NUTRITIONAL INFLUENCES ON SOFT TISSUE INJURIES

Soft tissue injuries are amongst the most common injuries in sport and normal life. Most people have experienced or know someone close to them that have battled with shin splints, plantar fasciitis, tendonitis, achilles tendonitis, knee or lower back pain. The commonality of these injuries is concerning and should be addressed with a thorough understanding of all contributing factors. These injuries usually occur during physical activity, and although impact forces influence these tissues, this is not the only culprit.

As you have probably noted a common theme in my posts is that what you eat influences what happens inside your body. Nutrition, plays a significant role in preventing soft tissue injuries.
Just to make sure we are on the same page, a little anatomy first.

What is soft tissue?

Soft tissue is tissues that connect, support or surround other structures and organs of the body, not being bone. It includes, tendons, ligaments, fascia, skin, fibrous tissues, skin, fat and synovial membranes (which are connective tissue) and muscle, nerves and blood vessels (which are not connective tissue).
Connective tissue is responsible for responsiveness of whole body movement. Most soft tissue injuries relate to poor connective tissue. Collagen (a protein made up of a triple helix chain of amino acids) is an abundant protein of connective tissue. The longer the collagen the more strength it exerts.
Research indicates that individuals who have weak collagen experience more injuries through out their lives. Notably wrinkles, arthritis and circulatory problems also indicate poorer quality collagen that cannot prevent the tissues from pulling apart. The level of complexity of making collagen makes it very dependent on good nutrition and very susceptible to the effects of pro-inflammatory foods.

Top 3 Pro-Inflammatory Foods to avoid:

1.  Refined Sugar. Eg. Table sugar, high fructose corn syrup, soft drinks, sweetened beverages, candies, sodas etc.
2. Industrial Seed and Vegetable Oils and Trans Fats. Eg. corn, cottonseed, canola, peanut, rice bran, grape seed, sunflower, safflower and soybean oils. Artificial trans fat found in highly processed, refined, fried foods like doughnuts, margarine, fast food, frozen foods, chips, cookies, crackers, candy, instant soups, cake mixes, pasta mixes, microwave popcorn etc.
3. Processed Foods (artificial food additives)
4. Gluten and other refined grains. Eg. Cereals, breads, pasta, pizza, muesli, rye, barley, wheat.

These foods lead to inflammation in the body, which results in an increase in white blood cells, which attack free radicals and release enzymes that break down collagen. Chronic exposure to pro-inflammatory food in addition to a nutrient deficiencies leads to the production of poorer quality collagen negatively affecting ageing, joint stability and soft tissue. Hello injuries!

BONE BROTH BENEFITS

For most of us the the thought of throwing in a heap of bones into a slow cooker, leaving it simmer for 24 hours, and then drinking it, sounds a little gross. Well at least it did for me. But then I opened my mind and experienced the benefits and never looked back!
What is bone broth? It’s a traditional process that places on emphasis on preparing and eating from nose to tail, the whole animal. Broths, stocks and bone broths have been used around the globe throughout history for babies and young children, in Asian households using fish bones and broth and in Europe broth is used in soups, stews and preparing sauces.

“Bone” is alive, it is a living tissue. We often think of bone as a hard, strong, calcium filled structure and somewhat dead! But this is not the case! Bone is in fact rigid but at the same time slightly elastic due to collagen and it is an organ making it very much alive and up there with the other organ super foods like liver, heart, brain, kidney and sweetbreads. “Broth” is the liquid or in this case gel-like liquid that occurs as a result of simmering bones in water.

Bone broths are typically simmered on low for a long period (greater than 20 hours) which encourages extraction of minerals, nutrients and other important components of the bone and joint structure. The end product should be a nutrient dense gel-like liquid and bones that crumble when pressed lightly between your fingers.

Why should you consume it regularly?

“Modern nutritional research continues to prove what traditional cultures learned through observation over time, when we eat a specific part of an animal, it nourishes that same part of our body”. For example the highest source of Vitamin A is not broccoli or carrot but rather the tissue in the back of an eyeball. Vitamin A is specifically known to be crucial to support eyesight, amongst many other roles. Keep this concept in mind when considering the below points.

Bone Marrow:

Bone marrow is where the body manufactures red and white blood cells. It’s the fatty, slimy part that contains protein and loads of minerals. Bone marrow plays a crucial role in the immune system and in bone health.

Collagen and gelatin:

Collagen is the protein matrix in bones, tendons, ligaments, skin, arteries, hair and just about everywhere and is broken down by cooking into another protein called gelatin. Gelatin as the name suggests gives the jelly like appearance. These proteins provide your body with the raw material to help support and rebuild your connective tissue. The health of your joints depends on the health of the collagen in your ligaments, tendons and on the ends of your bones. It pays to start looking after your joints early as the number of people who undergo preventable knee, hip replacements is astonishing. Skin, hair and nails, just like gelatin, is made of collagen. Gelatin-rich broths help build connective tissue, which makes skin smoother (less cellulite, fewer wrinkles) and healthier. Gelatin may also have benefits for healing and supporting the gut lining.

Glycine (non-essential amino acids):

Stimulates the production on stomach acid which is very important as the stomach works optimally at an acidic PH. It also aids fat digestion in the small intestine. It plays an important role in liver detoxification and is important at balancing out the effects of excess methionine (present in muscle meats and eggs). Glycine is also precursor to the bodies own natural antioxidant, glutathione (we want plenty of this guy)!

Glycosaminoglycans:

Think Glucosamine, Chondroitin and Hyaluronic acid. Very special molecules found in bone and cartilage that help keep our joints healthy. Great for post injury, osteoarthritis or other causes on joint pain. And important for growing and supporting healthy joints. Broth is superior at delivering these components over supplemental tablets mainly because broth gives you the entire complex of cartilage components which affects absorption and utilisation in the body. Also the methods of extraction are far gentler than the destructive heat and pressure involved in the production of glucosamine tablets.

Calcium, Phosphorous, Magnesium, Sulphur, Potassium, Sodium, Iodine (fish bones)

Overall, the proteins found in bone broth exhibit overall anti-inflammatory action. This is why it has benefits in improving and treating osteoarthritis, leaky gut, joint pain and fatty liver. The strong anti-inflammatory effects of the proteins in broth is another reason why it can be used to aid recovery from injury and illness.

Personally I have seen the following improvements:

• stronger hair and nails
• reduced cellulite
• improvement in the appearance of my skin
• increased immunity
• improved digestion
• quicker recovery from training

It is my go to food when:

• I feel I am getting a virus
• One time when I got diarrhoea from something I had eaten
• When I am stressed and my digestion plays havoc
• To aid healing (cuts, grazes, when I slammed my finger in the door)
• When Jan feels a cold sore starting
• To reduce sunburn (although interesting fact is that since eating a anti-inflammatory diet I don’t get sunburnt very much and if I do my recovery is so much quicker)

And its a staple in our diet to balance out the effects of eating lean muscle meats along with eating more nose to tail.
– I have read and know stories of people who have healed broken bones remarkable quickly through consuming broth daily. 

Recipe

Based on using a 6.5L slow cooker

Ingredients

2kg Bones (Marrow, chicken backs, beef knuckles, chicken feet, lamb necks, hooves)
Note: It will come back to quality! Use only bones that come from well-raised, well-fed animals. We use marrow bones from grass fed cows from Master butchers.
1/2 cup of Braggs Apple Cider Vinegar (aids in the extraction of minerals)
1/4 cup of sea powder (source of sea minerals, namely iodine)
1 onion, chopped
5 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 carrots, chopped
3 celery stalks, chopped
2 tsp tumeric, or 2cm of fresh, minced
3cm ginger, minced
fresh herbs of choice
salt and pepper

Method

1. Add bones to slow cooker.
2. Add apple cider vinegar and allow to sit for 20 mins with the lid on.
3. Through all other ingredients in.
4. Add filtered water, enough to cover the bones but about 1-2 cm below the top of the slow cooker to avoid spillage.
5. Allow to simmer for 20 hours.

Once you have switched the broth off. You will need to remove the bones from the broth with a pair of tongs and place into the bin.
Then use a ladle and strainer to strain the liquid from the vegetables and other parts into a glass container. You can eat the vegetables or use them for making something else however in my experience they are tasteless as they have leached most of there nutrients into the broth so I don’t enjoy them. ( I am happy to hear suggestions).

Place lid on glass container and place into the fridge for 8 hours.

A solid layer of tallow will form on the top. This can be removed and thrown out or used like butter for cooking.

You should be left with a gelatinous broth to consume as stock, to add to cooking dishes, to add to smoothies, or to heat up on the stove top (NOT microwave) and enjoy as a hot drink.

How to strain bone broth below!

I like to drink my broth straight as a snack or as a add on to my meal. I particularly like it for breakfast with an egg and veggie scramble mix.
I hope this article will encourage you to drink bone broth regularly.

Love Chantel

IT’S MORE THAN TRAINING AND NUTRITION

Are you ready to make a change to get REALLY healthy and happy ?

Get yourself a cup of tea and sit back and relax, this blog is going to be a juicy one. Now before I start I know I promised you a Kefir Blog and let me assure you it is coming, however I don’t think I will leave you disappointed with this one. Cause lets face it, we all love a good juicy story!!!!

Todays blog has nothing to do with training and nothing to do with nutrition. Well maybe a little. For those of you who don’t know I have a story, you can check it out here …… Or ask a neighbour and interpret as you will because lets face it’s a small town. Just to catch you up a few years ago, two to be exact, I made a decision which changed my whole world. At 24 years of age I had a fiancé, a dog, a cat, a house, friends and a supportive family – life looked pretty perfect. But if you haven’t already discovered yet, life is short of perfect, people aren’t perfect. Luckily for me, I have always had a strong sense of love and meaning so I was subconsciously aware that despite all things around me being in place there was some big piece of me that was missing something.

That something turned out to be a lot of things! AND I MEAN A LOT of things! I will spare you the juicy details for another time but finding the right person to share my life with is my single biggest thing I am grateful for. I have always and will always hold my partner as my nearest and dearest. Your partner is the person you CHOOSE to spend your lifetime with. They are your best friend, your biggest support, your lover, the one who sees you most vulnerable, the one who shares your pain, who will put your life before their own. And if they are not those things they should be. Don’t get me wrong family and friends are most of these things as well however after the age of 18 years most people start their own journey to discover themselves and start the search for their very own unique other to share a life and most intimate moments with. This is human nature.

As I already mentioned but it’s important enough to repeat, we are not perfect, we don’t always find the perfect match, the first time, the second time or the third or fourth. And maybe we do find the perfect match and that serves us for a period of time and then people and or circumstances change. And I am not a quitter, I am all for putting in the hard yards and making things work but at some stage we need to be honest to ourselves and accept that it’s meant to be or it simply isn’t. This is not an easy thing to do. It will require some serious courage, support, a bit of selfishness and a huge amount of trust. Trust that in your gut, see I told you that gut was important, you know you are making the right steps to serve yourself a more meaningful, prosperous life.

The moment you do this, I guarantee you that doors will open, opportunities will present, weight will be lifted from your shoulders and day by day good days will out weigh bad ones and eventually you will become more sure of your decisions and choices. And hey, you might even find yourself again along the way. And that’s a nice feeling.

Change inevitably brings growth. Im not sure if its always “as good as a holiday” but it definitely challenges you and allows you to feel the benefits after the change has taken place. Too often people don’t make changes – to themselves, to their circumstance, to their life. I was one of them. I was going to float on through life, being a nice, kind hearted person but one that was too scared to rock the boat, too scared to be less than perfect. But fuck perfect, who wants this anyway – its boring and it brings misery. The perfect body, the perfect hair, the perfect house, the perfect partner, the perfect relationship, the perfect family! If it looks to good to be true it usually is!

The best thing you can do for yourself and everyone around you is be authentic to who you are. What makes you happy? What excites you?

If someone had asked me these questions two, three or even five years ago I would not been able to answer them and I am confident that most people cannot. Because somewhere along the way we get so caught up in all the negativity and all the rubbish inside our head that we forget to just start living! What it is that gives you pleasure , brings you joy, brings you happiness. For me this is reading, learning and discussing all things health related, cooking and cleaning (yes I enjoy cleaning, I feel very accomplished after), being in nature, doing intelligent movements for my body, writing, drinking coffee in a funky cafe, eating delicious food, talking to people, having an intelligent conversation, learning about the world.

PLEASURE is the antidote of STRESS and stress is at the root of every persons problems. “You can eat all the nutritious food you like and have the best trainer on the planet but until you fix your head and the rubbish in it you will not be healthy.” This is a direct quote from my partner. Yes, he is direct but guess what he is spot on.

So what is my purpose with this blog? I have a very clear purpose. I want to tell you that:
Change is for some people scary and confronting but it is required to move forward. I am forever grateful for the people that have challenged me to make changes even if I was uncomfortable at the time and I urge you to challenge yourself.

You cannot expect health and happiness if you aren’t willing to make small changes to improve your mental and physical health daily. It requires constant work.

It might feel silly at the time but this will pass and you will feel better for doing it. I’m talking meditation, mobility, affirmations.
I am a kind human being and I urge you to be one too. People want to be heard, they want to feel important, they want to feel worthy of something. To be deprived of that is a damaging and it affects a persons self worth and that takes a lot of work to regain. So people learn to LISTEN.
Show people you care. The smallest gesture can be felt for a lifetime. I am grateful for everyone who has made me feel this. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
I choose to be the very best version of myself – my actions are aligned with this choice. Are yours?

Have a pleasurable and productive week.
Love Chantel x

HEALING YOURSELF – ARE YOU CONFUSED WHERE TO START?

The bacteria in our gut are a hot topic at present and this post will hopefully help you to understand why!

It’s quite ironic for me to be writing about this topic as I can remember being fresh out of my pharmacy degree (and thinking I knew everything) and on a mission to improve by skin (namely eczema and pimples). At a loss with pharmaceuticals I travelled three hours to see a naturopath who endeavoured to tell me in order to fix my skin I should work on healing my gut.

I remember thinking “Oh my god, I’ve wasted another few hundred dollars on this quack.” But burnt out and desperate I took her advice and ended up with a very expensive cocktail of potions. After six months with no improvements I threw them all out.

I now know that her intention with healing my gut was 100% accurate but her suggested execution was all wrong. No pill, potion or combination of both will magically fix you. It might mask your symptom or marginally improve your current situation or in my case it might do jack all but eventually you will end up right back at square one or worse off!

So before I tell you how I healed my gut and fixed my skin without pills, creams or any magic bullets let’s see what this gut business is all about.

Hippocrates over 2000 years ago said, “All disease begins in the gut – “

So this got me thinking, was he a quack too or is there more to this gut thing?

Did you know?

• The gut contains over 100,000,000,000,000 (one hundred trillion) microorganisms? And together those microbes have 100 times more genes than the human genome. Therefore, we are actually more microbe than human. Pretty crazy huh? So common sense would say that these microorganisms are somewhat important and have a pretty big job.

• The gut acts as a gatekeeper. What does this mean? Well like a “good” gatekeeper it is designed to keep certain things from getting through the gate.

• We need healthy and diverse microbiota so they can; break down harmful components that we ingest, synthesise vitamins and aid absorption of minerals like iron, calcium and magnesium. Gut microbes determine how we process and what we get from the food we eat. So ultimately it pays to keep them healthy.

• The gut is home to 70% of our immune tissue, so simply if our gut is sick we get sick!

• The microbes in our gut are responsible for hormone conversion and production. So you want your little guys to be functioning well!

So what can go wrong with this enormously important ecosystem within us?

• Well when the gatekeeper gets sloppy, he starts letting the riffraff in. The riffraff is in the form of large protein molecules and the process of this sloppiness is otherwise referred to as increased intestinal barrier permeability or “Leaky Gut”. Since the large proteins were never meant to get in the body sees them as foreign invaders and mounts an immune response to attack them. Studies show that these immune responses to foreign protein molecules is at the heart of all autoimmune diseases, like Hashimoto thyroiditis and Celiac disease.

• When your immune system is so busy attacking these foreign invaders it has nothing left to fend off actual harmful viruses, bacteria and parasites and therefore you get sick more often. You also become prone to food allergies and end up in a state of chronic inflammation.

• But that’s not all, if we can remember Hippocrates wise words, that all disease begins in the gut, intestinal permeability may also present as skin conditions like eczema, acne, anxiety and depression, fatigue, joint pain, allergies, abdominal pain, gas and bloating, poor immune function and difficulty concentrating.

And guess what makes the Gatekeeper sloppy? Societies most commonly exposed to commodities and stress, yep it’s that word again!

• A diet high in refined flours, sugars and vegetable oils
• Alcohol
• Medications like antibiotics, NSAIDS, proton pump inhibitors
• Environmental toxins like BPA
• Chronic stress

Although I did not knowingly set out to improve my skin this way, the progressive steps I were making were in fact healing my gut and overall systemic inflammation and in turn my skin. So here it is – I am the quack telling you, you need to fix your gut if you want clear, glowing skin. No pills, no creams, no extra costs!

Here is where to start

1/ MANAGE STRESS. The most important thing that everyone talks about and no one does. Chronic stress can lead to bacterial overgrowth in the small intestine (these little guys should be predominantly in the large intestine), inflammation and intestinal permeability.

I could write a whole blog, god a whole book, on the ways stress wreaks absolutely havoc on health. Dealing with it, is the hardest thing to get people to do. And there are multiple steps. One of the biggest bang for your buck is meditation. Stay with me, I can feel you raising your eyebrows.

Like most things that are uncomfortable it takes practice before it feels normal. But once you start feeling the benefits it makes you want to keep going, kind of like exercise and yoga . I listen to Melissa Ambrosini’s guided meditations on my iPhone. I usually do this at the beach. It is 12 minutes of listening to calming noises and her voice. It heavily focusses on breathing, shutting out all the external thoughts, and just listing to her positiveness. The benefits of meditation are plentiful from improving productivity and focus, improving sleep, reducing blood pressure, reducing symptoms of anxiety and depression and more.

2/ REMOVE FOODS THAT WREAK HAVOC IN YOUR GUT. The big three – refined sugar, grains and vegetables oils. As I have mentioned before, trust me that you are eating them you just don’t know about it. They are in every packaged food, in every restaurant or eatery and in particular in your “healthy” breakfast muesli. You will need to be willing to make a lifestyle shift to a more whole foods primal way of living if you want to get serious about removing these.

3/ EAT MORE FERMENTED FOODS. These are the superior and cheapest probiotics. Fermented foods are hard to find in our area so you will probably have to make them yourself. Which is actually really fun and rewarding. This includes and is not limited to – kefir, sauerkraut, kombucha and beet kvass to name a few. Kefir is by far the easiest and simplest (watch video here).

4/ EAT MICROBIOTA ACCESSIBLE CARBOHYDRATES: This feeds your gut bacteria. Its one thing to introduce them but we also need to make sure they stay. Eg. potato, boiled and cooled white rice.

5/ CONSUME BONE BROTH. It is rich in glycine and gelatin both of which are helpful at restoring the integrity of the gut barrier. I consume at least half to one cup a day. To start brewing your own, here is a recipe I created.

6/ REMOVE THE TOXINS ON YOUR SKIN. If you are anything like me I was cleansing, toning, moisturising, priming, one coat of foundation second coat of powder and wait where is the bronzer, ok, finally ready to leave the house. Jesus how exhausting. Not to mention the amount of rubbish I was putting onto and into my body. And that was just my face. I have to admit that the removal of these things was harder than I expected – I had many ugly days and days where I felt very naked. Luckily I have an extraordinary partner to tell me how beautiful I am everyday so this definitely helped. The removal of all these products feels now more like freedom. I have more time to get on with my day, I actually feel more like myself and see my beauty from a different eye and ultimately my skin has dramatically improved. Probably because it can finally breath. And my bank account is better off.

A beautiful brand of skin care I have discovered is Annmarie Gianni Skin Care from the states that ship to Australia. Check their product range out if you are looking to convert to more natural ingredients.

7/ TAKE A HIGH QUALITY FERMENTED COD LIVER OIL. Fermented cod liver oil contains vitamins A, D and K2 in addition to EPA and DHA, and is important for cell growth and reducing overall inflammation. I like the Rosita brand.

So there you have it – no contraceptive pill, no antibiotics, no expensive creams, no laser surgery. Just all nat-ur-al! Things aren’t perfect but I’m confident I am fixing things from the inside out and for good.

Love Chantel

8 MOST IMPORTANT HEALTH LESSONS LEARNT SO FAR

I am here to share with you the most significant health related lessons I’ve discovered so far. I say so far as I am only 26 so in some ways I guess the significance is yet to be determined but in other ways I feel really lucky that I have found out these lessons so early on. Hence why I want to share with you all. So what exactly have I learnt after being at university for 4 years, working with health professionals and being introduced to a world of fitness and nutrition? Well quite a lot – I started out with 10 points however by the time I had written the first three I realised that this was going to be a BIG one. So I settled for eight.

1. The “experts” are not always experts

I find this statement sad but true most of the time. We place a huge amount of trust and confidence in people practising a professional service be it a doctor, a pharmacist, personal trainer, dietician or naturopath. We usually go to these people with the confidence they have more knowledge than ourselves and wikipaedia and that they can fix us. But don’t be fooled; just because someone has a title and a profession it doesn’t give them the ability to know more about you than YOU. Trust what you feel and seek answers. But be educated and equipped to identify the good from the bad. Like any profession, a degree does not define the persons entire ability and expertise. There is a spectrum of poor, average and excellent in each field. If you are lucky enough to find excellence, expect results. Don’t settle for poor, no results misinformation. Remember why you went there in the first place. And for the “experts”, myself included, we are in a position of power. People come to us for advice or a service in an attempt to improve their current state. This takes courage. And we have a huge responsibility to deliver current and results based information and services. This is only achieved through continued education and a genuine interest in your field and an acknowledgment that every client and every situation is unique. What a gratifying, rewarding job we have!!!

2. Evidence and studies do not over power living results

Evidence and studies can be flawed. Companies who have a vested interest in the results can manipulate what information makes it into the headlines. Take for example this Ancel Key fellow that found some population groups who ate a diet high in saturated fat had more heart disease. However he forgot to include the other populations that actually ate saturated fat and had better overall health. Decades later and we are still demonising saturated fat based on some pretty flawed studies and so called evidence. Its the promotion and careful selection of evidence and studies presented to the general population by certain bureaucracies that has largely contributed to our overall poor health.

The best example I can think of is this guy….. Mark Sisson… Look at his body below.

If you don’t know this man look him up he has a wealth of knowledge and experience. Would you say this man is at risk of heart disease, diabetes, is suffering from arthritis or any other “old age” symptoms. Well what if I tell you he is 60, he is eating loads of saturated fat, loads of eggs (high in cholesterol), he doesn’t eat grains, vegetables oils or refined sugars. He enjoys sprinting on the beach, lifting some weights and paddle boarding and tight rope walking. Pain and medication free at 60- this is an absolute rarity!

The physical evidence of this man standing before me is enough for me to want to read his blog and listen to what he has to say about health. Does he look like he is at risk of dying of a heart attack?

The medical world is completely controlled and driven by studies, which of course I get, but maybe they need to consider the whole picture and revisit some of the evidence that now have new, better designed studies. Saturated fat does not lead to heart disease- this theory has been disproven. But what about the living results? The evidence that half of all heart attack patients actually have below normal cholesterol levels or that cholesterol is actually sent to repair damage in vessels walls but at times there is so much oxidation and inflammation presents (due to refined carbs and “heart healthy” vegetable oils) that it cant do its jobs and gets wrongly accused of clogging up the arteries. And that cholesterol is synthesised in the body as a natural process dependent on our intake, thats is, if you don’t eat enough our body produces more . Do you honestly think that our body would produce something that would kill us?
 

3. Education is never ending and ever changing

As I mentioned above there is a huge importance on committing to a continuous, life long journey of self education if you want to stay at the top of your field and healthy. There is so much information available and accessible on the internet. I think the secret is to find a few people you believe in and trust and follow their sites otherwise things can get really overwhelming and confusing.

The problem with nutrition and healthy eating is there is very little or no education given to you during school or university (pharmacy degree/medicine degree). So unless you have a reason to start educating yourself most people have NO idea what good nutrition is.

I felt quite betrayed when I realised that a lot of what I had been told, been taught had practised was not entirely true or wrong. I still do feel this.

Our current health crisis will not improve until bigger corporations are willing to admit that they got their nutritional advice wrong.
Thankfully people like you and me don’t need to wait for this – we can admit to ourselves when we are wrong and continue to educate ourselves and make our own changes to achieve overall health.

4. Food is the most powerful and inexpensive medicine

I never thought to look at my food and consider that it could be causing my rash, my pimples, my moodiness, my cellulite, my diarrhoea, my tiredness. I spent hundreds of dollars trying to address these things not even knowing the influence food can have on our bodies. Thank god I found out or I could be seriously broke and still fat and ugly (kidding I wasn’t so bad). I am not alone with this story.

The theme behind, “An apple a day, keeps the doctor away,” may need to be given more weight and maybe a revamp, maybe we could consider “a cup of bone broth, keeps the doctor away.”

The point is, I like many didn’t even consider the fact that the food I was eating could cause or contribute to so many health issues. People today still look to medicine and supplements before addressing nutrition problems.

Why is this? Lack of education? People like an easy option? People have been mislead? A combination of all of these factors I think. I feel the role of the dietician or nutritionist is going to be BIG in the not to distant future as people are beginning to seek more answers as frustrations build with the lack of result in current treatments.

“The doctor of the future will give no medicine; instead he will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, nutrition and the cause and prevention of disease.”

Hmmm, wouldn’t that be a nice prescription.

5. The sun is not the devil we make it out to be

I don’t know about you but there is something unique about feeling the suns rays shine through you that is energising and soothing for one’s soul (most of my blogs are written when I’m outside feeling energised from nature). A morning walk along the beach with fresh ocean breeze and sunshine is definitely a big part of what people are missing in their quest for health and happiness.

The campaigning of slip, slop, slap in Australia along with the busy nature of our society has meant our time spent in the sun is almost non existent. And much to our healths detriment. We are now a nation that is experiencing vitamin D deficiencies, which in itself is a precursor for a host of medical conditions and higher rates of cancers.

Don’t get me wrong I’m not promoting you lie out in the sun for hours until you look like a prune or a tomato as I’m sure you would all agree that this doesn’t look or feel healthy.  

But yes I am promoting some healthy sun exposure. And by healthy I mean choose the times of the day that are less intense, like early morning or late afternoons and a duration that doesn’t expose yourself to visible UV damage.

6. Sacrifice is hard but worth it

In this context when I am referring to sacrifice, I’m not referring to sacrificing your bread or pasta (although I acknowledge that this is hard and job well done for doing this) I’m talking about making sacrifices for a healthier more enjoyable life.

For some this may mean leaving an unfulfilled relationship or a meaningless job and for others it could be up and leaving all that is familiar for greener pastures. Whatever the situation, when the driving force for the decision centres around following your heart, your health is bound to be thankful.

Too often people stay in unhealthy environments out of fear of what well come of their decision. I’m confident that if this is you, making the sacrifice to leave what is familiar and comfortable for something that “just feels right” will be worth it.

7. Stress will kill you

If you think this is a exaggerated title then think again. Because chronic stress can lead to adrenal fatigue and this is not a fun place to be in and unless you can turn it around this can kill you.

Life itself is such a beautiful gift. Living it seems to be the problem. We all have responsibilities in our lives be it work, money, relationships, family. These responsibilities will influence us negatively or positively. For some it might be the daily worry of not having enough money to pay the phone bill and for others it may be facing up to work everyday doing something that you hate. I get that there are so many different situations that challenge and pressure people everyday. So you need to have some coping mechanisms to deal with stress:

Recognise what is causing it, then make the steps to eliminate it day by day.

Take time out to do something that you enjoy or that relaxes you. Be kind to yourself there is so much pressure out there, so you deserve a 40 minute massage/walk/coffee break.

Be nice to people especially your loved ones (you might find they will be nicer back to you)
Be grateful for what you have, there are always situations worse than yours.
Don’t take everything so seriously…
So unless you plan on escaping to a beautiful tropical island where work and traffic are not a part of the vocabulary, I suggest you get a coping strategy in place for managing your stress. This is so important for your health.
Last but not least…

8. Love conquers all… oh and is good for our health

What does love have to do with health you ask?
Love is hard to find.. Love makes you do things you didn’t believe you could. Love reveals the real you. And love fills your heart so big you want to be the best you, you can be.
So don’t give up on it, its out there and worth waiting for.

With love
Your Chantel