LET’S “TALK” ABOUT BEAUTY!

[Pages:27]LET'S "TALK" ABOUT

BEAUTY!

3 EXPERT TALK TRANSCRIPTS from HEALTHMEANS

CONTENTS

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Which Foods Sap (or Support) Your Beauty?

Sherry Strong with Maria Claps, CHHC, FDN-P Click here to watch this interview!

Sleep and Skin

Trevor Cates, ND with Michael Breus, PhD Click here to watch this interview!

Skincare with Ayurveda

Cate Stillman with Pratima Raichur Click here to watch this interview!

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Which Foods Sap (or Support) Your Beauty?

Sherry Strong with Maria Claps, CHHC, FDN-P

Click here to watch this interview!

The purpose of this presentation is to convey information. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure your condition or to be a substitute for advice from your physician or other healthcare professional.

Sherry: Hello, I'm Sherry Strong, and welcome to the Sweet Freedom Summit, which is dedicating to help end sugar addiction for good. And today, the expert I'm speaking to today to help you in your journey for ending sugar addiction for good is Maria Claps. And she's a certified health coach. She's a mother of four grown children and a women's healthy aging advocate, which I absolutely love. I'm a proaging girl myself.

So after receiving substandard care in New York City, reenrolled in the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, and pursued a solution for her perimenopausal symptoms that began when she turned 40. She was inspired by her training at IIN, and she started to pursue three additional hormone- centered training, so Dr. Sara Gottfried's training, Functional Diagnostic Nutrition program, and the U.K.based 3rd Age Woman Certification program with Burrell Education.

And more recently, Maria has launched an 8-week online program called Balance Your Hormones, Love Your Life to educate woman on hormone health and DUTCH lab testing. She's got a dash of sass and fun. And what she helps is women in their 40s and 50s who feel like they're not getting the support they need from the medical community, she helps them benefit from having a supportive group setting, as well

as her own coaching.

When she's not facilitating her online community, she keeps current in her knowledge by attending functional health seminars, and enjoys reading, recipe creation, and finding new things to eat at the farmer's market, a passion that we both share. And so thank you so much, Maria, for joining us on the Sweet Freedom Summit. I'm grateful to have you here.

Maria: Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.

Sherry: Well, although I talked a bit about your journey in the introduction, I would love you to just tell us in your own words, what happened to you that really led you to the passion of how you're helping women now?

Maria: Oh, sure. Okay. So when I turned 40, I hit the perimenopause wall. I didn't know what it was at the time. But I knew something wasn't quite right. So I decided to consult with a holistically-minded medical doctor in New York City, because I said, "Well, I've been kind of holistically-minded my whole life and into nutrition and wellness." I wasn't going to go to the corner GP because I knew that I was probably just going to get offered an antidepressant or maybe an antianxiety. And so I went into New York City. And the visit was just shy of what I would call an epic fail. The

only reason I'm not calling it an epic fail was because the visit motivated me to seek answers for myself.

The doctor wanted to give me estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, Boniva. I wasn't even in menopause yet. I certainly wasn't. Massive doses, granted it was only for six weeks, but 50,000 IUs of vitamin D, which vitamin D in pill form, it's very debatable. There are experts that say it's good. Some experts say it's not good. It didn't resonate with me at all, his methodology.

So I said, "There has to be a better way. There absolutely has to." So I knew to be questioning and just to have that seeker's mind. And that's when I enrolled in the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. And before the ink was dry on that certificate, I studied with Sara Gottfried. And then before the ink was dry on that, I enrolled in functional diagnostic nutrition. And I found answers. And I can't say that everything has been worked out and my health is perfect. Actually, if you do find anyone who says that, they're probably lying. But I did find a lot of answers. A lot of things resonated and made sense. And yeah, that's pretty much what I do now. I help women that find themselves in a similar situation.

Sherry: Great! Can you backtrack a little in your story and help listeners? In the respect of the typical diagnosis, it's so normal for

people to be prescribed a whole range of hormones. And many of them, if not all of them are synthetic,

that kind of thing. Can you give us a little insight from a holistic viewpoint of the dangers of that or the inefficiencies, at the very least?

Maria: Oh, absolutely! Well. Okay. So it's interesting when you say that women will go and they'll get some kind of a prescription, unfortunately, I think that we've been conditioned to want a remedy. And that remedy is usually in the form of a drug. Or if it's not a drug, then it's a supplement, maybe a healthy supplement.

And again, I am not against supplements at all. I think they play a role. But when we just use them to treat our symptoms, but we don't work on finding the root cause, that just becomes a form of green allopathy. And allopathy being just like the...I'm going to let you define that one better because I think you're going to do a better job of that. So allopathy is...

Sherry: Well, I just refer to that as the traditional route, where you're treating the symptom, rather than shifting the behavior that causes the symptom.

Maria: Right. And I don't really think, to me there's nothing inherently wrong with treating symptoms. I don't believe anyone should have to suffer. So sometimes we need to treat symptoms so that we have the energy, the motivation, maybe just the alleviation of pain and suffering, so that we can continue to work in a deeper way on our health. So the average woman at around age 40 is probably starting to go into perimenopause. And for many women, this shows up as weight issues. For me, it wasn't an issue with weight. For me, it was

insomnia, which was really crushing and debilitating.

So let me just go back to the average woman, typically is a weight issue, because her hormones are fluctuating and her body's changing so goes to the doctor. And the doctor says, "Well, maybe like let's eat less and exercise more." Not necessarily bad advice, but that's not the full picture of what's going on. And it's not just about eating less and exercising more. It's really stopping and doing a whole life evaluation. "How do you want to live? What's important to you?" Yes, maybe you do. I actually turned to my husband the other day in the car, and I said, "Honey, do you know that advice, that standard advice that's really not very good, "Eat less and exercise more?" I told him, I said, "I think I need to do that." So that's not necessarily bad advice. It just doesn't encompass the whole woman.

Okay, so for myself, it wasn't weight. It was insomnia. So I was a whole bunch of hormones, which I probably did for about six weeks before I completely lost my patience with that methodology of treating the symptoms. It requires a lot of tweaking. And I was also given some supplements, which I did for a short time. And I was also offered an antianxiety medicine, Klonopin. Clonazepam is the generic because it can help with sleep. I ended up getting hooked on that for about six years, really not good. So thankfully, I'm off, and sleeping better, not perfect, but better. And that's the benzodiazepine. That can be very dangerous. There are studies showing the dangers of benzos. They're a controlled substance. So these are the types of things, these are the types of remedies that women are getting.

I said I was offered, at 40 years old, I was offered Boniva, which you can have that necrosis of the jaw

and you can have spontaneous fractures. I wasn't told, "Well, you know, let's up your intake of kale and broccoli and sesame seeds and, if your bladder is sound, do some exercises that can help stimulate the osteo..." It's the osteoclasts. No, it's the osteoblast. I always get that mixed up--blast and clast. The osteoblast, the cells that help to build bone. I wasn't told any of that. I was just told to take Boniva. And mind you, this was from a holistic, an integrative health center in New York City. So it was like I said, it was an epic fail, except for the fact that it motivated me to seek the answers I needed.

Sherry: Fantastic! There's two things that came up for me when you were talking. One was the whole thing about drugs to help people sleep. We learned from Doc Parsley, one of the interviews in the summit, is that they don't even give you a proper night sleep. So it's a true Band-Aid measure. It gives you the illusion that you're actually sleeping. So you're not in that healing mode.

One of the things, obviously, this is the Sweet Freedom Summit, and we're talking about sugar. So can you talk about yes, you weren't told about the kale and the broccoli and how that can help. But what I also find in the traditional route is you're very rarely told that sugar is a problem that can impact your hormone. So what have you learned from your studies about how sugar impacts our hormones that impacts our sleep and our sugar, skin, all of those things? I'd love you to share.

Maria: Yeah, thank you, thank you so, so much, such a rich and varied topic. Okay. So sugar actually causes the beta cells of the pancreas to secrete insulin. And when there is a certain level of insulin in the body...And insulin's a powerful hormone and it's not bad. I always think that when

people hear these things, they think, "Oh, that's bad." No, these are all wonderful things. We just need them in right amounts. But when we have high levels of insulin in the body, which insulin happens in the presence of sugar, for sure, and empty carbs that pretty much act like sugar, the white flour that's ubiquitous, everywhere, bagels, buns, crackers, things like that, so but when that insulin gets up, then an enzyme in the body called aromatase goes up, as well.

Now, aromatase is responsible for estrogen production. And estrogen is our wonderful archetypal female hormone. But we need it in just the right amount. Too much is actually dangerous. So sugar, so doughnut, insulin, aromatase, too much estrogen. So it all started with that doughnut.

And then, in terms of our sleep, so sugar increases insulin, insulin increases cortisol, cortisol is our main stress hormone. So for people that are on this--I call this little insulin merry-go-round all day or the sugar merry-go-round-- they're eating lots of junky carbs or sugar. And then, maybe two hours later or three hours later, they're eating again and they're eating again. So what happens is when you go to sleep at night, you're not eating.

So maybe what happens--and this is a theory, but it makes sense--is your blood sugar drops in the middle of the night when you should be sleeping. And what happens when blood sugar drops is that cortisol comes in to raise blood sugar, because that's what it's supposed to do. And that little bump in cortisol might be some of the reasons why you are not able to sleep through the night. So just getting off of that sugar rollercoaster and eating more whole, real foods, it can have massive changes in someone's health, just on that alone.

Sherry: And can you talk a little bit about your experience? Was sugar ever an issue for you in your journey?

Maria: Yeah, I used to like to think that it wasn't. But yeah, it definitely was. And it's actually still something that I struggle with a little bit. Yes. Good. Good. And most of the times, I'm satisfying it in healthier ways like a little small piece of dark chocolate or a sweet potato. I will be honest, sometimes a sweet potato doesn't cut it, but a good amount of times it does. So healthier treats made with almond flour, yes. So I've taken what was more of an addiction for just a big bready pizza, which just to let you know, to me, that stuff counts as sugar. I know a lot of people don't really understand that. But to me, it does because it really does act like sugar in the body, so yeah, absolutely.

And the key for me was really just increasing whole foods, getting in lots of fiber from vegetables. So thankfully, I do like vegetables. Those people that struggle with that, they're going to have a little bit harder of a time breaking away from sugar. And then, just eating those complex carbs like the sweet potato, like the winter squashes, the parsnips. Yeah. So yeah, absolutely struggled with it, and definitely still do at times, and eating well is definitely helpful, and sleeping is absolutely huge. In fact, if I had to put food and sleep side by side, for me, I would say sleep is probably more important.

Sherry: Yeah, I would agree. I would actually agree. You think about it, in order to live healthily, we do require around eight hours, depending on the human. But you don't require eight hours of eating to [laughs].

Marie: I've never looked at it that way. That's very good. That's excellent.

Sherry: Time wise. Although, there have been times in my life where I've definitely participated in eight hours of eating a day. Yeah. And my body showed it.

Yeah, I love the transparency. I think that it's really healing for a lot of people to hear is that you can actually be active, as a professional, and respected and helping people, and still have challenges. And I think that transparency is really helpful, rather than trying to project this image of perfection, right.

Maria: Oh, absolutely.

Sherry: So thank you for that, that's a real--

Marie: Oh, my pleasure.

Sherry: It's an act of service. So with the aging and the skin and sugar, you've talked about how it actually happens. Can you talk a little bit about how women, in particular, what are some of the challenges that they have to maintain good skin throughout the decades that they?...

Maria: Oh, yeah, the ones that are up there a little bit?

Sherry: Yeah. Yeah.

Maria: Okay, same here. Okay. So collagen is what gives our skin its plumpness. And the sugar actually just breaks down collagen. And I'd like to say Father Time respects nobody. We're all going to wrinkle and the face lose its volume as we age. There's no getting around that. And there's, to me, there's no value in trying to look like you're 20, when you're 45 or 50. I think we should just look the best. Whatever age we are, we should look the best we possibly can within the dictates of what's normal for that age.

But I have seen women in their 60s that look great. They have beautiful

skin still. And I really do think you can have a beautiful skin. I think it was probably partially genetic, but I've seen even older women with, for their age, pretty good skin. And I think it comes down to not eating too much sugar, not getting too much UV radiation on the face. I love the sun, and I think it's wonderful. But I think that, that is actually one of the fastest ways to age your face is to get excessive UV radiation, so that, and not smoking.

So sun is number one for staying away to keep your--we're mostly talking about the face--so good skin, not smoking is huge, and then drinking some fresh water. Herbal teas are all great, and then really truly believe that good skin starts in the kitchen, like that saying, "Abs start in the kitchen," good skin starts in the kitchen. Your body, your skin, really every cell in your body depends on a huge amount of nutrients and cofactors in order to do its job. And when you're nutrient deficient, you're going to get away with it in your 20s, your 30s, maybe even your early 40s, but by the time 50 hits, it's going to start to show up.

So for my younger sisters in their 20s and 30s that are watching this, do all the good that you can do now because, even though you don't realize it, it's going to show up later. And for my ladies in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and up, just keep eating the spinach, the kale, the really brightcolored fruits and vegetables, the micronutrients, the phytochemicals, not only are they good for your skin, they're incredibly good to your hormones, as well.

Sherry: Fantastic! I have a little story around that, in the sense that for the first, easily the first three decades of my life, I did not treat my skin well. And I had lots of hormonal issues, lots of acne, scarring, and all that kind of thing. I lived in Australia for 22 years, didn't use sunscreen, because I

don't. I'm not a fan of it. I'd rather have wrinkles on the outside, than wrinkles on the inside, that was my theory.

But one of the things that I noticed is what you say about good skin starting in the kitchen is absolutely essential. So even though, I have visible effects of the aging and the scarring and all that kind of thing, what I will notice is when I'm on my game, and I'm eating high-water content foods, highly-nourishing foods--I'm always a water fan, so that's not a problem--but I get compliments on my skin, despite the scarring. And I have this theory--you may want to talk about it--is that I believe the electromagnetic energy in the plant foods that we're eating, the living foods, actually contributes to our radiance. So it's almost energetically that it shows up in the skin. What are your thoughts on that?

Maria: Yeah, you know what? It's so interesting that you are speaking about that. I personally don't know a lot about that. But it is something that's really, it's been coming into my field of interest and awareness. And I definitely need to learn more about that. But it is interesting, everything does have a vibration and an energy.

And yeah, those things I guess, I never thought me, the really conservative, really science-based person would be saying that everything has energy and there's a vibration. But yeah, I totally do believe that. And, by the way, I do think like so maybe you're saying that you did a lot of damage to your skin, but I think just looking at you, there is testament to the fact that you can turn that around because you definitely have a glow to me.

Sherry: Wow!

Maria: And you do look great. Yeah.

Sherry: Well, yeah, fortunately there's not high definition that's showing up here [inaudible]. I've seen those things. But I'll tell you, and this is probably off the beaten track of where I meant to be as an interviewer, but for my first few interviews for the summit, I actually put foundation on. And I just, I disliked it so much, not just the feel--I've always disliked that--but I dislike the look. It looked to me not natural. And I was using a natural version. And so it was...

But there's something about real that appeals to me. And the other piece around the science is that just because we don't have the technology to measure it, at a certain point, I think the thing is that we don't think it's scientific if we haven't developed the technology to measure it, it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.

Maria: I agree.

Sherry: And we're now developing that technology to actually measure the megahertz in food. So with that in mind, what are specific foods that you would recommend to nourish the skin, one from the inside out, and from the outside in? I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.

Maria: Sure. So I'm a big believer in healthy fats. I don't know that I necessarily agree with eating 80% of your calories as fat. I know that that's a common thing nowadays. To me, it's too cookie cutter to put people into that particular diet. So we don't have to name names. I'm sure most people will know what I'm talking about. But I absolutely believe you do need some fat, fiber, and protein at every meal, and possibly even every snack.

So having said that, I am not a happy lady if I don't have at least four or five avocados in varying stages of ripeness on my kitchen counter or in my refrigerator if

they're super ripe. So I absolutely love them. I chop them and put them on chilies. I just put them almost everywhere I can. And one of the things I absolutely love to do with avocados is I put them in my smoothie. And I started doing that a few years ago. It gives an incredible richness to it.

And again, not really, I don't like to get too label oriented around foods, but I will say that for my own self for keeping my weight in check, I just try to eat on the low glycemic side. So therefore, I don't eat a lot of bananas. I don't want to vilify bananas. But I don't eat a lot of them. So we used to make smoothies with a ripe banana. And I still do occasionally because we like the texture.

Now, I put avocado instead. So I think avocados are great.

I love walnuts. I think people are not eating enough walnuts. It's a great plant source of omega-3s, so a good healthy fat there in the walnuts. Other fats that I like, love olive oil. I think I would be remised as an Italian American if I didn't say I loved olive oil, but the really pure, first pressed, cloudy, green, like that, so a good quality olive oil. And it's primarily monounsaturated fat. And if everyone's worried, it's like the one category of fat that everyone loves--the American Heart Association, the American Diabetes Association, the raw foodist, the holistic people, the standard doctors. So if everyone has any worries about fats, like do olive oil. You can't go wrong there.

So I also love salmon, so wild Pacific salmon. I will only eat it if it is from the Pacific coast and it's wild caught. So I don't do farm raised. And let's see. So coconut oil is definitely a given. So coconut oil is really great internally and it's great externally, as well. So I think you have to have your head in the sand over these

past few years to not realize that coconut oil is great. And again, I don't think that we should be eating tons and tons of coconut oil.

But I think a little bit here and there. I use it to saut? vegetables. I do occasionally put some MCT oil in coffee or in my smoothie. Coconut oil is just great for the skin. It's great for taking off makeup. I think actually it's like a traditional... Indian woman put coconut oil as a hair treatment. That's something I did years ago. But they do that traditionally. And that's why Indian women have these like really shiny, thick black locks.

Externally, you can actually do lemon juice. And I would just start it on maybe like discoloration. Lemon juice can be very astringent and very drying. So I wouldn't put it over the whole face like that. What else can we do externally? Coconut oil, lemon juice, nothing else is springing to mind right now. Oh, actually, I'm sorry, one other thing just spring to mind. So in the summer, we like to do pineapple.

And I cut the pineapple, that really thick skin off, and I cut it up in pieces about this big. And I just like to rub it all over my face. I feel like I'm getting those alpha hydroxy fruit acids, natural ones. And I think it's an exfoliation of sort. So I like to do that. I feel like I'm using the whole pineapple, and not wasting it.

Sherry: Awesome! I also use the mango skins and the pith to rub it on my face like a little kind of thing, and cucumber. What are your thoughts on cucumber?

Maria: I love the high-water content of cucumber. And I think--maybe you know better than me about this--but I think cucumber is a good source of the mineral silica. And that's just really good for the skin, as well.

Sherry: Yeah. And your nails and hair grow dramatically more when you're having lots of cucumber. I go to the farmer's market, and I literally, there's this one guy who grows them, and get the long English ones. And when they're in season, I will literally have one a day. Like, I just love it.

Maria: How nice.

Sherry: Anyway, that's nuts. So I'm with you on the banana thing in the smoothie, partly because I know what happens to even organic bananas to get them over to North America. Not good. But I also think there's a lot of wisdom in North America, particularly, as we get a bit more North, that we're not eating tropical fruits all the time throughout the winter. What would you recommend for newbies who are wanting to go the smoothie route, but need a little natural sweetness? What would be your go to for that?

Maria: Okay, so again, I think bananas are like we could say maybe the damage can be in the dose. So I don't recommend that you do just an oversized banana in your smoothie, have like one-third of it. Again, I don't want to vilify a banana. That's good. Berries, berries to me are like the, to me they're the ultimate super fruit, the colors coming out of them, the phytochemicals. And really, when they're in season, they're very, very sweet. And you've got fiber. To me, I really can't get enough berries.

So what else can we do for sweetness? Okay, so like a few cubes of pineapples. Again, we're going back to tropical. I think it's okay to have that as long as you don't put too much in. All right, so you've got the mango, again just amazing flavors. I do use occasionally a few drops of Stevia. I don't know how you feel about that. I'm going to try to grow it this year

and see if I can throw the leaves in the blender, and see what happens. So that should be interesting. I know that I can grow it.

Sherry: Great.

Maria: Yeah.

Sherry: Thank you. Now, I know you've had a success story. And I'd love you to mine your database of people that you've worked with, your tribe, and to find a story where sugar played a part in someone's hormone health, and maybe talk about the journey they had and the success they had in working with you.

Maria: Sure. So believe it or not, a lot of women who come to me are, we'll just say median age is about 45, and their body is changing, and they're attuned to health. Maybe they don't know that much, but they want to know more.

And they want to start to change some things. So what I see with women at 45 is also they want to lose some weight. The weight is starting to come on and they're just getting really frustrated.

And so we've got to deal with inflammation in this age stage. But we also really just have to deal with changing the food that we eat. You cannot do two glasses of wine every night. Now, I believe it's the American Heart Association says that oh, it's probably one glass for women, two glass for men." Right. If you want to lose weight and lower inflammation, then I just think you need to rethink how you think about wine.

So these women are coming to me. They're eating a fairly modern American diet, and a lot of meat. And meat is...I'm not necessarily against it, but I'm very concerned about the chemicals and the hormones that are in it. So I really

do try to move them off that. And I try to get them onto eating like 80% to 90% plant based, and then adding in the things that you feel comfortable with. So my client is 45, let's just say. And she has a lot of weight in the waist and she's probably fatigued. And I'm just saying, I'm giving you a generalized who my client is without saying a name.

And so I'll just think of a local lady like myself, Italian American, said that she loved pasta and she loved wine. And I said to her, "Okay, but do you want to lose weight and get healthier?" And she said, "Yes, I do." I said, "Well, those things are going to have to be minimized." I never really tell people they can't have anything. I feel like that's up to them to make that decision. That's not up to me to dictate exactly what you should be eating. My job is, is mostly, it's educational.

So we get her on a cleaner eating plan. Sometimes I do a two-week kick start. And she has seen that's a little more drastic. And I just say, "Well, we're just going to get you started this way. And then, we can kind of add back some things. Because my typical client, she wants to see some results straight out of the gate. And I understand that. I really do because we're motivated by seeing some crumbs. We need some crumbs to fall from the table. We can't labor at this for too long without seeing some results before we get really discouraged.

So she goes on a kick start. And within two weeks, she lost 11 pounds, which is pretty good. And then, when I check in with her about a month later, she told me she's doing so good because she has really changed her diet. So whereas, she hasn't completely given up pasta and wine, she's really put it on the backburner and she's learned to eat a lot more vegetables. And I think we could probably just end

this summit here if we said, "Eat a lot more vegetables." It sounds extremely boring.

And I have to tell you, it's funny, as an Italian American, people they think that Italians are about pasta. Well, yes, we are. But you'd be surprised at how vegetables play a central role in true Italian cuisine, and the meats, the cured meats. And there's plenty of "unhealthy stuff" in Italian cuisine. But vegetables really do play a huge role.

And thankfully, I get just clients to eat a lot more vegetables. I get her to basically to return to eating vegetables because that's how she was brought up. But through pressure and raising a family, and putting herself second or third or fourth, she has let that go. So I get her to return to eating wholesome food. I get her to manage her stress a little bit better, or so this is what she tells me. And now, she is too months in and she's lost 20 pounds. And she's got a goal of, I think it was about 25 pounds. And it's really just evaluating where you are in this life stage, and deciding what you want to do.

Sherry: And what about her skin and energy levels 20 pounds down?

Maria: Yeah. Her energy definitely returned. I don't know that she, this particular client, said anything about her skin. But interestingly enough, I have in the past. And I'm so glad you brought that up. I have had clients tell me, "My hair is amazing! It's just so healthy. It's glossy. I think it's even thicker." And that's from getting the nutrients that you need. You give the body what it needs, and in most cases, it's going to respond. And it's going to respond fairly quickly. These things really should not take months. I would say, if you're giving the body what it needs, you should probably see some changes within four weeks.

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