Have you ever had periods of time where you simply feel right? We’re talking both mentally and physically. You feel in balance, you feel strong, you feel… well. That’s what I call Real Health.

If you have felt that or you still do, this website is geared toward helping you maintain that incredible state of being. If you haven’t felt that in a long time or maybe ever or when you did, it was fleeting, helping you achieve your version of Real Health is what Peppermint Tea & Me is all about. That’s why we need to define what Real Health is as well as lay out some actionable first steps that you can take to achieve it.

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What is Real Health?

As you’ll be reminded frequently if you hang out in this space regularly, I believe that Real Health is achieved by recognizing that every part of us – mind, body and nutrition – is connected. Monique Class, MS, APRN, BC agrees. She’s a board-certified family nurse practitioner and clinical nurse specialist in holistic health at The Institute for Functional Medicine.

In a conversation about holistic health, Monique told me that “the mind, body and spirit (if you want to use that word), are all connected and are a unified whole. There’s bi-directional communication, meaning what happens to the body influences the mind and the emotions and what happens in the mind influences the body.”

This is understanding that when it comes to our health and overall wellbeing, causes and effects are not simply either physical or “mental.” Most of the time, they’re both. Melissa Grabau, PhD reminds us in her book, The Yoga of Food: Wellness From the Inside Out (affiliate link) that “How we feel day to day, our general health and energy levels, and our overall sense of safety and peace in our own flesh have an enormous impact on how we feel about ourselves and our capacity to function effectively in the world.”

Role of Nutrition

So, what does all of this have to do with nutrition? Everything! Julie McGregor, MD works with the Integrative Medical Clinic of North Carolina and is a board-certified internist and nephrologist trained in integrative medicine. She told me that, “Nutrition is a part of building up our physical cells, but it’s also an emotional choice and has a lot of overtones. What we choose to eat has to do with where we are emotionally and also then leads to an emotional response in our body.”

This connection can lead to a healthy, well-oiled machine when it comes to our body and our mind. Failure to recognize this relationship though can lead to us living a life that is less than our best or even worse, spiraling through physical or mental issues that we have more control over than we may think.

Common Barriers to Real Health

According to our experts, the most common barriers that many women run into when it comes to achieving Real Health can really be narrowed down to two primary areas.

1. Unhealthy relationship with food.

Both Monique and Julie say this is one of the primary issues they see when women especially don’t recognize how connected everything really is. Some of the primary reasons for this unhealthy relationship can include emotions, social or community expectations, or programming.

Monique gives the example of coming home at 8:00 p.m., going straight to the freezer, pulling out the ice cream and eating it until the whole container is gone. If you do that every night, it becomes a pattern. “We know physiologically that every time you do that pattern, you create wiring in the brain. It’s called neuroplasticity. So, neurons that fire together wire together. Every time you do something over and over again or choose a particular food over and over again, you get hardwired into the brain where that choice becomes automatic and not conscious.”

The same concept is true of emotions. If you reach for chocolate or something sweet every time you feel anxious or stressed or alcohol every time you feel angry, you’re hardwiring your brain to react to those emotions with food.

2. Lack of self-care.

Julie says this is a huge issue for women because we put so much pressure on ourselves to be perfect in every aspect of our lives. To have perfect careers, to keep a perfect home, to be a perfect mom, to be perfect daughters and to be perfect friends.

“There’s a lot of pressure that we put on ourselves, and the one who ends up coming last is ourselves. So many of my female patients who are in their 50s or 60s come to me fatigued, worn out, completely depleted, having not concentrated on wellness for themselves. They were out trying to achieve perfection in every component of their lives for, you know, 50 or 60 years. Then, they just can’t keep going because there isn’t that attention of self-care or focus on wellness for oneself.”

She’s found that this often leads to obesity, depression, thyroid disorders and general physical unwellness that plagues us around the time of menopause. “This, coincidentally, is a lot of times when we’re retiring or when we’re empty nesters, or during these transitions when the adrenaline stops and the body is just feeling the effects of decades of neglect.”

First Steps Toward Achieving Real Health

To shift away from these barriers, there are several first steps that you can take to achieve Real Health.

1. Love yourself and be happy with yourself just as you are.

There may be things that you want to change, but Monique says that accepting and loving where you are right now has to come first. Then you can identify and become aware of the areas that you want to change in a healthy, realistic way.

2. Carve out time for self-care.

We may not be able to exercise for an hour every day, get a massage once a week or meditate for 30 minutes every morning, but there are plenty of things that we can do. It’s all part of making sure that we’re the best versions of ourselves now and that we don’t end up tired and depleted when we finally do feel like we have the time.

3. Become aware of the choices that you’re making.

According to Monique, this is critical for making any kind of change in your life. She suggests that as you reach for that ice cream every night, that you notice the behavior and check in with yourself and think about what you’re feeling, what you’re eating for, or what you’re hungry for. More times than not, you’ll find that you’re not hungry for the food, you’re looking for something else.

The first step, she says, isn’t taking that food or behavior away. You have to first recognize the behavior and then begin to figure out what you’re really hungry for or what you really need in that moment. At that point, you can substitute the behaviors that truly address those needs for the ones that aren’t serving you well.

4. Drink more water

You may think that you don’t like water, but your body does. In fact, the U.S. Geological Survey says our bodies are made up of up to 60% water, so we have to have it to survive. Since we want to do more than just survive, we want to thrive, Julie puts this step toward the top of the list for achieving Real Health and adopting an attitude of overall wellness.

5. Get better sleep.

Julie says this has to be a priority. I’m the first to acknowledge that this isn’t always as easy to do as it sounds, but there are things you can do to not only make sure that you’re getting the amount of sleep you need but that it’s quality sleep as well.

6. Move as much as you can.

Here are some ways that you can work movement into your day, whether you have 30 minutes at a time or 5-10 minutes here and there.

Real Health on a Budget

“That all sounds great, but even if I can find the time to take care of myself and to eat more healthy, nutritious food, I can’t afford it.” If that’s what you’re thinking, I’m here to ask you to be willing to think differently. Gym memberships are not a requirement for achieving Real Health and neither is having someone else to watch your kids while you focus on yourself.

Yes, whole, nutritious food is going to be more expensive than a 99-cent fast food burger, but in the long run, it evens out. Without health issues that could have been prevented with different lifestyle choices, you’ll likely save money in a number of ways. These include doctor’s visits and prescriptions as well as not missing work or losing opportunities among many others.

Real Health on a budget isn’t about an attitude of lack, it’s about an attitude of abundance. It’s being grateful for what you have and recognizing that healthy can be affordable. It’s also allocating your dollars in a way that supports your priorities rather than automatically spending money in ways that don’t serve you well. 

Mind + Body + Nutrition + On a Budget = Real Health

Julie sums it all up in a beautiful way. “How we exercise and what we choose for our physical wellbeing as far as movement and environment and choices about stretching or meditation, and our choices with our nutrition all affect how we think and our emotions. In turn, all of our emotions affect how we move, where we put our bodies and the choices we make for our physicality and our diet.”

Because of how entwined these factors are, Real Health looks different for everyone. Yes, the general steps outlined here are good places to start in achieving it, but Real Health is very individual. What it looks like for me probably won’t be the same for you. The goal for all of us though is to live in that place of personal wellness as much as possible and to draw on the strength and power that brings to live our best life possible.

The post What is Real Health? appeared first on Peppermint Tea.

Since I have a weightlifting son who puts a lot of effort into timing his eating around his workouts, I started wondering whether I should be paying more attention to what I eat and when I eat it in conjunction with my workouts. Afterall, I, like most people, want to make sure that if I’m putting in that much effort, I’m getting the most out of it. To get the answers I was looking for, I turned to Dani Singer, CEO and Director of Fit2Go Personal Training in Baltimore, Maryland. In this Q&A, Dani fills us in on all of the do’s and some of the don’ts of eating for exercise and what we should be eating before and after working out.

Peppermint Tea & Me: We know that elite athletes and weightlifters are cognizant of what they eat when in order to optimize their workouts or training, but do regular people need to do the same when we’re exercising if the goal is not necessarily weight loss but to become or stay healthy?

Dani Singer: A big part of that comes down to the individual. If you’re running, it’s going to come down to how well you can perform during the run, how well you can improve your cardiovascular efficiency and what makes you feel good after. Whatever exercise you’re doing, it’s about how you can perfect your personal performance. If eating a certain way before a run or workout makes you perform worse, then don’t do it. If it makes you feel better, do it.

PT&M: Is there a certain timeframe in which we should eat before we exercise?

DS: What, for most people, works really well is to eat at least 30 minutes if not 60 minutes before their run or when they exercise. That’s where to start. Some people will be great 30 minutes before, and some people will eat 30 minutes before and they’ll be like, ‘Oh my God no, I get so nauseous, I have to do 60 minutes before.’ So, start with that kind of recommendation of you want to do it 30 to 60 minutes before and see what works for you.

PT&M: What should be eaten before we exercise?

DS: What you want usually is some kind of quick digesting carb around your workouts, which is different than what you usually want to have. Most of the time you want to have slow digesting carbs. You want to have something like whole wheat, brown rice, and something with whole grain, whole fiber. But when you’re doing your workout, that’s when you want the simple, quickly digesting carbs because you want them to be easily converted into fuel, as you’re running, weightlifting, or whatever you’re doing.

You don’t want to have a huge meal, because you just don’t want to have so much that you feel too full and it’s slowing you down, and you don’t want to have too little that you’re feeling hungry and that you are not able to perform as well. Generally, we recommend for clients to do something like a smoothie. Where it will be a fruit smoothie, so the fruit is simple, there’s simple, quick digesting carbs, and we’ll have some Greek yogurt or some protein powder or something in there. If you have both the protein and the quick digesting carbs, that’s really what you need for your workout. One serving of simple carbs, one serving of protein, and then for most people, they’re good to go.

PT&M: How does our nutrition impact what we get out of our exercise?

DS: Everything comes down to conversion of energy. You’re constantly expending energy by breathing, by just being alive. And then when you are exercising, you’re intentionally expending more energy. So, the energy has to come from somewhere. The primary sources of energy our body uses are glucose or fat. Glucose is sugar. All carbs are composed of sugar, and glucose is your body’s preferred source of energy. It’s the best. It can be converted to energy the most readily and the most effectively for your body. Whether it’s an apple, whether it’s brown rice, or whether it’s white rice, all carbs are just chains of simple sugars. So, it’s a question of how long those chains are. Whole grains will be longer chains. Fruit will be smaller chains. The idea is that the smaller chains are more easily broken down. So, if you’re having fruit, it can be quickly broken down and then your body can use it. If you’re having something with whole grain, your body is going to take a long time to break that down before it can actually utilize it. That’s why generally if you’re eating those quick digesting carbs, it’s just spiking your insulin. You usually don’t want that, but you do want that readily available around your workout.

PT&M: What should we eat after we exercise?

DS: If you’re just having a banana and a Greek yogurt before your workout, you’re probably still going to be hungry afterward. Then it might be a good time to have breakfast. You might have some eggs and some oatmeal or something like that, but I wouldn’t say that you necessarily need to have a meal at a certain time after.

PT&M: I think most people have heard the saying “You have 30 minutes to recover” after you exercise, but what does that really mean?

DS:  There’s the idea of the anabolic window, which is somewhere between 30 to 90 minutes post workout. Anabolic means just building up. In fitness, we’re talking about building up muscle. When you’re doing your workout, you’re breaking down your muscle fibers and then you have that window where it can most readily utilize nutrition to repair and to build back stronger muscles. The initial research on the anabolic window was done probably 10 years ago at least. Since then, more research has shown that it’s really like 24 hours after your workout that you have that anabolic window. There may be some extra benefit to doing it within 30 to 90 minutes, but the only ones really pushing that strongly are the protein powder companies.

PT&M: If someone is trying to lose weight, eating just after exercising may seem counterintuitive. Do the same rules apply in those cases?

DS: One thing I would caution against is when people are thinking about losing weight, is not to think, ‘Okay I just burned all these calories, so let me not eat now, or I’m going to eat later.’ Because if you’re holding back from eating, specifically if you are hungry and you’re holding back, not only is it not healthy, but you’re going to end up, for most people, they’ll end up just eating even more later. What matters with weight loss is the total calories throughout the day. So, don’t stress about having to put them around your workout, other than how it affects your workout and your performance.

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