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Between Meals Podcast // Bites 02: Retaining Your Voice, Passion and Authenticity Online
Chapter 02: Retaining Your Voice, Passion and Authenticity (Especially in Partnerships and Collaborations)
Part 2 of a 3-Day Business Mastermind Workshop Series from the Nutritional Therapy Association Conference
Listen Now on iTunes
Show Notes:
Recorded Live at the Nutritional Therapy Association’s 2018 Annual Conference: Live Nourished, in Vancouver Washington, this is part two of a 3-Day Business Mastermind Workshop Series focused on Content Creation and Building a Presence Online created and hosted by Beth Manos Brickey, RYT, NTP of Tasty Yummies.
In Chapter 02 the topic is: Retaining Your Voice, Passion and Authenticity (Especially in Partnerships and Collaborations)
From blogging and sharing content of any kind online to establishing a social media presence, we cover tips and share our personal experiences in developing a voice and positioning yourself as an authority in the virtual space. We cover moving beyond comparison and how to stop “shoulding all over yourself”. We share our personal thoughts and experiences on brand partnerships, collaborations, knowing when it’s a good fit and when it’s not and making sure not to lose yourself in the process.
Session two features my special guest Alison Marras of Food By Mars
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Is Snacking Healthy? Should You Snack? + Smarter Snack Ideas
Is snacking healthy? Should you snack? If you find you are chronically grazing on many small meals throughout your day because of excessive hunger, you can likely blame imbalanced blood sugar and not eating for satiety. In this post we talk about snacking along with some healthy snack ideas for when a gap snack might be necessary.
Is Snacking Healthy? Should You Snack?
Let’s talk about snacks baby. Let’s talk about you and me. Let’s talk about all the good things and the bad things, that may be. Let’s talk about snacks! hahah. Sorry. I digress. Seriously though. Determining what to eat is challenging enough of a question, but add to that, the question of when and how often to eat – this adds a whole new additional layer of unanswered inquiries and confusion for many.
Smaller More Frequent Meals Helps Boost Metabolism, Right?
While convention nutritional advice long touted 5-6 small meals throughout the day as a means to increase your metabolism and encourage fat loss, this antiquated approach doesn’t look at the full scope of our day and what is actually happening in the body with every snack or small meal. For so long, many “experts” believed the idea that many small meals is theoretically “stoking the metabolic fire,” while less frequent meals “slow your metabolism.” The thought process was that eating many small meals keeps your metabolism plugging away at a high rate for the entire day, helping you burn more fat. Conversely, it was thought that going too long between meals slows down your metabolism, so that when you do eat, your body is sluggish to respond to the caloric load and you end up storing it as fat.
Sounds pretty smart, right? But, guess what, it’s just not true. There isn’t any science to support it or research that proves smaller, more frequent meals has any metabolic advantage.
What we do know, as research has shown, the more you eat the more insulin your body releases, and this constant output of insulin interrupts the intended flow of blood sugar.
With every meal there is a rise in our blood sugar (which is just the amount of free glucose in our bloodstream) then a release of insulin follows. With lots of small meals through the day that means a blood sugar rollercoaster of highs and lows that can cause additional cravings, fat storage, mood changes, irritability and more.
Besides that, with every meal or snack that we eat, our body has to begin the process of digestion, this takes energy and time, as your body is breaking down the food into usable molecules that are absorbed by the body and utilized appropriately. This process takes energy away from other repairs and tasks your body should be doing. Anything we eat that the body cannot absorb or use in some capacity is then stored as fat. Whenever we snack this stops the process of our body using stored body fat in between meals.
The goal is to instead build a day with more steady blood sugar by getting enough fat and protein at every meal to reach satiety and not solely relying on refined starchy carbs and sugar for quick hits.
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Happy Hormones: The Importance of Digestion to Hormone Balance
This is the third Happy Hormones post in our Hormone-Focused Series from Nutritional Therapy Practitioner Brynn D’Avello. I suggest reading the first post The First Step to Happy Hormones and then the second post where we tackle how Blood Sugar Imbalance Affects Your Hormones before you dive into this post covering the Importance of Digestion to Hormone Balance.
As we discussed in the previous post in this series, as important and crucial as blood sugar regulation is to hormone balance in this latest installment we will discuss how digestion is a very, very close second. Since I know Beth has done a killer job breaking down the digestive process in her Digestion 101 series I am only going to touch on the highlights…. with a very special emphasis on the liver.
Digestion is a North-to-South Process, and to help strengthen it effectively we must naturally start at the top and work our way down. Most of us would assume that the first step to digestion is in the mouth, but you actually have to go a little bit higher than that. The brain. To activate salivary enzymes your brain must be engaged. That’s why your mouth waters when you smell something delicious. It’s getting the signal that food is coming its way, and saliva, in addition to chewing thoroughly, helps start the breakdown of food into useable nutrients. (You can read more here about the roles that our brain and mouth play in digestion) Once our food gets to the stomach, gastric juices go to work on proteins and then it gets passed on to the small intestine. Here is where the gallbladder kicks in. Bile is secreted to emulsify the fats in our food to assimilate the necessary elements, to be used effectively. Without good quality bile, fats are not digested properly. Fats are absolutely critical to the entire endocrine system. Our body cannot produce hormones without fats.
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Between Meals Podcast. Episode 02: Eyes on the Whys.
Between Meals Podcast Episode 02 Show Notes:
When it comes to health, I am often hit with loaded questions like: “How Can I Be Healthy?”, “Where Do I Start?” or “How Should I Eat?”
Nutrition and the world of health and wellness can be wildly overwhelming and contradicting. There are so many paths, directions and goals. My answers to these questions will probably surprise you.
In episode two of Between Meals we spend time getting back to basics, we talk about where to start and most importantly the mindset work that I believe is required before you ever even start with changing habits and implementing new approaches to your health.
For now Episode 02 of Between Meals is available here on Soundcloud, you can stream or download. The Between Meals podcast will be on iTunes, Spotify and other podcast feeds and players VERY soon.
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The First Step to Happy Hormones
The First Step to Happy Hormones honors the very delicate balance of our endocrine system by treating dysfunction on a foundational level rather than simply managing or masking symptoms. This is the first post in a Hormone-Focused Series from Nutritional Therapy Practitioner Brynn D’Avello.
My favorite books come from the 1800s, (primarily Jane Austen’s novels), but Brontë, Dumas, Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky populate my “pleasure reading” shelves as well. The common outcry of women in literature of that period was, “Oh my poor nerves!” Today’s self-diagnosis is, “My hormones are out-of-whack.” Interestingly, the nervous system and the endocrine (hormone secreting) system work together frequently. Epinephrine and norepinephrine are classified as neurotransmitters and hormones.
When clients come to me for nutritional help to balance their hormones I tell them that it’s not a simple process and will require work on my part to investigate where the imbalance is originating to know how to support the underlying foundations of their body. It also takes commitment on the part of the client to change their habits. Endocrine function is a system of complex relationships. The goal is to support the entire system, not just to manage the symptoms. Each client has their own unique needs, and it is important to lay the right foundation for digestion, hydration, blood sugar regulation, mineral and fatty acid balance through a nutrient-dense diet.
What Are Hormones Exactly?
Basically, they are chemical messengers that carry information and orders to organs in the body. They are targeted for specific cell receptors around the body and are used to keep your body in homeostasis, or in balance. We all know that hormones are a key component in reproduction, and while many of us probably only think about them in relation to PMS hormones are critical in many other body processes. Other functions hormones are responsible for are regulating metabolism and energy balance, glandular secretions, some immune system activities; they play a part in the contraction of smooth and cardiac muscles; they control growth and development, and help establish circadian rhythms.
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Is Your Olive Oil the Real Thing? Terra Delyssa Is.
Is your olive oil the real thing? Can you trust that what you are cooking with is safe? I know you are all concerned about fake, substandard olive oils. We’ve all seen the news reports and media coverage of the market being flooded with olive oils making big health claims, yet many being found to be mislabeled and adulterated with other substandard oils like soybean or canola – it’s SO important to find an olive oil you can trust. There are so many reasons I choose to cook with Terra Delyssa Olive Oil and why I personally stand behind and recommend it, to my nutrition clients and to you, my readers, as well as my very own family.
Terra Delyssa does not hide it’s origin. Their olive oils are one of very few that are actually offered to consumers directly by the farmers / producers. Obtained from the first cold press of freshly hand picked olives grown on farms that have been passed on and run for many generations, cultivating and producing Olive Oil, the traditional way, known to the region of Sfax in Tunisia, situated on the Mediterranean coastline.
Terra Delyssa fully controls their olives from tree to bottle, crushing all of their olives within 24 hours of harvest, testing every single batch in their state of the art laboratory. By honoring of traditional production methods of hand selection and true cold-pressing this keeps the oil’s acidity low, while maintaining it’s high levels of antioxidants and phytonutrients high.
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Ideas for Camping Meals and Hiking Snacks
I am super excited to share this post with Ideas for Camping Meals and Hiking Snacks from my recent camping trip. Being in Yosemite for 7 days and being responsible for prepping and cooking dinner each night, for 8 – what an absolute honor and a task. Calling upon my knowledge as a Nutritional Therapy Practitioner and bringing my food blogger vibes, all while keeping it easy, accessible and making everyone happy – that may have been one of my favorite food challenges, to date.
Obviously (and selfishly) all the food I cooked for the week had to be gluten-free with options for being paleo-friendly, as there were three of us that ate this way. The rest of the group could eat everything, which made it quite easy. Given that the days were filled with epic, day-long hikes, some as long as 14 hours and 22 miles or boot camp style workouts and yoga, I also wanted to be sure I was nourishing everyone adequately and providing high-quality, nutrient-dense food while keeping it affordable and doable given the restricted nature of camp cooking. Also full disclosure, I still wanted to keep it all fun and campy, because after all, camping is a time to relax, let loose and have a good time.
Below you will find all of the meals I cooked for the week, along with links to recipes where appropriate and info on how I made it happen. At the bottom you will also find some suggestions for hiking and trail snacks, supplements, etc.
These may not be the best photos, I left my DSLR camera at home and chose to just enjoy the trip and relish in the moments rather than focusing on food styling and perfection. So, instead we have lots of iPhone shots from myself and my girl Natasha of The Feisty Kitchen, who also coincidentally makes a really rad prep and sous chef / partner in crime.
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Don’t Fear the Fat // The Basics
Why Are We Talking About Fat?
The reason I write this post, is that even though, for so many us, we have woke to this knowledge and have worked hard to reframe our approach to nutrition and no longer fearing the fat, we still have so much work to do. After many decades of low-fat propaganda, the “fat makes you fat” rhetoric is still so deeply ingrained in the collective psyche. Many people STILL greatly fear fat, even though study after study shows that fat is not only harmless 1http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/early/2010/01/13/ajcn.2009.27725.abstract but that it is in fact, quite necessary to many important functions in the body. I myself see this fear weekly in my nutrition clients, all over the internet and in my social feeds, at the grocery store, at restaurants, at the gym, etc and of course, all of the many side effects of low fat eating – we HAVE to change this dialogue!!
The Basics
It is beyond challenging to decide where to even start on such a huge, huge topic. Chatting about dietary fat is a big undertaking and we are going to merely just scratch the surface with this initial post, decoding the myths and where the fat fearmongering began, along with the crucial reasons we need fat in our diet. So, let’s get to the basics.
First and foremost you need to know that fat is a necessity in our bodies. This vital macronutrient provides building blocks for the brain, hormone and cellular membranes throughout the body, it is essential for the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins like A, D, E and K and it is deeply hydrating!
By adequately increasing my healthy fat intake, more than any other change I have made in my lifestyle and diet, I have personally seen profound affects on my health, from my digestion to my skin including chronic hormonal and cystic acne, from my moods to my ability to concentrate, hormonal imbalances to libido (YUP!). Fat is a powerful anti-aging food, both internally and externally. Consumed as part of a healthful diet, fatty acids (the building blocks of fat) help stabilize blood sugar – allowing your body to release fat, protect it’s lean muscle, and surge with energy. When our focus is on creating meals that are rich not only in healthy fats, but also quality well-sourced proteins and fibrous green leafy veggies, we can thank especially the healthy fats for keeping us satiated. Staying satisfied for longer means so you won’t find yourself searching for the junky, processed snacks in between these healthy, whole food meals.
References
1. ↑ http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/early/2010/01/13/ajcn.2009.27725.abstract -
The Benefits of Wild Caught Fish and How to Source it Sustainably
From both an environmental and a nutritional standpoint, supporting sustainably sourced fish is something that matters a great deal to me. Just like meat that comes from properly raised animals that have access to pasture and sunshine, seafood caught using sustainable practices with an awareness for the environment should be a huge priority. From a nutritional standpoint, wild caught fish offers more benefits, like higher levels of beneficial omega-3 essential fatty acids. Of course, the taste and freshness of wild caught isn’t even comparable. Wild caught fish is in a league of it’s own.
The Benefits of Wild Caught Fish and How to Source it Sustainably
Wild Caught vs. Farmed
The ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fat of wild salmon, is far superior to farmed. Farmed salmon has a 1-1 ratio of omega-3s and omega-6s (due to the “junk food diet” they are fed), while the ratio for wild salmon is generally between 6 and 9 to 1, which is a much more ideal and healthful ratio.
Wild salmon swim around in the wild, eating what nature intended them to eat. Therefore, their nutritional profile is more complete, with micronutrients, fats, minerals, vitamins, and antioxidants like astaxanthin (which is what gives salmon its pink or red colored, flesh.)
In my opinion, farmed fish are the aquatic equivalent to factory farmed livestock, or confined animal feeding operation (CAFO) animals. Farmed fish generally live in very small, crowded quarters – typically pens or cages submerged in lakes, ponds, and other bodies of salt water, but sometimes on land as well. They also produce toxic waste, and fish of inferior quality. These fish are further contaminated by drugs and genetically engineered corn and soy meal feed, and in the case of salmon, synthetic astaxanthin, which is made from petrochemicals that are not even approved for human consumption. Wild caught fish, on the other hand, are caught by fisherman out in their natural habitat 1http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/04/15/wild-alaskan-salmon.aspx
References
1. ↑ http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/04/15/wild-alaskan-salmon.aspx -
5 Mealtime Tips to Improve Digestion
Digestive dysfunction is easily the most common chronic ailment I encounter working as a Nutritional Therapist. As a follow-up to my in-depth series Digestion 101, I wanted to offer five, simple actionable steps that you can take right away to immediately begin the improvement of your digestion.Digestive dysfunction can have many faces – gas, bloating, stomach aches, indigestion – we’ve all been there. Yes, there are plenty of quick-fix, short term “bandaid” approaches to managing the symptoms, I see so many people that often pop antacids, take anti-gas, diarrhea or constipation meds just to get through the day. Sadly this only manages the symptoms of a larger problem and more often than not the root cause of the dysfunction is left untreated and the problems still persist.
Rather than popping pills or difficult, unnatural approaches, here are 5 simple, meal-time tips to improve your digestion, naturally.
5 Mealtime Tips to Improve Digestion
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4 Reasons to Avoid Vegetable and Seed Oils
4 Reasons to Avoid Vegetable Oils. Vegetable oils are NOT healthy! Read on to discover the 4 biggest reasons to avoid these terrifying, toxic fats!
On the regular I find myself saddened and unpleasantly surprised by the lack of easily accessible, reliable information and data concerning food, nutrition and health. Truthfully, looking back, it’s amazing how little I myself knew, before I started down this long, self-initiated, ongoing path of nutritional education and empowerment of the past 10+ years. I am often reminded these days that I live in a bubble of sorts, surrounding myself virtually and otherwise with bloggers, healers, nutritionists and content creators whose lifestyles mirror my own. Reading books, listening to podcasts and following doctors and researchers creating and sharing important information and research about health and nutrition. I tend to forget and maybe I even take for granted, how much I do know and often I find myself making sweeping assumptions that everyone else knows most of it, too. I know for so many of you this post and this information is old news, it’s a rerun, you’ve heard it before. But if this post reaches even one new person, if I can send my new nutritional clients, who are still cooking with vegetable oils, here to learn more, then it’s a success!
As I enter the homes of my nutritional clients, as well as my close friends and family members, the number one thing I see among their food choices, that I immediately want to remove from their pantries and toss aggressively into the garbage: is vegetable and seed oils. In my opinion, vegetable oils are far worse than any overly refined carbs, white sugar or high fructose corn syrup. This deadly, Frankenstein-eque, lab-created “food” (if you can even call it that) is wreaking more havoc on people’s health than possibly anything else and sadly it’s being overlooked by so many. Much of this comes from Western medical practitioners who are woefully uneducated in nutrition or those whose nutritional education is sorely dated, built on antiquated and debunked health myths of previous generations. Or maybe it’s the fact that big food industry in our country has a large stake in corn and soy production and these have become, by far, the cheapest crops we are growing, thanks to government subsidies. Take a look at most packaged and processed foods and I can almost guarantee you will find one or both of these foods somewhere on the label.
The edible oil industry in our country, “Big Ag” and their marketing “geniuses” sought to demonize tropical oils and other saturated fats and in turn, in the same breath to promote their own vegetable oils, like corn and soybean oil. This great movement toward the excessive use of polyunsaturated fats and the demonization of saturated fats came with the advent of the “Lipid Hypothesis” — which featured fraudulent research made by a terrible scientist named Ancel Keys who made unsubstantiated claims that saturated fat and cholesterol were the cause of heart disease and ignored research and data that didn’t support his argument. We can see how well all that has gone!
The fats used in this study were hydrogenated, processed fats, known to be extremely irritating to the body, particularly the vascular system. Cholesterol acts as a healing agent to repair and protect the arteries and veins. Therefore, the more irritation, the more cholesterol will mobilize to save the day! Research now shows us that dietary cholesterol intake has VERY LITTLE to do with over all cholesterol levels, so this part of the theory was off target as well. Today, the Lipid Hypothesis continues to be promoted by most medical professionals and pharmaceutical companies, as well as the modern food processing giants, who profit from such flawed research. Saturated fatty acids from healthy sources nourish the vascular system, enhance immune function, protect the liver from certain toxins (including alcohol), aid in calcium absorption, and increase cellular membrane integrity. Keep in mind that heart disease was considered a rare condition before the 1920’s, but spiked dramatically from 1910 to 1970 as Americans began consuming less saturated animal fats and increasing amounts of vegetable fats in the form of margarine, shortening and adulterated, refined oils of all types. Our not-so-distant ancestors consumed healthy sources of saturated fats each and every day with no adverse health effects whatsoever! 1Fats: Safer Choices for Your Frying Pan and Your Health By Caroline Barringer, CHFS, NTP
After going through the Nutritional Therapy program at the NTA to become a certified Nutritional Therapy Practitioner I have found myself more inspired than ever to want to help people, to share what I know and to do whatever I can to help make a change in our health, our very broken food system and to empower people to make the very best choices for themselves and their families. So let’s start with one of the most important topics: 4 Reasons to Avoid Vegetable and Seed Oils!
What are Vegetable Oils?
Vegetable oils are oils that are extracted from seeds, germs or beans, such as corn, sunflower, safflower, soybean, or rapeseed (canola oil), etc. Non existent until the early-1900’s, vegetable oils are one of the most unnatural “foods” you can find. Vegetable oils are PUFAs, which stands for Poly-Unsaturated Fatty Acid. In chemical terms, that means that the fatty acid has more than one (poly) double bond in the carbon chain. They’re unsaturated because they’re missing out on what saturated fatty acid has — hydrogen atoms. In a sense, that makes the bonds sort of incomplete. So, imagine a chain of links that are sort of missing a joint or two, on each and every link — it wouldn’t be very strong or stable. These messed up and broken chains make for highly unstable fats that are prone to oxidation in the presence of heat and light, during cooking, sitting on the shelf in the grocery store or in your kitchen pantry and even in your body and they turn rancid, which our body reacts terribly to. Our body attempts to respond to and neutralize the oxidization by utilizing its stores of antioxidants. This oxidization process causes cell mutation, which we see in chronic inflammation, the source of most of the worst illness plaguing our society, cancer, heart disease, etc.
It’s really pretty simple. Because of their instability, and the negative effects on the body’s systems these oils have in excess, PUFA are just plain bad.
The most common vegetable oils on the market are:
- soybean oil
- canola oil (rapeseed oil)
- sunflower oil
- corn oil
- cottonseed oil
- “vegetable” oil
- safflower oil
- peanut oil
- grapeseeed oil
- rice bran oil
- margarine
- shortening (made from above oils)
- fake butter or spreadable butter-type spreads (I Can’t Believe it’s Not Butter, Earth Balance, Smart Balance)
Thankfully less and less people are cooking with these oils at home these days, however unfortunately it’s still not enough to just not buy these cooking oils at the store. Be aware that many/most processed foods contain these oils so you have to be sure to read labels. Salad dressings, condiments like mayo, sauces, crackers, cookies, chips… check your ingredients. You can also bet that most restaurants are cooking in vegetable oils, because they are so cheap! Unless a restaurant specifically states otherwise, their fried foods are all cooked in soybean, cottonseed or some other highly toxic vegetable oil.
(Note the term “vegetable oil” does NOT apply to healthy plant oils like olive oil or coconut oil, which are extremely healthful)
4 Reasons to Avoid Vegetable Oils
References
1. ↑ Fats: Safer Choices for Your Frying Pan and Your Health By Caroline Barringer, CHFS, NTP -
How-to Make Bone Broth
What is Bone Broth:
Bone broth truly is one of the greatest superfoods. A soul-warming, healing, mineral-rich infusion found in many traditional households across many diverse cultures, bone broth is rich in amino acids and minerals and it’s healing properties run the gamut. This nutrient-dense, inexpensive magic elixir provides minerals in a highly bio-available form, meaning that the body can absorb easily them. Calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, silicon, sulphur and trace minerals. As the cartilage and tendons breaks down, you’ll also receive chondroitin sulphates and glucosamine, both sold as expensive supplements for arthritis and joint pain. The long cook time of bone broth allows the maximum release of nutrients. Bone broth contains collagen and gelatin, providing great healing value to cartilage and bones but also to the skin, digestive tract, immune system, heart and muscles.
Bone broth is a liquid made by simmering bones for an extended period of time, between 4 and 24 hours. Any bones can be used: chicken, turkey, beef, lamb, pork, bison and even fish. Vegetables, herbs and spices are often added to enhance the flavor and the bones and vegetables are strained and discarded before serving. Typically, the bones will have some connective tissue, like joints and tendons, and some meat attached.
Additionally bone broth and stocks is a wonderful way of letting nothing go to waste. The nose-to-tail concept of sustainability.
You’ve probably heard the terms Bone Broth, Broth and Stock all used fairly interchangeably, but there are actually some differences between them. Each is made using meat and/or bones, cold water, vegetables and spices / seasonings. Cooking remains similar but the time of simmering varies between them. Bone broth is different from traditional stocks and broths in that it typically is made just from the bones and whatever small amounts of meat are adhering to those bones. Bone broth is simmered for a very long period of time, upwards of 48 hours. Stock is made generally with bones and a small amount of meat and is simmered for much less time, just several hours, 3-4. Meat broth is generally made mostly with meat and sometimes a small amount of bones, simmering for usually under 2 hours. Meat broth and stock still have great health benefits, however it’s a lower nutrient content then long simmering bone broth. For some, bone broth vs stock also means the presence of meat and veggies vs. just bones. Bone broth usually does not contain these and stock usually does. That said, those clear definitions have definitely blurred as bone broth has become more prevalent and people find their own ways of making it, so don’t get too hung up on the words.
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Stay Hydrated // How-to Make Infused Spa Water at Home
We all know how important it is to stay hydrated, yet somehow water is still THE most common nutritional deficiency in our culture. Good news is, it’s a super simple one to remedy! There are plenty of varying formulas from all different sources in regards to how much water to consume, but it’s best to know that whatever formula you subscribe to, just like the nutrition from food and the dietary guides that we each subscribe to, we are highly bio-individualistic beings and there is no one definitive firm answer out there. Listen to your body and pay attention to what works for you.
As a guideline, I recommend to my clients that they shoot for half your body weight in ounces every day. For example if you weight 150lbs, shoot for 75 ounces of water daily, taking into account the need to rehydrate additionally for the consumption of diuretics like coffee, tea, fruit juices, alcohol and sodas or excessive perspiration. I also subscribe to the idea that we don’t want to be consuming too much more than 100 ounces of water daily, as too much water can also have negative affects, like diluting/flushing our electrolytes and causing mineral imbalances.
The best practice to follow is to slowly and mindfully sip on high quality filtered water throughout the day, all day, every day. Drink water before you start feeling thirsty – as thirst is a sure sign you are already on your way to dehydration.
Did you know that every single cell in the human body needs water to function properly? Much like the plants in your garden, your cells, too, can perk up immediately upon watering. It’s that simple.
“Chronic cellular dehydration of the body is the primary etiology of painful degenerative disease.” – Dr F. Batmanghelidj, M.D.
What Roles Does Water Play in the Body?
Water Helps Your Body with the Following:
- Improves oxygen delivery to cells
- Transports nutrients
- Enables cellular hydration
- Moistens oxygen for easier breathing
- Cushions bones and joints
- Absorbing shocks to joints and organs
- Regulates body temperature
- Removes wastes
- Flushes toxins
- Prevents tissues from sticking
- Lubricates joints
- Improves cell-to-cell communications
- Maintains normal electrical properties of cells
- Empowers the body’s natural healing process
Excerpt from “Water the Ultimate Cure”
Tips for Drinking More Water:
- Drink a glass of water as soon as you wake up in the morning (I prefer mine warm with a little lemon).
- Carry a dedicated bottle or container with you are all times, at work, at home, even if you are just out running a few errands.
- Use an app on your mobile phone to track your water intake or simply set an alert on your phone to remind you.
- Choose water at restaurants instead of other beverages. not only will you save on calories while simultaneously hydrating yourself, but it also saves money.
- When you are hungry, start with a glass of water before you reach for the snack. sometimes feelings of hunger are actually your body telling you that it’s thirsty. it may just curb the cravings.
- Drink before you eat. 16 ounces 30 minutes before every meal can actually keep you from over indulging. make this a regular practice and you might even find yourself losing weight.
- Infuse and flavor your water.
BONUS: Add a pinch of high quality sea salt to your water, it adds trace minerals and helps to balance electrolytes
Today, I am sharing with you one of my very favorite ways to stay hydrated…
INFUSED SPA WATER!
Infused water is not only a tasty way to stay hydrated but it is nutritional, healthy, fresh and all-natural!
How-to Make Infused Spa Water at Home:
Read the rest of this entry » -
Digestion 101: A North to South Process // Part 5: The Large Intestine
Digestion 101: A North to South Process
Here we are, at the end of the road. The large intestine is the final step in the process of digestion. By this point you probably more than understand the concept of digestion being a north to south process. We have talked about it at length starting first the brain and the mouth, and the importance of being in a parasympathetic state and properly chewing your foods, then of course the stomach and the dire need for proper hydrochloric acid production, how the accessory organs, the pancreas, liver and gallbladder continue the process of digestion, releasing bile, enzymes, various hormones and allowing the small intestines to finish digestion but more importantly do it’s very important job of assimilating nutrients and finally last but not least, the large intestine.
See Part One: The Brain and The Mouth
See Part Three: The Accessory Organs: Pancreas, Gallbladder and Liver
See Part Four: The Small Intestine
How it Should Work
The large intestine, or the bowel, is compromised of 3 sections, the cecum, colon and the rectum. The leftover chyme from the small intestines, passes through the illeocecal valve and first into the ascending colon. At this point in a healthy digestive system, what is left as chyme (the digested food) after the small intestines, is indigestible fibers, lots of water, sloughed off cells and bile. The large intestine is all about absorption and recycling.
As in the esophagus and the small intestine, the contents of the large intestine are pushed forward by a sequence of muscular contractions called peristalsis (a type of motility or muscular movement). After passing through the illececal valve the remains travels from the ascending colon, across the transverse colon where waste forms, into the descending colon, to the sigmoid colon and then the stool moves out of the body.
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My Path to Becoming a Certified Nutritional Therapy Practitioner – Months 5 & 6
My Path to Becoming a Certified Nutritional Therapy Practitioner – Months 5 & 6
This post continues to share my journey of becoming a Nutritional Therapist with the Nutritional Therapy Association, covering Months 5 and 6, February and March. To read more about how I came to selecting this program and to read about Month 1 of the program, see my first post. To read about months 2 and 3, read my second post and to read about month 4 read my third post.
Month 5
The fifth month of this program was by far the most challenging for me, the content continued to roll in and simultaneously we were preparing for our mid-term examinations, the first weekend of March. Being a self proclaimed perfectionist I wanted to ace the exams, while of course, I also really wanted all of the content to be very clear to me. That meant lots of studying, lots of flash cards, memorizing and generally freaking myself out! It worked! I missed one tiny little thing on my written mid-term examination and had 1/2 point taken off on my functional evaluation practical exam. ACED!
Month 6
The first weekend of month 6 was our second workshop weekend, 4 long days. First we had our exams and then we spent the remainder of the weekend going over the content we had covered since our last meeting as well as continuing to practice the functional evaluations (you can read more about function evaluations here). After the workshop weekend we were on term break for just under 1 month. Read the rest of this entry »
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Digestion 101: A North to South Process // Part 4: The Small Intestine
Digestion 101: A North to South Process
As we continue more south in digestion, after first the brain and the mouth, then the stomach we move from the first part of the small intestines, the duodenum and it’s interaction with the accessory organs, the pancreas, liver and gallbladder and into the function of the small intestine.
After we leave the duodenum, the small intestine is less about the actual process of digestion, from a sense of breaking down the food we eat and it is more about the assimilation and absorption of nutrients.
The first part of the small intestines, the duodenum, acts more as a part of the stomach than the small intestine and the jejunum, ileum and villi are responsible for assimilation.
See Part One: The Brain and The Mouth
See Part Three: The Accessory Organs: Pancreas, Gallbladder and Liver
How it Should WorkThe small intestines have a dual role as an organ and a gland.
As we talked about in the previous post, The Accessory Organs – The Pancreas, Gallbladder and Liver, the small intestine releases mucous to keep things moving and it also releases two hormones: secretin and cholecystokinin.
Secretin stimulates the pancreas to release bicarbonate to lower the pH of the chyme and pancreatic juice. The CCK stimulates the gallbladder to release bile (to read more about these processes please see post #3).
By the time that the chyme has left the duodenum, thanks to the processes of the accessory organs, the chyme should be almost entirely digested.
- The carbohydrates have been broken down into glucose molecules
- Proteins are broken down into amino acids and polypeptides
- Fats are broke down into fatty acids and glycerol molecules
Peristalsis, a series of wave-like muscle contractions moves these absorbable molecules into the jejunum and the ileum, the middle and end parts of the intestine.
Within the small intestines, we have millions of villi, tiny finger-like projections that protrude from the epithelial lining of the small intestines. These villi and their microvilli absorb the nutrient molecules directly into the bloodstream, where they are carried throughout the entire body.
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Digestion 101: A North to South Process // Part 2: The Stomach
Digestion 101: A North to South Process
As we continue more south in digestion, after the brain and the mouth, next up we have the stomach. Before we get started, I wanted to remind you that you will constantly hear me reiterate as we go through this step-by-step process to “always look north” and I want you to truly understand what this means, exactly. I am referring to the fact that often times dysfunction that presents itself from further down the line, is actually due to a malfunction more north. For example, as you will read about in this second post and as we talked about briefly in the first, (the brain and the mouth), if you are eating in a stressful state and your body doesn’t make the necessary switch to that parasympathetic mode (rest and digest), then before your stomach ever had a chance to function properly, the brain basically threw it under the bus. So, while the symptoms may present themselves in the stomach (or even further south) it may not make sense to supplement, treat or approach the symptoms specifically until we instead move more north to investigate if these malfunctions are treatable with just some simple lifestyle and mindset shifts.
This is not at all to say that all digestive dysfunction starts in the brain, that would make my job and my own healthy journey so much simpler. In fact, there are many reasons why dysfunction can exist, as you will see, but beginning the investigative process at the start, way up north, allows us to rule out the possible, more simple resolutions before we move deeper and into more challenging treatments.
See Part One: The Brain and The Mouth
THE STOMACH:
How it’s Supposed to Work
After we chew our food, it turns into what we call a “bolus”. The bolus passes through the esophagus and the cardiac valve (the lower esophageal sphincter) and the bolus then enters our stomach, At this stage gastric juices are released. I like to think of the stomach as a blender. Mucous, pepsin and hydrochloric acid are all released for the “churning and burning” stage of digestion. Both mechanical and chemical breakdown happens at this stage.
The hydrochloric acid (HCl) being the most important of these gastric juices as it creates an acidic environment that disenfects the food and aids in the breakdown. Despite popular belief the stomach is absolutely meant to be acidic. In a healthy individual the pH of the stomach during digestion should drop to 1.5 to 3. We have a thick mucosal layer in our stomach, that acts as a barrier that protects the cells from the acid.
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Digestion 101: A North to South Process // Part 1: The Brain and the Mouth
As many of you know, my digestion has been the source of much on and off distress over many years of my life. While I found the greatest relief by going 100% gluten-free after discovering an intolerance over 11 years ago, my digestion in the time since, has still not been without challenge and discomfort and at times, straight pain. As I began the journey to heal my body of my newly discovered autoimmune condition last year, we first needed to address my still, not-so-great digestion. This foundational approach to the healing of consequences, such as autoimmune conditions, by first treating digestive dysfunction – is a common approach, especially for functional and naturopathic doctors and nutritionists, who know that without properly functioning digestion, we cannot expect to ever find health and vitality. Without proper digestion we can be sure that we aren’t going to adequately assimilate the necessary nutrients through the food we are eating, no matter how healthy we eat and no matter what supplements or medications that we take. In working with a naturopathic doctor, we discovered early last year that I was struggling with leaky gut, and even found at the start of this year, after a year of dealing with the leaky gut, yet still not feeling 100%, that I had an unwelcome parasite and an excess of pathogenic bacteria (both likely the results of having a leaky gut, for who knows how long). It’s been a long year, to say the least.
Through the process of my own personal journey, I have and I continue to learn so much about digestion. This personal, ongoing path towards healing and all of the knowledge and know-how I have collected along the way, is what ultimately prompted me to go back to school to become a certified nutritional therapist. I wanted to truly learn and understand all of this in much deeper and fuller way, to allow me to not only continue to help and heal myself and my loved ones, but to also share this knowledge with others and hopefully help them help themselves, in the process.
So much of what we have been learning in school, about nutrition and more specifically, digestion, has really struck home for me. Much of what we cover are very simple concepts that I truly believe most people need to understand, and support – all of this ultimately has inspired me to share with you guys more about the process of digestion! I know so very many of you, too, are plagued by these varying epidemic levels of dysfunction and I want to empower you with the knowledge to overcome them.
In this series of posts I am going to break down the north to south process of digestion, covering how proper function should occur and also discussing the typical dysfunctions that can derail this process along the pathway. I am also going to offer advice, tips, foods, supplements and other remedies, both traditional and not, to hopefully bring you healing.
Digestion 101: A North to South Process
Digestion is a north to south process, it begins in the brain and ends in elimination. More often than not, while we feel the signs and symptoms of poor digestion further down the line, in the stomach or the upper or the lower GI, simply treating those symptoms with band-aid-like approaches, natural or not, likely won’t get to the root of the problem. To properly address any digestive dysfucntion and truthfully many other nutritional deficiencies, dysfunctions, illness, allergies, etc – we must first start up north, acknowledging possible dysfunction and continue moving south until we address all possible culprits.
Just as proper digestion is a north to south process, so is dysfunction. So, to properly understand and diagnose digestive dysfunction, we have to start all the way at the top, up north in the brain. Yes, the brain is one of THE most crucial elements of digestion. One of the most important take-aways, I hope this first post gives you, is an understanding that remedying digestive malfunction and dysfunction doesn’t always rely on supplements and major dietary changes, oftentimes if can be simple lifestyle changes that can make all the difference in the world. All of the tips I offer in this first post, won’t cost you a dollar, you don’t need to track down supplements or special foods and in fact, you can start today. So, let’s peel back the layers of digestion, before we supplement our way out and instead, let’s support the process as it’s supposed to happen.
As a side-note, these northern-most points in the digestive process are probably my most favorite to cover, they are the starting points of the entire process, but they also require so little, in terms of support.
