Healthy Through The Holidays
As we head into winter and the holiday season, typically followed by what many call flu season, I wanted to share my tips for staying healthy! Just based on observations and experience, it is no wonder we fall victim to the various viruses and bugs that sweep through a community around the holidays. Holidays induce a lot of stress on the body and when the body is under stress, the immune system is weakened and the body becomes prone to illness.
Often times this begins as early as Halloween when we are surrounded by candy corn, our favorite chocolates, the leftover treats from the kids pillowcases and we over indulge on sugar. Sugar is known to weaken our immune system for several hours after we consume it and if we keep going back to the candy bowl, our immune system stays in that state for much longer. With the holidays full of stressors: family, friends, activities, parties, lots of food and often times late evenings, we set ourselves up to go down and this is definitely an awful time to go down!
Here is what I have found keeps me and my family healthy throughout the holidays. It has become a bit more challenging with older kids as I am not with them all the time. There are some days I might just see them walk from the front door to the bedroom, but I do my best to still get some high quality, nutrient dense foods and supplements into their bodies.
1.Limit sugar intake. It is hard to eliminate this as we are tempted almost everywhere. Just do your best. If given the choice between cake (which I don’t eat gluten any longer), or a piece of dark chocolate, have the dark chocolate. If attending a party, you could also choose to bring a dessert, making a healthier version. Sometimes I will go ahead and have my square of dark chocolate before I go somewhere if I think I will be tempted.
2.Do your best to maintain a normal sleep schedule. Sleep is imperative for our health and well being as this is when our body has the opportunity to restore and heal itself. If we are not getting enough sleep, this can begin to wreak havoc on our bodily functions. Lack of sleep can actually make you fatter, biologically older and more at risk for heart disease and diabetes.
3. Your Super Green Powder and/or Juice Plus every day! Sometimes I take both supplements, or sometimes just one or the other. Same with my kids. If I use the Super Greens for my kids, I mix them in a smoothie. If I take the Super Greens I will either mix them with a swig of water and shoot them or add them to my Your Super Chocolate Lover mix.
4. Vitamin D 3 2,000-4000 IUs every day, especially during the winter because we just can’t get the amount of sun exposure we need each to supply us with the necessary levels. There is a widespread debate in the medical community about the optimal Vitamin D levels, and the answer is going to be unique to an individual. Too much Vitamin D might have as much negative consequence as too little. A deficiency in Vitamin D may show up as: increased calcium loss from bones, poor wound healing, increased muscle pain, increased joint and back pain, greater risk of depression, increased schizophrenia, increased migraines, increased autoimmune disease, increased allergies, increased risk of inflammation and cancers. If you have never had your Vitamin D levels checked, I highly recommend asking your doctor to test your levels so you can get a baseline. Most of the functional medicine practitioners I follow recommend having levels between 40-60 ng/mL.
5. Bone broth. I would like to say I drink this every day but I don’t. I do however drink a mug of bone broth several days a week and what I don’t drink I use for other soups and to simmer veggies in for stir fry. How often were you fed a bowl of chicken noodle soup when you were sick? Bone broth has been used for centuries for its healing properties. Personally, I don’t recommend what comes in a Campbell’s soup can or a bouillon cube, but those might work. I am thinking about home made, fresh bone broth loaded with the collagen (an easily absorbed protein), good fats, fat-soluble vitamins and minerals which counter inflammation, support the joints and skin and boost your immune system. Bone broth is also a wonderful way to soothe the walls of the intestinal tract healing leaky gut and improving overall digestion. During the winter months, bone broth is a great addition to your daily diet. Click here for my Easy Peezy Chicken Bone Broth Recipe!
6. Find a way to wind down and relax. Find stillness. When our body is stressed, whether it is a physical stressor (YES, even exercise can stress the body); we are emotionally stressed; maybe we have a lot going on environmentally (too many parties, high pressure work environments, toxic relationships, home environments, and chemicals in the environment); nutritionally (way too much or the wrong kinds of foods) and lastly we lose sight of our spiritual life we are more prone to illness. Make sure you make time for you!
7. Magnificent magnesium. Magnesium is responsible for over 300 chemical reactions in the body. Studies show that more than 48% of Americans are deficient in magnesium. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t take magnesium glycinate or magnesium citrate. If you struggle with: muscle cramps or twitches, muscle pain and tightness, insomnia, irritability, sensitivity to loud noises, anxiety, autism, ADD, palpitations, angina, constipation, anal spasms, headaches, migraines, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, asthma, kidney stones, diabetes, obesity, osteoporosis, high blood pressure, PMS, menstrual cramps, irritable bladder, irritable bowel syndrome, reflux, trouble swallowing, insulin resistance and high inflammation. I like magnesium glycinate and magnesium citrate because they are more readily absorbed by the body, magnesium citrate if you struggle with constipation at all.
8. Omega- 3 essential fatty acids are important for our brain health and the levels of overall inflammation in the body. They are also important because they are imperative for the certain bodily functions. They regulate oxygen use, electron transportation and energy production (these are the most important processes occurring in the cells); support the production of secretions of digestive enzymes; help make the lubricants that allow joints to move effectively; help transport cholesterol in the blood; help to generate electrical currents and keep the heart rate regular; needed by the tissues of the brain, retina, adrenal glands and testes; help immune function in fighting infection; help balance the immune system and prevent allergies; ensure proper nerve transmission from one nerve to the next – especially in the memory and concentration areas of the brain; and ensure adequate bone formation and repair. Essential fatty acids can be found fish, flax and chia seeds, and walnuts to name a few. I personally take Trader Joe’s fish oil every day, as it has been recommended based on it’s purity through my functional medicine coaching program, along with eating chia seeds, flax seeds and walnuts throughout the week.
