The Top Ten of Restoring Your Health Naturally!

Getting well isn’t about quick fixes or temporary solutions—it’s about creating a foundation of health that allows your body to heal, thrive, and function at its best. Whether you’re dealing with fatigue, chronic pain, digestive issues, or simply not feeling your best, the journey to wellness starts with addressing the root causes of your challenges.

In this guide, I’ll walk you through the Top 10 Actions to Restore Your Health Naturally that target the essentials for your body’s recovery and balance. These aren’t complicated or overwhelming – they’re straightforward, natural, and impactful strategies designed to help you regain your vitality and feel like yourself again.

From nutrition and hydration to stress management and detoxification, these steps are the cornerstone of building health from the inside out. Each one plays a vital role in supporting your body’s ability to heal itself and function optimally. When you commit to these practices, you’re giving your body the tools it needs to not just survive, but truly thrive.

Let’s get started—your journey to better health begins here!

Control carbs, and strictly limit or avoid refined flours and sugars. Atkins was right: Not all calories are equal.  These cause inflammation in the body.  Inflammation can be found at the root of all disease.

Facts:  Eat sugar →  Glucose rises →  Dopamine released →  Insulin spikes to regulate blood sugar and pushes the sugar into cells that haven’t become resistant to insulin → Then insulin triggers the body to store fat and what hasn’t been used as fuel. 

You’ll get a real boost to your metabolism by keeping your total carb intake below 50g (not counting insoluble fiber) per day. And the kind of carbs matter! Once you’re a better fatburner, and if you’re a serious athlete, you can increase your carbs to 100-150g. But if you have ever been overweight, eating more than 100g of carbs per day (depending on your size) will put the weight back on again, slowly but surely. So your best bet is to learn low carb and make it a new way of life. We can work together on this.

Avoid the Hateful Eight Toxic Fats. Most metabolic disease comes from a lifetime of eating high polyunsaturated fats (PUFA) or seed oils. Over years, these unstable fats build up in your body fat and start to impact all 4 metabolic energy-producing systems, making you chronically tired. Toxic fats promote inflammation everywhere they go, including gut inflammation. They are the main reason fat starts to build up in your arteries and around your intestines. To avoid the Hateful 8, you must read the ingredients for all foods you buy (salad dressing, cereal, crackers, food bars, sauces, spreads) and avoid all of these oils:

• Canola
• Corn
• Cottonseed
• Soy
• Sunflower
• Safflower
• Rice Bran (restaurants use this)
• Grapeseed (restaurants use this, too)

Do not buy low fat, low cholesterol, or fat free food. Alternatives such as egg-beaters, low-cholesterol spreads, skim milk, and low-fat ice creams. Inadequate fat consumption over decades can train your body to rely on sugar for energy and impair your ability to burn fat. PUFA’s and sugar do. 

Eat butter, eggs, cheese, and whole-milk. Studies show eating these foods improves HDL (good) cholesterol, bone health, brain health, and energy levels. Make sure these products come from pastured (grass-fed) animals. If that’s not possible, choose organic. If that’s not possible, do your best when you can.

Eat vegetables with fat, salt, and an acid. This combination optimizes your body’s ability to absorb the antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals in greens.

Eat more vegetables than fruits. Fruits are better for you than candy for a treat, but they are a treat and you should eat 2- 3 servings of vegetables before you treat yourself to more fruit. Juice does not count as fruit. One (8 ounce) glass can have 24 PLUS grams of sugar.

Buy bone broth (or learn to make it). The number one miracle food for your joints, gut, brain and connective tissue (including bone) is bone broth because it contains compounds that act like growth hormones in these tissues. NOTE: The magic in bone broth comes not from bone marrow, but rather from the collagenous joint materials and skin. Whenever possible, use pastured and organic ingredients. doTerra has a terrific collagen supplement that I recommend to all of my clients.

Eat probiotic-rich foods. If your digestive system is crampy, gassy, bloaty, or otherwise making you not want to eat, when you do feel better you’ll be very tempted to treat yourself to something overly starchy or sweet. To keep your digestive system working smoothly, include probiotic-rich foods in your diet on a regular basis. The most popular probiotic-rich food in the US is (no sugar added) yoghurt, kefir, real pickles and sauerkraut are also great sources of digestive-boosting organisms. We have all heard how important it is to have good gut health.

Exercise. Walk, Dance, Ski, Bike, shovel your neighbor’s walk. The best exercise is the exercise that you do. No program will succeed for long if it’s not fun. (This applies to eating, too!) Did you know your glucose levels dramatically drop after dinner if you just go for a 20 minute walk? Do get in at least 30 minutes a day of exercise.

Sleep. Your body will be exposed to excessive cortisol and pro-inflammatory hormones if you do not get enough sleep, and most people will do better with 8 hours than with the more common 6-7 we sometimes have to deal with.  Imagine how much sleep humans got before the invention of the lightbulb and computers that allow us to stay up much later. Your body is not signaled to make melatonin until your eyes are not exposed to light.

Bonus: Water. Take your weight and divide it by two and that’s how much water you should be drinking a day. Drink filtered water and add at least one sachet of doTerra’s Recharge Electrolyte powder in the morning. This will help your cells utilize the water you drink. Try not to drink 2 hours before bed, otherwise you’ll be disturbing your sleep by getting up to pee.

If you want any help with the above or to order the doTerra products I mentioned, reach out to me.

Restoring Your Health Naturally,

Dr. Katie Thompson, DC, MSTN