My Morning Routine

I've been getting a lot of emails and messages lately about what I eat and how I optimize my own nutrition, so I thought I'd do something different and share a little snippet of my own morning routine with you.

Fair warning, this is what works for and is personalized to me from testing, and is not meant for anyone else...

I'm not a morning person, and sleep is important to me, so I sleep in. What does that mean? I wake up every morning without an alarm clock but get up pretty regularly between 6:30-8:30am.

Most mornings, I opt into a quick 8-10 minutes of red light therapy right away while I still have my eyes shut in bed or do a 20 minute morning meditation, but it depends on what's going on that day and if I need to get going quickly or not.

After taking my crazy one year old Vizsla puppy Milo out for a short walk (pictured here on a trip with me to the dog park), I make a quick cup of fresh juice to support my mineral levels. I see this cup of juice as a "supplement" that I take almost daily as a therapeutic way to support a stress induced mineral deficiency I've reversed over the years (identified by hair analysis) but still like to support because of the way it supports energy, digestion, mood and thyroid health.

Annnnnnd it really helps keep my stress levels under control!

About an hour or so later I finally make breakfast and of course I take my favorite food-based supplements (because I really hate synthetic nutrients — nature knows best!).

Because I'm pretty lazy with food in the morning (read: the laziest human alive), most days of the week this is just a breakfast smoothie (sometimes I have eggs too), but I optimize it for nutrition and my body's individual nutrition needs. That means... it contains two special fruits for a nutrient dense carbohydrate source that help give me minerals I trend low in on hair analysis testing (but that I also really like as well), a fat source that supports my liver and metabolic type, and two-three kinds of protein (little over a tablespoon of each) that work well with my own body.

I know you're probably wondering why I use different kinds of protein, and the reason is simple so I will briefly explain...

I think the best diets are those with the most variety AND the least amount of restriction, and protein powders can really get you in a rut of giving your body the same amino acid profile every day (that is typically incomplete in some way). Let me explain...

The most popular protein powders right now are:
-Whey protein made from milk (whey protein typically only makes up 20% of the protein found in milk, that means you're missing the balance from the other 80% of the milk protein which is casein)
-Collagen protein is part of the whole animal, but a new trend I'm seeing is people overdoing collagen (I'm totally guilty of it too) and not eating enough muscle meat to balance it.... it's like eating when you see kids eating chicken nuggets with ketchup and that's okay, but then if they were to start eating just ketchup for a meal (not okay)! Super over-simplified example, but you get that it's all about balance 😉

So instead, I use a mix of these protein powders to get a wide array of amino acid compositions:
-Collagen. I'm sure you all are familiar with collagen by now, and because I use it, I also use the next protein to balance it...
-My Favorite Protein Powder made from beef and egg whites (it doesn't taste like beef though — I promise)!
-Fermented goat milk protein (super digestible due to fermentation and goat products are much better tolerated then cow, plus less likely to cause inflammation). This protein powder is made from all the milk, and not just one part, making it more of a complete protein source.

I typically drink my breakfast smoothie while writing, catching up on emails with clients and getting my work day started.

And a cup of decaf coffee with a few inches of rice or oat milk (with as little added stuff as possible, especially no vitamin D2 or D3) comes sometime after that...

The rest of my food day is typically not as customized and based more on what I crave or what is convenient (read: I don't think about health or nutrition at all), because the knowledge I've gained about my own nutrition through hair analysis has given me the freedom to target it in the morning therapeutically, and then not give it another thought the rest of the day (because balance ;)).

I hope this helps inspire you to create your own customized nutrition routine without rigidity and rules to support the best version of you <3.

P.S. If you're ready to dial in your nutrition with the precision of data from your own body (so you can put your nutrition on autopilot and stop thinking about it ALL the time) you can learn more about Hair Analysis here. With plans starting at only $99, there is a way for everyone to get this valuable data on their own nutrition needs!