Is Your Sunscreen Safe?

Summer is on its way and with it, the need to use sunscreen when outdoors for a prolonged period of time. Did you know that sunscreens can have some pretty harmful ingredients? Sunscreens depend on chemicals to provide protection from the sun and can do more harm than good. It is important to choose the right sunscreens to protect yourself and your family from potentially harmful ingredients that can affect hormones, cause cancer and even affect lung health.

We already know that our skin is our largest organ, and we absorb nutrients and chemicals through the skin into our bloodstream with the products we use, whether it is personal care products or cleaning products. So choosing the right sunscreen can either support your health or can cause health problems.

First of all, avoid sunscreens with the ingredients homosalate, avobenzone and oxybenzone. These three ingredients are used as ultraviolet light filters and affect your endocrine system, which are your adrenals, thyroid, and reproductive system. These types of ingredients can make you gain weight, feel like you are tired all the time and affect your ability to reproduce.

Another ingredient to avoid is retinyl palmitate, which is a synthetic form of Vitamin A. This ingredient, when exposed to the sun, can speed up the development of skin lesions and tumors. (“The Dangers of Sunscreen—and Better Sun Protection Options”)

Here are some tips to follow for sunscreen:

1. First of all, throw away old sunscreen. Research shows that the concentration of carcinogens and harmful chemicals go up as the sunscreen ages.

2. It is best to avoid the types of sunscreen that are in spray form. Use sunscreens in a lotion or stick form. You are able to cover exposed skin better when you spread the lotion with your hand and control the amount of sunscreen used so that you have a good barrier of protection.

3. Build up your exposure to the sun gradually. Start with five minutes a day and build up, adding five minutes every day.

4. Avoid sunlight during the strongest hours: 10 am until around 3pm.

5. Eat beta-carotine rich foods (orange colored veggies like carrots, summer squash, pumpkin, red peppers) which convert into Vitamin A and provide a natural sunscreen. Be sure to eat these veggies with real butter or eggs with the yolk, which helps your body absorb and convert the veggies into Vitamin A better.

6. Use EWG.ORG approved sunscreens like Banana Boat Ultra Sport Sunscreen Stick SPF 50, Alba Botanica Hawaiian Sunscreen Lotion SPF 15, and All Good brand sunscreen (this brand is rated safest on EWG.ORG and can be purchased on amazon.

You can research for yourself the best sunscreens to use on EWG.ORG. They have done extensive research on hundreds of products and have great recommendations. Please note that just because one brand has a sunscreen that has a good rating, it doesn’t mean that all their products are rated well. Most products (except for the All Good brand) have only one or two “clean” rated sunscreens.

Have a great summer and try to avoid sunburns!

“The Dangers of Sunscreen—and Better Sun Protection Options.” The Weston A. Price Foundation, http://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/the-dangers-of-sunscreen-and-better-sun-protection-options/#gsc.tab=0 . Accessed 22 May 2023.

Eat the Butter!

A nutrient dense, whole foods diet should consist of protein, fat and carbs, in their most natural state and with very little to zero processing. Yes, fat is an essential nutrient needed for many body processes!

Fat, however, is one of the macro-nutrients that has been vilified over the years. We had the 1990's "fat-free" phase, which has pushed many of us towards disease and diabetes. We've also been told not to eat whole eggs, butter and full-fat dairy.

The truth is that fatty acids are an essential part of a nutrient dense diet. They allow us to absorb certain minerals and fat-soluble vitamins like A, D, E, and K. Not only are fats needed to absorb vitamins and minerals; they help to build our cells from the ground up.

Here are some other important roles that fats play in the body:

• excellent source of energy that acts like a slow burning log on a fire

• building blocks for cell membranes and hormones

• creates a protective barrier around organs

• allows proteins to be used properly

• slows the absorption rate of food

• keeps blood sugar steady between meals and overnight

• increases satiety

• makes food taste delicious

If you are eating a low fat diet, you probably never feel full or satisfied.

Eliminating fat from our diet is not good for us, either. When we try to eliminate fat from our diet, our gallbladder and liver down regulate the production of bile and can get stagnant. This makes it difficult to digest fats when they are eaten.

*IT IS AS IMPORTANT TO REMOVE THE UNHEALTHY FATS AS IT IS TO EAT THE RIGHT FATS!*

I am sure you have seen the advertisements that push "heart-healthy" fats such as canola, corn, and vegetable oils. This could not be further from the truth. The reality is that these oils are incredibly processed and cause inflammation in the body. These oils are processed with chemical solvents and high heat and have been deodorized to remove their rancid smells. These types of oils should be tossed in the trash and replaced with healthier oils.

Remove these oils from your diet:

• canola

• vegetable

• corn

• crisco

• margarine or fake butters

• soy bean oil

• cottonseed oil

• artificial trans fats

• hydrogenated fats

Add these fats to your diet:

• butter

• ghee

• lard/tallow

• olive oil

• avocado oil

• flax seed oil

• walnut oil

• fish oil

• wheat germ oil

• coconut oil

• raw dairy

• eggs

Eating a variety of fats is best for optimal health. We needs fats for many process such as making our cells and hormones to creating inflammation and anti-inflammation in order to heal properly. When we eat inflammatory fats, it impedes our ability to absorb and digest healthy fats. It is crucial for optimal health to remove the inflammatory fats and incorporate the healthy ones.

If you have been eating a low-fat diet and want to start incorporating more into your diet, I'd recommend starting slowly to allow your body time to adjust. Your liver and gallbladder will probably need support. If you have questions or need help with your digestive system, I can help you.

Public Health Organizations Demonize Nutrient Dense Foods

Public health organizations have told us for years to prioritize eating grains and to use industrial seed oils instead of eating nutrient dense, whole foods. Prioritizing refined carbohydrates over healthy protein and fat has led us to a generation of obese and ill people. Even children are being diagnosed with diabetes type 2 at younger and younger ages.

This study by Beal and Ortenzi shows us that eating a nutrient diet leads to optimal health. This study was done in order to identify the most nutrient dense foods for children. "We found that the top food sources of multiple priority micronutrients are organs, bivalves, crustaceans, fresh fish, goat, canned fish with bones, and eggs, closely followed by beef, lamb/mutton, dark green leafy vegetables, cow milk, yogurt, and cheese, and to a lesser extent, canned fish without bones." T;, Ortenzi F;Beal. “Priority Micronutrient Density of Foods for Complementary Feeding of Young Children (6-23 Months) in South and Southeast Asia.” Frontiers in Nutrition, U.S. National Library of Medicine, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34993221/.

A nutrient diet should include foods such as:

full fat dairy

variety of animal proteins, including red meat

eating the animal nose to tail (including organ meats)

all the colors of vegetables

cooking with olive oil, butter, lard, ghee, avocado oil, or coconut oil

eggs (the whole egg)

a variety of seafood

fermented foods

Of course, each person should take into consideration their specific digestive concerns and if they have any food allergies. This also calls into question why so many people have food allergies. Could it be because we have been avoiding these real whole foods for such a long time? And can they heal from these allergies? This question is for another time and day.

Eating the way our ancestors ate, in the days before heart disease was rampant and diabetes was not a common disease, should be what our diets are based on. Get rid of your "heart healthy" oils like canola, corn, vegetable and crisco!

Start eating a variety of vegetable, seafood and animal proteins. Start cooking your foods in olive oil, butter, ghee, lard, avocado oil or coconut oil and start seeing a difference in your health!

Red Meat is Healthy!

As a NTP, I recommend that my clients eat a whole food, nutrient dense diet. This includes eating all types of animal proteins, including red meat. Yes, red meat is healthy!

Recently, there was a study done by the University of Washington that basically evaluated studies that had been done in the past that suggested red meat causes health problems.

The study shows that was "weak evidence" to support that eating UNPROCESSED red meat causes colorectal cancer, diabetes type 2, breast cancer or heart disease. They also found no evidence to support that eating unprocessed red meat causes ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke.

Note they only mention UNPROCESSED red meat. This is basically red meat in its most natural form. It is when it is processed with chemicals, preservatives and additives that it becomes toxic.

It is important the type of red meat that you consume. Of course, the best type of meat to consume is wild game or grass-fed and grass-finished meat.

Red meat is part of a whole food, nutrient dense diet that provides protein for our bodies, which is an essential building block for basically everything in our bodies from cells and nerves to tissues and organs. Healthy proteins like red meat also provide essential amino acids that we need in order to function properly.

In closing, remember to eat a variety of animal proteins, not just red meat. When we eat all the colors of vegetables, fruits, and eat a variety of protein, we will have a much broader range of nutrients to support our healthy bodies.

“Health Effects Associated with Consumption of Unprocessed Red Meat: A Burden of Proof Study.” Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, 11 Oct. 2022, https://www.healthdata.org/research-article/health-effects-associated-consumption-unprocessed-red-meat-burden-proof-study.

Tips to Keep Your Immune System Healthy

Cold and flu season is here and I've got some great tips for you to stay healthy through it all.

I wanted to share with you specific nutrients that will support a healthy immune system. Remember, a healthy digestive system will support a healthy immune system. I've also included some tips that will support your immune system and tips to help you if you do come down with a cold or flu virus.

Three big factors to remember when supporting your immune system is to get adequate sleep, reduce stress and eat a whole foods, nutrient dense diet!

First of all, our gut lining has 80% of our immune system, so if your gut is not in good working order, you should work on repairing the integrity of your gut. Here are some signs to look for if your gut is not healthy:

1. Undigested food in the stool

2. You do not digest fats well.

3. You are bloated after eating.

4. You are never hungry in the morning.

5. You get heartburn regularly.

6. You do not have a bowel movement at least once per day.

7. You struggle with diarrhea after eating sometimes.

8. Lots of burping and gas after eating.

You may want to consider working with a Nutritional Therapy Practitioner to get your digestion working properly if you are seeing any of these symptoms.

The following is a list of nutrients that will support a healthy immune system:

A, B6 and B12, C, Copper*, D, E, Folate, K1, Iron*, Phosphorus, Polyphenals, Thiamine, Selenium, Zinc, Prebiotic foods, and Probiotic foods.

*Note: I recommend getting your iron and copper nutrients from food sources.

Here are some other simple tips you can do to support a healthy immune system:

1. Take Vitamin C

2. Up your intake of anti-oxidant rich foods such as dark berries, green tea, black tea, citrus fruits, cloves and prunes.

3. Wash your hands frequently

4. Take a daily probiotic

5. Stay hydrated - with electrolytes

6. Reduce stress

If the cold and flu virus happens to get past your immune system, here are some tips to help your body fight if off!

1. Take a high dose vitamin C - your body will excrete any vitamin c that it doesn't use. Be aware, once your body reaches the limit of the vitamin c that it can absorb, you may experience loose stools. 500-1000 mg twice a day.

2. Eat a home-made chicken bone broth soup with fresh thyme

3. Stay hydrated with electrolytes

4. Drink fresh lemon/orange juice tincture.

5. Get adequate sleep at night

You make make a tea out of this tincture or drink a tablespoon of this a couple times a day.

Vitamin C Tincture

1/2 of a fresh squeezed lemon

1 whole fresh squeezed orange

1/2" piece of fresh ginger, crushed or diced

1 teaspoon raw honey

Mix well and drink up! I don't eat the ginger because it is spicy, but I let it steep in the tincture and in the tea water.

If you'd like a link to some pharmaceutical-grade nutrition, you can follow this link to my Fullscript dispensary.

https://us.fullscript.com/protocols/awhitlock-immune-system-booster

There will be a Black Friday Cyber Monday promotion coming up on the 25th, so you can stock up on your favorites! Be sure to create a client account so that you can be notified when the sale starts.

How to Navigate the Christmas Season

We've made it through Thanksgiving and now we are headed into December and the Christmas Holiday!

Sugar is everywhere - cookies, pies, cakes, delicious Christmas candies, fudge and you name it!

How do we navigate this season while trying to keep our insulin levels from spiking too much and gaining weight?!

Here are some tips to keep in mind:

1. When you eat your meals, keep them balanced with a healthy protein, fat and carb. I prefer to get most of my carbs through vegetables (yay, fiber!). This will help give you sustained energy and will help keep you full so you don't fall prey to snacking on the sweet stuff.

2. Choose when to indulge. Having a sweet isn't bad! We just need to work on the timing and amount. The best time to enjoy a sweet is AFTER you have eaten a meal, so your stomach/digestive tract already has food in it, so it will buffer the sugar when it hit's your stomach. When we eat sweets on an empty stomach, we will have a huge insulin spike vs. a much smaller one, when we've already eaten a meal.

3. Go for a walk or exercise for 20 minutes after eating a sweet. If we immediately put our muscles to use in order to use that glucose spike, our bodies won't have to worry about storing the glucose.

4. Starving yourself or "saving up calories" usually backfires on us and we overindulge. Be sure to eat a balanced breakfast, lunch and dinner. When we aren't starving we tend to make healthier choices and are less likely to overindulge.

5. If you overindulge, don't beat yourself up over it! Just get back on track with your next meal!

6. When you eat your meals or indulge in a sweet, take your time to enjoy it! Sit down and smell your food. Have gratitude for the hands that prepared it. Look at how delicious it looks, and be sure to chew your food thoroughly to support your digestive process.

7. Stay hydrated - sometimes we are really just need some water when we feel like we need a snack! Drink 1/2 your body weight in ounces of water and be sure to add electrolytes! This can be as easy as adding sea/mineral salt to your water.

When we add these easy tips to our Christmas season, we can have a plan so we can strategize and enjoy the season and the sweets. Your body will thank you later!

Detox Vs. Drainage

In my last blog, I discussed detoxing and how our toxin buckets (toxin load) can sometimes be overflowing, which can lead to stagnation and disease.

Our drainage pathways need to stay open so that our bodies can eliminate the toxins when we are exposed.

Let's first discuss what is detox vs. drainage?

When we detox, it is when our bodies are able to grab onto the toxin and pull it out of the body.

Drainage are the pathways the toxins take to get eliminated from the body.

This is the body's way of removing waste, toxins, pathogens, bacteria etc. through the different "drain pipes".

Picture a house being built and all the pipes that are connected to the sinks, toilets, showers, and washing machines. Each of those pipes take dirty water down the pipes, through the house and out into a sewer system. If one of them gets clogged up, all the dirt and yuck gets backed up into the pipe until it comes out in the sink, toilet, etc. You get the picture.

Our bodies are the same way. We have drainage pathways that take out the toxins in the same way. When one of those drainage pathways gets clogged up, our bodies can get backed up and stagnant and then will reabsorb the toxins.

Our drainage pathways are:

bowel movements

liver and bile ducts

lymph system

brain drainage system (drains to the lymph system nightly)

kidneys (urine)

skin (sweating)

Before we can focus on detoxing and pulling out the toxins, we must focus on opening all the drainage pathways.

If the drainage pathways are not open, when you start to pull out toxins, you will struggle with symptoms like fatigue, brain fog, body aches, headaches, feeling irritable, etc. We call these a "Herxhemier reaction".

How do you open these drainage pathways?

Stay tuned as I go over each drainage pathway and how to support it.

Detox - What does that really mean?

Detox. We've all heard about different detox methods, diets, and supplements. But what does it really mean and should I really try to detox?

Detoxing is vital to the body. Your body has built in drainage pathways that allow detoxing. But they can get clogged up and allow toxins to be reabsorbed into the body, and when that happens, the body cannot fully heal and repair itself and we start to see disease.

Toxins are everywhere. We have internal toxins that need to be flushed out like:

stress hormones

bacteria

fungus

parasites

undigested food

cellular and metabolic waste

And we have external toxins that bombard our bodies daily like:

air and water pollution

chemicals

cleaning products

air fresheners

prescription drugs

OTC drugs

perfumes

heavy metals

pesticides and more!

It can be overwhelming!

Toxins are basically anything that irritates or is harmful to the body. Even something that is considered "healthy" can become a toxin if it is too much! For example, drinking too much water can be harmful to your health.

Each person has their own toxin bucket. Every time you are exposed to a toxin, your bucket level rises. Your body can only release so much through sweat, urine, mucous, and bowel movements. When your bucket starts to overflow, that is when disease starts to set in.

So how do you keep your drainage pathways open so that your toxin bucket doesn't overflow?

Stay tuned as I discuss drainage pathways and detoxing.

Summer Zucchini and Squash Recipes

Summer Squash and Zucchini Recipes

It’s the time of the summer when all the squash, zucchini, cucumbers and tomatoes are coming in! If you are like me, I’ve got so many of these veggies that I’m trying to find ways to use them.


I didn’t want to make zucchini bread with all the sugar, so I’ve been looking for savory ways to use these veggies instead. I’ve found a couple good ones and wanted to share them with you!

Zucchini and summer squash are great vegetables to eat when you are trying to keep you insulin levels from spiking. They are considered a low-carb vegetable and have some fiber in them as well. Both squashes have great nutritional benefits including potassium, folate, vitamin A and anti-oxidants.

Both zucchini and summer squash have a high water content and when cooked are easily digested, which can be helpful if you have digestion issues.

Summer Squash Casserole

1 medium onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 cube real butter

salt and pepper to taste

1/2 cup grated parmesan

1 large squash, diced

1 cup grated raw cheddar cheese (white)

Chop up all the veggies. Place butter in a pan heated to medium high heat. When melted, add in the onion and garlic to saute until translucent. Add in the diced squash and cook until soft, about 10-15 minutes. Remove from heat. Add both cheeses and gently mix in. Transfer contents to a baking pan and bake in the oven at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes or until bubbly. Remove from oven and let it set for about 10 minutes. Serve. Serves between 6-8. You can use either zucchini or squash or a mixture of both for this recipe.

Zucchini Boats

1 pound Italian sausage, nitrate-free

1 medium onion, diced

2 garlic cloves, minced

1/2 cup parmesan, grated

1 cup fresh mozzarella

4 cups or more of home-made marinara sauce (or you can use jarred marinara)

Fresh parsley, diced

3-4 small to medium sized zucchinis, cut in half lengthwise and scooped out.

Olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Take your zucchinis and slice them in half lengthwise and scoop out the flesh in the middle to make room for the sausage stuffing. Dice up the scooped out flesh and save it. Heat a frying pan up to medium heat, add olive oil. Add diced onion, garlic and saute until starting to get translucent. Add italian sausages and cook until completely done (you may have to break up with a spoon as you cook it to be sure there are no large chunks). Add diced zucchini that you scooped out of the boats. Cook for about 10 minutes. Remove from heat and add grated parmesan. Place the zucchini boats in a large baking pan, fill the middles with the sausage mixture. Top with grated fresh mozzarella and spoon the marinara sauce on the top. Bake for about 30-40 minutes, covered, at 350 degrees. Top with fresh parsley and serve.

How Can a Nutritional Therapy Practitioner Help Me?

When I am out and about, often I get asked what I do. When I tell people that I am a Nutritional Therapy Practitioner, most people ask for an explanation. I hope this will help answer questions you may have about what an NTP does!

As an NTP, we use a bio-individual approach to each person. We build a specific protocol for each person, to balance their body chemistry and help them achieve optimal wellness.

We support the body’s innate ability to heal by using nutrient-dense food, anatomy and physiology, lifestyle choices, culinary wellness, client coaching and look at how social and personal components influence health.

We can help people that struggle with a myriad of issues!

Do you have health issues that are plaguing you?

Maybe you want to reduce the amount of medication that you take?

Are you going through menopause and want to reduce your hot-flashes and other symptoms?

Do you have digestive issues that are inconvenient at times?

Do you have an anti-immune disease that you’d like to tackle with a holistic approach?

There are many things that we can do to address nutrient deficiencies in the body!

One of the tools we use (that I just love) is called the Nutritional Assessment Questionnaire (NAQ) which is a standardized questionnaire that enables us to analyze a client's symptoms to identify their nutritional needs and prioritize what areas of the body to support. This questionaire has over 300 questions and is designed to allow us to know what to focus on first in your health journey.

If this sounds interesting to you and you’d like to find out how I can help you, please join my email list and request the link for a discovery call. During the discovery call we can chat to see what your health issues are and if I’d be a good fit to help you.