Cristina Sciavolino-Day, MD, LLC

Cristina Sciavolino-Day, MD, LLC Prevention does save lives. It is important to be proactive. My mission is to work as a team with you to optimize your health and wellness.

Internal medicine concierge practice with a focus on prevention and wellness. Limiting membership to only 300 patients, office visits are 1-2 hours and thorough. Availability to Dr. Sciavolino-Day will be optimized with each patient by cell phone, email and text. Also included are longer appointments in a relaxed setting, wellness planning, hospital overview, and telecommunication visits when you are away. Patient oriented care as it should be. Wellness, it all starts with you.

04/25/2026

HERE is the answer. 👇

I used to see this all the time in my practice. A woman would come in feeling exhausted, gaining weight around her belly, craving sugar by 3pm, and struggling to sleep. She’d hand me her labs. Everything looked normal. Her fasting glucose was fine. Her A1C was fine.

And I’d have to tell her something most doctors don’t take the time to say.

Normal labs do not always mean a healthy metabolism.

Insulin resistance can be quietly building for years before it shows up on a standard lab panel. And by the time it does, you’ve already been dealing with the symptoms for a long time.

👉 Here are 3 signs your insulin is working against you even when your labs look normal:
1. You’re tired an hour or two after meals even when you ate “healthy”
2. You can’t lose weight no matter how little you eat or how much you move
3. You crave sugar or carbs in the afternoon like clockwork

Sound familiar?

The fastest place to start is breakfast.

Most women over 40 are starting the day in a way that spikes blood sugar before 8am. That single change sets off a chain reaction that drives cravings, fatigue, and weight gain all day long.

👉 I just put together a free guide that shows you exactly how to fix it. It’s called The Stable Blood Sugar Breakfast Guide and it walks you through the 4-ingredient formula that keeps your insulin calm all morning.

👉 You can find it pinned to the first comment below 👇 . 💌

🫶, Cristina Sciavolino-Day, MD

**This is educational content, not medical advice. Please see your doctor for personalized recommendations.

04/23/2026

I have hypothyroidism. I take my medication every single morning. No exceptions. So when I see posts telling people they can skip their thyroid meds, I have to speak up.

Here is what the science actually says👇

Your thyroid is a small gland in your neck that controls your metabolism, energy, weight, mood, and brain. When it slows down, everything slows down with it.

Women over 40 are most at risk. Hormone shifts during perimenopause and menopause can trigger thyroid dysfunction. We are up to 8 times more likely than men to develop this condition.

Testing is more than just your TSH. Ask your doctor about Free T4, Free T3, and thyroid antibodies like TPO, especially if you are feeling exhausted & are battling with your weight. Many women have Hashimoto’s, an autoimmune thyroid condition, and have no idea.

Medication is not optional when your thyroid is truly underactive. Food cannot replace the hormone your thyroid is no longer making. Please take your medication.

But you CAN support your thyroid with what you eat:
🔴 Selenium: Brazil nuts, eggs, tuna
🔴 Iodine: dairy, seafood, seaweed
🔴 Zinc: pumpkin seeds, beef, chickpeas

A few things that matter:
🔴 Take your medication on an empty stomach
🔴 Wait 4 hours before iron or calcium supplements
🔴 Cooked cruciferous vegetables are safe in normal amounts

Your thyroid needs support. Not instead of medication. In addition to it.

👉 Check the first pinned comment below for my free Thyroid Support Guide.

❤️, Cristina Sciavolino-Day, MD

**This is an educational post. It is not medical advice. Please see your doctor for personalized recommendations.

One of you asked for easy protein-filled, high-fiber snack ideas and honestly, this question deserved its own post.Here’...
04/22/2026

One of you asked for easy protein-filled, high-fiber snack ideas and honestly, this question deserved its own post.

Here’s what most people get wrong. They grab something and call it a snack, but if it’s not giving you protein AND fiber together, it’s probably just spiking your blood sugar and leaving you hungrier an hour later.

Protein preserves your muscle. Fiber feeds your gut and slows everything down. Together they are one of the most powerful combinations you can put on your plate, or in your hand between meals.

Every snack on this list takes two minutes or less. Most of them you already have at home.

❤️ Save this one as a reminder for the next time that you reach for a snack.

👉 Check the first comment below for a list of my top 25 fiber food sources 🙌

🫶, Cristina Sciavolino-Day, MD

**This is educational content. It is not medical advice. Please see your doctor for personalized recommendations.





04/21/2026

Your body might be on fire right now and you have no idea.

I spent over 30 years as an internal medicine doctor, and I watched patient after patient come in with the same list of complaints. Tired all the time. Belly fat that would not move. Achy joints. Brain fog. Cholesterol creeping up. Blood pressure not quite right.

For a long time, we treated each one separately. A pill for this. A referral for that. What I know now is that so many of those things share one common root.

Chronic inflammation.

It is not the kind of inflammation you feel when you twist your ankle. That kind is your body doing its job: flare up, heal, done.

Chronic inflammation is different. It is low grade. It is quiet. It smolders in the background for years, and it slowly drives the conditions we fear most after 40: heart disease, insulin resistance, fatty liver, cognitive decline.

The frustrating part is that most people do not find out about it until something bigger goes wrong.

Here is what I want you to know. You are not just getting older. Your body is not failing you. In many cases there is a fire burning that nobody pointed out. Once you know it is there, you can start to cool it down.

Food is medicine here. Sleep matters more than you think. Stress is gasoline on that fire. There are specific things you can do starting this week that make a real difference.

👉 I put it all together in a free guide for you. Find it in the first comment below 👇.

🫶, Cristina Sciavolino-Day MD

*This is an educational post. It is not medical advice.

04/19/2026

Here is why ⬇️

A 2025 study from Washington University scanned the brains and bodies of over 1,000 healthy adults. The average age was 55. They used MRI and AI to measure muscle mass, belly fat, and brain age. What they found was fascinating.

People with more muscle and less visceral fat had brains that looked younger than their actual age. People with more visceral fat relative to their muscle had brains that looked older.

Here is the part that surprised me the most. The fat you can pinch under your skin had zero association with brain aging. None. It was only the hidden fat deep inside the belly wrapped around organs that made the difference.

So what does this mean for you? It means that building muscle and losing visceral fat are two of the most powerful things you can do to protect your brain as you age. Not just your waistline. Not just your heart. Your brain.

And this is exactly why I talk so much about protein, strength training, and walking after meals. These are not just weight loss strategies. They are brain health strategies.

Every time you choose protein over processed carbs, every time you take a walk after dinner, every time you pick up something heavy, you are not only changing how your body looks. You are protecting how your brain ages.

This one hit home for me. I hope it does for you too.

👉 I put together a free guide called The Brain-Body Blueprint with 7 daily habits that build muscle, shrink visceral fat, and protect your brain after 40. Find it in the first comment below 👇.

🫶, Cristina Sciavolino-Day, MD
Board-Certified Internal Medicine

This is educational information only. It is not medical advice. Please see your doctor for personalized recommendations.



Study: Raji et al. “More Muscle, Less Belly Fat Slows Brain Aging.” Presented at RSNA Annual Meeting, December 2025. Washington University School of Medicine.

04/18/2026

A friend called me panicked a few months ago. She had been helping her mother move boxes, dropped into a squat to pick one up, and could not get back up without grabbing the dresser. She is 54. She is active. She was scared. She asked me, is this the beginning of it.

Here is what I told her: Try this. Stand with your back flat against a wall. Walk your feet out until your knees are bent at 90 degrees, like you are sitting in an invisible chair. Start a timer. How long can you hold it before your thighs tell you to stop?

Benchmarks for people over 50: Under 30 seconds is a flag. Thirty to 60 seconds is where most people land. Over 60 is strong. Over 90 is excellent.

This test measures quadriceps strength, the big muscles on the front of your thighs. Quad strength is one of the best predictors we have of whether you can get up off the floor in your seventies without help. It is also closely tied to fall risk, because your quads are what catch you when your balance slips.

There is also emerging research linking lower-body strength to better vascular health and lower arterial stiffness. The stronger your legs stay, the kinder your whole cardiovascular system tends to be.

Here is how you improve it. Sit-to-stands from a chair, ten in a row, twice a day. Step-ups onto a low step, ten per leg. And gentle wall-sits, starting with 15 seconds and adding 5 every few days. Your quads respond to training at any age.

👉 If you want the full guide on rebuilding quad strength after 50,simply grab it in the comments 👇

🫶, Cristina Sciavolino-Day, MD

🫶, This is an educational post. It is not medical advice. Please see your doctor for personalized recommendations.

Ref: Visser et al. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 2005. Yamamoto et al. American Journal of Physiology, 2009.

04/17/2026

Here’s the thing. When I had my practice, my office was literally right next to one of the biggest coffee chains in the country. Every morning, the drive-through line wrapped around the building. Same cars. Every. Single. Day.

So when a patient sat across from me wondering why the scale wasn’t budging, sometimes the answer was sitting right there on the table. A large caramel frappuccino with whipped cream and a straw.

No judgment. I love a good latte too. This isn’t about shaming anyone.

This is about what most people don’t realize. One large flavored frappuccino with whipped cream has around 500 calories. That’s almost an entire meal in a cup.

Now do the math.
5 days a week = 2,500 extra calories
Over a year = about 37 extra pounds
Cost? Roughly $1,700 out of your pocket
All from one daily drink.

Here’s what helped me and so many of my patients. Make your coffee at home. Skip the syrups and the whipped cream. A plain coffee with a splash of milk? About 30 calories.

One more tip. Try having some protein before your morning coffee. It helps keep your blood sugar steady so you’re not on that energy roller coaster all morning. Fewer cravings. More energy. Better choices all day long.

That frappuccino is just one example. There are so many things we eat and drink every day that quietly add hundreds of calories without us even knowing.

👉 I put together a free guide with 10 sneaky hidden calorie traps and simple swaps you can make starting today.Grab it in the comments below 👇 .

Small changes add up. You’ve got this ☕

🫶,Cristina Sciavolino-Day, MD

*This is educational information only. It is not medical advice.


Must give credit to for the inspiration on this one 😂

04/17/2026

She came to me so frustrated.

She had tried everything. Cutting calories. Skipping breakfast because she “wasn’t hungry.” Doing all the things her friends swore by.

The scale would not move.

Here is what was really happening. She skipped breakfast, then by 10am she was starving and picking at anything in sight. Lunch felt impossible because she was too full from grazing. By 3pm the cravings were brutal and by dinner she was wrecked.

We changed one thing at the start. She began eating breakfast, even when she wasn’t hungry. Even if it was small. Always protein and fiber.

Then she did the same for lunch, a 3pm snack, and dinner. Every meal had protein and fiber. No skipping. No grazing. No guessing.

Sixteen weeks later she was down 22 pounds.

Here is what many women over 40 miss who are stuck with a menopause belly. She also had quietly creeping blood sugar. Her insulin resistance was working against her every single day, making weight loss feel impossible no matter how little she ate. Once she understood what insulin resistance actually was and adjusted her food to support her body, the weight started coming off without a fight.

She also worked on her sleep, her stress, her strength training, her hydration, and her gut health. None of it was extreme. All of it added up.

This is the difference between starving your body and actually feeding it. If you have been doing all the “right things” and the scale will not move, please hear me.

You may not need less food. You may need the right food at the right time, starting with breakfast.

👉 Grab my guide with protein and fiber breakfast ideas that actually keep you full, steady your blood sugar, and stop the 10am crash. It’s pinned in the first comment below 👇.

🫶, Cristina Sciavolino-Day, MD

*This is an educational guide. It is not medical advice. Please see your doctor for personalized recommendations.

04/15/2026

I once had a patient in her early sixties tell me she had tripped over her own rug the day before and caught herself on the kitchen counter. She was shaken. Not because she got hurt. Because she realized how close she had come to a fall that could have changed everything.

Here is what I want you to try right now, while you are reading this.

Sit on the edge of your chair. Straighten one leg out in front of you, heel on the floor, toes pointed up. Reach slowly toward your toes. Fingertips past your toes is strong. Fingertips at your toes is average. Nowhere near your toes is the conversation we need to have.

This is the sit-and-reach test, and it is not about being bendy. It is measuring two things at once. Your hamstring and lower back flexibility,and the one that surprises most women, the stiffness of your arteries.

Research shows the people who do the worst on this test tend to have less flexible blood vessels, and less flexible blood vessels are harder on your heart over the years.

It also predicts falls. The stiffer your hamstrings and low back, the harder it is to catch yourself when a rug flips up or a curb sneaks up on you.

Good news. This one is very trainable: A gentle seated hamstring stretch for 30 seconds per leg, twice a day. Cat-cow on the floor or on a chair, ten slow rounds in the morning. And a doorway calf stretch, because tight calves pull on the whole back chain.

👉 If you want the full guide on the stretches that improve this test the fastest, grab them below in the first pinned comment 👇

🫶, Cristina Sciavolino-Day, MD

*This is an educational post. It is not medical advice. Please see your doctor for personalized recommendations.

Ref: Yamamoto et al. Heart and Circulatory Physiology, 2009. Rikli and Jones. Senior Fitness Test Manual, 2013.

04/14/2026

Here is the answer👇

Diet soda

I know. You drink it because it is zero calories, because it is refreshing, & because the can feels like a little midafternoon treat in a day that is mostly work and other people’s needs.

I want you to know before I go any further that I am not here to shame you for loving it. I drank it for 20 years and have lowered it to just one per day 🫣.

What I am here to do is tell you what the last decade of research has taught us about what those sodas are quietly doing to a person’s body after 40, because nobody explained it to me either until I went looking.

Here is the science: when you drink something sweet, your body expects sugar to follow. The taste alone triggers an insulin release, because insulin is the hormone whose job is to move sugar out of your blood and into your cells. With real sugar, that system works as designed. With artificial sweeteners, the sugar never arrives.

Your insulin has nowhere to go, and over time, your cells stop responding to it the way they used to. That is insulin resistance, and insulin resistance is one of the main drivers of visceral belly fat in women over 40.

There is more. Artificial sweeteners change the bacteria in your gut in ways that independently worsen metabolic health. They increase cravings for real sugar later in the day, and they signal to your brain that a sweet taste is normal, which makes every unsweetened food feel less satisfying in comparison.

Here is what I did. I did not quit cold. I replaced one diet soda a day with sparkling water and lemon for two weeks. Then another.

👉 If you want the full guide I built on visceral fat, what it is, why it shows up after 40, and the five things that actually move the needle,simply grab it from the first comment below 👇

🫶, Cristina Sciavolino-Day, MD
*educational post, not medical advice.

04/14/2026

I stopped ‘dieting’ on tired days about ten years into my career, and it was one of the single best decisions I ever made for my weight.

Here is what I learned, and what I want every woman over 40 reading this to hear. You cannot out-discipline a sleep deficit.

Your body is not designed for that fight, and the women I see beating themselves up for “no willpower” the day after a bad night are fighting a hormone equation they did not know was running.

If the 385 number stopped you in your tracks, I want to give you five things that actually move the needle on sleep for women in midlife. These are the ones I have watched work in my own practice.

✅ Your last meal three hours before bed: Digestion competes with sleep, and a late dinner quietly wrecks your deep sleep window.

✅ Protein at dinner, not carbs: Protein raises tryptophan, which is the precursor to melatonin. Pasta does not.

✅ The bedroom colder than you think it needs to be: Around 65 degrees is the research sweet spot for women in perimenopause and menopause.

✅ Magnesium glycinate about an hour before bed, if your doctor clears it: Not magnesium citrate. Glycinate is the one that helps sleep.

✅ Phone out of the bedroom: Not face down. Out. The presence of the phone alone disrupts the nervous system’s cue to wind down, even when it is silent.

👉 If you have sleep issues no matter what you try, it may be sleep apnea. To read about it, simply grab it from the first comment below 👇

🫶, Cristina Sciavolino-Day, MD
This is an educational post. It is not medical advice.

Ref: Spaeth et al. SLEEP Journal, 2013.
Van Cauter et al. Annals of Internal Medicine, 2004.

04/13/2026

Tell me you’re running on empty without telling me you’re running on empty 👀

If your eye is twitching reading this, we need to talk.

Here’s what I see all the time as a physician. Women juggling 20 things at once. Kids, aging parents, work, the house, everyone’s appointments but their own. And the first thing to get cut when something has to give? You.

You cancel your workout because your kid needs a ride. You skip lunch because you’re slammed. You push your own doctor’s appointment because someone else needs the slot. You tell yourself you’ll get to it next week.

Here’s the problem. Your body is keeping score. And when you hit your 40s and your hormones start shifting, all of that catching up looks like:
🔴 Belly fat that won’t budge no matter what you do
🔴 Exhaustion that coffee can’t fix
🔴 Brain fog that makes you forget why you walked into the room
🔴 Mood swings that feel like they came out of nowhere
🔴 Sleep that doesn’t actually feel like rest
🔴 Cravings you can’t outrun

You cannot pour from an empty cup, and running on empty during perimenopause and menopause is a recipe for burnout, weight gain, and metabolic chaos.

5 things to start protecting like your life depends on it (because it kind of does):
1. Set boundaries. “No” is a complete sentence. You don’t owe anyone an explanation for protecting your time.
2. Schedule breathers. Put 10 minutes on your calendar twice a day. Not negotiable. Sit, breathe, do nothing.
3. Eat your meals. All of them. Skipping meals tanks your blood sugar and your hormones notice.
4. Get outside. Morning daylight on your face for 10 minutes regulates your cortisol, your sleep, and your mood.
5. Move your body. Even a 15 minute walk counts. You don’t need a 90 minute gym session to call it exercise.

Bonus: stop apologizing for taking care of yourself. The people who love you want you around for the long haul.

📌Save this. Send it to a friend who needs to hear it. Also, tell me in the comments: what’s the first thing you’re going to stop canceling on yourself? 💬

🫶, Cristina Sciavolino-Day, MD

**Educational post, not medical advice

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