Dr. Renee is a double board certified doctor who has been working with women for over 20 years and due to her own personal health challenges, she stepped outside the box of conventional medicineto take a radically different approach to heal herself from the deep depths of burnout. About a decade ago, Dr. Renee was living whatshe thought was her dream life; she was an extremely busy Ob/Gyn, married to a doctor, with toddler twins and had moved to a quaint, quiet town in the country. One day in May 2012, Dr. Renee fell offof her horse during a riding lesson and broke her back. She not only struggled with severe back pain, but with fatigue and the inabilityto focus. Her doctor diagnosed her with depression, but her symptoms did not improve after trying two different antidepressants.Two years after her injury, Dr. Renee was still struggling with unexplained symptoms. After exhausting all of her options in the conventional healthcare system, she was put in contact with a doctor who was an “anti-aging” practitioner. She finally received the appropriate diagnosis, her symptoms resolved and she got back on her feet and joined the world of functional medicine. In August 2019, Dr. Renee started Kaspira Elite Health Consulting, LLC. Throughout her journey she has certainly faced her fair share of obstacles and has mastered the art of leaping into transitions with each pivot. Now Dr. Renee empowers women to take control of their health, jumpstart their energy, improve their confidence, and reignite their libido!
Learning points:
What is Libido?
How can a low Libido be tied to other areas of our health?
Every Tuesday from 11am -12pm I host The Health Hub, an interactive, forward thinking talk show on Radio Maria Canada. Call, tweet or email your questions as together we explore health issues that are relevant to you from new and innovative points of view.
If you have a health topic that you would like us to discuss or are a health care specialist who wants to be a guest on our show let us know!
Here is our email. We would love to hear from you! thh@radiomaria.ca
Meal prepping is a beautiful thing! Once you get the hang of it, you’ll wonder how you ever survived without it.
So let’s set you up for success.
Get Organized
For me, a crucial aspect of meal prepping is getting organized. This means before I step foot into the grocery store, I want to have all of my containers washed and ready to go.
I recommend using glass storage containers for food prepping and storage. Glass containers last forever, are easy to clean and don’t contain harmful chemicals. Stay away from plastics! As well, look for a variety of sizes.
Also, make sure to invest in enough containers to last you all week.
You also want to make sure your containers are travel-friendly, so you don’t experience any spills along the way.
Once you have your containers, it’s time to start the grocery list.
Make Your List
I love making lists. This way, I don’t forget anything I need. Lists also allow you to group like items together, so you’re not wasting time at the store going back and forth between aisles and departments.
Before you can make your list, you need to know what you’re making.
How to find the recipes is really up to you. Some people like to peruse the internet and apps like Pinterest for tasty recipes throughout the week. Others enjoy looking through cookbooks while having their morning coffee.
While you’re likely to come across a ton of tasty sounding dishes, keep in mind too many recipes can also be overwhelming. To save time, and to go easy on your wallet, look for recipes with similar ingredients for the week.
If you’re new to cooking or meal prepping, there’s nothing wrong with starting with just a couple of recipes to prep for the week to get you going.
How Are You Prepping?
When it comes to how you meal prep, you have many options.
Types of meal prep include:
Full make-ahead meals: You cook an entire meal and store it in your fridge or freezer.
Batch cooking or freezing: Make multiple meals, then portion and store them. This approach is useful for recipes you can easily cook in large amounts (like big pots of soup, rice, or mashed sweet potatoes).
Meals for one: Prepare food and portion it in single-serving containers. (Usually enough to last a few days)
Ingredient prep: For people who like to cook and serve food all at once, just prep parts of recipes. Chop veggies, mix spices, or marinate meat in advance to save time when you’re ready to cook.
The best part is you don’t have to choose just one option!
While you’re prepping your lunches for the week, let’s say, you know you’ll need chopped onions and carrots for at least one dinner. Prep everything at once and store the dinner ingredients separately.
What a time-saver!
And Here Are Other Benefits To Meal Prepping
When done right, meal prep can save you money. Meal prepping allows you to save money by purchasing items in bulk and freezing for later use. Always stock up on staples like olive oil, spices, and condiments when they’re on sale.
Meal prepping also helps you reduce waste. When you’re portioning out your servings for the week, you know exactly how much to make and how much you have. So, no more forgotten leftovers in the back of the fridge.
Finally, unlike processed meals, this method gives you total control over what goes into your food—perfect for anyone who wants to stay on track with their health goals.
Tips To Top It All Off
When you first start meal prepping, there are some mistakes I want to help you avoid.
Don’t overwhelm yourself with too many new or complex recipes with a long list of ingredients. It’s easy to get swept away with yummy and exotic-sounding new dishes—start simple, with recipes you already know how to make and know you like.
Make sure to plan meals that will help keep you feeling satisfied throughout the day. Look for recipes that offer you the right balance of your macros and micros.
Lastly, when planning for your prepping, keep your schedule in mind. You’ll need to set aside time to shop and prepare your meals. This might take some reorganizing but it’s worth it!
It just takes a little time and practice but soon you’ll be a happy meal prepper!
Does it conjure up visions of restrictive eating, diabetes medications, or insulin injections?
Blood sugar is the measure of the amount of sugar in your blood. You need the right balance of sugar in your blood to fuel your brain and muscles.
The thing is, it can fluctuate. A lot.
This fluctuation is the natural balance between things that increase it; and things that decrease it. When you eat food with sugars or starches (“carbs”), then your digestive system absorbs sugar into your blood. When carbs are ingested and broken down into simple sugars, your body keeps blood sugar levels stable by secreting insulin. Insulin allows excess sugar to get it out of your bloodstream and into your muscle cells and other tissues for energy
Why keep my blood sugar stable?
Your body wants your blood sugar to be at an optimal level. It should be high enough, so you’re not light-headed, fatigued, and irritable. It should be low enough that your body isn’t scrambling to remove excess from the blood.
When blood sugar is too low, this is referred to as “hypoglycemia.”
When blood sugar is too high, it is referred to as hyperglycemia. Prolonged periods of elevated blood sugar levels (chronic hyperglycemia) can lead to “insulin resistance.”
Insulin resistance is when your cells are just so bored of the excess insulin that they start ignoring (resisting) it, and that keeps your blood sugar levels too high.
Insulin resistance and chronic hyperglycemia can lead to inflammation. And inflammation is a contributing factor in the development of cancer.
So let’s look at how you can optimize your food and lifestyle to keep your blood sugar stable.
Food for stable blood sugar
The simplest thing to do to balance your blood sugar is to reduce the number of refined sugars and starches you eat. To do this, you can start by dumping sweet drinks and having smaller portions of dessert.
Eating more fiber is helpful too. Fiber helps to slow down the amount of sugar absorbed from your meal; it reduces the “spike” in your blood sugar level. Fiber is found in plant-based foods (as long as they are eaten in their natural state, processing foods removed fiber). Eating nuts, seeds and whole fruits and veggies (not juiced) is a great way to increase your fiber intake.
FUN FACT: Cinnamon has been shown to help cells increase insulin sensitivity. Not to mention it’s a delicious spice that can be used in place of sugar. (HINT: It’s in the recipe below)
Lifestyle for stable blood sugar
Exercise also helps to improve your insulin sensitivity; this means that your cells don’t ignore insulin’s call to get excess sugar out of the blood. Not to mention, when you exercise, your muscles are using up that sugar they absorbed from your blood. But you already knew that exercise is healthy, didn’t you?
Would you believe that stress affects your blood sugar levels? Yup! Stress hormones increase your blood sugar levels. If you think about the “fight or flight” stress response, what fuel do your brain and muscles need to “fight” or “flee”? Sugar! When you are stressed signals are sent to release stored forms of sugar back into the bloodstream, increasing blood sugar levels. So, try to reduce the stress you’re under and manage it more effectively. Simple tips are meditation, deep breathing, or gentle movement.
Sleep goes hand-in-hand with stress. When you don’t get enough quality sleep, you tend to release stress hormones, have a higher appetite, and even get sugar cravings. Sleep is crucial, often overlooked, factor when it comes to keeping your blood sugar stable. Make sleep more of a priority – it will do your blood sugar (and the rest of your physical and mental health) good.
Conclusion
Your body is on a constant 24-hour quest to keep your blood sugar stable. The body has mechanisms in place to do this, but those mechanisms can get tired (resistant). Long-term blood sugar issues can spell trouble.
There are many nutrition and lifestyle approaches you can take to help keep your blood sugar stable. Minimizing excessive carbs, and eating more fiber, exercising, reducing stress, and improving sleep are all key to having stable blood sugar (and overall good health).
Recipe (blood sugar balancing): Cinnamon Apples
Serves 4
2 apples, chopped
1 tbsp coconut oil
½ tsp ground cinnamon
⅛ tsp sea salt
¼ tsp vanilla extract
Place chopped apples into a small saucepan with 2 tbsp water. Cover and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally. After about 5 minutes the apples will become slightly soft, and water will be absorbed.
Add 1 tbsp coconut oil. Stir apples and oil together.
Cook for another 5 minutes, stirring every minute or so.
Add cinnamon, salt, and vanilla. Stir well.
Cook for another few minutes, stirring until the apples reach your desired softness!
Serve and enjoy!
Tip: Keeping the peel on increases the fiber, which is even better for stabilizing your blood sugar.
Consider this: We sleep for about 1/3 of our life. That, my friends, is a significant amount of time!
So, what happens when we sleep?
Have you ever thought about it?
Well I’m here to tell you that there is a world of action going on as we lay supine bridging one day to the next.
Brain Action
While we sleep our brain is working hard to process what we’ve learned during the day. Research also shows that sleep may promote the removal of waste products from brain cells. Effectively this means that while we sleep our brains are detoxifying.
Detoxifying and Repairing
While we sleep our body is also hard at work detoxifying other areas of our body, as well as repairing it.
Our liver is at its peak detox stage between 1 and 3 am and our lungs around 4am.
And during sleep our body repairs cells, tissues and muscles. It synthesizes proteins and releases hormones.
Immune System
While we sleep our immune system is hard at work defending us. It releases cytokines (proteins that fight inflammation and infection) as well as antibodies and immune cells that work to fight off harmful germs and infection.
So, as I am sure you can surmise, sleep is not a passive passage of time. It’s an essential piece of our health puzzle.
Sleep Disruptors
There are many things to take a look at when you are trying to figure out why you may not be getting a good night’s sleep:
Poor sleep habits like not going to bed at a consistent time each night
Stress
Certain medications
External light
Room Temperature
And I am going to offer up one more. A reason not often considered.
Are you consuming enough good quality food each and every day? If not, this could be a contributing factor to poor sleep.
You need to provide your body with enough of the essential nutrients that it requires to have the energy it needs to perform all of those tasks that I mentioned above. It’s vital for a restful sleep.
Our activity level, metabolism, body weight and how much we sleep each night are key factors in determining how many calories we burn while we sleep.
You can turn to calculators like https://captaincalculator.com/health/calorie/calories-burned-sleeping-calculator/ to help you determine more precisely how many calories you burn while sleeping but to put things into a bit of perspective here, a person weighing 150lbs may burn 400 calories during 8 hours of sleep while someone who is 185lbs may in the area of 500 calories.
It’s significant isn’t it?
I’m seeing this issue pop up more and more, especially in people who are experimenting with some form of fasting. Fasting can be a great tool if done properly. But it is not for everyone and definitely should be discussed with a practitioner who has experience in this area.
So here is a parting tip for you if you are trying to improve your sleep.
Keep a daily food journal. Record what and how much you eat every day.
Lloyd Sederer is a psychiatrist and a public health doctor who has held among the most prestigious jobs in his field: Medical Director of a Harvard teaching hospital, Mental Health Commissioner of NYC, Chief Medical Officer for mental health for NYS, and medical editor for Mental Health for the Huff Post. Sederer’s last book (Scribner 2018) was The Addiction Solution: Treating Our Dependence on Opioids and Other Drugs. His is an improbable life, which his new book (#13!) reveals in stories from his youth, each with an essay about their relevance to our lives today. Ink-Stained For Life, is its title.
Learning Points:
How our experiences lay the foundation for our life
Every Tuesday from 11am -12pm I host The Health Hub, an interactive, forward thinking talk show on Radio Maria Canada. Call, tweet or email your questions as together we explore health issues that are relevant to you from new and innovative points of view.