Wellness Foundations
We are holistic beings, with multiple facets playing a role in our health including our mental and physical health. While completing my certification to become a Functional Nutritional Therapy Practitioner, I learned about the key foundations that play a role in our health. In this series, I’m going to share with you what those are and how you can use this knowledge to live a healthy and whole, fulfilled life.
The Foundations of Wellness according to the Nutritional Therapy Association are nutrition, digestion, blood sugar regulation, fatty acids, mineral balance, and hydration.
You can eat an abundance of whole foods and take supplements, but it won’t do anything for you if you aren’t able to absorb the nutrients in them. A properly functioning digestive system is key to being truly well.
The next foundation is blood sugar. According to a study done by the CDC, the amount of Americans with pre-diabetes went from 34.5% in 2013-16 to 88% in 2018. People need to know how detrimental blood sugar spikes and crashes truly are to their health. Constant dysregulated blood sugar causes stress on the body and chronic inflammation. Instead of constant ups and downs, we want to have balanced energy throughout our day.
We need fats to help our bodies metabolize vitamins and minerals, develop hormones, and much more. We’ll discuss why low-fat diets are harmful to your health, why fats are essential to a healthy diet, what fats to enjoy, and what to avoid.
Minerals are essential to vitamin absorption, bone health, and much more. Having a balance between minerals is vital and we’ll discuss how you can get these minerals through your diet and lifestyle.
We are 75% water, so we need to stay hydrated. Water is important for detoxification and healthy cells. Many people are chronically dehydrated. We will dive into how much water you need and how to better absorb it.
All-encompassing these foundations is a “properly prepared, nutrient-dense, whole foods diet.” This encompasses everything because, without the nutrition aspect, none of these other foundations are possible.
Ready to dive deeper? Stay tuned for next week’s post!
Contact me here for a free nutritional assessment to learn what foundations you have that are in need of added support and how you can use the foundations of health to bring your body back into balance.
Sources:
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2017/p0718-diabetes-report.html https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/pdfs/data/statistics/national-diabetes-statistics-report.pdf