Just in case you had a little too much fun over the holidays (if there is such a thing), today I bring you eight tips to get back on track:
1. Heal Your Gut. The gut is an essential starting point for achieving optimal health and preventing disease, so this one’s at the forefront of where to start to get on track. Gut health doesn’t just include the common intestinal tract symptoms that most of us prefer to not to discuss (diarrhea, constipation, gas, bloating…need I go on?). The gut is where your immune function begins! It’s where your food is broken down, digested and absorbed. It’s where your metabolism starts! (Now are you listening?) It is the cornerstone of optimal health and associated with every other system, process, organ and cell in your body! Regardless of where you are in your journey to health, it all comes down to gut health. Begin by implementing the 5 steps to healing your gut, outlined in this post.
2. Eat Breakfast. Whether your mornings are too rushed or you’re just not hungry after waking, throw these reasons excuses out the door with your withering Christmas tree and start your day off on the right foot with a balanced meal. Break your fast with a couple eggs cooked in coconut oil and a side of fruit. If you don’t like eggs, don’t fret! My top ten recommendations for egg-less breakfasts can be found here. Make it a goal to eat within an hour of waking to boost your metabolism and give you the energy and focus you need for the day.
3. Load up on fruits and vegetables! I know…a pretty obvious suggestion coming from a dietitian, right? Humor me for a moment and let me explain why it’s important and helpful: Loading up on these nutritional powerhouses will help fuel your body with antioxidants, fiber, vitamins and minerals, which are often depleted during the holidays. They are also important for shielding our body from stress and healing any existing inflammation we have. Aim for a variety of color each day (taste the rainbow!) and use Fruits & Greens Redefined to help load your cells and really hit the “reset” button. Generally, I recommend 2-3 scoops of Fruits & Greens a day for a few weeks after a period of not-so-great eating, or 1-2 scoops/day for maintenance. (Espresso is my favorite flavor!)
4. Hydrate! Most holiday parties and gatherings are surrounded by alcohol, punch, soda, and other sugary not-so-good-for-us beverages. That’s why it’s so important to re-hydrate with some good ol’ H20 to help replenish and clean out any existing toxins by naturally supporting your liver and kidneys, which are your organs responsible for detoxing. If you’re a counter you could aim for half of your weight in ounces of water each day, or if you’re not a counter (like me!) then just try to drink water throughout the day to prevent getting thirsty (because when we’re thirsty we’re already dehydrated—just like we eat to prevent getting hungry because when we’re hungry our blood sugar levels are already too low).
If you don’t like the taste of plain water, try a sparkling water such as La Croix or San Pellegrino, or get a Soda Stream with your Christmas money! This was one of my favorite Christmas gifts—it’s so simple and fun! Just be sure you aren’t loading your drink with sugar or artificial sweeteners. I like to flavor my carbonated water with the new Stur stevia drops or my Sweet Leaf drops.
5. Switch it up! Doing the same workout over and over can get boring, right? Since it’s cold out (especially if you’re up here in Minnesota!) it can be tough incorporating new outdoor workouts. Instead of giving up, try something new. I like searching for different workouts on YouTube because there are so many to pick from! New to exercise? That’s okay! Even five minutes of a workout is better than no workout at all. I do TurboJam in my living room (it might look or feel embarrassing, but such a good workout and nobody’s watching! ;)). There’s a 20 minute workout and a couple longer ones. If I’m crunched on time I just do half of it and a quick stretch before hopping in the shower and getting on with my day. 🙂
6. Make friends with fat. Consuming high quality fats like avocado, coconut oil, walnuts, and even butter can be helpful in reducing any damage that was done during the holidays (it happens to the best of us, right?). Fat helps heal the inflammation in our body (and remember inflammation is the root cause of all chronic disease!), along with giving you energy and brain power. It also helps keep our blood sugar levels stable, making it super important if weight maintenance or loss is a goal of yours. Yet since the 1970’s we’ve been wrongly told that it’s a bad thing. Ever since this fat-phobia began, we’ve simultaneously packed on more and more pounds, leading to the greatest obesity epidemic in world history. It is about time to change the way we think about fat and overcome our unhealthy fear of it.
So make fat your friend. Just keep in mind that not all fats are created equal. The right kinds of fats will support your metabolism and brain, and the wrong ones won’t. Healthy fat is found in real foods like salmon, olive oil, coconut oil, butter, heavy cream, avocados, peanut butter, cheese, nuts and seeds. Processed foods tend to contain damaging fats such as trans fats and man-made oils like soybean, corn, cottonseed, canola, safflower and sunflower oil.
Aim for 1-2 Tablespoons of good fat at each meal and snack. Yep, not just meals—snacks too! And make it a goal to keep the bad fats out.
7. Start a supplement regimen. I believe in real food first and supplements second. I also think supplementation in this day and age makes sense. We aren’t hunting and gathering for our food under the sun like our ancestors did. We are exposed to incredible amounts of processed and health-draining foods. We spend most of our time inside industrial buildings and in front of computers and TVs. We create exercise regimens on machines at the gym. We don’t sleep enough and frequently allow technology to interfere with our natural sleeping regimen (I could go on!). The addition of a few key supplements can be life-changing when it comes to reaching your health goals.
Supplements help give the body essential vitamins and nutrients that can be missing in the foods we eat. The reality is, even if we’re eating the right foods, we’re not perfect in what we eat (I don’t expect anyone to be!). That’s why we find that supplements benefit so many of our clients and help them reach their goals quicker than if they were relying on food alone. The supplements that would benefit you the most depends on you, your health history and goals, and because of that, I’d encourage you to meet with a coach at least once to get you on track. You and a coach would put together an individualized supplement regimen for you based on your health, your lifestyle and your goals.
I’d also strongly urge you to stop taking any supplements you have unless they’re pharmaceutical grade. Pharmaceutical grade is the highest quality grade, meaning the purity, dissolution and absorption meet the highest regulatory standard verified by an outside party. Pharmaceutical grade vitamins are only sold by licensed healthcare practitioners because they WORK. You can find these in the Redefined Vitamins Store. Most products you find on shelves are ineffective, overpriced and of very poor quality, and it’s just not worth it to put low quality anything into your body (supplements OR food!). We’ve seen clients taking products that actually bring them further from their goals due to fillers, additives and other junk found in non-regulated supplements, which defeats the purpose of supplementation, right? Meet with a coach to get individualized recommendations on which supplements would be best for you.
8. Vow that 2015 is YOUR year. Cheesy? Yes. Sarcastic? No. Make a vow to yourself to focus on your health this year. And don’t hold yourself back! I don’t expect you to be perfect (I’m not!) and there are always things we can work on to better our health. Maybe it’s to focus on your gut health, make breakfast a priority, eat more fruits and veggies, be intentional about hydration, switch up your workouts, make fat your friend and/or start a supplement regimen. Or maybe it’s time to once and for all get more sleep at night, cut down on your sugar consumption, stop counting calories, get in a bedtime snack even when you’re not hungry, or sign up for personal coaching on your own or with a friend or spouse. Whatever it may be, make a promise to yourself to make your health a priority, and nail down some accountability to make it stick!
Last but certainly not least, grab my best tips to boost your metabolism in the meantime by clicking the pink button below and getting your awesome guide!
