Guest blogger, Nutritionist Evie Whitehead tells Stealth Health how her own health journey has inspired her work.
Are you tired and worn out? Do you suffer from crushing fatigue and just can’t get going in the morning? Do you get the dreaded 3pm energy-slump?
I understand more than most how this can feel and how it can prevent you from getting through the day, achieving your workload, parental duties, not to mention keeping yourself healthy and fit.
I’m a mother of three teenagers and a qualified, registered Nutritional Therapist. I see clients every week and their biggest complaint is fatigue.
I want to share my story about the reasons for my fatigue, what I did about it and what you can do to improve your energy levels to feel healthier and happier.
Did I feel tired because I was working too hard?
Six years ago, I was studying, drowning in essays and working intensively on my nutrition course. My brain had been somewhat dormant for ten years bringing up my three children and I was also experiencing a hugely emotionally stressful period in my life. This I believed, was enough to explain my crushing fatigue.
However, in my lecture on thyroid health, we covered what can go wrong with the thyroid and what as a Nutritional Therapist we can do, the list of symptoms for “fatigue” especially, seemed familiar and I became my own health detective. I discovered I had Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis; an autoimmune disease where your immune system attacks your thyroid gland. I also had anaemia; closely associated with Hashimoto’s, which was another reason why I was so tired.
Now I had identified the root cause I could do something about it using what I had learned as a Nutritional Therapist. I restored my iron levels using food and symbiotic nutrients to increase absorption in the small intestines. I learned quickly which foods restored me, and those that left me drained.
Nutrition can help tiredness and fatigue.
I changed my diet, replacing high carbohydrate starchy foods (bread, pasta etc.) with complex carbohydrates (more vegetables & salads) and ate more healthy fats (nuts, seeds, olive oil, avocado), which improved my energy levels. I have never felt better or healthier, using the power of food and natural solutions. My passion is to help others too.
Energy leaks from us for different reasons, finding your root cause is the first step to recovery and maintaining energy levels you once enjoyed.
If you suffer from energy dips or fatigue there are things that you can do right now to master your energy levels. I describe the body-basics for energy as the “three-legged stool”, if one leg is missing, the stool falls over.These are:
- Sleep – are you getting seven hours of quality sleep every night?
- Water – are you hydrated? The first symptom of dehydration is fatigue.
- Food –the best and simplest way to bio-hack your energy is by changing what is at the end of your fork.
Evie helps people understand the fundamentals of energy balance using nutrition. To find out more about Evie Nutrition, go to her website. You can also follow her facebook page. She is also holding a workshop on Saturday 25 April called “Bounce into Spring” (full details on her website).