Clarity Wellness

  I noticed this morning during my walk that I was ravenously hungry about an hour into it. This doesn't usually happen to me. I can typically go all morning without a twinge of hunger. However, I've had a couple of weeks of not-so-low-carb eating and I can definitely tell a difference! Give me a teacher appreciation donut, some graduation cake, or a couple of pizza slices with the kids, and boom! I'm right back on the blood sugar rollercoaster.  You know how I can tell? I wake up in the middle of the night a hot mess, I run hot periodically throughout the day, my brain is foggy, my running injuries are aching, my nose is stuffy, and I'm hungry more often than usual. I'd like to think that I can have a little bit of sugar and feel ok, but every experiment fails and I find myself scrambling to get off the rollercoaster and back onto solid ground. Here are some key ways I've found to get back on track and feel better soon. Get it out of your house (and work...

Who doesn't love to eat? We look forward to holidays when we know our favorite foods will be served.  We love to eat out and try new things we don't usually cook ourselves.  Some of us even like to bake for fun on a lazy Sunday afternoon.  Unfortunately, though, that can catch up to us when we eat too much or eat things that aren't especially nutrient dense.   I am totally guilty of this.  I have a terrible habit of trying things off my kids' plates just because I just like to try new tastes.  I love to go beer and wine tasting with friends and family.  I love to bake, and even though the things I usually make these days are technically healthier options, they often lead to overeating.  Five grain-free/sugar-free blueberry muffins are still too much. I would love it if there were an easy answer to this problem.  We humans are programmed to look for pleasure, and eating provides a lot of pleasure.  Here are a few things that have wor...

I really could care less who wins the Super Bowl.  I've never been much of a football fan, but I do love a good Super Bowl party.  I'm totally in it for the company, the food, the commercials, and the halftime show. I only wish it was Super Bowl Saturday instead of Sunday.  Or make Super Bowl Monday a national holiday.  But I digress... For many, the Super Bowl party marks the beginning of the end of a great streak of healthy eating .  You make it all the way through January eating clean, exercising, and maybe even abstaining from alcohol.  Then along comes the Super Bowl and wham!  All those yummy treats start you on a slide that continues through heart-shaped boxes of chocolate, Mardi Gras beignets, and Spring Break beach drinks.  It's the holiday season 2.0.   So what do you do? First and foremost, make a plan .  Don't let it take you by surprise.  Make sure that plan is reasonable and doable.  Recognize the p...

We’ve already talked about the three questions to ask yourself when you’re eating .   Those were all about the mindfulness  side of eating.  Here are three ways to make sure you’re regulating your blood sugar and nourishing your body--in other words, the physiological side of what goes in your mouth.   Both are incredibly important, and often overlap.   Do these things and your inflammation levels will go down, your cravings will subside, your hormone levels will regulate, and you might even lose weight! Number one: Control your carbs. Carbohydrates are the one macronutrient that we really don’t need.   If we don’t ingest glucose, our bodies will make it.   If we don’t have enough glucose in our bloodstreams, our bodies will learn to run on ketones made from fatty acids.   That said, there are a lot of good things about vegetables and fruits that we can’t deny—they provide fiber and vitamins, and help our bodies detox.   Just try to ...

  It's easy to get frustrated when it comes to health and nutrition.  We try so hard to follow a healthy eating plan.  We work out as much as we can.  We try to do all the "right" things, and sometimes they work for a while until they don't.  At that point it's easy to just give up and skip the workout, stay up late eating popcorn and ice cream, and have that extra margarita with your friends.  You get down on yourself, you feel like nothing will ever work, and you're resigned to holding on to that Covid 19 that you gained over the last couple of years. For me it often happens after I've lost a few pounds during the week, then go out for dinner and drinks Saturday night.  Sunday morning I wake up having gained back everything I lost, and sometimes more.  Was it the wine?  The salad with cheese and questionable ingredients?  Was it the little piece of bread I snuck from the bread basket, thinking that one little slice wouldn't hurt? Inste...

Picture this: you're craving the chocolate bar that's hiding in your cupboard, so in an attempt to satisfy the craving, you eat a handful of nuts.  That doesn't work, so you make a keto mug cake that you found on Pinterest and eat that.  Nope.  Still want that chocolate.  So you try some almond butter mixed with a little cacao powder.  Then some Greek yogurt.  Then some cheese.  Nope. Nope. Nope.  What could possibly calm that craving?  Ummm...maybe a little piece of chocolate?  Unfortunately now you've eaten a whole day's worth of food when that's all it would have taken. That's called "eating around" food.  You've heard that if you want something sweet you should eat something with artificial sweeteners instead.  Or if you want something salty and crunchy you should reach for the celery sticks. And yes, often when we crave something it's indicative of something our body needs--whether it's salt (electrolytes), quick energy (c...

  The holidays bring up all sorts of emotions for us—the good, bad, and the ugly.   Along with those emotions, there’s a lot of eating going on.   We eat to celebrate, to soothe ourselves, and sometimes even when we’re hungry. 😊 Do stress and eating go hand in hand for you?   Find yourself reaching for the chips or chocolate when things get rough?   I know that for me, just the thought of a difficult conversation can make me reach for the nuts (giggle, giggle!)   It also happens when something suddenly doesn’t go according to plan.   And again it happens when I’m just waiting for something or someone and I’m mindlessly scrolling through my phone.   Sometimes it even happens when I’m working on a difficult project that requires a lot of brain power.   The crunchiness seems to help my mind work better. I’m sure there’s some science behind it somewhere. I know I've written about this in several other posts, but I also know that we often ha...

  This time of year can pass in a blur.  We get so busy making things merry and bright, rushing from party to party, cooking food and buying gifts, that we forget to stop and enjoy the moments.  We stop paying attention.  Then one day we wake up and find that we’ve put on five extra pounds, our joints are achy, our heads are a little stuffy, and despite the fact we feel like we could nap at any time, we are wired—either on caffeine or adrenaline (or a combination of both!) and eager to rush to the next thing planned. I had this happen already last week.   I enjoyed Thanksgiving with friends and family, then another Thanksgiving meal with relatives, then a tailgate party—all lots of fun, but they took a toll on me.   There may have been a few drinks involved, a piece of pie or two, and some other foods that I know I should be more careful with (gluten, I’m looking at you!)   I had used the Holiday Loophole .   You know the one:   I only e...

We are all emotional eaters at some level. We eat to celebrate, we eat to comfort ourselves, and we eat when we're bored or anxious.  Sometimes we just eat because everyone else is, and we want to be a part of the group.  We can even eat very healthy foods, but as emotional eaters, we tend to eat too much of that healthy food (Hello, nuts!) when we're not really hungry. That still leads to bloating, sluggishness, and that icky feeling of self-incrimination like we blew it, once again. Throughout my life I have experienced many levels of emotional eating.  I eat when I'm bored, when I'm triggered by a stressful exchange with a family member, when I'm trying to think hard on a project I'm working on (um, blogposts...), when I'm celebrating with friends, when I'm nervous about being around new people, when I'm anxious about the state of affairs in the world, when I don't know what else to do with myself, when I'm feeling overwhelmed and tired, w...

According to Gretchen Rubin in her book Better than Before , there are two types of people: abstainers and moderators.  Abstainers do better with an all or nothing approach to life, while moderators function better with the freedom to have a little of everything.  Knowing your tendency helps you build successful habits into your everyday life. I personally am an abstainer when it comes to sugar.  I have never understood the people who can have a jar of candy on their desks.  If there is candy in my house it calls out to me from wherever it is hidden until I succumb to its siren song.  If I start eating the sweet stuff--even just a little bit--I start craving it constantly and have to remove it from my environment (usually by eating the rest of it!)  It's much easier for me if I just never have it.  Now I'm not saying there are no sweets in my house, they just belong to other people, and as long as I understand that, it's not a problem.  The proble...

  Are you struggling with sugar?  You know it's bad for you, but you just can't give it up? You stop eating it for a few days, and then your daughter decides to make brownies, or your friends bring over cookies, or you go to a birthday party where, of course, there is plenty of cake.  And boom! You're back on the sugar train. Sound familiar? Sugar is like a bad boyfriend.   You know the one.  He's bad news, but is oh, so charming!  You break up with him and swear that this time it's forever, until he shows up at a party and you have a great time together, rehashing old memories. Of course, the next morning you feel terrible and regret letting him back into your life.  Then he shows up again when you are feeling a little down, he smiles at you with those adorable crinkles at the corners of his eyes, and yes!  You're gone again. Prey to the knowledge that he will make you feel better--if only for a little while. Sugar gives us a dopamine rush , sim...

In an effort to keep the Christmas spirit alive and well this year, I baked all the usual cookies and treats:  buckeyes, fudge, caramels, snowball cookies, chocolate crinkles, ginger snaps... Everyone has a different favorite, of course, so I had to make them all, despite making proclamations that we would not go overboard this year and I was going to narrow down the list of things we would make.  I could try and make gluten-free, sugar-free versions, but what would be the point, really?  My kids wouldn't eat them, I would be stuck looking at them and feeling guilty that I wasted the time and money on them, and would feel obligated to eat them all myself.  Usually we make cookies and keep them in the freezer, doling them out little by little as we make our rounds of holiday parties.  This year, however, there are no parties to go to, and home baked treats are not as well-received as in years past. So...guess who's eating the cookies this year?  Yep, I fell ...