The term “Inflammatory Foods” has been a hot topic (at least in the Health and Wellness field), and has become quite a buzz phrase among health magazines and articles. While I completely support all the findings of Inflammatory Foods, there is something that I feel has been left out (or forgotten). Not just “something”, but a huge piece of the puzzle. Food is just one element of nutrition that every individual should understand. Nutrition is a practice, a function, and a process. We are all really well educated on the “practice” part of nutrition, but most don’t have a full comprehension of the function and process. From the moment a Mom conceives a child (not from when she finds out she is pregnant-but the conception), her nutrition function and process changes. Her practice of consuming food doesn’t change, (although we tend do increase our practice!) This is where the complications begin to arise. All those issues we begin to battle ten years down the road, actually began before we even found out we were going to be a Mom.

The Function Of Nutrition

A solid and basic answer to the question, “what is the function of nutrition?” would be, to provide energy to our bodies. Proper Nutrition allows our bodies to do all the physical and mental activities throughout our daily lives. Without Proper Nutrition, our bodies become “malnourished”, or in basic terms, it begins to shut down. Humans are made up of trillions of cells, insane and complex systems, lots of organs, and tons of bacteria that require nutrition from an outside source. Our bodies are amazing in the sense that they produce nutrients all on their own, but not enough to sustain the energy and longevity we desire while being exposed to the stress levels of our modern society. That is where our responsibility to fuel our bodies properly comes in to action. As Moms, it is even more important to fuel our bodies with the Proper Nutrition. Not just for the growth of our baby, but for the sustainability of our own health and well being. We can’t expect our babies to raise themselves if we get sick, so best to take care of ourselves!

Proper Nutrition is an important source of energy that our bodies need and crave. Our practice of nutrition has a very close relationship with the function of our nutrition. If these two are not balanced well with one another, complications will start to creep in. Think of it this way: You decide you want to run a marathon out of the blue. You sign up, and then just wait for the day. You choose to only run two times a week for a very short distance as your training regimen. Thinking, all humans can run, whats a few more miles for one day? The day comes, you run a marathon, and completely bomb it because you chose to only put minimal effort into your training. Not only did you finish close to last, but your body can FEEL your lack of practice and training…that is called inflammation. If you had only practiced with the intention of longevity and balanced energy throughout that race, your body wouldn’t be so angry! When the practice and the function don’t work together to find the proper balance, your body will let you know! While feeling pain or symptoms is a great sign that your body is functioning properly, it is also a sign that your body does not enjoy the practices you are forcing it to to comply with. Physical and emotional symptoms are climactic signals from your body to change your practice. These symptoms are a physical emergence from your body that have been lingering for a duration of time in a dysfunctional mode. In order to ease the symptoms, or make them vanish once and for all, you need to understand what optimal nutrition is for you!

The Process Of Nutrition

Adequate nutrition must go through a process…to process in the body. Read that again! We have already learned about the function of nutrition, but before our bodies can absorb the energy needed to function, it must create the energy first. Technology doesn’t just magically turn on one day. There are many processes that need to be conducted before you can pick up your phone, turn it on, and talk to someone. Well, your body works basically the same way. We need a phone (our body), a power source (our food), and a means of communication (our conversion of nutrients from food to trillions of networks in our bodies). When any portion of this process becomes corroded or damaged, our bodies will send out a warning. When we ignore that warning (or perhaps multiple warnings), our body sends out a red alert. You guessed it…INFLAMMATION!

Our bodies are magical. They automatically know how to break down any form of substance we consume. Whether it wants to process it or not, it will break it down. The problem begins when we consume substances that were not designed for our bodies to break down, or perhaps when we consume a gluttonous amount of a substance. Unnecessary substances tend to freak out your bodies response. It goes into defense mode, sending many of our systems into overdrive, or it makes our systems completely crash. Here’s another analogy: Living in a safe neighborhood, we leave your front door unlocked so the kids can go in and out. One day a complete stranger wanders in with a mask on, and asks you to give them items from your house. We aren’t going to just say, “Oh, Ok. Here ya go. Take this and that”, allowing them to just remove items from our home. And then when removing items from our home isn’t enough, they begin to kick and punch us, as we just sit there and take it! Who does that? No one! We fight back! We kick them out! Just like our body does when it creates the defensive wall of inflammation. The symptoms we have are the result of removal of proper nutrients, and beatings due to consuming all the wrong substances. Our poor bodies are being robbed!

The Practice Of Nutrition

We are all aware of what practicing nutrition is…at a surface level. Eating food! However, eating is just one of the many actions in practicing nutrition. Yes, we practice by putting food in the mouth, chewing, swallowing, and then digesting. But, learning how, when, and what to eat is a combination that cannot be one without the others. How you eat, will effect the break down and digestion of your food-the process. When you eat, will effect the purpose of eating food-the function. What you eat will effect the the digestion and the purpose. If these three factors were portioned in three circles, they would all overlap in the middle. They each play an important part in our practice of nutrition.

HOW: Many of us Moms have a tendency to eat “on the go”. This doesn’t necessarily mean we are eating in the car, as we are driving from place to place. It could also mean that we are standing or running around the house as we grab a bite, here and there, as we pass our plate in the kitchen. As funny as this image is, and as true as this image is, we are actually causing our digestive system to turn on and off at crazy intervals. It’s like we are taking a HIIT class while eating a salad. Can you imagine running while trying to swallow food. Even if you are just standing, your digestive system is not relaxing, getting ready to process whatever is heading its way. Sitting, taking a few deep breaths, while we slowly chew our food, not only gives us a much needed break amongst our crazy days, but it is assisting our digestion to process what we consume in a timely manner. As I watch people consume food in record speed time, I can’t help but envision a back up of food going into their digestive tract, somewhat similar to a backup of cars on a freeway at rush hour. SLOW DOWN! If you battle with constipation, diarrhea, upset stomach, and even acid reflux complications, look to HOW you eat, and then move on from there.

WHEN: Eating time frames have become a popular topic. Some discuss “fasting”. I like to call it time managed eating. The idea of “fasting” can make a person automatically think of eating less, which is not what most of us should be doing! In fact, when we manage the time that we eat, we tend to discover that we eat more, have more energy, and have a better overall physique. Eating first thing in the morning can cause digestive issues for some, so holding off until mid morning can be beneficial for those individuals. This is the start of your nutrition practice for the day. Depending on the remaining substances you are planning to consume for the day, this kick off nutrition can be large or small. Eating right before we lay in bed…I have found no paper, study, book, or practitioner that can support the idea of consuming substances even up to 2 hours before laying in bed. Our bodies systems have to go into restorative mode while we sleep, which means our body shouldn’t be focusing on digesting food. Our bodies should be focused on restoring damaged cells, producing new cells, and reserving energy for the next day. When we eat right before we lay down for bed, our nutrition process has to wake up like an exhausted Mom who just turned off her bedside lamp. It was getting snuggly and cozy, and we just obnoxiously flipped the light switch on and started banging pans! Managing our nutrition timing is extremely individual. But, in general, look to eat within a 14 hour window.

WHAT: Here comes the hard part for many. Like I have said before, we love to eat simple carbs as a main portion of our plates. The problem with simple carbs (among other hundreds of problems) is that they provide minimal nutrients to our bodies processes and functions. Not to say they provide no nutrients at all. But, when compared to the ample supply of nutrients our bodies can utilize from vegetables, fruits, and animal sourced proteins…simple carbs tend to lose that battle every time. We don’t need to exclude simple carbs entirely, but make the effort to only consume these (think foods that are processed-not whole) foods a couple days a week. If our body is really pissed though, cut these simple carbs out entirely…at least for a few weeks. If you need more suggestions for highly nutrient dense foods to consume, check out my previous blog What To Eat .

Trying to identify what we should NOT eat, is a bit tricky, especially when we consume a variety of substances all day, every day. In general the highest in ranking for inflammatory foods are gluten, dairy (cow based), sugar, food dyes and coloring, corn, and soy. We can roll off our tongues that we can stay away from these ingredients, but after reading a majority of labels in our grocery stores, it can quickly become an overwhelming challenge. This is why elimination diets can be so difficult to execute when we consume so many processed foods on a regular basis. Whole foods will always be a better choice than processed. Always use creativity and imagination with whole food ingredients rather than reaching for a box. I can attest that I have “played” a lot in my kitchen, and the recipes I have morphed (using whole food ingredients) come out tasting way better than the boxed version. It may take more time in the kitchen, but it will minimize the time we spend in the doctors offices and hospitals later down the road. Not to mention, you save a drastic amount of money by eating more whole foods.

The best way to understand inflammatory nutrition is to get a clear picture of what the whole of Nutrition really is. We need to be able to close our eyes and visualize our body processing and functioning at an optimal level. In order for that visual to take place, we need to optimize our practice of how, when, and what we consume. Whether it is food, a liquid source, or even supplements and prescriptions; we need to truly understand what our body needs, as well as what our body rejects.

My ask for this week: Take some time today to think about what you have eaten, and what you are planning to eat. Then think about how your body feels right now. Does your mind feel foggy or tired? Do you feel aches or pains anywhere in the body? Is your stomach making insane noises? Think again about what you ate. Then think about how you ate. Were you standing or walking around? Then think about when you ate. Did you eat right away? Did you wait to eat? What time did you eat dinner last night? If anything stands out to you: perhaps an inflammatory food; the fact that you ate 10 minutes before going to bed; the fact that you were doing laundry while eating lunch-write it down in a notebook and keep that notebook in your kitchen. Do this practice every day for a week…perhaps you will find a pattern?

I will never tell anyone exactly what to eat. That is your own responsibility as a living and breathing human being. But, I will help you understand what foods (nourishing and depleting) can and will do to your body. Check out the list below for common symptoms of Inflammatory Nutrition.

Common Symptoms:

MENTAL:

brain fog, stuttering, forgetfulness (walk into a room and forget why, lost train of thought while thinking or speaking), chaotic thought process, anxiety, depression, displaced anger, fatigue, exhaustion, lack of motivation

PHYSICAL:

hair loss, arthritis, joint pain, sharp stomach pain, IBS, leaky gut, reflux, goiter, thyroid disease, chronic pain, chronic illness, cancer, blood clots, muscle cramps, miscarriages, difficulty conceiving, autoimmune diseases (Hashimoto’s, Lupus, Type 2 Diabetes, etc.), fever, chest pain, heart burn, mouth sores, skin rashes and blemishes, swelling, redness, tenderness, extreme hot spots on the body, sore muscles and bones…this list is never ending!

* Inflammation is not necessarily caused by nutrition. There are many lifestyle factors that can lead to inflammation, but nutrition is a key factor in defending your body when it is needed, or forcing your body to surrender to whichever invader shows up. It is up to us to “practice” for the outcome we desire.