You have gone Gluten Free.  Is it enough?

Whether you have been diagnosed with Celiac Disease or you have gluten sensitivities, gluten itself definitely needs to be out of all items you eat and drink.  In most cases, also out of all body care products and cosmetics.  When you continue to experience symptoms of gut pain, sluggishness, joint pain, insomnia, exhaustion, depression, anxiety, headaches/migraines, etc… gluten free will not be enough to heal your gut.

 YES, you can heal your gut!

For years I suspected that I needed to get gluten out of my diet and still I had no idea how serious this was for me.  I did not experience the gut wrenching pain and damage of Celiac Disease; however, I would spend many days curled up in a ball of pain, holding my head hoping the pain and pressure would subside.  When it did, I went on with my life.  I had no idea what was causing this debilitating pain and it seemed to come on without a clear culprit.  This was my “normal”.  Finding a Nutrition Response Testing practitioner to test me and find that wheat was a problem for me was a blessing; however, I also tested as having a challenge with oats, sprouted grains, millet, rice, rye, corn… the list went on to include sugars, dairy, and eggs.

What did this mean?  That all the food I was eating was beating up my stomach and keeping it in the same condition… a never healing condition.
What was recommended?  Staying off all of the foods that tested as a challenge long enough for the gut to heal and then test the foods I took out to see if they still caused trouble.  How long is long enough?  6 months to over a year.  GASP!  While the stomach lining is one of the fastest to heal in the body, when it has been beaten up for many years or decades, there needs to be a good amount of time for it to heal and be in a calm state of production so it can work optimally for you. 

I share this with you because in today’s environment, we expect everything to be done in a New York minute.  When this does not happen, we get frustrated, give up, and say nothing works.  It took a couple decades to get my body in the condition I did not want, so it was going to take more than a few weeks or months to get my body in the condition I did want.  In fact, this took 2.5 years of being on a Nutrition Response Testing program and I continue to heal every day. 

Why might these other foods cause stress on the body and be a part of the problem when they are so good for you?  Some of those foods, like Oats, could be cross-contaminated by wheat.  Sprouted grains are a delicious way to get young nutrients into the system, unless they are made with grains in the wheat family.  No wheat, spelt, or rye.  Corn is not the corn of 30 years ago and has become a larger problem due to the genetic modifications made to the seeds which in turn, create trouble in our digestive tract.  Dairy and sugar cause inflammation in the body and when it is ALREADY inflamed from the food we eat, we are simply adding more fuel to the fire.  Eggs are not usually the main challenge, but when removed for a time can often be added back in easily.  Ultimately, if your body is having trouble with digestion, the goal is to ensure proper digestion is happening and many of the problems you are facing will begin to reduce and disappear!

It is time to have a different conversation with ourselves in order to allow our brains and bodies to understand that something needs to shift.  Because there has been a serious reason to restrict ourselves in one area, we tend to feel very restricted and any further discussion about what not to eat sends us into a feeling of overwhelm.  It is time to have a conversation about what we can eat and make choices that allow us to grow and create in a way that gives our bodies energy and strength! 

As a Nutrition Response Testing Practitioner, I am able to identify underlying stressors or weaknesses in the body’s systems and organs which may be affecting your overall health and find the appropriate whole food remedy to bring your body back to balance so it can heal.  With Nutrition Response Testing we look for the underlying causes of your symptoms and work from there.

​Are you ready to get started?

Dear Coffee,
I was a late bloomer to your world.  It was like a club I never belonged to: a non-coffee drinker.  Only four short years ago I found your taste to be delicious.  Previously it had been too bitter.  All of a sudden, with a bit of cream foamed on top, I found you to be one of the best tastes ever!  It started slowly and unassuming.  I enjoyed a cup of your deliciousness once to twice per week.  Gradually, I began enjoying you every single day.  One cup, two cups, sometimes three. 
Not only did I love your taste, I felt like I could get so many things accomplished once the kick of your caffeine began to take effect.   I didn’t let myself believe I wanted the caffeine, but that I simply wanted to enjoy your delicious taste.
Reality bites!  I found that I could not have you for a day or maybe two, and then I would really crash and need to have you.  Sometimes my mood was in the crapper and a hit of coffee would have me back round to my perky self… or at least tolerable to be around. 
Two weeks ago I made a choice.  A simple choice.  I planned to reduce my coffee intake and work myself out of this habit.  This time I started slowly but with great purpose.  I started drinking my normal 2 cups and then the next day 1.5 cups… eventually I was down to ½ a cup and felt really good.  It has now been 7 full days without you as part of my morning routine.  I am waking up more easily, ready to begin the day.  I have better mental capacity than I was experiencing and stay on top of tasks better.  As I write this letter, it is mid-day and I have not had a mid-day crash.   My sleep has been better as well.
While I can honestly say I am not writing you off for the rest of my life, for right now, I am working on cleaning up my internal system and breaking habits that are not necessary and causing challenges within my body.  I will be without you for the next 3 weeks as I complete the 21 Day Purification Program and then I can reassess if I want to add you back into my life. 
With love,
Michele

​Have you heard about a CSA and wondered what it stood for or what it is?
Let’s break it down…
Community Supported Agriculture, CSA, is a way for you to purchase locally grown foods direct from a farmer in the form of a share.  We are used to hearing about buying shares of stock and increasing our net wealth.  This method is similar in that we reduce the toxic load of commercially produced crops, support our local farmer, and know we are feeding our bodies the best we can, our greatest wealth!
How does it work?  You purchase a share from a farmer or group of farmers and they package the food/produce into a box or make them available for you to bag/box and take home.  The produce is picked fresh that day and you get what the farmer can sell based on the number of shares purchased.  For some farmers who have smaller scale farms, they may have an abundance of a particular item i.e. zucchini and you may have such a large amount you can freeze, can, or dehydrate for another time during the year. 
Inner Sage practitioners have utilized The Good Food Collective (TGFC) the past several years and have found this to be an exemplary way to get high quality food and variety.  TGFC offers produce from a variety of local and organic farmers so they can offer a variety of produce to the customer base each week.  They offer vegetables and fruits in the basic share plan and then you can add on to include meat, poultry, more fruit, eggs, coffee, fermented foods, etc…   You can learn more about them here: https://thegoodfoodcollective.com/

What is really exciting about a CSA is you will inevitably find something you don’t know what it is or how to prepare it.  The famer generally gives handouts or will tell you what you have in your share and how to prepare it.  TGFC has a website and Facebook page with links to tell you what you will have in your share and recipes.  This brings an exciting time in the kitchen as well as to your taste buds!  There are a wide variety of CSA’s in our local Rochester area and you can locate them at Local Harvest.  http://www.localharvest.org/csa/

In Rochester, we are incredibly fortunate to have an abundance of local businesses who are committed to bringing the most fresh and healthful food to us.  Wegmans does a very good job with their offerings of organic produce and local produce when in season.  Abundance Co-Op, Lori’s Natural Foods, and Hart’s also offer wonderful organic produce and more.   If you want a more personal experience, get to know a farmer, and see first-hand how your dollars can impact the lives of local families growing organic foods, you can find them at the Rochester Public Market and a wide variety of farmers markets throughout the growing season. 

I find the CSA makes for more efficient use of my time.  I go to one place, pick up my share, and take it home.  There is no searching for the best looking produce or prices and I almost never have to run to the store for produce during our growing season because the bounty is enough for the week.  Another reason why I love TGFC is their flexibility with how you purchase shares.  You can buy an entire season or weekly.  Many of the CSA's require you to buy once for the whole growing season.  Depending on your budget, TGFC has versatility!

If you have had an experience with a CSA, please share in the comments below.

"You are free to choose the foods you want to eat, but you aren’t free to choose the results.”   Unknown

When we choose to eat food that our body does not recognize as "real food", it creates stress and a lack of proper nutrition. Thankfully, our body is very intelligent and will figure how to keep us alive and functioning. But, when we continually consume deficient food and/or toxic food day after day, week after week and year after year, our body gets weak from trying to function without proper nutrition and our systems break down. Once organs can no longer function properly, we experience symptoms.

So, what do symptoms really mean?  In essence, they are an alarm, a way for our body to tell us something's wrong and needs a change. Ideally, when we feel a symptom we would choose to do something different to correct the problem: rest, stretch, stop eating or drinking certain foods, turn off the computer, get fresh air and sunlight, etc.  However, we often get so caught up in just wishing for symptoms to go away we never make the changes needed for that to happen or, we don't really know what those changes should be? We start to think this is our “normal” and we forget what vibrant health looks and feels like. Sometimes our body is really asking us for an improved lifestyle.

So how do we figure out exactly what we need to heal and become vibrant again? Hippocrates said it best "Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food."

This is very easy to do with Nutrition Response Testing. We can determine if nutrition changes are needed to help you heal, and guide you towards making the healthiest choices for your body.  We offer lots of support because we know personally what it takes to make positive lifestyle changes. Our goal is to take the stress away and help you feel vibrant again!