With flu season in full swing, I thought I'd share this recipe for a homemade health aid. It's like a gatorade without the chemicals, additives, food coloring, and high fructose corn syrup (YUCK!). Those things are not what you want fueling your body and resetting a balance in your body when you are sick.  This is also safe to drink during pregnancy and would be great during labor to keep yourself hydrated. 

INGREDIENTS:
4 cups Coconut Water
The juice of 2 limes and 2 lemons
1/4 teaspoon sea salt (I like to mix a grey and pink salt)
1/4 cup raw honey or maple syrup
1 tsp natural calm magnesium

​ You can mix all of the ingredients together in a blender. I just used a mason jar and shook it up real good. 

Before labor and for friends that were having a home birth, I poured the health aide into an ice cube tray and froze the liquid as ice cubes. You could then add them to water or just defrost as needed when sick or in labor. 

Hoping this flu season passes quickly, but you can be ready by having this prepped and in the fridge! Also, consider sending it to your childrens sports games instead of the high sugar, commercial varieties. 

If you need access to the natural calm supplement, you can purchase off my online supplement dispensary: https://wellevate.me/caitlin-johnson
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As always, in good health!

​Caitlin Johnson, RD

New year and new resolutions, right? Wrong! I see patients in my practice every day that have been on every diet around and still have weight problems. I have clients referred from physicians on weight loss pills that have not worked and are robbing them of precious sleep. I have seen it all and take it from me, a new diet in the new year is not the solution to the extra twenty pounds or to your happiness. I know you are thinking 'wait a minute, you are a dietitian, don’t you put people on diets?' 90% of my clients do not go on a diet, they are taught a number of key principles of nourishing their body and energy balance. Read that again: nourishing their body and energy balance.

In my practice we go over things like hormone implications on health and weight, thyroid health, meal timing, composing healthy meals, shopping on a budget, planning meals for you and your family, cooking tips. A key component to managing healthy weight, fueling your body to have consistent energy, and avoiding chronic disease is education, the RIGHT education. With all of the diets, nutrition plans, smoothie replacements, and diet industry gimmicks, it is hard to weed through all of this and know simply: what to put on the table every night. That is why education is the number one thing I work on with patients.

The second key piece is INDIVIDUALIZATION. Not every body is the same (duh), because every single person has a lifetime of likes and don’t-likes, habits, even addictions (ie carbs, sugar, alcohol, starbucks, etc). Each household has different  food budgets, schedules, and picky eaters. Taking key concepts and adjusting them to your health history, your health goals and your life right now is why seeing a professional is better than picking a brand new fad diet and implementing it for the next 30 days and then quitting and going back to your old lifestyle.

The other major role, or third place I see myself as a healthcare practitioner in nutrition is in providing accountability. I play the role of a friend to go to the gym with in terms of motivation, I provide guidance, and you can’t hide from the scale at my office (well you can). Studies show having an accountability partner will help you succeed when implementing new habits both in the kitchen and at the gym.

The right information, customized for your life and help holding you to your goals is the formula I have seen work for people.

Diets do not work for a number of reasons. The first being that they often lack long term sustainability. Ask yourself the question: Can I do this for the rest of my life without swaying from this diet for one meal, one day, one evening, one holiday? If you can not commit in that way, the diet will not work for you. Diets also do not work due to long term damage they often cause your metabolism. When severely restricting calories you slow your metabolism down and effectively teach your body to go into starvation mode. This is difficult to rehabilitate out of. Once you abandon said diet, and go back to your normal lifestyle, you return in a somewhat damaged state because you have slowed your metabolism down. Thus any weight you regain will return in the form of fat. So if you lose 10 pounds and gain back those 10 pounds, don’t think it is the “same” 10 pounds. You first lost muscle and fat, and now you have gained back almost all fat. Adipose or fat tissue is less metabolically active. This is the reason you will always gain back more weight.

The diet industry knows these principles and thrives off of them, because they make money every time they regurgitate to you a “new” diet that is just a slight tweak from one they have sold in the past.  Don’t fall victim to this in the new year. If you need help, seek it out from someone qualified to support you through to the end of your goals. If you won’t seek help, at least do yourself a favor and don’t go on a diet.
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You should also check out my post from last year: Dieting and broken metabolisms, why is it so hard for some to lose weight and keep it off.