Start With Basic Nutrition

If we don’t give attention and support to understanding ourselves and our existence, then the lack of clarity can become a stress in itself that drives unwellness. These practices have in common a focus on supporting health for not just our bodies but our minds and spirits. For this reason, I’ve developed a layer within my Stress Recovery Protocol that gives you the opportunity to connect with yourself, with the people with whom you live and interact, and with the place you live on a spiritual level. The sense of gratitude and love that results can create an invisible scaffolding to support you and a safety net to catch you when stress becomes overwhelming. Without them, we would be nothing. In this way, they remind us of our humanness, the interconnectedness of all things, and the relative brevity of our opportunity to contribute to the world around us. Grounds us, provides stability and shelter. Flames and transformation of any sort. Reminds us to flow, naturally and easily, and makes up 60 percent of our bodies. Ocean, rivers, lakes, rain, and tears. Provides air that we breathe and wind that is used for power and movement. By doing this, you will honor and appreciate yourself, the world around you, and you will also be better able to maintain a balance around you and within you.

Making Believe

The best way to think of clean eating is as a structure to eat what you need to support your health and stress recovery and to avoid the foods that can make matters worse. To help you get a better sense of what I mean by clean eating, I’ll start with the basics of nutrition and continue on to describe ways of eating, foods to avoid, and foods to choose that will help you recover from stress, based on your stress type. Our food is composed of three main nutrients, referred to as macronutrients, which is where we get calories, glucose, amino acids, and fatty acids for our bodies to function and perform daily metabolism. Those three nutrients are protein, carbohydrates, and fats. When choosing the foods we eat, we should consider the relative quantity of protein, carbs, and fats in those foods. Those guidelines were developed at a time when medical practitioners were discouraging people from consuming more than 30 percent of calories from fats. When I analyzed this diet at the time, in the early 1990s, I found it impossible to follow without causing weight gain and blood sugar issues. I abandoned it myself and shifted to a diet with relatively equal parts of carbohydrates, protein, and fat. It’s important to think them through for yourself and monitor how your body responds to any diet. You must decide for yourself how your body reacts to relative quantities of carbs, protein, and fats. Insulin, a hormone made by the pancreas, is secreted and works to transport glucose from the blood into cells. When insulin is working too well, or when we go too long between meals, we might experience a quick drop in blood sugar, known as hypoglycemia, which can cause irritability, nausea, and headaches.

Salt Of The Earth

This is more likely for people with low cortisol levels, because their bodies may not be able to trigger a compensatory cortisol release when their blood sugar levels starts to drop, leaving them with low blood sugar. Once extra glucose is converted to fat, it is much harder for the metabolism to access it for use in making energy. It is more likely that the body will break down muscle tissue first. The glycemic index indicates how quickly foods containing carbohydrate raise blood sugar levels. Fruits also vary in terms of the likelihood to raise glucose levels. Berries, cherries, grapefruit, and pears are the lowest. When cortisol becomes elevated with stress, this also increases blood glucose levels as a way to help us perform under pressure. The problem arises when we are under chronic stress and cortisol remains elevated, such is the case for Stress Magnet, Night Owl, and Sluggish and Stressed stress types. It also causes weight gain, muscle loss, and cognitive decline. While it’s important not to overeat carbohydrates of any type, especially at one sitting, the goal is not to eliminate them completely, either. Once again, enough is a good thing, and too much is what we are trying to avoid. If you are concerned about your blood sugar levels, it can help to monitor your blood sugar levels for a period of time, say a week or two.

You Can't Always Get What You Want

You’ll want to know your fasting blood sugar when you wake in the morning and your blood sugar level two hours after eating. This way, you can look for patterns in terms of how much your blood sugar rises after eating certain foods and consuming certain quantities of food. Protein, which is broken down into amino acids in the digestive process, is used in the body for making muscles and neurotransmitters. Amino acids are also part of many metabolic processes, including detoxification and the production of antioxidants to protect cells from stress and inflammation. Protein also helps stabilize blood sugar levels, so if your blood sugar is dropping, eat protein. This is why you’ll often see beans combined with rice, for example. It’s a matter of consuming adequate protein from sources that work best for your body based on your stress type and activity level. When I was recovering from adrenal distress, I found it imperative to include adequate protein at each meal, at consistent intervals each day. Without it, my blood sugar levels would vary, along with my energy level, mood, and sleep. I found that reaching for a variety of sources of protein works best for my body. Healthy fats are needed for calories and for many other purposes in our bodies, including making hormones and cell walls. Fats also signal to the brain that we are full, so they increase satiety and help us feel that we have eaten. So many signals occur when we eat healthy.