Grow Healthy
With Dr. Sally's
"Vital Signs" Blog
January offers a new beginning; a time to clean up my act, grow more resilient and prepare for the coming year. There’s never been a better time to power up your immune system, The Good Food Way. Your energy, digestion, and immunity will thank you! So, if you’re ready to shake that “tired and toxic” feeling, then gift your system a reboot with my 5 Cues for a Clean January.
This Argentinian “green sauce” is filled with flavor and key phytonutrients that support our health. It’s traditionally served with grilled meat but is equally good over veggies, beans and rice, eggs, fish, chicken, pork or beef. Apigenin is the powerful phytonutrient in parsley and cilantro that reduces oxidative damage, supports a balanced immune response, and fights cancer.
Yes, it’s been 10 years since my first “Dry January” and “ Whole 30”. And I’m doing them again this year. Trust me, it gets easier every time! Dry January, as in skipping alcohol the first month of the year, has a special appeal this trip around the sun. With the isolation of the pandemic, alcohol sales have skyrocketed, along with rates of anxiety and depression, lack of exercise, weight gain, and a LOT more screen time.
After 2020, it’s high time to support and renew your health. After all, your amazing body is constantly renewing itself: recycling old cells and creating new ones, 24/7. Each and every day, the cells lining your intestinal tract (your “inner skin”) and your “outer skin” cells are shed as a new layer surfaces and the old cells slough off. Every month, your liver regenerates itself and each year, your skeleton is renewed. Automatically, without your conscious thought.
If you could take just one step to create a healthier future full of vitality and free of chronic disease, it would be to fight inflammageing. While the term has been picked up by the beauty industry because of the clear-cut connection between inflammation and the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, inflammageing is more than skin deep.
We awaken with a jolt, having slept poorly from too much stress, too much screen time and late night snacking; then we guzzle a mug of sweetened coffee with a pastry and hit the road to sit in bumper-to-bumper traffic to the office. The caffeine kicks our sympathetic nervous system into the fight or flight response about the time the sugar buzz hits. Now we’re wired and tired and ready for the workday. 🤯
So why start a revolution? …Because a revolution is what it’s going to take for us to wake up, reclaim our health and prevent this epidemic of chronic disease that is claiming countless lives and bankrupting our country. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control reports that 90% of healthcare dollars are spent treating a cluster of chronic (but preventable) conditions: heart disease and stroke, diabetes, dementia and cancer.
We all know our health care system is broken. You can’t turn on the news without catching a debate on best how to fix it. The challenge is that we don’t really have a “health care” system: we have a “disease management system”. The U.S. spends more money per capita than any country, yet our disease burden is higher than in comparable countries.
Welcome to 2019! It’s so exciting to see that many of the practices I was trained in decades ago as a naturopathic physician are now not only becoming popular, but are also being validated. From elimination diets to intermittent fasting, this is the year to explore the science of fasting and eating clean and alcohol-free for a month.
