Unlocking Optimal Health: Personalized Nutrition and Functional Medicine Solutions

Ever wondered why your weight management plans aren't working? Our expert guest sheds light on how incorporating functional medicine into personalized nutrition can address the root causes of health issues instead of just managing symptoms. Discover the nuances of creating a tailored dietary plan by considering an individual's genetic makeup, health goals, and lifestyle factors. Unlock the secrets to optimal health with strategies that focus on sleep, micronutrient deficiencies, and gut health.

This episode is a treasure trove of insights on the benefits of anti-inflammatory diets, the significance of whole foods, and the practice of mindful eating. Listen as we explore common nutritional supplements that balance hormones and support gut health, and learn about the profound impact of a nutrient-dense diet. Whether you're dealing with hormonal imbalances, food sensitivities, or simply striving for better energy levels, this conversation is packed with actionable advice to help you become your best, optimal self.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:24

So lifestyle management and, like a functional medicine, integrative approach to your weight management. How does this different from just your weight management techniques? The addition to functional medicine in practice is that you're doing a more holistic approach. You are doing personalized nutrition, focusing and addressing root causes and health issues, rather than just managing just general symptoms. You're approaching this patient or client, acknowledging them uniquely and looking at their dietary and tailoring their needs. So it's what? The previous information, but taking it even more whole approach, looking at their genetic makeup and finding out their health goals so that you can get to their best, optimal self for them or the balance that they need. Now, key principles of this is that you're trying to get it personalized. You're recognizing that it's not a one size fits all and that not everything works for one person. So things have to be tailored to their history, their genetics, their lifestyle, specific health concerns and create a personalized dietary plan.

Speaker 1: 1:32

So underlying causes in individuals can vary. So first you want to talk to them about their sleep. Would you recommend magnesium in their diet? Are there imbalances necessarily either causing inflammation, hormonal imbalances? Um, necessarily either causing inflammation, hormonal imbalances, nutritional deficiencies, gut biome or microbiome issues or any other, and you know you would start targeting those um underlying causes. So maybe that may be um for that individual. It's a targeted nutritional plan Um, seeing if there's some sort of micronutrition issues. Also maybe identifying if those individuals may have, eliminating any food allergies or sensitivities that may cause bloating or weight gain or inflammation. Replenishing that individual with nutrition and optimizing their macronutrient ratio.

Speaker 1: 2:21

So a lot of whole foods, emphasizing protein, carbs and, you know, quality fats. Emphasizing the minimal processed foods, encouraging consumption of wide variety of fruits, vegetables, grains, lean proteins, healthy fats, promoting more of a nutrient-dense than overall health and less of the processed foods. Looking into anti-inflammatory diets or anti-inflammatory foods. So this is foods that will cause less inflammation and often help with root and chronic health issues In functional medicine. We recommend this because anti-inflammatory foods include anything from rich in omega-3s, phytonutrients, which is like basically eating for the rainbow eating. You know all different colors of foods in you know red, white, blue, green. You know that will be quality. So red for peppers, yellow bananas, you know oranges, you know grapes, green and just the more of the quality whole foods. You're going to eliminate and promote less inflammation within the body. Decrease the amount of sugar, processed food, refined sugar, refined carbs, excess trans fats and you're going to balance those macronutrients within your body. You can do this individually. So each person is going to be different and their needs are going to be different, but you modify it as needed and you know, give the quality carbohydrates, fats and proteins so that they can have the best energy balance for each one of them.

Speaker 1: 3:45

Nutrition supplementation is depending upon what some people are deficient in. I would say majority of patients or clients are deficient in vitamin C, vitamin D, omega-3. Those are top and then magnesium are usually my four go-tos and then everything else is depending upon the gut, the cortisol levels and nutritional needs. Gut health is a very paramount and important role in functional medicine and is used quite often because a lot of the gut and brain health and immune system is in the gut and also in the body. So it is a direct effect on how people will be and how they will react.

Speaker 1: 4:22

So in turn, what you can do is you really focus on food as medicine. You do probiotics and prebiotics food that they're given in, probiotics for the microbiome and work on balancing that. In addition, you're going to be working on hormonal balance and consider impact on what foods are best for them and what will work in that individual. Sometimes you even have to look in hormonal changes and look at a balance for that individual. Sometimes you even have to look in you know hormonal changes and look at a balance for that individual.

Speaker 1: 4:50

And then, of course, we've spoke previous about mindful eating and encourage ways of practicing a slower, mindful practice and making it more mindful in your eating habits, where you eat, how you eat, so that you can identify your hunger cues, your fullness and, if it's emotional or stressful triggers. In addition, all of courses has to do with your lifestyle and connecting functional medicine with your dietary and lifestyle factors, with exercise, sleep, stress management, social connections. These are all key and again, like before said, you know what's. It's a collaborative effort. There's no one size fits all. You know, make it work for you and try to get to the underlying cause and really make discussions with friends, family and your healthcare provider so that you can get to your optimal self.