Let 2025 Be Your Year for Health
Whether you are creating a list or vision board, or just sharing your resolutions with a loved one, it’s time to finally stick to your New Year’s health goals!
Now has never been a better time to invest in your health! Let 2025 be your year for health by diving into the following health pillars that support the beginning of your wellness journey.
Habits and Routines
In a previous blog post, I discussed my takeaways from the book, Atomic Habits by James Clear. Clear lays out the attainable ways to build long-lasting habits through tiny (but remarkable) changes to our habits that bring about grand results. He splits up the book into four laws: make it obvious, make it attractive, make it easy, and make it satisfying. Check out the blog post to dive deep into how these laws correlate to our daily habits.
Don’t fizzle out on your health goals after a few months by only relying on motivation to stay consistent. Developing strong morning and night routines and having habits that benefit your health journey helps take the stress out of daily actions and behaviors. Once a routine or habit is established, you have less to think about when it comes to prioritizing choices that will benefit the present or future you!
“Success is the product of daily habits–not lifetime transformations.” - James Clear
Understanding Your Body
It can be tricky to understand our bodies when we feel disconnected from them. As a way to reconnect, it is important to understand how our bodies function and the role our systems (especially hormones and gut microbiome) play in our overall health.
Hormones
Hormones are essential to life. They coordinate signaling and messages to various parts of the body to tell it what to do and when to do it. When there is an imbalance, it can show up as symptoms such as fatigue, constipation, anxiety, unexplained weight loss or weight gain, hair thinning, acne, irregular periods, and more.
In my Root Cause Hormone Package, we dive deep into your hormones using the DUTCH Test. The DUTCH Test is the most comprehensive method of testing your sex and adrenal hormones and their metabolites, as well as relevant nutrients and neurotransmitters. Getting hormones tested is critical in the beginning stages of your health journey to understand the unique hormonal levels your body produces.
With both the hormone package and the gut health package, I adopt the strategy, “Test, don’t guess.” After we receive your unique results, together we personalize your protocol.
Gut Health
Your gut is your second brain! Your gut and brain are like you and your bestie sending text messages back and forth. They rely on each other so much that the health or disease of one impacts the other. With this connection being tightly linked, prioritizing the health of our gut microbiome is essential to getting to the root cause of common gut issues such as constipation, bloating, gas, stomach pain, and food intolerances.
In my gut health intensive Master Your Microbiome program, I utilize the GI-MAP to reveal imbalances in “good” and “bad” gut bacteria, digestive enzyme output, yeast and parasites, inflammation, gluten sensitivity, and more. Read more about the GI-MAP here.
With both the hormone package and the gut health package, I adopt the strategy, “Test, don’t guess.” After we receive your unique results, together we personalize your protocol.
Movement
Have you ever heard that sitting is the new smoking? Being too sedentary has a negative effect on our health and leads to a cascade of health effects over time. Engaging in movement is not only important for muscle growth and cardiovascular health, but it also plays a role in our body’s ability to prevent diseases and influences our mental health, metabolism, and sleep quality.
We are meant to move! Connect with a friend by going to the gym, walking, running, or biking together. Pace around your house while talking on the phone. Take your dog for a walk. Stretch while watching television or a movie. There are many ways to move! If your job requires you to sit for long periods of time, invest in a stand-up desk or walk around your desk when time allows. Staying active and consistent in moving your body does wonders for your physical and mental health over time.
Nourishment
Instead of focusing on the newest or trendiest diet going into the new year, change your mindset around food by focusing on nourishing your body. Nourishment can come in many forms, but when it comes to diet, it all boils down to prioritizing whole foods.
Processed foods, conventional seed oils, sugar, artificial sweeteners, and other inflammatory foods wreak havoc on your gut microbiome and create a cascade effect of other symptoms. Whole foods are higher in vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients that help support your internal health; choosing whole foods helps you live in tune with your body. This alignment allows you to see the connection between how food makes you feel and not be restricted by a trendy diet.
Importance of Community
Social connectedness is becoming recognized as a strong positive pillar for overall health. In fact, a study conducted by the National Institute of Health determined that a weak sense of social community was correlated with poorer health, especially poorer mental health.
Because we are social beings, we thrive in community. Staying connected within a community can take many forms: joining a new club to meet new people, intentional connections on social media that may lead to connecting in person, keeping in touch with long-distance friends and family, joining a gym or workout class, or taking a class to start a new hobby. Surrounding yourself with like-minded and encouraging people helps build a stronger support system and connects you with the community.