My Daily Matcha Latte Recipe
It’s no secret that I LOVE my matcha. But this was not always the case! As someone who adores the ritual of a warm cup of something in the morning, I had a pretty tough time coming to term with the fact that my morning coffee was not doing me any favors. Although I had been drinking it for years (and even worked as a barista) when I really tuned in years ago I realized that coffee was irritating my already irritated and inflamed gut, was adding to my already heightened state of stress and was a trigger for some of my worst inflammatory symptoms. My daily matcha latte recipe has been a life saver and is my favorite way to start the day!
It’s no secret that I LOVE my matcha. But this was not always the case! As someone who adores the ritual of a warm cup of something in the morning, I had a pretty tough time coming to term with the fact that my morning coffee was not doing me any favors. Although I had been drinking it for years (and even worked as a barista) when I really tuned in years ago I realized that coffee was irritating my already irritated and inflamed gut, was adding to my already heightened state of stress and was a trigger for some of my worst inflammatory symptoms.
When transitioning away from coffee I realized I needed something tasty and satisfying I could put in it’s place! I love this matcha latte recipe and enjoy it pretty much every morning. The addition of fat and protein keep my blood sugar stable, and the caffeine in the matcha gives me a much more even energy boost than coffee.
L-Theanine, an amino acid found in matcha, combines with caffeine to create increased focused and sustained energy throughout the day. L-Theanine can help lower blood pressure, enhance mood and promotes a sense of calmness by relaxing alpha waves in the brain (associated with a feeling of happiness and alertness) and increasing dopamine production – two of the brain’s ‘feel good’ chemicals. [1] I find matcha to be really gentle and must easier on my nervous system than coffee. It’s worth experimenting to see what works for you!
Matcha is also a potent antioxidant. On the ORAC scale (oxygen radical absorbance capacity – a measure of the antioxidant capacity of food), it surpasses all other antioxidant rich foods including blueberries, pomegranates, and dark chocolate. As you can see there are tons of reasons to give matcha a try! Let me know how you like the recipe below!
My daily matcha latte recipe
Ingredients
1 scoop matcha powder (I love Soar Organics)
2 scoops collagen powder (I’m currently using Further Foods collagen and love it!)
Splash of coconut milk OR 1 tbsp coconut butter
Dash of cinnamon
8oz hot water
Directions
Place all ingredients into a blender except water.
Allow the boiled water to cool slightly and pour into the mixture to avoid burning the matcha.
Blend until frothy and combined (about 30 seconds)
Pour into your favorite mug and enjoy!
Hi! I’m Christina
If we haven't met before, I'm Christina Tidwell and I'm so excited that you're here! I am a RN & Functional Nutrition Practitioner that helps those with autoimmune disease, hormone imbalance and gut issues heal without overwhelm so you can feel better in your body in a way that honors your unique needs and feels sustainable for the rest of your life.
If you suffer from:
Fatigue and energy crashes
Brain fog
Poor digestion
Painful periods and PMS
Symptoms of autoimmunity
Stress and overwhelm
...and aren't getting the support you need, I’m here to help guide you! My job is to clear the overwhelm, help you put the pieces of the puzzle together and co-create a sustainable path forward to help you reach your goals and feel better in your amazing body. When we work together you can’t fail.
In my health & nutrition coaching programs I support you in the quest to get back into balance by listening to your story, understanding your needs, getting to the roots of imbalance in the body and co-creating a sustainable path to healing together. These sessions weave together functional nutrition and science, lived experience, mindset shifts, and intuitive guidance for a unique and full-spectrum approach to nutrition counseling and holistic health.
I always offer free 20-minute discovery sessions to get clear on your major health concerns and identify what’s standing in your way. Click the button below to set up your free consultation and we can create a plan of action specifically for you.
Can I still heal if I don’t have a diagnosis?
Having a diagnosis can be really helpful especially in our current medical system and definitely worth pursuing because it allows us to get the right medications, insurance reimbursement, and have a clear plan of action and path to healing. But, a diagnosis is not everything and waiting for a formal diagnosis to do anything about our health can stop us from what’s available to us right now. So what happens when we don’t fit into this disease category, but we still don’t feel great? It may seem as though there is nothing we can do, but actually there are many, many tools in the toolkit to support the body at this pivotal time! This is the area that I love to work in, and the area that gets missed so often in our health care system.
I was speaking to a woman the other day who told me she had been feeling “off” for a long time now experiencing symptoms of fatigue, increased weight gain, digestive issues, brain fog and joint pain. She’d been to a few doctors who ran tests and told her that everything appeared to be “normal.” She felt discouraged, knowing that she didn’t feel right but she didn’t feel validated about how she was feeling. She was confused because she didn’t have any formal diagnosis of disease from her practitioners and, therefore, wasn’t given any guidance on what to do to help herself feel better.
She asked me, “How can I heal if I don’t have a diagnosis?”
An AARDA study of autoimmune patients found that the average time for diagnosis of an autoimmune disease is 4.6 years. During that period, the patient typically has seen 4.8 doctors in our current medical system. This is because autoimmune diseases can start out or manifest as “vague” symptoms such as fatigue, digestive issues, inflammation and pain. Our medical system is really a disease-focused system where the goal is to identify and diagnose a disease state. When our symptoms don’t fit into a neat and tidy disease category, patients aren’t given a diagnosis and are sometimes told to come back when things get worse and they meet criteria for treatment.
This, to me, just isn’t good enough and allows many people to fall through the cracks without getting proper medical care.
Having a diagnosis can be really helpful especially in our current medical system and definitely worth pursuing because it allows us to get the right medications, insurance reimbursement, and have a clear plan of action and path to healing. But, a diagnosis is not everything and waiting for a formal diagnosis to do anything about our health can stop us from what’s available to us right now.
So what happens when we don’t fit into this disease category, but we still don’t feel great? It may seem as though there is nothing we can do, but actually there are many, many tools in the toolkit to support the body at this pivotal time! This is the area that I love to work in, and the area that gets missed so often in our health care system.
When we look at these foundational aspects of health that include:
Proper nutrition
Digestive health
Hydration
Stress and Resilience
Sleep
Relationships
Mindset
…it doesn’t matter what the disease diagnosis is at the top. This goes against the paradigm we have in our current medical system where we focus on the organ-system diagnosis rather than the roots below that allowed that system to get out of balance in the first place. If you are experiencing symptoms and have not gotten a formal diagnosis, you can absolutely still benefit from taking a look at these foundational pieces of health and supporting your body to functional more optimally right now.
I like to say, start where you are, use what you have and do what you can! Where are you at with all of those foundational pieces and how can you support yourself TODAY no matter what diagnosis you have? Can you increase the nutrient density of your food intake? Reduce your sugar intake? Do you need to support digestion to ensure you are absorbing all of your nutrients from your food? What is your level of stress on a daily basis on a scale from 1-10? Are you sleeping?
Once we begin to look at these foundation pieces of healing we see that we have so many more tools in the toolkit than we have been lead to believe! It can seem overwhelming to know where to start in this process. If you’re looking for support on how to take control of your health and understand the root causes of imbalance in your body, I can help. I always offer free 20-minute discovery sessions to get clear on your major health concerns and what’s standing in your way! Book in your complementary phone call here >>
Trust yourself. You know your body better than anyone else. When you don’t feel right, you don’t feel right and you deserve validation and support. I want you to know that there are many tools available to you even if you don’t have a formal diagnosis of disease!
PREFER TO LISTEN? TUNE INTO THE LIVE WELL PODCAST BELOW (AND DON'T FORGET TO SUBSCRIBE SO YOU'LL NEVER MISS OUT!)
Click here to listen in iTunes
Click here to listen in Stitcher
Or if you’d like to play the episode right now in your browser, use the player below:
If we haven't met before, I'm Christina Tidwell and I'm so excited that you're here! I am a RN & Functional Nutrition Practitioner that helps those with autoimmune disease, hormone imbalance and gut issues heal without overwhelm so you can feel better in your body in a way that honors your unique needs and feels sustainable for the rest of your life.
If you suffer from:
Fatigue and energy crashes
Brain fog
Poor digestion
Painful periods and PMS
Symptoms of autoimmunity
Stress and overwhelm
...and aren't getting the support you need, I’m here to help guide you! My job is to clear the overwhelm, help you put the pieces of the puzzle together and co-create a sustainable path forward to help you reach your goals and feel better in your amazing body. When we work together you can’t fail.
In my health & nutrition coaching programs I support you in the quest to get back into balance by listening to your story, understanding your needs, getting to the roots of imbalance in the body and co-creating a sustainable path to healing together. These sessions weave together functional nutrition and science, lived experience, breathwork, mindset shifts, and intuitive guidance for a unique and full-spectrum approach to nutrition counseling and holistic health.
I always offer free 20-minute discovery sessions to get clear on your major health concerns and identify what’s standing in your way. Click the button below to set up your free consultation and we can create a plan of action specifically for you.
The Beer and Pizza Diet
Is stress about the perfect diet causing your health to decline?
Is stress about the perfect diet causing your health to decline?
I heard Chris Kresser tell a story about a 25 year old client he knew who went to his doctor for help a a dire state of health. He had chronic fatigue, acne and skin issues, digestive issues and depression. His doctor suggested to do an elimination diet removing gluten, dairy and sugar. While this helped alleviate some digestive issues and improved energy a bit he was still left with many lingering symptoms.
His practitioner then recommended he cutout grains and legumes. Then nuts and seeds. Then alcohol and caffeine as his symptoms continued to persist.
As this client continue to restrict and restrict further, he found himself with only a few “safe” foods he was able to eat that included chicken, sweet potatoes and leafy greens.
He had begun to fear food and was hesitant to try anything new. His symptoms were getting worse and worse. He felt his stress rising and began to feel more isolated as he cut out social activity or anything that didn’t adhere to his strict routine.
He began to feel so helpless that he stopped going to his practitioner and decided to take matters into his own hands. He came back to his doctor 6 months later and looked like a brand new person.
He had gained weight, he had more color in his face, he clearly had more energy and his skin was improved. His doctor asked him what protocol he went on to get such amazing results and he answered with a laugh, “The beer and pizza diet!”
He went on to explain that he felt so low about his health condition that he thought he actually might die. He began to think that if he was going to die, he might as well enjoy his life while he could. He decided that he would go out with friends twice a week for beer and pizza. For the rest of his meals he could eat whatever he wanted that felt good to him.
He began to create more social connections with friends and feel less isolated in his experience. He had been so afraid of eating something that would do more damage that lifting some of this stress and pressure allowed him to connect to his food again and enjoy it. He focused on having fun, feeling good and enjoying himself.
In his pursuit of the “perfect” diet, he had allowed stress to run rampant, put so much pressure on himself to be perfect, and isolated himself from the people and things that brought him joy.
I share this story not to tell you to go out and eat beer and pizza for every meal, but for the message behind it.
In the pursuit of health it can be easy to lose sight of other important primary foods like social connection, joy and a helpful mindset.
Have you ever felt this way in the pursuit of the perfect diet? I coach many clients through the process of implementing various types of elimination diets to support health with amazing results. Using food to support our bodies is one of the most powerful tools we have and has personally transformed my life and health!
The food we intake is information and it has the ability to completely transform how we feel. If I went out and ate pizza and drank beer several times a week it would likely make me feel a whole lot worse as I know that gluten and alcohol aren’t my best friends! But if I felt as though the only way I could be healthy was to stay at home and eat only 5 “safe” foods, I know that my overall health would decline as well.
Just as this story highlights, food is powerful, but the issue becomes when we get so fixated on the pursuit of the “perfect” diet that we forget about the other influential factors in health like our stress response, social interactions, community, sleep and rest, and mindset.
We are complex beings and our health is impacted by many different factors. If a healing diet makes us feel more stressed, isolated, deprived and fearful, it might be best to ease in by flooding the body with good, nutrient-dense foods first, work to tune into our body to hear what it really needs, and meet ourselves compassionately where we are at.
PREFER TO LISTEN? TUNE INTO THE LIVE WELL PODCAST BELOW (AND DON'T FORGET TO SUBSCRIBE SO YOU'LL NEVER MISS OUT!)
Click here to listen in iTunes
Click here to listen in Stitcher
Or if you’d like to play the episode right now in your browser, use the player below:
If we haven't met before, I'm Christina Tidwell and I'm so excited that you're here! I am a RN & Functional Nutrition Practitioner that helps those with autoimmune disease, hormone imbalance and gut issues heal without overwhelm so you can feel better in your body in a way that honors your unique needs and feels sustainable for the rest of your life.
If you suffer from:
Fatigue and energy crashes
Brain fog
Poor digestion
Painful periods and PMS
Symptoms of autoimmunity
Stress and overwhelm
...and aren't getting the support you need, I’m here to help guide you! My job is to clear the overwhelm, help you put the pieces of the puzzle together and co-create a sustainable path forward to help you reach your goals and feel better in your amazing body. When we work together you can’t fail.
In my health & nutrition coaching programs I support you in the quest to get back into balance by listening to your story, understanding your needs, getting to the roots of imbalance in the body and co-creating a sustainable path to healing together. These sessions weave together functional nutrition and science, lived experience, breathwork, mindset shifts, and intuitive guidance for a unique and full-spectrum approach to nutrition counseling and holistic health.
I always offer free 20-minute discovery sessions to get clear on your major health concerns and identify what’s standing in your way. Click the button below to set up your free consultation and we can create a plan of action specifically for you.
My evening routine for relaxation and improved sleep
My evening routine for relaxation and improved sleep! Do you struggle with winding down in the evening? Do you find yourself carrying stress from your work day? Or still holding onto your to-do list? Do your thoughts keep you from relaxing or getting to sleep? Tune into to learn how to create supportive evening routine!
A few weeks ago I shared my morning routine for increased energy and clarity. This week I’d love to share with you how to create an intentional evening routine for relaxation and improved sleep!
Do you struggle with winding down in the evening?
Do you find yourself carrying stress from your work day? Or still holding onto your to-do list?
Do your thoughts keep you from relaxing or getting to sleep?
I want you to think about what your evening looks like from the moment you arrive home, or from the moment you eat dinner onwards. What are you doing? How are you feeling? First get clear on what your typical evening looks like.
Now get clear about how you WANT to feel…
Do you want to feel relaxed, at peace, calm? Do you want to get to sleep more easily? Do you want to have a few moments for yourself?
Once you get clear on these pieces, you can move forward with creating an evening routine that will help you achieve this.
My personal evening routine for increased relaxation and improved sleep.
Ever since I started working as a RN 8 years ago, I discovered the importance of implementing a “transition” routine to move into my evening. This was born out of the necessity to let go and put aside some of the intense things I saw and experienced at work that I was carrying with me into my evening.
For me this looked like taking a shower with really nice smelling soap and burning some incense/sage while honoring what I did that day and moving on. It’s not like it erased the day but it allowed me to get into a different headspace where I was able to be present and enjoy the rest of my day before bed without replaying everything I had just done and living in the past.
As someone who works from home, I still value and utilize this transition routine as a really important way to signal that I’m done with “work” time and I am moving into my evening.
This transition from work is a simple practice that I now encourage all of my health coaching clients to implement. Most of us are busy, stressed and overworked and find it really hard to turn off. We may look forward to getting home after work all day (is it 5:00 yet?) but then proceed to check emails and carry the stress of the work day around with us consciously or unconsciously. (I say unconsciously because sometimes I would think I was just fine and would weep at a touching soft drink commercial because I hadn’t really processed my emotional stress from the previous work days. Please tell me I’m not the only one that does this?).
This stress can seep into all areas of life outside of work and affect relationships, mood, sleep quality, health and how you show up as a human in your everyday life.
This “transition from work” routine will look really different for each person. The only thing required is that you do it mindfully and with intention.
Some routine ideas to transition from work:
Change into comfortable clothing
Take a relaxing shower or bath
Burn sage or incense to clear space
Breathe in some relaxing essential oils
Deep belly breathing (watch my 4-7-8 breathing video here) for 5 minutes
Guided meditation (these are easier if you find it really hard to sit in silence after the work day.
Write down some of the most stressful things you experienced in a journal so they aren’t swirling in your head all night.
Light some candles and relax for 10 minutes
Make a cup of tea
Do some hamstring stretches to release stuck energy
Lay on your back with your legs up the wall for a few minutes
It doesn’t have to be anything long or fancy, it just has to work for you. These small shifts make the biggest difference.
Once I transition into my evening I take stock of how I’m feeling that day and what I need. If a yoga class is something I need, I do that. If resting on the couch and staring at the ceiling is something I need, I do that. If taking time to cook a nice meal is what my body is asking me for, that’s what I prioritize.
Like I spoke about with my morning routine, I have a strict technology boundary (I have to be strict or else I don’t do this one!) and put my phone away by 8-9pm. This allows me time to fully disconnect from work, social media and anything that might keep my brain going into the evening.
I also try to minimize blue light that can decrease melatonin production in the evening by reducing screen use after a certain time. I find this helps me a lot, to get a deeper sleep! I definitely love a good Netflix binge, but realize that for me TV is usually a “numbing” agent and can sometimes stop me from getting actual, real, relaxation and restoration that my body is craving. If I’m feeling really depleted and tempted to just zone out with TV all night I make sure I get some quiet time to breath and feel where my body is really at.
I love to have a relaxing herbal tea or a magnesium drink to help me wind down as well.
I’ve never been someone whose had a particularly hard time sleeping (except when on higher doses of Prednisone in the past, oof!) but I still work to make sure I set myself up for success. If I don’t get good amounts of sleep my body really, really, really feels it.
A few things I do to support sleep:
Make sure my room is really dark. Any lights on can decrease melatonin production and disrupt sleep.
Sleep with my phone outside of my room (game changer)
Spray lavender mist on my pillow for some serious relaxation
Do some 4-7-8 breathing before bed
Avoid caffeine after noon
Manage stress using journaling, breathing and meditation throughout the day
I do find with my clients that one of the most common reasons for trouble falling asleep is unmanaged stress throughout the day. So notice where you are with that, and if your circling thoughts from the day are contributing to your inability to fall asleep.
You can try journaling before bed to get the thoughts “out,” listen to a guided meditation or simply do some breathing.
Just like the morning routine, there are many different things you can bring in and it all depends on what works for you and how you want to feel in your evenings. They don’t have to be long or complex, just simple, intentional ways to help you feel how you want in your day!
PREFER TO LISTEN? TUNE INTO THE LIVE WELL PODCAST BELOW (AND DON'T FORGET TO SUBSCRIBE SO YOU'LL NEVER MISS OUT!)
Click here to listen in iTunes
Click here to listen in Stitcher
Or if you’d like to play the episode right now in your browser, use the player below:
If we haven't met before, I'm Christina Tidwell and I'm so excited that you're here! I am a RN & Functional Nutrition Practitioner that helps those with autoimmune disease, hormone imbalance and gut issues heal without overwhelm so you can feel better in your body in a way that honors your unique needs and feels sustainable for the rest of your life.
If you suffer from:
Fatigue and energy crashes
Brain fog
Poor digestion
Painful periods and PMS
Symptoms of autoimmunity
Stress and overwhelm
...and aren't getting the support you need, I’m here to help guide you! My job is to clear the overwhelm, help you put the pieces of the puzzle together and co-create a sustainable path forward to help you reach your goals and feel better in your amazing body. When we work together you can’t fail.
In my health & nutrition coaching programs I support you in the quest to get back into balance by listening to your story, understanding your needs, getting to the roots of imbalance in the body and co-creating a sustainable path to healing together. These sessions weave together functional nutrition and science, lived experience, breathwork, mindset shifts, and intuitive guidance for a unique and full-spectrum approach to nutrition counseling and holistic health.
I always offer free 20-minute discovery sessions to get clear on your major health concerns and identify what’s standing in your way. Click the button below to set up your free consultation and we can create a plan of action specifically for you.
