Heal Your Gut to Heal Your Life

Have you ever heard a pregnant woman make the classic pregnant-woman-joke that she’s “eating for two”?

“Oh, Carol, you’re a hoot! Twelve tacos isn’t too many tacos!”

But what if I told you that Carol is actually eating for trillions? And you are too?

It’s true. Inside your gut microbiome, there’s a whole alien world of trillions of bacteria swimming around your midsection that live in you and on you. The foods you eat directly affect the diversity and health of this microbiome and in many ways determine whether this microscopic society will blossom or bust.

And some people are even going as far as eating freeze-dried poop pills to heal it. (No joke.)

But why?

Because so much of your general health, well-being, and ability to lose weight is directly dependent on the health of your gut. It affects your immune system, inflammation, and your propensity for obesity or slenderness.

What’s more, it even affects your emotions, mood, and, subsequently, your choices.

Yep, the brain isn’t the only organ doing the heavy lifting in this department.

Your gut, and the trillions of bacteria that live inside it, are indeed some of the key players in your general well-being and emotional health.

Gut feelings, it turns out, are a very real thing. This is why you might find yourself running to the bathroom in times of high anxiety, getting stopped up in times of depression, or experiencing that dramatic Shakespearean pang in your stomach when you confront a powerfully heightened emotion.

Who would’ve thought that your intestines had so much to do with your personality! 

In my opinion, gut health is the most underestimated and unknown element of health out there.

So what should you eat to support the health of your gut?

While clean eating will take care of most of your concerns in this department, you’re still going to want to consume PRObiotic foods, which contain the good bacteria, and PREbiotic foods, which provide nourishment for the probiotics.

Fermented and cultured foods all contain different types of gut-supporting PRObiotic bacteria. These foods include:

• kefir

• yogurt

• sauerkraut

• kimchi

• pickled veggies

• miso

• kombucha

• tempeh

• (real) sourdough bread (my favorite brand is "Bread Alone")

PREbiotics are a type of indigestible plant fiber that ensure the PRObiotic foods do their job. These include:

• beans

• legumes

• apples

• cocoa

• flax seeds

• oats

• Jerusalem artichokes

• garlic

• leeks

• bananas

PROBIOTIC PRO TIP: When shopping for your probiotic foods, make sure they’re housed in the refrigerated section of the market, do not contain vinegar, and are “cultured” and “unpasteurized” if possible.

While it’s true that we as a scientific society still have a long way to go with gut research, for many people, the proof’s in the pudding, and eating to support your gut has such immediate and visceral effects that, like all food, you don’t need a scientist to explain exactly why it makes you feel better to know that it’s good for your body.

Now tell me: what're YOUR favorite gut-healthy foods?

Intermittent Fasting: Healthier, Shaper, Thinner

Intermittent Fasting is one of the biggest budding trends in the health and fitness world right now.

And for good reason.

More and more research is being done every year, and so far all signs point towards improved cognitive function, increased fat loss, and enhanced immunity.

In other words, it'll make you healthier, sharper, and thinner. 

And I can tell you firsthand, it’s changed my life for the better.

What exactly does it do, you ask?

• reduces inflammation

• increases your metabolic rate (making it a great accelerant for weight loss!)

• drops your insulin levels

• aids with cellular waste removal

• enhances hormone function

• improves cognitive function and productivity

• helps avoid Alzheimer’s and Parkinson

In short, fasting gives your body the time it needs to repair itself in many ways, without the added stresses of digestion.

So what is Intermittent Fasting?

Now, there're a couple of ways to do it, but, if you ask me, the easiest way to intermittently fast is to basically just skip breakfast and wait 'til the afternoon to eat.

And that's it!

Easy.

"But wait, wait, wait! Isn't breakfast the most important meal of the day?!"

If you look to the government, WebMD, or most people's mothers, you'll probably get an emphatic "Yes!"

And that's fair.

There's a lot of science out there to back them up, maintaining that this beloved daily routine improves focus, helps manage weight, and increases overall energy, making you healthier, sharper, and thinner.

Sound familiar?

Yep, that's because there's a lot of science (and pseudoscience) on both sides arguing for very similar health benefits, and, of course, everyone's got their proverbial panties in a twist over it.

Who to believe?

Well, first of all, everyone's body is different and, as is the rule with all things wellness, no single approach works for everyone. 

However...

It's worth mentioning that a lot of the funding for these "pro-breakfast" studies have been conducted by the same people who sell you sugar-coated, hyper-processed cereal, promising healthy, happy mornings packed with "whole grain goodness," Vitamin D, and Calcium.

Thanks for that, Trix Fruitalicous Swirls cereal. 

(By the way, that whole grain ingredient they're bragging about is corn.)

So take all arguments on all sides with a grain of salt, and find what works best for YOUR unique body.

That said, I'd strongly encourage you to just try Intermittent Fasting.

You'll have to push through the first 2-3 weeks, but if you can make it past the hump, you'll know 100% if it it's for you cause you'll just feel so much better overall.

So you wanna try it?

It's really not hard, it just takes some extra planning.

Here're some tips for getting started: 

Make sure your dinner includes a good amount of healthy fat and protein (which will keep you satiated for longer) 

Keep drinking coffee (coffee, tea, and any other beverage under 50 calories won't break your fast, plus the caffeine will help suppress hunger)

Keep yourself busy (mental distraction is key when getting started)

Try to avoid smelling food in the morning (smells can subconsciously trigger digestion and make you hungry...so mouth breath as you walk past that Panara on your way to work)

Again, these first few weeks may not be easy. You’ve been eating one way for probably the majority of your life, and breaking from that may send your body into confusion, panic, or “hanger.”

You may experience temporary dips in energy or grouchiness— just know that that’s totally normal, and it only gets easier with each passing week, as your body adapts and resets its physiological habit responses.

Also know that a lot of the initial resistance you may feel is mental, so try your best to keep an open mind and a strong sense of willpower.

And even if you decide that this is not in fact the path for you, it's still wise to allow 12 hours between dinner and breakfast regardless, as your body still needs a daily break from digestion, which is a rather demanding process.

But try it out and let me know how it goes in the comments section below!

Here's a link to additional resources if you wanna dig a little deeper into this.

How to Booze Without Ruining Your Healthy Lifestyle

The holiday season is upon us, and you know what that means: family, merriment, and heavy boozing.

Whether it’s a glass of red wine, or six, at the Christmas Eve dinner table, some spiked eggnog, or shots of whiskey with your cousins in the basement trying to forget your drunk uncle’s off color jokes, the holidays can be stressful.

And they can be joyous and merry and filled with love and gifts and hugs and no one judges you when you ugly cry watching "Love Actually" four consecutive nights in a row.

But whether they’re euphoric or whether they’re stressful, either way, they will mostly likely be unsober. 

So here’s how to booze better in this beautiful holiday season, so that you don’t wake up January 1st wanting to crawl down a shame hole and die for worst three months of year.

Sound good, cookie?

So drinking and maintaining a healthy lifestyle can often be at odds, but it can be done— there is indeed a way to have your cake and eat it too, if you do it right.

Rule number one when you’re drinking:

Water!

You absolutely, 100% need to be consuming water.

Otherwise, you’ll wake up with a shitty hangover, hungry as Fashion Week, and you'll most certainly skip the gym and be craving crap food all day.

So here’s the rule: for every alcoholic beverage you have, you need to be chugging a full glass of water afterwards (preferably without ice). 

Every.

Single.

Cocktail.

Minus maybe one if you’re feeling the need for some extra buzz— but just one.

Rule number 2: eat, but not too much. 

So eating before you drink might seem counterintuitive.

"I mean, if I don’t eat before, I’ll get drunker quicker and drink less overall, right?"

True.

But getting drunk and sitting down at a dinner table is like walking into a pick up bar with a nice buzz: ya got drunk goggles on and reflecting back on your actions the next day, you might find them less attractive in the harsh light of morning.

In other words, you’re at high risk of overeating and making unhealthy choices. 

Go into your drinking situation with something healthy already in your stomach.

If you’re going to a party, eat a light, healthy dinner before, not after. 

And if you’re enjoying a pre-dinner cocktail, have a healthy snack before that— hummus and veggies, cottage cheese and fruit, a hearty protein shake, etc. Just have something clean and wholesome in your stomach to buffer the booze.

Buzzed overeating, more than anything, is what gets people during the holidays.

Drunk Goggles = Bad Choices

Which brings me to my final rule, which is:

Rule number 3: make a plan and know your limits. 

If you know you’re going to be drinking on a given day, hydrate as much as you can, and plan calorically for the shitshow that’s about to go down later on. 

And before you commence activities, make it a point to say out loud to another human being “I’m only gonna have three drinks tonight and I’m only going to allow myself one cocktail with sugar in it,” or whatever your goal may be.

     (Helpful Hint #1: try to make these goals realistic).

     (Helpful hint #2: if you wanna double down on your goals, tell a friend or family member you’ll buy them a pricey bottle of champagne if you don’t stick to your plan. And trust me, everyone likes champagne, and that person will watch you like a hawk all night.)

And, of course, know your limits.

Plan smartly.

Don’t be stupid.

And, more importantly, don’t be unrealistic.

I'm not ashamed to admit: I’ve carried around organic jerky sticks in a clutch before, double fisted water and booze for entire nights out at a bar, left parties for twenty minutes to go eat a carton of cottage cheese by myself half drunk in my heels at a deli. And I feel great about all those decisions. Cause ya know what? I always make it to the gym the next day.

So, yes, my dear Bar Flies, it can be done. It just takes a little extra thought, a little extra effort, and the occasional organic jerky stick in your clutch.

You got this.

This Simple Life Hack Will Make you Thinner, Smarter, and More Emotionally Stable

If You're Not Prioritizing This Easy Life Hack, You a Damn Fool!

Did you ever see that Bradley Cooper movie "Limitless" with the pills that essentially make you the superhuman version of yourself?

Now what if I told you that you had a secret, unending supply of holistic limitless pills hiding right in your own home?

They’re free of side effects and all you have to do for payment is keep your head on a pillow for 7-9 hours a night.

Would you do it?

Proper sleep simply will make you the best version of yourself. It'll make you smarter, thinner, happier, and, without enough of it, you're primed to gain weight, become depressed, and...wait, what was that last one?...oh yeah: forget stuff.

So I know it’s hard to make the time and we’ve all got super busy lives. But there're some really simple, small changes you can make here and there that, over time, will help you start to create better habits and put you into the flow of getting enough sleep. 

1. Make a bedtime ritual for yourself

For me, I wash my face, brush my teeth, and read a book in low light. It doesn't have to be complicated, it just has to be consistent.

2. Exercise

It helps tremendously in both falling and staying asleep, as well helping you stick to a somewhat consistent sleep schedule. 

3. Avoid bright lights before bedtime

4. Turn your clocks away from you and stop stressing about the time

5. Power down!

Turn off the TV, shut down your computer, and stop checking your iPhone. I know this one's the toughest, but it's also the most effective.

If you love being engaged in some way as you fall asleep, listening to a podcast or reading a book in low light should do the trick.

6. Channel your inner-Eric-Northman/Bill-Comption/True-Blood-character-of-choice, and keep your bedroom cool, dark, and quiet

Buy some earplugs, invest in some blackout curtains, and try to keep your room temperature around 60-67 degrees.

Listen, you work hard and you owe it to yourself (and the people who have to be around you) to make sleep a priority.

So go forth my dear Bar Flies and cultivate that precious relationship between you and your pillow. 

Demand your sleep! 

Cherish it and honor it with the respect it deserves!

Now go forth and go to bed!

How to Have the Willpower and Self Discipline to Eat Clean and Lose Weight

Willpower. 

The answer to all of life’s problems, right? 

But did you know that your willpower is actually a finite resource, and it fades over the course of the day?

Every time you make a decision, modify your behavior in pursuit of a goal, or suppress an emotion, you slowly chip away at your willpower stores.

This is why your unfortunate Ben and Jerry’s habit rears its ugly yet oh-so-delicious head at 11:30 at night and not 10am. 

Or why after a tough, stressful meeting, you blow up at your husband on the phone about the dry cleaning.

It’s just that you’ve depleted your willpower stores— you got nothin’ left to draw from!

But this sucks, right? 

Cause, most of the time, we don’t really have control over where our stress, emotional strain, and mental depletion comes from. 

However, there IS a solution to this willpower dilemma… 

But first, we need to start by recognizing that willpower is like a muscle, and the more you flex it and condition it, the stronger and more ironclad it becomes. 

In practical terms, this means putting in the time and staying super consistent with whatever changes you’re trying to implement. 

Maybe it means telling the people in your life to hold you accountable for clean eating. Or setting your alarm clock annoyingly far across the room so you HAVE to get out of bed earlier. Or actually paying for that creative writing class so you actually do your writing each week.

Whatever it is, whatever it takes, you gotta do it consistently.

Whew. 

But that can get kind of exhausting, right? 

And also, no matter how much time you spend conditioning and training that willpower muscle, it’s still a muscle and there’s only so much it can take, cause, as it turns out, you’re only human.

So how do we manufacture this consistency long term in a way that doesn’t, well...suck? 

The answer lies in your habits.

Ah, yes, habits. Those sneaky little practices that dictate about 40% of everything we do throughout the day.

All habits exist in a loop consisting of 3 parts:

• The CUE

• The ROUTINE

• The REWARD

A CUE is a subconscious trigger for your brain to switch into “autopilot”.

For example, walking into your bathroom in the morning and turning on the shower. (The ROUTINE being the shower, and the REWARD being slowly coming into wakefulness by way of a steamy, comforting downpour of hot water).

These cues are often deeply wired into our system and are very hard to change. We do however have control over our routines.

So let’s say we wanted to brush our teeth instead of taking a shower. 

Simple!

Just identify the CUE, which would be “walking into the bathroom in the morning,” and then instead of reaching for the shower nob, get in the habit of pulling out your toothbrush instead.

Thus, the key to overcoming your bad habits is just getting really good at recognizing and acknowledging these cues. 

Waking up and immediately hitting the snooze button…

Starting the prepare dinner and cracking open a bottle of wine…

Getting home from work and turning on your TV before you can even think about getting out your gym clothes…

And once you start to recognize these slippery, self-sabotaging cues, you can hack into your routines, switch things up, and basically get anything you ever wanted from life.

Not bad, eh?

Now I wanna know: what’re some of YOUR habit cues? Comment below and I promise to give you the personal attention you need to help you work through them! 

Diets Don't Work.

Wherever you are, take a deep breath, cause I got a big dose of reality coming your way and it’s gonna sting like a shot of dive bar tequila. 

Diets.

Don’t.

Work.

Sounds nuts coming from a Wellness and Accountability Coach, right? But hear me out.

Diets don’t work because 80% of people will gain the weight back in less than a year (and, in all but 15% of those cases, will end up even heavier). 

Yep, it’s been statistically proven that only a lucky 20% will actually keep the weight off.

“Wait, wait, wait. 20%?! That’s it?”

It’s alarming and totally unfair, yes, but before you go throwing your hands in the air and crying into a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, let’s take a moment to examine how and why this happens, and how we can overcome the odds with a little thing I like to call the *secret sauce.*

Let’s start with why 80% of people fail at trying to lose weight and improve their health in significant ways.

The first has to do with metabolism.

Your body is, essentially, too smart for its own good, and it adapts to whatever you throw at it, for better or worse.

Think about it in cave man terms. If you restrict your diet harshly and only give it a certain amount of calories or certain types of foods, it assumes that that’s what your primal human body needs to survive. It says, 

     “Oh no! Not much food to be had in these woods right now, I suppose I should ration out this body fat and learn to survive on less.”  

And then when you’ve slimmed down and gone off your diet, resuming your usual calorie intake or lifestyle, your body says,

    “Finally— we’re not gonna die— that’s awesome! Better continue to store this body fat in a safe place in case there’s another dry spell.”  

And guess where your genius-of-a-body stores that extra fat? Your thighs, your love handles, your chin…you get the idea.

In short, any diet that has a start and an end date won’t work the way you want it to because it just doesn’t work that way biologically.

However, there’s a bigger reason people “fail” at dieting. It’s not because they’re lazy or lacking in willpower (that’s just a sad stereotype perpetuated by a society with a proclivity towards “fat shaming”), it's because they’re using temporary or misguided fixes to solve a bigger, more long-term problem. Which brings me to the key point here:

The reason these 20% of people succeed in dieting is because they understand something fundamental about health, which is that only way to really lose weight, tone up, and get healthy for good is to change your lifestyle.

Now that means a lot of things— some big, some tiny— and it means something different for every person. 

It could mean less carbs and more sleep. 

Or more fat and less cardio.

These changes could be as small as drinking a tall glass of water in the morning, or as big as getting rid of toxic people in your life.

Everyone has their own special *secret sauce,” their own combination of things that’ll keep them in optimal health.

And you know what the biggest and most important ingredient of that sauce is?

Loving your lifestyle. If you don’t love it, you’re not gonna stick to it, it’s as simple as that.

And that, my friend, is the difference between those who fail and those who succeed.

The weight loss champions love their new lifestyle— they’re addicted to it.

But those healthy addictions don’t happen overnight. They take time, consistent exercise, habits work, and lots of accountability. 

But where to start? 

It’s starts with the little things. 

It starts with moderation. It starts by changing one small thing at a time so that, over time, you come to crave better foods and a better lifestyle. I call these sustainable changes “microshifts” and they’re surprisingly powerful.

You don’t have to go on the Whole 30, you don’t have to join a crossfit gym, and you certainly don’t have to give up a well deserved cocktail every now and then.

You just have to find a balance that works for you and get accountable to it.

Is Eating Late at Night Bad for You?