2022: Update on Fats
The latest research shows adding saturated fats to your diet can actually lower inflammation and cardiovascular disease. Know which are safe!
All posts filed under: Fundamentals of Wellness
Fats Simplified
Since I first posted this in 2013, we’ve had access to even more research, especially about saturated fats, and the news is good: they help decrease heart disease and they truly help inflammation. I updated this in ’17, ’19 and now for 2020. This is the post where I get into the most research. (You can also click on shorter posts at the bottom of this page.)Here is the latest: You need fats. Do NOT try and lose weight by turning to low fat options. Guess what they trade for fat so that the product tastes ok? SUGAR = CARBS. The trade off is that you’re hungry in an hour! Why? Your insulin just spiked. How many times have you eaten a meal only to feel hungry in an hour or two? Fat gives us satiety, the feeling of “I’ve had enough to eat”. So, fat is your FRIEND, especially if you want to lose weight and lower your inflammatory load. Here’s simple guidelines for fat consumption. List of “Good” Fats: Vary where they …
Thriving with Kids at Home During Uncertain Times
I posted this on my personal Facebook page last week and it has taken off, so I am sharing it here, and I have expanded it. If you are a parent, grandparent or aunt/uncle, here are things to help ease our anxiety in this time of social isolation. I will also be posting more recipes soon. Things to do with your kids: Ask them what they want to do. My granddaughter started a word document and listed some very academic goals! Kids will surprise you! They love the Prodigy game site for math. It works with parents to create challenges and our g-kids already had accounts from school. Cook with your kids. Teach them how to make REAL food. Don’t just make sweet things. Show them how to make soup. When they cook something they are proud and much more likely to eat it! Vitamins boost immunity. Ditch the junk food. Here’s a recipe. Use stay at home resources. There is even a Faceook Group Amazing Educational Resources that has a list of a TON …
How to protect yourself from coronavirus and flu.
Updated 1.2022Now that COVID-19 is part of our reality — when I first wrote this in early March, there were less than 10,000 total US cases. Now, we’re over 60M MILLION infected, (worldwide 300M), with over 5.4 million deaths worldwide as of January 2022. There are things you can do to protect yourself. Experts say that it’s inevitable that 60 to 70% of us will experience this virus in one variant or another. The one thing within your power is to bolster your immune system and prepare for it. NOW. Not when you get sick. My advice is to be in the best shape possible. Most people who have died are elderly AND have what healthcare calls “co-morbid” conditions: meaning they have a chronic illness AND they have come down with COVID-19. One example is research is beginning to demonstrate very low D3 levels = increased severity of illness. See article here for more. Here are ways to boost immunity. Keep in mind this is an ever evolving list but I am updating it with …
The truth about pain meds, even the mild ones…
Dr. Terry Wahls is an award winning pioneer in dealing with progressive neurological diseases. She should know. She has relapsing remitting MS. She went from a wheelchair to completing bike races by taking the principles of Functional Medicine and applying it to her life. Reprinted it with permission from Dr. Wahls. See the link at end of the article to learn more about pain and diet and how to manage them safely. “American adults take painkillers like candy. The use of Vicodin alone, the most popular pain relief drug in the country, has grown dramatically from 112 million doses prescribed in 2006, to 131 million in the U.S, according to ABC News. While taking pain medication is widespread, it’s not normal. Humans did not evolve to be in so much chronic pain. So what should people in pain do? As someone who used to suffer from chronic pain, and as a medical professional, I knew these pills are dangerous. But I didn’t know exactly how much until I began researching more and understanding the complexities. …
How prepared food is sabotaging our health…
I was in the store recently in a large city. It was a very nice grocery store, and most people who go there think highly of their merchandise. I do a lot of flipping packages around and REALLY looking at nutrition information. Because most of the time it just makes my blood boil. THE PREPARED FOOD INDUSTRY IS KILLING US!! Here’s a perfect example! Frozen Entree, ready to eat, just warm it up. Says “Clean Planet” on the label. Can’t be all bad, right? WRONG. So, let’s break this down. 17 g of fat isn’t a big deal, but it depends on what oil source it is coming from. Looking at the ingredients, I have trouble figuring out where the saturated fat comes from since Chicken breast, Olive Oil and seasonings don’t have much. So that is perplexing. Next is the carbs, and that is where they get you. 71 carbs in one 12 oz. serving, including 21 grams of added sugars? Woah! For comparison, A SNICKERS BAR has 33 gm of carbs… (and no, …
Cancer saved me… really.
One of my fellow health coaches posted a TED video today called “What Almost Dying Taught Me About Living” and it got me thinking about the road between perfectly healthy and gravely ill. If you think about it, ALL of us are on that continuum, and some days are much closer to the ill end than others. For me it wasn’t days, it was decades. In 2005 I was diagnosed with Breast Cancer. (I’m not sure why I capitalized that, but for me it was a pivotal event in my life). It was a game changer. It stopped me and my family in our tracks. We rallied, but my view of life as I knew it was over. You look at everything differently from that moment forward, and sometimes that is a good thing. And you are never that same Pre-Diagnosis person again. You simply cannot be. Your view on mortality shifts. I was lucky, it had not spread to my lymph nodes, but I still opted to go through both chemo and radiation treatments. …
Vaccine Prep: Protect your child BEFORE vaccinations.
This very excellent article was posted earlier this month on Dr. Kara Fitzgerald’s blog, who is a Functional Medicine Provider I follow as I believe she researches things very well and this one is particularly timely. In Wisconsin, we are facing an epidemic of measles — and we aren’t alone. Measles Cases in 2019. From January 1 to May 24, 2019, 940** individual cases of measles have been confirmed in 26 states. This is an increase of 60 cases from the previous week. This is the greatest number of cases reported in the U.S. since 1994 and since measles was declared eliminated in 2000. CDC/Cases and Outbreaks, updated quarterly As a health coach, I tell clients that I believe the answer to whether to vaccinate, like ANY medical and drug intervention is individual and should be made by the physician and the patient, or in this case the parents. But Dr. Fitzgerald’s staff member Romilly Hodges goes a step further: she makes an excellent case for things we SHOULD be doing to PREPARE our children …
Healthy Recipe? …NOT!
Yesterday, I got the above in a newsletter from our health insurance company, and I was intrigued… Until I read the fine print, and I realized that they basically just sabotaged their clients with REALLY bad information. This is what I think of this “healthy recipe advice”. First rule: Don’t be fooled by “sugar free”. So, several things jump out at me here: It uses sucralose, which is NOT HEALTHY OR OK. Sucralose has been associated with all kinds of issues, from decreasing gut flora (the good bugs that help you), to breaking down into harmful chemicals when heated, to causing brain fog, to increasing insulin and glucose levels in already obese people. (Yes, obese people using Splenda have a blood sugar and insulin increase despite it being “no calorie”. Study here) At this point, in 2019, the only artificial sweeteners I personally use are monkfruit (100%, no other ingredients) or stevia leaf (again 100%, no other ingredients). Both made from natural plants. This cake has 3 ¾ cups of ALL PURPOSE WHITE FLOUR! WTH? …
What hunger REALLY means.
One of the things I teach when I do my Food As Medicine Classes is that hunger doesn’t just mean you’re hungry, it means MUCH more. Your body is giving you a signal it wants MACRO and MICRONUTRIENTS! In fact, I use this slide: An article in a recent Huffington Post was so well written, I’m going to link it below. Please read it. It hopefully will change the way you look at junk food. And it explains why you can eat a large meal of junk and still be hungry! Here’s Why You Don’t Feel Full After Eating Junk Food You can eat an entire sleeve of Oreos or a bag of Hot Cheetos and still not feel satiated. It’s because your body knows things your brain doesn’t. By Katy Severson 03/05/2019 09:25am ET You’ve just eaten 10 Taco Bell tacos and a frozen Mountain Dew and you feel… suspiciously still hungry. You’ve consumed about 1,880 calories, but your body isn’t satisfied. What’s happening? Studies show that satiety, the mechanism that stops us from …
Low Carb Confusion
There is so much confusion about low carb diets. The choice is individual. See how they compare, without the hype.
Why you should know your reverse T3
Read this and ensure your thyroid function get evaluated properly.
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