Last time I mentioned controlling blood sugar as one important issue to tackle to escape from your sugar addiction and establish some healthy eating habits.
But what is poor blood sugar control and what other clues might you have that it’s a problem for you?
 
The main cause of poor blood sugar control is Insulin Resistance. Here’s how it works:
When we eat a food that contains a carbohydrate (except insoluble fiber) our digestion breaks it down into glucose (blood sugar) to be used as fuel for our cells. 

Blood sugar is best kept within a Goldilocks range – not too high, not too low, but just right – so as to avoid a whole host of problems with our health. Our body produces insulin to carry the glucose to our cells. Most cells just take what they need but liver and muscle cells store extra glucose as glycogen. The liver also converts excess amounts to fat for storage.
Particularly when you continually ingest more carbohydrates than your body needs, your cells start to become
 resistant to the insulin. This leaves glucose and insulin backed up in the blood stream and out of that Goldilocks range, wreaking havoc on your health.
 
Why is this happening?

• Genetics can play a part. Some of us have cells that are more naturally resistant to insulin. People who store fat around the middle or who have a family history of diabetes are more prone.
• Some pharmaceuticals can cause the body to become more insulin resistant.
• Micronutrient deficiencies can play a part. When your body is low in certain key nutrients (and it is certainly likely if you haven’t been focusing on a healthy diet) then insulin resistance can either be a consequence or can be aggravated. For example:
  • Carnitine improves insulin sensitivity by increasing glucose uptake and storage.
  • Chromium helps insulin attach to the cell’s receptors increasing glucose uptake into the cell.
  • Deficiency in Magnesium reduces insulin sensitivity.
  • Alpha Lipoic Acid enhances glucose uptake into skeletal muscle tissue.
  • And more…

• Toxins in our food supply (pesticides, herbicides, plastic packaging), water, cosmetics and personal care products, cleaning supplies, cigarettes, smoked and charred foods and more can cause insulin sensitivity and some also impact the pancreases ability to produce insulin (another component in blood sugar control).
• Chronic stress raises our blood sugar, ready for fight of flight activity, but typically we do neither and the stresses we deal with don't go away. This contributes to the problem of too much blood glucose.

 
Do I have poor Blood Sugar Control?
If you’re a carboholic then there’s a good chance your blood sugar control is not good but what else could be happening that would indicate a potential problem?

• Eating sweets doesn’t relieve your sugar cravings…You just want more!
• You become irritable or light headed if you miss a meal.
• You rely on caffeine to get through the day or feel fatigued a lot.
• Eating can make you feel exhausted.
• You feel weak, shaky, or jittery pretty frequently.
• You get agitated, easily upset, or nervous.
• It's difficult for you to lose weight.
• Your waist is equal to or larger than your hips.
• Your vision is blurry.
• You have a low sex drive.
• You're always hungry or thirsty.
• You have to pee a lot.
• You have skin tags.

 
If you think you may have poor blood sugar control then please reach out for help. There are many ways to improve the situation and we’d love to support you. We work with clients on their food behaviors with our Food Relationship Reset Program ($50 OFF this quarter) and on establishing a strong nutrient status through improving their food intake and targeting nutrient deficiencies identified through blood testing or otherwise. We’ve put together a new range of service offerings around our testing of nutrient status to make it more affordable for more people so take a look here for more information.
​

Is becoming healthy one of your New Year’s Resolutions? If it is, then you are not alone. Losing weight and eating healthier was the most common resolution in 2018, according to many statistics. It’s easy to see why when you think about the holiday period. It can be rough on your body with all of the excesses that the season brings: food, drink, lack of sleep, additional obligations, stress, less exercise…
 
Perhaps it is time for a detox or cleanse program to help you create a Clean Start to 2019 and get you on your way to better health!
 
Why Detox?
The overall goal of a detox is to detoxify the body and restore optimal health.  Of course your body is designed to be able to detoxify itself but natural detoxification pathways can become overwhelmed and toxins can build up in the body. Our environment is full of way more chemicals than in days gone by and it is harder for our bodies to keep up with it all. Matters get worse when we are not paying attention to taking care of ourselves…more toxins and less support for the natural detoxification pathways.
 
When toxins build up, you just don’t feel good and it can wreak havoc on your health! 
 
Some signs you might need to detox
There are so many but they could include fatigue, constipation, weight gain, headaches, depression or joint pain.


Benefits of a Detox
A detox can be a first step to:

• Prevent/ improve chronic health conditions
• Improve nutrient absorption
• Increase energy
• Improve metabolism
• Kick start weight loss
• Cope with stress better
• And more…..

As you detox you are allowing your body to function as it was naturally designed to do and you’ll be on the road to feeling better.
 
If the idea of a detox scares you, then fear not! I am definitely not a fan of the short, sharp cleanse where you are starving yourself and feeling exhausted. These can certainly backfire for many people as the misery and hunger causes a rebound back to previous unhealthy, unsupportive behaviors and lifestyle. I prefer a gentler approach with a program that supports your body’s natural processes for elimination of toxins whilst at the same time teaching some new healthy behaviors around food and lifestyle that can be carried forward. These new behaviors can be tailored to you and your starting point. The goal is to make your detox something realistic where you can feel successful.
 
As part of our Special New Year’s Deals we’re offering a Detox Package that you’re going to love for just $195 ($40 off). You’ll get some amazing products to support your body together with dietary guidelines and instructions but best of all you’ll get a session with us to customize your program.  We hope you’ll decide to join us for your detox!

Despite the fact that there is so much information out there about the health benefits of good sleep it is interesting how many of us still fail to make it a priority. It’s really tough to get it to sink in that it truly makes a difference in our lives. Maybe this might motivate you to prioritize sleep. Did you know that a rough night’s sleep can impact hormones that affect your weight?!
 
Pretty much everyone is familiar with the experience of a bad night’s sleep. You wake up feeling depleted and it is no coincidence that you are reaching for sugary foods and caffeine! Studies show that depriving people of sleep for just one night, increases cravings for junk food and decreases rational eating decisions in the frontal cortex. Well that’s not likely to help your weight, is it? If you do succumb to those cravings then you have set yourself up for a day of more cravings, hunger and fat storage as your blood sugar levels sore and crash repeatedly.
 
So what’s going on here and why does the sleep loss often send us on this downward spiral? Sleep affects the following hormones that are likely out of whack after a rough night:
 
Leptin tells your brain that you're full and regulates metabolism so you can switch to fat burning when your body needs to.  Decreased sleep duration reduces leptin production so no wonder your appetite is out of control when you are tired.
 
Ghrelin tells your brain to eat. Sleep deprivation increases gherlin levels driving your body to want more food.
 
Adiponectin is an anti-inflammatory hormone produced by adipose tissue that regulates fat breakdown. Optimal adiponectin levels can reduce the risk of insulin resistance, diabetes and therefore weight gain. Reduced sleep decreases adiponectin production.
 
Insulin is a fat storage hormone. When it is elevated you cannot burn fat and your body holds on to it. Our cells need to be sensitive to insulin otherwise our insulin levels can get driven up. Chronic sleep loss decreases insulin sensitivity keeping our levels elevated and our body storing fat.
 
Glucagon releases fat from your fat cells to burn for energy. Decreased sleep duration reduces levels so your ability to burn fat will be reduced.
 
Cortisol, which causes us to store fat and breakdown muscle, gets chronically elevated with lack of sleep due to the increased stress.
 
Growth hormone, your fountain of youth, is made during deep stage 4 sleep so less sleep can reduce your levels. It aids in muscle synthesis and repair, boosts energy and improves fat metabolism.
 
If weight loss is elusive for you then focusing on an improved sleep routine could make a world of difference for you and should be part of your long-term strategy for health. Nutrient levels can certainly impact sleep so let us know if you’d like to get your nutrient levels tested using our $100 off deal this month.
 
If you want to learn more about how to Unlock Weight Loss, you might consider joining me and Fran Gallaher for our workshop on October 13th, Unlock Weight Loss – Little Known Keys that Open the Door to Your Success where we’ll share some of the nutritional and energetic areas that have been holding our clients back.

Fran Gallaher, intuitive coach and owner of Really Flourish, and I have talked often about this issue because we both believe in the intelligence of the body.
 
Fran looks at things from an energetic perspective. She believes that sometimes we unconsciously give our body messages and that we may be asking it to hold onto our weight for a reason. She has great insights about this to share. For a teaser, have a read of her recent blog,  Are You Learning to Trust Your Body?
 
What I can share from a nutritional perspective is that food is not simply calories, or energy, that you have to burn or else gain or hold on to weight. The long-term failure of the “eat less, exercise more” approach to weight loss is evidence that there must be something more complicated going on. The fact is food is so much more than just energy. It is information! It is a message to our body to do something and it changes the way in which our genes express themselves. Our body has intelligence and responds to the information we are giving it. If you are resistant to weight loss there is likely something deeper going on that needs to be uncovered. It is not just that you don’t have enough will power and are lazy and there are some solutions out there for you.
 
So what basic things do you need to take care of and understand first to move forward with weight management and weight loss?

• First, understand that a temporary fix isn’t going to work. Whatever method you use, in the end you are going to have to create a new lifestyle that manages your weight rather than just going on a diet and returning to your old habits.
• Overall health has to be part of your goal. There are unhealthy weight loss approaches out there that can help you shed pounds in the short term but in the long run they do more harm than good. Any program that involves eating highly processed foods is going to be counter-productive.
• You need to be exercising regularly. Our body was designed to move and we need that activity to function properly.
• Factors other than food and exercise can be at play. (More evidence that the energy in/ energy out formula doesn’t work and that lifestyle solutions are key.) Stress, sleep, pharmaceuticals and toxins can all play a part as can our habits and programming.
• Everyone is different because we each have different genes and different lifestyles, which impact our nutritional requirements. You are going to need to find out what works for you and your body may need additional support in certain areas to function optimally.

 
Fran and I have so much more we want to share and so we’ve decided to come together to share this information in a workshop on Saturday October 13th: Unlock Weight Loss – Little Known Keys that Open the Door to Your Success. We’ll be taking a deeper dive into some of the areas that we find are in the way of success for our clients when they have found weight loss to be unattainable or unsustainable. We are really excited for this collaboration and can’t wait to share what we know.
 
So if you are you curious about why you don’t seem to be able to lose weight and why it is a constant struggle;
If you’d like to understand more about why some people seem to lose weight easily but when you follow the same program, nothing seems to work;
If you’ve been counting your calories and try to get in shape and find that still nothing seems to shift;
If you have a difficult time sticking to a program at all and feel like you fail over and over, seeming to sabotage yourself;
Then consider joining Fran Gallaher and me on Saturday October 13th to find out if we can help you Unlock Weight Loss! Early bird pricing applies until Saturday October 6th so get your ticket now for just $67 (reduced from $77) for this information packed afternoon.

Here is a guest blog from one of our Women, Wine & Wellness - Lowry speakers for September, Fran Gallaher.
To receive an invitation to this private event, you can sign up here: 
http://www.waystooptimizehealth.com/women-wine-wellness-lowry.html​

Are you learning to trust your body? To believe your body has wisdom? What about when it comes to weight loss? Are you trusting your body, even if it resists weight loss? (Of course, you may not need to lose weight but stay with me, there’s something here for every body.)

Because, really, your body is likely doing what you have asked it to do. Sometimes we need to look at what good thing your body is trying to accomplish—what good thing you may have, unconsciously, asked it to accomplish.

There are a number of things your body might use weight to accomplish. The one I want to explore here I’ll call armoring. Armoring is just what it sounds like: we are padding up, so to speak, to go on the offense or to go on the defense.

In the first case we may have felt currently or at some point in the past, that we were not big enough to handle a situation—or to make a difference or to just matter. Maybe we felt weak, not strong enough, maybe we felt as if we didn’t make an impact or maybe we feel like we need to “throw our weight around” to get our point across. In any case, our body gets the message and pads up just as we’ve asked it to, and like some football player padding up for the game, or like the gladiator before them, we get ready for battle.

Or maybe, instead, the weight—the padding—is about protecting ourselves. It could be that we are in an abusive situation. Whether slightly abusive or very abusive doesn’t matter: abuse is a threat to our well-being and so a threat to the body.

Whether we are conscious of abuse or not, doesn’t matter either. In the same way that the Earth may well give off signals before a seismic event, warning animals to seek safe ground, our bodies can be sensitive to abusive, disrespectful, dismissive or even dangerous signals it receives, and can go into a self-protective mode.

Sometimes this disrespect can be very subtle—and can have occurred at some point regarding our body image, our gender or sexuality, or some very personal way we might feel discounted. The padding, therefore, is not just protective but also acts as both a way to set a boundary and a way to become less visible, less likely, in some cases, to receive unwanted attention.

So weight loss becomes less the problem and more the symptom. And the real problem can come to our attention, and with loving kindness, we can nurture our body’s true needs and remove the reason for our body’s need to armor itself.

Contact Fran:
www.reallyflourish.com | fran@reallyflourish.com | 303-722-5115
 

I don’t know about you, but I see ads and books for Ketogenic diet programs everywhere.  They sound so enticing. After all, ketosis is promoted as a powerful way to burn body fat and sharpen your mental focus.  So should you jump on that trend? Here are some aspects to think about:
 
What is a Ketogenic Diet?
Without glucose from carbs (and here I don’t just mean sugars and grains but also beans, legumes, fruits and vegetables) your body burns the fat you eat and the stored fat on your body as its main fuel source.  The fat breaks down into ketones that are an alternative to glucose to fuel your brain and suppress hunger. The exact details of what you might eat vary somewhat from program to program but broadly speaking you eat the majority of your calories as fat, restricting protein to moderate levels (15-20%) and carbohydrates to 5-10%.
 
Potential Benefits of Burning Ketones

• Less Inflammation – Burning ketones causes less inflammation than burning glucose.
• More Brain Power – The brain on ketones produces more mitochondria – the energy source for your cells.
• Neuroprotective – A great way to benefit brain conditions like epilepsy and Parkinson’s.
• Less Hunger – When your body is good at burning fat for fuel it can always turn to your fat stores for energy and you don’t feel as hungry.
• Rapid Weight loss – Where burning carbs for fuel increases insulin and puts you into fat storage mode, burning fats means that you can utilize stored fat on your body.
• Blood sugar balance and improved insulin sensitivity.
• Cardiovascular benefits.

 
Is Keto Beneficial Long Term?
Staying on a ketogenic diet long term can be stressful on the body. There isn’t a human population in history that has existed in long-term ketosis. Even the Inuits, who had a very high fat diet, were not in ketosis because they had genetic mutations that stopped them overproducing ketones. For this reason, I don’t recommend staying on a keto diet for a long period and think it suitable for only 3-6 months as a therapeutic diet helpful to deal with certain situations only.
 
 
Downsides of the Ketogenic Diet
Also bear in mind that not everyone will respond the same way to a ketogenic diet. Everyone has different genetics and lifestyles. Consider if a ketogenic diet is really the right direction for you and beware of these potential downsides before you embark on a keto program.

• Damage to the Gut Microbiome - Restricting carbohydrates means restricting vegetables and other sources of dietary fiber. This results in less fermentation and therefore less food for the gut microbes. It also means a more acidic environment in the colon, which can encourage less desirable bacteria to thrive.
• Constipation – The lack of fiber can slow down things in the GI tract and that means you are not eliminating waste and toxins. As toxins are stored in fat tissue this a concern if you are burning body fat.
• Keto Flu – It takes time for your body to adapt to be able to burn fat for fuel. It can take a couple of days or a couple of weeks. The transition period, known as the keto flu, is often accompanied by fatigue, lightheadedness, dizziness and electrolyte imbalances that can be severe.
• Hormonal imbalances – Women, in particular, seem to respond less well to a ketogenic diet. Ketosis is like starvation and so the body can shut down reproductive functions via the thyroid. Especially if you have low thyroid function, the risks of keto may be too great. Keto is also not a good idea if you have low cortisol and adrenal fatigue. Fiber is important for removal of excess hormones from the body and without it they will stay in your system and create imbalances.
• Stress on the liver, kidneys and gallbladder – Some people don’t do well digesting and metabolizing fats. It is better to monitor how you are doing with regular blood tests. If you aren’t doing well, keto is probably not for you.
• People living in Blue Zones, the world’s longest living cultures, eat a diet rich in fruits and vegetables that are packed with phytonutrients, vitamins and minerals.

 
Let us know if you have more questions. We always love to hear from you.

​I get this question frequently from my clients as they work on reducing their sugar intake and look for other options. Stevia actually ended up being a discussion with my family over Easter brunch as there were little packets of Pure Via on the table. Marketing makes it so confusing to figure out what is really healthy and what is not. So let’s dive in…
 
What is Stevia?

• An herbal plant with many species that have leaves that are sweet, many times sweeter than sugar.
• In the same family as Ragweed, so if you have a ragweed allergy, stay away from Stevia
• It has been used in different cultures around the world for centuries as a sweetener and for its health benefits.
• It contains zero calories.
• It’s leaves contain two glycosides that make it taste sweet:
  • Stevioside which has the bitter aftertaste and
  • Rebaudioside that tastes less bitter

 
Different Stevia Products
 
Green Leaf Stevia

• The least processed of the stevia products. The leaves are simply dried and ground into a powder.
• It is 30-40 times sweeter than sugar so you don’t need much!
• Contains both Stevioside and Rebaudioside and so there are health benefits for weight loss, blood sugar levels, cholesterol, blood pressure and cancer.
• Use in moderation!

 
Stevia Extracts and Tinctures

• Some brands use only Rebaudioside to make the stevia less bitter, so there may not be health benefits.
• This is likely a better option than other sweeteners but we don’t have much information yet on it’s health effects.
• It is 200 times sweeter than sugar.
• Also be aware that some extracts contain alcohol.
• Use in moderation!

 
Highly Processed Stevia Products

• Typically pure white powders.
• This includes products like Truvia, which goes through extensive processing to extract Rebaudioside and uses chemical solvents that are toxic to the liver and carcinogenic. It is also combined with another sweetener, Erythritol, that can cause digestive discomfort and is typically genetically modified. In fact Truvia is less than 1% stevia.
• Other brands like Pure Via are also highly processed and contain other sweeteners like dextrose.
• 200-400 times sweeter than sugar.
• Avoid!

 
So why do I suggest using even pure green leaf stevia or extracts and tinctures in moderation only?
 
I thought you said there were health benefits, you say! Well here’s why…
 
I feel that one of the main benefits of removing or substantially reducing sugar in the diet is that our palate changes. We get used to and start to enjoy food without a lot of added sweeteners. Highly sweetened food starts to taste too sweet and we don’t enjoy it or crave it. When we eat and drink highly sweetened foods our appetite for them increases. Keeping sweeteners minimal is a huge help to our health.
 
Another issue to be aware of is that there are mixed studies on the impacts of stevia on our sex hormones. Some show that there are no impacts although some show that if used in large quantities stevia could have contraceptive effects. You may want to avoid stevia if you are experiencing hormonal balance problems or trying for a pregnancy.
 
 
As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences and if you’d like any help then please let me know.