Nell Stephenson's Blog

Are Heavy Metals the Root Cause of Your Symptoms?

In 2000,  Bangladesh was quoted as having suffered the largest mass poisoning of a population in history according to the World Health Organization Bulletin. This is due to the contamination of groundwater—the main source of drinking water—with naturally occurring inorganic arsenic (1)

While this example may well be one of the most egregious of heavy metal toxicity or poisoning,  it doesn’t always  take a mass exposure to create havoc.

A CDC (2)  study estimated that around 2.1 million people may be exposed to high levels of arsenic in their drinking water. Furthermore, research indicates that a significant portion of the population is exposed to a combination of heavy metals, with some studies showing that nearly half of the US population may be exposed to a combination of three or more metals.

It’s not always as obvious we might expect; toxic levels of metals can build up over time and may not necessarily create symptoms for a while.

Heavy metal poisoning occurs when microscopic molecules of metals accumulate within your body after exposure. Heavy metals attach to your cells and prevent them from performing their functions, which causes symptoms that could be life threatening without treatment (3).

The most common toxic metals are Mercury, Lead, Chromium, Cadmium, and Arsenic (5).

Some exposure sources might not be surprising; if your home was built before 1978, it is more likely to have lead-based paint. In 1978, the federal government banned consumer uses of lead-based paint, but some states banned it even earlier (5) but lead-based paint is still present in millions of homes, normally under layers of newer paint.

Mercury is another common buzz word- we are advised  not to consume too much of the larger fish such as tuna, sharks and swordfish (6).    There is a nearly century old debate on the use of mercury in dental fillings, known as The Amalgam Debate (7); in 1984, autopsy studies revealed a correlation between the amount of mercury found in brain and kidney tissue and the number of amalgam fillings a person had.

But what about chromium and cadmium?  Or perhaps less commonly found, metals like chromium, thallium, and nickel?

Where and how are we being exposed to these and how do we know if we have been effected?

On my own journey, I was fortunate enough to have a very thorough functional medicine doctor who ran a heavy metal screening as part of my annual exam one year and we found my mercury levels were 20 mcg/L; normal levels are below 5!

I was completely asymptomatic. 

Fortunately, I was able to remediate it holistically (read more about that here ) and lower my mercury level down to 4 one year prior to getting pregnant).

Unfortunately, avoiding heavy metal exposure is not as obvious as not breathing in toxic chemicals, such as what we experienced in the aftermath of the recent fires here in the Palisades.  Lead can be found in contaminated water and soil, mercury may be present in topical antiseptics.  Thimerosal, an ethylmercury-containing preservative in some multi-dose preparations of influenza vaccine, could cause mercury poisoning (8).    Topical creams, herbicides, insecticides, pesticides, fungicides can contain arsenic.

In other words, there are potential contaminants all around us.

You may or (like me) may not have symptoms, and sometimes the symptoms are even trickier to decipher because the metal toxicity may have triggered other responses in your body, such as autoimmune compromises, cancers, cardiovascular issues, kidney, liver and neurological issues.

The good news is that testing is available and relatively non invasive (unless you consider collecting a hair sample invasive).   

Vibrant and Quicksilver are two brands that offer testing using hair, blood and urine.  Each provide different and important information about exposure – blood indicates recent,  urine recent as well as the body’s ability to excrete and hair – long term exposure and accumulation.   

Even if you don’t feel you’ve got a reason to consider exposure as part of what your current health picture may be, asking your functional medicine to run these simple tests has no down side.   Knowing you have, or do not have to address this is an important piece of creating your own journey to optimal health.

Being informed about your own body is not only empowering, it’s crucial.

So… ask about it and if you’re told you needn’t consider it due to not having had an obvious exposure, perhaps seek another opinion until you get the support on your individual path that you need. 

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4772235/https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5693367/https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/23424-heavy-metal-poisoning-toxicityhttps://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8078867/https://www.epa.gov/lead/protect-your-family-sources-leadhttps://www.fda.gov/food/environmental-contaminants-food/mercury-levels-commercial-fish-and-shellfish-1990-2012https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK531943/https://www.chop.edu/vaccine-education-center/vaccine-safety/vaccine-ingredients/thimerosalThe post Are Heavy Metals the Root Cause of Your Symptoms? first appeared on Paleoista.

Food and Mood

A client recently shared that since we began working together, not only has she felt better physically, she also feels like an overall happier person.

Not surprisingly, having lost twelve pounds and having better sleep after making some fundamental changes to how she was eating and moving, she was bound to feel better!

But it was more than that, she confided; about six months into our work together, she brought up something she’d been embarrassed to talk about; she’d been dealing with depression on and off for years and had reached the point of feeling like there was just no choice – she’d have to stay on her meds forever, or face the demons inside.

She’d been feeling so much better after learning about and implementing some better eating and fasting techniques that she mustered up the courage to speak with her therapist about tapering off the duo she’d been on for years – Wellbutrin and Zoloft.

(Wellbutrin primarily affects norepinephrine and dopamine, while Zoloft primarily affects serotonin. By combining their effects, the combination may provide a broader spectrum of antidepressant benefits for some patients who haven’t responded well to a single medication. (1). )

Why did it take courage?

Because the last time she’d weaned off her meds, she fell back on drinking, and it happened on more than one occasion.

Fortunately, her therapist came from a holistic background and continued to listen to her patient, supporting her in any way she could.

But this time, it stuck.

Why? What was different? Because for the first time in her life, she had her eyes wide open to what she was eating.

Not that she had a particularly unhealthy diet, or so she thought; she ate veggies every day, tried to stick with low-fat, didn’t eat ‘too much red meat’ and many of the other recommendations many would perceive as a ‘healthy diet’.

And for some, eating in this manner is something they can do without consequence, for the time being.

More and more studies are coming out showing how the highly processed, refined American Diet is leading to the tremendous rise not only in Type II Diabetes, Obesity, Heart Disease (2) but also in mood related disorders, from ADD to ADHD to depression, anxiety and bipolar disorder (3).

Undoubtedly, the connection between food and mood is tremendous.

But it goes far deeper than simply developing a habit of ‘stress eating’ or turning to alcohol to ‘take the edge off’.

We’re talking about brain chemistry.

Arguably, if there wasn’t something deeply wired into the physiology of some, gettin in and maintaining a better mood, being more or less likely to have a drink for seemingly therapeutic purposes and the inclination to lean to food as solace, the idea of stopping ‘cold turkey’ would be an easy answer.

But that’s simply not the case.

Conditions like depression, anxiety, and even severe psychiatric disorders are closely tied to inflammation and oxidative stress in the brain. Refined carbohydrates and processed foods created neuro inflammation. These excess sugars literally sticks to proteins, DNA and lipids in the brain and become AGE’s responsible for premature aging of the brain. These dysfunctional molecules triggers inflammatory cytokines cascades. Constant brain sugar spikes eventually create chronic uncontrolled oxidative stress and inflammation (4).

We read a lot about neurotransmitters in the brain, and how a chemical imbalance may be part of the reason why one experiences a variety of mood disorders.

Neurotransmitters are chemical messengers that transmit signals across nerve cells (neurons) in the brain and body. Key neurotransmitters include glutamate (excitatory), GABA (inhibitory), dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine, and acetylcholine (5).

In Dr. Georgie Ede’s book, Change Your Diet, Change Your Mind (6), we learn that the “most powerful way to change brain chemistry is with food, because that’s where brain chemicals come from in the first place”.

When we eat a diet containing foods high in processed sugars, trans fats, and certain seed oils oxidative stress occurs (7).

Oxidative stress can also occur due to lifestyle choices, environmental exposure and even high intensity athletic training (8).

Oxidative stress impacts tryptophan metabolism, which then affects serotonin production (which, by the way, is made in the gut).

We all know about serotonin, which plays a critical role in in mood regulation, among several other things; when Prozac made its debut in the late 80s, the term selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor became a household word!

Tryptophan’s main job is to help make melatonin and serotonin (9). Melatonin helps regulate the sleep-wake cycle, and serotonin is thought to help regulate appetite, sleep, mood, and pain.

When everything is in balanced in this way, our moods are regulated and it’s natural to feel in a happy state.

But when this pathway gets disrupted, a phenomenon called the Tryptophan Steal occurs .

When this occurs, Tryptophan is diverted away from its main role toward another pathway, the kynurenine pathway, making instead, a neurotoxin called quinolic acid.

Studies have demonstrated that quinolinic acid may be involved in many psychiatric disorders, neurodegenerative processes in the brain, as well as other disorders (10).

The other piece we need to understand is the GABA Glutamate balance. Glutamate is the main excitatory and GABA the main inhibitory neurotransmitter in the mammalian cortex (11).

With oxidative stress, the uptake of both are inhibited, which alters their capacity to function in their normal roles, leading to a decrease in GABA accumulation and increase in glutamate levels (12).

When GABA levels drop, feelings of anxiety, irritability, depression and mood swings may occur.

Interestingly, alcohol in the brain serves to initially mimic GABA by slowing down brain activity and leading to a feeling of relaxation. The key word, of course, being ‘initially’. It’s not news to anyone that alcohol is anything but a long term remedy for this imbalance and in fact, it worsens in.

And the cycle is complete.

Draw it out if it you’re more of a visual person – seeing it in flow chart format makes it all crystal clear.

Doing whatever we can do to prevent oxidative stress from affecting our minds, our bodies, in the first place is a fundamental step in healing as well as preventing these processes from happening in the first place.

Some of the lifestyle choices are obvious; don’t smoke. Skip or at least minimize alcohol consumption. Move your body. Meditate or do some type of spiritual practice.

Some, which arguably may be the most important, may not be as obvious.

As Dr Ede suggests., “ a diet needs to: nourish the brain and contain all essential nutrients, exclude ingredients that damage the brain and energize the brain by providing reliable energy in ways that support healthy brain metabolism in a healthy range.”

A Paleo approach, when followed properly, is one perfect example of a nutrient dense, alkaline forming diet, rich in alkaline forming compounds and completely devoid of anything causing inflammation.

Another key component is integrating a fasting protocol in some, way shape or form into your weekly regime.

One of the main reasons to add this into your personal protocol is that fasting triggers autophagy, the body’s cellular recycling system. It allows a cell to disassemble its junk parts and repurpose the salvageable bits and pieces into new, usable cell parts. A cell can discard the parts it doesn’t need (13).

There is not a one-size fits all approach to fasting, duration of fasting can vary from person to person; and women also need to factor in where they are in their cycle when determining what time and for how long to fast (14).

And coming back to the client who initially inspired me to write this piece in the first place… she’s not the only one. It’s estimated that 1 in 4 American Adults are dealing with anxiety, depression or bipolar disorder (15), while 1 in 6 are taking at least one pharmaceutical to address it.

All the statistics included in this article were easy to find, all but one. How many who are taking these meds are feeling better?

All I came up with was, “this is not a stat that is routinely tracked”.

And how many are being given the education about how what they choose to eat and when can vastly improve their symptoms and even contribute significantly to feeling better overall?

It is for this reason that writing a piece like this is critical. If one single person who is struggling reads this and is inspired them to focus on what they are eating – how food truly does create mood – and that same person shares this message one other, it can be the seed that becomes a positive disruption in an overwhelming confusing landscape of sub clinical illness.

Show it to your doctor, ask the questions and if they’re met with blank stares, keep looking until you find that practitioner who will listen and support your recovery.

Most importantly, know that the human body is capable of miraculous things if given the proper tools.

 

(1) https://www.newfrontierspsychiatry.co...
(2) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NB...
(3) https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles...
(4) https://nutritioncollective.co.uk/tra...
(5) https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health...
(6) Ede, Georgia. Change Your Diet, Change Your Mind: A Food-First Plan to Optimize Your Mental Health. Hodder & Stoughton, 2024
(7) https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health...
(8) https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles...
(9) https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/...
(10) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12467...
(11) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinoli...
(12) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11025...
(13) https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health...
(14) https://drmindypelz.com/
(15) https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nh...

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Trauma and Training: Go Hard or Take it Easy?

Trauma.

It’s a word we’ve all heard and an experience many have had.

I consider myself fortunate in that I’ve never had any sort of trauma, at least none deep enough that I can remember.

Happy childhood, a loving mom, dad and brother, no incidents or accidents to speak of.

It wasn’t until weeks after our house burned down in the Palisades Fire that I even realized that experience would be considered a trauma.

And it wasn’t until months later that I realized that trauma affects not only the mind, but the body, even though in this case is was not a physical trauma such as one might endure in a car accident.

It came to pass that I began wondering how being a Fire Person as I like to call myself (neither a fire victim nor a fire survivor) might be affecting me on a cellular level.

It all started with reflecting upon how my exercise (calling it exercise in this instance rather than training as what I’ve been doing these past six months is just moving, typically going long and aerobic but little to no workouts having to do with speed or high intensity. Literally – just getting a good sweat) has been such a life saver, not surprisingly.

The first week or so after the fire, I moved like a zombie. Walking around in a stupor, dumfounded..,. shocked. Just walking along the beach near the hotel we evacuated to, driving a coffee and walking south down the strand and then back up North, day in and day out.

No desire to run, no appetite- just stunned.

I did my first run about a week later, without any regard to pace, and my goodness did that feel good! Over the next few weeks, I began to pick up the pace a little until I found myself running close to 1/2 marathon pace every time I could get access to a treadmill.

I chalked it up to running on adrenaline and started considering doing a 1/2 marathon because… why not?

It’s a distance far more easily accomplished compared to marathon or ironman.

We moved into our rental about six weeks post fire. Very close to the beach, which quickly became the place of my daily run.

Then, something shifted. I found myself running at what I would call a turtle’s pace.

No idea why; there was no injury, I was certainly not overtraining, but, for the first time in my life, I didn’t care.

Since I was only running (hadn’t found a place yet to swim and I still haven’t replaced my bike), which is my most meditative thing to possibly do, I just welcomed the chance to run every single day.
( Some days were even slower than turtle’s pace; it’s hard to run while your vision is blurred from tears and you cannot breathe properly from sobbing!

But still, I was just so grateful to be able to run. )

I began to wonder what was underneath this slow pace feeling and whether or not I should be doing even a little bit of speed work, if only to prevent creating a big gap for when I plan to begin training again.

Turns out my body was giving me just the signals I needed.

Why?

Because trauma actually affects mitochondria! Even emotional trauma.

Traumatic stress can lead to mitochondrial dysfunction, which contributes to various symptoms of the disorder. This dysfunction is often manifested through impaired energy production, increased oxidative stress, and altered cellular metabolism (1).

We’ve all heard the buzzwords; we’re likely all somewhat familiar with the concept of oxidation, and also with the theory that we can simply ‘take antioxidants’ in order to combat oxidation.

Oxidative stress is an imbalance of free radicals and antioxidants in your body that leads to cell damage. It plays a role in many conditions like cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and heart disease (2) as well as mental illnesses including bipolar disorder, depression and anxiety (3, 4, 5) and cognitive decline (6).

Once I was up to speed, any ego that remained about trying to pick up the pace, let alone consider racing this season vanished.

Similar in some ways to how I approached my exercise while pregnant and for several months after my son was born, it is quite clear to me now that this is the time for me to be moving aerobically, leaning as much into the parasympathetic (rest + digest) nervous system as much as I can, leaving the sympathetic on the back burner for now (which, admittedly ) is a daily practice.

So… just how long will it take for this trauma to leave my body? Wouldn’t it be nice if there were a place to look that up!

All I can say is is now more than ever, I trust the process and trust this body to tell me exactly what I need to know.

I’ll be out there going for Kona again.. just not this season, and that is just fine with me.

(1) https://newsletter.brainenergy.com/pt...
(2) https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health...
(3) https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles...
(4) https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles...
(5) https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles...
(6) https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles...

 

The post Trauma and Training: Go Hard or Take it Easy? first appeared on Paleoista.

Sauna + Cold Plunge 101

Do you sauna?

Do you contrast?

If you’re like me and you enjoy geeking out on some of the most popular bio hacks, chances are strong that you’ve been adding in some infrared sauna time and possibly even some cold plunge into your weekly regime.

While some of the other trending hacks might cause you to raise an eyebrow in questioning their validity, the benefits of sauna are tried, true… and ancient; as the origin of using a sauna is over 10.00 years old. (1)

The first manifestation was as a pit sauna, literally a pit dug into the ground, with a pile of stones at the bottom, which was heated with a campfire.

Similarly, ancient Greeks utilized cold-water for therapies as well as relaxation and socialization; Hippocrates in fourth century BC documented the use of cold for medicinal purposes and analgesic benefits (2).

Studies show when combined, the alternation of heat and cold presented the most intensive strain on the heart decreasing the total peripheral resistance; a decreased total peripheral resistance means the body’s blood vessels are more relaxed, allowing blood to flow more freely and potentially leading to lower blood pressure (3).

The duo can also help with detoxification, stress reduction, improved sleep, boosted immune function, circulation, muscle recovery and mental alertness (4).

But is as simple as just stopping by the nearest ‘contrast therapy’ location as the duo are often referred to and squeezing in a session when convenient?

Possibly; but preparing yourself and learning some of the most important tools you need to make this therapy most effective will not only make your experience more enjoyable, it will allow you to maximize the health benefits you will see.

First off, if for any reason you’re unsure if it’s ‘safe’ for you, check in with your functional medicine practitioner. Even though using the sauna is considered low risk (5) there are certain populations that may need to avoid or limit time in extreme heat as well as cold including, but not limited to those with a history of heart attacks, those with a history of heatstroke, women who are pregnant, young kids and elderly.

Once you’ve decided why you want to go and which health benefits in particular appeal to you most, it’s time to prepare, beginning with where you will be doing the contrast therapy.

Several popular gym and wellness franchises have begun adding contrast to their nationwide locations, making it more and more convenient for you to find a location close by.

Some things you’ll want to consider when choosing where you will go include:
Material. What type of wood is the sauna made from and what may it have been treated with? Just as it is in our hands to decipher the confusing labels on food and where what we put on our mouths came from, we need to do a bit of digging when it comes to this arena, too. Do some research to confirm that the wood that was used to build the sauna was not pressure-treated with potentially toxic chemicals, did not have high resin properties (such as pine), and did not have naturally occurring toxic properties, all of which can become volatile and dangerous when heated (6).
Shower facilities. While it may sound like common sense, it’s not a given that all contrast studios have adequate shower facilities. This is not just due to common courtesy and doing our parts to keep the facility clean for the next person; it’s also about how effective the sauna protocol is for our own health. When we sweat, it’s important to remove the sweat using a clean, Castile soap, such as Dr Bronner’s (7) because it washes off the toxins before they reabsorb into the skin. Step out of the sauna, lather up and then rinse under warm to hot water to prevent toxin reabsorption, then allow a minute or two to cool down slightly before stepping in to the cold.

Next, decide when you will go. While you can certainly squeeze it in on a whim, mindfully mapping out the timing will also increase the benefits you’ll get.

If you’re someone who’s long ago integrated a fasting regime on a regular, cyclical basis, you may experience even more benefits to contrast therapy; one study reveled an 18% reduction in fasting blood glucose levels in participants on average, indicating that using a sauna on an empty stomach may help reduce the onset of chronic diseases like diabetes and other underlying health conditions. (8)

When it comes to water replenishment, preventing yourself from becoming dehydrated, too low on electrolytes and minerals becomes even more important when you’re using the sauna in a fasted state.

Prolonged heat stress promotes the loss of minerals, including sodium, potassium, magnesium, and iron, as well as ammonia and urea; not replacing them can lead to dehydration, fatigue, and muscle cramps (9) not to mention serious health risks.

How much water, electrolytes and minerals will you need?

It may take a little troubleshooting, trial and error.

Start by measuring how much weight you lose in one sauna session for every kg lost, you will need 1.5 L of water to replenish.

As far as electrolytes and minerals, consider your individual sweat rate, session length, and the environment. While general guidelines suggest 400-800mg of sodium per hour of exercise, individual needs vary (10).

Look for a clean brand of electrolytes to use, one with no additives or ingredients you cannot identify, and use them as a starting point.

Keep hydrating during and after the entire session and don’t forget to take your activated charcoal within two hours post session; it serves as binding agent to help absorb and eliminate those toxins you just purged through sweat.

Finally – how often to sauna? It varies. A good recommendation is to start out slowly, perhaps one or two times per week and then, depending on your objective combined with recommendations from your functional medicine provider, you may want to up it to as much as 3 – 4 times per week.

There’s no one size fits all recipe and, as always, letting your body’s intuitive guidance lead the way is always a good rule of thumb.

Not only can integrating a regular contrast protocol into your weekly regime offer many physical benefits, it can also prove to be instrumental in easing you more into the parasympathetic as you learn to use controlled breathing to lengthen your capability to tolerate heat and cold, feeling more relaxed and balanced throughout the day.

 

(1) https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/2...
(2) https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles...
(3) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2736002/
(4) https://www.massgeneral.org/news/arti...
(5) https://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercis...
(6)https://www.leisurequip.com/choosing-...
(7) https://www.drbronner.com/products/pe...
(8)https://www.researchgate.net/publicat...
(9) https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles...

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Treating Your Body ( or Trashing It?)

Dark chocolate or chocolate sorbet:  an honest treat, one that your body will actually realize is a food.

Which is far more than can be said for far too many other items that are no longer really food these days.

“I’ve been eating so clean; I deserve a treat!”, I overhead the other day at the farmers market.

I looked out and saw two friends perusing the offerings of the farmers market, decked out in their Alo Gear, yoga mats slung over their shoulders as they walked along sipping their iced-almond milk lattes.

They’d likely come from a yoga class and had come over to find some healthy foods to pick up and enjoy for the week ahead.

One pulled something out of her bag; something in a brightly colored pink box. She took a bit and exclaimed how good it was.

Her friend looked surprised; and then she made the comment above

I’d never heard of this item, and it piqued my interest, so I checked:

“Crumbl’s origin begins with two crazy cousins and the perfect combination of flour, sugar, and chocolate chips.” (1)

Sounds innocent enough, right?

Think back to the days when we were kids (well, those of us who grew up in the 70s or 80s).

A cookie might have been homemade and made with real ingredients (flour,  baking soda, salt, butter, sugar, vanilla, eggs and chocolate chips) (2)

Breyers Ice Cream used to be made with milk, cream, sugar and eggs.

Granted, sugar or flour with any regularity isn’t exactly a health food, but back then having an occasional cookie or scoop of ice cream that were made with ingredients that the body could actually recognize, digest and assimilate may well have fit the bill for what we often call a treat.

But now?

Hardly.

With thousands of ingredients on the GRAS list (the FDA’s acronym for the phrase Generally Recognized As Safe) (3), added for reasons such as increasing shelf life, creating hyper palatability, enhancing color and decreasing the cost of ingredients, just to name a few), it’s more often than not the case that choosing to ingest something we used to see as a treat is more akin to trash.

Using the brand mentioned above as an example, take a look at the ingredient panel of one of their flavors, Raspberry Cheesecake Cookie (4):

All purpose flour (bleached wheat flour, malted barley flour, niacin, iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), Butter (pasteurized cream, salt), Powdered sugar (sugar, corn starch), Brown sugar (sugar, cane molasses, invert sugar), Cream cheese (pasteurized milk and cream, salt, carob bean gum, cheese culture), Raspberries, sugar, lemon juice concentrate, pectin, natural flavors, potassium sorbate , Sugar, Eggs, Graham cracker crumbs whole wheat flour, enriched flour (wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, vitamin b1[thiamin mononitrate], vitamin b2 [riboflavin], folic acid), sugar, vegetable oil (soybean and/or canola), molasses, honey, corn syrup, contains 2% or less of leavening (baking soda, sodium acid pyrophosphate, monocalcium phosphate), natural flavors, salt, soy lecithin.), Salt, baking soda, corn starch, Heavy cream, contains less than 0.5% of: carrageenan, mono and diglycerides, polysorbate 80, Baking vanilla (watkins), Butter emulsion(water, soybean oil, natural andartificial flavors, xanthan gum,citric acid, sodium benzoate,bha, mixed tocopherols and annatto), Honey, Salt

Some of the ingredients you can likely recognize as food (forget for the moment whether or not it’s a healthy option; let’s just stick with whether or not you can identify it): flour, butter, raspberries, eggs… ok.

But what about some of the others: Soybean and canola oils, carrageenan, mono and diglycerides, polysorbate 80,, artificial flavors, xanthan gum,citric acid, sodium benzoate,bha, mixed tocopherols and annatto?

Perhaps even more shocking is that many of their offerings include propylene glycol, the same ingredient in antifreeze!

None of this is particular to this one brand; it is estimated that close to 70% of the foods sold to Americans contain some to many of these harmful, yet totally legal ingredients.

What’s worse, they’re often labeled under different, sometimes innocent sounding names, requiring a bit of detective work to decipher what they actually mean.

The good news: there’s one very easy thing you can do in order to decrease or completely eliminate your consumption of these chemicals: stop eating packaged foods and as much as possible, buy single ingredient foods, locally, that you can prepare at home.

And when you want a treat, stick with simple at that time, too.

What better treat is there than a fine piece of dark chocolate (fair trader of course) after a lovely, home cooked meal?

Such a small piece of decadence is not only satisfying, it’s a key piece and keeping an overall balanced approach to eating real food sustainable for the long term.

https://crumblcookies.com/our-story
https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1...
https://www.fda.gov/food/food-ingredi...
https://crumblcookies.com/nutrition/c...

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Our Fire Story, Part III

It was January 10, 2025

Three days after the fire…..

We woke up for the third morning of what would end up being nearly 6 weeks in hotels.

Another blessing amidst the darkness was how easy it was to be completely in the moment. While relearning to be ‘in the now’ is something that I, and many others, work on as a daily practice, being entirely upended, literally having the entire foundations whisked away from under one’s feet proved to the the strongest impetus to be right there because… what else was there?

Any semblance of what even the very near future held was a giant question mark.

In one way, it was reminiscent of college – not being sure where you’d move next after the first year in the dorm, not having many possessions to speak of…. But in college, there was a clear sense of knowing what the path was.

Right after the fire, not quite.

Chris immediately took on his additional full time ( dealing with the aftermath – filing claims, dealing with Fair Plan and beginning a search for a rental) which was anything but simple given the sudden and gigantic jump in demand for housing for the approximated 150,000 people displaced in the two fires combined.

Anyone with large dogs knows the extra challenge that comes with finding a rental which is both dog-friendly and, to be frank, not gross.

Yves’ school burned as well, and while the incredible director began to search for a new location right away, it would be weeks before they found a new place to land.

Many of his classmates had family or relatives somewhat nearby and relocated right away to Orange County, San Diego, Palm Springs as well as other places further away.

We took a one day at a time approach.

Super basic and complicated at the same time.

Find a place to live.

Try to wrap our heads around the loss, which for me, seemed greater every day.

The first loss was that of our home.

And then the loss of so many friends’ homes.

And then the loss of the community sank in.

Keep in mind, I barely ever left the Palisades.

On a weekly basis, I drove about 20 miles. I’d walk Yves to school, run to the pool to swim or go on a run. Work from home. Walk to the village if needed. Walk to pick Yves up from School. Go on our daily walk with the dogs around the neighborhood. Really the only times I drove were to the Santa Monica and Brentwood Farmer’s Markets, to the kitchen downtown and to the occasional dentist or doctors appointment in West LA.

And then, the loss of so many people, tens of thousands, who may not have lived in the Palisades, but who worked there.

Our ‘family’ of incredible people who helped us with our garden, cleaning the house, walking the dogs.

People who became friends that ran the dry cleaner, the nail salon, Cafe Vida and worked in the shops.

All.
Completely.
Gone.

To say that this experience is incomprehensible isn’t even enough,

It’s nothing we ever even imagined in our darkest nightmares.

A flood, maybe (in fact, we’ve had a flood- two, actually! $250 K in damage which both of us would swap in a heartbeat if we had the chance).

An earthquake, sure.

But a fire? That takes out the entire village?

Never. Not in a million years.

We spent the next 6 weeks in a total of 5 hotels and staying with friends, both nearby and not so close (including a close friend of Chris’ who invited us to take a breather in Park City).

We landed in a cute beach rental in Malibu West which resonated with me, as it seemed being so close to the water (which is far enough from the burn scar to not be in the middle of it) would be quite grounding.

Yves’ school reopened in a new location (Westwood) about six weeks after the fire, and although we tried our best, the combination of traveling on PCH (even with our pass) with the road closure and random checkpoints installed by the national guard and LAPD when people starting making fake passes to get in to loot, the sometimes 2 hour drive to get to the new place was just too much.

Fortunately, we found another school much closer where Yves will be going to complete this school year.

We’re finding our feet around here; where to swim, where to go to yoga, and traveling into Santa Monica + Brentwood twice per week thus far has been working out.

Close enough to feel connected but not too close to be in the middle of all of the tangible ghosts everywhere starting at Carbon Beach all the way through to Chautauqua up Sunset all the way past Amalfi.

So here we are.

Taking in a day at a time. Mostly feeling ok, but still, it’s quite simply just… sad.

When a friend or client or even a stranger asks what they can do, I wish I had something intelligent to reply.

I believe it’s just a matter of the passage of time, now.

The post Our Fire Story, Part III first appeared on Paleoista.

Our Fire Story: Part II

(Our home of 16 years, shown a few days after the fire burned it to ashes.)

As we drove down to Temescal, looking straight ahead at the beach, it looked like clear blue skies.

To our right, not too far off in the distance, smoke and flames seemed only minutes from engulfing Pali High (it would be hours before that actually occurred).

While we had been waiting on Sunset, I called a hotel I was familiar with in Manhattan Beach to make a reservation and fortunately, at that time there were a few rooms left.

Something in my gut just told me that a hotel in Santa Monica would not be far South enough and sure enough, many friends and neighbors who did book in to that area ended up having to evacuate one, if not two, more times.

As we drove further South, the roads began to open and it almost seemed as if we’d left all the horror behind.

Upon arriving in South Bay, I began to feel much more calm. I’d spend so much time during college in and around Manhattan, which was quite comforting.

In fact, a little over five years ago, in the fall of 2019, we evacuated to the very same hotel.

AT 5am on October 21, 2019, a small brush fire ignited in Pacific Palisades. Chris was traveling on business, Yves was 5 months old.

The same friend who I’d mentioned, Captain Dobbs in Culver City, called me and said, you need to leave now.

A formal evacuation had not been issued, but I wasn’t going to chance it. Our dog walker called moments later asking if he could help by picking up our dogs to keep with him in Venice, which I gladly accepted.

Yves and I checked in to Shade Hotel and in retrospect, that experience was nothing compared to what we’ve all just gone through.

That fire burned 42 acres (17 hectares) within a few hours, forcing the evacuation of 200 homes.

I don’t believe many neighbors even left, and we were able to return safely the next afternoon.

Back to this fire…

We checked in and I was finally able to shower (you can imagine how much I needed one- having gone to yoga, gotten all sweaty, then sat in a smoky car for four hours!)

Our collective mood at that point was still rather positive. We’ve both trained ourselves extensively on the impact of positive mindset and we both chose to believe our home would be fine, as would our entire neighborhood.

We learned of two different apps that were supposed to be helpful in tracking where the fire was and which houses were in danger; we later learned the speed of the fire was one that neither app would have been able to keep up with.

Admittedly, we were all far too glued to our devices; Chris and I on our phones, tracking the fire and messaging with neighbors, and Yves, on the iPad. We made a huge compromise in how much time he was allowed. Think it’s safe to say it was kind of an act of desperation!

We went to bed around 9:30. I slept fairly well that night, didn’t wake up, fully assuming we’d awaken to great news that the fire had been halted and our homes were safe.

We woke around 6 and Chris walked across the street to Peet’s for our familiar morning coffee.

While he was gone, I received a message from one of our neighbors, five houses up the street.

7:20 AM January 8, 2025

NEIGHBOR: I’m in shock, Nell, I don’t know if our homes are still standing.
ME: I don’t have any news either.
NEIGHBOR: I have video. Driving up our street. Do you want it?
ME: Oh My God, yes.
NEIGHBOR: Prepare yourself, Nell; is Chris with you?
ME: He’s outside, please send it

And there it was.

It turned out many of our neighbors stayed far longer than the evacuation order was issued and one had taken a video going from the bottom of our street, Akron, where it meets Beinveneda, all the way to the top where it meets Lachman.

The street was so unrecognizable, in all honestly, the first time I watched it, I thought our home was still standing!

There was still smoke everywhere, and burning fire.

Keep in mind this was almost 24 hours after the fire had begun.

(I later found out from the same neighbor who chose to stay back to try to save his home up the street that as of 11 pm on the 7th, (13 hours after the fire started) our home was untouched. That he saw a firetruck right outside our house with four firefighters sitting inside, who explained they could not do anything because THERE WAS NO WATER. There is a fire station 1 mile away. Another lifetime ago, when a neighbor had a medical emergency and called 911, EMTS from that same station were there in 4 minutes, to give it some context.)

I showed the video to Chris. He looked at me and told me our house is gone. I said no, it wasn’t. Selective vision? Who knows.

We didn’t tell Yves right away. We all went out on a walk along the beach. Sipping coffee, moving in a stupor. The blessing of having Yves with us was one without which I cannot even begin to imagine how we would have held it together.

A few more hours passed and early that afternoon, we sat down and told Yves we needed to tell him something,

Our house burned to the ground.

He screamed.

We all broke down, sobbing.

He said he was scared.

Where would we live?

Did that mean we were homeless?

We explained the difference between being ‘ a homeless person / family ‘ compared to our situation.

Most importantly, we were all safe. Including the dogs. And while we were displaced, we would rebuild. And that it’s ok and normal to feel sad and even angry and we will all get through this together.

He stooped crying and within 10 minutes, wanted to go play at the beach.

For the rest of that day and into the next, I felt like time was transfixed. I was moving on autopilot, in a complete stupor.

The next day, we decided to take one small action – and do a little shopping. After all, we’d left with little more than the clothes on our backs! We drove up to Brentwood and bought some basics for the three of us. That was our first experience in seeing the generosity that this disastrous situation brought forth.

First Stop: James Perse (anyone who knows me knows this designer is my favorite for what I wear on a daily basis). They offered us 40% and to this day, to my knowledge, they’re still doing this for customers in their database (and maybe beyond?) who lost their homes.

Aside from that, we kept it simple. None of us had extra underwear, socks, shoes….and from that day forth, any place we went was willing to bend over backward to help.

And not just businesses – friends, and complete strangers. People we hadn’t spoken with in years reached out to send their blessings and love.

So in the midst of the complete nightmare of losing everything, the bright light that shone through was the beautiful way in which everyone in the community (immediate and beyond) stepped up to support and help in any way they could.

To be continued………

The post Our Fire Story: Part II first appeared on Paleoista.

Our Fire Story… Part I

(I took this picture at the beginning of our evacuation)

On Monday, January 6, 2025, I woke up feeling really sad.

I didn’t know why; nothing in particular had happened, but I just felt the weight of the world on my shoulders.

I meditated and still felt the same.

I walked Yves to school as I usually did every Monday, to the sweet Montessori he’d been attending since he was two, less than half a mile from home.

After he walked into class, I headed to do my Monday run along the bluffs, the same route I’d been doing every Monday for years and on various days and times for years before that. I began my warm up jog, but I just couldn’t find any speed as the run progressed. In fact not only did I feel incredibly slow, I felt so sad that I began to cry. I took a guess that maybe I was feeling sad about the Christmas break being over, or that Yves was back at school (he loves school;! I just miss him when he’s not with me!)

When I got home, Chris was there, having just finished up a call and he asked me if I was ok, to which I replied, I’m fine.

Still felt rather ‘blah’ but less so, after having run.

The day progressed; I ran a few errands and did some client work until it was time to pick Yves up from school.

I felt a bit better as we headed out on our daily walk with the dogs, a route we called ‘the Bella loop’ because one dog we’d see every day who lived on Bolinger was named Bella.

We’d done that walk every day since Yves was an infant, the dogs and I and him.

When we got home it was dinner time. I’d bought a lovely piece of wild halibut at our Sunday Market so I cooked that, along with a big heap of organic greens.

Business as usual at home; dinner, then we all headed downstairs to watch a film Yves had chosen, Harry Potter (for the umpteenth time).

Then.. bedtime.

The next morning, we drove to school for drop off as I was heading right to the Pali pool to swim. I checked him in and drove to the pool, but when I got to the iron gate, it was locked.

We’d seen a high wind advisory in affect but I hadn’t expected it would cause the pool to close, but sure enough, when I went back to the car to check my phone, I saw an email from the aquatic director stating just that – the pool had been closed due to possible dangerous conditions.

Mildly annoyed, I shifted gears and headed to a class at Camp Yoga.

I ran an errand on the way and got to class in time to sit for a few minutes).

After class, I began the short drive home. As I turned right on Lincoln out of the Camp parking lot, I saw a horrible plume of black smoke up ahead right over the mountains, amidst the clear blue sky.

I called the school; the admin answered and said they were keeping the kids inside due to smoky conditions but so far, they’d not received any warning or notice from the fire department.

I messaged Chris, at home on a call and he said he saw it as well and that there seemed to be smoke also coming from Bienveneda (the street close to ours at the bottom).

Within a few minutes, I received a notice from the school asking all parents to come pick their kids up immediately.

I called Chris, told him I was picking up Yves and circling back to the house.

Fortunately, the dogs were out on a group hike, so I messaged the walker and asked if he could please keep them and he said yes.

We zipped inside and thew some things in a large duffle bag. I began to pack more clothing and then thought to myself, “:his is silly; we’ll be back on Thursday! Don’t overpack like you always do! “

We were out in eight minutes.

In the time that had transpired since I’d gotten home, there was a long line of cars going all the way down our street, Akron and backed up all along the street above, Lachman.

We piled into my car, and Chris backed up to the street parallel to ours, Las Casas which was empty, so we got to Sunset right away and then… back up going in each direction.
We took a guess and headed West on Sunset, since it’s closer to PCH as the crow flies, but no one was moving at all.

We waited for a bit, then seeing the fire coming down Palisades Drive, busted an illegal U-turn and sat still in the other direction.
For hours, literally.

The sky was growing dark.

Winds were picking up and things were starting to fall on the car.

We had to keep the windows up due to the smoke outside and we began to question whether or not we should consider abandoning our car on foot.

I had the blessing of being on the phone with my dear friend who is a captain at Culver City Fire Department who advised me NOT to leave the car and to stay the course.

Yves stayed cool as a cuke; knowing he was with us kept me in check as I knew he’d vibe off the energy I was putting out, so staying calm was imperative.

Four hours later we got to PCH (this is a one mile trip) heading south to the hotel I’d booked in Manhattan Beach, going off my gut feeling that a hotel in Santa Monica would not be far enough away.

To Be Continued…

 

The post Our Fire Story… Part I first appeared on Paleoista.

New Years’ Healthy Resolutions and How Fake Food Plays a Role

What will 2025 bring for you?

According to the Cleveland Clinic (1) , the top five New Years Goals are are:

Eat healthier · 2. Work out more · 3. Drink less · 4. Manage stress · 5. Quit smoking

Not too surprising, giving the landscape of our current society. But how long have these goals been so popular? And why do they remain popular? In other words, why are we setting the same goals year after year?

Let’s take a little peek back in history.

The ancient Babylonians are said to have been the first people to make New Year’s resolutions, some 4,000 years ago. They were also the first to hold recorded celebrations in honor of the new year—though for them the year began not in January but in mid-March, when the crops were planted (2).

By the 17th century, New Year’s resolutions were so common that folks found humor in the idea of making and breaking their pledges. A Boston newspaper from 1813 featured the first recorded use of the phrase “New Year resolution.”

The article states:
“And yet, I believe there are multitudes of people, accustomed to receive injunctions of new year resolutions, who will sin all the month of December, with a serious determination of beginning the new year with new resolutions and new behavior, and with the full belief that they shall thus expiate and wipe away all their former faults.” (3)

“Sin all the month of December”’; sound familiar? At least as it pertains to making intelligent food, exercise and overall healthier-for-you choices?

I was curious to find out a bit more about whether or not there was any correlation between when people began setting resolutions such as these and when the diet culture was born.

Turns out, there is.

Dieting in the U.S. began in earnest in the 1830s, with the emergence of Sylvester Graham, a Presbyterian minister who was strident about the hazards of eating processed flours and who developed one made from the entire wheat germ, not just the endosperm (4).

Back then, most people were considered to be a healthy weight, as little as one century ago, obesity was considered rare (5), now were are nearly 75% of our population in the US is classified as obese!

Several diet trends followed from the Banting Approach, Weight Watchers, Atkins and Beverly Hills Diet, only to name a few.

The obesity epidemic began in the 1970s and was formally recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1997; The prevalence of obesity in American adults (age 20–74, both genders) rose from 15.0% in 1976–1980, to 23.3% in 1988–1994, and to 30.9% in 1999–2000.

Right around the time something notable occurred; in the 1980s, tobacco giants Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds acquired the major food companies Kraft, General Foods and Nabisco, allowing tobacco firms to dominate America’s food supply and reap billions in sales from popular brands such as Oreo cookies, Kraft Macaroni & Cheese and Lunchables (7).

New research, published in the journal Addiction, focuses on the rise of “hyper-palatable” foods, which contain potent combinations of fat, sodium, sugar and other additives that can drive people to crave and overeat them. The Addiction study found that in the decades when the tobacco giants owned the world’s leading food companies, the foods that they sold were far more likely to be hyper-palatable than similar foods not owned by tobacco companies (8).

The findings suggest that tobacco companies engineered processed foods to hit what is known as our “bliss” point and elicit cravings, said Ashley Gearhardt, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan who studies food addiction.

And there is it.

Simply put, once we humans began consuming things that were not longer fresh, nutrient dense food, but packaged items engineered with chemicals designed to override our natural satiety cues, we unknowingly signed up for a fast track to obesity and a plethora of related dis ease.

Understanding this is step number one, deciding to make change is step number two.

It is indeed not about positioning it to yourself as going on another diet, but choosing to honor your body by feeding it real food.

By discontinuing the support of the big ‘food’ companies that do not have any of our best interests as their priority.

By opting to place importance on where you are buying your food and how it is prepared.

By no longer putting shopping and cooking on the same list as scrubbing the toilet and mopping the floor.

This is something about which I’ve been passionate about my whole life, but now as a mom, especially as a mom in 2025 when obesity and sickness are growing like wildfire, plastic is polluting everything and our topsoil is so depleted we cannot rely only on real food to provide us with the minerals we need.

But- and here’s the but – the future is not bleak, it is bright. As more of us wake up and begin to tune in (we don’t need to go to a doctor to be told to do this) and listen to the remembering that we have deep inside, we create a limitless brightness.

Eat locally, eat in season and eat in color.

Don’t eat things in packages and certainly don’t eat ingredients you cannot identify as food.

Get outside more, sit less and move your body temple every day. Rest more. Do less and BE more.

New Year’s Resolution? All of the above, and for the most important WHY of all – our future truly depends on it.

What we weigh IS important, of course it is. It’s just not the only thing.

 

https://health.clevelandclinic.org/co...
https://www.history.com/news/the-hist...
https://www.almanac.com/history-of-ne...
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innova...
https://learn.genetics.utah.edu/conte...
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles...
https://lsa.umich.edu/psych/news-even...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellne...

The post New Years’ Healthy Resolutions and How Fake Food Plays a Role first appeared on Paleoista.

Paleoista’s Peppermint Mocha

Confession: back in the day, I used to purchase this drink from Starbucks once each Christmas.

It made its debut in 2002, long before I knew about balancing my macros, the paleo diet or how to properly source foods.

At that time, it was all about counting calories, and eating very little to no fat.

God help us.

Coming back to today, when we’ve al learned a plethora about everything when it comes to food (in some cases, too much? ), I believe firmly that there needs to be space for things that we enjoy to be incorporated in a way that makes sense.

For me, someone who loves her daily cup of coffee but not someone who’s a big sugar fanatic, going into Starbucks to order their beverage would not be something I’d choose to do.

As is almost always the case, making something at home is far better from a health perspective because you’ll know exactly what you’re putting in any given recipe and you can select ingredients that are all actually food!

Let’s start with the Starbucks ingredient panel for this particular drink (1):

MILK, MOCHA SAUCE [WATER, SUGAR, COCOA PROCESSED WITH ALKALI, NATURAL FLAVOR], BREWED ESPRESSO, PEPPERMINT SYRUP [SUGAR, WATER, NATURAL FLAVOR, SODIUM BENZOATE, CITRIC ACID], WHIPPED CREAM [CREAM (CREAM, MONO AND DIGLYCERIDES, CARAGEENAN), VANILLA SYRUP (SUGAR, WATER, NATURAL FLAVORS, POTASSIUM SORBATE, CITRIC ACID)], DARK CHOCOLATE CURLS [SUGAR, CHOCOLATE MASS (PROCESSED WITH ALKALI), COCOA BUTTER, SOY LECITHIN, VANILLA EXTRACT, MILK]

Milk is a food as is butter, chocolate and vanilla, but everything else? Not exactly food.

Plus, it’s highly unlikely that the milk is raw and organic and grass fed, and even if it were, many people would prefer not to ingest dairy in the first place.

All things considered, if this drink is something you’re inclined to have on occasion, try this recipe at home and see if it doesn’t suit you better all around.

INGREDIENTS
8 oz freshly brewed, hot coffee
1 scoop Paleo Valley Chocolate Bone Broth Powder
1 Tablespoon Fresh Mint
1/4 cup raw cream
1 T raw chocolate, grated

INSTRUCTIONS
Combine first three ingredients in blender
Whip cream with whisk
Pour blended drink into mug
Top with cream and shavings

Enjoy!

 

 

https://www.starbucks.com/menu/produc...

The post Paleoista’s Peppermint Mocha first appeared on Paleoista.