When it comes to hormone health, picking key foods that have multiple benefits for balancing hormones is helpful. Schizandra berry is just such a food and may be a true anti-aging food as well.

In China it is known as a “five-flavor fruit,” because it contains the flavors sweet, sour, salty, bitter and pungent which, in TCM, all represent various health properties. This may also explain its funky taste. Research has confirmed that compounds found in the berries, called schisandrins, help with supporting nervous system issues, liver issues and coughs. Much of this research, which includes controlled clinical studies with humans, is in China, unfortunately.

Even more specifically, with regard to supporting the nervous system, animal studies have found that schizandra can counter the stimulating effect of caffeine. Taking schizandra, while either cutting down on coffee or going cold turkey, lessens the nervous, shaky and anxious symptoms that come with withdrawal. It also helps keep the blood sugar stable and lessens the severity of the headache that always accompanies caffeine withdrawal.

It further supports the nervous system by supporting the adrenals. It is a known adrenal adaptogen, making it a perfect food for the body during times of stress. As for the liver, schizandra can protect it from toxic substances in a similar manner to milk thistle, the most well-known liver protective supplement. It may be helpful in the recovery from hepatitis and acts as an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory to help protect the liver. One double-blind placebo study looked at 12 racehorses, all of similar age, weight, temperament and training and all with high liver enzymes and low performance issues. After fourteen days, the horses on schizandra had lower liver enzymes in comparison to the placebo. Fifty percent of the horses on schizandra also had improved appearance and performance. And while we are not race horses, we certainly often conduct our lives like we are. So some schizandra could really help us with our performance issues.

Digestively, it may be helpful for proper peristalsis (gastric muscle contractions), stress-induced gastric ulcers and regulating stomach acid. It can also help with diarrhea.

But for many of us, the number one benefit for schizandra may be the research that states it has anti-aging properties. This would include the fact that it has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory abilities, two important elements in preventing age-associated issues. Studies have also shown it may help with age-related memory loss, and act as a tonic for the heart. It can supply us with more energy, help with depression and help support the immune system.

And finally, for the vanity in all of us, schizandra may help our appearance by giving us a clearer complexion, improved skin elasticity and diminished the appearance of scars or wrinkles. Does it get any better than that?

What is the issue? Getting a good source of the product may be difficult. Nature’s Way has a great capsule that is available in the US only right now. St. Francis makes a good tincture. Organic Traditions has a dehydrated powder in a jar that is 6x concentrated. You can also find loose berries in health food or Asian stores. These can be ground in a coffee grinder and added to a smoothie or made into a tea.

If buying a supplement, watch out for standardized extracts. Although many science types might recommend this as the preferred version, a standardized extract is usually just one phytochemical found in a plant and does not represent all the chemicals found in the whole plant or in this case, the berry. There are 40 different phytochemical compounds in schizandra – there would have to be for it to do all the amazing things it is credited for. This is what we should be consuming – the whole berry – if we want to get the most from it.

References:

Hancke, J., et al. “Reduction of serum hepatic transaminases and CPK in sport horses with poor performance treated with a standardized Schisandra chinensis fruit extract.” Phytomedicine 1996, 3 (3):237–240.

Ip, S. P., et al. “Effect of a lignan-enriched extract of Schisandra chinensis on aflatoxin B1 and cadmium chloride-induced hepatotoxicity in rats.” Pharmacology and Toxicology 1996, 78 (6):413–416.

Ko, K. M., et al. “Effect of a lignan-enriched fructus Schisandra extract on hepatic glutathione status in rats: Protection against carbon tetrachloride toxicity.” Planta Medica 1995, 61 (2): 134–137.

Lu, H., and G. T. Liu. “Anti-oxidant activity of dibenzocyclooctene lignans isolated from Schisandraceae.”Planta Medica 1992, 58 (4):311–313.

Nishiyama, N., Y. L. Wang, and H. Saito. “Beneficial effects of S-113m, a novel herbal prescription, on learning impairment model in mice.” Biological Pharmaceutical Bulletin 1995, 18 (11):1498–1503. Song, W. Z., and P. G. Xiao. “Medicinal plants of Chinese Schisandraceae and their lignan components.” Chinese Traditional and Herbal Drugs 1982, 13 (1):40–48.

Have you been encouraged to stop eating carbohydrates? Do you think it will help you lose weight or worse, have you been convinced that carbohydrates, especially grains are bad for you? It is a shame that such misinformation circulates and so many people are confused about this important food group but it just shows that we need to apply some common sense before we remove foods groups from our diet.

But what if you have a digestion issue with grains, does that mean for sure, you should avoid them? No. Before you remove anything, try sourdough. What is sourdough? A traditional method of fermenting grains to make bread. It has many benefits and is much more digestible.

Fermenting grains creates prebiotic substances from the starches in the flour to aid gut health so sourdough is a great food for feeding the good bacteria. This is sourdough made with white flour as that is what they do the research with. The fermentation process also makes nutrients more available, as it does with all fermented foods. However, the process of sourdough also adds B-vitamins that were not there before the fermentation occurred.

This makes sense since sourdough is a combination of good bacteria and yeast, 100 times more good bacteria than yeast as it happens, but wild yeast strains are definitely present since this is what makes the bread rise to give it an amazing, light-texture. And yeast is a great source of B-vitamins.

The acid nature, the “sour” of sourdough, aids in pre-digestion of the protein molecules in the grain especially the gliadin in gluten, as protease enzymes prefer an acid pH for optimal function. As a matter of fact, researchers are studying sourdough for consumption by celiacs. The gluten must be completely degraded in order for a celiac to tolerate it, and this would make it quite sour tasting. Some experiments involved using fully-degraded sourdough mixed with fresh gluten-free grains added after fermentation to lessen the sour taste and these breads were also suitable for celiacs.

But probably the most amazing research comes from the University of Guelph. Researchers took four samples of bread: regular white flour bread, whole wheat bread, whole wheat with barley bread and white flour sourdough bread. The participants in this study were all between the ages of 50 to 60 and were all overweight. They were fed the breads at breakfast and then again at lunch.

After both meals, blood sugar and insulin levels were measured. The sourdough provided the lowest level of blood sugar and insulin, and surprisingly, continued to keep the blood and insulin levels low for the following meal where no bread was consumed. The whole wheat, on the other hand, provided the highest level of blood sugar after a meal, even higher than the regular white flour bread.

If you want to try sourdough, look for bakers in your area who are making traditional sourdough bread. This is a delicious adventure for you take. A quick google search of “sourdough” and the name of the city or town where you live could make it easier to find someone local.

And if you cannot find a source in your area, you can order it online and have it shipped to you.

When you do find a source, cut yourself a slice, drizzle it with some virgin olive oil or cultured butter. Enjoy!

References

Sourdough and cereal fermentation in a nutritional perspective, Kaisa Poutanen a,b,*, Laura Flander a, Kati Katina a, Food Microbiology 26 (2009) 693–699

Structural changes of gliadins during sourdough fermentation Gokcen Komen, Ayse Handan Baysal, Sebnem Harsa, Izmir Institute of Technology, Izmir, Turkey

http://www.uoguelph.ca/news/2008/07/sourdough_bread.html

Glycosidases and B group vitamins produced by six yeast strains from the digestive tract of Phoracantha semipunctata larvae and their role in the insect development, C. Chararas et al, Mycopathologia 1983, Volume 83, Issue 1, pp 9-15

Sourdough Bread Made from Wheat and Nontoxic Flours and Started with Selected Lactobacilli Is Tolerated in Celiac Sprue Patients, Raffaella Di Cagno1,†, et al, Appl. Environ. Microbiol. February 2004 vol. 70 no. 2 1088-1096

Becoming a Bodybuilding  Bikini competitor has been one of the most exciting and liberating experiences of my life. I became something I only dreamed I could become. I became physically strong as well as mentally strong. My confidence increased not just because of how I looked, but due to the trials of prepping. Prepping for a competition is more mentally challenging than physically challenging. It is about being 1000% committed to a goal, staying focused and not swaying from the task at hand. It impacts all aspects of your life in one way or another, and the strength comes from balancing all of it at the same time. I thrived on this. 

Prepping became something that I looked forward to doing. 

I first starting prepping for a show in March 2011. I had never prepped before. I was the type of person that hated “leftover food” and needed change daily in what I ate. Now here I am prepping food for a week, eat the same meals every day. I went from eating 2 meals and1 snack a day to eating 6-8 meals a day. My initial goal was to “look toned” and step on a stage a bodybuilding stage. If someone would have told me that year before I would have laughed.  

I really just wanted to “get toned” and look fit. I have always been a “skinny” girl, but never had the muscle definition that I thought would be nice to have. So, I gave it a go. I was 100% on board. Never cheated outside of my meal plan. I thoroughly enjoyed meal prepping and training day in and day out. 

When I prep, nothing gets in my way. I am 1000% committed and dedicated to that prep...I have goals to meet.  As the bikini division became a bit more defined, the prep process changed. The typical 12 week prep for most was no longer reasonable. Prep became 16-20-28 weeks long. Prepping in 2017 was the hardest and most challenging year yet. It wasn’t the workouts, it wasn’t the meal prepping. Something changed in my mind, where my passion became an obligation. I was obligated to myself to reach a goal that wasn’t promised. I put myself in a mental situation that I had never put myself in before and it fueled my drive, but drained my passion. 

At the end of my season in 2017 I knew I needed to take time off, physically yes but I needed it mentally more-so. During that year off, I had a bit more flexibility but still tracked my food daily and weighed myself a few times a week. Stuck to a 80/20 diet and never really did a complete reverse diet to the point where it should have been. 

Summer 2018 I started looking for a new coach. I interviewed a few and eventually made my decision. I started prepping at the end of summer 2018. My prep was for 5 months and was the easiest preps ever.  I didn’t do anywhere near as well as I hoped for so I decided to try for another show. I took a week off and started prep again. This prep was the complete opposite. My body stopped responding and with only 6 weeks until my next show, I didn’t have much time to reach my goal. This put a lot of stress on me mentally and I wanted to drop out of my show almost every single day. I initially wasn’t stressed out at all, at least not the way I am typically stressed out. The stress I put on myself was focused more towards how I wanted to place at that show. This negatively impacted how my body responded to my prep. Never in 8 years did my body ever respond this way. It was frustrating. 

Show day comes, and I get two, third places awards. I was thrilled with my placing but knew mentally I needed a break. Now, three months later, I have this completely different outlook on prepping and tracking my food and my “status”, “progress” what-have-you. At this point in my life I knew that I needed to completely step away from what I have known for the past 9 years….the slavery to structure….to prepping….to the scale (both food scale and weight scale...the Sunday-Meal-Prep routine). I needed to allow myself some normalcy away from that. 

9 years ago, when I made the decision to start competing I was 100% in, nothing was going to stop me from my goal of stepping on stage. I went 9 months without a single cheat, no re-feeds, too much cardio and a whole lot of dedication. After my first year I chose to find a more suitable coach. My drive and desire to compete increased each year as a competitor and I craved that “Pro” status. 

After years of hard work, I finally achieved and exceeded that goal. Each year, I would strive to continue to improve my physique and shape it into something I never believed was possible for me. But I did it. With that, came prep after prep, and show after show. This was my life. I loved and lived every moment of prep and competing. It was my passion. Prepping for a show was never difficult for me. Following a strict meal plan day after day and month after month was not a struggle. Nothing about prepping was hard for me, other than finding the energy to go to the gym after working all day, but I still did it. 

But by the 7th year of being a competitor, something changed. My passion for competing changed and my heart was not where it should have been nor did it align with my goals any longer. I took a year off because out of 7 years, I had never taken more than 5 months off. I knew that I needed to refresh my mind, and step away for a while. Find that passion again. 

With my last show I went from enjoying prep to struggling with it. I didn’t stop or give up. I made it and in the end turned out to be a very successful competition. I went into that show thinking, this is my last show. But after doing so well, and having other competitors tell me “don’t stop” I decided “okay, one more”. 

Nine days into the 3rd prep (May 2019), I sat on my couch and told my husband “I’m done”. I hate prep, I hate every moment of everyday and my fire is gone. I felt the weight of the world lifted from me. It wasn’t my coach, it wasn’t the sport, it wasn’t anything but the fact that I felt like a slave to being in prep. It hit me, after all these years, that I was tired of being deprived. Tired of saying “I can’t miss the gym”. Although I still participated in family functions and events, took my food with me, all of that, I still felt left out. I would not have admitted it at the time nor did I believe that at the time but looking back I felt that inside. I began to feel like my friends and family and God were second choice. I let that absorb into my mind and I hated that feeling. I never want my family, friends or God to be second. We as athletes can say “oh family and God come first” but in reality they aren’t. When everything we do, every part of our day revolves around “prep” we in turn are true slaves to prep. I don’t want that, ever. 

So for now, I am done competing. Will it be forever, possibly. Maybe, it will be for a year and then I will gradually move back into it, but it will never ever be the same. My first prep with my newest coach, was the first time ever felt “normal” in prep. I didn’t even feel like I was in prep. That is the only way I will ever do it again. If not, then I am done for good. 

I am not sharing this with all of you to tell you that you are a slave. You have to determine what you want out of life. This is how I felt, 8 ½ years into being a competitor. I will still be a coach, I will still be an advocate for health and fitness. But for competing, the shoes and bikini are hung up.  

I don’t regret anything. 

I would do it all over again if I had to. 

I wish some paths could have crossed sooner than later as that may have impacted the end result of this journey of mine. But it is what it is and it all happened for a reason. 

I use those experiences to build my coaching practice and share with my clients and build a program based on these experiences so that my clients can have a positive and exciting journey.

My passion for competing has ended, at least for now. But my passion for something new has begun and I am excited to go down that new path and face a new challenging journey. 

We all want to be able to enjoy the holidays without feeling like we have to restrict ourselves from our favorite holiday foods. Well, you can still enjoy a delicious meal without all the unnecessary calories. Here is a breakdown of the average holiday meal (notice I said meal, and not meals meaning 2nd or 3rd plates). 

Average Holiday Meal is 3000 calories. Cutting out some options can reduce it to…..

Dark Turkey – 1 cup 309
Mashed Potatoes – 1 cup 280
Green Bean Casserole ¾ cup 165
Gravy ½ cup 150
Roll with butter 155
8 ounce Eggnog 343
Pecan Pie – 1 slice 520
Total 1922 calories

Alternative /Healthy Options - Total 771 calories

White meat Turkey – 1 cup 97
Unsweetened yam – 1 cup 170
Green Beans - 1 cup 34
Whole Grain Roll without butter 100
Wine 1 cup 120
Pumpkin Pie – 1 slice 250
Saving 1151 Calories

TIPS

Be sure to stay on your current meal plan all week, even the day of the holiday. Do not starve yourself and then pig out at dinner. Skipping meals will cause your body to go into starvation mode and when you eat it will hold on to everything, and you will gain weight.
Be wise is your Thanksgiving meal choices.

Yams, Brussels sprouts, other veggies are great (if not too buttery or sugary) fill up on these FIRST.
Turkey is full of protein, so if you want, have this w each of your meals throughout the day, just stick to 3-4 ounces per meal.

Mashed potatoes or casseroles avoid these if you can or just have a very small portion. These are usually packed with calories. I will still enjoy my potatoes I will just mash them plain with a little sea salt and pepper and chives. 

Cranberry sauce is fine if homemade, but can still have natural sugars. I honestly would rather save the calories for something else. 

Rolls, 1 (whole grain if possible) just pass on the butter (again, I would rather save the calories for something else)

Dessert, weeelllll I don't want you to feel deprived from your holiday. So if you must, just have a small serving. If you are really serious about getting in shape you will just avoid dessert all together, as this will only restart the “cravings” and that is no fun.

Since I am on prep during the holidays this year, I will be replacing my favorite pie with oatcake and gingerbread protein frosting. Sounds delicious and believe me it is. Its not really a cake, but I like to pretend like it is. I simply make my oats (for me my serving size is 40g), I add about 3/4 cup boiling water and let it sit till cool. I put in fridge overnight and it firms up, like a cool cake. I then take 1 scoop of my Optimum Nutrition Gingerbread protein and just enough water (approx 2 tbsp) to make into a paste like consistency. This will serve as my frosting. I poor on top and there you go. Gingerbread oatcake. 

Drink lots of water before you sit down to eat. This will help overeat. Taking a digestive enzyme is also recommended as you will more than likely be eating more than your typical plate of food and your stomach may not be ready for this. The digestive enzyme will help break food down for the body to process. My favorite DE is by MRM. You can find this on Amazon.

Temptations are going to be endless. Food is an emotional trigger  in many aspects of our life and can certainly spark off a release of hormones. Set a limit for yourself as to what you will or will not eat.  When temptations arise, do indulge but remember to divert it to something else after a bite or two. Also, eat smaller portions of your favorite food.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING AND MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!