I am not an ER doctor.  I am not a seamstress.  I am not a restaurant owner serving takeout.  But I want to help and I am sure many of you are having similar thoughts during this health crisis.  I do, however, know about nutrition to keep your body healthy!    

The journey to a healthy body is just that, a journey.  It isn’t something that you one day wake up and say, “I’m all better!”  It is something that you have to constantly work towards and be mindful of.    My mantra has always been, “everything happens for a reason”.   Just yesterday, I became overcome with emotion thinking about how grateful I am to have gone through my own health journey so I can help my family stay healthy during this time and I can also now share my knowledge with others.  This is a time when a strong, healthy body is critical to fighting this virus.    

During this time of uncertainty, the one thing you do have is control over is your body.  You can decide what type of food you are eating, the quality of sleep you are getting and how much you are exercising.  Now more than ever you need to be kind to your body.   The front page of my website says it all, “The health of the body begins in the gut” as well as “let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food.”   

Your gut is the cornerstone of your immune system in which 70-80% of your immune system actually resides in your gut!  So if your gut is not functioning properly, then your immune system isn’t either.   Processed foods, artificial sugars, greasy fast food wreak havoc on your gut.  Stress of all kinds, including chemical, emotional and psychological types, plays a large role in immune dysfunction. Toxicity disorients immune function.  A disoriented immune system will not be able to effectively clear an infection, like Covid-19.   Our body has never seen this virus before so we don’t have the antibodies to fight it off right now.   Some of us will get it and never have any symptoms.  Some of us will get it and have a little cold.  Some of us will get it and become very sick.  

It’s never too late to strengthen your immune system.   A little goes a long way and here are some suggestions.  Fresh, in season fruits and veggies if possible, but frozen is also just as good.  Make yourself a healthy, smoothie, my favorite is a Chocolate Banana smoothie with Spinach (fiber), Cacao Powder (great antioxidant and plant superfood),  Golden Flax Seeds (fiber, antioxidants, and Omega-3’s) Almond Butter (omega-3 fatty acid and protein), Almond Milk (omega-3 fatty acid).  I will post the recipe.  Organic roasted veggies with olive oil or ghee  are easy to digest and are perfect if you are feeling bloated and gassy.  Try to choose organic proteins like chicken, fish, grass fed beef with no antibiotics.  REAL FOOD!  Where I live it has been hard to find my usual go to products but as long as my family is having a healthy meal, that is all that matters.   I have enjoyed being able to cook more and having the whole family sit down for dinner at the same time!  While we all have a little more time on our hands,  take advantage of the opportunity to experiment with new recipes.   Pull out those old cookbooks, scour Pinterest or the Food Network.  

Another important aspect to a healthy body is sleep! Along with taking your Vitamin C daily, Don’t forget to take a nightly dose of Vitamin S—Sleep!  Adequate sleep has been shown to improve the production of immune cells or T-cells.  Having less than 7 hours of sleep a night on a regular basis puts stress on your body and when your body is stressed, your immune system suffers.  

Lastly, don’t forget to exercise.  This one tends to be the hardest for me.   I make LOTS of excuses but then as soon as I am done with my work out I feel great!   You Tube has some great yoga videos, my favorite is “Yoga With Adrienne”.   I also go for walks, we live at the top of a large hill and the climb back up is a great thigh and leg workout!  Anything to get your body moving is a boost for the immune system and our mental well being, which we all need right now.  You can do this!  

I hope everyone stays healthy and safe during this time.  The more you keep your body healthy and practice social distancing, the sooner you can go back to enjoying your favorite things!  

P.S.-drink lots of water!

Over the course of the next few weeks, we will be exploring Nutritional Therapy’s 6 foundations of health, getting a better understanding of how each foundation applies to our bodies.  I am going to begin this week with Digestion.  I believe this to be the most important foundation.  If we are not properly digesting our food, our bodies are not absorbing the important nutrients that food provides to us, like vitamins and minerals, water, & fatty acids.  Every cell, that makes up every tissue, that makes up every organ depends on the digestive system to provide the nutrients it needs.  You could be eating the cleanest diet, but if your body is having trouble digesting the food, it is essentially a waste.  

Digestion is a north to south process.  It begins in our brains.  The sight and smell of food triggers the salivary glands to begin producing saliva.  Next the teeth begin the physical breakdown of food.  The saliva moistens the food to make it easier to swallow.  This step is critical.   Our bodies need to be in a parasympathetic (calm) state to engage the digestive process. Most of us are in a sympathetic state (anxious, stressed, rushed). We all (myself included) tend to rush through this step.  Humans, we eat on the go, rushing through to after school activities, work, or just life!  We tend to not sit down and enjoy what we have taken 2 hours to prepare or what someone else has prepared for us!  This can create digestive issues.  The food isn’t being broken down properly and we are swallowing large pieces of food that our stomaches are not able to digest.  Hence, bloating and gas.  If anything, I would say, just chewing your food a few more times than usual may greatly improve your digestion.  Drink your food and chew your liquids!  🙂 Next the teeth begin the physical breakdown of food. 

As we continue south, the food (bolus-technical term) has now entered the esophagus and travels into the stomach.  The stomach continues breaking down the food through gastric juices or acid.  Yes, stomach acid is good! (Another topic for another time).  The stomach has a hard time breaking down large pieces of food so stomach acid is critical to breaking down the food so it can move into the Small Intestine. Otherwise it sits in the stomach creating bacteria.  These maldigested foods cause a “reflux” or backwards motion into the Esophagus.  After the food (bolus) leaves the stomach, it enters the small intestine as chyme.  This is where a lot of important things happen.  When digestion is working properly, this is where fats (through the Gallbladder), carbohydrates (through the Pancreas), proteins (Pancreas) are absorbed.  When digestion isn’t working properly, the stomach can’t create the bolus that gets broken down in chyme.  The chyme then can not feed the Gallbladder and Pancreas.  When digestion is doing going right, the leftover chyme is then absorbed by the large intestine.  Here the large intestine absorbs the water, recycles the waste material which nourishes the cells and captures any lost nutrients.  Lastly, this is all expelled through our feces.  Yeah!   Hence, north to south! 

You may be saying, Wow!  that was more than I needed to know about where that piece of pizza went that I just ate!  But it’s important because the food we eat is fueling our bodies.  Whether it’s fueling our bodies for good or bad, that’s important. 

I guess if you could take one thing away from this it would be, like our parents and grandparents always told us, chew your food! Who would have thought…