Love Food, Love Yourself: Exploring Health After 40

Find Out If You Have Food Allergies

In this episode, we discuss how to know if you have food sensitivities or allergies.

As you get older, food sensitivities you’ve had since you were younger can start to build, making your body more reactionary to something that it’s had a hard time processing. By 40, you can actually become partially intolerant of certain things you could eat when you were younger. Before you believe you’re allergic to something, I think you should understand what a food allergy actually is. 

According to the Mayo Clinic, a food allergy is a reaction that occurs in your immune system after you’ve eaten a certain food. These foods can lead you to break into hives, develop itchiness or swelling in the throat, nose, mouth and airways, or even lead to anaphylaxis. When it comes to a food allergy, almost 90 percent of all food allergies are related to eight foods: milk, soy, eggs, wheat, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, and shellfish. 

What’s the Difference Between a Food Allergy and a Sensitivity (or Intolerance)? 

According to the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology, a food allergy is a reaction to food proteins that your system can’t break down and results in severe reactions like the ones listed above. A food intolerance or sensitivity is related to an enzyme deficiency in your digestive tract that makes it hard to process a certain food, but it doesn’t lead to the severe outcomes that an allergy does. We can be sensitive to foods, but not allergic to them. 

There are a variety of ways to determine whether or not someone has food allergies or intolerances, including simple elimination diets, saliva, hair, skin, and/or blood tests. Two types of blood tests, IgE and IgG, are becoming more common for determining allergies as they are believed to provide greater accuracy in finding food allergies and sensitivities.

• IgE tests can only be ordered by licensed health care providers (your doctor).  
• IgG tests can be done by a healthcare professional or can be ordered online and sent directly to your home, and some you can only get from holistic practitioners. 

To learn more about food allergy testing and why you really need to see a qualified medical doctor to determine food sensitivities, allergies, and intolerances, read the entire blog post here: https://www.gracegritandwit.com/blogs/news/do-you-really-have-food-allergies-or-sensitivities

In this episode of Love Food, Love Yourself, I take a look at if you really need to take supplements. The long story short:

There is a time and place for supplements, but you probably don’t need to take as many as you currently do. There are vitamins and minerals found in the food you eat every day. So if you’ve been wanting to rethink your supplement routine and/or stop taking them altogether. 

Your daily requirements depend on activity, lifestyle, and other health factors. The way to get them is simply by eating real food. Food is nutrient-dense and packed with vitamins and minerals. That means your body is getting most of what it needs from what you’re already eating. 

When you’re first starting to eat better and at the beginning of your health journey, you may use nutritional supplements because you may be overly deficient in them. Also, if you’re vegan and/or vegetarian, you may have to take in order to achieve a sufficient amount of them.

As you start to eat better, you’ll not need to rely on them as much because the food you eat has naturally occurring vitamins and minerals. The vitamins and minerals found in your food are way better than what has been put into a bottle.

Supplementing is a personal preference and choice. I encourage you to do your research on the pros and cons of using them as in the long-term it can actually hurt your body versus helping it. If you choose to use them, look for quality supplements from non-commercial grocery stores and don’t take them for prolonged periods of time. 

Find the full article that contains more in-depth insight on Grace, Grit & Wit:  https://www.gracegritandwit.com/blogs/news/do-i-really-need-to-take-supplements

Somewhere in our mid-30s, our bodies begin to go through a big set of changes;  your hormones change and our metabolism shifts. These changes are subtle at first; we begin to experience weight gain, loss of lean muscle mass, bone density can decrease, we might sleep less, and strange things begin happening in our menstrual cycles. The list goes on.  Cellular level changes cause you to store more fat and the ability to burn fat diminishes in return. Your estrogen begins to decline as our bodies begin to transition to menopause, somewhat erratically, and it keeps decreasing (along with progesterone).  

So, is it over after 40? Has your body simply betrayed you? Are you doomed to hold unwanted body fat unless you continually diet, cleanse, and deprive yourself? 

The answer is no. You can become, or continue to be healthy in a way that works for you. No diet, cleanses or deprivation needed. 

By our mid-30’s, (and certainly after 40), we simply have to recognize that our nutritional requirements change.  Our bodies require different macronutrient compositions –– our protein (meat, fish, dairy, beans, and legumes ), carbohydrate (whole grains), and fat (like olive oil) intake have to match our evolving needs; the same goes for our micronutrients –– that is, our vitamin and mineral intake.  

While it may sound complex, it’s actually not. It comes down to: 

1. Get and eat enough protein; 
2. Balance fat in your caloric intake;
3. Get adequate fiber; 
4. Eat the right carbohydrates;
5. Take stock your vitamin and mineral requirements;
6. Drinking enough water;
7. Be willing to break up with certain foods;
8. And make small, conscious decisions that help develop healthier, more appropriate eating habits. 

I can’t stress this enough. Eating well is a critical component in preventing and/or treating obesity, many diseases, and other health-related issues. It’s also important to understand that your approach to nutrition needs to be holistic.

I want to make it very clear that you shouldn’t focus on any single macro or micronutrient (I’m looking at you carbohydrates); remember, your body needs all of them, in a balanced fashion; that’s what holistic means. 

It’s important to focus on eating foods that nourish your body, rather than harm it. So, put aside the ideas that you have to deprive yourself of certain macro and micronutrients because, in fact, doing so may actually be contributing to your health issues. 

So, what are a woman’s nutritional requirements exactly? 

To read my complete article on what your body needs nutritionally, you can find the post on Grace, Grit & Wit.  You can also grab a copy of my book Love Food, Love Yourself, and explore how simple it is in fact to nourish your body through the food you eat. 

In this episode, I discuss the effects of alcohol, caffeine, and sugar on our bodies. Many stream media tells us to give it up in order to achieve optimal wellness and combat disease. Well, it's not simple. Listen in as I discuss the pros and cons of each, talk about determining what may be safe limits for all three, and when it's time to give them up. 

To read my complete article on analyzing the effects of alcohol, sugar, and caffeine on your body, you can find the post on Grace, Grit & Wit.  You can also grab a copy of my book Love Food, Love Yourself and explore how simple it is in fact to nourish your body through the food you eat. 

In this episode, we discuss how to fix your broken relationship with food. I've created a series of questions to help explore your eating habits and identify where the disconnection between you and your food lies. This is an activity that you can do over the course of several days, writing it down in a journal or in a moble note. The questions in the podcast and the full episode transcript is available at Grace, Grit & Wit. 

In our last episode, we talked about how our relationship with food became so fragmented and broken, especially for multi-ethnic women over 40, like myself. In this episode, we’re going to go through a series of questions and exercises that can help begin to heal that relationship. 

So how do you begin to fix your relationship with food? 

The first thing you have to do... is stop. 

Stop reading books, stop reading blogs, unfollow all the so called social media gurus. Just stop. And once you’ve taken a break from it all, and had a chance to breathe, you can then come back and begin to learn anew. 

Pause here if you like...If you do decide to keep listening however, you should still take that break, and come back to this again at a later date. Whenever you’re ready, I’ll be here waiting for you.  

Now that you’ve taken some time to clear your head, we can go back to the basics. To begin, you have to ask yourself some simple questions: 

“What are my health goals?”, and “What do I want my relationship with food to be?” I’m sure you can think of several goals with relative ease.

1. I want to have more energy. 
2. I want to change my body composition; i.e. lose body fat, and gain more muscle
3. I want to get better quality sleep.

Your list can be as long or as short as you like, just be sure these goals matter to you.  After you’ve made this list, then you’re going to want to write down your daily routine so that you can figure out where you are in relation to those goals. 

Over the course of (at least) three days, keep track of your daily routine and note your patterns. Write down the time you wake up, your activities throughout the day, write down what you eat, and when, write down everything you do.

You want your notes to be very detailed. For example, you want to write down where you are when you eat, the amount of time you spent doing so (it can even help to write down your thoughts and feelings during these times). 

This exercise will help you identify your habits and patterns, especially where your relationship to food is concerned.  

Find all the questions here: https://www.gracegritandwit.com/blogs/news/how-to-fix-your-broken-relationship-with-food

In this episode, I explore how our relationships with food, and our bodies, has become so broken and disconnected.

It’s  2020, and we, as women, we’re taking our health into our own hands. We’re trying to make more informed decisions; we’re ditching healthcare for self-care, we’re trading in prescription drugs for CBD.

When it comes to our food we’re eating better, for the most part. Yeah, we’re eating more vegetables and we know wholesome food is good for us, but many of us are still eating too many processed foods due to time and cost constraints. 

And despite an increased focus on our health and what we eat, our “diet” is still the leading cause of preventable conditions like obesity, heart disease, and death.  We understand the concept of food as medicine, yet we predominantly eat crap. 

So let me ask you something, if we, as women, know that something as simple as eating better can help us live longer, reverse negative health issues and keep us out of an early grave, why aren’t we all shouting ‘All Hail Kale!’?

The answer is: We’re disconnected from our food just as much as we are our own bodies. Instead of figuring out what works best for us as individuals, we’re caught up in the latest fads –– micro fasting, keto, low carb, - we’re constantly looking for the easiest solution to inherently complex issues. 

We buy into the quick (expensive) fixes rather than doing research, putting effort into building healthy habits, and creating positive behaviors that will change us for the long-term.

To put it succinctly: Our relationship with food is broken. The mental, physical and physiological connections that make up our health have become inherently dysfunctional. 

To read my complete article on how our relationships with food became so broken, you can find the post on Grace, Grit & Wit.  You can also grab a copy of my book Love Food, Love Yourself and explore how simple it is in fact to nourish your body through the food you eat. 

Welcome to Love Food, Love Yourself. I’m your host, Macala Wright. This podcast is designed to help women over  40+ develop better relationships with food. My goal is to help you fall in love with food and even more with yourself. 

So, about me. I’m Macala Wright. I’m the founder of Grace, Grit, and Wit, an online wellness site and ranch in Washington. I’m a food writer and researcher. I’m also a beginning farmer and horse rehabilitation. At this point, I can confidently say that I’ve found what I was meant to do with the rest of my life. And it all began with a journey towards my own health and well being.

This episode is my origin story. It takes you through my who I am, how I got involved in food, health, and nutrition, and why I'm now working with women over 40 to own their own health and food journeys. 

For more on food and nutrition, you can find me on the web at: www.gracegritandwit.com.