The Practical Nutritionist, LLC

Audrey J Pellegrino, M. Ed, M.HN,CNW®

Nationally board Certified Nutritional Wellness

Holistic Nutritionist/Educator

603-768-3214

practicalnutrition@gmail.com

www.pnutritionist.com

LIFE (AND HEALTH) IS ALL ABOUT BALANCE

Life is all about balance. Balancing your time between work and home, balancing your time between your significant other and your children or other family members, finding time in the balance for yourself, balancing your checkbook, balancing wants and needs, balancing what you eat and your weight and of course balancing your health and your lifestyle. No wonder it sometimes feels like we are part of a circus and walking on a tightrope!

One of the first things I think about when balance is mentioned is my bank account. Today I want you to think of your health as a bank account. It is something that we can all visualize easily. We are born with a certain amount in our health account; and throughout our lives we make deposits and withdrawals. To maintain health we have to make sure we put enough deposits in to cover our withdrawals. Now as the health account ages we begin to withdraw more than we deposit. It becomes time to pay for all of the things we did or do not do to our health balance when we were younger. Now more than ever, it is important that we maintain our health balance and there are foods that help more than others to do that.

Some of the common concerns as we age are: High Blood Pressure, Fatigue/Sleep Patterns,

Weight Gain, Diabetes, and Osteoporosis/Bone Loss. All of these concerns eventually tie back to hormone balance. Now I know you are thinking that after menopause your hormones are limited, but your body has many, many different hormones which regulate every cell function, your nerves, memory, metabolism, bone density and the list could go on. So just to be clear I am not just talking about progesterone or estrogen, but also hormones such as insulin and cortisol.

Twenty- two years ago, when I was a nurse, and working at the VA hospital, during two years, I had three female patients. Because I had so few female patients, I will never forget them. One was a very small woman, who had been an army nurse during world war one, so that put her right up there in age. Her family brought her in with what they thought was advanced dementia and they were ready to put her into a long term facility. A very modern intern, asked to run a few simple blood tests. It came back that the woman was dehydrated and her electrolytes and minerals were depleted. She was given a vitamin B12 shot and told to eat a banana every day to keep her calcium and potassium in balance. That was it. She was able to leave the hospital in two days and continued to live by herself and was the woman her family loved. That one incident, more than anything, helped me understand that a miniscule imbalance can alter our entire cellular metabolism system. It also pointed out how influential what we eat is to our health.

It is said for every decade we age, until seventy, we are doomed to gain ten pounds and add one more prescription medication to our daily routine. That is not your destiny, there are small changes that you can make to promote and maintain your optimal health. One of them is to ensure that the foods you do eat are high in nutrients or nutrient dense. They will give vitamins and minerals to your body, not take them away.

Changing white flours and grains out for whole grains and flours will increase your B vitamins, which are your energy vitamins and help with fatigue, among many other things. Switching from high fat meats and highly processed deli meats to lean meats and other forms of proteins will decrease your saturated fats and help with your cholesterol, as well as decrease potential heart diseases and weight gain. By reducing dairy products to lower fat versions you are also helping your heart, weight gain and cholesterol, while still taking in dairy-calcium. Fruits and vegetables are the one group which will quickly help tip the “balance” back in your favor, but only if they are fresh, baked, roasted or steamed instead of fried or drenched in sugary syrups.

And by decreasing or switching your processed sugars you are decreasing your risk factors for diabetes, obesity, heart disease, sleep irregularities, mood changes, calcium imbalance and many more disorders.

Contact me if you would like a nutrient rich list of foods to take with you when you are shopping. Remember to maintain balance it is often the small corrections that stabilize you, not the grand sweeping gestures which cause you to fall off the tightrope.