Posts Tagged ‘PMS’

Break and Breathe: Simple Relaxation Techniques to Reduce Stress FAST

Sunday, January 24th, 2010

Many of us are constantly on the go, stress0multi-tasking our way through our day and finding ourselves feeling stressed out. If you are like so many others, your mind may be racing, your heart rate and breathing may quicken and you may have trouble concentrating and getting your work done. This probably starts making you feel badly about yourself and negative thoughts start swirling in your mind which just causes you to be more stressed. As we’ve mentioned in other blogs, stress doesn’t just affect you mind, it also negatively affects the way your body functions. It causes hormone imbalances, disrupts sleep, digestion, your immune system and has a strong correlation with medical conditions such as heart disease and depression. 

 

The next time you are feeling stressed, I want you to remember the two B’s: “Break and Breathe” and do the following.

 

1. Take a Break:

You are given breaks at work for a reason, so take them. So often we get caught up in the mindset of “I don’t have time” and work through our breaks and lunch which only leaves us burnt out, more stressed and less productive. Instead, take a time out, do some of the breathing exercises below, and you’ll probably be more productive when you get back. It’s best to leave your workspace, but if you can’t you can easily do these at your desk.

2. Breathe:

One of the easiest ways to change how your body is physically reacting to stress is through your breath. By focusing on your breathing, you are forcing your heart rate to slow down which will calm your body and mind. Here are a few breathing exercises to choose from.

     1. Close your eyes and inhale as slowly as you can and silently count “1″. Then exhale slowly and silently count “2″. On your next inhale, silently count “3″ and so on. The goal is to reach the number “20″. By this point you should notice that your breathing will be fuller and deeper, and you will be more relaxed.

     2. Close your eyes and inhale as slowly as you can. Try to prolong your inhale to the silent count of 4 seconds. When you finish inhaling, gently hold you breath for 2 seconds and slowly exhale to the silent count of 8 seconds. Repeat for a minute or longer. If you can’t control your breathing for that long, its ok to shorten the duration of inhale and exhale, just make sure your exhale is twice as long as your inhale.

   3. Close your eyes. As you slowly inhale through your nose, visualize pure white cleansing air entering and filling your entire body. As you exhale, picture the gray negative, stressed air exiting your body through your nose. Continue this process as you inhale and exhaling, replacing your stressed out body with clean, fresh air and energy.

It’s also important to remember that mental/emotional stress isn’t the only way to stress out your body. Eating the wrong kinds of foods, going to bed late, not drinking enough water, having unbalanced hormones, can induce stress on your body and cause a multitude of symptoms including low back and neck pain, PMS, irritable bowel syndrome, frequent illness, migraines, and many others. We provide nutrition and lifestyle coaching in Los Gatos and San Francisco as well as over the phone. Give us a call to learn how to get your body back in balance.

If you try these stress techniques, let us know your experience, we’d love to hear from you.

 

 

Dorothy Lizak

Nutrition & Wellness Specialist

 

References:

photo thank you to: http://www.stressrelatedillness.com/stress-management.html

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Benefits of Vitamin D

Saturday, November 28th, 2009


sunshine1

We’ve all heard about the importance of vitamin D in keeping our bones and teeth healthy, but studies are reporting more and more links between vitamin D and several other aspects of good health. That’s the good news. The bad news, however is that research is finding that 85-90% of us are vitamin D deficient. This can be due to a lack of sun exposure, particularly in winter, reduced intake of vitamin D rich foods and supplements, and aging (as we age we have a reduced ability to absorb, synthesize, and mobilize vitamin D).  This is a relatively new area to be explored and much more research is under way, but here are some exciting findings of what vitamin D has been linked to thus far:

1.     Decreases risk of cancer, especially breast cancer, prostate cancer and colorectal cancer. It also curbs the growth of new blood vessels, which could inhibit cancers from spreading.

2.     Maintains a healthy immune system and hormonal balance by working to regulate the building up and breaking down of body tissue.

3.     Linked to lowering the risk of diabetes.

4.     Weight loss: Several studies have shown people with higher levels of vitamin D have a leaner body mass.

5.     Improves cardiovascular health and decreased risk of heart attacks, strokes and other cardiovascular events by decreasing inflammation. It has also been linked to lowering blood pressure.

6.     May lower the risk of multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and autoimmune thyroid disease because of powerful anti-inflammatory effects.

7.     Helps to prevent falls and fractures. Vitamin D receptors have been found on fast-twitch muscle fibers. These are used when you have to quickly react and stop yourself from losing your balance and falling.

8.     Less risk of developing osteoporosis if our mothers had adequate levels of vitamin D during pregnancy.

9.     Vitamin D taken with calcium significantly reduces risk of bone loss as we age.

10.  Vitamin D with calcium helped to control some symptoms of PMS such as anxiety and irritability.

Symptoms of vitamin D deficiency may include muscle pain, weak bones/fractures, low energy and fatigue, difficulty sleeping, depression and mood swings. If you have kidney problems or intestinal issues such as IBS you may also be at risk of vitamin D deficiency due to poor conversion or absorption in the body.

Since there are several courses of action to increasing vitamin D levels, it’s important to discuss your options with your doctor. Increasing sun exposure (early a.m. is the best since the sun is least damaging), increasing intake of vitamin D rich foods like mackerel, sardines and egg yolks, and taking vitamin D supplements are all options. Too much vitamin D can be toxic, especially if taken orally so be sure to have your levels checked with a simple blood test your doctor can run before making changes in your vitamin D intake. If you would like more information on the health of your digestive system, feel free to contact us. Through a series of questionnaires and health history, we can determine if diet and lifestyle changes or lab testing would be beneficial to you. As always, feel free to contact us for more information or for a complimentary phone or in person consultation.

 

Dorothy Lizak

Nutrition & Wellness Specialist

 

 

 

 

 

References:

http://www.womentowomen.com/healthynutrition/vitamind.aspx

Nutrition Action: From Sun & Sea. November 2009

Photo: thank you to http://www.hawaiisunshine.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/sunshine1.jpg

 

 

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The gut connection

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

Typically people think that stress is about meeting deadlines, being stuck in traffic and having a high stress job.  Did you know though that stress is also placed on your body by eating the wrong foods, eating foods that you have intolerance to and not getting enough sleep?  When these hidden stressors are placed on the body over and over again they can cause hormonal imbalances as well as digestive issues that may lead to more complex illnesses such as autoimmune diseases.  Let us explain.gi-system3

First of all, 80% of your immune system lies within your gut.  Therefore, if you are eating foods that your body cannot handle this places stress on the GI system (gastrointestinal system).  When prolong stress is placed on the GI system good bacteria and flora begin to diminish and over time your protective mucosal lining will also begin to break down.  When your protective mucosal lining (Sig A) breaks down your immune defense breaks down and leads to leaky gut syndrome (visit our blog for articles written about leaky gut).  Leaky gut is when the GI system breaks down and gets porous holes in the intestines. Toxins, rather than be eliminated through the stool can leak out into the blood stream (which is not normal) causing the body to react against itself thus causing an autoimmune disease.  Let us say however, that this is not always how autoimmune diseases happen but if you do suffer from one we do recommend you perform gut testing to rule out food allergies/intolerances.

Going a bit further into the gut connection when the gut is stressed over time the hormonal system will begin to kick in.  Cortisol which is an anti-inflammatory hormone will be released to try to calm down the inflammation that is taking place in the gut.  The hormonal system will continue to release cortisol until the inflammation is gone but if you continue to eat foods that continue to irritate the gut the hormonal system will continue to try to release cortisol.  But guess what?  Your hormonal system will eventually get stressed and eventually your body will run out of cortisol and now not only do you have gut inflammation you now have a stressed out hormonal system and the inflammation continues and can become systemic.  What can be seen when the gut and hormonal system gets stressed are not only autoimmune diseases but one can suffer from skin reactions/rashes, end up with hormonal imbalances leading to low libido, PMS and night sweats as well as difficulty sleeping.

What we would like for all of you to understand from this blog article is that the digestive system, the hormonal system and the detoxification system (the liver) are all linked together.  Anyone of these systems can get stressed at anytime in any particular order and lead to being diagnosed with a disease.  We have helped many people who have come into our offices with an illness.  We run digestive and hormonal testing on all of our clients and each and every time we have found each of these systems stressed.  Each client goes on an individual healing protocol that is specific to their test results.  We help them to eliminate the hidden stressors found through the test results, get them on healing foods that reduce inflammation, we support the hormonal system through supplementation and teach our clients how to listen to their bodies so that the illnesses do not come back.  Gut testing and hormonal testing give many answers and are a great tool for knowing what is going on in the body.  For example a high morning cortisol is a clue that your body is trying to fight an infection. 

If you are one who is suffering from an illness and feel as if you are not getting better we recommend running gut and hormonal testing. These tests can be done in the comforts of your own home.  If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to visit us on our contact us page of our website and remember you become what you eat!

 

Lori Metroka-Nutrition & Wellness Specialist

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Posted in Digestive Health | No Comments »

Weight Loss: Do’s and Don’ts

Sunday, September 20th, 2009

Many people come to us with the goal of losing weight,weight-loss21 but as we work with more and more clients we find that there are several common mistakes people make when trying to lose weight. In fact, some of these choices actually have the opposite effect and make people gain weight instead.  What’s most important to understand is:

You need to be healthy to lose weight, not lose weight to be healthy. Your body is a system of systems that all work together to keep your body healthy and in balance. So, if one system is out of balance it can affect your whole body. This is why a holistic approach to weight loss and improving health is so important. If your body is out of balance, you will have trouble losing weight and will probably feel a variety of other seemingly unrelated symptoms such as: energy highs and lows, fatigue, depression, neck or back pain, headaches, PMS and the list goes on and on and on. 

 

Read below to learn some things you should and shouldn’t do if your goal is to lose weight.

1.     Don’t : Skip Meals

Skipping just one meal puts your body in starvation mode. When this happens, you body panics because it doesn’t know when it will get food again so it stores your food as fat (a survival mechanism).


2. Do: Eat protein, carbohydrates, and good fat for every meal.

Learning your metabolic type (what ratio of protein, carbohydrates and fat your body needs to work best) is ideal. We can provide you with a simple questionnaire to identify your metabolic type.


3. Don’t: Assume more cardio will help you lose weight.

Depending on the health of your hormonal system, more cardio can actually make you put on weight. Imbalances in the hormonal system make it difficult to lose weight.


4. Do: Learn more about hormones and how deeply imbalances affect your health. 

You can sign up for our Hormone Health seminar (see our events page for more information) or contact us for a complimentary consultation. We can also recommend several useful books on the subject. 


5. Don’t: Do the same exercise routine over and over again.


6. Do: Add variety to your workout, and include exercises that help you with “working in” as well as working out.

Be sure to include weight training which boosts your metabolism and also “working in” exercises such as walking, yoga or meditation. 


7.  Don’t : Assume that “No Pain=No Gain”.

You can be doing your body more harm than good and could seriously injure yourself.


8. Do: Understand that “Pain=No Gain”.

It’s always best to have your exercise routine evaluated by a trusted Corrective Exercise Coach who understands the body and how to correct postural imbalances.  Contact us for more information.


9. Don’t: Assume that there’s a “One-Size-Fits-All” approach to getting healthy.

Just as we are all different on the outside, we are all also different on the inside. What’s key is to learn how to read the signals your body gives you (constantly) and to respond with what it needs. Only you ultimately have that information, we just teach you what to look for.


10. Do: Learn more about what your body needs so you can achieve your wellness goals.

If your not sure about one on one coaching, our Wellness 101 workshop is a great place to start. (See the events page for more information).

 

 Feel free to write in with stories or questions. We’d love to hear from you.

To your health!

 

Dorothy Lizak

Nutrition and Wellness Specialist

 

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My Body Doesn’t Feel Right, but My Doctor Says I’m O.K.

Sunday, July 12th, 2009

Has there ever been a time in your life where your body just didn’t feel right? You then go to your doctor who tells you that you’re fine, and you’ll just “have to live with it.”  We hear stories like this over and over again, and today I’d like to share a personal experience I recently went through. A couple of months ago, I started to feel really run down. I was tired all of the time, sometimes I felt anxious, my heart would race (especially in the morning when I woke up), I had difficulty with my digestion, was dizzy and felt lightheaded when I stood up, noticed more hair loss, had cold hands and feet, headaches, and was getting sick more often (my immune system is usually excellent). I also noticed PMS symptoms, which I haven’t had since high school. Mentally I felt as if I were walking in a fog. I had trouble concentrating and an unusually poor memory.

My training in nutrition and wellness lead me to suspectadrenal that I had adrenal fatigue, which could also be the cause of my PMS symptoms (The stress hormone, cortisol, that the adrenal glands produce also impacts the production of the female sex hormones. As an aside, I should mention that cortisol also impacts thyroid function). Before I ran my own testing, I went to my primary care physician to get his input. He ran some blood tests and per my request also checked my cortisol, thyroid hormones, and checked for celiac disease (which is intolerance to gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye, and barley). After reviewing the results, he said that everything, including my cortisol level, was “normal”. When asked what to do to alleviate these symptoms, he replied  “Sometimes you just have to learn to live with these things”. I must say that I have a tremendous amount of respect for my doctor, and the purpose of this blog is not to speak harshly about him or the medical community. My goal is to bring awareness to the notion that sometimes doctors don’t have all of the answers.

A week later, I repeated the testing through our clinic and was diagnosed with stage 2 adrenal fatigue. As I suspected, my adrenal glands had been overworked, and were not function properly, which was causing the laundry list of symptoms I mentioned earlier. I started taking bio-identical hormones (which are in liquid form and placed under your tongue), made sure to eat according to my metabolic type, and changed my exercise routine to one that would support my overly stressed body. I started to feel better in a couple of days. My mental clarity and mood were the first symptoms I noticed improvement in. My energy level has also gradually increased, and my PMS symptoms are gone.

You might be wondering how the tests my doctor ran came out “normal” while the ones that were conducted through our clinic weren’t. It’s because the tests we run look at sub clinical levels. In other words, the tests your doctor run are set up to identify disease or severe dysfunction. They are not sensitive to the more subtle shifts that take place in your body when you begin to have symptoms THAT CAN LATER BECOME DISEASE.

So, as for me, I’ve found one piece of my puzzle. I’m now working on getting answers to explain why I’m having issues with my digestion, something I’ve never had to deal with. If you need help putting the pieces of the puzzle together for your own medical needs, we’re here to help.

 

Dorothy Lizak

Nutrition and Wellness Specialist

 

 

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Are you suffering from adrenal fatigue?

Sunday, April 12th, 2009

Do you…

Suffer from sleepless/restless nights?

Suffer from night sweats?

Suffer from constipation and or diarrhea?

Suffer from fatigue and lack of energy?

Struggle to lose weight and or keep it off?

Suffer from mood swings?

Suffer from lack of libido?

If you answered yes to any one of the questions above you may be suffering from Adrenal fatigue.

 

WHAT IS ADRENAL FATIGUE?

There are two adrenal glands and each one sits on top of each kidney and are responsible for hormone production.  The hormones excreted by the adrenal glands are cortisol and DHEA.  In turn these two hormones continue to go on and make the sex hormones.  Therefore, when the adrenal glands have been overworked due to stressful situations such as long hours of work, lack of sleep/staying up late and a poor diet the adrenal glands stop working properly.  When the adrenal glands stop working this leads to adrenal fatigue.

Once the adrenals have become weakened you will begin to see situations arise as listed above.  The reason being is that when we are in a stressful situation whether it be physical or emotional our body releases cortisol to help up deal with the stressful situation.  In stage 1 of adrenal exhaustion one does not even feel stressed. In fact, typically one will fill energized and good because of the extra cortisol running through the body.  However, in later stages of adrenal fatigue typically stages 2 & 3 are when one begins to feel tired no matter how much sleep one gets.  The reason being is that as you move into later stages of adrenal fatigue your cortisol begins to run low and overtime the sex hormones become affected as well thus leading to severe fatigue, loss of sex drive, possible nights sweats, digestive problems and severe PMS symptoms for women.

HOW CAN I FIND OUT IF I SUFFER FROM ADRENAL FATIGUE?

You can test for adrenal exhaustion through saliva testing.  What needs to be assessed is ones cortisol and DHEA levels.  Cortisol should be higher in the morning as this is what wakes you up in the morning, hit its peak around mid day and then tappers off into the evening making one tired and sleepy.  Because cortisol changes throughout the day saliva tests are a good idea as you can test  the entire cycle (4 samples) of cortisol within a day. It is also a good idea to test estrogen, progesterone and testosterone levels.  Saliva testing also tests for the active hormones in the blood stream where as blood tests the stored hormones. However, it is a good idea to have both tested.   If you are interested in saliva testing you can contact Replenishing Soul and we will gladly send you a kit that you can perform in the comforts of your own home.

CAN I RECOVER FROM ADRENAL FATIGUE AND IF SO HOW?

Yes, you can recover from adrenal fatigue.  However, it does take time.  The reason being is because your body has to reset and get back into balance.  Your brain and adrenal glands need to relearn how to communicate to each other.  If you suffer from adrenal fatigue it is a good idea to work with a Nutrition & Lifestyle Coach.  They can help you get back on track by evaluating and restructure your lifestyle as this is what weakened your adrenal glands in the first place.  Getting healthy again is about learning what foods and what proportions are right for your body and what type and what intensity of exercise is appropriate for your body at a particular time. You need to be taught how to manage stress through ways such as meditation or yoga.  In addition finding hidden stressors such as food intolerances also needs to be assessed.   Even though each person that we see in our clinic is entirely different and needs different strategies specific to them here are a few quick tips that will help you get back on track.

  • 1. Eliminate C.R.A.P. from your diet- caffeine, re-fined sugar, alcohol and processed foods
  • 2. Eliminate Gluten
  • 3. Get to bed by 10:00pm. Between 10pm-2am your body repairs physically and between 2am-6am your mind repairs. Therefore, if you are not sleeping between these hours your body is not healing.
  • 4. Find ways to manage stress

If you would like more information about Adrenal fatigue purchase James Wilson’s book:  Adrenal fatigue the 21st century stress syndrome.

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