Tag: Pregnancy

All the Goodness

~ Michele Henrick ~ Leave a comment

My secret weapon in feeling full of life… A capsule full of goodness.

I was introduced Juice Plus over a year ago. A close friend started on the products and I was watching her flourish, I had not prioritised the expense and kept putting it off. Then I fell pregnant, as I was progressing through my third pregnancy I felt more and more drained. I was feeling grumpy with the kids most the time and getting out of bed was such an effort, despite being a morning person. Not fun. I got to the point where I knew something had to be done. I was already taking pregnancy vitamins, iron and vitamin C but still feeling rubbish. So I thought I would give Juice Plus a try.

One of the ladies that I heard about Juice Plus from, spoke about her success with her autoimmune condition. 10 years ago I was diagnosed with an autoimmune condition affecting my blood platelets and my body’s ability to clot as well as my energy levels. Over the years I have learnt how diet can impact greatly on autoimmune conditions and general well-being. Even with the best eating habits over the last 4 years I haven’t seen much of a change to my platelets and energy levels. Within 3 weeks of taking the Juice Plus capsules my platelets increased by 18, which is significant and went to 98 (only been this high once or twice ever in my history of testing).

After 3 months I began to realise all the gradual changes that had been occurring. I was waking up and getting out of bed straight away, I was joking and playing with the kids more and generally feeling pretty good. I was doing more and more as my pregnancy progressed because I was full of energy. I had a quick recovery from the birth and even with broken nights sleep every night, I had zero brain fog.

The results are awesome considering it is just fruit and vegetables. There is a growing gap in between what our body needs and what we get, given our fast paced, high stress society and mediocre quality of fresh produce. Then there’s Juice Plus: A wholefood, plant based supplement with absolutely no nasties that has a variety of over 30 different fruits and veggies everyday! Unlike synthetic supplements the body recognises all of the ingredients in the capsules and can there fore easily absorb all the nutrients effectively.

Now as a breastfeeding mumma I am able to supplement my diet with ‘Complete’ – a whole food, plant based, shake mix. This gives me the iron and nutrients I need to keep my body fuelled and ready for action as a mum of 3.

The process in which the ingredients are encapsulated is what really sold me. It has now become part of my passion to share these products with others so they can feel the amazing benefits too. Just as the results from the capsules took me by surprise, so did the community I became part of. Women supporting women, with a focus on personal growth, connecting with and helping others to become their best. Being surrounded by like minded people has been so inspiring and keeps me on track with my purpose and passion.

For more information on the products check out the Juice Plus page.  

 

 

Update

~ Michele Henrick ~ Leave a comment

Well it’ been over a year since my last blog!! 😱 I thought I would have restarted a month or two after Oleena was born but with building a house, doing the bookwork for my husbands electrical business, training in Educational Kinesiology and raising two small kids, it just didn’t happen.

The blog started as a way for me to share what I have learnt about the digestive health. It actually made me accountable in those final few (and most important) weeks of my pregnancy with Oleena. I continued with a dairy, sugar and gluten free diet for the first few months of Oleenas life with me breastfeeding and this all seemed to have paid off. I introduced new foods into my diet while breastfeeding and Oleena had no adverse reactions. Then when introducing foods to her, I chose to hold off on gluten and dairy until after 6 months when I believe her stomach was strong enough, and sure enough she didn’t have any reactions- only some minor changes in her diaper which is totally normal when they are processing new foods. It could have been the diet, delaying introduction or different genetic make-up (or it could be all the factors combined) that has resulted in Oleena having significantly better food tolerance than Finlay.

As mentioned something else I have been up to over the last year is training in Educational Kinesiology ‘Brain Gym®’. Researching into natural healing, being a teacher and graduate of Sport Science, Brain Gym® has been a very natural progression and combines all my passions together. Now that I am a qualified Brain Gym® Consultant I am turning my passion into a business and can work one on one or small group sessions helping both children and adults heal their body, mind and spirit and assist them to achieve their goals. Head over to the ‘Brain Gym’ page for more information.

I will continue to discuss and share information on nutrition and digestive health but will also be including information on Brain Gym®, brain and body functioning… Encompassing whole body well-being!

Michele xox

Healing with the GAPS Diet

~ Michele Henrick ~ 4 Comments

HEALING WITH THE GAPS DIET

The biggest improvement in my sons digestive health came from doing the GAPS diet and adding chicken bone broth regularly to our daily routine.

After reading a valuable book ‘Nourishing Your Child for Health and Happiness’ by Sally Gray, a Naturopath (amongst other qualifications) and discovering she lives here in WA, I made an appointment to see her. The GAPS diet had starting popping up on my radar and this is what Sally recommended for Finlay and I.

GAPS stands for Gut and Psychology Syndrome, it is a diet created by Dr Natasha Campbell-McBride. GAPS works on an understanding that there is a link between the digestive system, the brain and immune system.

Three part program

  1. Heal the gut lining
  2. Restore the gut with beneficial flora
  3. Relieve the body of an excess toxic load.

All meals required cooking and there was a lot of preparation, 2 things I was only just learning to do! It required the most work but we got the best results from it. Over the time we were able to introduce a lot of foods that were previously not tolerated. This saw Finlay eating all fruits and vegetables, all meats, seeds, nuts, eggs and occasional cheese or yoghurt. The only foods we were totally excluding after doing GAPS were grains and white potatoes (as this is recommended). I would highly recommend the diet and we have done it again since the first time we did it.

A note on healing: If you imagine a large meal that is raw, has grains (especially gluten loaded), dairy or full of toxins, the body has to spend all its energy breaking that meal down. If there are any parts of the body that need healing, the body is not able to work on repairing itself (which is what it is designed to do). Yes, I mentioned raw just then, which you may be thinking is a good thing. I am definitely an advocate for raw foods as cooking at high temperatures especially in water, destroys some of the vital nutrients and minerals. However, through the process of cooking, fibre is reduced and makes it much easier for the body to digest. GAPS isn’t all about cooked foods but for the introductory phase it certainly is and this short term ‘break’ on your body certainly has its advantages for repairing.

This same theory can be applied to pregnancy, labour and the weeks after child birth. The body needs to be able to focus its energy on making a baby, preparing the body and repairing the body, not to mention the energy demands of breastfeeding. If you are loading your body with foods and beverages that are harder for the body to digest it takes energy away from the baby. As I’m heading into the final weeks of my pregnancy and preparing for the massive job of labour and breastfeeding, I’m avoiding unnecessary toxins, sugars, gluten and dairy (apart from butter and occasional cheese) all to make this process easier on my body.

For more information on the GAPS diet head to: http://gapsaustralia.com.au/