It can be a challenging feat to incorporate more culinary time into your daily routine, especially if you currently struggle to grab lunch at work, let alone make a healthy dinner in the evening. Ordering take out has its conveniences, but cooking more is one of the best things you can do for your health since you can control ingredients and keep calories in check. Cooking at home also helps increase creativity, supports increased bonding time with loved ones, and can even be a meditative activity. Who knew chopping vegetables could be so zen? It can also promote food diversity and increase oral tolerance levels since a variety of foods can reduce inflammation, lower the risk of developing intolerances, promote a healthy gut microbiome, and reduce oxidative stress1. HOW DOES IT WORK?  It takes time and effort to make meals at home, however the planning, prepping, and actual cooking is worth the benefits. Once you get into the culinary groove, you will be creating meals in your kitchen from scratch in no time at all. Nothing is better than pouring your heart and soul into the creation of a beautiful meal and then enjoying – and sharing with others – the fruits of your labor. So, how exactly do you get a home-cooked meal on the table every night? Article continued HERE on The Institute of Transformational Nutrition Blog. In Love, Health + Gratitude, Katie

Environmental factors play a huge role in autoimmunity but there is only one environmental factor that most people focus on initially which is diet. If you have been focusing solely on diet to heal your autoimmune disease now is the time to take a look at the environmental factors that may also be contributing. Many times when starting on a healing journey from autoimmunity people focus on diet alone. While diet is a great place to start. Healing from autoimmunity requires a multi-angle approach. Many find success with diet initially but then their healing plateaus. When I started my healing journey over 15 years ago diet was my focus. I had great success initially but overtime I started having more frequent flares and symptoms. I became frustrated and started feeling that all the work I had put it was pointless. That was until I looked at how my environment was hindering my healing. HOW YOUR ENVIRONMENT CAN HINDER YOUR HEALING Epigenetics is the study of how genes express themselves meaning “turning on” or “turning off”. Just because you have a gene that predisposes you to a certain disease does not mean you will get that disease. Genes that predispose us to disease can be turned on but they can also be turned off. We are surrounded by environmental factors every single day that affect our health regardless of if we have an autoimmune disease or not. While we can’t control our exposure to all of them we can take a look at which ones may be affecting us the most and how we can make changes to reduce our exposure. Some are much easier than others. For example, if we are currently eating all conventional produce we can start buying organic or if we eat mostly processed and packaged foods we can reduce our consumption of these foods and introduce more fruits and veggies. I know not everyone has the same level of access to fresh fruits and veggies but the idea is to do the best you can. Eliminating toxins through food is a great place to start. An environmental factor that is more difficult to address is something like emotional trauma. We all carry trauma with us. Many times something that affected us long ago is still with us years later. Trauma can manifest into disease. If you are carrying trauma you may need to work with a…

Our inner world has a huge effect on our health and in my personal experience once I addressed my inner world my healing from Ankylosing Spondylitis and Chronic Iritis accelerated. Addressing our inner world can be extremely difficult and can take a long time but doing the work is worth it. We carry so much with us each day. Experiences from childhood, unacceptance of ourselves, fear of the future, stress from our jobs or relationships, and the list goes on. Some of these things are on the surface and are top of mind while others are buried deep. One of the easiest places I believe to start addressing our inner world is to think about the stories we tell ourselves over and over again. STORIES CAN HELP OR HINDER HEALING When I began my healing journey many years ago one story I was telling myself was that healing was not possible for me. I was stuck in the narrative that I have a chronic life-long condition and that my future self would be limited by my diagnosis. I got this idea based on both what my doctor told me, and what I saw on the internet. When I found my only option was to manage my symptoms with a scary pharmaceutical drug I was left with no other option than to fight for my health in other ways. REWRITE YOUR STORIES One of those ways was through the mind-body connection and the place I started was to rewrite the stories I had about healing and my life. I rewrote what I had been telling myself and slowly but surely, one step at a time I began to uplevel my healing. It was not easy! Inner work is one of the hardest things you will do. On good days when my pain was low or I was flare-free, it was easy but on the days where I was in pain, my mind went right back to the story that healing was not possible for me. On those days I did the below exercise. This exercise is one I have my coaching clients complete and I ask them to revisit it anytime they need a tune-up. This one simple exercise changed the trajectory of my healing and I hope it helps you too! EXERCISE HOW TO: STEP 1: Grab a few pieces of paper and on each one write down a story…