Did You Know Your Skin Could Do This?

👀 Did you know…

That your skin is the largest detoxification organ in your body!

Even though sweat is almost entirely water, studies have found that some toxins—including heavy metals and bisphenol A (BPA)—are excreted in sweat.

Here are 3 simple ways to support detoxification through the skin:

1️⃣ Sauna

2️⃣ Exercise

3️⃣ Dry Skin Brushing

The first 2 help you sweat, while the last unclogs pores and sloughs off dead skin cells.

Isn’t it fun how all the body systems actually work together?

References

Kuan WH, Chen YL, Liu CL. Excretion of Ni, Pb, Cu, As, and Hg in Sweat under Two Sweating Conditions. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022;19(7):4323. [link]

Genuis SJ, Beesoon S, Birkholz D, Lobo RA. Human excretion of bisphenol A: blood, urine, and sweat (BUS) study. J Environ Public Health. 2012. [link]

4 Easy Ways to Eat More Fruits & Veg

Raise your hand if you feel the activities are ramping up since getting back to school and work this fall?

It’s easy to use “busy” as an excuse to eat on the run or to make less healthy choices, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

Here are some tips to make sure you (and your loved ones) can be munching on fruits & veggies no matter your schedule.

1️⃣ Wash & Chop in Advance

Take a small block of time on Sunday (or each evening) to wash and chop veggies like peppers, carrots, and celery to store in the fridge. This makes it just as easy to grab those as it is to grab a snack from the pantry!

2️⃣ Set Fruit Front & Center

Place fruits that stay out on the counter, like apples, oranges, and bananas, in a bowl that stays front and center. That way when you or any of the kids pass through, they’ll be easy to grab.

3️⃣ Carry a Cooler Bag

Keep a small lunch box or cooler bag at the ready so you can throw in some chopped fruits and veggies to carry along on your errands, carpools, or park dates. This works when out and about by yourself or with kids.

4️⃣ Pack Lunch

Eating out for lunch often means fewer fruits and veggies. Packing your lunch is one of the surest ways to eat more produce through the middle part of your day. Plus, you’ll save time and money.

So much of habit formation has less to do with what’s going on in your brain and more to do with the environmental cues around you.

The reason these ideas ☝️work is because they leverage the power of your environment to make it just as easy to eat fruits and vegetables as it is to eat packaged or processed food.

Are you in?

Comment with your favorite fruit or veggie emoji! 🍓🥦🍉🥕

🗝️ The Key to Habit Change

🤔 What neuroplasticity has to do with habits…

“We are creatures of habit.”

“Old habits are hard to break.”

“New habits are hard to keep.”

How many of these ideas ☝️ do you believe?

So much about improving our health requires changing our habits. That’s true for physical, mental, and emotional health. But in order for new habits to stick, we also need to retrain our brains.

It’s called neuroplasticity 💡 and is basically like rewiring old patterns into new ones on a subconscious level.

Here’s the great thing about neuroplasticity:

✅ The more you trigger neural pathways in the brain, the stronger they get.

❌ The less you trigger other neural pathways in the brain, the weaker they get.

That means every time you lace up your walking shoes instead of sitting on the couch, you’re training your brain to believe you’re a person who exercises. Every time you drink water instead of wine, you’re training your brain to believe you’re a person who stays sober. Every time you take a deep breath instead of yelling, you’re training your brain to believe you’re a person who stays present and relaxed.

The key to making neuroplasticity work in your favor is to practice your positive and health-promoting habits in little bits often:

🗝️ Little & Often 🗝️

That’s how you train your brain, and that’s how you make habits stick.

Watch for my next post because I’m going to share some **specific neuroplasticity exercises** you can do little & often.

Any ideas what some might be? Give me your guesses in the comments. ⤵️

Multivitamins: 3 Questions to Ask

What to look for in a good multivitamin ⤵️

Taking a multivitamin can fill in the gaps of your diet and make sure you don’t miss out on important vitamins and minerals over time. Even people who have healthy eating habits can optimize their nutrient intake with a multivitamin. But the question is:

How do you choose the best one?

When I’m evaluating the quality of a vitamin, I ask these 3 questions:

1️⃣ Is it age-appropriate?

Children need lower amounts of most vitamins and minerals than adults, teenage boys need more zinc to support hormones, menstruating people need more iron to replace lost blood, and older adults have a higher need for vitamins like B12. That’s why it’s helpful to choose a multivitamin formulated for the right age and stage.

2️⃣Are the nutrients bioavailable?

By “bioavailable,” I mean the nutrients are both easily absorbed and readily utilized by the body. For example, methylcobalamin is preferable to cyanocobalamin (these are both forms of vitamin B12) and magnesium glycinate is preferable to magnesium oxide.

3️⃣What are the “other” ingredients?

Some vitamins are loaded with artificial colors, flavors, sweeteners, and binders. Jump to the “other ingredients” to make sure the product is actually going to help rather than harm your health.

When I’m working with my clients on their nutrition, I recommend professional-grade supplements available through our convenient online dispensary. Most healthcare providers are not educated in nutritional supplements, but it’s something we specialize in.

How to Combat the Aging Brain [New Study] 🧠

This one is for anyone who cares about their memory as they age 🧠

🗞️ The just-released COSMOS-Web Study asked this question: Can flavanol supplements benefit the aging brain?

Flavanols are naturally occurring compounds in plant foods that have antioxidant and health-promoting properties, but not everyone eats enough 🍎🍇🍫

Building on over 15 years of research, the current study assigned 3500 healthy older adults to take a daily flavanol supplement (or placebo) for 3 years. The supplement contained 500 mg of flavanols, including 80 mg of epicatechins.

The results?

✅ Memory scores improved slightly for everyone taking the daily flavanol supplement.

✅ Memory scores improved most significantly (by 16%) in those who were consuming a poorer diet and had lower baseline levels of flavanols.

✅ Even more importantly, memory improvement was sustained for at least two more years

Think of it like this:

Just like the developing brain of newborns and small children requires specific nutrients for proper development, so too does the aging brain require specific nutrients for optimal health.

Now we know flavanols are some of those key brain nutrients.

Reference

Brickman AM, Yeung LK, Alschuler DM, et al. Dietary flavanols restore hippocampal-dependent memory in older adults with lower diet quality and lower habitual flavanol consumption. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2023;120(23):e2216932120. [link]