Holistic Health & How Nutrition Factors In For You

Holistic Health and Mainstream Medicine

A holistic health approach is quite different from mainstream medicine. Conventional doctors and dietitians take an “allopathic” perspective, working to reduce or suppress isolated symptoms or a disease itself with drugs, surgery, or strict definitions of food types and nutrition. Some doctors and dietitians are restricted to certain nutritional guidelines, therapies, approaches, and ideologies.

When weight loss is a goal, often doctors and dietitians assist by encouraging traditional dieting methods: counting and reducing calories and/or promoting the standard recommended American dietary guidelines, which have been shown to lead to high risks of diseases.

A holistic health coach goes beyond all of this and looks at the entire state of your body and seeks to help you strengthen your ability to fight disease and achieve your health goals with natural methods. This extends to mental, emotional, relational and spiritual health for an all-inclusive therapy with greater impact.

The focus of a holistic health coach like me is on the whole person, not just an illness or weight loss.

Holistic Nutrition

As a holistic health coach, I help my clients discover and make lifestyle choices to nourish themselves mentally, physically, relationally and spiritually. Sometimes we work in tandem with their doctors or dietitians.

Our work together often includes looking at holistic nutrition.

Holistic nutrition plays a central role in viewing food as medicine AND considering nourishment beyond food. Herbs, supplements, counseling, and other therapies and problem solving methods can be used with food in a holistic light for chronic or acute issues or to strengthen the body’s immunity and functioning.

Choosing nourishing and healing foods can serve as a foundation to carry the other modalities to success. This begins with determining healthy, appropriate foods that match and benefit your unique issues and body type, correct imbalances, boost immunity, strengthen your body, relieve symptoms, reduce illness and support your energy needs.

Obviously there is no one-size-fits-all dieting regimen for weight loss or general health. For greatest success, traditional and alternative healthy foods and diets should be considered and matched to your needs, health history, body type and constitution, or susceptibility to disease. Even your genetic, racial and ancestral backgrounds can provide useful information when formulating a personal plan.

You need your own unique protocol that will work best for you, allowing room for safe trial and error.

Holistic health coaching also takes into consideration non-food related issues that could be connected to your food choices and eating habits such as emotional eating, stress eating, stress and inflammation in your body, hormone fluctuations, relationship issues, career issues, etc.

All of those factors and more can affect your eating habits, which then affect your overall health and wellness. Looking at nutrition in a holistic manner offers you many different courses of action to make a difference for your health.

How a Holistic Nutrition Perspective Can Enhance Your Overall Health

A holistic nutrition approach fills your world with options.

For example, if you struggle with weight gain or a particular ailment you can:

• examine and learn to moderate triggers, such as problem foods and alternatives.
• follow a doctor’s dietary recommendations AND expand your options by discovering how to make healthier versions of foods you like instead of cutting so many out or by looking into trying new foods that would benefit you but your doctor may not mention.
• focus on eating more healthy, anti-inflammatory and antioxidant-rich foods instead of focusing on deprivations.
• research foods that support your particular body type and constitution.
• research herbs and supplements that energize, regulate blood sugar, boost metabolism, reduce inflammation, heal the gut, balance your nervous system, balance hormones, nourish particular organs, or whatever your health goals entail.
• address emotional and personal influences that encourage weight gain, prompt habits related to illness, or exacerbate digestive issues or inflammation — influences such as self-image, low self-esteem, relationships, stress, traumas, anxiety, depression, etc.
• determine possible underlying causes, problem foods, lifestyle habits that led to illness or weight gain, address them individually, and learn how to gain control and support of those.

Conclusion:

Hopefully now you can see the connection between nutrition and your holistic health.

Nutrition affects your mental and physical health; and your mental, emotional, physical, and relational health may affect your eating habits, which may affect your health…. It’s all interrelated and so helpful to understand how it’s interrelated for YOU.

Nutrtion is one part of the puzzle, one part of your life, one way to nourish yourself. It’s a great place to start.

If you need help with determining therapies and diet changes for your specific health goals, or if you need support with gaining control of underlying causes and/or personal or emotional issues, send me an email (jennifer@starkwellness.com) or text me on WhatsApp (+507 6413-0516) or message me on Facebook. I’ll get back in touch fast, and we’ll set up a free call to see if holisitic health coaching sounds right for you.

In the meantime, if self-care is on your priority list right now–I hope it is!!–you might like to take a look at this short, low-cost Good Start Guide I created just for you! It’s called RENEW. Just take a deep breath, say that title slowly with a smile, and click the button to check it out. You’ll love the Food-Mood Recipe Guide that’s included as a BONUS.