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A Book I’ve Fallen in Love With: Fast Metabolism Foods! (+ A Giveaway!)

March 16, 2016

Yo! So I’ve had a lot going on with my health lately, and I haven’t exactly told you guys a whole lot about it yet. I’ve been working with a phenomenal functional medicine doctor in Santa Monica, Dr. Lekkos, and we have finally targeted where my health problems are coming from. I plan to write about my experience with him in a lot of detail very soon, but to give you a little sneak peek… Most of my issues are coming from hormone imbalances.

Yes, hormone imbalances. Of all things. Something you’d think my body would regulate normally by just being a living, thriving, healthy, active, multifaceted human being. But I unfortunately threw my hormones way out of whack with my disordered eating past, so now I am working to get them back to a balanced state. Lovely, right?

Ever since I figured out what it was that was causing me so much G.I. stress, bloating and overall discomfort / dissatisfaction with my current health — I have made it my mission to research and learn as much as I can about hormones, gut health, metabolism, mind-body connection, how food affects our mood + stress levels, and the science of the woman’s body.

If nothing else my research empowers me to make healthy choices and listen to my body in the best way I know how. Of course it’s all give and take and all of our bodies are DIFFERENT (the main thing I learned from my own eating disorder and health journey), which is why knowing the deets is more important than ever. The more you know, the more you can fine-tune the way you listen to your own body, and in turn the way you treat your own body. And the MAIIINNN reason why I blog is so that I can help & inspire you guys to do the same. 🙂

So, what’s the book?!

SPOILERS, we are hosting a GIVEAWAY (!!!) so stay tuned for entry details at the end of this post! Thanks so much to Harmony Books for partnering with me to host this giveaway for you guys!

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One book I’ve found about hormone regulation and using food as medicine that I have LOVED and powered through reading is Fast Metabolism Food Rx by Nutritionist Haylie Pomroy. It is SUPER AWESOME because it is full of info that empowers us to know what is going on in our bodies, and she doesn’t try to make the book a “one size fits all” approach by acting like her tips are going to work for every singe person.

Instead, there is a self-assessment questionnaire (on page 44, for anyone following along!), that help give you the tools to say, “I hear you and I am ready to figure out your metabolic needs.” YOURS. Not anyone else’s. Your health is your own, my loves, and Haylie’s book will give you so many fab tools & tips to bring yourself back to the healthiest state that you deserve to be in.

Haylie has integrative health care clinics all over LA & Colorado, and she is a highly regarded nutritionist in Hollywood & the medical community. I am so lucky to have stumbled upon her book, and even luckier to have partnered with her to share some of my biggest takeaways from her writing.

BTW, this stuff isn’t just beneficial for people who have suffered from eating disorders. Absolutely everyone could benefit from knowing more about how nutrition can feed our bodies back to health. This book targets anyone who wants to know more about G.I. stress, fatigue, hormones, mood, cholesterol, diabetes, autoimmunity and all around feeling as good as they possibly can.

Or, as Haylie would say, “If you are a dynamic human being living in a biodiverse world, having multiple positive and not-so-positive health experiences, you probably need information on more than one of these issues — so I wrote this book for you.”

I hope that’s you. 😉

The book teaches us how to use FOOD as metabolic medicine (#YES), gives 7 powerful prescriptions to feed our body back to health, gives self-discover zones to help determine what your body is telling you (super helpful for someone like me), has delish recipes and a list of power foods designed to repair your system, helpful tips on how to go about assembling your “dream team” of professionals, and so much more.

Mint Chip Merengues from Haylie’s site… YUM!

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How this relates to my journey….

When I was suffering from orthorexia, I wasn’t able to listen to my body at all in order to help myself thrive. I didn’t even allow myself to feel hunger cues and I forgot all about what it was like to feel legitimately satiated. I disconnected myself from all of that so, so much that I actually felt 100% at a loss for how to eat like a normal human once I started eating regular foods again.

The book teaches us how to use FOOD as metabolic medicine (#YES), and that is exactly what I needed to find my optimal state of health again. When I first started recovering, I didn’t even know that what I was dealing with were serious hormonal imbalances and a metabolism that didn’t know how to function anymore.

Our bodies fully communicate their needs to us, and they give us all sorts of clues about how we can learn to listen to them. For those of us who have struggled with disordered eating or even just extreme personality traits, we need to work a little harder to develop and maintain that mind-body connection. And there is nothing wrong with that! It’s actually a pretty awesome excuse for self-reflection and to draw inward to learn what our bodies need from us in order for us to feel our absolute best.

If any of these sentiments sound familiar to you… “I don’t need breakfast, I’m too busy for that!” “I know I just ran five miles but who needs protein after that? I don’t even feel hungry” “I’m skipping dinner tonight because I want my clothes to fit looser tomorrow” “Time to go on a juice cleanse so I can feel better once and for all!” etc, etc then you are in my boat too. Those are all short-term thoughts & excuses for us extremists, and we need to focus on staying healthy in the long term.

The cool thing about long term health is that our day to day healthy choices build up over time to create an overall lifestyle of wellness that makes us FEEL SO GOOD. I used to be so up and down with my mood, my weight (even if it was by just a couple of pounds) and the way that I felt before/after eating because I deprived myself so much that my blood sugar and metabolism were both wildly unstable. When I first started eating a wider variety of foods again post-veganism, my body wasn’t quite sure what to do with all of it — and my blood sugar stayed pretty out of control and up and down as a result.

Now, relearning how to treat my body best has been the coolest thing. I know you guys have heard me say that my favorite part about recovery has been the journey of self-reflection and how much I have learned about myself on every level (not just health-wise) — and reading books like Fast Metabolism Food Rx enable me to do that.

Delish Chicken Burger from Haylie’s site. I need this in my life.

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My biggest takeaways from the book:

Well. One reason I was so into the book is because Haylie sets us up from the beginning with a very personal account about why helping people find their health means so much to her. She has dealt with multiple health challenges and life threatening diseases that forced her to draw inward and try to heal herself through food. And thanks to food, she has found a happy, healthy abundant life. I think that is so awesome. Food can be our medicine, if only we open ourselves up to the knowledge and help it has to give us.

I learned so much about my own hormone imbalances and the supplements that I am taking to get myself back into balance — specifically about supporting pregnenolone production (a precursor to all other hormones), stimulating pathways that metabolize stored fat in the body, the power foods we can use to restore each hormone imbalance, tests you can do to figure out what exactly is wrong,and simply letting go of stress in order to improve our health significantly overall.

I love the 7 powerful prescriptions she gives to feed our bodies back to health, and her handy dandy lists for top foods for hormone repair, cholesterol metabolism repair, mood and cognition repair, blood sugar repair & immune repair. She also gives yummy recipes for people who will be incorporating new foods / meals into their routine!

Giveaway Tiiiime!

I really, really want to share Haylie‘s book with all of you. Anyone who wants the tools to learn more about repairing their hormones & metabolism to find their healthiest self will greatly benefit from reading it. I would love to hear some details in the comments below about why you think you’d benefit from reading this book (bonus points for sharing snippets of your own health story with me! This is a safe place & it might feel good to pour it out from the heart.)

I will be choosing one winner by this Sunday night, so take your time & comment away!

Huddy loves it too! 😉

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Regardless, check out Haylie’s website & her book if you just can’t wait to read it! Time to empower ourselves to feel as good as we possibly can. 🙂 Let me know your thoughts!!! Xo