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With so many diets to choose from, how do you know which diet is right for you? Is there one diet that is better than all the others? Which diet guarantees the most weight loss? Which diet insures that you will be your healthiest? Let me give you some straight talk so that you can cut through all the marketing to discern what you really need.

It’s Not About the Weight.

The answer doesn’t matter if you’re asking the wrong question. Is “Which diet is right?”  even a productive question? Perhaps, first, you should ask, “Do I really need to go on a diet? Why do I need to go on a diet?”

Chances are you feel like you need to lose some weight. There is an assumption here: “If I lose some weight, I’ll be healthier.” But I’m telling you, that’s backward! In reality, if you get healthy first, then you’ll lose some weight! We tend to think that we carry around those excess pounds simply because we haven’t exercised enough yet to compensate for all the calories we ate. But if that simple calorie-in, calorie-out math were correct, there wouldn’t be a glut weight loss and exercise programs on the market, because we’d all be skinny!

There is an assumption here: “If I lose some weight, I’ll be healthier.” But I’m telling you, that’s backward! In reality, if you get healthy first, then you’ll lose some weight!

Which Diet is Right for You? It Depends

The reason that you diet and workout like crazy and still can’t get those pounds off is because there’s an imbalance, impairment, or blockage somewhere in your body. Your body is not stupid. In fact, your body is absolutely brilliant! It compensates precisely and marvelously to all the conditions under which you ask it to live, keeping you alive and functioning in spite of whatever stresses, toxins, illnesses, and food-like substances you encounter. It may be working around inflammation, or poor digestion, or skewed hormones. But it adjusts and optimizes what is available to keep you as resilient as possible.

Therefore, in order to understand which diet is right for you, it’s imperative to understand what unique dynamics are going on inside of your body. Just because your friend lost weight on a keto diet doesn’t mean that your gall bladder is strong enough for you to process that many fats. Even though your mom is a vegan doesn’t mean that you will make enough hemoglobin, antibodies, enzymes or hormones without animal protein in your diet. And while your wife eats low carb, it doesn’t mean you can compete in sports without a few more starches to burn.

Four Hormones Are Key

Truthfully, you are not really in control of your weight. Your hormones are. If you are fighting stubborn weight loss, chances are that at least one of these four hormones is out of kilter. So, which diet is right for you will depend on your levels of thyroid, estrogen, insulin, and cortisol. If you focus on bringing the hormones into harmony, you will not only settle at a better weight, you will feel stronger and more vibrant, too.

Truthfully, you are not in charge of your weight. Your hormones are.

The Right Diet for Poor Thyroid Function

If your thyroid is sluggish, so is your metabolism…and your digestion…and everything else. Of course your body holds on to your energy stores! It’s an insurance policy against loss of fuel. For that reason, you need MORE nutrition, not less if your thyroid hormones are out of balance. Low calorie diets are stressful to the body, and stress is very damaging to thyroid function. So is hard-core, extreme exercise. Consequently, it’s time to stop dieting and exercising if you need to support your thyroid.

Six top nutrients for thyroid health are iron, selenium, zinc, iodine, protein, and Vitamin A. Incidentally, these nutrient require robust digestion. Minerals are hard to absorb, and protein is tough to break down. If you have wimpy digestion, dieting is not going to augment your thyroid function. Work with a practitioner to prime digestion first!

Eat for Estrogen Balance

Did you know that fat tissue is endocrine tissue? In other words, fat tissue makes hormones! So, if you are more than 20 or 30 pounds overweight, there’s a likelihood that you are making more estrogen than your body needs. Estrogen tends to increase weight gain. Therefore, the more weight you gain, the more you’re likely to gain. Dieting is not going to fix that.

The right diet for estrogen dominance is one that supports the liver. It’s your liver that has to break down all the estrogen for elimination. Super foods here would be cruciferous vegetables, high-fiber foods, and B vitamins, especially the active form of vitamin B6, pyridoxal-5-phosphate (P5P). Most detrimental to estrogen excess would be foods that contain “xenoestrogens,” sustances that either mimic or stimulate estrogen in the body. You can find a list of xenoestrogens here.

The Right Diet For High Insulin Levels

You don’t have to be diabetic in order to have high fasting insulin. In fact, insulin may be elevated decades before rising glucose shows up on your bloodwork, even at pre-diabetic stages. You can have chronically high insulin because of ongoing stress in your life, excess calories, or simply too many refined carbohydrates in your lifestyle. Ask for an insulin test the next time you have annual blood samples drawn for lab testing. Functional practitioners consider any result in the upper two-thirds of the reference range to be unhealthy.

An appropriate dietary approach for correcting hyper insulin production is a low-glycemic, high fiber one. It doesn’t seem to matter whether it’s high or low fat, or even high or low carb, so much as it matters the type of carbs you eat. Focus on vegetables! Stay away from foods made with flour, eliminate all sweeteners, and implement some kind of intermittent fasting or restricted time window eating if you are able. You must make dramatic and sustainable changes for about six months to give your organs an abrupt and extended holiday from this deadly metabolic process.

You must make dramatic and sustainable changes for about six months to give your organs an abrupt and extended holiday from this deadly metabolic process.

Correcting Abnormal Cortisol Hormone

Stress is a killer for normal cortisol production. If you feel that you are wired all the time, or tired all the time, you may need to investigate your cortisol levels. But stress is not just emotional! You can be stressed by a hidden food sensitivity, heavy metal toxicity, an imbalance of gut microbes, or a simmering infection, such as gingivitis.

For that reason, the best diet for cortisol health is the one that resolves your unique physiological needs. It may be a high fiber diet, or a dairy-free, gluten-free one. For someone else, it could be a low-starch diet, or one high in polyphenols. There is no one-size-fits-all diet! A functional approach to your needs is best in order to customize a program that works for you.

It’s vital to tune immunity so that you are not susceptible to pathogens. But you also need to regulate your immune system so it doesn’t over-react when it faces a challenge. You want it neither weak nor aggressive. For example, you want to be fit enough to fight off COVID-19, yet not have such an antagonistic response that it precipitates a cytokine storm. In other words, you don’t just want to boost immunity, you want to balance it.

Hydration is Your First Defense

#1 Drink plenty of pure, clean water. No, I don’t mean start drinking water when you get a sore throat. I mean keep your mucus membranes hydrated all the time. Before you even activate that part of your immune system that creates antibodies, a germ first has to get past the nasal passages, the throat, the lungs, and the gut. These are all lined with special membranes designed to provide you protection at the site of first contact with pathogens. Your mucosa is the largest component of your immune system. If you are drinking more soda, juice, coffee, tea, and alcohol than pure water, you are compromising your protection!

Immune-Tuning Triad

The pillars of restorative sleep, frequent movement, and copious amounts of fresh air are foundational for immune balance. However, they are also the most-compromised health tenets in our society today.

#2 Sleep: You know high-quality sleep is vital to wellness. While your body is lying still on the outside, inside it is processing toxins, repairing damaged tissue, generating white blood cells for immunity, and eliminating the effects of stress. Unfortunately you may have trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, or waking too early. The best advice I can give is to make bedtime earlier! That includes an hour for switching gears by turning down lights, dampening the stresses of the day, and stopping stimulating screen time. Aim for hours (plural!) of sleep before midnight.

#3 Movement: Your lymph system requires muscle contractions for good flow. Of course, you need good lymphatic function to release immune cell “soldiers” that monitor and destroy invaders. It stands to reason that more consistent movement throughout the day is better than working out for an hour, then sitting the rest of the day. Such a pattern amounts to movement only 6% of your waking hours. Make a point to walk more, bend more and stretch more throughout the day.

#4 Fresh air: Indoor air can become quite toxic due to outgassing from textiles and chemicals and building materials.  This is especially true during the cold months, even in our own homes! Taking away unnecessary burdens from your body helps it maintain an appropriate response to true threats.

Tune Immunity with Vitamins

#5 Take your vitamins. I’m not talking about Vitamins A, B, C, D, and E. Those are secondary nutrients. Nourish yourself with a full spectrum of these primary nutrients: Vitamin J (joy), Vitamin P (play), Vitamin Q (quiet) and Vitamin T (touch). Without them, we stay predominantly in a sympathetic nervous system mode of fight-or-flight, which suppresses immunity. How can you thrive if you are surrounded by drudgery, stress, noise, and isolation. While I don’t suggest a hedonistic lifestyle, there must be a balance of recreation and pleasure to rejuvenate you from the necessities of providing for yourself.

Tune Immunity with Breath

#6 Mindful breathing. The fastest way to increase immune cells is to activate the parasympathetic nervous system. Mindful breathing is the key to accessing the this nervous system mode. While you may not be able to meditate or do yoga every time you trigger your fight-or-flight nervous system response, you can always deepen your inhales and lengthen your exhales. That simple act of mindfully shifting away from short, shallow breaths brings you back into a more calm, restorative nervous system state. The more time you spend in parasympathetic mode, the healthier your immune system will be. So, make a point to check and adjust your breath frequently throughout the day.

HRV Reflects Immune Balance

#7 Increase your Heart Rate Variability. What’s that? Heart Rate Variability, or HRV, is how much change in time there is between all the heart beats in any given minute or hour. For example, 0.9 seconds might elapse between two beats, then 1.15 seconds between two other beats. This is a great way to measure your ability to switch out of fight-or-flight into “rest-and-digest.” That’s because your heart rate variability will not increase if your body does not feel safe enough relax.

Dr. Marcelo Campos explains, “If a person’s system is in more of a fight-or-flight mode, the variation between subsequent heartbeats is low. If one is in a more relaxed state, the variation between beats is high. In other words, the healthier the autonomic nervous system the faster you are able to switch gears, showing more resilience….A low HRV is  associated with an increased risk of death and cardiovascular disease.”

So, how do you tap into a higher HRV? Stimulate your vagus nerve regularly! This wandering nerve that connects brain to larynx, heart, lungs, liver, stomach, and intestines, is the messenger that tells your organs whether to gear up for battle or gear down for healing. You can stimulate it by singing, gargling, laughing, snuggling, praying, getting a massage, expressing gratitude, or engaging in other health-supporting activities outlined in this post.

(If you want to know what your HRV measures, you can wear a heart monitor with a blue tooth function that connects to an HRV measuring app.)

Tune Immunity with Supplements

#8 Supplement with zinc and omega-3 fats. There’s been much debate about the efficacy of Vitamin D. But no one is debating that your immune system needs zinc to function optimally. Yet, zinc continues to be one of the top nutrient needs in America, along with omega-3 fats, which are vital to having anti-inflammatory action in the body. Additionally, scientists have found that these essential fatty acids actually signal immune cells to behave in certain ways. With a deficiency of these two imperative nutrients, you are much more likely to have an out-of-control response to a pathogen.

Contact me to learn what forms and doses of these supplements to use.

Tune-up Systemic Imbalances

#9 Address your body’s imbalances. No system in the body works in a vacuum. Digestion, immunity, neurotransmission, detoxification, metabolism, and hormone balance all impact each other. When one system is skewed, the other systems have to compensate. So if your blood sugars aren’t balanced, if your thyroid function runs on the low side, if you don’t have a smooth bowel movement once a day, if you function under stress all the time without appropriate breaks, then you are “going into battle wounded.” I suggest you work with a functional practitioner to assess and normalize these functions so that your immune function isn’t pulled out of kilter.

Don’t Forget Your Produce

#10 Your immune system is a nutrient hog! It needs much more than carbs, fats, and proteins. It depends on micronutrients, especially polyphenols. These are a family of more than 8,000 plant chemicals that offer their protective qualities not only to the seeds, fruits, shoots, and roots they are found in, but to you as well! Make sure that you are getting a diverse, copious intake of fruits and vegetables. Challenge yourself to eat a rainbow of natural colors every day. From personal experience, I feel my very best when I get 3 servings of vegetables at every meal.

Of course, we are all at different points in our health journey. You may already be implementing some of these 10 tips. You may feel overwhelmed at implementing others. No one is perfect at doing all of them all of the time, and no one can change all of their weaknesses at once. Start where you are, pick the most attainable or most needful area, and work on that. Any improvement to one area will bring greater resiliency to your immunity and your other body systems as well.

Consider how resilient you are to COVID-19 or any viral infection. Whether or not you have had the SARS-COV-2 virus infect you, you need strong immune function. Regardless of whether you choose the vaccine or not, you want your body to respond well to threats. Even if you are not concerned about Post-COVID Syndrome, you want to be resilient when germs attack your body.

Consider Your Innate Immune Response to COVID-19

Your innate immune system is on the front lines for any viral battle. The key components of this system include your body’s natural barriers: your skin, and the mucous linings of your gut, lungs, and nasal passages. Even the membrane that surrounds your brain is part of this innate system.

If you have enhanced intestinal permeability (EIP), your barriers are compromised. You likely already have increased levels of the cytokine Interleukin-6 (IL-6). Therefore, you are more susceptible to the inflammation of a high viral load causing a cytokine storm. EIP is common where many food sensitivities are present and is an underlying condition of autoimmunity.

To be strong for either a vaccination or an infection of COVID-19, consider changes you can make to strengthen your body’s barriers.

Heal Barrier Function

Looking at Vitamin D as a consideration for COVID-19 immunity, sufficient levels of this vitamin DO enhance the tight junctions in our skin, gut lining, and blood-brain barrier. One of the issues with Vitamin D supplements is that individuals take high doses. Taking too much at once can deplete magnesium and Vitamin A. Always, you must strive for balance in the body. Too much of one substance compromises others.

Also, too high of levels of vitamin D can suppress immunity. So, while low Vitamin D levels threaten barrier function, too much is just as dangerous. Work with a qualified practitioner to asses your need, and don’t just supplement indiscriminately.

Also, be mindful to hydrate, manage stress, and avoid unnecessary medication to maintain your body’s barriers. Eat whole, natural foods, and skirt the refined, processed oils. Be wary of sugars and foods that increase Advanced Glycation End Products (AGEs).

Consider Minerals for COVID-19 Resiliency

It is no secret that you need zinc to heal wounds. When you are fighting any virus, the tissues in your body are “wounded.” Further, when you are under stress chronically, your body allows more copper in place of zinc on purpose so that your can fight or flee better. But you need adequate zinc to maintain your immune function. So, whether or not you have been infected or vaccinated, you may want to test your zinc sufficiency. You can ask your practitioner to check your zinc levels.

Are you feeling anemic? When you have inflammation, your body upregulates a substance called hepcidin on purpose. Hepcidin keeps you from absorbing iron well. Your body knows that iron fuels microbial growth, so it wisely prohibits high iron levels. Insufficient iron in the presence of higher hepcidin could be a clue that you already have too many cytokines on the loose. Working to get to the root of chronic inflammation empowers you to be safer when threatened with a virus.

Your practitioner will want to compare serum iron, ferritin, and hemoglobin levels to ascertain your iron status.

Restorative Sleep for Resiliency

You need to sleep to heal. Your sleep hormone, melatonin, is also a powerful antioxidant that repairs damage from a viral battle. When you find yourself on the “long-haul” recovering from a viral infection, your body may commandeer tryptophan (an amino acid) to make more macrophages (white blood cells that devour viruses). Since you need tryptophan to make melatonin, you may find you can’t sleep well. While making more macrophages promotes your survival, it does not support your healing. Thus, you enter a downward spiral that is difficult to recover from.

For the short term, you may need additional protein (and the tryptophan precursor Vitamin B6) so that you can make both macrophages and melatonin. Your practitioner can give you appropriate supplementation guidelines. But to insure your resiliency before and after an infection, make sure you don’t short-change your sleep. Less than 8 hours per night puts you into a sleep deficit. Prioritize a restful night to support your health.

You can relieve constipation with diet and lifestyle choices. The Constipation Club includes roughly 1 of every 5 Americans. Constipation is a serious symptom that contributes to disease. While it is not true that diet, exercise, and hydration are the only factors contributing to constipation, they are they ones you can control.

Relieve Constipation with Good Eating Hygiene

One of the most important everyday choices you make to sustain bowel regularity is how you eat. If your eating hygiene is sloppy, it will decrease your digestive secretions (stomach acid, bile, digestive enzymes). These secretions are key to ensuring that you have a healthy bowel movement.

What does good eating hygiene consist of? Here are 7 key aspects:

1. Imagine and create a relaxed setting, where you can truly be in the moment. Candles or nature, anyone?
2. Focus on the smells, tastes, & textures of the meal. Truly savor your food.
3. Chew more! If that means taking smaller bites, then use toddler silverware or cut every bite into fourths, but make sure your food is nearly liquid before you swallow.
4. Yes, hydrate. But do so mainly between meals. If you need to moisten your food, see #3. More than 8 ounces of liquid with your meal will dilute digestive function.
5. Don’t overfill the “washing machine.” Your stomach needs room to agitate its contents. Leave overstuffing to padded furniture.
6. Deepen your inhales and lengthen your exhales, especially when you sit down to your meal. This helps switch you out of “fight-or-flight” into “rest-and-digest”.
7. Take your time. Approximately 20 minutes after you start eating, your body produces cholecystokinin (CCK) to stimulate both bile and enzymes to help break down your food. So, avoid rushing in order to let these substances have optimal effect.

Moving Beyond Eating Hygiene

If you have mastered eating hygiene and are still struggling to relieve constipation, consider the 3 M’s and the 3 F’s.

• Magnesium helps relax the colon. The best form to take for constipation relief is magnesium citrate. Check with your functional practitioner to know how much magnesium is appropriate for you.
• Movement stimulates peristalsis. Are you sitting too much? Counting steps with an pedometer lets you know how much movement you engage in per day. For example, 5,000 steps in a 16-hour waking period means you are moving approximately 5% of the time. You need to have roughly 24,000 steps in 16 hours to be moving 25% of the time.
• Medicines may impair motility (especially opiods, antacids and iron supplements). When you take prescriptions sporadically, you can relieve constipation with prune juice. But when you use constipating drugs regularly, you may need to work with a practitioner to resolve your need for these pills.
• Fat helps “grease the skids” if it is unrefined & natural. Avoid processed vegetable oil. Stick with olive oil, avocados, nuts and seeds, coconut oil, and butter for the most part. A low-fat diet can impair your ability to relieve constipation.
• Fiber can both bulk up and soften the stool for it to pass more readily. You should strive to eat more than 25 grams of fiber each day. Eating a variety of fruits, vegetables, legumes, seeds, nuts, and whole grains fills this requirement.
• Food intolerances or sensitivities interfere with normal bowel function. If you have a food intolerance, you lack enzymes to digest your food well. In contrast, a food sensitivity invokes an immune response and you experience inflammation. Both of these scenarios can contribute to constipation. You can order a blood test to check for food sensitivities.

Constipation Relief Requires Good Cellular Communication

Another cause of constipation is poor communication between the brain and the gut, or between the cells of the gut. Since hormones and neurotransmitters are the messengers of this communication, functional practitioners look at those chemicals for imbalance.

Too little thyroid hormone, can cause your system to back up because it slows down all metabolism, including digestive functions. Be sure to let a functional practitioner test your hormone levels before adjusting any medication. One of your most important levels to know is your Free T3, which is the active form of thyroid hormone. Many individuals have sufficient T4 thyroid hormone, but don’t convert it well to the active form.

Cortisol primes cell receptors for other hormones to enter. Both hyper- and hypo-cortisol states influence thyroid hormone action. Again, “test, don’t guess” is the rule for balancing your hormones correctly.

Neurotransmitter Action Matters

You synthesize serotonin, one of your most prominent neurotransmitters, chiefly in your gut, not your brain. Taking an SSRI (selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor) for anxiety or depression is a common cause of constipation. These medications tell the body to recycle the serotonin you have, so the brain assumes you have enough. Over time, your brain directs your body to slow down production. Too little serotonin provokes constipation, while too much serotonin triggers diarrhea. If you struggle with neurotransmitter balance, you will want to work with a functional practitioner to help you re-establish healthy levels.

As you can see, there is not a one-size-fits-all approach to solving constipation. Factors can be varied and individual.

Passing a stool should be an effortless, everyday occurrence. Just as you would not want to use the dirty dishwater to cook a meal, your body does not want to re-circulate waste products to sustain your health. Please avail yourself of tools and resources to make sure that your “garbage” doesn’t pile up.