Category: Health

Tweak #4 – Eliminating Toxins in your home

by amandaleonard, posted in Health, In the Kitchen, Inspiration, Uncategorized

Everyday we are bombarded with so many toxins.  Once we step outside our home it’s near impossible to avoid the 200,000 of ways we are affected. We can however make a few tweaks inside our home, which pay huge dividends.

The list of do’s and don’t are endless, but here are a few do’s to get you started:

  1. Keep two different plant types in your home
  2. Invest in a quality air purification system  (REME unit and Molecule)
  3. Place porcelain air diffusers in bedrooms and kitchen
  4. Replace old sheets, pillows and mattresses with organic
  5. Toss the toxic cleaning supplies and replace with natural, eco-friendly cleaning products

Tweak #3 – Eating with intention

Featured by amandaleonard, posted in Health, In the Kitchen, Uncategorized

One easy tweak we can make in everyday life are our food choices and habits.  While our bodies adapt to our everyday choices, there are certain foods and food combinations that will boost our energy and digestions and ultimately our health!

Although there is a lot of information on this topic, I will keep this short so it can be an easy tweak!

  1. Keep starches and proteins separate.  A starch is a complex carbohydrate made up of small chain sugar molecules.  These foods are beans, pastas, peas, corn, rice and grains.  Proteins are composed of amino acids and are the building blocks of our bodies.  These foods are beef, tofu, dairy, fish, eggs, pork, beans etc. (yes, beans are both carbs and protein).  To keep it simple, eat Starch meals with veggies and protein meals with veggies, but try not to combine.  
  2. Eat fruit alone.  This means do not slice banana on your cereal or mix fruit with milk in your smoothies.
  3. Chew your food well and slow down while you eat. This aids in better digestion.
  4. Eat your raw food first (salad before cooked meal)
  5. Sip water during meals but consume most of your hydration between meals

Remember 70% of our immune system is in our gut.  All of these tips directly relate to digestion and gut health and keeping our immune system strong and ready to fight for our body!

Happy eating!

tweak #2

by amandaleonard, posted in Health, In the Kitchen

6 toxic foods to avoid:

For most of us, three times a day we are making the decision of what to eat.  But food is not only meant to keep us alive, it is intended to nourish our body.  We know that fruits and vegetables with phytonutrients and antioxidants are essential and healthy, but what are some of the toxic foods we should avoid as much as possible.


foods to avoid:

  1. genetically modified foods (GMO) – this means it has been injected with some sort of growth hormone or other substance to make it bigger or grow faster.
  2. non-organic foods – they have most likely been sprayed with herbicides and pesticides that you are now ingesting
  3. white flour
  4. table salt
  5. MSG – monosodium glutamate
  6. microwaved foods

Aim to eat as much live food as possible vs. dead, processed food. What a blessing we have so much choice!

What exactly is an electrolyte?

by amandaleonard, posted in Health

We all know that when we partake in any event that causes us to sweat we loose minerals and need to replenish them. The same conversation happens when we get sick and throw up or have diarrhea. We have been told to consume certain drinks etc. to make this happen. But what exactly are we replenishing?

Our bodies need to be replenished with electrolytes. So, the next question is, “what is an electrolyte?”

Simply stated electrolytes are minerals or chemical compounds that create electrically charged ions when dissolved in fluids. They keep our tissue, cells and fluids communicating with the rest of our body and are essential for our bodies to function. Many bodily functions depend on electrolytes such as muscle contractions and nerve impulse transmissions. In addition electrolytes affect the acidity of your blood (PH).

The electrolytes in the human body are:

  • sodium.
  • potassium.
  • calcium.
  • bicarbonate.
  • magnesium.
  • chloride.
  • phosphate.

Reasons to replenish with electrolyte supplements:

  • young children who are sick and loose fluids
  • athletes who are sweating for longer than an hour
  • adults who may not consumer enough water
  • patients recovering from chemotherapy treatment

Antibiotics Are Not Always the Answer

by amandaleonard, posted in Health

I can’t stop thinking about my daughter’s experience last week with an ear ache!

After two days of a dull pain that would not go away, I called our pediatrician so he could look inside her ear with his otoscope and hopefully diagnose the issue. As we expected he announced it was ear infection and told us we should get her on a 15 day antibiotic so that nothing more serious would happen, like a popped eardrum! Yikes!!! Of course we didn’t want THAT to happen so we took the prescription to the pharmacy, she took her first dose and was back in school that afternoon.

Now, I realize there is a time and place for antibiotics, but I also know they are given out and prescribed like a healthy vitamin meant to boost your immune system. It just didn’t feel right giving my daughter an antibiotic, knowing it was not only killing the “bad guys”, but the “good guys” also.

I emailed my favorite functional medicine doctor and asked her opinion. She replied with an article from CNN which says that according to the Journal of the American Medical Association, antibiotics do little to speed recovery and in fact raises the risks of some side effects. She told me to called a chiropractor and gave me a couple of recommendations. Hmmm, interesting but I’ll give it a try.

I called and got her an appointment that afternoon. The chiropractor explained that the dry air or some other little thing had probably caused a little fluid to back up and the drainage wasn’t working properly. He said the tube that drains the fluid in her ear is like the tiny red straw they serve at bars in your cocktail! Wow, now that is a tiny pathway!

In less than 10 minutes and a few adjustments later he said that’s it! It’s draining now and she should feel better in less than 24 hours. He said she may hear a cracking like noise and may feel the drainage coming up! “Yuck!”, we both said.

Sure enough less than 24 hours later Avery walked upstairs and announced that she had good news! The pain was gone and she felt better. Now two days later the ear infection is completely gone!

I am so thankful that we treated it this way and even more thankful she did not need to take a round of antibiotics. I can’t help but think about all the moms who have a child with an ear ache and think their only option is an antibiotic.

There are many amazing doctors out there. I am thankful for them. Most of them are just not trained to treat ailments by allowing the body to heal itself. They are trained to treat with medicine.

It’s interesting to note that the CDC now has a list of over 18 bacteria that are antibiotics resistant. This happens from over use of antibiotics and is a scary issue. The number keeps growing.