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5 Tips for Healthier Holiday Parties

December 6, 2016 by Christina Najjar Leave a Comment

This week, guest blogger Esther Avant provides great tips that can easily be applied for healthier holiday parties that you can still enjoy!

Making habit changes is tricky business under the best of circumstances. But the holiday season can make it especially difficult for you to consistently engage in the behaviors that you know are in your best interest. I’m here to help.

5 Tips for healthier holidays

Chew gum

Pop in a fresh piece right before you arrive at a party and right after you finish eating to prevent yourself from snacking from the minute you walk in til the second you walk out.

Wait until the buffet has been picked through

Hearty dishes are never more appealing than when they’ve yet to be violated by the serving spoon. Those crunchy and/or cheesy tops are enticing when they’re fresh but become a lot easier to resist once they’ve been picked through.

Keep visual evidence of what you’ve consumed

As someone who has spent years working in the service industry, I can tell you first-hand (and this is also backed up by research) that you eat and drink more when you clear away the evidence of what you’ve already had. For healthier holiday parties, keep reminders like empty bottles, wrappers, skewers, or bones to stay mindful of your intake.

Make your plate as colorful as possible

Commit to “taste the rainbow,” so that you have no choice but to go heavy on fruits and veggies. This will also cut down on the various-shades-of-brown dishes (casseroles, etc) that are likely higher in sugar and fat.

Wear a belt or form-fitting clothing

Dressing up will make you feel better and more confident. But additionally, wearing something less potato-sack-esque will help you avoid overeating. Resist the urge to wear your elastic “eating pants” from now until 2017.

Bonus mindset tip: Don’t fall prey to the all-or-nothing mentality

A few indulgences will not set you back. A minor slip-up is not an excuse to go completely off the rails for the rest of the day/week/month/year. It’s what you do consistently that makes the biggest impact so don’t throw in the towel after a misstep, just accept it, forgive yourself, and carry on.

If you found these tips useful, I’ve got a bunch more to share in my free Holiday Resource Bundle. Click the button below to access it.
Holiday Resource Bundle

Esther Avant shares tips for healthier holiday partiesEsther Avant is a Personal Trainer and Nutrition Coach. She works with women remotely through her company Esther Avant Wellness Coaching. She helps her clients lose weight, become healthier, happier, and more confident by making sustainable changes to their day-to-day lives!

Esther take a holistic approach with clients. She truly believes you can completely change your health by improving your nutrition and making the decision to live actively. Connect with Esther on Instagram and Facebook.

What are your tips for healthier holiday parties? Tell us in the comments!

Filed Under: Articles & Tips Tagged With: blood sugar balance, candida, diabetes, digestive health, healthy holidays, PCOS, PMS, weight loss

7 Easy Ways to Eat More Healthy Fats

November 29, 2016 by Christina Najjar Leave a Comment

Almost everyone would benefit from adding more healthy fats to their diet. This is especially true for those with conditions where blood sugar levels fluctuate a lot, such as PCOS and diabetes. Fats from healthy sources help slow down your body’s absorption of sugars in your food. They also help your cells better listen to your hormones.

Use the following tips to increase your intake of healthy fats. And don’t worry about possibly gaining weight. Healthy fats have too many functions in your body to simply be stored as fat for future energy (unlike unhealthy fats).

7 Easy ways to eat more healthy fats

Add nut butters to smoothies

Are you making smoothies for breakfast or after workouts? Use a chocolate protein powder and add a tablespoon of nut butter to make it nut butter cup flavoured. Alternatively, you can add a tablespoon of chia seeds, hemp hearts, or coconut oil to your smoothies to boost the fat content.

Put a dollop of coconut oil or sesame oil to your food

Planning to make a stir fry or steam some vegetables? Sauté or steam your dish with water, and add some coconut oil or sesame oil at the end for extra flavour. Waiting until the end to add the fats will keep them in their healthy form.

Include some avocado on your plate

Making a meal that just doesn’t require fat? Add some avocado slices to your plate as a side. Some vitamins can only be absorbed when consumed with fat. Because avocados can be expensive, all you need is 1/4 or 1/2 of an avocado.

Yolks have healthy fats!

Are you eating egg white omelettes to boost your protein while keeping cholesterol down? Eating more cholesterol won’t increase your cholesterol levels. Your body produces most of its cholesterol for hormones, and as a protective mechanism. Egg yolks not only have healthy fats, but they’re also incredibly nutrient dense.

Eat a handful of almonds

If you’re looking at your plate and see nothing but vegetables, lean protein, and/or grains, save a bit of room for a handful of almonds. You don’t need much – 10 almonds or so will do.

Take a fish oil

A good quality fish oil is a great supplement for most people. It’s an anti-inflammatory, it helps anxiety, depression concentration, diabetes, hormonal issues, and makes skin and hair healthier. It’s also a natural blood thinner, so it should be avoided if already taking blood thinners. If your meal is lacking healthy fats, take a teaspoon of fish oil with your meal.

Make a dip for vegetables

Are you eating vegetables without fats? As previously mentioned, some nutrients can only be absorbed into your body if eaten with fats. Make an easy dip for your vegetables by combining tahini with lemon, or make hummus or a curry dip.

Which strategies are you using to boost the healthy fat content of your meals?

Filed Under: Articles & Tips Tagged With: adrenal fatigue, blood sugar balance, candida, diabetes, digestion, healthy fats, inflammation, PCOS, PMS, weight loss

You Absolutely Should Not Ignore Your PMS Symptoms

November 15, 2016 by Christina Najjar Leave a Comment

When you spend a lot of time studying a subject, it’s easy to think that everyone knows what you know about that subject. I find PMS fascinating because you can learn a lot about a person’s health simply by looking at their PMS symptoms. I had forgotten that most of those who experience PMS simply see it as an inconvenience or a dreaded time of the month.

Why you shouldn't ignore PMS symptoms

In reality, PMS is so much more than a pain or an inconvenience. It’s actually a red flag for health. This is easy to forget because according to the latest estimates, as many as 85% of the menstruating population experiences PMS symptoms of some kind.

This figure is alarming, especially when you think of what PMS can indicate. But it should come as no surprise as the rates of infertility, cancer, and autoimmune diseases rise.

I’ve mentioned before how PMS is highly connected to adrenal fatigue and digestive issues. However, I feel that it’s important to talk about what happens if these two main roots of PMS aren’t addressed.

Adrenal fatigue to PMS to cancer?

Adrenal fatigue is what happens to your body when you’ve been stressed for too long. Your adrenal glands produce many hormones in your body, including your stress hormones and sexual hormones.

When you’re consistently stressed, your body spends a lot of resources on stress hormones, especially cortisol. After a while, your body has to start choosing between producing cortisol and other hormones, such as progesterone. When cortisol and progesterone have to compete, cortisol tends to come out on top.

But even then, adrenal glands eventually run out of resources to support cortisol production. When adrenal fatigue has fully set in, both progesterone and cortisol levels can be too low.

Low progesterone is often behind PMS symptoms like cramps and dark blood at the beginning and/or the end of your period.

So how does that tie in to cancer?

Our cells use our DNA as instructions for everyday protein synthesis. Sometimes, mistakes pop up in our DNA, and that’s completely normal. Usually, the body fixes these mistakes when we relax. But when we are in a constant state of stress, the body cannot fix these mistakes. Our cells end up reading instructions to produce cancerous cells, instead.

PMS itself is not the cause of cancer. PMS warns us that something is malfunctioning somewhere. Popping a painkiller when your cramps hit will not address the potential adrenal fatigue. And, if that adrenal fatigue is ignored, the long term stress could just be the beginning of a tumour.

PMS and autoimmune diseases

The organisms in our gut play a large role in our overall health. In a healthy individual, the friendly organisms should highly outnumber the unfriendly organisms. But when they don’t, the unhealthy guys can takeover and cause just about any health issue you can think of.

When the liver deactivates excess estrogen, it needs to pass through the bowels to leave the body. When there are a lot of unfriendly organisms in the gut, they intercept that estrogen and reactivate it to pass it through the body again.

This is an issue because estrogen needs to be balanced out by progesterone. When there is too much estrogen, or what is called an estrogen dominance, it’s as if progesterone levels were too low. And as you know, low progesterone can equate to PMS symptoms.

So where do autoimmune diseases come in?

The disproportion of good to bad organisms in the gut can have all kinds of repercussions. An excess in unfriendly organisms can make the existing pores in the gut lining larger than they should be. These large pores then begin to let large particles into the bloodstream. Because those particles don’t belong there, the immune system has to launch repeated attacks.

An immune system that keeps having to work overtime can become very tired. Usually, the immune system knows how to recognize the body’s cells as its own. But, as it becomes tired, it starts to make mistakes, and can attack the body’s cells. This is what is known as autoimmunity.

So once again, PMS is not the cause of the bigger issue, but shares a root cause with that issue. So, while PMS is a pain in the butt, it’s a fantastic indicator of what’s going on in the body!

PMS symptoms as a warning sign of infertility

Your body has a lot of mechanisms that are necessary for immediate survival. In fact, the only body system that isn’t absolutely necessary to keep you alive is your reproductive system. When your body can’t come up with enough resources to run all its processes, the reproductive system is usually the first to misbehave.

As mentioned above, PMS is often a symptom of other important imbalances in the body. These imbalances often result in hormonal levels that are less than optimal. Because the female reproductive cycle is very delicate, it doesn’t take much to turn conception into a challenge.

As I keep repeating (like a broken record!), low progesterone levels are responsible for many PMS symptoms. In order to conceive naturally, you need to ovulate. Ovulation happens when progesterone levels begin to rise. But if your body can’t produce sufficient progesterone, it may struggle to ovulate.

I hope I’m helping you understand why you absolutely should not ignore your PMS symptoms. PMS is not just a monthly inconvenience. It’s a nice and loud message from your body.

Do you struggle with menstrual issues? Click the button below to join the FREE Nutrition for PMS, PCOS, and endometriosis group on Facebook.
Nutrition for PMS, PCOS, and endometriosis

Filed Under: Articles & Tips Tagged With: adrenal fatigue, cancer, digestion, IBS, infertility, inflammation, PCOS, PMS

Healthy Holidays: How to Stay on Track

October 25, 2016 by Christina Najjar Leave a Comment

It’s October 25th, which means that Christmas and other holidays will be coming up in the next two months. Some people may struggle to stay on track with their health during that time. In order to have healthy holidays, it’s important to think about a few things before the holiday season actually begins.

Start by deciding what your healthy holidays will look like. Come up with realistic health goals. Determine how much you want to allow yourself to indulge and try to stick to your plan. Don’t be critical of yourself, though. If you fall off track, acknowledge that you did so, and then kindly allow yourself to get back on track.

How to have healthy holidays and not gain weight

How to survive family dinners

If you’re hosting a dinner, tell guests what you would like them to bring. Make fewer side dishes to reduce the desire to overindulge and use smaller serving spoons to reduce how much of each dish you’re having. Keep the meal healthy by making mashed sweet potatoes instead of white potatoes, and making your gravy and stuffing from scratch. Stick to one tasty dessert, instead of a dessert buffet.

As a guest, your best bet is portion control. Start with less food on your first plate, and grab seconds if you still feel hungry. Or, you can fill your plate with vegetables and turkey, then have the treats like mashed potatoes and gravy once you’re a bit more full. Cut wine with soda water and save it for toasting. Set a limit on the number of holiday drinks like eggnog.

Prevent blood sugar fluctuations by eating throughout the day, as opposed to “saving your calories” for dinner. Otherwise, for days after, you could continue to put on weight, and experience cravings, mood swings, and fatigue.

Healthy holidays include healthy shopping

On a long day of shopping, drink warm lemon water in the morning. Eat a filling meal, including a good protein source that will help you stay full longer. Bring a healthy snack along with you, such as raw almonds or pumpkin seeds. If cooking healthy meals during that time seems impossible, cook ahead for leftovers, or prep and freeze ingredients.

You can also reduce the amount of shopping you need to do by agreeing with family and friends to reduce the amount of gifts or having a Secret Santa. My family has already agreed to my request to skip the gifts altogether this year. Instead, we’ll be making the holidays all about spending time with the people we love.

For gift exchanges, request to avoid sugary gifts like cookies and chocolate and opt for tea instead. Alternatively, you can ask for a membership to an activity you enjoy, or tickets to an enjoyable experience.

Address your stress

With the holiday season, stress levels tend to increase. This is an issue because stress increases belly fat and inflammation. It also uses up the body’s nutrients at a faster rate than in a relaxed state. Additionally, it reduces immunity and slows down digestion.

To counter the effects of stress, it is extremely important to allow yourself some time to relax and to get adequate amounts of sleep. Consider a pamper session with relatives, and schedule celebrations to allow for proper sleep. Avoid caffeine in the afternoon and consume alcohol in moderation. If you feel your stress levels go up, try these ways to destress in 30 seconds or less.

Very importantly, you’ll need to support your immune system as you consume more sugar and go through more stress. Try to include nutrient-dense foods in your diet such as eggs, green leafy vegetables, colourful vegetables, pumpkin seeds, and raw almonds. Eat immune supporting foods like turmeric, garlic, and fermented foods (such as sauerkraut).

What are you strategies to stay healthy during the holidays?

Filed Under: Articles & Tips Tagged With: adrenal fatigue, blood sugar balance, destress, healthy holidays, PCOS, PMS, weight loss

How to Make Stevia Taste Good in Recipes

October 18, 2016 by Christina Najjar Leave a Comment

Flipping to sugar free nutrition for health issues like PMS, PCOS, and digestive problems, among other issues, can seem impossible. This is especially true for those who have a sweet tooth. While many sugar-free sweeteners are just as bad or worse for you than sugar, stevia is actually a good alternative.

To pick out a good brand, make sure to read the ingredients. Many brands put all kinds of additives in their formula.

The issue with stevia is that for many people, it actually has a bitter or too sweet aftertaste. I really disliked it when I first tried it. Well, it turns out that it’s a bit of an acquired taste!

The other issue is that unlike most sweeteners, stevia doesn’t stand very well on its own. There is work that needs to be done to make it taste better in recipes. Since I’ve played around with the sugar free sweetener for a while, I’ve discovered different ways to make it taste better.

Sugar free stevia can taste good in recipes

Start with protein powder

Many sugar free protein powders are sweetened with Stevia. These formulas are put together to create a product that is as tasty as possible. Of course, some brands succeed at that better than others do. I really like the Vega Sport Performance chocolate powder. Some of their other products are far too sweet, but this one is amazing. The Genuine Health Fermented Vegan Proteins+ vanilla powder is another good one. It blends really nicely with all kinds of flavours. These powders will help you better adjust to the stevia taste.

Add other tastes

Combining a few of the basic tastes (sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami) actually makes stevia a bajillion times more enjoyable. I haven’t tried combining umami and sweet so I can’t attest to this one, but by including other tastes, stevia tastes so much better.

So how do you do that? If I’m making overnight oats, I add sea salt or pink Himalayan salt (it’s tasty, it contains all kinds of minerals, and I have low blood pressure). For acidity, I add a bit of pure lemon juice because the flavour is subtle. Then, I may add cocoa for bitterness. And finally, the stevia will take care of the sweetness.

Use liquid stevia

Most people who have experimented with stevia agree that using it in its liquid form is the tastiest. So, save yourself the trouble and don’t bother trying the powdered form. I like the NOW brand liquid stevia. It has less of that unpleasant aftertaste than the powdered form does.

Combine it with xylitol

The two sweeteners seem to work really well together. I specifically recommend xylitol because it is also technically sugar free. However, those simply looking to reduce sugar instead of completely eliminating it may find that maple syrup, molasses, or coconut sugar has the same effect.

A word of caution when using xylitol: since it’s an alcohol sugar, our bodies can’t break it down. As a result, eating large quantities of it can create a laxative effect. I also generally don’t recommend it for those who have known digestive issues.

Which other tricks have you discovered to improve the taste of stevia?

Disclaimer: The provided links may be affiliate links. Opinions are all my own. Any money received through these links will go back into this website to support the hours of work that go into weekly posts. Thank you for your support.

Filed Under: Articles & Tips Tagged With: candida, diabetes, digestive health, food sensitivities, IBS, PCOS, PMS, sugar free

5 Ways To Eat More Vegetables With Breakfast

October 11, 2016 by Christina Najjar Leave a Comment

Adults need more vegetables than they tend to consume. Many people feel that as long as they include some with dinner, they have eaten their vegetable portions for the day. In reality, they should be included with each meal. Yes, that means eating vegetables with breakfast!

5 ways to eat more vegetables with breakfast

Vegetables and fruits are not interchangeable. Fruits contain much more sugar than vegetables do. While it is natural sugar, it’s enough to mess with your blood sugar levels. This means more cravings throughout the day, a slower metabolism, and more energy crashes.

At first, this may seem difficult to do. You just have to get creative! Read on to discover a few ways to eat more vegetables with breakfast.

1. Omelettes, frittatas, and hashes

Adding vegetables to foods like omelettes, frittatas, and breakfast hashes seems necessary. They add great flavour and texture to your meal. Vegetables that work well for these types of meals include broccoli, asparagus, onions, spinach, kale, mushrooms, and bell peppers.

2. Add them to smoothies

I’m sure you’ve heard of green smoothies before. Not sure how to tackle them? Use this green smoothie recipe template. You don’t need to stick to leafy greens in your smoothies, if you don’t digest them well. You can try zucchini, cooked squash, cucumber, or carrots with your smoothies without affecting the flavour too much.

3. Make it an English breakfast

If you like the bacon and eggs breakfast, turn it into an English breakfast! Add some fried tomatoes to your plate. Try The Curious Coconut‘s Fried Green Tomato recipe. I also enjoy chopping up some onions, and frying them with tomatoes sliced in half in a skillet.

4. Eat dinner for breakfast

There’s always that weird person who suggests eating dinner for breakfast. I happen to be one of those people. It’s actually one of my favourite breakfasts. A nice full dinner meal keeps me going longer than most breakfasts do. And of course, any dinner I make will contain vegetables.

5. Make it sweet

There are all kinds of ways to incorporate vegetables into sweet foods. Let’s be clear on one thing. Sweet doesn’t have to mean sugary. Stevia, when used properly, is a great replacement for sugar, and is healthy. Pro tip: add some acidity to Stevia sweetened foods to get rid of that unpleasant aftertaste.

Think of those zucchini loaves you like. Or that pumpkin spice smoothie you crave. You can also incorporate sweet potato mash into your pancake recipes, and sprinkle some cinnamon on there instead of syrup.

How do you eat vegetables with your breakfast? Tell us in the comments!

Filed Under: Articles & Tips

Meal Prep Sundays: The Why and the How

October 4, 2016 by Christina Najjar Leave a Comment

You may have heard of Meal Prep Sundays before. It’s that one day per week when you prepare healthy meals for the rest of the week. It doesn’t have to happen on Sunday if you’re on a different schedule.

Meal Prep Sundays: The Why and the How

There are many advantages to preparing your meals for the week in one shot. There’s the obvious one of not having to cook on busy evenings. But on top of that, it’s a great way to ensure that you’re not reaching for take-out that will wreak havoc on your health.

It’s also a money saver, since you’ll only need to do groceries once a week. This means that you’ll be less tempted to buy that amazing smelling baguette you got a whiff of while walking by the store’s bakery.

This is my favourite advantage of Sunday Meal Prep: you really only need to do the dishes once a week. I wash all the pots and pans once I’m done cooking. Then, I only need to wash cutlery and 3 food containers on a daily basis.

Meal prep how-to

Start by picking out a few recipes for the week. Factor in how many servings each recipe makes and how many meals you need to cover. Save the recipes you find so that you can make them again somewhere down the road.

Next, make a list of the ingredients you need. This will be your grocery list. If you stick to your list, it’s a great way to make sure that you don’t forget anything you need. It’s an even better way to make sure that you don’t buy anything you don’t need. I know you want to buy those cookies, but be strong!

I like to choose a recipe that gets cooked in the oven, one on the stove, and one that doesn’t need any cooking. It’s the easiest way for me to make everything all at once to reduce the amount of time I spend in the kitchen.

My favourite meal planning tool

Because I’m really busy (who isn’t?), I like to take shortcuts where I can. I recently found a great tool called Meal Garden that does a lot of the work for me.

Meal Garden allows you to search recipes by meal type (breakfast, appetizer, etc.), ingredient, cooking time, or health need (gluten free, paleo, etc.). You can also add your own recipes if you already have some you love.

An added bonus of using this great tool is that it breaks down the nutritional value of each recipe you find and gives you a health rating. This allows you to make sure that each meal you put together is healthy.

Once you’ve found your recipes, you can schedule them into a weekly planner. You can decide how many servings you want to make with each recipe, and Meal Garden will adjust the recipes for you. Then, it will actually create your grocery list for you!

Join Meal Garden!

What are your favourite meals to prepare ahead?

Filed Under: Articles & Tips

Healthy Fats: They’re So Important for PMS

September 27, 2016 by Christina Najjar Leave a Comment

There was a time when fats were demonized. Food companies tried to come up with as many fat free products as possible. It was an unhealthy trend because extra sugar was added in foods to compensate. But on top of that, it became unhealthy because healthy fats were avoided for a long period of time.

Avoiding an entire important food group can have devastating effects on health. The importance of healthy fats for reducing PMS and getting back to having healthy cycles is often forgotten. These benefits also extend out to PCOS, endometriosis, and infertility.

Healthy Fats: They're so important for PMS

An overview on fats

Sadly, the low fat trend created a fear of all fats. Dieters are under the false impression that eating fats will make them fat. So, here’s a science lesson in a few sentences.

Healthy fats have a ton of functions in the body. This includes reduction of inflammation, quick recovery, production of some of the components of our blood, being a building block for hormones, boosting our metabolism, and cancer prevention. They are also important for the health of cells, skin, and the brain.

Unhealthy fats, on the other hand (like trans fats), don’t have as many roles in the body. Both healthy fats and unhealthy ones can be stored in the body to be broken down as energy. However, because the healthy ones have so many other roles to fill, the body doesn’t tend to store them in our fat cells.

In simple terms, unhealthy fats are the ones you should avoid, such as fried foods. Missing out on the healthy ones, on the other hand, leads to a host of issues.

Healthy fats and PMS

Anytime we consume food products that contain shelf-stable vegetable oils (like crackers, or peanut butter that looks uniform), or meats that have not been raised organically, we take in unhealthy fats.

These unhealthy fats encourage the body to produce inflammatory molecules in the body. Let’s call these molecules PG2 (short for prostaglandin 2). Healthy fats, on the other hand, produce two categories of molecules in the same family. They produce PG1, which is an anti-inflammatory molecule. They also produce PG3, which has the purpose of blocking PG2.

Let’s put this in hockey terms. PG1 is the forward or the centre on your team. It does what you need in order to “win” or feel better. PG2 is the other team, who tries to score against you, or create inflammation. PG3 is the goalie on your team, who focuses on not letting the bad guys score, or blocking PG2.

PMS is the result of inflammation in the body. It’s usually a symptom of other health concerns like digestive issues and/or adrenal fatigue. So, reducing inflammation in the body by providing it with an important nutrient is a crucial part of helping PMS.

Healthy fats are also needed to produce our sex hormones. These are the hormones that tend to be out of whack in people who experience PMS (read more about these hormones here). An increase in infertility has been observed over the last few decades, coinciding with the low fat trend.

When we don’t provide the body with the building blocks that it needs to carry out its functions, said functions begin to falter. As mentioned earlier, PMS is symptom of other health issues. It’s the body’s way of saying that something isn’t working right.

Eating more healthy fats

Great sources of healthy fats include olives, coconuts, and avocados. Nuts and pure nut butters are also loaded with fatty goodness. The same goes for seeds and seed butters. Animal sourced fats can also be healthy, when sourced organically. This includes meats, eggs, and oily fish.

Do you struggle with menstrual issues? Click the button below to join the FREE Nutrition for PMS, PCOS, and endometriosis group on Facebook.
Nutrition for PMS, PCOS, and endometriosis

Filed Under: Articles & Tips

IBS: There’s More To It Than You Think

September 13, 2016 by Christina Najjar Leave a Comment

Most of the posts I publish weekly are inspired by problems I keep seeing in my practice, or questions I often receive. This post is no exception. Because I focus on food sensitivities and digestive health as a nutritionist, I see a lot of clients with IBS, short for Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

IBS: There's more to it than you think

Since it’s something I’ve dealt with myself, this topic is especially dear to me.

What is IBS?

Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), which includes both Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis, shows actual structural changes in the bowel. On the other hand, IBS does not. It is often a label that is slapped onto people who have digestive issues outside of IBD. It is seen as an issue that affects the colon.

People are often grouped into sub-categories of IBS based on their symptoms. Those who see mainly constipation as a result of their digestive issues may be given the label of IBS-C. IBS-D is a label given to those with more diarrhea. Some experience both, and are labeled as IBS-M (for mixed).

Symptoms may include gas, bloating, cramping, and mucus in stools.

What’s really hiding behind IBS?

The issue I have with the label of IBS is that it is a bit of a “catch-all” term. It is given to anyone whose digestive problems cannot be helped with drugs. People are then told that they’re stuck with their condition.

While I can’t speak to the experience in other countries, the healthcare system in Canada makes it difficult for those with IBS. Don’t get me wrong, I’m forever grateful for covered healthcare! But most MD’s simply don’t have the time to spend with each patient to bring them back to health.

The truth is that there is often something hiding behind Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Bowels don’t just defect for no reason. Thankfully, more and more doctors are advising their patients to test for Celiac Disease, which can cause many of the same symptoms.

But what to do when your symptoms aren’t a result of Celiac Disease either? The investigation is actually not over! Some people with symptoms similar to Irritable Bowel Syndrome are actually dealing with an issue in the small intestine called Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth, or SIBO for short. A Naturopathic Doctor may be able to diagnose you in that case.

But what I most commonly see show up as Irritable Bowel Syndrome is a combo of two factors: food sensitivities, and something called “dysbiosis”. This strange term means that there is an excess of undesired organisms in your gut, compared to the good ones. (If you have no idea what I’m talking about, click here for more information.)

How to manage your symptoms

Many people see their symptoms improve by making some dietary changes. For some, it may be as easy as switching from raw vegetables to only steamed vegetables. Unfortunately, most people need to do a bit more work.

For some, a complete diet change can do the trick to relieve their symptoms short term. Some diets which have seemed to work include the FODMAP diet, the GAPS Diet, the Specific Carbohydrate Diet and the Paleo Diet.

One thing to keep in mind is that most diets will manage symptoms without getting to the root cause of the issue. Taking care of your gut health is crucial to saying goodbye to IBS for good.

Filed Under: Articles & Tips

6 Easy Gluten Free Wrap Alternatives

September 6, 2016 by Christina Najjar Leave a Comment

Sandwiches and wraps tend to be popular lunch foods because they’re so convenient. But what to do when you don’t eat gluten? Luckily, you have plenty of options for gluten free wrap alternatives.

6 Easy Gluten Free Wrap and Tortilla Alternatives

1. Nori rolls

Nori rolls are one of my absolute favourite gluten free wrap options. They’re loaded with nutrients like iodine, magnesium, and potassium, among others, which are fantastic for thyroid health. If you love sushi, you’ll enjoy having this umami wrap with other meals.

As a bonus, nori needs a bit of humidity to stick together. You can prepare your wraps ahead of time without having to worry about them turning soggy. Just grab your lunch and go in the morning! Buy them here.

2. Lettuce rolls

If you’re looking for a cost effective method of making your wraps, lettuce rolls are a great idea. You’ll want to use iceberg lettuce to take advantage of its large leaves and smaller ribs. Don’t forget to add other vegetables to your wraps, since iceberg lettuce isn’t very nutrient dense.

3. Collards

Using collards as a gluten free wrap is a similar concept to lettuce rolls, but much more nutrient dense. Collards are part of the cruciferous vegetable family (which includes kale and broccoli). These vegetables contain a ton of B vitamins for energy, and are great liver-supporting foods. To learn how to prepare these wraps, click here to watch Plant-Powered Kitchen‘s video.

4. Brown rice tortillas

Food For Life makes great brown rice tortillas that can substitute for any wheat wraps you would be tempted to use. They pair really nicely with hummus and grilled vegetables, or they can bring your dreams of steak fajitas with guacamole back to life.

I also like to cut up these wraps into triangles and toast them in the oven for a few minutes to make tasty corn-free tortilla chips.

5. White rice spring roll wraps

Spring roll wraps are another convenient and quick option. These wraps can be found at Asian supermarkets, most grocery stores, or here. Dip them in a bit of water, fill them, and roll them. Easy peasy!

6. Coconut wraps

If you’re looking for a grain free and fuss-free gluten free wrap alternative, give coconut wraps a try. They contain nothing other than coconut and a bit of salt. Load them up with all your favourite ingredients to give them flavour. Buy them here.

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