Laura S. Conley

Thoughtful Discussion

The Three “Healthy Foods” Making You Feel Worse Every Day – Beware of Grains/Gluten

Unfortunately, these foods masquerade as health foods based on the most common nutritional guidelines. The three culprits are granola, bread, and whole grain pasta. Grain is the common element in each of these dietary staples. Many people start their day with a cereal consisting of various grains or they have whole grain bread as part of their lunch sandwich. All the while, people think they are eating a healthy meal.

However what most don’t realize is that these grains are creating havoc in their intestines and on their immune system. Grains are extremely inflammatory. They evolved to avoid digestion by animals. Grains evolved to go through the digestive tract undigested and be excreted out so they can colonize a new area. These plants achieve this by releasing toxic anti-nutrients in our bodies.  Three of these toxins include lectin, gluten and phylates. We won’t go into the bio chemical details of each here, but just be aware that they are a huge cause of inflammation in the gut which could also lead to auto immune issues.

So when you’re starting your day with a big bowl of “healthy” granola and then having that whole wheat or whole-grain bread sandwich at lunch- you are actually putting a lot of stress on your body. I have seen countless people improve their health simply by removing grains from their diet. If you’re not sure why you’re feeling so tired and inflamed, maybe it’s time to do a two-week trial elimination of grains and see how you feel.

You may be happily surprised.

The top things that are stressing you out that you aren’t even aware of

I deal with a lot of people who seem very frazzled and overwhelmed or are complaining about certain aspects of their life and they say to me, “oh, it would all be fine if this would just fall into place.”

But, I want to say there are so many more pieces affecting them than just that one thing that they are looking at.  For starters, your thoughts can create a stress hormone release in your body and your body won’t realize the difference between an actual stressor in your environment versus you just thinking about that stressor.

So, that’s why it is so important to work on your mindset and your awareness of yourself and your brain because being aware of what your mind is doing is extremely important to shift your thoughts onto more positive things and create a relaxation response.

Another big issue I see is the environment that people actually live in.  Did you know that being under florescence lights or even LED lights is terrible for your mitochondria? Your mitochondria are the powerhouses of every single cell in your body so if you are damaging your mitochondria you can bet that you’re damaging every cell in your body and I’m not going to be fully healthy and productive. That’s why it is so important to be cognizant of what’s in your environment such as: the lights, materials used (carpet or flooring can have toxins in them), chemicals used in the house, or being released from other products in the house. I knew someone who was reacting to their brand-new mattress because of all the fire retardant that had been sprayed on the mattress. In addition, one of the biggest biological stressors is mold in your environment. So many people are living in moldy houses and not even realizing it. Mold is an entirely independent topic which we’ll will discuss later but just know that that’s a part of your stress load too.

So, along with the physical materials in your house, there are also electromagnetic frequencies (EMF’s) that are stressful for your body and brain. Think about that Wi-Fi signal going through your house, it’s also going through you. It’s important to think about turning off your Wi-Fi at night and grounding any dirty electricity that may be in your house.

Lastly, we will also discuss emotional and psychological stress. So many athletes would tell me how they were reducing their training load but not recovering as fast. It wasn’t until they told me about relationship or emotional drama that has been occurring in their life recently that I understood how huge of an impact it has on your recovery time.

If you’re living in an emotionally drama filled environment that is wearing down your system every single day, than these may be bigger stressors than even challenging workouts.  If there is stress at work or a financial burden than these also pile on to the big picture of added stress in your life. Therefore, it’s very important to understand where you can reduce any of these extraneous stress inducers to reduce your overall load and give your body the best chance at being healthy and thriving! For more tools and information check out the other articles in the blog or schedule your free consultation today!

To Supplement or Not To Supplement…

Today, I’ll discuss the best supplements to use when you are in stage one burn out.

First of all let’s talk about what to remove from your diet. When it comes to things to toss out of your diet, you should start with sugar, caffeine, and processed foods—especially carbohydrates like bread. These foods really mess with your blood sugar levels and cause more cortisol release and more strain on your adrenal glands. Beyond emotional and physical stress, the adrenal glands respond to the erratic ups and downs of blood sugar. Too many carbohydrates can play havoc on these glands.

So, for starters we have to remove some of the stress on the adrenal glans that are working overtime. Now, we can talk about the right supplements to support them. One great adaptogenic herb is Rhodiola. This herb helps your body come back to homeostasis and better cope with stress on the cellular level. This is also a great herb to improve your mood.

Second, is omega-3 fatty acid’s. These are found in fish oil’s and other natural oils. Your body needs plenty of healthy omega-3’s to build cellular membranes and many other molecules necessary for stress reduction. I recommend getting the best quality fish oil so you are not getting any mercury or metal contamination.

Another supplement necessary when under stress is B vitamin complex. Your body requires more B vitamins the more stress you are under. When your body is under stress it just burns right through all your B vitamins even if you are eating a healthy nutritious diet. This will also help with energy production to give you more energy throughout your day.

Your body consumes more minerals when under stress. For example, 98% of the population is deficient in magnesium. Most people should supplement with a good source of magnesium. The recommended dosage is about five times your bodyweight in milligrams. Magnesium is also great for calming you down. I recommend taking a quality magnesium supplement in the evening before bed to help you sleep better.

When you are pushing your body it’s really easy to burn through all of your nutrients, especially trace minerals such as selenium, zinc, etc. I recommend taking some trace mineral drops in your water each day to ensure that you are getting enough.

The bottom line when it comes to supplements and your health is it’s always better to test and know for sure what your specific needs are. These are blanket generic recommendations, however your particular body may require more or less of specific supplements depending on your current diet and lifestyle stressors. For more information about specific testing you can do and to find out more, schedule a free consultation with Laura today.

Overtraining, Burnout, and Stress Impact Everyone

Not everyone who suffers from overtraining is playing a sport.

Life is a sport. Even though there might not be a clock running or points being scored,  we are confronted with deadlines and bills to pay.

So many of the people that come to me with symptoms of overtraining are simply moms who have 1,000 things to accomplish every single day and no break—no chance to recover.

They wake up, they prepare their kids lunches, wake the kids up, make them breakfast, drive them to school, then drop them off, rush to work where they are confronted with deadlines, bureaucracies, temperamental co-workers and the like. From work, they rush back to pick up their kids from school. These women squeeze in errands for the family and pick up their kids from school. To add to the complexity of life, maybe they take their kids to an after school practice for a sport to then rush home to make the family dinner. But, the day isn’t over. Now it’s time to help with homework and then crawl into bed to do it all over again the next day day in and day out. Maybe they had a chance to pay a little attention to a spouse who feels neglected.

This hectic lifestyle is what leads to OTS (overtraining syndrome) because it’s not how hard you’re physically training necessarily, but rather it’s the overall load on your physiology that wears you down. The fact that your adrenal glands are constantly working; pumping out adrenaline and cortisol under chronic stress can lead to the same physiological symptoms of an overtrained athlete who doesn’t allow themselves proper recovery time.

Furthermore, most of these people are so stressed out and not regulating their blood sugar properly with the right balance of macronutrients at meals that their blood sugar drops and causes an even larger stress response. When the adrenal gland’s sense a blood sugar drop they immediately pump out cortisol to raise blood sugar levels. Over time, this roller coaster wears down the adrenal glands and causes adrenal fatigue or cortisol insufficiency. This cascade then leads to hormonal disruption of estrogen, progesterone, testosterone among others.

So, many overtrained athletes and overworked people have a lot of hormone imbalances due to the deregulation of stress hormones. My goal is not to scare people and make them afraid of a little stress, but I do want to make people aware that even if they don’t fall into the category of elite athletes training for an event, they still are taxing their bodies. And, the same recovery techniques are extremely important for these people just as with athletes in training.

These techniques include: daily meditation or mind relaxation techniques, balanced nutritious meals, a sense of love and community, and in some cases, proper supplements. I have seen drastic improvements in people’s physical state as well as their mood and emotional well being just from changing a few daily habits.

One quick and easy tool that I teach everybody on their first day is to close their eyes and put one hand over their belly and one hand over their heart and just take some slow deep breath’s into their bellies. That’s one of countless simple yet effective techniques.

So, if you’re feeling burned out or overrun. Check out more information about recovery techniques. It’s important not to wait until your system becomes so worn down that you are emotionally drained, depressed, and realize your health is slipping away.