If you are anything like me, you are constantly looking for ways to improve your overall physical health. Having a healthy lifestyle and diet can do wonders for our everyday comfort and experience in these human bodies. But what does it even mean to have a healthy diet and lifestyle? How do we achieve this so-called healthy way of living and eating? I strongly believe that it is an individual journey. I also believe that our culture and society do not empower us to educate ourselves and understand these vessels that we live our lives in. I think it’s important for us to take responsibility for our health, rather than just blindly relying on what the medical and food industries tell the masses. One size does not fit all. And that’s ok!
The health industry is constantly in our faces telling us what is “good for you” and what is “bad for you.” I don’t subscribe to this narrative. It’s something I have spent a literal lifetime trying to understand and navigate. It’s a constant struggle that I’m sure many of you deal with as well. It’s so difficult to know what we “should” and “should not eat” so I want to provide a little guidance that has helped me.
I’m gonna let you in on 3 tips that will give you as an individual a foundation to base some of your health decisions. They are simple, but not necessarily easy. They will give you some insight into your bio-individuality so that you have a custom reference to base your food and supplement choices.
Before we get into the meat of this post, here are a couple of rules of thumb to go off of: (1) If a product has all the catchphrases and has to claim to be a health food product, chances are it is not. (2) The only foods I can say with 100% certainty that are “bad for you” are sugar, alcohol, and processed or synthetic food stuffs. Note: when I say sugar, I mean added sugars (ex: sugar, cane sugar, and all those crazy syrups you see on ingredient lists, etc), not the sugar you would find in a piece of fruit that is perfectly synergistic with the fiber and other phytochemicals in it that helps your body process that sugar and use it for energy.
Am I saying don’t touch any of this?… No, except maybe the processed food stuffs- but should we be conscious of when we put these things in our bodies, and that they will likely cause some kind of response? Definitely.
The “good for you” factor in every other food that we can choose to put in our bodies is completely subject to our bio-individuality. Your body processes foods and chemicals differently than anyone else’s. It’s important that you have somewhat of a real idea of what’s going on in there and what foods cause reactions if you are going to truly decide what’s good and bad for you as an individual. Once you get an idea of this, it will be a heck of a lot easier for you to decide if you want to eat that piece of cheese, or bread, or those peanuts at the steakhouse. I use the word decide because if you know that cheese causes an inflammatory response in your body, you get to choose if you want to go through that reaction in the name of mozzarella. I have that conversation with myself all the time. I love pizza. But my body doesn’t love it so much, so I sacrifice comfort sometimes for the simple joy that is a slice of pie. But I know that, and it was a conscious decision.
This is where a lot of us get stuck. How the heck do we know what it is that is causing a reaction in our bodies? Glad you asked. There are 3 things I have found that you can do to take a foundational closer look at your health. Now before I get into this I just want to put out a disclaimer that I am not a doctor. I am an herbalist and nutrition therapist. Some food allergies such as legit Celiac (not just wheat sensitivity) can cause major disruptions and health issues and need to be diagnosed by a doctor. However, these tips may help you narrow down those allergies and severe inflammatory responses. So away we go.
1. Get your blood work done
Get your blood work done. Ask your doc to do a full panel. The first time I asked a doctor to do this for me they asked me why and what I wanted to have them look for. They would not just order a general panel. Most physicians are not accustomed to ordering a blood panel just for general health knowledge. When I started seeing a functional medicine practitioner she understood the value of getting a general panel done. The trick she uses is to order it so that my health insurance would cover it, is for fatigue. Insurance and the labs just need a reason to do the blood work.
So, what can we learn from a blood panel? A whole heck of a lot! Your results are going to reveal if you are getting sufficient essential vitamins like D and the Bs , and it can show you the basics of what your hormones are doing. It reveals what’s going on with your blood sugar. They’ll be able to tell if you need to back off on the things that spike it and can cause pre-diabetes or even full-on diabetes, like pasta and bread. It can also give you an idea of how your lymph system is doing and even if you are dehydrated. Ask your practitioner to go through each line with you. Have them explain what each item is and what the numbers mean. Then you can decide how you want to address what comes up with a very solid base knowledge of your system.
2. Take a food sensitivity test.
You can order these from companies like Everlywell (I do not have any affiliation with this company). They snail mail you a kit, you prick your finger, send the sample back to them, and they will email you the results in a few weeks. These tests can give you an idea of how sensitive you are to certain foods. It can be quite revealing actually. I was pretty surprised by my results. For example, I am somewhat sensitive to cow dairy and wheat. Does this mean I have celiac disease, or am lactose intolerant? No. It simply means that those foods may cause me some discomfort as they can trigger inflammatory responses for me. When I eat those things, I know what’s happening in my body and I may want to avoid them regularly. I am also slightly sensitive to lobster, tuna, and asparagus. I have eaten these things since taking my test and I don’t notice much of a difference after consuming them, other than gas. Butt (pun intended) how nice is it to know that my body is not processing those foods as well as it does other things so I may want to avoid them on a hot date where I don’t want to be having to hide my farts all night! These are examples of my bio-individuality. Yours will be unique to you. Getting these insights into what foods you might be sensitive to is a great tool in your health toolbox to help you make decisions as to what is “good or bad” for YOU.
3. Do an inflammatory foods elimination diet.
This one is the reason I said this stuff is simple but not easy. If you really want to full-send into this and make an experiment out of yourself, plan a couple of months to try this out. I suggest a couple of months because it will take about 3-4 weeks for your body to adjust to these foods being eliminated. You want to allow your system to have true reactions to each category. The food categories you will want to eliminate are: sugar, alcohol, dairy, wheat/grains, soy and legumes, and ALL processed foods (including deli meat. Yes…that stuff is processed). You can also add caffeine to this list if you have a suspicion that you are sensitive to it. But that tends to be a much harder thing to just kick cold turkey for a few weeks, so you do you on that one. After 3-4 weeks you should be feeling pretty good, maybe a little hungry, but “cleaned out” if you will. Start to add in one category at a time for a couple of days. For example, add in dairy for a couple of days and then pull it back out again, and then add in wheat, pull it back out, and so on. In other words- don’t just fully integrate them all back in one at a time. You want to see how each category reacts without the others. *Leave sugar and alcohol for last if you are going to re-introduce them. They will likely cause the most inflammatory responses for obvious reasons. As you add in the foods, observe what happens in your body and if you have any reactions. Are you tired, do you get gassy, are you finding muscle pains or cramps, are you getting headaches? Just notice what’s going on, take note of it, and move on to the next. When you have done this with each food category take a look at what foods caused what. Now you know for sure how your body reacts to these foods. Now you can make more educated and empowered decisions as to what is good and bad for you as an individual. How nice is it to take some of the guesswork out of it?
As you work your way through these practices, keep in mind, that our bodies are constantly changing. You may want to revisit each of these every few years. If you are adjusting for what your blood panel reveals, your next one should be like a report card to let you know how you are doing. It’s also important to understand that these tips are just a way to check-in, they are a way to give you insight into your health and needs, not a way to diagnose allergies or more severe issues.
My hope is that this empowers you to get to know your body better and to give it what it needs. You are unique and perfect and your body deserves to be taken care of in its unique way. Have fun exploring your health and getting to know your vessel better!
Until next time, be well.
