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Chelsea Potter Nutrition, Arroyo Grande, CA (2025)

06/28/2022

One thing I really wanted to highlight here is gut health is more complex than just your diet.

In fact if you were eating a “squeaky clean” diet but not paying attention to these other environmental/ lifestyle factors, your gut health would still not be ideal.

So here’s the optimal gut health plan:

1) Let’s get stress management on point with some regularly scheduled self care. Yes, you have time. Yes, It’s a necessity.

2) Be mindful with your exercise, don’t over or under do it. Find your sweet spot and pay attention to how that might change day to day.

3) Be mindful with medications like antibiotics, heartburn medications, and NSAIDS. Even more natural products like grapefruit seed extract, oregano oil, etc. When you need them, you need them- but when you don’t they are doing more harm than good for your microbiome and gut lining.

4) You need 7-9 hrs of good sleep consistently. Prioritize this one.

5) A varied anti-inflammatory diet feeds the good gut bugs and provides an environment where they can flourish.

6) Did you know your mouth has its own microbiome? Go for regular cleanings, brush and floss regularly, enjoy simple sugars as a treat in moderation.

7) Get out into nature regularly and get your hands dirty. Maybe start a garden. Don’t be afraid of a little dirt. And PS- fur babies also help your microbiome health.

8) Almost didn’t share this last one but it’s worth talking about for sure. When you need to disinfect something, do it of course (especially right now), but be mindful about it. Cleaner isn’t always necessarily better for our immune system and it’s a balance for sure. Do your research on this one and choose what’s right for you.

06/27/2022

The benefits of investing in your gut health are numerous and far reaching 🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼.

Whether you are experiencing: adrenal problems, fatigue, hormone imbalance/PMS, brain fog, anxiety, mood swings, skin issues, thyroid problems, joint pain, etc.

-this is a lot of the time the best place to start with the healing process.

We know that our modern lifestyles are not compatible with a healthy gut/microbiome, and as a result we can seeing a surge over time in preventable disease.

When I say modern lifestyle I mean:
🍔 Food choices
🏃‍♀️ Exercise (too much or too little)
🤯 Chronically high stress levels
🏠 Lack of outdoor exposure
🧼 Sanitized everything (a hard one rn!)
💊 Overuse of certain medications
🐄 Antibiotics in our food supply

I could go on.. the good news is you can be in the drivers seat when it comes to your health, and starts with a healthy gut!

06/14/2022

Key elements of an anti-anxiety plate.

You’ll notice a couple things:
1) All macronutrients are present (protein, fat, carbs), we aren’t cutting out any nutrient your body needs.
2) This meal contains all the basic building blocks for your hormones, neurotransmitters and is rich in vitamins and minerals.
3) Plenty of fiber to keep your good gut bugs happy and to maintain healthy inflammation levels.
4) Portions are designed in a synergistic way to keep blood sugar balanced and you feeling calm, energized and happy.

This plate in particular can be put in the oven on one baking sheet- minimal prep time and clean up.

Keep it simple, keep it delicious.

06/09/2022

Listen up ladies 📢

If you are feeling:
✅ Anxious
✅ Easily stressed out
✅ Exhuasted
✅ Burnt out
✅ Poor concentration/ brain foggy

Blood sugar control is where it's at. 🙌🏼✨

You will be shocked at how good you will feel when you stop making these blood sugar mistakes if adrenal issues are at play.

I mean shocked.

So let's make a pact that before we spend $100 on some fancy supplement you start with the basics like blood sugar regulation.

06/08/2022

I wanna shout it from the rooftops- 🗣📣 you don't have to be so exhausted all the time!

And blood sugar balance can help you bust the burnout.

06/03/2022

Magnesium is so, so, soooo important for women's health.

🤯Magnesium is required in over 300 biochemical reactions in the body!

Including but not limited to:
🧘🏻‍♀️ Calming the Nervous system by regulating the HPA Axis and enhancing the calming neurotransmitter GABA.

😊 Essential for the production of happy neurotransmitters like serotonin

😴 Supports a good night's sleep (a hormone health game changer 🙌🏼)

🔥 Reduces inflammation (also a hormone health game changer)

☯️ Balances estrogen and progesterone by enhancing hormone production and improving healthy metabolism of estrogen.

🩸 Balances blood sugar by enhancing insulin function and by calming the stress response.

06/01/2022

The basics of hormone balance are the following:
1️⃣ Eating enough so you have the building blocks and nutrients to make hormones in the first place.
2️⃣ Optimize ovulation and progesterone production (yes ladies, ovulation is so important for your health!)
3️⃣ Decrease exposure to chemicals that exacerbate the hormone Imbalance (you will be shocked how much of these things you are likely exposed to on a daily basis).
4️⃣ Make your body feel safe! Reduce your stressors, both physical and psychological: inflammation, blood sugar dysregulation, dieting, undereating, over exercising, work and life stress, etc.
5️⃣ Ensure hormone metabolism and detoxification is on point.

05/26/2022

Ima let you in on a little secret. I HATE that to a ton of people this will seem political.

I wish we could stop seeing everything through that lense and just be humans again...I hate politics.

Anyways, I see so many people on the reg that have health issues directly affected by this impossible world we've set up for ourselves (well that men have set up for us).

And then when you try to take care of yourself (especially as women), we are told we are being selfish, to push through, tough it out, that "we are just being emotional".

I am here to validate how you feel right now. I sit down with women allll day looooong that feel the same way.

You are not alone.

And it is NOT selfish for you to be taking care of yourself right now.

Take a mental health day.
Say f**k it and leave the house a mess.
Skip wearing makeup and doing your hair for the benefit of everyone else.
Let go of expectations of productivity.
Allow yourself to be human.

Take care of yourself beautiful, amazing person. ♥️

The world needs you. You are SO important.

05/24/2022

This goes out to all y’all who are learning to balance self care and the hustle.

But brain fog is a productivity killer 🧠

One of the super powers of a nutrient dense diet is how it can boost your energy, mood and clear the fog. 🌤

05/13/2022

Long story short- make your body feel safe!

Your thyroid is like your body’s thermostat or furnace.

Basically, it turns up or down your body’s cellular activity or metabolic rate based on how safe it feels the environment is.

We are exposed to so many stressors that make our body feel like things may not be safe.

For example, sooo many women are under eating and yo yo dieting.

Your body doesn’t understand why you are doing this and thinks there may be a famine.

So it slows down your thyroid output to conserve energy.

Consequently you feel moody, fatigued, brain foggy and weight loss gets harder and harder.

As I made this post I felt it may feel a little overwhelming all the things you can do to support your thyroid health and metabolism.

If you are diagnosed with hypothyroidism, hashimotos, or suspect you have thyroid issues,

👉🏼pick one or two of these things to focus on first.

Start with the basics like:
✅Eating enough every day
✅Eating balanced macros (yes even carbs!)
✅ Reflect on your yo yo dieting and comes to terms with how that isn’t supporting your metabolism and health in the long run.

05/12/2022

Story time-

A woman coming to the doctor complaining of hypothyroidism symptoms-

Low mood, anxious, gained 7 pounds in just a couple months, fatigued and always constipated.

Doctor ran a TSH, and told her that as long as it's under 5 she's fine.

She was told to decrease her stress and left the office with an Rx for an antidepressant.

Convinced something deeper was going on she reached out to a functional practitioner.

They ran a full thyroid panel- and low and behold, she had hashimotos (autoimmune hypothyroidism) and was able to get a targeted whole body treatment plan on place.

The sad thing is this is such a typical story and getting your conventional doctor to run a full thyroid panel is like pulling teeth.

There is a (valid) fear of over diagnosis here, but the end result is a huge problem of under diagnosis (and medical gaslighting).

There is much debate around these lab results.

Above are the functional, optimal ranges that many endocrinologists and other practitioners do agree on based on what they have seen actually help people.

My preference is getting people to know early so we can intervene early with diet and lifestyle.

So I LISTEN to women when they come to me with symptoms and I run the labs we need.

⁠ ⁠

05/09/2022

Get yourself a practitioner that understands the interplay between your hormones!

The OAT Axis (ovarian, adrenal, thyroid axis) is a really important concept to understand as a practitioner.

Because they all affect each other. Like a 3 legged stool, we don’t feel right unless we have all 3 vibing 🙌🏼 (aka we fall on our ass 🤪)

I would even add a 4th leg to this stool- insulin (important for blood sugar control). But I guess that acronym wouldn’t sound as cool.

They all affect one another.
And we need them all to be in balance to feel it best.

So when you come to your practitioner feeling brain foggy, tired, anxious, PMSy, or with irregular periods, etc.

-we need to be keeping in mind with
lab work these 3 pieces of the puzzle.

04/20/2022

Guess what! You didn't fail, the diet failed you.

Most diets are too restrictive to:
⚖️ Support hormone balance
😭 To support mood and stress level
🦠 To support gut health/microbiome diversity
⏭ To be sustainable long-term.

It's about balance of all foods instead of restricting whole food groups like fat, carbs, or even protein (believe it or not many of us are undereating at least one of these either intentionally or unintentionally).

The ideal balance and ratio of these food groups is definitely individual, but all of these nutrients play their important roles!

Keep in mind type and quality definitely matter!

We can’t demonize a whole macronutrient because we have processed the heck out of our food supply.

04/16/2022

🚨News flash! Those expensive snacks from Whole Foods are still processed and are still increasing your inflammation levels🚨

We’ve spent the last week talking about inflammation and how it affects mood and hormone balance.

A big part of what drives inflammation is our balance of omega 6:3 fatty acids.

I think it’s important to note here that if you consume anything in a package (even if it’s marketed as “healthy”) you are likely getting quite a bit of these inflammatory omega 6 rich oils.

These oils are incredibly common because they are a lot cheaper to use.

❌ Check the label for the following:
Canola oil
Safflower oil
Sunflower oil
Vegetable oil
Soybean oil

Omega 6 oils aren’t necessarily bad in and of themselves, it’s just that pretty much all of us already consume way too much omega 6 and not enough omega 3.

Support your ratio by being mindful of your omega intake.

Change your cooking oils if you are using the ones above (I prefer ghee, coconut oil or avocado oil for cooking and olive oil for drizzling and flavor)

Also add in more low mercury fatty fish- get some good recipes in your arsenal and incorporate 3 oz at least 3x per week.

fatigue

04/15/2022

The health benefits of joy and self compassion 👍🏼🙌🏼🤩

It’s a huge deal.

If our food and diet choices are being motivated by guilt and shame- it’s a no from me dog.

If they are motivated my intuition, self love and joy?

Hell yeah! Here for that!

fatigue

04/14/2022

The term “Anti-inflammatory diet” is tossed around like a beach ball at a Nickleback concert (if you get that reference we will be instant BFFs).

But WTF does it actually mean?! So much conflicting info on the web, but here's the basics:

1) Mostly Whole, nutrient dense foods. Low in processed foods (of course!).

2) Sugar in moderation: too much sugar is inflammatory- it has to do with insulin spikes and isn’t conducive to a happy healthy microbiome.

3) Balanced Macros for Balanced Blood Sugar: High insulin levels leads to inflammation. Balanced blood sugar contributes to a healthy adrenal response, and general hormone balance (also important for inflammation).

4) 1/2 of your plate veggies at every meal, and making a point to choose a wide variety to keep your microbiome and gut lining happy and balanced. And don’t forget your cruciferous veggies daily!

5) Balanced omega 3:6 ratio, typically we get plenty of omega 6 and we need to focus on getting more 3’s. High quality fish oil is a supplement I recommend for most clients.

6) Identify food sensitivities as appropriate. But keep in mind, often times food sensitivities represent imbalances in the gut that need to be addressed! And working on the above action items can make your gut less sensitive to foods (the goal!).

Of course this will look a little different for everyone! An "anti-inflammatory diet" is not a one size fits all thing. So it's important to work with a practitioner to get this personalized to you.

04/11/2022

Inflammation is a major stressor on your body.

It’s a stressor just like being late to work, or getting stuck in a traffic jam or making a tight deadline with a project.

It’s the same reaction in the body, it over simulates and then after contributing to your stress, anxiety (and depression) for years-

then causes depletion of cortisol (If you want more precise science on this scroll back to previous posts).

So you feel burnt TF out. You feel exhausted, productivity only fueled by caffeine intake.

Like you need the most will power in the world to get out of bed in the morning and to keep working in the afternoon.

Not to mention chronic inflammation is the root cause of most chronic diseases.

Stay tuned this week as we break down where inflammation comes from and what we can do about it- no you don’t have to give up all your favorite foods.

04/06/2022

Helping women level up their lives through personalized nutrition, body positivity and self care is my jam 🙌🏼

Because the world needs what you’ve got to offer, and for that you need optimal health, energy and mood. Your cup needs to be filled.

That means byeeee 👋🏼 to symptoms that have been holding women back foreverrr-fatigue, anxiety, low moods, PMS and dieting mindset.

How we personalize your plan:
✅ Functional lab testing- I keep digging even after your doctor said everything was “normal”. We use the results to get you feeling better faster.
✅ I listen and validate your personal experience and symptoms. Your body has your back and is trying to tell you something.
✅ We will work together to create a sustainable, realistic plan that works for your mind and body.
✅ We work together to uncover any limiting beliefs that may be holding back from healing and finding a wonderful relationship with your body and food.

If you believe in the power of personalized nutrition to unlock a whole other level of life for you- I am here for it! 🙌🏼

I would love to chat with you further, link in bio to set up a free discovery call to talk about the next steps in your journey.

Chelsea Potter Nutrition