potential and create positive changes in your life―and journaling is a powerful way to start.
Michaela Renee Johnson is an award-winning author, licensed psychotherapist and host of the top iTunes podcast, Be You Find Happy, which encourages people to speak their truth with grace and live a courageous life of authenticity. Her initiative, Be You Find Happy, holds workshops and conversations on finding happiness in spite of life’s setbacks and has landed her speaking opportunities across the nation. She is an avid adventurer, having traveled to more than 20 countries, and self-proclaimed “Boho Mom” who loves all things metaphysical as well as poetic quotes. She is a Sagittarius and an ocean-lover who lives in Northern California with her husband and young son, and a homestead full of animals. In her spare time, she’s often hiking, doing yoga, gardening, golfing or reading.
Empowered: A Motivational Journal for Women Publisher: Callisto Media Release Date: June 9, 2020 ISBN-10: 1647390524 ISBN-13: 978-1647390525 Available from Amazon.com
Trish Stevens Claire Downing Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com 281.333.3507 Phone 800.854.2207 Fax
Cook Delicious, Healthy Food That Actually Makes You Feel Better With The Recipes In My Pinewood Kitchen
(This press release may be reprinted in part or entirety by any print or broadcast media outlet, or used by any means of social media sharing)
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Mee McCormick understands only too well the importance of healthy food, having watched her single mother suffer with a host of debilitating auto-immune diseases, some of which she inherited, that led her to make the decision in her mid-twenties to change her own fate. Today, chef and author Mee McCormick is an expert who healed herself of Crohn’s disease, gut issues, and other immune system challenges with whole food recipes when doctors couldn’t help her.
Offering microbiome-friendly meals with a Southern spin, My Pinewood Kitchen: A Southern Culinary Cure, is a follow-up cookbook to her wildly successful, life-enhancing My Kitchen Cure. Mee is living proof that you can change your fate by what’s on your plate and her recipes will help heal your gut and fight a host of autoimmune diseases. With over 130 mouthwatering, whole foods recipes that can be customized for Keto, Paleo, or vegans, it truly is an “all-inclusive” eating plan for everyone in the family.
From smoothies, soups and salads, to dinners and desserts, every recipe in the book is gluten-free and gut-friendly. Mee has since forged the way for a new kind of hospitality: a fully-inclusive table where everyone can eat delicious Southern comfort classics without sacrificing taste, regardless of even the most severe food allergies or dietary restrictions – all while stressing the importance of intestinal health and how to improve your own gut microbiome. Her book shows us which foods are nutritional powerhouses and which ones we must avoid, and how to eat real food every day without breaking the bank.
Mee McCormick is a rising Southern culinary and wellness innovator, restaurateur, author, TV cooking personality, farmer, rancher, wife and mother. She splits her time between Nashville and nearby Nunnelly, Tennessee; a tiny, unincorporated community in Hickman County; home to her biodynamic farm and restaurant Pinewood Kitchen & Mercantile – that is unique in that every meal is created with the intention to serve everyone with the same deliciousness, regardless of dietary restrictions. In fact, some members of the community drive hours to get a taste of her farm-to-table cuisine and her mouthwatering Pinewood’s Grain-Free Fried Chicken!
Mee authored her first cookbook My Kitchen Cure, which led to wild success and a book deal with HCI for her second cookbook, My Pinewood Kitchen, published in April 2020. She frequently appears on Today in Nashville, and she participates in nationally-recognized food festivals and events, spreading the same level of care and hospitality to audiences everywhere that she has become known for throughout the state of Tennessee. Visit: www.meemccormick.com or www.pinewoodkitchenandmercantile.com.
My Pinewood Kitchen: A Southern Culinary Cure/130+ Crazy Delicious, Gluten-Free Recipes to Reduce Inflammation and Make Your Gut Happy By Mee McCormick HCI BOOKS / $26.95 ISBN: 9780757323522 Available wherever books are sold
Trish Stevens Sophie Carter Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com 281.333.3507 Phone 800.854.2207 Fax
Short On Inspiration While Dining In? My Pinewood Kitchen Dishes Out Some Quarantine Cuisine Tips
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With COVID-19 keeping us at home more and shopping less, home chefs need to get creative while cooking tasty, healthy meals for their entire family. Chef and author Mee McCormick is an expert: she healed herself of Crohn’s disease, gut issues, and other immune system challenges with whole food recipes when doctors couldn’t help her.
The mom/rancher/restaurateur can share tips for “quarantine cuisine” when you’re hankering for variety in your meals but you’re short on ingredients and inspiration. Perfect for social distancing, many of her recipes are made with items you probably already have in your pantry (for example, her Black Bean Chicken Chili and Immune-Boosting Chicken & Quinoa Soup); she can teach home cooks how to repurpose items to reduce food waste (cilantro pickles, anyone?), and reveal the healthiest foods you need in your pandemic pantry.
My Pinewood Kitchen: A Southern Culinary Cure offers more than 100 gluten-free, whole foods recipes that can be customized for Keto, Paleo, or vegans, making it a truly “all-inclusive” eating plan for the entire family. From smoothies, soups and salads, to dinners and desserts, every recipe is gluten-free and gut-friendly. • Curb Your COVID Anxiety with healthy chocolate with Mee’s Chocolate Avocado Mousse & Five-Ingredient Fudge Cups • Soups for Social Distancing – Black Bean Chicken Chili and Immune-Boosting Chicken & Quinoa Soup (nutritious, delicious, and they use what you likely have in your home already!) • Plenty of plant-based offerings • Reduce Waste: Learn how to make cilantro pickles from cucumbers, sweet potato chips from sweet potatoes, a falafel burger from canned chickpeas, and how to make your own healthier ketchup and mayonnaise if you run out • 10 Gut-Friendly Foods for your Pandemic Pantry
Mee McCormick is a rising Southern culinary and wellness innovator, restaurateur, author, TV cooking personality, farmer, rancher, wife and mother. She splits her time between Nashville and nearby Nunnelly, Tennessee; a tiny, unincorporated community in Hickman County, which is also home to her biodynamic farm and restaurant Pinewood Kitchen & Mercantile.
Mee authored her first cookbook My Kitchen Cure, which led to wild success and a book deal with HCI for her second cookbook My Pinewood Kitchen, published on April 14, 2020. She frequently appears on Today in Nashville, and she participates in nationally-recognized food festivals and events, spreading the same level of care and hospitality to audiences everywhere that she has become known for throughout the state of Tennessee. Visit: www.meemccormick.com or www.pinewoodkitchenandmercantile.com.
My Pinewood Kitchen: A Southern Culinary Cure/130+ Crazy Delicious, Gluten-Free Recipes to Reduce Inflammation and Make Your Gut Happy By Mee McCormick HCI BOOKS Released: April 2020/ $26.95 ISBN: 9780757323522 Available wherever books are sold
Trish Stevens Allison Janse Health Communications Inc. The Life Issues Publisher 1700 NW 2nd Ave Boca Raton, FL 33432 800.851.9100 [email protected] www.hcibooks.com
Short On Inspiration While Dining In? My Pinewood Kitchen Dishes Out Some Quarantine Cuisine Tips
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
With COVID-19 keeping us at home more and shopping less, home chefs need to get creative while cooking tasty, healthy meals for their entire family. Chef and author Mee McCormick is an expert: she healed herself of Crohn’s disease, gut issues, and other immune system challenges with whole food recipes when doctors couldn’t help her.
The mom/rancher/restaurateur can share tips for “quarantine cuisine” when you’re hankering for variety in your meals but you’re short on ingredients and inspiration. Perfect for social distancing, many of her recipes are made with items you probably already have in your pantry (for example, her Black Bean Chicken Chili and Immune-Boosting Chicken & Quinoa Soup); she can teach home cooks how to repurpose items to reduce food waste (cilantro pickles, anyone?), and reveal the healthiest foods you need in your pandemic pantry.
My Pinewood Kitchen: A Southern Culinary Cure offers more than 100 gluten-free, whole foods recipes that can be customized for Keto, Paleo, or vegans, making it a truly “all-inclusive” eating plan for the entire family. From smoothies, soups and salads, to dinners and desserts, every recipe is gluten-free and gut-friendly. • Curb Your COVID Anxiety with healthy chocolate with Mee’s Chocolate Avocado Mousse & Five-Ingredient Fudge Cups • Soups for Social Distancing – Black Bean Chicken Chili and Immune-Boosting Chicken & Quinoa Soup (nutritious, delicious, and they use what you likely have in your home already!) • Plenty of plant-based offerings • Reduce Waste: Learn how to make cilantro pickles from cucumbers, sweet potato chips from sweet potatoes, a falafel burger from canned chickpeas, and how to make your own healthier ketchup and mayonnaise if you run out • 10 Gut-Friendly Foods for your Pandemic Pantry
Mee McCormick is a rising Southern culinary and wellness innovator, restaurateur, author, TV cooking personality, farmer, rancher, wife and mother. She splits her time between Nashville and nearby Nunnelly, Tennessee; a tiny, unincorporated community in Hickman County, which is also home to her biodynamic farm and restaurant Pinewood Kitchen & Mercantile.
Mee authored her first cookbook My Kitchen Cure, which led to wild success and a book deal with HCI for her second cookbook My Pinewood Kitchen, published on April 14, 2020. She frequently appears on Today in Nashville, and she participates in nationally-recognized food festivals and events, spreading the same level of care and hospitality to audiences everywhere that she has become known for throughout the state of Tennessee. Visit: www.meemccormick.com or www.pinewoodkitchenandmercantile.com.
My Pinewood Kitchen: A Southern Culinary Cure/130+ Crazy Delicious, Gluten-Free Recipes to Reduce Inflammation and Make Your Gut Happy By Mee McCormick HCI BOOKS Release Date: April 14, 2020/ $26.95 ISBN: 9780757323522 Available wherever books are sold
Trish Stevens Kim Weiss Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com 281.333.3507 Phone 800.854.2207 Fax
Chocolate: A (Healthy) Anxiety Cure For COVID-19 Stress
(This press release may be reprinted in part or entirety by any print or broadcast media outlet, or used by any means of social media sharing)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
In this virulent climate of self-isolation and serious immune system compromises, author/chef, Mee McCormick is mindful of how a rise in anxiety can find us craving snacks. Instead of a quick fix, she goes straight to her kitchen with the intent to shift her gut bacteria – important for keeping our immune systems strong – as addressed in her new book, My Pinewood Kitchen: A Southern Culinary Cure. An expert whose personal experience healing her Crohn’s disease, gut issues and immune system challenges makes her well equipped to share the whole food recipes doctors couldn’t prescribe to help her.
Enter one of our favorite snacking foods, chocolate. Says McCormick, “Cocoa is a pre-biotic plant food – this means it feeds the good probiotic bacteria or, as I like to call them, The Good Gut Homies. These Gut Homies live in our intestines.”
McCormick says the consumption of dark chocolate has been found to lower the risk of diabetes and heart disease, protect our DNA and improve gut bacteria. She points to research at the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research where they designed a study to test whether eating chocolate could mitigate the stress-related effects on the microbiome. Dividing participants into two groups – high anxiety and low anxiety and testing their urine and blood for stress markers – each participant ate one chocolate bar (containing 74% cocoa) a day for 2 weeks. The study found cortisol and adrenaline decreased as well as their p-cresol and Hippurate; metabolites created from the Good Gut Homies. High anxiety group levels dropped down to the levels of the low anxiety group – all within a 2-week period, thus the importance of cooking with cocoa.
Take, for instance, how combining cocoa with black beans takes our gut health to another level as they also have a profound influence on our microbiome by feeding the probiotic bacteria that support the mucosal lining of the intestines. Bean eaters have been found to have an 81% decrease in the harmful gut bacteria that break down the protective mucosal lining. Supporting our intestinal lining is key in preventing leaky gut. Mee McCormick has a Chocolate and Black Bean Hummus that will surprise you with its nutritiously delicious taste and texture. Shown below is an example of another chocolate -centered dish, a super easy recipe to whip up during COVID cabin fever.
This chocolate recipe is mixed with avocado in a delicious mousse (found on page 277 of Mee’s book, My Pinewood Kitchen):
Chocolate-Avocado Mousse (Makes 4 servings) In the bowl of a food processor, blend 4 ripe avocados until smooth. Add 1/3 cup local honey or coconut nectar*; 1 ripe banana; 1/2 cup raw cacao powder; 2 tbsp. organic coconut milk; 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract and a pinch of sea salt. Blend until the mixture is uniform. Pour into a dish and chill for 2 hours in a refrigerator or 30 minutes in a freezer.
If watching sugar, use an equivalent amount of stevia; however, coconut nectar is low glycemic.
Mee McCormick is a real food maven, community food advocate, a restaurateur, a rancher, a mother, and the author of My Kitchen Cure: How I Cooked My Way Out of Chronic Autoimmune Disease with Whole Foods and Healing Recipes. When Mee isn’t running her restaurant or working on her biodynamic farm, she is touring the country as a speaker and community kitchen organizer. She has appeared on national and local TV, on radio and in print nationwide. She is a regular on-air contributor to Today In Nashville and a vital part of the Nashville restaurant scene. Visit: www.meemccormick.com or www.pinewoodkitchenandmercantile.com.
My Pinewood Kitchen: A Southern Culinary Cure/130+ Crazy Delicious, Gluten-Free Recipes to Reduce Inflammation and Make Your Gut Happy HCI BOOKS – April 14, 2020 — $26.95 ISBN: 9780757323522 Available wherever books are sold
Trish Stevens Kim Weiss Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com 281.333.3507 Phone 800.854.2207 Fax
