Welcome to mind and body education and mastery!
Want to learn about why you may be at risk for diabetes, why you store extra weight, why you crave certain foods, or why you overeat or over drink? Learn about your mind and body in an entertaining, practical and easily-understandable format by browsing the collections below.
What are insulin resistance and diabetes, and how do you reverse them?
How and why do you store body fat, and how do you decrease how much fat you store?
What are urges, cravings and habits and how do you stop them?
What is emotional eating, and how do you stop doing it?
How does sugar and alcohol addiction happen, and how do you get over it?
Scroll through the posts to see what catches your eye!
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I’m going Psycho!
What are Psychobiotics? And how do they improve your mental health?
No, not THAT kind of psycho!
I”m talking about Psychobiotics - those gut bacteria (and the foods that feed them!) that improve your mental health!
Want to read more?
What is your Cognitive Load?
Are you on “cognitive overload”? How is that impacting your health?
How much of your energy is going in to thinking about what, how much, why, and when you eat? Or exercise? Or do other things that promote your best health?
It all contributes to your “cognitive load,” and sometimes it can even be “cognitive overload”!
How can you reduce that load and make it more likely you will learn healthy habits?
Cholesterol! The Good, The Bad, The Truth
What is “cholesterol” exactly? And how does it interact with heart disease risk?
I've been thinking about cholesterol and heart disease lately.
One thing I appreciate about my own journey is that I've been able to separate my weight from my health. You can be overweight and healthy, and slender and unhealthy.
A much stronger and more sustainable motivator for a healthy lifestyle is better health, not how much you weigh or what you look like!
I am a normal weight and have been for several years. I have a pretty healthy diet most of the time. The way I live is not "perfect" from a disease-fighting perspective, but it is sustainable, and that's far more important than perfection.
And I have heart disease. Will I change anything in my diet? Nope. And I'll tell you why.
Herbs and Spices!
Did you know some of the very herbs and spices you cook with can lower your blood sugar?
Did you know they can lower blood sugar?
And do so much more? And you do NOT need to buy supplements for these benefits. Just eat good food!
Want to learn more?
Coffee!
Did you know coffee has fiber in it? And polyphenols? And that you have gut bacteria that thrive on coffee?
Did you know coffee has fiber in it?
Or that it is full of polyphenols? Or that you have tiny bacterial organisms in your GI tract that specifically thrive on coffee?
Want to read all about it?
Apple Cider Vinegar
What does the research say about Apple Cider Vinegar as it relates to weight loss and blood sugar control?
What does this picture of a horse have to do with Apple Cider Vinegar?
Because it’s a crazy face!
In all seriousness, what does the data really tell us about Apple Cider Vinegar for weight loss and blood sugar control?
What is the Glycemic Load?
What is the “Glycemic Load” and why does it matter? This article might be surprising!
It is helpful to understand this term, “Glycemic Load,” even though in no way do I ever recommend doing complicated food math on the food you are deciding to eat!
But understanding the physiology of our interactions with food IS useful.
Want to read more?
Intuitive Eating
Why can’t pretty much all of us eat intuitively? There are a lot of reasons!
When I first heard about eating intuitively, I had high hopes that there was some secret that I could learn that would suddenly help me tap into my innate ability to eat when hungry, stop when full, and follow my body’s natural cues to choose healthy foods.
Boy did this NOT work for me! And I am not alone.
Want to read more about why this fails? And what we can do about it?
Survival by FAT!!
Survival by FAT! This answers those confusing questions about why we gain weight so incredibly easily! And how to reverse that scenario!
How do humans, just like bears, turn on the emergency fat storage systems?
And why are most humans in the US always in this emergency mode when bears are not?
Prepare to have your mind blown when you read all about it.
Mitigating Risk
Your lifestyle choices account for almost half of how healthy you are! That means you have LOTS of control, not only on whether you develop diseases, but also how well your body functions and feels right now. Want to learn more?
The statistics vary on how much control you have over your own health through lifestyle behaviors, but we do know for sure that you have at least 40% ownership over the state of your health.
Your lifestyle choices account for almost half of how healthy you are! That means you have LOTS of control, not only on whether you develop diseases, but also how well your body functions and feels right now.
Want to learn more?
What’s the “Food Matrix”?
What’s the “food matrix”? And why does it matter to your insulin resistance and fat storage?
To start to understand the complexities of nutrients when they are consumed either individually or in combination with other foods, researchers have coined the term the “food matrix” to describe the nutrient and non-nutrient components of foods and their molecular relationships with each other.
The nutritional aspects of food are the vitamins, minerals and other health-influencing components, such as antioxidants, while the non-nutrient component is the actual physical structure of the food. The mix of nutrients plus structure are BOTH highly important to your digestion, absorption, metabolism, insulin levels, blood sugar levels and fat storage.
Want to read more?
Add 30 a week!
What’s better than that incredibly low bar of 5-a-day?
30 a week!
Sound daunting? It’s not, because I’m talking about plants, not just fruits and vegetables.
What’s better than that incredibly low bar of 5-a-day? 30 a week!
Sound daunting? Scary? Impossible? Expensive? It’s none of those things. It’s fun, exciting and delicious!
Why do you need a coach?
If all it took to make effective changes to your health were the information on how to do it, we would have no lifestyle-related health problems in the United States. It takes something more. Enter Coaching!
What is the difference between a Nurse Practitioner and a Coach?
I have been a Nurse Practitioner for over 30 years, and in that time I became a skilled medical provider, an expert in the exam room.
I was the authority, the educator, and the problem-solver, focusing on what was wrong and coming up with appropriate treatment plans. If we were discussing preventative health, such as weight loss and diabetes prevention, I would define the visit agenda.
I felt responsible for the patient’s health, and sometimes found I was working harder than the patient was at pursuing the health goals I outlined for them to help prevent further disease. I enjoyed excellent rapport with my patients, and I felt I was an effective provider of excellent medical care.
And yet, I was no more effective at helping my patients prevent the major lifestyle-related diseases than any other random medical provider.
And then I discovered coaching!
Coaching focuses on helping clients grow into becoming the unique experts in their own well-being and personal behaviors. The client is helped to become the decision-maker, to blossom into the role of personal expert on the way forward.
Coaching fosters personal responsibility, reflective thinking, self-discovery, and self-efficacy.
Clients have their own answers if they are simply given a reflective environment in which to see and listen to themselves. The coach is a partner, focusing on what is right, eliciting the client’s agenda, co-discovering the answers, and facilitating change.
I’ve been thinking about “body love” lately.
I’ve been thinking about two related concepts lately: “loving your body at any size,” and “can your body be healthy and also overweight?” Why are these concepts interesting? Why do they matter?
I’ve actually been thinking about the two related concepts “loving your body at any size,” and “can your body be healthy and also overweight?”
Want to read more?
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Inflammation! It makes me hurt just thinking about it!
Inflammation! It can cause body pain, fatigue, memory loss, as well as contribute to cancers and heart disease. But there are things you can do about it! Learn what causes it, what to avoid, and what to try. You can feel better!
Last night, I had a terrible time trying to sleep - I hurt all over!
I could tell my body was suffering from widespread inflammation. So, of course, I had to examine what I did during the day that might have contributed to my pain. And boy oh boy, did I find some things!
Want to read all about it? Including what can cause inflammation, the dangers of inflammation, and what you could do to decrease it?
Reading Food Labels
Food labels are at best misleading, at worst outright lies we are falling for. Want to learn how to interpret them?
Do you think you can interpret food labels and nutrition information well enough to know what you are really eating?
You may be incredibly surprised by what you will learn about those food labels - I sure was!
Sleep!
Inadequate sleep and obesity are linked. What can you do about it?
Did you know that inadequate sleep is associated with obesity and insulin resistance?
Do you struggle with insomnia? Do you fail to allow enough hours in your day to get adequate sleep? Are there other reasons why you may not be getting enough sleep? Are you worrying about your sleep for nothing? What can you do to improve your sleep?
Why does it even matter?
If you’d like to read more, I am happy to oblige.
Food is my Pleasure Center
What do you do when food is your major source of pleasure, but you also want to get healthier and maybe lose some weight? How do you have a happy life? Well, the very first thing you do is to get more pleasure from your food!
One thing that comes up regularly with my clients is this:
They tell me they get a lot of pleasure from food, and they express worry that their lives will be less pleasurable without it playing the same role in their lives.
Sometimes the worry is so strong that it is an expression of genuine grief over the loss of a major source of pleasure in their lives. They are feeling lost at where they might get their pleasure if they could not eat whatever they want.
But you know what? There is hope for a fulfilled life even when you say “no” to eating all the things all the time.
How, you may ask?
Well, the very first thing you do is to say “yes” to getting more pleasure from food!
Wait, what? Didn’t you just say…..
Would you like to read more on this topic?
Drinking your Nutrition
What happens to your body’s relationship to food when you put it in a blender and drink it instead of eating it whole? Much more than you might think!
Green smoothies are a health food, right?
Not so much. You would think that your body would respond to food in the same way, not caring if you ate it whole or put it in a blender. But you’d be wrong! Your body responds to liquids far differently than it responds to solids.
Interested in reading more?