Tag: healthy

Posted in digestion, food

Apple cider vinegar – Wellness Wednesdays

Posted on by nlchronicles

I found out about Apple cider vinegar (acv) around 2009, 2010. I was having a good deal of gut/digestion issues, among other things, and was seeking any resource that might help! I came across the website, earthclinic which became a wonderful resource for natural solutions.

Allow me to remind everyone that I am not giving medical advice, but just sharing my journey that has allowed me to move toward better health.

According to earthclinic.com, I started using acv for – “antifungal2 and antibacterial effects. Studies have even found that apple cider vinegar has immunostimulant properties.3 It promotes good digestion and skin health.” And it has really been a huge help with my digestion.

I generally make an acv tonic that is a mix of apple cider vinegar, a bit of honey and a couple of shakes of cinnamon with room temperature water. I drink it most mornings when I first get up, before eating. On occasion, when I can find it, there’s a premixed apple cider vinegar drink that is available in several flavors that I buy. Oh, I get the acv with the the “mother” in it. If you look at the bottle, there is a darker cloudier bit which is the mother and is dissolved into acv as you shake it up.

And there are so many other benefits of acv. Below are 9 benefits listed on earthclinic.com:

  • Alleviate acid reflux
  • Aid weight loss and calorie reduction
  • Clear sinus infection and congestion (yes it works for this too!)
  • Treat pink eye
  • Alleviate ear ache pain
  • Improve skin health
  • Balance hair sebum and ph
  • Stop food poisoning
  • Reduce high blood pressure

Have you tried apple cider vinegar? What has your experience been? Share 👇🏽. See you next week!

Posted in Overall health, supplements

Iron! – Wellness Wednesdays

Posted on by nlchronicles

One of the markers that I have to monitor is my iron level. Minimum should be 12 but to feel great, the goal is at least 50. And let me tell you, this marker has been a struggle!

Allow me to remind everyone that I am not giving medical advice, but just sharing my journey that has allowed me to move toward better health.

About 14 years ago, I had a huge drop in my iron level. Long story short, my menstrual cycle stayed on for almost a year. There were ebbs and flows but just constant. It was so bad that I was freezing while everyone at work was warm. I went to an outpatient urgent care and found out that my iron level was 6!!! The nurses were surprised that I didn’t have more complications with such a low level.

Soooooo I had to get a blood transfusion of two pints and stay in the hospital overnight. Not a fun process but I was able to begin the work on having a higher iron level. But with heavy cycles, it’s a challenge to have a higher iron level. It typically hovers around 12 🤯

I was taking a really good iron supplement once daily and recently switched to desiccated beef liver, which has a higher bioavailability. I actually had lab work taken today that included my iron level so I am hopeful that the desiccated liver has helped. 🤞🏾

Why mention all this? Your hemoglobin level is so critical to many body functions. Did you know that you can have heart palpitations if your iron level is too low? Or that you may develop pica? I’ve not had these symptoms but a friend did. Developing a healthy iron level is still my goal and I’m determined to keep pushing the envelope for better health in this area.

Any suggestions on how to increase the iron level? I’m definitely open to suggestions. See you next week!

Posted in Mental health matters, self-care, Work/life balance

Less Stress – Wellness Wednesdays

Posted on by nlchronicles

Over the last couple of years, I have purposefully been looking for ways to de-stress. I would only take self care seriously when I went on vacation but that’s not enough to sustain a stress free lifestyle. As variety is the spice of life, below are things that I started incorporating more regularly.

Yoga – I have taken one on one yoga classes to learn how to modify various techniques. The breath work in yoga has helped so much. I even did a yoga workout on PBS this morning that is chair based. It also helps with flexibility concerns so it serves as a win-win.

Massage – love love love to get a massage, especially deep tissue massage. That has helped so much with the arthritis symptoms as well as serving as an outlet to destress.

Prayer – some call it quiet time or contemplation time. This is so essential for me to bring stress down. It helps me to keep life in perspective. I tend to get a little hyper or think “what if’s” and this helps temper those.

Meditation – this is the most recent addition for me. I use a meditation app at night to just relax and breathe. And it helps me to fall asleep. Meditation is a great way to lower your blood pressure too.

Exercise – aerobic exercise is your friend. Walking and hiit workouts are such good ways to just get the stress out of my system. I love being able to just forget about what bothered me before the workout.

Beach. Outdoors. Nature – the ultimate stress reliever! Nature is a such a good way to disconnect from stresses, work, pressure. When it’s nice outside, I try to get out almost every day. Reconnecting with the earth keeps you grounded, research shows.

What things have you incorporated to reduce stress? What works well for you? See you next week!

Posted in food

Cooking at Home – Wellness Wednesday

Posted on by nlchronicles

Cooking and meal prepping have been HUGE game changers for me. I did quite a bit of health testing to see what works or does not work well for me. This helped tremendously and thankfully I have no food allergies, but it does limit some of my food choice options. And when I eat out, I don’t know the exact details of what is going in the food.

Allow me to remind everyone that I am not giving medical advice, but just sharing my journey that has allowed me to move toward better health.

I found that many nightshades bother me. These include potatoes, paprika and all peppers. Paprika is probably the worst offender but is used in so many recipes! So to better monitor the ingredients and the quality of products, I started cooking more. And unless restaurants become more slanted toward AIP or paleo, then choosing to cook at home is a must.

At first, I made the same recipes all of the time, but my nutritionist pointed out that I had appropriate cookbooks and why not actually try those recipes lol. My fear is always – what if the recipe is gross? 😧 the horror! So I decided to try only one new recipe at a time for any given meal (as I eat basically the same thing throughout weekdays). That way, I could try different options without feeling like I’m constantly throwing money away on meals that I don’t like.

And what is even more important to me is that I control the quality of what I’m eating. So I control sodium content which is crucial when trying to be healthier. Have you actually looked at the sodium levels at some places?? There’s one restaurant which I won’t name in which none of the meals has a sodium level less than 1000 mg with some ranging up to 3000 mg. That’s INSANE! Managing carbs is high priority for me so I can better monitor this as well by cooking at home.

I highly recommend taking the time to meal prep and cook more at home. It’s better for everyone in the long run. See you next week!

Posted in self-care, Work/life balance

Beyond Work – Wellness Wednesdays

Posted on by nlchronicles

Even before the pandemic, I worked in a remote position. BUT I had a good deal of travel in my previous job so I wasn’t at home all of the time unlike my current situation. One thing that remote work has really pushed me to do is have a life outside of work!

For far too many years, work has been everything and outside interests were a tiny speck in my life. Sure, I went on vacation, but I didn’t take the time to pursue things that I was truly interested in. Well being at home alllllll the time definitely changed that up. I have always enjoyed being out in nature but now it truly has purpose. And I’m able to finally explore the area that I moved to last year but couldn’t.

In my quest for physical health, I had to realize that other aspects of life play a part in wellness too. And then I had to act on that, which can be easier said than done. I even attended a session today sponsored by my job on burnout and that can affect everything in your life- body aches and pains, minor illnesses, anxiety, restlessness, insomnia …the list went on and on.

Some things that I’ve done for self-care that have absolutely nothing to do with my job include:

  • Spa day! 🧖🏾‍♀️
  • Visiting family monthly since I live less than 90 minutes away, the first time in YEARS
  • Visit the art museum
  • Find walking trails to check out
  • Visit nature areas, and more

So I encourage you to join me in celebrating life outside the confines of work if you have not and do what brings you joy. I’m sharing a couple of pictures from my recent adventures below. See you next week!

At the overlook
At an area park
In front of the art museum

Posted in Updates

Transformation Tuesday!

Posted on by nlchronicles

I NEVER thought I’d get to this point. It’s definitely not something that I planned for as my goal was to lose 75 pounds. But I guess my body has other plans!

Please join me in celebrating the release of 100 pounds on this current journey!! 🤩🎉🎊🥳

Posted in Life with doctors

Eye Health – Wellness Wednesday

Posted on by nlchronicles

Starting around 2009, I began having these crazy eye issues. I already have allergies so I thought it was just a bad allergy attack. Nope- I started dealing with iritis and uveitis ugh!

Allow me to remind everyone that I am not giving medical advice, but just sharing my journey that has allowed me to move toward better health.

So what are these strange sounding eye conditions? Iritis is inflammation of the colored part of your eye, the iris. Uveitis is inflammation of the middle layer of tissue in the eye wall. (Source: Mayo Clinic) Both are painful and happen really really fast.

Symptoms include eye redness, pain, blurry vision, bright light flashes and eye floaters. What is an eye floater you ask? Have you ever been stressed with tired eyes and see a squiggly line in your vision? That’s a floater. Both conditions can cause scarring in the eye 😭 so not much fun at all.

Traditional methods of controlling a flare up are cortisone steroid eye drops and/or an eye drop that keeps the eye slightly dilated to relieve pressure and strain. And I was getting these flare ups back to back to back. I mean, it’s to the point that I typically see an ophthalmologist rather than an optometrist. I’ve had allllllllll of the testing associated with the conditions and all test have been negative.

So I started pinpointing triggers. High seasonal allergies are a huge trigger so I started changing my habits – keeping shoes at the door, not rolling my car window down all the time, and even starting allergy shots to build immunity. Lack of sleep is another trigger which typically happens when I’m super stressed, a third trigger. Instead I make sure to get a minimum of 7 hours of sleep to keep the eyes happy. I try to incorporate more foods with beta carotene. And when it’s really bad, I take lutein vitamins. Whew! It takes work but all of those combined actually work.

Have you dealt with an eye condition similar to uveitis or iritis? If so, please share what has helped you. To your good health…until next time!

Posted in Overall health, supplements

Vitamin D – Wellness Wednesdays

Posted on by nlchronicles

Allow me to remind everyone that I am not giving medical advice, but just sharing my journey that has allowed me to move toward better health.

I have always heard vitamin D referred to as the happiness vitamin. And this is crucial as vitamin D can be a challenge to acquire naturally. But it does so much more!

Studies show that women with PCOS tend to be vitamin D deficient. I thought mine was low as it was just outside normal range but a friend with PCOS had a level in the single digits! 😲 And with PCOS, there tends to be higher levels of anxiety and depression. Could there be a correlation there?? I believe so, but then again, I’m always looking for a conspiracy when it comes to health and wellness 🤷🏽‍♀️

Since my vitamin D was low, my nutritionist had me take 10,000 IU per day to begin – yikes! But the megadoses worked. I cut down to 5000 IU per day which is now just 3 times per week. I typically add a day or so when it’s rainy as there’s no sun but my vitamin D level is pretty good now.

So how can you get vitamin D? Sun exposure, which I love love love! 🌞 Sources also include –

  • oily fish – such as salmon, sardines, herring and mackerel
  • red meat
  • liver
  • egg yolks (from NHS)

Pretty short list right? There are also fortified foods that have vitamin D but I don’t eat those, like breakfast cereal, so high quality supplements have helped tremendously. Besides boosting your mood, what else does vitamin D help with?

  • Fight the flu
  • Lower chance of multiple sclerosis
  • Possibly decrease chance of heart failure
  • Lower chance of some types of cancer
  • Slow bone loss, building stronger bones (source: webmd)

If you have not, please get your vitamin D level checked. For me, it was one of the first aspects of my health that turned around quickly. This quick turnaround encouraged me to give the other health modifications a try too. I liken it to climbing a ladder to better health. Until next time! 🎉

Posted in Mental health matters, self-care, Work/life balance

Meditation – Wellness Wednesdays

Posted on by nlchronicles
Meditation moments

I will admit – I used to think meditating was all about chanting and making some weird noises over and over again. And that it was only for hippies, not this African American city chick. And I was so wrong!

Allow me to remind everyone that I am not giving medical advice, but just sharing my journey that has allowed me to move toward better health.

Growing up, I wasn’t into yoga or meditation. I stretched after working out because that’s what the exercise classes did and I stretched for running track. I started trying yoga-esque workouts in my early 30s when I moved to North Carolina the first time. I started because my walking seemed to be uneven and yoga like workouts seemed to really help; this was well before I knew the issue with osteoarthritis. But I still hadn’t really delved into meditation.

I didn’t really begin meditating until some time after the age of 40. I was still going up on sugar so I looked at meditation as a way to bring me back down. I tried a couple of apps on my phone for free trials and thought little of it. It wasn’t until I learned more benefits of meditation and the difference between the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems did I begin to make more of an effort.

See, for me, meditation touches on everything that blows up with PCOS – inflammation, irritability, irregular sleep habits, high cortisol, constant fight or flight nervous system, food cravings and anxiety. (I had to take a breath just writing that) These all correlate with the sympathetic nervous system – go, go, go, go. Think of the fight or flight response of a tiger chasing a hunter.

Meditation helps bring all of that down for me, especially being relaxed enough to actually sleep and stay asleep. In that way, I’m able to tap into the parasympathetic nervous system – rest and digest, relaxation and decreased heart rate. (Via Science Direct). And when I am more relaxed, the body can function as it ought to more easily.

I still use a meditation app on my phone, Headspace. I’m still not that person who can meditate for hours on end, or even 30 minutes for that matter! But I do appreciate the time that I take to let the day slip away, relax and prepare the body for sleep. If I feel anxious during the day, I may do a short meditation on breathing to bring the heart rate down. It’s all about balance – high stress response leads to high cortisol which leads to more inflammation which leads to a host of issues for me. So I use meditation as a preventative measure.

If you have tried meditation and seen great results, please share your experience below ⬇️. And if you haven’t tried it, I would recommend giving it a whirl. Until next week …

Posted in supplements

Magnesium – Wellness Wednesdays

Posted on by nlchronicles

Welcome to the third week of Wellness Wednesdays! Today’s focus is magnesium. Allow me to remind everyone that I am not giving medical advice, but just sharing my journey that has allowed me to move toward better health.

What is magnesium? According to the Nutrition Source of the Harvard School of Public Health, magnesium is a mineral that “plays an important role in assisting more than 300 enzymes to carry out various chemical reactions in the body such as building proteins and strong bones, and regulating blood sugar, blood pressure, and muscle and nerve functions.” It basically helps with everything.

In PCOS, women tend to need more magnesium than the recommended daily dosage. It can be difficult for my muscles to relax and magnesium is responsible for that. Have you ever taken magnesium citrate? See how quickly your digestive system relaxes from that! And even though I don’t take the citrate form (I use buffered chelate magnesium), if you have too much, it can cause diarrhea. So I now take approximately 600 mg of magnesium daily and it has works wonders.

I can sleep better. My bowel movements are regular and easy, which has not always been the case. I’ve dealt with low motility and that is the worst ever. And of course, magnesium helps with the other 300 processes mentioned above that I didn’t even realize were connected until I started using it. I even use a topical magnesium spray for areas that tend to stay tight, like the cervical area or hips.

I’ve recommended the use of supplemental magnesium to family members. They both mentioned it to their respective doctors and their doctors agreed with my recommendations! One person, my mom, has seen improvements in her sleep as she is better able to relax, bm consistency and help with sciatic nerve pain that she was dealing with. I sent her the magnesium spray as well to help with areas that she needs to address.

I am not saying that supplemental magnesium is for everyone. Checking with your medical care team is a must. But it has definitely come through for me and been a game changer! Have you tried magnesium? If so, please comment below with your thoughts. I’ll see you next week! 🎊