Lifestyle and Wellness – Eat and Live Healthfully

5 Tips for Building Muscle on a Plant-Based Diet

Building muscle and strength are important for overall health. In fact, muscle mass has been shown to be a predictor of longevity, as shown in a study of older adults¹. Building muscle improves quality of life and is the secret sauce for making life worth living.

Strength training can allow us to participate in activities we choose by making us stronger and more agile, helps strengthen bones, reduces inflammation, helps prevent falls, and even helps with growing brain cells^2,3. Resistance training has been shown to lower chronic inflammation, which is the root cause of many chronic … Read the rest

The Power of Friendship

This weekend I was lucky enough to spend time in beautiful Colorado with some amazing people. These are friends from my Emergency Medicine residency program at Denver Health twenty years ago. We’ve stayed close over the years and have become closer with time. We live across the country and only get to connect occasionally, and with COVID, it’s been a while for some of us.

We spent the weekend rapidly babbling to fill each other in on the stories of our lives, from our jobs in the ED (including navigating the chaos of COVID) and Lifestyle Medicine world to our … Read the rest

Plant-Based Diets and Autoimmune Disease – 7 Reasons You May Not Feel Better

There’s a lot of evidence that plant-based diets are beneficial for people with autoimmune diseases. By flooding the body with colorful antioxidants, comprehensive micronutrients, and diverse fiber, people with inflammatory conditions can really benefit from this lifestyle change.

Physicians have been using different versions of plant-based diets for decades now and noticed great improvements – sometimes even full reversal (!) – in their autoimmune patients.

So, many people will try a plant-based diet, and find they don’t thrive. Or they don’t get better. Or worse, they feel worse.

What’s going wrong???

Eating a whole-food, plant-based diet often isn’t enough for … Read the rest

8 Tips to Support a Healthy Microbiome and Reduce Chronic Inflammation

Systemic inflammation is intimately connected to our gut health and our microbiome. If we want to lower chronic inflammation, the microbiome is a good place to start.

This is a whole paradigm shift in medicine, and it’s one of the most fascinating things I’ve ever learned. And, it works!

70% of our immune system lies in our guts, just underneath the single cell endothelial layer that makes up all of our digestive tract (affectionately referred to as the “gut” here).

It’s there on purpose. Remember, one of the most important functions of the immune system is to recognize and eliminate … Read the rest

6 Tips Manage Stress and Support Immune Health during COVID-19

Follow the COVID-19 guidelines – SELF-ISOLATE is essential. Wash your hands and practice good hygiene. And then:

Breathe – Breathe in slowly and deeply for the count of 5, hold for a second, and breathe out for the count of 5. Do this 6 times, and this is 1 minute. You can trigger your vagus nerve and rest and restore mode with just these few deep breaths. Do it often during the day, and it can help break the cycle of anxiety and stressful thoughts.

Eat real food – Your immune system starts in your gut with your

… Read the rest

Chronic Inflammation and the Role of Diet

Chronic inflammation has been shown to be the common link among the leading causes of death and disability, including heart disease, diabetes, cancer, autoimmunity, Alzheimer’s disease, depression, asthma, allergies, and premature aging.¹Diet and lifestyle choices actually make a significant impact on the amount of chronic inflammation we experience, yet it is often overlooked. We know these illnesses are inflammatory in nature, and treatment is often with anti-inflammatory medications, such as NSAIDS (Ibuprofen, Aspirin, Naproxen), COX-2 inhibitors (Celebrex), steroids such as Prednisone, and biologics that block specific inflammatory cells, such as TNF-alpha, IL-1, or IL-6. Often when we look … Read the rest

The Healing Power of Yoga

Yoga is never something I did on a regular basis. I was too busy for that. I ran, biked, hiked, skied, took HIIT classes, did “Insanity” workouts at home. These were how I “relaxed” and spent my little bit of free time every day. I had no time for yoga. Poses and stretching. Really?

But, as I have turned to study Integrative Medicine and tap into my own body’s ability to heal itself, more and more data about the positive aspects of yoga keep appearing. Yoga is not just about wearing tight yoga pants and assuming uncomfortable poses; it is … Read the rest

The Joy of (Real) Cooking

I love my time in the kitchen. It’s meditative when I cut vegetables. It’s creative as I explore recipes and new dishes. It’s healing, because I use fresh, real, plant-based, anti-inflammatory foods. It supports local farmers whenever I can. It’s interesting as I play with new spices and herbs. It connects me with my history, as I enjoy flavors from my ancestry, and my friends, as I try their delicious recipes.

But, there’s so much more to it.

What I didn’t mention, is that it’s also hilarious. And messy. And sometimes too garlicky, spicy, or the flavors just don’t jive. … Read the rest

Creating Balance for Weight Loss

Even a whole-food, plant based diet may not always be enough to reach your goal weight, although it’s a great place to start. For some, it can take an overall healthy approach and re-establishing balance to see improvements. These upgrades are essential for reducing inflammation, lowering oxidative stress, downshifting stress hormones, nourishing the microbiome, supporting the immune system, and resulting in healthy weight loss.

Eat more plant-based, whole foods.
1. Emphasis on WHOLE foods and plants.
2. This means lots of fresh vegetables, fruits, whole-unaltered grains, legumes, ¼ cups seeds and nuts per day. As Dr. Fuhrman says, the more raw

… Read the rest

Happy Healthy Heart Month

February is the month of Valentine’s Day, but much more importantly, it is also heart awareness month. It is time to bring real awareness that heart disease is still the number one cause of death for both men and women in the US, killing more people than all cancers combined. For example, 1 in 8 women will die of breast cancer, but 1 in 3 women will die of heart disease. (CDC) This is extremely distressing, as heart disease has been clinically shown to be preventable, arrestable, and even reversible. (Ornish, Lancet, 1990). I urge you to become aware of … Read the rest

New Year Reboot: January Detox

It’s a new year, and a great time to reset healthy eating. Call it a reboot, or a detox, but if the holiday decadence leaves you with food cravings, weight gain, fatigue, headaches, joint pains, and basically not feeling your best, it’s time to reset your eating. I’m talking about a healthy detox, and here are a few of my favorite tips to get back on track:

Add in a green vegetable juice or green smoothie daily. This will increase nutrient load—I like to make them with different greens, celery, carrots, cucumber, lemon, ginger and turmeric. They’re purposely not

… Read the rest

My Favorites of 2018

“If you concentrate on what you have, you will always end up having more. If you focus on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.” -Oprah Winfrey

2018 was an incredible year, for so many reasons! I love taking a look at the end of the year of some of my “Favorites” in different (random!) categories.

My Favorite Recipes of 2018

Baked fabulous falafel– http://veggiesfordinner.com/2017/01/baked-falafel.html
Sweet and smoky baked beans-https://eatandlivehealthfully.com/sweet-and-smoky-baked-beans/
Spicy curry peanut sauce – Recipe coming soon!
Blueberry Energy muffins – https://eatandlivehealthfully.com/blueberry-energy-muffins/
Curry chickpea salad – https://eatandlivehealthfully.com/curry-chickpea-salad/
Jeweled cauliflower rice – Recipe coming soon!

… Read the rest

Holiday Survival Guide – Have your Healthiest Holiday!

The holidays can be one of the happiest times of the year, but sometimes it can feel like survival just getting through. According to the CDC, there are more deaths from heart attacks and strokes on Christmas Day and through New Year’s then any other time of year. This is likely from the excessive pro-inflammatory food and drinks, the increased holiday stress or blues, loneliness, reduced exercise, and/or inadequate sleep. Therefore, it’s really important we make a plan for the holidays to keep ourselves as healthy as possible. The little bit of unwanted weight gain is just a symptom of … Read the rest

The Joy of Missing Out

This is the summer of the Joy of Missing Out -JOMO is the catch term. It’s gaining momentum this summer with individuals and big corporations such as Apple and Google. Instead of worrying what everyone else is doing, it’s all about disconnecting a little and focusing on living in the moment. It gives some steps as to how to disengage, such as:
1. Know that you likely have a problem. If you own a smartphone, chances are you’re engaging in unhealthy tech habits (without even knowing it).
2. Monitor your digital diet, as you would your food diet. Apps … Read the rest

Life Transformation

Wow, what an event! At our inaugural recipe swap, we hosted the entire Masiello Family! Anthony Masiello shared how he transformed his life, when he set out to take back his health and lose weight. With the support of his amazing family, they have figured out how to make it work in their lives, and today they shared it with us. Here are a few take home tips from his talk:

Know your why. Why do you want to do __(fill in the blank)__? What is your internal motivation? Losing weight to fit into your jeans is not enough

… Read the rest

Fight the Flu and Common Cold: Supermarket Foods (Part 1)

Flu season is here in full force. It’s epidemic across the country, and especially in certain areas. What can we do to protect ourselves from getting sick? There are actually some important steps we can take. Whether or not we get sick depends on 3 key factors: the amount of the exposure, the virulence of the exposure, and the status of the host’s (that’s us) immune system. We can’t do much about the virulence of the virus, but we can play a role in the other areas:

Decrease overall exposure – Wash your hands! I can’t emphasize this enough. Make … Read the rest

Heart Healthy Cooking Tips

Thanks to everyone who came to the AVH Heart Healthy Cooking demo with Chef Martin Oswald! What a great turnout. A special thanks to the AVH Foundation for sponsoring this wonderful community event, to Sandy Holmes for all your hard work, and to Chef Martin, for taking the time to teach us all how to eat healthfully and deliciously!

My favorite Top Tips from Chef Martin:

To preserve turmeric and have it ready every day, spend one day preparing it: put on rubber gloves (to avoid staining your fingers!), shred it, and put it in apple cider vinegar that you … Read the rest

Healing with Food

Food has a powerful influence on our bodies. It turns on and off genes for inflammation. It changes our microbiome. It nourishes cells and facilitates healing, or it increases oxidative stress, free radical formation, and premature aging. It’s composed of nutrients to support the immune system, reverse chronic illnesses such as cardiovascular disease, autoimmunity, diabetes, and even some cancers, or it further propagates these “chronic” illnesses. It cultivates satisfaction, boosts energy, and brightens skin, or it leaves us with severe food cravings, feeling drained, and a dull exterior. It affects mood, as it reduces anxiety, depression, and anger, or it … Read the rest