The Healthy Celiac Podcast

My Daily Wellness Habits for Thriving with Celiac Disease Ep. 204

• Belinda Whelan • Season 1 • Episode 204

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Ever wonder what wellness really looks like when you're living gluten free?

In this episode, I’m sharing a peek behind the curtain at the wellness habits that actually work for me—no fluff, no extremes, just the simple, feel-good practices that keep me thriving with celiac disease.

You’ll hear about the things I prioritise daily, the ones I’ve let go of, and why wellness doesn’t have to be all or nothing.

Whether you’re just starting your journey or looking for some fresh inspo, this episode is packed with real talk and gentle encouragement to help you build a routine that works for you.

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Speaker 1:

Today I want to share with you my favorite wellness practices that are part of my life and to see how easy it is to incorporate some of these hacks into your life, because I share a lot on the show and I'm not out here cold plunging every day and going to the sauna and doing all the things. It's the basics and these are the things that I prioritize, so let's get into it. So I wanted to record this episode because a lady reached out to me after I shared about how I started wearing a weighted vest and she asked me if it was a must do, like, do I have to do this to improve my life with celiac disease? And I said well, said well. No, absolutely not. It's just a thing that I wanted to share because of how much benefit a weighted vest provides. But not everything that I share is a must do for you. But I know a lot of people ask me what are the main things that I do each day and in my lifestyle, and I wanted to share with you just to show you what I prioritize and what I do to make my I guess, my health and my wellness the best that it can possibly be. So, without further ado, let's jump into it. So the first one, for me is a hundred percent. It's a focus on sleep. So I've talked about sleep a lot on the show. I know that I bang on about sleep, but sleep is such a pivotal part of keeping me on track with my health and I I aim for about eight to eight and a half hours of sleep. I do get a little bit more sleep on the weekend if I can sneak a little bit of a sleep in, but during the week when I have to get up and do the school run and getting the kids ready for school, it's about eight to eight and a half hours sleep. And the other night I actually went to bed a little bit earlier. I was exhausted and I went to bed a bit earlier. And I'm not even joking.

Speaker 1:

The next day we got to school drop off and my daughter had forgotten her school bag, so we had to drive home and get her school bag. And if I had not had enough sleep the night before, I probably would have lost my temper. I probably would have said things that I shouldn't have and would have ruined her day, would have ruined my day. But I was able to compose myself and just you know, say to her it's fine, these things happen. You made a mistake, let's go home and grab your bag. We were early, we're not going to be late for school, it's fine, let's not worry about it. So we dropped her brother off and we zoomed back home, grabbed her bag and on the way home she said to me I'm so sorry, mom, and she felt so bad. And she looked. I looked in the mirror and she looked like she was about to cry. I'm like, honey, it's fine, we all make mistakes. Come on, let's just go grab your bag, wait in the car, we'll drop you back, it's fine. And when we walked into school she had a skip in her step. She was holding my hand, she was happy, I was fine. And I know that if I had been sleep deprived, we would have had a fight, we would have been arguing, she probably would have been crying, she wouldn't have wanted to go to school, it would have ruined her day and it would have ruined mine. So I'm so glad that I'd happened to go to bed earlier the night before and had an optimal amount of sleep for my body. So you know, sleep is huge. It makes such a flow-on effect for everything, and if that's something that you need to reassess, please, please, look at your sleep patterns and focus on that.

Speaker 1:

The next one is water. So the very first thing that I pretty much do after whacking my alarm and turning that off is to drink water. So I always have a water bottle with me and I will take a big guzzle of water and that's to start my day. I drink water throughout the day, just plain water. I drink water throughout the day, just plain water. I don't add anything to it when I'm just drinking my normal water, and I find that that makes me feel energetic, it makes me hydrated, it improves my skin. Oh, you know all the benefits of water. So I always get my clients to add water into their lifestyle. So if you are not drinking water, definitely look at that.

Speaker 1:

The next one is skincare. So I have a skincare routine that I follow. I aim for low toxic skincare. I aim for gluten-free skincare. I know some people think you don't need to, but I have my reasons for choosing gluten-free skincare. I'm all about keeping as much toxins away from my body as possible, so I do definitely make sure I'm using you know the non-toxic types of skincare, so that's something you can delve into if you haven't already. Um, and you know doing the basics washing my face, moisturizing eye cream, that type of thing um, I do a weekly facial scrub where I use a charcoal facial scrub. I do make my own body scrub out of coffee and coconut oil and a few other things. The diy for that is on my website so I can link that below. But that's a really great way of, you know, getting rid of dead skin cells and being able to help my body without stripping it of its natural oils and ruining it with toxic, nasty chemicals.

Speaker 1:

The next one is food.

Speaker 1:

So I love food. Don't get me wrong. I absolutely love food. I I'm not obsessed with food. I have a big focus on food, but it it doesn't consume me. I don't allow food to control my life and even though I have to think about gluten-free food all the time, I am not a calorie counter, I'm not a restrictor, I'm not a I cannot eat that, unless it's gluten, obviously but I allow myself to have certain foods. I'm not one. That's, like you know, crazy wellness. Like some people, they take it to the extreme.

Speaker 1:

When I did my study for health coaching, it was never about you can't have this and you can't have that, or you're not a proper health coach or you're not doing the right thing in the wellness space. They actually did teach us to have balance and I'm so, so grateful for that, because I do know of other people that did other programs to become health coaches where it was so restrictive and strict and it can lead down the wrong kind of path. So it's about having that balance and that's where I absolutely love the 80 20 rule. So 80 of the time eating really well and nourishing my body and focusing on eating all the right things. 20 of the time. And obviously I'm not like sitting there going up and now it's my 10 of that and I've done this. It's not that, it's like just an awareness. You know, okay, if I ate something this afternoon, it that's not desirable or whatever like perfectly healthy. It probably means tomorrow I'll be eating better. It's not. It's not so strict, but it's like I don't eat junk every single day because that's not who I am. I've never been that way, was never like that, even before I got celiac disease or became a health coach. So it's about improving your habits and improving your lifestyle and that's what I help people with and focusing on the best things for your unique body, because we're all different and we all like different things. So, yeah, food is not an obsession for me and I think that works really, really well for my lifestyle and for my family.

Speaker 1:

The next thing that I love in my wellness routine is my supplements. So I do take vitamins. I've talked about this before. I've taken them since I was pregnant with my first daughter, so that's been many, many years now and I learned when I was pregnant with my daughter all about the benefits of supplements and why we don't get as much nutrition from the food that is grown these days compared to, you know, 20, 30, 40 years ago, because of the way that the soil is not getting a chance to regenerate. The soil just keeps getting used over and over and over and that's where nutrients come from. So if that's something you haven't delved into, that might be worth looking at. If you're like they're just expensive bullets, yes, they can be expensive bullets. Some people take supplements that if you were to look at the body, you know, if you were to put like a camera down there, you can see those supplements sitting there, they haven't dissolved, and they'll come out the other end looking the same as when you swallowed them. So there are some supplements that are not worth the money at all, and then there's others that are worth it. So I buy pharmaceutical grade supplements that are high quality and excellent for my body and my health, and I have kind of tailored them to work for me and my needs. I can't give you recommendations on that because we're all different. And then I've also started taking creatine and collagen, so lots of benefits for both of them, but I've recently incorporated them into my lifestyle, mostly because of perimenopause, mostly because I'm a woman and, yeah, I just love that we have these options available to us.

Speaker 1:

The next thing that is huge for me is working out, or movement is what we called it. It when we did my, when I did my health coaching study, we focused on movement. So you know getting that wellness practice is not about, you know, going crazy at the gym or being obsessed with certain exercise, and you know we're not. We're not workout bunnies anymore like they were in the 80s, that it was all about the leotards, and you know, going crazy and sweating and being skinny. It's not like that anymore. It's more about doing things that you love so that you feel good in yourself.

Speaker 1:

And for me, I'm obsessed with pilates and I do reformer pilates and I also do body balance. So I love body balance. It's kind of like yoga and tai chi and it's got stretching, it's got strength, it's got core, it's got so much. You know, I love, love, love body balance. And walking is a good one for me as well. I find that calms me down. I am not a runner, I will never be a runner and also just going to the gym doing general weight. So for me they're my main kinds of exercises.

Speaker 1:

But everybody's different. Like some people would just cringe at the idea of getting on a reformer and doing Pilates like that. You might be listening to this and being like Whoa, no way, that's not my cup of tea at all, belinda. But you might absolutely love HIIT workouts, or you might absolutely love HIIT workouts, or you might love going to, you know, like bootcamp and things like that. That's not my cup of tea. But, like I said, we're all different. We've got to find what works for us and what we think is best for you. Know our, our goals, our mindset. Some things make us more stressed than others. So so, yeah, focusing on what is right for your unique body and your lifestyle, because what can you fit in? So, yeah, that's what works for me.

Speaker 1:

The next one is interesting, but it's very important, and it's avoiding toxicity. And when I say toxicity, I'm not talking about in my environment, because that is a big thing for me, that is huge for me, but I don't feel like that's something I focus on on a daily basis. You know, I've got my cleaning products down pat. I make sure I don't have nasty you know fragrance oil candles burning in my house or anything like that. I use essential oils. So I feel like that's not, to me, a wellness practice anymore. That's just part of my life. That's just. Yeah, that's just there already.

Speaker 1:

But for avoiding toxicity, I'm talking about what I'm exposed to. So whether that's people, whether that's what I can see online and the news, things like that, I don't listen to the radio in my car, I don't watch the news, I do not doom scroll all of that is so draining. So I'm an empath, and what happens with an being an empath is your energy gets zapped very, very easily by what we call energy vampires. And energy vampires don't have to be in the way of people. They can be what you see online and what you're exposed to. So I'm very, very conscious of what I allow into my life and into my mindset, because it does drain me and it's really hard for me to be the best person that I can be when I'm exposed to that and you might think that that's naive or you might think that that's selfish or whatever, but for me that's what works for me because I did go down a rabbit hole many years ago where I was just so focused on doom and gloom and it really pulled me under. And this was around the same time that I did have postnatal depression and it is not good for me and it's not good for many people. Some people can kind of look at that sort of information and like it's there and then get rid of it, but for me it consumes me and it drags me down. So I try my best to not expose myself to that.

Speaker 1:

I have had toxic friendships in the past, whether that's relatives or whether that's actual friendships, and I've had to distance myself from those relationships and friendships because of how much energy was being pulled from me, because of the things that they would talk about and some really negative stuff that I just I can't handle. To be honest, I cannot handle that toxicity, so it's just easier for me to distance myself from that. If you're listening to this and you're thinking, wow, I've got people like that in my life. I wish I could avoid them and step away from them, you can. It takes work sometimes, depending on the relationship, but you can pull back, you can be busy, you can say no, you can find replacements for those people, but you don't have to give your time to people that aren't giving you anything positive back.

Speaker 1:

I know we need to be there for our friends and our families in times of need. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about those people that are constantly complaining, constantly woe is me, constantly dragging you down. They're the ones that it's worth stepping back from. If you've got a friend or family member that's going through a rough time, you know a breakup or you know hard times. They've lost their job or something. That's temporary, that's that's different you know we need to support those people and help them get through it. But it's the people that it's every single day for years. They're just negative, complain, drag you down. They're the people I'm talking about. So think about that If you've got people like that in your life. You might want to do what I'm doing and step back from that.

Speaker 1:

Now, this kind of ties into my next category, and that is spending less time online, and this has been a focus for me this year, and I'm not just talking about doom scrolling, I'm talking about all sorts of things online, whether that's, you know, watching videos on YouTube, whether that's consuming more content, more teachings, whether it's listening to podcasts, whether it's, you know, looking at reels and stuff on Instagram all of those different things. I was finding that I didn't have enough time to do the things that I wanted to do for myself, so I had to reassess hang on a minute, where is my time going? And when I really started to look, there was a lot of wasted time online, and I made it my goal this year to consume less and create more, and I can very gladly say that it has worked wonders. I have been pumping out away behind the scenes some incredible content and some incredible projects that I've been wanting to put out there for years, if I'm honest, and I've been distracted. I honestly have been distracted, and it feels really, really good to be not listening to everybody else and not consuming everyone else's stuff. Because when, when you're in this space of being, you know, sharing your information and putting things out there, you can get absorbed in that. Now I'm not telling you not to listen to my show or watch watch the show, but it's about really picking and choosing what you want to consume. Like there's a lot of junk out there that you know you might just be wasting your time and before you know it, you've scrolled away on your phone and an hour's gone and you're telling me that you don't have time to exercise or you don't have time to read a book or you don't have time to sit on the floor and play with your kids. So it's about just looking at that and reassessing, because for me, I know that that was a huge part for me for thinking I didn't have enough time.

Speaker 1:

Now I think I've mentioned this on the show previously, but last year I joined a book club with some of the mums at school. We created this book club. We meet up once a month and we read books and they're great and it's taken me so far out of my comfort zone. It's not funny. I normally only read personal development and business books. Now I'm reading like fantasy novels, romance novels, smut novels, like it's just taking me out of my comfort zone and I am loving it. It's just, it's just a way of I don't know, just switching off and just doing something that is in my mind really, and I am loving it because I had time. I, I really had time. So I got a Kindle for Christmas and often now, when that habit of I used to want to pick up my phone and just maybe kill some time and have a look what's going on online, instead of doing that, I grab my Kindle and I read a book and it's just taken my mind away from nonsense. It's giving me a purpose and I'm really enjoying that, because it's not all about learning for me now, it's just about enjoying. It's almost like just chilling out in your own little fantasy world. So that has been amazing for me this year. So maybe, if you don't have enough time and you're just, like you know, scrolling and not even realizing it, so that's been a game changer.

Speaker 1:

Another thing for me is my oral hygiene. It's a big one for me and I, unfortunately, this week went to the dentist and found out that I I've started to get some bone loss in my teeth and they reckon it's to do with perimenopause. Oh my God, just add another thing to the list. But now that I'm on HRT they think that that should be under control. But yeah, they may. I shouldn't say they made me. They recommended that I change to an electric toothbrush. I never have loved electric toothbrushes. They kind of freaked me out with the noise and the sensation. I've always just used a normal toothbrush, but I must admit they kind of freaked me out that if I didn't do this I could get gum disease. And if you get gum disease there's all these other problems. So yeah, basically I've changed to a Electric toothbrush.

Speaker 1:

I am now using that twice a day. I was already brushing my teeth twice a day, so I am brushing and flossing twice a day and then I tongue scrape. So if you don't know what a tongue scraper is, I will link the tongue scraper in my Amazon store below and you can check it out. So basically it is. It's kind of like the shape of a v and it's a copper little contraption and you literally just stick your tongue out. I'm not going to demonstrate it, but you stick your tongue out and you scrape the tongue scraper along your tongue and you rinse it under the tap and it just gets off so many goobies. So it is an ayurveda process. It's something I learned when I was health coaching and it's really good for just getting rid of all the gunk it's. It helps with detoxification and it just makes your tongue feel really nice as well. So that's something that I do once a day. I don't tend to do it twice a day, but, yeah, I find that that is something that I love doing as well.

Speaker 1:

So, yeah, look at your dental practice. If it's something I'm going to say. If you haven't been to the dentist for a while, please go make an appointment. Please go get your teeth checked out, because I was gobsmacked that I was having issues when I'm so strict already with my toothbrushing habits and, yeah, again, hormones were playing a part in my mouth situation. So, please go get teeth checked. Use this as a reminder if you haven't been to the dentist for a while, because that might just be all you need to hear from.

Speaker 1:

This episode could change a few things for you, because if you have inflammation in your mouth, it can cause so many other problems with your health and your wellness overall. And I've got two more for you, and the next one is self-care, so I talked about the reading. That's part of my self-care routine. But one of my big self-care routines is having a weekly bath and doing a facial while I'm in the bath, and I love it. It just resets me, it just calms me down and I find that it's just. It's just one of those things where I'm not doing anything for anyone else, it's for me. It's for me only relax, unwind and reset. So you might freak out about the idea of baths or you might absolutely love the idea of a bath. So, yeah, that's just one of my things that I truly love.

Speaker 1:

And the very last one is asking for help. We are not very good at asking for help as women, but I have certainly gotten a lot better at asking for help in the recent years of my life. And you need to do it and I. I went to an event yesterday with a group of women in business and there was a lady there and she was probably younger than me actually and she was saying that she feels bad asking for help, like she feels like she has to do everything herself, and I said to her do you know, some of this can stem from your mom. So if your mom was the type of person that did everything for everybody else and she always put everybody first. You subconsciously probably think that you need to do the same thing as well, and we're so conditioned by what our parents did and we're so conditioned by what happened when we grew up that it can be so ingrained in us and we don't even realize it. And when I said this to her, she looked at me and she was like oh, wow. It was like a light bulb went off and it is when our moms did everything for us.

Speaker 1:

We think that we have to be that same way, but we live in a very different time. Your mom may have been a stay at home mom who did everything you know cooked and cleaned and did the grocery shopping and we have such a different life now. You know there's online grocery shopping. We get food delivered like we we don't always cook everything. We go out for meals. Many people are still in that mindset that they have to do everything, even when they're working full-time, and you might be a woman that works full-time and you might have a partner that works full-time, and you might have a partner that also works full-time, but you still feel like you need to do everything because you are a woman and it's so ingrained in society, it's so ingrained in us as women. But it doesn't have to be that way and you probably do need to ask for some help, whether that's from your partner, whether that's from your kids, whether that's from an outside person. We've been getting our lawns mowed for years. We have the tiniest little strips of lawn either side of our driveway, but my husband never does it and he pays someone else to do it.

Speaker 1:

And I hate cleaning. I'll be completely honest with you I hate cleaning. It's not the best use of my time, it's not the most valuable time spent from me, and I do put things off and then it hangs over me and I'm like looking at my house, going really need to dust or really need to vacuum or whatever. So I have finally bitten the bullet and I've booked in a cleaner for next week. So I'm so, so excited to get that workload off. It's something that I've wanted to do for years, but I've not been able to find a cleaner within my budget. I've been able to find one that's really good price and comes highly recommended. So my biting the bullet. It gives me more time to focus on my bullet. It gives me more time to focus on my business. It gives me more time to focus on giving you guys quality content and putting more of myself out there and I am about to start group coaching again, so with that comes more of my energy giving to others. So I need someone to give me some time back. So that's where the cleaning comes in for me.

Speaker 1:

For you, it could be something like asking a friend or a relative to look after the kids for an hour so you could go get a massage or, you know, go out for dinner with your hubby or your partner. There's so many ways that we can ask for help and many people love to help others. It's not that everyone's so busy and caught up in their own world. Many people love to help out. I'm going out for a friend's birthday this weekend and I've had to get two people to help me look after my kids. So one person's looking after them for half a day and my mom's looking after them for the other half of the day, and that's just the way it is, like I've had to do that to make that happen.

Speaker 1:

So ask for help if you're not already. We don't have to be martyrs, we don't have to do everything, and it does take away from that stress and that burden of our crazy lives that we all seem to be living. So these are my main areas of focusing on wellness and looking after my health and my wellness as a gluten-free girly. So I hope that these have inspired you to maybe look at some things that you could add into your lifestyle, or think about the things that are important to you and assess why you're not doing them and maybe add some of them into your lifestyle. So thank you so much for tuning in, have an awesome week and I look forward to talking with you again on next week's show. Take care bye.

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Belinda Whelan

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