As a functional medicine coach, one of the questions I am asked most often by clients when it comes to losing weight and clearing up other health issues is “What am I doing wrong?” or “What is wrong with me?”. Here’s what I tell them – it isn’t about what you are doing “wrong”. The inability to lose weight, etc. is NOT because you don’t have enough willpower or because you aren’t able to eat perfectly all the time, so please, stop blaming yourself.

One of the biggest reasons my clients so often have trouble overcoming weight loss resistance or feeling less tired or a myriad of other health issues is actually because of stress.

We live with constant stress. Instead of occasional demands, followed by periods of rest, we are constantly triggering the “fight-or-flight” stress response. These demands include both hidden stressors and life stressors.

In fact, the past year has been an extreme...

Amy is a 42-year old super busy mom of three boys. She’s taken on the role of PTA volunteer, class mom for two of her boys’ classrooms, and coordinates the schedule for her oldest son’s baseball team. In the last year, she hasn’t been feeling like herself. She has somehow gained an extra 15 pounds (hello muffin-top!), feels like she is ready for bed at 4 pm, and can’t ever seem to remember where she put her keys (inevitably right before she leaves for school pick-up). She always feels completely depleted and gets annoyed at every little thing. She keeps thinking that something is “off” and that she should go see her OB-GYN.

Every evening, Amy usually comes home after chauffeuring everyone to and from their sports and after school activities and cooks dinner for the family. When her husband comes home around 6 pm, they all have dinner together. This particular Thursday, when her husband got home, something seemed off.

The driveway was...

Detox programs are everywhere!  If you google the words “detox program”, you’ll get an overwhelming 28.3 million results.  Just so we are on the same page… I’m not talking about a drug and alcohol detox here.  I am specifically referring to the ways in which our bodies get rid of waste (toxins and otherwise). And more importantly, how we are supporting our bodies in detoxifying on a regular basis.  If waste builds up, without an effective way to remove it, we get sick and fat!

This is an important conversation and if you only read a couple of paragraphs here, this is what I REALLY want you to know: First, prioritize supporting your body’s natural detoxification system and get rid of waste. Second, and just as important, you must then learn ways to minimize your exposure to “Retoxing” (or putting toxins back in).

So, let’s get back to those detox programs.  Some of these require you to only drink...

Have you heard of the “well-fed but undernourished” epidemic growing in America and other developed countries? More and more people are consuming more than enough food but getting far fewer nutrients than they need.

According to the CDC and USDA:

• 9 out of 10 Americans suffer from a potassium deficiency
• 8 out of 10 Americans suffer from a Vitamin E deficiency
• 7 out of 10 Americans suffer from a calcium deficiency
• 50% of Americans suffer from deficiencies in Vitamin A, Vitamin C, and magnesium

And a recent study by the National Health & Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) found that children and adults in the U.S. have high rates of vitamins A, B6, B12, C, D, E, folates, and iron deficiencies, in general.

But that’s not all. To break it down further:

• Almost 1/3 of the U.S. population is at risk for anemia or a vitamin deficiency
• 1% of Americans do not get enough B12
• 3% of Americans do not get enough folate
• 3% of Americans do not get enough iron
• 32% of...

If you use sunscreen or know someone who does, this is some super important news you’ll want to know about…

A new randomized clinical trial, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association was just released, and the importance of this topic has been creating big news.

The objective of the study was to determine whether the active ingredients (avobenzone, oxybenzone, octocrylene, and ecamsule) of 4 commercially available sunscreens are absorbed into systemic circulation.

And guess what???  They ALL entered the bloodstream; one by the end of the day, the other three by the day after use. Many chemicals in body care products are absorbed faster than this. But why would you want ANY harmful chemicals in your bloodstream?

Oxybenzone (which is a known endocrine disrupting chemical) was absorbed into the body at about 50 to 100 times higher concentration than any of these other three chemicals they tested. YIKES! This...

I was almost at the point where I would have been ok with giving my husband “a hall pass”… allowing him to go out and get a “temporary” girlfriend.  That was how SO incredibly stressed, tired and sleep deprived I was.  I had zero interest in sex, even though I loved him and was happy being married. At that point in my life (in my mid 30’s), I felt like I was just not cut out for this. I knew there must have been something really wrong.  I had three small children, all under the age of 5 (love them!!), and after they went to bed at 7pm, all I wanted to do was sleep!  My husband was understanding.  I was not!  This wasn’t really something I wanted to talk with my girlfriends about… I really thought I was the only one going through it.

When I paid a visit to my OBGYN, I spilled the beans and begged her to figure out what was wrong with me.  She was empathetic, being a mom as well, but her suggestions...

Long term exposure to hormonal birth control almost killed my best friend.  Right after her 42^nd birthday, she traveled from her home in California to New York, attended a conference for the week, (just like she does every year) and was planning to spend the weekend with me before going back home. She’s an avid runner, self-care enthusiast and healthy eater. Earlier in the year she began struggling with random breathing trouble… even on an easy morning walk or just climbing the stairs to her apartment.  Her Dr. told her to see a pulmonologist, which she did, and was diagnosed with ‘adult onset asthma’. Which both she and I thought was ridiculous because of her healthy lifestyle. She never smoked, she ate clean, she exercised, managed her stress with regular self-care.  Asthma just didn’t make any sense.

When she arrived at my house that Friday afternoon, she could barely drag her suitcase up my steep driveway. Every kind of physical...

In 2014, the FDA announced that manufacturers had to show that antibacterial soap was both safe and more effective than simply washing with conventional soap and water, or they would have to take it off the shelves in the next few years. In 2016, the Food and Drug Administration finally announced it’s banning triclosan and related antibacterial soap chemicals, meaning manufacturers have one year to remove it and 18 other antibacterial ingredients from products (or pull products containing these ingredients from store shelves). Is this a good thing? Don’t we want to have antibacterial cleansers around to keep us healthy? Well, not when they’re actually causing more harm than good!

For years, even the FDA admitted that regular soap and water proved just as effective as antibacterial soaps but without the harmful side effects, urging everyday people to skip out on the overkill of using antibacterial soap. The largest concern about antibacterial...

If you are like most women, you are swamped from the time you drag yourself out of bed in the morning until you crawl back in at night. For thousands of women who live a hectic lifestyle, being tired and feeling ill all the time becomes a way of life. The last thing frazzled women need is someone lecturing them on “one more thing” they should be doing — yet often, that crucial and overlooked piece of the puzzle is self-care.

Self-care is the first thing to go in women’s priorities. This stems from prioritizing the needs of family, work, and other responsibilities over oneself. Functional medicine coach Kate Motz of Integrative Wellness Advisors has seen this happen repeatedly throughout her years working with clients. Her coaching services help women develop and realize their self-care goals in a practical, supportive way. Indeed, self-care doesn’t need to be a major drag on time and money. There are many ways to participate in self-care that...

Are you a wine drinker? Do you know what’s in the wine you’re consuming? Do you ever feel sluggish or not so great the next day due to consumption the night before? Do you get the dreaded wine headache? Have you ever thought about the added sugar, chemicals, sulfites, pesticides, etc.. that’s added to the wine you drink?

Mass produced v. Clean-crafted™ wine….

Mass-produced wines are often riddled with pesticides, chemicals, and extra sugars. Think about your own favorite wine. Every time you pop open a bottle, you expect it to taste the same, right?

The truth is, wines are supposed to vary in flavor, even if two bottles are the exact same brand, year and blend. To keep up with our unrealistic expectation that wines should taste the same (while still keeping costs low), conventional winemakers have unfortunately resorted to some not-so-desirable means, such as including potentially harmful chemicals and additives like ferrocyanide, ammonium phosphate,...