The TRUTH Bombs of nutrition!

After studying nutrition through various institutions and being mentored by some amazing clever practitioners it became abundantly clear that there many ways to skin a cat so to speak.

There was no one right way for ANYONE – no wonder so many people were confused as every expert proclaimed their was the right way.

 So after studying, being mentored, clinical and private practice observations, the following truth bombs where identified.

@skincat

Truth Bomb #1

We are all biochemically so unique, there is no one single approach for everyone. What works for one, may not work for another. And I love the quote by Ann Wigmore:

“One man’s medicine can be another man’s poison”

There is however a blanket principle to follow and that is WHOLEFOOD ONLY! We all have a unique food prescription and with time and observation you can very quickly find out what your is.

This is easily done by utilising a food and symptom diary for 3-5 days to get a clear indication of culprit foods.

 Truth bomb #2

Any symptom you have can be the result of a food intolerance. So by using the above suggestion you can easily identify the culprit food and tweak accordingly whilst you heal the deeper imbalance with a qualified practitioner.

Remember, removing the food alone is the not the answer, this just provides symptom relief whilst you heal at the core foundational pillar level

 Truth bomb #3

There are over a 25 different healing protocols and trying to decide which one to use based on symptoms can be tricky and complex IF you are not working with a qualified practitioner.

Using the suggestion of a food and symptom diary will save a lot of heartache and stress and get you on the road to recovery far quicker

 Truth bomb #4

Whilst nutrition is definitely the portal to wellness and is critical, there are other pillars which also require your focus to achieve long lasting health and happiness for you and your family. Think about it like a checklist for health.

For this simple truth, I have created the TOTAL HEALTH TRANSFORMATION PROGRAM that can be accessed via 2 ways:

1. 6 week LIVE GROUP

2. 1:1 12 week VIP

Both of the programs cover in depth the core foundational pillars that build health:

• Nutrition

• Gut health

• Toxicity

• Emotional Wellbeing.

 It is not enough to just know, but to BE and DO as well consistently over a period of time so that it can be become a lifestyle change and a way of life.

Chantal is an Accredited and Certified Nutrition & Wellness Coach with a very special interest helping busy and overwhelmed mums transform the health of their family using gut healing nutrition and transformational mindset practices.

- Accredited Certificate of Nutrition & Super Nutrition, special focus on Childhood Nutrition - Cadence Health

- Certified Level 1 & 2 Wellness Coaching - Wellness Coaching Australia

- MINDD Forum Health Coach - Mindd Foundation

- Accredited Real Healthy Kids Facilitator having personally trained with Sally Gray ND

- Clinical Evidence Based EFT Practitioner - Evidence Based EFT

The REAL truth about eating Wholefood

So this has been on mind lately regarding people's expectations about eating whole & real foods. This has led to me writing this blog to be brutally honest as to what it takes INITIALLY to begin this journey, not in the longer term.

You see, this is a way of life, essentially a new habit or a group of new habits that needs to be created and also follows the cycle of change.

Before I dive into the real truth, let me just clarify what a wholefood is, i.e. any food that is as close as possible to it’s natural state. By definition this rules out packaged and processed food.

The quickest way to identify how much wholefood you are actually consuming is to complete a food diary for 2-3 days. This way you can really get a true picture of how much “REAL” food is being consumed. You may actually surprise yourself.

I wanted to be upfront and say that eating a wholefood and real food diet is not easy initially,  however after time it just becomes a way of life. There are some bumps on the road until you can get into the groove. Over time you will find that it actually saves you time, creates so much more convenience and the cherry on the cake is how YOU will feel physically and emotionally. What I observe is that people try this “clean” eating for a week and give up after soon thereafter because it is all too hard.

I’ve identified 3 REAL truths that you just need to get comfortable and make peace with IF you want to achieve optimal health by consuming a wholefood diet the majority of the time. This is even more pertinent if it extends to healing wholefood.

THREE BIG TRUTHS

1. TIME

Depending how far you away from the concept of real food you are, it takes time to FULLY implement. Allow yourself a good 3-6 months to make small incremental consistent nutritional improvements to your family’s diet. It takes TIME for them to come on board. It also takes time for you to figure out what your favourite wholefood “go to” meals are that the whole family enjoys and in fact get into your groove.

Tying in with the concept of time is "EFFORT”. Food does not magically land on the table at breakfast, lunch and dinner (as much as we’d like the food fairies to appear) and it takes effort accordingly. I hear so much that I just don’t have the time. I beg to differ, we all have the same number of hours in the day. It really does not take the amount of time we think it does.

2.  ORGANISATION

Sometimes it feels like the word organisation is a dirty word. The harsh reality is that it is very difficult to consume whole and real food EVERYDAY without being organised. By organised I am referring to meal planning and preparation consistently so that it just becomes another habit like brushing your teeth. It’s not something you think about or debate, you just do it…..I hope so anyway :-).

It does not stop at menu planning though, you then need to prepare the lovely meals you have planned. Set aside time in your diary to do some bulk food prep so that you can create convenience, make better food choices, be more present, calm and in flow.

Tying in with the above truth of time, also give yourself time to get organised. Don’t come up with a bright idea on the weekend and decide you are changing the world on Monday. Instead allow yourself anything from 2-4 weeks to get yourself into gear and then make the changes.

3. Food wastage

Yes, initially there is plenty of food wastage whilst you adjust the family’s pallet as well as experimenting to identify the “new” family favourites. There will be some recipes that you make and the family will dislike, I like to think of this as feedback, instead giving you of an idea what their likes and dislikes are using real ingredients. Sometimes you do want to cry and just give up, but don’t, this is just a phase and it too shall pass. You just need to hang on and the food wastage will greatly decrease sooner than you think.

The truths above, are just part of the cycle of change. You first need to decide:

• What you want to achieve & why - this step is so often over looked, however is the foundation for making any lasting sustainable change.

• How are you going to get achieve this

• Set yourself a timeframe to do so, such as 6 weeks, 3 or 6 months. This really takes the pressure off and you are less likely to give up after one week when everyone hates what you have cooked. This does happen I am afraid to say…..so get comfortable with that idea now…lol

If you feel you need some support to getting you started on first step into the world of whole and real food and a plan to really transform your health, then book in a 90 minute Nutrition & Wellness Audit

Chantal is a certified and accredited Nutrition & Wellness Coach that helps stressed and overwhelmed mothers implement Healing Wholefood and Wellness transformational practices to transform the health of their family using a personalised step by step process.

4 Steps to keeping the family's immune system & gut healthy over the holiday period

Yay, school is out, it's the festive season and it's summer holidays. So much to look forward to!

Let’s not be fooled into a false sense of security just because the weather has warmed up. The truth be told, the bugs are just as rampant in the summer.

The primary reason why the immune is weakened is through poor nutrition & STRESS!

For this reason, we don’t want to let our guard down in terms of nutrition & wellness.

Let's be honest, for the few days over the festive period, all eating standards will go out the door (WITHOUT GUILT), but we definitely not for the WHOLE of the holiday period. This is just counter productive longer term.

It is best to maintain ideal nutrition & wellness 80-90% of the time. My preference is 90% because at 80%, this leaves room for up to 4 meals in a week that can slip and personally I think this is too much. At the end of the day, start where ever you are, and improve one step at a time.

The main focus during the holidays and just about EVERY day of the year should be on the following:

• WHOLE REAL FOOD

• Plenty of vegetables – get creative how you can get this into them. This time of year is perfect to have the rainbow cut up and served with your favourite dip

• Healthy fats – think nuts, seeds, olive oils, butter, oily fish, avocado and full fat dairy if tolerated

• Minimal fruit - remember to eat seasonal. So many awesome fruits this time of year such as watermelon, peaches, cherries, berries, mango

• Pasture fed protein

• Clean Water

• Fermented foods & drinks

• Broth & gelatin

Steps to keeping the family's immune & gut healthy:

1. Wholefood ONLY 80-90% of the time.

2. Include gut healing foods DAILY. In this blog I detail how you can easily include gut healing foods daily without even trying

3. Make Healthy Swaps 80-90% of the time:

   1. Margarine =====> Butter

   2. Vegetable Oils=====> Olive oil

   3. Flavoured, preservative laddened crisps =====> plain chips, better quality or air popped popcorn

   4. Sugary Yoghurt =====> Greek yoghurt topped with your favourite fruit, granola and a swirl of maple syrup or honey if you need a sweetener

   5. Soft drinks =====> Water, make your own fermented drinks or flavoured coconut water (you still need to check the ingredients and sugar content of these)

   6. Commercial ice-creams ====> Make your own with 4 easy ingredients or make a smoothie and freeze into popsicles. Even better, add a quality probiotic and then you will have a probiotic smoothie/popsicle

4. Keep hydrated with clean water mainly. The body is 60-70% water.

Just keep in mind, food is medicine and it is lways fueling one of 2 things , sickness or health. What do you you choose?

Relaxing the rules every now and then is unlikely to have a detrimental effect longer term, provided you know how to press the RESET button. Enjoy the summer, choose wisely and most of all be peaceful, happy and grateful.

xx

Chantal is a Certified Nutrition & Wellness coach with a special interest simplifying and implementing gut healing nutritional protocols using a personalised wholistic step by step approach.

Healing Eczema a 2nd Time & the lessons I learnt along the way!!

In the interest of being of very open and transparent, I have really been fighting with myself whether to share this or not. I felt like a fraud basing my success on healing my son’s very bad eczema naturally as a baby, and for it never to be seen again until mid last year.

Checking in again with my purpose, vision and passion for what I do, it was to inspire, support and empower as many families on similar journeys to make lasting nutritional & wellness changes to lead a healthy happy life.

With that in mind, I decided it was only right to share my recent experience. After all, living optimally is journey and not a destination and definitely not linear.

You would have thought I’d be all calm and relaxed about this seeing we had been through all this before, but instead I was blubbering mess when the penny dropped as to what was happening.

In fact I freaked out (that is putting it mildly) and so did my husband. It was pure and utter FEAR, as a storm of unpleasant feelings and memories came flooding back. It was a place I NEVER wanted to visit again.

The crazy thing about it, was that the eczema was no where near as bad as he previously had it and it was very localised.

No amount of logic and rationalisation could remove the fear and utter devastation I was feeling. I just kept on thinking “I can’t do this again”. As he is older now and could understand more, his view was “Mum, you fixed this before when I was a baby, you can do it again”, but deep down I thought what if I can’t.

He contracted the molascum virus which is common and ordinarily harmless, however it triggered eczema again.

After wallowing in my own self-pity, I decided to pull up my big girl pants and start the healing process AGAIN. As always, it was a multi-faceted approach.

I sort help from a qualified health practitioner to assist with supplementation as it was obvious his immune system needed some help to fight this virus.

During the healing process we focused on all 4 key foundations of health and these were the steps that I took:

Nutrition:

Undertaking the GAPS protocol a few years ago, he was already base-lined so I did not feel the need to put him on another cycle again. Instead I took the principles and put them to work. One week a month for 4 months we completed a mini healing protocol, i.e his diet consisted of all soft easy to digest foods such stews, casseroles, soups and plenty of broth, meat and well cooked vegetables. The remaining time the focus was on quality wholefoods with plenty of vegetables, quality protein, quality fats, minimal grains, gluten free and healing foods such as broth and fermented foods on a daily basis

Microbiome

This time I stool tested him and identified that he was particularly low on a specific strain of beneficial bacteria and we supplemented him on a single strain for a period of 3 months.I also ensured his diet contained plenty of PREBIOTIC fibre to help the current beneficial flora to flourish.

Toxicity

By default with what we were doing, we were allowing the body to naturally detoxify itself. Some supplements were also added to assist with this. See below. He also bathed daily in either epsom salts or bi-carb soda to further assist the detoxification process. We are typically a low tox house, so that side of things have always been taken care of.

Emotional Well-being

This was a biggy, more for me than him. It was probably the area that had the greatest impact on his recovery......much to my surprise and a concept I was really RESISTING.

When I consulted the book “The Secret Language of Your Body” Eczema was seen as a result of anger, resentment and frustration. Given his nature of being so grounded and pleasant, I could not understand how he could be experiencing these emotions. After digging some more, I became to understand that this was energetically being fed off me........say WHAT!! I was in fact experiencing these trapped emotions and I was the one who needed to work on my emotions. I used the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) along with a few other strategies to shift this and I saw dramatic results in his skin within 24 hours. I was GOBSMACKED. This was months after working on all of the other aspects above which were yielding results, however actively working on this foundational pillar just really sped up the healing.

I no longer could ignore the impact and connection our inner being had to our physical well-being AND that of our children.

Supplements we found useful and their purpose

• Colostrum for immune support
• Saccharomeycess Boulardii – to promote growth of beneficial bacteria and yeasts
• Activated B – to assist with methylation & detoxification
• Liver Support – further aid detoxification
• Single strain & broad spectrum probiotics – promote beneficial bacteria growth
• Fulvic Minerals – supplementation of trace minerals
• Essential fatty acid Fish Oil. – good for skin health
• Vitamin C – Immune and collagen

Other Treatments we undertook

• Homeopathy to further support healing and he really responds well to it
• Cranial osteopathic adjustments
• EFT to support his emotional well-being during the healing process

Please note, I provide this list for informational purposes ONLY and everything listed has been prescribed by a qualified health practitioner purely based on my little man.

Please consult a health care provider before deciding to consume any supplements for health benefits

My takeaway lessons from this experience:

1. Health is not a destination - it's a journey and you need to be aware, flexible and adaptable
2. Knowledge is power and empowering. It doesn't matter how many times you need to press the RESET button, you have the tools and knowledge to be able to it
3. Do not underestimate the power of emotional well-being and it's impact on physical health, i.e. FIRSTLY for ourselves as mums AND then teaching our children how to be emotionally intelligent.
4. You need work on EACH of the 4 foundations to resolve any health condition long term.

I am pleased to report that his eczema healed beautifully once again, and in fact he so much more stronger and resilient because of it, as we did not try to suppress the condition or the virus, but instead worked at the root causes, supported and allowed the body to heal itself.

I now actually have gratitude for this experience as it has brought a whole new understanding of what it means to be truly HEALTHY and with an innate knowing that you CANNOT just focus on nutrition, EACH of the 4 foundations needs to be actively addressed which I do in my signature 1:1 Healing with Wholefood Program.

If you are stuck on your healing journey, either for yourself or your child, get in contact with me for a 30 minute FREE Health Mapping Session to see how best to move you forward.

Chantal is a Certified Nutrition & Wellness Coach that specialises in helping stressed and overwhelmed mums heal their children with wholefoods using a personalised wholistic step by step approach.