From Functional to Flourishing: Part One- the first steps

Hello Loves! Here we are today, ready to jump into the new series I will be writing, "From Functional to Flourishing". As I said in my last post, I have gotten many requests lately from friends and internet readers who are feeling crappy and don't know where/how to start feeling better. I SO UNDERSTAND HOW YOU FEEL! Two years ago, I was sick, stressed, frustrated and exhausted with no idea how to change my life in order to not be those things! It can be so overwhelming to change anything about your life when you are feeling crappy, and you may defeat yourself by trying too much at once and failing and thinking that you can't get it together so you just don't try. Now I understand that little changes can facilitate big changes, so I encourage everyone to start small- you probably don't have the energy for big! I am going to break this series up into a bunch of posts on different things, but today I am just going to start with 2 easy things for you to incorporate into your life right now- baby steps, right?

(I have to put this out there- I AM NOT A DOCTOR. If you feel unwell, see a doctor. I encourage you to see a Naturopath rather then a conventional doctor, but do not rely on the internet to solve your issues. Everything I say here is only based on my personal experience, and may not work for you.)

I am a firm believer that food can heal you or harm you, so that is the first place I am going to focus on. Many people have asked about cleanses- do I do them, how do I do them, what do I think of them...? In my mind, there are two different ideas floating around about what a "cleanse" is. Some people think it's a juice fast or the Master Cleanse. Others think it is a pure whole foods based plan (like Whole 30 or the 21 Day Sugar Detox). I believe a fast is different then a cleanse. A fast (consuming only juice or liquids for a set amount of time) sets most people up for failure. We need whole food. Period. In my opinion, you only screw with your metabolism when you fast to "cleanse", and if you go right back to eating pizza and beer after you juice cleanse, you really haven't helped yourself at all. A whole foods cleanse where you can set yourself up for a new way of eating/a new mindset about food permanently is going to be much better for your health, because it sets up a healthier lifestyle rather then restricting for a few days and then going right back to where you were. I of course think fresh pressed veggie juice is a part of a healthy diet, but it shouldn't be your whole diet. This brings me to my first baby step to thriving:

DITCH THE PROCESSED FOODS! In my next post I am going to talk about elimination diets and what you can do to feel better via specific foods, but today I just want to start slow with all this... If it comes in a bag or box and it has more then 2 ingredients (I am not talking about dried pasta or beans or flour and things like that) DO NOT EAT IT. No processed salad dressing (oil and vinegar is a winning homemade combo that is super quick and lacks all that extra sugar and chemicals and processed crap that store bought salad dressing has), no cheese puffs, no crackers, etc. Shop around the outside of the grocery store (dairy, fruits and veggies, meat, bulk bins for beans, nuts, etc) and stay away from the inside isles that are full of junk (even at health food stores, organic packaged food is still processed!). You can have easy, lovely meals with beans and spices and veggies thrown into a crock pot in the morning for dinner that evening that taste better then the packaged equivalent and it will be so much better for your body. Just walk away from shelf stable foods. It will take a little bit more time to cook rice and veggies and meat, or crock pot a stew, or chop veggies for a fresh salad then it would to microwave a dinner, but you are going to have to start somewhere and this is it! Invest in a crock pot, it is by far the easiest way to get fresh food when you have no energy to spend a bunch of time in the kitchen- and make extra so you can freeze it and have a ready meal when you need it!

Second baby step to thriving:
Drink a cup of warm water with lemon in it right when you get up in the morning. I drink 16 ounces of warm water with a half a lemon squeezed into it every morning, and this goes a long way to helping you feel well. Even if you are a coffee drinker, I am not telling you (right now at least) to stop drinking coffee- just start with a cup of warm lemon water first. The warm water hydrates and activates your digestion, and the lemon is very cleansing to the liver (and helps your skin glow). After sleeping all night, your body is dehydrated, so putting warm water into it straight away will do you good. I find that it helps my bowels to move properly, and actually gives me energy because it hydrates my body quickly.

So that is it for today: no more processed food, and warm lemon water in the morning. Start there, and please let me know how it goes and how you are feeling! Next week I am going to talk about elimination diets and removing inflammatory foods to foster wellness. Until then, have a fabulous packaged food free weekend!

a simple morning tonic...

I don't drink coffee. I know, I know, I am a crazy person, right?! I actually love coffee- I love the taste, I love the ritual... but I don't love the caffeine. It makes me jittery to the point of crazy shaky, especially because I love my coffee strong strong strong, and when I drink it (now) I feel the effects for days (and decaf just is not the same- I swear it does not taste right to me!). I still wouldn't give up those gorgeous morning (and afternoon) cappuccino's I fell in love with while traveling in Italy with my dad years ago, but I am really glad to be off the coffee roller coaster now, especially as my body is healing and I am finally feeling better and making some real progress with my health. I do indulge in a cup of black tea a day, but I don't even feel the caffeine from it, and I always make sure I have it before noon so that it doesn't have a chance to mess up my sleep that night. I remember in the beginning of my wellness journey, when I was so sick and felt like shit, when I knew nothing about healing my gut and my head and felt so overwhelmed with all the information that I found on the internet about healing yourself (sauerkraut! supplements! vegan! paleo! crystals! etc etc etc) and I needed to start slow and do a few easy things a day to make me feel good and slowly build up a wellness routine... I stumbled upon an article about the wonders of drinking warm water with lemon upon waking, instead of coffee or tea. I thought it sounded easy enough, and the benefits looked good to me (I'll get to that in a minute), and once I started, I was hooked. It helped my digestion SO MUCH in the beginning (not as much now, since I am so much better in that department these days, but it still gets my day "moving" in the right direction, if you will). My poor little fried adrenal glands became instantly happy with the switch from coffee (an adrenal killer- the caffeine spikes your cortisol majorly) to cleansing warm lemon water. In the beginning of my journey, I was exhausted and needed more support (read: liver help, digestive help, mental clarity) that the coffee was just a quick fix for, and it was actually in the long run detrimental to me. Now, I don't need that much support, but I do find that I still enjoy a warm cup of lemon water in the morning- it's very refreshing.

(Disclaimer about all that I have just said : I am not saying that coffee is bad for YOU. I am saying it's bad for ME. My husband can have three espresso's and then fall right asleep- he never gets jittery from caffeine, in fact he is so not affected by it he doesn't really drink it because it doesn't help keep him going... he must be naturally caffeinated. Everyone's body is so different, and I know there are a lot of health benefits to drinking coffee... I just feel so much better without it, and wonder if others might too if they could just step away from it for a few weeks...)

On to the health benefits of drinking warm lemon water in the am:

1. It aids in digestion. Lemon water helps to maximize enzyme function in the digestive tract, therefore helping the liver flush out the toxins that it needs to, and helps to produce bile, which many people have a hard time doing (via a crappy diet). Lemon is very cleansing to the entire digestive tract for all of those reasons, and the warmth of the water helps get everything moving- it gets that good digestive fire that you need for you day going.

2. It's good for your immune system. Vitamin C, baby! Lemons also contain a decent amount of potassium, and both are great for your immune system. So is re-hydrating after a long night of dehydration- your immune cells are happier when you are hydrated, instead of chronically dehydrated from the coffee.

3. It regulates the pH of your body- I know, lemons are acidic right? and don't we want to be more alkaline then acidic? Yes, you do want to be more alkaline then acidic, but lemons actually are not acidic when they react with your gastric juices in your stomach- the opposite actually, lemons actually cause you to be more alkaline internally. Once their citric acid is metabolized (which it is quickly) the wealth of minerals in the lemon lend alkalinity to your body, which you want. I could go more into depth, but this is not a biochemistry blog (although, how cool would that blog be?!)

4. It helps clear your skin- Happy liver, happy skin. Many doctors say the skin is the second liver, so anything that is going on with your skin (breakouts, rashes, etc) means you have an unhappy liver. We don't want an unhappy liver, it is working so hard to keep you happy and healthy, we should do the same for it!

There are many other benefits of drinking warm lemon water in the morning (or anytime, but on an empty stomach is the best way to get all the goodness you can get out of it) but those were the ones that were most important to me- and it is such an easy wellness practice to start, why not give it a try? Your body will thank you (even if you have a cup of warm lemon water and then a cup of coffee, it would still be better for your body then just the coffee).  Give it a try, and let me know what you think!