The Foundation of Women's Wellness: Why a Nutrient-Dense Diet Matters
As a nutritional therapy practitioner who's navigated my own health journey, I've seen firsthand how the foods we choose can transform our wellbeing. Nutrient density isn't just another nutrition buzzword—it's the cornerstone of how I help women reclaim their energy, balance their hormones, and feel like themselves again.
What Does "Nutrient Dense" Actually Mean?
When we talk about nutrient density, we're looking at the vitamin and mineral content relative to calories. But this doesn't mean we should only drink herbal tea and call it a day! Our bodies need energy from calories along with a diverse range of nutrients to function optimally.
As busy women—especially mothers juggling careers, relationships, and little ones—we need both the building blocks and the energy to sustain our busy lives.
Why Your Body is Craving These Nutrients
If you're experiencing painful periods, brain fog, low energy, digestive issues, or food sensitivities, your body is telling you something. These symptoms aren't just inconveniences to push through—they're signals that your cells need better nourishment.
As I tell my clients, "We are only as healthy as our cells are, and our cells are only as healthy as what they are made of, which comes directly from the food we eat." (and how well our digestive system is functioning so that we can absorb these nutrients)
Your body requires:
- Essential amino acids from quality proteins
- Essential fatty acids that support hormones and reduce inflammation
- Vitamins and minerals that power countless bodily processes
- Adequate hydration for cellular function
When these foundations are lacking, that's when those frustrating symptoms begin to appear.
Beyond Quick Fixes: How Nutrient Density Supports Women's Health
Many of my clients have tried various diets and quick fixes before coming to me. What they discover is that addressing nutrient density creates benefits that go far beyond temporary relief:
Balanced Hormones
A nutrient-dense diet provides the essential building blocks for hormone production. This is particularly important if you're dealing with painful periods, considering coming off birth control, or navigating perimenopause.
Improved Energy & Mood
The combination of quality proteins, fats, and complex carbohydrates helps stabilize blood sugar—no more afternoon crashes that leave you reaching for caffeine or sugar. Many clients notice their energy becomes more consistent throughout the day and their mood more stable.
Better Digestion
Traditional preparation methods like soaking, sprouting, and fermenting foods can reduce compounds that interfere with digestion and make nutrients more bioavailable. This is especially helpful if you're dealing with digestive complaints or food sensitivities.
Sustainable Satiety
One thing my clients love about focusing on nutrient density is how satisfying meals become. The protein, fiber, and healthy fats in whole foods trigger different satiety mechanisms, helping you feel genuinely nourished rather than constantly snacking.
Small Changes, Meaningful Impact
"Since working with Krysta I have noticed a lot of positive changes in my body. The small changes she has recommended have been life changing and very easy to add into my everyday life." - JM
This client testimonial reflects what I see consistently in my practice. It's not about overhauling your entire kitchen overnight or following an extreme regimen—it's about foundational shifts that respect your busy life while supporting your body's needs.
Where to Begin: A Practical Approach
As a mom of two young boys, I understand the real-world challenges of implementing dietary changes. Here's how I recommend getting started with nutrient density:
1. Focus on Adding, Not Restricting
Instead of eliminating foods, begin by adding nutrient-dense options to each meal. Perhaps it's adding a side of sautéed leafy greens to breakfast or incorporating bone broth into your cooking (rice, soups, and pasta can all be cooked with bone broth).
Recipe recommendation: Bone Broth Rice
2. Embrace Food Quality Where Possible
When budget allows, prioritize quality protein sources like pasture-raised eggs or grass-fed meat, which offer higher nutrient profiles. Remember that conventionally raised animal products still provide valuable nutrition compared to processed foods.
Buying pasture-raised eggs at Natural Grocers/Vitamin Cottage is the cheapest place I’ve found eggs. Also check your local area for local farms/farmers markets you might be able to buy eggs from.
3. Incorporate Traditional Preparation Methods
Simple techniques like soaking grains overnight or adding fermented foods can significantly increase the nutritional value of your meals with minimal effort.
Recipe recommendation: Traditionally Prepared Soaked Oatmeal
Examples of Fermented Foods: kimchi, sauerkraut, kefir, kombucha
4. Honor Your Bio-Individual Needs
Your body's needs are unique to you. The foods that support one woman may not be ideal for another, which is why I work closely with clients to identify what their individual bodies need to thrive.
Examples:
If you struggle with a candida/fungal overgrowth, adding in fermented foods could make your symptoms worse
If you’re dealing with low stomach acid including a lot of proteins immediately (without the proper supports) could also worsen your digestive symptoms
Beyond Diet: The Foundations of Health
While nutrient density is crucial, remember it's one piece of your wellness puzzle. As we work together in my practice, we address all the foundations of health:
- Blood sugar regulation
- Stress management
These elements work synergistically with a nutrient-dense diet to restore your body's proper function and address the root causes of your symptoms.
Ready to Nourish Your Body and Reclaim Your Energy?
If you've been struggling with hormonal challenges, digestive issues, or simply feeling disconnected from your vibrant self, a nutrient-dense approach might be the missing piece.
As a mother who has navigated these waters and a practitioner who specializes in women's health, I'm passionate about helping you discover what your unique body needs to thrive. Through targeted nutrition, strategic lab work, and addressing root causes, we can work together to help you feel energized, balanced, and truly well.
Small, sustainable changes in how you nourish your body can create profound shifts in how you feel every day—allowing you to be the present, energetic woman you want to be for yourself and your loved ones.
Coming Next Week:
I'm thrilled to dive into blood sugar regulation next week! This foundational health aspect (alongside digestion) is one I'm truly passionate about sharing with you. Even without a pre-diabetes or diabetes diagnosis, you might be amazed to discover how significantly balanced blood sugar impacts your daily energy, mood, and overall wellbeing. The small, sustainable changes we'll explore can create profound shifts in how you feel throughout your day. Can't wait to help you understand this vital piece of your health puzzle!
Understanding Your Digestive Health
Digestion: The North to South Process
Digestion: A North to South Process
Foundations of Health:
Sleep
Digestion
Nutrient Dense Diet
Blood Sugar Regulation
Stress
Digestion is such a big topic! Many people have digestive complaints, and to be fair most health complaints, even ones that seem unrelated to digestion, can be improved just by improving our digestion. Most people think that digestion is only our bodies way of absorbing the nutrients we need to survive from the foods that we eat or drink. While this is true, it also plays many other roles in our body to keep us functioning optimally.
Other functions of our digestive system include:
70% of our immune system is housed in our gut
neurotransmitters are produced in our gut from our microbiome (impacts mental health)
synthesis of B vitamins and vitamin K occur from our mircobiome
houses our enteric nervous system, aka "second brain" & coordinates with our central nervous system for:
immune response
appetite control
energy metabolism
hormone secretions
intestinal barrier functions
blood sugar regulation
& much more!
As you can see our digestive tract/gastrointestinal tract (GI tract) does far more than just absorb the food that we eat. It is a complex process that can be impacted positively or negatively by many factors of everyday life. So let's talk a little more about the process of digestion and how it works.
Digestion is a north to south process. This means that every step of digestion has to occur properly so that the next step is effective in its function. Digestion actually starts in our brain, with the thought of being hungry, thinking about what you want to eat, starting to prepare your meal and getting all the sensory input (smells and beautiful food) from making your meal. By getting these sensory inputs it triggers your mouth to start producing more saliva and increases hydrochloric acid (HCl) in your stomach, in preparation for the food that is about to arrive. Saliva starts the breakdown process of carbohydrates, this is also when we chew our food to break it down into smaller particles. This is a critical step in digestion that is often overlooked by many, if we don't properly chew our food we can get food particles into our stomach that are bigger than they should be, putting stress on our digestive system that can lead to increased bloating, gas, poor digestion, and imbalances in our microbiome (all of the wonderful bacteria, viruses, and fungi that reside in our intestines).
*Pro-tips to improve the initial steps of digestion:
chew your food thoroughly (approximately 30 chews per bite) before swallowing
eat without distraction: no TV, no eating on the go, don't work through lunch
slow down while eating, set your fork down between bites
cooking food at home instead of getting take out
Next our food enters our stomach for digestion. In the stomach the biggest factor of digestion is having enough HCl to properly breakdown proteins and trigger release of other enzymes and cofactors needed to breakdown and absorb B12 and Iron. Both of these compounds are bound to proteins, so to be properly utilized the proteins need broken down to free up B12 and Iron to be absorbed. As you can see if you don't have enough stomach acid you could easily become deficient in both B12 and Iron, even if you are eating enough from your food. Proper HCl levels also play a role in triggering the emptying of the stomach, release of bile from the gallbladder, protection against pathogens that are ingested, and release of enzymes from the pancreas.
Without sufficient HCl you may experience:
poor digestion of proteins
poor digestion of fats (floating or greasy stools)
increased risk of food borne illness
acid reflux
dysbiosis in the gut: SIBO or candida overgrowth for example
bloating & gas
B12 & Iron deficiency
*Tips to increase HCl:
eat bitter foods with meals (dandelion greens, arugula, kale, grapefruit, olives, artichoke hearts, & cruciferous vegetables)
take digestive bitters prior to your meals
take five deep breaths before eating
have some apple cider vinegar mixed with water at the start of your meal
You may be wondering about how low stomach acid can cause reflux. This is a model that isn't discussed much in western medicine and most people are automatically prescribed an antacid or proton-pump inhibitor if they're experiencing reflux. This could actually worsen the problem long term. The majority of the time the issue isn't too much acid, but actually too little acid that is in wrong location. If there isn't enough stomach acid in the stomach the sphincter at the top of the stomach doesn't get triggered properly to close, so it remains open. This allows acid to come out of the stomach and into the esophagus, causing the typical reflux pain one gets in their chest.
I could do a whole blog post on reflux, but I will stop there for now. This is such a common problem that I see with my clients, if it's something you struggle with please reach out and we can figure out a plan together on how to get it under control.
See how complex digestion can be? Once the partially digested food has moved out of the stomach it enters the small intestines. Here there are a couple other organs that help with digestion process: gallbladder & pancreas. Let's talk about your gallbladder first. This organ is used to store bile and release it when needed, bile functions include:
properly digest fats
helps us absorb fat soluble vitamins: A, D, E, & K
eliminate toxins & metabolic waste
antimicrobial effect in the small intestine, keeping bad bacteria in check to prevent an overgrowth
promotes peristalsis in our large intestine (helps keep our stool moving through at an appropriate pace)
The gallbladder plays a very important role in digestion, and it's also a very common organ to be removed when people are having issues with it (i.e gallstones, sluggish gallbladder). There are many ways that this can be addressed to improve function without removal. That being said if it has been removed there are also many supports that can be used to address the functions needed listed above.
Symptoms you may experience if your gallbladder isn't functioning optimally:
bowel movements that float or look greasy
gray colored bowel movements
upset stomach with fatty/fried foods
pain on the right side under your ribcage or pain between your shoulder blades
foul-smelling stool
Tips to improve gallbladder function:
all the tips listed above that support HCl production and the initial steps of digestion
improve blood sugar regulation
avoid low fat diets as this can lead to impaired functioning over time
stay properly hydrated (at minimum drink half your body weight in oz of water per day, if you sweat a lot increase this amount)
ensure you're getting enough cofactors in your diet to produce enough bile: Vitamin C (citrus, bell peppers, kiwi), electrolytes, and amino acids from protein
if your gallbladder has been removed you need to supplement with ox bile to ensure you're properly digesting fats with meals.
Next our pancreas releases enzymes to help further breakdown fats, proteins, and carbohydrates. All of these enzymes and bile are utilized to breakdown food into small enough particles that they can be properly absorbed and transported into our blood stream for use throughout our body. Like stated above, for these to be released from our gallbladder and pancreas the partially digested food needs to be acidic enough to trigger their release. If you don't have enough stomach acid the partially digested food won't be acidic enough to trigger the release of bile and pancreatic enzymes, causing even more digestive dysfunction and discomfort.
Next up is our small intestines, this is the longest portion of our digestive tract measuring up to 22ft in length! Ideally we have plenty of time to properly break our food down and absorb all the nutrients we need before it gets to our large intestine.
Symptoms you may experience if digestion in the small intestine isn't functioning optimally:
bloating & gas
food intolerances
diarrhea or constipation
Tips to improve digestion in small intestine:
all tips listed above to increase stomach acid & mentally prepare for meals
supplement with digestive enzymes &/or bile supports
Lastly we have our large intestine. It surprises people how many functions our large intestine has and how important its function is for our overall health:
absorbing water & electrolytes
concentrating and transporting our waste material for elimination
producing and absorbing vitamins: Vitamin K, B1, B2, B12, and short chain fatty acids (important for the brain gut connection)
houses the majority of our gut microbiome
The most common symptoms people experience that they believe is directly related to large intestine function is constipation and diarrhea. However there is often dysfunction also occurring further north in the digestive tract that's contributing to these symptoms, it's not strictly a large intestine issue.
What may be contributing to a large intestine issues:
magnesium supplementation: can lead to diarrhea
dehydration
sluggish gallbladder/malabsorption of fats
hypothyroid linked with constipation
sedentary lifestyle correlated with constipation
stress
dysbiosis, bacterial/viral infections
Tips for supporting your large intestine (in addition to supports listed above):
eat foods containing prebiotics: garlic, artichoke, onion, asparagus, oats, leeks, bananas, green plantains
eat foods with natural probiotics: kimchi, sauerkraut, kombucha, kefir
caveat: this can worsen GI symptoms for some people, if they have an bacterial overgrowth, fungal issue, or leaky gut
stay hydrated: half your body weight in oz per day, increase if you're sweating from exercise or sauna
consume fiber rich foods: goal 25g/day (vegetables, fruit, avocado, oatmeal, sweet potatoes, legumes)
keep active with exercise or walking.
It's amazing how complex our digestive system is, and this is the short version! Hopefully this overview helped you understand how important digestion is and gave you some insights in how to better support your digestion. That being said all the supports listed here might not be the best for everyone. Getting a thorough evaluation of your symptoms and health concerns with a practitioner can really help you get a better picture of your digestive function and overall health. You will get tailored advice to ensure that you're addressing the correct areas of dysfunction, which can lead to quicker symptom relief.
I would love to help support your digestion and if you have any questions or would like more information please schedule a free discovery call by clicking the link below:
Sleep: The Under-rated Foundation of Health
Sleep: The Under-rated Foundation of Health
Foundations of Health:
Sleep
Digestion
Nutrient Dense Diet
Blood Sugar Regulation
Stress
When working with clients sleep is one thing I often see that gets overlooked. Our society is all about hustle culture. We hustle all day and into the night or we are so tired from hustling all day that we need to wind down with Netflix or social media scrolling for some "Me Time" before bed. This might make you feel better in the moment, but it will greatly impact your ability to fall asleep, the amount of sleep you get, and your sleep quality.
This might not sound so bad because you can make up for it on the weekend by sleeping in or you will get more sleep tomorrow night to make up for it, yet this theory has been debunked. Sleep can't actually be replenished another night. Sleep is such a powerful tool and when we get the recommended 7-9 hours per night it's amazing how much better we feel.
Sleep is part of a 24 hour rhythm that our body follows, this is called the circadian rhythm. This powerful rhythm is influenced by so many factors. For it to work properly we need exposure to sunlight in the morning and sunset in the evening. Both of these exposures help release the proper hormones to keep us awake (cortisol) or to help us get to sleep (melatonin). There are many other hormones and neurotransmitters that affect this 24 hour rhythm:
adenosine
serotonin
dopamine
oxytocin
My favorite example to talk about in relation to hormones and sleep is adenosine. Adenosine is directly impacted by caffeine intake. Adenosine is a hormone that makes us drowsy as the day progresses but, when we drink caffeine it blocks the adenosine receptor sites. This causes us not to feel drowsy, until the caffeine wears off....enter the afternoon slump around 2/3pm that most people experience. Then we reach for either more caffeine or sugary foods to wake us up again. Both of these cause vicious cycles of either poor blood sugar regulation or dependence on caffeine to stay awake, both of which will negatively impact our ability to fall asleep and stay asleep. Fascinating right??
So what are the risks if we aren't routinely getting enough sleep (less than 6 hours):
Impaired memory
Reduced alertness
Contributes to mental health disorders: anxiety, depression, etc
Metabolic disorders: pre diabetes/diabetes
Increased risk of coronary artery disease
So how do we fix this??
For the specific example above, I commonly recommend that clients stop consuming caffeine by 12pm at the latest, ideally even earlier. Caffeine has a half life of 5-7 hours so if you stop it earlier in the day you give your body time to build up that adenosine and get tired for a more supportive bedtime.
My top tips for improving sleep:
No screen time (TV/phone/iPad/kindle) for one hour before bed
Wear blue light blockers once the sun goes down (especially important if avoiding screens before bed isn't going to work well for you)
Go to bed and wake up at the same time each day
Get early morning sunlight after waking up
Watch the sunset outside before bed
Keep your house temperature around 65F overnight
Avoid carb/sugar heavy meals right before bed
Stop caffeine consumption by 12pm
We saw how our sleep can be impacted by our daily habits, but what does getting a good nights sleep actually do for us?
Benefits of getting enough sleep:
Improved mental clarity
Regulated hunger & satiety cues: regulated metabolism
Improved emotional regulation
Improved memory
Improves immune function
Healthy microbiome --> improved digestion (more on this next week)
Improved cardiovascular health & lowers blood pressure
So one of the answers to your health goals might be something as simple as going to bed an hour earlier, finishing your coffee earlier in the morning, or taking a walk after dinner while the sun is setting.
Our daily routines have so much influence on our sleep and we rarely understand or relate certain habits to being the cause of our sleep difficulty. By tracking our sleep, food, activities, and digestive habits/complaints we can start to correlate what could be contributing to our insomnia, waking in the middle of the night, or not feeling rested when we wake up. This is something that I do with every client I work with, so we can work together on making diet and lifestyle shifts to support the sleep your body desires.
If this topic really interests you I highly recommend reading the book Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker, PhD.
I hope you enjoyed this little dive into sleep and what it does for our body. Next week I will be tackling the huge topic of Digestion and if you deal with brain fog, bloating/gas, constipation/diarrhea, sugar cravings, depression, etc you will get some helpful tidbits out of that email!
If you know of anyone who you think would benefit from the deep dive into sleep or the digestion email coming next week, please forward this email on to them.
If this information really resonated with you please feel free to book a free 30 minutes Discovery call with me and we can discuss it in more detail. I'd love to hear more about your health journey.