Daily structure
Habit stacking is a great way to build sustainable daily routines. You may be happy with your current routines for morning, bedtime, career, movement and other aspects of your life. You can consider how many of these habits you’d like to incorporate into your current routine, or re-establish some old habits that may have fallen off the daily list.
Upon waking each morning:
Stir together 8 ounces of water with a pinch of sea salt and a small wedge of fresh lemon. You can drink this with medication and/or supplements.
If you drink coffee or tea, leave out sugar, honey, and other sweeteners. Add a healthy fat, such as MCT oil, coconut oil or ghee, and a scoop of collagen protein, along with a compliant nut milk or creamer. Look for coconut, almond or cashew milk. Be sure to select a product that does not have many fillers, gums or emulsifiers, which sometimes cause digestive issues.
Eat breakfast within an hour of waking. This helps to reset cortisol, which is the “fight or flight” hormone. It should be high in the morning upon waking, and deplete throughout the day.
Make certain your breakfast plate follows the meal template with protein, healthy fat and carbs from vegetables and fruits. If you’re not used to eating a substantial breakfast, work your way up to it. Try the Gut Healing smoothie recipe with a hard-boiled egg or a bit of protein leftovers from dinner.
During the day:
Try to allow a minimum of 4 hours between meals. Doing this helps increase the effectiveness of “rest and digest”, which optimizes digestion and gut health, and reduces levels of chronic elevated stress.
Be sure to meal prep for lunches, especially if you’re taking your lunch from home to an office or other off-site location. Balance out your lunch by using the meal template as a guide.
Try to avoid snacking between meals. If you have a physically exerting job or work outdoors and need to snack, build your snack as a mini-meal, using the meal template as your guide. Instead opt for a mid-morning break of hot lemon water, herbal tea or bone broth. Avoid mid-afternoon snacking.
Throughout the day: Drink water! 8 - 8 ounce cups each day should be the goal. Use the water tracker on the client app to give yourself credit.
Evening and Bedtime:
Eat dinner a minimum of 2 hours before bedtime, 3 hours is ideal. This allows ample time for food to be digested and the “rest and digest” phase to activate before sleeping. When hormones are in balance, cortisol is depleted throughout the day, causing serotonin to increase. Serotonin is the precursor to melatonin, which helps you sleep at night. High cortisol in the afternoon/evening contributes to brain fog, afternoon slumps and a higher appetite in the evening, caused by another hormone called ghrelin, which causes sugar and carb cravings, which leads to snacking before bed.
Develop a bedtime routine. Think about adding a warm shower or bath, perhaps with Epsom salts to help relax muscles. Consider a gratitude journal, and write three things that you are grateful for, it can be your morning coffee! Try deep breathing, meditation or light yoga as something restorative. Put your devices on sleep mode so only your favorite contacts can ring through in case of emergency.
The goal is to get 7 to 8 hours of restful, uninterrupted sleep. Changing your dietary schedule to follow this protocol will help you gain more sleep.
If you follow this structure, you see that you are eating within a 12-hour window or so. We are not intentionally Intermittent Fasting, however, following this allows for a 12-hour rest and digest, which carries many benefits, including gut healing, hormone rebalancing, and autophagy (when dead cells are absorbed by healthy cells) to name a few.
