healthy and beautiful

If you’re someone who takes medicine daily, any medicine, it’s important to step back and consider whether you still need to be taking it. I’d also brush up on the side effects. While I’d love doctors to focus on getting patients off unnecessary meds, let’s face it medicine is a business.  But if you, or someone close to you, are one of the 15 million Americans who take a certain type of acid blockers, there are some serious side effects. There is a class of acid blocking (“heartburn”) meds called PPIs. Examples of PPI’s are Prevacid, Nexium and Prilosec. The c oncerns about taking these meds long-term have been out there; however, almost daily I have a client in my office who feels they’re totally safe. Whenever I see one of these meds in a new client’s chart I ask a few questions. How long have you been taking this medication? Have you tried going off of it? What modifications do you make in your diet for your reflux or heartburn? The answers are quite similar. Most clients hav...

Today we sent out our Monthly Morsels newsletter. May’s topic is what we call Ferm Foods (fermented/probiotic…too many syllables). We are Ferm freaks at Foodtrainers.   If you’re wondering what these foods can do for you, here you go . One of our Ferm faves is apple cider vinegar (ACV). It seems there’s nothing ACV can’t do. While we remain leery of food miracles tied to ingesting any one item, we’re fans but have our limits. We’re not washing our hair with it (yet) or curing our foot odor (Foodtrainers don’t smell). Instead this ferm food slows the conversion of carbs to sugar and stabilizes blood sugar.  And if this didn’t resonate the benefits of better blood sugar include more energy and less excess sugar stored as…you guessed it fat. Not sold? ACV is also great for seasonal allergies, gas and constipation.   And seems counterintuitive but ACV and ferm foods reduce reflux (or GERD). There’s also interesting information on ACV and Lyme.  Of course all vinegar isn’...