The holiday season is often filled with joy, laughter, and, of course, food. From festive feasts to sweet treats, the holidays can be a delightful time for culinary indulgence. However, this time of year can also pose challenges for maintaining a healthy relationship with food. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by social pressures, emotional eating, and the fear of weight gain. Here are some tips to help you support a healthy relationship with food during the holidays while still enjoying the festivities.

While nutrition is critical, combining a healthy diet with regular physical activity is vital for weight loss and overall health beyond the number on the scale. While weight loss medications can help reduce appetite or increase metabolism, physical activity can further accelerate weight loss. Exercise burns calories, helping create a larger calorie deficit, which is essential for weight loss.

Let’s continue the conversation of how nutrition supports weight loss medication usage. These medications work to decrease hunger and keep you fuller for longer, which may cause some nutrients to be lacking, which is why specific nutrients need to be emphasized to support your body as a whole.

It’s no secret that weight loss medications have gained popularity as a tool for managing weight. These medications can be a helpful part of a comprehensive weight management plan, but to achieve lasting results, it’s crucial to combine them with sustainable nutrition and lifestyle practices. This is why we aim to come alongside you during any step in your weight loss journey to support you, whether you are considering weight loss medications or already using them. Let’s explore how to adopt a balanced and effective approach to nutrition while on weight loss medications.

Supporting menopause through healthy nutrition doesn’t have to be boring! We aim to always provide delicious recipes while you are on your health journey to feel your best. In our last blog, “Food and mood: How nutrition impacts mental health” we discussed some of the nutrients important for hormones in menopause including fiber, probiotics, vitamin D, and calcium. In addition, healthy fats and protein are important to maintaining bone health and supporting a healthy weight during menopause. However, incorporating these into your day might seem tough. But look no further than our 1-day sample menu for supporting menopause.

Although we can support mental health through nutrition and lifestyle, sometimes some additional support is needed. This is where supplements may be beneficial in mood enhancement, particularly for calming. Supplements for mood support can range between herbs, vitamins, and other compounds. It is important to note that use of traditional medications to support mental health may interact with supplementation, therefore, it is important to consult a medical professional or healthcare provider for your individualized use of supplements to support mental health. That being said, here are our top supplements for calming the mind and body and supporting a healthy mood.

Lifestyles can have a significant impact on our moods, how we feel, and our quality of life. There is a classic chicken-and-egg dilemma in the relationship between our mood and lifestyle, as it can be difficult to determine which influences the other more. Mental health impacts thoughts, feelings, actions and influences our ability to handle stress, relate to others, and make choices. Does our mood impact our lifestyle habits or do our lifestyle habits impact our mood? Let’s look at some key lifestyle factors and how they are impacted by mood.

Supporting a good mood and a healthy brain through nutrition doesn’t have to be boring! We aim to always provide delicious recipes to accompany your health goals… and mental health is no different. In our last blog, “Food and mood: How nutrition impacts mental health” we discussed some of the nutrients important for healthy brain function including omega-3 fatty acids, fiber, and antioxidant rich-foods, but incorporating these into your day might seem tough. But look no further than our 1-day sample meal plan for good mood food!

We often only discuss the physical benefits of improving your dietary patterns, but did you know that nutrition can impact your mental health too? It's true! There is a strong connection between your gut environment and brain through what is scientifically known as the enteric nervous system. Because of the strong connection between the brain and the gastrointestinal tract, feeding your body with mood boosting food may improve mental health and overall motivation to achieve health goals.

Metabolic and bariatric surgery impacts hormone health in a variety of ways. Adipose or fat tissue plays a large part in endocrine system function and hormone communication. Changes in weight after surgery can disrupt hormone balance overall. In addition, gut hormones such as leptin and ghrelin, which impact hunger and fullness cues are impacted due to absorption and anatomical changes. Metabolic and bariatric surgery often improves hormonal functioning such as blood glucose control and sex hormones, however, if imbalance was present before surgery we may still need to dive deeper.

After addressing PCOS through nutrition and lifestyle interventions, if further support is needed we may look to use supplementation to help your body manage symptoms. There is strong evidence that some supplements can help allay symptoms that are associated with PCOS, but not every supplement is recommended for every person with PCOS. As with everything surrounding PCOS, supplementation should be individualized. Lucky for you, we are here to help discuss top supplements for PCOS management and would love to support you in finding the best supplements for you.

How can lifestyle affect PCOS? Let’s explore this deep connection. If you haven’t gotten a chance to see how to better support hormonal balance through nutrition, we encourage you to check out our previous blog, “A beginners guide to nutrition for PCOS” first. Focusing efforts on the nutritional pieces to PCOS is important, but lifestyle changes can also play a huge role.

PCOS? What is it, what does it stand for, and what can you do about it? Around 6-10% of women between ages of 15-45 live with this hormonal disorder known as polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS). Typically, making small lifestyle changes including nutrition and exercise is a large part of the care plan that can help improve the symptoms of PCOS. Today, we will start by explaining what PCOS symptoms are and how nutrition can make a large impact.

We all have created a New Year’s resolution that lasted for 1-2 months and did not stick. At Katie Chapmon Nutrition, we aren’t just interested in your short-term success over the first few months of the year, but aim to assist in sustaining long-term goals of improving gut health, weight loss, hormone balance, and other individualized goals. Wondering how we work with clients to help them achieve long-term success? Look no further!

I think we can all agree the holidays are a joyous, yet stressful time. Although we put all the pieces in place with nutrition and lifestyle, sometimes we need an extra stress reduction boost to further support weight loss goals. This is where supplementation and an extra emphasis on mental health step in. We aim to outline actionable items for stress reduction as it plays an integral role in health, inflammation, weight, and chronic disease.

Have you ever heard “you need to reduce your stress” or “you are too stressed out”, but never been given tangible tools for stress reduction? If this is your experience, look no further. We aim to outline actionable items for stress reduction as they play an integral role in health, inflammation, weight, and chronic disease.

You may have heard that increased stress in your life can contribute to the development of chronic diseases, but have you ever considered how stress may be affecting your weight? If your weight loss has slowed or halted, you may want to consider how chronic stress may be playing a role in your weight loss journey.

Like weight gain, inflammation has been identified as a common contributing factor to many chronic diseases. In our last blog, we discussed the connection between inflammation and increased weight plus foods to be added to promote an anti-inflammatory effect on the body. Today, we wanted to share an anti-inflammatory breakfast, lunch, and dinner recipe to help promote lowering inflammation and weight loss.

Like weight gain, inflammation has been identified as a common contributing factor to many chronic diseases. But how are the two interconnected?