Author: The Nutritional Reset

May 31, 2019

Dishing It Up for May 2019

Dishing It Up serves up a selection of stories, studies & so on from the world of wellness & nutrition each month.

In this month’s issue of Dishing It Up…

The Land of Immortals: How and what Japan’s oldest population eats
Heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women, but the research has long favored men
Fast walkers may live longer, study says
Is Dancing the Kale of Exercise?
Emma Thompson Reflects on Life, Loss and Resilience

Here’s a taste of each from the sampler platter…

May 16, 2019

Engage Your Abs for Esprit de Core

“Engage the bandhas!” My yoga teacher, Christine Dennis, reminds us of this often in class – it’s almost a mantra. Bandha is the Sanskrit term for “body lock” in Hatha Yoga. Christine is usually referring to the bandhas that involve the pelvic floor muscles and the abdominals up to the diaphragm. In plain English, she means “engage your abs”!

Activating these muscles essentially creates a supportive “corset” for your torso. This protects your back and helps stabilize your body. When you engage your abs and strengthen your core, you make daily activities easier. More important, you help prevent injury during both day-to-day activities and exercise. At my age, I’m all about preventing injury, especially back injury.

And (spoiler alert for an upcoming post on osteoporosis) weight-bearing exercise is one of the most effective things we can do to prevent bone loss as we get older. In fact, studies have shown that strength training may even help build new bone. Of course it also builds muscle mass to keep us lively and energetic.

So now is the perfect time to delve into how to engage your abs! With esprit de core, you will be able to strength train both effectively and safely! read more

May 5, 2019

Dairy-Free Bone Building Menu

When it comes to bone health and nutrition, we tend to focus on meeting our calcium needs with dairy products like milk, cheese and yogurt. But what if a person is lactose intolerant and can’t consume dairy products? This is the case with one of my readers, who wrote asking for some recipes that were dairy-free yet high in calcium. This Dairy-Free Bone Building Menu is for her, people with dairy allergies and anyone interested in alternative sources of calcium.

Munch on this menu and you will consume 1233 mg of calcium, just over the 1200 mg recommended dietary allowance (RDA) set by Health Canada for women over 50 and men over 70 (the RDA for younger adult women and men is 1000 mg). You will also consume 433 mg of magnesium, another extremely important mineral for bone health (again exceeding the RDA of 320 mg and 420 mg for adult women and men, respectively).

Sign up here to receive the recipes. I hope you enjoy them! And I invite you to share these recipes with your family and friends!

Dairy-Free Bone Building Menu

Breakfast: Sardine & Avocado Salad (Not a fan of sardines? Use canned, bone-in, wild salmon instead.)
Lunch: Roasted Carrot, White Bean & Tahini Soup with a side of Sauteed Collard Greens & Almonds (don’t skip the collards, they provide 282 mg of the 535 mg of calcium in this lunch)
Dinner: Sesame Trout, Bok Choy & Quinoa (see below for more info on sesame and bok choy)
Treat: Gingerbread Brownies (Blackstrap molasses is surprisingly high in calcium, with 179 mg per tablespoon)

Join The Nutritional Reset community here to receive this month’s menu today (as well as each month to come)! And read on for some nutritional tidbits about a few foods featured in the recipes…

April 28, 2019

Dishing It Up for April 2019

Dishing It Up serves up a selection of stories, studies & so on from the world of wellness & nutrition each month.

In this month’s issue of Dishing It Up…

Why Science Can’t Seem to Tell Us How to Eat Right
Obesity might soon replace tobacco as top cause of cancer…
Are meal delivery kits healthy?
Putting Down Your Phone May Help You Live Longer
The Breathing App / Resonance Breathing

Here’s a taste of each from the sampler platter…

April 14, 2019

Liver Lovin’ Menu

You could say this Liver Lovin’ Menu delivers the ABCs of detoxification:
A for Alliums (garlic & onions)
B for Brassicas (kale, arugula, radish, broccolini, aka Crucifers)
C for Cardoons (artichokes) & Chenopodiaceae (beetroots)

I briefly discuss artichokes and beetroots below in this month’s featured foods. And I don’t even attempt to pronounce the Latin name of the family to which beetroots belong. 😉

Too often detoxification is mistaken for deprivation. With this Liver Lovin’ Menu, I show that you can eat deliciously while providing your liver with the nutrients needed to support its role as “detoxifier-in-chief”.

Sign up here to receive the recipes. I hope you enjoy them! And I invite you to share these recipes with your family and friends!

Liver Lovin’ Menu

Breakfast: Mexican Egg Scramble (a spicy scramble of liver lovin’ eggs, onion, garlic, kale, turmeric and cilantro…con salsa)
Lunch: Citrusy Beet Salad (a tangle of crunchy, colourful and liver-revitalizing beets, citrus, radish and arugula atop a bed of quinoa and chickpeas)
Dinner: One Pan Mediterranean Trout (artichokes star in this dish) & Lemony Broccolini (for a deliciously detoxifying side)

Most importantly, don’t forget to stay hydrated throughout the day. Water makes up 73% of your liver, so you need enough water for the liver to keep working its magic.

Join The Nutritional Reset community here to receive this month’s menu today (as well as each month to come)! And read on for some nutritional tidbits about a few featured foods from the recipes…

April 7, 2019

Tips for Satisfying Slumber

In last week’s post, Don’t Snooze, You Lose. Sleep to Your Health!, I discussed the health implications of insufficient sleep. This week, I cover how you know if you are getting enough sleep and provide some tips for satisfying slumber to improve the quantity and quality of your sleep.

Before we dive in, I’d like to offer one last tidbit of food for thought on how important sleep must be for us as a species. Did you know that when you are in REM (rapid eye movement) sleep all the voluntary muscles in your body are completely paralyzed? Think for a moment about how vulnerable this makes us during sleep. We require 7 to 8 hours of sleep per night. So for 20% to 25% of that time (approximately 1.5 to 2 hours) we are completely vulnerable to attack by predators. This would make no sense from an evolutionary perspective unless sleep conveyed some very important advantages. Something to sleep on!

So how do you know if you are having truly satisfying slumber?

March 30, 2019

Don’t Snooze, You Lose. Sleep to Your Health!

Diet, exercise and sleep are often grouped together as a sort of “holy trinity” of wellness. Being a nutritionist, I focus largely on diet but, as a holistic nutritionist, I also counsel my clients on how important quality sleep, stress reduction (be the stress physical, mental or environmental) and appropriate exercise is for health.

To me, however, sleep is more than just one third of the trinity. Sleep is the absolute foundation of wellness. A chronically under-slept person is unlikely to have the time or energy to make sound nutritional choices or exercise. And, as you will see, poor sleep leads to a cascade of physiological effects that significantly impair health.

As a result, it is one of the first things I discuss with my clients. “Sleep to your health”, I say (in place of the old adage “drink to your health”)!

So often, being told to do something (like eat more vegetables) because “it’s good for you” is not enough. Sometimes you need scare tactics to drive the point home. I didn’t religiously wear my night guard to protect my teeth until my dentist casually mentioned my molars might crumble. Now that had impact! So, in that spirit, I lay out the myriad reasons why, if you don’t snooze, you lose.

March 24, 2019

Dishing It Up for March 2019

Dishing It Up serves up a selection of stories, studies & so on from the world of wellness & nutrition each month.

In this month’s issue of Dishing It Up…

Kale is a Surprise on 2019’s ‘Dirty Dozen’ List
It Won’t Be an Egg That Kills You
Stay Away From Sugary Sodas, Spare Your Heart
Bigger, Saltier, Heavier: Fast Food Since 1986 in 3 Simple Charts
6 Moves to Relieve and Prevent Wrist Pain

Here’s a taste of each from the sampler platter…

March 7, 2019

A Duo of Dreamland Dinners

So many people come to me looking to improve their sleep that I decided to devote the blog post coming later this month to the significance of slumber. Just as there are foods and beverages that disrupt sleep (hello spicy and fatty food, caffeine and alcohol!), there are foods that promote a restful night. To whet your appetite, I have dished up a duo of dreamland dinners (à deux) serving several foods that may help you drift off to sleep. Sign up to receive the recipes.

I hope this leaves you hungry for my upcoming blog post, Don’t Snooze, You Lose, where I will discuss why quality sleep is so vital to our health and well-being. I will also offer nutrition and lifestyle tips for a better night’s sleep. In the meantime, enjoy the recipes (just not with wine or coffee if you want some satisfying shut-eye) and I invite you to share them with family and friends!

A Duo of Dreamland Dinners

Dinner 1

Slow Cooker Lamb & White Bean Stew (because this is made in a slow cooker, the recipe serves 4 – enough to serve up a second time). Before serving, I like to chop up some chard or other leafy greens and stir them in to the stew just until they wilt. This adds colour and amps up the magnesium content and magnesium is great for relaxation!
Warm Apples with Cinnamon

Dinner 2