Power of Diet and Lifestyle for Health

In this episode, Dr. Elizabeth Sharp discusses various aspects of health and wellness. She emphasizes the importance of diet, lifestyle and stress management. She shares about her journey into functional medicine, which led her to the the significance of gut health and hormonal balance. Dr. Sharp also highlights practical strategies for stress management, the impact of food sensitivities, and the role of habit stacking in creating sustainable health routines. You can find Dr. Sharp at Health Meets Wellness. Takeaways Diet and lifestyle are crucial for overall health. Daily movement, like walking, is essential for stress management. Mindful eating can improve digestion and reduce stress. Food sensitivities can significantly impact gut health. Gut health is interconnected with hormonal balance. Chronic stress can lead to various health issues. Habit stacking simplifies health routines and reduces decision fatigue. Maintaining muscle mass is important during weight loss. Watch on YouTube https://youtu.be/PjnqETV5X2Q Episode Transcript Cheryl McColgan (00:00.908)Hi everyone, welcome to the Heal Nourish Grow podcast. Today I am joined by Dr. Elizabeth Sharp and we are going to talk about all different kinds of aspects of health, but a couple of things I think you guys will really appreciate, especially since we're coming in to this busy time of year with the holidays and stuff coming up, a lot of stress, so we're going to talk about that. But before we get into all that, Dr. Sharp, I'd just love if you would share with people, kind of a little bit about your personal… background because you have lot of interesting things that you've done. You've done some amazing hiking. You're also a yoga instructor. So you're obviously really passionate as am I about health and wellness. I'd love to just hear some of that background so that people can get to know you a little bit and understand why you've become so passionate about helping people on their personal health journey. Elizabeth (00:44.559)Yeah, so I would say I've always been interested in primary care and that's why I did the internal medicine training that I did and I knew that I wanted to go into primary care in residency. But as I started to practice, really started to appreciate the importance of diet and lifestyle and also the impact overall and kind of wellness and a general feeling of well -being in terms of the mind -body connection. And I think also that ties in with the gut -brain axis. And so I try to tie in all of those things with my practice because I've noticed the difference in my own personal health. When I'm active, when I'm eating a healthy diet, it makes a big difference. Right. And so that's kind of part of what got me into functional medicine is GI related conditions. Generally, I had a lot of patients coming to me with some kind of symptoms that were all very similar. So, you know, gas and bloating, abdominal discomfort that were really explained by the traditional medical work. And so I just thought, you there has to be more that I can do for these patients, more that I can offer. And so once I opened up that door, I really started to explore a bit more in terms of lifestyle medicine, a little bit more with expanded testing and understanding how you can incorporate general internal medicine with, you know, botanicals, nutraceuticals, supplements, that kind of thing. And ultimately how you can create a healthy lifestyle. which is really what sustains people for the rest of their lives with their health as opposed to just treating symptoms. Cheryl McColgan (02:21.56)Yeah, love that. And it's definitely a paradigm that this audience is used to hearing about kind of this functional health approach where it's not just, okay, take this pill is more like, hey, you're gonna probably have to do a little more work than that to move on and really have an optimally healthy life.