Four Rs of Healing

Mar 10, 2020 | Education

Replenish, Reduce, Repair, Rebalance

 

Replenish

Replenish nutrients like vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals. Most folks have not eaten a diet that is anywhere close to what our ancestors ate. Foods like liver, kidney, bone broths, and lots of leafy greens or tubers are chock full of nutrients our body needs. How can we expect our body to repair and renew itself each day when we are eating a bowl of cereal and McDonald’s burgers and fries? When you compare that to what our ancestors ate, we are slowly starving our bodies of what they need to function.

How do we Replenish?

There are three ways we can replenish the body.

Nutrient dense foods

I will work with you to help you decide which of these are appropriate for your situation.

  • Broths made from vegetables, meat, and bone are very healing to the body
  • Organ meats have AMAZING amounts of vitamins and minerals in them. Cow liver has 522% DV of vitamin A, 201% DV of vitamin B2, and so much more.
  • Soups with lots of vegetables (because cooked veggies are easier to digest)
  • Green smoothies, but only if digestion is going well
  • More veggies-cooked or raw (like in salads)

Here is a link to a few nutrient dense recipes.

Supplements

There are many great supplements out there that can be chosen based on your body’s needs. For instance, if you have been eating lots of sugar for a long time, there are supplements that can help replenish the nutrients you have lost. Or, if you are having digestive problems, we can use supplements to help heal your gut and provide more nutrients.

IV Therapy

If you have been having health problems for a while, you might benefit from having nutrients delivered by IV. This is typically done 3-6 times. How often depends on your needs.

IV therapy is very beneficial if you have had digestive problems for a few years. Your body has probably not been absorbing the nutrients it needs for a while. Replacing those while we work on repairing your gut can make the process go much faster. Another benefit is that your body will be getting what it needs to start repair work right away.

My favorite clinic to work with locally is Marsden’s Women and Family Health Care.

Reduce Stressors

This is an absolutely critical step. We must start reducing stressors on the body so that it can do its work of repairing and rebalancing. Stressors can be all kinds of things. Some may not apply to you but many probably will.

Blood Sugar Balance

The first step for this is to evaluate your diet. Most people I see are not eating enough protein and fats. Just making that change, which is delicious, can often help blood sugar balance tremendously. In this article I talk about the new American Diabetes Association guidelines for carbs.

Food that cause inflammation

  • Sugar
  • High-fructose corn syrup and corn syrups
  • Trans-fats in margarine, fast foods, microwave popcorn, many store-bought pastries
  • Vegetable oils
  • Refined carbs in candy, soda, bread, pasta, pastries, box foods
  • Processed meats like sausage, bacon, ham, sandwich meats, beef jerky (look for “clean” versions of these)

Food Sensitivities

If you have chronic allergies, seasonal allergies, chronic ear infections, and digestive problems then you most likely have a food sensitivity. The simplest way to figure this out is to do an elimination diet like the Whole 30 or AIP (Autoimmune Protocol). If you have an autoimmune disease, removing foods you are sensitive to is crucial. It will help to bring your overall inflammation levels down.

If you suspect you have several sensitivities, doing a food sensitivity test might be a good option for you.

Gut or Digestive Issues

Clearing up your gut or digestive issues is also vital in helping the body to be able to repair itself. Unresolved gut issues create a lot of stress on the body.

How do you heal gut or digestive issues? It really depends on which part of digestion has broken down. Is it your stomach, small intestine, liver, pancreas, or large intestine? This is why it is important to work with someone who is knowledgeable about gut and digestive problems.

A diet that is healing to the gut is central to gut repair too. For folks with gut issues, I usually recommend a special diet for a few weeks while we work on repair. An example of how powerful this is, in a clinical trial with patients with inflammatory bowel disease, 73% had complete remission by week 6 of transitioning to an AIP diet. The others saw improvement in their symptoms.

Don’t worry, a special diet is not forever. We can often start adding foods back after week 6.

Physical and Mental Stress

Physical stress can be something like over exercising. While mental stress could be from work or personal relationships. Switching to more appropriate exercise and performing breathing or meditation exercises can be very beneficial. There are also several herbs, called adaptogens, that can help the body better handle stress.

Environmental toxins

This sounds hard, but it really isn’t. Starting to change out your personal care products is a great first step. Also, replacing your plastics with glass can make a huge difference quickly. Switching to safer cleaning products is important too. Here is a simple recipe that you use to replace several of your cleaning products.

Repair

This involves repairing broken body systems, like digestion, adrenals, or blood sugar regulation. We teach you how to provide your body what it needs to start repairing these systems.

Rebalance

Again, this is something your body has to do, but we can provide it the tools it needs. This might involve foods, herbs, supplements, bio-identical hormones, Endobiogeny, or other treatments.

Often the body will start to rebalance itself once you replenish it and remove the stressors so it can repair.

Getting Help

If you would like some help getting started on your healing journey, contact me to schedule a complimentary 20 minute call. You can tell me about your needs and I can let you know if what I offer will work for you. Nutrition counseling is a great first step on your path to healing.

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