This is where we share our favorite tips, tricks, secrets, and ways to "think like a healthy person" so that you can find your own delicious path to healthy living.

"Feel-Good Mondays" are meant to help us get back into that place of feeling energized, nourished, and ready to take inspired action for the week ahead.

Ah, springtime! Flowers blooming everywhere. Pollen wafting through the air. The constant sniffling, itchy eyes, and sneezing all day long…

If you are a seasonal allergy sufferer (like me, and so many of our clients), the change of season from winter to spring can be bittersweet. I mean, who doesn’t love sunnier days and color bursting everywhere!? But at the same time, I don’t know anyone who likes being tied to the tissue box…

Here’s the good news, though! If you suffer through seasonal allergies, I want you to know that relief may come from an unexpected place: Your refrigerator (or, more precisely, what’s in – or not in – that fridge!).

Yep, it’s true: What we eat absolutely can impact our allergic response. When we think about it, it intuitively just makes sense. The foods that we eat can either be anti-inflammatory (fruits, veggies, water) or inflammatory to our system (processed foods, sugary beverages, excess alchol, and food we may be unknowingly sensitive to).

If we’re eating food that is creating inflammatory conditions in the body, that can make us more likely to have an immune system response that’s gone a bit haywire (and more likely to fight off pollen and leaves – completely harmless substances).

So what can you do if you’re sick of suffering from season allergies?

For starters, look at your diet. Sugar, dairy, and gluten are the popular inflammatory culprits for many of our clients.

It’s also possible your immune system just needs some support! Our immune system lives in our gut, so if you’ve been on several rounds of antibiotics over the years, it’s possible your gut just needs a little help getting “repopulated” with healthy gut flora (AKA healthy bacteria!).

Another option is adding in quercetin, a powerful antioxidant that’s found in apples and onions. This flavonoid has been shown to reduce the body’s inflammatory response. We’ve used this supplement (along with a select combo of others) to help our clients boost immunity, reduce inflammation, and calm that runny nose/itchy eyes/scratchy throat. (Quercetin is often combined with “bromelain” in supplements, an antioxidant enzyme found in pineapples that helps make quercetin more absorbable/available to the body. I recommend purchasing a supplement that uses this combo.)

It also might be time to consider a cleanse! If it’s been a while since you’ve taken a break from sugar and dairy (and alcohol and gluten), you’re wondering if you might have some undiagnosed food sensitivities, you want to naturally reduce inflammation, and you feel it’s just time to press the “reboot” button on your body this spring, consider doing an elimination diet.