The consumption of raw milk has gained popularity on social media platforms Instagram and Tik Tok. Health and wellness influencers are promoting this behavior as being “gut healing” and increasing their ability to consume dairy-containing foods.

Other claims made about the consumption of raw dairy include improved skin health and hormone balancing. Getting a matcha latte with raw milk is being promoted as the pinnacle of health by influencers who start their “what I eat in a day” videos with a body check and their only qualifications to speak on the matter being a flat stomach. The circulating claims that raw milk is pure, and that pasteurized milk is stripped of its nutrition are entirely false.

The process of milk pasteurization began in the United States in 1908 in Chicago (Lucey, 2015). This was when tuberculosis was considered an epidemic and health crisis. There were numerous concerns about the transmission of tuberculosis from infected cow’s milk to humans, with estimated cases being approximately 10% (Lucey, 2015). The process of pasteurization is heating the milk to 72 degrees Celsius for fifteen seconds, or 138 degrees Celsius for four seconds (Lucey, 2015). The “Grade A” pasteurization label seen on dairy milk containers in grocery stores comes from the 1924 invention of the Standard Milk Ordinance regulation from the U.S. Public Health Service. In pasteurization, every particle of milk is heated in the appropriate equipment to both the specified time and temperature to ensure consumer safety (Lucey, 2015).

The argument for raw dairy proposes that it has greater concentrations of Lactobacillus, which is a probiotic strain shown to have numerous benefits for digestion. Probiotics greatly impact the health of the digestive system which has a direct impact on mood in addition to other outcomes of health. It is important to consume probiotic rich foods, but raw dairy is not the best option given that the risk is greater than the reward.

In a 2020 observational study, the gut microbiota of the treatment group that consumed raw dairy and the control group that consumed pasteurized dairy was compared (Butler et.al., 2020). There were so statistically significant differences in the microbiota of each group pre-trial and post-trial after 12 weeks of consumption (Butler et.al., 2020). The only significant finding was the increase in Lactobacillus strains in the treatment group (Butler et.al., 2020). The discussion of this study stated the numerous confounding variables present, the one which may have had the most impact being a shift in environment (Bulter et.al., 2020). The study was limited in being an observational study rather than a blinded randomized controlled trial. The authors of the study concluded that while raw dairy does contain high levels of beneficial probiotic strains, there is more research needed to determine if raw dairy is a causative mechanism for increased short chain fatty acids and Lactobacillus in the human microbiota (Butler et.al., 2020). The authors also concluded that there is no existing evidence for the consumption of raw dairy to improve lactose intolerance (Butler et.al., 2020).

There are numerous other foods besides raw diary that contain probiotics, and these foods have reported benefits. Fermented foods like yogurt, kefir, kombucha, and sauerkraut all have reported probiotic benefits for gut health. These foods do not pose the same risk as the consumption of raw milk due to their processing mechanisms. Raw milk has a greater risk associated with it than reward, because of the possible infections from the cow, farmer, and environment. Stick to consuming pasteurized dairy and consider increasing dietary fiber from whole foods to generate the short chain fatty acids that are necessary for the growth and formation of beneficial probiotic strains. Also add some of the fermented foods listed above for additional probiotic support. Wellness influencers on social media platforms without any licensure or credentials often speak from opinion rather than peer- reviewed science, so always research from reputable sources before hopping on to the latest health trend on Tik Tok, because some could have serious consequences.

Helpful References:

Butler MI, Bastiaanssen TFS, Long-Smith C, Berding K, Morkl S, Cusack AM, Strain C, Busca K, Porteous-Allen P, Claesson MJ, Stanton C, Cryan JF, Allen D, & Dinan TG. (2020). Recipe for a healthy gut: Intake of unpasteurized milk is associated with increased Lactobacillus abundance in the human microbiome. Nutrients, 12(5), 1468. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7285075/

de Klerk JN, & Robinson PA. (2022). Drivers and hazards of consumption of unpasteurized bovine milk and milk products in high-income countries. Peer J., 10(1346). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9135038/

Lucey, J.A. (2015). Raw milk consumption. Nutrition Today, 50(4), 189-193. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4890836/

With new food brands entering the market every year it can be difficult to navigate and sort through all the health claims, here are some of the 5 best new food and drink companies we’ve found!

#2: Somos mexican food was started by 3 friends who grew up in Mexico and wanted to share their authentic family recipes with the world. Their foods range from separate sides of rice and beans, chips and salsa, to plant based entrees, and full burrito bowls. These are convenient microwavable healthy meals and sides packed with flavor and nutrients! The burrito bowls are a great complete meal for a quick nutrition dinner and the rice, beans, chips and salsa are all perfect to bring as a side to your next potuck or fiesta!

#3: Instant ramen has long been associated with being a high sodium and low nutrient density food, but not Noodie! This instant ramen is made with noodles that are not fried, have extra vegetables, more protein, and less sodium than other popular instant ramen brands. The vegetables are freeze dried so they retain about 90% of their original nutrients and freshness! This ramen is super flavorful and much more satiating than other ramen and it takes less than 10 minutes to prepare! If you love umami flavors and are looking for new quick lunch or dinners to try, try Noodie!

#4: Inspired to make a change after watching lose family members to Alzheimers, the founders of Mosh created a brain healthy nutritional bar that could be eaten at home or on the go! These bars come in both a whey protein and plant based option and have flavors ranging from cookie dough, peanut butter, lemon white chocolate and more! They have no added sugar, but do have sugar alcohols if that is something you’re watching out for. They are also kosher approved, gluten free and keto friendly! What really sets them apart is their ingredients that support brain health. They have their own unique “brain blend” in every bar that is made up of flaxseed, bovine collagen, Lion’s mane, Vitamin B12, Vitamin D3, KSM-66, and Ashwagandha. And unlike most bars, they do not have a strong protein powder aftertaste overpowering the flavors of the bar!

#5:Perfy is a new superfood soda that has the benefits of no sugar added, low on the glycemic index, low calorie, and they have 50mg of L-Theanine and 30mg of Ashwagandha, which both promote brain health and focus! They currently have 4 flavors out, Blood Orange Yuzu, Tropical Citrus, Fruit Punch and Dr. Perfy. The first ingredient is carbonated water, followed by fruit juice and puree not from concentrate. They’re sweetened with allulose, stevia, and monk fruit, which minimize blood sugar spikes. All 4 flavors are super refreshing and a great beverage choice to curb soda cravings!

[Please contact your doctor or other healthcare professional before starting any new function beverages and foods to make sure they are right for you!]

You know, when it comes to my favorite kitchen gadgets, it’s not what you might expect. There are two little game-changers that have made a world of difference in my cooking routine, and they might just surprise you. But before I share the tea on what they are, let me chat about why they’re such a big deal to me.

Some of my biggest pet peeves about cooking, and baking is:

1.) Measuring Cups, they annoy me. Yet when I’m making a new recipe or baking, I rely on them to make sure I don’t mess anything up. They always end up messy, and it’s frustrating when I need to measure both liquid and dry ingredients consecutively, leading to a sticky, messy situation. ?‍♀️ . I either have to use a new measuring spoon, or wash and dry the used one. Neither are good options. Washing it takes more time, and using a new one, means more dishes later ?.

2.) And don’t even get me started on buying a whole bag of something for just a pinch. There are some kitchen ingredients that are STAPLES to me, and I use them in almost every recipe; however, there are some I never use, and when a recipe requires me to buy a whole bag of something I will only use in one recipe, it drives me crazy ?.

Now I’m someone who is passionate about food and cooking, and I love being in the kitchen, so I can only imagine how much more frustrating these things are for people who hate being in the kitchen and are super busy and don’t have time or money to wash extra dishes or buy an extra thing that you only use once from the store.

Now I have been cooking and baking forever, and I am constantly trying to find new foods from restaurants and trying to replicate it at home. By being around food and nutrition daily, I’ve gotten to the point where I know some good easy swaps to foods, and what flavor profiles to put together, to the point, where I can come up with a recipe based on what I see in my fridge. This is a skill that takes a while to get good at and accomplish, and you really have to have the time and passion to dedicate to learn.

Through the years of trial and error, I’ve discovered two kitchen gadgets that have made my life significantly easier, and I’m eager to share them with you to make your kitchen experience more enjoyable and less time-consuming. So as promised, here are the kitchen gadgets that save me so much time, and money:

1.) Ditch the measuring cups and use a Kitchen scale! ⚖ Like this one. Most recipes will have the gram of measurements next to the measuring cup size. It is so much easier and less dishes to 0 out the scale with a large bowl, weight your first ingredient and then repeat that process.

2.) its 2024 y’all ?and its time we use AI to our advantage! ChatGTP is a great resource to find and customize recipes! Ask ChatGTP to make you meals based on what you already have in your fridge or pantry, and tell it what you are craving, and wanting. Have it spit out recipes that are measured using a kitchen scale, and ask it to keep your ingredients minimal. If you are feeling a gourmet meal, that is easy, ask it to make that. The more specific you can be the better your meals will turn out.

These are just 2 gadgets that are saving me time in the kitchen, and honestly, I could not live without. I don’t know why these things are not talked about more. I guess people don’t want you knowing the true secrets to cooking faster and saving money.

Sammy and I are well acquainted with these struggles of being to busy or tired to cook; however, we are people that are passionate about still eating healthy, so along with these tools, we have created a guide with all the tricks and tips we have learned over our many, many years of cooking, baking, and schooling. We teach you about flavor profiles, and resources to help you become faster at cooking. This guide too has some quick easy recipes that have been staples for Sammy and I for years. These are our go to recipes we turn to when we are tired and don’t feel like cooking. If you are interested in learning more time saving tricks, click the button below and check out our “Too Tired to Give a F*ck guide” a gourmet guide to healthy quick meals.

-Ashlee Romine (Simply Wellness Executive Assistant)

It’s no surprise that many fellow boss babes and entrepreneurs alike, face similar issues when it comes to the bedroom. Increased stress, workaholic tendencies, difficultly balancing time between work-life, decreased sex drive and desire have left you and your partner feeling like passing ships.

Today, it’s no longer about age or gender, younger generations are struggling with the same lackluster libido, energy that’s barely there and on a constant stride to achieve more, do more and be more. This path, with modern day lifestyle and added stressors are the exact things compromising not only your sex life, but how you feel from the inside out. What do we really want? We want to feel as good on the inside as we do on the outside! This not only unlocks confidence for yourself but provides a positive feedback loop into your business and daily life, but also plays a big role in the bedroom.

Here’s how you can start to take ownership to feel as good as you want to look and supercharge that sex drive of yours:

1 | Regularity of your Meals: Timing

Blood sugar rollercoasters take a toll on your energy and sex drive, largely due to changes in hormones including your cortisol (i.e. your stress hormone). Between busy schedules, non-stop work days and unplanned meals – this can be disastrous when it comes to your meal regularity. You may find yourself becoming dizzy, foggy minded and even nauseous until you are “cued” that it’s time to eat.

Start improving this cycle by first paying attention to how often you are eating. If you are already nodding your head “yes” knowing you don’t eat regularly – this ones for you. Start by planning your meals and snacks ahead of time. This may start with one consistent meal a day, packing easy “go-to” snacks you can grab or set an alarm for the frequency of your meals. I recommend trying not to go longer than 3-4 hours without having some form of food in your system. This will help prevent those blood sugar crashes and peaks, therefore improving energy and internal stress that has a lot to do with your sex drive.

2 | Mindset: Managing Stress

Speaking of stress, the modern lifestyle is filled with stress of all sorts – both internally and externally. It’s important we implement simple ways to reduce and help manage stress on the everyday basis that suits our own lifestyle. Chronic stress can lead to elevated levels of cortisol, wreaks havoc on aspects like getting restful sleep and can feed into overeating cycles and unintentional weight gain. But it doesn’t stop there. Chronic high levels of stress can decrease your sex drive and desire due to this flight or fight reponse happening within the body on top of psychological effects of stress including feeling frazzled, distracted and impacting your mood – the not-so-perfect recipe to support a great libido.

So what to do? Look for ways to reduce stress that fits your lifestyle! Start your morning with a stress relieving activity like meditation, kickoff with a nutritious balanced breakfast, packing planned snacks for the day, playing music on a commute if driving can be stressful and prioritizing reconnection time for you and your partner. These are just a few examples, but ideally you want to identify where some of your biggest stressors are and 1-2 simple small steps you can begin to take right away to help improve your sex drive, libido, mood and so much more.

3 | Circulation & Stamina: Promote Good Blood Flow

Circulation, blood flow and stamina are all connected to sexual response, in both men and women. Creating a system that supports sexual response is key to improve sexual drive and desire like erectile response and heightened sensitivity. By focusing on great heart health and improving circulation, this can be synonymous with improving your sex life.

Luckily, there are a lot of different things we can do using a combination of healthy lifestyle factors. 

• Pay attention to what you eat: Eating a diet rich in deep colored fruits and vegetables, seafood, sea vegetables, legumes, nuts, beets, healthful fats like avocado and antioxidant rich dark chocolate. 
• Move your body in a way that feels good: walking, weight lifting, yoga – just get moving without intense expectations! I like to call this “no expectation movement.”
• Schedule in self-care: massages or daily rebounding exercises, starting at 5-10 minutes per day. When we schedule it in, it’s more bound to be prioritized.

4 | The Art of Doing Nothing: Slow Down

A concept many boss babes and fellow entrepreneurs struggle with – the art of doing nothing. In today’s modern society, most people are always “go go go” so to slow down can be quite frankly – hard! But in today’s world, we need more of this to help reduce the constant stimulation, the glorified hustle and grind and the workaholic lifestyle.

So how do you even begin? There are a lot of ways! 

• You can prep yourself with getting used to slowing your thoughts and being truly present by starting with 1-3 min daily meditation. 
• Another way is to sit outside, amongst nature and do nothing starting with 5 minute intervals, and slowly building to 30 minute time blocks you can do weekly or multiple times a week – eventually.

By slowing down, you are working on calming the nervous system, reducing stress and supporting your mood – all of which have direct influences on your bedroom life.

5 | Super Boosters: Supercharge from the Inside

Some of the best ways to achieve change is by focusing on what I call “low hanging fruit.” These are things that are simple yet super effective without a lot of effort, something many of us can benefit from. Utilizing a holistic approach when it comes to supporting your sexual well-being and habits is essential. Once your actions become habits such as the foods you intentionally choose, a healthful routine that offers balance, movement that supports your body inside and out and ultimately creating a life that aligns with you  – then it’s perfect time to add in super boosters to already established healthy habits. These will be the “low hanging fruit” that can take benefits to the next level.

So what are super boosters? Super boosters can be herbs, local ingredients like bee pollen, mushrooms and so much more. They offer a large range of health benefits from brain focus, energy, detoxification, relaxation and of course – may act as libido boosters and sex drivers.

While more researched based evidence is needed, here are some examples of possible super boosters for your libido:

• Maca
• Beets
• Ginkgo biloba
• Ginseng
• Fenugreek

Consult your healthcare provider before starting any of these as some may interact with other medications, may be contraindicated or may not be medically appropriate for you. As research continues to expand, the list of options will continue to grow which leads us to an exciting time where these potential super boosters can be used to to heat up sex drive!

The bottom line?

Use a combination of holistic support including paying close attention to your nutrition, the movement you choose, awareness of what lifestyle choices can be added or removed, giving yourself breaks from stimulants or constant stimulating activities, including more time for pleasure, time for reconnection and building these habits to be integrated seamlessly into your day to day. This will not only turn up the heat in the bedroom but will be your recipe to a supercharged sex life.

If you are interested in learning more about hormones, or struggle with painful periods, low libido, acne, migraines, etc. and want to balance your hormones for optimal health, then check out our Get SYNCD guide! This guide walks your through what types of food, exercise, work, and lifestyle recommendations to incorporate in each phase of your cycle! Syncing your life with your cycle is the best way to bring harmony and balance to make your horm

We are here with Leah Sherman, a naturopathic Doctor, discussing everything supplements! Which includes vitamins, minerals, herbs, and even essential oils. Leah Sherman is a naturopathic doctor who specializes and has a huge heart for cancer patients! if you are interested in listening/ watching the podcast scroll to the end!

Q: What is considered a supplement? And what else may fall under here (I.e. vitamins, minerals, herbs, homeopathy, tinctures, etc) when discussing supplements and natural remedies?

A supplement is what one would have in addition to a regular diet. But it also goes beyond that. It’s something that would be derived from food, or that you would get from food, like a vitamin or a mineral. Herbs, homeopathy, and tinctures, whether it’s a capsule or powder, would all be considered supplements. Anything that people take for some sort of health benefit would be considered a supplement. It’s an add-on to a regular diet to accomplish something that you are hoping to achieve and have some sort of effect. Whether that effect is symptom relief, adding in nutrition, optimization of brain concentration, or anything like that.

Q:What are some reasons people may need to take supplements?

The emphasis on need! I once saw it broken down this way and I think it is a really good way to break down why people take supplements or would NEED to take a supplement. So the first one is to prevent or treat nutrient deficiencies. For example, preventing scurvy by taking vitamin C, or taking vitamin D for rickets. The bare minimum recommended daily allowance to prevent some sort of deficiency. The next one would be to prevent, delay, or treat a certain medical condition. For example, l Osteoporosis is something that happens as people age, bones start to get thin and weak. And so taking certain supplements, whether it’s calcium, vitamin D, or vitamin K to prevent that. If they have osteoporosis and they’re getting certain medications to manage that, they need to take a certain amount of calcium and vitamin D. The last reason, and I don’t know if it’s necessarily a need, it’s what we call the green pharmacy. So that’s when someone might take ashwagandha to manage stress. You’re taking something in place of a prescription medication or an over-the-counter medication. Taking something like nettles to manage allergies. Those are the three reasons that people would take a supplement. 

Q: Does supplements replace food – why or why not?

A multivitamin is a really good example! When somebody takes multivitamins, they’re like, “I’m getting all my nutrients through this”. My answer to this, It’s Always Food First! And you know, when you have that person who comes to you and says, oh my diet’s horrible, so I take a multivitamin, part of you is like, no, don’t do that, and then the other part of you is like, well do that as your diet is worked on. I don’t want people to think of it as I’m gonna eat junk all the time and so I’m gonna take all of these vitamins to make myself better. Because we know it’s not the same. It’s not what people think of when they think of naturopathic doctors, where we do focus more on supplements. But yes, I 150% believe it’s always food first because it has all of those other things, such as fiber, fats, and proteins. It has all of the things that we need to build healthy cells, which makes us healthy. Because food synergistically has all those components that work together in its most natural state. Whereas vitamins are something that has been isolated and then now is in an inactivated form that the body can’t even utilize or, is not even at a therapeutic dose. So then it becomes a little raindrop in a big thunderstorm; it’s not gonna make a difference, other than possibly make a more expensive pee. So food first and supplement where you need! 

Q:What are some common myths about supplements that should be debunked?

I think the big one is that they’re all safe! That’s huge, and that goes on so many different levels. It’s anything from somebody who might have a health condition where they probably shouldn’t be taking a certain supplement, to ordering something online and it might not be what it says it is. So safety is a big part of what I do! Making sure my patients are safe, but just thinking that, oh, it’s natural, it’s a vitamin, it’s not gonna hurt me. Oh, I’m just gonna pee it out, you know? And another myth would be, it’s good for anybody! and that plays into the safety aspect too. When a supplement is advertised as “it’s good for every single thing that ever ailed you” that’s not a good thing. Red flag if you hear, something like that! Especially I remember some of the herbal aspects because a lot of the research studies are not there yet, but they might have interactions by saying something that’s a medication for depression or a PPI. So they might have some drug-nutrient interaction. Not everything natural is good for all, and may even be considered safe.

So many people take medications for blood pressure, diabetes, for all kinds of things. And there are herbs that they may take intentionally to help with their blood sugars or to help with their blood pressure, but if they’re taking them at the same time as their medication, either it may interact and cancel out the medication or it will make that medication work more, and they may have really bad sugar crashes or blood pressure crashes and then you’ve got other problems. And so by just taking things off the counter or over the counter I should say, and adding them onto your regimen, if you’re taking a lot of medications, it’s best to have some sort of guidance. The last myth is because it’s cold and flu season, a lot of people take herbs that are not supposed to be something that you take every single day. For example, some people take acacia every single day, all year round. When using herbs, you are supposed, to take a break from them. So whether someone takes it five days on, two days off, or three weeks on a week off, you know, that’s how I was trained that herbs were meant to be taken, and not every single day. You don’t want something that’s ramping up your immune system all the time. The same thing goes with mushrooms, always remember to have those on a rotation basis, you know, especially if it’s immune support.

Q: Are all supplements made equal?

Some are! for example, vitamin D3, is vitamin D3. I don’t want someone getting it from the dollar store, because you have to think about the other components in the vitamin, which ideally is listed on the label, but it’s not always. Quality is the most important thing. If you’re taking this for your health, you don’t wanna take something that either isn’t what it says it is on the label or doesn’t have the quality that you would if you were trying to, you know, eat a good meal, a good healthy meal. So there are certain labels that people can look for on their vitamins and not everything has this label. I guess the number one thing people should look for would be this, does this company do a third-party assessment to check for quality? Some companies are like, oh well we have our people who check our quality and that is another red flag.

Q: What should people be looking out for when buying a high-quality supplement (I.e. third-party testing)?

Good manufacturing practices! is what you wanna look for. And one of the labels that you might see on a supplement would be NSF. Another one is USP (United States, Pharmacopia). Those are certification labels that people pay for to show that they are following certain practices, making sure that their supplements are standardized, and manufacturing quality control.

Q: Could you expand on the importance of GMP-certified and third-party-tested supplements?

It makes sure that the place where the supplement is being manufactured follows those certain standards. You know, the big thing that I keep coming back to is herbs, because, and this may not be specific to what GMP does, but not ordering from a reputable site or even somebody that has a great reputation, but maybe their standards that they’re following aren’t regulated in the limited way that supplements are regulated. You might be taking something that isn’t what it says it is on the label. Looking for fillers, the fewer fillers possible is a really good thing to look for. It’s like reading a food label. Those fillers would be found in the other ingredients part of a supplement label, it might say cellulose or whatever else they might add in there. Another red flag is when something says a proprietary blend. What does that mean? It has some milligram amount and it’s got 42 different supplements and you’re like, what am I taking? Like do they just kind of wave the vitamin or the herb over the capsule and they’re like, okay, it’s in there too? And then the total amount isn’t even a therapeutic dose of any of the things that are in there. And if it says proprietary blend and there is nothing listed! don’t even go near that! So you’re saying some red flags look out for one, no third-party quality testing or identification on that label. Number two, seeing proprietary blends that have this mysterious number amount that you’re like, what’s that even mean? And three, looking at that other ingredient section for a lot of these fillers.

I am leery of anyone who sells supplements to make money for themselves, for example, multi-level marketing. I’m very leery of that because I don’t know if they do follow third-party certifications or not list what’s on the label. People are very into the products that they sell, but I often question the quality because they tend to be very expensive and tend to make a lot of promises. Even considering in a world that’s so online nowadays, it is easy to see that this influencer suggested this product. Take that as a caution, don’t take them as expertise. Just because some random person has a very large audience online and may seem like a great influence, doesn’t necessarily make them an expert in this field to trust their advice to say. For example, if someone says I’m taking vitamin A and it’s been so great for me. So you should too!  Because it’s not even taking into account the receiver or other people watching this, the consumer on the other side needs to take into account what their medical history is like, what they’re on, whether is it appropriate for them, or is it even a good supplement in general, or is it a supplement that is terrible or is it at such a high dose that you shouldn’t probably be taking that anyways. Like lots of considerations. And I think that’s something that, that what you just said about high dose, that’s a trend that comes and goes taking super high doses of it’s usually a vitamin or a mineral to achieve some sort of effect, which is another red flag. When I did my training, we learned that taking high doses of certain vitamins could help as antivirals and you would see the side effects that people would have. They would end up just having a lot of nausea when the whole goal was to make people feel better. Any supplement is gonna have a greater amount than what you can get from food. So keeping the vitamin or mineral to the minimum amount to achieve the effect that you wanna achieve. What’s the bare minimum for max benefit essentially?

Q: Are there any supplements that warrant extra caution?

There are a lot of those! let me pull out my list! One of the big ones that you’ll hear a lot is, you know, anything that affects blood clotting, especially if people are on certain medications, you wanna be careful with that. In terms of herbs, there are certain things that I think used to be hard to get ahold of, but I think now with Amazon and the internet, it’s easier to get ahold of things. There are certain herbs called low-dose botanicals, which are toxic at even low doses. It doesn’t take very much to create toxicity. And so you don’t want to just take herbs randomly because you saw on social media that somebody else did and it helped them. I think I mentioned before, anything that claims to cure everything is something you need to be wary of because nothing works like that. I wish maybe one day we’ll Invent it, it, right! And then there are certain supplements, for example, if people take vitamin A, they may be taking a medication that could be similar or might be affected like they need the, you know, to be processed through your liver, let’s say. And if somebody takes high doses of vitamin A, herbs, or other vitamins, that will affect liver function, you don’t wanna stress out the liver, or damage the liver in any way. You can cause damage by taking things that are super high doses or by altering the way your liver and your kidneys metabolize medications. I always remember you talking especially about the P 44 50 enzymes, and that pathway in the liver. But to explain it, it will either speed up and then be not as effective in terms of what it’s supposed to do, or they slow down, and you get a ton more side effects. Truly you just want where it’s meant to be, that sweet in-between, how it was manufactured and thought to be.

The one supplement that we hear about the most is St. John’s Wort. And so people will take St John’s wort for like mild depression, melancholy is what it was traditionally used for. And if somebody uses birth control pills, the St. John’s wort will interact with how your body metabolizes them. Therefore, the medication won’t do what it’s supposed to do. And that can even be an ingredient on a sleep aid supplement or some other proprietary blend. You really wanna be careful. Even eating grapefruit can affect how medications are metabolized. And so a lot of people will get supplements that are vitamins, minerals, probiotics, fish oils, whatever, and they have essential oils in them and you don’t know how much of the essential oil is in there. Is it in there for flavor or some kind of effect? If there are these citrus essential oils, are those potentially gonna interact with your medication? We don’t know cuz we don’t know how much is in there, but we do know that certain essential oils can affect liver metabolism.

Q: Would you also say then that essential oils are a part of that group of cautionary supplements to ingest?

So I don’t consider essential oils a supplement because in my mind a supplement is something that you’re ingesting. And I don’t think that essential oils should be ingested by the masses. Some people are experts and know the proper dosing, people who specialize in aromatherapy. They know which ones can be ingested, and which ones could be used in cooking. You know, you could use lavender essential oil when making shortbread, but there’s a very specific dosing because of the strength of one drop, you know?  We used to say that one drop of essential oil is equivalent to 30 cups of tea and nobody’s gonna drink 30 cups of tea in a sitting. I mean that’s a definite medicinal effect. And so, I mean, my rule has always been to not ingest them unless it’s been recommended by somebody who is trained and that doesn’t mean they are somebody who just sells the product. Because I remember at the beginning of the pandemic, I was speaking with someone who was taking large amounts of oregano oil in their water as their antiviral, trying to keep from getting sick and I can’t remember how many drops it was, but I, I remember like gasping and just thinking like you’re gonna burn a hole in your stomach! Because oregano is so potent; It is such a strong herb. I mean I’ve taken oregano tincture in a few drops in hot water and you’re just burping it for days. And that was just a tincture that’s not extracting the essential oil, which is so much stronger. There are a lot of studies looking at the use of essential oils internally, but as I said, it’s gotta be with a trained professional cause you could do more harm. I’m not saying It’s a no, just seek advice from a trained professional on proper dosing and what is acceptable to ingest safely and what’s not. And so that’s why I don’t, I don’t necessarily consider it a supplement because it’s not in the forefront of my mind as something that you should ingest.

Q: Are there any specific drug-nutrient interactions to look out for with common supplements? How can that someone that precaution?

If somebody is doing Accutane, for Acne,  And they are taking a high dose of vitamin A, that would be a contradiction. The big ones are antidepressants and birth control. Lexapro for example also has a lot of potential for interactions. If you take something that is a sedative whether you’re, you taking an anti-anxiety medication or you know, an antidepressant and you take herbs that do the same thing. So if you take an antidepressant and then you take something like five to, which is a precursor for serotonin you may get too much serotonin in your body, and it may build up. There they’re all of these little things that you don’t wanna unless you’re working with a trained professional, to duplicate the effect of the medication. The general rule, If you’re not on any medications, of course, take a cautionary approach when approaching supplements, but especially if you’re on any type of medication like it could be birth control, for example, take extra precautions and make sure you ask your provider beforehand. And I emphasize that again, it’s better to be safe! Some interactions aren’t necessarily with medications.

There is a supplement, it’s for hair and nail growth, biotin. What’s included in things like hair, skin, nail formulas or people just take super high doses, you know, five grams, 10 grams of biotin hope to be that their hair will get thicker and their nails will grow longer. That supplement interacts with a lot of labs, especially thyroid labs, and it doesn’t interact with your thyroid. It interacts with the way that the lab interprets, and the reading of those labs. I normally suggest just stopping taking the biotin three days before you’re gonna have a lab draw. Or to let somebody know you were taking biotin at the time. And you can find biotin in multivitamins as well. And then the other one is vitamin C. If you take high doses, 1000, or 2000 milligrams of vitamin C and then you have your blood sugar checked, it can falsely read your blood sugar levels. So those are the two that I think of the most in terms of interactions that get false positives, false negatives, or like just false readings in general.

Q: What would you say are the top three to five most important vitamins people should be taking?

There is a lot of new controversy around vitamin D showing that there is no benefit. And then the very next day there will be an article saying that there is a benefit in terms of different disease prevention. The benefit comes when deficient people, take it and then it increases their levels and that is when the most benefit is seen. The most recent article I saw was about increasing vitamin D levels has a positive effect on depression. The first thing is getting your vitamin D level checked. If it’s under 20, you are deficient, and therefore, take a supplement. The amount would be determined by your provider, I am not your doctor. 30 is considered sufficient, but you may want that number a little higher, depending on what’s going on. Again, check with your doctor to see what your safe level could be. Vitamin D would be something that there is a lot of vitamin D deficiency. For example, if you are in Arizona, many people are deficient because nobody goes in the sun when it’s 120 degrees outside. Similarly, in a more northern hemisphere, there is not much sun in the winter. So I do think that vitamin D would be a vitamin that would be good for many people, but not for everyone.

Depending on one’s diet, I would say consider an omega-3 fatty acid. Because we don’t tend to get a lot of those in the standard American diet. Ideally, you’re getting it from your food, you’re eating your fatty fish, fatty cold water fish, walnuts, or any other foods that contain these omega threes. However, somebody might need to take a supplement for whatever health reason is going on. Finally, a probiotic might be a possibility, the more variety of these gut microbes that you can have, the better. Because it’s not like there’s just lactobacillus living in our gut. So eating different probiotic foods can provide a variety, whether it’s yogurt or sauerkraut, kimchi, Kiefer, or whatever it may be. Plus its food, so it’s tasty! For some people, probiotics can be beneficial, but there are some people where probiotics can make their bowels worse because they’ve got something else going on. There is not one size fits all when it comes to supplements period. I would recommend seeing your provider if you are considering adding any supplements to your diet. 

Q: Do you have any tips when shopping, storing and using vitamins, minerals, and supplements?

Check to see how your supplements need to be stored because things like probiotics are shelf stable, and then some need to be refrigerated, but not everybody realizes that. So instead they will leave them out but eventually, it’s not gonna be working the way that it’s supposed to. So just keeping them in the refrigerator is ideal, but in general, you want them to be in a cool, dry place. Fish oils would be good to store in the freezer if you do notice that you get a lot of that repeat fish burs as they call them. In the scientific world. I think that the most important thing though is if you’re taking a good quality fish oil, it really won’t have a fishy taste. One thing we used to tell our patients back way in, you know, way back in the day is to take a capsule and puncture it and smell and see what it smells like, and if it is very fishy, it may have already gone rancid. Also do not store ground flax seed in the pantry, because it is going to go bad, especially flax oil, please do not please put it in the fridge. I work with cancer patients and so they’re very sensitive to smells and so maybe putting your multivitamin in the freezer might help to kind of keep that smell and taste down. Because the taste and smell of vitamins can be a big trigger, especially if somebody’s undergoing cancer treatment, has smell sensitivities, or just has trouble with supplements altogether. The same would apply to a B vitamin or just a B complex in general. The smell is one and also the repeating aspect, which is when that vitamin’s taste and smell stick around for a while after swallowing. If you are taking a B vitamin then storing it in the freezer might help, but only if it is in a capsule. If it’s a tablet, I don’t believe it’s gonna make much of a difference

What are your common questions and concerns when it comes to supplements? Is there anything you are curious about that is not answered above? Ask away in the comment section below ?

Our retreat was shaped by the people who showed up to hold space and the brands that fueled attendees from sunrise to sunset. Every facilitator brought a unique healing modality to the day, and every sponsor thoughtfully aligned with our mission of whole-body wellness. Here’s a look at who made it all possible.

Meet the Facilitators

Karen | Sound Healing, Restorative Yoga & Tarot

Karen is a certified sound healing practitioner, experienced Tarot reader, and intuitive Medium who holds space for healing, transformation, and spiritual awakening. Her work centers on sacred vibration — using sound as a tool to soothe the body, mind, and spirit.

At the retreat, Karen led a restorative sound bath paired with gentle yoga, using crystal bowls, gongs, and chimes to calm the nervous system, clear energetic blockages, and invite deep relaxation. After the sound journey, she offered intuitive Tarot readings to provide gentle guidance, reveal patterns, and support each attendee’s next steps on their healing path.

Dr. Taylor Premer | Chiropractic & Lymphatic Health Workshop

Dr. Taylor Premer is a chiropractor and functional medicine provider based in Lincoln, Nebraska, and the founder of Premer Health & Performance. His practice specializes in helping high performers, athletes, and purpose-driven individuals move from chronic pain to peak performance — without shortcuts or cookie-cutter protocols.

At the retreat, Dr. Premer led a workshop on the lymphatic system — one of the most overlooked systems in the body. Most people have never been taught how lymph works, and it shows. Swelling, fatigue, sluggish immunity, and slow recovery are often signs that this system needs some attention. Attendees left with a clear understanding of how the lymphatic system works, why it matters for long-term health, and simple, practical techniques to support drainage and healing at home.

Cindy | Relationship Coaching for Women & Couples

Cindy is a compassionate relationship coach devoted to helping women and couples build love that feels safe, passionate, and deeply fulfilling. As a wife, new mother, and empath, she brings a deeply personal understanding of emotional safety, intentional love, and the rhythms of real relationships.

Her session at the retreat focused on strengthening communication, rebuilding trust, and reconnecting to authentic self-worth within relationships. Through compassionate support and practical tools, Cindy helps clients heal old patterns and step confidently into the love they deserve.

Michele Celeste | Breathwork & Nervous System Healing

Michele Celeste is a breathwork facilitator and relationship coach who helps high-achieving women feel confident, secure, and deeply connected to themselves. Through nervous system regulation, emotional mastery, and somatic healing, she guides women back to their intuition and authentic voice — transforming anxiety, perfectionism, and people-pleasing into self-trust and embodied power.

Her breathwork session at the retreat was a guided 3-part active meditation. Using a simple yet powerful breathing practice layered with music and affirmations while lying down, attendees moved from feeling overwhelmed to experiencing pure freedom in their own bodies. Many people who have experienced this style of breathwork describe it as genuinely life-changing.

Mackenzie Dickson | Mystical Medicinals | Crystal & Ritual Gifting

Mackenzie Dickson is the founder of Mystical Medicinals, a Phoenix-based crystal and herbal tea brand built to help women reconnect with their intuition, rituals, and personal power. As a crystal practitioner, teacher, and event host, Mackenzie blends energy work, embodiment, and everyday ritual in a grounded, joyful way.

Each retreat attendee received a crystal paired with a packet of Mystical Medicinals Manifestation Tea as part of their sunrise integration ritual. The tea is crafted to support calm focus, intention-setting, and nervous system regulation — creating the perfect moment to reflect on what they are calling into their lives. A simple ritual practice accompanied each gift to help attendees anchor their intentions and carry the energy of the retreat home with them.

Thank You to Our Sponsors

Our sponsors didn’t just provide products — they reflected the same values we brought to the retreat floor: clean ingredients, honest wellness, and brands that actually give a damn about how you feel.

LMNT | Zero-Sugar Electrolyte Hydration

LMNT makes science-backed electrolyte drink mixes with everything your body needs and nothing it doesn’t — no sugar, no artificial ingredients, no fillers. Each serving delivers meaningful amounts of sodium, potassium, and magnesium in ratios built to support real hydration. LMNT is a go-to for athletes, active lifestyles, and anyone who wants to fuel their body without the junk.

Dr. Jen’s Oral Care | Science-Backed Clean Toothpaste

Dr. Jen’s Oral Care was created by a licensed dentist after her daughter’s health scare made her question what was actually in conventional toothpaste. The result is a line of fluoride-free and combination formulas built around 10% nano-hydroxyapatite — the gold standard in enamel remineralization. Her toothpastes are EWG Verified, crafted with 99.9%+ natural ingredients, and free from sodium lauryl sulfate, propylene glycol, and artificial flavoring. The brand also carries biodegradable silk floss infused with nano-hydroxyapatite for a full clean-ingredients oral care routine.

OLIPOP | Prebiotic Soda

OLIPOP is a new kind of soda built for your gut. Each can combines nostalgic flavors with prebiotics, plant fiber, and botanicals — coming in at just 2–5 grams of sugar and 9 grams of dietary fiber per can. OLIPOP is non-GMO, gluten-free, vegan, and paleo, and it’s the first beverage brand to earn the NutraStrong Prebiotic-Verified Product Certification. It’s soda that actually supports your digestive health.

Ambre Blends | Natural Fragrance Oils

Ambre Blends has been handcrafting natural fragrance oils for over 28 years. Made with organic and plant-based botanicals, each essence is designed to blend with your body’s unique chemistry — creating a scent that’s entirely your own. Their signature Ambre essence carries top notes of precious woods with a clean, slightly smoky undertone that deepens and evolves throughout the day. The entire line is free from synthetic chemicals and made with pure, vegan ingredients.

Waay | Sparkling Protein Drink

Waay is a refreshingly light sparkling protein drink with 10 grams of protein and zero sugar. Founded by Morgan Zanotti — co-founder of Primal Kitchen — Waay was built to make protein intake effortless and enjoyable. Bold fruit flavors, clean ingredients, and a light effervescence make it a standout in a market full of chalky, heavy protein options.

Quantum Energy Squares | Plant-Based Caffeinated Energy Bars

Quantum Energy Squares combine 10 grams of plant-based protein with 100 milligrams of organic caffeine from green coffee beans — delivering the energy of a cup of coffee and the nutrition of a clean snack in one bar. They’re certified plant-based, gluten-free, non-GMO, vegan, and free from dairy, soy, and sugar alcohols. Chef-crafted flavors like Dark Chocolate Pink Himalayan Salt, Salted Peanut Butter Crunch, and Caramel Almond Sea Salt make fueling your body feel like a treat.

Whoa Dough | Gluten-Free Cookie Dough Snack Bars

Whoa Dough is the original health-conscious cookie dough snack bar — certified gluten-free, non-GMO, plant-based, dairy-free, soy-free, egg-free, and kosher, with no artificial ingredients. Made with whole grain oat flour, chickpea flour, and real mix-ins, these bars taste exactly like the cookie dough you grew up loving — except you can actually feel good about eating them. Flavors include Chocolate Chip, Brownie Batter, Sugar Cookie, Peanut Butter, and more.

Wild Tonic | Jun Kombucha

Wild Tonic is a women-owned, certified organic brewery based in Cottonwood, Arizona, and the #1 Jun brand in the United States. Jun is a rare cousin of traditional kombucha — fermented with organic green tea and honey instead of cane sugar, resulting in a smoother, lighter flavor profile without the vinegar bite. Wild Tonic is naturally rich in probiotics, prebiotics, and amino acids, and comes in beautifully crafted cobalt blue glass bottles that are as much a nod to the honeybee as they are to the brand’s Sedona roots.

Primal Kitchen | Real-Food Condiments & Pantry Staples

Primal Kitchen was co-founded by Mark Sisson and Morgan Zanotti to prove that condiments don’t have to come loaded with inflammatory oils, artificial sweeteners, and hidden junk. Their full line of sauces, dressings, mayo, and pantry staples is made without high fructose corn syrup, gluten, soy, or canola oils — with many products Whole30 approved, keto-friendly, and paleo. Avocado oil is the hero ingredient across much of the line.

AWAKE Chocolate | Caffeinated Chocolate Bars & Bites

AWAKE Chocolate is the original caffeinated chocolate brand — a delicious, convenient alternative to coffee and energy drinks. Each full bar delivers 100 milligrams of caffeine (equal to one cup of coffee), and each bite delivers 50 milligrams. AWAKE is fair trade, gluten-free, non-GMO, and made without artificial colors or flavors. Flavors range from classic Milk Chocolate and Dark Chocolate to Caramel, Peanut Butter, and Dark Chocolate Mint.

Nutt-E-Bitez | Plant-Based Energy Balls

Nutt-E-Bitez is a Phoenix-based small business making grab-and-go energy balls from raw, organic, plant-based ingredients. Sweetened with honey and packed with good fats from coconut oil, nuts, nut butters, and seeds, each bite is designed to fuel your body, crush cravings, and keep you satisfied. Flavors include Almond & Vanilla Puffed Rice, Banana Pistachio Almond, Birthday Cake, Cashew Vanilla, and more.

A Day We Won’t Forget

The people and brands in this post represent something bigger than a single event. They represent a community that believes healing is possible, that wellness doesn’t have to be complicated, and that showing up for yourself is always worth it.

We’re grateful to every facilitator who held space, every sponsor who showed up with intention, and every attendee who trusted us with their time and their heart.

Stay connected for updates on our next retreat.

If you’ve been quietly thinking about how your body feels going into pool season, you’re not alone. And if your instinct is to eat less, do more cardio, and cut carbs until summer arrives, this post is going to reframe everything.

Restriction isn’t a neutral strategy with mixed results. For high-output, high-stress people in Arizona heat, it’s actively counterproductive. Here’s the physiology behind why, and what actually works instead.

Why Restriction Backfires in Arizona Summer

When you significantly reduce your food intake, your body reads that as a stress signal. It responds by downregulating your metabolism to conserve energy, elevating cortisol to mobilize fuel from tissue, and breaking down muscle for glucose. The result is exhaustion, poor workouts, mood disruption, and body composition that often gets worse despite eating less. This isn’t a willpower problem. It’s your body’s survival programming working exactly as designed.

Arizona heat compounds this in a specific way. Heat is its own physiological stressor. It elevates cortisol independently of everything else you’re already managing, increases your caloric and electrolyte needs beyond what most people account for, and accelerates mineral depletion. Stacking under-eating, over-training, dehydration, and extreme heat on top of each other sends your body into a full protective response. It holds on to everything it can.

The result is the pattern so many high-achieving people recognize: genuine effort, real discipline, and a body that isn’t responding the way it should.

What Fueling First Actually Means

Fueling first means your body has what it needs before it’s asked to perform. It means eating enough of the right things at the right times, so your metabolism stays elevated, your muscle tissue stays intact, your hormones stay regulated, and your body feels safe enough to actually change.

Whole foods are the infrastructure. Not because processed food is the enemy, but because whole foods come packaged with the fiber, micronutrients, and co-factors that make everything else work better. Your protein absorbs more effectively. Your carbohydrates digest more steadily. Your hydration goes further. Build your meals on whole foods and every other strategy in this post becomes more effective.

Protein: The Highest-Return Lever

For active people, the research-supported range for protein is generally 0.7 to 1 gram per pound of body weight per day. Adequate protein is what your body uses to build and maintain the muscle tissue that drives your metabolism and changes your shape over time. Most women are significantly under-eating protein while focusing almost entirely on total calories. Getting protein right consistently moves body composition more than almost anything else, without restriction.

Carbohydrates: Timing Matters More Than Amount

Carbohydrates are your brain and muscle fuel. Cutting them aggressively, especially before and after exercise, leads to poor performance, poor recovery, elevated cortisol, disrupted sleep, and increased cravings. Strategic carbohydrate timing around training is one of the highest-return nutritional interventions for body composition. The goal isn’t avoiding carbs. It’s timing them well:

• Before training: something light with carbohydrate and a little protein, 30 to 60 minutes prior
• After training: a real meal with protein and carbs within 45 minutes, when muscles absorb nutrients most efficiently

Hydration: More Connected to Body Composition Than Most People Realize

Dehydration causes puffiness and bloating, impairs digestion, dulls skin, reduces workout capacity, and slows the metabolic processes that support body composition change. Being consistently well-hydrated with electrolytes isn’t a bonus strategy. It’s foundational to how your body looks and feels in summer.

Movement That Builds Instead of Depletes

More is not better when it comes to exercise for body composition in extreme heat. Long, high-intensity cardio in Arizona summer heat drives cortisol sky high, accelerates electrolyte depletion, increases muscle breakdown, and often suppresses appetite in ways that cause under-fueling.

What actually works for summer body composition:

• Strength training 2 to 4 times per week. This builds and maintains muscle tissue, which reshapes your body and drives your resting metabolism. Two to three sessions per week with consistent protein and hydration will do more for your summer body than daily cardio combined with restriction.
• Shorter, intentional cardio. Twenty to thirty minutes of moderate intensity supports cardiovascular health without the cortisol spike of long endurance sessions in heat.
• Low-impact movement during peak heat. Walking early in the morning, swimming, and movement scheduled before temperatures peak all contribute meaningfully without depleting you.

Recovery is training. Sleep, genuine rest days, and keeping exercise to cooler parts of the day are not optional extras. They are the mechanism by which your body actually changes and adapts. Without adequate recovery, training creates stress without the adaptation response that makes it worthwhile.

Three Myths Driving the Most Harm Right Now

Myth 1: Eating Less Is Always the Path to a Better Body

Chronic caloric restriction produces a predictable pattern: short-term weight loss, metabolic adaptation, weight regain, and often worse body composition than where you started. The research on this has been consistent for decades.

The question is never just how many calories you’re eating. It’s what your body is doing with the fuel it has. A well-fueled body with adequate protein, well-timed carbohydrates, good hydration, and sufficient recovery does more for body composition than any deficit, without the metabolic consequences and without the inevitable rebound that restriction almost always produces.

Myth 2: Cardio Is the Primary Lever for Changing Your Body

Cardio doesn’t build the muscle that changes the shape of your body. Strength training does. Cardio has real and meaningful benefits — cardiovascular health, mood, energy, stress management — but if the goal is changing how your body looks and feels going into pool season, logging more miles is not the primary lever. Building lean muscle is.

Muscle is metabolically active tissue. It burns more energy at rest and creates the shape, definition, and structural change that most people are actually seeking. It’s built through progressive resistance training, adequate protein, and recovery. Not through additional cardio sessions in Arizona heat that elevate cortisol and deplete your electrolytes.

Myth 3: You Need a Dramatic Transformation to Feel Good This Summer

The gap between feeling terrible in your body and feeling strong, energized, and comfortable is almost never about a specific number on a scale. It’s almost always about how consistently well you’re fueling, hydrating, sleeping, and recovering.

The people who come out of summer saying they felt the best they’ve ever felt are not always the ones who made the most visible physical changes. They’re almost universally the ones who ate enough, moved intentionally, hydrated consistently, and stopped fighting their bodies. That is available to you, starting now.

Common Summer Nutrition Questions, Answered

“I eat pretty clean but I’m constantly bloated. What’s going on?”

Summer bloating despite eating well usually comes down to three things:

• Electrolyte imbalance. When sodium is low, your body retains fluid in all the wrong places. Drinking more plain water without electrolytes makes this worse, not better.
• Eating too fast or too infrequently. Heat suppresses appetite, so many people wait until they’re ravenous and eat a large meal quickly, which overwhelms digestion.
• Not enough hydration to support fiber intake. Large salads on minimal water are a bloating recipe.

The fix: electrolytes consistently with water, smaller meals more frequently, and enough fluid to support the fiber you’re eating. These three shifts handle the majority of summer bloating within a few days.

“It’s too hot to cook. How do I eat well without meal prepping in a hot kitchen?”

Summer is actually the season where minimal cooking works best nutritionally. Protein sources that require zero cooking: Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, rotisserie chicken, canned salmon or tuna, hard-boiled eggs from the store, deli turkey, edamame. Naturally hydrating foods that need no prep: watermelon, cucumber, berries, peaches, raw bell pepper, avocado.

Batch one thing on a cooler morning, like a pot of quinoa or a tray of roasted sweet potato, and pair it with cold proteins and fresh produce all week. That’s a complete, nourishing summer meal with maybe 20 minutes of active cooking time spread across the week.

“I want to build muscle but I hate lifting. What are my options?”

Toning means building muscle while maintaining or reducing body fat, and you can absolutely create meaningful muscle stimulus without a gym. Bodyweight training, resistance bands, Pilates, yoga with resistance, swimming with intervals, and barre all build real muscle when done with enough progressive challenge.

The key variable is progressive overload: gradually increasing reps, resistance, or difficulty over time so your body keeps responding. Find movement you genuinely enjoy and will actually do consistently. Consistency over time with moderate challenge beats the perfect workout you dread and eventually stop doing.

The Summer Fuel Plate

No calorie counting. No macros unless you want them. Just four things at every meal:

• Protein first — 25 to 40 grams per meal. Eggs, Greek yogurt, chicken, fish, cottage cheese, legumes. This is the non-negotiable. It anchors your blood sugar, supports muscle, and keeps you full.
• Color — one or two servings of vegetables or fruit. Cucumbers, watermelon, berries, leafy greens, peppers. In summer, these double as hydration.
• Carbohydrate — especially if you exercised or will exercise. Rice, sweet potato, fruit, oats. Timed around movement for maximum benefit.
• Fat — something satisfying. Avocado, olive oil, nuts, full-fat yogurt. Keeps meals satisfying, supports hormones, and makes the whole plate taste good.

Four things. Every meal. No rules, no restriction, no punishment.

The Action Step

For five days, build every meal around the Summer Fuel Plate. No calorie counting. No eliminating anything. Just make sure protein is present, color is present, carbohydrate is present, and fat is present. Pay attention to your energy, your workouts, and your mood.

Your body is not a problem to solve before summer. It’s a system to support going into it. Fuel it correctly, and it responds in ways that restriction never sustainably delivers.

Want the full breakdown, including the client story that illustrates exactly what under-fueling looks like in practice and the myth-busting segment on cardio and body composition? Listen to Episode 38 of The Simply Wellness Show.

If your bathroom counter looks like a pharmacy and you’re not sure what half of it is doing, you’re not alone — and you’re not failing at wellness. You’ve been sold confusion. And confusion, it turns out, is one of the supplement industry’s most effective marketing strategies.

This episode pulls back the curtain on why supplement shopping is so overwhelming, which minerals actually matter for high-output people, and how to evaluate any product on any shelf in sixty seconds — so you stop wasting money and start actually feeling the difference.

Why the Supplement Industry Is Designed to Confuse You

The supplement market in the United States generates around forty billion dollars a year. And the single most effective strategy driving that number is complexity. The more overwhelmed a consumer feels, the more likely they are to buy whatever their favorite wellness account recommends without reading the label.

Here’s what most people don’t know: supplements in the U.S. are largely unregulated. A supplement company is not required to prove their product works before it goes to market. They are not required to prove the dose on the label is accurate. And they are not required to prove that the form of the ingredient they are using is even absorbable by the human body. The legal bar is essentially: don’t actively poison the consumer.

That means the forty-five dollar electrolyte powder you bought at the wellness boutique could contain the cheapest, least bioavailable forms of sodium and magnesium available — packaged beautifully, endorsed by a credentialed-sounding influencer, and delivering almost no measurable benefit to your body. And you would have no way of knowing that from the outside.

This is not a reason to stop taking supplements. The right ones, in the right forms, at the right doses, fill real and meaningful gaps. But it is a reason to know exactly what to look for — which is what the rest of this post covers.

The Three Minerals That Matter Most for High-Output People

For high-stress, high-caffeine, high-sweat lifestyles — especially in Arizona heat — three minerals move the needle most.

Sodium

Sodium has been so unfairly demonized in wellness culture that many people are legitimately deficient in it while simultaneously being afraid of it. Sodium is not the enemy. It’s essential for hydration, nerve function, muscle contraction, and adrenal health. For people with high-output, high-sweat lives, sodium needs are significantly higher than the average sedentary person in a temperate climate.

What to look for: sodium from high-quality sea salt or pink Himalayan salt, not sodium chloride from processed sources. In any electrolyte supplement, sodium should be the primary electrolyte — not an afterthought.

Magnesium

Magnesium is where most supplement shoppers lose real money, because the form of magnesium you take changes everything. There are at least nine commonly used forms in supplements. Some are highly bioavailable. Some are almost completely useless for anything beyond treating constipation.

• Magnesium oxide — the cheapest and most common form found in bargain supplements, with an absorption rate of around 4%. Largely wasted by your body.
• Magnesium glycinate — absorbs at 50 to 90 percent depending on the individual. Best for sleep, nervous system support, and muscle relaxation.
• Magnesium malate — well-absorbed and better suited to daytime use for energy support.

If a supplement label just says “magnesium” with no form listed, it’s almost always magnesium oxide. Put it back.

Potassium

Potassium is tricky, because the FDA limits how much can be in a single supplement dose — which means most stand-alone potassium supplements are underdosed by design. The better strategy is food first: bananas, avocado, sweet potato, leafy greens, and coconut water. These sources are more bioavailable and better regulated by your body than isolated supplements anyway. If you’re eating a reasonably varied diet and staying hydrated, potassium from food is almost always sufficient.

How to Read a Supplement Label in 60 Seconds

This three-step framework works on any electrolyte or mineral supplement, at any store, right now.

Step 1: Check the form of each ingredient — not just the name. Magnesium glycinate, not magnesium oxide. Sodium from sea salt, not just sodium chloride. Potassium citrate or glycinate over potassium chloride. The form tells you whether the company prioritized absorption or margins.

Step 2: Look for third-party testing certification. An independent lab has verified that what’s on the label is actually in the bottle — and that there are no contaminants. Look for NSF Certified, Informed Sport, or USP Verified on the label. These are not paid endorsements. They are actual third-party audits. If there’s no certification, you’re taking the company’s word for it.

Step 3: Verify the dose against research-supported ranges. For magnesium, the research-supported supplementation range for adults is generally 200 to 400 milligrams per day. For sodium in an electrolyte supplement, 500 to 1,000 milligrams per serving is a reasonable range for someone who sweats regularly. A supplement delivering 50 milligrams of magnesium is a marketing product, not a therapeutic one.

Three Supplement Myths Worth Busting

Myth 1: Brand Doesn’t Matter — Magnesium Is Magnesium

This is one of the most expensive misconceptions in the wellness space. Magnesium oxide absorbs at around 4 percent. Magnesium glycinate absorbs at up to 90 percent. You could be taking the same milligram dose from two different products and getting ten to twenty times more actual benefit from one than the other. That gap is not marketing — it’s chemistry. Brand matters because form matters.

Myth 2: There’s a Supplement for That

The supplement-as-shortcut mentality is understandable — we’re busy, we want solutions, and the industry is very good at positioning products as exactly that. But a magnesium supplement won’t fix poor sleep if your sleep is being disrupted by cortisol dysregulation from a chronically overloaded schedule. An electrolyte powder won’t fix hydration if you’re running on four coffees and minimal food.

Supplements work within a system. They fill specific gaps. They amplify a foundation that’s already there. They don’t replace one that doesn’t exist yet.

Myth 3: More Supplements Is Better

Taking a large number of uncoordinated supplements can actually interfere with each other. Minerals compete for absorption pathways. Fat-soluble vitamins accumulate. Some combinations actively reduce the effectiveness of each individual component. The most effective supplement routine is the shortest one that addresses your actual, identified gaps — for most people, that’s two to five targeted supplements at most.

The Vitamin D and Magnesium Connection

If your doctor told you your vitamin D is low and supplementation hasn’t moved the number much — this might be why. Magnesium is required for your body to activate vitamin D. Low magnesium impairs that activation process, which means you can supplement vitamin D for months and see minimal movement in your levels if magnesium deficiency is the missing piece.

If you’re supplementing vitamin D, make sure magnesium is also addressed. And if you’re in Arizona, supplementing vitamin D is almost universally appropriate — even in one of the sunniest states in the country, vitamin D deficiency is extremely common because most people are indoors during peak sun hours from May through September to avoid the heat. A baseline of 1,000 to 2,000 IU daily is a reasonable starting point, adjusted based on bloodwork.

The Simple Supplement Stack for High-Output People

For most high-output people, the core stack is genuinely short:

• A sodium-forward electrolyte supplement — at least 500 milligrams of sodium per serving, clean minimal ingredients, third-party certified — taken consistently, especially on high-sweat and high-stress days
• Magnesium glycinate — 300 to 400 milligrams at night, for sleep support, nervous system regulation, and cellular hydration

That’s it for most people. Two things. Not twenty.

Everything else — vitamin D, omega-3s, B vitamins, adaptogens — may be relevant depending on your labs, your diet, and your specific symptoms. But they’re personalized additions on top of a foundation, not the foundation itself. The best way to know what your body actually needs is to work with someone who can look at your actual bloodwork and your actual life.

The Five-Minute Supplement Audit

Do this today. Go to wherever you keep your supplements and work through every bottle:

1. Ask one question per bottle: do I know why I’m taking this, and do I feel a difference when I take it versus when I skip it? If the answer to both is no — set it aside.
2. Check the form of each mineral. Magnesium oxide — consider swapping. Magnesium glycinate, threonate, or malate — keep. Any electrolyte supplement with less than 300 milligrams of sodium per serving is probably more marketing than function.
3. Look for a third-party certification seal — NSF, Informed Sport, or USP. If none of your current supplements have one, that’s your first upgrade priority.
4. Count what’s left. If you’re still holding more than four or five bottles, that’s your next conversation with a practitioner — because without bloodwork and context, you’re guessing.

Five minutes. Real clarity. And probably some counter space back.

The Bottom Line

You don’t need more supplements. You need better ones. Form matters more than dose. Third-party testing matters more than price. And a short, targeted stack built on real foundations outperforms twenty uncoordinated products every time.

Use the sixty-second label framework, do the five-minute audit, and stop paying for products your body can’t use.

Want the full breakdown — including the listener Q&A on magnesium overdose, vitamin D and mineral interactions, and what electrolyte supplement to actually buy? Listen to Episode 37 of The Simply Wellness Show.

Why High-Achievers Can’t Automatically Rest

Here’s the biology: your nervous system builds strong neural pathways around productivity, output, and being available. Those pathways don’t turn off when you board a plane. Your cortisol doesn’t normalize because you’re sitting by a pool. Your body’s stress-response system is not location-dependent — it goes wherever you go.

This is why the first day or two of a real break often feels uncomfortable. The restlessness, the low-grade guilt, the inability to sit still — that’s not a character flaw. That’s your nervous system doing exactly what it’s been trained to do.

The other pattern that quietly ruins vacations for high-achievers is what I call productive vacation syndrome. You plan every meal, every activity, and every excursion. You come home and say it was a great trip — but you’re still depleted, because you replaced one kind of output with another. You were busy the whole time. You just changed the category.

Real recovery requires genuine periods of non-doing. Unscheduled time. Space. Your nervous system needs room to shift from sympathetic mode (fight-or-flight) into parasympathetic mode (rest-and-digest) — and that’s where actual repair and restoration happen. You can’t get there on a packed itinerary.

The Three Anchors Framework

The Three Anchors are the minimum effective dose of structure that lets you fully enjoy your break without losing your baseline. Not a vacation routine. Not rules. Just three flexible habits that work anywhere.

Anchor 1: Morning Water Before Anything Else

Before your first coffee, before your first activity — sixteen ounces of water. That’s it. It’s especially important on vacation when dehydration from travel, alcohol, and heat is working against you from day one. Two minutes, zero effort, and it sets your hydration baseline for the entire day.

Anchor 2: One Real Meal a Day

Not tracked, not planned in advance, not perfect. Just one meal with some protein, some vegetables, and actual nourishment in it. Everything else can be poolside snacks, vacation food, drinks in the sun, and whatever your heart wants. But one grounding meal a day keeps your blood sugar stable, your energy available, and your mood regulated — which is what prevents the afternoon crash that quietly ruins the back half of your vacation days.

Anchor 3: Protect Your Sleep Window

Not your sleep schedule — your window. You don’t need to be in bed at your normal time. Stay out late, enjoy the night, have the experience. But try to give yourself at least seven hours of opportunity to sleep, even if the night started later. Sleep is when your body processes stress hormones, repairs tissue, and regulates hunger and mood. Late nights are fine. Chronically short nights are what sink you.

The Real Problem With Vacation: Guilt

As a registered dietitian, I want to say this clearly: enjoying food and drinks on vacation is not the problem. Guilt is the problem.

Guilt activates your stress response. Chronic guilt during a trip keeps cortisol elevated, impairs digestion, disrupts sleep, and actively prevents the recovery you came for. The guilt does more physiological damage than the margarita.

The fix isn’t discipline — it’s permission. Eat the thing. Drink the drink. Come back to your three anchors the next morning. That’s the entire framework.

The Practical Hydration Strategy for Travel

Travel is one of the most dehydrating experiences you can put your body through, and most people don’t realize how many factors are stacked against them from the moment they step into an airport.

Airplane cabin humidity runs around 10 to 20 percent — compared to normal indoor air at 30 to 50 percent. You’re breathing dry air for hours, losing water through respiration without noticing it, and alcohol and caffeine (the two most popular flight companions) both accelerate fluid loss.

What to actually do:

• Bring an empty water bottle through security and fill it before you board
• Aim for at least eight ounces of water per hour of flight
• Skip or limit alcohol on the plane — save it for when you actually get there
• When you land, prioritize water with electrolytes before anything else
• Pack an electrolyte packet in your carry-on — it’s small, it’s free in your bag, and it genuinely changes how you feel when you land

For feeling okay the morning after drinking:

The reason you feel terrible isn’t just the alcohol — it’s dehydration and electrolyte depletion. The strategy is to address both before you sleep, not after you wake up. Before bed: sixteen ounces of water with a pinch of sea salt or an electrolyte packet, plus a small snack with protein and carbs to stabilize blood sugar overnight. Morning of: water before coffee, a real breakfast with protein, and a gentle walk outside within the first hour. Sunlight and movement do more for a post-drinking morning than almost anything else.

Three Myths That Quietly Ruin Spring Break Every Year

Myth 1: One Week Off Sets You Back

It doesn’t. One week of rest does not undo months of consistent effort. In fact, for most high-output people, a genuine week off moves them forward — because the body uses that time to repair, restore, and do the work it’s been putting off while you’ve been too stressed and too output-focused to slow down. The people who never allow themselves to rest aren’t the highest performers. They’re the most burned out.

Myth 2: You Need to Earn Your Vacation Food

The idea that you have to earn indulgent food through exercise, or offset it afterward — that’s diet culture dressed up as discipline. Food is not a reward system. Your body doesn’t run a ledger. Eating something delicious on vacation is not a debt you owe. You don’t need to earn your vacation food. You need to eat it, enjoy it fully, and come back to your anchors the next morning.

Myth 3: You Need a Detox When You Get Home

You don’t. Your liver and kidneys are already doing that work — every single day, that’s their entire job. A juice cleanse after a trip doesn’t accelerate their process. What actually helps when you get home: drink your water, get back to your normal meals, prioritize sleep the first night back, and move your body gently that first day. Within two or three days your body will have naturally recalibrated — no intervention required.

The 3-2-1 Vacation Reset

How you transition home matters just as much as how you showed up for the trip. Most people ignore this part — and then wonder why Monday morning feels like getting hit by a bus.

The 3-2-1 Vacation Reset is a gentle re-entry strategy that starts three days before you land:

• 3 days out: Start going to bed thirty minutes earlier each night. That’s it. Nothing else changes. This eases your nervous system back toward your normal sleep window without the shock of going from midnight straight to a 10 p.m. bedtime.
• 2 days out: Come back to two of your anchor habits — morning water and one real grounding meal. Start re-landing your baseline before you actually arrive home.
• 1 day home: Do one purely restorative thing. Not productive, not catching up on anything. One walk, one nap, one slow dinner at home. Give your body one real day to actually arrive before you ask it to perform again.

No detox, no punishment, no dramatic overhaul. Just a gentle ramp back that respects how your nervous system actually recovers.

The Bottom Line

Rest is not the opposite of wellness — it’s part of it. And for people wired for high output, learning to actually rest is one of the most powerful things you can build into your life.

Your vacation framework is three anchors and full freedom above them. Water in the morning, one real meal, protect your sleep window. Everything else is genuinely free — no guilt, no tracking, no earning permission. Use the 3-2-1 reset to land gently. And walk into Monday feeling like yourself.

Want the full breakdown — including the listener Q&A on travel hydration and managing routine anxiety on vacation? Listen to Episode 36 of The Simply Wellness Show.

What this episode is about:

This episode is for high-functioning, busy adults who are already doing “the right things” with hydration — hitting their ounces, carrying their water bottle, tracking their intake — and still feeling tired, foggy, headachy, bloated, or flat by mid-afternoon. It’s for listeners who have blamed themselves for not drinking enough, when the real issue has nothing to do with volume.

Unlike standard hydration conversations that focus on how much water to drink, this episode goes deeper — into why water doesn’t automatically absorb at the cellular level, what’s quietly draining the electrolytes that make absorption possible, and what’s actually driving the symptoms that so many high-achievers write off as stress, busy schedules, or just how they are.

This episode is not about drinking more. It’s about drinking smarter — and understanding the cellular mechanism behind hydration so that what you’re already doing actually works.

Key ideas explored:

• Why hydration is a cellular absorption problem, not a volume problem — and what that distinction changes
• How electrolytes (sodium, potassium, magnesium) act as the key that lets water into your cells — and why without them, water passes right through
• The hidden electrolyte drains specific to high-achieving, high-stress lives in Arizona heat: cortisol, caffeine, passive sweating, and low-sodium diets
• Why magnesium deficiency — present in the majority of Americans — silently undermines hydration no matter how much water you drink, and the symptom cluster that signals it
• How the timing of hydration (especially the morning coffee-first habit) compounds the problem before the day even starts
• Why cognitive load and back-to-back schedules increase the body’s water demand — and how 1–2% dehydration measurably impairs attention, memory, and decision-making
• The real origin story of the “8 glasses a day” rule — and why the science never actually supported it
• Why thirst is not the enemy, but also not enough on its own for high-output living in extreme heat
• Why not all fluids hydrate equally — and how caffeine, sugar, and alcohol each work against cellular absorption

What listeners will walk away with:

• A complete reframe of hydration — from a volume goal to a cellular function — that explains why they’ve felt off despite doing everything right
• A clear understanding of exactly which factors are depleting their electrolytes daily, often before 9am
• The magnesium symptom checklist — a practical self-assessment they can use immediately
• One concrete, zero-cost action step: sixteen ounces of water with a pinch of sea salt before morning coffee, for five days
• Confidence that their body is not broken — their hydration strategy just needed a smarter foundation
• A framework for what actually counts toward hydration — and what quietly works against it

Takeaway:“I wasn’t doing it wrong because I wasn’t trying hard enough. I was missing one piece of the puzzle — and now I have it.”

If spring makes you cringe, you’re not alone. Longer days and warmer temps sound great until the sneezing starts, your eyes won’t stop itching, and the antihistamine fog settles in on top of an already full calendar. For millions of people, allergy season isn’t just uncomfortable — it quietly drains their energy, focus, and quality of life for weeks at a time.

But here’s the thing: your allergies aren’t just bad seasonal luck. They’re a signal from your immune system — one that can be meaningfully supported with the right inputs. This post breaks down what’s actually happening in your body during an allergic response, why some people react more severely than others, and what you can start doing today to change how this season unfolds.

What’s Really Happening During an Allergic Reaction

Your immune system is designed to protect you from genuine threats — bacteria, viruses, harmful invaders. But for people with seasonal allergies, it makes a critical mistake: it flags harmless pollen as dangerous.

When pollen enters your system, your immune cells release a compound called IgE, which triggers mast cells to release histamine. Histamine is what causes the itching, swelling, sneezing, and congestion you feel. It’s not the pollen that’s making you miserable — it’s your immune system overreacting to it.

The real question isn’t how to block histamine after the fact. It’s why your immune system is so reactive in the first place.

Why Some People React Worse Than Others

Genetics play a role, but they don’t tell the whole story. Two people with the same genetic background can have dramatically different allergy experiences based on one major factor: the health of their gut.

70% of your immune system lives in your gut. The microbiome — the trillions of bacteria that line your digestive tract — directly regulates how your immune system responds to perceived threats. When the microbiome is depleted or imbalanced, your immune system becomes hypersensitive. It’s more likely to treat harmless things like pollen as emergencies.

This is also why allergy symptoms often worsen year over year. It’s not just more pollen in the air. It’s a microbiome that’s been chipped away by antibiotics, processed foods, stress, and poor sleep — leaving the immune system with less and less regulation.

Why Antihistamines Are a Downstream Fix

Antihistamines work by blocking histamine receptors. They reduce symptoms — but they don’t address why your immune system is producing so much histamine in the first place. That’s the difference between downstream and upstream support.

Downstream: block the histamine after it’s been released. Upstream: give your immune system what it needs to stop overreacting.

Both have a place. But if antihistamines are your only strategy, you’re managing symptoms without changing the underlying pattern.

The Food Framework: Eating for Immune Regulation

Your diet is one of the most direct levers you have on immune function. These four inputs make a meaningful difference during allergy season.

Quercetin + Vitamin C

Quercetin is a natural flavonoid that acts as a natural antihistamine — it stabilizes mast cells so they release less histamine in the first place. Vitamin C amplifies its effect and also helps break down histamine in the body. Together, they’re one of the most well-supported food-based strategies for allergy relief.

Foods high in quercetin: onions (especially red onions), capers, apples, kale, and broccoli. Foods high in vitamin C: bell peppers, citrus, strawberries, and kiwi.

Eat these daily during peak season — not just occasionally.

Omega-3 Fatty Acids

Omega-3s directly modulate allergic inflammation. They shift the immune system away from the inflammatory response that drives allergy symptoms. During peak allergy season, aim for fatty fish — salmon, sardines, mackerel — at least three times per week. If that’s a stretch, a quality omega-3 supplement is a reasonable backup.

Fermented Foods

Fermented foods like yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, kimchi, and kombucha introduce beneficial bacteria into your gut. More diverse, robust gut bacteria = better immune regulation. Even one serving per day can start to shift the microbiome over time. This is the simplest on-ramp to supporting your gut-immune connection.

Lifestyle Tools That Actually Move the Needle

Food is the foundation, but there are several daily habits with strong clinical support for allergy relief.

Nasal Rinsing

This is the single most clinically supported daily habit for allergy season — and the most skipped. Rinsing your nasal passages with a saline solution (using a neti pot or squeeze bottle) physically removes allergens, reduces inflammation, and clears the nasal passage. Do it once daily, especially after time outdoors. Use distilled or boiled water, not tap.

The Overnight Fix

If you wake up congested and miserable, your sleeping environment is likely the culprit. Pollen clings to hair, skin, and clothing throughout the day. Showering before bed and changing your pillowcase frequently are two of the highest-impact swaps you can make for overnight allergy relief.

Gua Sha for Sinus Drainage

Gua sha — a traditional technique using a smooth tool to apply light pressure along the face — has been shown to support lymphatic drainage and reduce sinus congestion. Applied along the cheekbones and jawline, it can provide real relief during high-symptom days.

Environment Changes That Help

You don’t need to overhaul your home. These specific changes reduce allergen load meaningfully:

• Keep windows closed during high pollen count days and run an air purifier with a HEPA filter
• Vacuum with a HEPA-filter vacuum at least twice a week during peak season
• Change your HVAC filter more frequently in spring
• Leave shoes at the door to avoid tracking pollen through your space

Six Takeaways to Start With Today

1. Allergies are an immune overreaction — not fate. You have real influence over how severe your reaction is.
2. Your gut health shapes your allergy severity. A depleted microbiome means a more reactive immune system.
3. Eat quercetin and vitamin C daily during peak season. Focus on onions, apples, bell peppers, and citrus.
4. Add omega-3s three times per week. Fatty fish or a quality supplement during spring makes a measurable difference.
5. Start nasal rinsing. Once a day. It’s the highest-impact, lowest-effort habit for symptom relief.
6. Shower before bed and change your pillowcase. The overnight fix most people overlook.

The Bottom Line

Allergy season doesn’t have to cost you clarity, energy, and focus every spring. Your symptoms are a signal — your immune system asking for support it isn’t getting. The tools above aren’t about eliminating every trace of pollen from your life. They’re about giving your body the upstream support it needs to stop overreacting.

Pick one tool. Start today. Layer in the rest as the season goes on.

You eat healthy. You work out. You try to sleep.

So why does your nervous system still feel wired?

If you feel overstimulated by mid-afternoon or your brain refuses to power down at night, there may be a missing piece most high-functioning people never hear about.

Eating healthy is not the same as eating for your nervous system.

In this episode of The Simply Wellness Show, I explain the biological gap that keeps many high-achievers stuck in a reactive state and the five targeted nutritional shifts that help your nervous system finally settle.

No overhaul. No complicated plan. Just precise inputs that actually move the baseline.

And remember, wellness gets to feel oh so good.

Key Highlights

• Why feeling wired is often a biology issue, not a personality trait
• The difference between eating healthy and eating for nervous system regulation
• How nutrition affects stress chemistry and neurotransmitters
• Why meditation and mindset work sometimes are not enough
• Five simple nutritional shifts that help calm your baseline

Spring is supposed to feel energizing.

But if you’re being honest, early spring can feel a little… weird.

Your energy is inconsistent.
Your digestion feels different.
Your routine suddenly feels harder to keep up with.

You’re not in winter mode anymore, but you’re not fully in spring mode either.

In this week’s episode of The Simply Wellness Show, we talk about why the body often feels unsettled during seasonal transitions and how a few simple microhabits can help things stabilize again.

Inside the episode you’ll learn:

• Why spring transitions can make energy feel unpredictable
• Why trying to overhaul your routine in spring often backfires
• Five simple microhabits that help your body recalibrate
• How small signals can support digestion, focus, and energy

This conversation is grounding, practical, and designed for real life.

🎧 Listen to Episode 32 now and discover the small changes that can help spring feel supportive again.

And remember, wellness gets to feel oh so good.

IIf 6:00 pm feels like a negotiation with your fridge, this is for you.

You have made decisions all day. You have solved problems, managed logistics, and held it together. By evening, your brain is done.

In this week’s episode of The Simply Wellness Show, I am walking you through how to design food systems that think for you.

This is Too-Tired Eating, Part 2. And this time, we are building infrastructure.

Inside the episode, you will learn
• Why Too-Tired Eating is a design issue
• How to use convenience strategically
• Why protein works as a stabilizing anchor
• How to build repeatable BYO meal systems
• What to stock for low-capacity nights

This episode delivers the missing piece. You do not need more discipline. You need fewer decisions.

🎧 Listen to Episode 29 now and learn how to make food run quietly in the background of your life.

And remember, wellness gets to feel oh so good.

If you’re a high-achieving woman who’s done all the research, tried all the habits, and still feels stuck — this is for you. The problem isn’t your discipline. It’s not that you need a better morning routine or one more productivity framework. The problem might be your environment.

I sat down with Daesha Donze, founder of Couture Retreats & Events, to explore why immersive experiences create the kind of change that staying in your everyday routine simply can’t — and what actually happens in the body when it finally gets the space and safety it needs to reset.

Why Environment Matters More Than Willpower

Most people approach change as a discipline problem. They push harder, optimize more, and white-knuckle their way through new habits — all inside the same environment that’s been draining them. And then they wonder why nothing sticks.

Here’s what the research on nervous system function tells us: your brain is wired to match its output to its context. When you’re in the same space, surrounded by the same triggers, responsibilities, and roles, your nervous system stays in the same state. That state is often low-grade stress — functional enough to keep you moving, but not the kind of open, regulated state where real integration happens.

Willpower operates on a depleted tank when the nervous system is running in survival mode. Change requires capacity — and capacity requires safety.

What “Nervous System Reset” Actually Means

The phrase gets thrown around a lot in wellness spaces, but here’s what it actually looks like in practice.

A nervous system reset isn’t a massage or a good night of sleep (though both help). It’s the experience of your body shifting out of chronic low-grade fight-or-flight and into a state where it can:

• Process and integrate experience, not just react to it
• Access clarity instead of operating from urgency
• Feel safe enough to rest, receive, and reflect

That shift doesn’t happen on a Tuesday afternoon between meetings. It requires removing yourself — physically, mentally, and energetically — from the environment that keeps you in response mode.

This is the core argument for immersive retreat experiences. Not luxury. Not escape. The actual physiological conditions your nervous system needs to do something different.

Temporary Relaxation vs. True Reset: What’s the Difference?

A spa day feels good. A vacation can help. But most people return from those experiences and are back to baseline within 48 hours.

What makes an immersive retreat different — when it’s designed well — is integration. The experience is built so that what happens during the retreat doesn’t stay at the retreat. The tools, the clarity, and the felt sense of regulation come home with you.

Daesha describes this as the difference between an experience that inspires you and one that actually changes you. Inspiration fades. Embodiment sticks.

The key elements that make the difference:

• Intentional environment design — spaces that signal safety to the nervous system, not stimulation or performance
• Pacing that allows for integration — not a packed schedule that keeps you in output mode
• Expert support — guidance that meets people where they actually are, not where they think they should be
• Practical tools — takeaways that are designed for real life, not just the retreat bubble

Why High-Achieving Women Are the Ones Who Need This Most

The women who resist retreats the most are often the ones who need them most. The internal objections sound like:

• “I don’t have time.”
• “I should be able to figure this out on my own.”
• “I’ll do it later, once things slow down.”

These aren’t character flaws. They’re symptoms of a nervous system that’s been in overdrive for so long that rest starts to feel irresponsible.

High-achieving women are often extraordinarily good at functioning under pressure. That skill becomes a liability when it makes it impossible to recognize how depleted they actually are — or to give themselves permission to do something about it.

What Daesha said in our conversation reframes this completely: the pull toward a retreat isn’t about needing a break from your life. It’s your nervous system recognizing that the conditions for change don’t exist inside your current environment — and asking for something different.

What to Look for in a Retreat That Actually Integrates

Not all retreats are created equal. Here’s what separates an experience that creates lasting change from one that just feels good for a few days:

• It’s designed around nervous system regulation, not just relaxation or inspiration
• The pace allows for reflection, not just consumption of content
• The environment itself is intentional — the space, the sensory experience, and the energy of the room are all considered
• Tools are practical and portable — you leave with things you can actually do on a Tuesday morning
• The focus is on embodiment, not just information

What the Simply Wellness Reset Retreat Is Designed to Do

Our Simply Wellness Reset Retreat was built around exactly these principles. It’s not a weekend of lectures or a schedule packed with activities. It’s a carefully designed experience that gives high-functioning women three things they rarely give themselves:

• A regulated nervous system — not just relaxed, but actually reset in a way they can recognize and recreate at home
• Clarity and direction — leave knowing what actually matters and what doesn’t, with the noise stripped away
• Tools that integrate into real life — not inspiration that fades, but embodied practices that work once the retreat is over

If you’re a high-functioning woman who’s smart, capable, and quietly exhausted — this is exactly who this retreat is designed for.

You can learn more and reserve your spot at www.retreats.simplywellnessllc.com.

The Bottom Line

Change isn’t a discipline problem for most high-achieving women. It’s an environment problem. The nervous system needs specific conditions to shift — safety, space, support, and a break from the roles and responsibilities that keep it in response mode.

Immersive retreat experiences, when designed with intention, create those conditions. The result isn’t a temporary mood lift. It’s a real reset — the kind that comes home with you.

If some days the idea of making a healthy choice feels like too much, this is for you.

Those days are not a failure. They are a signal that capacity is low.

In this week’s episode of The Simply Wellness Show, I am talking about Too-Tired Eating and how to nourish yourself when your brain is done and your energy is gone.

This episode is not about motivation or meal prep perfection. It is about eating in a way that actually supports you on hard days.

Inside the episode, you will learn
• Why exhaustion changes how your brain makes food decisions
• Why trying harder backfires on tired days
• What supportive enough eating looks like
• How to choose meals when capacity is low
• Why repeating meals can be calming and effective

You are not lazy. You are not weak. You do not need more discipline. You need food that works when energy is limited.

If every January you try to clean things up with food and it somehow feels harder instead of easier, this is for you.

Here is what most nutrition advice gets wrong. When food feels heavy, loud, or overwhelming, it is not because you lack discipline. It is because your body is under-supported.

In this week’s episode of The Simply Wellness Show, I break down why January nutrition culture often backfires for high-functioning adults and what actually works instead.

Instead of tightening control, this episode takes a supportive approach to food that focuses on physiology, nervous system regulation, and stability. I explain why subtle restriction increases cravings and food noise, even when intentions are good.

Inside the episode, you will learn
• Why cleaning things up with food often creates more stress
• The difference between eating lighter and eating more supportively
• How protein, fiber, and plant fats stabilize energy
• Why anchor meals reduce cravings later in the day
• How to quiet food noise by supporting energy earlier

This episode is a breath of fresh air for January. You are not broken. You do not need more discipline. You need meals that actually support you.