Part one: 15 ways to be healthier in 2023
Every week on my Sunday Newsletter, I showcase one simple way to improve your mental and/or physical health. It is part of my philosophy to illuminate the ease at which it is to optimize your wellness in small ways and the compounding effect this can have on your brain and body over time. To join us in the series, subscribe here (click the link and scroll to the bottom)! Read below the roundup thus far:
#1: Cook with avocado oil instead of canola oils or vegetable oils. This small swap makes a WORLD of a difference! Choosing anti-inflammatory oils, like avocado oil, better supports your brain and body as oils like canola/vegetable are more rich in omega-6 fatty acids and promote inflammation. Be critical about which brand of avocado oil you choose, as research has shown that some brands are less reputable and lesser quality than others. My most favorite and most trusted is Chosen Foods, which can be found at most grocery stores, on their website, and/or on Amazon.
#2: Add trace minerals to your water! While it’s a struggle for the vast majority of us to drink any water at all, uplevel your hydration by adding a small amount of minerals to your water to ensure your cells are optimally hydrated. I recently purchased this trace mineral drops to add to my water daily. I’ve also used Beauty Electrolytes by Pique which add a mineral boost and have significantly helped my skin! Follow the link to subscribe and receive 15% off your order and free shipping!
#3: Get immediate light exposure upon waking. Our body relies on our sleep-wake cycle for many bodily processes. In the mornings, our body’s cortisol is at it’s peak and as the sun sets, melatonin is released to signal the body that it is time to go to sleep. In order to regulate our cycle, getting natural sunlight in the mornings supports this release of cortisol and properly awakens our body to get started on our day. I typically wake before the sun so I purchased a Hatch to help facilitate the ‘sunlight’ exposure in the mornings.
#4: Take a high quality multivitamin. Unfortunately, nowadays, even the most healthful diets are less nutritious than what they were decades ago. That said, it is challenging to acquire all of the necessary vitamins, nutrients, and minerals from diet alone. Supplementation is encouraged! Consider integrating a high quality multivitamin into your diet as ‘nutritional insurance’ to fill any gaps. My favorite brands include Garden of Life, MegaFood, Pure Encapsulations, and New Chapter. Always consult with a healthcare provider before adding anything new into your wellness routine.
#5: Choose grass fed, organic red meat! The difference in nutritional value of conventional vs. quality, pasture raised red meat is astounding. Grain fed means the cows are fed corn and soy, where as grass fed require cows continuous access to pasture and prevent animals from being fed grain. Grain fed cows are often subjected to poor living conditions which in turn, causes them to become sick and treated with hormones and antibiotics (which then leads to contamination as the hormones and antibiotics within cow waste infiltrates surrounding ecosystems). Meat and various animal byproducts provide many essential nutrients including protein, zinc, iron, selenium, calcium, and B12. When livestock are consuming a diverse array of plants, a higher concentration of health-promoting phytonutrients exist. In grain fed animals, these phytochemicals are reduced and even absent, causing the animals to be more inflammatory. Grass-fed meat include significantly more omega-3 fatty acids AND CLA (conjugated linoleum acid) than grain fed beef. It is also higher in precursors for vitamin A and vitamin E, a powerful antioxidant. CLA is a polyunsaturated fatty acid that we must obtain from our diets that has been shown to offer a variety of health supporting benefits. I use Butcher Box to subscribe to high quality, monthly meat deliveries and it’s been a game changer! Check them out.
#6: Quit hitting snooze. It is so easy to hit the snooze button and savor the additional 5 minutes of rest, which in the moment, feels glorious. However, the impact that this has on our wellness and trajectory of the day, is significant. Check out this video below where Mel Robbins explains how hitting snooze actually is detrimental to energy levels, mood, productivity, and more throughout the day. It may help you reconsider your temptation!
#7: Ditch sugar-heavy, ‘fruit on the bottom’ yogurts and make your own! The yogurt industry has evolved into quite literally, anything but yogurt. I find them to be more desserts than they are nutritious. From Yoplait, to Gogurt, to Chobani Flips, to Fruit on the Bottom — we’ve lost side of yogurt and it’s truly a shame. Instead of falling into the sugar-laden trap that are most yogurts nowadays, try this hack instead. Purchase your preferred plain yogurt — my brands include Siggi’s Plain or any grass-fed variety like Norr Organic or Stoneyfield Organic if you can tolerate dairy, Cocojune, Cocoyo, or Forager if you prefer nondairy. In a small pot, combine frozen berries until thawed. Add chia seeds and raw honey and reduce heat. Let the mixture thicken (chia seeds will gel up). Add this mixture to your plain yogurt and enjoy!
#8: Choose supplements! While not a necessity for healthful living, I find that they are excellent to fill nutritional gaps within our diets. Unfortunately, nowadays, we are at the greatest susceptibility to nutritional deficiencies, leaving us at greater risk for symptoms and disease. By investing in high quality supplements to ensure our health has a solid foundation to thrive, we can live our best quality lives.
As a Certified Dietary Supplement Professional, these are a few I recommend for basic wellness:
High quality multivitamin
Magnesium
Omega-3 fatty acids
High quality probiotic
#9: Choose your ‘dairy free’ options wisely! In a world that loves to proclaim ‘dairy free’ as healthy, we need to be especially cautious about the healthfulness of such products as they’re everywhere you turn nowadays. Quality matters — I’ve said it once, and I will say it again. Unfortunately, many of the dairy free products that exist nowadays are, while yes, free of dairy, full of other harmful, inflammatory ingredients like sugar, oils, gums, fillers, and artificial ingredients. Doing your research and investing in higher quality products, brands like Malk, Three Trees, and Elmhurst, ensures you are both dairy free AND supporting your health at the same time.
I detail more on this, alongside claims like gluten free, low sugar, low calories, sugar free, fat free, and more, in my Becoming a Critical Consumer Guide: Uplevel Your Grocery Shop, if you’re interested in learning more. Click here to grab your guide!
#10: Get creative and make homemade dressing! Dressings you might commonly find on the shelves are loaded with inflammatory oils, sweeteners, preservatives, and more. Actually — I took a look at a Ken’s Russian dressing bottle and found the same ingredients in my Clinique face moisturizer.. shocking, I know. While there are brands out there that I LOVE (Primal Kitchen, shout out!), I also find that making your dressings at home is SO easy and made with minimal ingredients. Simple is key. Try it out — using a dressing that is better supportive of your brain and body is just one small step you can take to support your wellness. An easy go to vinaigrette: EVOO + balsamic vinegar + minced garlic + dash of Dijon mustard + maple syrup/honey
#11: Stop with the sugar-heavy Starbucks drinks! Good LORD! Tiktok is filled with sugar-heavy Starbucks drinks deemed as “must trys”. It hurts my heart to think that these drinks could contain upwards of 50 to 60 grams of sugar (as each syrup/sauce pump, on average contains 5 grams, and each drink typically contains between 8-12 pumps). The average human consumes 82 grams of sugar daily, whereas, it is recommended that we keep our intake under 20-30 grams daily. We’ve QUADRUPLED it! In one single drink, you are impacting your blood sugar, mood, energy, appetite, sleep, gut, and more. My recommendation is to begin to slowly reduce the amount of pumps in your coffee over the next few weeks. Your taste buds will begin to adjust and will reverse their tolerance. Something once tolerable, may now be experienced differently, likely tasting exceptionally sweet. In moderation, enjoy your drink of choice — but stick to unsweetened coffee daily if possible…and always before noon.
#12: Add a raw Brazil nut to your daily routine. If you think your multivitamin is sufficient in offering your body the minerals it needs to optimally function, you might want to listen up. Multivitamins are ‘nutritional insurance,’ it offers a baseline daily dosage for your vitamins — and even still, it doesn’t offer enough for optimal wellness. But, it certainly is not a ‘multimineral.’ Selenium, super important for full body wellness, especially thyroid health, is one mineral we must be consuming adequately. A raw Brazil nut offers the body an exceptional dosage of selenium, and by ONE, I mean ONE. You only need 1-2 daily to meet your needed amount — and don’t overdo it, having too many can be toxic.
#13: Keep your workouts within the 60 minute range for optimal benefit! Exercise has been shown to produce anti-inflammatory, health promoting benefits when kept within a 60 minute window. I will promote movement as medicine for the rest of my life, but be sure you are utilizing it wisely. Anything that surpasses 60 minutes, research shows this begins to promote inflammatory markers.
#14: Be sure to have between 20-30 grams of protein for breakfast (recommended within 90 minutes of waking). Prioritizing protein at every meal is essential. However, in the morning, it can offer the body and the brain enormous benefit in terms of energy, focus, mood, satiety, reduced cravings, and more throughout the day. We live in a very carb-focused world, especially when it comes to breakfast (think pastries, muffins, cereals, pancakes, waffles, and more). Consider how you night add more protein to your mornings — my favorite includes adding in an extra whole egg, Greek yogurt, nuts, seeds, or a scoop of my go to protein powder.
#15: Prioritize parasympathetic activation. This one is huge! The vast majority of us are chronically stressed. The impact this has on our nervous system then also influences our health and wellness, in both a physical and mental capacity. Without being proactive about prioritizing this area of wellness and taking time to focus on the parasympathetic nervous system, or our relaxation response, we will never be able to truly heal.
I explore this deeper in the workshop, Five Pillars to Optimize Daily Wellness, and offer you tangible tools to promote your relaxation response more often as well as generate the awareness around it’s importance! Check out the replay here!
Stay tuned for parts two and three! Interested in 1:1 coaching? Click the link below.
