Posts Tagged ‘Maria Zilka’
|Lunchbox Stress? Find solutions here!
Wednesday, January 18th, 2012
One of the top questions I get from patients here at the clinic – especially with GAPS kids – is how to pack a healthy lunch for them to take to school that they’ll enjoy eating! It’s quite a problem in today’s world where food manufacturers have learned to market to the children – not the moms. Although we live in difficult times when it comes to feeding our families right – we also live in the best of times when it comes to creative, supportive and valuable resources. Many of these websites and books have been created by parents, like you, who have become fed-up with feeding time.
I recently signed up for a free online subscription to a fantastic resource called Paleo Parents. Filled with great advice, gorgeous pictures and kid-friendly food ideas – it is a goldmine of information for parents struggling to feed kids with food intolerances. The recipes are gluten and dairy free, along with a de-emphasis on grains and legumes – the “go to” foods for parents who want to make sure the kids are getting plenty of protein.
They also offer a fun-filled cookbook that is designed to be shared with your kids – promoting their involvement and subsequent ownership of the food they get to choose for themselves. There are so many great tips and strategies to turn this chore into family fun while building great values for your kids when it comes to making healthy choices for themselves. A value they will have for the rest of their lives.
Not only will you have some fun learning new techniques – but you may even find a sense of relief that you’re not the only one out there with this struggle.
Happy eating!
Love & Health,
Tags: GAPS Diet, Health, healthy eating, kids lunch, lunch, Maria Zilka, Nutrition, paleo diet, parenting
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Quick and Easy? Slow Down and Enjoy the Ride
Tuesday, January 17th, 2012
by Maria Zilka, NTP – Nutritional therapist, certified GAPS practitioner
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Standing in the grocery store checkout line, reading the magazine covers while I awaited my turn – it struck me how many headlines refer to getting things done in as little time as possible: “Lose 10 pounds in 2 weeks”,” Fast-track your house cleaning,” “7 easy steps to a better relationship” – and my favorite – “Dinner in under 20 minutes.”
Why are we in such a hurry to get things done? Yes, we’re all really, really busy these days with work, family, school, friendships and the need to take care of ourselves, but it seems we may have traded in the time we used to give to these life-enriching areas for time we happily give to doing… well, nothing. Watching television, playing on our cell phones or even reading about how to get things done faster and easier are all distractions to the job at hand – whatever that may be. It reminds me of the words from an old country song – “all I really gotta do is live and die, but I’m in a hurry and don’t know why.”
Cooking at home can mean better food choices.
In the context of our health we’ve become conditioned to look for quick fixes – often in the form of a pill – and it’s become quite common to think that your health is restored once the pain is gone. We’ve become very adept at shutting up our symptoms. Have a headache? – Take some aspirin. Body aches? – Reach for the ibuprofen. Acid reflux? – Stop that fire fast with some antacid! Symptoms gone? – All better. Unfortunately, ignoring or suppressing a symptom doesn’t make the underlying problem go away and eventually those symptoms will only get louder and perhaps more serious.
There is an art to everything – from cooking your family meals to cultivating healthy relationships – and by looking for the shortcuts we miss out on the joy of the journey. Nowhere is this more apparent than in taking care of ourselves and improving our health. So, as we ride the crest of the wave into the New Year, with all of our resolutions and good intentions, maybe it’s time to slow it down and look at our approach.
With that said, here is my “quick and easy” list for slowing down, paying attention and reaping long-term benefits from your efforts!
Learn to cook. Anyone who has come to see me at the clinic will attest to the fact that my number one suggestion for improving health is to learn how to feed yourself. No kidding. Relying on restaurants with their over-used and often poorly chosen oils and fats along with questionably sourced animal products is taking a gamble with your health. Though there are an increasing number of really terrific and health-conscious restaurants serving our area (aren’t we lucky?!), they can be expensive. Better to save the eating out for Date Night and strive to return to the good old days of eating in. Feeling socially isolated? A girlfriend of mine started a weekly cooking club where everyone comes to one another’s home bringing food, recipes, and all kinds of strategies for the kitchen. She’s having a blast and not only is she making new friends, she’s even improved her knife skills!
Start an exercise routine that you love. If you don’t like to run then don’t run. If dancing brings you joy then dance. It’s that simple. The only caveat to this statement is, again, slow down – see if you really don’t enjoy it. Sometimes it’s just getting used to a new routine or getting fit enough to enjoy it. I remember when I started running again after being a long-distance runner in college and falling away from it for several years – I hated it. All I could think was “how on earth did I ever enjoy this?” Then I started running the trails in Forest Park and the world of running changed for me forever. Suddenly, I was 10 years old again running through the woods and jumping over fallen trees. What joy! It was no longer exercise to me – it was therapy! Whatever it is you choose to do, just do it long enough to find out if it moves you. Then just do it.
Get a good doctor. I hear so many people tell me that they go to the doctor they see because of their insurance plans. Some stay with the same doc for years just because they hate the “hassle” of finding a new one. It is a fact that when gathering data on drug effectiveness the pharmaceutical companies know to keep any doctor/patient relationship out of the picture. Why? Because the relationship and trust that is created between a good doctor and their patient has a positive effect on optimizing a person’s health. On the flip side, think about how detrimental a poor relationship can be? Have you ever felt dissed by your doc? Five minutes of their time and the door is shutting in your face – midsentence? Take the time to find yourself a doctor that cares and will listen. You’ll feel the difference.
Finish what you start. We all have the same mantra “if only I had the time…” Yes, if only. It’s actually less about time than it is about commitment and integrity. Don’t let time be an excuse to not get your stuff done! If you want to write that book, play that instrument, or lose that weight – make the time to get it done. Set your priorities and don’t let other things distract you from using that time to finish what you want to finish. You’ll feel less stress and more happiness when the “lack of time” doesn’t exist for you.
Detoxify your life. Toxins are all around us. In the air we breathe, the water we drink, the foods we eat – even the people we hang out with can be toxic! Do we take the time to really think about what it means to detoxify our lives? We may do a metabolic liver cleanse – but continue to use a shampoo with detergents that can mess with our hormones. We drink filtered water but bathe in unfiltered water. We go for a run – in downtown traffic pollution. Reducing toxins in our environment reduces stress on us physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. So take some time to look at your world – your home and workplace – and make a commitment to truly detoxifying your life.
At Nature Cures Clinic, we believe that the underlying cause of many people’s health concerns can be addressed by eliminating common food allergens that contribute to toxicity in the body and then healing the gut lining. Any food that is not properly digested and entering the system through an unprotected gut is considered a toxin and will create an immune response. Fatigue, joint pain, headache, bloating, bowel issues and stomach pain are just some of the physical symptoms caused by an unhealthy digestive system – and anxiety, depression, ADD, brain fog, epilepsy and other neurological disorders are also connected to this imbalance in the system. If this sounds familiar, I’d like to invite you to schedule a free consult with me to talk about the GAPS Diet (Gut & Psychology Syndrome), the Nature Cures Clinic Detox program and the Elimination Diet. There is a good chance that these nutritional approaches to improving your health may be the start of a whole new lifestyle as well!
Do you have a few minutes? One of my favorite poets is Mary Oliver – she writes about the human experience using nature as her backdrop. Below is a link to a video using one of her poems “The Journey.” Please, sit back and relax – listen and enjoy the journey you’re on. And, when you’re ready… slow down.
Tags: articles by our doctors, fresh start, GAPS, gut and psychology syndrome, Maria Zilka, Nature Cures Clinic, new year, nutritional therapist, nutritionist
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Nutrition Mission: Improve your Health through Food
Wednesday, March 16th, 2011
by Maria Zilka, NT
Nature Cures Clinic nutritional therapist
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When you hear the word “nutrition,” what comes to mind for you? The FDA food pyramid? A bottle of vitamin and mineral pills? Your mother telling you can’t leave the table until you’ve eaten all your spinach? Commonly, when we think of nutrition we think “borrrrring!” We think of the foods we should be eating rather than the foods we are eating.
Nutrition is not about our diet. While our diet plays a very important role in our nutrition – it is more about the interaction of the food we eat with our unique physiology. So, when we think of a healthy diet it is important to remember that there is no public policy that can dictate what a perfect diet is – simply because we are all individuals. What is important is finding what the perfect diet is for you.
It is not always easy to make the connection between what you eat and how you feel. We are very adept in this country at shutting up our symptoms – if we have a headache we take a couple of aspirin, a body ache has us reaching for a bottle of ibuprofen. Acid reflux or GERD is soothed with antacids – and even our red, itchy dry eyes are treated with fake tears! Symptoms are no longer considered to be the body’s way of communicating – they’re conditions that must be relieved so that we can ignore them a while longer.
The problem with ignoring a symptom, however, is that it doesn’t go away – it just gets louder and more demanding. Treating your symptoms is a temporary, though sometimes necessary fix – but if you want to achieve optimal health and vitality you have to get to the root cause of the problem. This often begins with our food.
If a food is not nourishing your body then it is creating a stress. For example, an egg is considered a very healthy food – in fact, it has been called the “perfect” food. It contains everything to begin a life with. However, if your particular physiology reacts to egg as an allergen then it is far from a healthy food for you. Symptoms of fatigue, gas, bloating, achiness, headache, etc. have been reported from people who are sensitive to egg protein, but if you are not looking for the connection you might easily attribute these symptoms to something entirely different. The key is in finding the foods that create “chronic” stress in the body and eliminate them from your diet. In so doing – you are relieving your body of dealing with unnecessary and unseen stress that can eventually lead to disease.
The other component to the nutrition question is how well your digestive system is working. We need to have sufficient stomach acid to break down protein, adequate salivary and pancreatic enzymes to process carbohydrates and healthy amounts of smooth flowing bile to emulsify fat for absorption. If any of these systems are compromised or out of balance we will experience problems such as acid reflux, bloating, gas, undigested food in the stool and malnutrition, to name a few. If any of these symptoms sound familiar then you should probably take heed. Most of us have experienced digestive disorders at one time or another – what we are concerned with are the chronic issues that lead to problems.
The following is a list of things that you can do to improve your nutrition:
• Digestion starts before we even eat. Spending time with our food in the preparation, cooking, seasoning, smelling and tasting all combine to get the body ready to receive nourishment. The brain plays a key role in proper digestion.
• In school we were taught that digestion is a “north to south” process. If you have something going on in the southern region of your body – it most likely started farther up the line. One of the best things you can do to aid proper digestion is chew your food. Make a conscious effort to chew each bite at least 20 times – it’s not easy! Many of us eat on the run – short lunches and hurried meals throughout the day so we get used to “wolfing” down our food in large un-chewed quantities. Becoming more mindful of the chewing process benefits us in so many ways.
• Relax and enjoy meal time. There’s wisdom in traditions and saying grace is no exception. Close your eyes, take a deep breath and feel gratitude for the food, your healthy body and even the people you may be eating with. This puts your body in the receiving mode and allows you to get the most nutrition from your effort.
• I’m a big fan of the food writer Michael Pollan, author of Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food and Botany of Desire. I like when he says “It’s no longer what we eat – it’s what we eat, eats.” Think about that for a minute. His point is that making healthy food choices goes deeper than just choosing the so-called “healthy” food over the “unhealthy” food. We need to consider where that food came from, how it was produced or raised, cultivated, fed and harvested. What fertilizers/pesticides may have been used. How the animal was fed and treated. This all contributes to the nutritional content and quality of your food.
• Take the steps to find out what your perfect diet is. We put most, if not all of our patients here at the clinic through the Elimination Diet. This is where we take all of the most common allergens out of the diet for period of time and then systematically re-introduce them to discover symptoms associated with each food. The purpose is to definitively know which foods are nourishing for your body, which foods are not – and what it feels like for you.
• Keep your digestive system as healthy as you can. You can create the perfect diet– but if you’re not digesting properly it won’t do you much good. Pay attention to your symptoms of bloating, brain fog, headaches and body aches. Follow some routines to give yourself better health such as a liver cleanse a couple of times a year, a good exercise program to help your body release toxins and burn up stored energy and one of the best things of all – learn to cook!
For more information on balancing your nutritional profile – come see our Nutritional Therapist Maria Zilka, for a Nutritional Assessment and analysis of your current diet. Maria also provides classes and lectures and is happy to come to your business or organization to provide information on digestive health and food in a fun and interactive way.
Image courtesy Bethd821
Tags: Diet, health food, healthy eating, Maria Zilka, Nutrition
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Soaking your grains, nuts and seeds
Saturday, January 16th, 2010
If you’ve been to one of Maria Zilka’s nutrition classes, then you probably know a thing or two about soaking and sprouting. It’s one of the ways Maria likes to show people that it’s not hard to eat well, it just takes a bit of planning.
Maybe right about now you’re thinking, “time? Who has any more of that?”
But we assure you, it won’t hurt that much. Though to help you along, we’ll explain the big benefits of soaking your grains, nuts and seeds.
Those foods contain an element called phytic acid, which fortifies the hulls or shells of raw nuts, seeds, and grains. Phytic acid is nature’s way of providing mildew resistance, allowing the grain to reach maturity and re-germinate instead of rotting due to rain and moisture. Our bodies cannot absorb phytic acid, so our bodies just expel the grains that contain it.
Not only that, but phytic acid can bind to minerals, proteins, and starch — making it difficult for you to absorb these elements.
It is possible to remove the phytic acid, however, by giving your grains a good soak. Maria recommends soaking your rice, whole grains, nuts, and seeds for at least eight hours before using them. For added health benefits, you can also allow your grains to sprout before consuming them.
If you have more questions about phytic acid or how to eat more balanced, healthy meals, contact Maria@naturecuresclinic, or call us at (503) 287-4970 to set up an appointment.
Tags: Alternative medicine, grains, Maria Zilka, nuts, seeds, sprouting
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