Here we begin diving into the first part of the 6 essential of health that everyone can begin to incorporate into their daily lives. We’ll address conventional vs organic foods, sleep and healthy movement.
0:00 Welcome to the treasured wellness podcast where we talk about all things health, and where nothing is off limits, you will uncover what may be holding you back so that you can break those chains. Get to the root cause, and walk into freedom with confidence the way God intended for you to live. Hi, I’m Michelle McCoy, functional health coach and holistic lifestyle advocate, Unknown Speaker 0:26 ladies. Together, we are going to dig deep into real life so that you are educated and equipped to create the whole health you desire without the overwhelm. Now more than ever is the time for breakthrough action and restoration. It’s time to get intentional and reclaim your health. If you’re ready for mind, body and soul clarity, then let’s get to it.
Hey guys, welcome back to the show. I’m Michelle. And today we are going to talk about the six essentials of health. You may remember that in a previous episode, I mentioned how there are specific essentials for help that we can all be aware of and address and acknowledge in our daily lives. So I just wanted to touch on those. And because there are six, I’m actually going to break it down into a two part series. So today is the first part of the six essentials of health series. And we will be talking about whole food, sleep and healthy movement. So those are the three that we are going to camp out on today. And then next week, we’ll talk about the remaining three. So be sure not to miss that. Okay, so this might seem like a no brainer, but whole food whole food is the number one essential of health. Because we’re not really doing that in America, we have been so supersized and conditioned to eat on the go and eat fast and just have it quick and easy and immediate. And that comes with some pretty dire consequences. whole food is food that is actually from the earth, it’s real food, it’s not processed. It’s not just, it doesn’t just smell like food, but it actually is food. And it’s not something that sits on a shelf.
When we eat food that’s from a box and it’s been sitting on a shelf and can sit on a shelf for up to five years, that kind of should give us a little bit of a pause. There’s a reason why it is able to be shelf stable for so long. So whole food does not have artificial ingredients, no fake anything, it’s not processed. And as a good rule of thumb, when you turn a package over look at it and see, does it have five or fewer ingredients? There are some good products out there that do sit on a shelf that do come from a box, there are some good freezer food options. So this isn’t just like you have to go and grow this huge garden and live off of the earth. That’s, you know, not really what I’m talking about here. Although I do think that would be really, really fun and incredibly healthy for us. But not everyone has time for that.
So as a good rule of thumb, just turn that package over and look at the ingredients. If there are five or fewer ingredients, and you can recognize them and pronounce them, then that’s okay. You know, that would probably be a really good option for you. Just keep it simple, like when in doubt, don’t buy. If there’s this massively long word, it’s probably a chemical and so we honestly we don’t know what that’s doing to us. So when you have any doubts, just don’t buy it, choose something else. And a question that I am asked a lot is, should I buy organic. So, there is a difference between organic and conventional farmed foods. The US Department of Agriculture actually identifies organic foods are products as those that have been produced and processed using their approved methods that promote ecological balance cycling resources and conserving biodiversity. So basically synthetic fertilizers, sewage sludge, irradiation and genetic engineering may not be used to count as an organic food. Whereas conventional farming they use chemicals quite Often like, right up until the last moment of harvesting, they’re still using those chemicals. And often they don’t regularly rotate their crops
So, so those both lead to depletion of the nutrients in the soil, which then leads to depletion of nutrients in our food. But it also leads to soil erosion. So they’re definitely not held to the same standards as organic farms. When we’re talking about producing grains, there’s so many pesticides in there that the nutrients are just simply lost in the soil. And often they are genetically modified. And you might remember that back in the 80s or so, GMOs were actually created under the guise of helping to feed the world in a cheaper, quicker or easier way. But if you dig a little bit, you actually find out that it was not about that. That was their guys, that was what got everybody on board. But it was really to gain patent rights over the seeds and plant breeding, and to drive agriculture in ways that benefit agribusiness. So again, so much we have to follow the money trail for right. The GMO world has greatly impacted farmers in negative ways, such as like less variety of seeds, and major increases in seed prices. So it makes it really difficult for them. And some of the most genetically modified crops are going to be corn, soybeans, papaya, cotton, and canola. Those are generally the most genetically modified crops. And knowing that will help us to make better informed decisions while we’re shopping. There’s no doubt about it, there’s simply more nutrients and organic produce and grains without all of those harmful toxins and processes.
So let’s simplify it Okay, to get started, if it has appeal, go ahead and get regular produce, you can do a good white vinegar water bath to wash off the our pesticide residue. Or if you if you can’t just stick with the rule of if it has appeal, get regular. If it doesn’t get organic, then definitely use that white vinegar water bath to wash off the outer pesticides. And you’ll see, you’ll actually see that in your water and just give it a really good little rub in that water bath and then rinse everything off really well. And you’ll be able to see especially grapes, you can really see the residue just kind of coming off. And I want to give you a resource. Ewg.. So ewg.org.. They have a fabulous resource called the clean 15 Dirty Dozen. That is so great for you to see every year what the cleaner fruits and vegetables are and what the, quote dirtier ones are the ones that are more highly sprayed. I’ll tell you strawberries, and celery have been consistently on that list. And you can even dig deeper on that website. And you can really look into a lot of other foods too. But that’s a really quick and easy resource.
To help you answer the question Should I get organic or regular produce. So let’s move on to talking about meats. It’s kind of along the same lines, right? Free Range grass fed and finished. Those animals have not been given harmful hormones, they’ve not been given antibiotics. And here’s the thing that some of us might not really realize, but we eat what our animals eat and are given. So if they’re pumped full of hormones, we’re getting that if they’re pumped full of antibiotics, we’re getting that. And if it’s more of a organic farm, the grass they eat is free of those harmful pesticides and the fertilizers, they’re able to roam and do what animals do instead of being cooped up.
And even in the last days leading up to slaughter they are still fed organic feed, which can be very different in a conventional farming model. Same with dairy, right? No hormones, no antibiotics, and the cows are free to roam and beat cows. And I’ll tell you, we might have enough concerns with our own hormones without adding to the mix. Right especially as women. You know you may be one that’s constantly thinking about your hormones and I mean from the time we started menstruating, we don’t need any additional hormones added to the mix. So that is definitely something to think about. Eggs, chickens are free range, they’re in the sunshine, they’re outside, they’re able to eat their bugs are able to be a chicken and the feed that they are given as organic feed. So there’s no GMOs, no hormones, no antibiotics.
And I will tell you, this is so visually obvious when you do the egg test. If you crack open an egg from your local grocery store, just those cheaper eggs, generally, they’re in like a yellow carton, then you crack that open, and then you get a farm fresh egg. Even if you were to buy in that same grocery store, and organic, free range carton of eggs, and you crack that egg next to the regular conventional egg, the difference is amazing, you’re going to have a brighter yolk, you’re going to have larger white part. And that’s just visually and then you get to the taste test. It is so much fresher, and it has a much better taste. Just for fun, I would encourage you to do that, because it’s really eye opening.
So those are kind of the main food groups that when we’re thinking of conventional versus organic, these are some things to think about. And I’ll just tell you, for me, I have gotten to a point where I’m pretty particular about the dairy, eggs and meat that I get even more so than fruits and vegetables, which you know, there’s a, there’s a balance, right, because we all can’t just buy all organic everything. So there’s, there’s a balance, and I will do the appeal test myself. For example, I never buy organic bananas, I just, I just don’t.
12:06 But something I don’t like to compromise on is meat, dairy and eggs. Because I have physically noticed a big difference. When I switch to organic, I physically noticed a much better difference. And so to me, that’s well worth it, like the taste was better. And my body reactions was much more agreeable. So I’ve even had people that thought they had an egg allergy, for example. But then they switch to farm fresh free range, eggs, and they were able to tolerate it. So that’s pretty interesting. And I’ll tell you something else. Conventional eggs are actually washed in a bleach water type solution. So I think just my own little theory that a lot of people were actually reacting to that. As well as the hormones, you know that the chickens were given. So just something to think about.
Okay, moving on. Essential number two sleep. Oh, my goodness, boy, does this impact us so much. Right. There are essentially two types of insomnia, acute insomnia which is essentially short term could be worries excitement, a stressful day that you had scheduled changes caffeine late in the day. And then there’s also chronic which means long term. So that can be hormone imbalances, adrenal stress, sleep deprivation, that is long term. Think about that new Mama, emotional turmoil, chronic pain, chronic sickness, chronic stress or consistently eating and or drinking really late at night. So those are the two types of insomnia. So think about where you fall into that range if you are struggling with insomnia. And sleep is so vital. I think that over the years in this gogogo mentality, we have really discounted how important sleep really is.
You know, people pride themselves on Well, I got four hours of sleep, I get four hours of sleep every night, and I’m just fine. But the truth is, we’re not, we’re really not ,our body’s just on autopilot. And we’re just pushing it to do what we want it to do. And we’re just treating it like a machine. But sleep is where our bodies are able to rest, reset, recharge and repair, we need to address the issue before we can obtain better sleep. We can’t just keep putting band aids on it because putting band aids on it only helps in the short term and sometimes not even then. So you’ve heard about melatonin, take melatonin to help you fall asleep. Yes, that’s true. But Melatonin is produced in the pineal gland, and it regulates sleep. So over the counter melatonin has its place. But here’s the thing, anything that we do to substitute what our body already naturally is supposed to do, it’s going to suppress that. So our body will actually stop producing melatonin. If we are continuing to give it melatonin, why should it have to work if it doesn’t have to? Right, we are basically suppressing that production. So you want to be really careful.
And I remember, my daughter was told that she could have a huge amount, to me for her age, of melatonin every night. And it was completely fine. And, you know, I really wish of course, we all like to go back in time. But I wish I knew then what I know now because there’s no way I would have allowed her to be on melatonin for so long, because it, It truly created actually more sleep problems as we went along. But I didn’t get that connection, because I thought it was so safe, and it is safe, but the way it reacts to our body, in that it will stop melatonin naturally being produced. That’s kind of that’s, that’s something that needs to be addressed.
16:34 if you suffer from sleep, if you suffer from staying asleep, I want to give you a few steps that you can take tonight to help you sleep better. Number one, you need to get off all of your devices at least one hour before bedtime. I mean, truly two hours is better. But the reality is, we’d be doing a great service if we could just do one hour before bedtime. And I’m guilty of this too, trust me. So I have noticed the difference that I do sleep a lot better if I want to read and just get a book like a real book, not on a Kindle or a device and just go in a quiet room or just go in the bed and just read. like I sleep so much better on those nights that I do that as opposed to scrolling or checking emails or doing one more thing, and, or even watching TV.
So I challenge you to really reframe how much you’re on your device right before bed. Number two, create a calming bedtime routine. So a nice bath a nice shower lotion, give yourself a little foot massage. With lotion, gentle stretches, a nice mug of herbal tea. Like I said before, read a book, keep the lights down. And then once you get into bed, practice some deep breathing or meditation once you’re in bed and just really focus on relaxing and breathing. Get comfortable with the sound of your breath. And number three, if you need a snack, if you’re one that’s like I always need to eat before I go to bed. There could be a reason why. Or could be that you’re just staying up too late. That’s that’s another issue. But if you do need a snack reach for protein protein, protein is going to help regulate those blood sugars. If we reach for sugar and carbs, even in fruit, it will affect our blood sugars, which then affects our cortisol. So just be really careful late at night. To avoid those you want to reach for protein. So maybe like a few pieces of block cheese would be a good snack with your mug of tea. And number four, boy, we all struggle with our mind just not being able to turn off right.
So number four, journal, all of your immediate thoughts before you turn out the light. Keep a notepad or a journal right next to you. And just kind of get it all out. Like if you’re concerned that you’re going to forget to pay the bill the next day or if you’re concerned that you’re going to forget to send an email or you need to do something immediately the next morning, whatever it is, write it all down because that’s going to help get it out of your brain onto the paper and that will help relax your brain and help to shut that brain off so it can truly start to get into restorative sleep.
Okay, so those are the four steps you can take tonight to help sleep better. And we’re going to move on to number three of the six essentials of health. Number three is healthy movement. Now some people would put this under the category of exercise, but I say healthy movement because it It’s really unreasonable to expect our bodies to respond to exercise, as we get older, like, for example, in our late 30s, and up the way that it did in our teens and 20s. And a lot of us just keep pushing and pushing and pushing. And this is really unreasonable to expect our bodies to respond like that. So the intense workout programs out there may not be what your specific body needs or wants right now, we need to discover what feels good to us, not what we think we should be doing.
So let me give you a quick example. When I was really struggling, in my health, I kept really pushing the exercise, the hit workouts, the power walking, sometimes I would do two exercise routines a day, thinking that that’s what I needed to do. That’s what I should be doing. Because I was trying to gain back some energy. And I was trying to lose a little bit of weight. And it just, it was really backfiring on me, my body was holding on, and it wasn’t releasing the fat because I was asking it to do more than it could do at that time. So it just kept storing and storing.
Once I figured that out, And I just started doing more like yoga and a power walk or every other day just kind of getting into more of what do I like to do? What do I, What do I enjoy doing and it always came down to yoga and power walking, or just a nice walk didn’t even have to be a power walk. And that made a big difference. But I’ve noticed from time to time, CrossFit boot camps hit workouts running, they all can stress our body. And I know some of you really enjoy those things. And you might not feel like it’s affecting your body. And that’s great. I’m really talking to the woman where she feels kind of depleted at the end of CrossFit or boot camp or just keeps running because she knows that that’s how she can lose some weight. And it’s good mentally to But mostly, it’s because you know, we’re trying to drop those unwanted pounds. That said, though, you might not noticed that your body’s reacting in a negative way, until you’ve been doing it for a while. So just Just be careful. Because this can also in addition to stressing our bodies, it can cause injury and affect our hormones as well.
So my suggestion is if you love doing them, then do shorter bursts, and then end with a nice walk or some stretching, or both. But the idea is to what do you enjoy doing? I mean, do you have fun in your life? Do you have fun with your movement? Do you have fun in general? Let’s just put it out there. Do you have fun in general? Do you remember how to have fun? Somewhere along the way of adulthood? We may have lost that ability, right? Because life demands take over. And we may only truly have fun on a vacation. And think we have to wait till then. But that’s not true. Do you laugh? Often? Do you laugh daily? Hey, fun is not only for kids. If you are married, how often do you really enjoy laughing or hanging out with your husband? Remember the fun you used to have together before those responsibilities of family took over? Is there something that you really miss doing together? What just popped into your head when I said that? Is it hiking or kayaking or exploring a new town or shop? Or you know that sign you always pass on your way home and you say, hey, one day, we need to check that place out? Do it. Just take five minutes and see how you feel? Why are we always in such a hurry?
So there’s this one sign of a new park that we always always pass on our way to and from church. And we would always my husband and I would always be like, Hey, we should really check that place out. You know, we should just see how long the trail is. Let’s check it out. And going to church we’d be like all gung ho Yeah, we’re gonna do that on the way home and then coming home. We’re like, No, we want lunch. We want this. Yeah, we just want to go home.
24:28 So one day, we’re like, we are going to commit to this and I actually packed some snacks. So that just in case the hunger was the excuse, that could not be an excuse that day. So we packed our sneakers and packed our snacks and on the way home we actually stopped and I was almost ready to just blow past it and be like, no, let’s just go home. But we stopped and we checked it out and honestly it was not a long trail at all. They’ve extended it since which is really nice. But it was just so nice being out in nature and seeing the water and walking through the trees and just talking about the sermon and just having a wonderful conversation together. And so, so I was really glad that we finally did that. But for you think about how much you play and have fun. If it’s not much, well, how can you change that, it really doesn’t have to take as much time as you think, like our walk after church, it really, I think, was maybe 30 minutes at the most. And honestly, if we get off our devices that will really help our creativity.
25:40 So schedule into your day if you have to, but make it a priority at least once a week. If you have lost your joy in life, add this one element in. And I think you’ll be amazed at how easy it is to start getting your joy back. I mean, your joy can be as simple as hanging up a bird feeder and watching the birds eat and flock to it. I mean, that may sound kind of silly. But when we did that, I gave my husband such a hard time I was teasing him, because he just was so enamored with these birds, doing research and, and all that and it’s just really cute. But I will say, it’s so relaxing, and it’s so peaceful to actually watch the birds just feeding every morning, taking the time to actually maybe eat breakfast, looking out the window can bring you some joy stand on your deck and just listen to the birds singing in the morning and drink your cup of coffee or your tea. Just listening to the morning sounds or if it’s in the evening, you know, you can do the same thing. Just stand on your back deck, or your front porch and just listen, listen to the night sounds and it’s amazing how you can start filling back up your tank.
27:07 Okay. Here are some action steps. We talked about three essentials for help, whole food, sleep, healthy movement. So you don’t have to do all of these action steps of course, but I’ve given you four action steps here. Think about your food, change one thing about your food this week, buy one thing that’s organic, or read a label and decide based on what you read what you’re going to get. Do the egg test, or look up the clean 15 Dirty Dozen. Number two, choose one step I shared on getting better sleep. So if you remember that was get off all devices at least one hour before bedtime. Create a calming bedtime routine, protein snack prefer before bed, and journal all those immediate thoughts that are just running through your head before you turn out the light. Number three, think about what you enjoy doing for exercise and change up your routine a bit.
28:11 Or just simply go for a walk. If you don’t do any exercise, you don’t like exercise. It’s not anything that’s going to be on your radar anytime soon. Just simply go for a short walk. And number four, an extra bonus. Think about what you enjoy doing for fun and take action on that this week. Whatever that is just in really whatever popped into your head just now. That’s what you should take action on this week.
28:38 Okay, let me pray over you. Lord, we thank you so much for this day. And we ask that you would help us to live this life that you have given us well help us to stop and enjoy your beautiful creation. Help us to look up instead of always down. Give us the insight you want us to have about ourselves and the changes that we should make. And we ask that you would be our strength in Jesus name. Amen.
29:07 Okay, ladies, if you have found value in today’s episode, do me a big favor and share this with somebody and as an extra if you would go over to wherever you listen, subscribe and also leave me a five star review. It would just bless me so so much. But until next week, remember you are a beautiful treasure.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai