 Start your day with lots of purified water to flush out the toxins that your body has processed during the night. This gets things moving. Do you sweat during the night? That water has to be replenished.
Try to drink water at room temperature rather than ice cold as cold water shocks the stomach and increases adrenal production. Drink at least one glass upon rising before any other beverage. To boost your immunity and help stimulate your digestive system, add the juice of half a lemon and some grated and squeezed fresh ginger. You can add a little local raw honey if it's just too sour for you first thing. Don't drink water with meals as this dilutes your gastric juices which will slow down digestion. It's better to drink a glass or two before meals to help curb your appetite. If you have a headache, drink a glass of water first before taking any headache remedy. Dehydration can cause headaches. Lots of purified water per day is a great way to help your body detoxify.  (ORIGINALLY WRITTEN 10/23/16)
Check this out! It is awesome. I bought this 'Happy Light' from Costco in Nanaimo for $59.99. It's like having natural sunlight in your house on dull days. I haven't had my afternoon blahs since using it. Seasonal Affective Disorder (S.A.D.) is very common for us above the 49th parallel. We simply don't have enough bright sunny days to help boost our mood. After all, there is a reason those vampires in Twilight could wander around and go to school during the daylight in the Pacific Northwest. I highly recommend this product to boost energy and lighten your mood. Check out this excerpt from The Insulin-Resistance Diet written by Hart and Grossman. This has to do with the reasoning for eating frequent smaller meals and fat storage and blood sugar spikes. 'The two-hour fat window is the critical period in which your body decides if carbohydrates are to be used for energy or stored as fat. In order to observe the critical two-hour fat window, limit your total carbohydrates to 30 grams in any two-hour period. This is critical because your body can do only two things with carbohydrates: either use them up as energy or turn them into fat. Your body makes this decision within a two-hour period. Eating more carbohydrates than your body can use for energy during this interval will force your body to turn them into fat. So wait the two hours and then have more carbohydrates if you like. If you are hungry within two hours you can always have more protein. You can thus continue to enjoy any of your favorite high-carbohydrate foods without overloading and getting fat on them" This makes a lot of sense and might help with our portion control. I love pasta and even though I have switched to brown rice pasta, I can so pig out on it. With this quote in mind, I'll check out the carbs per gram on the box and actually follow the portion sizes on the box instead of boiling the whole box! By the way, cooked pasta freezes well, you just have to thaw it for a minute in boiling water. (ORIGINALLY WRITTEN 10/17/2016)
At 55 years old, I have just graduated from the Canadian School of Natural Nutrition. I am now a Registered Holistic Nutritionist. I am also, however, my mother's daughter who would say 'do as I say, not as I do'. I have received this amazing gift of knowledge and got to share that with my case studies but without using myself as a guinea pig consistently I gained my Freshman 15. I recently had my blood work done and asked the doctor to print me off a copy so I could work on the areas where my numbers were not in the normal range. My fasting glucose levels were slightly elevated whereas they were in the normal range last year and my total cholesterol and triglycerides are elevated. They have always been on the high side and it was one of the reasons I gave up animal protein three years ago which dropped them down considerably. I am in a battle with myself to keep myself off cholesterol lowering medication as once you are on it, it's virtually impossible to get off of it. Okay, now that you know my dirty secrets, I am pledging to you that I will drop my Freshman 15 and get my glucose and cholesterol numbers in line. I will use this blog to explain to you how I am doing and what steps I am taking to get these numbers back in line. I will supply you with recipes and ideas if you want to follow along with me to get your own numbers into balance. Wish me luck! My next blood test will be in early February 2017. Holistic Nutrition is basically supporting the body through whole, natural food to achieve a healthy balance. It is more than that though. It also deals with body, mind and spirit. When a client comes to me with a health concern, we discuss what makes up their current lifestyle and I can determine what factors and repeated behaviors are contributing to their health concern and what changes can improve that concern. Why address diet? Most people adhere to the Standard North American Diet (SAD) and are surprised over time that they develop health problems. This diet has nothin to do with promoting health; it is all about the appearance, flavor and aroma of food. What makes food delicious? Salt, sugar and fat. The food industry is all about making money. Food production is based on crop yield not nutrition or sustainability. To be healthy, we can't just fill our empty bellies with processed foods. We have to feed our cells. With prolonged ingestion of processed foods and little attention to macro and micro nutrients, eventually our bodies will start to break down. Over time, we starve our bodies of the nutrients we need to keep our bodies functioning properly As a result, our filtering organs start to become overworked, toxins are not properly filtered out, our digestive system doesn't function properly and the few nutrients we are getting are not properly assimilated into the body. The result leads to disease and imbalance in the body. It is a cumulative process. You don't just wake up one morning with weight problems or chronic inflammation. This is the accumulation of sins and it can be reversed in most cases by changing your diet. Why address supplementation? In order to get our proper recommended daily allowance of micronutrients we need to eat a varied diet including lots of fresh vegetables and fruits. If we followed Canada's Food Guide of recommended servings per day every single day, which no one does, we would still be lacking in micronutrients for our individual bodies. RDA is an average dosage for the average body in good health in order to keep operating appropriately. Let's look at some factors that effect nutrient amounts in food:
Let's look at factors that can require an individual to supplement their diet.
Why address lifestyle?
In order to achieve a healthy balance in our bodies, we need to include exercise, stress management and detoxification in order to sustain good health in our golden years. Most people believe that in order to improve this aspect, it has to be an all or nothing situation. Moving one's body daily is critical to maintaining physical and mental health. Walking in nature for just half an hour per day (BUT...EVERYDAY!) is enough to improve general overall physical and mental health. Exercise reduces stress and keeps our bones and hearts healthy. Meditative forms of exercise like yoga and tai chi are stress relievers and keep our bodies limber. Adequate sleep and relaxing activities are also huge to relieve stress and rejuvenate the body. |
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