It’s that time of year when the days get shorter, cool breezes become more common, and it’s no longer possible to deny that the holidays won’t swiftly be upon us.
The end of October seems to kick-off a windfall of sugary indulgences that if not controlled, can derail our bodies into a sugar coma through the end of the year. We’re tempted by all types of sweets – from bags of seasonal candies, desserts, and drinks (one can’t forget the seasonal lattes). This can be the ultimate test of self-control, everywhere we turn, one can find a sugary temptation.
photo: Oregon State University
So, what exactly makes sugar so popular? It tastes good, makes us feel good, and even gives us a momentarily jolt of energy. First, let’s differentiate between “added sugars” and “natural sugar”. Added sugar is either sugar or syrup that is included in the ingredients of processed food or beverages. Candy bars, cereals, pie fillings, canned soup, and various lattes are a few examples where you can find “added sugar”. The sugar found in fruits, vegetables, or dairy is considered naturally occurring. Hence, this is not considered to be added sugar. Added sugars are empty calories. They don’t contain any nutrients our bodies need.
Our bodies receive plenty of sugars from the whole foods we eat. Fruits and vegetables are packed with beneficial nutrition, even sugar. When our bodies ingest sugar, our bodies convert it into basic forms of fructose and glucose. Glucose is an essential component of our body. In fact, our bodies will produce glucose if required. Glucose is our “energy”. Fructose provides no physiological benefit to our bodies. Our livers can only metabolize fructose, where it is turned into glycogen for replenishment. However, if our liver is already full of glycogen and our bodies don’t require any added amounts (which is the case most of the time unless you are working out or active), the liver will turn the fructose into fat. If we continue this dangerous habit, this leads to fatty liver and many other health problems.
Consuming high levels of sugar can lead to insulin resistance. Insulin is an extremely important hormone for our bodies. It allows glucose to enter cells from the blood stream, and provides instructions to the cells to burn glucose in lieu of fat. Too much glucose in our blood is harmful, and is one of many reasons for diabetic complications. Excessive sugar consumption can lead to insulin resistance. Insulin resistance is a driver for many harmful diseases, including metabolic syndrome, obesity, and especially diabetes. When our bodies become insulin resistant, our pancreas increases production to try and keep up with the demand to keep our blood sugar levels within a healthy range. However, this leads to a snowball effect as insulin resistance continually worsens. If one doesn’t change their habits, blood sugar levels will continue to increase, and they’ll be diagnosed with Type II diabetes.
Sugar affects the hormones of both children and adults. Sugar can also affect our body’s mechanism to determine whether our appetite is satisfied or not. Therefore, since the body’s mechanism for the feeling of being ‘full’ is affected by consuming an elevated amount of sugar, one who does so is likely to be overweight. Are you looking to lose weight? The best thing you can do is minimize sugar consumption as well as eliminate foods and beverages with added sugar from your diet.
How often do you feel cravings for a sugary snack or drink? If it’s often, it’s important to understand that sugar is addictive. Sugar causes a release of dopamine in the reward centers of our brains – similar to the effects of abusive drugs. The added sugar in certain foods and beverages can cause large releases of dopamine, much more than what we receive from eating fruits and vegetables. Individuals can become strongly addicted to sugar, and will seek out continued consumption of sugary beverages and food.
However, whether we are eating healthy or not, moderation is always important. We can derail our bodies by eating and drinking too much of anything. Take time during the holiday season to remain mentally aware of your eating habits and food and drink consumption. You don’t necessarily need to keep a food diary, but remember how many times you reach for those candied pecans, or how often you consume a seasonal latte. Put down the snack foods with added sugar, and snack on nuts, dried figs, or dates. Are you worried that going to a party or family gathering will be a sugary calorific explosion? Bring your own dishes to share so that you can control what you are eating. When you have the option, don’t forget to keep your plate filled with mostly fruits or vegetables. Or, you can always opt for another tried and true holiday party trick: eat beforehand!
References:
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/10-disturbing-reasons-why-sugar-is-bad#section3
http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/difference-between-sucrose-glucose-fructose-8704.html
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Using the combined modalities of EFT tapping, Resonance Repatterning, Color, Light, and Sound, this visit type addresses:
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This unique approach can address and resolve emotional trauma, present or past, that has been locked into the physical body’s memory, often below the realm of conscious thought. Our bodies replay these memories at different times, and they can adversely affect our health especially in times of great stress and uncertainty.
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Not feeling well and looking for help with your condition, diagnosis, or symptoms that won’t go away no matter what you have tried? Our holistic biological health coaches can help you! Our coaches teach you how your body works, what the underlying cause of your condition or symptoms are, and how to fix and address them using long-term solutions that are data-driven and that work!
Our holistic biological health coaches have a deep understanding of advanced functional testing and genetics testing, along with much experience in complex cases.
Our biological coaching team works with you to empower and teach you how to understand and interpret your lab results, what your results mean, how they are connected to your health conditions or symptoms, and most importantly, what to do with the information, how to put protocols together based on your lab results, and when to reorder your various labs to track progress.
You will become your own healing master learning how to navigate the healing process, how to modify your protocols, when and how to detoxify your organs and cells from the toxins discovered on your lab results. You will learn the importance of tracking your assessment forms and symptom sheets and how to troubleshoot your healing process.
In addition, you have the opportunity to learn how to understand YOUR genetic blueprint – Our coaches are trained in the field of epigenetics and understand implicitly that YOU are in control of your own gene expression and how your genes either work for or against you. If you choose to add genetic testing into your program, your genetic blueprint information can be used not only to help drive your plan of action for healing, but also it can be used to understand your body’s unique nutrition, lifestyle, sleeping, eating, and physical activity needs are so that you can optimize once you are healed.
Get help from our functional nutrition coaches who understand that there is no ONE diet that is right for everyone. Our nutrition coaches work hand in hand with our biological coaches so if you need any lab work done or specific protocols that would require supplement protocols, you have a team working on your behalf and your nutrition coach would make recommendations for which other team coaches would be able to help you.
Your coaches will teach and empower you to learn how to determine and navigate your diet modifications which are decided based on your extensive intake forms, history, and your lab data that your coaches may want to order for you. Based on all of this information, they will teach you what foods to eat and not eat according to various conditions and why.
Your functional nutrition coach will help you learn what substitutes you can use when there are certain foods you may need to stop eating for a period of time, how to put your meals together based on your dietary needs per your lab data, how and when to incorporate gut repair protocols, and what lifestyle modifications you want to address based on your labs and your health conditions.
Nutritional coaching can be a great tool by itself or combined with coaching from our biological coaches. You can schedule with either our biological or nutrition coaches and they can help you get started and make recommendations as needed.
Many people who have successfully mentored with our nutrition coaches have had past issues such as:
Mindset, past and present traumas, and limiting belief systems are some of the biggest barriers to healing, so much in fact that gene expression and biological ‘engines’ of the human body can change for the worse because of it.
In the many years, we have been working in the field of holistic medicine, helping people who have tried everything else with no success or little success, we have discovered how great of an impact our thoughts, beliefs, and past and present trauma, and chronic stress can be to the human body, mind, and spirit.
The rate of recovery and healing for those who place emphasis on creating new neurological pathways to imprint new and healthy mindsets and belief systems in how they perceive themselves and the world around them is greatly improved when the psychological aspect of mindset and integration of mind, body, the spirit is addressed through repatterning of the mind and body neurology.
By removing barriers discovered from traumas, mindset, and conscious/unconscious patterns that are not congruent for healing, health, and vitality, you set yourself up for the best outcomes in your healing journey. Healing only occurs when the physical, emotional, and mental barriers to healing are removed.
Therefore we incorporate mind, body, spirit integration work into our programs and in doing so, we see exponential increases in positive outcomes with our clients. We have put together the most comprehensive ‘whole person’ approach in the world, and this is why our results are so successful.
Our Emotional Processing, Stress Release, & Neurological Repatterning coaches work with you to create new neurological connections, anchor new neurology, and habits, and show you how to become aware of any conscious or unconscious belief systems that may be holding you back from healing and total health.
You are welcome to try one or two appointments to see what you think. We typically recommend a minimum of 6 sessions to make an accurate assessment of how this type of modality is working for you.
Here are some of the modalities our Emotional Processing, Stress Release, & Neurological Repatterning coaches use for brain and body repatterning:
Breathwork is more than just a simple exercise of intentional breathing. Specialized breathwork techniques are used to facilitate major transformation and healing by encompassing a wide range of therapeutic practices that are extremely powerful in providing immediate relief for pulling people out of fight or flight (the amygdala hijack we teach about in Part 2 of our Mastering Trauma Masterclass).
This vagus nerve activation through breath work activates the rest/digest (parasympathetic nervous system), stimulates healing, reduces blood pressure, reduces the cortisol stress response, regulates hormone and blood glucose activity, and heart rate variability (the biological stress response). It rewires the body for self-regulation of the nervous system in a manner that optimizes the body and creates resilience in times of stress.
Yoga breath therapy allows you to disconnect from the mind chatter, mind racing, and negative self-talk and reconnect with your body your energy. From this elevated state of awareness, you are able to facilitate healing, growth, and expansion. And if you are looking for some expansion of your body/mind/spirit awareness, then this type of breathwork can be nourishing and can facilitate the next layer of peace, love, gratitude, connection, clarity, and insights.
In the many years, we have been working in the field of holistic medicine, helping people who have tried everything else with no success or little success, we have discovered how great of a damaging impact our thoughts, beliefs, and past and present trauma, and chronic stress (the fight or flight response) can be to the human body, mind, and spirit.
By becoming aware of how to regulate our own nervous system, and resolve traumas, mindset, and conscious/unconscious patterns that are not congruent for healing, health, and vitality, you set yourself up for the best outcomes in your healing journey. Healing only occurs when the physical, emotional, and mental barriers to healing are removed.
The rate of recovery and healing for those who place emphasis on:
….. Find much success and amplification in their healing journey.
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