Feeling lousy?  I hear a lot of my peers talking about how they feel run-down, not quite themselves, and have put on weight.  I’ve taken some information from an article that I held onto from a couple years back that I found quite interesting.  

In More magazine, the journalist is interviewing Frank Lipman, MD, author of Spent:  End Exhaustion and Feel Great Again, on the steps we can take to feel ourselves again.

In a nutshell, he believes not feeling well is due to an inbalance in the body.  This could be from not sleeping enough, not having enough access to nature, and not eating nourishing foods.

He goes on to say that the digestive system is the core of overall health.  Yes, it absorbs vital nutrients, but it also houses 60 percent of our immune system.  The digestive system links to the nervous system and is in direct chemical communication with the brain.  

Dr. Lipman is a proponent of reducing refined carbohydrates as they give you a burst of energy and then you crash.  That drop in blood sugar spurs your adrenal glands to produce cortisol and the adrenal glands can get overworked.  

He also claims that sugar chemically alters the proteins in your body and can lead to wrinkles and a loss of elasticity in the skin due to a process called glycosylation.  The end products of this process, AGEs, are what cause the increased skin aging.  Yuk!

Lipman, advocates having a healthy breakfast and loves whey protein and advocado for women.  Whey protein contains Cysteine, a precurser to Glutathione, an antioxident that may help boost the immune system, and advocado provides healthy Omega-3 fats.  

His advice is to have a large lunch and a small dinner filled with high-fiber carbs.  The large lunch coincides with the digestive system working at its peak, and the dinner’s high fiber helps to repair tissues and detoxify organs as you sleep.  

This all sounds reasonable to me though not always easy to execute.  I have tips on getting better sleep on another blog post: https://jamiegallo.com/blog/f/the-importance-of-sleep-dd73c36a36be

Clearing the house of sugary foods will go a long way in decreasing overall consumption.  Having to get in the car to get ice cream or cookies is never fun.  Sometimes some fruit or a little jam on toast will do the trick.  

He also likes people to take their shoes off when they get home to not bring in toxins from the  outside.  My kids do this freely but I tried everything and my husband still won’t take them off.  I even tried offering house shoes.  

The trio method is about balance and perspective.  My husband has been putting money in a college fund for the kids since birth, calls to see if we need milk, and makes himself available if needed.  It a lot easier to not sweat the small stuff so if he  wants to leave his shoes on, so be it.  :)  

Information for this blog post was taken from More magazine,  Dec/Jan.  2009