Clarity Wellness

  On my Saturday run last week I was listening to a podcast about nutrition and quickly found myself overwhelmed.   Now I’m a person who listens to this stuff on a regular basis so it shouldn’t have been a big deal.   It’s kind of my obsession.   However, in this case the person was talking about adjusting macros and calorie counts to lose weight, and the whole thing got quite complex.   It all made sense mathematically, I suppose, but in real life it sounded like a recipe for a mental breakdown.   Besides, the human body doesn’t necessarily follow mathematical rules .   There are a lot of variables to consider.   Are you stressed?    Well then, your body will produce more cortisol, which leads to insulin resistance.   Are you sleeping well?   If not, your body is looking for quick energy in the form of sugar and is probably insulin resistant. (We want our cells to work in harmony with insulin to process our blood sugar—n...

Are you having a hard time avoiding certain foods?   Are you trying to cut out sugar, grains, or dairy, but just can’t seem to fight the call of a mid-afternoon visit to the vending machine?   Maybe avoidance isn’t the answer for you. Maybe you need to make an “approach” goal instead of an “avoid” goal. What I mean by that is maybe your goal should be “I will drink 60 ounces of water a day.” Or maybe, “I will eat 100 grams of protein a day.” “I will eat two eggs per day.” “I will eat three cups of vegetables per day.” “I will spend 20 minutes outside each day.” “I will exercise 30 minutes each day.” You get the picture.  Set a goal for something you will do, not something you won't . Setting yourself up for success and celebrating the wins is always better than punishing yourself for the transgressions. These are all examples of goals I personally have for myself.   If I’m craving a cookie, I tell myself that if I’ve done all the other things I h...

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...

I've been digging deep into the work of Dr. Ted Naiman  and others lately about the importance of protein in our diets.   Protein is the most important macronutrient when it comes to building strong muscles and bones, and repairing tissues throughout the body. If you think about it in the most basic terms, we are made of protein, so doesn't it make sense that our bodies need a lot of it?   It is also the most satiating, which means that when you eat a lot of protein you will feel full longer, and won't be as likely to crave the not-so-nourishing foods later in the day. There is also a theory out there that the reason many of us overeat is that we are not getting enough protein, so we go looking for it in other food sources and keep eating until we either get enough or can't eat another bite. (The Protein Leverage Hypothesis--it's a real thing, look it up!)  Therefore, when we eat more protein, we aren't as hungry all the time, we feel better, we build muscl...

A good night’s sleep is important for so many reasons, and one of them is your body’s ability to lose or maintain weight. Have you ever noticed that your cravings for sweets and other carbs increase when you’re tired? Your body is looking for the quick energy they provide. When a person is sleep deprived, their insulin response to blood sugar decreases. This means that the sugar isn't cleared from your bloodstream as efficiently and your levels will be higher, which increases your ghrelin levels (the hunger hormone), which increases your appetite. Here are some proven strategies for getting more zzz’s. 1. Get more sunlight during the day.   Try to get out and get some sunlight in your eyes first thing in the morning to reset your circadian clock. Most of us could use more vitamin D, which is created by your own body when your skin is exposed to the midday sun (or through a quality supplement. My favorite is from PureVitaminClub.com ). 20-30 minutes is all it takes, but ...

I've been digging deep into the topic of emotional eating lately.  The pandemic hit a lot of us hard and we often ate to soothe our feelings while we were stuck at home.  Food was readily available and we weren't able to go out and do the things that might normally distract us from grazing all day.  We might have felt a lot of fear and anxiety that was easily comforted by eating our favorite foods.  I know at my house there were a lot of movie nights where popcorn, ice cream, and an alcoholic beverage or two made a frequent appearance. Now that we are able to roam a little more freely, and many of our fears have dissipated, we are still stuck with some extra pounds and eating habits that aren't serving us very well. One of the common themes that I have found in reading and talking to people is the feeling that we don't have control over our own lives anymore.  We don't have control over the virus, school, work, politics, other people and their behavior...and the...

If we want to build new habits around our health, it is often helpful to figure out what our anchor habits are first, and build from there.  B.J. Fogg likes to refer to anchor habits as those things that we already do every day without thinking about them--brushing our teeth, making our coffee, eating our breakfast.  If you want to build a new habit, tie it around one of those things.  For example, "While I brush my teeth I will do 20 squats," or "While my coffee is brewing I will do  some stretches in the kitchen."  That's a great ways to implement something new, but I look at anchor habits in a way that's a little closer to The One Thing philosophy touted by Gary Keller. He asks the question, "What's the One Thing I can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?"  I've always had a hard time wrapping my head around this concept and narrowing it down to just one thing. I tend to have "One Things"...