It's a question we get all the time and the answer is yes, no, and maybe.
If you have a diagnosis of celiac disease, the answer is definitely yes.
If you are eliminating gluten from your diet because someone on the Internet has told you to do so, the answer is no.
If you think you may have a food sensitivity, then the answer is maybe. The problem with slapping a gluten-free restriction on yourself is that you may be eliminating foods you don't need to eliminate. You may have a simple sensitivity to wheat, for example, but that doesn't mean you need to eliminate ALL gluten-containing foods.
If you cast a wide net, and eliminate 200 things, and only one of them is the culprit, you've just eliminated 199 foods that you could have eaten that actually could have been productive for you. That's going to make it hard for you to stay on track, because you've limited the variety of foods you can eat, your ability to eat out, socialize, etc.
Michal Hogan, RD, one of our inCYSTers in Columbus, has shared that sometimes, when people don't have a gluten issue, simply by limiting gluten in the diet, they can create one! Don't want to go there, now, do you?
At inCYST we do believe that food sensitivities can trigger an inflammatory process and be a major factor in PCOS. We've even added that topic to our professional training. However, we believe there is a much more scientific and accurate way of pinpointing the problem. It's called LEAP testing. Many of our network members are Certified LEAP Therapists, meaning that if you believe a food sensitivity is part of your problem, they can help you to interpret a blood test that tells you EXACTLY what your issue is. So you're not unnecessarily eliminating foods, and you have a precise game plan.
To learn more about LEAP testing, go to http://www.nowleap.com/. If you'd like to find a LEAP therapist in your area, Michal is a LEAP mentor. You can contact her at nutritionresults@aol.com.
The tennis world was all aflutter this week over an article in the Wall Street Journal about professional tennis player Novak Djokovich's rise in the tennis ranks in the year following his switch to a gluten-free diet. While there may be a correlation, relatively little in the article directly addressed the direct connection between gluten-free eating and a phenomenal tennis season.
So here are some facts for all of you tennis players looking for an edge, as well as those of you courtside who may wonder if gluten is affecting your hormone balance.
What is gluten?
Gluten is the protein found in many grains, especially barley, oats, rye, and wheat. Statistically, 1 in every 133 individuals is gluten intolerant or experiencing celiac disease. In this condition, gluten irritates the lining of the intestines to the point where the absorptive surface erodes away and can no longer absorb food. It is painful, it causes malnutrition, and it. This photo, courtesy of http://www.sensibleceliac.com/, shows how the"fingers" of the intestine, where nutrients are absorbed, gradually shrink in size and disappear.
Symptoms of true celiac disease are related to malabsorption: diarrhea, gas, bloating, fatty stools are common. However, they do not occur in everyone. Other symptoms are related to the nutrient deficiencies resulting from malabsorption and can include: weight loss, fluid retention, anemia, easy bruising, nerve pain, muscle weakness, and…yes…infertility.
A full workup to confirm celiac disease includes blood testing, intestinal biopsy, and a challenge with a gluten-free diet to see if the body responds in a healing way. Because the symptoms of celiac disease can also be symptoms of other serious disorders, it is important to not self-diagnose and treat yourself.
It is possible to be gluten sensitive even if you do not have celiac disease. Many women reading this blog may have a gluten sensitivity, and it can be the source of the inflammatory process that is triggering PCOS. Many of our inCYSTer providers have completed LEAP training, which allows them to help you diagnose and treat food sensitivities in a way that is precise and direct. It is a way to shorten the process of figuring out what is truly causing your symptoms, rather than randomly eliminating a food and hoping it will help you to feel better.
Should You Go Gluten-Free? In the last five years, gluten-free eating has become somewhat trendy. Please don't misunderstand my comment. I know many of you truly ARE gluten-intolerant and gluten-sensitive. But many of you are not. Something that can happen if your primary sources of gluten were baked and processed foods, and you cut those out, you tend to decrease your caloric intake and improve your ratio of carbohydrates to protein. You improve your chances of improving insulin resistance, which may have nothing to do with gluten issues even though gluten intake was altered with your dietary choices.
In addition, inCYSTer and LEAP guru Michal Hogan recently shared with me that if you are NOT gluten sensitive, and you restrict gluten, you can create an sensitivity where none previously existed. So it is really important to make this dietary adjustment only if it is necessary and in an informed way, not because you think it might help when nothing else has.
It's also important to understand that a gluten-free diet is NOT automatically healthier! I belong to several gluten-free discussion groups and have seen chats literally obsessing about ways to keep eating sweets and calorically dense/nutritionally inferior foods while getting around the gluten issue. It's important to understand that whole grains, even those containing gluten, contain other important nutrients such as magnesium and B vitamins, that will need to be included in other fashions if you eliminate a major category of foods.
For those of you who ARE in need of gluten-free eating, we encourage you to become familiar with Zing Bars, who you've seen us blog about before, who we've interviewed on our radio show, and whose bars are all gluten-free. Zing has also been generous with the PCOS community and their product is one that is insulin as well as gluten-friendly. It's not just a candy bar that's easy on the intestines, as some products pan out to be.
If your first name is Roger or Rafael, you play tennis, and you're wondering if you might make some dietary adjustments to better keep up with that guy on the other side of the net…Zing Bars certainly will help to keep your energy levels stable for good coordination and focus through the longest of matches. But before you switch out a major staple and completely change your diet, be sure to ascertain that it genuinely has potential to help you.
If you're not sure if gluten is your problem, and you'd like to work with someone who can help you know for sure, for a list of inCYSTers who are also LEAP-certified who would be happy to help you work through the maze of information and to do it productively…visit www.afterthediet.com/pcoshelp.htm and look for"CLT" behind the provider's name.
Michal Hogan, RD, did a fabulous webinar this past week for the inCYST PCOS training, entitled,"Food Sensitivies, Inflammation, and PCOS." It's an area of PCOS work that she pretty much developed, and which we're honored to be a part of.
We've decided to partner with Signet to enhance the treatment options for women with PCOS in two different ways.
1. If you complete the webinar we did this past week, you are eligible for a 25% discount on the LEAP training.
2. If you are already a LEAP dietitian, you are eligible for a 25% discount on the inCYST training, network membership, and 2 year marketing package.
Thanks so much, Michal, for getting us started on this! Together we'll help more people than we ever would have on our own.: )
If you're interested, please contact me privately for details, marika@google.com
Since vitamin D deficiency has been identified with a long list of health issues, including PCOS, I've been hearing readers, clients, colleagues, and friends talk about loading up on this nutrient with supplements. They're going about it in a not-so-scientific fashion, and I've wondered if that wasn't going to introduce a whole new spectrum of health issues.
A friend and colleague recently mentioned that she had just had a cholesterol test taken, and the LDL (bad cholesterol) reading had increased since her previous test. One of the changes she could identify was between the two tests, she had started to supplement with vitamin D.
I did a pretty thorough search both on the Internet and Pub Med to see if this was a common problem and didn't find anything. I then went to a listserve of about 1,000 nutrition colleagues to see if they'd seen it. Turns out, a few of them had also seen their cholesterols increase with vitamin D supplementation.
There is a tendency with nutrition, to adopt an"if a little is good, a whole lot is better" attitude. Unfortunately, imbalance in either direction, be it deficiency or excess, can be problematic.
The old recommendations for vitamin D were 200 IU per day. All of a sudden, a website popped up recommending 5000 IU per day. I couldn't find any research to support this magnificent dosage leap. I would have thought, given that magnitude, that some kind of dosing study that had ruled out that 500, 1500, 2000 IU were not sufficient. But no, the recommendations simply jumped without explanation.
And every time I tried to find out what the basis for this jump was, I kept being referred back to the website making the recommendation.
My points are:
1. Know your vitamin D and your cholesterol levels. 2. Start out with 200 IU or even 400 IU per day and see how that affects both your vitamin D levels and your cholesterol levels. 3. Consider that the reason vitamin D levels may be deficient is more complex than the simple fact that dietary vitamin D is low…did you know that many of the same health issues associated with vitamin D deficiency are also related to omega 3 fatty deficiency as well as omega 6 fatty acid excess? Most nutritional problems, if they are related to imbalance, cannot be corrected with a supplement. The overall balance of the diet needs to be considered in the plan of correction.
I was recently graciously shipped a jar of Tropical Traditions Gold Label Standard Virgin coconut oil for review. First of all, thank you to Tropical Traditions for their generosity! I use coconut oil twice a day on my skin and I love the noticeable difference it makes. I'm also learning to cook with it, and am happy to have this to work with.
This is a long, drawn out post. I'm putting my conclusion at the very beginning so you can decide if you want to sit through the rest:
I love coconut oil, I use it myself, both in cooking and on my skin. I love this particular brand and product, and it's clear that the company is very proud of the attention they devote to quality and sustainable practices. If you choose to incorporate coconut oil into your cooking, and I hope that you do, please consider supporting a company that works so hard on behalf of integrity.
My intention is to encourage more people to use coconut oil than currently do. It wasn't long ago that we discouraged coconut oil consumption and I still encounter people who think it's unhealthy. I'd also like to encourage those who may be creating problems with excessive use, to understand why that may not be a good choice.
My only reservation is that there is somewhat of a health halo hanging over coconut oil that encourages its use in quantities that potentially do not support improved health.
I'll be addressing those issues in this post. A little bit of feedback on the coconut oil information I found on the website.
In the FAQ section, there is no peer-reviewed reference provided to support the following statement:
The benefits of coconut oil are mainly from the nutrient value of medium chain fatty acids (MCFAs). The best comparison in nature as to the percentage of MCFAs being consumed in a diet is human breast milk. To equal the amount of MCFAs a nursing infant would receive in one day, an adult would need to consume about 3.5 tablespoons of coconut oil a day according to researchers.
1. With regards to fat, what an infant needs, nutritionally, is far different from what an adult needs.
For example, nutrition experts recommend 2% milk for children up to to years of age, then a drop to 1% or skim. The reason for this recommendation is that the extra fat is needed during the first 2 years of life to help fuel the rapid growth occurring during that time. As growth and development slow, so do needs for dietary fat.
Arachidonic acid (ARA) is an essential fatty acid for infants. The only place they can get it is milk, so if an infant is formula fed, ARA needs to be added to that formula. When that infant is weaned, however, and can get this fatty acid elsewhere, it no longer needs to be added to the diet.
It simply has not been proven that nutritional needs for infants are the same as nutritional needs for adults. Or that what you would feed an infant is even healthy for an adult. So I'm not entirely convinced that the extrapolation from an infant's saturated fat intake in breast milk, to a recommendation for adults of 3.5 tablespoons per day is a logical or healthy leap. (I am happy to adjust my stance if peer-reviewed research supporting the higher level becomes available. Our readers are in large part pursuing fertility and possibly in the midst of infertility treatment. I owe it to these high-risk situations to lean toward the skeptical and conservative. I don't want to heap more expense, stress, and/or disappointment on women who take our advice so seriously.)
Fat is fat, no matter where it comes from, it still contains calories, and the recommendations are still to keep saturated fat intake to about 10% of total calories. Regardless of the source of the saturated fat.
I did a long blog post calculating dietary amounts for different calorie levels that this translates to not too long ago if you want more specifics. I do think that when possible, saturated fat from coconut oil is better than saturated fat from meat, so the focus needs to be learning how to make that switch. (See the recipes I posted below.)
2. In moderate quantities, coconut oil can definitely be beneficial. A 2009 Brazilian study providing 1 tbsp per day of coconut oil to a group of women with abdominal obesity found that compared to 1 tbsp of soybean oil, the coconut oil group had higher HDL, a lower LDL/HDL ratio, and a reduced waist circumference. It cannot be determined from this study design if the change was due to the absence of soybean oil, the presence of coconut oil, or a little of both, but it does illustrate that when used in moderation, coconut oil can be part of a hormone-friendly eating program.
3. What IS showing up in the literature is that too much coconut oil can be metabolically deleterious. Individuals at risk for diabetes (and if you have PCOS that means you) need to use coconut oil with care. One recent study in particular (done with calves) compared coconut oil to a non-medium-chain triglyceride (MCT) diet as well as to another MCT, caprylate oil. The coconut oil-fed calves weighed pretty much the same at the end of the study, contradicting claims that coconut oil promotes weight loss. In addition, the coconut oil calves had heavier, fattier livers and contained 15% more fat than the livers of the other calves.
Bottom line, used respectfully, coconut oil has many health benefits and I do encourage its use. What I DO discourage, is using this product indiscriminately with the belief that it has any kind of magical quality that counteracts dietary indiscretions or which somehow allows you to ignore other important rules of nutritional balance.
4. I spent a long time on the company's companion website, http://www.freecoconutrecipes.com/ to see how others were using coconut oil in cooking. Most of the recipes were for baked goods and sweets, the use of which, due to the insulin resistance issue the readers of this blog deal with, should be limited. Cakes, cookies, etc., are not nutritionally dense and cannot be eaten in large quantities just because of the oil they were made with.
I did find a great recipe for coconut oil vinaigrette coleslaw, which nicely combines the concept I've been writing about recently, consuming a bit of vinegar before meals, with a nice, moderate use of coconut oil. I would so love to see more savory recipes like this, as it would help the readers inCYST most often works with, to use this oil to their benefit.
I did my best to walk the walk, as well, and asked the members of our Facebook fan page to share any savory recipes they might have using coconut oil. Here are a few provided by culinary school graduate Alyssa Fritts.
Coconut Green Beans Blanch fresh green beans by dumping them in boiling water for about 20-30 seconds. Strain them out and put them in ice water to s top the cooking. Melt a tsp or less of coconut oil in a pan. Add 1/2 clove of garlic and the strained green beans, toss around a few times. Add chopped almonds and salt and pepper to taste.
Coconut Pork Chops Put a little bit of coconut oil in a pan, salt and pepper pork chop with all fat trimmed Brown on both sides. Remove chop, add garlic, and chopped onion. Saute until garlic is fragrant. Add veggie or chicken stock and a LITTLE bit of apple jui ce. Put chop back in and let it reduce down by about half. Remove chop and place on plate. Add a scoop of stone ground mustard, and a sprig of fresh rosemary. Let it thicken. Finish with a swirl of coconut oil to give it the smooth fullness butter would. Pour over your chop.
Miso-Ginger Salmon 1/2 tsp coconut oil 1 clove minced garlic 1/8 in piece peeled ginger in matchsticks 1 tbs chopped onion 1 tsp miso paste 1/4 cup white wine 1/4 cup veggie stock or water 1/4 tsp coconut oil
Melt 1/2 tsp coconut oil in pan. Salt and pepper salmon. Place in pan skin side up. Brown on both sides. Set aside on a plate. If needed as a tiny bit more coconut oil. Add ginger and garlic. Add onion and sautee for a few seconds. Add wine and stock. Add salmon back to pan and cook for about 5 min. Remove salmon and turn heat up to high. Add miso and reduce down until thick. Swirl in a tiny bit (up to 1/4 tsp) of coconut oil and pour over salmon.
What Alyssa is illustrating, beautifully, is that one of the best ways to use coconut oil is to switch out other oils for coconut oil in your regular cooking, being careful with quantities just as you would any other fat. It adds a nice flavor while it helps your metabolism.
If any of you use Tropical Traditions Coconut Oil, and you've developed some savory, hormone-friendly recipes you'd like to share with our friends at Tropical Traditions, I would love if you would do that. I'd like their customers to see just how much potential this oil can have in the kitchen. I'd really love to see this company, which clearly has a heart for wanting to do something good, succeed at that goal. I'm in love with the creativity of inCYST fans, and encourage you all to step up and share it in a way that can have benefit far outside of this blog post.
Bottom line: Used intelligently and respectfully, Tropical Traditions gets a thumbs up. Stay tuned, as tomorrow we're going to announce a giveaway encouraging you to think about and incorporate the concepts presented in this blog post!
Assunção ML, Ferreira HS, dos Santos AF, Cabral CR Jr, Florêncio TM. Effects of dietary coconut oil on the biochemical and anthropometric profiles of women presenting abdominal obesity. Lipids. 2009 Jul;44(7):593-601. Epub 2009 May 13. Talbott, Shawn M. and Kerry Hughes. (2006). The Health Professional's Guide to Dietary Supplements. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. pp. 60–63. ISBN 9780781746724.
Mills JK, Ross DA, Van Amburgh ME. The effects of feeding medium-chain triglycerides on the growth, insulin responsiveness, and body composition of Holstein calves from birth to 85 kg of body weight. J Dairy Sci. 2010 Sep;93(9):4262-73.
Back in November, I shared my story of my remodel with you, along with photos of what my dining room looked like with the contents of my entire life piled into the dining room.
Last week when this popped up on my daily calendar, I figured it would be a good time to update you on my progress, as some of you asked.
To refresh your memory, here is what things looked like just after the remodel. I cannot even express how overwhelmed I was! I was happy to have new flooring, don't get me wrong. But the timing was tough, right before the holidays. The year before, at the same time, I was so consumed with caring for a beloved dying kitty, there were no festivities. I'd consoled myself by looking forward to a better next year. And then this.
I was exhausted just thinking about it. But the words of my friend Katja, who loves to say when faced with an insurmountable problem,"the best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time," were there to inspire me.
Rather than let the pile overwhelm and exhaust me out of doing anything with it, I decided to just deal with 10 pieces a day. That was it. They either had to be placed in a storage place or thrown away. I knew if I did more, I would start getting frustrated and shove things out of sight just to get rid of them…which is exactly how people accumulate junk in the first place! This was going to be my opportunity to go paperless.
Here is how it looked this past weekend! Much better!
There were days when it felt I wasn't getting anywhere. And days where I felt like things had taken a huge leap. Days when I didn't want to deal with it at all.
And then I noticed, when I had busy days on my schedule, I would actually make time to work ahead so I wouldn't get behind on days when I was traveling. I just kept going at it.
And then there was the day my parents brought me 3 boxes of childhood belongings from their home for me to go through. I was happy to see them, but it felt like it pushed me back to where I'd started.
But I just kept plugging away.
As you see, I still have a ways to go! Here is a look behind the table. But I'm getting there. I have decided to treat myself when this room is all finished, to a new table and chairs.
And I will check in with my progress in a few months.
Hopefully using this analogy, outside of your personal situation with weight or infertility, can help you to understand that any time you take on a big change, regardless of what it is, persistence and commitment are what you're going to need to have in order to get to the goal. It won't happen overnight and it won't be easy, but it will be worth it.
Anything in life that is really worth having requires effort and sacrifice. If it was easily obtained…it would not be something you valued in the first place.
If you have PCOS, it's likely you've been told that your risk of diabetes is increased. And that means it's likely this news headline caught your eye.
Here is the reference to the article that the story was based on, if you want to track it down online or in your local library.
Dixon JB, O'Brien PE, Playfair J, Chapman L, Schachter LM, Skinner S, Proietto J, Bailey M, Anderson M. Adjustable gastric banding and conventional therapy for type 2 diabetes: a randomized controlled trial. JAMA. 2008 Jan 23;299(3):316-23. Comment in: JAMA. 2008 Jan 23;299(3):341-3.
Wouldn't it be great if this claim were true? There are some important caveats to consider before getting in line at your nearest bariatric clinic.
1. The authors of the original study used the word"remission", not"cure", to describe what they observed. Even in cancer treatment, there is a 5 year waiting period a patient must pass before being told they are free and clear of the disease. Somewhere in the trip from the research lab to the news desk a huge leap in logic occurred. Of course,"cure" attracts more viewers--and advertising dollars--than"remission"--but just beware that just as reporters can change their own appearance to look better on camera, so can tweaking a few words increase the potential attractiveness of a story, even one with some originally valid scientific basis.
2. Diabetes can often take years to develop. If there was indeed a high incidence of remission, it is possible that it might take longer than 2 years for patients to start to have signs and symptoms of the disease again.
3. Patients who underwent surgery also lost weight. So who's to say which was the bigger influence? And it took two years for remission to develop. If surgery really was the only influence, not the dietary change or change in body composition, it would likely have occurred much more rapidly.
4. Having surgery is not a license to eat what you want. Especially with bariatric surgery. I participate in a discussion group with dietitians who specialize in bariatric surgery treatment and it is clear, this is a serious, drastic move, requiring serious commitment to change. It is absolutely not risk free.
Your choice is your choice. But just be absolutely sure, before you opt for this solution, that you get all of the facts. And that when you have the facts you understand what they are really saying, not hearing what you'd like them to mean.
Hello everyone, we have so many new people coming to us through Twitter and Facebook, asking what our diet and exercise recommendations are, and then when they come, they are faced with a tremendous task of plowing through hundreds of blog posts I promise I will better organize in 2012…I thought I would summarize what we stand for and what we don't stand for.
If you ever hear differently from anyone in our network, I do need to know. The goal of building a network is to know what our non-negotiables are that we all stand for, and then let each individual network member use their creative talents to make it happen in your life.
Here goes.
1. We do not believe in a one-size-fits-all diet, exercise, or lifestyle prescription for PCOS. That means that while some of you may learn that you are gluten intolerant, we do not recommend that all women with PCOS refrain from eating gluten. While some of you may benefit from running, others may find that another form of activity is going to work better. We believe in creating a set of recommendations that are personally relevant to your own situation, biochemistry, likes, and dislikes. We are not out to create an army of Stepford cysters!
2. We do not advocate for any one type of diet. We choose to honor your own personal food religion, be it vegan, Paleo, low glycemic, raw…whatever…and assist you with understanding what choices you need to make that honor both your food religion and your biochemical nutritional needs. It's about how to be complete, not which is the best way to be complete. Only you know what works best for you.
3. Put another way, we do not advocate for eliminating large categories of foods (gluten-containing, dairy, meat, cooked) unless we see that there is a genuine, medically-indicated reason for doing so.
4. We believe that PCOS does not respond to extremes of any kind. Extreme calorie restriction, extreme exercise participation, extreme dependence on medication, extreme dependence on supplements. Managing your PCOS is entirely about balance in all of those departments. Our job is to show you how to achieve that balance.
5. We believe that nutrition and exercise can be as counterproductive to your health as not pursuing them. Overzealous dieting and overtraining are as harmful to your hormone balance as are overeating and not exercising. Anyone who tells you that you're simply not dieting hard enough or not exercising hard enough…has not taken the time to study what PCOS is about, and they are running the risk of encouraging you to layer yet another inflammatory condition on top of the tangled hormone web that is already in place. We will never endorse that approach.
6. Some things we do know: Women with PCOS tend to be vitamin D deficient, they tend to have an imbalance in dietary omega-6's and omega-3's, and they often have food sensitivities. But those are factors that can be clinically tested. Your physician can do the vitamin D testing. The omega-3 balance is a home-administered test we can set you up with at inCYST. Food sensitivities can be tested as well, through one of the many inCYSTers who is also LEAP-certified.
7. We believe that PCOS is a generalized inflammatory syndrome. But each woman's core source of inflammation is completely unique and different than every other woman's. We encourage that you invest in a comprehensive consultation to help determine what factors are most important for you. If you try to follow every piece of advice that every person on the Internet tries to give you…you're going to be able to follow it for about 3 days before you run out of money, time, and energy. We're here to help you sort through the information and decide which is relevant to your personal situation.
8. We believe that the main issue is not that there is not information to help your case, but that for whatever reason, you've given up on believing that it can work for you. We're committed, through our research institute, to understanding the physiology and psychology of that resignation so we can work to break through it and motivate you to try things that actually work. (We've knocked a lot of women up! I promise!)
I know there's no secret recipe here, but that is because everyone's recipe is different. Just like my mother's potato salad has bacon and mayonnaise in it, and I adjust mine to include turkey bacon and Greek yogurt…you each are going to have your own recipe for success. To settle for a blanket recommendation, is to accept that you are not unique and special. We simply do not believe that.
Hope this helps, and I hope you take advantage of the incredible knowledge and expertise of the experts who have taken the time to learn as much as they can about PCOS so they can help you chart your course through the haze and maze.
Thought you might enjoy seeing some faces behind all these blog posts about Vermont!
On the left in this photo is Marsha Hudnall, co-owner of Green Mountain at Fox Run Resort. She and her husband Alan Wayler invited me to come to Vermont twice a year to help administer their PCOS program. Marsha is very busy right now, revamping Green Mountain's program to include more of a functional nutrition/functional medicine approach.
Since I was there in November, Marsha has changed the menu to be lower in gluten, and to include more vegetables at each meal. I could tell a huge difference in my own satisfaction with the meals, and the kitchen staff noted her changes have subtly changed the guests' appetites so that they seem to ask for fewer seconds and snacks. She has lots of plans for additional changes, which I can't wait to post here!
On the right in this photo is Robyn Priebe, Green Mountain's Director of Nutrition and Program Coordinator. Robyn organizes and teaches the nutrition classes, meets individually with guests to help develop their nutrition plans, and she is also a graduate of the inCYST PCOS Training. She is currently also working toward LEAP certification, a program that will certify her to work with blood testing and nutrition counseling for food sensitivities. All week long I heard comments about the great things the guests were learning in her classes and sessions.
And that's me, Monika, in the middle. I was clearly in good company when this photo was taken!
We'll be working together again this coming November 7 — 13 for the next PCOS week. Stay tuned for more information. Or…contact them now to reserve your spot and start your planning!
This morning, I was a substitute for another yoga instructor at the yoga studio where I teach classes weekly. This was a 6:15 am class, which, needless to say, is earlier than I am used to getting out of bed, and I admit, it was a “I NEED two cups of coffee” kind of morning. Arriving early, I set-up for class and began chatting with the woman who works the front desk checking in students. She (we will call her Abby) told me that she began practicing yoga when she was forty years old and is currently eighty-three. I thought to myself “WOW! That’s some serious dedication and a beautiful example of a life practice.” Soon thereafter, students began to arrive and it was a full house with thirteen students of all ages and levels (including another yoga instructor). It was a level 1-2 class, so I started with a gentle warm-up and then picked up the pace after I assessed the level of each student. Abby, to my surprise, was gracefully flowing through the sequences with obvious strength and ease. When we finally made it to the floor for our finishing poses, I offered variations of Hanumanasana (“Monkey Pose” or “Full Splits”). I attended my first yoga class when I was nineteen; I am now thirty-three. I became certified to teach two and a half years ago and I believe it will be years, or perhaps never (and I am okay with that too), before my hips are open enough to expand into the full expression of this pose. But, there was Abby, rockin’ the full expression of this pose! This particular pose is dedicated to the “monkey God,” Hanuman, who is a figure in Hindu mythology and “is worshiped as a symbol of physical strength, perseverance and devotion.” It was abundantly clear to me that Abby represented all of this and I left class that day with a new perspective… when you are ready, yoga will be there, waiting for you utilize it as a tool to balance and guide you through this crazy roller coaster called life!
Perhaps you have been contemplating integrating yoga into your life and I now ask you to consider this quote by Carl Sandburg, “The time for action is now. It’s never too late to do something.” Go ahead, take a “leap of faith,” perhaps finding inspiration in another and be brave enough to try something new (it doesn’t even have to be yoga!). It really is never too late. With that said, stay tuned, inCYST is excited to announce our newest program… online yoga classes with yours truly to support women with PCOS. About the author: Sarah Jones started out as inCYST's very first intern, has completed the inCYST training, and is inCYST’s very first registered yoga teacher. She taught the yoga component of our workshop series at Metta Yoga. Sarah is currently completing her nutrition studies at Arizona State University and is graduating with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Dietetics in December, 2012. If you'd like to practice yoga with Sarah, please visit Metta Yoga's website for her current schedule. Pictures obtained from: www.nicefun.net and http://www.exoticindiaart.com/article/hanuman/
We've got a new network member! I'm posting Christine's information here as she sent it to me. What she DIDN'T mention, is that she is a NASCAR fan, and that she's actually written about how to eat healthfully at a NASCAR event. I love that down to earth approach, that life, no matter how you define it, can incorporate healthy choices. I'm looking forward to Christine's insights!
Christine E. Marquette has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Dietetics with a major in Nutrition from the University of Texas. She is licensed by the State of Texas (LD) and is also a registered dietitian (RD — national certification) through the Commission on Dietetic Registration. In addition, she has an advanced certification in Food Sensitivities as a Certified LEAP Therapist (CLT) and has been trained in using intrinsic coaching® methodology. She has also completed more than 20 hours of course work in the diagnosis and management of Polycystic Ovary Syndrom (PCOS), and more than 10 hours in the diagnosis and management of Celiac.
Christine is an avid runner, having completed 6 marathons and dozens of 5Ks, 10Ks, half marathons, and other distance races; and has been an assistant coach with Austin Fit marathon training program for more than two years. She is also a sprint distance triathlete.
Her first few years working as a “new dietitian,” Christine consulted in nursing homes and assisted living facilities, as well as provided medical nutrition therapy for a variety of conditions to low income patients in an outpatient clinic setting. Christine also spent a few years working at the Capital Area Food Bank, where she developed and helped launch their nutrition education program. Christine has since spent the majority of her career in nutrition providing medical nutrition therapy to clients one on one and in group classes for both the City of Austin’s community health care centers and the Austin Regional Clinic and has recently opened up her own private practice in South Austin.
