The old saying “you  are  what  you  eat” is SO true.  Research shows that the foods we eat have a huge impact on the health of our  internal bodies and digestive systems.  Foods also have a massive impact on the health of our connective tissue – and even our  external bodies.  For instance, eating a healthy diet filled with what I like to call “Fascia Foods” is an important part of my lifestyle – and I hope you can make it a part of yours.

But first things first – what is fascia? Fascia (also known as connective tissue) is a thin layer of tissue that lies under the skin and wraps every muscle and organ in the body. If you’ve ever cut into a piece of raw chicken or steak and seen that thin, white and filmy layer, that’s fascia.

The best way to imagine fascia is to think of a thin, cling wrap-like layer that lies between the skin and the muscles like a web. It wraps around the entire body and every individual muscle and organ and connects the muscles to the bones.

Fascia is key to the structural integrity of our bodies and is also where the nerves and lymph nodes lie – so it is now referred to as a sensory organ. This is where pain originates and  communicates to the brain. Western medicine has only recently begun to recognize the role of fascia in the body.

The problem is that things like physical injuries, poor diet and even negative energy or emotions resulting from stress and trauma can adversely impact our fascia.  There are all sorts of repercussions ranging from poor posture to bad digestion and skin and hair issues.  Eating right is key.  So how do Fascia Foods help revitalize your fascia?  Well, there are several ways that different foods can be “fascia superstars.”

FIRST, Fascia Foods contribute to collagen production because they contain vitamins and minerals, like vitamin C and zinc.  They are required for your body to make collagen. Fascia itself is made of bundles of collagen fibers which means that fascia needs collagen to be healthy, and even to survive in your body at all!

As we age, it’s more difficult for our body to produce enough collagen, which is a reason why our skin gets saggier. But by giving your body a plentiful supply of the nutrients  needed to create collagen, you’re making life a lot better for your skin and your fascia. That means you’ll look AND feel better.

SECOND, fascia foods contain connective tissue and amino acids, which are also essential for your cells to produce collagen. For example, bone broth and lean animal proteins have the amino acid building blocks that you need to create collagen.

FINALLY, many fascia foods such as high fiber chia seeds help contribute to your gut health. This is essential to help you better absorb nutrients that promote collagen production.

So I make sure my diet is packed with foods like bone broth, which is packed with amino acids and collagen; citrus and peppers, which have a high vitamin C content; herbs to boost my metabolism, minerals to decrease inflammation; and high fiber chia seeds for my gut health.

An AMAZING benefit of eating Fascia Foods is their power to strengthen our digestive tract. Too often in our modern lives our digestive systems aren’t in tip top shape, and that can have an impact on how well we absorb the nutrients we consume. Collagen is important because it builds gut health, which is essential to better absorb nutrients. Eating fascia super foods that strengthen your digestive tract helps repair the gut.

I’ve created a handy list of Fascia Food superstars to help you focus on the foods that will do the most for your inner and outer beauty. It’s divided by health benefits: some contain antioxidants that are needed for collagen production; some have fiber for gut restoration; and some contain the amino acid building blocks of collagen.

In my recipes – some of which are featured on my  Instagram feed and mainly within my  Taller Slimmer Younger Program – you’ll learn more about each of these ingredients and how to use them.

I hope you can start to integrate these “Fascia Foods” into your diet – and enjoy all the benefits that having healthy fascia can bring.

YOUR FASCIA SUPERFOODS CHECKLIST

ANTIOXIDANT RICH FASCIA FOODS:

• Avocados

• Extra virgin olive oil

• Berries

• Citrus fruits

• Tomatoes

• Bell peppers

• Honey

• Onions

• Garlic

• Leafy greens

• Dark Chocolate / cocoa powder

• Tea, especially white and green

• Herbs & Spices, especially ginger, turmeric, and fresh herbs like parsley, rosemary, and basil

• Red wine

FIBER RICH FASCIA FOODS:

• Beans

• Hard squashes

• Seeds, such as sunflower or chia

• Nuts, such as almonds or cashews

COLLAGEN RICH FASCIA FOODS:

• Bone broth 

• Yogurt

• Kefir 

• Fish

• Red meat

• Eggs

• Oysters

On Structural Integration

Homogeneity of tissue begins to communicate over a wider area between the hands.

With Structural Integration it is important to register the space between each hand to get homogenous the tissue of the body.  Each position and direction I follow in the body, gives my client an awareness, their body an awareness as to where it needs to go.

Peter Melchior

TO KEEP YOUR JOINTS MOVING, KEEP MOVING YOUR JOINTS.

with Structural Integration

So while you’re relaxing and enjoying your family and summer activities, golf, baseball… think of getting structural body work.  

It gives you the capability to do these things:

Gardening, dancing, pickle ball, yoga, sports.  And line dancing, singing, playing with the kids…

Think of the fun you can have without pain.  Feeling the joy of moving, bending, doing what you love to do.

Structural Integration, Alignment, Movement

The body is a place of beauty.  It is your

home, your internal residence.  Make it a place you want to live.

Energy surrounds us.  There is a continuous flow of energy coming off the body and going into the body.  Energy is shared with others.  This energy can be redirected, made to fill gaps, put into a less compressed state, much like I do with the regular tissue (fascia) of the body. Any time I put my hands near the body and on the body, there is a sharing of energy and as I work, either doing energy healing or structural body work, this energy comes into play.  Energy either stops or continues to flow. Flowing is what we want.  Clearing the energy and redirecting it so that the body functions better and can heal.

Not only is plastic bad for the environment, it is also bad for our bodies:

Researchers find a massive number of plastic particles in bottled water

UPDATED JANUARY 10, 202411:59 AM ET

By:

James Doubek

Researchers from Columbia University and Rutgers University found roughly 240,000 detectable plastic fragments in a typical liter of bottled water.

Jody Amiet/AFP via Getty Images

Microscopic pieces of plastic are everywhere. Now, they’ve been found in bottled water in concentrations 10 to 100 times more than previously estimated.

Researchers from Columbia University and Rutgers University found roughly 240,000 detectable plastic fragments in a typical liter of bottled water. The study was published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

About 10% of the detected plastic particles were microplastics, and the other 90% were nanoplastics. Microplastics are between 5 millimeters to 1 micrometer; nanoplastics are particles less than 1 micrometer in size. For context, a human hair is about 70 micrometers thick.

Microplastics have already been found in people’s lungs, their excrement, their blood and in placentas, among other places. A 2018 study found an average of 325 pieces of microplastics in a liter of bottled water.

Nanoplastics could be even more dangerous than microplastics because when inside the human body, “the smaller it goes, the easier for it to be misidentified as the natural component of the cell,” says Wei Min, a professor of chemistry at Columbia University and one of the study’s co-authors.

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The researchers used a technology involving two lasers called stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) microscopy to detect the particles and used machine learning to identify them. They searched for seven common types of plastic using this system: polyamide 66, polypropylene, polyethylene, polymethyl methacrylate, polyvinyl chloride, polystyrene and polyethylene terephthalate.

They tested three brands of bottled water; they did not identify the brands.

The particles they could identify accounted for only 10% of total particles they found — the rest could be minerals, or other types of plastics, or something else, says Beizhan Yan, a research professor at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University and a co-author on the study.

The International Bottled Water Association, an industry group that represents U.S. and international water bottlers and distributors, said in a statement that it has had “very limited notice and time” to review the study.

But the group said the new detection method “needs to be fully reviewed by the scientific community and more research needs to be done to develop standardized methods for measuring and quantifying nanoplastics in our environment.”

The association said there is “no scientific consensus on the potential health impacts of nano- and microplastic particles.” It added: “media reports about these particles in drinking water do nothing more than unnecessarily scare consumers.”

The researchers hypothesize that some of the plastics in the bottled water could be shedding from, ironically enough, the plastic used in types of water filters.

Phoebe Stapleton, another study co-author who is a professor of pharmacology and toxicology at Rutgers University, says researchers have known that nanoplastics were in water. “But if you can’t quantify them or can’t make a visual of them, it’s hard to believe that they’re actually there,” she says.

The significance of their group’s research is that it now “brings that to light, and not only provides what is a computer generated image, but it also allows for the quantification and even more importantly, the chemistry of that quantification,” Stapleton says.

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They hope the research will lead to having a better understanding of how much plastic humans are regularly putting into their bodies and its effects.

Yan says they plan future research employing the same technology to look at plastic particles in tap water, in the air, in food and in human tissues. “This is basically just to open a new window for us to see [what was] this invisible world before.”

Humans produce more than 440 million tons of plastic each year, according to the United Nations. About 80% of plastic ends up in landfills or the environment, researchers say.