You may have been able to ignore digestive distress in the past, but I’m guessing that Thanksgiving made it a little more difficult. What are your digestive symptoms? Bloating, gas, indigestion, hiccups, pain, burping, or disrupted elimination? Many will simply take a medication for temporary relief, not realizing that their body is sending a cry for help. Let’s review ways to restore your gut health with the 5R approach.
Most everyone is familiar with the cardiovascular system that helps to pump blood to the body’s tissues. Did you know there is another series of vessels that carry a clear liquid called lymph? It’s important to move your lymph to improve your health.
While nutrients and oxygen are delivered to the body through blood, lymph has the task of collecting waste, toxins, and debris while also distributing immune cells through the body. Keeping your lymph flowing smoothly is critical for your body’s wellbeing.
Your lymphatic system is a network of vessels and lymph nodes working together to carry fluids from your tissues to your blood. It is basically your body’s inner drainage system.
Do you snack in between meals? It’s not unusual to need a small snack between your three larger meals to keep you sustained throughout the day. This helps your blood sugar stay balanced, which also helps with mood and energy. But take a stroll down the snack aisle at your local grocery store, and you’ll find a lot of packaged foods that aren’t beneficial to your health. How do you choose snacks that sustain you between meals?
There’s an equation you can use to make sure you are snacking in a way benefits you the most. After all, you’re less likely to overeat or crash during the day when your body has a steady stream of nutrients to fuel it. Here are some essential snacking tips to help keep you sustained throughout the day. Read more
Do you joke about heartburn? Perhaps it started off as an occasional, nagging burning in your chest and you blamed Grandma’s cooking. Is it still occasional, or has it crept into regular discomfort? Are you wondering if heartburn is caused by lack of acid instead of too much?
Easter has passed, and perhaps I should have sent this newsletter out early. Did you gather with friends and family for the holiday? And did you eat too much? It’s was delicious and fun but maybe now you’re looking for tricks to stop overeating in the future?
Our culture tends to overeat in general with larger portions than ever, but I’m sure you’d be surprised how satisfied you can feel with a smaller portion. Somewhere along the way, we’ve been programmed to eat until we are wishing we were wearing elastic waist pants – whether we were seated at a feast, eating from boredom, or soothing emotions.
Whatever reason it may be to you, there are some simple tricks you can use on a daily basis to make sure you’re more mindful of your consumption and keep things at a healthy level.
I don’t know what image that question conjures in your mind, but I’m sure that you are aware that about 90% of all health issues can be traced back to the gut. If your home fence has a hole in it, you are likely to get unwanted visitors. Same with your gut.
Our guts are home to several trillion bacteria, collectively referred to as our gut microbiome. Lest you cringe and think that’s a bad thing, let me share some of the many benefits we derive from them. Our gut bacteria synthesize vitamins for us, help us absorb nutrients, control our immune system and even produce compounds that impact mental health.
This amazing microbiome is comprised of many different types of bacteria, the balance of which influences our health. What determines the variety of bacteria we carry inside us? Primarily our diet, but also our lifestyle, the medications we take and environmental exposures.
Why is mindful eating and pacing the eating of your meal a great part of good health? We are going to talk about that here today… even though it’s nearing the holiday’s and we might want to eat without much discretion.
Even during the holiday’s, it’s important to enjoy the splendor in your meals while pacing yourself and enjoying your meal. The holiday season is well known for the added temptation of celebratory meals, parties, and gifts that seduce the senses. We expect your brain to be enticed with holiday spreads, but I suspect you have already been enticed by commercials and cookbook illustrations even in the planning stage. I sure have!
There are several avenues by which the outside world enters your body, including breathing, consuming liquids or solids through your mouth, and absorption through your skin. Digestion is involved when you eat or drink.
Digestion – like breathing – is a process we tend to take for granted, unless you notice signs that something’s amiss.
Have you felt the burn of acid reflux or GERD? Read more
In prior articles, I have outlined the path that our food takes when we eat a bite. Starting with chewing, and then swallowing to send the food down the esophagus into the stomach, where it meets with stomach acid to aid in the next stages of digestion.
We aren’t aware of the intricate process that our food goes through once we swallow a bite. You may have heard the phrase “you are what you eat,” yet I would say that is not a complete statement. Simply eating doesn’t make the food become a part of you. It must be broken down into its constituent components – proteins into amino acids, carbohydrates into starches and glucose, and fats into fatty acids – in order for your body to absorb them. Read more
Does your day revolve around the meals you eat, or is your schedule so tight that you give food little thought? Whatever your situation, you don’t likely put much thought into what happens as you eat.
That bite you take is just the beginning of digestion. Chewing the bite not only breaks up the food but mixes it with digestive juices. Swallowing sends the food down your esophagus into your stomach where it meets highly acidic stomach acid to continue the process of breaking the food down into constituents that can eventually be absorbed. When liquefied, the food (now called chyme) passes into the small intestine where it is joined by digestive enzymes from the pancreas and bile from the gallbladder. The small intestine is where absorption begins, finishing in the colon before excretion of waste. Read more