During the month of February we’re focused on how you can best give yourself a Valentine with some Self-Care. I know you’ll agree that some healthy, self-caring behaviors can deliver immediate results or in a very short term. For example, you might have some favorite music that you play that always cheers you up or a hobby that gives you a lot of joy and its not hard to make time for it.
 
There are also some areas of self-care, though, that deliver more results in the long term and can, for some people, seem like a tough choice in the moment. For many people, good nutrition is an example of this, especially if they’ve never experienced the long-term benefits before. People know they need to have good habits in this area to feel their best, but when it comes right down to it, they can struggle with making those sensible, long-term choices. We know this to be true because of the massive failure of dieting as a strategy for getting healthy. It turns out diets are hard to stick to!!
 
So what is going on? Well, two different parts of the brain are in a battle here.
 
The emotional part of the brain responds positively to instant gratification. It can seem so much more appealing in the short term to eat that brownie when you get home from work. After all, it tastes delicious and the sugar and processed flour give a bump to your feel-good brain chemicals. You are on a sugar high! Actually we humans are designed in our hard wiring to seek out high calorie foods so it is natural for us to want them.
The emotional brain says “Yes” to the brownie!
 
The logical part of the brain, though, tries to reason it out. It knows that you should just wait to eat a healthy dinner, that would be better for your long-term health and that you’ll feel better in the long run.
 
Unhealthy choices usually happen on impulse when the emotional part of your brain triumphs over the logical one.
So how do you keep your logical brain in the driver’s seat?
 
I’ve found that one of the biggest reasons for the emotional brain to be running the show is stress and overwhelm. The logical brain can only function well when you have some reserves in the tank. If you are run ragged emotionally and physically depleted, then there is a good chance you’ll be short on logic and behave more impulsively. It’s going to be really tough in these conditions to implement any healthy, new habits that will only pay you back in the long term.
 
Reducing stress and overwhelm by having a backdrop of regular self-care and ensuring that you include positive activities in your life that bring you joy, are essential to you being able to respond well in the moment.
 
Ways to do this could be hobbies, connecting and being present with loved ones, reading, regular exercise, yoga, massage therapy, daily meditation, daily affirmations, being organized, setting boundaries, essential oils or journaling. I am sure you have many other ideas so brainstorm your own list and start incorporating them in your routines.
 
Of course there are a number of other things you can do to increase your chances of success with transforming your unhealthy patterns. I love helping people figure out and implement these strategies. It’s a huge piece of the Break the Yoyo Diet Cycle Program and for many people it is foundational to being able to implement real and lasting change in their lives. After all, if it were easy to stick to a nutrition self-care plan more people would be doing it.
 
We’ve got some great deals this month to help you with Self-Care so please take a look, we’d love to help. <3

It may be hard to believe but the 100 trillion little microbes in our gut  - our Gut Microbiome - are sometimes to blame for our sleep troubles. Surprisingly, the gut has over 30 types of neurotransmitters, like the ones found in our brain, sending multiple signals throughout our body.  For this reason we often call the gut “the second brain”.
 
Serotonin and melatonin are two of the main neurotransmitters that help regulate your body’s sleep cycle – or circadian rhythm. Serotonin is involved in wakefulness, triggering sleep and in our very valuable REM sleep. It is also the building block of melatonin – which is associated with sleep onset and the sleep/wake cycle. Amazingly a whopping 90% of your serotonin is produced in your gut. Research is also showing that our gut is actually the main source of melatonin production, in fact 400 times more than the pineal gland in the brain. Good bugs in the gut are also known to produce GABA, another neurotransmitter which can help calm you into a deep sleep.
 
A further advantage of nurturing your gut health - beneficial bacteria in your gut can also lower your stress hormone, cortisol, which interferes with sleep when elevated.
 
So if healthy sleep with restful nights are elusive for you, tackling gut health may be one key that you’ve been missing.
 
Some common causes of poor gut health can include a diet and lifestyle including sugar, processed foods, gluten, alcohol, stress, antibiotics and antacids amongst others. If this sounds like you then please reach out for help with supporting your gut health. To learn more about how nutrition can impact your mind and mood consider joining me for my workshop on Brain Food. Next class is coming up Monday January 21st.

We know that stress causes high cortisol, that famous stress hormone that is oh so necessary for survival, but causes us to gain weight around the mid-section, crave sugar and makes us anxious. But did you know that eventually, if stress is unaddressed and chronic, the adrenal glands, which produce that cortisol as well as the stress neurotransmitters epinephrine and norepinephrine, finally fail to be able to keep up with the demands placed on them. At this point they cannot produce enough cortisol and levels become persistently low and you are officially in burnout. You really cannot function properly and feel like a shadow of your former self. This is a major wake up signal from your body that you need to slow down and start taking care of yourself.

Here are some of the symptoms you might be experiencing with burnout and low cortisol:

• Severe fatigue or burnout
• Stressed
• Poor memory and concentration
• Frequent sickness
• Easily upset
• Weepy
• Lack of motivation
• Lightheaded
• Salt cravings
• Low sex drive
• Low stamina
• Insomnia or waking during the night
• Low blood pressure
• Unstable blood sugar
• Coffee cravings
• Excess sweating

 
To learn more about how best to recover, take a look at my workshop Nourishment for Hormonal Harmony on July 2nd.  You’ll find out more about what you are doing now, that is messing up your adrenals and cortisol, how cortisol concerns can impact your other hormones and how to nourish yourself back into harmony.

 

I just had a wonderful meeting in preparation for the discussion about Reclaiming our Beauty at the Parillume SHINE Soirée on March 22nd. I’d love to share some thoughts with you about what beauty means to me both personally and in my nutrition work with clients.
 
The ideals of beauty for women that are out there are pretty much meaningless. There are ever changing fashions in body shape, facial features, hairstyles, etc. that are not going to be attainable for us. For example, in the 1960s women were striving to be stick thin like Twiggy, the 1980s brought the aerobic body which was athletic and toned and then again in the 1990s extremely thin bodies were fashionable again. How could we possibly keep up? It really is a ridiculous concept if you think about it.
 
Historically we have really only been given one tool to help us reach these ideals around body type and this is The Diet. The story goes that if we want to meet these certain rigid ideals of the ideal body then we’d better show some willpower and follow a rigid eating plan to get there. The truth is that dieting just sets most people up for failure and often a cycle of yoyo dieting and body dissatisfaction that is super destructive to health and happiness.
 
As a result of so much media pressure, plastic surgery procedures have increased massively over the last decade as people try to get to that perfect place and feel that they measure up to the ideals.
 
The truth is that these ideals are really just sticks with which we can beat ourselves and serve to make us feel less than adequate if we choose to buy into them. We are each born with a certain body type, particular facial features etc. and our true path to beauty is to keep ourselves as healthy and vibrant as we can. When we are healthy on the inside that health shows on the outside and we cannot help but be beautiful. That’s where nutrition can come in in a positive way, instead of as part of the problem.
 
What we put in our mouth, our food choices, are the raw materials that our body uses as fuel for energy and also to maintain all of the complex systems within us. We need not only a certain number of calories but vitamins, minerals, amino acids, fatty acids, phytochemicals etc. that are part of the complicated chemistry that runs our body. When our body is functioning well that will show in so many ways. On the outside that might show as clearer and firmer skin, shinier hair, strong nails and a healthy weight, all traditional beauty ideals, but there’s so much more. What about our moods? To me, happy, confident people are certainly beautiful. I know I never felt beautiful at times in my life when I was depressed. Our moods are influenced by our body’s production of neurotransmitters (mood chemicals) and those are made from nutrients. Our sex hormones impact our drive and energy, our libido and our moods too. Guess how we make these – yes, from nutrients! These are just examples but you get the picture. When we feel good, we shine more in the world.
 
I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments about what beauty means to you and as always if you’d like help reaching the Optimal You then please get in touch. 

As I’ve been focused on writing a new workshop on Anxiety, I’ve been digging more into the many connections between food and nutrition on the one hand and mood and brain functioning on the other. Despite the fact that there are so many logical links between the two, what I find is that many people really don’t think of nutrition and food as serious contenders when they are considering ways to deal with their mental health. More often than not, people go straight to pharmaceuticals or to a therapist before they consider cleaning up their diet.
 
If you think about it though, you already know that food makes a difference in how you feel and your brain functioning. If you’ve ever been really hungry, you have probably experienced feeling grumpy and angry, plus it’s hard to focus and you make more mistakes. If you’ve never been really hungry then just ask anyone you know who’s been on a very calorie restricted diet and they will confirm…It is just not fun!
 
For more evidence on this matter of hunger impacting mood, we can look at Judges’ decisions, which we tend to hope and believe will be logical and balanced. But no, not entirely! Did you know that Judges make more lenient decisions just after they have eaten breakfast or lunch, whereas before a meal break they are more likely to rule unfavorably?
 
This is a blood sugar issue and something that many people overlook as a very simple way to improve their mood and brain functioning.  Just in the last week I’ve had several clients who skip breakfast or go most of the day without food. Sometimes people are trying to eat less to lose weight (which is often counter productive anyway!) and sometimes people say they are just too busy to pay attention to it.
 
Clearly many people are just not connecting the dots and realizing the impact that food has on their brain. Blood sugar is just the tip of the iceberg. We also need to consider neurotransmitters, hormone balance, micronutrient deficiencies, gut health, and more. But if these links are just not tangible enough for you, then how about this?
 
Recently, the SMILES Trial was published. It is the first randomized controlled trial to test whether dietary improvement can actually treat (yes, I did say ‘treat’) depression. In the trial, dietary changes from a junk food diet to a real whole foods diet reduced depression in 30% of the participants.
 
I can only imagine what the results could have been if the participants had taken a deeper nutritional dive and been given more individualized dietary changes to work on.
 
So if I haven’t already made it clear, if you’re experiencing mood or brain functioning issues, I highly recommend paying attention to your diet. The brain is a key organ connected to the rest of our body and it cannot function well without the body functioning properly. If you can fix your body, you can likely fix your brain.
 
If you have questions or need further help the please reach out to us. We’d love to support you!
 

One of the biggest issues I find with clients is their addiction to sugar.  They know they need to stop eating it but try as they might it lures them back in every time. Understanding why is always the first step to figuring out what to do about a problem.  So I’ll tell you…

It’s all about Blood Sugar Control and Brain Chemistry!

You can learn more about how sugar gets us hooked if you keep reading my full article.  In my next blog I’ll look at the other negative health consequences of a sugar laden diet to give you some real motivation to change.

Breaking the cycle can be a challenge and most people need some guidance and support through the process.  We can work with you to find other ways to support you with blood sugar stabilization and healthy brain chemistry.

So here are the addictive aspects of sugar that plague us. Maybe you identify with some of the symptoms of situations I talk about. 

Blood Sugar
Many people are feasting throughout the whole day on sugar (and white processed foods) that turn to blood sugar quickly.  When they wake in the morning their blood sugar is low.  The grab their sugar laden morning coffee and muffin which causes their blood sugar to shoot through the roof.  There is a temporary good feeling and a burst of energy.

The blood sugar spike is a warning signal to the body that causes it to pump out adrenaline.  When this is going on throughout the day the adrenals can become over worked and a consequence can be adrenal fatigue.

But back to the coffee and muffin story….Soon after the high, the blood sugar crashes back down again quickly. Someone who is affected by low blood sugar may experience tiredness, restlessness, confusion, forgetfulness, poor concentration, irritability and anger.  Low blood sugar is a danger situation for the body and triggers it to look for their next sugary carb fix.  And so the pattern continues.

Serotonin
This is the feel good chemical that our body produces. People low in serotonin are often fretful, anxious, depressed, short in attention span, scattered, angry or aggressive.

Blood sugar assists with driving tryptophan across the blood brain barrier to make serotonin. Of course we need serotonin and we want to have some glucose in our system to do that.  But the reason doctors prescribe so many SSRI anti-depressants is not because people are lacking in sugar intake!  The trouble comes with too much sugar which gives a temporary serotonin rush but stresses the adrenals as we said before and so ultimately depletes us.  It’s one of the reasons we get hooked to sugar.

Beta-Endorphins
Beta-endorphins are the body’s pain killer.  Those with low levels experience self esteem issues, poor coping skills, feelings of inadequacy and isolation, a sense of being stuck, have a victim mentality and an extreme response to criticism.  Heroin is a beta endorphin and addicts can take up to six months to deal with their feelings of low self esteem which is why recovery rates are low.

Sugar can also affect beta-endorphin levels.  Not surprisingly people who have low levels of beta-endorphins reach for sugar.  It is actually just the taste of the sugar that activates the beta-endorphins, not it’s effect on the body, so eating other foods that give pleasure will produce the same affect.

Dopamine
Sugar’s taste ultimately leads to dopamine being released, which provides us with motivation, concentration, alertness, euphoria – the long term planning chemical that allows us to work hard now for something that will benefit us later.


Let us know how you relate to this and what worked for you if you managed to get off your sugar habit.