Is Nutritional Therapy Right For You?
Are you struggling with not feeling your best? Maybe you’re stressed out, suffering from brain fog, fatigue, or digestive issues. Perhaps you just got diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder and you’re wondering, “how did this happen”, or maybe you think it’s just fate because it’s genetic. While these symptoms are normalized in our society, they aren’t normal. All of this (and more) is your body's way of telling you something is out of balance.
By allowing a nutritional therapy practitioner to guide you to better health, you will begin to learn that you don’t need to live with these symptoms and genetic diseases or disorders do not have to be inevitable. All this can be prevented by looking at your health from a holistic perspective. Here is a brief summary of what a nutritional therapy practitioner does and why looking at nutrition from a foundational approach may just work for you.
what is nutritional therapy?
The Nutritional Therapy Association describes this practice as one which “centers on the idea that real health can be achieved through a holistic and bio-individual approach to nutrition and lifestyle” (Nutritional Therapy Association, 2021). In nutritional therapy, the practitioner will get to know you, the client, the symptoms or issues that are unique to you, and use nutritional foundations to support your journey. They understand that everyone is different and will have a different path, so a bio-individual approach is necessary. It is a collaborative effort in which your practitioner will work with you to meet you where you’re at, and guide you at a pace you are comfortable with. That said, you should be ready to embrace change. Whether it be a habit, lifestyle or diet choice, it’s up to you to decide how ready you are to commit to this change, and you’ll get out of it what you put in.
What are nutritional foundations?
Through the practice of nutritional therapy, you’ll learn that many of the issues we face today stem from a depletion of nutrients within our bodies, due to our modern world and diet. While nutrition does not tell the total picture, it certainly plays a huge role in how our body functions, or lacks function. Chronic diseases are on the rise today, and poor nutrition is a huge contributor of this. If you decide to go the route of nutritional therapy your practitioner will work with you to restore any nutritional foundations that may be out of balance. The foundations are important pillars of nutrition that work hand in hand to ensure proper function in our bodies to make this possible. The six nutritional foundations are:
A properly prepared nutrient dense diet
Digestion
Blood Sugar Regulation
Fatty Acids
Mineral Balance
Hydration
Let’s explore in more detail why the foundations are so important, and how to properly support them.
Properly Prepared, Nutrient Dense Diet
Nutrition plays a huge factor in maintaining a healthy lifestyle so the goal is to eat a properly prepared nutrient dense diet. This is a diet rich in macronutrients (carbohydrates, protein and fat) and micronutrients (minerals and vitamins). Eating a colorful whole food diet, filled with a variety of organic vegetables, organic fruit, quality protein from plant and animal sources, fat from healthy oils and animal sources, whole grains, nuts and seeds will ensure that your body is getting all the nutrients it needs to thrive. Choosing organic will ensure your food has little pesticide residue, but if the thought of switching your entire grocery list to all organic is overwhelming, a great tool to use when buying produce is using the Environmental Working Groups (EWG) Clean Fifteen and Dirty Dozen. Produce on the Clean Fifteen list will naturally have less pesticide residue, while the Dirty Dozen items will be known to have more pesticides so should be purchased organic. Here’s the full list:
Clean Fifteen: Avocados, sweet corn, pineapple, onions, papaya, frozen peas, eggplant, asparagus, cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, honeydew melon, cantaloupe, kiwi, and mushrooms.
Dirty Dozen: strawberries, spinach, kale, nectarines, peaches, grapes, apples, cherries, pears, tomatoes, celery, potatoes, hot peppers (EWG, 2020).
When grocery shopping, make it a goal to read the ingredient labels on processed or packaged foods for non-food additives used to preserve freshness, dangerous oils (more on this in the fatty acids section) and large amounts of added sugar. The way you prepare your food is also important. Many plant foods like seeds, nuts, grains and legumes contain anti-nutrients called lectins and phytic acid so they require special preparation in order to reduce toxins and assure nutrient density and digestibility. Soaking and sprouting is a common method used to prepare many plant foods.
Digestion
You’ve probably heard “you are what you eat”, but it should be changed to “you are what you digest”. Digestion is a north to south process that begins in the brain and ends with the large intestine. Each process of digestion needs to carry out it’s designated function in order for the body to properly digest the nutrients from our food. When someone suffers digestive dysfunction, they may not be absorbing nutrients causing deficiencies. Digestion is not just about what you eat, but how. Our fast paced on-the-go lifestyles that cause us to eat quick mindless meals is another major stress to our digestive system. If food is not fully chewed it does not digest well causing indigestion, gas, bloating and other symptoms of digestive distress which can worsen over time. Today many suffer from a variety of digestive symptoms such as food allergies or sensitivities, irritable bowel syndrome, nutrient deficiencies, and leaky gut. We can improve this by eating more mindfully, chewing our food properly and eating nutrient dense foods that will feed our bodies beneficial bacteria.
Fatty Acids
There’s a common myth that fat in your diet is bad for you, and will cause you to be fat, or cause health problems like high blood pressure and cholesterol. But fat itself is not the problem, rather it is the type of fat being consumed. As all of the other foundations mentioned above, our body needs healthy dietary sources of fat for a variety of reasons, here are some of the most important:
Fats are the building blocks of our cells and hormones
Fats are needed for the body to absorb essential vitamins A, D, E & K.
Fats give you energy
Fats keep you satiated and full
Fats help your food taste better
The best fats to consume will be those that come from quality, sources and have the proper omega 3 to omega 6 ratio. A few sources of those fats would be oils like olive oil, coconut oil, avocado oil, fat from grass-fed beef, butter, pastured pork, fish like salmon, egg yolks, nuts and seeds, and avocados. Processed industrial seed and vegetable oils (like canola, soy, cottonseed and corn) and margarine should be avoided.
Mineral Balance
Minerals are crucial to our overall health, and unlike vitamins which our bodies can produce and create, minerals can only be obtained through food or supplementation. This is one of the many reasons eating a nutrient dense diet is so important. Minerals play some of the following roles; contracting and relaxing muscles, regulating tissue growth, acting as cofactors (helpers) for enzyme reactions (these allow you to digest nutrients from food), providing structural and functional support. Most people are deficient in calcium, iodine, iron, magnesium and zinc, with calcium being supremely important for bone health and regrowth. Unfortunately, while most people consume enough calcium through food, they do not have enough of the cofactors, or helpers that allow them to absorb it. In order for one to properly absorb calcium hormones need to be functioning properly, we need other minerals to help support the process as well as certain vitamins, receiving the proper fatty acids and properly functioning digestion.
Hydration
One of the most important nutrients we need to survive is water, some will even argue it is the MOST important of nutrients. Hydration is critical because it plays many key roles in our bodies. Here are some of the roles that water plays in the body; absorbs shocks to joints and organs, lubricates joints, transports nutrients to cells, regulates body temperature, removes wastes; flushes toxins and enables digestion. Unfortunately, many of us are chronically dehydrated, which means these important roles aren’t being carried out properly. An early sign of dehydration is fatigue, as it gets worse, digestive, immune, cardiovascular, and musculoskeletal issues may occur. While the hydration needs will be different from person to person, listen to your body and drink water upon feeling fatigue, a headache, tense or anxious. Sip water throughout the day and check to make sure your urine is light yellow or straw colored. Important water tip: if you drink filtered water through the process of reverse osmosis, add a sprinkle of good quality sea salt or mineral drops to your water to ensure the minerals removed in the filtering process are added back.
Ready to give holistic nutrition a try?
So far we have covered what nutritional therapy is, how it works, and what the six nutritional foundations are which will be addressed on your journey to wellness. While these ideas may be new to you, they are backed by science and ancestral wisdom and have helped millions of people, including myself. Having better health outcomes is not easy for most, but it is a simple process. All it takes is a little bit of education, and getting back to basics, eating real, whole food that will nourish your body and make you feel amazing.
