Written by: Tracy Gowler, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
My focus as a Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner has been Autoimmune Disease, particularly Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis Autoimmune Disease. I have had an opportunity to talk to many people over the last several years about health and from their perspective what supporting health foundationally looks like. I have found in my work and education that the level of dysfunction in your body, big or little doesn’t matter. There is a bottom line to being healthy for everyone and the majority of people don’t get it right.
What better place to start than the bottom line?
Your body is an amazing, scientific, and I wanted to say experiment but the function of the body and the way all the pieces work together in a complete and perfect orchestration is not really an experiment. It truly is an amazing machine. You have your own unique orchestra based on your genetic makeup. Some of us are purer in our genetics, others of us more like mutts. Probably not the way you have thought about your body but the beauty of this contributes to my passion for health.
Your body’s ability to function as a well-oiled machine really lies in the way you support your health. The deck didn’t used to be stacked against you but every day the task of just staying healthy gets more and more difficult. Even those that really understand what it takes have a tough time without becoming militaristic and almost psycho to the outside observer about their health, their food, their space, etc. etc.
Besides the deck that the food industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the corporations, and environments that we live in stack against us. We stack our own decks against ourselves.
I stacked a pretty good deck against myself.
The reality is that I have worked very hard to create an environment for myself to be healthy within in my attempt to eliminate the deck I created. In the process of creating this environment, I have fallen down several times. I learned the hard way that as hard as you work at your health or think you are working at your health; it isn’t going to get you to the point of true health unless you are all in. It won’t work unless you commit 100%. If you aren’t all in, you are just spinning your wheels. Potentially delaying the inevitability of a chronic illness or autoimmune disease. And maybe even feeling ok for the short term but ultimately, partial efforts will not help you for long.
I do like to state things plainly and in saying this to you. You cannot half-ass your health.
Without the right foundational support, dysfunction will start to develop within the body. It can happen slowly, so it isn’t really noticeable at first. The dysfunction could start in your endocrine system or in your ability to metabolize fat or protein. It could be an issue with your neural tissue or your ability to detox. And because the body is so amazing, another area of the body will pick up the slack and compensate for that dysfunction.
But if you don’t do anything to correct the dysfunction, your organs and tissues start to morph. And by the time symptoms like headaches, joint pain, weight gain, gut issues, food sensitivities, fatigue, etc., etc. start to develop the dysfunction in your body is advanced. And once you have gotten to symptoms, your body needs help to get back to a place of health.
You are probably thinking is she ever going to get to the bottom line? Yep, I’m going to do it right now.
Health isn’t just exercising. I made that mistake. I thought I could undo everything else I did through exercise. This was a huge mistake.
I have since learned the foundation required to support health in your body is to master the following lifestyle factors.
Clean, Nutrient Dense Diet
Sleep/Rest
Exercise
Stress Management
You can’t support your health without managing every single one of these so let’s go through them starting with Diet. Your diet must be clean, nutrient dense and low in inflammatory foods.
When I say clean, I don’t mean you have washed it. I mean organic, free of pesticides and chemicals. Not canned or processed. You aren’t going to find the food that is best for you in a box or a bag. The way you shop the grocery store must change. It means most of your shopping will be on the outside edges of your grocery store. Your food becomes clean protein, organic vegetables and fruits, healthy fats, and healthy carbs. And you steer clear of all the processed crap in the middle aisles.
And elimination of the highly inflammatory foods is crucial. Gluten, dairy, and sugar.
Do you hate me now? Ya, maybe.
Inflammation is at the root of illness in your body so why would you put the highest inflammatory foods in your body?
I didn’t say this would be easy, but it is simple. I always tell my clients to choose your hard. It’s all hard. Being sick is hard. Being healthy is hard. At least there is light at the end of the healthy tunnel. There is no light at the end of the sick tunnel.
Start with Diet because it can be the toughest of the lifestyle factors to master but it can also be the most impactful in the way you feel.
Sleep is equally important as diet. Your body requires 7-9 hours every night. Every hour of sleep that you can get before midnight is like sleeping 2 hours after midnight. That doesn’t mean you sleep less; it just means the hours before midnight are extremely beneficial. The processes in your body are very different at night than what is happening during the day. For instance, your liver must detox. If you aren’t sleeping enough to allow that to happen, you have big problems. All those toxins will stay in your body and next thing you know you have a clogged liver. Heart function is helped with intracellular calcium release. The blood supply to your muscles increase. Energy is restored. Etc., etc. So, get to bed.
Let’s move onto exercise.
It is so easy to exercise in a way that is actually stressing your body more than benefitting it. There is no need to be a body builder or a marathon runner to have exercise benefit your body. If that’s your thing, that’s wonderful but you must support your body the right way to ensure it isn’t adding additional dysfunction.
Thirty minutes a day is a great plan. Lean muscle exercises for 3 of the days and you don’t need weights to benefit your body. some cardio a couple of times a week. Burst cardio is awesome and easier on the body. And having 1-2 days of slow moment like Yoga or Tai Chi is also highly recommended. It is just so important to move every day.
I always talk about stress last. Stress can be just as tough to tackle as diet. Our lives can require an overhaul to improve the stressful way that we live. And self-care is usually on the backburner for many of us.
Not all stress is bad. The good stress is called Eustress. It fuels you and gives you passion.
Distress is obviously the opposite of Eustress, and this is the focus of this discussion. It can be mental, physical, chemical, or environmental and it all affects the body negatively.
When you have too much stress in your life, the stress response becomes your new normal and you become chronically stressed. The response gets burned in. This place of chronic stress contributes to disease and contributes to the dysfunction in your body.
Stress can be either external or internal.
External stressors are things like arguments with your spouse/partner or kids. Traffic or just driving can be a significant stressor. I try to convince myself that I’m just letting it all out behind the wheel but no, its just stress. Haha. Politics these days is incredibly stressful.
But the reality is, how it affects us is all on us. It doesn’t have to. We run around giving others free rent in our heads and we can stop that anytime we want. For the most part, we can find ways to control the amount we allow it to affect us. External stressors are your job and if you can manage that, you are going a long way to reduce your stress.
Internal stressors are a bigger issue. They are things like poor food choices, food sensitivities, chemical toxicity, heavy metal toxicity, pathogens which create infection in the body, hormone imbalance etc. These are not something you can determine on your own, so help is required to begin what is referred to in engineering as the root cause analysis. Basically, getting down to the nitty gritty if needed. There is an order of evaluation, and you will need some help to manage your internal stressors. But that is a big discussion for another day.
That is a lot of information, and it can feel terribly overwhelming. If you are a Type A overachiever, you are going to want to do this all at once. What I highly recommend is that you don’t overwhelm yourself. You start slow. And you start with diet. A Paleo diet is a very good place to begin your health journey. You can find lots of information out there about eating Paleo and if you just follow the recipes you find, you won’t have to think so hard about what you have to do. Just follow the recipes. It provides all the right nutrients for your body to thrive. Take 30 days to incorporate it slowly. And then give your body 90 days to get used to it.
I did say that supporting health in your body was simple but not always easy. Your mind is what will let you down, time and time again. It will be the reason you aren’t successful. So, mind your mind as you head down the path of health. Commit to it and take it slow as you adjust to the foundation that is required for health.
I’m excited to be here with you all and I look forward to sharing more information with all of you.
Have a great rest of your day.
Tracy Gowler, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Autoimmune expert and Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner, Tracy Gowler, has experienced debilitating fatigue, brain fog, and completely lost her quality of life because of autoimmune illness. By combining the skills from 20 years as a mechanical engineer, over 30 years as a project manager, and 5 years as an FDN practitioner, Tracy has healed herself and become a Sherlock Holmes of autoimmune. Realizing there is a structure to the healing process, she has created programs that allow clients to take it slow and steady in a format that allows clients to be successful. It isn't a pin the tail on the donkey approach. It is deliberate and each step makes progress for her clients. She is completely passionate about what she does and is determined to educate as many women as possible on what it really means to be healthy.
