Tips & Advice

Get Tips and Advice from the guides at Mountain Trek. Nutrition, Hiking, Sleep, Detox and Fitness are just some of the topics we cover.

How Stress Contributes To Diabetes

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older woman with diabetes checking blood sugar levels

While it’s widely known that a poor diet and low levels of exercise increase the risk of type 2 diabetes, we are now learning that chronic stress also contributes to the disease that affects 1 in 10 Americans. Today’s fast-paced lifestyles, which feature modern medical syndromes like burnout, are even more prone to stress, and it’s causing a domino effect not only on our emotional and mental health but our physical health as well.

Understanding Diabetes

Terms like “diabetes”, “type 2 diabetes”, and “adult-onset diabetes” are now common in our vocabulary, but the fundamentals of the disease are confusing, and therefore often overlooked.

If we know nothing else, we need to understand that our bodies run off a sugar molecule called glucose—the gasoline to our combustion engine. The food we eat is broken down into glucose, which is then carried off by our blood to the places that need energy, such as our brain, muscles, and organs. We refer to the amount of glucose in our bloodstream at any given time as our blood-sugar level (remember, glucose is sugar).

Once at its destination, glucose isn’t able to enter our cells without the help of a hormone called insulin. Insulin binds to glucose and allows it to actually cross the cell wall. Insulin is like the nozzle of the fuel pump. Without the nozzle, gas can’t actually enter your fuel tank. Instead, it just sits in the hose. Without insulin, sugar cannot enter our cells. Instead, it just sits in our bloodstream.

The problem with our bodies, unlike a fuel pump, is that if extra gas sits in our hose for too long, aka extra sugar in our bloodstream, all sorts of issues occur, such as slowed healing, hearing loss, nerve damage, sleep apnea, heart and blood vessel disease, kidney damage, eye damage, and Alzheimer’s.

This permanent state of elevated blood sugar is diabetes. There are two types of diabetes: type 1 diabetes is caused by a genetic condition developed primarily during childhood or adolescence where your pancreas naturally produces little or no insulin, and it cannot be avoided; Type 2 diabetes, however, occurs when our blood sugar levels are so frequently elevated due to our lifestyle that either our pancreas begins to slow down the production of insulin, or our cells begin to resist insulin. In either case, the result is permanently elevated blood sugar levels.

It’s easy to believe this resistance is due to overuse, but think about Olympic athletes for a second. They typically consume between 3,000 and 5,000 calories per day, constantly adding sugar to their blood. The difference is, they use up this sugar through their rigorous, all-day training, preventing their blood sugar levels from ever getting too high. It’s extremely rare that an Olympic athlete, someone who cycles through an enormous amount of sugar, gets type 2 diabetes. So something else is going on.

While the very science of why our cells begin to refuse insulin in type 2 diabetes is still being fully developed, the leading assumption is that an increased level of fat in our blood and chronic inflammation are the two primary culprits.

Fortunately, we have the ability to prevent insulin resistance. The key lies in stopping ourselves from too frequently entering a state of elevated blood sugar—a state known as hyperglycemia. What’s widely obvious, today, is that reducing the amount of sugar we take in and increasing the amount of sugar we burn is a great way to accomplish this. In other words, eating healthier (the correct portions at the correct times) and moving more. What’s less known, however, but quickly coming into the spotlight as a contributing factor to our elevated blood sugar levels, is that stress contributes to insulin resistance.

Can Stress Cause Diabetes?

The short answer is that chronic stress does contribute to type 2 diabetes. Whether or not stress outright causes diabetes is still to be discovered, but we started understanding how stress plays a role in the development of the disease back in 2010, with a review from the European Depression in Diabetes Research Consortium. They discovered, “Depression, general emotional stress and anxiety, sleeping problems, anger, and hostility are associated with an increased risk for the development of Type 2 Diabetes.”

Now, more than a decade later, we continue to understand how chronic stress disrupts our pancreas and liver from managing blood sugar levels properly, leading to periods of hyperglycemia, which ultimately leads to diabetes.

Stress and Blood Sugar Levels

When under physical, mental, or emotional stress, blood sugar levels naturally rise to supply energy to our muscles. Physiologically, this occurs to support our primitive fight-or-flight response, which once allowed us to survive stressful situations, such as an attack from a saber-tooth tiger. In an instant, our liver dumps stored glucose, aka sugar, into our bloodstream. Simultaneously, our pancreas produces insulin which allows that sugar to be used by our muscles. Running away from the tiger or fighting uses up the sugar in our bloodstream, and, after a short while, levels return to normal.

Today, however, our situation has evolved, and we rarely utilize the increased sugar in our bloodstream immediately following a stressful event. Think back to the last time you got cut off in traffic or got into an argument with a colleague. Or even the last time you felt a spell of anxiety. Did you go “walk it off”? Most likely not. More realistically, following a stressful event, we stay stagnant in our seats or on our couch. Even worse, we may decide to eat something salty, fatty, or sugary to settle our emotions.

Stress Eating Leads to Increased Blood Sugar Levels

Coping with chronic stressors—whether mental, emotional, or physical—often leads to feelings of unhappiness and dissatisfaction. Our natural instinct is to then make choices that evoke our “feel-good hormones” to avoid the weight of these feelings. Unfortunately, we are genetically wired to crave certain foods to elicit the brain’s soothing hormones serotonin, and dopamine, so we often head for the pantry or the freezer when feeling bad.

Consuming any of the three main cravings—salt, fat, and carbs—will make us feel better momentarily, but it won’t support the lowering of blood sugar. Stress eating and alcohol drinking are common coping mechanisms, and, unfortunately, they both spike our blood sugar levels.

Additionally, research has shown that under chronic stress we sleep less. Less sleep stimulates our hormone ghrelin, which increases appetite, causing us to subconsciously eat even more.

Stress Affects Insulin Resistance

Stress contributes to elevated blood sugar levels by both dumping stored glucose into our bloodstream due to our natural flight or fight response, and by us turning to food as a stress-coping mechanism. While these chronically elevated blood sugar levels have been proven to contribute to insulin resistance, this is not the only way stress plays a role in affecting insulin resistance.

Thanks to a research team led by Carnegie Mellon University’s Sheldon Cohen, we now know that chronic psychological stress also prevents our body from being able to regulate inflammation levels. Their findings state, “When under stress, cells of the immune system are unable to respond to hormonal control, and, consequently, produce levels of inflammation that promote disease.”

Stress-induced inflammation is also a major contributing factor to our cells becoming insulin resistant.

A healthy lifestyle will prevent diabetes

It’s more important than ever to achieve balance in our health. A healthy diet and plenty of movement are a good foundation, but now, more than ever, stress management is vital to hormone balance, healthy blood sugar levels, sleep depth, maintaining an active anabolic metabolism, and lowering inflammation. Focus on balancing all aspects of physical, mental, and emotional health to lessen the proclivity of developing insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes, as well as minimize the effects if diagnosed with the disease.

What is Mountain Trek?

Mountain Trek is the health reset you’ve been looking for. Our award-winning health retreat, immersed in the lush nature of British Columbia, will help you detox, unplug, recharge, and roll back years of stress and unhealthy habits. To learn more about the retreat, and how we can help you reset your health, please email us at info@mountaintrek.com or reach out below:

Q&A: What is Burnout & How Do I Prevent It

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Q: What is burnout, and how do I prevent and/or manage it?

A: Burnout is a psychological state of physical and emotional exhaustion specifically related to occupational stress. Besides being characterized by feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion, it includes increased negative or cynical feelings towards one’s job and reduced professional efficacy. The term “burnout” has been recognized by the World Health Organization and is now a legitimate medical syndrome.

A Gallup survey found 76% of employees have experienced some form of burnout, and those affected are 63% more likely to take sick days, 23% more likely to visit an emergency room, and 250% more likely to look for a new job!

Burnout is caused by a long list of things, including; a lack of social support at work (especially for remote workers and even more so during periods of isolation), unclear or undefined job expectations, too much digital inundation and interruption, a corporate culture where working evenings and weekends is rewarded, and underlying all else, work-life imbalance, or “burning the candle at both ends”.

Our society tends to think of burnout as an individual problem, solvable by yoga, breathing practices, learning to say “no”, or taking self-resilience workshops. However, more research supported by the WHO is showing that it’s also an employer’s responsibility to build anti-burnout strategies. Employees still need to make intelligent decisions; eating healthfully and regularly, moving their bodies daily, exercising appropriately, sleeping deeply for 7-9 hrs, incorporating stress-reducing activities, and maintaining satisfying relationships for support—but it’s becoming clear there is a cyclical relationship between the work environment and personal health choices. When a work environment nurtures an employee’s wellness, that employee will further invest in self-care practices that rejuvenate and charge them back up for another day of work. The opposite also happens, where a work environment is so depleting that an employee is left with zero energy at the end of the day and self-care practices fall to the wayside—instead of engaging in energy-producing, healthy activities, burnt-out employees usually resort to energy-depleting activities like drinking a glass of wine (or two or three), eating unhealthy food, and sitting on the couch watching TV (after a full day of sitting for their job).

If you find yourself feeling depleted, physically, and emotionally, at the end of your workday, you may be burning out.

How To Prevent & Manage Burnout

Try this mix of personal and managerial strategies to counter burnout for yourself and your employees:

Focus on efficacy, not hours

According to Parkinson’s law, “work expands to fill the time available for its completion”. Unfortunately, time worked does not have a great correlation with productivity. Encourage yourself and your staff to redefine performance as something based on results, not hours worked. Consider some of these questions during the workday to facilitate this shift:

— Is this task still important or has the situation changed?

— Am I really the only person who can do this?

— Is this the most important thing right now, or am I doing it to avoid something else?

— If this is the only thing I accomplish today, will I be satisfied with my work when I leave?

Prioritize tasks

Avoid the misnomer of multi-tasking by concentrating on one prioritized task at a time. Jumping from one task to another is not an efficient use of your energy and has been proven to increase the completion time for both tasks by 25%.

Limit distractions

Avoid multi-platform and device interruptions when focusing on a project or task. It takes significant time and energy to return to a concentrated state.

Take breaks

Take regular breaks to rejuvenate the mind and move the body before, during, and after work. This is a necessary investment in your overall productivity.

Minimize communication

The average manager is spending 8 hours per week on email communication (avg 200 emails per day) and another 1 to 2 days a week in meetings. Try to encourage only essential emails and meetings from being sent and scheduled.

Empower your team

Empower your employees to set their own schedules and make decisions. Too much deliberation around meetings and back-and-forth decision making steal productive time from individuals.

Support your tribe

Offer positive communication and rewards, and go to bat for them when deadlines and workloads are unreasonable.

Preventing burnout is both a corporate cultural problem and a personal energy management problem. It’s important to not feel shame if we are suffering from burnout, but instead become curious about our relationship with work and examine our efficacy vs hours work ratio, our commitment to establishing boundaries, and the culture our company promotes…and then initiate change.

What is Mountain Trek?

Mountain Trek is the health reset you’ve been looking for. Our award-winning hiking-based health retreat, immersed in the lush nature of British Columbia, will help you unplug, recharge, and roll back years of stress, anxiety, and unhealthy habits. To learn more about the retreat, and how we can help you reset your health, please email us at info@mountaintrek.com or reach out below:

5 Wellness Questions To Ask Yourself

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Lonely woman standing absent minded and looking at the river

Taking a moment to pause, reflect, and ask yourself a series of wellness questions is a great habit to include in your routine. As our comprehension of health evolves, we must continue to survey our wellness to ensure we are headed in the right direction.

Today, understanding your health and wellness means asking yourself a vast range of questions on topics that we are only just beginning to understand.  Twenty years ago, health and wellness focused exclusively on nutrition and exercise, and on a societal level, weight loss was the only concrete measure of our health. After almost a century of diet crazes and a mass movement to gym classes starting in the early 1980s (remember Richard Simmons television workouts?), we now know there is so much more to understanding our personal, uniquely individual health.

Being healthy still includes maintaining the percentage of body fat that prevents inflammation, hormonal imbalance, and elevated blood pressure, but those measures alone are not enough to ensure our overall wellness. Our bodies are a series of complex integrated systems that do not stand alone. Science has opened the door to a greater understanding of the importance of stress management, hormonal balance, depth of sleep, food choices, and mental and emotional health. Singular approaches to health do not work. So we need to ask ourselves questions from multiple angles to determine if we are in balance, and therefore, truly well. (if you want an in-depth framework for surveying which areas of your health are strong and which need nurturing, take our wellness questionnaire)

To kick-start your self-reflection, consider the following 5 thought-provoking wellness questions:

1) Do you ever stop and take a moment to reflect?

Do you ever just stop what you are doing, take a breath, and scan your body and mind to notice what emotions you are feeling? What thoughts are bubbling up? What is your energy level? How is your posture? How is your body doing?

Do you ever stop to ask yourself what you need?

In our fast paced world of “doing”, it’s easy to forget to check in with ourselves. Our minds are hardwired to create routines and habitual behaviors as a form of energy management. It’s how we used to survive, but now that energy (food) is no longer scarce, we have repurposed this mental process in our quest to achieve optimal efficiency (think Steve Jobs wearing the same clothes every day). While this does eliminate decisions and save time, it also causes us to mindlessly perform tasks. This state of mind is a perfect stage to get lost in thought and let your to-do list, calendar, or even doubt, anxiety, and regret rule the show.

We do have a choice, though. We can break the spell by mindfully invoking pauses and curiosity. This will allow us to savor moments.

This does not come naturally, however. Remember, we’re hard wired for the opposite. But that is why we practice mindfulness and integrate it as a foundational principle in our award-winning program.

2) Are you happy with your life at this very moment?

Is there anything about your physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual well being that you need to attend to in order to be more fulfilled, peaceful, and joyous?

The word happiness is often associated with fleeting moments of pleasure. We reach a milestone, experience a rush of our reward and pleasure hormone dopamine, and then come down… hard. Or, we feel happy when we think about some future version of ourselves that has accomplished what we seek, only to be brought back to reality with a financial hardship, death in the family, or any one of life’s many curveballs.

To get beyond the ups and downs that come with the pursuit of happiness, we can instead orient to an alternate perspective on life, one that doesn’t depend on the fleeting moments of success. A perspective that focuses on the quality of our journey, rather than our ultimate destination. A journey that is filled with the richness of peace, flow, joy, presence, and heartfelt connection.

A deep and stable state of happiness comes when we decide what is more important; the quality of our journey or the destination?

3) Does your energy-in match your energy-out?

Think of yourself as a rechargeable battery. Every day, you perform actions that both charge you and drain you. Eating the right foods at the right times, exercising and moving for circulation and inflammation prevention, sleeping for recovery and repair, releasing stressors, and avoiding and eliminating toxins are all actions that charge you. On the other hand, poor health habits, work stress, family stress, anxiety, doubt, and a long list of other things, drain you.

Do you have enough energy-charging habits to balance out your energy-draining habits?

In other words, are you burning out?

Finding ourselves out of balance with the energetic cycle of life is becoming the new normal, but it’s not sustainable. You can, however, reclaim balance by attending to how you eat, move, sleep, manage stress and avoid toxin load, while creating boundaries for how much, when, and to who you give energy to. Journaling is a good tool to pause, reflect, and become curious about the different energy aspects of your life and can give you the insight you need to make the changes required for harmony and balance.

4) Are you working towards a better version of yourself?

Do you have any actions you are focusing on in an attempt to create a healthier lifestyle? Are you rewarding yourself for the efforts you are applying towards these goals? Are you enjoying the process of accomplishing these goals or just counting the days until you succeed (see #2)?

The path towards balanced health, happiness, and longevity is paved with small, incremental improvements, not one big massive accomplishment. Once you’ve decided which of your physical, mental, emotional or spiritual needs you want to address, you need to take action. Start with small, seemingly trivial improvements. Repetition of these actions over time will result in sustainable habits that support the life we truly deserve to live. And rewarding ourselves for our efforts keeps our subconscious supporting our conscious goals and actions. Learn how to build healthy habits in 6 easy steps.

5) Do you have support?

Are you supported by a trainer, coach, nutritionist, naturopathic doctor, counseling therapist, or balanced health program?

We all need support. The very best performers, athletes, and CEOs all have coaches—why don’t you?

After realizing why you need to make a change, and learning how and when to make a new action, you need support in making it part of your healthy lifestyle. From tracking apps to trainers and nutritionists to counseling therapists, we are fortunate in this era of individualism to have support resources that accelerate the success of our unique goals.

Align yourself with allies, you deserve it!

What is Mountain Trek?

Mountain Trek is the health reset you’ve been looking for. Our award-winning health retreat, immersed in the lush nature of British Columbia, will help you unplug, recharge, and roll back years of stress and unhealthy habits. To learn more about the retreat, and how we can help you reset your health, please email us at info@mountaintrek.com or reach out below:

How to detox daily weekly and annually

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Clean water pouring into the glass next to the stones on the old wooden table

Q: How should I detox daily, weekly, and annually?

A: Before we just give you a list of “to do’s”, let’s look at the “why” we should detox.

From Mountain Trek’s perspective, detox practices are focused on supporting our natural eliminatory system in removing unwanted substances that put our cells and organs under stress. When certain chemical compounds (plastics, petrochemical substances, etc) or heavy metals (mercury, cadmium, barium, thallium, lead, etc) enter our body through the air we breathe, food we eat, liquids we drink, or by absorption through our semipermeable skin, our liver and kidneys work to filter them out of our blood and expel them by our breath, urine, feces, and sweat. This is a normal bodily function. However, we are currently taking in more toxins than ever before in our human evolution, and it’s taxing our systems to a point where we see hormonal disruption, inflammation, immune system disruption, allergies, and diseases like cancer, and dementia. A recent study by Harvard just proved that 18% of all global deaths can now be attributed to air pollution, specifically the burning of fossil fuels. This is significantly higher than predicted. Our natural systems cannot possibly keep up—we need to do everything we can to support the natural elimination systems.

Here are some ways we can detox daily, weekly, and yearly to support the release of these damaging substances:

Daily Detox Habits:

  • Avoid or do your best to minimize contact and use of pesticides like glyphosate, plastics containing BPA and PFAS (Teflon), petroleum-based cosmetics, and cleaning products.
  • Choose plant-based products over petroleum-based products, and purchase hypoallergenic unscented cleaners. Visit the Environmental Working Group’s website to learn more.
  • The air in our homes is 2-5 times more polluted than outdoors (from chemical off-gassing of paints, carpets, building products). Go for an after-dinner walk and breathe deeply.
  • Drink 8 x 10oz glasses of plain filtered water (more if sweating) to help flush the kidneys and keep the bowels moving. Maintain urine color that is pale apple juice.
  • Eat fiber-rich foods and as organic as possible (veggies, fruit, complex carbs) to feed the gut biome and sweep the bowels clean targeting a minimum of 1 bowel movement per day.
  • Include pre and probiotics to keep up a healthy functioning intestinal tract ecosystem.
  • Choose animal protein sources that are wild or organically grass-fed and minimize large and aqua farmed fish to avoid mercury and grain-fed pesticides.
  • Eat natural chelators like cilantro, garlic, wild blueberries, chlorella or spirulina algae, and Atlantic dulse seaweed. Chelators bind to heavy metals and take them out of the intestinal tract.
  • Intermittent Fast (no food for 12 hours between dinner and breakfast) to aid cells in the anti-inflammatory function of recycling and energy production rest called autophagy.
  • Exercise daily to increase blood, lymph, and digestive/eliminatory movement, targeting enough movement to equate to 10,000 steps.
  • Yoga stretches, twists, and inversions help squeeze and bring circulation into our organs and increase the flow of lymph drainage.
  • Soak in a hot tub with Epsom salts (magnesium sulfates, but not from China) to draw toxins out through the pores in your skin and rinse with a cold shower to increase blood circulation.
  • Take a daily Omega-3 supplement. Omega-3 fatty acids are able to modulate PM2.5 induced oxidative stress by increasing the activity of antioxidants in the fluid lining our respiratory tract.

Weekly Detox Habits:

  • Be “alcohol-free” for a day or two to give the liver an anti-inflammatory break from metabolizing it from ethanol to acetic acid.
  • Get a full body massage and include lymphatic drainage techniques to support your immune system’s removal of biotoxins and waste.
  • Dry brush your skin to unplug sweat glands and sebaceous glands from dead skin and skin lotion accumulation to aid sweatings release of toxins.
  • Sauna, steam, or mineral spring soak to support toxin elimination through sweating and osmosis. Don’t forget the cold plunge or rinse for added circulation benefits.
  • Exercise in nature with a walk or fitness hike to breathe fresh highly oxygenated air for 90 or more minutes.

Annual Detox Habits:

  • In concert with a Naturopathic Doctor and your MD (found at Functional Medicine or Integrated Health Clinics), consider a water or vegetable juice fast or herbal cleanse to tone liver and kidneys and deeply clean the intestines.
  • Again, if tested by a doctor for heavy metal toxicity, one could do a deeper chelation protocol with an intravenous ‘push’ of vitamin C.

We hope these tips help you on your journey to a healthier, less toxified, self.

What is Mountain Trek?

Mountain Trek is the health reset you’ve been looking for. Our award-winning hiking-based health retreat, immersed in the lush nature of British Columbia, will help you unplug, recharge, and roll back years of stress, anxiety, and unhealthy habits. To learn more about the retreat, and how we can help you reset your health, please email us at info@mountaintrek.com or reach out below:

Pros and Cons of Keto, Whole30 + Intermittent Fasting

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cutting board and knife with healthy nutritious vegetables and eggs

Are you thinking about trying a new diet? Quick fixes that jolt our systems are tempting to turn to, but we encourage lasting lifestyle changes. While fad diets may be tempting, there are both pros and cons to Keto, Whole30, and Intermittent Fasting.

No diet is worth doing if you can’t do it for the rest of your life.

We asked our nutritionist Jenn Keirstead to weigh in on a couple of popular diet fads. She details how restrictive programs can lead to yo-yo dieting – rapid weight loss followed by a rebound that sees you gaining everything, and sometimes even more, back – and why you should invest in a sustainable long-term nutrition plan.

Pros and Cons of the Keto Diet

The Ketogenic diet is a high-fat, adequate-protein, low-carbohydrate diet that in medicine is used primarily to treat epilepsy in children. The diet forces the body to burn fat rather than carbohydrates.

At its core, this is an extreme version of the low-carb diet. When you deprive your body of all carbohydrates, your body must use ketones as fuel. To put your body in a state of ketosis, around 80% of your diet must come from fat.

Pros of Keto

Promotes healthy fats

In the 90s, fat got a bad rap, but it’s crucial to our bodies. Fats, (animal-sourced or otherwise) can offer an excellent variety of fat, protein, and vitamins. However, it’s extremely important to source the highest quality. Look for certified organic, grass-fed/pasture-raised, or visit your local Farmers’ Market and talk to people responsible for raising your food.

Besides promoting a diet ample in healthy fats, there’s not much else that is terribly healthy or sustainable about this highly restrictive eating style.

Cons of Keto

Cuts out key nutrients

The Ketogenic diet is one of the most restrictive diets on the market. Your diet is limited to 15-20 grams of carbohydrates/day — the equivalent of a small handful of baby carrots. This leaves out most fruits and vegetables, which can deliver crucial nutrients.

Unsustainable

This biggest issue with this diet is what will happen once the person adds carbohydrates back into their diets. Hint: you might gain some of that weight back.

Pros and Cons of the Whole30 Diet

Whole30 is a 30-day fad diet that emphasizes whole foods and during which participants eliminate sugar, alcohol, grains, legumes, soy, and dairy from their diets. Whole30 is similar to but more restrictive than the paleo diet, as adherents may not eat natural sweeteners like honey or maple syrup.

Whole30 has gained popularity due to its “challenge program” style, which is designed to restart your body and change how you think about food. This diet is described as a whole foods approach to eating, and I’m certainly an advocate of eating real food.

Pros of Whole30

Introduces a variety of whole foods

The advantage of experimenting with a diet such as this is that you’re introduced to many new, healthful foods. Whole food types of diets tend to involve more time spent in the kitchen. Cooking from home can be a wonderful way to gain more control over the quality of your food, which of course, is a fantastic advantage to your health.

Cons of Whole30

Cuts out food groups we love

The challenge is not just to eliminate processed and packaged foods from your life for 30 days — You are also instructed to avoid beans/legumes, starchy vegetables, dairy, grains, sugar (including natural sweeteners), and alcohol. From our vantage point, moderate amounts of beans, legumes, dairy, and grains are good for your body. Unless you plan on never eating them again, you risk putting the weight right back on once you reintroduce them.

Too restrictive

One of the common cautions you’ll hear related to Whole30 is how restrictive it is. It’s a diet based on highly rigid rules and “slip-ups” are unfortunately unacceptable. If you “slip” you start over. The rules may make it feel impossible to be successful on a diet like this, and like many challenges or diets, that can be detrimental to one’s self-esteem. Restrictive behaviors with food may also trigger disordered eating in susceptible individuals.

Pros and Cons of Intermittent Fasting

Intermittent fasting, or intermittent calorie restriction, is an umbrella term for various diets that cycle between a period of fasting and non-fasting during a defined period.

Intermittent fasting includes everything from periodic multi-day fasts to skipping a meal or two on certain days of the week. The theory is that this type of diet will help decrease appetite by slowing the body’s metabolism.

Pros of Intermittent Fasting

The body should take some breaks between eating

Fasting can be beneficial, and we believe it’s best done in the evening, continuing on throughout the night while you’re sleeping. An earlier dinner allows for 3-4 hours before bed without food, which helps support proper digestion and — as an added bonus —potentially a much deeper sleep.

You’ll feel hungry when you wake

Another benefit is you will feel hungry when you wake and therefore be encouraged to eat during the earlier part of the day when you’re more likely to burn the calories off. Studies also show that our hormones, enzymes, and digestive systems are biologically best prepared for food intake in the morning and early afternoon.

Cons of Intermittent Fasting

Can cause overeating

There’s a strong biological push to overeat following fasting periods. Your appetite hormones and the hunger center in your brain go into overdrive when you are deprived of food.

Unbalances blood sugar levels

Restricting calories during the day can lead to unbalanced blood sugar levels, which not only promotes low energy levels but the desire to overeat at the end of the day when the body is gearing down for sleep. The idea of “rest, not digest” is a concept that assists in the digestion of your food hours before bedtime, so that your body can fall into a deep sleep on an empty stomach. This also promotes hunger in the early morning, when your body needs the calories the most.

In a nutshell, fads deliver quick results – they don’t provide long-term solutions. Rapid health resets can be beneficial, but know what you’re getting into. Find a wellness approach you can commit to, if not for life, for the foreseeable future. Learn more about our approach to balanced nutrition.

What is Mountain Trek?

Mountain Trek is the health reset you’ve been looking for. Our award-winning health retreat, immersed in the lush nature of British Columbia and featuring daily sunrise yoga and night-time restorative yoga, will help you unplug, recharge, and roll back years of stress, anxiety, and unhealthy habits. To learn more about the retreat, and how we can help you reset your health, please email us at info@mountaintrek.com or reach out below:

What The Navy SEALs Can Teach You About Yoga

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Strong Man Practicing Yoga bend over grabbing toes

The Navy SEALs practice yoga in a very specific way to create balance across their physical, mental, and emotional abilities. So should you.

While the Navy SEALs are some of the toughest, strongest, most resilient people on earth, Clair Diab, a former military yoga instructor notes “they often need more flexibility and balance.” Due to the high-stress nature of their job, a lot of SEALs constantly battle anxiety, poor sleep, and potentially, PTSD.

Recently, the SEALs incorporated yoga into their training. But not just any yoga—they introduced a highly specialized practice with specific means to a specific end. They found that sensory-enhanced yoga not only improves flexibility, posture, and balance, but reduces anxiety, improves sleep, and helps the SEALs feel calmer. Their practice includes a unique combination of physical yoga (Hatha), breathing techniques (Pranayama), meditation, and relaxation. Additionally, they brought breathing, meditation, and visualization into combat-conditioning exercises to improve mental balance, focus, and control in all circumstances. Combining the physical prowess of a Navy SEAL with the mental clarity of a monk is a strong recipe for success. But it’s not just any yoga that drives these results. It’s a specific practice or combination of practices that led to their success, and the same should be true for you.

Yoga Roots

Think of yoga as a tree. Its roots go back to India some 3,000 years ago when meditating monks noticed how stiff they were getting from sitting for long hours each day (sound familiar?). Observing how flexible the wild and even domestic animals were around them they started incorporating animal-like stretching. Hatha, or physical yoga, was born and became the first root of the tree. Over time, Raja yoga was developed with more of a focus on meditation. Bhakti yoga rested in the emotional and devotional sphere. Jnana yoga anchored in the scriptures and wisdom path. Karma yoga rooted with an emphasis on selfless service, and Tantra brings an esoteric and ritual approach to meeting the Divine in all aspects of life. These forms of yoga became the other roots of the tree.

Evolution of yoga

Over centuries Hatha yoga has evolved. Hatha now incorporates a lot of other, less physical, forms and techniques. For example, Shavasana pose, where you lay on your back and attempt to find complete stillness in mind and body, was not originally part of Hatha yoga. Today, this pose is included at the end of almost every yoga class. In the 1950s, Hatha yoga was brought to the west, and it’s evolution accelerated. Over the past 70 years, Hatha has morphed into almost as many versions as there are types of fruits.

This evolution provides you an opportunity to do exactly what the Navy SEALs have done, and find or create a unique practice. Discover a practice that will not only benefit your specific body, but also your specific mind, heart, and soul. Perhaps that is found at one studio, or you find a combination of two or even three practices that help you strike a balance and take your health to the next level. The teacher will be a key component of your safety, enjoyment, and health benefits. So, don’t be afraid to try a few different classes to find a yogic style, and instructor, that is right for you.

Explore the many varieties of yoga

Listed below are a few class types to consider as you build a practice that creates balance in your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health:

  • Iyengar: fundamental beginners focus on holding and exploring the alignment and basic structures of the poses (asanas), gaining flexibility, balance, natural posture, and inner and physical strength
  • Vinyasa: links asanas together with the breath into a gentle flow
  • Ashtanga: adds a more athletic approach to the Vinyasa flow
  • Bikram: a 105 degree heated room warms the muscles and adds sweating as a detox benefit to the mental and physical stamina gained from holding the same 26 poses each class
  • Forrest: one of many ‘hot’ yogas but adds emotional exploration to the physical challenge
  • Ishta: a flow sequence with added meditation, breathwork, and Ayurvedic cleansing techniques
  • Jivamukti: a physically rigorous and intellectually stimulating focus with chanting, breathwork, and spiritual alignment to ‘non-harming’, supporting veganism and animal rights
  • Kundalini: a rigorous collection of asanas, meditations, and intense breathwork designed to awaken ones psychoenergetic force (Kundalini) for spiritual elevation

So, while your local yoga gym may be full of lululemon-laden warriors pumping through a yoga class just to tone and tighten, remember there is a vast world of yoga out there waiting for you. A world that will lead to balanced health across your mind, body, and spirit. Take a step into the unknown and enjoy your exploration.

What is Mountain Trek?

Mountain Trek is the health reset you’ve been looking for. Our award-winning health retreat, immersed in the lush nature of British Columbia and featuring daily sunrise yoga and night-time restorative yoga, will help you unplug, recharge, and roll back years of stress, anxiety, and unhealthy habits. To learn more about the retreat, and how we can help you reset your health, please email us at info@mountaintrek.com or reach out below:

Q&A: How do I calm my anxiety?

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Q: How do I calm my anxiety?

A: According to Harvard’s health scientists, anxiety and its family of stress disorders affect over 40 million Americans, and now with the fears generated from the COVID pandemic, it is on the rise.

There is a wide range of anxiety and stress-related disorders. From constant worry to various phobias, social anxiety, obsessive-compulsive behaviors, panic attacks, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Though anxiety is part of our survival toolkit that keeps us wary of life-threatening situations, it can be debilitating if everyday events continuously trigger reactions that persist into weeks or months.

Research has made it clear that traumatic experiences in early childhood or child-parent attachment difficulties set us up for a higher likelihood of anxiety in our adult life. These unattended stressors can affect the size of parts of our brain responsible for fear and memory. As well as affecting stress levels and mood-enhancing hormones and neurotransmitters. These imbalances can then predispose us to react to fearful triggers, perceived or imagined, in our day to day life. Unconsciously, these triggers initiate thoughts and emotions that can limit and even paralyze our interactions with life’s unforeseen events and relationships with others. This is when anxiety controls our lives.

Up until very recently the only remedy to anxiety, and its common partner depression, has been medication and talk therapy. But with our increased understanding of our genetics, brain, nervous system, hormone and neurotransmitter roles, and even our gut health, there are more options for treatment than ever before.

Though research into success rates is ongoing, the majority of health professionals agree that using two treatments has more success than depending on just one.

Ways to Calm Your Anxiety

Medications

SSRI’s (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors) are most commonly prescribed for anxiety and depression. They help maintain serotonin and norepinephrine levels in the brain (both key mood-enhancing neurotransmitters). There are also medications that adjust dopamine, another “feel-good” and motivation supporting neurotransmitter. And others that help regulate our stress hormone, cortisol. As with all medications, there can be side-effects, and it can take time to calibrate the correct dosage, so work closely with your doctor with these medications as each of us is unique in how we respond to them.

Herbal supplements and essential oils

Herbal supplements and essential oils can be supportive in quelling symptoms of anxiety and chronic stress. A Dr. of Naturopathic Medicine can test your hormonal balance and offer suggestions for specific remedies and dosage. Some common herbs that have been used for centuries are St. John’s wort, passionflower, and valerian root. Research is continuing on the efficacy of essential oils like lavender and rose, which have been used for relaxation and sleep aid in Europe for centuries as well.

Gut health

Pro and prebiotic support for a healthy balance of bacteria in our intestines have shown to increase the production of serotonin.

Exercise

Regular exercise helps move energy in the body. It also releases pain-blocking endorphins that elevate our general mood, and help the body get ready for sleep. And sleep is a paramount resource for neurological and hormonal balance.

Limit triggers

Certain situations, and people, can trigger each of us differently by stimulating old traumas, doubts, and fears that can cascade into worry and helplessness. Avoid stimulants like too much news, media, and screen time as well as caffeine products.

Stress-releasing activities

Nature immersion, yoga, meditation, creative pursuits, petting an animal, massage, and gardening all lower cortisol and release neurotransmitters like serotonin, dopamine, and oxytocin, reducing anxiety.

Psycho-emotional therapy

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) 

CBT has been successful in helping people recognize their stressors, and feelings and thoughts that trigger anxiety. Its success with PTSD is based on strategies of desensitization and life skill management.

Relational Somatic Therapy (RST) 

RST is a body-centric approach that allows the brain to re-wire reactive patterns. The client is supported while exploring self-guided techniques for arising anxious thoughts or emotions. This school of therapy does not try to eliminate triggers relating to trauma or attachment issues but instead helps build awareness and tolerance.

Hypnosis, BioFeedback, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, and Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation 

These are all new therapies that are being researched and are showing success for various people from war veterans to socially shy teenagers.

Because we are all unique individuals with differences in genetics, family history, hormonal balance, responses to traumatic events, diets, and lifestyles, there is no one magic cure-all for anxiety, depression, or stress disorders. Get professional advice and experiment with different treatments while keeping a journal on your stress triggers, moods, energy levels, thoughts, and feelings. Learn how to creating healthy habits to reduce your anxiety. Anxiety and stress disorders can be managed if we seek appropriate support, a free, happy life will be lived.

What is Mountain Trek?

Mountain Trek is the health reset you’ve been looking for. Our award-winning hiking-based health retreat, immersed in the lush nature of British Columbia, will help you unplug, recharge, and roll back years of stress, anxiety, and unhealthy habits. To learn more about the retreat, and how we can help you reset your health, please email us at info@mountaintrek.com or reach out below:

The Truth About Superfoods

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The term “superfood” has taken on a life of its own.

Superfoods are commonly defined as “a nutrient-rich food considered to be especially beneficial for health and well-being.” They consist primarily of dark green leafy vegetables, berries, fish, nuts, healthy oils (e.g. olive oil or avocado oil), and a few other nutrient power-houses.

What is a Superfood?

There is an alternate definition, however, that you should be aware of. “Superfood is a marketing term for food assumed to confer health benefits resulting from an exceptional nutrient density.” There are a couple of critical words in that definition; “marketing term” and “assumed”.

Harvard Medical school points out, in the first line of their article on superfoods, “No single food — not even a superfood — can offer all the nutrition, health benefits, and energy we need to nourish ourselves”. The idea that the term superfood is being used as a trendy marketing tool gives us cause for concern—not with the superfoods themselves, but with our understanding and knowledge of how to include superfoods into our diet. We want to avoid the belief that one food provides a healthy diet, prevents illness, and elongates your life.

For example, take the company Laird Superfood. The company was founded by surf legend Laird Hamilton on the principle that if he added some superfood nutrients to his coffee, his day would be off to an optimal start. Although this may increase the nutritional value of your coffee, it by no means replaces a proper, wholesome breakfast, as it’s advertised. It’s this type of thinking we want to prevent. In reality, breakfast is the most critical meal of the day. Eating a balanced, whole-food breakfast will help balance your hormones and has been proven to increase anabolic metabolism by 15%. It should be so much more than just a cup of coffee supplemented with a few nutrients.

Superfoods can certainly be nutritious, but the term can often be more useful for driving sales than providing optimal nutrition recommendations

When food is given superfood status, it causes people to fixate on a few specific foods. Thus limiting them from eating other equally nutritious options that aren’t as hyped. Variety in your diet is important not only to gain the benefit of eating a wide array of essential vitamins and minerals but also to prevent one from eating too much (or too little) of a particular nutrient. It also keeps your meals interesting and flavorful!

Eat Super-plates, not just Superfoods

All whole, unprocessed foods are super in different ways! The more diversity of whole foods you consume, the more varied your nutrient profile will be. Increased varieties of nutrients in your diet offers more protection against disease and illness. Instead of focusing on just one superfood, we suggest thinking about creating Superplates by incorporating a wide variety of whole foods.

The healthiest diets of the world are all different and include a wide variety of foods that offer diverse nutrient profiles. When studying cultural diets across the globe, you’ll see that there’s no one perfect diet. Each diet offers different food grown in those specific regions. In other words, you don’t need the Himalayan goji berry in your diet to achieve your best health. Goji berries are called a superfood because they contain chemical compounds called phytochemicals that are produced by plants. You can find similar health benefits in everyday fruits and veggies, like organic rainbow carrots, fresh leafy green vegetables, and even cauliflower and broccoli.

A delicious blueberry is another great example of a holy grail superfood that ranks high on superfood lists. For good reason, yes! Purple and dark red colored foods are the signatures of a special class of natural antioxidants called anthocyanins. Antioxidants are extremely important, as they reduce inflammation, and help to remove harmful substances from the body. However, blueberries aren’t the only food with this color. You’ll also find anthocyanins in red cabbage, red onion, purple carrots, and beautiful beets.

Balanced plates lead to balanced health

Over two decades of helping people reset their health and find a sustainable lifestyle, we have found that in order to reach our most optimal health it’s best to have a balance of fitness, nutrition, sleep, stress management, and detoxification. Someone who is fit and able to run a marathon, but only sleeps 4 hours a night, is not healthy. Someone who eats properly, but sits all day, is not healthy. So too goes this principle of balance for nutrition and superfoods—we cannot just eat one superfood and be healthy. We must eat a balanced super-plate, with a variety of whole foods for a sustainable diet that provides tons of energy, nutrients, and antioxidants. A diet that will leave YOU feeling SUPER.

What is Mountain Trek?

Mountain Trek is the health reset you’ve been looking for. Our award-winning health retreat, immersed in the lush nature of British Columbia, will help you detox, unplug, recharge, and roll back years of stress and unhealthy habits. To learn more about the retreat, and how we can help you reset your health, please email us at info@mountaintrek.com or reach out below:

Q&A: How do I stay safe and cool when hiking in the summer heat?

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Q: I am aching to go hiking and get out of the house, but it’s hot out. How do I stay safe and cool when hiking in the summer heat?

A: Exercising outdoors has multiple health benefits including a 30% increase in calorie burn (compared to the same exercise and exertion indoors), a lowering of the stress hormone cortisol, and brain bathing of our “feel-good” neurotransmitters: dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin. However, if we are used to a temperature and humidity controlled environment (gym or home), we need to incorporate some care before launching ourselves into mother nature’s arms as heat exhaustion or worse, heatstroke, can be dangerous and debilitating. Consider these tips:

Pre-hike:

  • Check the forecast and choose your days and activities when there is cloud cover and the UV index is lower. Be especially careful if going out on days when the UV index is 7 or higher.
  • Avoid mid-day sun, when UV rays are the strongest. Plan your hike for earlier in the day (early bird gets the worm!) or later to catch a sunset (bring a headlamp in this case).
  • If the humidity is high, lower your workout intensity to avoid overheating. Sweating, our body’s cooling mechanism, is more difficult when it is humid.
  • Make sure to hydrate and eat before heading out. Beyond energy requirements, proper nutrition will help with hydration.
  • Take a high-quality electrolyte 1-2 hours before going out on the trail (we use Vega products, which don’t have added sugar, making them much healthier than an alternative electrolyte drink like Gatorade). Electrolytes help your body retain moisture.
  • Wear the proper clothing for hot weather hiking. A wide-brimmed hat will keep the sun off of your face and neck. Light colors will reflect the sun. Loose, breathable clothing will allow ventilation. And a neck cover, such as a bandana, will come in handy. We typically recommend wool, but it’s a hot fabric, so for really hot weather, opt for thin cotton or a synthetic fabric. However, always wear a high-quality pair of wool socks, no matter what the temperature. Proper foot care is critical!

During-hike:

  • Make sure to stay hydrated on the trail. At Mountain Trek, we have a few sayings to help guests remember to drink water while hiking. “See water, hear water, drink water” is a favorite if you’re hiking along a creek or in the alpine amongst lakes. Another tip is to use a water bladder (one that holds at least 3 liters). If positioned correctly, the hose can be a constant reminder to hydrate, and to do so without stopping! You should aim to drink half of a liter per hour, but when it’s hot, you may need to increase that amount.
  • Look for shade to protect your skin. Stop in the shade for your longer water and snack breaks.
  • Wet your hat or bandanna in a cool stream or with your water bottle to keep your head and neck cool, two areas that significantly dictate our overall body temperature.
  • Acclimatize to the heat by incrementally increasing your exercise intensity over a few days. This will get your body used to the experience of exercising in the heat and will help you practice for longer days out on the trail.
  • Go with a friend for support and safety. It’s always a good idea to hike with a buddy.
  • Be aware of early warning signs of heat exhaustion: muscle cramping, lightheadedness, dizziness, headache, excessive sweating, confusion or irritability, increased heart rate, vision problems. If sensing any of these, stop in a shaded area, hydrate, and cool off.

Post-hike:

  • Continue to hydrate for the remainder of the day.
  • Keep a cooler in your car with icepacks, cold drinks and a cold washcloth. When you return, place the cool washcloth on your head or neck and enjoy your cold beverage, allowing your core temperature to lower again before driving home.

We hope these tips and tricks help you enjoy the summer heat safely. Enjoy your time on the trail.

What is Mountain Trek?

Mountain Trek is the health reset you’ve been looking for. Our award-winning hiking-based health retreat, immersed in the lush nature of British Columbia, will help you detox, unplug, recharge, and roll back years of stress and unhealthy habits. To learn more about the retreat, and how we can help you reset your health, please email us at info@mountaintrek.com or reach out below: